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[
humor
]
2000-10-27
A particularly entertaining Bleat:
(DEAD LINK) This one had me laughing out loud, repeatedly. Man, that Lileks fellow is funny. It's almost unfair, professional writers out here doing weblogs... Makes the rest of us amateurs sound even dopier. Ah, well. :)
[
good
]
2000-10-27
I voted today:
For Nader, among others. Texas has this handy deal called "early voting", which is wonderful. When I voted in Colorado during the last two major elections (for Bill Clinton and the Reverend Bud Green, respectively), I had to wait FOREVER in an obscenely long line with everyone else on election day, so this was an incredibly pleasant change. Last night I carefully perused* the Voters Guide put out by the Austin League of Women Voters and made my choices. I picked lots of Greens, a few Libertarians, and Democrats when it was just Dem vs. Rep and I had no idea of the relative merits and opinions of the candidates. I voted at the local supermarket, after picking up my prescription and before getting donuts & fruit for my breakfast group at work. Very pleasant elderly folks handled the whole thing, and the nice fellow manning the ballot box gave me a cute little "I voted" sticker and shook my hand when I was done. It was really nice. Don't get me wrong, I'm a cynic's cynic, especially when it comes to politics, but it felt pretty darn good to vote. There's something sacred in it. Something worthy of respect, in the process itself (well, the Platonic ideal of the process, anyway). And I like the whole act of manually filling out the ballot and placing it in the box; it's much more satisfying and concrete than the electronic voting booths in Colorado (in which I had to type in my write-in vote for Rev. Bud Green). * many people think "peruse" means to scan or glance over something. It doesn't. It means to read intently and carefully. I was wrong on this one for years, and I still hear people misuse the word frequently. Look it up if you don't believe me.
[
good
]
2000-10-27
Congrats to our friends!
Mike & Gabriela had their son Michael yesterday morning, and all are doing well. We visited them for a little while at the hospital and brought them some McDonald's. He's a cute little thing who slept through our whole visit. Can't blame him, it was a big day for the little guy! Elena was well-behaved during the visit, and we took some nice Polaroids of the happy new family. At work this morning, Paul, who works with Spencer, told me he bowled a perfect 300 game last night! Wow! I'm really impressed. I remember him saying he'd gotten close a few times before, but now he's finally done it! Well, his first one anyway. Good for him. Maybe this is a good excuse to take him out to lunch... I'd love to go to Chili's and have one of those Awesome Blossoms. MMMMM, I love those things, but they're so indulgent I can only have one every few months or so... hmm, let me go twist Spencer's arm.
[
humor
]
2000-10-27
Bwahhahahhahaha!
This has got to be one of the best Onion pieces ever! WASHINGTON, DC--According to a Georgetown University study released Tuesday, 79 percent of Americans are missing the point entirely with regard to such wide-ranging topics as politics, consumerism, taxes, entertainment, fashion, and professional wrestling. "From the overweight housewife who eats bag after bag of reduced-fat Ruffles, to the school board that bans Huckleberry Finn for using the word 'nigger,' to the Manhattan stockbroker who uses recycled-paper checks to pay for gas for his behemoth SUV, the tendency of Americans to really just not get it transcends all boundaries of class, color, religion, sexual orientation, and political persuasion," said Dr. Ronald Shaw of Georgetown's Center For American Studies.
[
body
]
2000-10-26
How aggravating!
The other day, I noticed while rubbing my right eye, that there was a little bump in my eyelid. After further investigation, I made sure it wasn't on the eyeball itself. So now I've got this painful little thingie on the inside of my right eyelid, and I can't do a darn thing about it! But I know it's there, so I keep touching it (from the outside), and it bothers me. I can scarcely think of a worse place to have a little owie. Oh, well. Today it seems slightly less painful than yesterday, so I'm hoping it's on its way towards quiet disappearance. I'm relieved, as I was starting to imagine nightmare scenarios of the thing growing and eventually obscuring my eye and requiring painful surgery or something. Yuck!
