A Maggids Musings

Elder Sign Pete

2012-01-31T23:15:00.000-08:00

Wow. My wife and I had time to play Arkham Horror again, only three nights after our previous game.

I randomly drew Ashcan Pete, who once again spent the game closing a gate with an Elder Sign and then dashing to the curiosity shop to repurchase that most valuable of items.

Tonight's game was most notable because the two investigators only owned one weapon the entire game!

I realized while looking at my blog for links to old Arkham Horror blog posts that I never mentioned the craft box I bought that happens to hold most of the Arkham Horror game pieces perfectly.

It is available here for more than I paid at a local craft store. Amazon has something apparently equivalent and less expensive.

Take That, Yig!

2012-01-28T23:45:00.000-08:00

Tonight my wife and I were both finally awake enough to play our favorite two-person game, Arkham Horror, after the boys went to bed.

The random Great Old One was Yig, who is a wimp. But he arrives relatively quickly and during the adventure Jenny and Kate only found one Elder Sign: not enough to buy them sufficient time. So Yig attacked the town before we could win by sealing six gates. Then two women beat him up.

I had never played Kate before. Her Will potential is so low I just ignored it and let every monster frighten her as combat begins. Yet this keeps her Fight maximized--and she fights well with her super-science anti-monster apparatus. She also started with the Gladius. So all of her combats sounded like "Eeek! Thwack! Yay!".

Board Games at Barnes and Noble

2012-01-28T22:00:00.000-08:00

Here is a fascinating interview about the history of Barnes and Noble selling board games.

(Hat tip: Story Games forum thread)

Hellebore Shopping 2012

2012-01-28T20:56:00.000-08:00

Last April I mentioned the Northwest Garden Nursery, our local and world-famous hellebore breeders.

Today they sent out their annual e-mail announcing when their babies are for sale this year. They only sell plants four days each year!

This year the days are February 18th, 19th, 25th, and 26th. They are open from 11:00am to 4:00pm those days.

Maybe see you there!

Gallant January Milestones

2012-01-25T16:26:00.000-08:00

Recall that on New Year's Day Gallant sat himself up for the first (three) times. During the first week of January he learned to pull himself to standing when holding onto his baby corral. By the second week he could sit himself back down.

In the first half of January his "crawling" involved scooting himself forward while reaching with his arms but not moving his legs and sliding on the side of his head. It looked really uncomfortable but he did not see to mind. Here is a video.

During the third week he stopped that and did something else quite funny. Apparently there is some kind of infant instinct when sitting up to look around. So his newer floor movement would involve:

Sitting up, which prompted him to look around and see something he wants to touch
Reaching towards that thing as far as he could, which stretches him into a crawling position but he cannot get his legs to go
Sitting up again, but facing a different direction because he had extended himself to one side.
This prompted him to notice something else. So he reached towards that, but could get to it, so he sat up again...
Now he was facing a third direction but could see the first thing he wanted. He remembered he wanted it, and realized that somehow despite all this hard work he still is not over there!

Repeat until his frustration level increases to the point of fussing and needing help.

Early last week he learnd to "cruise" sideways along furniture. Here is a video.

Last Thursday he finally learned to really crawl. Here is a video

Percentiles

2012-01-24T22:27:00.000-08:00

That math depart at LCC has a lot of "We are the 99%" signs on professor's doors.

I do understand why, but am tempted to post a slightly more accurate sign. What percentile of American income earners am I, anyway?

(Tangentially, there are more important issues than percentile envy. Here are two. (1) What responsibilities do Americans acquire from being wealthier than most of the world? Global wealth inequality is much more drastic and tragic that domestic. (2) How can Americans reduce crony capitalism by promoting small government? Wealth inequality matters much less when those very wealthy who can buy political influence have fewer opportunities to effect society because the government does not have its fingers everywhere.)

Economic mobility is hard to measure well. Yet it is easy to measure sloppily, and even the sloppy measurements are revealing.

Age matters a whole lot. This chart has a blurb that sounds discouraging. But let's do some math. The Treasury Department report comparing earnings in 1996 to 2005 (pdf) whose data the above chart used also tells us that among the lowest fifth of U.S. earners, in ten years 58% moved upwards out of the lowest fifth of earners--and over half who moved up shot beyond the second quintile into the middle quintile or higher. Similarly, among people in the second quintile nearly 50% moved up to the middle quintile or beyond in ten years. (Tangentially, only 17% in this group moved down to the lowest quintile.) Knowing that earners in the lowest quintile have a 42% chance of staying there after 10 years we can ask: What is the chance that a person will stay in the lowest quintile for 30 years? (What is 42% of 42% of 42%?) Only 7.2%. That is astounding, considering that for most of history in most places nearly everyone in the lowest quintile stayed there all their lives.

(Of course, the answer is not really 7.2% for any individual. People with a work ethic do better than average. Those who less diligently pursue a career do worse than average.)

American mobility is slowly decreasing but is still remarkably high compared to most places and most of history. Over forty working years most below-average earners advance their careers enough become above-average earners. The average American household income in 2010 was $67,530. How many places in the world offer a reasonable expectation to earn over $67,000 each year by the end of your career?

What factors besides age matter?

College matters, somewhat. This chart mostly tells us two unsurprising things: families that stay in the top quintile normally send their kids to college, and having a college degree predicts very little about future income besides "not lowest quintile".

Parental income matters statistically, although not very much for the middle two quartiles of earners. See the right side of this chart.

The broad and flat spread of American incomes also matters statistically (remember this chart). Most other countries with more mobility have more income equality: where everyone is about the same a smaller change will cause a more dramatic shift up or down.

So, back to my question. I expect my household percentile must be above 50%. Age matters, and my wife and I are both almost forty. College matters, and my wife has a doctorate and I have two master's degrees (and we are both employed in jobs that make use of those degrees).

(We're in the middle two quintiles, so parental income is not a significant factor.)

On the other hand, I work very part time and we live in a city with a comparatively low standard of living. My wife could have a larger salary if we lived in a big city, but we prefer it here in Eugene.

It turns out my question is actually easy to answer. I go to this website and type in my household's 2010 income. The website's calculations then tell me that my household was about the 65th percentile. Should I put a sign on my office bulletin board or door: I'm part of the 65%?

That might be our high point. In 2011 our income was much smaller because my wife had three months of time off after Gallant was born and then went back to work part time. She went back at half time and has been increasing her hours but is still not back to full time. There is little incentive for her to work full time again when taxes are increasing and working means less time at home watching her little boys grow up.

Found My Hat

2012-01-24T21:59:00.000-08:00

The photograph of myself that I use on my website and on discussion forums is a few years old. Back then I was still wearing my favorite hat. (Two years ago it finally got too stinky to wear.)

I have been wanting to replace the hat but could not find one like it. I recently found that its manufacturer now has a website. Here is the hat: a classic wax safari by The Australian Outback Collection.

With little kids a hat is much nicer than an umbrella. At the end of a walk I can hold Smiley's hand while hauling his bicycle up our hill. While in a parking lot I can hold his hand while also carrying a few bags of groceries with my other hand.

Luvable Friends

2012-01-24T21:56:00.000-08:00

Now that Gallant is eating solid foods his poopy diapers are not as messy and potentially explosive. We can safely dress him in shirt and pants without worrying about leaks out the back. It is easier to check his diaper if we can peek down the back of his pants!

But it can be hard to find shirts for seven month old infants that are not "onesies" with extra fabric that snaps at the bottom. Then my wife found on Amazon a three-pack of new long-sleeve infant shirts for $5.

This seemed too good to be true. Other options were at least $5 for a single shirt. (For example, this one, which we can also recommend.)

The inexpensive three-pack is made by Luvable Friends, and their shirts are great. We bought a second three-pack after we were so happy with our first order.

Since the size is "six to twelve months" we need to roll up the sleeves a bit before putting one on Gallant, but that is to be expected. Being slightly oversized now means they are long enough his tummy does not get cold when our house is slightly chilly.

SOPA killed?

2012-01-18T07:35:00.000-08:00

Instapundit has recently linked to two interesting articles about SOPA, the bill I mentioned a few days ago. First, it is probably a dead bill (but a very similar bill named PIPA in the Senate is not, so keep writing to your Senators). Second is an ironic account of how the movie industry historically fights the new technologies that eventually become its main sources of revenue.

Today is a day many websites protest these misguided bills. The comic Questionable Content has the best effort I've seen so far, which explains in detail why SOPA is so misguided (it censors domain names but not IP addresses).

I am not worried about these bills passing. But they are key demonstrations about how misguided and lobbyist-bought many politicians are by supporting these bills that will do nothing claimed is their intention while giving great power to media companies and money to lawyers.

Remedial College Math Questioned

2012-01-17T08:21:00.000-08:00

Here is an interesting study that questions whether remedial math classes at two-year colleges have any statistical help towards achieving a two-year degree.

The issue investigated is not really relevant to most of my students. Those researches compared students who took remedial classes with students who went directly into "college algebra". Most of my students are in the process of earning degrees or certificates that only require basic math (Math 20 and/or Math 25) and do not take algebra.

(I also question whether local employers would want a college to give a degree to a student able to do algebra but not work fluently with percents, proportions, and measurement unit conversion.)

Plank Variations and Back Extensions

2012-01-11T22:17:00.000-08:00

I am working on core muscle strength. I wrote about why here. What do I do?

Although sit-ups are the most classic abdominal exercise, they can hurt the back or neck. Current trends recommend starting with the "Plank" exercises.

The basic plank looks like this: basically balancing on toes and elbows. To be safe be sure to do four things.

Do not lift the head up and look forward. Position your neck flat, in line with your spine.
Slightly tighten your glutes. (Squeeze your tushy.) You want your back flat, but the abdominal muscles alone are lousy at keeping your lower back flat and spine safe. A happy and healthy lower back needs support the glutes in any strenuous position. (Try noticing the difference tightening your glutes just when standing still and holding something heavy).
Tighten your abdomen. (Suck in your tummy.) This also helps support your spine. No need to do a complete stomach vacuum unless you like that.
Tense your lower trapezius to lower your shoulder blades down from your shoulders towards your pelvis. Imagine your scapulae are part of your abdominal core.

There is more to it once you get used to those fundamentals. (If it is too difficult, try with your knees down.)

Once you can do the basic plank for a bit, try some variations. This video shows a bunch. I like the ones where I have motions to count: with the basic plank moving from elbows to hands and back down, and with the side plank moving hips as high as I can and then down. I also do the ones with moving one knee forward at a time since that gives me something else to count.

I also do back extensions since these strengthen the paraspinal and intraspinal muscles more than plank variations. The same four tips above keep this exercise safe with no tweaking of the neck or rounding of the back.

For the back extensions, since I do not own a fancy weight bench with ankle supports I keep a belt looped around the bench and hook my ankles under the belt. Or I lay on an exercise ball and brace my feet under a chin-up bar placed in a doorway a few inches off the ground.

Some day I'll get bored of planks. Here seven other abdominal exercises that look fun and emphasize the obliques.

A final warning: none of these exercises work as they should without the ability to activate your lower trapezius muscles. This comes through stretching. I'll write about my new stretching routine in a later blog post.

Stretching Advice

2012-01-11T21:31:00.000-08:00

Remember how so much of what I learned as a child about dinosaurs is wrong? Now for something completely different (but along that same theme)...

People my age have mostly learned erroneous information about stretching.

Static stretching is important. It has important uses. But is easy to do badly. For example, the traditional two-arm door frame stretch of the pectoralis major muscle can harm the shoulder capsule. Better to stretch one arm at a time with the shoulder as close to the door frame as possible to minimize backwards torque on the arm.

The Stark Reality of Stretching was a landmark book about how muscle tissue functions and what this implies about stretching. That book is certainly worth checking out from the library, or owning if you do daily stretching. (A few of my friends also swear by Pain Free.) But be aware that the book has three big flaws.

First, it only discusses a few lower body muscles. The book does not even try to be a complete guide to daily stretching.

Second, it ignores that the amount of muscle tension helpful when stretching varies from person to person. Stark recommends holding an appropriate static stretch with minimal perceived tension until the muscle relaxes: if you want, repeat it with more stretch rather than start with greater tension. That is safe advice for someone in therapy and the best way to stretch for many folks. But lots of people can stretch well with more-than-minimal tension.

Third, it ignores dynamic stretching. For non-athletes this is a minor issue. Dynamic stretching surely has its place as warm-ups for athletic activity, but I have not read anything suggesting it helps with "normal life" posture and flexibility as much as (let alone any more than) static stretching.

Feathers to Stay on Top?

2012-01-11T20:50:00.000-08:00

A couple months ago I lamented that so much of what I learned as a child about dinosaurs was incorrect.

A new theory suggests that smaller, feathered dinosaurs developed wings to help them stay on top of prey about their size when grabbing it with raptor-like claws. Much safer grappling from on top where your prey's teeth and claws cannot reach!

The theory itself is too new to deserve much comment, but the article is a great example of how dinosaur knowledge has changed since my childhood, when the Archaeopteryx was the only feathered dinosaur talked about.

Back Pain and Spoon Theory

2012-01-05T22:26:00.000-08:00

Christine Miserandino's essay The Spoon Theory is one of the great essays of the English language. It is a must read, especially if you teach English or do counseling!

Now I can truly empathize with rationing of daily health. Here is the story...

I've been dealing with severe back pain for almost two months. I had one vertebra badly out of alignment, another less so, numerous vertebrae with limited or no flexibility, misaligned hips, and so much fascia solidification and poor posture muscle habits that I was unconsciously twisting my torso to the right when standing still. (When I bent down to touch my toes you could see my hips swivel and return to proper alignment.)

How did this happen? I am left handed, caring for an infant, and had terrible posture. To keep my left hand available I was spending hours each day holding Gallant to my right.

When sitting, I would hold him with my right arm as I sat with him to play with him, feed him bottles, or soothe him.

When feeding him in his high chair I had been positioning my chair so I would be turning to the right to go from the bowl of food to him.

When standing, I carried him on my right shoulder. Look how bent my normal holding him position was by the end of November! (When we took this picture I thought I was standing properly.)

My back health is much better now. I'll write later about the lessons I've learned about posture and core muscle use. But first I should share what it was like to need to ration my daily back use.

(Regular readers of this blog know about the health issues I normally deal with: allergies, lax ligaments, poor posture, a six-month sinus infection, minor skin problems. Some of these keep me from functioning at 100% energy and focus. The sinus infection was truly dreadful: much worse in pain and limitations than my back problems. But none of those required me to ration my efforts throughout the day. This was a new phenomenon.)

At its worst, a month after the sharp pains began, I could not even lift a step stool or a gallon of milk without suffering an intense, stabbing pain that prohibited continued lifting. A visit to a physical therapist and another to Bill helped enormously but temporarily. When I left Bill's office most of my vertebrae were adjusted to be as they should be and my fascia problems were mostly cured.

But I soon regressed. The problem was how my lax ligaments and very weak lower trapezius muscles (from years of bad posture) meant that my spine was now held together by almost nothing. I was no longer trying to hold up my back with the wrong muscles and inappropriate fascia stiffening. But as yet nothing was there to replace them.

Bending forward would slowly cause problems. Smiley likes when I play with his toys on the floor with him. Should I do this? I could, but after half an hour or so I could feel that I had done something unpleasant to a vertebra or two.

Holding any weight while twisting my torso at all might immediately cause problems. I had to learn to be very careful with how I sat down while holding Gallant. Smiley likes to be in Gallant's baby corral to play with his baby brother. When Smiley asks, should I lift him over? I could, but only a limited number of times before my vertebrae went funkier.

I could carry Gallant's 16 pounds without problem, but holding Smiley's 32 pounds caused problems. Smiley likes to be held, especially if he is sad, scared, or got a bump. Should I pick him up? I could, but my back would pay a price.

At first I needed to return to the physical therapist or Bill to "reset" the harm I did to my back by being with my boys. So I needed to ration my back use efforts in three to five day spans.

