Tracking Santa and Last Minute Gift Idea

You can follow Santa's journey tomorrow through the NORAD website. This year they've added a feature that you can use to follow Santa in 3D.

If you're looking for a last minute gift may I suggest the following:

A Holiday Playlist

I created this at SeeqPod. Simply click on the play button and enjoy.

SeeqPod - Playable Search

What a couple weeks!

As many of you know Sam's birthday was last Sunday. We originally planned to have his party last Saturday, but on Friday night Abby came down with a horrible stomach flu making a party for him at our house something of a dicey proposition. We were going to postpone the party for a week, but unfortunately, moving to the following weekend would have meant that only 2 guests could come. Luckily, Lynne very graciously offered up her house as an alternative venue, and we (well actually Cindy) were able to have the party, which as I will get to later turned out to a good thing. According to all involved a good time was had by all at the party, as games were played, cake was consumed, and Sam got a slew of really cool presents. We are very much in Lynne's, Jeff's, Erica's, and Natalie's debt. As I understand Sam and Natalie got a long very well, as you can see in the picture below.


So while Sam and Cindy were enjoying his party, Abby and I remained at home. I tried to study a bit while she mostly slept. On Sunday, however things started to get dicey for me, as I came down with some sort of normal flu bug. Normally that wouldn't be so vexing, except that last week was finals week at Ohio State and I was supposed to take an Econ (Ag Econ to be precise) final on Tuesday morning. I immediately emailed my professor and told him of the situation, and he graciously offered to let me take the final after the fact if I wasn't better by Tuesday morning, which as it turns out I wasn't.

In the meantime, Abby recovered from her stomach flu but caught my flu bug, and missed a couple days of school, and still isn't really back to 100%. Not to miss out on the action, Sam came down with the stomach flu a couple days ago and it seems have affected him a lot worse than it did Abby. I'll spare you the details, but just note that for about a day or so Sammy couldn't keep anything down, and is still somewhat leery of eating. In a lot of ways it was a good thing that we didn't move the party to yesterday.

Cindy, as you may have inferred, is still healthy but scared to be around the rest of us. I've no idea why.

A few random thoughts:

• Normally I'm somewhat upset if I get a B in a class, but this time not so much. As I mentioned earlier this particular class had a basis in Calculus, which 20 years ago kicked my behind. In some ways I view this B as vindication. I also want to go and punch my former calculus prof in the nose.
• I'm a bit torn on the auto bail-out. In principle industries should rise and all according to merit. And indeed, obsolescence and failure are fundamental to engendering progress in capitalism. Hence protecting industries from going under strikes me as fundamentally un-capitalistic. On the other hand, it's inarguable that letting the Big 3 go down would have dramatic and potentially hugely damaging effects on the economies of mid-western states, particularly Ohio and Michigan. So there is an equity concern involved as allowing the Big 3 to go down could have multiplier effects across various sectors. Allowing the Big 3 to declare bankruptcy would, I suspect, seal their doom since I find it unlikely that many would jump at the chance to buy a car from a bankrupt company. I've seen analogies drawn to the airlines many of which survived bankruptcy, but I'm unsure why that analogy would hold here. They are fundamentally different industries with differing externalities if they fail. At worst a customer of a bankrupt airline is out several hundred to a few thousand dollars if they fail, but otherwise is no worse off. A customer of a bankrupt automaker is stuck with an asset which will be harder to maintain, as suppliers go out of business, and even harder to sell when the time comes. In other words, in the short-run the former may be worse off, but can certainly recover, but in the long-run the latter is worse off since he will have a worthless asset. But then again that is the nature of capitalism, and there are reasons why Japanese automakers are doing well.
• Related to the above, I wonder if this isn't a time to think more strategically about transportation. It strikes me that auto travel is, in the aggregate, very inefficient. I don't particularly see why we can't utilize more economical means of moving people, especially on long trips. Each quarter when we make the trek from Columbus to Indy and back I wonder why we lack a sound rail system that would presumably use less fuel while moving more people across the country. What I'm driving at is whether we ought to consider alternative means of transportation in light of the precarious nature of the American auto industry as well as energy and environmental concerns.
  

