Julia

Tonight at dinner Julia shut her eyes tight and said, "I'm hiding behind my eyes."

Yesterday Julia got to jump on a trampoline for the first time ever. How would you know which kid out there was her? She was the one hopping around saying "Sauté, sauté, sauté".

Tonight's prayer: "Bless us to go to Wal*Mart to see the fish that sucks on the glass."

Intestinal Fortitude

Shannon has a stomach with a strength comparable to paper. So, when things are functioning well, her stomach can be represented as a house of cards:

Then, when things go terribly wrong, the house of cards falls apart. Sure there is a mess to clean up, but it looks kinda like this:

I, on the other hand, have a stomach built like steel:

The downside here, is that when a steel bridge fails, the results are a little more impressive than that pile of playing cards:

The moral of the story here? It's no fun to spend a few hours in the middle of the night sitting on the bathroom floor waiting for your body to finally just go ahead and let the "bridge" collapse. And when it does finally go, it might just wake up the neighbors. (Assuming, of course, that the neighbors stinkin' dog is also up all night making an obnoxious din.)

Harry Potter

What if Harry Potter were a scientist?

At it's most basic level, being a scientist doesn't imply and special knowledge about physics or biology or geology, (or computers, but I've never really understood how that was a science). Being a scientist means studying the universe in a methodical, fact based way. It's looking for laws that define how the universe operates that then allow us to make predictions on future events. Anyway, someone out there has re-written Harry Potter with Harry as a rational scientist. I find it entertaining at least.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_Methods_of_Rationality

Baby Juice

The other day, Julia started asking for "baby juice". This isn't the first time she's come up with a name for something that has left us completely baffled. What on earth is Baby Juice? (Surely she doesn't want juice made from babies!)

When we asked her to show us what she wanted, she went right to the refrigerator and asked me to open it, which I did. "Do you see it in here?" I asked. "Baby Juice!" she said, pointing to the top shelf. And there it was, the only thing on the top shelf that she doesn't know the correct name for:

A week or two ago, Shannon bought a 2 liter bottle of root beer, something we don't normally have around the house. Julia found it in the pantry and was carrying it around the house, so I asked her if it was her baby. We wrapped it up in a blanket and rocked it for a bit and had a good laugh. 10 days later when she wanted it, how else was she supposed to describe it? It was sweet like Juice and you play with it like it's a Baby. It's "Baby Juice"!

Rain rain go away

It rained overnight in St. George. Normally, I love rain. It makes things cooler and cleaner. It sounds nice. It can be fun to watch. But this morning, I was laying in bed at about 5am listening to the rain and wishing it would stop. Why? Because it's watering the weeds!

We've spent a lot of time in the last 2 weeks trying to get rid of weeds. They're everywhere. They grow so fast. We've been ripping them out, whacking them, mowing them, spraying them and just about anything else we can think of. And now they just got another batch of water over night. They'll be 4 feet tall again by tomorrow. Grrrr.

P.S. You really don't need to use P.S. anymore

I tend to write in a very conversational style, which can be difficult and confusing at times. And when I write emails, I commonly put things in after my "signature" as a post script. We're all familiar with "P.S." and it's usage. It really comes from the Latin "post scriptum" meaning "written after" which you probably could have guessed if you didn't already know. But, if you think about it, the internet age has eliminated the need for post scripts.

If you were writing someone a letter a zillion years ago, or even typing someone a letter a few decades ago, you could easily conclude your letter, sign it, and then remember one more tidbit that you wanted to include. The only logical way to do it was with a p.s. at the end. No one wants to re-write a whole page just to insert a small paragraph. But these days, who writes? In the amount of time it takes to type "p.s." you could scroll up into the body of your letter/email and put your additional comments in the body of your text and no one need know that you only added it at the end. And yet, I still use it. Many others undoubtedly use it as well.

But, I suppose it's a good thing, because if we ever quit using it all together, our children or grandchildren would read some old book (Austen's characters always seem to be writing letters to each other) and encounter a mysterious "p.s." at the end of a letter and end up all confused.

Handed items

Handedness has been an interest of mine for many years. The majority of people are right-handed. I am left-handed. Neither of these things are anybody's fault. Likewise, no one is to blame for the fact that a great many objects are right-handed. In some cases, poor design leaves things very awkward to use for a lefty, when some better engineering could yield a more ambidextrous item. A computer mouse, for example, can be designed to be symmetrical allowing for use with either hand. Or, it can be very "form fitting". That fancy right-handed mouse is ok if you're going to use it in your own home, but please don't stock a whole computer lab with right-handed mice! (Note: I use a mouse with my right hand, as a majority of lefties do. This is because most of us don't want to have to rearrange every computer we ever sit at. Additionally, the most common windows shortcuts are left handed (select all, cut, copy, paste, save), so using the mouse with your right hand can speed up many processes. (What about on a Mac? Seems like that funky "apple" button is on the left.)

