you say it's your birthday!

  • Jul. 10th, 2009 at 12:18 PM
Micah Gideon Modell
Today Mattie is a year old! She is so big already — pretty crazy, really. She doesn't seem to notice anything new and is playing it real cool. Misun reports that she's just going ahead and eating and playing like she normally does. No fanfare or anything. She seemed entirely unphased by our round of Happy Birthday! but that could have been because it was a bit early since I had to leave for work before 12.50pm (when she was actually born).

I can't wait to get back home to them!

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visiting daddy

  • Jul. 9th, 2009 at 6:19 PM
Micah Gideon Modell
Misun surprised me today by bringing Mattie to work! It was so nice to have a little see daddy's office day! They came, played around in the office and then went over to Battery Park where I met them after work.

At work today I played around with xsl for the first time and it's kinda' fun and mostly just like every other language. The templating functionality is pretty easy to work with and it enabled me to put together some nice tools pretty quickly and easily. I haven't yet found a good way to debug it though and that's a bit annoying, but there've got to be tools out there. I just have to find them.

It's nice to be doing development again, and it's UI work which has always been my favourite.

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she passed!

  • Jul. 8th, 2009 at 3:36 PM
Micah Gideon Modell
Yay! Misun now has her drivers license and is allowed to drive out on the open road! 

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Jul. 8th, 2009

  • 10:29 AM
Micah Gideon Modell
I can't believe I forgot to mention that Misun's brother, 헌령 (Heon-lyeong) got married this past weekend. Unfortunately, we couldn't be there and that really bummed us out — naturally, Misun more than me. Our family told us that 헌령 and 진숙 (Jin-sook), his bride, looked beautiful (although that's not any sort of a stretch) and that the event was fantastic. I guess these are the hidden costs of marrying a foreigner, eh? You often miss out on the major events on one side of the family or other. However, on the plus side, we both want to be at all of these events and get along well with most, if not all, of our family. I definitely mark that in the positive column.

Misun went to mom's last night and stayed there so she could take her road test early this morning. It was at 10am and she should be finished by now, I imagine. On the other hand, these things probably never run on time, so she's more likely still sitting and waiting. She's definitely ready, but I'm nervous just the same…

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I think it's sold

  • Jul. 7th, 2009 at 10:53 PM
Micah Gideon Modell
It appears that we have sold our place here and that we are in contract on a place in Bloomington, but next year is going to be quite difficult for us, I think. The next few months will get pretty tight, I think, but somehow we'll make it through. We had to scale back our new home wish list, but I actually think I'm happier with the place we've settled on than on the one we were originally eyeing. Maybe I'm just trying to convince myself, but either way, it is what it is. I think our closing date will be Monday, August 17 and therefore it seems that I've got just over a month left before we move. Yay!

Indiana will be quite a change from Manhattan, but we're looking forward to it. Mattie will have all kinds of space to run around and I imagine my schedule will be quite different from what it's been. I am a bit nervous about the classes ahead of me next year — are they going to drive me crazy? Am I going to be tearing my hair out to complete all my assignments? Are PhD classes tougher than Masters classes? What are the attitudes like over at Indiana University? Will they like me? I'll manage to get through it all somehow…

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she's steppin' out!

  • Jul. 6th, 2009 at 10:58 AM
Micah Gideon Modell
Today at breakfast, Misun and I saw Manhattan walk for the first time! Yay! I've had some clear indications that this was not actually the first time she walked, just the first time we saw her do it. In fact, her grandmother says she saw her take four unassisted steps on her balcony, but since neither Misun nor I were there, we decided it didn't really happen.

This morning happened.

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sourceforge projects never die

  • Jul. 2nd, 2009 at 10:03 AM
Micah Gideon Modell
This morning I got an email from someone wanting to contribute to the JavaBeanTester project I nominally maintain over at SourceForge.net. I haven't touched it in ages and figured that no one else did either. The code in it currently blows up at a certain point, I've not yet got past the problem and no one's been able to help me do so. Anyway, this person indicates that they have extensions they'd like to add — how exciting! I wonder what they are.

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improving the technology

  • Jul. 1st, 2009 at 11:53 AM
Micah Gideon Modell
Greg pointed me towards this article on Finding the IT Innovator Within and I wonder if that refers to me? I'd have to say that I am a pain in the neck to our IT department as I send off requests to them for every issue I run across — no matter how small. Sure, I would probably be described as a bit of a Power User, many of the issues may be minor and I may even be able to work around most of them, but if I don't report them, they will never get fixed, will they? Sure, I push the systems and use features that most others probably do not, but they still need to work, no?

I think the fact that I'm finished with my Masters hasn't quite sunk in yet. I keep feeling like there's something more I should be doing. My advisor, Dr. Smith, sent me an email recommending that I enjoy the summer and prepare for next year now. I know I need to take that advise, but it's not exactly easy to do so. I've had this incomplete Masters degree hanging over me for so long…

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I'm done!

