Tagged? Are you kidding me?

So I got tagged by this "8 Facts About Me" meme. From what I can tell, a "meme" is a trendy new cultural thing that everybody who's anybody is supposed to know about and, I guess, feel good about themselves because they know about it. The particular meme seems to just be a blogging version of a chain letter. I've seen it bouncing around and I guess it was inevitable that it got to me eventually, despite the fact that I am hardly trendy and am effectively a dead end on the blogworld street map. Anyway, I'll give my best effort to play along and not be a total stick in the mud.

First, the Rules:

1) Post these rules before you give your facts

2) List 8 random facts about yourself

3) At the end of your post, choose (tag) people and list their names, linking to them

4) Leave a comment on their blog, letting them know they’ve been tagged



Whatever. I've never been a stickler for rules on things that don't matter, especially those that come uninvited via the internet. We'll see how I do.



Some facts:

1) I hate the word "meme". It just drips of elitist internet speak. (Or 1337, if you're that into it.) I'm aware that the word was coined before the internet, but it seems to be everywhere now, since the internet allows a complete explosion of new trendy things you're supposed to keep track of. Google "meme" and you get 322,000,000 hits. It's right up there with "blogosphere" as a word that I wish will go away, but I know will only get stronger. This is probably why I am unlikely to ever be trendy.

2) I used to drive a bus for the University of Virginia. It was a pretty cool student job, as far as student jobs go. We had fairly flexible scheduling options and decent pay, and we didn't have to wear aprons and slop mashed potatoes. We did have uniforms, but they consisted of either a crappy blue shirt or a slightly less crappy blue jacket (I still have mine.) which, as we wore them, made us quite possibly the least professional looking bus drivers you've ever seen. Maybe they've gotten better, but I wouldn't count on it. When your main customers are either irritated nurses or drunken students, it's hard to get worked up about your appearance. The best thing about it all is that it's where I met my wife. I admit I didn't recall her right away the first time I saw her. She was one of a group of new trainees that I met all at once. I'm pretty sure she remembers me though. I was the longhair in a red bandanna rolling around in a wheelchair. I wasn't damaged at the time; I was just showing the newbies how the work the lift on the bus. Romantic, huh?

3) I was a pretty good bus driver too. Each year, most bus companies host a competition among their drivers called a Roadeo. (See the brown box near the bottom of the linked page.) You drive bus around a cone-filled obstacle course, check out a rigged bus for problems, and take a written knowledge test. The top four finishers go to the state Roadeo and the winner from that goes to a national competition. I went to the state Roadeo 3 times, having won ours twice. I came in 3rd once at the state level. I may have come in 2nd once as well, but I could be remembering wrong. This, despite the fact that we kind of made a joke of our competition. The last obstacle on the course was the "controlled stop". You are just coming out of the "diminishing clearance" obstacle, in which you floor it and go through a set of traffic barrels that start with one foot of clearance on each side of the bus and end with one inch. Some people tried to do this right, but many just tore through the barrels on one side, with the logic that if you aren't really going to try anyway, at least you only lose half the points. What we really liked was taking this now-speeding bus, and doing the "controlled stop". This consisted of a cone straight ahead of you. You are supposed to stop within 6 inches of it with one constant controlled braking application. You can't see the cone by the time you are that close, so, to do this right, you need some skill. We, however, preferred to call it the "panic stop." Our method consisted of keeping the speed up until the last minute and slamming on the brake to skid to a stop. Yes, you can skid a bus. It's quite a rush and can't be good for the vehicle. Some people occasionally got close to the cone, but most proved that it's a good thing nobody sat in front of it. We fished a lot of cones and barrels out from under buses. Anyway, the point is that, despite that level of training, I still managed to do well at the state Roadeo. Yay for me. (This is probably more pathetic than Al Bundy continuing to subsist on the glory of one high school football game, isn't it?)

4) Speaking of driving, I drove a race car in college for a short time. It was a Legends car, which is a small race car meant to be a relatively cheap way for people to get into real car racing. The UVA Mechanical Engineering Department bought one, along with several other ACC schools, and we competed against them several times. The program was just getting started as I was leaving, so there wasn't much to it at the time. Several professors were working on getting a motorsports curriculum started, which is now up and running and I think it involves two cars and quite a few students. I didn't actually compete in the car much. I wasn't a bad driver, but others were much better, although, unlike several of them, I never crashed it.

