Yet Another Damn Blog

In which I discover the limits of my daughter's patience for the writing process

2012-01-24T10:03:00.001-06:00

I'm a hair over 10,000 words into a novel, just finished Act One, and I am out of the area that I knew exactly what was going to happen, and I'm back into super vague world where I really just know the tentpoles. Still. I'm a writer, a storyteller. Which is why it drives me nuts when my daughter asks me to tell her a story and I come up dry. Last night after dinner, we were laying in her bed shining flashlights on the ceiling, and she said, "Daddy, tell me a spooky story. One about ghosts!"

And my brain locks up and I start going through all the ghost stories I know, trying to think of one that will entertain a three and a half year old without giving her nightmares. I ended up recycling a Kipper story about a ghost.

"Tell me another ghost story, but this time at Tiger's house."

More recycling, this time with Tiger discovering a hidden room in his house, where the ghost has prepared tea for them to share. Okay, not bad. Slightly original, even if all the pieces were sort of recycled. The ending sucked, but those are always hard.

"Tell me a spooky story about dragons!"

There followed a story about a dragon who lived in a cave in the tallest mountain at the top of the world who was very scared of mice, thought he heard one squeaking in his cave, but it turned out to be a kangaroo riding a bicycle, and everything was okay after they oiled the kangaroo's bike, which had been squeaking. I was pretty proud of that one, but the response was, "Daddy, tell me a spooky story about a dragon with a mouse, but this time it's really a mouse."

Okay, that one was harder to end happily for everyone. But I managed to cobble something together.

"Daddy, tell me another dragon story!"

That is not a lot to go on. I decided the best thing was to involve her in the process a bit: "Okay, so where does the dragon live? In the mountains? In a cave, or in the forest?"

"The forest!"

"And for it to be a good story, he has to want something. What does he want? Treasure? A friend? Some food?"

"Food!"

"What kind of food?"

"Broccoli, and cauliflower, and smoothies, and brownies!"

"Okay, and if it's going to be a good story, there's got to be something that keeps him from getting the food. What's keeping him from getting the food? Any ideas?"

"Daddy, just tell the story!"

Which is what it all comes down to eventually, isn't it?

Men as leaders in feminist organizations (at least in college)

2012-01-20T10:02:00.002-06:00

When I was in college, I worked at the Women's Resource Center. I was friends with one of the directors and needed scholarship work hours, and they needed someone who knew desktop publishing software and someone they could give the scut work that volunteers weren't necessarily interested in. Also, the director I was friends with was trying to set me up with the other director, but that's another story. I ended up on the board of directors.

How did I, as a man, newly associated with the group, end up a board member? The short answer is that they asked. I said no, and they asked again. I said I didn't feel qualified, and they said, "There isn't anyone else who'll do it" and I gave in.

I believed then, and still do believe that the role men should take in explicitly feminist organizations is a supporting one, not a leadership one. Be there, be helpful, be visible, and be listening. I can't speak for all men (for one thing, I don't really get sports), but staying silent isn't really my strong suit. When I was on the board, I did my best, but I can't tell you how well I succeeded.

In retrospect, I wish I'd pushed back harder on the issue of being on the board. As a middle class white guy, I had been given loads of leadership training throughout my childhood even before high school. Some of it was implicit, but some of it, like the Boy Scouts, was very explicit training on public speaking, group coordination and leadership. The women who volunteered at the Women's Resource Center with me for the most part had not. Yes, I was asked, repeatedly. But I was willing to step forward because taking a leadership role was a comfortable thing for me to do. In retrospect, I was taking a place that could have been someone else's first step into a lifetime of leadership.

Troubleshooting automation

2012-01-18T14:58:00.001-06:00

Mostly I'm writing this to leave a note for my future self in case I run into this problem again, or for someone else who might be having the same weird problem.

Trying to automate anything on a Windows machine is an exercise in frustration. That's probably the case for any GUI, but Windows is the one I know best and therefore butt heads with the most. Anyway, I had this piece of automation that downloaded some data, processed it, and then sent out an email with the results. I inherited some automation software along with written macros for them, but that only worked about half the time. Gradually, I've been transitioning to command line work automated through batch files set up as scheduled tasks, and that's worked really well for things like downloading data, running reports, etc., but I could never find a way to make it work with our email client (Lotus Notes).

Recently, I've been working on adapting a VBA module written by a coworker to generate and send an email with a file attached. I could get it to work by calling the VBA code from an Access macro, and I could call that macro using a desktop shortcut, and I could call that shortcut from a batch file. That's the approach I've used many times before, and it worked fine up to a point. To be specific, it worked when I ran the batch file directly, and it worked fine if I created a scheduled task and played it directly as a test. But it would not work if triggered at a specific time.

I tried everything I could think of, but what finally worked was ditching the desktop shortcut, and instead using the actual command line interface for Access to open the database with the macro name following a /x. Hopefully it'll work tomorrow, too.

2012-01-06T09:24:00.003-06:00

Nice quote from Barney Frank: "One of the great lies people say is, 'Oh, I don't like to say I told you so.' Everybody likes to say I told you so. And I have found it's one of the few pleasures that improves with age."

The most wonderful time of the year

2011-12-15T21:20:00.000-06:00

It's one week till Christmas, which means it's time to dust off my Grinch t-shirt, which I love because that's precisely how deep my grumpiness at Christmas goes, even on a day like today when I've got a persistent migraine and have had what you might call an unsatisfactory shopping experience. My wife tells me she wants me to put up the lights, and I grumble and groan about being able to see the house from space, and then as soon as the garage door closes behind me, I'm whistling Christmas carols while plotting on where to put the giant inflatable polar bear (in a Santa cap).

And when I come inside, I set up the nativity scene on the mantle, and smile as I settle the little pewter baby Jesus in his mother's arms.

Did I mention I'm an atheist?

It's true that I was raised Lutheran, but my love for Christmas isn't backsliding. And I'm not celebrating Solstice or Winter-Een-Mas or Festivus or anything else. I am celebrating Christmas. No, I don't go to church, but I do recognize that I am part of a non-religious minority living in a majority Christian country, and I'm okay with it. I am no more harmed by their faith than they are by my lack of faith. And then, of course, there is my family, which is more devout than not. And because I love and respect them, I love and respect their faith. I just don't happen to share it.

And besides, how cool is the Christmas story? No, I don't buy it all as fact. But the story of Jesus being born in a barn is so different from the origin myths of most religious leaders that I do wonder if there might be some truth to it. Regardless of its truth value, though, as a father, I love the idea of a foundational myth that says that every child, regardless of circumstances, has the potential to save the world.

2011-12-14T09:04:00.000-06:00

I have this theory that the Republicans actually know that their platform of tax cuts for the rich and massive cuts to gov't spending would totally destroy the middle class and/or plunge us into a depression. Which is why the sensible, responsible Republicans are not running for president right now, and are waiting for 2016.

But then I really can't come up with any names that would go on that list of sensible, responsible Republicans in gov't, so maybe it's just that they keep drumming out the reasonable ones for lack of fidelity to their currently insane suite of ideas.

