Lutfey.com

  • While various barrier methods of birth control have been around since the ancient Egyptians were putting up those lovely pyramids, I’ve come to realize the most effective barrier method to date.

    Step one:  The woman lays down on the bed on the left side.  She can position herself on her stomach, back, or side– whichever position is most comfortable.

    Step two:  The man lays down on the other side of the bed.  He too can position himself as to maximize comfort.

    Step three:  When the initial contact between the man and woman is made a signal is sent (the exact transmission method is unknown) to the one year old child sleeping in the adjoining bedroom.  This signal causes the child’s “I don’t want you to have sex” alarm to be activated.  The alarm system can only be deactivated by placing the child in between the man and the woman.  At this point the infant will promptly go back to sleep.  This guarantees the prevention of any type of sexual penetration for the rest of the night.

  • Village Inn suggests you change your schedule:

    Sunday: Shut your pie hole

    Monday: Shut your pie hole

    Tuesday: Shut your pie hole

    Wednesday: Open your pie hole!

    Thursday: Shut your pie hole

    Friday: Shut your pie hole

    Saturday: Shut your pie hole

  • In its ongoing effort to expand market share, Apple has announced plans for a new hardware platform.  While most of the specifications have yet to be finalized, a press release from the company covered the basic intentions of the product line.

    Since the invention of the personal computer in the mid 1980s, a major demographic has been completely ignored.  Our new systems will feature applications such as “stop walking on my lawn,” “how much better things were in the past,” and “ultra-realistic customer phone service simulator.”  Operating these devices will be even more intuitive than our line of award-winning iPads– all commands will be given in the form of yelling at an excessively loud volume.  World, get ready for the Granny Smith computer.

  • Welcome to my 2010 Christmas Letter.  This year has been crazy busy due to an important new addition to my life at the very end of 2009.  I’m talking, of course, about the new Gateway netbook I received as a Christmas present.  Now I can wirelessly connect to the inter-web from any room in the house.  Oh yeah, I suppose starting off the year with a seven day old kiddo has kept me busy too.

    Life with Isabel Grace Lutfey has, among other things, kept us quite busy.  This whole raising offspring experiment has been a completely new experience for me.  I read (OK, maybe quickly flipped through would be more accurate) a few of those “here is exactly how you should raise your child in 413 pages” books, but after a year of being a parent, I’ve come up with my own set of cliff notes.

    If the baby you are looking after is exhibiting an error code (such as crying at the top of her lungs without an end in sight) follow these simple steps*:

    1. Change diaper
    2. Put food in mouth (the baby’s mouth, not your own)
    3. Play with

    *Please note that the order is important.  Playing with a baby who has a full diaper can have negative consequences.

    Getting Isbel to sleep when we want to rest has been a bit of a challenge.  To help quiet her down I’ve been known to sing her songs at night.  I generally start when I’m putting on her bed time clothes by singing her the pajama song.  It goes something like this: You say pajama, I say pajama, pajama, pajama, let’s call the whole thing off.  (note the different pronunciations of the middle vowel sound of the word pajama for proper comedic effect)  After that I move on to the Mamas and the Pappa’s “Dream a Little Dream” and/or the Eagle’s “Take it to the Limit”.  If all else fails I move on to an improvisational version of a song I call, “Daddy needs to get some sleep so he doesn’t accidently drive his UPS truck into a ditch tomorrow.”

    Another important thing I’ve learned relates to Isabel’s toys.  These come in two categories.  The first type includes objects that we purchased for the express purpose of being a toy for our daughter.  These include typical things like a big bouncy ball, stackable plastic rings, and the oddly creepy Curious George doll whose head lights up when you squeeze him.  The second type includes objects that we had no intention of Isabel playing with, and, as a matter of fact, we would much prefer that she left alone altogether.  These items include things such as our cell phones, the television remote control, pretty much all the food we store in the lazy Susan, and, much to his dismay, our dog Maury.  Which stuff does she want to play with 94% of the time?