[
]
2000-10-26
Once Were Favorites:
I have been meaning to do a little project wherein I write about songs that used to be my favorite. I don't remember each and every one, but bit by bit, I'd like to build up a list and mention them, and write about what was going on at the time in my life, etc. For now, I will just plonk these in the log, but eventually I will pull them all out and make a page dedicated to this alone. The title of this project, Once Were Favorites, is a play on the title of the movie Once Were Warriors, an excellent movie about modern-day Maori in New Zealand. So, I may as well begin... I think my very first record was a 45 of Styx's Mr. Roboto. I have to laugh, it just seems so silly now, but as a little kid, I just *loved* that song. I'd listen to it over and over and over and over again, until I got incredibly sick of it. I think I got so sick of it that I scratched the record on purpose. Also roundabout that time, I bought Pac Man Fever, by Buckner & Garcia. I remember I liked to play Pac Man, but I sucked at it. This was the era when the Showbiz Pizza Place near us was the place to be, for all us kids. We'd walk down there and sneak in (since you weren't supposed to go without your parent(s) along) and play video games whenever we could. This was the Golden Age of video games, where they all operated on different paradigms. (Nowadays, video games are mostly shoot-em-up or variations on driving). Not all that long after that, I bought You Look Mahvelous by Billy Crystal. Heh... I remember those years of Saturday Night Live, they were priceless. Billy Crystal, Christopher Guest, Martin Short, Mary Gross, Julia Louis-Dreyfus. My friend Robin and I would tape and memorize sketches from the show, and act them out. A few of them we even translated into a language we invented. It's odd, how well I remember some of that stuff. "Feli, ondai baht Frahna." "Kan ondai baht Kolissa." "Kan cefrd baht kramfrag frava zonni, qua: STAFRAG PUTMET FRAVA!!!" .... "Ohhhh, ondai urnam Mr. T!" Heh heh. It was pretty simplistic - neither of us knew squat about linguistics (we were 11 and 12 years old). Enough for now, look for more installments as they occur to me...
[
humor
my site
]
2000-10-26
Cow Orker Humor is here!
Sometimes, the people I work with send out some pretty funny stuff, so I made a little page to hold some of it. Enjoy! I don't want to send any of this stuff around via email, since that's just... obnoxious. So, if you want to see this kind of thing, go look at the page. I'll add to it now and then, but only when the really good stuff gets sent around (I'm picky!).
[
family
my site
]
2000-10-25
I've been away a bit:
because Elena's been sick, mostly. I'll be logging more soon, once I get caught up with stuff at work and whatnot. While I was home with her, I did manage to finish her Halloween costume. She'll be going as a black cat this year. She seems to like her little jumpsuit, and she likes to chew on her tail. However, she hates the little hood that goes with it. That's all right, I won't make her wear it. I have no idea what I will be for Halloween. I probably won't dress up at all. But I am looking forward to the Halloween fair at Elena's school - I have signed up to do the Ring Toss booth. Sounds like a lot of fun!
[
humor
mammalog
]
2000-10-20
The Law of Nigh-Infinite Stickiness:
I hereby propose the Law of Nigh-Infinite Stickiness, as follows: If you give a certain type of toddler one (1) piece of candy, you will soon find that your arms, the toddler's arms, the toddler's entire face, both of your breasts (provided that the toddler is a breastfeeding toddler with free access to them), selected random areas of the floor, and the toddlers legs, are all covered with a thin yet powerful coat of stickiness. And this, when the candy in question has only been consumed partway. Now I know why people don't give candy to children too young to eat it in a civilized fashion. *sigh*. And Halloween is just around the corner! Yikes!
[
design
]
2000-10-20
More ideas:
It's very late and my feet are cold, but I had to record these ideas, inspired by watching World's Most Intense Police Videos or whatever the hell it was called: - Have a device in your car that beeps/blinks lights at you/whatever when there is a high-speed chase nearby. This device would respond to signals sent from a central police person who would light up certain areas where chases were occurring (or heading that way), and turn off the ones where the chase had passed. This way, innocent bystanders could GET THE HELL OFF THE ROAD and hopefully not get killed/hurt (and make the cops' jobs easier to boot, well, mostly (since sometimes other cars on the road help box in a criminal's car)). Whatever technology powers that OnStar thingie could be used in this.