  • Jun. 30th, 2009 at 11:22 AM
Micah Gideon Modell
You may now call me: Master Modell.

My portfolio was approved yesterday and that means I've finally finished up my Masters! At long last (after four years), I have finally finished it! Yay! I don't think it's quite set in yet, but I'm pretty sure I'm very excited. Now we just have to sell our house and move to Indiana...

It seems that both Mattie and I survived our time together without Misun. Having my sister and her kids here to help really saved us. Mattie has now managed to get over to every playground in the area a few times and she loves them! I was really impressed by how fearless she seems to be. She climbs all up and down those playgrounds and she's got pretty sure footing, too. Also, she's increasingly adventurous all the time. She's so much fun to watch (except, of course, when she's tired and cranky).

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What would Misun do?

  • Jun. 28th, 2009 at 1:36 PM
Micah Gideon Modell
My wife is an awesome hostess! So much so that, with her gone in Indiana for two of the days that my sister is here with her family, I constantly find myself thinking: what would Misun do? We went out for bagels this morning and decided to eat in one of the parks, so I ran home to get silverware. When I got there, I thought: if my wife were here, surely she'd bring back more than just silverware, right? I brought over a bag full of stuff. Unfortunately, my wife also reorganises so regularly that I couldn't find all the things I thought she might bring, but such is life…

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s or z?

  • Jun. 26th, 2009 at 11:23 PM
Micah Gideon Modell
A few years ago, I came to prefer the spellings for English words that I found in British English books rather than those in US English books. I'm not sure why, but I found them to be more fun, so I started using them and I've been fairly consistent about it (except during a brief stint when my sister asked me to stop). I always thought that it was an older form of the words and therefore more correct, but I recently learned (from a Leonard Lopate Show podcast) that these are actually recent changes to the language based upon the French spellings. I'm not sure why they were adopted and I don't remember the other details, but apparently the spellings we use are the older. I guess I really wasn't looking for the more correct version as I often thought because I still prefer the British (French?) spellings.

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so that's who I am…

  • Jun. 25th, 2009 at 10:04 PM
Micah Gideon Modell
A few weeks ago, Misun asked me to switch things up a bit and grow a moustache for a change. I figured: you're my wife! and so I did it. When I'm growing facial hair, I tend to be as lazy as possible about it and therefore it tends to get a bit long and mangy. I only cut or trim it when it starts to annoy me.

The other night, while I was teaching in DC, I met up with my sister and her family for dinner. It was great to see them and, as I already mentioned, Bruce was late. When he did arrive though, he took one look at me and the growth on my upper lip and asked me if I had any good deals on the lot. I kept feeling like my reflection was familiar to me, but I'm a bit shocked that I didn't realise on my own that I looked like the quintessential used car salesman.

I trimmed it.

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now that that's finished…

  • Jun. 24th, 2009 at 10:24 PM
Micah Gideon Modell
Today was my last day of class. All in all, it went OK. The best part of it all though, was getting to see Hillary & Co. yesterday evening for dinner. It seems that Lindsey just got back from a weekend camp-type thing for Girl Scouts and Daria is keeping busy with her own camp-type activities. Bruce had an emergency of some sort at work and therefore Hillary was able to make fun of him for the fact that she arrived before he did — never mind that there was a legitimate reason entirely beyond his control. We've always gotta' have something to pick on each other for.

The class was OK. There were some hardware issues which caused inconsistencies from one machine to the next, but c'est la vie. We were using rented machines.

Today I've been spending much of my time working on my Master's Portfolio and I think it's going pretty well. I've only got one piece of content to finish up and then I get to play around with the formatting. I'm starting to get to know css fairly well and I rather like what it can do. The JavaScript is kinda' fun and neat, but right now I'm getting more into just playing with the styles and trying to get them consistent. We'll just see what happens, I guess.

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Even worse

  • Jun. 22nd, 2009 at 7:48 AM
Micah Gideon Modell

Is anyone else having problems with their upgraded iPhone?

I listen to a whole lot of podcasts and so I was quite happy about being able to double-time them. However, this means that the time gets way out of sync all the time. Forget entirely about using the scrubber to fast forward through parts of the podcast. Additionally, it keeps crashing out of the music app and to make it even more fun, this means you lose your place. Of course, the abysmal reponse time (no different using the hands-free button, it seems) is still a problem too (as I descibed yesterday).

On another note, i'm so glad I got in at 7.30am as requested. I still can't get in and my badge isn't active. Fortunately I keep getting to listen to the same podcasts over and over again.

