Category Archives: Home Life

Stuff going on in my personal life.

Dealing with James

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Some time ago our son James took the Myers-Briggs temperment test and came out as an INTJ. This describes how to deal with him quite well:

  1. Be willing to back up your statements with facts – or at least some pretty sound reasoning.
  2. Don’t expect them to respect you or your viewpoints just because you say so. INTJ respect must be earned.
  3. Be willing to concede when you are wrong. The average INTJ respects the truth over being “right”. Withdraw your erroneous comment and admit your mistake and they will see you as a very reasonable person. Stick to erroneous comments and they will think you are an irrational idiot and treat everything you say as being questionable.
  4. Try not to be repetitive. It annoys them.
  5. Do not feed them a line of bull.
  6. Expect debate. INTJs like to tear ideas apart and prove their worthiness. They will even argue a point they don’t actually support for the sake of argument.
  7. Do not mistake the strength of your conviction with the strength of your argument. INTJs do not need to believe in a position to argue it or argue it well. Therefore, it will take more than fervor to sway them.
  8. Do not be surprised at sarcasm.
  9. Remember that INTJs believe in workable solutions. They are extremely open-minded to possibilities, but they will quickly discard any idea that is unfeasible. INTJ open-mindedness means that they are willing to have a go at an idea by trying to pull it apart. This horrifies people who expect oohs and ahhs and reverence. The ultimate INTJ insult to an idea is to ignore it, because that means it’s not even interesting enough to deconstruct.
    This also means that they will not just accept any viewpoint that is presented to them. The bottom line is “Does it work?” – end discussion.
  10. Do not expect INTJs to actually care about how you view them. They already know that they are arrogant bastards with a morbid sense of humor. Telling them the obvious accomplishes nothing.

Ahh…. that is my boy!

I turned down a software development job in rural Idaho

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One summer I worked for a short time for a local guy doing contract game development. I got an email from him yesterday asking if I or anyone I knew would be interested in working for him again:

I have a game development position open and am trying to get the word out to people who might be interested. This is work much the same as before. Lots of C++ network & graphics coding. Initially it will be code maintenance on our PS2 and PSP titles, but will transition to new code development on the PS3 in the 6-12 month time-frame. If this sounds like it might fit with your current situation, please contact me. If not, please spread the word if you know of anybody you can recommend.

…

If you know any talented programmers who would like to get out of the city and would like to work long hours for low pay in the environs of Deary, please give them my address…

I turned it down. Right now I need a fairly high income to accomplish some particular goals and I’m pretty happy with the work I’m doing. It’s very challenging and being forced to stretch myself is probably a good thing. It can be comfortable to coast but I’m sure I’m a better person accomplishing difficult tasks.

Where is Deary? It’s about 20 miles east of Moscow on highway 3. As near as I can tell it has nine streets. And my recollection is that it doesn’t have any stop lights. There are lots of trees and mountains however.

Let me know if you are interested and I’ll forward your name on to him.

Heredity or environment?

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She appears to have taken after her father. That’s my girl!

Mister Bill’s Machine

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In the summer of ’95 I was a contractor for Microsoft working on Direct X video drivers. I wrote about that before.

Randy, a fellow contractor and video driver writer had a band, The Swine, as well as a show on public access cable television. A couple of Randy’s bandmembers wrote a song about our experience. Mister Bill’s Machine (WMA, 1.52 MB) does a fairly good job of capturing my summer of ’95.

Some other time when my inhibitions are much, much lower from lack of sleep or something I’ll explain how I ended up on the cover of their CD album in a camo poncho with an SKS rifle in my arms:

Lewiston Pistol Club website update

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I’m almost caught up on the Lewiston Pistol Club website now. At least until Sunday when they have another steel match.

Unless you are local there probably isn’t much of interest.

I participated in a couple of the matches. I hadn’t fired my pistol in months (since November I believe) so I had a mediocre performance. See here and here.

