Future Poltergeist

As has become our tradition, we went down to Austin today for the parade. At least we tried to. I built some time into our schedule but with two small kids, schedules are more of a hope than anything else. Instead of fifteen minutes early, we rolled into the parking lot just as the very last group went through. (The Austin Memorial Day parade is an event you must hit with some exactitude. There really is no such thing as 'a bit late but we still saw it'. We called family from the road to let them know we were running late to see if they could hold the start for us. My mom suggested that they could also just run through it all twice.) The next event of the day is a trip to the cemetery where they have a small ceremony to honor veterans. Met up with more family there and Relia got her first lessons about not climbing on the gravestones. Near the end of the program there is a 21 gun salute. I held Relia and warned her that there would be a loud noise (three of them actual...

(Yes, I've listened to you. And am now playing for ratings...) Today we went to the zoo. I know, big surprise. We've only been there about three times a week since we bought a membership. They will not be making money off of us, ha ha! On the way there we started talking about how gloriously verbal Relia is. Whenever she makes friends at the park there is always a trading of age with the other hovering parent. And Relia is always ahead of the curve in terms of how much and how clearly she talks. (I knew that 'Shakespeare in the Womb' would pay off!) Anyway, we got behind a Serta van ( love this ad ) and tried to explain the sheep on the back. Tried explaining the whole concept of counting sheep to fall asleep. She didn't quite get it but she said something about counting sheep by fours. The FP Gal joked about how she had skipped adding and jumped straight to multiplication. I said, "she's not just a prodigy, she's a genius!". Relia: ...

Relia: (something something) ...Nana's buttons. Me: You were pushing Nana's buttons? Relia: Pushing on them. Me: You were pushing on Nana's buttons? Relia: I got a timeout. Me: Oh. Relia: I pushed them really hard.

This I liked .

(I'm sure non-fans are getting tired of this by now. Sorry. It was an absorbing show and deserved some discussion.) Pretty interesting theories from someone who claimed to be part of the production. The email starts at the second blocked bit of text and covers both the island plots and the sideways world. Am I convinced? Well . . . almost. The show left enough room for almost any kind of explanation. This set relies on a much more sophisticated expectation than almost any TV show in history. Which makes me think that it's an after-the-fact bit of BS. But it's worth reading.

This is a science fiction novel but the science part is all in the setting. It could easily have been placed on two separate pieces of the Earth in a modern setting. 'The Dispossessed' is about two philosophies and the people that live by them. One is a capitalistic society on a planet called Urras, and the other it's discontents who live in exile on the main planet's moon, Annares. The story takes place nearly two hundred years after the schism. The non-capitalists live in a very harsh environment and (happily!) live in accord to the needs of the community. The protagonist is a man named Shevek who is an experimental physicist. We follow his life on Annares and also, at a later point, on Urras. This serves to show a comparison of the two societies. Shevek is a full believer in his community but is somehow not quite happy. Even though custom forbids it, he finds himself blocked from pursuing the research that he wants. Custom suggests that monogamous relationsh...

We took the kids garage saling on Saturday morning. Relia referred to them as 'hundred dollars' possibly because of some confusion with 'Deal or No Deal'. Anyway, off we went, got to about three yards and then the rain started. Hardcore buyers will shrug off rain. Lugging around two kids keeps you from being hardcore. Lucky for us, one of the nearby churches had a sale in their basement. And we found Candyland. Which is probably the perfect start to what I hope is a long life of boardgaming... Helping Mama with a card Showing Daddy which color she got Making her move Planning her strategy About to get the double yellow and leave us in the dust

This post assumes that you have seen the actual last show and is therefore stuffed with SPOILERS. Please read accordingly. I said last night that I was satisfied with the finale and I'll stand by that. But that opinion is slipping the more I think about it the less satisfied I'm becoming. The last show put a cap on the story and it felt like a true ending and a farewell to some people that I've been watching for longer than I've been married. The best take I've seen is probably here from Megan McArdle : To some extent, the producers of Lost needed to choose between paying off the human drama, and paying off the sci-fi/fantasy/ghost story part; I think there's maybe a reason that those sorts of stories suffer on the character side. When what we might call the "technical" stuff is driving the plot, the characters necessarily become less rich, because complex characters who develop in unpredictable ways get in the way of making all those little ...

