Fast Sunday

Found attached to the calendar early last month:

Dear J***,

They cancelled fast sunday. By the way how is your day. Just to tell you the boys didn't do this so don't punishe them

sinceraly,
A***** your wife.

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Dog Daze

Well, the Tamagotchis and the Nintendogs didn't work! I've been trying to prevent this day from happening. But it's hard to be the kind of dad who refuses to let his three boys get a dog. I do have a good excuse to not want a dog. Our first dog was a disaster! I was trying to stall until they really wanted one and really worked me to get one. The "asking" really started this last month. As the 8yo put it, "If I hadn't whined at you so much, then we wouldn't have gotten a dog. So sometimes good things come from whining." Whatever.

We went to the dog adoption day last Sat. at the PetSmart. We wanted to adopt to get an adult dog to avoid all the puppy issues (potty training, crying a night, chewing, etc.). But of course, they had a couple of really cute black lab puppies. Some background: my sister has a really sweet black lab. So we went for it.





They had to do the surgery to infertilize her, so we had to wait until this Thurs to get the dog. It was all the boys could think about: How many more days for the dog; When are we going to get the dog; Why can't we have the dog now? Every prayer included the line, "thank you that we can get a puppy!"
Then they called on Thursday- the clinic wasn't open so we had to wait until Friday. Uh oh. It was a lot of weeping and gnashing of teeth. We went out and picked her up Fri. at lunch. She was really woozy and vomitous from her anesthesia. So we took her home and put her to bed in her kennel.






















Here are my observations after 24 hours of dog. She is very sweet. She knows how to scratch at the door if she needs to go (she's only had a couple of accidents). She slept through most of last night. She seems to like us. It's going OK. There was a problem agreeing on a name. The final compromise is Maddie.

She's at my feet right now chasing her tail. I guess having a dog isn't so bad.

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Come on let's cruise ya got nothin' to lose

This was a big week for the 5yo!

This week the 5yo learned how to ride his bike without training wheels! I'd been noticing that he was starting to balance on his scooter, and I thought that if he can balance on one two-wheeled toy, he should be able to do all two-wheeled toys. So off with the training wheels!

He was actually pretty excited about it and I grabbed onto his seat to support him as he pedaled. Off we go! We biked down the sidewalk to the nearby park, and then around the park. He'd start to balance and I'd let go. This resulted in a lot of crashes onto grass and into bushes. But he was a trooper and kept going. He was actually having a lot of fun couldn't stop giggling (I think that the giggling was the major cause for most of the crashes) I was exhausted and my back was really sore because his bike is really short, so we called it a day.

The next night we went back. He started doing a bit better and was working on his braking, steering and balancing. He'd almost get it and then steer off the sidewalk onto the grass, and then tumble over. On the way back to our house on day 2, he just took off. He rode all the way home by himself, and was circling the driveway when I made it home! Eureka.

The next night was golden, he rode pretty much all the way around the park by himself, except or a few forays down the grass hills. He said that it was accidental, but I think he liked going fast down the hills.

There was one bad crash, and he landed on his handlebars. It looked really painful!

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Militia Training 2007

Last Friday I went out with a bunch of guys that like guns- The way Cindy Sheehan loves attention. Seriously.

We went out into the Arizona desert and found a big hill to shoot against. There were silencers, large caliber scoped rifles with the bi-pod mount in front so you can shoot without your arm getting tired. One of the guns even had a bayonet! The main guy even had this crazy explosive called tannerite. According to him, it was developed as a training aid for snipers. Apparently it can be difficult to tell if you hit your target when the target is thousands of feet away. With the tannerite, when they hit the target, it would go BOOM! It's supposedly quite stable and will not explode if a pistol round hits it, only high-powered rifle rounds. It was really fun! To the side you can see how it launched a big blue barrel. The picture shows the barrel at about half-way up! I felt a little bit under-armed with my 9mm pistol and my two 22 caliber rifles.

I learned a couple of things while shootin' with the men. 1) we should have just invaded Russia during the cold war and 2) we should just invade China right now! Why do I say these controversial things? 1) The gun guy bought a bunch of Russian ammo over the Internet and only about half of it worked. If we would have invaded Russia, their soldiers would have been too busy trying to find a shell that would fire to really fight back. It's really disconcerting to pull the trigger and only hear a click. 2) He had a Chinese assault rifle. It weighed about 80 pounds and was impossible to hit anything. Our soldiers could just walk up to the Chinese lines and demand surrender while the Chinese soldiers tried vainly to aim that lead brick to shoot back.

So Memorial Day I took the little boys out to the same spot for a little target practice. I know, I know, we're extremely careful. My boys have been drilled since birth about the basic safety rules of guns. (Treat every gun as if it's loaded, never point a gun at someone, if one of your friends wants to show you his dad's gun, come home immediately!) I firmly believe that if you refuse to allow your boys to learn to use guns responsibly and to respect them, you're living dangerously. Boys are interested in guns and it's a lot safer to allow them to investigate them under close adult supervision than sneaking around with their friends.

Anyway, we had a great time. The boys needed my help supporting the weight of the rifles, but they were able to hit a few cans and boxes. We took turns, so that only one person was shooting at a time and the others stayed safely behind the shooting line.




Here's a flowering cactus that we saw on the drive. I liked the contrast of the delicate beauty of the bloom against the drab cruelty of the cactus and surroundings.

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A Big Change

Well, I keep hoping that I'm going to find a lot of time to blog. But it's not happening- I just keep getting busier. So- I've made a decision. I am not going to blog as I have in the past. The title of this blog (as you can easily see) is A Humble Opinion. To me that implies that a certain amount of opinion should be shared. However, the overwhelming majority of my readers are people who don't really care about reading opinion pieces. They just want to see pictures of my kids and hear about what we're doing. So, that's what I'm going to do! Low on opinion, high on feel-good family info. That should be much simpler to write and I should be able to do it much more often!

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The Truth about 4/29

You've all heard the official story about the bridge collapse in California. You know, the one where a gas tanker truck exploded after an accident. The resulting fire weakened the steel in an overpass, which caused it to collapse. At least that's the Official Story. Remember what Rosie O'Donnell taught us when referring to 9/11- "I do believe that it was the first time in history that fire has ever melted steel."

Fortunately, there are those out there who can expose the TRUTH.

I found this (tongue-in-cheek) website that EXPOSES THE TRUTH.

Some of the funniest lines:

• The “crash” occured at 3:45 a.m. — when, suspiciously, there are no witnesses.

• Meanwhile Oakland firefighters … arrived with two engines at 3:55 a.m., just 14 minutes after the collision…. almost as if their response had been planned. They worked quickly to seal off the area from all civilians, then claimed that the entire freightliner had been conveniently vaporized and “No sign of the truck remains at the scene.”

• Mosqueda family friend Rev. Oliver Escalante claims that “If he walked away, it’s only because the Lord was with him”, which also strains the limits of credibility. If the Lord was with him, wouldn’t he have avoided the crash altogether?

• The section of the bridge appears to have fallen straight down, exactly as it would have from demolition charges.

Oh, and Rosie- Maybe you should do some research before mouthing off.

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Work Japanese

I just left the employ of a Japanese-owned company. There were good and bad things about working for a Japanese-owned company. One of the bad things was that the Japanese employees were consistently unhappy and dour, and man, were they chain smokers. I think those poor addicts spent 10 minutes out of every hour, rain or shine, puffing away.

I was never asked to go to Japan for business. Although I would really like to vacation there, and there are a lot of things that that I would love to experience in Japan, I'm really glad that I didn't have to go for business. This was such a blessing for me. My buddy, who also recently found new employment, has posted about one of his trips to corporate Japan. This will explain why I never wanted to go. You should read the whole thing, but I'm going to reproduce a lot of it here. This may explain the attitude of the Japanese employees.

