Author: Sandy McFadden

Basketball Withdraw

When we were getting ready for this trip Noah badly wanted for us to pack a basketball so he could use it and at least dribble around at times. We were pretty tight for space and there wouldn’t really be any spot to use it while we were staying in hotels and other rentals so we left them home. Having a break would probably be good too right?

At least two of the hotels we stayed at ended up having little half courts setup and the rental we’ve been staying in this week has a net setup almost right outside our door. He used these as opportunities to break out the old “I told you so”, but really it was too hot to play anyway.

On a couple of occasions so far we’ve let the kids play at arcades and both times Noah ended up right at the basketball free throw games for a lot of the time. The first arcade was one where you could win tickets to trade in for cheap toys so he used them to pick up a tiny little net and ball he could play with in the house.

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At SeaWorld there was one of the games you could pay to play for a chance to win prizes based on the number of shots you made. It wasn’t open which was the only reason he didn’t end up sinking a bunch of his own money into trying to win a Raptors flag there.

Tonight is our last night at the rental here in Florida so after we made it home we let the kids go for a swim. There were three teenage boys who had a mini basketball and were throwing it around the pool with each other. They could tell Noah wanted to play after a while and they let him join them just like he was a long friend. Except it was even better. They talked to him and asked him questions like his name, how old he is, if he played basketball normally, and built up his confidence by letting him know he had skills. Before long he was jumping off the side into the pool and throwing it while in the air, and they were throwing him passes he could catch mid air as well.

When it was time for us to leave they high five’d him and said good by. I thanked them for including Noah and told them he was missing basketball this trip. Right away one of the boys yelled to the other who had the ball telling them to give it to Noah so he could take it with him. We thanked them but declined so they could keep playing, and we have lots of basketballs at home.

There have been times on this trip already where I was frustrated with groups of teenagers who couldn’t seem to keep their language or volume at a PG level in public spaces with kids around, so it was extra nice to see these boys not only be respectful that way, but also be kind enough to include a much younger boy. I remember what it was like to have older kids include me in things when I was little, always made me feel good and a bit more grown up. Watching the smile on Noah’s face and the excitement when we got back and he told Jen the story was heart warming. Thank you boys!

Week of Theme Parks

Week of Theme Parks

At the beginning of this week I was contemplating about just how much I going to regret all the money we spent on this week of our trip. We had ambitious days planned to take in five Orlando Theme Parks in four days. The heat was already bothering me, and I’ve not typically been a huge ride person. Not enjoying heights makes thrill rides less appealing.

We started on Monday by hitting up Universal and trying to fit in two of their parks, Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure. Universal is super cheeky and taking advantage of Harry Potter fans like Ella and the Fisher family who we were spending the week with. They split up Harry Potter across the two different parks so that in order to see it all you had to pay for both. The whole experience though is very impressive. Exploring Diagon Alley, picking out a wand and using it to cast spells around, then hopping the Hogwart Express to Hogsmeade. The line for the Escape from Gringotts was long but we waited to do it. By the time we made it to the ride Noah decided it was going to be too much so him and I opted out.

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We ran into issues here as there was an issue with some electricity in Hogsmeade so rides shut down. We did use that time to go play in Seuss Landing which didn’t have long lines, but cute rides. It was wonderfully colourful and a fun setup. The Hulk roller coaster had a very long wait but some of our group really wanted to go so they waited. It had weather delays on top of the already long wait and there just didn’t seem like great places to wait for them and avoid the heat. We hung out in an arcade for a bit to kill some time and spend money 🙂 By this point I was really second guessing our decision for the week.

We finally did make it on The Forbidden Ride and it was a very cool experience, just not sure it was worth the wait.

Thankfully the next few days changed my mind and I’m a convert to these theme parks. we went to SeaWorld next and had a much different experience. We never waited really long for any rides and we were able to do the Manta, Kraken, and Mako, which were all fun roller coasters. The Antartica penguin ride was a great way to cool down, there were aquariums we could jump into between rides, and the shows were fantastic. We left for a bit to come back to the condo for something to eat, but then went back for a night Orca show, and laser and fireworks display. It ended the day perfectly.