5) I've lived in 6 states and one foreign country. As well as I can remember, I've visited 38 states and 5 countries, staying at least one night in 28 and 3, respectively.

6) I was a pole vaulter in high school. By the time I graduated, I held the school record at 12' 6". Those of you who know anything about pole vaulting probably already realize that, although it's over twice my height, that's not a very impressive number. I only did it for a year and a half, and there hadn't been any pole vaulters for a few years. The track coach got us started, but he didn't know what he was talking about, and we only got to about 8' 6" that first season. I and one other guy that had some skills went to a pole vaulting camp that summer and came back to coach ourselves the next year. By the time I left I had that record I mentioned, but nobody outside the school was impressed (and most people in the school were unaware). The other guy was two years behind me and got to something like 14' the next year. He ended up getting a scholarship somewhere to continue, maybe even with real coaching. (I also tried high jumping for one season, and actually jumped 5' 10", which is over my head. Nobody was impressed though, because in the spring when the basketball players came back to track and field, they were hurdling our bar. Real high jumpers are up over 7 feet in high school.)

7) I'm a pretty good cook if I have a recipe, or at least some general guidance. However, if left to my own devices to come up with something, I look at the kitchen like it's Chinese market and I have no idea what's in the various packages. This works out well with Franny. She has no trouble breezing into the kitchen and grabbing random stuff out of the fridge and coming up with something good. However, it's almost comical to give her a recipe and see what actually comes out. I've seen 7-layer dip with only 6 layers. We make a good team though. She's an artist with no tolerance for details and I'm a computer who won't do anything until told, although I will do it well once pointed in the right direction.

8) I never would have guessed it, but I actually enjoy yard work now that I own a yard. All I remember of growing up was being forced (coerced/bribed/whatever) to mow the lawn. I was also cheap labor for Dad's planting and digging and building projects. Apparently I learned something from all that though. Now that I have a yard, I find myself interested perennials vs. annuals, ground cover, fill-in plants, flowers, trees, bushes, mulch, compost, and gardening gadgets. Who knew?

9) I do enjoy home projects as well. I learned a ton of this kind of stuff growing up. Dad and I always did pretty much any home improvement project ourselves. We rarely had anyone else come in. We did have an electrician tie our electrical additions into our breaker box, but we had done the rest of the wiring already. We also had a plumber install some copper piping. Other than that, we did pretty much everything else. Carpentry, electrical, drywall, painting, furniture building, concrete, hardware installation, repairs, whatever. I won't claim to be an expert at any of that, but I find that I'm not afraid to try most projects and I'm willing to find out how to do most anything. This is a source of continual amusement for Franny. "You don't know how to do that!" Sometime I do and sometimes I don't, but I'll try anyway. I haven't done anything too bad yet, although I occasionally do pull off some bonehead mistake that takes a bit of time to fix. Anyway, I usually get to impress my wife with my house skills. It's all about picking your audience.

10) I was in Navy ROTC for a year. I didn't get booted or anything, but I did feel like I didn't belong. Most of the other guys (and gals) were WAY too into marching in straight lines and keeping their hair buzzcut. I kind of figured that if the Navy ever decided they needed me enough to draft me, I'd be back, but until then, we were both fine without each other. I did however enjoy being on our pistol team. I never knew I had it in me, but I was pretty good with a .22 target pistol. This came back to me later when somebody pointed out that I had a very weird stance at an arcade shooting game but that it was kind of scary how good I was. It's been a while though, so I'm not sure it's still there.



Oops. Too many facts. I kind of got on a roll there. Too bad. Now you have some facts about me, along with a good deal of rambling. Congratulations if you made it this far. I'm not sure I know any bloggers who haven't already been tagged, so I'm just tagging everyone willy-nilly. If you feel tagged, put a link in the comments and I'll add you on here. In fact, I think I like the chain letter thing via a blog better than the e-mail way anyway. I can amuse myself with this silliness without foisting it on anyone else.

What's a little more debt?

Check out our new ride. It's a 2007 Hyundai Tucson SUV. (If you look close, you can see the top of Mizz's head trying to take it out for a spin already.)


