I'll just say it plainly -- today sucked.

It started last night after the kids got home from Trick-or-Treat. I was reassembling my computer, which I had to take apart partially to hook the projector to my notebook. See, I was projecting a Halloween sign onto our garage door that told the kids to go up the street for candy. Perhaps I'll explain that more later. In any case, I was reassembling things when I noticed that, unrelated to my reassembly, my center monitor's backlight seemed to have blown out. This makes it exceptionally hard to log in.

It's kind of a strange puzzle. The center monitor is the only one on DVI, and the side monitors are both VGA-only. This might have been fine if I had a DVI to VGA adapter, but there were none to be found. So, it was time to order a new monitor, and with me being off to take care of Riley while Nana was on vacation, I saw this as a perfect opportunity to visit Best Buy and get that upgrade I've been considering. But then, events seem to collude to conspire against me.

Around the time I was futzing with my monitors, Riley had actually asked to go to bed. This is a sign; the omen kind. After curling up under the blankets in his room voluntarily as early as 9pm (this doesn't happen - ever) we took his temperature: 102.9 degrees.

Thankfully, a little Tylenol brought his fever down, but he was out for the count. A second dose to kill his fever this morning, and he was bouncing around like a well-rested Riley. He was ready for the day and didn't seem any the worse for wear.

I'll just say here that nothing terrible happens to Riley in this story, because it seems like that might be the direction it was headed. So if you were worried, fear not. No, the badness is for me today, one of those "boo-hoo, poor, poor Owen" stories that makes me oh so popular with the people who don't have anything to whine about. As stupid as this sounds, if I got my arm cut off somehow, I'd probably whine less, simply because all of the crap that happened today is stuff that didn't really have to happen, and isn't of any real consequence, but is the kind of thing that messes with your head and has you start thinking about whether the depression is going to hit again this holiday season. But anyway, moving on...

So with Riley up and ready to go around 10am, we packed our gear and headed for Delaware, home of tax-free monitors. Actually, I had managed to order the new monitor from Best Buy after he went to bed, and it was just a matter of picking it up. While there, I grabbed a new VGA cable to replace the one that I left at the PHP Framework presentation along with the power cable for my projector (which I didn't notice was missing until trying to hook up the thing for Halloween, and I didn't think to replace today, darn it). Oh, the irony of all of this.

After lunch with Berta and a quick trip home, Riley was sitting on the couch while I poked at some email. Nothing good is coming of me not working today. I had to send out a couple emails. A couple I neede dto send out I couldn't reply to without information from my headless desktop computer. Oh, but shouldn't I have had a monitor by now?

First... As I said, Riley was watching TV. Suddenly he laid down and started looking lethargic. I felt his head. Sweltering 102.1. More Tylenol for the kid that acted like he was fine all day, even when the medicine should have worn off. I was really hoping it was just a weird overnight thing, but that was not to be.

Between making Riley comfortable, I tried to set up the new monitor. As it turns out, this monitor has every conceivable connection on it. Except DVI. Note that as I said above, the only connection that I need (read: "must have") is DVI. Great. I consider my options and decide that a trip out to get a DVI to VGA converter should do the trick.

Abby came home while Riley lulled on the couch. She required supervision. I was anxious to get out to get my adapter. There were some games. There was some TV. I read more email, and didn't like any of it.

I will insert here that there are work-related things in my email content that are driving me absolutely insane, not just at this point of the day, but throughout the day. I'm not going to mention them specifically here, but I'm almost hoping I'm still hot enough about them tomorrow to have something done about it, but not quite enough to just quit. Anyway.

Berta came home. I called Dave to see if he wanted to hitch a ride to Best Buy and dinner so I could pick up my pre-ordered cable. Done deal. Another trip to Delaware. A phenomenally lousy burger at Damon's in Wilmington - ugh. If if was more salty or more overcooked, it would have been a charbroiled salt-lick. It hardly looked like beef. It was disgusting.

Back with my two new cables (yeah, buy two $30 cables just to avoid another trip to Delaware), I started plugging things in. DVI to HDMI? Failed. DVI to VGA? Cable. Too. Short.

Freaking out ensues.

I tucked in Abby, who was reading a book to Berta. Riley was already down, once again victim of whatever bit him. He's going to be off tomorrow, and needing a doctor's appointment because his ear is probably acting up again, hence the fever.

I should say that Riley was a perfect little boy today, and although after reading my email I considered how nice it might be to quit work and be a stay-at-home dad, I think I lack the constitution to pull it off. I would really go nuts. More than I did today. See my sanity meter? It broke when the mercury exploded out of the top.

Where was I?