French Toast Casserole

2011-12-04T22:04:00.001-06:00

If you're having guests for Sunday brunch, you'll need to start this Friday night. This is what you'll need:

Remote temperature probe
1 good sized loaf of crusty bread, or two baguettes.
7 eggs
3 1/2 cups of milk
1 cup of brown sugar
2 tblsp. of cinnamon
1 tsp. fresh-grated nutmeg
1/4 cup butter
1 cup chopped pecans

Cut the bread into 3/4 inch slices on Friday night, and leave it out to dry. At some point on Saturday, lay the bread out on a baking sheet and bake it in a 150 degree oven for 5-6 hours to dry it out very thoroughly. Let the bread cool while you mix the eggs, milk, 3/4 of a cup of brown sugar, the cinnamon and nutmeg. Arrange the bread in a casserole dish, pour the mixture over the bread, cover and refrigerate over night. There should still be some liquid in the dish, waiting to be absorbed into the bread. If not, you can add more eggs and milk. Just be sure to mix them well and maintain a ratio of 1 egg to 1/2 cup milk.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Melt the 1/4 cup of butter in a microwave-safe bowl and mix with the remaining 1/4 cup of brown sugar. Pour over the top of the casserole and scatter the pecans on top. Insert the temperature probe in the middle of the casserole (be sure it's not touching the bottom of the dish) and set the alarm for 170 degrees (should take about 40 minutes). When the alarm goes off, turn the oven up to 400 degrees and set the alarm for 190.

Serve warm.

Honey Laundering

2011-11-10T14:42:00.001-06:00

I'm just a bit skeptical of the Honey Laundering story that's running around. First of all, the story raises the scary specter that Chinese honey that's contaminated with antibiotics is being sold in the US, but doesn't actually say that. What it really says is that the honey they tested might be Chinese because it has no impurities that could be used to determine its country of origin. That's not the same thing. Did they test for antibiotics? If so, what were the results? If not, why not?

In fact, the article says that the industry does its own tests for a variety of hazardous materials. This is just about the presence or lack of pollen in honey. Why does pollen matter? Well, there are a lot of quotes from the American Honey Producers Association saying that pollen is essential to the quality of honey, but the only thing close to an actual reason we're given is some vague notions on health benefits from the staff nutritionist at a school of 2,800 students in New England, and the assertion that local honey can help with seasonal allergies, which studies have not found to be the case, probably because the pollen that causes allergies is wind-born, not bee-born.

The article also says that the "Food and Drug Administration says that any product that's been ultra-filtered and no longer contains pollen isn't honey." But just two months ago, the same newsletter, Food Safety News, complained that "the honey industry and Congress can't get the FDA to even come up with a legal definition of what honey is."

I love good artisanal honey. That's always my preference. And food safety in this country is currently a joke. Given the fact that there are stiff tariffs in place against Chinese honey, this sounds like it's more about tax evasion than food safety. Which is still a good story, but not quite the same thing.

Customer Service Fail

2011-11-07T14:35:00.001-06:00

A Mediacom rep rings our doorbell on Saturday afternoon: So how's your Internet connection? Mediacom's sending a bunch of us out to see how our customers are doing.

Me: Well, actually, I've been having to release and renew the DHCP pretty regularly lately. Had a service guy out last week, but it's still happening. It's kind of annoying.

Rep: But it's actually working right now?

Me: Well, yeah.

Rep: Great! Can I interest you in putting in a phone line?

Me: No, not really.

Both kids finally slept through the night last night

2011-10-25T14:07:00.001-05:00

Me: I finally got a full night's sleep. I feel like Wolverine!
Her: Yeah?
Me: Yeah. I've got a ton of energy and I feel really strong, but my memory is shot, and I'm kind of vague on who I am and what I'm supposed to be doing.

3 yr old, meet Siri

2011-10-25T13:34:00.003-05:00

My daughter was pretty bummed about waking up in the dark this morning, so with her on my lap, I got out my 4S and fired up Siri.

Me: When is daylight savings?

Siri: Daylight savings begins March 6, 2012.

Me: When does daylight savings end?

Siri: I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean by "when does daylight savings end."

Me: When do we turn our clocks back in the fall?

Siri: I'm sorry, I can't access your world clock right now.

Daughter: No fair! Tell her no fair, daddy! *presses Siri's talk button* No fair!

Siri: I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean by "no fair."

Middle Class Midwestern Middle Aged White Guy Talks about privilege

2011-10-11T14:56:00.002-05:00

A recent tweet sent me to this cartoon, in which a gesticulating praying mantis explains that there's not such thing as female privilege, because what people call 'female privilege' is contingent upon fulfilling sexist social norms. Crying your way out of a speeding ticket is a pretty classic example of a 'benefit' that's not available to men in our society, but is open to women. The point of the cartoon is that it's not actually available to all women, just women that look and act in the ways that fulfill certain sexist stereotypes. And it's a valid point, although I'm not sure that a praying mantis is the best spokesman for feminism.

But those of you who never took a _____-studies class in college may well be wondering what I mean when I talk about 'privilege'. Defined most broadly, it's the benefits you get because of the groups you belong to, not because of your character or achievements. The tricky part is that our own privilege is often invisible to us, and is frequently defined negatively.

For example, I was driving through my neighborhood a while back and noticed a police car parked across the street from my house. I pulled up next to him, rolled down my window, and said, "Afternoon, officer. This is my house. Anything I need to be worried about?" and he replied, with a smile, "Nope. Just doing some paper work." I didn't have to worry about getting shot, getting hassled, or even getting a dirty look. If your first thought on hearing that story is "What's the big deal?" then you have the same middle class white privilege that I do.

A common question I see online is from young people who just learned about this concept and run home to tell their boyfriend, dad, roommate, cousin, or what-have-you, "You have all these privileges that you aren't aware of and didn't earn!" only to discover that people are rarely happy to hear that they get undeserved special treatment. And it seems to be a biological reality that we are more attuned to unfairness that hurts us than unfairness that benefits us.

My solution, of course, is to talk about my own privilege first. That's easy to do because I'm a middle class middle aged midwestern straight white guy. I am, basically, the poster guy for privilege, and if I have any trouble thinking of ways in which I have privilege, entire books have been written on the topic. That might, in fact, be another bit of privilege.

But there are a number of non-mantis scholars who claim that privilege is the exclusive domain of the top of the heap, and that there is no, for example, 'female privilege'. In fact, some of them get downright angry if you try and tell them they do, in fact, have privilege. So, are they right, or are they just having the same reaction that the rest of us have when we hear that we have benefited from unearned special treatment?

I don't know.

But I do know that there are places I can't go and things I can't do purely because of circumstances beyond my control. And there are even more places and things that I can do, but the social or financial cost is higher for me than it would be for someone else. Every in-group has some sort of privilege that's not accessible to outsiders.

Please don't think I'm whining that there are bars where I don't feel like I fit in, or places overseas where I'd be forced to pay in dollars rather than get a cheaper meal in the local currency. Actually, I'm trying to get at a larger point about privilege.

Let's go back to the praying mantis, and her angry insistence that female privilege is really just a reward for fitting in with the sexist norms of a dysfunctional society. She's right. But is male privilege that different? If I grow out my hair and my beard, throw on a floral dress, and put a flower in my hair, I would lose a lot of the male privilege that I otherwise have access to. The classic argument is that the privilege is always there, waiting for me to pick it back up, but that's also true of minority group privileges.

So this is my big idea: privilege is a group's way of encouraging compliance and punishing variance, and as such, it's something that every group has, though the value of the privilege on offer is directly proportional to the amount that the group in question has.

