Now everyone can read my work!

Until my latest job transition, I have always worked for companies that normal people have never heard of.

Ampex - Extremely important company in early television and audio recording. The older of you may have heard of them since they actually made high-end consumer and pro video and audio recorders and a variety of video and audio tape. Plotnik and his audio background has most definitely heard of them. He's probably sworn at them. Actually, Mrs Notthat has also heard of them since it was while working there that I met her.

Abekas - Founded by three guys who left Ampex. This was my first job where at least part of my duties involved writing technical manuals.

Accom - Founded by one of the guys who founded Abekas. This job involved no technical writing at all, but I got to watch a puppet scratch himself in a way that could not be broadcast in a children's TV show.

Spruce Technologies - My first job where technical writing was my primary job. They made DVD authoring software. Normal people did not know what "DVD authoring" was,  but they at least knew what a DVD was.

Apple - My current company. Pure technical writing, although that is getting polluted a bit with a variety of weird bit-head type things. Everyone has heard of them. Even Forrest Gump got rich from their stock. It's the first company I've worked for where tourist busses show up so people can get their pictures taken in front of the sign. Where people used to look at me when I walked out of the main building, wondering if I was somebody. (The answer: no. By the way, none of this happens anymore since we're now out in an obscure corner of Cupertino.) 

In any case, the group I work in has done something today that makes my technical writing accessible to normal people for the first time - they flipped the switch on a public website. (Previously, if you wanted to read my manual, you had to shell out $1000 for the software. Not even my mom would do that.)

Assuming that link works, you can click Final Cut Server Setup and Administration Guide. I wrote this. Click through it a bit. This is a section I'm not sure I really understand even now.

The first thing you'll notice is that this all looks marvelous. A lot of talented people spent a lot of time getting it that way.

The second thing you'll notice is that it is amazingly boring. I will never get famous from this thing (or any of the many others I've been involved in - more will start showing up at this site eventually - sorry).

So. Just like that I've got something I can point people to when they ask what I do. They'll say "Hmmmm" and "This looks nice." And then ask if I can get them a discount on an iPod.

That's it - move along... 

Darci Weird Hair Day

Darci's preschool had a weird hair day on Friday. This day must rank in the top 2 or 3 most fun for WHD (Weird Hair Darci) and WHM (Weird Hair Mom). 

WHM has an extensive minute-by-minute description of the process here. It does not appear that Riley got in the action as he did last year, although that might have come later. 

Or maybe he is more comfortable being NHR (Normal Hair Riley). If so, he is in a challenging family.

That's it - move along...

Friday Grab Bag

Just a couple of quick fun things.

First, everyone knows that Sarah Palin has a whimsical streak when it comes to naming her kids. Track, Bristol, Piper, Willow, and Trig.

This website allows you to enter your name and it generates what your name would have been if Ms. Palin had been your mom. Say hi to Missle Blunt Palin.

Second, regarding these kid's names, some wise guy in Gene Weingarten's chat this week pointed out that since the Secret Service is in the habit of assigning exactly those sorts of names to the people they are protecting, they will need to instead assign normal names to those kids, like Bill, Jim, and Susan.

And now for something completely different. Look at what this guy did with $10 worth of Sharpies in his basement. I cannot fathom having that kind of talent. Or nerve - I can't imagine Mrs Notthat sitting quietly by while I attacked the walls with a pen. Or that there would be any way to keep the grandkids from "helping."

That's it - move along...

29=33=Much Fun

We did it. We pulled off dinner for 29 that actually turned out to be 33. I cooked many pounds of chicken, beef, and pork on the grill and others brought the side dishes, desserts, and drinks. There were no serious injuries (the worst involved a corkscrew) and lots of fun.

Racso and Inafets (who I've written about before, although as per usual, these are not their real names) are moving to New York - something to do with the heartbreak of four losing Giants seasons in a row I think - and we all wanted to get together and say "Are you gonna eat that rib?"


Racso is the one standing in the dark shirt and Inafets is sitting in the gray sweater.

I don't have any pictures of the pot luck dishes or of the eating part of the evening - I was busy cooking and, ummm, tasting - but I do have other pictures.


We set up the ping pong and pool tables on the deck, which proved to be very popular. And a bit competitive with pool cues battling ping pong paddles.


No, the party did not require a security guy; that's just Iines (who babysits IDT - Idiot Dog Teddy - when we go on our trips) hoping that wearing this shirt would allow him to cut to the front of the line. (It didn't work.)

