Analog Coast

Tables are something that everyone that learns HTML knows. They're a really basic thing that come in handy quite often.

I like tables. They're useful. They have a purpose.

But for the love of God, don't nest them 15 deep!

Ugh.

People might think I'm just being an elitist asshole, talking smack like "CSS rules and if you use anything but for layout, you're a knuckle-dragging cretin". I'm not saying that at all. I'm really, really not. When I started my career as a web guy, I didn't realize that using complex nested tables was a bad thing until I had to support somebody else's work. I always thought "hey, If *I* build something with all sorts of crazy shit going on, I know to fix it". But if you need to fix someone else's crazy shit... it's a whole different ball game.

I do admit that there is a whole other side to this issue. These days I try my best to use table-less layouts, and it can be a nightmare too. For someone that has little or no knowledge of CSS, supporting something I make can be just as difficult (or more) as some crazy-ass mess of tables. I use CSS to attempt to meet some levels of cross-browser accessibility and, honestly, I do it just to push myself to learn new stuff.

So long rant short: learn a bit of CSS. It will make doing your layouts easier in the long run, but don't abandon tables either. Because when IE and Firefox fight over how to render your fancy style sheet and you get all frustrated you can still say "fuck it, I'm using tables!"

So I thought I'd try my hand at this blogging thing (again). Last time didn't go so well, as I didn't really care enough to write frequently. I figure this time around I'll actually try to write about stuff that I care about rather than try to be funny just for "humor's" sake. Anyone who reads will probably find posts about crap like:

World of Warcraft
I.T. / Web Design
Current Events
The few T.V. shows that I like (Lost, BSG)

Hopefully between those things, I'll be able to keep writing at least semi-frequently... otherwise this blog will probably die a quick death and languish in interweb obscurity for all eternity.

My kids had a fight today. It was awesome. It went something like this:

Lily: And then he said no more five and then fifteen ("Reading" books out loud to herself in the playroom.)
Nick: Lily! I found The Runaway Pumpkin Book! Do you want me to read it to you?
Lily: No! I's reading!
Nick: I'll read The Runaway Pumpkin to you!
Lily: NOOOOO!
Nick: Here, I'll read it with you. Look.
Lily: No! NOO! I reading! And then he said no more five and then fifteen.

Nick then proceeded to read The Runaway Pumpkin as loud as he could in order to drown out Lily. Lily then "read" her book as loud as she could in an effort to drown him out.

My kids. The rebels.

After weeks of preparing to indulge in creamy goodness, Fettisdagen (Fat Tuesday) has come and gone. My celebratory semlor (bun filled with marcipan and whipped cream) has also come and gone. I ate it tonight.

I learned something when I dug into my semlor:
A rose by any other name may smell as sweet but whipped cream by the same name does not.

In Sweden, whipped cream is actually, well, cream that is whipped. In Canada, whipped cream is usually chock full of sugar. The Swedish whipped cream was a bit of a shock to my Canadian tastebuds.

So, you know that trait of preschoolers where they like to do the same thing over and over and over again? Yeah, Lily is thoroughly entrenched in that whole thing. Every time it's TV time she chooses Toopy and Binoo. She plays with the same baby ("I want my baby Rory!") every single day despite owning about 30 baby dolls.

The most grating of all, though, is her insistence for Veggie Tales music in the car. Now I have nothing at all against Veggie Tales themselves. Bob is amusing. Larry makes me laugh. There's nothing like the French Peas to set our whole family giggling. But the combination of a two-year-old wanting the same music during every drive and a car with speakers in the front only is enough to drive me batty.

At first we listened to Veggie Tales Worship Songs.
Although the song "Come, now is the time to worship" weirds Liam out a bit, the cd as a whole is pretty fun. The story is that there's a kid's choir whose rehearsal director can't make it for practice to Bob the tomato and Larry the cucumber step in. Larry makes a joke about how hard it is to get out of his seat belt without any hands, Bob teaches some Bible verses, and special guest Matt Redman sings a couple of songs with the kids.

By November, though, we were all (except for Lily) getting more than a little bit tired of hearing the same twelve songs over and over. While I was Christmas shopping at Blessings, I came across a Boyz In the Sink cd.

I was so excited! Now, the Boyz did a song on the Worship Songs cd, but we all thought it was a one-time deal. We had no idea that an entire band of veggies had been created on the side!

Equal to my excitement over a newly-discovered veggie band was my excitement over the prospect of having something NEW to listen to in the car. Eleven new songs? Well, technically six of them are remakes of original Veggie Tales songs, but they're pretty fantastic remakes that sound very little like the originals, none of which are on the other cd we own. The cheeseburger song is even a completely different story line so I'm not sure it can technically be considered a remake.