Best Ebay Item Ever

Go Rebs?

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

We were a bit surprised to learn of some of the things that Abby's class has been doing in preparation for Thanksgiving. Among other things they talked a lot about the Pilgrims and the Mayflower and even watched a Peanuts depiction of the crossing (fwiw, the same one that was on last night). She also made an Indian headdress, a tepee, and Pilgrim's house. It was about as un-PC as one could get. In a lot of ways it seemed like we time traveled back to 1977.

Sammy had his Feast Day at his pre-school yesterday, but unfortunately the poor guy had stomach trouble so I don't think he enjoyed it all that much. One mom who was helping out did compliment Sam on his good manners. I'm thinking he gets that from Cindy.

We're off to my parents this weekend, but I thought I'd leave you with this list of things E. Gordon Gee is thankful for:

Thanksgiving nears, and our thoughts turn to those things for which we are most grateful. As president of this great University, I feel blessed beyond measure for countless reasons. Below, I share the Top 10 things I am grateful for this Thanksgiving:
10. Your 384,000 hours of community service last year
9. Warhol at the Wexner Center
8. Our remarkable faculty, whose research ranks us 9th nationally
7. The Best Damn Band in the Land
6. Ohio State’s most-qualified freshman class ever
5. Senator John Glenn, for his service to the University, the state, and the nation
4. Students’ overwhelming participation in this month’s elections
3. Our first LEED-certified building (Nationwide & Ohio Farm Bureau 4-H Center)
2. Ohio State’s huge contingent of international students, 14th-largest nationally
1. 42-7 – enough said!
Best wishes for a relaxing and enjoyable holiday.
Gordon Gee

And this is with selective admissions

I recall some stories of folks jumping in Mirror Lake the Thursday before Michigan, but nothing like this....

Conspiracy

As the civilized world settles down in preparation for the annual fight between the forces of righteousness and the denizens of evil, it's important to remember what we're up against and why goodness must prevail. All credit must go to the Dead Schembechlers, a local punk band, for piecing together the horrors wrought upon us by that School Up North. After reading this, I am trusting you to do your duty to stop the Vast Wolverine Conspiracy. (Warning- this may be the most tame page on their website.)

Incidentally, a portion of the proceeds from the sales of Dead Schembechlers recordings, concerts, T-Shirts and whatever go to Bo Schembechler Heart of a Champion Fund for Cardiovascular Health at the University of Michigan. And for those who are curious Bo was aware of the Dead Schembechlers and supposedly thought it was funny.

Go Bucks! Beat the Blue!

Raising them right!

This is what happens when you leave Sam and me alone....



Go Bucks! Beat Michigan!

An Interesting Couple of Weeks

It's been an interesting couple of weeks. Last week Cindy had a conference with Sam's pre-school teachers (a concept I'm still trying to grasp) to go over his progress. In a lot of ways it was reassuring since they were fairly pleased with him and generally thought he was doing well. They noted that he tended to be a follower, but also took direction well from them. The only real negative comment they had, if you can call it that, was that he likes to lay down when he plays or during story times. That isn't so bad, but they suggested it can be problematic if other kids start doing it. Otherwise, he's content, they're content, and we're content.

Abby has had an interesting time. Last Friday the nurse from her school called me to come get her because she was complaining of nausea and evidently had a low grade fever. However, over the weekend she was perfectly fine, though she was eating rather ravenously for her. Yesterday the nurse again called us to get her because she was complaining of the same symptoms. And again after she ate a bit she was perfectly fine. We took her to the doctor this morning to make sure that all was all right. The doctor just laughed and said that Abby was ok, but we need to do a better job of getting her to eat more substantiative things for breakfast aside from chocolate-chip pancakes. So that's good.