I have to say that it's been about 8 years or so since I bought a car, and after today, I think I can wait another 8 for the next one. I knew going in that I'd have to play the car-sales, if-I-can-can-get-your-payment-down, let-me-go-check-with-the-guys-in-the-back, I'm-really-trying-to-make-this-work-but-I-don't-think-they'll-go-for-it, how-about-that-undercoating, what's-it-going-to-take-to-put-you-in-this-car-today game, but it's still incredibly frustrating when you get into it.

There even seemed to be an extra layer in the process. The first salesman sat with me for a while writing down random numbers that must have been beamed into his head because they had almost nothing to do with what happened later. Then he disappeared into the back and summoned ANOTHER salesman, who then proceeded to do the running in and out of the back hard-sell part of the process while the first kid just sat there looking bored, I assume to keep me from wandering too far.

And they weren't kidding about the undercoating either. Both salesmen pushed it and were shot down. Then the guy at the end, who seemed much nicer and more relaxed and was mainly just the sign-here-and-here-and-here guy, also surprised us by pushing it and having to be denied too. Then, when it was all finished, the first sales guy asked again if I had gone for it. I assume the majority of the cost would have gone into paychecks. No thanks, guys.

In the end, we got what I feel like is a decent deal, although we won't win any haggling awards, I'm sure. We ended up with a fair price on a very safe and reliable vehicle that gives us more flexibility than the beloved but busted ole' Corolla. (Sorry Franny, but the missing hubcap, the puddles on the floor and the fuse-frying taillights probably indicated that it was time for her to retire. I'm sure she's going to go live on a farm where she can play with other old Corollas and be happy.)

I just wish I didn't feel like I had just gone 15 rounds with Jackie Chan by the time it was over. Jackie and I both felt like we came out of the deal okay, but neither one of us seemed to enjoy it much. I don't mean to be completely negative. I like the car and I'm happy with both it and the fact that we can put car hunting behind us. I just wish the experience didn't have to suck so much.

At least we made the Mizz happy. His only request when we asked what kind of car he wanted was "Blue." I suppose Arctic Mist will do.

Funny what you find on your desk

Just cleaning up my desk and I come across half a page from the Oregonian newspaper. I think it was not too long ago, but I can't be sure. I save and squirrel away too much stuff and I can't quite tell why I kept this. However, it did have an interesting factoid on it.

Apparently, Portland ranks number one as the most courteous city, displaying the least amount of road rage, according the "In the Driver's Seat Road Rage Survey" commissioned by AutoVantage. We are followed by Pittsburgh and Seattle/Tacoma as number 2 and 3, respectively. The least courteous were Miami, New York, and Boston. I can't speak for Boston, but I can see the other two easily. What I wonder is how Washington, DC didn't take the worst honor away with flying colors. Even after enduring the endless horns and middle fingers of New York, I've still always found DC area drivers to be much more self-centered and furious about it.

(Now I can get rid of the paper. What fun.)

Um, ... what did she just say?

This might well be the stupidest person ever allowed on television.

This is just...perfect...

I wonder if anyone in the government ever talked to this guy before we decided to head into Iraq. I know this is from 1993, but it might have helped.

Waste some time with me

I occasionally e-mail interesting or fun links to myself. Then I forget about them and they clutter up my inbox, which is completely unwieldy right now. Yahoo's unlimited storage makes for lazy inbox habits. I'm not entirely sure how I found some of these. Anyway, it's time to clean some of this stuff up and put it someplace more useful. So, in no particular order...

A fun nostalgic video for people right about my age or so:



A page about the origin of state names.

A mildly amusing story about a Beatles-loving beer thief.

A video showing the fine art of Japanese cooking:



I got that video from a page of Rube Goldberg machines.

Continuing on the Japanese theme, they are apparently so good a ping-pong because they learned it in the Matrix:



And last, but not least, some Norwegian kids vandalize a train track:


Norwegian Kids Mess With Train - Watch more free videos

What was I thinking?

Although I don't recall opening any beers today, I was clearly drunk, as I somehow let Franny convince me to go to IKEA. Going to a store isn't typically news, but this one just opened a couple weeks ago after much waiting by the community and is still under the Port of Portland's traffic management plan designed for a ridiculously large number of incoming shoppers. I mentioned this to Franny and noted that it was a weekend to boot, but she countered that it was late on Sunday and it was dinner time. For some unknown reason, this logic worked.

