Phones, typing, and the adventures of milk-beard.

Well, it occurs to me that Sharayah's last post would have been a much better first post than my first post. Oh well, that's the way it goes.

We got our new phones today. I think we're all done transitioning everything from the old phones. I'm pretty happy with our choice. I say choice instead of choices because we got identical models of phones again. This time, however, they're both the same color, so that should be interesting. We ended up choosing the LG Neon II, as it seemed to be the best phone they offered for free. Full keyboard and threaded texting, which is one thing our old phones was missing. It's also much faster than our old phones, by which I mean you don't have to sit there waiting for various screens to load or actions to perform after you push the button. It's no Captivate, but overall we're satisfied.

Recently I made the decision to start typing correctly. Now, I never learned to type, but using whatever you want to call my old method I typed about 60 wpm. I had memorized the keyboard by rote, but for the most part I only used my index and middle fingers on each hand. Kind of clumsy, and my hands had to move pretty quickly to achieve the 60 wpm. At any rate, I asked Sharayah which fingers were supposed to hit which keys, and since it turned out to be pretty much what you'd expect, I tried it out. It still feels a little odd, but it's definitely a lot less effort involved in typing quickly. I really didn't think it'd make any difference, and for the record so far I don't type any faster, but I do have to admit that you barely have to move to type this way, so I suppose that's a perk. The downside is it makes my left hand, especially the ring and little fingers, kinda sore for some reason. I guess maybe my right hand had been doing more of the work before. And why is the bottom row shifted so far to the right? It makes it too hard to hit z,x,c correctly. Look at your keyboard. The offset between the q-row and the a-row is so much less than between the a-row and the z-row. What is the deal with that? Dumb. Still, I can type that much better without looking and my wife makes fun of me less, so at the end of the day it's a win.

Oh yeah, the super-cookie continues to please. Except last night I was on my last bite, and I was trying to dip it in the milk, so I had a really flimsy grasp on the tip, and as I pulled it out of my milk, it broke off and went "ploop!" and splashed milk into my beard. It was devastating. But I drank it out (the cookie out of the milk, not the milk out of the beard) and everything turned out ok.

there was no thief

Purpose -> Random.

I just scratched my face by putting my fingers against my cheek and shaking my head up and down. I don't know why I did it. It was really, really... odd.

The purpose of this blog in its simplest form is to give people, who are not living in the grand state of Delaware, little random glimpses into our life, while also give me and Jason something to look back on.

I want to touch on the latter purpose. On an entertainment scale of 1 to 10, it's about an 8 to go back and read things you've written in the past, preferably things over 5 years old. Sometimes the seemingly mundane things in life are the most entertaining after they've been allowed a few years to marinate. The little things that seemed insurmountable are now, well, mounted. The incredibly subtle changes in your mindset and priorities are suddenly incredibly obvious, whether positive or negative. I just think it's neat being able to look back, being reminded of your past, and having that 100% guarantee that the Story ends well despite all of the twists and turns. It's neat because you're currently living in the present state of the ending. Of course, this means that 5 years from now I'll be laughing at the me of now, but I'm OK with that since my 2021 self will no doubt be laughing hardest of all. Am I odd? Yes, but moving on.

Sure, an online blog isn't exactly the ideal medium for the hopefully-someday-reflective-story-telling-of-life, but it's something. We probably won't think to type much that could even loosely be considered serious or crucial life material, but it doesn't matter. Our blog will supply small glimpses. And, over enough time, the small glimpses will become a Big Picture (just as a heads-up, the Big Picture just may be really cool to look at [which reminds me of this awesome sheep video]), and in 5 years, we will get to smile at it (with our 7 children [although, probably not all 7 will be manufactured by then, but that's just a minor detail]). Fingers crossed that we stick with it.

Anyway,Summary:
- Since life in SD would take 6500 DVRs to record, it is more reasonable to just write about bits and pieces in an online blog (or a journal for more serious topics).
- Sheep herding should seriously become an Olympic sport.
- Seven kids in 5 years is not a statistically probable outcome.
- Flighty thoughts, an unclear goal, backspacing two words for every three written, and a warm, sleepy inside makes for a very poorly expressed post with the grammatical structure of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. My apologies.

Something to sleep on: Bunnies - why did I never have one as a pet?

Night of the super-cookie

So we have this bag of birdseed, and Sharayah tosses out a handful in the mornings, and then for the rest of the day we have intermittent feedings by groups of 5-10 birds at a time. Mostly cardinals and what we've determined to be dark-eyed juncos. The point being, every hour or so Puma runs at the window from across the room and slams into it, scaring them all away (it's a sliding door window, so he can see the birds hopping around eating on the ground). It's pretty much awesome. Cats are apparently not too bright about how windows work, especially when they're struck by primal instincts.