After a few weeks of certain stretches and exercises my back muscles were strong enough and posture improved enough that less harm happened. I still got very sore, but it was more of a surface level issue, and at home my wife could gently crack my back to "reset" it--but Bill recommended we only do that once each day (before bed to help me sleep). I still had to ration my back use, except daily.

Today was the first day that I did not feel like needing to be "reset" at the end of the day. My back muscles and posture are protecting me from nearly all back use harm. Hooray!

But I'll surely remember two months of tough parenting decisions. After a morning when Gallant has been especially demanding, so that Smiley really wants me to play with him, do I disappoint him and refuse to play with toys on the floor in case I need to carry him for more than a few minutes during the days until the next doctor appointment? The boys really enjoy playing together, and I can relax a bit when they do play together, but can I risk lifting Smiley into the baby corral when it might hurt my back so I do not sleep as well that night? Smiley bumps himself while playing: do I not pick him up to comfort him the way he most wants so that later in the day I will still have the back use to play on the floor with him?

Tropical Miso?

2012-01-03T17:56:00.000-08:00

Today I invented a fun soup. I was in the mood for something like my five minute miso soup, but also had half a can of coconut milk to use up.

This worked surprisingly well:

half a can of coconut milk
about the same amount of water
miso
frozen peas
frozen green beans
dried fueru wakame
a tiny bit of dehydrated mashed potato

The coconut and miso flavors went well together. The mashed potato very slightly thickened the broth and its included butter helped enliven the seaweed flavor.

Stop SOPA

2012-01-02T21:08:00.000-08:00

You have heard about H.R.3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act, right?

Two senators that represent me in Oregon. Senator Wyden opposes SOPA and has proposed a better alternative. I cannot find any information about how Senator Merkley plans to vote: even his Twitter feed neglects the issue.

You can write to your senators here. I wrote:

Thank you, Senator Wyden, for opposing SOPA and suggesting a more safe and sane alternative.

May Senator Merkley also oppose SOPA!

Sincerely,
another Oregon household

If you share my senators, you can also contact them using their web pages (Wyden and Merkley) or Facebook (Wyden and Merkley).

Postal History

2012-01-02T18:05:00.000-08:00

My great-grandfather was a postman. Back then, in his town, people would leave an annual "tip" of a few cents in the mailbox during December. With that extra money he was able to buy his wife and each child their own holiday gift (gasp!) and have an entire turkey (gasp!) for the holiday dinner and leftovers.
(I think these were Christmas gifts and dinner, because even though they were Jewish back then Chanukah was a minor event talked about at synagogue without home participation, similar to Tish B'Av today.)

Today the big facts about the Federal postal service are that it needs drastic revamping, is not broke until 2013, and its praiseworthy role of inexpensively delivering rural mail is funded not by taxes but by flooding everyone with junk mail.

Oregon is about to close 21 post offices (or is it 41?) and every processing center except the big one in Portland. I feel for those postal workers whose jobs are in jeopardy. But I do not expect this will be a huge tragedy. Surely private companies will appear to fill the needs of rural towns: alternate local delivery options (here in Eugene we even have a pedal-powered delivery company to help businesses with same-day local deliveries) and new services for speedily delivering mail addressed to Portland post office boxes.

Gallant's New Years Day

2012-01-01T22:31:00.000-08:00

Today Gallant sat himself up for the first time. First three times, actually. That is great: he often wants to be sitting (instead of on his belly) so he can manipulate a toy with both hands. I place him sitting many times each day, and soon I won't need to.

Yesterday he did his first real crawling motion, instead of pushing with his legs while the side of his face is on the floor. He did it again today. Both instances were brief and when in pursuit of a toy: reaching for an object prompted his arms to move appropriately for crawling. I'm in no rush to have a crawling infant, although our baby corrals are cleaned and set up so the house is ready.

Spiritual Disciplines

2012-01-01T22:28:00.000-08:00

During 2011 I finally read the classic book Celebration of Discipline. It is a delightfully practical discussion of how to adopt Yeshua's habits and the ways doing so changes us.

(For part of the year a chapter of this book would be the initial topic of discussion when I met each week with a prayer-and-accountability friend. Maybe this year I'll blog a bit about my reaction to each chapter and how its discipline is part of my life.)

I also read the far more dry and academic The Spirit of the Disciplines. That book made a few good points but was mostly too abstract to really interest me.

Spiritual disciplines are simply those aspects of being Yeshua's disciple that require some intentionality. They are "disciplines" because they require self-discipline to do regularly and well.

Disciples study their master's lifestyle, worldview, use of scripture, and methods of worshipping. This is a broad and big task! So there will never be a complete list of spiritual disciplines.

Celebration of Discipline discusses meditation, prayer, fasting, study, simplicity, solitude, submission, service, confession, worship, guidance, and celebration.

The Spirit of the Disciplines discusses solitude, silence, fasting, frugality, chastity, secrecy, sacrifice, study, worship, celebration, service, prayer, fellowship, confession, and submission.

Notice how making such a list depends upon how you define the terms. Is there a difference between solitude and secrecy? Is meditation a subset of prayer and study?

There are plenty of disciplines not discussed in those two books.

As Yeshua's disciples we should think twice before departing from his lifestyle. We should memorize verses of scripture (and Yeshua's own parables and sayings). We should spend time with the needy. We should help God distribute the good things of his Kingdom. We should pray about what to do with our free time. We should enjoy the Biblical holy days and Shabbat (I do respect that people can acknowledge and learn from these without actually celebrating them).

Some people also include helpful habits such as journaling and composing worshipful songs among the disciplines even though Yeshua did not do them.

Disciple versus Believer

2012-01-01T20:58:00.000-08:00

In 1980 Dallas Willard wrote for Christianity Today:

The word "disciple" occurs 269 times in the New Testament. "Christian" is found only three times and was first introduced to refer precisely to the disciples...The New Testament is a book about disciples, by disciples and for disciples of Jesus Christ.

But the point is not merely verbal. What is more important is that...the assurances and benefits offered to humankind in the gospel evidently presuppose such a life and do not make realistic sense apart from it...

Dare I tell people as believers without discipleship that they are at peace with God? Where can I find authority for such a message?

We need Yeshua's yoke.

UPDATE: Heh. The google ngram for the words disciple and discipline shows how in about 1925 the word discipline became increasingly used for a meaning apart from being a disciple. The word discipline has always appeared in more books, but before that time the two words appeared in rough proportionality

Sin is a Worship Disorder?

2012-01-01T20:45:00.000-08:00

I have recently started read (with a group of friends) the book Redemption, about the lessons learned about pastoral counseling from the Mars Hill church.

So far this passage has stood out the most:

[S]in corrupts worship. The result? Not a ceasing of worship but a distortion of it. We never stop worshipping. Rather, in sin, we worship anything and everything other than God. We tend to exalt a substance, an experience, a person, or a dream to the level of a god. We define life by its attainment, and we feel like dying when it eludes us. It becomes bigger in our eyes than God himself and takes his place in our lives. The Bible calls this "idolatry". So addictions, for example, aren't just drug, alcohol, food, or pornography problems. They are worship disorders.

Sin as a worship disorder makes a lot of sense to me.

But I should add that only worshipping God does not mean only wanting God. I tried that and it does not work. Once, years ago, I prayed that God would help me to only want him. He answered my prayer and it started driving my wife crazy. "What do you want for dinner?" "Doesn't matter." "What do you want to do this weekend?" "Doesn't matter". After a few days I humbly confessed how my effort was misguided and prayed to want God most instead of only.

That passage also caused me to remember an experience from 2006 when praying together and for each other was what a bunch of children most wanted to do. Since that day I've seen adults with that attitude, but not again with children (probably mostly because the children were so young at P'nei Adoani and are so young at The River). For example, Smiley often asks to pray but I have never heard him pray by himself--he still treats prayer as something to do to spend time with his dad, instead of as a recreational activity for all occasions.

Singing About God and Satan

2012-01-01T15:04:00.000-08:00

One of Smiley's favorite books (and mine too) is A Child's Book of Prayers, from which he has learned to sing the Johnny Appleseed prayer.

(We have not yet taught Smiley who Johnny Appleseed was.)

In November, prompted by Thanksgiving's timely topic of being thankful, Smiley and I began adapting that song as something to do in the car. We start by one of us brainstorming four things for which we are thankful, then sing substituting those items into the song. (Yes, the original has three. It's sillier to make sure the new version scans poorly.)

As one example:

The Lord is good to me, and so I thank the Lord
For giving me the things I need:
mushrooms and garlic,
and mints and those chocolates with nuts inside
The Lord is good to me.

Garlic is mentioned often. Prior, I had no idea that Smiley was so mindful of it.

Meanwhile, Gallant at six months is still young enough that he finds hooting vowel noises to be vastly amusing. I know this because I sometimes use this trick to calm him on the changing table.

One evening in December we went to a party at a restaurant that was a bit noisy in the main room but which had restrooms in which the piped music was easy to hear clearly. While changing Gallant there, the song happened to be Sympathy for the Devil, with its clear "whoo whoo" repeated in the background. Gallant thought this was the funniest diaper change ever. This place had built-in funny vowel noises!

More Skype Please

2011-12-28T10:51:00.000-08:00

Smiley has a few friends and family members he chats with using Skype. But as the rainy days arrive he has said he wants more.

Since I no longer use Facebook to read how friends are doing, I would also enjoy more chatting with old friends.

(It's not that Facebook has grown less useful for keeping in touch. But the boys get jealous when I am paying attention to the computer and they are not participating.)

My user name on Skype is just my name squished together: davidvanslyke.

December Videos

2011-12-28T10:47:00.000-08:00

After a very long break from processing any home videos, a few from recent days are online.

During the days before Christmas you can see Gallant trying to crawl and playing in his exersaucer and Smiley making gingerbread cookies on a krumkake iron.

You can contrast Gallant's tired jumper play from his normally active jumper play. He really leaps about! (Smiley never enjoyed the jumper that much.)

On Christmas day my wife's parents and brother were with us. Smiley opened a magnetic number set from his aunt and uncle, a big Richard Scary story book from his grandparents, a toy tool set from us, and a tiny duplo set from his brother. He also helped distribute presents.

Gallant was napping when we shifted from brunch to presents. Once he awoke he played with a present and enjoyed some nice tummy time. Then both boys played more. Gallant's last present was a noisy one from his aunt and uncle.

The last nights of Chanukah also had a few more "big" presents from their great-grandmother and other relatives, but we did not film those being opened or used. Gallant got a Mozart Cube since that was one of his brother's favorite toys at that age but it broke from so much use. Smiley got some puzzles, a magnetic days of the week chart, and a second Frog and Toad book.

Werner Herzog reads Curious George

2011-12-27T22:50:00.001-08:00

Here is something delightful I found today after wondering if YouTube had any Curious George cartoons for Smiley to watch as a reward.

Local Wood, Revised

2011-12-26T20:20:00.000-08:00

Back in January I wrote about needing a new source of firewood.

Today we had two cords of madrone delivered. I had not seen only madrone sold since 2008--when I check (which admittedly is not often) only fir or "mixed hardwood" has been offered the past few years.

This wood is great for a small, hot fire. Very clean wood, cut to the desired 14", and with pieces neither too small to burn long nor so large they force a needlessly big fire.

My inexpensive moisture meter reads 16% to 19%, which if accurate is acceptable for seasoned wood but not superb. But madrone burns wonderfully slowly and hotly. Even if at the moist end of what counts as seasoned, this may be the best load of firewood we have ever had.

The wood's supplier is a friendly fellow named Steve Wright. If you need nice firewood, his e-mail is wtimber@gmail.com

UPDATE: I had a moment to do some quick math. But different internet charts disagree about how many BTUs of heat are in an average cord of fir and madrone. Fir is listed as 21 to 26 million BTUs per cord. Madrone is listed as 29 to 31 BTUs per cord. So fir, which sells for $160 per cord here, costs $6.15 to $7.62 per million BTUs of heat. Madrone costs $250 per cord, so $8.06 to $8.62 per million BTUs of heat. The fir costs less money but more of your time since the stove needs refilling much more often. One stove full of madrone also burns all night leaving big coals in the morning; fir needs refilling during the night or lighting a new fire in the morning. (I can't find any estimate for the cost per million BTUs for our electric furnace. It is substantially more.)

Gallant at Six Months

2011-12-02T19:18:00.001-08:00

(Hm. I cannot find any blog post for Smiley's six month checkup measurements for comparison. Odd. The best I can find is his nine month measurements. Sorry!)

Today Gallant had his six month checkup. He was 25 inches tall (8th percentile) and he weighed 15 pounds, 6 ounces (15th percentile). His head size was 43.7 cm (50th percentile).

But we already knew he was a bit small, chunky, and had a big head.

How is Gallant doing?

He has learned to sit up very well without support. Of course, reaching to the side for a toy makes him fall over since he does not mind that outcome.

I already wrote about his learning to eat and his first foods. Eating solid food is his change with the biggest effect for me since a surprising amount of time is taken up preparing his foods and feeding him.

He is farther along towards crawling. He still cannot hold the crawling position on his own, but can slowly scoot forward by using his back legs and the side of his forehead in a manner that makes me wonder why he does not have a forehead rug burn. We have the baby corral set up in the sitting room as a safe floor play place when I am away for more than two minutes.

But I am quite happy that Gallant is not crawling as early as Smiley was. I can still set Gallant down on the floor and know that he will still be there a couple minutes later, which allows Smiley to "babysit" (which he loves) in any room while I go warm a bottle or move clothes to the dryer.

What else? Gallant now rolls over better, from his back to his tummy and back, without problem. He is sleeping better but still not through the night. He still chews as if teething, but no teeth are imminent. He still will not use a pacifier.

Gallant Eating

2011-11-20T20:42:00.001-08:00

Gallant learned to eat this weekend. It was fascinating.

He had two food blends. One was steamed Asian pear mushed through a baby food mill and then mixed with infant rice cereal and formula powder. The other was baked sweet potato mixed with infant rice cereal, formula powder, and some water.

(The rice cereal and formula powder add calories and iron as well as improving digestibility. Constipated infants are no fun. But perhaps "Constipated Infants" is a good name for a rock band.)

Friday night (and prior) he was only able to get food down if we touched the roof of his mouth after putting food in his mouth. He would involuntarily push the food out of his mouth with his tongue unless we triggered his sucking reflex to override his gag reflex. Holding a spoon in his mouth that way was awkward, so we fed him by putting the food on a fingertip and letting him suck on the finger.

Saturday he was able to eat from a spoon for a few bites each meal. The standard infant spoon feeding method worked: wait for him to open his mouth, put in a spoon with food, pull out the spoon so the food is scraped off onto the top of his mouth and upper gums, and wait for him to swallow as much as will go down. But at lunch his gag reflex returned after a few minutes, and we would again need to trigger swallowing. At dinner time exhaustion was the problem: without the sucking reflex eating was too much effort and he almost did fall asleep sucking on my wife's fingertip.

Today was the first day he ate solid food at all three meal times. He ate from a spoon in that standard way, and made surprisingly little mess.

Hooray!

For the non-parents who read this, eating solids is great news. Infants who only have milk (or formula) for nourishment usually cannot sleep through the night. They wake up hungry and needing to make wet poops. Gallant was no exception, usually waking up every three or four hours. He would fall asleep at 7pm or 8pm but then wake during the 11pm, 3am, and 5am hours with a diaper change required during the last two wakings. But solids are more filling, take longer to digest, and produce fewer pooping times. We might soon be able to get a six hour block of sleep!

Dinosaur Livestock

2011-11-17T12:11:00.001-08:00

Many fantasy settings, including the one I am designing, include dinosaurs.

I was curious which dinosaurs would be used by people as livestock. Unfortunately, searching the internet for the phrase "dinosaur livestock" merely informs you that Dinosaur, Colorado is a ranching town.