    As Isabel just kept getting more and more mobile, we realized that living in a townhouse with roughly 17 flights of stairs might not be the best place to live.  So after a lengthy search we found a house on the west side of Loveland.  It has a nice back yard for Maury and plenty of room on the main floor for everyone to coexist peacefully.  We have spent several weekends painting the inside, but the end of that project is in sight.  While there are always going to be minor projects to tackle, we are more or less settled into our new place.

    I really jumped on the facebook bandwagon this year.  Now I share pictures and insights about my life with a bunch of other people on the internet.  My favorite posts of the year are as follows:

    On child care: Isabel would not go back to sleep when I put her back in her crib at 3am. I tried everything to get her to stop screaming, but in the end I had no choice but to charge her with resisting a rest.

    On working at UPS: While I’m not a big fan of shaving my face every morning to drive a delivery truck, I think most of the FedEx drivers look like homeless Star Trek extras.

    After a two year hiatus, the kinetics race was brought back to life.  After losing the corporate sponsorship, we moved the race from Boulder to Longmont.  While it was a much smaller event than past competitions, the race was a success at showing there are plenty of people in Colorado who want to race crazy human powered contraptions over land and water.  My craft did fairly well this year.  In addition to not suffering any major structural issues, I completed more than half the race before a broken chain considerably slowed my progress.  So I just need to make a few drive chain adjustments before starting the race next August.  Check out boulderKinetics.com for more information on the next race.

    I am proud to announce that I am officially a United States of America Patent holder.  After three years, two different laywers, and one big stack of bills, I own the rights to patent number 7,825,545 a.k.a. “Energy Conservation and Control Systems”.  Now I have the next 17 years to do something with it.  Check out blackremote.com for more about this project.

    Well, that about sums things up for this year.  It has been quite an adventure starting a family, but I think I’m getting the hang of it.  (as evidenced by NOT A SINGLE visit by family services, the Loveland S.W.A.T. team, or any basic cable reality television camera crew.)  2011 promises to be another eventful year as (SPOLIER ALERT) the sequel to Isabel is scheduled to be released on May 31.  Maybe the second time around we will have a better idea of what we are doing.  So, until then keep your head up, the dog out of the toilet, and the kids from sticking metal objects in the power outlets.

  • Sarah Palin was awarded the 2010 “Word of the Year” for typing “refudiate” in her Twitter feed.  Second place went to my cat for typing the the word “wefvpo;g” as he walked over my keyboard last week.  Also, Rich Hall from HBO’s Not Necessarily the News called and wants his Sniglet back.

  • Marty walks into the empty lab with no sign of either Doc or his four legged friend Einstein.  Marty straps on his guitar and plugs it into the large amplifier.  A UPS truck wildly pulls into the garage just as Marty begins to play. For no obvious reason the vehicle is covered in ice and steam. An old man in a UPS uniform and a scruffy dog exit the truck.  Marty sets down the guitar and cautiously investigates the situation.

    “Doc– where have you been?” Marty asks.

    The Doc looks down at his watch and yells, “Great Scott!  I didn’t realize how long I’ve been gone.”

    Marty looks at the Doc’s clothes and with a puzzled look on his face asks, “What’s up with the new clothes?”

    “You see Marty, I decided to make a change in my life, so I signed up to be a seasonal UPS driver.”

    “Well, at least you aren’t messing with that time machine anymore.  That thing was nothing but trouble.”

    “I know Marty, but I’ve finally figured out how to make it work!” The Doc explains as he gestures towards the UPS truck.

    “You built a time machine out of a UPS TRUCK?”

    “No, no, no, Marty.  I’ve realized the problems encountered when changing the timeline for one’s own personal agenda.  So I took the original design and made some key modifications.  You are now looking at the worlds first ON TIME MACHINE!”

    “What?”

    “No time to explain– just put this on.” The Doc orders as he throws a UPS vest at Marty.  “We’ve got work to do!”

    The Doc starts organizing packages in the back and after putting on the vest, Marty looks at the truck and runs toward the front hood.  He tries to jump on the hood and slide over to the driver side, but the hood is too high up and at a steep angle.  He rolls across the front bumper several times awkwardly before falling to the ground.