The men are dressed in the same light two-tone green jackets identified as their uniform, and is only to be warn at work. All wear glasses that magnify the redness in their eyes that obviously comes from suffering for the company. Long messy hair and dirty pants tell me they are here for only one reason. To suffer just like their boss does. The men are expected to stay until their manager leaves. The manager is expected to stay until his manager leaves. He is expected to stay until his manager leaves, and he does not leave until 8pm because he too is suffering for the company.

I heard a lot about this attitude. The workers were expected to be at work until their boss left. They did not work, necessarily, but they had to be there. Going home to their families was not a priority. In fact, the older executives often travelled with a young attractive female. I assumed she was some sort of assistant. But, no, she was the mistress. And everyone knew it. Apparently the wife is expected to look the other way.

The women her are machines. They are all to look the same in their uniforms, which are not to be worn to or from work, but only at work. They are to act like machines, which sit and do work. Machines don’t talk to anyone, they don’t look at anyone, they don’t read e-mails from friends, and they do not talk on the phone. They sit at their desk and work. If they get tired, they sit at their computer and close their eyes while they hold their head up with one hand hold the mouse with the other. This is ok, because they are at their desk, and appear to be working and suffering like the rest...

I have heard that in Japan if you have a boyfriend or girlfriend, you don’t talk about your relationships. Only gossip about others. If a woman does have a boyfriend, she may get fired from her job. The reasoning behind this, is because she will eventually get married, have babies, and have to quit her job to raise her family like every Japanese woman should, (not all do however).

The Japanese women at my job were definitely treated poorly. They were not viewed as important 'team members,' but as objects to be ordered around.

I make a pit stop at the restrooms and try not to touch anything while in there. The toilets are really urinals embedded in the ground. This is typical Japanese. You really do have to squat to do your thing, the toilet paper is really wax paper on a 4” roll. And watch your wallet so it does not fall in either. The urinals are typical American urinals. No paper towels or rolls to dry your hands, so you use your handkerchief you are to carry with you everywhere for a number of reasons, one of which, to dry your hands.

Speaking of getting attention, every now and then, when I entered the restroom, there would be a tiny old Japanese lady hunched over wearing a dirty pink outfit, yellow rubber gloves holding a bucket and scrubbing brush, cleaning like she is suffering just like the office workers. She is just part of the restroom and no one pays any attention to her and you just go about your business.

Pretty funny, isn't it! I can't imagine having to squat like that with the little lady mopping all around me. Talk about performance anxiety.

So, the next time you're frustrated at work, take a deep breath and remember: it could be worse.

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The Boat Rental

We love the water. We love to swim in pools or at lakes, or as we recently discovered, in the ocean.

It's all good when you're by the water.

We have made it a yearly tradition to head up to Bear Lake every summer for a week as a family. The boys are little enough that they love just playing in the sand, but they also love it when We rent SeaDoos. I love to rent the fastest SeaDoo that they have. It is such a rush to be going that fast. Someday- hopefully soon- I'd like to head up to the lakes that people tell me are nearby where we now live and rent some.

This last year we also rented a boat for an hour to try that out. Everyone had a blast, except the 4yo, who was pretty freaked out by the entire experience. It ended up being pretty windy that day, and we had 2-3 foot swells. That's pretty big for a little boat with newbie boaters in it. I of course, thought it was great fun and tried to see how much air I could get with the boat.

That had to stop when everyone was screaming for me to stop and I just about gave my wife whiplash. Sorry sweetie! Then I practiced driving along the top of the wave, for a smooth ride. That was pretty fun.

Once the waves died down, it was time to try the tube. The 7yo was the bravest, and hopped right in. You can tell from the photo that he had a blast. He's a pretty good swimmer, but it was a bit scary to let him be out there alone. I didn't try too hard to knock him off the tube with crazy quick turns and such. My wife tried riding the tube, but she had a hard time holding on , so she gave up quickly. At least she tried! She's a good sport.

I really wanted a go at the tube, but that would involve her driving the boat for a bit. She was scared, but she did it for me. I told the boys about having a lookout and holding up the flag if the rider(me) falls off. I was ready to go!

I jumped in the water, which was pretty chilly for August, and pulled myself up on the tube. I smiled and gave the thumbs-up to start the ride. It started slowly with the driver getting used to the controls. I gave the thumbs-up for more speed. She obliged, and off we went. She was really flying and I was really getting a beating. There were still some pretty big waves out there. I was just about knocked off the tube by a big wave and I looked up at the boat. My wife was focused on driving and the kids were focused on what was ahead. No one was focused on me! If I let go, I be adrift in the middle of that lake and they wouldn't even know! I don't think my wife and kids would have been able to find me. I would have been found days later by a steamer from the merchant marines, or something. Maybe the Bear Lake Monster would have eaten me.

On we went, the short train with a caboose of terror. My wife was really getting into the speed, the waves were doing their best to knock me off the tube, and I was holding on for dear life! I was yelling like an American Idol early-rounder, trying to get someones attention. This went on for probably 6 hours (maybe 5-10 minutes) until one of the kids noticed me and told my wife to slow down. My arms and hands were numb, and I was glad the ride was over, but it was still a lot of fun.

Look at me! Capt'n Jefferson!

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New Discoveries

After some thought, I've decided to lift the veil a bit on my personal information. I've been trying to be very obscure about who exactly I am, and my family, and where we live. This is to discourage serial killers and kidnappers from easily finding us. I've decided that I'm going to have a difficult time blogging without at least revealing the location to which I've moved. Here it is (drumroll...) Arizona!

I think that it would be pretty simple to deduce where we've moved from future posts, and I think that anyone who is motivated enough could go through the various family links/blogs and figure out who and where we are. I also really want to talk about the new, fun, cool, bad, frustrating things about a new state and climate.

(Note to any serial killers or kidnappers or whatever- keep this in mind. I'm 6 foot 8 and 250 pounds. I own and practice using handguns. I can also be pretty foul tempered. So step off!)

Here are the main things that really strike me about where I live.

Good things:

• It is beautiful here! Because nothing really grows unless you water, people have to plan what to plant. Even the the landscapes along roadways are carefully designed. I live in a planned community with full time landscapers and they do a great job on all the public areas.

• There are no/few mosquitoes. I can sit outside on my sweet patio in my new sweet patio rocking chair as the sun goes down without bug spray, candles, or fans. This is HUGE for me.

• The weather is wonderful! (Disclaimer, I have only lived here during March and April- I hear the July and August are horrible). The days are sunny and the skies are blue.

• There are lizards in my back yard.

• I have no grass to mow or fertilize. We can walk 100 feet to a huge park with lots of grass.
  

• My yard is beautiful. There is a gorgeous patio and the plants and landscaping are striking. I've seen several cute old ladies stop and look over my yard as they walk by.
  

• I live really close to really nice parks, walking trails, and catch-and-release fishing ponds.
  

• The schools here seem rigorous. The pace of learning and the curriculum seems more serious than where we used to live.
  

• I've been swimming a LOT. There are at least 2 big community pools that we have access to year round, and my bro-in-law has a pool that could be at a resort that we can use whenever.
  

• It has rained three or four times in the 6 weeks we've lived here. Serious amounts of water. I thought this was a desert! The air smells wonderful after the rain.
  

• We're getting a spa in the back yard. Midnight tubbing under the stars.

Bad things:

• The houses here do not have basements. I would think in a place where is routinely hits 100-115 in the summer, the houses would be entirely underground. Like the hatch on Lost. I guess they don't have a frost line to interfere with footings, so they don't need to dig, so they don't. Not having a basement cuts into my storage space significantly.
  

• It's really hard to find a gas station. I think there must be a law that keeps gas stations away from freeway off-ramps, because there are few by the freeway. The ones that I have found are also camouflaged to look less commercial and are therefore harder to spot.
  

• Everything is REALLY far away. Despite living very close to my work, I'm driving much more than I used to. Everything seems to be a half-hour away. We live on the cutting edge of development growing out from the city, so we have to drive to find businesses.
  

• I have killed two cockroaches in my garage. Big ones that look like survivors from a radioactive spill. Yuck! There are also these stupid slow crickets that infest my yard. I guess the lizards like them. I had an exterminator come out and I'm finding lots of dead creepies outside, and found the cockroaches dead, too.
  