(Tangentially, it has a population of 320. Is that still a town? Do we have villages anymore? I know historically that hamlets are too tiny to have a church whereas villages are larger but do not qualify as towns because they lack either the palisade wall or the regular market that attracts visiting merchants.)

Books about dinosaurs were quite simple when I was a child. They all features a few dozen varieties. We even believed in the brontosaurus back then.

For extinct animals, dinosaurs have apparently done very well during the past few decades. Now there are hundreds of them. I have no idea which are amazingly obscure and which are known to all today's five-year-old boy dinosaur fanatics. So in my RPG I cannot simply list a few examples of dinosaur livestock. Attempting to be specific will either confuse readers or doom me to recite a list of dozens of names.

The web's main resource for finding small dinosaurs seems to be the table at the bottom of a web page so brightly colored that at first I doubted its reliability. But it seems to be well-researched.

As five examples, let's consider both carnivores and plant-eaters.

Among the "lizard-hipped" dinosaurs the saltopus and lesothosaurus are bipedal carnivores the size of rabbits or chickens. As reptiles they lay eggs, so in a fantasy setting they might resemble chickens that also keep the farmer's rats under control. But owning too many would make them difficult to feed and not cost-effective.

For plant-eating dinosaur livestock there were several varieties of sauropods suffering from insular dwarfism, including the magyarosaurus, europasaurus, and ohmdenosaurus.

Bending

2011-11-16T18:28:00.001-08:00

I am enjoying learning how to play blues harmonica. So far my instruction is from two library books.

Apparently there are three main elements to blues harmonica: trills, rifts, and bending notes down. (A fourth element is making use of the Circle of Fifths to play five half-steps higher than the harmonica is tuned for. But the musician need not think about this.)

Bending is a very organic endeavor involving mouth shape that is difficult to teach either with a book or in person, since no one else can see or feel the size and shape of your vocal cavity. The tips are thus interestingly varied.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Playing the Harmonica, 2nd edition on page 120 lists its "Ten Tips for Bending Draw Notes"

Think your notes lower
Try whistling a high note and then a low note. Then sing a hgh note followed by a low note. Do you feel what happens to your vocal cavity and airflow? You want to get that same feeling to bend your draw notes.
Stay relaxed. Place the harp deep into your mouth. Maintain a controlled, focused airflow
For starters, play a 4-draw and without doing anything else tilt the harmonica downward slowly. You'll hear the pitch flatten. You do not want to do this when bending a draw note.
Focus on dropping your tongue flat against the bottom of your mouth, lowering your jaw, and opening your throat wide. If you feel your nose pinch shut that's good.
Purse (pinch) your lips slightly. Don't overdo this.
Mouth a "weeeh" vowel sound while drawing the note and then switch to an "aauh" vowel sound.
Just think about sticking your jaw out there like Popeye the Sailor Man. Stick it out and be proud.
Practice bending with both the pucker technique (easier) and tongue-block technique.
Do not breathe the air any harder. Creating a draw (or blow) bend does not require more air. Blowing or drawing harder only makes your bends more difficult.

For comparison, Blues Harmonica by Tom Ball on page 25 lists his tips, some of which are identical and other in direct opposition.

Say "oooh - aaah - oooh - aaah" to yourself while drawing the note
Say "oooy - oooy - oooy"
Raise and/or lower your jaw a bit
Shift your tongue back in your mouth
Pinch the wind supply by tightening the tension in the throat
Tense your lips slightly
Suck harder!

UPDATE: For the sake of comparison, here are four websites with their lists of advice.

Happiness

2011-11-15T20:18:00.000-08:00

The September 2011 Wellness Letter concluded with advice about spending money for happiness.

1. Buy more experiences and fewer material goods. Experiences (vacations, education classes, concerts, shows, etc.) stick with us but the pleasure gained from a new possession quickly fades.

2. Spend money on others. Giving activates brain areas associated with the happiness of receiving rewards, and produces happiness by strengthening social bonds.

3. The "buzz" of pleasure from a purchase wears of quickly even if the purchase is large. Spend money on many small pleasures instead of one big purchase.

4. Delay the actual purchase. Anticipation is often as significant a pleasure as ownership.

5. Prioritize spending to reduce your every-day hassles and make yourself feel a little spoiled each day. This affects overall happiness much more than spending on occasional vacations or major life events.

6. Read product reviews to make sure your purchase actually causes people to become happier.

What do you think?

I would add to their second point. Giving gifts is only half of a dynamic. The other half is realizing that in one sense we do not really own our things (because when we die we cannot take them with us) and we do not really own what we have given away (because other people claim those)--so the only items we really own are what we are giving away right now.

Personally, the fifth item is key for me. Because of my wife's celiac we do a lot of baking and the granite counter tops we has installed a few years ago are a huge help as well making our kitchen a nicer place to be. Because of my tendon condition, allergies, and the hours I spend holding an infant our spa is a huge health benefit. I'm not a gardener but I know folks who spend money to have a pretty garden which in turns helps them have more peace and rest each day. Some items provide ongoing happiness, and those are key.

(Ironically, the fifth item is also the one I do worst at. My family is way above average with thrifty lifestyle choices that save money but increase hassle: heating with a wood stove, using cloth diapers, grinding our own flour, baking our own bread and cookies, etc.)

Finally, I must be an oddball because for me anticipation has nearly zero pleasure.

The Teems are Coming to Town

2011-11-14T11:47:00.001-08:00

The other day Smiley was singing to himself: "The Teems are Coming to Town! The Teems are Coming to Town!"

I could not tell whether he was saying teen, team, teem, or something else. So I asked him, "What is a teem?"

He thought for a moment and then replied, "A teem is some who sings, 'The Teems are Coming to Town!'"

"So," I asked, "Does that make you a teem? Because you sing that?"

He again paused to think. "I'm still working on that," he replied.

Gallant's Busy Week

2011-11-14T11:34:00.001-08:00

Yay! That long-lasting cold is finally done. But enough about me. Little Gallant had an exciting last week.

On Tuesday he started reaching up to communicate that he wanted to be picked up from his high chair or exersaucer. He does not always do this, but he does it more often than not and it's a help in knowing what he wants.

On Friday he learned to scoot himself backwards when on the floor on his tummy. He hates this. He wants to go forwards. Previously he would push with his left arm more than his right arm and spin like a gimlet. That at least gave him a different view. Now he is retreating, which is progress in the world of muscle coordination but certainly does not seem like progress to him.

He also tried Asian Pears in his mesh feeder bag and loves them. They are sweet and just the right firmness to provide a soothing challenge for his need to gnaw. Last night he tried puréed carrot and tried to eat it but was not nearly as impressed.

His appetite is increasing. A four-ounce bottle is now seldom sufficient. We took from storage the rest of our eight-ounce glass baby bottles.

Last night Gallant even had a 4.5 hour stretch of sleep. Woo hoo! Some day my wife and I will again be able to sleep for six hours at a time.

Mopping

2011-11-08T12:13:00.000-08:00

Sorry I have not been blogging much. For two week's I have been under the weather, with the second cold Smiley brought home from his new preschool.

Right now Smiley is helping me mop the kitchen floor, which has not been mopped since Gallant was born five months ago. Smiley is strong enough to use the mop's lever that squishes the sponge mop head. The kitchen is only turning into a wading pool very slowly.

Me: My turn now.

Smiley: Why is it your turn?

Me: We mop to get the spots off the floor. You are doing great with getting the floor wet. But I do better at cleaning away the spots.

Smiley: Yes. My job is to get the floor wet. Your job is to get off the spots.

BlendTec - Tropical Carrot Soup

2011-11-05T15:04:00.000-07:00

Carrots are cheap. Carrot soup is warming and nice in cold weather. Time for a third blender soup!

Ingredients:

500 grams carrots, steamed (1 pound of carrots is close enough)
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup pineapple juice

Directions:
Put everything in the blender and blend on "soup".

(I steam the carrots by cutting them into thick "coin" slices and microwaving them for three or four minutes. For coconut milk we use Trader Joe's Light Coconut Milk since that is what we have handy; if you use normal coconut milk you probably need less heavy cream. For pineapple juice I use the juice from Costco canned pineapple chunks and eat the pineapple chunks separately as a snack.)

Light the Fire Again

2011-11-02T11:43:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I wrote that our dehydrator was currently enough to keep our house warm.

Well, this morning I lit a fire in our stove downstairs. Not because of needing heat, but to help dry out the house. Not only our windows, but even the inside of the front door was dripping wet this morning.

Five Times

2011-11-02T11:39:00.000-07:00

Recall that I drink my yerba maté at one-fifth normal strength.

I noticed the package has a text box proclaiming "Antioxidant Power: When brewed as directed, this tea provides an ORAC value of 10,000 umolTE/240 m, which is five times stronger than a typical cup of green tea brewed with a tea bag."

Is the five coincidence? Or are the antioxidant-containing compounds what makes the drink seem "strong enough" for my taste?

More Trick Less Treat

2011-11-01T23:15:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I was at a party for Nathen and folks brainstormed how to make Halloween a bit more high tech using a computer with a wireless webcam.

Decorate the approach to your home. Put up humorous signs or tombstones or something. Make visiting trick-or-treaters move slowly past a well lit spot without noticing that you just took a photo of someone's face with the hidden webcam. (If everyone in that group of trick-or-treaters is wearing a mask then take a group shot.)

When they ring the bell, play a spooky song. This gives you time to print out that photo of a face and cut out they eye holes to make it into a mask. Give the mask to your accomplice.

Answer the door and give them candy. Talk a bit about their costumes or the candy or the weather. Meanwhile, your accomplice leaves the house from another door and sneaks behind them, wearing a mask of one of them.

Say good night and smile.

Extra points if your accomplice is the family dog.

Gallant Gumming

2011-11-01T22:57:00.000-07:00

Gallant is enjoying food.

His older brother started eating injera at six months. Gallant is interested in food a month earlier, and has started trying to eat. His list of tried foods has some other early photos.

Rice cereal was a bust. He wants something to chew, not a nearly liquid substance.

Injera is his favorite. His infant gag reflex is still too strong for him to get any appreciable amount down. But he enjoys tasting it as it travels from his high chair tray to his bib and then to the floor. Here is a photo from tonight's dinner.

Tonight he tried our mesh feeding bag for the first time, with avacado. That was a great success. The mesh end tasted interesting, and the handle end allowed a short break for some chewing-teething.

I think he consumed more avacado than injera tonight, even though much more injera went into his mouth. If we actually cared about him eating food we would use the mesh bag more often. But he is still young enough (a few days shy of five months) that eating is only for entertainment: his tasting and our enjoying a way he keeps himself occupied during dinner time.

Gallant's First Foods

2011-11-01T22:45:00.000-07:00

Back in 2008-2009 I used my blog to keep track of when Smiley first ate different foods.

Might as well do the same for Gallant! Only the first few will have photographs.

Oct. 5th - rice cereal

Oct. 24th - injera

November 1st - avacado

November 10th - Asian pear
November 13th - carrot (puréed, he was already teething on raw carrot hunks)
November 17th - sweet potato (microwaved 2 minutes for a nice texture for in the mesh bag--slightly squishy but not mushy, as well as puréed)
November 20th - oats (ground to be extra fine before made into oatmeal)
November 22th - applesauce
November 24th - pumpkin
November 30th - peaches
December 5th - great northern beans
December 7th - tomato
December 9th - corn
December 13th - onion
December 16th - parsnips and beets
December 19th - broccoli
December 23rd - cabbage
December 28th - potato
December 30th - orange (juice in squash and onion soup)
January 1st, 2012 - quinoa (ground to be a porridge, mixed with other foods)
January 2nd - pinto beans
January 6th - green beans
January 9th - mango (nerd quip: "Mango is always yummy!")
January 12th - raspberry
January 17th - kiwi
January 20th - sunflower (in Trader Joe's sunflower butter)
January 23rd - spinach (cooked - don't give babies raw spinach!)
January 29th - egg yolk
February 1st - yogurt

Dehydrating

2011-11-01T22:36:00.000-07:00

I do not mention our dehydrator often. But we use it a lot.

This time of year it is especially nifty. The temperatures (in Fahrenheit) are in the low 60s during the day and about 40 at night. If we keep the dehydrator going and do some baking each day then we do not need to heat the house with the stove.

Last week our farmer friend Annette sold us a box of Asian pear "seconds". These are great for dehydrating. They dry in two days and taste like candy.

Our Nesco dehydrator is old enough I cannot find it for sale, but I think this one is the new version. We like this model for two reasons.

First, the drying happens top-down. This means the bottom is cool enough it will not hurt a wood floor or table. It is also morepleasant to add trays while the machine is on if the air does not blow up into your face.

Second, it has at least 750 watts of heat. The 450 watt models can only handle 4 to 6 trays at once. Being able to dry 12 trays is nice. (I can prepare eight trays of pears in about half an hour, and apples are even quicker with an apple peeler/corer.)

Mall Scavenger Hunts

2011-10-29T22:11:00.000-07:00

I am trying to brainstorm fun and interdisciplinary mall scavenger hunt items. My friends with older kids could use these on rainy days when their children are bored.

Items can require internet research, since our local mall has an Apple Store whose demonstration computers could be used during the activity.
Here is an example list. It's not great, but it will show what I'm thinking about.

What are other good items for kids to look for?

Where in the mall is...?
1. (Biology) - an example of Ursus arctos
2. (Business) - an advertisement that uses bandwagon
3. (Nutrition) - a lunch or dinner main dish with less than 30% of its calories from fats [an example in a book counts!]
4. (Visual Arts) - an illustration that uses foreshadowing
5. (Economics) - a store whose stock price has outperformed the S&P 500 during the past month
6. (Religion) - an advertisement or retail product whose artwork contains a reference to a text a religion considers holy
7. (Health) - an eye chart
8. (Business) - an item priced with a chain discount
9. (Business) - a store that uses markup on cost, and another store that uses markup on selling price
10. (Visual Arts) - a golden rectangle

And bring back to the host...
11. (Mathematics) - a mall map on which the center of gravity of the mall's exterior walls has been marked
12. (Chemistry) - an example of NaCl
13. (Politics) - the name of a mall customer able to correctly identify five differences between President Obama's and Ron Paul's visions for our country
14. (Music) - after asking at least five mall customers to chant "air ball..." identify if the phrase is usually a major or minor interval, and usually a third or fourth

BlendTec - Spicy Tomato Soup

2011-10-26T09:53:00.000-07:00

I have recently mentioned enjoying injera with spicy tomato soup.

My wife makes some amazing spicy tomato soups. But what about when I do not have any leftovers of those for lunch and thus want to quickly make something simpler for lunch?

Time for a second BlendTec soup that usescanned tomato!

Ingredients:

1 can diced tomato
1 cup nearly boiling water
2 Tbsp instant mashed potato (I use Costco's Excel Potato Pearls)
1/4 tsp berbere
a little raw onion

Directions:
Put everything in the blender and blend on "soup".

(This is a nice soup, spicy but simple, and good with injera. I am working on a more complex version that also has peas and carrot, but have not finished tweaking it yet.)

Ethiopian Cuisine Basics

2011-10-26T09:34:00.000-07:00

I have added a copy of the recent injera blog post to the recipes part of my website. Then it also made sense to add our family recipes for berbere and niter kebbeh.

The Missing American Girls

2011-10-21T20:01:00.000-07:00

A few days ago my family inexplicably received an American Girls doll and book catalog.

The company certainly does its historical fiction schtick well. The books are only slightly expensive, and contain historical and social lessons a parent could want a child to read about. Then the dolls are expensive: sort of like Harry & David meets Toys 'R Us.

Personally, I find entertainment in inventing the "missing" historical fiction characters.

Victoria: During the Prohibition era, this daughter of a mob boss uses her friendship with the police chief's daughter to help her father teach others that family is the most important thing.

