timothy aaron

iPhone Apps, the quick review

// by timothyaaron // August 3rd, 2009 // No Comments » // Everyday, Tech

• TwitterFon - Clean, intuitive and fast. A minimalists clear choice.
• Twitterific - Most customizable. A close second.
• TweetDeck - More bugs caused me to re-review others. Done drinking TweetDeck kool-aid.
• Twittelator - Might be the prettiest timeline. The rest of it feels too … klunky? (Sorry, Jeff)
• Tweetie - Won’t even consider until they lose those hideous speech bubbles.

Sportin’ the Van Zan

// by timothyaaron // July 21st, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Everyday

Look out Matthew McConaughey. You’ve got some competition for Reign of Fire 2. There’s a new dragonslayer in town.

…oh, wait. No competition. I’m a shoo-in. Forgot the male swallowed you whole…cool scene though.

Floating with Kingfishers

// by timothyaaron // July 19th, 2009 // No Comments » // Everyday, birds

A friend and I decided to fish/float the first section of James River yesterday. We got kind of a late start (2pm), but it was less than 3 miles, so no big deal.

We dropped his car off at the our landing spot and car-pooled to the launch spot. We grabbed fishing poles, inner tubes and his car keys (I later regretted leaving my binoculars). We probably caught over 7 different kinds of fish: channel catfish, northern rock bass, spotted bass, green sunfish, bluegill, some carp and more … approximately  100 of them.  I still haven’t been able to identify one kind that we caught a lot of; it was longer and skinner than most of the other species.

I saw a variety of new birds, too. Most of which I couldn’t get close enough to identify without my binoculars; including what I’m guessing was a Little Blue Heron. I did manage to identify some of them: Muscovy Duck (a large ugly-faced black and white thing — a long way from home, which is supposedly Central America), a handful of Prothonotary Warblers (crazy bright yellow birds that let me swim within a few feet of them) and several Belted Kingfishers.

Possibly the most interesting part of the trip was realizing the sun was going down and we were nowhere near the end. We thought we were nearly done, but it turns out we had over a mile to go. We got to his car just before dark. Now all of this is no big deal except for one thing: we both have a wife and a baby, both of whom though we’d only be gone a few hours (and us with no way to contact them) … turned out to be just over 7 hours; we didn’t get back until after 9pm.

Oops.

Bottle feeding and sleeplessness

// by timothyaaron // July 10th, 2009 // 3 Comments » // Everyday

I decided last night Leah should get a (mostly) full nights sleep for the first time since … I don’t even know when.  So we tried our first bottle feeding and I slept out in the living room with the baby last night.

Wait, did I say “slept”?  I meant “stayed awake”.

First of all, that whole bottle feeding thing did not go well.  He cried pretty much the entire time; which was about 45 minutes (though he did eventually eat all 3 oz). I think it was too fast for him; and he took in a lot of air, cause he burped several times … and I mean burped. Also, I had trouble falling asleep the few opportunities I did have–until about 5 o’clock this morning.

…but it was all worth it to see Leah’s smiling, rested face this morning.  :)

Not “worth it” as in, I would do it again tonight, but “worth it” as in, I would do it again … sometime.

Baby’s first video

// by timothyaaron // June 19th, 2009 // No Comments » // Everyday

You might have already seen this, for those who didn’t…
…well, the video says it all. (just make sure your sound is on)

Leaky Faucet (part 1)

// by timothyaaron // May 19th, 2009 // 3 Comments » // home improvement

So, the bathroom tub is leaking. I cut off the water and tried to take the handles off, but I couldn’t figure it out. A little internet research says there’s just the one screw, then you just need to break ‘em loose.

Any bets as to whether I’m about to break my shower plumbing tonight?

Still fostering?

// by timothyaaron // May 3rd, 2009 // No Comments » // Dreams

Funny story. The first night the girls were gone Leah and I both dreamed about having foster kids. Leah dreamed we had our first foster child again. My dream went like this…

Leah and I were living in my parent’s house in Bethalto. We had a recent placement, a boy that turned out to be the baby of an old high school friend of mine, Mannie.