• You need to watch out for scorpions. We haven't seen any and they are pretty rare in our area, but they could appear. I'm told the key is to keep their food supply out of your yard (hence the exterminator).
  

• The schools here seem more rigorous. I mean really! Does a 4th grader need 1 to 1.5 hours of homework a night?
  

• My kids are becoming cold wussies. They want jackets when it drops below 70 degrees.
  

I am really happy here. I do wish I wasn't so far from family, but what do you do?

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By the way...

Hasn't Lost been incredible the last few weeks? Now I remember why I liked this show so much. And Heroes?!? That is so amazingly great.

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Well, I'm back!

My last post was on February 21, 2007. Anyone reading this already knows that, because you've all been checking all the time for my newest post. I can only apologize and offer as an explanation that I've totally changed everything in my life! That's not completely true- I still have my sweet wife and 3 awesome kiddies- but everything else has changed.

One of the things that has changed is that I get tired and fall asleep at 11:30. This is a new and unwelcome experience for me. I would get a lot done between 11:30 and 1:30 in my previous life- like blogging! I haven't really come up with a good solution to my lack of blogging time, but hopefully I'll figure something out.

I'll fill you all in on what's been happening over the next while, but I'd like to offer a humorous story for your enjoyment.

The drive to from our old home to our new home is about 12 hours if you go at a decent clip and don't stop too much. We had two cars, both jammed full of breakable belongings and people. But, at least we had our integrated entertainment system in the van for the kiddies. I can't imagine a 1 hour drive without it, let alone a 12 hour drive.

About 4 hours into the drive, we stopped for gas and treats. Upon returning to our vehicles, we made the horrifying discovery that the van wouldn't start. The van's battery had been acting up for the past few months, and I guess the strain of powering the integrated entertainment system was just too much for it. It was dead. As you probably know, when a car is running, it isn't taking any power from the battery, it's actually charging the battery. The battery is only used for starting the car and for running the electrical system when the car isn't running. (disclaimer- this may not actually be true. Ask your father. Actually, ask my father, he is the car guru.)

So, I jump started the van and was faced with a choice- continue the trip having to jump start the van at every stop, or try to find an auto-parts store in the middle of nowhere and get a new battery. It seemed to risky with the family along to do otherwise, so I went in search of a battery.

We located a store within a half hour and I bought the new battery. I had a bunch of tools conveniently packed in an accessible location in the van for such an occasion, so I wasn't too worried about the changeover. I mean, come on, it's a battery- simple job! I unhooked the battery and started dismantling the "clever" battery mounting mechanism.

I can't remember what I wanted to ask my wife, but I walked over to her window and motioned for her to roll it down. She pushed the "down" button and nothing happened. Duh, the battery is unhooked. So I motioned for her to open the door. She pushed the "unlock" button and nothing happened. She looked at my sister (did I mention that my sweet sister sweetly offered to come with us?) and then looked at me with a "now what do I do" look. I stood there in a mild state of amused shock as two grown women discussed how dangerous it was that they were locked in the car, just because the battery was unhooked. Finally, I pointed at the door and mouthed "pull the handle." My wife and sister lost it and laughed at themselves for a long time. Isn't there a pollack joke about being locked in your car?

The battery changeover went quickly and we were back on the road in no time. About 5 minutes after we started driving, I got a phone call- the integrated entertainment system was not working! Then I remembered about the security code: The integrated entertainment system has a security system meant to deter theft. If the radio/DVD player is unhooked from the battery for any reason (including theft or replacement of a battery), the security code must be entered before it will turn on. If you read in the owner's manual, it clearly states that you should not keep the code in the car, in case the car is broken into. Our code was safely not in our car. Our code was safely in our filing cabinet inside the 53 foot trailer with the rest of our stuff hours away from us. There was still something like 10 hours left of our trip. :(

Now, I know that many road trips have been taken with young children without an integrated entertainment system. I know that pioneers walked for months across plains with young children without an integrated entertainment system. I also know that television has only been around a short time compared to the history of man. No one would have died without the integrated entertainment system. However, why should I, a modern man living in 2007, the owner of an integrated entertainment system, have to put up with 10 hours of whining/fighting/yelling/bored/crying children? Can I ask you that? Even worse, the thought of having to subject my sweet wife and sister to such torment. (And then hear about it for days after the fact!) This could not stand.

I called the dealer and begged for help. I explained my situation and begged. "I'm sorry", the uncaring dealer parts man answered, "You have to tear the dash apart and read me the serial number off the radio before I can give you your secret code." Let's think about that statement for a moment. 1) The code is meant to make the radio useless for someone who steals it, 2)if I had stolen the radio I would be able to read the serial number off said radio, 3)With this serial number, I could call the dealer and get the secret code, 4)what the heck!!!

I tried to reason with the uncaring dealer parts man by walking him through steps 1-4. Despite my superior logic skills, he couldn't give me the code without the serial number. Argh! I was not going to tear the dash apart in the middle of our trip.

So off we went, the joy of the trip stolen by a useless security code. I am writing the code on the cover of the manual next time, because anyone who steals my radio is welcome to it. I just need access to the @$$#&4! code just in case I have to replace my battery. My wife and sister were trying random codes. I suppose it was possible that they would stumble on the code since there are only like 500 trillion unique combinations of numbers to input for the code. I guess when you're bored, you'll try anything.

Then my wife decided to have a prayer. You always hear about families stranded in blizzards that have a prayer and just when they finish a tow truck just happens by, saving their lives. This was not such a situation, but it was pretty important to the people trapped in the van of whining. After praying, my wife remembered that she had put the secret code in my planner. She grabbed the planner, and there it was!!! The day was saved.

The battery worked well for the rest of the trip, and continues to work to this day. That is important, otherwise my wife might just die from heat exhaustion after being locked in there :)

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I made a Padua

After a coughing fit at dinner...
4yo: Dad, I made a padua!
Dad: A what?
4yo: A padua.
Dad: A paddle?
4yo: No, a padua.
Dad: Oh, a padawan.
4yo: No, Dad, a padua. Cough, burp, cough, burp, cough, burp...
Dad: I get it! You made a pattern!
4yo: Yea, a padua.

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Burning down the house

I have about 10 days until I sell my house. We've lived here for about 2 and a half years, so you'd think that the percent chance of major damage happening to my house during this 10 day period of time would be small. Let's do the math for those interested. 10 days/900 days=1.1%. That's pretty small. Maybe I'm just more sensitive to any damage done right now, but there seems to be a lot happening to my house the last week or so.

• My 8yo ran into a corner and dented it with his knee.
• A little cousin tripped and jammed a (plastic) lightsaber into the wall in the stairway. A real lightsaber would have been much worse.
  
• An eraser for a whiteboard was smashed into the carpet, leaving a nasty black stain. We was able to mostly get it out with our carpet cleaner, but I can still see it in the right light.
• And the piece de resistance. I just about burned the place down.

I'm done with home improvements on this house, but I noticed that some small rodent had dug a home under my back patio. This displeased me, and I had 3 rodent-killer smoke bombs left. So, I thought I'd take care of the problem.

The process is this: wait until evening so the rodent will be home, find the front and back doors of the rodent dwelling, block one with dirt, stick a rodent bomb in the other opening, light the bomb, cover the remaining opening, and wander off to enjoy your rodent-free evening. I've done this before without incident. (Well, I guess the rodent had an incident.)

So I lit the smoke bomb, and buried the hole. I went inside and retired to the basement to watch Nacho Libre with my boys and my sister, who was visiting. As the movie progressed, we started smelling more and more smoke. I just thought that some of the smoke from the bomb was getting into the house. The smoke kept getting worse, even though I was ignoring it! I went out to investigate.

This is what I found. I had blocked the hole with decorative tree bark, not non-flammable dirt. Not so smart. There was a large section of bark that was glowing red hot. Fortunately it didn't ignite into flames, but it was really hot. I got a bunch of water and doused it, but the smoke was everywhere. The hole was close enough to the house foundation that had it ignited, it could have really done damage.