Whitney and the commodification of sex

2011-09-26T09:59:00.001-05:00

I watched NBC's new show Whitney, and I'm stuck on the fact that a major plot point is that heroine goes looking through her closet for sexy, and discovers that they're all out of sexy, and need to go to the sexy store to get some more.

I can see that the big comedic payoff is Whitney at the hospital in her sexy nurse costume, and that this is gets her there. Maybe in a previous era, she'd have gone to her priest (which could have also been very funny), or a female friend. Instead, she goes to her friends, and her friends take her to a store, where the help, advice, and costume are all handed out by a sales clerk in latex.

So what's going on here? Is the main character so out of touch with her own sexuality and the intimacy that should be the backbone of any romantic relationship that she has to go shopping for it? Or have we as a culture outsourced romance completely to the retail sector?

Writing it out

2011-09-23T11:39:00.000-05:00

Seth Godin reminds me that I really should be writing every day. So here's my daily brain dump, so I can relax and think about something else.

1. Work - I'm in the beginning stages of testing a new system that might be awesome, if it'll do everything we want it to. I need to make that call, but am trying to glean the info I need without full training in the system, and with only a small subset of the data that I really want to put in there. So it's exciting, boring, and frustrating, all at the same time, which is a hard cocktail to swim in.

2. Kids - Both our kids are finally sleeping in their own rooms. Thing One has been in her own room for years now, but Thing Two has been in our room basically since he was born. We've been sleep training him this month (he's 8 months old), using a modified version of the info in Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, which has worked really well. He wasn't really sleeping through the night, but we moved him anyway, and as soon as we moved him, he started sleeping through. I think being in our room meant that if he stirred and/or woke slightly during a light part of the sleep cycle, then our reaction would wake him further, leading to multiple wakings in the night. But now that he's alone, he's down to just 1 or 2 wakings, generally at 10 and 4. It's been a huge boost to everyone's quality of life.

And Thing One's having her tonsils out in a couple of weeks. We're hoping for the best and preparing for the worst.

3. House - The yard's a bit neglected, but I've been cleaning the garage on my lunch hours this week, which is a load off my mind. They say a cluttered space leads to a cluttered mind, and I have found that being surrounded by clutter increases my stress level. To extend the metaphor, having a cluttered garage/workshop that I walk through several times a day leaves me creatively blocked, and stressed out on an unconscious level. So it's nice to be getting that cleaned up. It might even have profound effects.

Up All Night feels real enough for TV

2011-09-20T11:39:00.000-05:00

Let's be honest: Sitcoms usually suck. And Saturday Night Live alums tend to not be very good at playing realistic human beings. But the early clips of NBC's new sitcom Up All Night made me think/hope it might not suck, and might actually pull some decent humor out of being a new parent. My wife and I have two small kids, and I can vouch that there is a lot to laugh at in our situation. There's also a lot to cry at, and a lot to yell about, but I'd rather laugh than do either of those, so Yay For Comedy! (as long as the dad's not an idiot and the relationship looks like they actually love each other, etc., etc.)

Okay, sometimes the dad, played by Will Arnett, is kind of an idiot. But it's more the kind of idiocy that we all exhibit when we're sleep deprived and frustrated. His reaction to his own inability to find cheese in the grocery store rang true to me. I have those same "What the hell? I used to be smart!" kind of moments just about every day.

And, yes, the couple snaps at each other over stupid stuff. Which is exactly what you do when you're tired and frustrated. The "I got less sleep than you did, because I was watching you sleep while I took care of the baby!" argument is such a regular feature in our house that I'm thinking of just giving it a number to save time, as is the "How is it that a baby is stronger than me?" fight with the kid over a diaper change.

So, yeah, I give it my dad stamp of approval. It's funny, and it feels real.

Outside Jericho

2011-07-22T11:44:00.000-05:00

Woke up thinking of grandpa's funeral

where one by one my cousins stood

and told of a warm funny man

and I sat in a pew

holding my father's hand

because I never saw that man

until the last few years

when his brain fell apart

and the walls came down

and he forgot himself

or was it me?

It's funny what can trigger a series of thoughts. A friend tweeted a link to a clip from the new Planet of the Apes flick which turned out to revolve around the ape lead defending a character with Alzheimer's. I couldn't get through it, which was kind of a surprise to me. My grandfather died 9 years ago, and his senility had been building for 6 years at that point. I guess I thought I was done with all those feelings, but clearly I was wrong.

Maybe it's having kids. Christie's grandmother is still alive, and my daughter (age 3) is a huge fan of all 4 of her grandparents. So she's naturally curious about mine. How to explain that I was flat out scared of one grandfather, and never met the other? And that's not even getting into the question of how to explain death to a three year old. I think that's going to have to wait a couple of years.

So, anyway, an idea popped in my head while I was in the shower, and I wrote a draft, showed it to Christie, and we talked about it. I said I worried that it was trite, and she said, "Well, anytime you end a poem with a question, you're taking a risk, but if it's how you feel..." which didn't exactly assuage my worries. But I've only writtem one poem since becoming a father, and I really wanted to take the time to craft some lines, so I revised, and revised until it's something a little more ambivalent and ambiguous, something with a clearer voice, something I like a little better.

Of course, talking about poetry in public always makes me feel like a Vogon, and reminds me of the Heinlein quote, "A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits." And then there's the central problem of the poem, that the version of my grandfather that I knew was not the version that everyone else seemed to know.

Luckily, nobody reads my blog anymore anyway.

Third draft

2011-07-21T12:00:00.005-05:00

Woke up thinking of grandpa's funeral

where one by one my cousins stood

and told of a warm funny man

and I sat in a pew

holding my father's hand

because I never knew that man

until the last few years

when his brain fell apart

until the walls came down

and he forgot himself

or was it me?

Second draft

2011-07-21T08:39:00.001-05:00

I woke up this morning thinking about my grandfather's funeral

how one by one my cousins stood and told of a warm funny man

and I stayed in my pew, holding my father's hand

because I never knew that man until the last few years

until his brain fell apart and the walls came down

and he forgot who he was, or was it me?

First draft

2011-07-21T07:16:00.002-05:00

I woke up this morning thinking about my grandfathers funeral
How one by one my cousins stood and told of a warm funny man
And I stayed in my pew, holding my fathers hand
Because I never knew that man until the last few years
Until his brain fell apart and the walls came down
But was it because he forgot who he was, or who I am?

Linux on a Netbook

2011-07-15T16:03:00.000-05:00

We bought a HP Mini netbook a few years ago for Christie to take a-traveling, but it's got issues. It was never fast, but Windows is a bio-degradable operating system, so it's been getting slower with every update. And speaking of updates, it seems like every time I opened the damn thing, it would try to update something, or run some sort of diagnostic, and because it was so slow, it would take forever to close the window or turn off the virus scan, or otherwise get back to the thing I was trying to do in the first place, at which point it would restart itself because Microsoft apparently doesn't think I actually want to do anything with the computer except maintain their buggy, bloated OS.

Although I do like Windows 7 well enough on the bigger laptop. So maybe my beef is really with HP.

It does, however, come with a HP Quickweb, a streamlined OS that's supposed to make it easier to open the netbook and start surfing the web. But I don't really like Quickweb. It feels like playing in the kiddie pool, and it steers me heavily toward its anointed solutions, which aren't always what I'm interested in. I would, for instance, rather use Gchat than Skype. Unfortunately, putting Linux on a netbook is not always super-simple, so here's a breakdown of how I got around and/or over the various hurdles.

