Green thumbs

Here's our accomplishment for the day!

It's perhaps a bit less impressive when you know that the box and dirt were already there, and don't even belong to us. But we did pull out the weeds and put up the string. It's only about a quarter planted because it's still barely spring here. Shannon's in charge of it all, I'm just the cheap labor. I'm not even sure what we planted today. Bok choi? Spinach? Seedless watermelon?

Time Travel Wishes

If you could go back in time, what would you do?  Assume that most of the concerns about altering the time-space continuum can be ignored, and I'll trust you that you're not going to go back and do something silly like kill your parents.  So, what would you change?  Here's my list of causes that are clearly worthy of what would be the greatest technical achievement ever.

1. Let Ben Franklin know that it's the negative charges that move to create electric current.  Basically, he had a 50/50 shot at getting this one right, and he missed.  So we're stuck with a convention that electrons moving to the right create a current moving left.

2. Dear General Washington, while we're throwing off the yoke of King George, can we adopt the metric system, too?  It's so much better, and the only reason not to make the switch is inertia and the high cost of making the changeover.

3. Pick a time, and time.  Daylight Saving Time isn't worth the hassle of changing all the clocks twice a year.  More importantly, small children don't understand time changes and concepts like planning ahead.  Thus, twice a year we get a morning of chaos, and a day of crankiness from upset sleeping schedules.  I don't even care that much whether we're "on" or "off" DST, just pick one and leave my clocks alone!

4. Down with wire gauges!  Wires are wonderfully simple things.  They have a length and a diameter.  So why can't we just list them by diameter?  No, instead, we have to have wire gauge which is a nearly meaningless number.  Just call it a 1mm wire, or 1.5mm or 10mm or whatever size you want.  The gauge is just another unnecessary measurement scale.  While we're at it, we're also going to get rid of the gauge measuring system for sheets to metal.  In case you're wondering, wire gauge and sheet metal gauge are the same for aluminum, but different for steel.  (12 gauge steel is thicker than 12 gauge aluminum.)

4a. As a bonus, I'm going to get rid of the alternate spelling of "gage".

There you go, that's my list so far.  Don't worry though.  After taking care of all this stuff, I'll still have plenty of time* to go back and stop genocides and wars and stuff like that, too.

* Unlimited time, really.

Lincoln Park Zoo

Warm weather and visiting friends from Michigan means a trip to the zoo!

As big-city folk, we have multiple zoos to choose from, we with hit up a new one: Lincoln Park Zoo. The zoo is downtown (maybe not technically, but it is as far as I'm concerned) and takes about an hour to get there. And since it's in the city, we paid $24 to park there for 3 or 4 hours. But entrance is free, so it all kinda balances out.

The zoo isn't super big or anything, but it was big enough to wear us out. The polar bear was very playful, but a lot of the animals were pretty lazy.

This is a cell phone post, so I'm limited to 1000 characters (about 100 used up in this explanation), so I'll just say that it was fun, and we enjoyed having friends in town. In the future we'll probably stick with the Brookfield zoo though (closer, bigger, more impressive exhibits, no driving in the city).

Mornings on Horseback over The Great Bridge

Shannon picked me up a pair of David McCullough books from the library a while ago.   I'd read and enjoyed 1776, and he's all sorts of famous (for a historian) so I was reasonably interested.

I started with The Great Bridge, which is about the building of the Brooklyn Bridge.  First off, I want to say that I don't think it's the most famous bridge in the world, as is often claimed.  You can feel free to disagree, but if you do, I ask: What does it look like?  Then I say: what does the Golden Gate Bridge look like?  The latter is the most famous bridge in my brain.  Anyway, they decided to build a bridge between Brooklyn and Manhattan, so people didn't have to take ferries which could be stopped by fog or ice.  But, before you can start building a bridge, you have to talk about building a bridge, and politicians have to get involved, and form a bridge company, and bribe various people.  And all of that is very boring.  The other thing that you need to do is spend a few dozen pages on the life history of the designer of the bridge, even if (spoiler alert) he dies before the construction even starts and his son builds the thing.  So, I found the book to be very slow starting.  However, I pressed on and after 150 pages or so, the started building the bridge and it got a lot more interesting.