Abby and I did go to an OSU hockey game Saturday night and had a great time. So much so that I wish we had been able to bring Sammy too. The game itself was fairly exciting and intense, as a very youthful Ohio State squad defeated the 11th ranked MSU Spartans 3-1 to complete a series sweep. There was music playing in between down times on the ice to keep folks entertained and cameras set up throughout the Schottenstein arena that folks could interact with. At one point during a stoppage time their was an air guitar contest and during another they played YMCA over the soundsystem and showed various people doing the obligatory dance. As an aside I had forgotten how obnoxious 12 year-old boys can be. Abby really seemed to enjoy herself and with all the theatrics involved I think Sammy would have too. But alas it started right around his bedtime. We are planning to go again to a matinée game against Notre Dame in February, so that Sammy can join in on the fun.

And did anything else happen? Oh yeah, as for the election, it's hard to argue that the Republican brand name isn't tarnished. It will be interesting to see how the Democrats govern now that they have control over the Legislative and Executive. I tend to think that Obama's biggest challenge may be pursuing the centrist agenda he espouses while placating the left-wing of the Democratic party. That won't be an easy feat. I'll be happy if he can indeed change the tone of debate in this country, though I'm pessimistic that he, or anyone, can.

Other Random Items:

• Sam has insisted on wearing his new Christmas PJ's for 3 or 4 nights now. I suppose it's an improvement over when he wanted to sleep naked, but still.
  
• I'm unconvinced that the Big 12 deserves all the praise it's been getting. Scoring a lot of points is great, but giving them up not so great. That said I was impressed with what Texas Tech did to Oklahoma State.
• Along the same vein why is PSU's loss to Iowa damning to their BCS titles hopes, while Florida's loss, at home, to a fairly pedestrian Ole Miss isn't?
• College basketball is about to begin. All is right with the world.
• It looks like my general exam will be during Winter Quarter. As it turns out that works out best for my adviser and my committee, and also for me.
  

Please Stop Calling

As a kid I thought it was pretty cool that we lived in such an important state in the national elections. I've since been disabused of that notion. It's nice of John McCain and Sarah Palin to think of enough of us to warn us about the dangers of Barack Obama, but I think one call a day would be sufficient to accomplish that task--not the 10-12 we've been getting. I don't think I've been this annoyed with a politician since John Edwards made me a 1/2 hour late getting home in 04--the police cleared 670 so that his entourage could safely get out to New Albany for a fund raiser leaving a slew of us stranded on the on-ramp from the downtown interchange while we waited for his limosine to pass by (of course if you're not familar with Columbus this is pretty much meaningless).

Anyway, I'll be glad when this election is over. Sometime I'd like to see an election where the candidates actually make a case for themselves rather than against the other guy. I find it disingenuous to suggest that McCain would be the equivalent of a third Bush term, and I really don't believe Obama is a Socialist. But that's just me...

This is genius

A Note to Would-Be Room-Moms

We truly appreciate all you do to make our kids' experiences in school as good as they can be, but if you feel compelled to comb my child's hair on picture day, which is perfectly understandable, try to use a clean comb. We'd rather you take maybe 10 seconds to rinse out the comb, or possibly use a fresh one, than to spend a good part of Saturday morning cleaning lice out of our daughter's hair. Luckily, we caught it before any real damage was done and there appear to be none left in her hair now.

The Pumpkin Show

Last Friday was a BIG day! We joined Mama' and Papa' at the 102nd Circleville Pumpkin Show. For those not familiar it's an annual festival in the city of Circleville to celebrate the fall season, and draws visitors from around the area as well as out of state, and supposedly even foreign countries. Calling it a pumpkin show seems to be something of a misnomer since it's really more of a giant festival, or as Cindy opined a Catholic festival on steroids. There were all sorts of rides and games, as you can imagine, plus the usual assortment of fair fare including many varieties of deep fried batter.