Hurdle One: Which OS?
I picked Ubuntu because it seems to be the one that requires the least fiddling with it. I have enough to do in my life, and I don't feel like spending my weekends tweaking my OS (no, that is not a euphemism).

Hurdle Two: No Optical Drive
This one was pretty easy. Ubuntu.com has easy to follow instructions on how to create a thumb drive with all the info on it for installing Linux, and the software to build the bootable thumb drive is free for download.

Hurdle Three: How do I boot from a thumb drive?
Normally, there's a screen that shows briefly telling you which key to hit to get into the setup so you can change the boot order of the computer. The HP Mini doesn't do that; it just goes straight into Quickweb. But a bit of Googling got me the solution: While the netbook is booting up, just keep hitting F9, and you'll see a screen giving you a choice of boot disks including your flash drive.

Hurdle Four: "No Root File System Is Defined"
All the instructions for the installation package showed three options:

Install alongside another OS
Wipe the HD clean and install Ubuntu
Do something else.

All I was seeing were options 2 and 3 from that list, and I couldn't figure out the problem. I didn't want to completely wipe out Windows, but I couldn't get the "Do Something Else" menus to work for me. It would show me partitions, but I couldn't do anything with them, and if I tried to continue the install, I got a "No Root File System Is Defined" error.

Eventually, I figured out that I could only have a total of 4 partitions on the hard drive, and HP had already put 4 on there. There was the Quickweb partition, the main Windows partition, a Recovery partition, and a fourth partition that I think is just there to make it harder to install Linux, because there really doesn't seem to be any good reason for it.

Download.Cnet.com led me to Partition Magic, which wouldn't let me merge partitions in the free version, but would let me delete and move things, so I took everything off that useless 4th partition and shrank the Windows partition, aka the C: drive. I was tempted to get rid of the Recovery partition because they aren't particularly useful (especially if you experience hard drive failure), but chickened out. Resizing the Windows partition from within Windows is not exactly trivial, but it's not exactly rocket science, and the software does most of the work:

Tell Partition Magic to resize the C: drive. Click Apply, and restart when it tells you to.
Tell Partition Magic to delete the 4th partition.
Move the partitions around so that the unallocated space is contiguous.

And now you're ready to install Ubuntu. Restart the netbook, hit F9 a bunch, boot from the thumb drive, then follow the onscreen prompts.

Hurdle Five: How do I pronounce Ubuntu?

No idea.

Testing Google+

2011-07-14T10:37:00.000-05:00

Well, I got my Google+ invite, and so I'm seeing how I like it. I use Facebook quite a bit to interact with old friends, but I live most of my life in the Google ecosystem (Gmail, Blogger, Picasa, etc.) so I'm really curious how this is going to work out. I'll admit that a big part of my desire for a Google+ invite is the increased photo storage it comes with. I wonder if this is going to kill my Flickr membership?

Of course, my main reason for writing this post is to see if posting on my blog has any affect on my Google+ profile. Google+ knows about this blog, but does it do anything with that knowledge?

Computer Love

2011-06-23T16:44:00.001-05:00

I'm a big fan of Buzz Out Loud from CNet, and here's the text of a letter I sent them recently for their Computer Love segment:

Ten years ago I was freshly divorced and looking for love. Based on my experience, this is my guide to finding geek love:

1. Get Real. I had a couple of internet dates, and while my wife and I met in real life, we did most of our early flirtation via email. The problem with that is that I did a very plausible online impression of someone with his life in gear, but in real life I was much more messed up. Also, my conversational style has been compared unfavorably to drinking from a firehose. You really have to meet me in person to realize how annoying this can be. But I found someone who kind of likes it.

2. Hope for Failure. If you are listening to this show, then you are a geek. And the percentage of the general population who will intentionally date a geek is probably in the low teens. Add to that your own criteria (weight, height, hair color, Star Trek vs. Star Wars, has a job, bathes) and your pool starts shrinking. This is not a bug, it's a feature. A bad date or a rejected pickup is not a disaster, it's just another iteration in your own personal sorting algorithm.

3. Define Success. I knew I was in love because my happiness had become contingent on hers, and when I was with her, I was a better version of myself than when I wasn't. Of course, I'm kind of an idiot, so it took me a long time after falling in love to even realize that it had happened. I almost drew charts, but even I recognized that would be a bit much. Instead, I proposed. Ineptly. But she said yes anyway.

We've been married 5 years. We have a 4 month old who just outgrew his first Star Wars onesie and a three year old who starts most of her sentences with "Well actually..." Love is good.

Love the show,

Mike the Grammar Geek

Molly, one of the hosts, said that "just another iteration in your own personal sorting algorithm" was "gloriously geeky", which I'm thinking of putting on a t-shirt.

What are alpha-gal antibodies, and why did I get tested for them?

2011-05-31T16:04:00.000-05:00

Here are a couple of articles on some research that my friend Gina sent to me that matches closely the allergy symptoms that I was having back in 2004:

1. The mystery of the tick and the allergy

2. Man's Sudden Food Allergy Was a Medical Mystery for Months

Basically, researchers have been looking at people with delayed-onset anaphylaxis after eating certain types of meat, and have managed to link their symptoms back to tick bites. And that does fit with my experience, as I was doing a lot more hiking back in the days when I had my allergies, and frequently had ticks. Something in the tick bite caused people to become allergic to galactose-alpha-1,3-galactose (a.k.a. alpha-gal).

Hence the testing for alpha-gal antibodies.

First steak in 7 years

2011-05-31T15:10:00.000-05:00

I got the full food-allergy test and turned up negative on everything, and I got the alpha-gal antibody blood test, and that was negative as well. I got that news on Friday afternoon, and Sunday night I ate my first steak in seven years. And it was good.

But I had been outside playing with the kids earlier and managed to pick up a couple of mosquito bites, and between the mosquito bites and random phantom itchiness, I had enough anxiety that I didn't sleep all that well. But I really want to keep experimenting. So I think I'm going to start eating beef once a week for lunch, just to see. And I can have my anxiety during the day.

Layered Hypocondria

2011-05-20T11:49:00.000-05:00

There's this mole under my left eye that I catch in the mirror every once in a while and think, "Holy crap! Where did that thing come from?!" and then I remember that one time this happens I actually dug up a picture so I could see if it was changing and realized that it's always been there and has never changed.

So I don't have skin cancer.

But what's up with this not remembering what my own face looks like? Could I be developing face blindness?

Shocked, just shocked

2011-04-29T08:54:00.000-05:00

I am shocked that almost 100 years ago, The Columbia Tribune would put out a story that assumed the guilt of the accused and used the horror of a crime to railroad the accused to "justice". I'm sure we're all glad that they learned their lesson.

My daughter in a few years

2011-04-22T11:25:00.003-05:00

Really, This Old House?

2011-04-13T11:00:00.000-05:00

This Old House Fun Family Projects looks like a fun little book, and I might consider buying it, but the publisher synopsis calls it "Easy step-by-step, 1-2-3 instruction so simple even a Dad could follow it (as long as he gets help from Mom...)".

I have run out of words for how tired I am of the "Dad is a clueless moron who needs Mom's help to accomplish anything" crap. And I really, really expect better from This Old House, which I love deeply.

Media Coverage of Medicine Kind of Sucks

2011-03-30T10:10:00.000-05:00

Headline 1: How to soothe baby's colic? Pour a cup of tea
Headline 2: Folk Remedies For Colic Do Not Work, Review Says

Both are about the same article in Pediatrics.

