I have a confession to make.

I am a time traveler.

Since the early 1950s I’ve been spending a fair amount of time posing as a student at high schools across this great nation of ours. I’ve seen fashions come and go, but I’ll tell you one thing – class never goes out of style. And I’ve got class in spades, brother.

Here’s me in 1952. God, I was so young at the start of this whole experiment, it amazes me even now!

Here’s me in 1968. I really didn’t need to wear glasses at the time, but I just thought the frames looked so cool. The lenses are really just glass that I cut to fit the frames.

1970. I had a job interview that afternoon.

I tell most people these days that I was born in 1978. My true birthdate is none of your concern, and my true name is unpronounceable by human tongues. “Longhair” was no longer a derogatory term by ’78, so I decided to give it a shot.

Ah yes, 1984. Cocaine was all the rage, and so was big hair. I stayed away from drugs, but I couldn’t resist the urge to grow that fro..

In 1986 I went through a brief Michael Jackson phase. But really, who didn’t.

Here’s me in 1996. This is the year I like to tell people I graduated high school. In truth, this is the only high school I attended as a senior so it’s the only one I have a diploma for.

In 1998 I developed a glandular problem that caused me to gain weight at a frightening pace.

As a result, I grew too self-conscious after the 90s to allow my photo to ever be taken again.

Do you need help finding your old yearbook photos?

bcTool is a tremendous piece of software. Absolutely wonderful.

If you’ve got a Uniden scanner and have wanted to control it from your PC, your options were limited. There were only two real choices to do so, ScanControl or Butel‘s ARC series. Both of these cost money, crash often, and have user interfaces straight outta 1996. (To be fair, ScanControl is in active development and a bit better in the usability department.)

bcTool is 100% free and blows away the competition. It supports live control and programming, and it does so with a logical, easy-to-understand interface. It’ll log and optionally record audio from selected talkgroups too.

The upcoming bcTool Server will even let you stream audio and remotely control multiple scanners over the Internet. Similar software sells for $395. $395!

bcTool! Check it out.

Seven months…

We’re only doing these fancy monthly photos for the first year. I’m going to miss them when they’re done!

The LHC is now online!

Despite concerns to the contrary, the world was not sucked into a black hole.

Personally, I’m feeling okay. Aside from the blinding white flashes and temporary weightlessness, I’d say my morning commute was relatively unaffected.

I spent a good five minutes thinking up that little one liner, and Tammy did not find it funny. But it is.

We took Kate to Disneyland on Monday. She’s been lots of times already, but this is the first time she met Mickey.

Mickey isn’t allowed to talk, but he is allowed to make kissing sounds, evidently…and that is what was going on here, not forced nose-eating!

We were sitting on a bench with Kate when a group of about a dozen Japanese tourists in their 20s came by. We thought they wanted us to take their picture, but no. They wanted to have their picture taken with Kate!

So we let them.

Is that weird?

spraind wrst. cant tyep. sned help.

Once Kate turned three months old, things got a lot easier. She was less of a baby and more of a person. By three months she already had some personality…by then she was sleeping through the night, smiling all over the place, and the spit-ups had practically ceased.

I think six months is a similar milestone. Three weeks ago she started sitting herself up after rolling over. Two weeks ago she started crawling and pulling herself up to a standing position. Last week she started saying “ma-ma” and “ba-ba”. Saturday she pulled herself up to stand and then let go while she was standing. She only managed to balance for a few seconds, but it happened right in front of me and she kept her eyes on my face the whole time. It was almost like she was saying “Hey Dad. Check this out.”

The talking part is what freaked me out the most. She doesn’t realize they’re words yet – they’re just sounds she likes to make. For the past seven months the only things I’ve heard come out of her mouth have been the squeals, giggles, and cries that pass for communication. When Tammy called me at work and put Kate on the phone I was like “Hooooly cow. That is my baby and she is speaking English.”

We really have to keep an eye on her too now that she’s so mobile. We’ve baby-proofed and put up gates, but there are still hard surfaces that she can bang her head on throughout her crawling adventures. For that, the Superyard XT has been a lifesaver. It’s big enough to hold me, Kate, and all of her favorite toys.

Her seven month photos get taken later this week. Mmmmaaybe I’ll post a few here once we have them.

800mhz rebanding is finally starting to happen in small pockets across the country.

Uniden has for years promised firmware updates for their scanners to keep up with the changes, but so far hasn’t released anything. This week they announced free firmware upgrades as well as some additional new features for nine of their scanners – even tentative release dates! Check it out.

They’re teasing a September 29th announcement, and internet detectives have already sniffed out three Yahoo Groups created by a Uniden employee for the BC346XT, BCD396XT, and BCD996XT – three new unannounced models.

I wonder what they’ll include! Color OLED displays? ProVoice support? Discriminator taps, perhaps? We’ll find out next month.

RIP, Don LaFontaine.

He had a voice that only years of chain-smoking could get you. My ears will miss him.