We ended our parks with Disney. We visited both Magical Kingdom and Animal Kingdom. These were once again much better experiences than Universal, the FastPass option made things so much better. There was something just about seeing Cinderella’s castle that made things. It brought me back to our childhood and watching Sunday night Disney movie and seeing the castle in the theme with the fireworks and Tinker Bell. Back then I don’t even remember thinking that going to Disney and seeing it in person would ever be something I could really do. It just seemed so out of reach. Now here I am with my family and friends walking down Main Street USA towards the castle and staying all day until the end of the light and fireworks show.

It was a long day at Magical Kingdom but worth it. The rides were fun and enjoyed by everyone, the entertainment and shows were fun, and the parade down Main Street was very cool.

Today we went to Animal Kingdom and this was probably one of my favourites. There was so much to see even when not on rides. The Avatar ride was so well done. Soaring around Pandora on the back of a Banshee was a worth the bit of a wait we had. The shows we were able to see here were probably my favourite parts though. The Lion King and the Nemo Musical were high quality performances.

One of the fun memories that will stick with me longer than my toes were wrinkled was the Kali River Rapids ride. They say you’ll get wet or maybe soaked, we were certainly the later. Not from the ride, but because just after the ride started the sky opened up and dumped buckets of water on us. Very quickly I dove into the backpack to get ponchos by the time I had one out and opened it was already too late, we were dripping from the rain. Noah held the one I managed to get out of the package over his head, but the rest of us didn’t bother.

So despite the rocky start this has been such a fun week and I’m willing to come back again sometime in the future and maybe try out some of the other parks and revisit some of the favourites from this trip.

A trip almost 15 years in the making

A trip almost 15 years in the making

Coming up on 15 years ago Jen and I for completely random reasons ended up choosing New Orleans for our wedding destination. Neither of us had a burning desire to get married in New Orleans or even visit but I’m ever so glad we did.

We were planning our wedding and we knew we wanted to keep it simple. Neither of us had any desire for a big wedding. One of Jen’s longtime friends had been working on cruise ships and she offered us a free cruise as a wedding present for when we did get married, we just had to pay for the travel to and from the port city. We briefly thought about getting married on one of the stops the cruise made, or even on the boat itself. After pricing these options out they still seemed pretty expensive. Luckily one of the port options for the cruise we were taking was New Orleans.

Jen did a bunch of research and she found the perfect idea for our wedding. Simple, small, and cheap. We were married on a river paddlewheel boat called the Creole Queen on the Mississippi River. The Captain of the boat married us, the wedding planner and the photographer were our witnesses, and that was it. After the ceremony, we took a cruise down the river on their historical tour. Even if nothing else this would have made New Orleans have a very special spot in my heart and our families start.

The day after we hopped on the cruise ship which docks just down the river a short ways from the Creole Queen and headed out on a week-long Caribbean cruise. The cruise was lovely, but this story is about New Orleans. After the cruise was over we stayed a week in the city. We had a hotel right in the French Quarter and we explored all over. Walking up and down the streets of the Quarter, into the Garden District, and riding the St. Charles Ave. street car.

We were pushing our finances pretty hard just to make it to the city, get married and stay afterward so there were a lot of things that I would have liked to do that we didn’t get a chance to. We had something like a budget of $30 per day for food, so we kept things pretty simple. But some of the local food I did get to have was amazing. The people in the city were all so friendly and helpful. Just the laid-back nature is really fun. No wonder they call it the Big Easy. Even though we didn’t pay to hear any live music, you could still hear it all over as we walked. The balconies and the buildings are so unique, unlike anything I had seen to that point.