What happens if you burn down your house right before selling it? I guess the move would be off. That would be bad.

I blame George Bush and Karl Rove.

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I love technology

I really love to read. I mean, I really love to read. I devour books. I especially love it when I find a good series made up of 10 books where each book is 800 pages long. I like slowly unfolding political dramas, I really love books with betrayal and murder. I really like thrillers, spy novels, alternate history books, fantasy, science fiction, history. It's all good.

Let me tell you about the new way the I have to feed my addiction.

Books are expensive. Even paperback books are like $8.00. Even though I do like to re-read books, I still can't afford to buy all the books I want to read. And then there's the book storage problem. Books are big and heavy and take up a lot of space. So I get a lot of books at the library. I live in a small county and our libraries are very poor. The library by my house might have book 1, 3, 4 and 7 of an 8 book series. I don't have time to drive to 3 different libraries to get the books I need to complete a series. Plus, I'm almost always at the library with my kids, and they don't have enough patience for a lot of browsing. It used to be really frustrating.

Notice that I said "used to be." A few months ago I figured out that I can access my county's library database through their website. I can browse for books there. I can also see if the branch I use has copies on the shelf, or at least when the book I want is due.

The best thing of all? I can request books. I put in my card number and my secret pin number and I can request any book to be picked up at any branch. It doesn't matter if a certain branch doesn't have all the books for a series, I just request the missing books. So, whenever I hear of a book that I might want to read, I log in and request it at the library that I drive past on my way home from work. Then, in a few days I get an email saying that it's ready! I just stop off on the way home and walk up to the counter. They have my books all wrapped up for me on the shelf there and I'm out the door. Slick as black ice.

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The Eyes

We bought this picture a few years ago for a decoration for my oldest boy's room. We're always trying to find decorations that we like and that aren't too expensive. We also liked the sentiment expressed in the picture. I hope my boys turn out to be brave, truthful, and unselfish.

I took the photo of the picture this evening to show you. You'll notice that it's not hanging on a wall, it's stuck in the back of a closet.

There's something wrong with the picture, something eerie. The boy in the picture may, in fact, be alive.

This hung for a lot of years in my oldest's room. He hated it. He was always asking for it to be taken down and out of his room. "At night," he said, "the eyes look like they're moving. They move from side to side." Finally I relented and we moved it to the next boy's room. Whatever, kids are weird.

From the moment we put it up in the 2nd boy's room, he complained about it. He wanted it gone. My wife asked him why he didn't like it. "The eyes, they look at me and follow me around. Especially at night. I hate it." I made him keep it up for several months. I thought that he had just picked up on something from his brother, and after a while he'd let it go. He never did. Almost every day he's ask for us to get rid of it. My wife took it down and put it in the littlest boy's room.

He wouldn't hear of it. He threw a fit. "Why don't you like it?" I asked him. "Because that boy is ugly!" he replied.

So now, the picture sits collecting dust in a closet. I will admit that the eyes do seem to follow me around the room. Especially when the room is dark. Is the boy alive? Is the picture haunted? I wouldn't dare to guess.

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The Gigapxl Project

I like to pretend to be a photographer. My dad bought a really cool 35mm Fuji film camera for me as a young boy. It took really nice pictures, but it was fully manual, so it was slow to get the settings just right. I never really mastered it, but it did start me thinking about framing shots, color, shapes, etc.

The guys at the Gigapxl project have created their own amazing digital camera. Early images started at 260 Megapixels, and the latest images contain 4,000 Megapixels (4 Gigapixels). That is a lot of pixels! They are travelling all over and taking ultra-high res pictures of the world. Check out the the amazing detail in the pictures, even when the image is greatly enlarged. Don't you wish your digital camera could take pictures like these! The image to the right is of Balboa Park, San Diego.

Here's the full gallery- they have some amazing shots, including some breathtaking panoramas.

Some of my favorite images.

• A beautiful day a the beach watching paragliders reveals man's darker side.
• You can see the hair on the man's legs- amazing!
• A beautiful picture of the San Diego Temple.

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Transferring a Pharmacy Licence

It seems like you always hear horror stories about doctors who lose their license in one state because of terrible malpractice. These doctors seem to be able to move to another state all willy-nilly and start over again. I'm sure I've read all about this in the Reader's Digest!

It is not that way with pharmacy.

You may have heard that there is a shortage of pharmacists. My wife gets some sort of job offer every week by mail or phone. The general population is aging and in need of a wide array of drugs to ease their passage to the next life. Pharmacies are popping up on almost every street corner. At the same time, the number of pharmacists graduating is not increasing much, and many older pharmacists are retiring. Many of the pharmacists that graduate are women, and many of them only want to work part time (like my wife). These factors are resulting in a huge shortage of pharmacists.

We're moving to Arizona for a job change for me. Because of the pharmacy shortage and because she's really good, my wife was able to easily find a great job with great benefits. In contrast, getting her pharmacy licence changed to an Arizona licence has been amazingly difficult. This is a great showcase of government bureaucracy at work. Since there doesn't seem to be any other guide to this process, I thought I'd create a helpful step-by-step guide for any other foolish saps that want to transfer their pharmacy license to Arizona.

How to get Arizona to accept a transfer of an out of state pharmacy licence

Step 1: Send $300 and application form to National Board of Pharmacy.
Step 1a: Wait for 3-4 weeks for the National Board of Pharmacy to review the application form and mail a different application form back.
Step 1b: Receive application form from the National Board for the Arizona State Board

But wait, my wife didn't explain on the 'job history' section of the application what she was doing in the spring 1999. (She was on bed rest for 4 months, pregnant with our 8yo). This requires a significant delay as she had to respond to their request for information.

Step 2: Send $300 and the state application form from the National Board to the Arizona State Board of Pharmacy
Step 2a: Wait for 2 weeks for the Arizona State Board of Pharmacy to review the application form and mail a different application form back.
Step 2b: Receive new application form and 1 inch thick packet of Arizona State Pharmacy Law. Not a study guide, or a practice test. The actual state law. Here's an excerpt.

36-2522. Registration requirements

A. Every person who manufactures, distributes, dispenses or uses for scientific purposes any controlled substance within this state or who proposes to engage in the manufacture, distribution, dispensing of or using for scientific purposes any controlled substance within this state must first:

1. Obtain and possess a current license or permit as a medical practitioner as defined in section 32-1901 or as a pharmacy, pharmacist, manufacturer or wholesaler pursuant to title 32, chapter 18.

2. Be a registrant under the federal controlled substances act (P.L. 91-513; 84 Stat. 1242; 21 U.S.C. sec. 801 et seq.).

B. A person who is registered under this chapter to manufacture, distribute, dispense or use for scientific purposes controlled substances may possess, manufacture, distribute, dispense or use for scientific purposes those substances to the extent authorized by that person's license or permit in conformity with this chapter and title 32, chapter 18.

C. The following persons need not register and may lawfully possess controlled substances under this chapter:

1. An agent or employee of any registered manufacturer, distributor or dispenser of any controlled substance if he is acting in the usual course of his business or employment.

2. A common or contract carrier or warehouseman or that person's employee whose possession of any controlled substance is in the usual course of business or employment.

3. An ultimate user or a person in possession of any controlled substance pursuant to a lawful order of a medical practitioner or in lawful possession of a schedule V substance.

4. An officer or employee of the department of public safety or the board or a peace officer as defined in section 1-215 in the lawful performance of that person's duties.

D. The board may waive by rule the requirement for registration of certain manufacturers, distributors or dispensers if the board finds waiver consistent with the public health and safety or the requirements of the United States drug enforcement administration.

E. The board may inspect the establishment of a registrant or applicant for registration in accordance with the board's regulation.

When laws are written like this, I wonder how the police know if someone has broken a law? The parts of law that are readable by a non-lawyer are so boring that my mind skips over it all. Did you read it all? I didn't. But my wife had to read it and remember it as possible test material. Yuck.