Well, it all began when a cop car pulled up to the house and 3 people approached the house: Mannie, his wife and the driver. (I believe the child was taken into custody because of a serious domestic dispute.)

Mannie goes on to explain how everything is good now, they’ve worked everything out. I’m very excited for him and tell him he can go ahead and get his baby. Now my attention goes to this driver, who isn’t in a cop uniform but a janitors. Then it hits me that I shouldn’t have let him in.

“Can I see the court documents?”
“Just consider this a ‘good deed’.”

It’s at this point I would have started to get concerned, except I woke up.

Free Advertising

// by timothyaaron // April 29th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Everyday

If you have any technology needs, shop http://newegg.com.
Never buy anything from Best Buy, ever.

The only 10′ VGA cable Best Buy has: $47 (on sale)
A decent 25′ VGA cable from Newegg.com: $14.50 (free shipping) 

The most expensive 10′ cable Newegg had was only $20.  That’s just ridiculous.

Major Renovations

// by timothyaaron // April 24th, 2009 // No Comments » // Everyday

Lots of things coming in the near future for me, so I’ve been avoiding my blog for a while. Baby’s almost here, work relocation, new domain name.
That’s right. I’ve acquired timothyaaron.com, finally. Now I just have to put in all the work required for that migration. Besides a complete redesign, I’ll probably restructure too (integrate tweets more, combine work and personal life, include a resúme of sorts, etc).
Anyways, that’s what’s going down.

Flour and mentoring

// by timothyaaron // March 30th, 2009 // No Comments » // Dreams

Leah and I had a house in our backyard.  This house had two front doors: one was in the middle of the house, opened to the living room; the other was in the front-right, opened to the master bedroom(?).

We were planning to leave for vacation or something.  I walked into the kitchen and told Leah I was going to lock up the other house (this involved a walkthrough to clear out any animals and whatnot as both doors were currently open).  Much to my surprise, Leah asked if I wouldn’t mind finishing the kitchen–she had been cleaning all day–and she would lock up the house.  I casually responded that I wouldn’t mind though the reality of it is I was ecstatic.  For some reason I was dreading the walkthrough, which is weird because I’m not the kind of person that has a problem with empty houses…not to mention, it was the middle of the day).

As Leah leaves the kitchen and heads across the yard it occurs to me that I won’t be able to see while I was doing the dishes (the kitchen window wasn’t above the sink).  So I walked over to the window and opened it; at least then I could hear her.  But then it occurs to me that I probably wouldn’t hear anything over the clanking of dishes. THEN it occurs to me that I’m not happy about her doing a walkthrough in the other house alone.

I quickly head out the door and across the yard.

As I walk up to the outside bedroom door, the first door she entered, she was finishing her circuit of that room by walking into an alcove on the left side.  Just as she entered the alcove (so she couldn’t see anything behind her) a man that looked like he had been dipped in flour came quickly walking out of the far door and up behind Leah, seemingly to scare her…all before I could react (still standing outside the house).  

This guy immediately turned around and began his weird zombie-type walk across the bedroom.  Strangely, he wasn’t trying to get back out of the room, but just went kind of scrambling across the room…with no purpose in mind. I cried out, “Grab him,” and reached inside and grabbed his leg. (I needed an explanation.)

…then I woke up.

And what does that have to do with mentoring? Now for some weirdness.

• First of all, the way the guy was walking was almost humorous.  His zombie walk was comedic (not really sure how to describe it).  
• Secondly, when he turned around I immediately recognized him: Scott Jett (you might remember a blog post several months ago about the guy that worked down the hall from me, Director of Shapes Mentoring, that died in a motorcycle accident…yeah, him). So you can imagine my shock when I saw, without question, his face.
• Lastly, when I woke I realized there was a fourth person.  Somebody, a kid I think, jumped towards the flour guy (from the front-left corner of the room) to help Leah and I stop him.  No idea why anybody else would be there; or why I wouldn’t have freaked out seeing yet another person.