It is truly impressive what we (humanity) managed to accomplish without calculators or any technology more complex than a steam engine.  The foundation for the bridge on the Manhattan side goes down something like 100 feet below the river and the bridge spans over 1500 feet.  I wish the book had more pictures, particularly of the finished bridge.  I realize that photography from the 1870s isn't the easiest thing to come by, but even pictures from a few decades later would still have shown the bridge in it's "original" state fairly well.  If you really want to know more about the bridge, the book will certainly do the job, but I'm not suggesting you all run out and buy a copy.

Keeping with the late 1800s New York City theme, I then started on Mornings on Horseback which is about Teddy Roosevelt.  I suppose at some point in his childhood Teddy Roosevelt must have ridden a horse in the morning on a somewhat regular basis.  I wouldn't know, because I didn't make it that far in the book.

I suppose the point of the book was to understand what made Roosevelt the way he was by understanding his childhood.  But frankly, his childhood isn't interesting enough to go through at a rate of 50 pages per year.  The Roosevelt's were very wealthy, so they did stuff like spending a year touring Europe, or a summer going up and down the Nile.  The kids didn't go to school, but had private tutors.  Young Teddy (called "Teedie" by his family, probably because his dad was also Theodore) suffered from asthma, which was no fun.  It's not that any of this was inherently boring, but I didn't find it engaging enough to dwell on for as long as McCullough did.

I made it 140 pages in before giving it up; reading was too much of a chore.  Life is short and books are many.  These come out as pretty poor reviews of Mr. McCullough's work, which makes me feel kinda bad.  I think the issue is more with the choice of topic rather than the writing.  If you asked me out of the blue if I thought Teddy Roosevelt's childhood would be an interesting topic for a book, I'd say "no".  But then when you say that David McCullough thinks it's interesting enough to write hundreds of pages about, it gets me thinking maybe there is something interesting there.  I don't doubt that he finds it interesting.  I, however, don't.  Same thing with the bridge, though to a much smaller degree.

Because we're Blockburgers we went to a cemetary on Saturday. Well really the

Because we're Blockburgers, we went to a cemetary on Saturday. Well, really the reason is that the girls wanted to go to a park that happens to be 100 yards from the cemetary. Shannon had heard rumors of it from the YW in our ward, and I finally found it the other day.

The picture shows the entire cemetary. That's it, just 6 headstones. It's pretty tucked away in the back of a little neighborhood, hidden enough that even after driving or running past it a half dozen times, I hadn't spotted it until this last week. The headstones are pretty worn, and I'm not sure what the story is behind it is. But we had a fun adevture finding it.

Minimalist running. No, not that kind.

Yesterday's run was 14.34 miles in lovely 50 degree weather, which is pretty ideal.  Running creates enough heat that you don't need a particularly warm day.  The distance is the longest I've done since the marathon in October 2010.  Since Shannon was going to a RS thing for much of the morning at the stake center, I had to be home by 8:30.  So, I was up at about 6, and left by 6:30.  Because runners are not only masochistic, but they are masochistic and sleep deprived.
Anyway, I got home and sat down in front of the computer with a bowl of cereal to check blogs. (When was the last time you updated yours?  Hint: ages ago.)  On one running blog that I stalk, there was a post detailing what the guy had packed for his 20 mile run that day.  A headlamp, 3 GUs, jelly beans, gummy bears, 2 bananas, a pita, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a peanut butter and honey sandwich, 2 bottles of water (0.5 L each), Gatorade fuel (8oz maybe?), and a bottle of Propel (0.5 L).  I compared this to what I took for my 14 mile run: nothing.  I had a little sip of water, and a couple of fig newtons before I left and that was it.  Somehow, I managed to make it without taking an entire shopping cart full of groceries.