We parked on an auxiliary grass lot because of the sign reading, "IKEA LOT FULL, DO NOT ENTER!" It's a good thing everybody was home eating dinner, or we might have had to park on the interstate. The store was exactly as crowded as you might imagine.

We went there looking for an enclosed cabinet of some sort to hide the Mizz's multitude of plastic junk taking over our living room. We found a nice set of shelves to which we attached the optional doors, which for some reason, more than double the cost of the unit.

That part was fine, but I had to do it while trying to ignore the stroller, which was hollering, "Are you done yet?" meaning he was done, and, "I wanna go home," meaning, I assume, that he wanted to go home. If that didn't get my attention, he also occasionally screamed and then pointed out that he was, in fact, "too loud." With my other ear, I also got to hear, "What do you think about this in the kitchen?" and "I've been wanting one of these," in all cases referring to things that we did not walk into the store intending to buy. I'm pretty sure IKEA's marketing and design team had Franny specifically in mind. It worked beautifully. (Full disclosure: they do have to fine stuff, and in a less crowded and less Mizz-intensive atmosphere, I might have shared her wonder.)

However, it's now over and we have a nice little cabinet hiding some of the ever-present kid-related clutter. Franny and I and the Mizz are all happy with the outcome, and the Mizz thinks I can build anything. "Daddy make a cab-i-net." Between putting together furniture and changing light bulbs, that kid thinks I'm Superman and can do anything.

Just out of curiosity, at what age will he make the jump to thinking I'm an imbecile who can't be trusted to work his own VCR and who is an embarrassment to have as a blood relative?

That story was probably far longer than necessary. Sorry about that.

My Kid Said Something Cute

Anybody remember this guy? He used to be on Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. He spent a lot of time saying things like "Bitdee bitdee bitdee... that's right Buck." Anyway, I think of him a lot these days. My son has reached the developmental stage where his mouth goes way faster than his brain, so it has to fill in some gaps while it's waiting for more words to come down the pike. He fills in the gaps with random noises that sound a lot like this robot. I'm not worried though. Either he'll get over it or he'll be well prepared for politics.

I'm sure my parents are laughing at this right now. I recall a while early on when I was told that I babbled too much or that I must like the sound of my own voice. I figured out later what they meant, but I don't think I really understood until now. Payback sucks. Ironically, I now hate the sound of my own voice. I probably still babble though. Oh, well, you can't win 'em all.

Now to the cute thing. I don't put too much of this stuff on here. Most times that people (myself included) think their kid just said the cutest, most interesting, most unique thing ever, they are wrong on all counts. Cute is clearly in the ear of the beholder, mainly the parent. However, Franny laughed at this and thought I should share it. I told the Mizz he was going for a ride in the backpack to the store, and he told me, "I go hiking. I go see trees!" Once we were in Fred Meyers doing our business, he yelled, "I go hiking in the store!"

Now wasn't that the cutest, most interesting thing ever.

Finally, Something Funny on the Internet

I got myself in trouble last night. No, not like that. But I did stay up way too late after I stumbled upon a particularly funny cartoon/comic. It's called Basic Instructions, and it's full of quick little hints about daily situations. It's been quite a while since I read something that made me laugh out loud, occasionally to the point of having to take a moment to compose myself before continuing. Here are a few to get you in the mood, but there's a ton of archived stuff at the site. If they're too small to read, click them for full-size versions. Enjoy, but don't stay up too late.

News Caught my Attention Today

I'm not sure why, but news caught my attention today. I listen to what's going on in the world a lot, but for some reason, several things today made me feel like commenting.

First, somebody wants to replace this artwork with a Walgreens.


I'm not sure why. Drug stores are a dime a dozen, but cars on spikes are a little harder to come by. I only care about this random piece of weird art because I remember it from Wayne's World, which wasn't a great movie by any means, but I had fun with it at the time anyway.

