Holding on to Hope

It's little things like this that give me hope for better days.  Better days that better show up SOON.

Just last week I thought they were the funnest two little people.  This week, not so much.

Confessions of a Nerd

Subtitled: Finding answers for my dad and I about Watson, the Super Computer

Last week I asked my parents to DVR this weeks episodes of Jeopardy for me.  Wow.  Does that scream nerd or what?

The day before I asked them, I found myself stuck with an de-programmed remote control and therefore was stuck watching PBS, the channel that had been previously viewed that morning.  I was pretty grumpy about it but soon found myself ignoring the book I was reading and watching a documentary on the intelligence of animals.  Feeling prideful, I refused to put my book down, not wanting to admit to even myself that I could enjoy PBS more than whatever prime-time shows were on.  After learning about dolphins and the parrot named Alex, who had the intelligence of a 5 year-old when he died, a show called The Smartest Machine on Earth came on and I hate to admit it, but I put my book down and called Jason to tell him to hurry home and watch it with me. 

Jason has taken a few computer programming classes and so I was .001% familiar with a few of the terms they were throwing around.  Nonetheless, I was intrigued and fascinated at what it took to build the machine that played on Jeopardy this week.  The Smartest Machine on Earth.  I watched the final episode with my dad last night, and my only regret was being so in to it that I didn't realize Carson had flooded my parents bathroom.  Sorry, Mom.  I was in full geek mode at the time.  My apologies again.

My dad and I had a few questions during the episode and I tried to explain to him what I had learned during the documentary.  I didn't come close to making any sense at all.  But hey, I was super excited when I found this article today written by Ken Jennings.  It answered a few of our questions so I thought I'd post it here for my dad.  Cause he religiously reads my blog. 

 Excerpt from this article:

"The IBM team had every reason to be hopeful. Watson seems to represent a giant leap forward in the field of natural-language processing—the ability to understand and respond to everyday English, the way Ask Jeeves did (with uneven results) in the dot-com boom. Jeopardy! clues cover an open domain of human knowledge—every subject imaginable—and are full of booby traps for computers: puns, slang, wordplay, oblique allusions. But in just a few years, Watson has learned—yes, it learns—to deal with some of the myriad complexities of English. When it sees the word "Blondie," it's very good at figuring out whether Jeopardy! means the cookie, the comic strip, or the new-wave band.

I expected Watson's bag of cognitive tricks to be fairly shallow, but I felt an uneasy sense of familiarity as its programmers briefed us before the big match:  The computer's techniques for unraveling Jeopardy! clues sounded just like mine. That machine zeroes in on key words in a clue, then combs its memory (in Watson's case, a 15-terabyte data bank of human knowledge) for clusters of associations with those words.  It rigorously checks the top hits against all the contextual information it can muster: the category name; the kind of answer being sought; the time, place, and gender hinted at in the clue; and so on. And when it feels "sure" enough, it decides to buzz. This is all an instant, intuitive process for a human Jeopardy! player, but I felt convinced that under the hood my brain was doing more or less the same thing.....

Jeopardy! devotees know that buzzer skill is crucial—games between humans are more often won by the fastest thumb than the fastest brain. This advantage is only magnified when one of the "thumbs" is an electromagnetic solenoid triggered by a microsecond-precise jolt of current. I knew it would take some lucky breaks to keep up with the computer, since it couldn't be beaten on speed."


Ahhh.  So interesting to me.  I am such a nerd and I recommend watching the documentary to anyone else who's willing to embrace their inner-nerd.

Surprises

I've had a few memorable, blog worthy surprises in the last few days.  Some I stopped to document with photos, some I laughed about, some I yelled about, some I'm ignoring still.

In Random Order-

Surprise One-A 
Realizing after I hit publish and saw my post in google reader that I had misspelled Surprises in the title.  Classic.

Surprise One-B

My license expired Sunday, on my birthday.  On Saturday I remembered and tried to renew it online.  At the end of the process, it said I owed $100.  Renewal fee $25, Reissue fee $75.  I was baffled and mad.  I looked up the fee list and the only $75 one was for reinstating your license after a suspension.  I start to panic, wondering if I've been driving with a suspended license for an undisclosed amount of time. After 18 attempts to speak to someone and a 20 minute hold time, I was told that I had a suspended license in 2008 for not paying a ticket on time.  Apparently, between me paying the county and the county reporting it, I had a suspended license for two weeks.  Three years ago.  $75.  Not happy.

