Monday, 21 November 2011

Back in 1989, I won a go-kart. Yep, honest to Eric Clapton, I really did. Of course, living in a mobile home, without a garage, and with no property of our own, my parents quickly decided to sell the go-kart. I made a request that I first get to ride it (or at least ride in it). They said no.

We didn’t even have a place to store the go-kart, so my parents had to haul it to a friend’s house. I stayed home while they did that and, when they got back home, they told me their friend, a guy named Roger, decided to pour some gas in the go-kart and drive it around the street for a few minutes. Then my dad took a turn. My dad told me this as if it was the greatest five minutes of his week. I got mad and told him I wanted to ride in it and they never let me, even though it was MY go-kart.

About a decade earlier, my mom would occasionally dress me in this incredibly uncomfortable stiff outfit that resembled lederhosen. She made me wear it to the meetings, which was absolutely bizarre, since Bavarian costumes were not properly sanctioned dress for Witness males.

Above: I looked about this stupid.

I hated that outfit. I begged my mom to let me wear something else. At the meetings, I was embarrassed and I longed for the day when I would outgrow the outfit, hoping with all my might that she wouldn’t go out and buy a bigger one.

For these and about 20 other reasons, I’ve always felt keenly aware of giving my kids the autonomy and respect that they deserve as people. There must be a mentality difference: in my parents’ wonderful religion, children are viewed as wards – charges from God to train up in a bible-thumping manner. But as non-delusionals, my wife and I observe a more egalitarian approach to living with this small people.

I bring all of this up because Owen has always fought going to sleep. As a baby, we just rocked him or danced with him, or nursed him (okay, so my wife did that part) until he finally gave up and dozed off. But as he’s grown, he’s expressed his displeasure at being ‘forced’ to go to bed.

I understand his frustration. I, too, would often lie awake for hours in bed, wasting my life away, until I finally fell asleep. The next morning, I got up with the alarm clock just fine. Even as a preteen, I seemed to only need about 6 or 7 hours of sleep.

So, yesterday, we tried something. Owen selected four books from his bookshelf, and then got in bed to look at them quietly. He’s done this before, but this time, I told him that he could stay up as long as he wanted, as long as he didn’t bother us for frivolous concerns, stayed quiet (so as not to wake his sister), and turned off the light when he was tired. He agreed.

I sneaked up to his door about a half hour later, and I saw he was still quietly reading. I checked again after another half hour, and his room was dark and he was snoring.

This morning he told me he actually fell asleep with the light on, and then woke up a few minutes later and realized his gaffe. He got up, shut off the light, then went back to bed.

So, tonight, we tried the same procedure. Success again!

I like the idea of Owen determining when he needs to fall asleep. As long as he’s quiet (for his sister’s sake) and not bothering us with silly concerns, I think it’s good to let him make the call as to when he needs to rest. Like giving Isla a real glass to drink out of (and then laughing when other older kids dump water all over their faces), I think if we give our children the latitude to act responsible, they often rise to the occasion.

Also – I said I would post a link to my friend Ryan’s review once it was posted online. HERE IT IS. Doesn’t exactly make you want to run out and buy the book, does it?

Tuesday, 22 November 2011

Today, I am slightly cooler than I already was. Want to know why?

It’s because my very own Micro Machine version of the SS Botany Bay arrived in the mail today.

My collection of Star Trek Micro Machines grows at a ridiculously slow pace (no faster than one-quarter impulse, I’d say). In fact, I have only added two pieces to the collection since the millennium began. If you’d like to see my collection, come to my job, ask them to page me, then I’ll come up and greet you and escort you to my cube, whereupon you can gaze upon my coolness.

Anyway, now I’m up to 18 pieces. The two pieces I most want are the Voyager and the Enterprise-E. If you see those around for a decent price, pick it up for me and I’ll reimburse you.

In other news: today marks the 48th anniversary of, as Billy Joel so eloquently put it, “JFK / Blown away / What else do I have to say?” This, of course, means that Obama has now served as President longer than Kennedy.

Here’s a Wikipedia page to prove it.

Saturday, 19 November 2011

Today, Owen and I went to the U of M campus for their Math and Science Family Fun Fair. We went along with one of Owen’s classmates and that classmate’s dad. The four of us had an enjoyable time.

The Math portion of the fair was a bit slight – there was only one table dedicated to strictly math topics, including one woman who would ‘magically’ guess your birthday if you told her which cards had your number on it. Owen wasn’t very impressed. Another guy demonstrated the use of secret codes. Owen wasn’t impressed at all.