Next there's the latest recall of toys from China, from Mattel again. Several recalls, some for lead paint, which are China's fault, but mostly for detaching magnets, which are Mattel's fault. China made the magnetic toys exactly like they were told to, but it turned out to be a bad design. This affects something like 9 million toys. For those keeping score, that's about 10 times as many as Mattel's recall from earlier in the month. China's not looking too good these days, but for perspective, most toys these days are made in China, so it's not unusual that most of the problems would come from that direction. We're still plenty capable of coming up with automobile parts and food made in America that need to be recalled. You can check this site to see if you have any of the affected toys around. The Mattel recalls are in the "Consumer Products" section. This is a good page for the paranoid to bookmark for future everybody-panic news stories.

Baltimore just announced plans to push for a gun offender registry. From what I understand, it would be similar to a sex offender registry, in that convicted gun offenders would have to notify the police of their whereabouts regularly. There is of course the question of whether it would actually be effective, seeing as the type of person who is going to commit multiple gun crimes might not be likely to keep his address updated on a bureaucratic government list. However, assume for a moment that it would actually deter some people and therefore save lives. In that case, is this a good idea? Any opinion is interesting, but I'm more interested for the moment in hearing the opinions of the more pro-gun side. From the gun-control advocate point of view, this is obviously a no-brainer, so it's not much of a jumping-off point for discussion. I'm not generally against guns, but I don't currently own one either. I understand the historical reasons for the existence of the 2nd amendment and I am well aware that for a large portion of the American population, the right to own a gun is non-negotiable. However, I also understand the "well regulated militia" part of the 2nd amendment and the fact that weapons have shown themselves to cause a lot of problems and therefore require some kind of control in a civil society. The fact is that the people on this list would be convicted of some kind of gun crime and therefore, by definition, would not be the "law-abiding citizens" always touted by the gun crowd. The question is, does this make a difference to the policy's acceptability, or does it still fall under the slippery-slope argument that tends to end discussions before they even get started? I'm actually curious what any of you might have to say about this. Leave a comment if you have an opinion.

I also read about the connection between waist size and heart trouble. So much for BMI. Now we have another number to obsess about. This issue has more meaning to me these days, as Franny and I have both dedicated ourselves to jumping back on the health bandwagon. We've gotten back into running, even getting new shoes, which hasn't happened in a while, but has made a world of difference. Apparently, 6 years is too long to depend on a pair of running shoes, even if you don't run that much. Good to know. Anyway, we're serious this time I think, even to the point of getting up early to do it. Good thing we got this itch now and not in February. Hopefully, by the time the weather gets bad again, we'll be into good habits already.

The last thing that caught my ear this afternoon was Portland's first-of-its-kind biodiesel requirement. All diesel sold in the city starting tomorrow will have to be at least 5% biodiesel, which can be used in any diesel engine. The only exception is the one truck stop in the city limits, which would likely lose all of it's business, since biodiesel is slightly more expensive and trucks could certainly make it another 10 miles to the next option. We have a biodiesel plant in the city that is more than capable of keeping up and is actually well situated to make far more as the need arises. 5% doesn't seem like much, but a 5% decrease in oil-dependence is a good start anyway. I'm guessing the rest of the state and country will be watching this experiment closely.

I'm not sure why I felt the need to expound on all that stuff. I just needed to run off at the mouth I guess (run off at the keyboard?). If you're still reading by this point, I guess you didn't have much better to do either. Sorry about that.

Seriously, to Spend More Time with his Family?

How come, when people are clearly just gettin' out while the gettin's good, do they always say they're doing it to spend more time with their families? Do they really think we'll forget all of the things they're running away from if they just blame their relatives? Or is this just another way of supporting family values?

Seriously, buh bye Turd Blossom. (If your friend gives you a nickname like that, what kind of enemies have you made?) I'm sure someone will miss you, but I'm guessing Congress still wants a word with you on the way out.

On a tangential note, I realized today listening to coverage of this event that in all the year's Rove's been involved in national politics, I never heard him speak until today. The voice did not fit what I imagined at all. Weird.

Another Strange Map: Solar Eclipses

This is another fun map from Strange Maps, although the graphic is actually from NASA. (Click on it for a much larger, readable version.) It shows all total solar eclipses that will occur between 2001 and 2025. It looks like Oregon is in luck in 2017, although I think we may have to scoot a little south of Portland for the full effect. It's only 10 years out. It that too far to plan? (I don't know Dave, what are you doing later this afternoon? Huh?) Maybe 10 years is a stretch, but it's still cool to look forward to it.