Sharayah made peanut butter cookies tonight. As usual they're delicious, but there was a bonus this time. Apparently this particular recipe caused them to expand more than expected, or she placed them too close together or something, but they all melded together into one giant super-cookie in the oven. So I have yummy fragments of super-cookie to look forward to for the next several days.

We're getting new phones in a few days, we were scheduled for another upgrade. We've managed once again to avoid the smartphone epidemic. It's not that I don't want one, but $25-$30 extra per month each is just not worth it. I'd get a smartphone and only use internet on wifi, but of course they have their stupid scheme where you're required to get a data plan or they won't let you use a smartphone. Oddly enough you're allowed a texting phone (yes there are phones specifically made for texting) without a text plan. I don't know what else to say about it. Communications companies are all pretty much lame.

Break continues to be a break. I think I will go read a book, because I finally have time to do so.

like we're alive

Ambidextrous, one-legged, toe-socked (almost) Champion

Oh, so many random things to say. I'm 100% sure that even if our names weren't automatically attached to the bottom (or top if read via Google Reader) of each post, there is no way anyone could possibly get confused on who wrote what. For instance, I doubt that Jason would ever write about an ambidextrous, one-legged, toe-socked Champion. Nope, he wouldn't. But I will. Right now.

Ping-pong is an amazing way to accomplish several things at once. You can 1) hit things at someone you love while laying down level III smack talk, 2) unwind from any frustrations or stress without spending too much time away from more productive things, and 3) get a pretty good workout. There are 2 ways to achieve the 3rd benefit. You can either be a particularly hardcore ping-pong player OR you can do what I did tonight:

- Put on a pair of toe socks for extra stability.

- Alternate the hand that holds the paddle each time you hit the ball.

- Alternating legs, kick your foot above your head each time you hit the ball.

It's intense. I haven't quite perfected the technique so I lost 16-21, but that's not the point. The point is that I nearly became an ambidextrous one-legged, toe-socked ping-pong Champion. I was this close. The drawback to this style of playing is that it gets you really hyper (kicking wildly about generally does) and so the unlucky shots become approximately 7.3% more frequent. So, in summary: Would you rather win 7 out of 8 ping-pong matches in a normal fashion or 5 out of 6 games while getting a ridiculously hilarious workout? Yeah, think about it. I've made my decision.

On a non-ping-pong-related note, we watched Megamind tonight. Blue-headed super-villain-turned-hero? Check. It was a fun movie. We laughed. We didn't cry. We ate some rice. Good times.

So far, Jason's spring break (and thus, mine) has been perfectly lovely. We made a text file that includes all of the things we want to do during this nearly nonproductive week. It includes things such as puzzling, guitar playing, and hopefully getting a haircut. I wish I knew how to decently cut my own hair. I suppose I could try since the cats and Jason are the only ones that see me regularly, but I'm pretty sure it would be horrendous. And even if I did know how to physically cut it, I would still have the problem of figuring out what "style" to cut it in (does "shorter" count as a style?). So I shall keep putting it off until I get an idea or am forced otherwise.

Other things of note today:

- Since I worked on transcription stuff today, Jason did the dishes for me. He's such a keeper.

- Stores sell outdoor birdseed specifically for the types of birds in your particular region of the country. A $4, 10-lb bag of cardinal seed will provide Puma with an extra exciting window-stalking experience.

- I think Jason is the funniest man I know.

To conclude: One of these things is not like the others...

The first post.

Well then. I suppose this needs a proper introduction. This is a blog we decided to make to post things. I'll probably post boring math things, and Sharayah will just post pictures of baby animals and stories about our cats. You have been warned. Anyway, just to preserve it (and because it is a good introduction to us, although none of the rest of our posts will ever live up to it), here is the beginning of our story. You'll find that it doesn't quite catch us up to the present. We may do that later, or just leave you hanging. You know how television writing is these days.

This is also the official announcement of the death of my (and thus all the rest) xanga. Just in case anyone was waiting on that next post I promised. I will not be writing it.

Right now it's spring break and I'm getting some much needed rest from studying more math than you want to know about. It shall be a week of ping pong and other relaxing things. I should never have taught Sharayah how to curve the ping pong ball, because it's been 4 games since then and I no longer stand any chance of ever beating her again.

Anyway. We'll try to update this thing with some regularity with the minutia of our life. You are free to read or get bored and leave as you please.

I am standing in the need