I find your surplus of faith disturbing

2011-02-11T09:59:00.000-06:00

It kind of scares me when my wife demonstrates complete and total faith in my ability to fix some thing or another. A not even slightly exaggerated example:

"Christie, there's a portal to a dark dimension in the basement, and I can hear Matthew McConaughey's voice coming out of it."

"Well, I'm sure you'll figure out how to fix it. Have you looked it up online?"

Seriously. Happens all the time. Well, at least now I see where she gets it. My mother in law is staying with us to help with the new baby, and she's been picking our daughter up from daycare. I'm not sure exactly what they talk about in the car, but this is the conversation I had with my 2 and a half year old daughter this morning when the sun was in her eyes:

"Too bright! The sun is too bright. It's a problem! Grandpa will come from Louisiana and fix it. He fixes problems. The sun is too bright and Grandpa will fix it."

"Grandpa will fix the sun?"

"Yes. He has tools!"

Beck is losing it

2011-02-07T13:31:00.001-06:00

So now he's saying that the people who want gay marriage and the people who stone gay teenagers are best buds out to destroy America because, um, well, yeah.

Beck has been enormously destructive to America's intellectual and political fiber, and I am glad to see that he's self-destructing instead of being taken out from within. After all, Father Coughlin was enormously influential, too, at one point, until he pushed it too far and lost all but the most bigoted of his audience. Here's hoping that Beck goes down the same road until only the clinically paranoid are still listening to him. Maybe on Sirius Radio, 1 channel up from Howard Stern.

Apparently I can't turn off the "process improvement" part of my brain even when I'm away from the office.

2011-01-24T12:52:00.000-06:00

I have a new son at home, and the whole experience was wonderful, with two very minor exceptions. One was a brainless article in the stupid free magazine that the hospital's photo service gives out. The other was an experience with the security at the hospital itself.

Security in the newborn wing is fairly heavy, but I'm cool with that even though I know that kidnappings from newborn wings almost never happen, because the fear that they might is enough to keep awake the people in the world who most need sleep.

But they also have this policy where the hospitality people walk around and take the names of everyone who's staying overnight so that the night guards can let them back in if they have to leave. But I only know that because I asked, and I have to admit I wasn't very nice about it, because the person doing the asking opened by holding out a pass that said, "Visitor" and that the policy was all about "guests" who stay the night. My immediate reaction was, "I'm not a 'guest', I'm a parent!"

I'm pretty passionate about dad's being involved in their kids' lives, and unfortunately, anything that puts up a barrier like this means a few less dads changing diapers, and all that goes with it. So I got a little snippy, and got a better explanation of the policy, and it all makes sense. I would suggest a few very minor changes, though:

Instead of an off-the-rack "Visitor" pass, have something printed with the hospital logo on it and a space for the name and date. Don't put "Visitor" or "Parent" or anything. Use color coding that the staff understands but will be invisible to the people you give them to. There's no one label that will make everyone happy, so why use one at all? I can only imagine how it must feel for the parent of a terminally ill child to be handed a pass that says "Visitor" every night as they sleep in their child's room.
Change the script. I'd suggest opening with, "Hi, are you spending the night? I need to make sure your name is on the list so you can get back in if you have to leave the hospital over night."

How I know my wife loves me

2010-12-27T10:29:00.000-06:00

Her: We could get a sitter and go see True Grit.
Me: If we're going to get a sitter, I'd rather do something we both want to do.
Her: I do want to see it.
Me: But you don't like westerns.
Her: True.
Me: Or Coen brothers movies.
Her: True.
Me: Or Jeff Bridges.
Her: Well, yeah.

6 years

2010-12-03T14:45:00.000-06:00

Christie and I have been married for 6 years now. This was an odd year in that our actual anniversary fell on the same day we celebrate it, which is the day after Thanksgiving. If you have the opportunity to get married the day after Thanksgiving, I highly recommend it for the following reasons:

You don't need to serve much food, as everyone had a giant feast the day before.
Often, the family is already all in one place.
November is a very comfortable time to be wearing a suit, and fall leaves make a nice backdrop for pictures.
Procrastinators can pick you up a gift at a Black Friday sale on the way to the wedding.
Finally, it's easy to remember your anniversary. Basically, if I'm eating turkey and stuffing, and there's no trash bag full of gift wrap in the corner, then tomorrow is my anniversary.

A metaphor for fixing the economy

2010-11-15T11:05:00.000-06:00

Last night, my daughter's room was very cold. We noticed this at roughly 1 in the morning. Christie wondered if the vent might be closed, but I had noticed that the heater was not running, and that remote sensor for the thermostat showed a low enough temp that it really should have been. It turned out that the thermostat wasn't picking up the signal from my daughter's room, so it didn't know to run the heater. So I turned the heater on manually and proceeded to troubleshoot the thermostat.

I had to download the manual, take a couple of things apart, swap out some batteries, switch the channel the signal was running on, and try to figure out why the batteries fresh off the charger still triggered the "low battery" warning on the thermostat. I resisted the urge to try and diagnose the battery charger.

Meanwhile, Christie came out and told me that the vent was indeed closed.

John Scalzi on Atlas Shrugged

2010-10-04T09:43:00.000-05:00

"As a foundational document for a philosophy for living in reality with other actual live human beings, I rank it below Jonathan Livingston Seagull and The Secret, both of which also have the added value of being shorter."

There's more, but that's the gist, I think.

What happens in Vegas

2010-10-01T09:13:00.000-05:00

Does not stay in Vegas if it involves an accidental 'death ray' created by careless architecture.

Why making the tax system less progressive is bad for the economy

2010-09-21T11:39:00.000-05:00

Because somebody has to buy all the crap we produce, and if the wealth of the country is concentrating in the top 1%, less crap gets sold, and everyone is poorer for it.

Foundation work

2010-08-25T10:12:00.003-05:00

You can't sit on the side of a hill in Missouri for 25 years without having some issues. We've long had some cracks on the uphill wall of our garage and basement, and every once in a while get a little water through there. The big problem, though, is that the wall is leaning. At one end of the house, where there's a concrete wall, it's nice and plumb, but it leans more the closer you get to the end with garage doors, where it's almost 2 inches out of plumb.

We got a quote last summer, but the economy tanked, as did the housing market, so we decided to wait. Over the next year, we saw about 1/4 inch of movement in the wall, so we decided that waiting wasn't an option anymore.We got a few more estimates, one of which was from a guy who said that he did the drainage work that had been working so poorly. According to him, the previous owner insisted on doing it that way even when he (the foundation guy) told him that it wouldn't work. Fast forward many years, and we didn't hire that guy because I've only seen one example of his work, and it sucks horribly. There's an argument for turning down work, huh?

They started work on Monday, and this is what they're doing:

1. Cut holes in the back wall every five feet for wall anchors:

2. Dig out a few feet from the entire back wall of the house:

You can see a cross-section of the dirt here, and it really drives home the fact that our hill is just a giant wad of clay with a thin skin of dirt on it. You can also see how shallow the french drain was set.

3. Attach these helical anchors to the end of 2-inch steel bar stock:

and drive them into the soil:

4. Attach plates on the inside of the wall:

5. Pull the wall back to plumb.

6. Put a waterproof membrane on on the outside of the basement wall.

7. Lay down new drain tile, gravel, and felt.

8. Put the dirt back and resculpt the yard to improve the drainage.

I don't have any pics of the yard, yet, but it's been two weeks, and this weekend I need to mow the grass.