While you're (not) reading section 36-2522, remember that this is just one little piece of all the laws. The entire applicable pharmacy law is an inch thick! Of 8 by 10 paper! The test covers all of the laws and they often ask trick questions! Studying for this is not a trivial matter. Oh, and it costs you $185 per attempt. Oh, and you only get 3 tries before you have to appear before the Arizona State Board to explain why a complete idiot like yourself that can't pass their simple little test should deserve another chance. So, at least there's no pressure.

Step 3: Send a whole bunch of information including marriage license, birth certificate, university graduation information, residency hours, bla bla bla, to the Arizona board. They also want another $300.
Step 3a: Wait for the Arizona board to review the information and, if approved, forward said approval to the National Board. The National Board then sits on it for a while. After sufficient aging, the National Board generates a letter approving the applicant to take the state law test and sends it to you. This takes approximately 3 weeks.

Lucky you! The test is administered at some sort of nationwide testing center called Prometrics. Of course, there are three centers in my state. One is 30 miles away, one is 60 miles away, and the third is 350 miles away. It's nice of them to give us a selection of convenient locations!

We finally received this letter yesterday. EIGHT weeks after beginning this process. My wife was thrilled to finally have the testing letter and to get it all behind her. Then she looked over the the bunch of new rules listed therein. One of the new rules was that the name listed on the letter had to match EXACTLY with your picture ID that you will bring with you to the testing center. Can you see what's coming?

She had used the same name on her application that she used on her licence for the state where we currently live. She thought that would be simpler and cause fewer problems with the licence transfer. Wrong. Unfortunately, she included her maiden name as a middle name on her driver's licence, but not on her pharmacy license application. Just so you notice what just happened, I'll summarize. The name on her testing approval letter DOES NOT exactly match the name on her photo ID. Crap.

No problem, I thought. It's just her maiden name, they'll understand. A quick phone call should clear this right up! If it was so critical, they would have had some sort of BIG BOLD NOTE on the first set of forms we sent to the National or State Boards of Pharmacy.

(Hint for the National and Arizona Boards of Pharmacy: Notice how BIG BOLD NOTES stand out on a page full of text. If there is some information that you need in a certain format, and having the incorrect format can derail a complicated 8 week process that requires 4-5 separate mailings, please have a BIG BOLD NOTE at the beginning of the process explaining this important detail! Or maybe put it on your website that details this complicated process. Or maybe have a website that details this process. That would really help. This process is really confusing. Thanks.)

A call today to Prometrics verified that the names have to match exactly, or the tester will not be allowed in. A call to the National Board was also unhelpful. According to them, they need to issue another approval letter with the corrected name. They wanted us to fax to them the following information: a letter detailing what had happened, her driver's licence, a second form of ID that includes her full maiden name or the initial of her maiden name, and finally a copy of her marriage licence with her maiden name. Figuring this out only took 2 hours on the phone. I'm surprised they didn't want $300.

Processing this information to produce a new letter will take approximately 7 more business days. Then they have to mail it to us. Then she has to schedule a testing time at this Prometrics place.

Step 4: Schedule to take the state law test at Prometrics. They schedule the test for about 7 days after you call to schedule.

Step 5: Take the state law test.
Step 5a: Rinse and Repeat as needed. (But only 3 times, sorry!)

Whew! What a pain. It's almost like they don't want pharmacists to move to Arizona. I don't think we'll be changing states again. How do those malpractice doctors do it? Maybe I'd better write Reader's Digest and find out.

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I-15 is like a Woman

We met when I was just a small child. She was fast and wild, often terrifying. Even then, I was attracted to her. Maybe it was the element of danger, maybe it was breaking free of the day-to-day. I only saw her when I was with an adult, but I knew that it could be special between us.

As I grew older and began to spend time with her alone, I began to appreciate her even as I grew to understand her faults. And, oh, the places she could take me! I could be free with her, uninhibited. It was true, the slightest mistake could lead to disaster, but I knew that it was worth it. Being with her was like being in a whirlwind- it was fast, fun, and just a little bit scary.

Nine years ago, I started a committed relationship with her. We have spent a lot of time together almost every day. It has been a love/hate relationship. Most days it is pretty rocky. She has aged and slowed. She's often too busy for me. She seems emotionally clogged, it's difficult to get through to her. The slightest problem seems to get to her and when she's unhappy, she can make everyone unhappy. No one can ruin my day like she can.

But, oh, those days when she's free and open- it's like returning to our youth. I can't imagine being with any other. Sadly, those days are few and far between. Most days, she seems distracted by all those others who want her attention. She has so little space for me in her life. And she is so high maintenance- it seems like she always needs something. When she needs a little work done it takes months for her to recover. And the whole time she just won't give me the time of day. It's difficult.

I've made a decision. It's time to leave her. I hope she can find herself, start over. She says that a Legacy or a FrontRunner will help her reclaim her happy, open personality. I hope so. But it's too late for us. I'm moving on.

I will miss her. A little.

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The Announcement

On my way to talk to my boss last Friday, I walked by an inspirational sign on a bulletin board here at work. It said "Do something every day that scares you." I think that I achieved that goal on that day.

"Can I talk to you for a sec- in the conference room?" I asked. I hear a quiet "uh, oh" as he stood up. We walked toward the conference room. What sort of small talk can you make in a situation like this? "Boy, I'm glad it's Friday" I say. "Me too" was his reply. We walked the rest of the distance in silence.

We sat down as the fluorescent lights flickered into existence. "Well, I don't really know how to say this, but I'm giving you my two-weeks notice." "OK'" he says, "where are you going?" "To Phoenix," I respond. "You took a job with eFA?" was the shocked reply.

Efa is a division of my company that is, amazingly, even more poorly run and less satisfying to work for than my division. They transferred everyone to Phoenix last summer.

I tried to stop the laugh, but all that did was to cause a loud snort to escape my nose. "Never, I'm actually changing careers. I'm going to go run my brother in law's medical practice." he seemed to take it OK.

And now I can finally talk about the life-changing decisions that my family and I have been making for the last few months. It has taken tons of time to make all of this happen, and it has cut into my blogging time. The funny thing is that I had a lot to talk about, but couldn't due to my lingering fear of my bosses finding out.

I'll try to post a little about abandoning engineering, finding a house, selling a house, the amazing amount of theft involved in the mortgage and the real estate industries, and so forth in the next few weeks. However, I am moving in the next few weeks, so no promises!

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Girls, make your move!

I know, I know. It's the man's job to ask the girl out. But what if he won't? MSN dating has the solution for you! Here are 6 ways to make your move. You go girl.

So, I'd like some feedback. Do like getting dating advice from a man who's been married for 14 years? I could make this a regular column!

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Better than a shoebox

Computers are wonderful. It is really amazing what you can do easily at home that just a few years ago required hiring a printer or hours in a darkroom. Especially with photography. I love being able to take an unlimited number of pictures and then fix the pictures at leisure. It's very liberating.

Of course, all of this technology has a dark side.

All of the pictures and other data on your computer are actually little magnetic charges stuck to a platter spinning at 7,200 rpm with a big sharp metal arm that comes really close to the surface. For some reason, when you double-click on a file name, this metal arm zips over to the right area of the platter, reads the charges, sends the values to the processor, which then converts it all into a cute photo of your kids, dog, or girlfriend wife.

We trust this system to keep our treasured memories? What if the arm slips and scratches the disk? What if someone in Buffalo, New York, blows a fuse and creates a chain reaction failure through our nationwide power grid that sends a power spike like an electronic tsunami up into the delicate electronic components of your precious computer? What if your child jams peanut butter sandwich into your DVD drive? The possibilities are terrifying.

But seriously, the data on your computer is fragile and needs to be backed up. Here are the main risks to your data.

• your hard drive could crash
• power spikes
  
• your computer could be stolen
• your house could burn down

Each of these dangers poses unique challenges in saving your data. Here are a few of the options available to you in keeping your data safe.

