Christmas to New Year's

Chris is spending the week in Scotland with Alison. He arrived safely Friday morning at 7:16 a.m. in Edinburgh.

Jen is spending the week with her family in Branford.

Jackson is growing and learning quickly. He now can tell you what certain animals do and say, knock and open doors, make car noises, and is quite proficient at mama ma ma ma and dada type words. Danielle even taught him sic 'em Bears.

Posted by anonymous 12/26/2008 10:43 a.m.

A Little Early

I know this is just a few months early, but please do check out www.academicfreedomday.com, and consider entering the contest!

If you don't think its worth your time, go watch Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.

Modern neo-Darwinism -- as represented by the likes of NCSE (up there with "Christian Science" as the worst misnomer of all time), Richard Dawkins, PZ Myers, Michael Ruse, and Ken Miller -- has owned the academy for over a century. It has become the overarching paradigm in Biology, and there are powerful and vocal scientists who sincerely believe it should be the organizing principal of SCIENCE. This wouldn't be so bad, except that it is grossly deceptive as an organizing principal for anything but a few parts of population genetics. If it's such a powerful theory, why don't its proponents let it flex its muscles instead of hiding it in a cage behind bold posters proclaiming its power? Historically, what sort of ideologies have suppressed the right to speak in dissent? (e.g. totalitarian governments, incl. fascism and communism...) Shouldn't the Academy, of all places, be open to challenging ideas? Does denying that there are qualified, intelligent scientists (many of whom are NOT particularly religious!) who question the power of evolution to explain the origin of complex life make them go away?

Techie-nerd-ness

I'm becoming more and more of a nerd. One particular flavor I'm really fond of is tech-nerd. I actually read PC World when I can; I have favorite technology review websites, favorite technology deal websites, and... well I'll make a list :-)

Current Favorites
OS: Ubuntu 8.10 "Intrepid Ibex" (I know, a rather non-nerdy choice....)
Most Coveted Computer: any netbook
Stereo Company: Bose (I know, not really techie; you cannot control anything....)
Office Software Company: Corel
Free Software Companies: Where do we start? In no particular order Google, Mozilla, Piriform....
Free Anti-virus: BitDefender (close second: AVG Free)
Free Firewall: ZoneAlarm
Download website: FileHippo.com
Favorite Free Office Suite: OpenOffice 2.4 (Again, simple choice... I have to live with other peoples' MS Office documents!)
Free browser: still Mozilla Firefox (...though Google Chrome is pretty slick!)
Deal Website: woot.com
Email Program: Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0 (followed closely by a Gmail add-on for Firefox)
Bank: ING (Hey, their accounts are almost exclusively online! They count as techie! Plus, I ran in a race they sponsored!)

Current LEAST Favorites
Software Company: Microsoft, duh!
(OK, so I created the least-favorite category just for them... get over it!)

well hello again!

"Last published Apr 22, 2008" ... hmmm... that was a REALLY LONG TIME AGO!

For anyone who hasn't completely given up on me, or who decided on a whim to check this blog, or who enjoys defeat and checked this like you check Red Sox postseason results... welcome back. This will be a totally random collection of news and thoughts.

Head over to our photo site and check out about three months of pictures I just added.

I don't even know where to start. Jackson turned one last week! He's running, talking, and slamming things against other things (LOUDLY). He tried to fight the coffee table a couple weeks ago and ended up with a nice upper-cheek bruise. I told him that if anyone asked what happened, he should say, "You should see the other guy!" Then we got to church and another kid had an even worse bruise.

The school year got off to a pretty smooth start. I miss having NMB around. I'm juggling my classes, athletics work and a little tech work thrown in for good measure.

The scooter is still serving me very well, good for about $3/day savings on gas. Plus, the weather has been absolutely gorgeous for scootering.

I've had a nasty head cold for over a week now, and it shows no signs of dying. In fact, it brought along a sinus infection to make me feel really yucky. Despite that, I was given enough strength to run the half marathon this past Saturday up in Hartford. In fact, I had one of the best races of my life.

My sister Alison is over in Scotland at the University of St Andrews earning a Masters degree in poetry. She says "cheers". Well, not really. But she would if she had the chance.

Among recent reads, I'm pleased to recommend The Devil's Delusion by David Berlinski

In other news, among my newer favorite websites are woot.com, slickdeals.net, and whatyououghttoknow.com I would recommend Alie's blog, but she killed hers even faster than I killed mine. Oh, and one more shameless plug: If you are an educator (including homeschoolers), check out Classical Legacy Press for top-notch materials, with more on the way soon! (Full disclosure: I make no profit whatsoever by making this shameless plug.)

Well, that's about all for now. Sorry, maybe when the two infections start losing to my immune system my brain will clear up. Until then, cheers!

Small kindnesses

I'm thankful for common grace in my neighbors, especially A.S. across the hall. He's been kind in specific ways several times in the past week. I hope that we'll have a chance to witness to him sometime before we move. Maybe that's why the Lord has so far been answering our prayers to help sell our condo by saying "not yet"....

It's official...