Relia's new favorite is 'Blue's Clues'. For those that don't know, this is a highly interactive show in that the host looks directly into the camera and asks the viewer to answer questions. She totally buys into it. It's a joy to watch her smile as she gets the right answer. (And the music doesn't suck.) I approve.

The FP Gal and I were discussing what the various actors on 'Lost' can do after the show has ended. Some of them will use this as a stepping stone to more work. Others will be trapped and type cast in similar roles forever. This is the speculation so far: Jack (Matthew Fox) - will continue to play leading man types, possibly of the haunted type. Plays a good drunk though... Kate (Evangeline Lily) - looks like she's aged about ten years since the show started. May be past her ingenue days. Could possibly do some romantic comedies. Hugo (Jorge Garcia) - big future ahead in comedy roles. Sayid (Naveen Andrews) - think I've mentioned this already but I think he should step into a recurring James Bond type role. Would be outstanding. Ben (Micheal Emerson) - could step into many villain type roles. It'd be hard to trust him in anything benevolent but he's a good enough actor so who knows. The island (itself) - could serve as a health spa or high end resort. Wh...

Relia and I talking about some new clothes of hers: Me: Who is on there? Relia: Minnie Mouse. Do you like her? Me: Yes. Sure. Relia: She's a nice girl. Me (quietly): Mouse. Relia: She lives in a house with her friends. And when her dad sings to her she cries. Me: Oh. Is her dad a really bad singer? Relia: No. He's a good singer. Me: So she cries with joy? Relia: No she cries when Joy sings.

No, not me this time. It was my little boy this time! Pretty much every night this week one child or the other was screaming in my ear but not tonight. This evening he just settled in and slept on my chest. (Upstairs, the FP Gal was doing battle with Relia . . .) Last night's fight with Relia was at least entertaining. She's been sleeping with a sippy cup and I think it's part of the problem. When she starts to settle in she sees it as a toy and uses the distraction to wake herself up again. In response I've started threatening to take it away if she won't stop screwing around. Last night we hit the impasse. I threatened and gave consequences; she kept it up and lost the sippy cup. And the response? You'd think that I'd taken away a kidney. Crying and screaming and fighting and kicking. After an hour of this (there is a clock and I checked) she finally was worn out and dropping off. Her hand settled down limply and I could tell she was fading. ...

Edinburgh (brotha)

Of course it makes sense that this exists somewhere but my mind never jumped to the thought that there was actually an advertisement for this. Sadly, there is no listed price. And we're in the midst of putting something else together in the backyard. Maybe I'll check Ebay . . .

One of the fun things about having kids who talk is the strange way they remake phrases to make sense to them. Here are some that Relia uses: Monica-rail - instead of monorail. Always used at the zoo. Sounds like a fun place to be the conductor. Orange Target - otherwise known as Home Depot. They are right next to each other at the place we most commonly go to. Beef cookies - any kind of sandwich cookie, but especially the fudge creme filled ones. We keep waiting for the good folks at daycare to bring this up in regards to Oreos. (Apparently, also my brother's nickname.) Daddy juice/Mommy juice - whatever kind of juice either of us happens to have in the fridge at the time. Started when I got some Sunny D and has just grown from there. Useful to me when I don't want her to drink all of my blueberry juice... Brown/Orange/Red Park - Relia's system of identification for the various parks that we play at. Sometimes there is a loose connection to the actual colors at t...

50 Questions 'Lost' Really Does Need to Answer This article was written before tonight's show aired. I think a few of them were answered but . . . well, there is really no chance that all of it will be resolved, is there?

This is kind of a miscellaneous post regarding various Hugo things. I'm now only one book behind in my reviews ('The Dispossessed' by LeGuin) and I hope to catch up pretty quickly on that. My Hugo reading has been at a slower pace so far this year but we're only starting to get to the slow summer season so that may change. I'm also going to try and read and review each of this year's Hugo nominees. With any luck I'll have that done by the end of June, well in advance of the actual voting. Not that I'll actually be voting, mind you, but at least I'll be informed! I've also found two more blogs that are heavy into reviewing Hugo (and Nebula) winners. The first one is appropriately titled ' Blogging the Hugos ' and is written by a fellow from St Paul. He is on a more ambitious pace than I am and is already up to the 80's. The other blog is ' Das Ubernerd ' and has one of my favorite header graphics. This is the best organi...