Tucked in kids, headed back out to Target this time, because everything else is closed. Surely Target carries a simple 12-foot VGA cable? No. No, they don't.

They do carry a DVI to HDMI adapter and a 12 foot HDMI cable. I think I must have been struck stupid at this point because I bought them both. Didn't I already have a set of this that didn't work? Well, whatever.

I returned home and started connecting things. HA! The new adapter doesn't fit next to the other plugs on the back of my PC! Amazing, no?!

I started to plug and unplug random things. Finally, I get the new monitor to come online with the DVI to VGA adapter and a VGA cable plugged into the VGA switch, which gives me an extra foot or so of length. Oh and wasn't the picture quality cruddy? It was blurry. Nobody said this would happen. This isn't good. "Is it the monitor that's crappy?" I asked myself, recalling the lousy display monitor I saw on the shelf with tons of burn-in and what looked like a weak signal, but just then realizing it was simply VGA. Oh, the humanity!

I took the switch out of the signal, and moved the PC half out of the cabinet, wires strewn all over the floor. Still no clarity.

Also I should mention that at some point the PC decided that the VGA port on the primary card, rather than the DVI port, had become the primary monitor, and had taken it upon itself to rearrange the positions of all of my screens for me. Very confusing.

Finally, for no good reason, I swapped in the original DVI to HDMI cable, since it would now be close enough to try, I guess. It worked. Crystal clear picture.

So it basically took all day, through Riley being sick, three trips to the store, needlessly buying tons of needlessly expensive connectors, and I finally have wallpaper that doesn't fit my desktop. Why was this so hard? Total new resolution: 4925440 native pixels. (2 * 1280 × 1024 + 1 * 1920 × 1200)

Riley is going to Mom's tomorrow with Berta because they live near the doctor. Work email can wait until the morning where I won't be screaming at everyone and regretting it. Lunch meeting at noon anyway, where hopefully I can complain about what ails me without quitting or getting fired. Then I'm passing the heck out at 5pm and trying to forget that this week ever happened. I might even start right now. See you in the AM.

I guess there are training programs available for parents and no end of books on how to administer discipline of various sorts. I think we have a couple of those books around the house, even one with a title like, "How To Trick Your Kids into Behaving."

The kids are performing in their own ways these days, and I wonder many things about being a parent, how to get them to behave, how to get them to grow up to be good people, how to refrain from making every moment in life a lesson of some kind.

Riley has started this thing, it's not really a tantrum - I recognize those - where he just lays down on the floor. He just lays there. There isn't anything wrong with him, he's not doing anything wrong, but he's just laying on the floor, usually on one of his knit blankets, sometimes rolling around, but usually just laying still. I'm not sure why. Sometimes he does this as a way to avoid things, like if we want to change his diaper, he'll just lay down. He's not tired. He had plenty of energy, it's just something he does.

I can't figure out how to get Abby to settle down. A good fraction of her awake time she's a perfect little girl. Polite, friendly, well-behaved. But there are many rough edges.

Usually around dinner time she'll start acting up. She won't sit still at the table. When she does sit, she stay seated upright. And she doesn't really like any food, although I suppose that's typical for a kid her age, but we would like her to sit with us at dinner, since we've decided that dinner is our daily meal together as a family. Maybe I need to emphasize that more.

Of particular concern to me is how she treats Riley on a daily basis. Sometimes she's the best big sister Riley could ask for. Most of the time they're together, Abby's got an evil grin, Riley's screaming, and something's afoot. I don't understand her animosity toward him. And poor Riley, he's so innocent, he doesn't know that she's mistreating him, and he goes along with anything. That is a worse offense to me, really. I guess it's reasonable preparation for Riley in the "real world", where he'll be in preschool next month with other kids who can't really be forced to like him. But I think i would rather him have a sister that he knows he can count on and then be disappointed with the rest of the world.

I don't remember being this way to my brother. Maybe I was. If I was, I'm thankful that I don't remember and hope he doesn't either. I almost hope that's the case because then i could rest a little easier about Abby and Riley getting along and being friends when they get older.

When I left the office to take Abby to school today, Nana was telling me that Abby was being naughty. I didn't get specifics, instead hurried Abby to get ready for school and confronted her about it in the car. She said she was running away from Riley, which was naughty. I suppose maybe she was teasing him. I asked her if she knew that she was supposed to behave all the time, especially for Nana. She said she didn't know that.

I must be doing something really wrong that she'd even say that.

I don't know how to get her to accept that good behavior is what she's supposed to present at all times. I understand that there will be lapses, but the idea that she's supposed to behave well all the time should be in her mind, at least. It should never occur to her that it's acceptable to be bad.