Over the years we’ve talked about going back to New Orleans. Bring the kids and explore, show them where we got married and all the touristy things. There was always something that got in the way, usually the cost of taking a family of six on an adventure like that. This year though was finally the year. Everything aligned in our lives and we were able to plan the trip and have a week-long stay in New Orleans.

As I write this it’s our last day in the city, but we’ve had a wonderful visit. We’ve walked the French Quarter, rode the streetcar, gone to the Aquarium, taken a swamp tour, eaten pastries, I could eat the beignets every day, and one of the best things we were able to take the kids on the boat we were married on and the same historical cruise. It’s still a fun city to visit, and the kids enjoyed our stay as well. We again didn’t get to catch a music performance but there was music in the French Market while we were there.

We haven’t even left yet and we’re already talking about when we might be able to come back again. Maybe just Jen and I for our 20 year anniversary?

Meds Reminder

With my last post I talked about having to take eye drops every hour when I’m awake and then an ointment for while I’m asleep. I thought it would be hard remember to put them in and keep track if I had done it for this hour yet or not so I wanted to set reminders for myself.

On my phone I have almost all notifications turned off but on my Fitbit I do get notified of phone calls or text messages. Very rarely do I get either of those so typically when I do it is something important. Instead of setting an alarm for every hour of the day I thought I could finally try out the Twilio trial I had signed up for some time ago and send myself a text message every hour from 6am to 10pm. It was surprisingly easy to setup.

I’m most familiar with php and I’ve been really limiting my screen time so I can rest my eyes. I haven’t worn my glasses in days so it’s a strain to read without them and keeping them closed is when they feel the best.

Here’s the very simple setup I did, most all of it came directly from the Twilio documentation and all of it was done from the terminal.

  1. Signup for a Twilio account.
  2. Create a new site on an existing hosting account I have.
  3. Downloaded the Twilio PHP SDK using Composer.
    I’m not really familiar with Composer but these are the commands I used:

    • Download Composer 
      php -r "copy('https://getcomposer.org/installer', 'composer-setup.php');"
php -r "if (hash_file('SHA384', 'composer-setup.php') === '544e09ee996cdf60ece3804abc52599c22b1f40f4323403c44d44fdfdd586475ca9813a858088ffbc1f233e9b180f061') { echo 'Installer verified'; } else { echo 'Installer corrupt'; unlink('composer-setup.php'); } echo PHP_EOL;"
php composer-setup.php
php -r "unlink('composer-setup.php');"
    • Download the SDK 
      php composer.phar require twilio/sdk
  4. Create a new php file with the following code 
    <?php
require_once 'vendor/autoload.php';
$sid = "ACxxxxxx"; // Your Account SID from www.twilio.com/console
$token = "xxxxxx"; // Your Auth Token from www.twilio.com/console

$client = new Twilio\Rest\Client($sid, $token);
$message = $client->messages->create(
  '+15555555555', // Send text from this number
  array(
    'from' => '+15555555555', // From a valid Twilio number
    'body' => 'Take your drops'
  )
);

print $message->sid;
  5. Create a cronjob to run the hours you want and visit the webpage 
    0 6-22 * * * wget -q --read-timeout=0.0 --waitretry=5 --tries=5 --background http://{url for file created above}

Now I get a text ever hour on the hour from 6am to 10pm and my FitBit notifies me that it’s time to put in the drops.

Eye have had a tough week

For over a week now I’ve been suffering with an eye infection. Just before last weekend my right eye started itching and I could tell something wasn’t right. From there over the weekend it continued to get worse swollen and red. I’ve had eye infections a few times over the years and usually over the counter antibiotic drops have always cleared things up. This time it didn’t seem to help at all as things kept getting worse.

By midweek I decided it was time to see a doctor as I couldn’t deal it anymore. The past number of years my body hasn’t handled infections well so I take things more seriously now than I would have when I was younger. Back in 2011 we were on vacation in Ottawa and I ended up in the hospital having emergency surgery and I think that’s where it started. My bowels had torn and infection was all through my body, it took lots of antibiotics and healing. When I made it home I ended up back in the hospital with an infection. In April 2015 I ended up having an infection which turned into Cellulitis in my throat that landed me back in the hospital as well. Right on the heels that with all the antibiotics I had in my system I was struck with Clostridium difficile or C. Diff. which was a terrible experience.