While some played games involving balls, others played Apples to Apples.


Grandpa Eiuol and granddaughter Nylecoj are letting their dinner settle. Nylecoj managed to pound down a couple of ribs and a bottle of something suspicious before taking a nap. Grandpa Eiuol was a bit jealous.


Llib and his mother-in-law Okakihc had to be put on timeout due to their agressiveness with their weapons (disguised as walking assist devices). Seriously, if they smile at you, be sure to guard your dessert.


IDT was the massive winner in the day's events. He did something I've never seen him do before - walk away from a rib bone. I have no idea how many bones he had (we managed to save a lot more for him for later), but it must have been quite a few for him to bark "Uncle."


Here is a picture of the first batch of meat.


I had two grills set up - one for cooking on and the other for keeping the cooked meat warm. The grills shared the deck with the ping pong and pool tables, which made for some interesting interaction that more than once resulted in BBQ sauce interrupting a game.


Yarm, The Boy, and Luar all are looking greatfully at the cooking grill which is empty except for some corn. Luar is standing in front of the grill used to keep the meat warm.


Those are the styrofoam trays that all the meat came on. Mrs Notthat will sneak into Palo Alto later and recycle them.

About the corkscrew-related injury, Nahtanoj (definitely not his real name) asked for a corkscrew to open a bottle of wine. I gave it to him and went back to cooking. After eveyone had left I saw the wine bottle.


As it turns out, corkscrews do not work that well on screw-top bottles. The good news is that eventually Nahtanoj was able to use the corkscrew to get wine from the bottle (it's a guy thing) and did not need as many stitches as you would think.

Way too much food was consumed and it did get a bit nippy towards the end, but it was a great evening. Today we give IDT back his yard after a night of him giving us his BBQ-induced extremely obnoxious odors.

And to Racso and Inafets - have a great time in New York. We will all miss you. Just promise you won't become Yankees fans.

That's it - move along...

Ditch Day with the Grandkids

We are having 29 people over for dinner on Saturday, so I decided to take Friday off to help get things ready. Friday is also a day that Mrs Notthat watches the grandkids (actually, Darci does not show up until after preschool, but she makes up for lost time very quickly).

First thing Riley did when he got here this morning was hand me his yogurt and spoon for his second breakfast (gotta love that kid!). So I put him in his high chair with a bib and started to feed him, but he wanted to feed himself.

Cool.

So I gave him a bowl and he went for it. When Mrs happened to wander into the kitchen her first word was "Oh." But it went very well - almost every bit of the yogurt went into his mouth.

Once Darci showed up she headed for the garden. She has been wanting to pick a pumpkin for a couple of weeks now, so we went and looked at them. It turns out three were ready to be picked (their stems had dried out). She was a happy girl until I voted against actually cooking one of them right that minute.

The thing was, while trying to keep the grandkids entertained and out of trouble, Mrs and I were also trying to get various long-neglected areas of the house in order. Like the lawn.

It turns out our electric lawn mower is a riding lawn mower. Both kids sat on it while I mowed the front and back yards. I went slowly and popped very few wheelies. Darci loved the prime view while I mowed down the longer patches of grass.

In any case, we managed to make significant progress on preparing the house while keeping the kids out of trouble. Saturday is going to be a long day, but it should be fun. At least once the event actually starts. Before then, there is still a long list of things that need to be done.

A really long list.

That's it - move along...

Fine Dining After 26 Years

Last night was the 26th anniversary of Mrs Notthat and my first date. To celebrate, we had dinner at the John Bentley's restaurant in a beautiful part of Redwood City along the charming El Camino Real. (I'm lying about the beautiful and charming bits - very little of El Camino Real - Spanish for "pickup cars are for real, dude" - would be confused with the word "charming," unless you are fond of fast food and places that change your oil in under 18 minutes.)

John Bentley's is fine dining. You can tell because their menu doesn't bother with cents - all prices are just nice round numbers like "23" (for a glass of water). Try to find that at your fast food place. Also, they don't serve normal food - everything has at least one ingredient that you have never heard of. For example, here are what we had for starters.


One of these is "Pulled Pork & Green Apple Crèpe, Green Peppercorn Sauce" and the other is "Watermelon, Avocado, Deviled Dungeness Crab Salad." OK, bad examples - these, while odd sounding, seem to use normal ingredients. (The pork burrito-like thing was very good, the watermelon crab thing was good but seemed a bit too healthy.)