I try tactics that I'm surprised to find that my parents used to discipline me. The "guilt" one doesn't seem to be ingrained enough in her to use effectively. That is, I can try to be disappointed in how she behaves, but that doesn't seem to have any effect on her. I try to tell her what she's doing wrong and what we expect of her, and i don't really know if it's sinking in. While she has difficulty admitting what she has done wrong, I don't know if it's because she feels bad about doing it, or if she can't articulate it, or if she's just grasping at what I might want to hear for an answer because she just doesn't know what we want from her.

I'm tired of threats. No TV. No treats for dessert. Early bed. Santa's "naughty" list and coal-filled stockings. I don't want her to be deprived of these things, or be in fear of losing them all the time, or just become ambivalent about them because she's always being punished, and I am tired of being hard on her or wondering whether I'm being too hard. There are stupid things that she could so easily avoid, but she keeps doing them over and over and I don't know how to break her of them.

I'd like her to stop teasing Riley. I'd like her to stop the perpetual whining when she doesn't get her way. I'd like her to behave properly at the dinner table. I guess I need to come up with a plan to affect some of these behaviors, maybe one at a time. I'm not sure where to begin. Maybe I'm stuck with this until she moves out.

I write this like she's always in trouble. She really isn't a bad kid. Like I said, there are times when she's the best little girl. Last night we made cookies together while Berta and Riley were out grocery shopping and she was perfect. Followed instructions, was attentive, and kept herself occupied when I couldn't occupy her without getting into trouble. Maybe she needs some time alone at home. Maybe she needs more dedicated time with me and Berta. I don't know.

Ah, frustration. Change is slow. Be patient.

Last night, an insurance broker visited our house and gave Berta and me some options for mortgage insurance. Basically, we were interested in having at least a portion of the mortgage paid in the case of our death. So we sat for his hour and a half presentation, and now I present some notes of the salient details.

Sometimes companies will offer "accidental death" insurance along with some other thing you're buying, like credit cards or bank loan or cell phone plan. These policie sound great for the money you pay, but there is a catch. They only pay out if the accident directly causes your death. So if you go to the mailbox and get hit by a car and left for dead, it pays off. But if you die in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, tough luck - that's improper medical care, not accidental death. After all, you weren't dead from the accident, right? (!)

There are a few plans to choose from, which are basically combinations of various riders. For example, you can just get a plan old policy - Pay your premium every month, if you die, the policy pays off, the end. But with a special rider, you can have all of your premiums paid back to you if you survive the term of the policy.

Essentially how this works is the insurance company holds on to your money for all that time and earns interest. They're happy just to make the interest, and give you your money back. It costs a bit more, but assume it costs $10 more a month on a $30 premium, you can either save $3600 and buy the insurance for 30 years at $30 per month, or you can spend $40 per month and get $14400 back at the end of the term. You can see how you'd never be able to turn that saved $3600 into $14400 just by investing it or putting it into a savings plan. And if you "activate the policy" - an insurance euphamism for "die" - then you get the full insured amount.

The odd fact of the matter is that only 8% of people who buy insurance ever use it. So there's a pretty good chance that we'd live out the term of the policy and get all that money back.

There is an option to lock in the premium to keep it from changing. So you might normally pay $30 per month for your policy, but that could change after 5 years. With the option to lock in the premium, you'll pay $70 per month, but that won't change through the term of the policy. The broker surmised that the companies provide this option so that the insurance salesmen have something to complain about when they look at your policy.

For example, "Look here. Your rate's not locked in. This could change at any time, we'd better rewrite your policy and get you fixed." Of course, there's the alternative, "You don't need that locked in rate. Rates have never risen in the history of insurance because people keep living longer every year." We figured that the savings on the monthly payment is worth the minimal risk of the change. Plus, the policy is locked in for the first five years, and we could change it if we wanted to.

Policies have limits with regard to how much they're willing to insure you without you answering some health questions by means of samples of bodily fluids. The company we looked at was willing to supply up to $180,000 of insurance for people our age without asking for a physical. That's probably enough for Berta, who gets some additional life insurance through work. But since my work doesn't offer anything that significant, we'll need more for me if we intend to pay off the house. So I'll have to submit to a physical. Yay.

There are certain levels of fitness that let you reduce your premiums. In this case, there are three. Assuming that my bloodwork comes back reporting nothing weird (and I don't expect it to), and I weigh in on the nurse's scale as the same weight I weight on my bathroom scale (better ride my bike around a little before she comes), there's only one thing really preventing me from getting the best health rating: My mom's health.

The big question: Is there a history of heart problems or cancer in your family? I don't give them the answer to this question. They look it up in some health profile database. Assuming my mom is in there, I won't be able to get any discount on my insurance - at all.