Liz: This daughter of the Wild West's most secretive highwayman knows the keys to success: an abandoned and crying girl will stop any stagecoach, her parents are both excellent snipers, and when you hide a derringer in your doll's skirts no one suspects you also carry a second in your sleeve.

Indigo and Trixie: With a sharp blade, sharper wits, and a few palms greased with pirate gold this pirate captain's daughter helps her best friend keep open the brothel that three generations of matriarchs have built into a cornerstone of the New Orleans French Quarter.

When Ten Thousand is not Enough

2011-10-21T14:04:00.000-07:00

This past weekend my wife and one of her friends made and canned lot of applesauce.

Our Coleman Fold 'n Go camp stove had some trouble keeping both large water baths boiling.

Less portable camp stoves, such as the Camp Chef Explorer, have triple the BTU rating.

Odd that ten thousand BTUs is not enough for a household job! Triple that would probably suffice.

BlendTec - Tomato Broccoli Soup

2011-10-21T13:26:00.000-07:00

I have twice mentioned our BlendTec Total Blender. Time for a recipe!

None of the soups in the blender's included recipe book use any type of canned tomato. Several include one raw tomato as an ingredient.

I'm not sure I could taste the difference between a soup made with a fresh tomato or canned. Canned tomato is much less expensive. So my first lunch mission as the weather cools off is to create a tomato-based soup with canned tomato. I'll use diced tomato, since that is what we buy at Costco and keep in the garage.

Costco also has affordable fresh broccoli. Since I like most tomato-broccoli soups, and already have a use for spinach (in my spinach-mango or spinach-raspberry smoothies) the refined mission is to use canned tomato and fresh broccoli.

After one dreadful attempt, here is a nice second version.

Ingredients:

1 can diced tomato
1 cup nearly boiling water
1 clove garlic
about 3 cups fresh broccoli, steamed in the microwave
a little raw onion

Directions:

Put everything in the blender and blend on "soup". Garnish with grated cheese and perhaps black pepper.

Cthulhu's Artistic Relative

2011-10-18T21:39:00.000-07:00

Heh. An ancient giant kraken lair contains carefully arranged bones.

In the fossil bed, some of the shonisaur vertebral disks are arranged in curious linear patterns with almost geometric regularity, McMenamin explained.The proposed Triassic kraken, which could have been the most intelligent invertebrate ever, arranged the vertebral discs in double line patterns, with individual pieces nesting in a fitted fashion as if they were part of a puzzle.

Even more creepy: The arranged vertebrae resemble the pattern of sucker discs on a cephalopod tentacle, with each vertebra strongly resembling a coleoid sucker. In other words, the vertebral disc "pavement" seen at the state park may represent the earliest known self portrait.

Green Bike Lane Portions

2011-10-17T21:18:00.000-07:00

Eugene and Springfield now have portions of bike lanes bright green.

I understand the intention. But bright green?

Dark green would make sense as a Federal recommendation. Years ago a Federal study proved that white on dark green is the most visible contrast (not white on black), which is why freeway signs are white on dark green.

Yellow would make sense, since yellow already means "caution" to drivers.

But bright green means "go! your turn! accelerate!".

Why not orange? It would at least be different, and imply "a mix of caution and braking".

I must conclude that some of my undergraduate friends whom I have lost track of, who back at Pomona formed an I Hate Orange club, have risen to positions of governmental influence and forced some pro-orange study to be ignored.

Washer Magic

2011-10-17T21:12:00.000-07:00

Most folks who own front-loading HE washing machines use too much soap. Residue can build up, causing a bad smell and perhaps even bad performance.

I've written before about how for years we have been using Allens Naturally, a very gentle soap, and only half the jug's recommended amount. From that old post:

We had the last annual free maintenance on our washing machine. The repair guy taught us to run the machine empty on the "pre-rinse" cycle every few months to check for soap buildup. If this test cycle was sudsy then we were using too much soap.

Back in 2008 we ordered a box of six Washer Magic bottles for machine maintenance. That repair guy recommended them. "Use it any time bubbles remain after the washing is done."

Earlier this month we used the first bottle, more than three years later. Hooray for Allens Naturally!

How We Make Injera

2011-10-15T22:45:00.000-07:00

The weather is getting colder. Time to make injera!

Actually, I started making it on Sunday and ate it for the first time this Fall at lunch time today: three pieces to go with with spicy soup.

Injera has the world's simplest sponge recipe: in a mixing bowl whisk together

two cups of teff flour
one teaspoon yeast
three cups of warm water.

Preheat the oven to just over 100 degrees, then turn off the oven. Put the bowl in the oven and forget about it until you use your oven that day or until the next morning.

Each day, add a quarter cup more teff flour, perhaps some more water, whisk again, and return to the warm oven.

After three days it has fermented enough to be ready to cook, although you can wait additional days without problem. No ingredients are added: the "sponge" is now "batter".

A few tricks make the potentially tricky task very simple. Get these right and the pancakes come off easily and when you are done the griddle or skillet dusts clean with a dry rag. Ignore them and the batter sticks like crazy.

The batter should be slightly thicker than stew. It is not as thick as dough. But it is thicker than crêpe batter. Add extra teff flour to thicken the batter appropriately.
Use a cast iron griddle or skillet with a glass lid. Trust me that this is a huge help.
Spray oil onto the griddle/skillet before starting. No need to reapply oil between pancakes unless you are making a whole lot of them.
Use medium heat, and let the griddle/skillet heat up before you start. Really. Once drops of water bounce and sizzle, wait a couple more minutes.
When you pour the batter swirl the griddle/skillet a bit to spread the batter flatter (like a crêpe).
Cover the poured pancake. Watch it change color, starting at the edges and going to the center. Uncover it when the center has changed color. If you like them moist then it's done. If you prefer them drier then let it cook another minute or two.

Save at least a little as a starter for the next batch. No need to add more yeast. Add teff and warm water in that two-to-three ratio until you have replenished your sponge.

During Fall and Winter we often have the bowl of sponge/batter living in our oven for two weeks. Not only does my wife make great Ethiopian dinners, it is handy at lunch times to be able to make a few injera pancakes to go with some spicy soup or some boxed Indian food. After two weeks we start to get tired of it, use it all up, wait two or three weeks, and then begin a new batch three days before we want to use it.

Qualities of Classic Horror Stories

2011-10-15T21:23:00.000-07:00

Way back in 2009 I wrote some about a favorite horror story, a great book I found about designing a horror story, and how horror stories have similarities to stories about political intrigue.

This week I helped create a short horror story writing contest for school age children (which may or may not actually happen). The rules were pretty simple:

The submission must include two items: thehorror story and a short explanation of how each of the ten attributes below were used. The explanation should be clear and accurate: it will be more important for judging than the story itself. Younger childrenmay simply write a phrase or two after each of the ten attributes; older children should compose their explanation in paragraph(s).

Here are the ten attributes I came up with. What others am I missing? What makes a classic horror story? After all, shouldn't there be thirteen attributes of a classic horror story?

1. The danger is personal. The protagonist, or a loved one, is threatened.

2. The first shock happens early. Often the opening scene involves the protagonist (or a loved one) witnessing or suffering a freakish situation.

3. The mood builds slowly with few releases of tension. The eeriness, helplessness, desperation, confusion, and dread grow gradually but relentlessly.

4. The protagonist becomes wrapped up in more and more problems. Yet although tensions abound, few become violent. The protagonist is not in an action story and cannot simply fight his or her way to freedom or victory.

5. The protagonist witnesses things that cannot be explained and is opposed by varieties of people or creatures that have never before been encountered.

6. Things that should be permanent act temporary. (A shouted curse has a long-lasting effect, the dead come back to life, etc.). Things that should be temporary act permanent. (Fog never leaves the town, the abandoned asylum is haunted by flashes of illusionary memories).

7. Because of the inexplicable events, unique opponents, and mixing of permanent and temporary, the protagonist is ignorant for many problems about which of his or her options will calm or inflame the situation. The growing mood includes new uncertainties about what to do and new worries that a new strategy will actually make things worse.

8. When the protagonist does feel a sense of victory, the gain is partly hollow. As examples, a clue explains why the monster appeared but not how to defeat it, rescuing someone alerts the villain that protagonist is an opponent worth monitoring and dealing with, or defeating one opponent reveals a deeper layer of evil in control. (Note: for young writers this is often the most difficult criteria to include, but also perhaps the most powerful for improving the story. Don't settle for a struggle only one layer deep!)

9. Purity has real value. Evil hearts draw evil forces. If the protagonist can remain pure, he or she can escape being attacked, detected, or slowed by the evil forces.

10. The unexpected happens! (In any or all of the first nine criteria, for example... Another friend or family member is involved. Another freakish event happens. Another part of the protagonist's history is revealed as a source of tension. A strange creature
ambushes the protagonist. A strange phenomenon causes the protagonistto doubt his or her sanity. An unforeseen complication provides additional worries. A partial victory is surprisingly easy but alarmingly hollow. The protagonist recognizes another habit or
mindset that counts as a helpful kind of purity.)

The Wicked Bad Guys in Far Away Land

2011-10-13T22:45:00.000-07:00

In my previous post I mentioned Far Away Land without providing any background. Time to remedy that!

My wife and I both saved many books from our childhood to share with the children we hoped to have. Since Smiley enjoys fairy tales, we brought out some of her books of fairy tales that are sentimental because of their wonderful illustrations.

We should have anticipated that Hansel and Gretel would be so frightening...

Smiley knew about plenty bad guys. But Hansel and Gretel introduced two unprecedented levels of badness. There was the witch who wanted to eat someone and got burned up in her oven: people eating people was newly wrong, and a person burning in a fire was startlingly horrific. Even worse was the wicked stepmother who wanted to abandon her own children in the wood.

The part about the oven turned out to be easy to smooth over. We talked about our stove downstairs in which we burn wood to heat the house. The fire does not hurt me when I put logs in. The fire only burns the wood. Witches are not real people: they burn like wood.

(Not universally true about fairy tale witches, but for now it works. In his mind a witch is some sort of hybrid doppelganger-scarecrow.)

But thinking about a stepmother abandoning her children was really disturbing. Smiley had trouble falling asleep that night.

The next night he wanted to read Hansel and Gretel again, and he asked me what the word "wicked" meant. I saw a great opportunity to help ease his troubled mind.

We talked about the bad guys he knew about.

Most of them were not bad all the time but did make bad choices: his imaginary friend Magalene, the two bad mice, the troublesome trucks of the Railway stories, etc. I emphasized that these characters wanted to behave but had trouble behaving. I reminded Smiley that he also had times where he wanted to behave but had trouble behaving--but he was a good boy, not a bad guy. Some stories are about good people making mistakes.

However, he also knew about a few character that never even try to be good: Goliath, the Big Bad Wolf, the ninjas that try to tempt Magalene, the fierce bad rabbit, the rats who wanted to put someone in a roly-poly pudding. These were "wicked", I explained. Someone who is wicked does not even try to be good.

(That is not quite theologically correct, of course. But it as close as I could manage with a three-year-old.)

Smiley felt much better. He knew it often required a lot of effort to be a listening boy when he was not inclined to behave. Yet he almost always tried, and usually succeeded. Suddenly he saw himself as stronger than Goliath or the Big Bad Wolf, who lacked the willpower he daily practiced exerting.

Then we talked about how in Hansel and Gretel the stepmother and witch are both wicked. They too were not even trying. They were scary, but also slightly pitied.

Yet Hansel and Gretel was still troubling for another night.

Then Smiley started to ask whether any of his friends were wicked. I assured him none were. Smiley realizes that most of his playmates are not as wonderfully behaved as he is. (Although his impression is biased. We host much more than half his play-dates, and disobedience often happens when it is time to stop playing and leave. Smiley is just as susceptible to those minor fits as his friends, but sees it less often.) So we talked about all of his friends, and how they all try to behave and listen.

Again Hansel and Gretel was still troubling that night.

Then, the next day, Smiley decided that "wicked people live in Far Away Land". Ever since that proclamation he has never had trouble sleeping because of thinking about villains in stories.

I am still finding out what Far Away Land is like. I knew it would be complex because I have read the original Peter Pan:

I don't know whether you have ever seen a map of a person's mind.Doctors sometimes draw maps of other parts of you, and your own map canbecome intensely interesting, but catch them trying to draw a map of achild's mind, which is not only confused, but keeps going round allthe time. There are zigzag lines on it, just like your temperature on acard, and these are probably roads in the island, for the Neverland isalways more or less an island, with astonishing splashes of colour hereand there, and coral reefs and rakish-looking craft in the offing, andsavages and lonely lairs, and gnomes who are mostly tailors, and cavesthrough which a river runs, and princes with six elder brothers, and ahut fast going to decay, and one very small old lady with a hooked nose.It would be an easy map if that were all, but there is also first dayat school, religion, fathers, the round pond, needle-work, murders,hangings, verbs that take the dative, chocolate pudding day, gettinginto braces, say ninety-nine, three-pence for pulling out your toothyourself, and so on, and either these are part of the island or they areanother map showing through, and it is all rather confusing, especiallyas nothing will stand still.

I have learned that Far Away Land is where pretend things live. Animals wearing clothes, toys that talk, witches, ninjas, and everything else make-believe lives there. Despite its name, it is inside Eugene, unlike California which takes days and days to drive to and staying in motels. It is surrounded by a tall wood wall that keeps the wicked people inside.

Assisting, Demonstrating, Scaffolding

2011-10-11T21:38:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Smiley had some friends over for some "Art Exploration Time". I'll use the event as an example of three types of teaching.

Assisting

Smiley had not seen a hole punch in many months and probably did not remember ever using one. He wanted to make holes in a paper plate. Since his hands were not strong enough to use the punch, he got some continued assistance. (The photo is not very clear about this, but you can just see Smiley behind his friend Stern, with Stern's mom helping use the hole punch.)

We also made gingerbread cookies. Smiley is a good helper in the kitchen but needs continued assistance. If I measure out ingredients he can dump them in the mixing bowls. He can stir the mixing bowls without spilling, but does not stir adequately for most recipes.

Smiley likes being a helper. He does not shy from activities that require continued assistance. He can still feel more capable and knowledgable despite requiring constant help.

The same can be true for adults, too. Many activities for adults, from scuba tours to kitchen canning classes, offer participants as much continued assistance as they desire.

Demonstrating

In that same photo you can notice Smiley's stamp set. A multi-colored stamp pad was something new for his friends. So I demonstrated how to use a damp cloth on a plate to clean the stamps before switching colors. Even three-year-old Stern caught on immediately and needed no continuing help.

Stern's sister, Giddy, wanted to help roll the dough flat between the silpat baking sheet and the plastic wrap. But she immediately realized the new challenge: unlike rolling clay on a table, this task involved boundary conditions since the dough should more-or-less fill the silpat. "What do I do?" she asked. I demonstrated starting from the middle and moving dough towards an edge that still needed more dough. She caught on and needed no other help.

In my math classes at LCC I do too much demonstrating. A constant issue is how to better use class time for assisting students that are struggling more, and how to design activities that use scaffolding for students that do not require as many demonstrations.

Scaffolding

A fun part of silpat gingerbread cookies is looking at the pieces between the cookie-cutter shapes and wondering what they look like. I thought this piece looked like a wild boar, but Giddy decided it was a lion.

After making the mane with orange glaze she paused, unsure what to do. "I have a hard time seeing the tail with that shape," I commented. "Could you help me see the tail?" She did: it is starting at the back, curving across the lion's yellow side, and ending in the red tuft of hairs.

My small and vague suggestion was just enough to get her going again. This kind of small nudge is called scaffolding, after Vygotsky's theories. A good teacher notices when a student is almost capable of more but needs a tiny nudge.

Smiley needed a more physical type of scaffolding when he tried to thread some colored yarn through the holes he punched around his paper plate. Although he is practiced at making bead necklaces using wire or using dental floss and a blunt needle, he could not get the soft yarn through the holes. So I made a stiff "needle" of tape on one end, which allowed him to proceed.