Do nothing. This will work just fine for a lot of people, the odds are decent that nothing will ever happen to your computer. If you're OK with this, you should go and cancel your homeowner's and auto insurance.

Make CD/DVD/tape backups. This is a common solution for people, and it can work well. Some issues with it are that you have to remember to make the backup, DVDs only hold like 9 GB, so you may need multiple disks for a full backup, and you need to store them away from your house (like at a safe deposit box or your mom's house). This is not a good option for me because it is awkward, and I'll forget to do it. If you are able to consistently make backups and get them out of your house, you have avoided all the risks outlined above.

External hard drive.This is a great option. You can buy a 160 GB external hard drive for $70 after rebates. This is cheap and allows for an easy, automatic backup copy of your data. I have a 150 GB version that I bought a year or so ago that I really like. However, it can't guard against theft, or power spikes, or house fires.

Remote storage. This is a new option that I've recently discovered. You pay for a service to backup your data remotely. For $5 per month, you can use a service like Mozy.com to have unlimited secure data storage. (They offer 2 GB of free storage.) It integrates with the OS, so it looks like a drive in the windows explorer, and backs up the folders you select when your computer is idle. I just signed up a week or so ago, and it took a good 7 days for it to upload my 25 GB of pictures and music to their servers. Now it only checks for changes and can complete a backup in minutes. I've been playing with deleting and restoring files and it works great! It is a nice feeling to have everything safe and secure. If your computer crashes, you can access your files from any website and download the files for restoration.

There are still a couple of worries with a service like this- They could potentially access your files, so you shouldn't backup really sensitive information to their servers. I personally don't care if some Mozy software dude accesses my Bear Lake vacation photos. Another risk is that they go out of business and shut down the site. For this reason, you should still keep copies of your important files on your local hard drive. If they do go out of business, you'll only lose the time you used in setting up the service.

You will need some sort of high-speed internet service to make this useful- dial-up would be impractical.

I know it can be complicated, but remember, a shoebox full of pictures isn't really safe, either!

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Superbowl Irony

So, I watched the superbowl today. It was OK, nothing spectacular. The best part was having an excuse to sit around all afternoon and eat chips.

One funny thing- it was raining in Miami during the game. The rain coated most of the camera lenses with spots. Some of the cameramen must have disliked the spots and tried to rub them off with a rag.

You know a whole bunch of guys ran out and bought the huge high-def flat panels for the big game. I wonder how the rainspots and the smears on the camera lenses looked on a big screen HDTV? They looked terrible on my little TV. Someday (maybe next year!) I'll buy one of those big flat panel LCD HDTVs so I can see my smears in HD. The thought makes me laugh.

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Tamagotchi gone

At some point I'll be ready to talk about our first child, Meisje. My wife and I had 4 frustrating years trying to get pregnant. (There are also a bunch of good stories about that, but I'm afraid they are not appropriate for public view-if you know what I mean).

After a few years of failure, we got a puppy to be our temp baby. She was a purebred black toy poodle that we named Meisje September Sunrise (purebred dogs get a lot of names). I'm not going to talk about it here, but I'll just say that it didn't go well. The lingering sadness from that experience is one of the reasons that I'm hesitant to get a family pet for my kids. That, and the fact that having 3 kids is enough 'pet' for me.

To put off the inevitable day when the 6 sad eyes come begging to me for a puppy, I've turned to virtual pets.


My oldest son asked for a Tamagotchi for Christmas. Have you heard of these? I remember them from a few years ago, but I thought they'd stopped being 'cool.' My son informed me that most of his friends at school had them, and that he really wanted one. It seemed like a waste of money to me. The thing is really low resolution and only has three button- what good is it? He got one for Christmas, but I thought it would sit in his drawer, unused and unloved. But, boy was I wrong.

He fell in love with this hunk of plastic and electronics (he must be my son!). You have to feed it, pick up it's droppings, play with it, etc. when it's needy it 'cries' by beeping. If you aren't taking care of it, it gets sick and then eventually dies. If you do care for it correctly, it grows and changes into different creatures. Supposedly it eventually will marry and produce offspring that you must care for. The best feature? They go to sleep at 8pm and don't wake up until 8am. This really helps with the kids bedtime.

To my surprise, my son really took it seriously. He even enjoyed picking up the droppings! (which is a serious advantage over a puppy). His Tamagotchi grew and matured and added more and more games and activities. He earned points by playing games with it that he used to 'buy' accessories for it- like hats, etc. He was looking forward to watching his Tamagotchi marry and continue the circle of life.

There was only one problem: School.

He goes to school for 7 hours. According to my son, the Tamagotchi will suffer terribly, or even die, if abandoned for 7 hours. You can pause the Tamagotchi. But, if you pause it, then it's not growing. So going to school was interfering with the development of my son's pet. This, you can imagine, was a source of much distress. I decided to let him take it to school if he promised to turn off the sound and keep it in his pocket except for recess. He agreed.

It worked fine for a couple of days. Then I got a phone call at work from my crying son. He had left it in his desk while he went to computer class! When he got back. it was gone. Someone had stolen his Tamagotchi!

He was so sad. He had really put a lot of effort into it. His reaction was (interestingly) a lot like if a real pet had died or run away. We agreed to go to the store to get another one. "But, dad", he said, "it was almost ready to get married! The new one will have to start over." Life is hard, then you die.

My 8 year old wanted one too. So I agreed to let him buy one. However, when we got to the store, we discovered that the Tamagotchis were the bomb, that latest thing, the 'must-have' toy. According to my boys, all of their friends have one, or are saving to get one. There were no Tamagotchis at that store or at any store. We looked online and even there they were somewhat hard to find. I did finally find some at Buy.com that could arrive in 4-5 days.

They finally came last Wednesday to much rejoicing. I'll let you know when the babies are born.

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His first love

4yo: Mom, will you cut up my food?
Dad: I'll do it.
4yo: No, Mommy has to do it! (this is a common demand)
Dad: Why can't I do it, Mommy is busy.
4yo: Because I love Mommy lots more than you.
Dad: Oh :(
4yo: Remember, I told you, Yellow Blankie first, then Mommy, then Daddy.
Mom: So, if you had to pick between Mommy going away forever, and yellow blanky going away forever, which would you choose?
Dad: Who would you want to stay?
4yo: (Face scrunched- deep in thought)
4yo: I want Yellow Blankie to stay. Yellow Blankie is my first love.
Mom: Oh :(
4yo: But Mom, I love you lots more than Dad!

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Coach Takeno

My brother noticed the announcement of the death of a long-term coach from my high school.

I also had Coach Takeno as a driving instructor, gym teacher, and also as a health teacher. I think everyone that went to that school had to pass through the vale of tears that was gym class with Coach Takeno.

I vaguely remember the push-up position that my brother talks about. What I remember most clearly is the thing where you put your body up against the wall and position your legs at 90 degree angles- sort of like you were sitting on a chair, without the chair. Your body is supported by your legs pushing your body against the wall.

Coach Takeno would line us all up on the wall of the bleachers and would make sure that our legs were all exactly 90 degrees. He'd yell "go" and start his stopwatch. I don't remember exactly how long we had to hold the position, but it felt like 3 hours. If anyone collapsed before his timer ran out, everyone would have to start again. This was an incredibly difficult challenge for me, due to my high body mass and long legs. The amount of force that my legs would have to maintain to keep my body up was similar to the amount of force the Hoover Dam uses to hold back Lake Mead.

Needless to say, I was usually the one that would collapse early. My numb and bloodless legs would slowly weaken until my body would crash to the ground. "Peterman*, get up!", he'd yell. "Everyone- thank Peterman* for making you start over!" I was not popular in that class.

Health Class with Coach Takeno was also interesting. He was strict and didn't allow any fooling around. I was messing around one time and as a punishment was assigned a 5 or 10 page paper on some obsure health topic. I knew that he would never read it, so I put a sentence in the middle of the paper asking him to tell me if he really did read through the paper. He didn't!

It is strange that for how much he tortured me through high school, I really have fond memories of him. I have a great respect for the man. Maybe it's some sort of Stockholm Syndrome, who knows.