Cheney's LVAD implant

2010-07-16T14:09:00.000-05:00

I'm having real trouble with Cheney's left ventricular assist device. On the one hand, it sounds like a horrible thing to have to live with.

But the technology is very cool, which I find exciting, and then there is the fact that after years of joking about Cheney being a) a robot, b) a vampire or c) a robotic vampire, how am I supposed to not joke about the following:

He now literally has no pulse,
He has to be plugged into a wall charger at night, and
The surgical appliance is one simple typo away from being called VLAD?

It's not fair.

Developmental Surprise

2010-06-08T20:10:00.000-05:00

I came home with a headache tonight, and while I was fixing dinner, dear daughter was behind me banging the cabinet doors as loud as she could. I finally ended up putting my foot against the door so she couldn't bang them. She did what she's been taught to do at school when someone gets in her space, she yelled, "My body! Walk away!" (Which is terribly cute coming from a 2 year old.)

So now she's yelling at me to walk away, and my standing against the cabinet doors is not getting dinner made. We were at an impasse.

Desperate, I said, "Honey, I have a body, too, and when you bang the doors like that, it makes my head hurt. Will you walk away?"

"Okay, Daddy." She gave me a hug, and went into the living room.

I stood up to see that Christie was watching. "I did not expect that to work," I said.

"Me, either."

When my head is at these days

2010-04-19T21:59:00.002-05:00

On Ta-Nahisi Coates' recommendation, I've been listening to David Blight's Yale course on the Civil War through iTunes University.

Where to start? First off, let me wonder for a moment that I'm within spitting distance of 40, and finally coming to understand in an adult manner the transformative moment in American history. Let me wonder that I have not taken an American history class since high school, and that history in general is the last discipline in which I am inclined to just pick up a book. And not the least, let me wonder that Yale took the time to record this course and publish it for free so that I can download, gratis, to my phone 27 hours of lectures on the civil war.

The way my brain works, I'm a lot more productive with some noise in my ear, so I listen to a lot of podcasts, and when I don't, my wandering monkey mind wants to look at blogs, read the news, find anything possible to distract it from the task at hand. So I'm normally steeped in current events, but for the past week or so, I've been spending my spare time in the 19th century.

I am seeing parallels between the years leading up to the late unpleasantness and the current political rhetoric, but I find myself not fixating as much as I once did upon the political fluctuations of the moment. Actually, I find it quite refreshing to be reading about political crises that are so far in the past that there is nothing I can do about them.

Christie tells me she enjoys it, too.

15 Years Ago Today

2010-04-19T14:23:00.000-05:00

I was living in Kirksville, where there were limited TV news options, so when I heard that there had been a terrorist attack on a federal building in Oklahoma City, I did a lot of channel surfing. On of the news sources I was using, because there wasn't anything better, was The 700 Club.

The thing I remember most about that day was the rhetoric Pat Robertson used. Early on, he used the word "attack" again and again, and send that whoever was responsible had committed a grave crime against humanity, and that nothing less than a full retaliation would be tolerated. And then I channel surfed away to CBS, where they announced that the attack had come from a right-wing militia type, and by the time I surfed back to The 700 Club a minute or two later, he had stopped calling it an attack, and started calling it a "tragedy."

AI cats?

2010-04-16T11:04:00.000-05:00

Just what I need, a computer that throws up a lot and pees on the bathmat.

Pinhole camera image

2010-04-16T10:19:00.001-05:00

Try to guess what this is a picture of before you click the pic to find out. Hint: It's awesome, in the classic sense of the word.

The Sarah Palin Network

2010-04-12T10:53:00.000-05:00

Agreed: "brutal (and awesome)".

This is fantastic

2010-04-12T09:59:00.000-05:00

What went wrong with the economy: A Show Tune About A Hedge Fund

ATK Cooking Game for Nintendo DS

2010-04-09T08:25:00.000-05:00

Did you know that America's Test Kitchen now has a Cooking Game for Nintendo DS? Except it's not exactly a game. It's more like an interactive cookbook that can be voice controlled while you're cooking. And it has a feature where you can add family members, tell it what kitchen equipment they can use, and it will give them jobs.

More like this, please.

Play safe

2010-03-30T19:52:00.001-05:00

Playing outside is all well and good, but it's important to be safe.

Disney Cruises

2010-03-30T11:28:00.000-05:00

Christie's been talking a lot about Disney Cruises, and has let it be known that her strategy is to push the cruise and settle for a park visit, banking on my Disney Scroogeness and all around cheapness. But by the time the kid is old enough, Disney Cruises will be so freaking awesome that my geekery may trump my aforementioned cheapness.

But I'm still a Disney Scrooge. They are to stories what McDonald's is to food.

2010-03-30T10:25:00.002-05:00

My kid was playing with a flashlight, pretending to take pictures with it, then shining the light to see under the bed, then used it as a phone. At first I thought it was cute that she was pretending it was a bunch of different things, then I remembered that we have iPhones.

Kid bookshelves

2010-03-29T09:23:00.001-05:00

Kid bookshelves
Originally uploaded by Litcritter

Years ago, I was at the National Art Gallery in DC, and happened across an art student copying one of the old masters. I feel like that's where I'm at in my woodworking practice, except I'm copying new masters instead of old. In fact, I've got a huge folder in Evernote filled entirely with things that I would someday like to build.

Part of me knows that that is a key part of the design process, but I'm still ambivalent about it. So I'm giving credit. This is a pretty common form, but the particular inspiration for this was a piece by Inai Inai Ba! that he sells on his Etsy store (his is so much better than mine, naturally). But I recommend finding him on Facebook to see some of his other work, because he's doing some very cool stuff.

Dooley's other Christmas present

2010-03-27T21:06:00.001-05:00

True Heist Story

2010-03-24T15:01:00.001-05:00

Wired Magazine: On the Trail of World’s Most Ingenious Thief

2010-03-23T10:35:00.000-05:00

Now I know what I'm getting Dooley for Christmas: Humunga Stache Dog Toy.

My Go Bag

2010-03-21T20:06:00.001-05:00

Dad's Go Bag
Originally uploaded by Litcritter

A couple of years ago, Lifehacker.com ran a series of pictures of people's Go Bags. They always looked so neat, and there was a slightly macho cast to them, so I thought I'd show what a toddler's dad has in his bag by the end of a busy weekend.

Presentation Master Flight from Swiss Army

2010-03-10T14:57:00.000-06:00

Victorinox Swiss Army - MultiTools - Presentation Master Flight 8GB

If you do a lot of traveling and presenting, I could see this coming in handy. There's a fingerprint-protected thumb drive, a laser pointer, and a Bluetooth remote.

Man wins $1.5m from tablesaw manufacturer

2010-03-08T16:40:00.000-06:00

Man wins $1.5m in first of its kind saw case - The Boston Globe

This could get interesting. Tablesaws could get a lot more expensive, but Sawstop could get a lot cheaper.

iPhone as a Universal Remote

2010-03-05T12:45:00.000-06:00

Now cheaper.

Weirdest political attack ad ever

2010-02-04T09:29:00.000-06:00

In a season which has included an ad depicting a parrish coroner as Dr. Frankenstein, this Carly Fiorina ad is the weirdest political attack ad I have ever seen.