Sam and Abby had a grand time seeing all the pumpkins, playing various games, watching a pet parade, and even got to ride a camel! For the most part we had a good time too, though we weren't prepared for either the expenses involved (which in hindsight was bad planning on our part), nor for the size of the crowds. Interestingly the carneys working there said that the crowds were smaller than usual. Go figure.

Incidentally the carneys working the game were very nice and even helped Sam and Abby win a couple prizes.

Perhaps the highlight of the show for Cindy and me was the band playing on the center stage. They appeared to be Jr. High kids but they were covering ZZ Top, The Georgia Satellites, Ozzy Osbourne, and others and doing a pretty credible job. Not entirely what we were expecting but pretty cool.

Bribery Update

Baylor rescinded their program because of the appearance of impropriety. OK.....

Bribery

In general I'm not a fan of ranking systems in the sense that they often times are arbitrary and infused with others sense of what's important. So in college football you often find teams that score a lot of points ranked higher despite often giving up a lot of points, or conversely an SEC team ranked higher than teams with similar records simply because they are in the SEC. Generally though within sports these things can work themselves out. The overranked team will eventually play against a better team (and as Buckeye fan I know about that, though I contend the loss to Florida had more to do with us than them).

For academics no such direct competition exists though schools do compete with one another for better students, faculty and whatever. And often that competition rests on how a school is perceived and evaluated by publications like U.S. News. These rankings are greatly affected by things like spending on instruction, admittance rates, and quality of incoming student. One aspect that is often left out is whether the institution actually educates its students while their in college, or whether they are more/less a finishing school. That said rankings do have some value in that we know that certain institutions are likely better than others, and rankings provide a crude way of assessing those differences.

One would like to assume that institutions are acting in a manner in keeping with their mission and values and not trying to game the system to get better rankings. Such an assumption is obviously foolhardy, but still the audacity of what Baylor is doing is astounding. Baylor is bribing it's freshman class to retake the SAT in order to improve the test scores of it's freshman class, and thus enhance Baylor's reputation. Yikes!

Anniversary and Other Items

Well, it's the middle of October and just a few days before our Anniversary. It's hard for me to conceive that we've been married 11 years, or more precisely that Cindy has put up with me for 11 years, but as I tell her I have much better taste than she does--just look at who we married.

Abby's soccer season is drawing to a close, but last week she showed signs of finally "getting it". She played her best game yet and was instrumental in stopping at least 3 scoring chances for the other team and setting her team up for their first score. She won't be confused for Mia Hamm anytime soon, but she showed definite improvement over her first few games. With 2 games remaining in the fall season I'm hopeful that she'll get her first goal. But regardless she seems to be having more fun now, which is the intent after all.

We got her first report card and for the most part were fairly pleased. She got high marks in virtually everything, though we were a bit surprised that she didn't do a bit better in math. I suspect it may be that she simply got bored when they were testing, which was something of an issue last year. In fact we found ourselves in the very odd, and frankly ludicrous, position of lecturing a kindergartner on the importance of giving her best effort on tests, but that's a slew of other issues.

Sam is doing well and is liking pre-school for the most part. Evidently, there comes a point in the day when he's had enough of it and lies down by himself on a rug and does his own thing while the class is going on. I'm not sure what's up with that, but admittedly there are times during meetings where that seems like a tempting idea.

Last Friday Cindy and Sam spent the whole day at the zoo and had a blast. And then Cindy, Abby, and Sam went again on Sunday while I got some stuff done at home. Needless to say a grand time was had by all, well by them at least.

A few random thougts:

• I know I'm not hip, but every now and then I come across posts on other blogs like this that remind me of my lack of hippness. Incidentally, the author (Kevin Carey) and I pretty much had the same life for a year in grad school. I'm not sure I've met a better writer than him.
  
• Lately I've been into southern rock and country rock bands, and recently discovered the Drive by Truckers.
• Ringo Starr announced that he won't be acccepting fan mail after October 20. Is this really an issue?
• I looked at the kid's college funds and my retirement fund and laughed to keep from crying. Good thing time is on our side.
• I decided to kill the other blog since I hadn't added anything to it in 5 weeks. I may resurrect it some other time.
  