With those rough experiences I wasn’t messing around so I went to the hospital to get my eye looked at. After a couple hours of waiting the doctor looked my eye over and with the poking and prodding I wanted to cry, but he told me it wasn’t infected and that it was likely the drops I was using which were causing irritation. He gave me some just lubricant drops to use and said things would clear up in a couple days. A couple days later things were getting worse not better. My eye was pretty much swollen shut, sore, red, and so painful. I went to a couple eye doctor offices trying to get in and see someone. Neither were able to help me as they didn’t have doctors in but one felt so bad they started calling around to their other offices in other towns and got me an appointment for the next day. Back in she was much more gentle than the previous doctor and she was confident that it was infected and prescribed a stronger wider antibiotic drop and an ointment for night.

For the first couple days I need to have the drops every hour I’m awake. Jen was supposed to fly out today to meet up with her team for the week. With my history she was worried about leaving and cancelled her trip. I feel terrible that she is missing out on this experience but after waking up again today with my eye swollen almost shut and a terrible night sleep, I’m glad I’m not responsible for the kids and house by myself. The love and support of my family, friends, and colleagues at work, never cease to amaze me.

I won’t gross anyone out with pictures but I’m very hopeful that the combination of medication I have now will clear things up and I can get back to myself.

Childhood Excitement

Childhood Excitement

Last night I had a bit of a strange dream. In it, I was a young child again, probably about Noah’s age 9-10, and I randomly ran into and was able to meet Fred VanVleet. For those of you who don’t know Fred VanVleet is a basketball player for the Toronto Raptors, and someone I enjoyed watching this season. This article tells more about him and shows why he has gained a lot of respect. What I remember from the dream most though is that feeling of pure childhood excitement I had when meeting him.

For many years I haven’t followed sports, but I did when I was younger. It was mostly hockey and baseball, but there was also wrestling, as in the WWE, or WWF at the time. Watching my favourite team win the Stanley Cup, or the World Series or favourite wrestler win the championship belt, would give me some of that excitement. Back then it was more about feeling part of something; I could join in with my friends at school and talk about the win, or call family from any who had taken me to see the Blue Jays play in real life when they won the World Series.

It’s different now though, I enjoy watching basketball, but I only started watching again because of Noah. His interest is growing, and he asks me all the time if there are any basketball games we can watch. Maybe it’s not so different after all. It’s still being part of something, but this time it’s a father and son bonding. It could be because the Raptors didn’t win, but the excitement I get now isn’t from watching them play, but from watching his enthusiasm while playing or watching.

The excitement of the kids is part of the reason we’ve tried to change things like Christmas and our vacations. Instead of buying things we try to make experiences that will bring out that excitement in the kids. Then I can drink it in and have it myself, and we will then share those memories for the rest of our lives. Our vacation this year is going to be the best one yet. While we have a lot of things we’re going to do and see, the big part is finally taking the whole family to Disney!

Proud Dad / Coach

Proud Dad / Coach

This weekend has caused me to fill with pride, not because anything I’ve done, but because the effort and growth Noah and his whole basketball team has made this year.

Last year I had told the coach of the Little Dunkers group Noah was in that I’d be happy to help out with anything I could. At the beginning of this year in the Under 10 group he asked me if I was still interested and that led me to be sort of an assistant coach to the team. Basketball is the sport I know the most about, because I played a lot of in my younger years, but I was never coached and have no experience being a sports coach. Thankfully the other coaches are fantastic so I get to learn from them and basically repeat everything they say while helping the kids in practise. Honestly I’ve probably learned as much as the kids have over the year.