By doing as much scaffolding as possible we show our kids that they can be independent learners, but also that all learners sometimes get stuck and need small nudges to continue.

UPDATE: Smiley's friends names have been changed to "blog names".

Painting Objects with Parts

2011-10-11T14:33:00.000-07:00

Towards the end of September we noticed a change in Smiley's painting.

Most of what he did and does for "painting" with colored paints was mixing colors in this dish of paints and in the bowl of water supposedly for cleaning his brush. Making lines and curves on the paper not as interesting or engaging. That much has not changed.

But previously he did not have any structure to his lines and curves, even if he named them (usually as escalators, train tracks, or roads). Now he is painting objects made up of parts.

That purple item mystified us for a two weeks. Smiley finally decided it was a flower. Even if it was not originally anything in particular, it still demonstrates his slowly developing awareness that where on the paper he puts his lines and curves can be an important choice.

Yesterday he painted another mystery.

We know what this is: a map of Far Away Land. He has been drawing these on his doodle pads, and now made one with paint. The circle around the outside is the fence that separates Far Away Land from the rest of Eugene.

I am not yet sure if the placement of his other lines and curves has any intentionality. I have not had yet an appropriate time to sit with him and repeatedly ask, "Who else lives in Far Away Land?" and "Where is their home?".

Political Parties: Unions versus Corporations

2011-10-08T20:21:00.000-07:00

I remember that back in the 1980s I figured out the difference between Democrats and Republicans. (I make no claim that my observation was correct, since I was not very aware of politics at the time.)

Democrats valued caution. They did not want to use the environment in ways that might wreck things, change how unions worked, or relax regulations on corporations. Republicans valued progress. They believed that America was prosperous enough to fix anything it might damage, and favored tinkering with policy in the hope it would foster innovation and improve average wealth.

Surely my observation about the difference between the parties was incomplete. Perhaps it was entirely false.

Today the contrast is sadly clear, and quite divorced from the normal folk who belong to either party. The Democratic leadership is in bed with the unions. The Republican leadership is in bed with large corporations.

Today Instapundit had amazing examples of both. The "Occupy Wall Street" protests are astrotrufed with unions hiring union members and unaffiliated Hispanics to participate. The ABA is a great example of regulatory capture.

Most Americans are neither union leaders nor managers of large corporations, and are increasingly realizing how little we are represented in our republic.

The obvious way to reduce cronyism is to shift Federal power back to the states. As Stephen Bainbridge writes:

Corporations do influence the government, of course. But then so do labor unions, the legal profession, the medical profession, special interest groups based on one form of racial or ethnic grievance or another, and lobbying interests ranging from Iowa corn to Texas oil. The problem isn’t corporations, the problem is that we have a government that has its fingers in nearly every aspect of the economy. That means that policy makers have the ability to pick economic winners and losers every day, and it’s only natural that those policies would be of concern to the people that they’re going to impact most directly, the businesses affected by them.

Eugene's Busy Three-Year-Olds

2011-10-08T17:58:00.000-07:00

Since the rainy days are approaching I'm compiling a list of things that kids Smiley's age are invited to do around town for free or for little cost.

Please chime in if you know of other activities!

Eugene Park and Recreation (calendar, news) offers occasional, usually free activities. For example, this weekend had an interpretive walk through Delta Ponds.

Springfield Parks (calendar) also has occasional, usually free events. For example, next week has the Edible Festival at Willamalane Center on Saturday ($5 per adult).

The Eugene Library (kids page) has free weekly story and song events. For three-year-olds the time is Wednesdays at 10:15am or 11am.

The Museum of Natural and Cultural History has free monthly Little Wonders stories and activity days for preschool-age kids on the first Wednesday of each month. If you can find parking in the small lot next to the museum then the front desk will provide a temporary parking pass.

The Science Factory also has monthly Tot Discovery Days on the first Friday of each month. These are only free if you are a member, but if you have a little kid in Eugene you probably are a member anyway since the Science Factory is a great thing to do on rainy Winter days.

The Schnitzer Museum of Art has free admission on the first Friday of each month. Not as age-appropriate as the Science Factory offering, but free for families not Science Factory members.

The NAAG Gym has an open gym hour most days. The cost is $4, or $3 for gym students. This is less expensive than Bounce. Smiley also prefers the equipment at NAAG. (Smiley is currently a student in the weekly class on Thursdays at 2:30pm. If you want to visit the weekly class, it's free the first time as the guest of an enrolled kid!)

The local homeschooling network, Barnraisers, often organizes activities for younger kids as well as school-age kids. For example, yesterday I took both boys to River Turns Farm in Coburg for a tour and fruit picking, and most Mondays afternoons in October we are hosting an "art exploration" time.

Total Blender, Part 2

2011-10-08T17:07:00.000-07:00

In August I wrote about our super-blender. Time for an update.

Its ability to make soups quickly without heating up the house as much as using the stove did improve our summer dinner routines. The types of soups that we made exclusively with the blender was limiting, but my wife had no trouble adapting a few of her tomato-based soups so that most of the preparation was done with the blender and the stove was used only a few minutes^*.

The blender does grind grain well simply by putting in two cups of grain and running the blender on its highest speed (for the default 50 seconds the "speed up" key runs). The result is finer than with our grain mill.

But it will not replace our grain mill. Doing two cups at a time requires too much babysitting, compounded by the fact that the blender is so incredibly noisy at maximum speed that being anywhere near it is annoying^*^*. The grain mill is slower but its large hopper and quieter noise win the prize. However, it is nice to have the blender as a backup for when we are out of flour mix but want to quickly throw together a loaf of bread dough before bedtime to ferment and rise overnight.

My wife and I have discovered we like vastly different fruits and vegetables in our raw juices.

I have found that I like filling the blender with spinach. I like spinach, and eating more is a healthy idea. I add half a cup of milk so it blends, and on top dump about half a cup of either frozen mango or frozen raspberries. (For me, blueberries, banana, or apple do not combine well with spinach. And those five exhaust the list of fruits we can affordably buy organic year-round.)

My wife makes her juices with cantaloupe, carrot, and then some fruit. Surprisingly, I do like carrots and cantaloupe but have learned that I like to eat those flavors, not drink them.

Lastly, we're making more pancakes and waffles in the mornings. But that is simply because we have a reliable blender. A normal blender would help with those equally well.

^* She uses the stove before blending to saute onions and garlic, and/or uses the stove after blending to bring the soup to a rolling boil for a few minutes so it will safely keep longer in the fridge.

^*^* We also had to explain what we were doing to the confused FAA personnel who knocked at our front door.

In Real Life

2011-10-05T21:37:00.000-07:00

Smiley had his first day of preschool today.

I would write more, and put up photographs, but I am also terribly sick with an awful cold.

Yet I cannot go to sleep before retelling this conversation after we got into the car this morning:

Me: Remember, when we had the tour of the room two days ago we were told that today Daddy could not stay long. But in a few days I can stay with you more and see what you do.

Smiley: Okay.

Me: But when I do stay, I might not be able to play with you. I will have to do what your teacher says. Maybe she will ask me to help other kids. In preschool the teacher is the boss.

Smiley: Yes. In classes the teacher is the boss, not the daddies. That's how it is in real life.

Gallant at Four Months

2011-10-04T17:33:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Gallant had his four month checkup. His measurements (and percentiles) were length 23.4 in. (10%), weight 12 lb., 6 oz. (10%), head 16.3 in. (25%).

He is very slightly shorter and heavier than Smiley was when he was four months old.

Smiley at four months:

Gallant at four months:

Yerba Maté, Part 2

2011-10-04T16:41:00.000-07:00

A bit more than a month ago I wrote about drinking yerba maté.

I decided to buy some from Eco Teas. That brand is a good product: unsmoked for a more pleasant and healthier taste, and well-processed to include very few branch bits.

Amazon seemed to have a good deal, but the Eco Teas website is even less expensive if you actually want five pounds (which I did not).

In any case, compared to quality tea it is very cheap!

I soon realized that I only like yerba maté if I treat it like black tea. I use about a tablespoon per 40 ounce teapot (instead of a tablespoon per eight ounces). I add milk. I really like the result, but it is nothing like the traditional experience.

It also means I am only getting about 6 mg of caffeine per eight-ounce cup, according to my handy caffeine chart. That is comparable to decaff tea or hot cocoa!

Herbal Tea: 0 mg
Decaffeinated Tea: 1-8 mg
Hot Cocoa: 8 mg
Decaffeinated Coffee: 4-10 mg
Milk Chocolate (4 oz.): 4-40 mg
Dark Chocolate (4 oz.): 20-140 mg
Soda: 22-55 mg
White or Green Tea: 30-60 mg
Yerba Maté: 30-40 mg
Oolong Tea: 50-100 mg
Black Tea: 80-140 mg
Energy Drinks: 75-160 mg
Instant Coffee: 90-200 mg
Espresso (4 oz.): 180-220 mg
Drip Coffee: 160-300 mg
NoDoz (2 pills): 200 mg

Project Five or Bust

2011-10-02T17:26:00.000-07:00

One of my LCC colleagues, Phil Moore had great news in February. I'm finally getting around to blogging about it.

He organized a search named "Five or Bust" on a math forum to organize a "proof" by overpowering evidence for the conjecture that

k = 78557 is the smallest positive odd integer such that k + 2ⁿ is never a prime number for any positive integer n

Phil writes about his project's completion:

It is easy to show that 78557 + 2^n is never prime, being always divisible by 3, 5, 7, 13, 19, 37, or 73.

To show that 78557 is the smallest number with this property, we need to find for each odd k < 78557 some value of n which makes k + 2^n prime.

A collaborative search in 2001-2002 narrowed the search down to 8 values of k for which a prime or probable prime value was not known for the sequence k + 2^n. A probable prime is a number which passes a number of tests that all prime numbers will pass and most, but not all, composite numbers will fail. I started searching these 8 sequences in summer of 2007 and eliminated three of them by discovering three large probable primes. My largest discovery in June of 2008 at 358,640 digits was at that time the largest known probable prime.

In October of 2008, I organized the distributed search project "Five or Bust" to search the remaining 5 sequences. In November 2009, we found the fourth probable prime, narrowing the search to the single sequence 40291 + 2^n.

In early February, Engracio Esmenda of Chicago discovered that 40291 + 2^9092394 is a probable prime. This number contains 2,737,083 digits, and if written in 12-point font on a single line, would be over five-and-a-half miles long. We are pretty sure that we have found our prime, but we can't actually prove it. The probability that a random number of this size which has passed all of our probable prime tests is actually composite is about 1 chance in 10^1800. To prove it is actually prime would take about 4 trillion years on a typical computer of today, maybe only 300 billion years if the Generalized Riemann Hypothesis is ever proven.

Twenty of the values that have been discovered over the years of this search are probable primes as opposed to proven primes, so in order to make a mathematical theorem out of this, we are going to need some improvements in theory, technology, or both!

This project has been so much fun that I am a little sorry to see it end, but I am also relieved, as there was no reason to think that in the worst case, the search could easily have gone on for decades.

Congratulations, Phil and Engracio!

Smiley's Weapons

2011-10-01T14:23:00.000-07:00

Even toddler Bibles have swords, bows, and arrows. At the beginning of the summer Smiley began asking about these.

So my wife and I made him a pair of boffer swords.

He is still too young to learn the Four Rules of Boffer Sword Safety, which is okay. He and his friends do not move fast enough or hit hard enough to be dangerous. At this point the one rule "Swords hit legs" is sufficient.

He likes them. They are a great way to be energetic outside.

I also retrieved from the garage my children's bow an one arrow.

Smiley was able to notch the arrow next to the bead attached to the string, but then lacked the coordination to shift how he held the bow or draw back the arrow. Perfect!

The bow and arrow are now back in the garage, having served their purpose for now.

Both types of weapons helped him continue to learn the difference between tools and toys. In general, tools have more rules, have one way to properly use them, and are less indestructible. Tools need more respect.

Unremembered Loss #25

2011-10-01T14:14:00.000-07:00

Douglas Clarke, a cousin-in-law, publishes a monthly newsletter named Unremembered Loss about what he is learning as a writer. He does not write much, but he writes worthwhile stuff well.

Some issues are about technique. For example, issue #24 was about writing a strong opening paragraph. Other issues are about his personal growth either as a writer or as a father who tragically lost a teenage son.

Most issues are two pages. Some months almost half of the newsletter's text is examples cited from his own novels and short stories, included to make his commentary clear.

The latest issue is #25, which discusses how he wrote this short story. Its lessons directly apply to writing a short story about any life lesson.

If you like making up short stories, writing, or reading about someone's personal growth, consider subscribing. Unfortunately, Douglas does not update his Unremembered Loss archive page well, so you do need to subscribe to reliably get new newsletters.

Gallant at Three Months

2011-09-24T18:39:00.000-07:00

In early August I wrote about how Gallant was doing at two months and how Smiley was doing as a big brother. Now it is the end of September. Gallant is mostly through his third month. What has changed?

Smiley still enjoys being a big brother and helping entertain the baby.

Smiley likes reading together too.

Gallant smiles a lot. He has a great smile.

Gallant has gone from having just found his fist in early August to being able to usually grasp something with both hands to be able to suck on it.

His love for being upright grows unbounded. He likes taking steps

and standing on laps

Since early August has progressed from sitting propped

to being tucked into the exersaucer with many towels and a pillow

to standing unassisted in the exersaucer or in his jumper

Only a couple weeks ago did he begin to enjoy tummy time.

He is nearly teething. (Smiley was also nearly nicknamed "Drooly".)

He still will not suck on a pacifier. He tries chewing on it, and it zips out of this mouth like a shot watermelon seed.

So, go visit our 2011 photos. Yesterday I uploaded 110 new ones from August and September. The photos in this blog post are merely a few, and not all of the best.

Oh... Gallant had two "firsts" today. He rolled over from his tummy to his side (both sides). And he sat happily in the ergo upright, facing in, legs spread.

Smiley's First Board Game

2011-08-30T16:25:00.000-07:00

What published games do I play with Smiley? (My wife and I are now enjoying Arkham Horror.)

The only board game Smiley understands is Uncle Wiggly. The game is a less well known simpler version of Chutes and Ladders, with only one ladder and all of the chutes only going back three spaces. It uses number cards instead of a spinner.

When he was two years old it was two games. We used the board and rabbit-characters that moved on its path as one activity for telling stories. We used the number cards as another number-identification activity.

Now when Smiley plays he usually has his rabbit ignore the counting cards while my rabbit protagonist my play by the rules. His rabbit hops about as he wishes, taunting my rabbit whenever it encounters trouble and must move back three spaces.

Sometimes Smiley uses is the only rabbit, and asks me to help him use the cards.

Smiley does not know the books the game is based on, but he likes the plot of a rabbit going for a walk on a path and meeting "good guys" and "bad guys". I have placed a hold request at the local library for the Uncle Wiggly Storybook so soon we can meet these characters.

In any case, since Smiley is finally interested in playing a game by the published rules I have added Candyland and Chutes and Ladders to his Amazon Wishlist. Unfortunately, neither my wife nor I saved our childhood copies of those games. Our relatives can get them for Smiley for the December holidays.

New Socks

2011-08-30T16:14:00.000-07:00

For the past year I have been wearing a new kind of sock.

Remember how I used to wear an "Acrylic Blend Cushion" sock of a brand first called Towncraft and then called Stafford? J.C. Penny stopped carrying those.

But Costco makes a Kirkland "Outdoor Trail Sock" that also works as the only sock I ever need. It is soft enough to make my feet happy but thin enough to even work with my dress shoes.

(They also last even longer than the 14 month life of the previous kind.)

Unfortunately, it is a seasonal item. Just last week they arrived back at our Costco. Get them while you can!