    The Doc, too busy organizing packages to notice what just happened, warned Marty, “By the way, don’t try that dramatic sliding across the hood trick.  The height and average angle of the hood is not conducive to entering the vehicle in that manner.  A more practical method of entering and exiting the vehicle is to use three points of contact.”

    “Point taken Doc.” Marty says as he brushes the off his clothes and gets into the passenger side of the truck.  “So why are we doing this anyway?”

    “Marty, I’ve discovered that key points in history have been negatively impacted by packages not being delivered on time.  If we can fix these anomalies once and for all we can restore the original intent of the timeline.  All we have to do is travel back in time a make the deliveries when they were originally supposed to take place.”  The Doc explains as he starts up the engine.  The vehicle rumbles to life and rolls outside.  It gains speed going down the road.  Soon a bright light flashes and they all disappear– the only evidence of their presence is lingering flames from the tires.

    TO BE CONTINUED…

  • Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the nation’s largest private employer, plans to end automatic profit-sharing contributions for its employees in a revamp of its benefits package. A Human Resource representative for the company explained the changes. “Now, instead of giving money to all those employees over and over again, we are going to give these people a chance to live, at a very reasonable cost, in a vibrant, rugged community with fellow employees on the rooftops where they work.  Outside of public view, obviously.”

  • AOL said on Tuesday that it was buying the influential technology news blog TechCrunch for a reported $25 million dollars in order to bolster its growing online editorial business.  When asked about plans for their latest purchase, a high ranking AOL official replied, “Based on our previous acquisitions, we plan on throwing away everything useful in this new company and putting the company for sale on Ebay.  Oh look, it is already listed, and someone just bid $10!”

  • A recently completed offshore renewable energy facility has been put into service off the coast of Ramsgate in Kent, England.  The turbines, which will generate enough electricity to power 200,000 homes, are poised to officially take over the record for largest wind farm– a record currently held by Taco Bell.

  • Welcome to the latest Facebook application! For the 25,000,000 fans of the original Farmville, we now introduce the next generation: Corporate Farmville! While planting and tending to small plots of land has its own unique charm, Corporate Farmville takes the entire process to the next level. Start the game by incorporating your business in a state with no substantial farming but extremely lax corporate liability laws (yes, we are looking at you Delaware!). Once your paper work is approved, use money from your quasi-ethical IPO to purchase locally owned farms. Maximize your profits through a variety of processes: gratuitous lawsuits, misused government subsidies, and blatantly illegal partnerships. Start out as a simple corporate henchman and become master of all agriculture by perfecting a machine that spits out fast food quality hamburger meat 24/7!

  • America Online recently announced a new service aimed at protecting children from the dangers of the internet. For only $9.99 a month AOL’s ‘Safe Social’ will help parents monitor what their children do online.  A representative from the company explained how the system works.  “This setup only allows your children to connect to the internet through AOL’s proprietary dial-up service.  This all but guarantees they won’t find anyone else to chat with while on the computer.”

  • I’m not sure exactly how I got into this, but tonight I started reading rumors and speculations on the PlayStation 4.  Since the original PlayStation came on the scene back in 1994, Sony has consistently developed a new system every six years.  This would put the PS4 on the market in 2012.

    My take (based on my own imagination more than anything else) is that the PS4 will be released just in time for Sony to introduce the successor to the Blu-Ray movie format.  It will be the exact same size as DVDs and Blu-Ray discs, and it will be called  “This is literally the exact same disc we send to the movie theaters.”  Their marketing department might come up with a different name, but the concept will be the same.  In addition to the best possible sound and video resolution, the PS4 will allow, in real time, the characters in the movie to be controlled through various console control devices as a bonus feature for all the nerds out there who need to recreate the Sarlacc Pit sequence in “Return of the Jedi.”  “No, I get to be be Princess Leia.”  “But I’m tired of being Jabba the Hut all the time!”  “You don’t have the body for that space-aged bikini, and we both know it.”  “I hate you! MOM! MOM!  This isn’t fair!”

    But I digress– you heard it here first, for whatever that is worth.