- A trapdoor in the floor of a convenience store/gas station that the cashier can activate with a floor-level push-button, that drops them into a "safe room" (padded to absorb the fall, of course!) where they are out of danger of the criminal doing them harm. And they can have a nice chat on the phone with the cops from down there. With more than one employee, though, this is less feasible to make all of them safe (not to mention any unlucky shoppers in the store at the time, who could be used as hostages or something). Maybe the clerk should only use it if they were there alone. On the other hand, you could put the trap door in front of the cash register, and just drop the perp into the basement, into a bullet-proof room. This wouldn't work so well once potential criminals knew about it, though.
[
beauty
body
]
2000-10-19
Scanner fun:
I scanned in some more rock last night, then I decided to scan my hand. Then I decided to scan my face (with eyes closed!). And I played around a bit in Paint Shop Pro with the resulting images. Whee! Unfortunately I didn't scale them all reasonably, so most of them are HUGE. If you really want, you can poke around my pix directory to see them all (sort by date, it helps). Here's one of my favorites that's of somewhat reasonable size, of my hand with a chrome effect applied:  I'll make a page to exhibit the other pix, some of which are nifty to look at. At least I think so.
[
food
good
]
2000-10-19
Desmond Morris on food:
Essentially, eat heartily, enjoy it, and don't worry about it! Ahh, I like this attitude. Eating the widest possible variety of foodstuffs was what gave us our special advantage over our animal rivals. And this is about the only rule that one need apply when sitting down to a meal. The bigger the variety of foodstuffs we eat, the better off we will be. End of story. Our alimentary system can easily dispose of excess, unwanted matter, and a varied diet will give it the chance to pick out what it needs and discard the rest.
[
atheism
]
2000-10-18
Another gem from the atheist parenting board:
A poster described how a rude religious person's arguments were parried. Dang, I really like this! Finally, one very brilliant regular wrote in a very calm, relatively short answer. He told the fellow he was wrong: we weren't going to do any of the horrible things he accused us of, and we weren't going to oppress him or his fellow freaks in any way. In particular, we were not going to try to brainwash or indoctrinate his children. No, he said, we were going to do something far, far worse to them.We were not going to mention a single word of our unbelief to his children. We were going to keep that entirely to ourselves. Instead, we were going to teach them how to study and read for themselves. We would present them not only with what we have learned from science, but show them how we learned it. Far from trying to brainwash them into accepting whatever we told them, we would teach them to doubt us, and to question everything we said. We'd culture in them the habit of skepticism, and the process of thinking critically. Rather than brainwashing them, we would arm them against brainwashing, and they would break free of their own accord.
[
atheism
]
2000-10-18
A nice Dawkins piece:
I think I've read this before, but it's been awhile. 1. The patient typically finds himself impelled by some deep, inner conviction that something is true, or right, or virtuous: a conviction that doesn't seem to owe anything to evidence or reason, but which, nevertheless, he feels as totally compelling and convincing. We doctors refer to such a belief as ``faith.'' 2. Patients typically make a positive virtue of faith's being strong and unshakable, in spite of not being based upon evidence. Indeed, they may fell that the less evidence there is, the more virtuous the belief (see below). This paradoxical idea that lack of evidence is a positive virtue where faith is concerned has something of the quality of a program that is self-sustaining, because it is self-referential (see the chapter ``On Viral Sentences and Self-Replicating Structures'' in Hofstadter, 1985). Once the proposition is believed, it automatically undermines opposition to itself. The ``lack of evidence is a virtue'' idea could be an admirable sidekick, ganging up with faith itself in a clique of mutually supportive viral programs.
[
atheism
]
2000-10-18
Celebrity Atheist site:
Lists a whole bunch of famous atheists. They've got some really good stuff here. The (DEAD LINK) George Carlin bit is great, and I checked out (DEAD LINK) Kramer, which for some reason I thought might have something to do with Seinfeld, but it didn't. It's someone entirely different (a music producer and recording artist). I liked his piece, especially this part, about his discussion with his dying father: "Son? Will I ever see you again, after I'm dead? Do you think I'll be watching you, at least, as you have kids, as you raise them, as you get old? What do you really think, son?" "I think what YOU really think, Dad." "I don't know what I think. I'm going to die. I'm not sure anymore. Are you sure?" "I'm sure, Dad. You're dying, but you will live on in my memory and in my life and in my children, and in Mom. We won't meet again, but we are together forever." "Good son. That's my boy. Now go into my wallet in my coat pocket hanging in the closet, and take out the $10 bill that's there. I want you to go and buy your mother flowers for me. I can't recall the last time I bought her flowers. Do that for me, son." My atheism is rocklike. Nothing touches it. Life is random. One wrong turn, one more or one less microbe, and we humans might never have appeared at all. There is no creator. There is only the love of a father and a daughter, the lifelong quest to escape the strangling inner loneliness we all suffer, and the march of nature.