Main courses included "Pan Seared Day Boat Scallops, Peruvian Mash, Asparagus, Tomato Tarragon Ver Jus" - pay dirt! "Peruvian Mash?" "Day Boat Scallops?" "Ver Jus?"


Mrs Notthat ordered the special, which sadly I don't have a detailed description of, but it involved a sea bass (no indication of whether it was cought with a day, night, or just before dusk boat) and a grain that began with an "f" that I heard the waitpersons have to explain at every table they served (it was green and looked disturbingly like capers, which is something I cannot eat due to an incident 27 years ago - don't ask).


Dessert was very good. Mrs had this "Warm Flourless Chocolate Souffle Cake, Coconut Gelato" thing.


I had this "Sticky Toffee Pudding Cake, Caramel Gelato, Chocolate Sauce" thing.


Yes, it was absurdly expensive. We did not leave with any doggie bags, but we also did not call in a pizza order on the way home, which I guess means that the portions were OK if not lavish. Obviously they go for presentation in a big way - at first it was not that easy to wreck some cook's masterful creation by jabbing a fork into it, but by the end we were pros at it.

This is not my kind of restaurant, but since Mrs Nothat is my kind of woman, and has been for 26 years, I will put up with it once or twice a year (which is about how often this happens).

Note: The Boy was in class last night so he missed out on the fine dining, which I don't think he would have liked any way. Good Boy! So tonight - burritos from Los Gallos Taqueria, our local Mexican food joint. For one sixth the money will we get enough to feed us for two days.

Granted, we will have no idea of what sort of boat was used to catch the chickens.

That's it - move along...

Caltrain inventing issues

I complained once previously about the sometimes cryptic messages that appear on the overhead signs at the Caltrain stations. Remember the whole "train being annulled" thing? This morning's message was definitely not written by that same person.

The above pictures show the message (the bottom row scrolls). Just to be safe I looked up "machical" to make sure it wasn't some obscure word that meant "complicated" (although the "do" word was a pretty big hint that this was not typed by an English major). It turns out that this bad spelling actually appears a number of times on the internet, but it is not actually a word.

Although it might be that Caltrain is just trying to keep us a bit confused, and is purposely making up words to make it harder to work out what is going on.

I love a good (or even not-so-good) conspiracy theory.

That's it - move along...

PS: Our new shuttle driver is driving me crazy. She is not very bright and maybe needs to have her hearing checked - she will ask which building we are going to and about half the time repeats it back wrong. (No, English is not her first language, but confusing Vision 8 with Vision 9 is odd.) In a bizarre effort to make things even more confusing, this morning two different people told her the wrong building and then corrected it ("Wolfe 9. No wait, 8") . She's already challenged and this kind of thing does not make her job any easier. To her credit, she has not run over anything. To her non-credit I have been arriving at work 5 to 10 minutes later than normal as she tries to work out where she is going. The home base is constantly calling her on the walkie-talkie asking where she is and what she is doing which leads me to believe that others have been complaining.

So if the door is locked...

I had an 8:30 appointment with Dr Extract & Implant this morning. I showed up about five minutes early only to find the door locked. It is a glass door and I could see a few office workers in there moving files around, and they could see me.

I decided it must be before their opening time so I stood patiently waiting. But then other thoughts started popping into my head. 

The first was whether I was technically in the clear and could leave now, counting this as an office visit. It's not my fault he didn't get to jab my gums and click his tongue over my flossing skills.

The second was whether this was like one of those takeover robberies and I've just stumbled onto some sort of very bad thing going on and maybe I should run for my life and call 911. But the office workers didn't seem very stressed, so I (somewhat reluctantly) decided against that scenario.

As 8:30 approaches, I decided it must be past their opening time and try the door again just in case I had not tried it hard enough before. One of the office workers hears the handle rattle, looks at me for a second, and then finally realizes the door is locked.

As she lets me in she says she thought I was talking on a cell phone and that that was why I didn't come in. 

I tell her I felt honored to be the first patient of the morning and she looked at me kind of odd and said there had been several people before me. I did not get to ask how they got in, but I did start looking around for open windows or a laundry chute I could use next time.

That's it - move along...

PS: He poked my gums, clicked his tongue about my flossing skills, and told me to come back in a year. I was in the office for maybe two minutes.