Now, it's true that 20 is certainly longer than 14, and it's likely his run took about twice as long as mine, but I still don't understand the fascination everyone has with running stuff.  Running should be one of the simplest, and cheapest of sports/hobbies.  Sure, the shoes might run you $100 per pair.  And you need some clothes to wear that are light weight and made of the right material.  (Cotton is not your friend.)  But this is America; where there is a potential consumer, there is an unnecessary product to fill that void.  So we need 15 dollar running socks, and 40 dollar calf sleeves.  And any time we run, we surely must consume some Gu-like product ($1.00-$1.50 each) every few miles.  We need treadmills and gym memberships, fuel belts and GPS watches.

To be clear, each and every thing I've listed probably has a place and a use.  I'm sure they go on sale periodically, too.  But it seems like there is a runner consumerism where the goal seems to be to collect more stuff (and ever more finisher's medals . . . don't get me started).  I like running because of it's minimalism.  I don't need any other people, any equipment, a specific location, or all that much stuff.  Just about any stretch of road, sidewalk, trail or path will do.  Temperatures need to be somewhere between 0 and 100.  And it needs to be light enough that I can see where my feet are landing.

I'll tell you what I run in.  A pair of shoes.  Shorts from target.  Shirts from target, or the clearance rack at Kohls.  A hat and gloves when it's cold.  None of these items have cost more than $20.  Most were under $15.  A wristwatch.  I usually take my ipod shuffle with me.  And I think for runs longer than 15 miles, I'm going to need water.  Turns out that's generally available for free if you run past a park.

Summer time

I'm not sure how well the picture will turn out, so if you can't tell, its the first leaf of the year. Its not quite fully out, but it is a leaf on a real live tree. There are a few early flowers starting to grow, though they don't have any flowers yet.

I'm at the park with the girls and we're actually wearing shorts! Shorts and jackets, but still, it's shorts! We should break 70 today for the first time, and this is 4 straight days over 60, which we've only hit 3 or 4 times this year prior to this week.

After a long cold winter, it finally feels like the livin' is easy.

Eating Change

A few nights ago, Ella came into our room.  By my recollection it was about 12:30 (Shannon puts it at 1am) and Ella was pretty upset.  Eventually, we got out of her that she has swallowed a coin in the middle of the night.  (Because who doesn't wake up in the middle of the night and think, I'll just pop in a half Euro coin - the suspected culprit - before I nod back off?)

Shannon details the full story.  This would have been completely out of character, had Ella not eaten a button a few months ago.  So, assuming the worst, she did get some x-rays out of the deal, and it looks like it was all a ruse.  No coins were anywhere to be found - so I guess it was all a dream?

It's hard enough as a parent to figure out what your kid is saying sometimes.  Like, literally figuring out what words are coming out of their mouth.  A second layer of interpretation is often required to determine what your child means.  The third layer in the puzzle is then determining what you want to believe based on what your child is trying to tell you.  The fourth layer of fun here is when the kid may not even know what is true or real to begin with.  And of course the final layer of difficulty is that you have to do this in the middle of the night when all you really want to do is just go back to sleep.

All's well that ends well, I suppose.  Ella is a little bit more radioactive now.  The suspected coin remains at large as far as I know - so really the only place we're pretty sure it isn't is in Ella's gut.  Hopefully we don't dream up any more nebulous minor medical emergencies any time soon.

NCAA Fool

I am clearly an NCAA fool.  The championship game hasn't been played yet, but the results won't matter.  Kentucky and UConn will play for all the marbles tonight, after my bracket had them picked to win a combined zero games.  I'm telling you, you couldn't be as bad at this as I am if you tried.  Maybe next year I'll get my daughters to fill out brackets for me.

In the end, I got 18 of 32 opening round games right, 7 of 16 in the next round, and then 4/8 and 1/4 and 0/2.  That's 480 points using the ESPN scoring system (10, 20, 40, 80, 160, 320) and better than 14.2% of the nation.  So I guess someone is worse than me.  That's essentially my final ranking, because anyone who has either of the final two teams picked almost has to have done better than me.  They'd have 310 points from picking one team to the championship game already.

This then is the end of my coverage of the nerdiest sports event of the year.  Time to start planning for next year . . . maybe a dart board where I throw the darts right handed while flipping coins left handed . . . or ordering teams alphabetically by the coach's middle initial . . .