Surprise Two

This surprise came at 5:30 am Tuesday morning when I realized that my 2.5 year old was up all by himself, hanging out in the kitchen.  I have no idea how long he'd been awake.  I yelled at him to get in my bed or get a spank.  Two hours later when I got out of bed I found this...

Surprise Three

Happened last week.  Spencer was home from school sick, on the couch playing XBox.  I had a headache, took some meds and decided to lay back down for a few minutes, thinking he would help watch Carson.  Apparently I fell alseep and woke up about 25 minutes later to a mess that resembled the previous one only this one contained broken noodles, cans of food, 4 broken eggs, the milk jug on the floor and the refrigerator door wide open.  I recognized that it was my own fault and barely yelled.  It was a remarkable moment for me.  Not in a good way.

Surprise Four

Monday, on Valentine's Day, I kept teasing Jason about not bringing me home anything.  I say 'teasing' because I told him Saturday night while we were getting flowers for other Valentine's that I would just pick out my own this year.  He of course thought it was a great idea.  Less for him to do.  I finally teased him enough and he went to the cupboard and pulled out a box of chocolates, proving to me that he did buy me something.  I took one look at the box and started laughing.  I told him it didn't count if he'd already opened them.  He started laughing in surprise.  He had no idea he had bought a box that had already been opened.  I started listing off all the things that could be wrong with them, you know, classic candy poisoning, shards of razor blades hidden inside, anthrax.  He promptly popped one in his mouth and walked away.  I turned to see what all the gagging noises were and he started laughing.  I thought he was gagging out of disgust, he was pretending to choke.  What a loser.

  
Surprise Five

I'm ignoring this one.  Sorry, no full disclosure today.

It's My Party and I'll Share if I Want to

Warning:  At various times, this post may contain TMI.  Also contains MAP (massive amounts of pictures).  Also contains odd spacing, thank you blogger.

2:00-7:30 AM - I started celebrating my birthday in the wee hours of the morning with three trips to the bathroom.  Nothing says old like peeing all night.

8:00-9:30 AM - No worries, it wasn't a complete sign of aging, but rather a UTI.  I suppose that screams old more than peeing all night.  I spent the next hour and a half discussing my bladder and it's issues with a Dr. at the clinic.

9:30-11:00ish AM - Crawled back to bed, still in my jammies and sent my family off to get my meds.  Only the fear of not being prepared for the rest of my day motivated me to get out of my warm bed, in a quiet house.

11:00AM -12:00 PM - Spent the next hour or so discussing with Rachael all of our over-achieving ideas for valentines day and how we realistically wouldn't get around to even half of them.

12:00 PM - My family came home with doughnuts, meds, and my first birthday card of the day.  I fell to the floor laughing and wet my pants.  Yes I did.  Not really that hard when you have a UTI, just sayin.

                            I just noticed that Jason signed his full name on my card.  Classic.

12:03 PM - Sent the first two kids to their rooms crying.  Was called the meanest mom ever at least 3 times.

12:30 PM - Finally took a shower.

1:00-1:30 PM - Whipped up some holiday decor for the Valentines Dinner we put on for my parents and grandma.  Sent my oldest to his room crying for the second time.  He finally fell asleep.

                                                           Bouquets for the Grandma's

                                                       Used same idea for teachers gifts

                   Kid decorated table runner on butcher paper, covered with contact paper

                            Spencer had a melt down when I asked him to draw on the hearts

1:30-3:30 PM -  Finished up decor and dinner prep while the boys slept and Sophie bathed.  Ignored the massive amount of splashing I could hear, which I knew was resulting in the floor getting cleaner than Sophie.

Spencer woke up.  Thank goodness he was done accusing me of ruining everything.  He went off to finish building me my birthday present.

Got dressed for dinner only to have Jason call me back out to show me the new scratches on the dining room floor.  Water off my back at this point.  Water off my back.

Had Spencer come out and apologize for breaking the bathtub while he was picking up all the toys that got displaced during the Sea World exhibit that happened in the bathtub.  The water spout is no longer sealed to the tub surround by caulking.  Yea for kids and new houses.  Yea.

4:00 PM - Started cooking dinner.  Visited with my aunt and uncle who had dropped off my Grandma.

5:00 PM - Pigged out. Salad, baked potatoes, veggies, and salmon.
6:15 PM - Pigged out, again.  Strawberry Shortcake.

 

6:30 PM - Opened a few gifts.  Super cute gardening bag and pillow from my mom, socks from the kids (I ask for socks every year), birthday card + money from Grandma.