So we'll just have to wait on those tests, and possilby adjust our coverage to bring the payments down to reasonable levels.

In all, the experience wasn't painful, but it sure did take a long time. I expect he deasl with a lot of clients who don't understand what he's talking about and so he has to repeat himself a lot. I think there were several points in the PowerPoint presentation (uh, yeah) that he could have skipped, but he was pretty thorough, and did answer our questions, which were all off-slide.

Hopefully we'll hear from them soon about scheduling the nurse visit, and we'll be on track to coverage.

On Saturday, we took the kids, Mary Ann (Berta's sister), and Ryan (her husband) to the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire in Mount Hope.

We used to go every year, but it seemed like we were seeing the same show every time, so we haven't gone over the past few years. They have since added many new things, and have chagned the show a bit. But I think they may have started to give in to the commercialism of it a bit more than what it used to be all about.

For the uninitiated, the Faire is basically a 20-acre area that has all sorts of recreation from the era of the Renaissance. Everyone there dresses in period clothing and speaks with an accent. The actors are all quite friendly and usually try to immerse you in their fantasy. One of the best things about the Faire is that it's not just something you go watch, it's something to take part in.

But it seems things have changed a bit. Maybe it's just from my perspective, but it seems like a lot more people come to the faire and expect to be entertained rather than participate in the fun. It also seems that people spend a lot more time eating and shopping than they do at the actual attractions. This is not so surprising, since the joust this year was pretty weak, too.

The last time we went, the joust was amazing. There were four knights; two good, two evil. The barkers would rouse you in a boisterous rally for whichever side you chose to sit. The knights actually went at each other. I mean, nobody wants to get hurt, but they came away from the joust making you wonder how they survived it even if you could see them cheating just a bit by acting up glancing blows. They were still getting hit.

The two knights this time around barely touched each other. There wasn't anyone to rally the crowd. It just wasn't as involved.

The finale show on our last trip had people sliding into the jousting arena on zip lines, explosions, and someone evil killed in a swordfight who was subsequently set on fire. This time? Nothing like that.

The shows were overcrowded, and like most interactive entertainment these days, people seemed to want to be told where the action was, rather than figure it out. There is a lot of wit in the script that they coreograph for the Faire, and its dialogue is lost on the rabble. It's no wonder that the Trial and Dunke show, an adults-only Benny Hill-like affair where they dunk people in water, draws a bigger crowd than any of the excellent vaudvillian shows.

It's sad because I had been looking forward to taking Abby to the Faire all week, and then we go and it's too difficult to get her involved. Partially it's the crowd, partially it's the distraction of her aunt, who has the same inclination as the crowd. It makes me sad because the Faire is something that I really enjoy, and it feels ruined for her. She's not taking away from it the same great memories that I did.

Ah, well. There's always next year.

It's been a weird week, and hopefully I'll be able to tell you more about it soon, but for now, I'll just tell you how it was capped off.

On Saturday afternoon, Mom watched the kids while Berta and I went to the musical Wicked, based on the book by Gregory Maguire. And in perfect contrast to the showing of Chicago we saw, Wicked was wicked.

In case you aren't familiar with the idea: Wicked is a story about the Wicked Witch of the West from Oz. You're familiar with the story from the movie, The Wizard of Oz, right? Well, if you haven't read or seen Wicked, then you have no idea what really happened.

Did you know that Glinda the Good was actually the wicked witch's friend? They were roommates in school! And Glinda was (is) kind of a ditz.

The story is amazing. They give reasoning for pretty much everything. You find out the origins of the witches, Alphaba and her sister (squashed by Dorothy's tornado-propelled house) Nissa Rose. You find out how the tin man, scarecrow, and cowardly lion came to be who they were. Yes, the flying monkies - all explained. And shockingly, you come to learn how everything you know about "good" and "evil" in the world of Oz is just... wrong! The story fits seamlessly right on top of the original. It's really an amazing feat of writing.

One of my major complaints about some musicals, Chicago for example, is that the story all happens in narrative between the music. For me, if the music is not telling the story, then why did they make a musical from it? Wicked does not disappoint.

Everything important in Wicked is told via song. And the songs are pretty darn good. I've been listening to the soundtrack today, and it's really good. One of my favorite tunes is called "What Is This Feeling?" and it's great. What is the feeling? Loathing. Unadulterated loathing. Awesome.

The performers were amazing. I swear to you, if you're watching that lame American Idol, you need to get your butt out of the house and see some of the performers that are out there doing it. Here's a sample of one of my other favorites. If it doesn't get your blood moving, I'm not sure there's much else I can do to convince you: