©2026 The Daleys
We have been getting more and more sales calls lately. I try to take the time to report them to the do not call lists, both for our state and for the country. We are supposed to get $100 for each violation (where the caller pays $1000). But, I haven't ever gotten any money.
My new theory is that the do not call lists don't really have anything behind them, and companies now know that, so don't bother checking the list.
Our computer room/guest room is now functional and neat. There are still two actively-being-worked-on server computers on the card table in the room. We had hoped to have them both in their finished locations by the end of the month, but a broken new hard drive needed to be exchanged, and the colo guy hasn't gotten back to Jon yet. It's possible that clementine will go there tonight. But it still fits in the purpose of the room - the computer room - and the area is organized and neat.
This month has been full, busy, and blog-sparse. Because we're actually living life instead of blogging about it! But here goes:
Noah is experimenting more with sounds. He copies a lot. Still not much consistently, but here are some things we've heard him say: "where?" "Papa" "more" "Dad" "no" "none" "that" "hot" "hat." He also often covers his mouth when he sneezes or coughs.
Normally, when we have an update to a post, we just put it in the comments, but since I've entered us in the 30-Day Challenge, here's a separate post to link up.
Now before any other "challengees" faint when they see my pictures, I'll remind you that we have guests coming tonight, so our deadline for a presentable room was much earlier than the end of the month. Also, there is internal organization still left to be done.
My friends Bonnie and Liz participated in the last Challenge, and quite intimidated me by doing so. But I put OrgJunkie's blog in my reader (one of only three strangers' blogs I read) and have slowly been gaining confidence. The real enouragement I give myself is to note what I can accomplish in little bits at a time. Whenever I feel like I can't do it, I can point myself to an area that's working (like my system for kids' clothes) and realize that though I have far to go, I've also come far from where I was (or could be!)
I have been tagged by Liz. I usually skip participating in such things, but I like this topic. It is always good to remember blessings and give thanks.
Jonathan loves to create meals and side dishes. On 10/2, he made a vegetable salad that we have recreated several times. Carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, radishes, onions, with one lemon's worth of juice as a dressing. Simple and delicious.
10/12 - I was in the basement doing laundry when the phone rang. It was Sanda. She was trying to take a shower and all the water disappeared! It just struck me funny to get a phone call from upstairs.
Jon asked me to post this essay written by our friend.
Life as an Immigrant
By Marc Brands
From 1993 to 1996 I did an apprenticeship in Electronics Engineering at
Siemens. In Switzerland apprenticeships are very common, students
attend about 16 hours of classes and about 32 hours of practical
training per week at an employers' site.
We headed out Friday morning, listening to The Nutmeg of Consolation by Patrick O'Brian on the way. At our first stop, for gas, Jon realized that he hadn't brought his wallet. One of our stops was at our "usual" rest area, the one with the pedestrian walkways over the highway. The boys liked watching the cars and trucks go under. Jon had some Lime Daley issue to deal with, so we waited in a really long line at McDonald's while he used the free wireless.
A bunch of people made a neat video of a lot of kids using augmentative communication devices. My guess is that most of the devices are made by DynaVox, the company where I currently (for a little while longer) work. It is neat to see our technology making a difference in people's lives.
I got a couple spams through my Lime Daley contact form the last couple days, so I took another look at the script that I was using. I wrote it a year or two ago, and was my first attempt at writing an anti-spam tool that was designed to have a 0% false negative rate (ie. humans can't possibly fail - as opposed to the image recognizer thing, which I fail about 20% of the time, so I imagine less technical people people must fail and/or give up more often than that).
The one on the Lime Daley page isn't as good as the one I wrote for this blog, but I took a look at the statistics this morning, and it blocked 544 spams last month, only allowing three through.