 

7:30ish PM - Said goodnight to all my company.  Ignored my children who were whining and crying for the 800th time.  Talked to Susan, laughed really hard when she told me her favorite thing about me is my disregard for other people (specifically their opinions)  and agreed when she told me that playing it cool (in regards to expectations around the holidays) has never really worked for me so I should really just write it all out and give it to my family (specifically, my husband).  Classic conversation.  I loved it.

8:30 PM - Laughed out loud and disrupted everyone during family prayer.  Thought Carson sitting on Spencer's lap was the funniest thing ever.  I may have been a little loopy at this point.  Listened to the weeping and wailing of the children as Jason put them to bed.

9:00-10:00 PM - Checked out my new pegboard (my birthday present to myself, it's much easier to pick out my own stuff) that Jason installed while I was on the phone.  Worked on finishing the kids' valentines.

My side of the garage. 

10:00 PM - Fell asleep waiting for a movie to download on Netflix.  Nothing says old like falling asleep early.  QWest man, if you're still reading at this point, our internet is hella slow.  Like H-E-L-L-A S-L-O-W.  You should look into that for me, or tell me how to.

12:00ish AM - Woke up to Rachael calling, I can't say I talked to her, I think it was more of just holding the phone up to my ear and making responsive noises.

Went to bed. 

--It was too much work to add all the times I checked Facebook throughout the day.  Besides, I wouldn't want to appear to be obsessive or anything.  It was awesome.  Especially for a girl who always jokes that she doesn't have any friends.  And Alicia, the poem was stellar.--

You know what made me happy today?  Little things.  Lots of little things.

Like...

*Saying the Pledge of Allegiance along with the kids in Spencer's class.
*Dropping off Carson and breakfast for Rachael and having her come to the car to get both.
*Taking an afternoon nap.
*Listening to Sophie tell everyone about the snack we took to preschool.  "Ocean Crackers" she called them (they were just graham crackers with blue frosting with chocolate goldfish crackers on top).
*Having a new friend from church walk over with her kids to see if we could play (unfortunately we were on our way out).
*Visiting my grandma.
*Watching the animated way Sophie talked to my mom at the kitchen table.
*Sampling four different flavors of cheesecake that Jason surprisingly brought home.
*Taking the kids to McDonald's night for his school and having the nicest lady insist that she help me and the kids out to the car with our food.
*Catching up with an old friend and cousins (and having that friend tell me she's glad I'm blogging again, that's the best).
*Sarah's chili and cinnamon rolls.
*Listening to Sophie tell Grandma Landoni, with a lot of concern, not to go outside when it rains because it's not safe.
*Realizing and witnessing the amazing change in Spencer since we switched classes.
*Carson wearing his batman cape all day.
*Showing Spencer the Little Dipper.
*Hearing my dad tell the kids he missed seeing them on Sunday.
*Spencer telling everyone about the accident he saw on the bus on the way home.  He kept asking if it was on the news.  
*Reminiscing with Jason about a past argument over vinegar.  He still swears all vinegars were created equally.  I still maintain that you cannot use all vinegars interchangeably.
*Watching Spencer blush when he was asked to introduce me to his class.
*Singing along to Taylor Swift during breakfast with the kids.

Not so happy today?  Losing my debit card.  But hey, that's not bad comparatively.

And a picture...

 Sometimes you look at old pictures and wonder at how they've changed.  And then there's pictures like the top left one (below) and I can't believe how much he still looks like that today.

I really need to start journaling/blogging more about the hours we spent outside with Grandma Goude.  I'm so sad now that she's cut off at the head in the only picture she was in that day.  In hindsight I wish I would have taken so many more pictures with her and the kids.  He loved to pull himself up and swing on the post of her deck.  She used to get after him a few times and then always gave in and let him do it!

Not a very Maniac Monday

I usually hate Mondays but today has been low key and pretty nice.  I may be writing this too early since we're quickly approaching the witching hours, you know, dinner time, clean-up time, bed time. 

Our productive Sunday evening probably helped out my uneventful Monday.  I spent the afternoon after church organizing and cleaning up my side of the garage.  I'm pretty excited about how much I got done.  Now if we could just get rid of the garbage/yard sale pile, it's the only thing stopping us from parking in there.  Before we went to bed, Jason and I went through and cleaned up the house, except for the kids' rooms, I'll tackle those tomorrow.  Waking up to an empty sink, a clean house, and most of the laundry done was a great way to start today.  Too bad the refrigerator is empty...

The kids keep asking me to peel oranges for them, we don't have oranges in the house very often and I had forgotten how much I love the smell of a freshly peeled orange.  Now that they actually eat them, I'll have to keep buying them.