We technically finished our season a while back but didn’t want to quite yet. We asked some of the kids from our team and another local team if they wanted to keep going and so made up a new team. We’ve been practising hard usually a couple times a week and they are keen to learn and push themselves. It’s inspiring to see the kids put in the work, get noticeably better, build trust with each other, and really become a team.

At the beginning of the year Noah was timid, would pull up early when dribbling down the court, and just hold back in general. Throughout the year he’s become a good defensive player, he’d stick to players and fight for rebounds. This weekend he took it further, he was diving for loose balls and driving to the net. Watching Noah’s confidence grow makes me so happy.

This weekend we played in a small tournament we were invited to. We played two games on Saturday where we won the first game and then lost the second by one point in a very hard fought battle against a strong team. This morning we won again which took us to the final game against the team we lost to yesterday. Once again it was a hard fought game that came down to us winning by just a couple points. You can see from the players on the bench in the background while Noah was taking this foul shot in some of the last seconds of the game how invested they all were. Everyone on their feet as each point here made a difference. I don’t have many fingernails left today.

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We still have a couple tournaments we’re going to play in and I can’t wait to this group get even better. Here’s a little video that we put together as part of a contest to see more of this team.

Dial-up Internet

Dial-up Internet

Sometimes I miss the beautiful singing of dial-up modems communicating with each other and negotiating the terms of their courtship.

A brief thread in Slack at work had us joking about old technology, even though some of it isn’t all that old, but it had me try to be poetic about the days of dial-up internet. The sound really does hold some nostalgia for me. I remember the first time I heard a modem dial-up and connect with another computer on the other end. At that point, I didn’t understand what was going on and how it was working, but listening and then seeing information slowly appear on the screen from out on the Internet was special.

My career in support and technology started by providing support over the phone for an Internet Service Provider. People would call us up when they were having problems dialing up and connecting. Init strings, disabling call waiting, removing those splitters and dollar store phone cord, and uninstall and reinstall dial-up networking, were all familiar things we’d do so people could hear that sound.

The Internet has changed so much since then but people are still using it to connect, and I’m still earning my living by helping them to do it. It’s just a little less noisy.

That’s not your email

That’s not your email

Over the years I’ve gotten a lot of email that is meant for someone else. The majority of the time it seems it’s people who don’t seem to know their own address.

I signed up for Gmail near when it first came out, it was still invite only. Though I wasn’t lucky enough to know anyone with invites, so I bought one off eBay for something like $10. Money well spent. As I signed up early I was able to get a fairly short address and it seems to be a common one people think is theirs.

I can’t seem to remember all different things I’ve ended up having access to by people using my email but here are a few: Someones dating site profile, a Barnes & Noble account, peoples vacation pictures, someones home owners association, job reference requests, someones cell phone account, an invitation to join a soccer team, and numerous personal notes meant for family members or friends. That’s not all of them but some of the ones that come to mind. Recently I went through a stretch where someone used my email as their own to sign up for a bunch of author’s newsletters that I’ve had to unsubscribe from.

This just doesn’t happen to me, email is broken. It’s especially bad when you can sign up for services without verifying your email. My colleague Davide thought of a humorous way to highlight what’s wrong, A diary of broken emails. A little while ago I shared a few of emails I’ve recently unwillingly received and they’re now published on the site.

Does this happen you you? Share your examples as well.

This guy wouldn’t let the cold stop him

This guy wouldn’t let the cold stop him

Yesterday I didn’t move very much. Right up until about 9pm my Fitbit was only showing about 1200 steps, that’s pretty lazy. Earlier in the day when it was even lower than that I was chatting with my team about how I should go out for a walk but that I was being a wimp about the cold. Trying to assure them that I wasn’t always so lazy, and afraid of the weather, I shared this picture from a few years ago when the cold didn’t stop me and I’d go out running in about anything.

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This morning my teammate Guga shared this, I think he was trying to make me feel better about being such a baby about going out in the cold that he tried to make me look like a badass. Even funnier this was the only first person shooter style game I ever played any amount of, I was terrible at it.

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