[
quotes
]
2000-10-18
Yet another atheist quote:
I seem to be doing a lot of these today. This one is from Mars Saxman, the same guy who does Edgecase. I don't believe in anything. If I have to believe in it, it isn't true. If it were true, it would just be.
[
books
]
2000-10-18
Digging deeper into A Pattern Language:
It's an amazing book! I am slowly going through it, pattern by pattern. I can't wait to someday build my Dream House. Yesterday, while Spencer worked out at lunch time, I stayed in the car and just read. I got into the section at the back about actual construction methods. I'm so eager to try this stuff out! I'm guessing it would be best to experiment by building a dog house or small child's playhouse. That way I can test it out and make sure it's structurally secure. And then, someday, I can build a bigger school!
[
beauty
design
school
]
2000-10-18
This pop-up thingie
... appeared in my mailbox last week. Well, it was in a big, white, envelope, all flattened (as with the image from when I scanned it). When I opened the envelope and pulled it out, it went "whup!" and popped into a cube! I was quite astonished, and I thought it was pretty spiffy. I left it in cube form until I could show it to Spencer, and asked him to figure out how to flatten it again without hurting it. It took him just a few seconds, and it turns out there are little paper "hooks" inside, and a rubber band that pulls the whole thing together. Elena played with it for awhile, then we took out the rubber band, and she was quite miffed (hey, we didn't want her to choke on it!). So anyway, I'm going to add this to the School Projects list, to make things like this. I'm going to rip it apart a bit more, and scan the inside bits too. Darned ingenious. It's pretty cool (and damn rare) when I don't even really mind being advertised at, because the vehicle is so nifty.
[
design
]
2000-10-17
I should patent these:
Inspired by the aggravating noise of dozens of cow orkers' pagers and cell phones, I have come up with the following inventions: - A way of ringing a phone or pager that consists of ONE (1) short beep or series of beeps, followed by SILENCE. Most people hear the first fraction of a second of the ring/beep and are ready to respond, but the thing doesn't shut up until they hit the magic button. Why not just have it do a quick, simple attention-getting (and distinctive) sound, like "ba-bip!", and then be QUIET!!??!?!?! This should really be obvious. If they don't answer, then the thing can vibrate, then it can beep again (briefly), then assume the person isn't available.
- A small earphone thingie that goes in one's ear (perhaps held in place with a small loop over the top of the ear) that sends the noise of a beeper or phone ringing ONLY TO THE RECIPIENT! I am not sure on the exact implementation, but it shouldn't be too hard to have short-range radio or something trigger the ringing noise from the nearby phone/beeper. And you could also have the earpiece function as the earpiece for the voice coming over the phone, if you wanted to.
If I ran the world, these things would be REQUIRED!
[
weblogs
]
2000-10-16
Weblogs are...
Weblogs are a grown-up version of Show and Tell. -Me
[
school
]
2000-10-13
Wrote my school proposal...
And it's pretty darn long! I'm going to have to chop it up into various pieces as it grows bigger. Read it here. Anyway, it feels good to have my ideas recorded clearly. I've been meaning to do this for over a week.
[
good
]
2000-10-13
This makes sense to me:
I like this piece about suicide, particularly this part: Instead of asking how our loved one could have done this to us, we should wonder at how much pain he had to be in to have overcome those natural obstacles to ending life. We should wonder at how that person withstood that pain and misery so well that we didn't know it even existed. Or if we did, we should wonder that it wasn't more obvious.