*(Some names have been changed to protect the innocent)

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Prepare Yourself...

I'm still trying to process this mentally.

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Aarghh!

Take a good look at these shoes. What do you notice? (What I notice first is that the shoes are pretty beat up and ugly. I didn't realize how bad they were- my feet are a long way from my eyes, you know.)

What I meant to point out is the laces.

The shoe on the right has a broken lace. I am somehow still able to get a little knot right up at the top. The shoelace on the left is much worse. It has broken three times. I'm reduced to tying it halfway down the eyes.

"But, Jeff, you idiot," you say, "just run out and buy some new laces!"
What you don't know is that these are the new laces. I broke the original laces that came with the shoes a couple of months ago.

After breaking the original laces, I went to Target, Shopko, Payless shoes, everywhere I could think of looking for replacement laces. None of those stores carry laces. I couldn't believe that laces were so hard to find. Why don't the shoe manufacturers stock stores with replacement laces that match the shoes that they are selling? Does no one else break their laces? I do pull pretty hard when I tighten them, and I am pretty strong. Please comment and let me know if I am the only one.

Personally, I blame George Bush and Karl Rove for the conspiracy to make me buy new shoes when all I need is new laces.

I finally found some laces at Dillards at the mall. I don't live very close to the mall and I don't really like the mall, so I don't go there very often. But Dillards had the laces shown in the picture- they don't really match and they're really thin, but what are you going to do?

And now, Aarghh! Broken again. I guess I'd better get back to the mall.

p.s. As part of my lace-search, I did find this interesting page about different methods of tying laces. This one is called the "one-handed lacing", which supposedly lets you tighten the shoes without tying a knot. That would be perfect for my boys. They HATE tying their shoes. Their hatred results in them walking around with their lace ends dragging on the ground, or trying to jam their feet into their shoes while still tied.

I think I'll try this and let you know how it goes.

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I Know a Good Deal When I See One

This is supposedly a letter from a Maryland resident to his senator. This is obviously tongue-in-cheek, but it's funny because it's true.

Here's my quick take on immigration. I think that one of the great strengths of this country is that motivated, intelligent people self-select to move here. I believe that we need to correct the glacier-like pace of legal immigration and allow people with clean backgrounds to immigrate, on a trial basis. Along with this should be extremely tight border control and all government interaction should be in English. After the trial period, the immigrant's progress could be measured: does he have a job, is there progress in his education, can he pass an English proficiency test, what is his criminal record? At this point citizenship could be offered.

The Honorable Paul S. Sarbanes
Senate Office Building
309 Hart
Washington DC, 20510

Dear Senator Sarbanes,

As a native Marylander and excellent customer of the Internal Revenue Service, I am writing to ask for your assistance. I have contacted the Department of Homeland Security in an effort to determine the process for becoming an illegal alien and they referred me to you.

My primary reason for wishing to change my status from U.S. Citizen to illegal alien stem from the bill which was recently passed by the Senate and for which you voted. If my understanding of this bill's provisions is accurate, as an illegal alien who has been in the United States for five years, all I need to do to become a citizen is to pay a $2,000 fine and income taxes for three of the last five years. I know a good deal when I see one and I am anxious to get the process started before everyone figures it out.

Simply put, those of us who have been here legally have had to pay taxes every year so I'm excited about the prospect of avoiding two years of taxes in return for paying a $2,000 fine. Is there any way that I can apply to be illegal retroactively? This would yield an excellent result for me and my family because we paid heavy taxes in 2004 and 2005.

Additionally, as an illegal alien I could begin using the local emergency room as my primary health care provider. Once I have stopped paying premiums for medical insurance, my accountant figures I could save almost $10,000 a year. Another benefit in gaining illegal status would be that my daughter would receive preferential treatment relative to her law school applications, as well as "in-state" tuition rates for many colleges throughout the United States for my son.

Lastly, I understand that illegal status would relieve me of the burden of renewing my driver's license and making those burdensome car insurance premiums. This is very important to me given that I still have college age children driving my car.

If you would provide me with an outline of the process to become illegal (retroactively if possible) and copies of the necessary forms, I would be most appreciative. Thank you for your assistance.

Your Loyal Constituent,

Pete McGlaughlin
Get your Forms (NOW)!! Call your Internal Revenue Service 1-800-289-1040.
Please pass this onto your friends so they can save on this great offer!!!!

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Who's your neighbor?

Here's an important link that I just ran across. You can map the listed home address of sex offenders in your area. The map shows little red indicators that you an click on to see a picture. Just thought you'd like to know.

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Brain Age

My boys got Nintendo DSs for Christmas this year. I know what you're thinking, "What a terrible parent! How could he let his children's minds rot like that!" Well, how about this: Brain Age.

This 'game' has become a favorite of my oldest boy. He actually is excited to do speed drills on math and counting and all sorts of brain expanding exercises. I am excited to let him play on his DS. It's a win-win!

Brain age is based on the work of Dr. Ryuta Kawashima, who apparently is some sort of a brain expert. The game grades you with a 'brain age' score, which is supposed to be the age at which your brain operates. If your brain age is 80, your brain is equivalent in raw computing power to a moldy orange. A brain age of 20 (the best awarded in the game) means that Einstein has a new rival. Actually, it means that you can do simple math problems really fast and you are proficient at recognizing colors, but you feel really smart!

In Brain Age, you do drills like answering 100 random math problems, keeping track of how many people are in a building while people go in and out, memorize the position of numbers placed on the screen, memorizing lists of 5 letter words, etc. The DS has two screens, and one of the screens is touch sensitive so you can use a stylus to write answers to the questions. The key to the whole thing is getting the answer right and FAST. There is a little floating head guy that encourages you if you do poorly and cheers you if you do well.

My 9 year old looked over the game and turned up his nose when he first saw it. He called it the 'stupid math game' and refused to even try it. I, on the other hand, was instantly hooked. I rarely missed a day of my training, partly because the funny floating head would make me feel bad if I did. Plus, the game tracks your progress with charts, so it's easy to see if you're improving.

Finally, about a week ago, my 9 year old sat down and watched me do my training. I could tell he was intrigued. When I finished, he popped it in his DS and wandered off. Next thing I knew he ran out to show me how well he had done on one of the tests. The game warns you that it is meant for adults, and the results for children are not particularly meaningful. But, hey, anything that gets him to work on math without threat of permanent bodily harm has to be good.

It's been amazing to watch him figure out how to do each type of training. His brain age that first day was 80. He didn't let that discourage him. He has improved a bit every day and his brain age is getting younger. Last night he came running in all excited because his brain age was 45! Almost the first thing he does every day is pull out brain age and do his training. (the game only lets you train/test each problem type once a day.)

What's my brain age? Of course I'm at a 20. That should you give you, dear reader, confidence in the opinions that you read here on this blog. Or at least give you confidence that I can tell you what 5+6 is very quickly! Also 16-9, and 8*9.

I'll have more to say about the Nintendo DS later, all of it good.

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Bad Day at the Range

I enjoy shooting guns. I have a lot of fond memories going out with my dad on a drive to some remote desert hill. It was neat watching him repeatedly hit some tiny target that was really far away with his .38 revolver while I plinked with a .22 rifle. Now that I'm older, it's much harder to find time to shoot.

I enjoy the challenge of concentrating and controlling my body so that I don't flinch even though I know what's coming when I squeeze the trigger. Mastering the kick and succeeding at hitting the target with a decent grouping is really satisfying.

Last fall I went several times with my Dad to the range, where we had a (literal) blast shooting several different pistols and rifles. We did have some problems following the stringent rules enforced by large, impatient, yet kindly range masters. They didn't have range-masters out in the desert by the hill. We just enforced the safety rules ourselves.

I wonder what those range masters would say about this ridiculous gun. I've shot .357 magnum and .44 magnum pistols with a lot of kick, but nothing like this. I was sent an email with this explanation.