A couple of hundred years from now an enormous object is detected drifting into the solar system. Scientists discover that it's probably artificial in nature and a ship is dispatched to match orbits with it and investigate. They discover an enormous tube with an atmosphere inside of it. (The thing really is huge, 20km in diameter and 54 km long. Which is metric so who knows how big it really is. But those sound like big numbers, don't they?) The crew of the ship explore the object, nicknamed Rama, and that's really the heart of the book. How they deal with gravity and how they set up exploration. They find some surprises but nothing terribly earth-shaking. Arthur C Clarke is one of the giants of science fiction and this is one of his most highly regarded books. It's definitely a 'hard' sci-fi book. The enjoyment is in the creation of such a huge thing as Rama. As authors look to write books about traveling to other stars, one of the hardest questions t...

The last couple of weeks of blogging has been on the lame side and I know that (sorry Pat!). I've got my reasons: The bedtime stuff with Relia. It's not every night but it's enough of them. Tonight she finally gave up after 930p. Not all fighting. In fact, I would have sworn she was down at 9p. Then we heard movement up there and when I investigated she had carefully remade her bed and seemed wide awake. Felixio is going through a gassy phase (sorry for sharing, guy!). That means he is very hard to console. So when the FP Gal is busy fighting upstairs, I'm trying to do the calming thing downstairs. This isn't a big problem, certainly not as bad as when he's hungry and and the, uh, equipment is otherwise busy. Then I'm stuck. My allergies have been killing me for about eight weeks now. Our long mild spring has been very comfortable and wonderful for the trees. They've been flowering like mad. Seriously, we saw one yesterday that had so many w...

You may have heard of Jessica Watson , an Australian teen that just finished a round-the-world solo sailing. Her story is impressive and especially interesting because she blogged the entire voyage . (If you're interested in reading just the sailing parts, go to October of 09 and read forward. I'm doing so and am up to December 09.) This is interesting on a few different levels. Watson is only 16, which is quite young. I can't imagine Relia tackling such a thing a mere 14 years from now. Her parents were confident and they certainly were in the best position to judge. The news articles say that critics were afraid she would die on the trip and that was certainly a possibility. But. She was in constant contact and (worst case scenario) if her boat had sunk, she could have been rescued fairly quickly. It's amazing how different sailing alone around the world has become. Joshua Slocum first did it in 1895 and news traveled around the world with him. It didn...

After Hans mentioned the Cranberries last week, I put one of their discs in the car. Relia picked this one as her favorite. Even called it by name without prompting. Fortunately, it's one of my favorites too. When she's with me we almost always listen to music from a CD. I gave up music radio years ago and she isn't a fan of sports talk. The fun thing is that she refers to it as 'Daddy music', like it's a genre or something. She'll ask me if this or that song is Daddy music or not. Well Relia, 'Pretty' is indeed Daddy music. Enjoy!

I've mentioned the bedtime struggles a time or two. Yesterday Relia missed her nap and basically fell asleep on her own before I was even home from work. It was my turn to put her down so it was like a night off! (Funniest bit for me, Relia wandered out of her room at midnight and handed me her jacket so I could hang it up downstairs. This was very important to her.) Today I tried (scout's honor!) to transfer Relia from car to bed for a nap. She'd been asleep for about 15min and I guess that was long enough. Again, there was no afternoon nap. My turn again to put her down. She didn't make it through one book, again conked out on her own. We're going to ask the pediatrician about using melatonin to help her get to bed. It's ok for adults for long term use in helping to fall asleep. But it's not very well studied for children as far as I can tell. I'm a bit torn on using help but this seems to be longterm enough for us to start worrying about....

Ok, I'm going to admit something. As beautiful as Target Field is, it has one large cosmetic flaw. And I'm not so sure that it can be easily fixed. I've waited some weeks to write about this for fear that it was just griping about a rival's ballpark but after giving it some time, I still think it's a problem. The problem? The right field scoreboard. Whenever the camera focuses on the pitcher, the picture is a glowing electric background from the scoreboard. And it looks very ugly. I think that the long views look good. Reviews of the ballpark experience are uniformly good. But the majority of people seeing the Twins play will do so on their TVs. I don't know if they can fix this. I only hope that they do.