Arkham Horror: Lies, the King in Yellow, and Statistics

2011-08-27T15:23:00.000-07:00

I tried the board game Arkham Horror in May and loved it. I recently was given the game and the expansion The King in Yellow as birthday presents.

(That expansion sounded like the best to own if I only intend to own one.)

Tangent: The expansion includes three distinct parts. Foremost are more cards to aid replay value. Second is a new way to remove sealed gates or gain Doom Track time (special Mythos Cards about the evil theater production can be included in that deck, the more they are placed towards the top the more they add difficulty). Third is a new set of dire consequences for the Terror Track increasing. Currently I have only tried using the extra cards. The game is hard enough without two more ways to increase difficulty.

The only fundamental strategy for the game is to notice that not all unstable locations have an equal probability of turning into a sinister gate to another world. The team of players should prioritize protecting the high-probability locations by "sealing" them. (This involves closing a gate while using knowledge gained from clues about the evil forces invading Arkham.)

A consequence is to also notice where clues appear. When no player has the ability to seal a location, closing a gate may still be worthwhile in a location where many clues are likely to appear before another gate would open there.

So, how does including the cards from that expansion alter the strategy?

The short story is that the "big four" unstable locations are Independence Square, Unvisited Isle, The Witch House, and Woods. These four locations represent 60% of all potential gate occurrences.

Furthermore, the Science Building, the Historical Society, and Hibb's Roadhouse and are (in that order) the most appropriate places to close but not seal a gate. These locations often get new clues, but seldom get a new gate.

Here are the new statistics.

Gates

13 Occurrences (15%): Independence Square, Unvisited Isle, The Witch House, Woods
8 Occurrences (10%): Black Cave, Graveyard, The Unnameable
2 Occurrences (2%): Hibb's Roadhouse, Historical Society, Science Building, Silver Twilight Lodge

Clues

13 Occurrences (17%): Black Cave
12 Occurrences (15%): The Unnameable
11 Occurrences (14%): Science Building
8 Occurrences (10%): Historical Society, Woods
7 Occurrences (9%): Hibb's Roadhouse, Independence Square, Unvisited Isle
2 Occurrences (3%): Graveyard, Silver Twilight Lodge
1 Occurrences (1%): The Witch House

Yerba Maté

2011-08-24T09:29:00.000-07:00

Our hallway closet has a shelf with some teas my wife and I do not normally drink but we keep in case visitors want them. This stash includes a bag of yerba maté that is several years old.

One evening last weekend my father wanted something with caffeine, but all our coffee is decaffeinated (since my wife is the coffee drinker and she is nursing little Gallant).

So my father and I tried the yerba maté. It was good! I was surprised that I liked it, remembering it from years ago as an acquired taste I lacked.

We get most of our teas from Stash Tea, which does carry some. Amazon also has quite a few available with Amazon Prime free shipping.

Do any of you have a favorite source of yerba maté? Are there big flavor differences between brands?

The Wellness Letter and Naturopathy

2011-08-24T09:14:00.000-07:00

My family has read the Berkeley Wellness Letter for years.

Earlier this month I mentioned Bill, a friend and naturopath. The Wellness Letter has often provided us with topics of conversation. That publication often recommends against treatments that research-based naturopathy would recommend.

As one example, the April 2011 issue recommended against any chiropractic neck manipulation, concluding with the sentence

Despite some claims, the "click" or popping sound that may occur during neck manipulation does not indicate that the procedure has corrected some problem.

Bill agrees with that statement, but realizes it misses the point. The Wellness Letter is focusing on some high-publicity cases of chiropractors moving the neck too violently because they are focusing on making sounds happen.

Yes, some people have well-understood risk factors and should avoid chiropractic neck manipulation. And any chiropractor emphasizing the sounds or judging success by the sounds is indeed behaving dangerously. But properly performed chiropractic neck manipulation has insignificant risk for most people and when combined with deep tissue massage can aid neck mobility even if no sounds happen.

A second example is from the July 2011 issue. A full-page article on the benefits of magnesium concludes with a recommendation to not take a magnesium supplement because these can cause diarrhea, or much less often nausea and cramps.

Bill agrees with that risk, but would again claim it misses the point. The best studies he knows about recommend an average of between 200 and 400 milligrams of magnesium per day for optimal muscle health. This is much more than most Americans get from food. Once again there are some risk factors, but many if not most Americans could benefit with no ill effect from a magnesium supplement.

Naturopathy would often recommend trying a magnesium supplement--although not foolishly before a wedding or road trip! The risk is a brief inconvenience: a day or two of diarrhea. The potential benefit is a lifetime of better muscle health.

UPDATE: A concluding emphasis that since there are risk factors known for both chiropractic neck manipulation and taking a magnesium supplement it would always be wise to check with your doctor before agreeing to either treatment.

Blendtec Total Blender

2011-08-23T19:19:00.000-07:00

My father and step-mother visited us last weekend. Everyone had a nice time.

My birthday, my wife's birthday, and our anniversary are all close together. And our blender recently wore out.

Tangent: Our old Oster Designer Cycle Blend blender finally wore out. It was a present from another math graduate student at UCSB in 1994. She used blenders to make nut butter, and habitually gave them to friends when the motor had worn down too much for her needs but not enough to be normally noticeable. It served us well for many years!

We had nothing else important on our wish lists besides a new blender. And Costco was having a sale on the Blendtec Total Blender. So that is what we were given as a three-event present.

It's really nifty.

I expect the biggest change will be in making soups. Recall that Smiley naturally likes "fast soup". Today is a hot day, so right now my wife is experimenting with a cold Mexican-style soup.

The Total Blender should also be a much faster grain mill than the attachment for our mixer. Hooray! (That mill works fine, but slowly. And it heats up the mixer a lot, so we need to pause every twenty minutes or so to let it cool off.)

Putting more carrots in our diet will be healthy but neither exciting nor much extra convenience. Using all the swiss chard our garden produces just got a lot easier. I am especially looking forward to no longer peeling broccoli stems--we can use the florets in our typical cooking and simply blend the stems!

The Blendtec website has a few recipes. The sales rep also recommended Robyn's Blog. I am sure we will make up plenty of our own recipes. (I anticipate creating a latke-like celerac pancake in early Winter.)

I also expect many of our favorite recipes will soon include optional ingredients for folks with super-blenders: extra root vegetables or greens for nutrition, along with whatever additional liquids or stuff is required to maintain the right texture and cooking properties.

Lastly, tossing stuff in is fun. Yesterday I noticed we had half a can of pumpkin in the fridge that Smiley had started last week but lost interest in. So I combined that with some frozen spinach that needed using up, half a cored apple that was on the counter after Smiley's lunch, two big carrots, enough milk to let it blend well, and as spices a dollop of heavy cream, five whole cloves, ground nutmeg, and ground cinnamon. The result was a yummy pumpkin pie flavored smoothie.

Pangrams and a Cute Book

2011-08-22T20:05:00.000-07:00

Ever heard of a pangram? Those are sentences that use every letter of the alphabet.

Pangrams came up in a recent conversation, so I had to mention a delightful book named Ella Minnow Pea that celebrates the alphabet and the challenge of inventing a new pangram.

The Fed's Unprecendted Declaration

2011-08-21T09:34:00.000-07:00

Earlier this month I wrote about a funny unprecedented economic development.

That week something else unprecedented, but more significant, also happened. The Fed "promised" to keep interest rates low for two years.

M2 has doubled since the recession began. Government spending has hopefully removed the threat of debt-deflation. So we should expect inflation when the velocity of money finally increases and that increase in M2 shifts from bank holdings into consumer spending.

Will we see reasonable and controlled inflation with corresponding increases to wages? That would help with both the residue of the mortgage crisis and our Federal debt. (If the dollar is worth less, then debt measured in dollars is a smaller burden.)

Unfortunately, probably not. Vowing to keep interest rates low despite the pressure of sharply increasing M2 is like plugging a leaky dam with a finger. I am not sure why the Fed is acting like it is.

Perhaps our leaders our trying to avoid antagonizing other countries. If a few years from now America is in a panic because of sudden and steep inflation then our future President will not look as malicious when he tells the leadership of other nations, "Oops. Sorry the 32% of our debt that you hold just tanked in value. Not quite sure what happened. Our wages will adjust to our inflation, but you're plain out of luck."

Password Strength

2011-08-21T09:16:00.000-07:00

Another illuminating xkcd comic. As passwords go, Tr0ub4dor&3 is almost 67 thousand times easier to crack than correct horse battery staple.

Discounting our Presidents

2011-08-21T09:00:00.000-07:00

I realize that we Americans have independence and self-reliance that often makes us resistant to being led. But I am not sure why this so readily translates into discounting what our leaders have actually done.

A great example was how many people claim that Bush helped cause the mortgage crisis and recession, when actually he was one of the few politicians who regularly spoke warnings against what was happening with Federal regulations and with Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac. Special interests and moneyed politicians who were blinded by misleading math, refused to heed his warnings, and caused our current economic woes.

Recently I noticed another example. Some people are now claiming that President Obama did not offer any plan during the credit limit and downgrade talks. But he did propose a very controversial plan (although he did not put it in writing and then he backpedaled).

Hm. Perhaps both these stories highlight a second oddity. Even though we know we resist being led we often attribute to our leaders much more credit or blame than they could really deserve! (Even if Bush's warnings or President Obama's plan were heeded, what would implementation finally look like?)

Medieval Myths

2011-08-21T08:30:00.001-07:00

Here is a fun web page: the Top Ten Mythos about the Middle Ages.

Too Much Federal Regulation

2011-08-21T08:28:00.000-07:00

A recent new article has a stunning graph that shows the increase in Federal regulators. Those were not the "shovel ready" jobs that Federal spending is supposed to be encouraging!

Regulatory agencies have seen their combined budgets grow a healthy 16% since 2008, topping $54 billion, according to the annual "Regulator's Budget," compiled by George Washington University and Washington University in St. Louis.

That's at a time when the overall economy grew a paltry 5%.

Meanwhile, employment at these agencies has climbed 13% since Obama took office to more than 281,000, while private-sector jobs shrank by 5.6%.

I have some friends who have bought into the lie that "not enough regulation" caused the mortgage crisis and recession. I have blogged in the past about how regulation caused these problems by pressuring banks into making unwise loans.

But governments tend to grow instead of learning from their mistakes.

I have no philosophical or economic opposition to a little wise regulation because naked capitalism too easily encourages and rewards vices. But today most Federal regulation is neither little nor wise.

Last night I had a talk with my father about one damaging side effect. Realize that regulation often takes years to solidify into reality: after a new law is passed then enforcers need to be hired and trained, and details of phrasing and implication need to be tested in court rooms. Many companies are postponing hiring because the immense amount of recent new regulation is still "in process" and so the economy cannot yet determine the value of new property or hiring a new worker.

Smiley's Types of Roughhousing

2011-08-21T08:14:00.000-07:00

Smiley is an active three-year-old who has invented (or re-invented) many types of roughhousing.

(He calls rough play "wrestling" because we tell him things like "No wrestling on the stairs, that's not safe.")

1. Running in Circles

This is his oldest type of roughhousing. I kneel in the middle of the sitting room. He runs around me. I try to grab him. Sometimes we are the big bad wolf and a little pig/goat and I "eat" his side when I catch him. Other times I just tickle him.

2. Chase

Now that he is older and runs faster we do not chase each other around the house much. But sometimes we still do. This morning I was a rhinoceros, crawling while using only one arm, trying to get him with my "horn" (my other fist, on my forehead).

3. "Baby Push-ups" and "Baby-Situps"

He is too big for these exercises now. I used to lie and my back and use him as a weight. As an infant he would naturally keep his little legs up when I held his torso and did a straight-up chest press. He also sat back against my legs while I did knee-up sit-ups.

4. Horseback Rides
He likes these, but not as much as the next one...

5. Horseback Won't Fall Off

He grabs my back and I try to make him fall off by slowly tilting to one side, leaning forward or back, or moving erratically. Sometimes I pretend I do not know where he is and am looking for him.

6. Jump off Daddy

When he was younger I would lie flat on my stomach, and he would jump off my back onto the carpet. Now that he is older I kneel on my hands and knees and he leaps from my back.

7. Charging Chest Bump

This game was inspired by the Busy Penguins board book. I kneel with my torso upright, chest held forward, and knees apart. He runs at me with his chest held forward and we crash together. If he impacts me forcefully and accurately (without involving his arms, hands, or head) then I pretend he knocked me over, and fall backwards while hugging him to my chest.

8. Toss into the Air

While kneeling or standing I throw him up and catch him.

9. Foot Rides

He likes two kinds of foot rides. Sometimes he stands on both my feet and we hold hands. Other times he sits on one foot and wraps his legs and arms around that leg.

Usually we just walk. Sometimes I pretend I do not realize he is there, and moan and complain about how my shoe(s) feel heavy.

10. Hitting and Kicking

Like all toddlers he likes to hit and kick but is normally prohibited from doing so. But if he asks me while we roughhouse then he is allowed to hit my arms or kick my legs. Of course, then I get to hit his arms or kick his legs. I do so with moderate intensity: not hard enough to cause any pain or hurt but forceful enough that he gains some idea why hitting and kicking is considered "not nice" in most circumstances.

Deconstructing a B'nei Mitzvah Coming of Age Ritual

2011-08-10T13:36:00.000-07:00

Nathen asks what makes a good coming of age ritual.

As someone who has had a Bar Mitzvah service and officiated other people's B'nei Mitzvot services, that is an interesting question and easy to answer. What makes this Jewish tradition such an effective coming of age ritual?

(I will only discuss the traditional elements, not the very recent trend to emphasize a party after the religious service.)

Receive a Related Pair of Adult Responsibility and Privilege

It is sensible that a coming of age ceremony is when the new adult first receives some of the responsibilities and privileges that adults share but children do not have.

The phrase "Bar Mitzvah" literally means "Son of the Commandment". People become a Bar Mitzvah, not have one. (Similarly "Bat" means "Daughter" and "B'nei" means "Children".) In Jewish tradition this ceremony marks when a new adult becomes responsible for his own morality and behavior, departing from being under his parents' responsibility. The corresponding privilege is that the new adult may now participate in adult discussions and judgments about morality. (For example, the how do the ancient Jewish precedents about gossip and slander apply to when congregants write falsely and maliciously on Facebook?)

This is also easy to translate into a secular coming of age ceremony. Find a related pair of a responsibility and a privilege with which the new adult can participate.

Lead an Adult Community Activity

The core of becoming a Bar Mitzvah is that the new adult takes a turn leading the weekly religious service. Traditionally, the new adult is responsible for all of the rabbi's normal roles: directing the congregation in prayer, calling up the other people who have turns participating, reading from scripture, and presenting a sermon. (The cantor still helps lead the singing.)

This is probably the first time the new adult has complete responsibility for a meeting or event. It is the new adult's fault if things fall flat.

This is easy to translate into a secular coming of age ceremony. Lead a community activity.

Learn from a Non-Parental Authority Figure

For months prior to the ceremony the new adult studied under the rabbi. These days a one-on-one mentoring relationship may not be so significant. Historically, before communal schooling of children, this could be the new adult's first structured learning under a non-parental authority figure. As a child, the Bar Mitzvah would have attended many public discussions of scripture and religious issues. But this would probably be the first one-on-one training outside the home.

Part of becoming an adult is identifying non-parental authority figures worth following. Also, a new adult who proved teachable by the rabbi could be viewed as teachable by master craftsmen looking for apprentices.

This aspect of a coming of age ceremony is difficult to translate into secular culture. So many American subcultures have authority figures that are not mentors but idols.

Perhaps the only useful generalization is an essay question: Reflect about which adults besides your parents you look to as respectable authority figures. Why those adults? What teaching do they provide? How do they guide you? What does all this say about you?

Teach Adults

During the ceremony the most stressful part is usually presenting the sermon. This is probably the first time the new adult has taught a room full of adults.