[
school
]
2000-10-12
Homeschooling & independent school links:
Surfing around, found some good stuff. I'm researching homeschooling in Colorado, and also independent schools, since I would probably need to teach at least one other non-family child. This document seems to indicate that the requirements for an independent school aren't all that stringent, which is a Good Thing, since I want a lot of independence about how I go about things (and of course I'll need a lawyer to give me more... solid advice). I also dug up this piece which has some interesting things to say about caring for children in different age groups at once. And here are some ideas for activities. Lots more research to do, and I've got a fair amount of time to do it in...
[
school
]
2000-10-12
Oooo, preschool stuff!
(DEAD LINK) This place has got a lot of preschool stuff, I'll have to take a look.
[
beauty
consume
]
2000-10-12
Oooo, color me jealous!
Somebody made a portable Atari 2600. Oooooo, I want one! But I'd have to build it myself. Hmm, I've always wanted to learn about electronics...
[
mammalog
people
]
2000-10-12
Seeing people I know...
Two odd occurrences recently (or not so odd, I just feel like remarking upon them): The other night, I was watching Trauma: Life in the E.R., and I recognized one of the doctors. It freaked me out! I yelled out loud, "Hey!!!! I KNOW HER!!!". I think I scared Elena a little bit. Anyway, I dug out my yearbook, and sure enough, the chief resident at the ER they were showing (in Denver, I dunno which one) is Lisa Hardin, who was on my volleyball team when I was a Sophomore in high school. Wow, she's a doctor now. It boggles my mind. Good for her! And then I was roaming through Salon just now, and I happened to look at the letters to the editor, and I noticed this letter from my Bradley childbirth instructor, Chan McDermott. Heh! What's funny is that I have run into her at various places in town over and over and over again. It's cosmic! Let me see if I can remember: at Elena's old daycare, at Body Business, at the breastfeeding conference, at the Mother's Milk Bank concert. And now in a letter to Salon. Go figure!
[
humor
]
2000-10-11
Found some transcripts:
Wandering around on the net, including some spiffy Kids In The Hall ones. Gavin and his mom, Gavin and a guy painting a chair, Gavin at a police station, The inexperienced cannibal on trial, and The anal probing aliens. Er, the site seems to have just gone down for the moment, or I can't reach it anymore for some reason. So I'll have to stop there. Dang. I wanted to find the one about the two depressed guys who keep trying to impress the lady... Guess I'll just have to go back later sometime to find it.
[
good
]
2000-10-11
A spiffy Twilight Zone site:
(DEAD LINK) It's got episode summaries and all kinds of neat things, including info about the new series episodes (under the Afterlife/The Color Series section). I liked reading through the list and finding ones I had totally forgotten about. It's a little odd to read the air dates, and wonder what I was doing on those days... I mean... it's odd to pin down specific dates in my past like that, and be able to say "that's the night I watched the Shadow Man episode, I remember that". Because normally, my past is kind of one big mishmash, and I can remember things clearly, but not the order they came in (for most things, it doesn't really matter).
[
school
]
2000-10-11
Playground equipment:
Found some places online, with ideas: swingsets, slides, a castle, and of course, a big honking Yahoo category. Lots to explore later. I need to take some video of the play structure in my neighborhood that someone erected next to their house. It kicks butt! There's all kinds of cool stuff all over it, and it's obviously designed by them. I definitely want to design something myself, and build it myself (well, I suppose I will let my brother Bill help, if he asks nicely).
[
school
]
2000-10-10
I'm going to start a school:
Yes, that's right, I've Finally Figured Out What I'm Going To Do With My Life! Okay, okay, those of you who know me have heard this before, but this time I mean it. Really! Sigh, you won't believe me until you see it, but I don't blame you, so that's okay. I'll write more about the whole school proposal as a document unto itself, but I just wanted to mention it here, and spew a few links. For some reason, I have always had a deep and abiding love of uniforms. I don't know why. I just do. So, I found a few places online to get school uniforms. Granted, I wouldn't require them at *my* school, oh no, but if Elena ends up anything like me, she'll be dying to wear one. And of course, I'll let her. The other really spiffy thing about school is, of course, the furniture, and I found a spiffy link to a place that sells that too. Of course, I'd rather build the stuff myself (except for the chairs), since it's egregiously expensive. But I figured this site is good for inspiration.
[
humor
]
2000-10-10
Bwahahhaah!
