Family Update

Here at home we're starting preparations for Parker's 1st birthday.

Granted, it's in March, but we tend to make the 1st birthday a blast - a Chuck E Cheese party for YaYa and a backyard picnic (complete with clown) for Middle Child.

Parker's party will be Jungle Safari theme, with the Mrs. displaying her artistic talents with elephant invites. When the time comes I'll post an example here.

I can't believe the little guy is almost one. Granted, he's not very small. Not fat mind you - none of my kids seem to have inherited my shape, at least not yet - but solid - tall and thick, with a peach fuzz dome and a charming little smile. By high school he should be the size of a small mountain, but so far he's played the role of the baby far longer than I thought. I think his Mommy wants him to stay an infant longer than with the girls.

He started crawling in the last month, the real deal, on his hands and knees. For a few months he was content to pull himself along by his arms. 90% of our place has hardwood floors, and that method was just too convient for him, allowing him to zip from one end of the place to another in record time.

Lazy boy.

By this time both the girls were already walking, but the best he's done is pull himself up on everything from our end table to the toilet (the boy has a facination with toilet water). He's still on soy formula, but samples table food routinely and is equally attracted to the cat's food dish.

He's the first of our kids to EVER have an ear infection, being cursed with a pair of them so far. Even so he holds the record for the friendliest, most personable baby in our family. Sometimes he wakes up and plays quietly in his crib for an hour before we realize he's awake. Short of a wet diaper (which leak through far more than the girls did) he almost never cries.

He and middle child are inseperable, and I predict that in a few years we'll regret letting that friendship grow. "Makers of trouble" is how Mrs. describes them, and it is a bit like having Ramona Quimby and Dennis the Menace grow up as siblings .

But Middle Child loves him, let me tell ya. She can't get enough of him, and loves him dearly.

YaYa . . well, let's just say so far it's two against one among the kids.

Speaking of middle child, here's a few of our resident Kewpie dolls favorite sayings:

"I won't! I won't"  - said whenever you warn her that she is balanced precariously on something about to tip over and break her arm. Often accompanied by a furious head shake and side-to-side hand movement, ala hand jive.

"Thank you your highness" said whenever she is granted something by YaYa. Said by royal decree of her older sister.

"What the heck!?" - a new one, said in a cute, endearing, and totally exaggerated way. Often said with a grin, knowing she is amusing us.

"Hide, zombie" - inspired by my hide-and-seek zombie game. Often said out of the blue and right before she dives under a blanket.

"ParkerandmeandDaddyandParkerandMommyandmeandParkerandme" - her convoluted, repetive attempts at identifying a group, be it at the dinner table or in a description of a car trip. Regardless of how many times she says it, she always ends on 'me'.

"Daddy's work!!!!" - said whenever she sees something resembling our company logo, whenever we pass the place, and whenever I pop onto our website.

There are more, but at 11:36 at night, I can't think of 'em. I'll update them later.

Just a neat quote

Sometimes glass glitters more than diamonds because it has more to prove.
— Terry Pratchett

Oopsie

CAMBRIDGE, England (Jan. 30) - A museum visitor shattered three Qing dynasty Chinese vases when he tripped on his shoelace, stumbled down a stairway and brought the vases crashing to the floor, officials said Monday.

The three vases, dating from the late 17th or early 18th century, had been donated to the Fitzwilliam Museum in the university city of Cambridge in 1948, and were among its best-known artifacts. They had been sitting proudly on the window sill beside the staircase for 40 years.

More here

Ted Feguson, Bud Light Daredevil

Just a quick note to say that Ted Ferguson, Bud Light Daredevil, is too damn ugly to have a girlfriend that fine.

I'm just sayin' . . .

The Challenger Anniversary

Today is the twentieth anniversary of the Space Shuttle Challenger accident. You can follow this link for a timeline of the accident, which includes audio (with transcript), and multiple videos from that day.

I remember riding in my Dad's car when they said one of the initial launch dates had been scrapped, and hearing that Christa McAuliffe had gone bike riding to relax.

That was the extent of the attention I paid to the flight.

So it wasn't a surprise that I didn't watch the launch live, but when word of the explosion spread my sixth grade teacher wheeled a television into our classroom. We spent the rest of the day watching  network coverage.

I remember being a little put off that Christa McAuliffe received so much attention. Six others died that day, but how many people knew their names at the time - or now? It didn't seem fair.