As I've listened to the Boyz cd fifteen thousand times, I've been struck by what a good cd it is. I will admit that I'd often like to turn it off (especially when Lily starts with the "I can't hear it. Turn it louder!") but it's not because the music is bad in a "If I have to listen to Barney laugh one more time I'm going to kill a small animal" kind of way.

I still haven't chosen my favorite, though Funky Polka is pretty darned fantastic. With Larry playing the tuba, some accordion music, and Junior squeaking out his lines, the song makes me laugh a lot. The original Moo Shoo song has always been a big hit in our house and the remake with Apollo Gourd joining in is equally as fun.

Lily's favorite, by far, has got to be the Belly Button song. With guest star Kirk Franklin, the song stops in the middle with the veggies singing "Belly button. Uh uh.". When Lily sings along it comes out as "B-button. Uh uh." Very very cute.

I'm really glad we've found some music that the whole family can enjoy, even if Lily enjoys it to an insane degree. But I guess, really, isn't that what being a two-year-old is all about?

With the Alberta election looming and health care as one of the hot topics (as usual), I thought I would offer a few words about a recent experience with the Swedish health care system.

I've been eager to both avoid and check out the system. I had the opportunity to do both when a friend of mine took ill (and, as not to ruin the mood of the story, quickly recovered to 100 per cent).

One night last week, I found myself on a journey to a Swedish emergency room. I braced myself for a long night in a crowded waiting room full of unhealthy and (sigh) cranky people.

Now I'm not sure if I arrived at the hospital on a particularly slow night or if Swedish healthcare really is absolutely fantastic. In any case, my friend received A++ care.

There were two things that really surprised me at the hospital. First, the waiting period was completely reasonable. My friend saw a nurse within 30 minutes of entering the emergency room and a doctor within three hours. Second, nobody seemed rushed or stressed. Everyone, including the administrative staff, porters, nurses and doctors, were exteremly attentive and always willing to share a story or a laugh.

Now I don't actually have any insight into the Swedish health care system or the hospital staffing situation. The mere fact of the matter is that I was thrilled.

There are people out there reviewing hotels, movies and restuarants all the time. I want to throw my 5-star rating behind the Västerås Hospital. Thanks for going above and beyond!

All of the Swedish newspapers are filled with stories about this most peculiar winter. The question on everyone's mind is: Can fall go straight into spring?

It would appear so.

While I haven't heard about too many people suffering from the warm winter temperatures, green grass and dry roads, the same can't be said for some of Sweden's critters.

People living in southern Sweden are being asked by animal welfare agencies to catch and care for wild hedgehogs. Hedgehogs, accustomed to awakening from their winter slumber in early April, are rolling out of bed more than a month early and finding food in short supply. At this point, the worms and insects haven't responded as quickly to the unusually high temperatures and many hedgehogs are facing death by starvation.

Swedish regulations allow members of the public to keep wild animals indoors for a maximum of two days.

Spring is in the air. We're just a couple of weeks past our latest deep-freeze and already the snow is melting and the sun is making me think of my garden. Apparently the kids are thinking the same thing since this is what I found in my back yard yesterday morning.
Yup. They're outside in their jammies.

They went out while I wasn't looking. I was actually quite impressed that they lasted so long without coats or even socks. Lily did have an incident with some snow in her boots (that's what happens when you wear pretty boots instead of winter boots!) but she recovered fairly quickly.


This afternoon we got home from buying groceries and the sun out on the deck was very inviting. Nick took the little table and the chairs out while I made lunch. We ate sandwiches and strawberries in the sun.
Before long, the kids were down on the patio doing what kids to best: splashing in puddles!
Lily is getting quite good at splashing and was soon soaked from head to toe. Since she hadn't quite had her fill yet, she came inside and got dressed in something a little more appropriate for the activity.

I'm starting to feel like spring might actually be in sight. February, my least favorite month of the year by far, is almost over. Even though March is often far from balmy around here, it's somehow so much more bearable than even the last few days of February.

vlad.dudas recorded a Dogsledding activity starting at 2/16/08 9:18 AM near Shere, Province of British Columbia, Canada. The activity was a Special Event event in which vlad.dudas went a distance of 15.22 miles and took 4 hours, 21 minutes, and 11 seconds to complete.

View at MotionBased
View at Google: Maps Earth

Well, how about the man that started in the tree tops and hit the moon?