Future Poltergeist

DF has a new phrase. He tells us to 'sit down' while pointing at our various chairs. This works especially well in the dining room where we do have seats that we always take. However he has also established that I should sit at my computer in the living room. Established it quite emphatically. He's learning and learning and learning. Every day he seems to understand more things. He can understand much more than he can speak, that's for certain. All very fascinating stuff.

Um, well, actually not so much. My new work schedule has me working Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights. The FP Gal and I aren't even sure when we can actually watch the show together. Which is kind of a bummer. So I don't know what happened tonight and I won't for some few days.

Not sure why I didn't stumble across this song earlier in my life. Heard it yesterday and found myself captivated. The 'story' part of it where people meet to create a life together is interesting and of course the 'have a baby now' bit catches my ear right now. But I also dig the under-music. Even an acapella version of this would be pretty darn listenable.

Just put DF down for a nap and came downstairs to find Relia finishing an ice cream sandwich she had taken from the freezer. She actually used this as a defense: "I didn't think you'd come down so fast". I think it's safe to say that she has some work to do before she embarks on her legal career.

Last night I got to take Relia to her tumbling class. There were six or seven of the little moppets, just playing along with the teacher, Miss Amber. This involved the teacher asking them to act like various animals and whatnot. Walk like a dog, roll like a log, that kind of thing. It really couldn't have been cuter. Near the end Miss Amber brought out some things to help her. A small trampoline, two balance beams and some big soft triangles meant for tumbling. The kids went around and around in a circle from item to item, happily playing. Then she brought out a parachute and they shook it up and down. She had a blast.

While in the car with the whole family: Relia: Guess what movie we watched at preschool? FP Gal: I don't know. Which one? Relia: I'll give you a hint. (long pause) It had a duck in it! Lots of laughter and we pretty much agreed that this was the best hint ever. A few minutes later: Relia: Guess what we had for lunch! Me: Give me a hint. Relia: I had water with it. Me: Uh, how about more of a hint. Relia: (long pause) It had a sloppy joe in it. The FP Gal declared that this was in fact an even better hint than the duck one.

This is video from the International Space Station (or possibly a series of photos stitched together). I think I can tell where I'm looking at but it's tough to tell.

A very interesting (and long) article from the NYT regarding the success of students. For the headmaster of an intensely competitive school, Randolph, who is 49, is surprisingly skeptical about many of the basic elements of a contemporary high-stakes American education. He did away with Advanced Placement classes in the high school soon after he arrived at Riverdale; he encourages his teachers to limit the homework they assign; and he says that the standardized tests that Riverdale and other private schools require for admission to kindergarten and to middle school are “a patently unfair system” because they evaluate students almost entirely by I.Q. “This push on tests,” he told me, “is missing out on some serious parts of what it means to be a successful human.” The most critical missing piece, Randolph explained as we sat in his office last fall, is character — those essential traits of mind and habit that were drilled into him at boarding school in England and ...

This was the 1996 Hugo Winner. Skip the first paragraph for the meaty part. Set in the near future (100 years or so from now), this book is set in and near Shanghai of that time. This future is replete with nanotechnology and Stephenson uses this as a playground, exploring how this would impact such things as food, security, entertainment and education. This last is the best part of the book. The book is subtitled 'A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer' and that's just what it is. In the story a very wealthy man is concerned that his granddaughter will lead too pampered a life to grow up the right way. He is afraid that she won't learn to take risks or bounce back from failures. In short, he's afraid that she will grow to be too soft. He asks a nano-engineer to create an interactive book that will lean heavily on Grimm's Fairy Tales and other out of fashion tales. These are intentionally darker and rougher and designed to give her something of an edge. T...

I enjoyed this. In many ways it does mirror the 'what is a planet' debate. The real answer is that the Greeks decided that Turkey and Africa were different enough from Greece that they called them different continents. Everything else has simply come from trying to justify that initial categorization and extend it.

Relia now knows how to spell her own name. She shared it with the check out lady at Target this week. Recently she has had some trouble communicating her name to adults that ask for it. The name is unusual and doesn't have any hard consonants to help make the framework. One day I told her to let them know that it rhymes with 'Australia' and that seemed to help. This is something that she'll simply have to figure out. She will run into this again and again over the years. Trust me, I know that unusual names mean doing some work. So be it.

Dr Mr Probst (or can I call you Jeff?) I've seen all but three episodes of Survivor, the first three. I saw the commercials and dismissed the show as a gimmick. Then I overheard my coworkers talking about it and watched out of what I thought of as self defense. I was hooked and hooked hard. I introduced my roommate to the show and she loved it. When I met my wife, I introduced her and it quickly became appointment television for us. We're both a bit sad when the finale of each season comes as it means there will be a hole in our schedule until the next one. We're always excited as each one begins. But not so much this time. Why? The returning players. Don't get me wrong, Ozzie is one of my all time favorite players. I've cheered for him the past and wish him well. Coach? Eh. But he's colorful and fun to cheer against so he has that going for him. Frankly, I hope they get voted off one and two. Last season gave us Rob and Russell and they dominated ...

I'm glad that I live in a world where this exists.

Growing up I always heard that everyone remembered exactly where they were when they heard that JFK had been shot. That made sense in some clinical way but I didn't really understand it in my gut until 9/11. Ever since that terrible day we've traded stories of how we heard. For those of us outside of the actual danger zones, this is our real connection. This is my story. Every morning I would drive from St Paul to Minneapolis for work. My job was downtown but I hated parking down there so I would leave my car by our old apartment and walk in. As I was parking there were preliminary reports of a plane hitting the World Trade Center. They didn't know if was terrorism or a pilot gone off course. I mentally filed it under 'strange things' and walked the nearly two miles to work. Once downtown I ducked into the skyway system. When I walked through Gaviidae Common I noticed that people were lined up around the atrium railing. Everyone was watching the giant TV. ...

Every year the neighborhood that the FP Gal grew up in has a big garage sale. Her folks still live there and we're over in that neck of the woods fairly often. Today we loaded up the wagon and the stroller and walked up and down some alleys looking for stuff. My focus at garage sales is 1) books 2) board games (especially the old ones) and 3) other stuff. Prior to today we had probably visited about 100 individual garage sales this year and I had very little luck. A few books here and there and one old Playstation game (now so ancient that they're almost free!). Nothing special. Today made up for it. This neighborhood is always good for books and this was no exception. They had classic books and good book club fare. I ran across (another!) book about the 1968 Golden Globe race around the world. This is the fourth one that I have and as far as I know there is only one more that has been written. What else did I find? Right at the end I came across this gem , The Dange...

This is pretty amazing .

I should probably put down some thoughts on the season, what with the opening game tonight. I didn't have high hopes for the Vikings this year but I'm a bit more optimistic now than I was. Basically I've moved from thinking they're a five win team to thinking that they could be good for nine or ten wins. Why? The coaching changes. Childress never impressed. The players never seemed to respect him. He never sparkled in game planning. Frazier has a much better relationship with the team and he has a pretty good reputation for football smarts. Offensive line coaching. For the past few years they've relied on something called 'zone blocking'. Now they're going back to a more traditional approach. Adrian Peterson has seen holes to run through in the preseason. This is new and unusual. It might turn things around. Lots of youth on defense. This can be a double edged sword of course. With youth you get mistakes. But you also get speed. And the se...