Another Big Day

Last weekend was a big one for both Abby and Sam. On Friday night Grandma and Uncle Ray came from Indy, so that Ray and I could go to the game while Grandma got to spend a day with Abby and Sam. In the morning after pancakes--chocolate chip for Abby and Sam, blueberry for Cindy and Ray, and peanut-butter with chocolate chips and blueberry for me (Grandma had some as well though I forget which kind)--Grandma, Sam, Cindy and Abby went off to her soccer game while Ray and I, after his traditional stop at our local Tim Horton's, went off to the football game. In contrast to the game Cindy and I went to (YSU) we had little problem finding parking and getting on the shuttle from the West Campus lots. The game itself went pretty well and wasn't nearly as close as the final score indicated (34-21). In some ways the most remarkable part of the whole experience, aside from the game, is the efficiency with which OSU and the city are able to move such a large volume of people-100K+- in and out of the campus area.

[Cindy wrote most of this]Sadly Abby's soccer team went down 2-1, but Abby got her first experience at fullback and liked it. Apparently Sammy had a grand time playing with Grandma. After the game they went to one of our favorite metroparks, Blacklick, for a special celebration at the park. They went on a tram ride, went wading in the creek (Abby saw tadpoles), and created some beautiful artwork at a couple different craft stations. Then they came back home to meet up with daddy and Uncle Ray so that we could all go out to dinner at Abby and Sammy's favorite restaurant-- the Buckeye Hall of Fame Cafe! This has been their favorite place to eat for a couple of years now. Abby looooves their cheese pizza and Sammy likes their kid-friendly marinara pasta (when he's in the mood for eating). They also love to go to the game room and watch mommy and daddy win lots of tickets for prizes. Abby really likes that awful crane game (you know, the one that is virtually impossible) but Chris was able to win a Care Bear for her. However, he was unable to harness a stuffed gorilla for Sam. After an hour or so in the arcade it was time for Grandma and Uncle Ray to head back to Indianapolis, much to the kid's chagrin.

A few random items/thoughts:

• For reasons known only to him Sam really wanted to sleep naked tonight. We're not sure why, but he had a monster fit putting on his jammies. It sort of reminded me of the old song, Pink Pajamas. If you don't know it ask a Boy Scout.
  
• The House really let us down yesterday. Hopefully sanity will set in the next couple days.
• It may amuse some to know that 20 years later calculus has once again reared it's head in my life. I'm taking an Ag Econ class this quarter in which some facility with calculus will be integral to my success.
  

Financial Crisis

I came across this at another blog and found it to be a decent and somewhat funny explanation of how we got into the current financial crisis, though I must warn that it has some crude and offensive language. Interestingly we got into our house through one of these questionable mortgage deals but refinanced it as soon as we could.

In terms of the bailout Tom Brokaw has a good piece on it at the Wall Street Journal.

Abby's Big Day

Saturday was perhaps the greatest day ever for Abby. In the morning she played soccer and played 2 quarters at her favorite position, goalie, which incidentally was my first position as well. Her team won 5-2 with Abby only letting in one goal which wasn't entirely her fault. The girl who scored on her put the ball to the opposite corner. After her game she went to her friend Teah's birthday party, and had a grand time. But the biggest thrill was later after the Buckeye game when Abby, her papa', and I went fishing and Abby caught her first fish, which turned out to be a turtle. It was a small thing obviously but Abby was rightfully proud. After we put it back Abby caught another which this time was actually a fish! It was a small bluegill as you can see in the picture. So all in all it was big day for her. For those keeping track, I haven't caught anything yet, darnit!

ARRRRRRRRR....

Tomorrow be international talk like a pirate day....arrrrrr!! If ye' don't yet have a pirate name ye' best be gettin' one matey! Click on the link below, if ye' dare!