This pistol is basically a "show and tell" custom built on a
Thompson Encore frame. The caliber is a .600 Nitro Express. The guy that built it is some kind of custom gun maker. He built this as an exhibition piece. He takes it to the range just to show it off, and the big guy that shot it in the video had been bugging the builder to let him shoot it.

Now think about this... Only until fairly recently (early-mid '80's) the 600 Nitro Express was hands down the biggest, nastiest, hardest hitting, and heaviest recoiling weapon you could buy. It was designed for one simple purpose... to knock an elephant flat on his butt. This cartridge is known for breaking the collarbones, arms and shoulders of the shooter!

In the gun world they use what is termed as a "recoil index" to give prospective buyers an idea of what a gun kicks like. A 30-06 gets a rating of 1.0, which for many people is about the limit of what they can shoot multiple rounds through comfortably. A 243 is rated at .4, a .270 at .8, etc. The 600 Nitro Express is rated at 9.4... which is 9.4 times more punishing power than a 30-06. Now watch the video.

I hope the man wasn't hurt. This must have been a bad day at the range for him. He didn't have a chance- it just blew right out of his hand!

Watching this made me think of the Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifle. I watched a Discovery channel program about it- it's a really big gun. Unlike that pistol, it's actually usable.

The image shows the relative sizes of various shells: From left to right: .50 BMG, 300 Win Mag, .308 Winchester, 7.62 Soviet, 5.56 NATO, .22LR. The .50 caliber is BIG.

Here's a clip from that Discovery channel show. These guys are shooting from 1000 yards at steel plating and cinder block walls. 1000 yards is really far to hit anything and to have any energy left in the bullet. I have a hard enough time shooting accurately at 70 or 100 yards.

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The Road Trip

You may have noticed that posting has been light. Of course, that's just a polite way to say that I haven't been posting. I apologize about that. I have a lot to say, but things are happening that I can't discuss that are eating up all of my free time. More to come about that in a few weeks.

The big problem this last weekend was a family car trip to Phoenix, or more specifically, Gilbert. Of course, where we really went was right on the edge of Queen Creek, not where most people think of when they think of Gilbert. But all of that is beside the point. It's about a 12 hour drive from my house to my wife's brother's house in Arizona. 12 hours is a long time to be in a car with 3 boys 9 and under.

Don't misunderstand me, they are really good at entertaining themselves. Pirates of the Caribbean 2 is almost 3 hours long, King Kong has about 2 hours of entertainment(they make me fast forward past the first boring hour) and Monster House is probably an hour and a half, so that takes a good chunk of it. We also plan the trip to arrive at around midnight, so if the boys fall asleep at 9:00, that takes 3 hours out of the trip. We also stop for dinner which eats up (get it?) most of an hour. If you add this up, there is still about 2-3 hours of time when the kids are sick of movies.

The older boys can draw or play with their new Nintendo DSs, but the 4 year old just can't. At around 7:00 he just wants to chat.

4yo: Dad
me: what, 4yo (see I remembered!)
4yo: who would win, a Trex or a triceratops?
me: Hmm, probably the triceratops, because of the sharp horns.
4yo: no, dad, the Trex has sharp teeth and he's mean.
me: you're probably right.
4yo: Dad
me: what, 4yo
4yo: who would win, a TRex or a pterodactyl?
me: well, the Trex does have sharp teeth, so I pick the Trex.
4y0: dad, the pterodactyl has sharp teeth too, and he can fly really high
me: but the pterodactyl can't fight the Trex until it comes down next to it, then the Trex could bite it.
4yo: dad, the pterodactyl can fly REALLY high. (logic is not his strong point)
me: OK, you're right.
4yo: dad, who would win between a Trex and Darth Vader.
me: (this is a tricky one) Well, 4yo, I think that Darth Vader would win
4yo: I think so too (YES, I got one right!)
4yo: dad, who would win between Darth Vader and all the people in the whole world?
me: I think all the people in the whole world would kill Darth Vader.
4yo: dad, no, Darth Vader has a lightsaber, No one can win Darth Vader.
...and so forth. This is mildly entertaining for 20 minutes or so, but I start to lose it after a while.

The Escapee at Wendys
There was a winter storm that blew through the day of our trip, so we didn't want to take the shorter, yet narrower/twistier mountain roads. This left the longer route through Las Vegas. And we arrived in Vegas at around dinner time. You know those FOOD signs on the freeway that alert the hungry motorist to appetizing dining options in the vicinity? I like those while we're travelling, because we can pop off on an exit and find a McDonalds or Wendys easily.

Well, we entered Las Vegas from the north and saw a FOOD sign with a Wendys on it. So, off we went. We had to drive a way in from the freeway to find the Wendys, and that part of town was a little scary. All the windows that I saw had bars on them and lots of homeless people were wandering around. I thought about turning back, but we were almost to the Wendys. We should have turned back. Not all Wendy's are created equal, and the FOOD sign dosen't tell you that. I mean, chicken nuggets are chicken nuggets, but my wife's salad had that slimy salad slime on it, and my spicy chicken sandwich was nasty.

The Wendys was across the street from a hospital. I didn't think much about it, except for a brief thought about stomach pumping, until this lady came walking in. I thought that she was another homeless person (there were 3 or four homeless people wandering around the street outside), but she was a bit different. She did have kind of a homeless person vibe, but she was wearing a coat over a hospital gown- and I think I remember her wearing slippers. She had a plastic grocery bag that looked like it had street clothes in it.

She came in and bee-lined it straight to a window seat near the hospital-side of the Wendys. She kept making furtive glances out toward the hospital. After about 5 minutes of this, she made a break for the door and jetted off down the street. I'm not sure, but it looked to me as if she'd escaped from the hospital. We were glad to leave and get back on the interstate.


I'm a Scofflaw
The rest of the trip was uneventful until the trip home. The storm had passed and the shorter way was clear. This way takes you through some lonely country pretty close to the Grand Canyon. Late at night there aren't many other cars and it's dark. You may have read about my love of fast cars. Well, it's a long drive and not a lot of traffic- even my minivan goes pretty well. Let me just say that I may have surpassed the speed limit a time or two.

As we approached Page, Arizona (A lovely town with a professional and helpful police force) I noticed a pair of headlights approaching me from behind. I didn't think too much about it, because there are people who drive faster that I do. Suddenly this new car turned on its scary roof-mounted police lights and beeped its siren a couple of times. I haven't been pulled over since 1994, and I'd forgotten how humiliating it is.

It didn't help to have the family in the car.

Wife: Were you speeding?
Child A: What's going on?
Child B: Are we stopping!
Wife: What's the speed limit? How fast were you going?
Child A: Dad! Were you breaking the law?
Child B: Cool a policeman!
Child C: Why are we stopping?
Wife: Do you know how much this is going to cost us?
Child A: Were you speeding, Dad!
Child B: Dad! I can't believe you were speeding!
Child C: Why are we stopping?
Wife: Why were you speeding?
Child A: Do we have to go to jail?
Child B: I don't want to go to jail!
Child C: Dad, who would win, a Trex or the Monster House?

I thought I was doomed. Visions of ticket fines and huge markups in my insurance rates danced in my head. The police officer walked up- "Good evening, I pulled you over because of your excessive speed- 76 in a 65 zone." "Really!?!?" I say, trying to sound shocked, "I'm so sorry!" I'm doomed. We had to scramble for the registration and insurance card- but we found them. He walked back to his car- probably to radio in our plate and names to search for any APBs out on a silver minivan with a family of 5. I'm doomed. My wife was trying to keep a good attitude, but she kept sneaking a crusty look my way. I'm doomed.

The officer came back and said, "You were speeding a bit too much and I want you to be more careful, especially with your family along" I'm doomed. "I'm going to give you a warning tonight, but slow it down." I'm saved! He hands me what he calls my 'souvenir'(the warning form) and tells me to have a good night. I'll have a good night all right! I'm saved! I can't believe he just gave me a warning! I was sure he was out to fill his quota and make some money for his small town. But, maybe he really was concerned about my safety. I drove at 4 miles per hour over the speed limit the whole rest of the way home.

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