Other times, there is simply no way around it. There are many things that fall into this category, like screws. Yes folks, screws are right-handed. In general, putting a screw into something (a wood board, for instance) is harder than taking it out. Putting a screw in means twisting to the right, which for a righty means twisting your arm "out" (Shannon would know the technical term for this direction of twisting). Twisting in this direction is a much more powerful move than twisting "in". Try it. Even if you're just turning an imaginary screw driver. Twisting "in" makes your elbow poke out weird, and anything that makes your elbow poke out weird is probably not a very strong move. For lefties though, we're forced to drive screws with that awkward elbow poke. We're much better at taking screws out. That's where our power lies. But, a screw has to be either right handed or left handed. It just wouldn't work otherwise. So it might as well benefit the greatest number of people. (For the engineers out there: can you design an ambidextrous screw?)

I'm always on the lookout for items that are handed (either right or left). And they crop up in places that you wouldn't expect. The one I've discovered (or maybe just been reminded of) lately is zippers. About 2 months ago, my right thumb nail underwent some unknown trauma. I really have no idea what happened to it, but it seems to have died and then restarted. So, for the last few weeks, I've had tattered ends of half a nail on my right thumb. It's a bit tender, and I notice when I have to use it. And zippers on pants are all right handed. BUT, all this time in the bathroom thinking about handedness has made me realize that toilets are generally LEFT handed. Apparently people don't want to zip up their pants with the same hand they just flushed with.

Good thing we have Google

Because if we didn't have Google, some questions would just have to go unanswered.

For instance, let's say you were thinking to yourself: "Where can I learn more about 'fast mathlong on.comcom'?" Now, I can't say why you would ever be thinking that to yourself. You're the one thinking it, that's your problem. But if you were thinking that, you could turn to Google to help you out with all of your fast mathlong on.comcom problems. You'd type in "fast mathlong on.comcom" into Google and it would let you know that the third best place into the whole internet to find out about fast mathlong on.comcom is . . . . THIS BLOG!

That's right folks, I am a leading world authority on fast mathlong on.comcom. The third hit from Google on the topic is this post of mine from two years ago.

inFAQ

One of my faithful readers asks: "Did you quit blogging because everyone else did, too?"

Well, here at Bethletard Blogs, we care about our reader(s), so I'm here to answer the question.

Answer: No. I did pretty much quit blogging, but not just to fit in with the rest of the quit-blogging crowd. I'm my own man. I quit blogging because:

- December, January and the first part of February were a pukey ordeal at our house.

- January, February, March and the immediate future have been a worky ordeal at work. I've been working a lot more, at home a lot less, and blogging time has been hit hard. As has cleaning time, playing with Julia time, and just about everything else. The most discouraging part is that many days I get up and leave for work before anyone else is up, and then I get home an hour before Julia goes to bed. And even with all the work, it doesn't feel like much is getting done at work. But I'd like to get off that topic now.

This weekend we went up to the Wasatch front to do the Rex Lee Run. As I haven't been running (or exercising in any other way. remember that bit about working too much?) it was an accomplishment that I finished, didn't die and never had to stop and walk. The race results aren't up yet, but my watch put me at about 27:30. We barely got there before the race started, so we were way in the back. That isn't a huge problem because each runner has a chip on their shoe to individually track their time. I didn't cross the start line until several minutes after the race had started. But that means I did get to spend the first mile weaving amid the slower runners. I probably passed up about 1,000 people! So, at least I got to feel like I was really, really fast when in reality, I never even saw the fastest third of the field. Shannon walked the 5k with her mom and pushed Julia in the stroller. Shannon's dad also ran the 5k.

We've been doing the Rex Lee Run for a long time now and have quite the collection of t-shirts. So last year I started a new tradition which frankly isn't getting the attention that it should be. Those familiar with the run know that the t-shirts are almost the same every year, generally only changing the color scheme. But I've got enough shirts now that whatever color they pick, I already have a shirt of that color. Last year they did orange, so I wore the orange shirt from 2001(?). This year was blue, so I wore my blue shirt from 2000. (2010 was a royal blue, 2000 was a much darker blue, almost a little bit purple-ish.) Anyway, no one is observant enough at the race to notice that I'm the only person there wearing a shirt that is almost the right color, but slightly different. So, if you're at the race next year, look for me. I'll be the guy wearing the shirt that is very slightly different than everyone else's.

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Did you quit blogging because everyone else did, too?