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

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I shoulda' waited for 3.1…

  • Jun. 21st, 2009 at 1:00 PM
Micah Gideon Modell
Naturally, when Apple released their iPhone OS 3.0 update on Wednesday, I was right there to be one of the first to install it. However, that is definitely not the way I operate, is it? So, what's wrong with it?
  • I cannot seem to get it to stop syncing and showing all the calendars that I've got set up for use in iCal. I connected up to Google for CalDav and then subscribed to my TripIt feed, but I turned off MobileMe syncing and I also turned off all calendar syncing through iTunes. So why do I still get all my iCal calendars showing up anyway? I don't get it!
  • The music player has got abysmally slow. It seems to take about a thirty seconds to a minute just to start up and then when I go to play a podcast, it takes another thirty seconds to a minute to begin playing. It's awful. Plus, the response time while playing is pretty poor using the touchscreen interface (although, oddly, using the button wired into the hands-free headset is still pretty good).
I tried doing a full restore of the system and it got me nowhere. I just had to rebuild everything from scratch. I think I'm going to go back to the way it was before because this is no good either. I should have waited for 3.1.

I'm not thrilled. I've got to go teach this week. It was a surprise to me and I only found out on Friday afternoon. That means I get to get on a plane tonight. C'est la vie.

I'm still working on building out my Master's Portfolio and it seems I'm having a compatibility problem with Windows now. Grrrr…
  • Location:NYC
  • Mood: annoyed

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are we revolutionary?

  • Jun. 13th, 2009 at 2:47 PM
Micah Gideon Modell
As we watched Revolutionary Road today it definitely resonated with me — but not in the bad or depressing way. Misun and I both have dreams that we're pursuing and we're definitely not taking the easy and/or comfortable route. However, it is scary and I have days where I think maybe it'd be better to just stay where I am even if it's not exactly our dream. Ultimately though, I think that's just not us. I'm proud of it, but perhaps I shouldn't be because I don't always feel like there's very much choice involved. It's just what needs to be done.

Mattie is so active and is very obviously a happy girl. When I got home yesterday, I could see that she'd grown even just in the five days I was gone. Although I don't love going away on these business trips without my family, it definitely is nice to come back and get that sort of time-lapse feel. She seems to be so very close to walking at this point, too! I know that once she does I'll be wishing she wasn't yet, but right now I just can't wait.

So, I'm writing a bit more often right now because I've got a final section left in my Master's Portfolio and I'm just having a real rough time finishing it off. The words just sorta' aren't flowing and last time I had this problem, getting back to consistent journal writing helped, so here I am!

Oh yeah, and Misun and I picked up a copy of SuperBad in honour of our daughter, McLovin.

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done with class!

  • Jun. 11th, 2009 at 9:28 PM
Micah Gideon Modell
I finished up my class this afternoon and now I am getting ready to go home tomorrow! Interestingly, this week we've had a whole lot of activity on our house. Unfortunately, none of that has yet translated into a sale and the time for us to plan our move is drawing very near, but it is nice to know that there's interest.

I'm trying desperately to write the last portion of my Master's Portfolio now, but I asked that my progress be reviewed and the only response I've had so far is that it lacks pizazz. They were right, but it has completely killed what little momentum I had built up. Currently I'm basing it on my current situation and the amount of information I could write is sort of paralyzingly overwhelming. Perhaps I ought to switch to a hypothetical instead?

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thanks, Apple!

  • Jun. 9th, 2009 at 5:26 PM
Micah Gideon Modell
I must say I appreciate the fact that Apple is not releasing iPhone OS 3.0 until next week because I would be tearing my hair out if it were this week since I'm stuck in Westford, MA. I want to go home to hang out with my wife and daughter. Unfortunately, I'm here all week long…

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selling sucks

  • Jun. 1st, 2009 at 11:00 PM
Micah Gideon Modell
Selling a house (or trying to do so) has got to be one of the least fun things to do (or try to do). I guess it could be fun if we weren't under any sort of a time constraint and were just doing this to move into a larger place or something, but that's not the case for us: we're going to be living in Indiana in August whether or not we sell this place. It doesn't make things any better that this is the absolute worst time to sell. Is now really the best time to begin a PhD program? I've got a job where they need my skills, a home in a great city where everything is within walking distance — why again am I doing this?

Oh yeah, I'm dumb.

I still haven't even finished off my Master's Portfolio yet (although I will be getting a 4.0 — yay!) and I'm having trouble writing it because the words just aren't flowing. Additionally, my daughter and I are both sick (I'm pretty sure I gave it to her) and so we're both coughing mucousy messes all the time (pretty picture, eh?). Next week I'm flying out again to go teach a class in Boston and I don't relish the thought. I'm tired of all the travel and the frequent flyer miles aren't really worth it. I just want to sleep, but my stiff neck and other aches and pains seem to do a pretty good job of preventing that. Of course, when I do fall asleep, my daughter invariably decides to wake me up a short time later.

Things used to just work out — why did that stop?
  • Location:nyc
  • Mood: frustrated

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I knew it!

  • May. 21st, 2009 at 9:09 AM
Micah Gideon Modell
Read or listen to this article on The Secret Advantage of Being Short and then tell me you're not jealous!

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