On Salinger

2010-02-01T09:44:00.002-06:00

The Catcher in the Rye, for me, will never be about what Salinger wrote. It was about what a girl, a particular girl, wrote inside the front cover.

If you want to know the details, I'll have to disappoint you, because I was basically twelve. But she was friends with the kids across the street, and she was a tomboy, and she was cute. We met, and we flirted in that twelve year old way.

And then a couple of years passed, and I was at some church youth group thing, and she showed up as a friend of one of the kids in the group, and she was a little cuter, and she kicked my ass at softball, and we flirted some more, and I thought about trying to call her, but I had no more idea what do next than I would if you stuck me behind the wheel of a spaceship.

Flash forward another couple of years, and I'm on the front porch of the cottage in Ludington, reading a copy of The Catcher in the Rye that I picked up at some used bookstore, and Theron asks to see it.

"Who's Robin Moerlein?" he asks, and I start, and tell him that she's some girl I met a couple of times, and where in the hell did he come up with that name?

"It's inside the front cover of your book. Along with her phone number. You going to call her?"

I never did.

And that's what I think of when anybody mentions The Catcher in the Rye.

On the spending freeze

2010-01-26T21:39:00.003-06:00

I think it's bullshit. Defined as:

1. A stupid idea that's going to make things worse, or

2. A slogan presented with no regard for the complicated truth that it's going to be frozen at the 2010 levels, which will include a jobs bill and pushes to a variety of programs, blah, blah, blah.

So maybe it's a cap, not a freeze, and maybe it's a floorwax and a dessert topping both. Don't know, don't care. The way to fix the deficit is to grow the economy and no one has ever grown the economy by cutting spending. Maybe I'm still sore because our governor just gave a State of the State where he talked about jobs while putting 500 people (some of whom I knew) out of work and education while kicking kids out of the virtual school.

On the other hand, it will have everyone talking about the 'spending freeze' and for once it'll be the idiots on the radio having to say, "yeah, but it's actually more complicated than that!" Or maybe they'll just do what they always do and call our President a liar and make up whatever deranged shit they feel like, and the media will have John McCain on to talk about how unfortunate it is that the Democrats are trying to destroy the country.

Yeah, I guess I'm a little annoyed.

If The Senate Were Based On Population - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

2010-01-25T13:47:00.000-06:00

Nifty Map.

Thoughts on the Mass. Senate Race

2010-01-20T09:19:00.002-06:00

I'm an optimist by temperament, so if you're not, take this with a grain of salt. And I'm also a big believer in democracy. Whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, there's no doubt that Martha Coakley worked very hard to lose this race. Yeah, there are a ton of people who could have stepped in and helped earlier, and that might have turned it around, but she's running to be a US Senator, and my personal belief is that you don't get to be a US Senator if you don't have the necessary leadership skills to run a winning campaign. I know, old fashioned, right?

So that's thought one.

Thought two is that we might get better legislative results with 59 votes than with 60. Not because I think bipartisanship is magic, but because there are several craven, corrupt, and not very bright Senators as a part of the 60 vote Democratic majority, and being able to pass legislation, but only if we have all of them on board has meant some pretty crappy legislation. I'm hoping this means that we do something about the filibuster, but don't think the odds of that are good as long as Harry Reid is running the Senate. But getting nothing done might well be better than letting Lieberman set the agenda.

Apple Hot Toddy by Tyler Florence

2010-01-15T12:19:00.000-06:00

Yum.

Avatar - The Metacontextual Edition

2010-01-12T16:43:00.000-06:00

Haven't seen it, because this is exactly the impression I got from the trailer.

A Winter Poem, on taking out the trash

2010-01-11T21:55:00.000-06:00

When you step into a snowbank,
and you're wearing Crocs,

it is better, I would think,
to be wearing socks.

Funny vignette

2010-01-08T08:51:00.002-06:00

There's a house near the entrance to my neighborhood that clearly has a number of adult children living at home judging by the number of cars that park there, and the ages of the people who use them. When I went home last night, I noticed two cars park on the street there. One was clean, and the driver had clearly just gotten home. The other was completely buried on all sides with snow, up to the roof, as if the snowplow just missed it, and whoever shoveled their drive went out of their way to aim the snowblower their way.

This morning, on my way to work, I noticed a young man grimly digging his car out from under that pile, and he was carefully packing the snow from his car all around and over his sibling's previously pristine car.

A thought about the Underpants Bomber

2010-01-08T08:32:00.002-06:00

Has anyone pointed out that Detroit is one of our largest Muslim cities? Or that Dearborn, Michigan, which is nearly 100% Muslim, is right on the flight path to DTW? It can't help Al Qaeda that their Little Lord Fauntleroy neutered himself in an attempted attack that would have (like so many Al Qaeda attacks globally) killed a ton of Muslims.

DIY Automatic Car-Cover

2010-01-06T13:46:00.000-06:00

We don't have any fancy cars, but on those Mondays when I've been in the workshop, and both cars are covered in sawdust, I suspect Christie would like to have something like this.

2009-12-29T14:01:00.000-06:00

Just popping up to note that Jim DeMint (R - S.C.) thinks it's more important to keep unions out of the TSA than to keep terrorists off our airplanes.

Medical alert dog

2009-12-29T10:12:00.000-06:00

I'm intrigued that there's a dog in this story that can warn her owner that she's got a migraine coming on.

Free Custom Graph Paper

2009-12-29T09:40:00.003-06:00

I thought I'd put this up before, but apparently not.

Here's a source for home-printable custom graph paper, but if you're just looking for a good paper for drawing things by inches and feet, this is the graph paper I use, sized just right for an 8 ft. by 11ft. space.

It figures that I would finally get around to putting this up just as I'm starting to teach myself Sketchup.

Coming of Age in the Aughts

2009-12-22T10:46:00.000-06:00

I really enjoyed this essay from Courtney Martin. I'm not a Christian anymore, and there was much in my church upbringing that I was glad to jettison, but there was a consistent thread that the world does not love those who do good, and that to continue to do good in spite of the world requires strength of character, will, and resolve. I'm an obstinate little bugger, so that message always resonated with me.

Of course, that's a common thread in pop culture as well, so maybe I just got it from X-men comics.

The "Kill the Bill" lefties

2009-12-22T10:22:00.000-06:00

Eh.

It's possible that they're just that pissed off, and are throwing a tantrum. But we already know that part of why Lieberman was so opposed to the Medicare buy-in was because Anthony Weiner (D - NY) thought it was a good idea. So maybe they're just acting like they hate the health care bill so that we can get it past Lieberman, et al.

Attention Cyclists!

2009-11-18T10:02:00.000-06:00

Now that it's getting dark really, really early, here's a cheap/free way to increase your visibility at night: Reflective Roadway Tape Lights Your Bike Day or Night for Cheap or Free

New York’s 23rd District

2009-11-04T08:41:00.000-06:00

Looks like the teabaggers managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in New York's 23rd. How did this happen? Well, the far right conservatives were so sure that there's a hidden majority of wingnuts out there that they poured everything they had into undercutting the moderate Republican candidate and promoting one stamped "Glenn Beck Approved For Your Protection!"

Of course, they weren't confident enough in their agenda to try it in a normal district, they had to try it in a district that hasn't sent a Dem to Washington since the Civil War. It was the safest election possible in which to try this strategy, and it failed.

