Monday, 16 April 2012

I picked up Owen from school today. He played at the nearby park for a while, as did many of his classmates. Lately, i’ve noticed that a few of the young girls wear dresses. This always baffles me. Why put your daughter in a dress before going to school? I mean, if it’s picture day, or if they have a recital, then I guess it makes sense, but otherwise, it just limits their movements.
A couple girls just sat on the cement wall instead of playing. The girls who were playing had to keep readjusting their outfits and ensuring that they weren’t revealing anything.
I posted on Facebook recently, something along the lines of “I don’t think there’s a better way to tell your daughters ‘Don’t play during recess, just sit there and look pretty,’ than to put them in a dress.”
One mom said he girl still ran around just the same as always, and didn’t care about the modesty.
Well, yes, modesty is silly, but there’s a lot of sickos out there. And, no, I don’t think you can run around the same way. My daughter, for example, steps on the hem or her dress, and has a tougher time climbing stairs with a dress on. But I suppose older girls don’t crawl so much. Either way, I think it’s stupid. Probably even dumber than dressing a boy in a necktie.

Tuesday, 17 April 2012

I took the kids to IKEA this evening. Isla insisted on wearing her Easter dress, which was sitting out in the living room after being cleaned. 

After dining there (where kids eat free on Tuesdays), Owen played in the kids area for an hour, and I just wandered the store with Isla, pretty much just letting her walk whereever she wanted to go. The only time she asked me to pick her up, was when she couldn’t find her way back to the kids’ slide.

Shortly after pressing the elevator button, Isla opened up one of the coat lockers, and backed herself up inside it. Not sure why. But I thought it was funny, so I snapped this photo.

Later, she sat inside an armoire.

Here she is again.

I’n not sure what was going on here. She was hiding behind those curtains, then ran out and told me to take a picture.

Here, lacking anything to hide in, she simply walked up to the wall, turned her head, said, “Daddy, picture.” So I did. I think this would make an excellent graduation picture.

Later, she hid in between some rolled-up rugs and again requested a photo. Some ladies walking by said “Oh, how cute.” Not sure if they were talking about me or Isla, but I said, “Yeah, she picked out her outfit this evening.” One woman said: “Well good for you for letting her wear what she wants to wear.” The other woman said, “She’s starting young.” Yes, we all do.

Friday, 13 April 2012

One hundred years ago today, the Titanic was venturing on her maiden voyage. She launched from Southampton, England, on April 10th, stopped in France later that day, then Belfast, Ireland the next day.

The RMS Titanic was intended to be the third in a trio of ships – the other two being the Olympic and the Oceanic – that was to make a transatlantic journey every few weeks from England to New York.

The Titanic first averted disaster about five minutes after embarking. She was so heavy, the water displacement caused both of the Oceanic and the USS City of New York (docked nearby) to be lifted by a bulge of water, then dropped into a trough. New York’s mooring cables couldn’t take the sudden tension increase and snapped. The ship swiug her around stern-first towards Titanic. The two ships avoided a collision by about 4 feet. The incident delayed the Titanic for about an hour while the City of New York was brought under control.

Exactly 100 years ago today, the Titanic covered 597 standard miles heading southwest in the North Atlantic.

Saturday, 14 April 2012

100 years ago today, the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg. This one, actually:

The ship struck the berg at 11:40 PM (local time).

Several years ago, I read the book Titanic: A Survivor’s Story, by Col. Archibald Gracie. Gracie spent the night (or would that be early morning?) of the disaster standing on an overturned lifeboat. In the panic to release the lifeboats, one of them snapped from the rigging and tumbled to the water as things always to when they fall: with the wrong side facing up. The weight of two dozen men standing on an upside down boat kept it below the surface about a foot, and the men struggled to keep the circulation in their freezing legs and feet. Go read his book, it was an amazing eyewitness tale.

Sunday, 15 April 2012

…And today is the anniversary of the sinking.

The oldest living survivor of the Titanic is Milvina Dean, who lost her father in the disaster. She and her parents and brother were headed to America to start a new life in the midwest. But upon losing her husband, Milvina’s mother decided to return to England and so Milvina, who was supposed to live her life in the USA, ended up living her entire life in England. She was two months old at the time of the voyage and passed away on May 31, 2009, at 97 years old.

Milvina, at right, and her brother Bertram (also a Titanic survivor).

 Here are some linguistic outgrowths from the disaster (taken from AWAD):

The disaster has also cemented many idioms in the language. “To rearrange chairs on the deck (of the Titanic)” is to engage in a futile or entirely pointless activity.