My pirate name is:

Red Harry Flint

Passion is a big part of your life, which makes sense for a pirate. Like the rock flint, you're hard and sharp. But, also like flint, you're easily chipped, and sparky. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

Update: Arrrrrrr....and this be Cindy's pirate name (It be much cooler than mine....darrrrrnnnnn!)

My pirate name is:

Captain Jenny Rackham

Even though there's no legal rank on a pirate ship, everyone recognizes you're the one in charge. You have the good fortune of having a good name, since Rackham (pronounced RACKem, not rack-ham) is one of the coolest sounding surnames for a pirate. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

I liked this comic from Saturday

Normally I'd like to keep this space free of political content but I found this terribly funny.

Things happen in 3's

There is the old saw that things tend to happen in 3's, and it would appear that the past few days would testify to the validity of that observation. Saturday's fiasco of a football game was followed up by a fairly nasty wind storm on Sunday that knocked out our power for about 5 hours or so. Considering there are half-million or so around the state that are still without power, we were, relatively speaking, lucky. The only real dilemma occurred with dinner--since we didn't have power we couldn't cook anything, I ventured forth to find some fast food or something only to discover that everyone else, including the myriad of restaurants around us, didn't have power either. Thus, I drove back empty handed, but not before being flipped off for treating an out stoplight like a four-way stop. Eventually we were able to cobble together a meal that was surprisingly filling. For the most part the kids held up pretty well, with only Abby getting a bit scared at bed time. Fortunately we got our power back at 9:30 last night. Except for a couple downed limbs on a tree we escaped without any real damage. On the upside Abby had her first calamity day since her school didn't have power this morning, of course that may come back to haunt her later.

To round things out this morning Sam woke up with a pretty bad fever (>100) and couldn't keep anything down. According to the Doctor it appears to be just a virus and likely to clear up by Wednesday. Of course this wasn't his normal doctor and this particular doctor graduated from That School Up North, but nonetheless he appeared competent. Regardless Sam is about as pathetic as can be right now.

Hopefully Karma will eventually balance things out.

Well that stunk

35-3 ouch!

Sam's accomplishment

Yesterday in his second day of pre-school Sammy accomplished something I haven't in my far too many years of schooling--he feel asleep in class. Poor guy has been sick all week. We thought he was doing better yesterday, but obviously not.

Another Blog

Last week I threatened to put a blog on my musings about higher ed. If you look the My Blog List to the left you can find a link to it. I intend to use that space to respond to various questions I get about higher education and to comment on issues in higher ed as they come to me.

Priorities

E. Gordon Gee, President of The Ohio State University, explaining why was a bit late to a banquet today.

"....I was massaging Beanie Wells foot. For most folks it's just a football game, but for me, it's my damn budget running up and down the field."

Opening Day

Yesterday was opening day for OSU football. Cindy and I and 105,000 our closest personal friends packed ourselves into a concrete horseshoe in roughly 90 degree heat to watch the beloved Buckeyes take to the field of honor and glory to face off against Coach Tressel's former team, the Penguins of Youngstown State. Aside from Beanie Well's injury the game itself was fairly uneventful, which was it should be, just ask our friends in Ann Arbor. The most difficult part was simply getting in. One of the perks of working for OSU is that each month I pay a nominal fee for a parking pass, not too dissimilar from other places. But that pass allows me to park anywhere on campus on weekends and thus as long as I park in a university parking lot I never have to pay for parking. Of course that pass does me no good whatsoever when those lots are full, as was the case when we got to campus. We searched around for about 1/2 hour to 45 minutes before finally giving up and parking in a garage off Kenny Road (which oddly enough was right next door to where I work).

In terms of the game, it went pretty much as expected. It was sort of cool when the crowd started chanting "Future Heisman" when Terrelle Pryor entered the game, though the biggest cheer came when Chris Wells walked back to the OSU sideline from the locker room after his injury. It's not much of a stretch to say that Ohio State's BCS chances rest on his feet.

Incidentally, 2 personal (and slightly burnt) pepperoni pizzas, a bottle of water and a bottle of Coke cost $22 in the stadium.

