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Just curious to see how the dominos fall.





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Snow Chores

Monday was a scheduled no-school day.

Tuesday - everyone went to school normally.

Wednesday - Snow Day

Thursday - 2 hour delay (no school for 2 of the 4)

Friday - Snow Day.

M's Tooth

A video log of M's Tooth.

Gloves that Don't Fit

Cul-de-Sac Rules

Living on a cul-de-sac rules. It is an extesion of the yard and an informal summer gathering place.

Get Ooouuuuttt of the Pictures

Not that I'm trying to wish winter away or to support teasing by face-placement. But I do love playing on the cul-de-sac, listening the all of the neighborhood come to life, and (given the opportunity) being able to read while next to the street.

Lessons and the Greatest Generation

I had a thought the other day regarding learning lessons through difficult or trying times. The "Greatest Generation" (you know, the generation that was born in the depression and had then fought in World War II).

Anyway, perhaps one of the reasons that they have been labeled the Greatest Generation was that they got many difficult lessons in a relatively short time span -- lessons from the depression in four years and then lessons from World War II in four years.

All of us probably learned or will learn the same lessons, but it will take a lifetime (or at least the adult portion of a lifetime) to learn what they learned in eight years.

Just a thought that I had.

Notebook Note

Anyone that hangs around me for any length of time knows or notices that I usually have a pocket-sized notebook and pen with me.

I carry this pad of paper for the overt reason of taking notes of something that I either really want to remember or something that I need to do. On one level, it provides people with whom I work a bit of comfort – when they utter a profound thought or state a project need – seeing the notebook come out is a non-verbal cue. With the notebook, I am saying, “Your current discussion/statement is important enough that I’m going to try to make sure that I can remember it.”

People, being the creatures that we are, usually respond with a bit of chagrin and needling toward me. This is analogous to people not being able to take a complement – I get the needling because somewhere in my fellow conversationalist’s psyche, he finds it difficult to believe that someone thinks enough of his/her thought to put it to paper.

That is Reason #1 that I carry a pad of paper.

Covertly, I carry the pad as a reminder of my dad.

Years ago, when I was just out of college, visiting back home, and running errands with Dad, he said, “Do you have a piece of paper? . . . of course you do, you’re an engineer.”

Those few words, in a passing moment (probably in a hardware store) placed upon me a little bit more of my dad’s admiration and love toward me. It felt good.

It still feels good today.

That is Reason #2 that I carry my brown-covered, pocked-sized, curved-to-match-my-butt pad of paper.

PixSun 3 - Raising Boys and Girls

First Day of School Picture 2007.

The difference between raising boys and raising girls is obvious to anyone with the chance to raise boys. . .

Far, Far Away

On radio a couple weeks ago, I heard a story about four galaxies that are "racing" toward each other and preparing to collide. These galaxies are approximately 5 billion light years away.I have a few thoughts about this story -- or rather about the 5 billion light years:

• These galaxies have probably (almost undoubtedly) already collided and whatever happened to them after the collision probably completed itself a very long time ago.
• These galaxies are incomprehensibly far away -- the distance that light travels in a second is something like 172,000 miles; the distance that light travels in a year is 365 times 24 times 3600 times that; then, don't just multiply that by one billion, multiply that by 5 billion. That is one heck of a long way away.
• Finally, something that far in the distance it must take up an amazingly small amount of the night sky. Jostle the telescope (or whatever they use to sense the galaxies that far away) just a smidgen, and you would complete the miss all four galaxies.
• Space must be relatively haze-free for the light to be able to travel that far and not just die out.
  

BkThtTue 3 - Thought Repetition

From p.39 of One Small Step Can Change Your Life by Robert Maurer, Ph. D.:

• Try this experiment. Tomorrow at work or wherever you spend your time, ask one of your friends the color of the car parked next to hers. Your friend is likely to give you a funny look and then admit she has no idea. Repeat the question the next day and the day after that. By the fourth or fifth day, your friend will have not choice: As she pulls into the parking lot the next morning, her brain will remind her that that silly person (you) is going to ask that silly question, and she'll be forced to store the answer in her short-term memory bank.

PixSun 2 - Go Karts

Go Carts in a big farm field.

Faith

Initially, this post was going to be about making assumptions. But then last night I read a paragraph about faith. Here is Merriam-Webster's definition of faith:

Main Entry: ¹faith
Pronunciation: 'fAth
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural faiths /'fAths, sometimes 'fA[th]z/
Etymology: Middle English feith, from Anglo-French feid, fei, from Latin fides; akin to Latin fidere to trust -- more at BIDE
1 a : allegiance to duty or a person : LOYALTY b (1) : fidelity to one's promises (2) : sincerity of intentions
2 a (1) : belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2) : belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion b (1) : firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2) : complete trust
3 : something that is believed especially with strong conviction; especially : a system of religious beliefs faith>
synonym see BELIEF
- on faith : without question on faith>

In reference to Definition 2b(1), do people (me included) go to church because they have faith (i.e., is their no proof) or is there another, subconscious reason that they go?