I spent sometime crafting up a Valentine's banner for the front room today and any time I get out my scissors and sewing machine, Sophie wants a project too.  Lucky for me she's got the art of tracing and cutting down pat so she was pretty independent in her creating.  Here's the results...

We're apparently at the stage now where asking for a smile gets a face like this...

 

They spent all day wearing their batman capes.  They were so cute acting things out that I didn't have the heart to say anything as they held hands and ran around the house or jumped off furniture.  My favorite part was when Carson kept yelling at Sophie that he had put the Joker in jail.  She had no idea what he was saying and he was so mad about it!

I hope the rest of the evening is as nice as today was...Wish me luck.

My House

I don't know why but I seriously have a stomach ache thinking about posting pictures of my house.  I love my house and if you know me at all you know that I love to decorate my house, like obsessively.  But I totally lack confidence when it comes to taking pics and having people actually see what my home looks like.  My style is a little odd, the more random the better for me.  I adore doilies, chalkboards, numbers, and letters.  I love anything with chippy paint.  I love to change things as often as I can. 

So, at the request of a few people, here's a few shots of a few spots that are actually clean and somewhat decorated/finished...for now.  Who knows what these same spots will look like in a few weeks.

And don't mind the white walls.  I'm still debating all of the white.  In some spots I love it, in others, not so much.

And don't mind all the unfinishedness that you'll see if you play a good game of I Spy.  Like empty frames, unfinished pillows, etc.

All right, here goes... 

Here's half of the front room, I'll post pictures when the other half is clean and finished.

I have to point out a few of my favorite things as I post these pictures.  First is the $5 door I found at the Habitat for Humanity Restore.  The second is the old green playskool postal station I found at an antique store.  The flower pillow was a napkin (I think) that Rachael bought me forever ago from Anthropologie (I think).  The globe on the stand?  I just picked that up this weekend at an antique store for $10.  Rachael and I went to Tuesday morning later that day and a newer one was $60.  Who cares if this one still shows East and West Germany and The USSR.  The ladder is from the swing set we got from a friend a couple summers ago, we left most of it at the rental.  The yellow tablecloth was my Aunt Jay's.

The farmtable with the doilies sits in front of my windows, it came from the farm where my mom grew up, I need to get a picture of the rest of it.  I love it, even if it sometimes smells faintly of skunk to me.

 
Next to the farm table is my thrift store black leather chair I convinced my mom to buy me for my birthday a few years ago even though it was a month or so earlier than my birthday and the grouping with the family picture hangs above the couch.
 

The coloring is completely off in the shot of my dining room but it was the best I could do for right now.  You can see in the corner part of one of my current projects for the dining room.  I have letters along the trim that say "Bake, Stir, Sprinkle, Mix".  I'm still trying to figure out what color to paint them, if I want paper on any of them, etc.  As soon as I get them done, I'll photog them.  I'll never forget the day I brought home the container that my flowers are sitting in.  My Grandma Goude came over and had a fit because I had bought a 'pee pot' from back in the day.  I just laughed at her and assured her that I would disinfect it before I used it.  She was not a fan of all of my old stuff.

Jason's going to make me a new table top soon, I bought that table when I was 16 yrs old, working at Shopko.  We've painted it since then but I'm ready for something new.  The cabinet in the corner was in my grandma's kitchen and it now holds the kids' art supplies.  Sophie just told me she was going to make valentines for grandma to have in heaven.  We miss her.  A lot.

 

The shelf with the valentines decor is in the dining room and the green chalkboard in the middle is in the kitchen.  I got it from my Aunt Janice and it is one of my most favorite things ever.  I love using it for notes, grocery lists, to do lists, and displaying pictures. 

I just started working on our bedroom and this is what I've got going on for now.  Again, I'm sure it won't stay like this for very long before I see a new idea I want to try out.  The rocking chair was the ugliest brown until two days ago and now it's a crazy turquoise, not really showing it's real color in the picture.  I still need to recover the seat.  The bedspread hanging behind the chair has the initials D L embroidered on it, it was my Great Grandpa Loiacono's.  The pillow case also came from my Aunt Jay's. 

Across from the bed is an old crib mattress thingy with a bench underneath it...

Jason built the picnic bench and I'm trying to decide whether I should paint it or not.  I told him last night that the pictures of us looking happy are suppose to work like subliminal messages.  He just laughed at me.  I asked him if it bothered him that our room is turning out kinda girly and he laughed again saying the whole house is girly, and no, it doesn't bother him.  Thanks goodness for that!

So the rest of the house is either unfinished or messy.  And just in case you don't believe me, here's the proof...