On a side note, the predictability of astronomical activity has always amused me. Scientists can tell me exactly where to be in a thousand years to catch a particular lunar eclipse, but they can't tell me with any kind of certainty whether or not it's going to rain tonight.

Movie Review (PLUS+): Who Killed the Electric Car?

We watched Who Killed the Electric Car? recently. It came out in 2006, but it seems at least 5 years older than that. It's a pretty good documentary about an electric car experiment in California in the mid-90's. California tried to mandate lower fleet emissions for the car makers and the only way the companies could pull it off was to introduce low- or no-emission vehicles. Several companies floated options, but the only one to make much headway was the EV-1 from General Motors. This film documents the rise of this car, the admiration it got from its drivers, and its eventual fall when the car companies got California to get rid of the mandate. It then tries to decide who's fault it is that the car disappeared. The movie definitely has an agenda. It's clear from the outset that the assumption is that the electric car was infallibly good and anything that had to do with it's demise is inherently evil. Understanding that point of view, it's still an interesting look at a phenomenon that went mainly unnoticed by most people. You should definitely check it out if you are at all interested in alternative energy sources or corporate motivations.

Now for the PLUS+

Part of the reason this movie seemed slightly dated is that it doesn't have much to say about more recent developments in this arena. It makes the assumption that if the electric cars had stayed on the road, most people would be driving them now. It seems to miss the point that we have a very entrenched gasoline-based transportation system that is unlikely to be duplicated by a string of delay-causing charging stations. It does touch momentarily on Bush's "hydrogen economy" that everybody knows isn't going to happen anytime soon.

Now, I'm all for an alternative to running my car on dead dinosaurs that are mainly buried under dictators. However, I'm realistic enough to understand that there are going to have to be some stepping stones on the way out of that world. The hybrids are the current best option, but they're really just improvements in fuel economy. They still get all of their energy from the same dead dinos. There are also ethanol and biodiesel, which get us away from the fossil fuels, but they are only marginally better, as they are more expensive (especially considering farm subsidies) and potentially interfere with our food supply capability.

The next realistic option coming down the pike are the plug-in hybrids. Like the hybrids, they have dual gas and electric power systems, but unlike the hybrids that charge their batteries solely from their gas engines, they can be plugged into the electric grid and charged, giving them 50 miles or whatever of range before the gas engine would even need to be turned on at all. For most people, this means that the majority of their driving would be on purely electric power, but if necessary, they would still have the convenience and range offered by gasoline. This approach is a more workable alternative that does not require a completely redundant energy delivery infrastructure.

This is also something that is realistically in the works. As of July 27th, Toyota had announced that it was going to work with the University of California in Berkley to road test two plug-in hybrid Prius cars. Unfortunately, as of August 9th, Toyota has delayed this series of cars, because, according to this article, Toyota's type of batteries, "have shown a tendency to overheat, catch fire and even explode."

This delay opens up some space for U.S. auto makers to make up some ground. Toyota had been far ahead, but this setback may allow for some catchup. The movie had a section about an inventor that had sold his battery company to GM for use in the EV-1 after their original batteries turned out to be less than stellar. However, as soon as the EV-1 was removed from the market, GM sold the battery company to Chevron, who essentially mothballed it. However, I happened to be working at a company that tests batteries a couple days after seeing the movie. My contact there had heard of the battery company in question and told me that Chevron had since sold it back to GM, who are using it for their new generation of electric and hybrid vehicles. The EV-1 is gone (most have been destroyed), but the concept Chevy Volt looks like something I'd be happy to drive, and is the type of car that we are more likely to see in the future.

Movie Review: Roger & Me

I don't know how this unwatchable bore ever got as much press as it did. I never saw Roger & Me when it first came out for whatever reason, but I remember reviewers falling all over themselves to say great things about it. Franny found it on the $2 rental shelf at Blockbuster the other day and grabbed it for whatever reason, but we both found it to be too boring to bother finishing. Not watching it and doing nothing important seemed like less of a waste of time.

The problem is that the movie's general premise, "Corporations and the rich guys who run them are more worried about the almighty dollar than they are about their workers or the communities they affect," is not really news to anyone, even to the corporations and the rich guys who run them. I'm pretty sure this was true even in 1989, so who was Michael Moore trying to convince of anything?