The other demonstrations were far more intriguing, however. There was a demonstration of gravity’s effect on orbiting bodies, color spectra, persistence of vision, optical illusions, chemistry (where the boys had the opportunity to mix two chemicals to produce ‘artwork’ made of foam), and ROBOTICS!

Owen loved the robots; he drove them around the floor and, for some reason, thought that the best thing you could tell a robot to do was to hit daddy in the shins.

We also attended a program on physics. The hosts blew themselves across the stage using a fire extinguisher. They also collapsed a steel drum using temperature differences, and did the ol’ pull a tablecloth out from under a table setting trick.

Owen and his buddy also got to try their hand at one student’s Gridlock Game. In fact, I think Owen would still be playing it right now if I hadn’t convinced him that the student gave me a card with the web address on it and we could go home and play it anytime so let’s go look at other stuff.

Go play the Gridlock Game HERE. It is fun.

Sunday, 20 November 2011

Besides farting around with a frustrating new garage door opener, and buying plywood to nail up in the garage, I’d have to say the highlight of my home-improvement day was replacing an electrical outlet.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, the outlet was not broken or cracked in any way, and the electricity was properly connected to it…it’s just that, there was this one weird shaped outlet. Instead of two typical ‘surprised’ looking outlets:

Above: Two typical ‘surprised’ looking outlets.

Yeah, instead of that, this particular outlet had one surprised face, and one ‘angry’ face. Here’s a picture of it:

What’s with that? Has anyone ever seen this before? I haven’t. Not even in Europe, where they do everything weird.

Please let me know if you’ve

A) ever seen this type of outlet before

and

B) what type of appliance gets plugged into it.

Anyway, I replaced it with the ho-hum typical model today. So now the value of our home just went up by 0.00001%. Yay for us.

Friday, 18 November 2011

I am employed at a corporation that promotes a culture of lean. This doesn’t refer to promoting being fit (though my employer does promote that as well), but to eliminating waste, striving for efficiency, and saving money. They encourage us to look for ways to make various aspects of our jobs lean.

Today, I pushed through a lean initiative that will now save each of my co-workers who utilize this aspect of the job 35 cents. It’s was a thankless task, but I am proud to have stayed the course and accomplished the goal.

Now for the details…

Earlier this week, I ventured over to the vending machines in the main cafeteria. Finding myself desiring a bag of Gardetto’s, I inserted a dollar, which was quickly devoured by the machine. I pressed the letter-number code for the Gardetto’s, and was surprised to see the screen flash “$1.25.” This was unexpected because the little label under the Gardetto’s said “$0.90,” so I was expecting not just my snack, but also a dime in change. Instead, the machine castigated me for coming up a quarter short. So I bought a bag of pretzels (costing 75 cents) instead.

As I passed the vending machines today, there was, coincidentally, a vending machine employee with the vending doors open and boxes of snacks sitting out everywhere. He was busy restocking, but I felt it incumbent upon me to say, “Excuse me, did you know that the Gardetto’s are lists as 90 cents, but when I put in a dollar, the screen tells me I need another quarter?”

He mumbled something, and then stood up and pressed the Gardetto’s code. Verifying that I was correct, he said, “Oh, I’ll have to correct the price. Thank you, sir.”

Yeah, he really called me ‘sir.’ Can you believe it? I can’t believe it. I’m not sure what, exactly, about me exudes the word ‘sir,’ but about once every other year (or so), someone calls me sir. It’s weird.

But getting back to the matter at hand:

I assumed the vending machine man was going to replace the signage so that the Gardetto’s were listed as $1.25. However, later in the day, when I again walked by the machines, I saw that he had kept the Gardetto’s at 90 cents. Out of curiosity, I punched in the code, and saw that they were now, indeed, 90 cents.

To all of my co-workers, including my bosses: You’re Welcome.

Wednesday, 15 November 2011

When we first moved in, there were a lot of things about this house to figure out. This included:

How do we get the sprinkler system to work?
How do we get the fireplace to turn on?
What’s up with the crazy electrical in the garage?
Is there a way to get the built-in radio to not automatically turn on outside?

So I think as of today, I can say that I’ve now figured everything out. Some things, such as the fire place, required the assistance of my brother-in-law. Other things, such as the electrical, simply needed replacing. And other things, such as the sprinkler system, necessitated repairs.

Today I successfully ‘bled’ the upstairs radiators, so we appear to have sufficient heat flow upstairs now.