Highlights: Went to the zoo for an hour or so this morning. Sometime we'll stay for a full day but I don't know when. The FP Gal should have some pictures up sometime. Lunch with the FP Gal's family. It was at an Australian themed restaurant and I got to show Relia a map of the country/continent. It rhymes with her name which is cool. Back home and Relia fell asleep just as the car stopped at the curb. Perfect timing. Easiest job I've had of it in weeks. Off to a park where we met my Mom. We were at this same place last summer and it's amazing to see how much more agile Relia is. (Mom less so . . .) Off to dinner. We all had ice cream. Back home. Typical bath-time. Then 1 1/2 hour bedtime/fight. Thirty minutes later she was back up. This really must stop. Got to watch the 'Amazing Race' finale. Cheered hard for the cowboys, of course. Man, I love that show. And now? Probably off to bed.

Ok, I enjoyed this . Personally, I'd pick Admiral Ackbar. The jokes write themselves.

You're probably tired of these short posts this week. Sorry about that. I'm kind of just enjoying some down time with the fam. We're all fine (mostly). Relia is still coughing a bit from her cold. And she may have given it to me. We're protecting Felix as much as we can but he's going to be exposed to this sometime. So far he is holding up quite well. Shows no sign of actually getting our colds. We were told that it would only be a problem if he became listless and unwilling to eat. So far that has not been a problem. Actually, he's been pretty easy so far [knocks wood]. Lots of sleeping and eating. The FP Gal tells me that the night time feeding has gone well. Relia is handling the transition quite well. She showed some jealousy for the first time today when I dared to drape one of her blankets over Felix. The green eyed monster came out and he ended up with a different blanket. We'll work on this. Took the fam into work on Thursday to show the...

More unusual bookshelf designs here. I was going to praise the Triangle shelves but when I reached 'A Bibliophile's Dream' I literally gasped. Yum. And I want one (or some). Not sure where in the house it would really work but . . . well . . . I'll do some serious thinking about it. Speaking of which, why is the bookshelf market so screwed up? Take a look at bookshelves on Amazon . Most of the shelves are much too high. They're obviously designed more for knickknacks and so on than they are for books. And the prices! This beauty here goes for more than $900 . Plain, red and the wrong size and it goes for nearly a grand. Other basic designs go for a minimum of $70-some bucks. These are simply boards of wood joined together? Why the enormous profit margin? Makes me think that I'll be sticking with boards and bricks for quite some time. Or looting a school library . . .

After unsuccessfully trying to get Ozzie off of the table by snapping at him: Me (to Relia): No one listens to me in this house. Have you noticed this? Relia: Huh?

We're all fine and I don't have the energy to blog tonight.

I've got the week off from work so I can do Daddy things. Which is nice . . . This was our first really peaceful day so far. Relia was with her Nana today which meant we only needed to keep track of an infant. Which is much easier. Relia continues to be very sweet with Felix. In the morning she always wants to know where he is. And if he's asleep she really doesn't understand that she must be quiet. Well, it's early. She'll have time to learn. Took Felix to the pediatrician today. Everything looks good. His weight is in the groove and the slight bit of jaundice is nothing to worry about. My baby calming skills have atrophied quite a bit but some of it is coming back. This morning I found that humming ' Clair de Lune' helped. With Relia the tune that worked was 'She-Bop'. Go figure. We're still working out sleeping and so far the heavy load has fallen on the FP Gal. She's been a trooper through it all.

Off my schedule, missed yesterday's picture.

Found here at the FP Gal's blog .

Possible TMI. Me (to Relia): Are you poopy? Relia: Of course I am! - - - And since I'm on the subject, Felix got both the FP Gal and I with pee this morning. It's a little bit different changing a boy than a girl . . .

What's going on? I'll tell the labor story some other time. The short story is that it was brief, only painful for a short time and involved a call to the police. Also, we couldn't be happier that we chose the hospital with a short drive. Felix is doing wonderfully. He came out easily and to our great surprise, with a full head of hair. I think he looked like Dom Deluise. (This is one of a very limited number of options that babies have. Others include Buddha and Winston Churchill.) Relia has been very happy with her brother so far. We got some video of the actual meeting. And some great shots of her greeting him at home today. I feel like I've been running for the past two days. Glad to have the FP Gal back at home. We owe some serious thanks to all of the grandparents. They've been a tremendous help. The FP Gal's family (being so close) has been especially wonderful.

Felix arrived last night about 230a. He weighed in at just over 8 pounds and everyone is doing fine. The short story version is that labor was very brief. Pictures to follow.