BilikFamily.com

Bluetooth - I remember years ago in our former Nashua home, Michelle hated our electric stove/range. She preferred cooking with gas. While it's true that it's easier to get a very controllable heat source with electric, she preferred the immediate visual feedback you get with gas. Add to that the fact the NH has some of the highest electric rates in the US, and a gas stove is attractive. Alas, we were not about to throw away a perfectly good electric stove just to have a gas stove.

About a year before we moved out, the main element in the oven burned out. I researched into it and replacing it could be a hundred or two. I considered that the nearest opportunity we would get to replace the stove with gas. Beyond this incident, electric stoves don't have a lot that will break. They're basically big resistive heat sources. So we broke down and had a gas stove installed in its place.

A few months ago, Apple announced that they were introducing a new wireless keyboard and mouse based on Bluetooth (see also Apple's spin on Bluetooth). It had some appeal to me because we are always tucking away the iMac's keyboard and mouse to keep it out of Timothy's grabby little hands. Ideally I'd like to put it way up on the shelf of our computer desk. There have been times when we've found the computer desk with the mouse and keyboard hanging by their USB cables. Alas, the new Apple wireless keyboard and mouse were too expensive to buy just to be wireless.

Over the past week Michelle called a few times saying that the computer had locked up. I had presumed that it was an old piece of software that was buggy. It seems though that the reason the cursor 'froze' was that the mouse was acting up. Again it was something that could have been replaced with a decent $30 mouse. But considering how much we've been finagling to keep the keyboard and mouse away from Timothy, I splurged and replaced both with the new Apple Bluetooth keyboard and mouse.

Years ago I went to Cambridge, UK to spend a week learning Bluetooth. Shortly thereafter it seemed like it was going nowhere. Lately the technology is finally starting to get some traction in cell phones, PDA, headsets and some computers. The Bluetooth standard is enormously complicated for what it is trying to do. I mean, the specification is like a Bible in size. No spec should be so large that one person can't grasp it all. A wireless protocol that is under one megabit per second should not be rocket science. And yet, many struggled to bring products to market. Even though I got the keyboard and mouse set up relatively quickly, the keyboard, mouse, and iMac's Bluetooth adaptor each needed a firmware update to improve their reliability. It's a telling statement about Bluetooth's stability and interoperability even these many years later.

One nice feature was that it "plays nice" with our home's network -- based on IEEE 802.11b standard for wireless networking. Years ago there was some fear regarding how Bluetooth and 802.11 might interfere with each other because they both occupy the 2.4GHz portion of the radio spectrum. Luckily they both employ frequency hopping technologies that improve reliability in the presence of a high noise environment.

Trucks - Just as Michelle was about to take the kids to the YMCA this afternoon, she let the kids run outside for a short spell to get some fresh air before packing them in the van. In that short interval, Michael lost his 'precious' -- his battery powered train. He didn't whine too much at the time but later as we returned from the Y, he really started to get irritable. He must have asked 100 times where his train was. It didn't matter how many times we answered "we don't know. Where do you put it, Michael?".

So in true experienced mommy style, Michelle went with plan B: distraction. She found two excess trucks leftover from Christmas that she was saving for another occasion: one a dump truck, the other a bull dozer. Both twins were immediately enamored with their new trucks and Michael soon forgot about his train. It's a good thing, too, because we were both losing our minds listening to him whine. In true new toy style, the boys are both fast asleep in their beds, holding their trucks by their sides.

I'd write more, but my eyes are getting heavy. I have to wrap things up for now. Tomorrow we celebrate Abby's birthday. I'm sure there'll be more to cover then...