This is also easy to translate into a secular coming of age ceremony. Teach a gathering of adults something.

Begin Cooperatively Process Group History

Children are often taught "Our family does this..." or "Our people value this..." A coming of age ceremony is a time to discuss your family's historical narrative: what your ancestors have experienced and what path is most open before you. Which elements of group identity and destiny is the new adult free to accept and reject? Which are unavoidable?

Similarly, it is a time to ponder which group beliefs are time-tested values, which are dysfunctional historical relics or prejudices, and which are the idiosyncrasies of parents or community leaders that have added flavor and perhaps joys or aggravations to childhood years.

Older children do think about these issues. But they are seldom provided with structured time over several months to really discuss them with a non-parental adult who is judged by the community as insightful and worthy of respect.

In Jewish culture this discussion happens extensively during the months before the ceremony when the new adult studies and talks with the rabbi. But the issues are the same in all subcultures: the only difficulty in translate into a secular coming of age ceremony is identifying an appropriate non-parental adult.

How do we translate this into a secular coming of age ceremony? Discuss how you fit into the history, values, and world-views of the group(s) to which you belong. Learn enough to represent those groups with explanation, even in those aspects you choose not to represent in habit and deed.

Begin to Earn Adult Respect

One problem with being an American teenager is that society does not give you ways to earn esteem. The ways children earn esteem no longer apply: sharing, playing nice, trying hard, and being open to new experiences are now assumptions rather than rewarded behaviors. The ways adults earn esteem probably do not apply: outside of very agrarian subcultures most teenagers simply cannot do significant work to help support their families, and in recent generations most families have lost the ways to contribute economically at home by using dried beans, canning and dehydrating, etc. Teenagers are given only unreasonable sources of esteem: be a straight A student, be a sports star, etc. No wonder teenagers get in trouble for inventing their own sources of esteem and pursuing these unhealthily!

There is another nearly universal source of adult esteem that is often overlooked because most American adults fail to acquire it: participating well in conversations about religion, politics, and culture. Most adults simply take turns sharing their own observations or opinions rather than building off what others have said to create a genuine conversation. How many people do you know whose contributions in discussions about those topics routine add clarity or insight to the conversation?

I have already mentioned sermon preparation and reflection upon group history, identity, and values. One goal of that preparation for the coming of age ritual is to make the new adult someone that does talk well about religion, politics, and culture. As a new adult this ability might not have much breadth: the number of topics for which the person can contribute with clarity and insight will probably be small. But the skills of effective participation and contribution are widely applicable.

This is also easy to translate into a secular coming of age ceremony. Be mentored in the knowledge and conversational skills shared by people who others enjoy having lunch with while talking about religion, politics, and culture.

Community Debut

Together all of these provide a chance to demonstrate why other adults should now pay more attention to the new adult. Instead of a child who runs and plays at the periphery of the community, the new adult is a central member of the community. Does it matter?

This is the new adult's chance to say, "Look at me. See that I can handle adult responsibility. Hear what I have to contribute to adult conversations. Sample why I am pleasant to spend time with as an adult."

Gallant at Two Months

2011-08-09T17:38:00.000-07:00

Last week Gallant had his two month doctor's visit. His measurements were length 22.3 inches (25%), weight 9 pounds, 14 ounces (15%), and head 15.5 inches (30%).

I told you that he was just like his older brother. Smiley at that age was almost exactly the same: 0.2" shorter, 1 ounce heavier, and of identical head size.

So.. how is Gallant doing? I have already written about Gallant's birth and how Smiley is doing as a big brother. Time to complete the picture by finally sharing about the baby!

The short answer is that he is a very healthy and sociable baby, who behaves just like all other healthy and sociable two-month olds.

When his tummy is full and his digestive system is not causing trouble he is wide awake and wants to play. He love to stare into people's eyes, and also likes looking at trees. He smiles very often at his favorite social cues: other smiles, having his arms or legs wiggled while singing to him, having his cheeks lightly touched. He sometimes makes adorable cooing noises.

Unfortunately, little babies are largely a problematic digestive system. They spit up, get cranky or do not sleep well when needing to pass gas for hours, and are disturbed by the wet, explosive poops they make almost hourly.

So about half his waking hours are adorably cute and fun, and the other half are fussy and needing comforting. Similarly, some nights we get to sleep for four hours at a time and other nights we are woken every two hours because Gallant needs to fart.

Comforting him usually involves his sucking on a pinky finger. When overtired he also gets rocked or held with his head wobbling slightly on an elbow. When trying to pass gas he also gets his legs wiggled.

What can Gallant do? Again, the normal things for healthy two-month olds.

He can roll from his back onto either side, reach out to touch something, hold up his head, and grasp something (but not maintain a grip very well)

He has learned to put his fist in his mouth. This was a marvelous development that considerably reduced wear-and-tear on our pinky fingers. He does not use a pacifier yet, although we're working on that for car trips (one notable complication for a second child is that the seat next to him in the car now has a sibling instead of an adult to provide a pinky to suck on).

He likes being held in a standing position so he can practice standing and taking steps.

He does a slouchy sitting position if propped, which is useful for watching Smiley and Daddy roughhouse.

He prefers being on his tummy with his chest elevated (so on a firm pillow or on his boppy) since he can see more than when his tummy is on the floor.

He nurses well, reliably falls asleep in the Ergo on walks, and in his car seat protests when traffic requires us to stop.

He has never had a diaper rash. He recently started getting fussy when needing a new diaper.

That's about it: not much that most parents of a two-month-old would not also say. But I suppose it's still worth saying.

Debt and Leverage

2011-08-08T23:49:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to learn more about economics, to better understand the interesting news of the past two weeks.

Tonight I was reading about corporate leverage. To summarize: borrowing to consume is a bad economic strategy, but it can be wise to borrow to pay for increased profit potential (better farm equipment, building another factory, etc.). Mathematically, leverage is the ratio of a company's operating income to net income. The issue relevant to recent news is that leverage attempts to increase profit by increasing risk.

Households borrow also--usually to consume, but sometimes for leverage.

So, how healthy is the economy in regards to debt and leverage?

As a preface, here is a chart about total U.S. household asset value:

What does this chart mean? It depends upon how real you believe the value is.

If you think that value is now more-or-less accurate then this chart is good news. Households are acquiring more despite the recession.

On the other hand, if you think that either home prices (purple) or the market (green and red) are over-inflated then this chart is bad news. People might think they own a bit more than they did in 2008, but they really don't.

Now to answer the main question. Here is a similar chart (but different years) about U.S. debt.

The green band shows that financial institutions are de-leveraging. That is a trend I have not read about before. Banks are reducing risk even if it reduces profit. That seems like good news.

The red band has become a stable width: households are not changing their amount of debt. We can combine this with the first chart that shows household asset growth and it also seems like good news. Households are borrowing a smaller amount compared to their valued assets. Whether or not the value is real, Americans are trying to borrow less.

The blue band shows that other companies also have a stable amount of debt. How is their leverage? Corporate incomes are slightly up, so companies are leveraging as usual. I expect that is good news too. We want companies to grow with more equipment and factories and stuff.

However, a complication arises because corporate asset values are dropping (the real estate and equipment owned by companies are worth less because of lower real estate prices, lower demand for reselling it, and inflation). The leverage ratio is not changed since it compares operating and net income. But the amount of risk created by the same amount of leverage increases since a larger portion of assets is gained through borrowed money. (The company still has a nice new factory built by borrowing $x, but now the other, older, paid-off factory is worth $x/2 instead of also being worth $x.)

So we reach three conclusions by looking at debt and leverage. Banks are shedding risk. Households are trying to reduce debt. Companies are trying to use leverage to grow despite facing more risk from using leverage.

Did I get this right? I'd appreciate if anyone with more economic expertise offered correction or confirmation.

One-Page Dungeon Contest 2011

2011-08-02T18:11:00.000-07:00

The past two years I mentioned the annual One-Page Dungeon Contest.

I just got around to looking at the entries for the 2011 contest, which happened in April and May.

So far my favorite is Swamp Chaos (link is a pdf) by Dennis Filipiak which features a small map and complex situation that could be fun for any solo adventurer or group of heroes.

Part of the contest's fun is looking at the websites of the contestants. For example, I noticed that someone is giving away free map tileset PDFs. And someone else invented a tactile dungeon map.

Debt Ceiling 2011 and the S&P 500

2011-08-02T17:52:00.000-07:00

The past two days have had some interesting financial news as Congress finally made a Federal debt ceiling deal.

Today marks another time this year that the S&P 500 is down for the year. Now, it is up 85% since its low in March 2009, so avoiding the stock market because of the recession would have been a poor choice. But families (like mine) that sold some investments in December 2010 for tax reasons and have been waiting, uncertain how to wisely reinvest, should not feel guilty for their indecision.

Yesterday had quite historic news: not only did several companies then have more cash reserves than the Federal government, but the amount of Federal operating cash was then less than the estimated net worth of Bill Gates. Neither comparison is meaningful, but both are clever. The first comparison focused on the size of Apple's cash reserves when the better questions are how Apple manages so well to have free cash and why Apple has been hoarding cash since January when other companies, such as Berkshire Hathaway, have been shrinking their cash reserves. The second comparison neglects to mention that all of us without trillions of dollars of debt are "richer" than the Federal government (although the average American is in debt 107% of his or her income, compared to the Federal government's 94%).

The debate about the debt ceiling is not over. I think one analyst was correct in writing that Wall Street cares most about whether Congress is able to make the kind of bipartisan compromises that will eventually be needed to fix the entitlement crisis. This week's deal proved that Congress is definitely not yet ready.

Bill and Margot

2011-08-02T17:09:00.000-07:00

For many months I have been meaning to blog about the websites of two friends, Bill and Margot.

Bill Walter of Golden Apple Healthcare is my naturopath, whom I mentioned in April. With his help I have enjoyed a much nicer quality of health and life during the recent high-allergy season. He also helped me by teaching me about fascia and using deep tissue massage to restore to me the flexibility I had lost from years of poor posture. I can wholeheartedly recommend him to anyone local who struggles with allergies or poor posture.

His wife, Margot, is a artist famous in fabric-arts circles who makes quilts that look like paintings. I would be impossible for her website to really convey how astounding it is to see across the room what looks like an oil painting that up close is merely carefully layered sheer fabrics.

Their son has no website and is one of Smiley's regular playmates.

Smiley as a Big Brother

2011-08-02T16:33:00.000-07:00

I promised an account of how Smiley is doing as a big brother. He is doing great!

He likes being a big brother and helping take care of a baby.

Yesterday I asked him, "When you are bigger will you be a daddy and have a baby?"

He replied, "Yes. But first I have to do a lot of planning"

Sadly, my subsequent questions were unable to discover what kind of planning he had in mind.

Hi likes hugging his baby brother.

He enjoys the ways he can entertain the baby. When Gallant is lying on his back, Smiley can wiggle the baby's arms or move its legs, which often provokes a smile and sometimes even cooing. When Gallant is fussing, Smiley can help keep a pacifier in Gallant's mouth or offer his pinkey as an even better pacifier.

Smiley also helps with Gallant's two toys for touching and hitting. When they rotate so the black-and-white side is no longer faces Gallant, Smiley can reposition them.

Smiley also helps us keep an ear out for Gallant waking up. Gallant's favorite daytime nap spot is in his swing, outside on the back porch. If Smiley is playing in the back yard he will let us know if Gallant wakes up.

The two boys can both sit and hear a story. Smiley has started helping by holding the book and turning the pages while mommy or daddy have Gallant on their lap with a pinky in his mouth.

Taking care of a baby is exhausting. Today Smiley had two play dates, as well as helping with Gallant, and he fell asleep outside in his big box.

Comcast, Ubuntu, and YouTube

2011-08-01T23:12:00.000-07:00

I have a new laptop. Like my old Ubuntu laptop, this one has trouble loading YouTube videos at home with Comcast as my internet service provider.

Any ideas why?

(At school my laptop works great with YouTube. At home my wife's Windows Vista laptop works great with YouTube.)

A Great Two-Legged Griffin

2011-08-01T23:08:00.000-07:00

I hoped to write more today about Smiley and Gallant.

But today was a day of all sorts of extra things happening, as well as expected things happen with additionally enjoyable duration.

So I have no time or brain-power to write about family.

Instead I'll share a delightful short story I was able to read today, "The Griffin and the Minor Cannon", from The Bee-Man of Orn and Other Tales by Frank R. Stockton.

You get the story online. I read it in my current pleasure reading book, Tales Before Tolkien.

Introducing Gallant

2011-07-23T12:11:00.000-07:00

We finally decided upon a blog name for our second child. We wanted a word that began with G to match his first name. (Smiley's real name also begins with S.)

We decided not to use Giddy, Grimy, Groovy, Grubby, or Guy--all of which were somewhat accurate but did not satisfactorily capture the hopes we have for our son. We decided upon Gallant, wishing him courage and virtue.

Gallant is a very easy baby. He enjoys good health, nurses well, usually lets us sleep at night 90 minutes between feedings, rarely spits up three times in one day, has yet to suffer a diaper rash, and when fussy is eventually consolable.

(For the non-parents out there, the "eventually" in the last phrase is important. At 1:40 am this morning he needed to poop but couldn't do so yet, which was making him very upset. After a bit of fussing and shrieking I eventually discovered he would be content if on my lap, rocking, with a pinky in his mouth and my other hand moving his legs a lot.)

We are also quite fortunate that both Smiley and Gallant usually sleep through each other's noise. Whew.

Our photographs are at the moment up-to-date, although I am quite behind with processing video. Which is a bit ironic, since Gallant looks exactly like Smiley did, except for chubbier thighs. So you could just look at the old Smiley photographs. But I'll still be a dutiful father and also share new photos.

Smiley at two days:

Gallant at two days:

Smiley at six weeks:

Gallant at six weeks:

Smiley is enjoying being a big brother. More about that later. Time to change a diaper.

Watch Those Hands, Winnie

2011-07-23T11:55:00.000-07:00

Someone was not quite thoughtful enough about a Bear of Little Brains.

It is a cute onesie.

But until his pants slid down the cartoon looked like Pooh is doing something inappropriate.

Smiley's first dentist appointment

2011-07-18T17:10:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday was Smiley's first dentist appointment. He loved it.

Recall that he visited the dentist in April just to make sure it was a good dentist (unlike the bad dentist in Finding Nemo). So he was not afraid. He even already knew what the buttons on the chairs did.

He got to wear sunglasses inside. That was a fun thing, breaking a normal rule.

He got to hold two mirrors, a tiny one and a big one. Mirrors are fun.

Biting the film for the two x-rays made him nervous, but he followed directions. When he saw the x-rays he agreed that taking pictures of "the inside and the outside too" was very special.

Having his teeth scraped was tedious, but he was agreeable.

The little "shop vac" was the best part. He likes using our shop vac, especially to blow leaves. A mouth-sized one was silly!

What is even better than a tiny shop vac? When there is also a tiny water squirter! Squirting water is great fun. Being squirted is almost as nice.

And at the end of the visit he got his teeth painted with a paintbrush! That was the most silly. Paintbrushes are for paper, right?

New Baby Photographs

2011-06-05T22:48:00.000-07:00

Pictures are ready! What a busy day. But getting these online for family and friends is a good thing to do before going to bed.

Swing Dancing at 39 weeks, at the last ELLA event of the school year. A nice evening, but it did not induce labor. (Smiley was born the night after swing dancing at a friend's wedding.)

This photograph was at 10:22 pm -- an hour and 16 minutes after the delivery.

Resting with daddy.

At lunch time the second day Smiley finally gets to meet his little brother.

It had been months of waiting to hold his little brother.

Hugs!

Resting after Smiley, the wonderful couple who was watching him while were were in the hospital, and some other friends all left.

Close-up. Compare Smiley's two-day close-up here.

First outfit. For security reasons infants in the Mother-Baby ward cannot be carried outside of the patient's room. Instead they get pushed around in those bassinet-carts.