My First Convertible

Back when I was in high school, my dad bought me a used Toyota Landcruiser. Since we were living in Colorado and I was about to start commuting to school 100 miles away, it was worth it to have a four wheel drive vehicle.

And this thing was great. It was ridiculously rugged and extremely macho. The cool thing though was that it had a removable hard top. It wasn't easy to remove - you had to take out 20-30 bolts and then get at least three people to help lift it off and then try to find some lace to store it - but once it was off, this became the most fun vehicle in the world to drive.

The Miata is fun to drive too - it is small, nimble, extremely quick, and nicely refined. 

The Landcruiser was none of those things. It wasn't huge, but you you would never call it small or light. Nimble? No. It lacked power steering and was way before rack and pinion steering started showing up in normal cars. Braking was excitingly unpredictable. Quick? Ha! I never got a speeding ticket in it. Refined? Oh man no. Not even vaguely.

But it had other amazing powers. Put it in low gear and you could pull a house. (I did that once - a small house made to be pulled like this. Not a trailer with wheels though - just a house on wooden beams.) 

We lived in a small town with lots of snow. For fun at night my buddies and I would drive up some snow-infested logging road as far as we could go, then put chains on one set of wheels and try to go further. Then put chains on the other set and try to get unstuck. Yes, you create your own fun in small towns.

One big difference between driving it with the top off and the Miata with the top down is that with the Cruiser there were no doors. You would look down and see the asphalt roaring by (well, creeping by fairly quickly). This gave you much more of a motorcycle feel - you felt much more exposed than in the Miata, and I miss that. If it weren't for all the electronics tied to them (and an almost certain week or so spent sleeping on the deck) I would take off the Miata doors to see how it felt.

This is not to say the Cruiser was all fun and games. It was hard to drive, and as I got older it got harder and less fun. It got bad gas mileage. It's brakes were very fussy and hard to get to work well without them pulling in one direction or the other. It was not all that reliable. I lost count of how many valve jobs we ended up giving it - these things were notorious for a design flaw that caused them to burn exhaust valves. 

WHM (who was maybe 12 at the time - in the above picture where she is mocking me, she is about 5 or so - I'm amazed at how much she looks like Darci) was crushed when we finally decided to get rid of it. I sold it to a guy who had two teenage sons that I knew would have a ball with it. I always wonder about what it is up to now. Did they put in a small-block V8 (there are kits to do this relatively easily)? Did they wreck it? (True story - one night we were watching TV and heard a loud crash. A guy came up and explained that he had seen a guy back pretty hard into the side of the thing and take off. He was stunned when we could not find any evidence of damage on it though - just some dirt that got knocked off. This thing was made of thick steel and was very hard to damage. Believe me I tried.)

And now I can see that it would be a pretty good vehicle for The Boy. It's not fast, it's rugged, and with him learning to be a mechanic it would give him lots of opportunity to practice. 

In any case, I started thinking of all this driving home in the Miata with the top down on a beautiful evening, wondering why all those other people in their convertibles had the tops up. (It was about a 20-1 ratio. I even ended up giving props to the weenies who had the top down but their windows rolled up.)

This car is fun, but it's no Landcruiser. And at this point in my life, that's probably a good thing. The Boy would beg to differ though...

That's it - move along...

Robot Coffee Maker

The Starbucks coffee maker is installed and happily making our building's caffeine addicts smile (at least the cheap ones who don't want to pay for an espresso or latte at the coffee bar).

The first picture shows the freestanding unit. On the top are the bins that hold the coffee beans. All those who like messing with the decaf drinkers can still mess with them, but it is a bit harder to do.

You can see my free cup on the foldable shelf at the bottom. It is a very nice cup except for all the writing on it. The cup was in my office on Monday morning with a green piece of paper saying that it was the company's gift to us to encourage us to be green and not use so many disposable cups.

Side Note: There are people I work with that will go through half a dozen paper cups a day getting drinks of water. I have no idea why they can't use a regular glass, although I suspect it is because their mother does not work here and thus can't wash it for them after each use. I have been using the same cup for years. I wash it once every-other month or so if it looks like it needs it. (Mrs Notthat just shook her head knowingly and let out a heavy sigh.)

The best news about this coffee robot is that you can convince it to just give you some hot water, but it's not obvious how and it's a bit stingy with it. (I swear it rolls its eyes, but I have not found its eyes yet. I'll post a picture when I do find them.)