But, as I write this, I realize there are two things I still am having trouble with – but, thankfully, neither is urgent:

1) There’s a built-in intercom system. I can’t get it to work.

2) The freezer door has an ice and water dispenser. I got the water to dispense fine, and the ice dispenses as long as I manually fill the ice bucket inside the freezer. But there should be a way to get the freezer to automatically manufacture ice. I can’t get that to happen.

Any suggestions?

Thursday, 16 November 2011

My friend recently posted about Richard Dawkins’ latest book, The Magic of Reality. Actually, she didn’t have much to say about it (she hasn’t read it yet), but she referred to THIS BLOG, in which the blogger laments Dawkins’ decision to term Judeo-Christian myths as…well…myths.

She claims it is disrespectful to religions, and ultimately to the followers of those religions, to term the stuff in the bible as ‘myth.’ She seems to have no compunction for Dawkins’ decision to call the Greek, Roman, Norse, Native American, and Australian Aboriginal stories ‘myths,’ and I’m not really clear on why.

Anyway, I figured I would look up the word ‘myth’ and see what the definition is. According to THIS ONLINE DICTIONARY, the definition is thus:

This is a rather comprehensive definition and, though I admit people are free to use words as they see fit, I think we can safely assume Dawkins will chose to use a word in its most commonly known form, unless he states otherwise (which I assume he must do for his choice of the word ‘magic’ in his book’s title). With that in mind, I don’t see how the bible stories are NOT myths, and can accurately be termed as such in books that are aimed at freethinkers.

Of course, the blogger doesn’t necessarily claim that Dawkins is misusing the word, merely that doing so is disrespectful. Well, sorry, but a spade is a spade: The Garden of Eden, Noah’s Flood, and the Tower of Babel are all fiction. They are false, fake, non-scientific, myths. I am quite positive that many of my relatives would find such a statement disrespectful and, in fact, probably most people I come into contact with everyday would likewise find it disrespectful. This is why my son, besides being taught that the bible is mythology, is also taught to be judicious in what he says and when.

Perhaps I could compare this to the word “Fuck.”

My son knows the word. He’s heard it, and I’ve heard him use it. But guess what? To my knowledge, he’s never said it in front of his conservative grandma, or his school teacher, or during a wedding or funeral. That’s because he knows there is a time and a place for everything, and I’m not going to hide the fact that Genesis is mythology just because little Virginia down the street would find such a fact disrespectful.

This question probably sounds sarcastic, but I’m asking it sincerely:

Am I missing something?

Monday, 14 November 2011

The State Congress in Michigan is trying to pass an anti-bullying law. Michigan is one of only a few states that has no anti-bullying law so they’re trying to correct that.

The problem is, some of the Representatives decided to slip in a passage that says bullying is okay as long as it is due to sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction. In other words, as long as you think God condemns the person, it’s okay to beat the shit out of them (as attested to in Exodus, Joshua, Judges, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel…).

The really crazy thing about this bill s that it’s called “Matt’s Safe School Law.” Matt, in case you don’t know, was a Michigan kid who committed suicide after being harassed about his homosexuality. So, basically, this bill – if it became law – would allow the continuance of bullying of gays. Way to honor Matt! This just proves my theory that politicians are assholes.

But wait – not all politicians are assholes all the time. Here’s Representative Gretchen Whitner giving an awesome smackdown to the House Republicans who think bullying is okay as long as your religion condones it:

Stephen Colbert gives a slightly less passionate (though way funnier) take on the matter HERE.

And here’s an article about the bill, which appears to have been edited due to the public thinking it was a really shitty idea to include that wording.

Tuesday, 15 November 2011

A woman stopped by today to purchase a couple of shelves I extracted from the dining room. She pulled up in her Prius, then hopped out and said, “I bet you took one look at my car and thought, ‘oh boy, she’s never gonna fit these shelves.'” I laughed and said, “Actually I took one look at your car and just thought, ‘oh well, this is her problem.'”

She laughed.

The thing is, her Prius had enough room to fit four shelves, but she had a lot of stuff in her car already. This included a new toilet seat, bulk items from Cosco, and two dogs. She ended up fitting in only on shelf, and then said she’d have to come pick up the other shelf tomorrow. She asked if I minded. No, I didn’t care.

Her purchase marks the fourth item we’ve removed from our property and sold for cash:

One large shelf: $80

One statue: $10

A refrigerator: $90

Two smaller shelves: $45