Moore's other semi-journalistic one-sided documentaries/editorials (such as Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11) at least touched on controversial subjects (in those cases, gun control and the big bad Bush administration, respectively) where, given the right evidence or examples, someone might actually have a change of heart. Granted, even with those movies, you have to watch what Moore puts out with a huge grain of salt and know that you're only getting half the story. However, if you do so, you still have something substantive to think about and those films got a lot of people talking about things that might otherwise have stayed under the rug where they had been swept.

Roger & Me didn't do that. I wouldn't say that it was a horrible movie, just deadly boring and not worth the time. Sorry Michael, even us Portland liberal hippie freaks have limits.

I KNEW IT!!!

Check out this story! OK, I admit it's not exactly a damning indictment of Baby Einstein, but it does seem to fit with what I imagined all along. These silly videos capture attention, but don't really enrich a baby's development. Kind of like a car wreck. You can't not stare at it, but it's hardly adding anything to your life.

[Addendum 8/13/07: A news outlet man-on-the-street reaction to this story.]

Uh, oh...

The Mizz woke us up for the third night in a row crying at about 3 this morning. Now, I know what you're saying. "Seriously, Dave. Complaining about a toddler sleeping isn't really news anymore." True enough, but this time, he met me at his door. So that's what that thump was. This opens up a whole new set of problems. I put him back down in his crib with a bunch of pillows on the floor, but that's hardly a permanent solution. We've been discussing transitioning him from his crib to a toddler bed. I guess he decided to set the schedule. Luckily, his crib is convertible, so we can get him a bed okay, but it means we also have to make sure his room is actually safe for an unsupervised toddler. That'll be the trick. His room isn't too bad, but he's rarely in there by himself, so there are definitely some things he shouldn't be messing with. Fun.

I got new toys!

Well, I guess the Mizz got new toys, but they're kinda for me. This pic shows the new track that Franny got today mixed in with his birthday set. He has yet to successfully make a workable track and usually goes the other direction with his Godzilla vs. Tokyo routine. He tries to help by picking up a large section of track and handing it to me. Then I hear, "Uh, oh... Dada fix it." His mother tries to help, but from what I gather, she doesn't get along with the track either, so I'm expected to put my master mechanical skills to work and make something fun. Mizz seems happy with whatever I come up with, but Franny complains that "That looks too much like the other one" or, "I like the figure eights better." Not a builder, but an excellent critic. Anyway, I was even boring myself with my creations, so Franny was nice enough to pick up a set of track at IKEA today. (She apparently thought IKEA rocked, and was proud that she got out of there for only like $30.) The new track should certainly expand the possibilities for a while. I especially like the double-decker thing I came up with, although, to be honest, it doesn't work as good as it looks, but I don't care. You're just jealous you didn't think of it.

What's the matter with you people?

OK, maybe it's not your fault, but I'm so glad we don't live in the Southeast anymore. Actually, the whole East. I just heard on the radio this morning that there were tornado warnings in Staten Island! Oh, yeah, and flooding in the New York subways, where, now that the rain has stopped, it's supposed to get over 100 degrees later today. It's weird when the desert Southwest, at 101 degrees, is cooler than about a third of the country.

Just for the record, Portland is supposed to be 74 and partly cloudy today. We might get to 80 later in the week.

What to drink, what to drink...?

A couple days ago I wrote about wine snobs and their corks. Specifically about the silliness of natural cork loyalty. Well, maybe the wine snobs aren't so dumb after all; they're just being environmentally friendly. Apparently, the lowering demand for natural cork is putting pressure on cork forests. I was unaware, before reading this article, that cork is harvested from trees without destroying them. In fact, the cork that is good for stoppering bottles isn't even found until at least the second harvesting. All this means that the forests and their associated ecosystems remain intact despite the commercial use. If cork ceases to be a viable crop for someone, the cork trees will be replaced by something that will be cut down for lumber, effectively gutting the forest ecology of that area. And if you want to push it further, I suppose that a renewable cork resource is greener than petroleum based plastic stoppers or metal caps. Just don't tell me it makes the wine taste better. That's all I'm sayin'.