To really test this, I did something that I have not done in years - I drank a cup of coffee. I put my cup in the proper place, pressed a few likely buttons and waited. The machine made lots of interesting noises - and just about the time I was ready to give up, out gushed the freshly ground and brewed cup of coffee. (I was expecting more of a drip action - this thing basically brews the whole cup internally, and only when it is all done does it dispense the coffee with gusto. An improperly placed cup or bad usage of the foldable shelf results in coffee splashing everywhere. It appears, based on the mess around this thing, that this happens a lot.)

How was the coffee? It tasted almost exactly like coffee, which to my tea-drinker sensibilities is not good. Others love it though. It's fairly quick and efficient, although it has a dirty little secret in the little cupboard underneath it. It still uses disposable filters (granted it is just a long sheet reminiscent of toilet paper) and it has to put the used coffee grinds somewhere. It does not provide sugar or cream or anything like that. I've been told that it's cocoa is really good - I'll try that the next hot day when the building's AC tries to actually spit frost out its vents.

The whole thing reminds me of that Nutrimatic Drink Dispenser on the Heart of Gold in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that Arthur tries so hard to convince to try to make a cup of proper tea. It's efficient and great at what it does, as long as what it does is what you want.

And tea is not what it does.

That's it - move along...

PS: Why am I all tingly? A little fuzzy headed? I can't believe how slow I type why can't I go faster and why to i keep hitting the wrong keeys and man this is pretty cool I'm really being productive and is it getting warm in here and oh my i need to go to the bathroom really badly but it'll just have to wait wihle i type out jsut a bit mmore hrer man can i type fast now wow is this computer slow oh man gotta goo reaaly badly now...

Riding a Rock Star Bus!

I ride a couple of different shuttle busses to and from work depending on whether I'm heading to the fitness center as part of the process.

Yesterday, instead of the rickety old short bus we normally get, that majestic thing you see in the picture showed up. It's probably temporary and it's not on the route I ride most of the time, but it was awesome to ride in a bus that was quiet and smooth and, well, awesome.

I've written before about these shuttles. To update a bit, Jose did graduate to a big bus but not to a rock star bus. I still see him occasionally as he now drives the primary Caltrain to Campus bus (which I rarely get to take).

He was replaced by Kim who made the talkative Jose seem like a mute. Kim talked a lot. I knew an awful lot about her family well before I knew her name. But Kim was a good driver and handled the route well. She made it clear that she wanted something more though, so I knew she would be gone soon. (Side note - I heard her talking to some of the other drivers about how hard it is to cash their Serendipity paychecks due to lack of funds. Based on this, I'm amazed she or any of the others stuck around at all.)

In any case, she is gone and we now have another driver who is weirdly quiet. She hasn't run over anything yet, so she may be alright. But it's weird to not know about her sister's son's job in Denver (or whatever).

That's it - move along...

PS: I forgot to pass along this very weird story. A coworker takes a rock star bus from SF. A couple of weeks ago, the driver stopped along the freeway about halfway and apparently went to the bathroom (on the bus or along its side I don't know). He then started going again and made the first campus drop offs without incident. To make the last drop offs, he has to get back on the freeway for one exit then back off. Except he didn't get back off. He passed the exit, and the next one, and the next one. He finally got off the freeway and wandered around in some neighborhood for a bit. 

One of the riders tried to talk with the driver, but he was unresponsive. Finally, all of the riders (about five or so at this point) walked up to the front and asked to be let out, and he let them out, and then left. So here are five people standing on a street corner with only a vague idea of where they are exactly. Finally a shuttle was sent to get them. In the meantime, Serendipity was still trying to contact the rogue rock star bus. 

So maybe rock star busses aren't guaranteed bliss after all.

First days and trouble ahead

Darci's First Day at Preschool

Now that WHM is back at school, Mrs Notthat is back to watching the grandkids a couple of days a week. This included taking Darci to her first day at preschool last Wednesday. Riley's not very impressed, but Darci was so excited she managed to get her right foot on backwards. (Honestly - it's amazing how flexible kids are. That looks so painful.)

Afterwards the kids tried to cool off on the deck. It has been ridiculously hot around here lately.

The Boy Passed His Drug Test!