Another such idiom is “And the band played on.” Although the selfless members of the band continued playing music to soothe and distract panicked passengers on the sinking ship, the term is now derogatory and implies putting one’s head in the sand in the face of an approaching disaster.

On August 6, 2001, Jennifer and I toured the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Not only was this the best museum we toured during our 8-day Canadian vacation, it was also one of the best museums I’ve ever visited. It holds a considerable collection of Titanic memorabilia. Halifax was the nearest major post to the disaster and, as such, launched rescue boats and saw many survivors pass through (and some victims – as the nearby Fairview Lawn Cemetary attests). While there, we purchased the book Titanic Remembered, which, while not an eyewitness account like the book I noted above, provides a good overview of the ship, the disaster, and the aftermath – which accounted, in large part, to its lasting fame. The book contains photos of the permanent collection of Titanic artifacts housed at the museum. The book was a great handbook to have at the museum, as little maritime flag icons next t certain photos indicated that the subject of the photo was housed at the museum.

Jennifer and I placed our museum admission stickers on the inside back cover of the book.

Wednesday, 11 April 2012

This afternoon, Senator Al Franken visited my place of empoyment. The event was billed as a town hall meeting.

After beginning 15 minutes late (wow…that’s a lot of lost productivity for the 500+ people in attendance), Franken began by offering a few remarks. He was an absoltuely terrible speaker. I haven’t heard many politicians speak in person, but I was pretty much embarrassed for him the entire time. I think he said the word “um” six times in a row at one point, and I’m not sure he ever constructed a proper sentence during the 15 minute “presentation”. This is all the more odd considering he used to be a writer, and occassional actor, on Saturday Night Live, so I would think his ability to both construct sentences and speak extemporaneously would be exemplarary.

During the next 15 minutes, during which time he answered all of 4 questions, he performed much better. I enjoyed his answers, and his humor.

A co-worker later said that he’s heard Franken speak before and he’s usually much more deft and witty.

Thursday, 12 April 2012

This morning, in class, documentary film-maker Mick Caouette visited our class.

He showed us about 45 minutes of his film The Art of Possible. The film, which aired on PBS recently, details the public life of Hubert Humphrey.

Here’s the most interesting thing I got from the documentary: In the fall of 1968, Humphrey succeeded in closing a 20% gap between he and Nixon in the polls, leaving the Presidential election in a dead-heat. In the final days before the election, President Johnson finally succeeded in getting North and South Vietnam to meet him at the peace table in Paris (it probably helped that Johnson finally agreed to stop bombing all those red Commie farmers and children). This, of course, boded well for Humphrey – who was Vice Prez at the time.

However, Nixon secretly contacted the South Vietnamese government and encouraged them to hold off negotiations until he won the election, since he would be able to get them a better deal. The South then called off the Paris Peace Talks mere hours before the election was to begin. Nixon won the election with less than a 0.5% margin of victory. The war lasted seven more years and caused 25,000 more deaths. All that’s too bad, of course, but the important thin is, Nixon won, and the country enjoyed five and-a-half years of Tricky Dick.

Afterward, we had a question-and-answer session, which certainly made yesterday’s “town hall” forum seem like even more of a joke.

Sunday, 8 April 2012

Today we had Easter at our house.

One of the benefits of our house (as opposed to our apartment) is having enough room to have the whole family over. There is a certain appeal, of course, of going over to other people’s houses for events – but I like being able to reciprocate.

I’m also happy that the majority of gifts my kids received, both from us and other relatives, were consumable. We’ve got plenty of knick-knacks, stuffed animals, games, and random toys, so I am completely on-board with gifts that don’t take up space. These included candy, tattoos, stickers, and money. Oh, and then there’s clothes, too. Clothes, of course, take up space but they are useful and, with growing kids, often just serve to replace smaller items we’re gonna get rid of.

We staged an Easter egg hunt in our yard. It wasn’t that big of a deal – I just threw some plastic eggs around the yard. Owen searched for the tougher-to-find treasures, and the rest of us directed Isla and her cousin (who’s 8 days younger than she) to pick up the brightly colored objects. Pretty cute, really.

Monday, 9 April 2012

So, I’m going to be giving a speech at the State Capital on May third, the first Thursday in May. That’s famously known as the National Day of Prayer. This being Minnesota, though, we’re not all Fundamentalist Christians, so, simultaneously, a Day of Reason will be held inside. That’s where I’ll be – in the rotunda. Talking about reasonable things. Which, you know, is weird, because in so many, many ways, I am not reasonable. For one thing, I maintain a blog, which is essentially a self-diagnosis for mental illness. I also do lots of weird things or, as I’ve convinced my wife to term them, eccentric things. That reminds me, I found a penny on the ground today; I’ll have to go record that on my list.