Since I can't feel quite as superior to wine drinkers, I'll move on to bottled water people. I've always thought that buying water was silly, especially if it has to come from France or Fiji or whatever, and it's even more silly that people believe that it's melted off a glacier or scooped out of a cave or whatever. But with the recent revelation that Aquafina (from Pepsi) is tapwater, now everybody seems to care. In truth, most of the bottled water out there comes from tapwater. Certianly Dasani (from Coke) and all the store-brand stuff is tap water. Granted, it is filtered through some serious equipment, and not your store bought PUR or Brita stuff either. But seriously, these companies use the same water for their other sodas and such, and despite the complete lack of other, more expensive ingredients including secret formula flavors, you still pay the same price for the plain water. Just the cost alone ought to be enough to deter, as noted by the New York Times. But beyond that, understand that bottled water is usually not even regulated as much as your tap water, meaning that there are things that, by law, cannot come out of your tap, but can legally be sold to you at 7-11 with a picture of a pristine mountain spring on the front of them. One the one hand, buying bottled water is silly when the water in your house is probably plenty good, especially filtered through your fridge or whatever. On the other hand, you may live in a place that has nasty tap water. Check here. I've certainly been to places (some of the places I travel for work, especially) where the water doesn't taste so great. Luckily, Portland water is pretty good, and is in fact, some of the best water in the country. But not everyone lives in a place where the tap water is anything more than passable. On the OTHER other hand, remember that your bottled water=somebody else's tapwater anyway.

So back to my original premise, stick with beer.

The United States of Baseball?

I'm not a huge baseball fan, having grown up in the Army with no particular regional loyalty, but I found this map interesting. For a lot of the time I lived in Virginia, the Orioles were as close as we got to a home team, so they were pretty much it, although I did root for my grandmother's Mariners. (She's a much bigger fan than I've ever been.)

Anyway, I came across this map on the Strange Maps blog, which is a fun place to hang out and look around (if you're me anyway). I know I'm related to at least a couple rabid sports fans, so I'm curious how accurate this map seems to be. (Click on it for a bigger, easier to read version.) Locally in Oregon's Willamette Valley, it looks like we're supposed to be split right down the middle for the Mariners and the Giants, but I see a lot more spirit here for Seattle than San Francisco, even when I'm travelling outside the Portland area. I see occasional Giants paraphernalia, but then I see random bits from lots of other teams too. Does this map hold even remotely true for the rest of the country or is it just a figment of someone's imagination? Inquiring minds want to know.

Talking Toddlers

We've been marvelling at the rapid improvement in the Mizz's language skills lately. They are still pretty simple, but we can actually have conversations with him. So it was a cool coincidence that Yahoo recently carried a LiveScience.com article entitled "Secret to Toddler Vocabulary Explosion Revealed." The article itself is pretty simplistic, relying far too much on an overstretched metaphor about filling up jars. However, there are several links in the article that go to more informative and in-depth information about children's speech development. Interesting stuff.

Mizz's Morning

This morning, the Mizz and I went for a hike around the neighborhood. OK, I went for a hike and he went for a backpack ride, but you get the point. The Mizz had what will certainly be the highlight of his day. In front of a fire station, we saw a FIRETRUCK! With flashing LIGHTS! And he met a FIREMAN! Who let him help SPRAY WATER! The whole encounter lasted maybe two minutes, but he talked about it the whole way home. In between, "That light's off!" and "I saw stop sign!", I also got to hear, "I saw fireman. Spray water! Firetruck! I saw fireman!" To my benefit, it was something new to add to his running commentary.

Beer Snobs are better than Wine Snobs

Oregon State University has released research clearly showing that wine snobs are full of it. Everybody likes to claim that there's something about natural cork that makes for better wine than synthetic cork or screw tops. However, everybody is apparently incapable of distinguishing the difference in blind taste tests, so as noted before, everybody is full of it. Wine from bottles sealed with synthetic corks and even (gasp!) screw tops is every bit as good as the same wine sealed with natural cork, maybe even better since natural cork can grow fungus.

Currently, of course, wine in screw caps may well be terrible, but that has more to do with the type of wine that is put in screw cap bottles. As far as I know, the research didn't cover boxes.

Beer snobs, on the other hand, seem to be in agreement that beer in cans is far inferior than beer in bottles. Unlike wine drinkers, however, beer drinkers will go ahead and drink the cans anyway, if that's what's around. If it's not so good, they'll just drink it faster. Standards only get you so far.