No, I was not particularly surprised by this, but I am impressed that he has managed to get himself hired by a real company doing a real job. He is at a national chain that specializes in oil changes. The last couple of days he has been the guy that greets the customers and drives their cars into the service bay. Well, unless the car has a manual transmission. With him working and Mrs Notthat monopolizing the Miata with her friends, it has been hard to get time for followup lessons on driving a stick. (And "thanks" guys for your support in trying to scare him off from wanting to drive the thing. You were a BIG help. Sigh...)

Mrs Notthat and Friends Enjoying the Miata

There's trouble ahead and I may have to start enforcing a curfew. Mrs has been coming up with excuses to take the car out on errands. "I'll be back by 7" becomes a phone call at 8 saying they want to stay out a bit later. (That should convince you how warm it has been here - 9 at night and she is riding around with the top down while wearing shorts.) 

She really likes driving this car. If The Boy gets comfortable with it I may never see it again.

That's it - move along...

A Starbucks in every kitchen

Yesterday afternoon I headed to our little kitchen area/pool hall and saw these boxes stacked along the  wall. Those of you with good imaginations will be able to clearly see that they are filled with Starbucks coffee cups.

Where I work they provide free coffee and tea. The problem with the coffee is someone needs to make it, and the problem with that is that people have different opinions on what a good cup of coffee is and how much humor there is in switching the decaf and regular grinds.

Our dear friends at Starbucks (motto: "Drink Tea and the Terrorists Win") came up with a way to get their grubby fingers even deeper in our pockets solve that problem by creating a Starbucks Coffee Station, designed for business situations like ours. You set your cup on a tray, push a button for what you want (regular or decaf  or a blend of each or hot chocolate), and out comes delicious liquid that is not remotely like tea. 

These things started showing up in other buildings where I work and my guess is we will have one soon too. Coffee drinkers seem to like the things. The only complaint is that it still has a knack for spelling your name wrong on the cup (but it's fun to watch it write it!).

That's it - move along...

Two quick things...

First, a massive thumbs down to the Palo Alto Police Department this morning.

I drove in today due to Caltrain issues (it being sunny and the Miata being a convertible had nothing to do with it, really) and noticed that there was a power outage in part of Palo Alto.  There were officers directing traffic at the stop light that was out at Junipero Serra and Campus Drive and all went well. I then turned onto Page Mill Road and headed up the hill towards 280. I noticed two things: traffic was really light coming down the hill from 280 (which is normally packed with commuters) and there were two motorcycle cops waiting to nab speeders taking advantage of the light traffic and light gravity when going down the hill.

At the top of the hill I could see the problem - the light at Deer Creek Rd was flashing red and had backed up traffic for miles and was even stopping traffic on 280. This light is at an intersection that rarely has any activity - almost for sure it was installed because of some rich guy needing easier access to his mansion. 

So, rather than trying to help the situation and get traffic moving, the Palo Alto Police Department instead chose to look at this as an opportunity to make some money. Disgraceful.

Second, thanks to something an alert Mrs Notthat pointed out to me this morning, we all need to take a field trip to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. I've written before about Deep Fried Twinkies and other delights you can get to eat there, but now they have crossed over to a higher level of "oh my!"ness with chocolate covered bacon. I love the tag line in the above ad from their website: "Chocolate covered bacon - it's not just for breakfast anymore!" 

I want to know where chocolate covered bacon has ever just been for breakfast. Well, outside of Arkansas.

That's it - move along...

WHM meets WHD

I took a peek at WHM's blog-like thing this morning and found a bunch of weird hair pictures.

WHM spent hours curling Darci's (now WHD - Weird Haired Darci) hair, and it came out great.

WHM is not allowed to truly make her hair weird anymore since she is now a nurse-in-training person who needs to not frighten the actual patients she will be working with, so she knitted some weird hair that she can wear when the mood strikes. Really.

Mrs Notthat has very straight hair, and thus so do WHM and WHD. Mrs Notthat's sister DDDAAWWWNNNN and brother Arkansas John have extremely curly hair. Mrs used to spend a lot of time trying to make her hair curly and DDDAAWWWNNNN wanted straight hair. (Arkansas John just wanted girls - it's a guy thing.)

In any case, it's the same old story - the hair is always better on the other head. 

Darci's hair will be straight again is a day or so and WHM's knitted dreadlocks will be put in a drawer. My own hair, though, will continue to turn up MIA more and more. Maybe WHM can knit me some sort of hair thing. I'm sure I could pull off the dreadlock look.

Ya mon!

That's it - move along...