...I have a motorcycle endorsement on my driver's license. Hours of work, $18.98, sweat, driving a trailer and making u-turns on Rt 46 when detours randomly end in the middle of Little Falls, etc. have paid off. Sort of. See, I did all that for "M Motorcycle" in something like size 5 font on the back under "Endorsements". Ah, the beauty of bureaucracies, especially government-run ones. And I still have to renew my license next year, despite having just gotten a new one.

Many thanks to Jeffrey (and his family) for their advice, time and encouragement.

Scootering

This evening, after track practice, I got a chance to drive around in my first official scooter-driving lesson with JD (and a young D child in his sidecar). I tried the light-speed switch, but it seems to be stuck right now. So I was stuck going a pedestrian 6.67x10^-8 of c. Translation for non-uber-nerds: 38mph. The basic plan was once around the block on back-streets, then to TCS, practice weaving between lines at TCS, then drive back. Red Honda Elite Scooter (her name until someone comes up with a better one) handled excellently all the way up to 43 mph. (No, I didn't attempt to go faster. Especially at this point, what would the point be?) She had momentary issues idling in the church parking lot, but this was a known minor hose problem that poses no safety concern. It will shortly be fixed permanently. Next driving lesson later this week.

OK, on to Jackson: He can roll over both ways with ease. He is eating pureed vegetables (yuck!) and cereals, and has two bottom front teeth. He recently bought a tent so that he could join us at track meets. Jen says he adores his father. Let's hope the respect continues for at least 17.6 years.

On Real Estate: We've got a couple more leads on a condo buyer. Pray with us that one of them pans out!

Jackson, in brief

I've been getting some flack for writing about my new means of transportation, but not about Jackson.

So here's the significant recent news: Jackson got his first tooth! And then he got his SECOND tooth. Thankfully, there's baby Tylenol! He's getting big, but babies all seem to do that. He's also going to sleep without being held down anymore, as well as waking up in the morning and talking to himself for an extended period of time before crying.

Quick addition

The Honda scooter is now insured, titled, registered, and the NJ sales tax paid. If you have no idea what I mean, keep reading below....
In other news, this helmet is the exact one I now own.

And the winner is...

...motorcycle endorsement!

For those who participated in my recent poll, I thank you for your willingness to be good sports. Sadly, you will likely all be wrong. I mean, you still have a chance. Some institution of higher learning MIGHT decide to bestow upon me an honorary academic degree. Someone MIGHT send me to the Caribbean next week to learn SCUBA. It's possible the state police will issue me a handgun permit before I even apply for one. (I do have the application filled out, by the way.) And maybe I'll even play some crazy fiction character and "borrow" a plane from Lincoln Park airport to save the world with.

But surely you're all rational people, and you know none of these things will happen. What has happened is that (after 2 hours at the local DMV center) I have a motorcycle permit. I won't take the road test for several weeks, but I have the scooter and helmet, and by the end of the day I should have insurance, title and registration. No, I'm not going through a mid-twenties crisis. As you can see, this scooter is NOT cool by the standards of anyone with a real motorcycle. I sought the advice of a variety of friends, including the ever-helpful JD.

Feel free to leave appalled or ecstatic comments.

I know, very wannabe space-age. The brand, price, and engine size were right.

Far too long

Yes, it has been far too long. That being said...

Best news recently: Jackson falls asleep now without being held down (to keep him from flipping over). All three of us are far happier this way.

Other good news: There's been interest in our condo, and we're having an open house on Saturday. Send anyone interested to our forsalebyowner.com page.

Bad news: I've had a long series of sinus issues. Bad ones.

Check out our new poll.

Update of sorts

It appears that the muse has not inspired me for some time now. Or maybe my creativity dried up. Or maybe it was being away for a week. I suppose the busyness excuse won't work, huh?

Well, here's a quick update on Jackson:

He's smiling often, and finally getting back on a schedule of naps and dealing with being alone. He lost this ability when we went to CT for a whole week, but he's finally getting used to it again. Of course, his lungs and diaphragm are still growing stronger, so the crying is getting louder.

As many of you have, we've seen lots of friends and family in the past month. So Jackson has gotten lots of attention and introductions.

He met Wayne & Michele Kruzek (who have their own news...!) during an enjoyable evening of conversation and Jenga.

Within the past week, Jackson figured out how to roll over -- but only from stomach to back. And unfortunately, he sleeps on his stomach and dislikes lying on his back. So we're trying to teach him the reverse process.

In other random news:

I'm actually basically done with second term grades a week early! This is largely due to Jen's helping with grading so much this year, which in turn encouraged me to keep the grading folder relatively slim. I'm very thankful for the result. I also only have to write 3 midterms this year, which is great. I've ordered a new cell phone (Motorola W385), mostly because it was free and newer phones often have better voice quality. I've also been messing around a bit with Linux recently, including installing Ubuntu 7.10 on my old college laptop. This is mostly a reflection of a burning desire to avoid all things Microsoft (with the only exceptions being Excel and MS computer mice). I've also personally been encouraged by real quality conversations with friends (including Jen of course) over the past few weeks.

Well, I'll be updating our Picasa picture site a bit here and there over the next few days.

cheers