More pictures from Xenia

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Xenia has posted a bunch more pictures (and a little bit of story) from her visit here and her trip to Oklahoma to see her boyfriend graduate from Army Boot Camp.

My favorite pictures from the collection:


Xenia’s pinkie. My toes (I wear size 14 shoes).


Sara and Xenia get the ultimate desert offered at the Space Needle.

Xenia’s Seattle pictures

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Xenia visited part of week before last and then again last week. Here are some of her pictures and comments. I like this one best:

Of course I took the picture and it is a picture of my daughter so I suppose there is the possibility of some bias.

Visiting Missouri

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Barb and I will be in Branson, Missouri during the middle of August to celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary. We will be visiting Ozark Pyrotechnics (who put on a dynamite shoot the week before Boomershoot 2006) as well as various activities both Barb and I will enjoy. If anyone else in the area and would like to get together for dinner or something let me know.

Quote of the day–James Huffman-Scott

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That’s impressive. I’m going to have something to drink now.

James Huffman-Scott
July 6, 2006
[James just met “The Man” at Dixies.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Xenia Huffman-Scott

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That is so bad-ass.

Xenia Huffman-Scott
July 1, 2006
During the movie Superman Returns as a bullet, in slow motion, hits, flattens, and drops to the ground.
[They did a very good job with the bullet. It looked very much like a real pistol bullet when it hits a steel plate.–Joe]
Update: Xenia posted on the same topic. She gives more details which I considered spoilers, but she and James insist were not.

Mt. Rainier memory

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Late in our senior year of college when my wife and I first drove into Seattle for my interview with Boeing Mt. Rainier looked like this.  We were enchanted.

Thanks for the memory, Shyam.

DirectXBox

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I’m only about a year late on this. I’m not big on anniversaries and generally only pay attention if it’s socially required behavior.

Alex St. John wrote an article on the 10 year anniversary of Direct-X. I had a minor role in the development of Direct-X 1 and a few of the later versions. What our son James didn’t know was that his precious XBoxes were originally intended to be the game console known as “DirectXBox”. I told him last night as we were watching another few episodes of Star Gate SG-1 using his XBox 360 as a DVD player. He thought it was quite a let down to know it was named over something as mundane as that.

I should take his autographed (by Eric Engstrom) copy of Renegades of the Empire away from him.

Venn diagram of the intersection of sanity and women

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Last night while helping James put together some of his new furniture for his apartment he asked me, “Are there any sane women out there?” I had to laugh. That’s a great question. I laughed even harder when I saw this post by Heather this morning (check out the pictures at the bottom of the post).

I told James I sometimes wonder about that myself. I remember after Barb went through nearly 24 hours of labor, a C-section, having her abdomen opened up with her uterus flopped out on her stomach in a cold room while it was being flushed with saline solution, put back together, numb from the nipples down (the spinal), and was shaking from the cold so bad (and she HATES being cold) that she could barely hold James, her first born.  I was pretty wiped out from just watching it all happen and Barb could tell it was hard on me.  Through her chattering teeth she reassured me, “It will be easier next time.”

NEXT TIME?

It could be the hormones or something but women are not sane. If they were it would mean the end of our species. James, you can either isolate yourself or you can try to enjoy the ride. It can be wild at times and it can be great at times but never expect sanity.

Busy times at home, James goes to work

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The last few weeks have been very busy for me.  Barb came
to Seattle to visit, then I helped James move over and get an
apartment, then Barb and Xenia came over.  Xenia has a few pictures up (check out the new car James bought).  I’ll have some more pictures up before too long.

James starts work (orientation actually) tomorrow morning.  His
first job just out of college.  Barb, who handles all the medical
questions in the family, said James asked her about his appetite. 
He said he had a funny feeling in his stomach and didn’t feel like
eating.  Yeah, there’s a name for that condition.  It’s
called “butterflies”.

Interesting about the new car.  It’s a Toyota, which is the same
manufacturer as the first car Barb and I bought and he got it at the
same dealer we did.  We bought ours new (only one other car we
have bought was new when we got it) and James bought his new.  We
bought ours in 1976, James got his 30 years (minus a couple months)
later.  His cost about nine times as much and his starting salary
is 5.25 times as much as mine was the next fall.