I found (DEAD LINK) this little movie via sevencrabrangoon, and it made me laugh out loud. It's basically a short film of a meeting & a conference call among advertising executives, only instead of spewing their usual bs, they say what they really think. Heh, heh! There are some four-letter words and whatnot, so the delicate among you may want to pass on this one (but you'll really be missing out, because it's funny). Personally, I think it says a lot about how business is run in general these days, what little I know of it.
[
beauty
]
2000-10-10
Behold the mutant clover:
The people who lived in this house before us planted a whole lotta clover along the front walk. It's nice, and the bees like it a whole lot. Since the bees are so fond of it, and Spencer is not so fond of it, he's been ripping out the clover, bit by bit. I've got nothing against bees, I'd just prefer that they not hang around in our front yard where Elena is very very likely to step on one and get stung (or me or Spencer, for that matter). So anyway, the things are somewhat tenacious, and I didn't know this, but they have a big underground root thing, which I think is called a rhizome. Spencer's been digging 'em up, but there still there, in patches (which he will eventually eradicate). For reasons unknown to me, the clover in our front yard is especially.... lucky. Or, for the biologically-minded among you... mutant! Yes, that's right, before Spencer's eradication campaign, it took all of about fifteen seconds to locate a four-leafed clover. And about five more seconds to find another. And another. And a five-leafed clover, etc. We must be the luckiest people ever, what with all these darn clovers with more than three leaves. At first, I picked a bunch, and then I didn't know what to do with them, so they just sat there and shriveled and blew away. Later I flattened some between the pages of a book. I can't remember which books, but I think the bigger ones (but not the Holy of Holies, the DICTIONARY). Where am I going with this? Oh yeah, now I remember. So there are a few clovers left, and I looked yesterday to see if I could find some mutants to share with you all, and well... I did! Here they are:  5-leafed clover, with one leaf completely hidden (you will have to take my word on this), and one mostly hidden.
 4-leafed clover, kind of mushed and flattened and with leaves of differing sizes.
 Siamese twin clovers, aka "conjoined" clovers. You can see how the two stems are sort of fused together.
Anyway, enjoy! They'll soon be gone. I think Spencer has chucked most of the unlucky clover rhizomes onto our compost heap, but if you really really want some, I might be persuaded to mail some to you (I have no idea if they would survive the journey, or if they'd produce 4- and 5-leafed clovers once they got to you). So you have to ask yourself, do you feel lucky?
[
my site
]
2000-10-10
For the record:
When I mention another weblog in one of my entries, and that weblog happens to be in the column to the left (over there <
[
the net
]
2000-10-10
My reading habits
have changed a little lately, well, my online ones, anyway. I have started reading at a few new places which are... interactive, and let people submit material to them. A couple of them use reader voting, too. I submitted a story at kuro5hin.org, which seems pretty spiffy, though sometimes the discussion can get a bit... boring. I mean, it just goes on and on, but it's not too bad (there seems to be clueful editorial control). I just kind of zone out, take what I can from it, etc. Some of the threads there are just plain excellent, packed with wisdom and wittiness. The piece I submitted was a suggestion that they have a "best of" area, so we'll see if it gets implemented. I checked out Everything2, and even posted a few writeups there, but it's just too chaotic for me. And too much of a... popularity contest thingie. Too many spirals off into doofiness. Plus you can't link to outside sites, which is just silly if you ask me. I can see the point of limiting such a thing, but for certain topics, such as drugs & breastfeeding, you should be able to point to The Authority on the matter, who happens to have a very nice searchable online forum. Also I just got a little too much of a teenager vibe from it, if ya know what I mean. I really really like Edgecase though, because it's so small and choice. So don't tell anyone! :P No voting there, but lots of intelligent thoughtful stuff. Shhhhh. Too many people would ruin it! I submitted a story there that I found at the Follow Me Here weblog, about surgeons grafting toes onto the hands of people who have lost fingers. Anyway, there are many ways of sharing information on the net, it will be interesting to see how things shake out over the next few decades. I think different types of people prefer different ways of sharing info, and that hopefully everyone can find their own cozy little space out here among all these ones and zeros.