I strongly believe in the value of manned space flight, and look with regret at the two-plus decades wasted on the costly and limited shuttle program. I'm glad to hear that, with a little luck, American's will walk on Mars in my lifetime.

In the words of Commander Dick Scobee's widow "Without risk, there's no discovery, there's no new knowledge, there's no bold adventure," 

"The greatest risk is to take no risk."

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Thanks Joe

Much obliged to Journals Editor Joe for his quick and correct solution to the problem of the day - namely, the fact that my hit counter reset to zero.

A question . .

A year ago I asked for some info on a movie I saw twenty years ago.

Nothing so obscure with this request, but it is rather lame.

In grade school I had a science teacher who made us memorize what various parts of a word mean. That's a lame definition, but you'll see what I mean below.

 Most have slipped my mind over the years, but a few have stuck with me.

auto = self  

graph = write

ology = study of

morph = change

bio = life

tele = far, distant

astro = star

The theory being this: if you didn't know what 'autobiography" meant, you could decipher its meaning just by consulting the list.

If anyone knows where I can find a comprehensive list, drop me a line.

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Two more books

I finished two more books recently, Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman and The Pale Horseman by Bernard Cornwell.

Anansi Boys is the story of Fat Charlie, a simple, boring Englishman who just happens to be the son of a god. After his father's funeral he discovers a long lost brother who  inherited all the supernatural gifts in the family.

Embezzlement, murder, and general chaos ensue.

Gaiman is a natural, one of those guys you despise because God gave him more than his fair share of writing talent. A bit too much Douglas Adams in him though, and I feel he could lay off the dry British humor a tad.

Pale Horseman is the continuing tale of Uhtred, a Saxon with Danish leanings, who plays a pivotal (and fictional) role in Alfred the Great's defense of Wessex from invasion.

Sure, it sounds lame, but Cornwell is a master of historical fiction who's adept at elaborate and stunning battle scenes. He is, after all, the author of the famed Sharpe series (popularized by Sean Bean's TV portrayal).

A great second work in what looks to be a trilogy.

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Another Lost post

An overtly religious episode, one that certainly doesn't refute my purgatory theory.

Not a whole lot to discuss, frankly. I think Claire turned on Charlie awfully quick in the last few weeks, given that he's been her go-to guy from the time of the crash.

Charlies actions in this episode seem to validate Claire's mistrust - if that is, the viewers didn't know that the dreams and sleep walking were real.

Locke continues to be an obnoxious a**, and I'm probably reading too much into his role as the guy preventing the baptism.  In the teaser for next week, Locke is again on his high horse and in opposition to Jack; the guy makes me ill.

Kate and Sawyer: He can have her. I fail to comprehend where her newfound attaction to him comes from.

Hurley and Libby: she gave me the creeps. She quickly deflected his "Do I know you?" question, and I'm eager to learn her crooked past.

She is cute though.

Was there any significance to the burning bush, especially in light of the whole Aaron/Moses theme running through the episode?

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My spooktacular school

I came across a link to this on myufo.com. According to a list of WI locales, my old grade school features some bonafide ghosts and ghouls. 

The school building used to be the church. Rumor has it that a boy fell to his death from the balcony. The balcony has since been walled over and converted to a room. Former teachers and students at the school attest to a strange feeling in the former balcony area. There is also a rocking chair in the attic that keeps rocking with no one around and no breeze. A strange man has been seen by staff and children in the church basement. Neighbors report that a former building on the site had a light that never went out even when the electricity was cut. Teachers also report feeling uneasy in the basement bathroom and hearing a strange ?wooooooing? sound.

My opinion? The school was spooky, sure, but mainly due to my classmates. .

In all seriousness, I remember the balcony, which overlooks the current (?) gym. It was kind of creepy, but only in a 'never used/dark and dusty' kind of a way.

Although, come to think of it, reading the paragraph brought back a dim memory of a teacher cracking a joke about a/the? ghost when I went with her to get some paint jars off the balcony.  

I never heard of any rocking chair, though, and in nine years there (K-8) I never  saw a 'strange man' in the basement. If anyone had I'm sure the police would have been called - the '80's were hardly a time of naive, blind trust.

As far as the other building, when I started there in the late seventies an old school building still stood on part of the lot. It was torn down when I was in Kindergarten or 1st grade. Like any abandoned building it sometimes gave you goosebumps, but I never saw the perpetual lightbulb they refer to in the paragraph.

Maybe I'll stop by again, just to check it out.