School teacher posts picture of “vagina cake”

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A high school teacher posts on his blog a picture of a cake one of his female students decorated as a vagina during menstruation.  Only some sort of pervert that would do this, right? 

Context is important. It was from Xenia’s anthology.  I’m fine with it.  Anyone going moonbatty on this guy will get my ridicule (okay, so it’s not that big of a threat).

Quote of the day–Raymond Chen

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It would be unreasonable to expect the HTML parser to be able to understand every language both present and future. (At least not until clairvoyance has been perfected.)

Raymond Chen
June 5, 2006
[I absolutely love this quote.  Understatement in the first sentence followed by the only known exception to the stated rule.  Succinct yet complete encapsulation of the situation.  Some people get annoyed at me when I find exceptions to their overly broad generalizations but I think they are an essential component of understanding the situation and almost always just trying to help.  Today, as most days, Raymond is my technological and word-smithing hero.-Joe]

Xenia’s pictures of Sara

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That’ my youngest daughter behind the camera and my (so called) adopted daughter in front of the lens.  I’m impressed by both.  My favorite of the collection:

Heinlein in leather

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One of my children’s favorite high-school teachers (and a former Marine and a Boomershooter), Mr. Kaag, wrote to tell me:

I know that you probably have the complete Heinlein in a jumble of various paperback and hardback editions, as I do.

Did you know that after The Master died, Virginia renewed all of the copyrights? The lady has a whim of steel—as the most popular Science Fiction writer ever, his publisher wanted to continue to print copies of the canon, and when they asked her for permission, she acceded. But, and here’s the kicker, she politely required they put back in all of the stuff they had taken out because it wasn’t “politically-correct”, like the pro-gun parts of “Red Planet”. So the Heinlein published in the last 5 years or so is all unexpurgated. You might want some new copies. There’s a bunch more to “Stranger”, for example.

And speaking of which, Virginia is no longer among us and the Robert A. and Virginia Heinlein Foundation has done a joint venture with Meisha-Merlin Books, and is publishing the complete collection of Heinlein, including some previously-unpublished articles and speeches, in a fine leather-bound collection for about $2500 on up.

Here’s the URL: www.meishamerlin.com

I am saving up my shekels.

With a $2200 minimum entry price I’m going to have to pass but I’ll do some drooling.

The boldest

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I was almost asleep a few minutes ago and the phone rang.  Xenia was calling.  It must be one of three dire emergencies I thought.  Those were, not necessarily in the matter of importance to her: 1) Someone is hurt or is very sick or dead; 2) Her Internet connection is down; 3) Her website is down.

I was wrong.  She wanted to know if I had read her Live Journal recently.  “How recently?”  I had read the posting from yesterday sometime.  Nope that wasn’t it.  She wanted to know if I had read it in the last 10 minutes.  “No, why?”  I couldn’t imagine what was so important.  She told me she posted the email she got from her English teacher on her anthology that I quoted from the other day.

I was wide awake now.  Did I need to immediately drive home and be ready to dance on the English teachers desk with muddy boots when he showed up tomorrow morning?  I couldn’t quite tell from Xenia’s tone of voice.  It could be she was very happy with what he said and it could be she was smug with the knowledge that someone was going to get what they deserved for trashing the hard work of Daddy’s little girl.

The important part is as follows (emphasis in the original email):

Xenia:

This just may be the most beautiful anthology I’ve ever read.

It is the boldest.

That’s my girl he’s talking about!

Update: This is the teachers blog posting on the topic.

Weekend in Orofino–day three

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We walked from our motel to the Ponderosa and had breakfast.  Then walked up the street to the church where we got married:

From our motel room balcony we watch the VFW do a 21-gun salute on the bridge for Memorial Day.  Then we drove to my parents place and said hi before driving back to Moscow.

It has been a wonderful weekend.