He knows that if he wants to get online he has to double-click on the Firefox icon and then on the Kidzui icon:

He asked me if I could come to his school and show people how I “fix computers”.

I started off by asking if anyone recognized the logo on the back of my shirt.  Even to a room full of 5 year olds, the Firefox logo was instantly recognizable – there wasn’t anyone who didn’t know what it was.  I talked briefly about what Mozilla did (”we make a web browser”) and that I help fix computers when they break.  

I thought about showing them Mitchell’s Mozilla Tree but probably couldn’t have done as well as Mitchell could have! 

Then I pulled out my laptop and showed them Firefox (Minefield really).  I was in the middle of showing them Firefox and how what my son does when he wants to get on the Internet… and Minefield crashed.  Which was a great segue into “lets go look at these computers I brought and how I fix them!”

I brought three old Celeron “servers” (you can hardly call a Celeron a server) with lids off and we spent the next 20 minutes taking apart the machines.  We took out the computer’s brain and the fan to keep it cool (they didn’t believe me that you could cook food on the CPU when the computer was “thinking hard”).  We took out the two memory sticks and the hard drive and the IDE cable.  

These are things most parents in their right mind wouldn’t do with their home computer and these kids really enjoyed physically touching these parts and asking questions.

Mary Colvig helped me gather up a bunch of Firefox bags and my two kids and I had stuffed stickers into each one. Kids went crazy over the Foxkeh stickers and there was a collective “awwww!” when I showed them the “don’t hurt the web” stickers!

Anyways, good times. I enjoyed talking about Mozilla in a very different setting than I’m used to.

I’m going to go work on my new role in community outreach now…

1. If I had to do it all over again, I’d do something around sociology.  I’m often fascinated by human interactions and behavior.  I remember taking the bus in college and wearing earphones but having my Walkman (link for those too young to follow) off to watch & listen to others on the bus.
2. History.  Hated this in high school, didn’t bother with it in college.  Now I’m fascinated with history, mostly Spanish California, early American history and some pre-history (like “Guns, Germs & Steel“). I tend to lose interest right around WWII.
3. Both my kids, but my son in particular, love watching anything to do with science on TV with me.  This includes anything from Discovery Channel, Animal Planet or even History Channel.  And those are always good times.
4. I did my first double century (200 mile bike ride) two years ago and haven’t done much riding since.  I have a goal of doing the Furnace Creek 508 before I’m 40 so I better get training.
5. I was born in Denver and moved to Orange, CA until third grade when we moved to Hoffman Estates, IL (Chicagoland).  I moved out on my own and back to California (Bay Area) in January of 2006.  I’ve lived in Mountain View, Morgan Hill and Dublin, CA.  I relocated for work to Southern California in 1999 (also in January) and lived in Costa Mesa, Dana Point, Laguna Niguel and Aliso Viejo before moving back to the Bay Area in 2006 (this time not in January).  Southern California is definitely the best.
6. Moving out of the house and 2200 miles away was one of the hardest thing I’ve done in my life.  It was weird to know that no matter what, things would never be the same.  My youngest brother was only five and I don’t know him nearly as much as I wish I did.
7. My fondest memory of SoCal while growing up was the Angles Stadium.  It wasn’t that far from where we lived and I could always see the big A on the other side of the freeway.
8. Met my wife in Irvine.  We worked at the same ISP – she was in sales and I was a Solaris admin learning to be a network engineer.  As hard as moving away from Illinois was, this alone made it worth it.
9. I’m part Persian (by marriage).  This of course means I’m no stranger to large family gatherings or being the only one in the room who hasn’t a clue what the conversation is about (I don’t grok Persian).  Means I’ve also learned the proper way to make hot tea (and have modified that to make my own iced tea).
10. Speaking of Persian, my two favorite dishes I don’t get often enough are Shirin Polo and Gheimeh.  But please keep anything with rose water away from me.

I bought a new cooktop and oven.  The gas cooktop has a pressure regulator that sticks out just enough that I can’t slide the oven in under it.  I’m not sure if it’s possible/safe to get a 90 degree elbow joint, run that from the cooktop to a 48″ flexible gas pipe and plug the regulator into that followed by another 48″ flexible pipe to the house gas line.  Or alternatively, screw the regulator directly onto the gas line.

So,

Stove - 90 degree - 48" - regulator - 48" - gas main

or,

Stove - 90 degree - 48" - regulator - gas main

Not sure about this and since Natural Gas isn’t something I want to just play with I’m hoping to find the right way to do this.

Help.

You could argue I could have waited a couple more days but shaving at this scale is best done at home and not in a hotel!  Too bad too because it was just starting to get comfortable.

Here’s to next year!

Flash forward 30 some years and I find I’m doing the same with my two children and weirdly enough on Apple computers (first computer I owned was  Commdore 64 followed by an Amiga and then some Gateway running Windows in 1995 – only recently went back to Apple).  My son spends his time in KidZui (which to him is the same as pbskids.org) and my daugther does drawing with Tux Paint (on an 8 year-old Powerbook, but she doesn’t seem to notice or care).

My son recently asked me if he could have my black MacBook when he is older.  I laughed, sure, but I haven’t any idea what computers will look like 30 years from now!

CA Academy of Sciences, Living Roof

This is far from my normal Mozilla related posts but worthwhile enough that I feel like sharing it.

I took my two children to the California Academy of Sciences this weekend.  I wasn’t sure what to expect but since it’s new (or newly opened) and I enjoy these types out outings with my children, this become our weekend activity.

It’s a combination aquarium (which saves me a trip to Monterey), natural history museum, planetarium, and rain forest.  The rain forest is enclosed in a 4-story glass-like globe with a winding staircase that, I think, lead to the roof top. The line was too long to bother going in with two children who clearly wanted to run around and explore instead.  There was also a great outdoor area on the west side of the building where the kids had fun running around while having snacks.

One of the places I’ve missed from Chicago was the Field Museum. The natural history part wasn’t anything as large as Chicago’s but was good enough to make me want to go back.

The absolute best, however, was when at bed time when my five-year old son told me that today was the best day ever.  So thanks, Academy.  You’ll be getting my membership application soon.

Things learned:

1. Buy tickets beforehand.  The lines were really long and the Planetarium was sold out by the time we got there.
2. Let the kids loose and let them tell you where to go and what to look at.  Turns out they know how to explore best.
3. Get a membership.
4. Museum has guest WiFi.

“that people would keep in their house, and it would measure energy consumption in the home, so how much electricy you’re using.”

Unfortunately it doens’t actually do that (sort of).  I think she meant the PG&E Energy Orb which does, sort of (an Ambient Orb can subscribe to a PG&E demand-response channels).  It gets wireless data from PG&E and glows in response to PG&E’s system-wide energy availability but it doesn’t tell me anything about my home usage.

I really want Ambient’s EnergyJoule but I don’t live in NYC.  Or maybe something like the DYI Kyoto but I don’t like in the UK and can’t tell if that matters really.

I can’t get Al Gore’s call to “make the invisible visible” out of my consciousness and really want something like this for my house.  Any pointers?

ps.  Mr. Gore, can you stop by Mozilla next time you’re in Mountain View or Cupertino?  We’re across the street from Google.  Thanks!