I'd like to say that this is good for the Republican Party and good for the country, as it will demonstrate clearly to the fringe that they need to be able to make peace with the moderates in their party, and maybe, just maybe, we could have a Republican party who once again cares about responsible governance. But the wingnuts are allergic to facts, scoff at data, and consider learning to be a sign of weakness, so I seriously doubt that will happen.

Wow

2009-11-02T10:40:00.001-06:00

The amount of work that must have gone into this is staggering, unless he did it all from his head, which would also be staggering, but in a different way.

Sometimes the headline is the story

2009-10-29T13:13:00.000-05:00

Microwaving Peeps With a Beloved Children’s Book Author.

"Conservative" dems?

2009-10-29T08:40:00.000-05:00

Since the two dems currently threatening to help Republicans filibuster the health care bill both have spouses that work for the health care industry, and receive tons of money from from that same industry, can we please stop calling them "conservative" Democrats, or, even worse, "fiscally conservative" since the public option they're opposed to would save money for everyone not in the health insurance business? Can we just call them "corrupt"?

In other news, this is childish, but very funny.

So What Is the 'Opt-Out' Compromise? | Talking Points Memo

2009-10-27T09:29:00.000-05:00

Josh Marshall lays it out.

I would go a bit further and say that opting out will end up being an economic loser in the long run for any red states that choose to go that way, as new companies will probably be more likely to relocate to states with the public option.

At least, that's what I think will happen, because I think the public option is good policy. The nice thing about this compromise is that we'll be able to gather actual data that either refutes or supports that hypothesis.

In the short term, I don't think this is the best approach in terms of the public good, but I do think it might be better long term policy in terms of gathering data and building a strong national healthcare policy.

Spooky Ruins

2009-10-27T08:49:00.000-05:00

This Old House has a nice photo gallery of old ruins and abandoned buildings that includes this creepy description: "The bright snowscape and generous space evoke a sense of peace and harmony—until one looks closer to discover frantic scratch marks still left on the walls."

Nice.

My latest million dollar idea

2009-10-26T10:09:00.001-05:00

One of the problems in our current healthcare system is that it discourages people from starting their own business, because their healthcare is shackled to their jobs. So if we fix that, what's going to happen? Are the best and brightest employees going to start jumping ship in order to start their own businesses? That's got the potential to be a huge problem for big corporations, and I have a potential solution, inspired by our former president's latest foray into inspirational speaking:

De-motivation seminars. It should be pretty cheap to set up, actually. The vast majority of small businesses fail within a couple of years, and a lot of those people end up bankrupt. That means there are tons of people out there with very compelling stories about how they had a nice, safe, boring job in a cubicle somewhere, but they left it all behind to chase their dreams and ended up bankrupting their families and ruining their lives. The nice thing is that we can probably pay these people peanuts, and then charge companies a ton to help them keep their employees chained to their desks by fear of bankruptcy.

Funny

2009-10-26T09:26:00.003-05:00

From Failblog.

Things I Didn't Know Were Possible, #1

2009-10-23T15:28:00.000-05:00

Albino Trees.

Chore Chart

2009-10-23T09:08:00.000-05:00

Cool customizable, printable chore chart.

Middle of the night insight

2009-10-21T08:37:00.003-05:00

If the news networks were doctors, MSNBC would be the specialist who drives a fast car and loves to prescribe the latest drug, even if there's an old one that works better. CNN would be the grizzled old doc who hasn't read a journal article in 20 years.

Fox would be your friend's uncle who claims to have one year of medical school, but really has a Ph.D. in exercise physiology from some internet school, and currently runs a macrobiotic bookstore and libertarian restaurant, whatever that is.

It should be noted that I don't actually get any of these channels.

Holding Action

2009-10-18T21:37:00.002-05:00

This weekend, I replaced one thermostat, one garbage disposer, 8 cabinet door handles, and two lightbulbs. There was some increase in functionality with some of those replacements, but mostly it was just about keeping the house working properly. Sometimes, that's enough, I guess.

For the Record

2009-10-16T14:31:00.000-05:00

Bragging that you let your black friends use your bathroom makes you look more racist, not less.

2009-10-14T16:07:00.000-05:00

This analysis would seem to support the repeal of helmet laws if and only if the rider has a current organ donor card.

I'm not paying $300 for a fan

2009-10-13T15:47:00.000-05:00

But, good lord, is that cool or what?

How I woke up

2009-10-11T08:45:00.002-05:00

The last thing I remember from the dream was a trio of women in my hotel room, the oldest and largest of which said, "Ms. Taylor said you have need of vashing your hair. You vill disrobe."

At which point the kid woke me up, thank God.

Interesting reading for men and women both

2009-10-09T11:46:00.000-05:00

Schrödinger’s Rapist: or a guy’s guide to approaching strange women without being maced.

Flashforward

2009-10-08T22:08:00.001-05:00

I've been watching, and tonight's episode was annoying. There was what seemed like a significant bit of dialogue early on between two of the major characters about who's going to pick their daughter up from school, and then the protagonist, who said he was going to pick her up, runs off to Germany.

I'm expecting him to realize at some point that he got caught up in work and forgot his daughter, but she's not mentioned or shown for the rest of the episode. That little bit of dialogue was, I guess, supposed to just be filler, but when you have a character say "I'm going to do this thing," and they don't, that's a plot point, not filler.

Maybe I'm making too much of a little thing, but I spent half the show worrying about his daughter. When the promos for the show are constantly saying "Everything is important," you can't just drop threads like that.

Bad Climate Change News

2009-10-07T13:57:00.000-05:00

Rising CO2 is good for Poison Ivy.

Giant Pool Of Money

2009-10-05T09:39:00.000-05:00

This Planet Money podcast, called The Giant Pool Of Money is fascinating. One of the more interesting thoughts it triggered is that the global store of capital (the Giant Pool of Money) was bigger before the collapse than after, and that recent government expenditures haven't really grown it much beyond what it was at the peak of the housing boom.

I know a lot of people are worried about inflation, and one of the biggest arguments they make in support of that idea is that governments are going to have to print more money in order to support their stimulus packages. But a tremendous amount of money simply vanished in the collapse, and some portion of the "new" money is simply replacing it. At least, that's my intuition. I may be completely misreading the data.

How have I earned this reputation?

2009-09-26T19:51:00.002-05:00

Kate: I can't believe you gave my daughter nun-chuks!

Me: She was swinging a wooden spoon around. I thought nerf chuks would be an improvement.

Kate: Oh, they're nerf? It's fine, then.

Me: You thought I gave a four year old real nun-chuks!?

9/12

2009-09-24T09:13:00.001-05:00

Hey, remember Glenn Beck's "9/12 Project", where a whole bunch of right wingers went to Washington to talk about how the federal government is the enemy of the people, and there are all these secret conspiracies among the left to destroy the country using ACORN, the census, healthcare, etc.? Yeah, good times.

While that was going on, a Census worker named Bill Sparkman was found hanged in rural Kentucky. With the word "Fed" scrawled across his chest.

Glenn Beck

2009-09-23T08:48:00.000-05:00

The headline lets you know: All You Need to Know About Glenn Beck.

Messed up idea of the day

2009-09-21T15:36:00.004-05:00

The Republicans not only don't care if they win elections; they actually want to lose them. They are, after all, the party which believes that government is the problem, not the solution. When that is your core principle, actual governing is difficult, if not impossible. They're much more comfortable in the minority, where they can satisfy themselves by stopping the Democrats from governing.