[
good
]
2000-10-10
A new tv show I like:
Well, it's new to me. It's called Monkey Business, on the Animal Planet channel. It's about these people who run a monkey park who rescue all sorts of chimps & orangutans & such. I watched it the other day, and really loved it. One poor little chimp Poquito, was given as a pet by some famous Spanish guy to his girlfriend, and had been living in a shack for seven years. They picked him up, and took him to the park (in Great Britain somewhere), and he quickly made friends with a gentle friendly older male chimp named Michael (as I recall). How cool is that? "Must see tv" my ass! I can't wait to see the next episode of this show, where Poquito and Michael move into their new building! Wow! Also, there's a little baby chimp named Amy who's been abused, and hugs a lump of straw inside as the other young chimps go outside to play. They showed a preview of the next show, in which Amy gets a new friend and playmate! I've gotta see that! Man, I love watching stuff on tv that makes me feel like I'm in a civilized society. The people who run this monkey park are so cool. The main couple who owns the whole thing seem to be American by their (lack of) accents. It was so cute seeing this one British fellow taking care of the new infant orangutan in his apartment. How utterly sweet. Sometimes, tv is good. Very good. I love seeing stuff like this!
[
weblogs
]
2000-10-05
Added a few more weblogs:
To the other weblogs list at the left, starting with Plurp (very good, an associate of and recommended by David Chess).
[
mammalog
]
2000-10-05
Elena came home green yesterday:
Well, her left arm, anyway, and a little around her mouth, and some on her left leg. I couldn't tell if it was paint or markers, but I was relieved to realize that it was washable, as most of it came off in the bath quite easily. Elena is now 17 months + a week old, and at her school, she's started to spend time in the classroom next-up from hers: the Dancing Bears. They're about 18 months - 2 years old. She'll be making the transition over the next... little while, the speed of which will be determined by how well she handles it. She's doing just fine so far, they tell me, and spent most of yesterday with the Dancing Bears. In her new classroom, they have little kid-sized toilets, so perhaps she'll be a little more into this whole potty experience. She still takes off her diapers at home, and dutifully sits on her potty, yet does not actually make any deposits into it. Except for once, last week, when she did do "peepee" as we call it, a little bit, but it kind of freaked her out, I think. She immediately jumped up and walked away from the potty, and seemed alarmed. I was quick to praise her and clap my hands and show her how we properly dispose of things once they've gotten into the potty. She calmed down and saw it was no problem. Bit by bit, I'm sure she'll get there, especially if she sees her peers doing it successfully.
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quotes
]
2000-10-05
I like this:
Goal in life: To do as little as I possibly can, but make it all count. Lance of Glassdog
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mammalog
]
2000-10-02
Various goodies from Lactnet:
A few breastfeeding/mothering-related links:
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family
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2000-10-02
I've been quiet lately:
Since I was home with Elena on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday because she was sick, I haven't been logging much of anything. And of course I'm usually pretty quiet on the weekends anyway. But I should get back in the swing of things soon enough. Today I had to spend a great deal of time going through my mail file and getting rid of tons and tons of old messages. I went from 2,879 documents to 1,320. It feels good to have a relatively clean mailbox now!
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canoe
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2000-10-02
The one-day women's canoe team did well!
At this year's Na Wahine O Ke Kai canoe race, the team I mentioned earlier (the one with the average age of 40, with the women from all different locations who come together for just one day), Wailua Kayak & Canoe, finished third, just a little way behind the first two canoes! They did great. On Saturday, we went canoeing with some people from work, and had a lot of fun. Well, I canoed, Spencer walked around with Elena in her stroller. For the first time, I took the canoe out of its rack and put it back all by myself, with no problem! I'm very proud of that, it's quite tricky to do it carefully and not break anything. I met the other people from Lotus up Barton Creek at the canoe rental place, and caught a ton of water plants on my rudder, which really slowed me down. Ugh! So I cleaned them out, and got tied up again on the way back out of the creek. Don, who came along in his kayak, helped me out by cleaning off the rudder the second time, thank goodness. I let Ron try out my canoe, and he thought it was great, but unfortunately he tipped it over. Luckily, he was only in about 2.5 feet of water, so it wasn't a problem. He just uprighted it and got back on. I think I'm going to let my health club membership lapse (as I recall, my one-year membership is about to run out), since I can go canoeing any time by myself now.
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