Sam and Abby spent most of the day with our friends Susan and Katie and had many adventures in and around the bustling city of Gahanna. Later on we took them a to campfire and story telling program at one of the Metroparks (Blacklick park in Reynoldsburg). Abby roasted about 10 marshmallows and would have roasted a lot more, but we had to stop her since she doesn't particularly keen on eating them. Cindy and I ate most of them and would rather not see a marshmallow for a while. Sam roasted a couple, but really wasn't that much into it and ended up just holding onto one until he went to bed (yes, we did clean his hands before putting his pj's on).

After the roasting settled down, the naturalist at the park started to ask questions about stars and constellations, and Abby bless her soul, answered almost every one. I asked her later how she knew so much about constellations and she told me "from TV". Sam wore down a bit and was simply content to sit on our laps and look around. I think he was happy to just be outside at night.

A few random items:

• After introducing Sarah Palin as his runningmate, John McCain stopped by Columbus to buy a bunch of Buckeye stuff. Give him some credit, he knows how to play the home crowd.
• I'm thinking about starting another blog on topics related to higher ed.
• A dog sees a help wanted in the window of hardware store and asks the owner about the position. The owner says “A talking dog? You should get a job at the circus.” The dog replies “Why would the circus need a plumber?”

Hello Folks. A while back I came across this feature in Google and thought it may come in handy as a means of communicating with family and friends about our latest adventures or misadventures as the case may be. Hopefully, we can keep this updated a bit more frequently than we do our website. Feel free to leave comments by clicking in the comments section below.

Anyway to bring folks up to speed, I'm still working at the university and working toward a doctorate in Quantitative Research, Evaluation, and Measurement in Education. Interestingly, I've learned more about economics and finance as a student in Education than I ever did during my brief time as an Econ major. Go figure.

Cindy is loving life as a stay at home mom and earns some extra money doing occasional programs for the library system, as well birthday parties and takes care of a couple of other kids a few days a week. Oddly enough ever since she left the traditional work world she's been a lot busier.

Abby is now in first grade and mostly loving life. In a lot of ways she is a bevy of seeming contradictions. She loves princesses, fairies, and a number of things considered "girlie" and will rail against things that are too "boyey". Yet, she loves to hike, camp, and, as we are finding out, fish. Last week we took her out to fish for just her second time. I was a bit tentative to use live bait since I wasn't sure how she would react to impaling living things. But after an hour or so of not getting any bites using artificial bait someone gave us his leftover worms, and Abby, with an almost disturbing amount of enthusiasm, grabbed a handful and begged me to put one on her hook. Though we didn't catch anything we certainly got a lot more bites. Maybe someday we'll beat this record.

Sam is 3 1/2 and quite a little character. He is constantly playing jokes on us, mostly hiding things, or saying things to be funny, and a good number of times they actually are. Like his sister he seems to enjoy being outside especially if there is water around. He likes swimming, splashing around and generally being wet oft times to our despair. Homer Simpson meets vegansism would best describe his diet. He likes fruits and vegetables and were it not for bacon and donuts he would eat them almost exclusively. He also likes to watch golf and baseball on TV and gets quite excited when someone hits a ball, regardless of what happens to the ball-- foul balls get the same cheer as homeruns; balls in the drink get as a big a cheer from him as do holes-in-one. I'm hoping to work on that.

Anyway, that should bring you up to speed on us.

A few random thoughts:

• Boys and girls are fundamentally different and those who suggest otherwise are frankly daft.
  
• In an ironic complaint, elementary school is too academic. I question whether it's necessary to keep first graders in class for 7 hours a day, or how much value is added to their education by the 1/2 hour or so of homework we're doing nightly. Considering that Abby gets on the bus just before 9 and gets home around 5, it all seems excessive for a 6 year old.
• Pandora.com is the greatest website ever.
  
• The "Wallace and Gromit" shorts are hilarious, as is the movie.
  
• College football is starting up and this makes me happy.

Chris