Spoiled

No one wants a spoiled kid.  Spoiled kids are rotten, no fun, miserable creatures to be around.  They have a sense of entitlement toward receiving everything they want, and every demand is a life-or-death situation.  “No daddy!  I NEED THAT NEW MY LITTLE PONY!!!”  Tears, screaming, tantrums, threats, punishments.  A spoiled kid will pull out everything from their playbook of terror.  As they age, they just add new tricks and deceptions to manipulate their parents into getting whatever they want.  Or, I suppose some parents are such willing parties that the children don’t have to resort to much to get what they want.

I don’t know what the “definition” of a spoiled kid is.  It’s probably one of those “I know it when I see it” sort of things.  But whatever “it” is, you don’t want it for a child.  To be clear here, I’m not talking about my kids.  They’re obviously perfect beyond description.  But for all those other children, how do you stop a kid from being spoiled?  My own kids ask for things occasionally, and sometimes they get what they want, and sometimes they don’t.  Our decisions as parents are based around some sort of gut feeling towards what they “need”.  Now, strictly speaking, we can probably argue that my girls don’t need a single Lalaloopsy.  But they do want them, and occasionally we acquiesce to their requests.  Probably less than some parents, and more than others.  But what factors go in to that calculus?  It’s often done quickly as we’re walking through Target, and revolves around some of these factors: price, my perception of the “quality” of the item, the number of similar items we already have, the likelihood that they will enjoy it, the appropriateness for my daughters, recent behavior of my daughters.  Have I missed any?  But you get the idea.  These are vaguely defined quantities, and we make a quick gut decision (usually ‘no’) and off we go.

There is one interesting item that was not in my list, which was my ability to afford the item in question.  You’d think that ‘price’ covered that, but that’s really just evidence of my own tight-wadery.  My girls aren’t getting any American Girl Dolls because I find them to be ridiculously overpriced, not because I couldn’t afford them.  (Though, honestly, I couldn’t afford very many of those dolls.)  Over the years, we’ve gone through various degrees of poverty and wealth, but never have we been in a situation where there was a real choice between Lalaloopsies and food.  (For the record, Loopsies are wonderful with gravy.)

So why don’t my girls get what they want more often?  At least part of the answer is that I want them to learn that you can’t always get what you want.  I want them to learn some frugality, and to learn to be happy with what they have rather than fixate on what they don’t.  I want them to learn that just because you can buy something, doesn’t mean you should.  I want them to learn that happiness is not derived from collecting stuff.  (Also, I’m tired of picking up the Loopsies we already have!)

Now that I’ve got you nodding your head in agreement with me, I spring my trap!  Who teaches these things to the adults?  Or, rather, did we successfully learn these things when our parents tried to teach us?  Yes, I’ve cleverly lured you into my thoughts on materialism and American wealth.  We seem to live in a culture of “more”.  More horsepower, more bandwidth, more resolution, more pixels, more square footage, more buttery flavor, more shoes, more channels, more crafts, more mani/pedis, more cruises, more trips to Hawaii, and more Loopsies.

Now, who am I to tell people that they’re spoiled?  No one, I suppose.  If you’ve earned the money, is it wrong to spend it on whatever new trinket you’ve got your eye on?  I don’t know that I’d say it’s wrong, but I’m not convinced it’s right, either.  Why do we buy ourselves things as adults?  “Because I want it and I can”?  I don’t know what the “right” number of horsepower, square footage or mani/pedis is, and maybe I’m bent out of shape feeling like the last person in the country that hasn’t been on a cruise, but I look around and I see so much wealth spent on more toys.  (Don't worry, I'm not going to go all Bruno Hautenfaust on you and take a vow of poverty and go off to live in the forest as a hermit.)  So, I’d be curious to hear thoughts on the subject, provided we can all agree not to get grumpy at each other.  Do we have too much stuff?  Is our prosperity good for us?  Are we spoiled with all the smart phones and cruises we want? Is any of this a bad thing?  Why can't Clark just be happy that people can have nice things? Does anyone want to take Clark on a cruise to see if he'll chill out?