Another close up, this time with a hat grandma made. (This photo is because Smiley had a classic hat photo, so little brother needs one as well.)

Holding little brother at home.

Uncle Nathan meets the new nephew.

For bonus cuteness, here are the links to our first seven videos.

New Baby, An Account of Augmenting Labor

2011-06-04T18:00:00.000-07:00

Our second son was born yesterday. My wife and he are both doing very, very well.

We do not have an internet nickname for him yet. In length he resembles Smiley as a newborn (Smiley was 19 inches, little brother is 19.5 inches) and when looking at the back of the head. But new baby is much plumper in face and form: Smiley was about 6 pounds, little brother is about 8 pounds. We have put online photographs and seven videos.

A dear friend and her husband are watching Smiley while we are at the hospital. Today seems like a vacation. We get to rest and enjoy a quiet break from Smiley's near-constant questions about "Why?" and his requests for Magalene stories. It is a joy to have a baby that latches and nurses well, and sleeps soundly with a full belly.

Smiley visited us at noon, and enjoyed playing with his little brother. Smiley offered to take the baby with him so we could rest more. We politely declined.

Time to write about the labor, which was quite an adventure. Perhaps this account will some day be of comfort and assurance to another mother.

My wife eats very healthy foods. She is not "in shape" but takes a walk almost daily. She has both faith and fortitude. There was no reason she could not deliver a baby naturally.

Yet my wife knew she had five risk factors. Her age is in the latter 30s. She is over average weight. The baby had a two-vessel cord (one artery instead of the usual two). Smiley was footling breech and delivered by Cesarean Section. Wy wife had not yet begun having regular Braxton Hicks contractions a week before her due date, and two days past her due date she had not yet entered Early Labor. A sixth risk factor appeared during delivery: During each push the baby's heart rate declined from the 140s down to the 60s because the umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck and leg.

During the past week my wife visited an acupuncturist four times. After the first treatment the baby dropped. During the second and for a short time after she had regular small contractions seven minutes apart. The third and fourth treatments did not prompt any noticeable changes. Although these efforts did not induce labor we were happy we tried. Acupuncture does not always work to induce labor. But it is safe and our insurance covers most of the cost.

Although we know people for whom Black Cohosh has quickly induced labor, my wife did not want to try that. She preferred options for which both effectiveness and risks have been more thoroughly studied.

Then it was time to try what the hospital had to offer: a Foley Bulb. Although the device is simple, this technology has been improved greatly in recent years. It sometimes induces labor, which is why we tried it. Its use has some risks, but considering my wife's many risk factors it was a good option compared to waiting. She used it Thursday and it did cause several hours of laboring during which the baby probably turned from "sunny side up" to face down. But then when my wife went to bed, very tired, the labor stopped. Those hours of contractions were clearly only induced and not really natural labor because sleep would not stop natural labor. In the morning an exam measured only 3 cm dilation.

(Note that we used the Foley Bulb only "halfway". The device primarily serves as a cervix ripener before pitocin is used to induce labor. But we did not want to use pitocin to induce labor. That can be a good choice for mothers without my wife's risk factors. It could have been a good choice for my wife if she had been one of those cases where the Foley Bulb causes dilation of more than 6 cm. But on Friday morning it was clear that pitocin induction had a high chance of causing some laboring but still a C-section as the final outcome. That is a bad combination for several reasons, including how taking in more than one IV bag of liquid before a C-section can cause breast tissue swelling that interferes with early breast feeding.)

We prayed a lot and were resigned to a C-section on Friday afternoon. The other option would be waiting. That would normally be clearly the best choice, but my wife's risk factors made it unclear that waiting would be risk-free and be helpful.

Neither of us were hearing anything clearly from God. Yet it seemed as if we had laid out a very large fleece. We had done all we could to help my wife have natural labor. It seemed her body was simply not agreeable to that plan.

Then, half an hour before that scheduled C-section, she finally started laboring naturally. The operation was quickly canceled. The labor began very slowly. My wife requested some pitocin to augment labor (even with her risk factors that was quite safe now that we were past the point of inducing labor). The pace of labor increased but was still slow.

It was a pleasant afternoon together. Early labor was not difficult. The main problem was that my wife could not eat or drink, and was on an IV, because there was still some risk of complications and needing to operate.

After eight hours the Active phase of labor began. An exam measured 5 cm dilation. We expected a long, hard night made extra frustrating and tiring by her lack of food that day.

Twenty minutes later the pain was at its peak. An exam measured 9 cm dilation. My wife had already gone from Active labor to Transitional Labor. Her plan was to try laboring without pain medication, and she was now eager to change that plan. But there was no time. She could not keep still long enough to receive the shot, and we would switch from Transitional Labor to Delivery any moment anyway.

Delivery was slightly exciting because of the cord wrap. During each of the longer, farther-apart contractions of Delivery my wife could push three or four times, separated by a huge, quick, deep breath in. It soon became clear that she would get five contractions on her own before some vacuum or an episiotomy would be needed. With each contraction the baby came farther, but the cord also pulled tighter and the baby's heart rate declined more drastically. On the final push of that fifth Delivery contraction the baby emerged.

My wife was able to have the natural labor and delivery for which she had hoped and prayed. That during the process she had times of being at peace with an operation or with using pain medication made it all the sweeter to receive her desire. Clearly God had given us what we prayed about for his sake, just because he loves for my wife. (Had our prayers been answered more promptly or smoothly, without time for us to come to peace with the alternatives, we would have assumed God was being nice to us for our sake. That is a nice kind of answered prayer, but not as sweet.)

UPDATE: Final paragraph edited for clarity.

Curious George Makes Pancakes

2011-05-02T08:52:00.000-07:00

One of Smiley's favorite recent presents is the book Curious George Makes Pancakes.

Not all Curious George books are created equal. But this one is very nice for pre-readers.

First, the pictures are sufficient to follow the plot. After somewhat memorizing the story, he can look at the pictures to "read" the book. Most but not all Curious George books have this quality.

Second, the story contains the usual Curious George dilemma of a "good" character breaking rules and getting in trouble, but overall being more helpful than disastrous. In this story the particulars are easy for a young child to understand. George should have asked to help. It is easy for the parent to ignore OSHA guidelines about monkeys in fairground kitchens and conjecture that if George had asked politely he could have been allowed to be a rule-following helper. But by trying to help without asking he gets in trouble.

One of Smiley's old favorites is Curious George and the Puppies, which also has those two qualities. The story is easy to follow. George could have gotten what he wanted (to pet a puppy) without trouble by asking politely.

Tried Arkham Horror

2011-05-01T17:39:00.000-07:00

Today I played the board game Arkham Horror for the first time. I think I passed my Sanity check.

What fun! The game is both cooperative and narrative. I do not know any other board games where players work together and the sense of progress so much seems like interesting plot and character development. (If you know of others, please let me know.)

Of games I have played, two are close. Lord of the Rings is cooperative but not very narrative. Talisman is narrative but not cooperative.

My wife and I are still enjoying Dominion, so I will not be purchasing a copy. Maybe it will be a nice birthday present later in the year.

What is Fate?

2011-05-01T14:11:00.000-07:00

Years ago I encountered a great quotation on a web page of random online humor.

A priest asked,
What is Fate, Master?

And he answered:
It is that which gives a beast of burden its reason for existence.
It is that which men in former times had to bear upon their backs.
It is that which has caused nations to build by-ways from City to City upon which carts and coaches pass, and alongside which inns have come to be built to stave off Hunger, Thirst and Weariness.
It is that which has caused great fleets of ships to ply the Seven Seas wherever the wind blows.

And that is Fate? said the priest.

Fate... I thought you said Freight, responded the Master.

That's all right, said the priest. I wanted to know what Freight was too.

The attribution was simply a book entitled The Profit.

Curious, I searched online but found nothing more. So for years I've wondered about this possibly non-existent book.

Now and then, at used book stores, I would come across the famous Kahil Gibran book and get excited, only to realize this was not the book I was looking for. (That book is a pleasant enough collection of parables, but I find scripture's wisdom writings and parables superior.)

Last week I was duped again, noticing the Kahil Gibran book on a friend's bookshelf. Reminded about the mystery book, I made another attempt to search online...and found it in its entirety on a web page! The Profit by Kehlog Albran turns out to be a pardoy of Kahil Gibran's text, with the quotation above as its wittiest section.

Expecting Another Boy

2011-05-01T00:03:00.000-07:00

I hoped to share this news months ago, but until recently have been feeling crummy, which caused me to procrastinate writing real letters to relatives who needed to hear first. You might notice the last third of this post has been sitting in my "drafts" since January!

Smiley will be a big brother in about a month. He's not sure if he's ready. He recently found out that the baby will not be big enough for him to help feed. Now he's not sure what a little baby does.

This afternoon, while Smiley napped, part of Shabbat involved my wife and I sitting on the sofa and laughing and hugging as we reviewed our "So You're About to Have a Baby" paperwork from three years ago.

We have some time to put together a suitcase to have ready to take to the hospital, and a cooler of food since we doubt they will be able to provide anything gluten-free enough for my wife to eat.

Happily, this pregnancy has been much easier on my wife than when she was expecting Smiley. But she is tired lately. She's round enough that she is not sleeping as well because she cannot easily turn over in bed during the night. A month of rainy, cold weather has not helped either. But she is doing well, going for a walk most evenings, still enjoying her work and gardening, and spending as much time with Smiley as she can even if playing on the floor is not a great option.

We have no idea what to name this new boy. The Jewish tradition is to use names of deceased relatives. Smiley was named after three of his great-grandfathers (he has two middle names). But two of my cousins had boys last year and now we're out of names of deceased male relatives that my wife or I knew.

Both sides of the family have Leonards, and her family has several Alfreds. But neither of us especially like those names, nor did we know those ancestors.

We briefly thought about names from literature that have been meaningful to family members, but then decided against Gandalf Tarzan Zorro Van Slyke.

My wife's family uses Welsh names, so perhaps we will eventually find a Welsh name we like that sounds very similar to a Hebrew name. So far our favorite name is both from Hebrew and Tolkein, which is close.

Smiley found out mommy was pregnant while at the doctor's office on January 5th. The nurse did not know that Smiley had not been told about it, so when using the heartbeat monitor she looked at Smiley with a big smile and said, "Do you hear the baby inside your Mommy?"

So Smiley is convinced that the heartbeat monitor put the baby inside Mommy. We found this out on January fifteenth, through this conversation:

My wife: Be careful climbing on my belly.
Smiley: How did the baby get in your belly?
My wife: Daddy put it there.
Smiley: [Laughs] No, the doctor put it there.

(In Smiley's world, doctors work at doctor's office and nurses work at the allergy shot place. He has not caught on that some people working at doctor's offices are also nurses.)

Later that night, after brushing his teeth, Smiley was his room waiting for Mommy to arrive so we could pray before reading books before bedtime. When my wife came in the room she was chewing.

Smiley: What is in your mouth?
My wife: Chocolate.
Smiley: Do you share with the baby?
My wife: I always share with the baby.
Smiley: Did the baby catch it?
My wife: It will get it.

Why didn't we tell Smiley about the pregnancy earlier? Because a friend from church was two months more pregnant, and for several months Smiley fixated on it whenever he saw her.

Smiley: You have a baby in your belly?

Smiley: Can I feel your tummy?

Smiley: Can I look in your mouth and see the baby?

We wanted to spare my wife such nearly constant pestering. Smiley is sometimes impatient, but our delay did avoid any fixation. (And our friend had a healthy baby girl, whom Smiley likes to look at.)

Boulder Canyon Chips

2011-04-30T23:47:00.000-07:00

For many months Costco was selling Boulder Canyon spicy rice crackers. My wife was not too fond of them, but they were certainly my favorite gluten-free "chips".

Since Costco sold a big twenty-ounce bag for $4.59, they were affordable at $0.23 per ounce.

Now they are out of rotation at Costco. Sadness! Amazon and the local grocery store both sell only five-ounce bags. The cost per ounce is double.

I'll have to wait a few months for my favorite "chips" again. Oh well.

Medicine Costs

2011-04-28T12:15:00.000-07:00

Last year I blogged a bit about my lengthy sinus infection, which I think I've only mentioned once this year. Even without the infection my sinuses are still inflamed. Now allergy season is here too.

So I went to both my doctor and a naturopath friend to get more help. I'm now on quite a few medicines and pills. Fortunately, I have nice health insurance that pays for most of the cost of the prescriptions.

All this stuff I'm putting inside me is working wonderfully. I've gotten most of my energy back. I'm not constantly congested. I'm not suffering nearly-daily headaches. Hooray!

Here's what feeling well is costing me...

First, the prescriptions.

Rhinocort - $37.50 for 120 sprays (30 days) - $1.25 per day
Wilson's Solution (Gentamicin in saline) - $37 for three month supply - $0.41 per day

The Rhinocort is anti-inflammatory. The Wilson's Solution prevents another sinus infection.

Power-Dophilus (four probiotic blend) $14.99 for 100 tablets (33 days) - $0.45 per day
Aller-Essentials (Pure Encapsulations) $12.61 for 60 capsules (15 days) - $0.84 per day
Allegra (CostCo) $35 for 90 tablets (90 days) - $0.39 per day

The probiotic might be helping if my ratio of T1 to T2 cells was off, which often happens with allergy sufferers; having T2 too high increases mast cell activity. The other pill is designed to stabilize mast cells so fewer histamines are triggered. Allegra is the antihistamine that works best for me. So I have something dealing with all three of the main stages between "body notices pollen" and "histamine produced".

Rhodiola Root Extract 100 mg (Thorne Research) $8.00 for 60 capsules (30 days) - $0.27 per day

This supposedly helps with relaxation. I've certainly noticed that when I have more tension in my neck and upper back then it exacerbates my allergy symptoms. It seems to be working well, although for about a quarter per day I would even be happy with even a placebo effect.

Multivitamin (Trader Joe's) $7.99 for 100 tablets (100 days) - $0.08 per day
Vitamin C (Trader Joe's) $12.99 for 250 tablets (125 days) - $0.10 per day

Finally, my vitamins.

Total is $3.79 per day. That's a lot more than I have been spending on health for most of my life. But not too bad considering that it is Springtime allergy season, and I had been suffering from daily congestion and headaches due to swollen and inflamed sinuses.

Science Factory

2011-04-28T08:25:00.000-07:00

Videos at all the links but the first link! I have not done a nice blog post about Smiley playing in a while, since I was foolishly trying to keep videos chronological and am still way behind in processing December videos. Well, enough pointless procrastination. Here's some very recent footage.

Yesterday Smiley visited the Science Factory for the first time. A friend of his invited us. Guest admission is free with a member.

Spring weather and flowers have really arrived. The park in which it is located was beautiful.

The two boys would have been very happy just playing outside. They climbed and jumped on a bench and chased some ducks. (I only got the very end of the duck-chasing on video. I was astonished that the ducks ran so much, instead of immediately flying away.)

The first exhibits were a bit too old for Smiley. He liked the noises the circuits and cams made but did not really comprehend what was happening.

But the Gravitram was fascinating. I took three videos over the course of ten minutes, and a fourth when he returned to it later on. He must have spent half an hour watching the thing. While driving home he talked about it. "The machine with the balls had a man with a hammer. He stopped the balls. He was not nice. I don't like him." (In that first video you can see the little-man part of the contraption if you look carefully.)

Smiley also enjoyed the Kinetica, a simpler device with more user participation. The Archimedes screw was also fun, although he had to wait a while until it was not mobbed by other kids.

At the end of the visit, when he was getting tired, we went to the "Five Years Old and Under" area and he played with a crane.

Smiley has a few friends with memberships. He already had a play date scheduled with one of them for today. We were going to visit a park, but since Smiley really wants to return to the Science Factory and his friend also enjoys it then I expect we're returning there this afternoon.