Anyway, if you are available on May third, or if you can find it in your busy busy schedule to break away for a long lunch break, come to the State Capital at noon. There will be other speakers beside me, so even if you can’t stand the sight of me, you can come for the other speakers.

Or, if you’re not interested, how about baby-sitting for us so my wife can join me? Thanks.

Tuesday, 10 April 2012

Here’s an interesting news story:

In Portage, Wisconsin, a woman won election to the city council with two votes. No, I don’t mean she won by garnering two votes more than her rival, I mean she only got two votes.Her nearest rival only got one vote, so in a way, she achieved a landslide victory. Here’s the story. Read it. It’s good.

In other news, Atheist Voices of Minnesota is now on Amazon. As you may recall, my essay “Losing My Head” is included in the book. If you scroll down on the Amazon listing, where it say “About the Author,” you’ll see my name listed. Pretty cool, I think. Also, my wife’s name is listed, too, ’cause she has an essay in the book as well. I think we are the only husband-wife duo in the book. That’s ’cause we’re amazing.

Saturday, 07 April 2012

Back on the 22nd of January, I complained that my Viewmaster projector had once again run out of batteries. The projector, which finds frequent use as a way for Owen and me to polish off the evening, uses 4 C-cell batteries. A pack of these batteries is kind of on the pricey side, and I’ve often had to buy more than one pack a year. I would estimate I’ve spent about a hundred bucks keeping this thing powered over the years.

The problem isn’t just the high cost of replacing the batteries, though. The projector works great when the batteries are new, but the power rapidly fades. At some point, we are essentially reduced to trying to figure out what a projection is trying to show us.

And here’s the real stupid thing: the projector has no AC-adapter. I mean, I can certainly see the appeal of rigging the device for battery power – then it can be used easily , perhaps even while camping. But why didn’t Fisher Price make the projector work with both battery and plug-in capabilities?  I view this as an enormous design flaw on something that is not mobile.

If you look back at the blog post where I first whined about this, you’ll see the first comment was from my friend David, who suggested I rig it for plug-in capabilities myself. I kept this idea in the back of my mind and, when the batteries failed again, I tossed the Viewmaster in my car determined to not use it again until I could plug it in.

I couldn’t find a good DIY explanation online, so I emailed David for more info. He was able to supply me a couple of links. They got me started. I saw what I needed – primarily, I needed a plug of similar wattage. I remembered my old cell phone charger and calculated that this would be a close match. I then took the plug and Viewmaster to Radio Shack where an employee there knew exactly what I was trying to do and what I would need. In fact, I was glad to talk with him because the links David provided talked about rigging a baby swing from battery to plug-in (that’s another battery-devouring device), and though a swing is similar, it’s more complicated. The employee suggested I buy a screw-on power jack for the plug, and solder on a nice receptor. I didn’t think these were necessary, but I agreed it would make the device look nicer, so I bought them.

Well, that was Tuesday.

Today, I soldered for the first time. I watched a couple of videos on YouTube – like THIS ONE and THIS ONE to make sure I had some idea of how to use a soldering iron.

I was a little nervous to cut the wires on the Viewmaster, but as soon as I soldered on the new wires, I touched the plug’s wires to them and ensured that the power was flowing. It was! After that, I was more confident, knowing that no matter what I did from this point on, at least I could just twist the plug’s wires to the soldered Viewmaster wires to get it to work.

But I needn’t have worried. I soldered on the detector, drilled a hold in the bottom of the projector, screwed on the power jack, and soldered the wires to the inside of the jack.

Here are the guts of the projector. I cut the red and black (barely visible at left) wires and soldered longer pieces of wire onto them, then wove them through the battery holder (you can see the red wire at bottom right coming through the holder).

Here I’ve reinstalled the battery pack, and soldered the wires to a power jack. As mentioned above, I drilled a hole in the battery pack cover and screwed this jack onto the cover.

Here, I’ve screwed the cover back onto the projector. You can see the power jack right in the center there. The bottom half of the picture shows the detector plug, which I soldered to the two wires coming out of the phone plug.

The (former) cell phone plug is now plugged in. The projector is on – completely sans batteries! As proof, notice the square of light against the floor board.

This evening, my son and I watched three Viewmaster reels – a set of Godzilla reels (his choice). Full power! Bright, clear images! Success all around!