The Thing you can't find

Everyone has something that they are looking for that they just can't find. For some, it's love and happiness. For others, it's their glasses. For me, it's a Waldo shirt.

The idea of the Waldo shirt has been brewing for some time. When I was in college, my fraternity would put on Midnight Madness once or twice a year. Midnight Madness was a clue based scavenger hunt - picture the Amazing Race centered in St. Louis with complex codes instead of bungee jumping. One of the big clues from the first Midnight Madness was a live Where's Waldo at the Galleria Mall at Christmas. I'll pause a second to imagine the hilarity of looking for a red-and-white striped shirt in a mall at Christmas. Over the Madnesses, we've reenacted it a couple of times.

Fast forward to my first hash as hare. I decided to start on Wash U's new parking garage. And as long as I was there, I was going to lead the pack through the Loop. And as long as I was going to have them in the Loop, I ought to have a Where's Waldo. But in order to do that, I had to have a Waldo and I needed a Waldo shirt. I found a friend (thanks A!) who was willing to be Waldo for an hour or so. And Madam Yuk lent me a red and white short sleeved shirt for our Waldo. The initial Waldo clue was a success and led me to getting the hash name, Waldo's Pimp.

With new hash name in tow, I decided that I needed a Waldo shirt, preferably a whole closet full of Waldo shirts. With more than just one Waldo shirt I could lend them out to my future Waldos when I decide to break out the Where's Waldo clue again. I could get the whole family dressed in Waldo gear for Halloweens or costume parties. I could take over the World !!!! (ahem) And if I could have a Waldo shirt made out for some sort of dri-fit fabric, I could wear it (complete with bobble hat and glasses) when I'm doing these big races ("Go Waldo-guy!").

Now I could make them myself using t-shirts and fabric paint. But I want something that will last past the first washing. So I've been trying to buy it from a store with no success. You'd think that all of the major retailers would be rushing into production such a shirt with a clear and defined market and no thought of wash tubs filled with now pink clothing. But no...

And so I wait

Maybe marathon?

I got an email from my wife yesterday. Apparently her company has a couple of free entries for the Chicago Marathon. With the free entry comes a starting position a lot closer to the front of the pack and some additional perks, I suspect. So now she is thinking about training for the marathon. If we were to start soon (this weekend?), we could build a longer, more injury-resistant training program than the one that we've tried in the past. I'm honestly ambivalent about running it again, but a free pass or even half-price admission would do wonders for my motivation. I'd like the idea of doing well in Chicago in front of my family. I've run it before, but the last time I did cringingly bad.

I think that what I'd like to do is complete a marathon training program but not make it the center of my summer running program. I'll continue to focus on the half-marathons as my race of choice while completing the distance necessary to run the full marathon. I like this strategy as it takes the pressure off of the marathon and sets me up for a race that I can run a couple of times before the marathon itself.

Wish me luck

Different scales

Last night my wife and I were watching Buffy Season 3 when I heard a crying from upstairs. I headed upstairs to find Oliver sitting up in bed. I picked him up and rocked him back down to sleep. Then I lay down with him which woke him up, but then he settled back down after a few more tears. As I was heading downstairs with a Castaway "I have made fire!"-type exaltation, it hit me. My wife does this every night and sometimes multiple times in the same night. But this time it was me.

Word in a Word

Recently I've been doing the Words in a word puzzles from the newspaper. These puzzles give you one word and your goal is to find as many Scrabble words four letters or more. You don't count words that get four letters by adding an S and only count one form of a verb. For a guy with a pretty decent vocabulary, I'm pretty terrible at this game. For example you can get 22 words out of CLIPPER. I got 10.

Today's word is SINUATE, which has 37. I've got 25-29 depending on how many I can get the judge to okay.

Bad Gaming Session

For those non-gamers, you might want to skip this post.

I had a bad gaming session last night. I put my party up against two encounters that were less than straight up fights and took out a PC in a manner that shut her down for the entire session. It was a challenge for my players, but they were ultimately frustrated because they felt, and rightly so, that I didn't give them enough information.

The first encounter involved them entering a sea hag's cave. The two boats used for crossing the cave were tied up on the other end of the cave. They sent out one of the PCs to go get them, but she rolled badly on her save and was effected by the hag's evil eye. She's cursed and dazed for the next three days. The hag ran out of uses of her evil eye and decided to try and weaken the whole group in one shot. One shot is what it ended up being, because as soon as she revealed herself, they skewered her.

The party retreated to a defensible position and holed up for the night until they could revive the cursed PC. In the middle of the night, the party was attacked by a group of vampiric mephits. The encounter was difficult as the mephits were able to dominate the fighters and send them after the spellcasters. After the domination was dealt with via a circle, the mephits decided to play hide and seek with the party. Their good hide check combined with the parties poor spot check meant that the mephits would keep winning that battle. When the mephits were spotted, they cast stinking cloud and hid in the vapors. Finally the mephits attempted to gang up on a pair of the weaker PCs and were dispatched.

However, had they known that the mephits were some form of undead, they could have dealt with the problem with little difficulty - a quick turn check and the mephits turn to dust. I didn't spefically tell them that they weren't undead ("They're mephits...") but I didn't describe the mephits in any level of detail that would have indicated to the party that they were undead. In fact, I forgot that the mephits as undead were not able to be sneak attacked, giving credence to the just a mephit line of thinking.

I know that, as a DM, one of the things that I need to work on is my use of description. We frequently play module-based campaigns where I tweak the source material to better fit my party. My best descriptive passages end up being the ones that I read from the book. The next best ones involve effect of the party slicing its opponent into tiny pieces. A very distant third would be a description of the rooms that they are in, the monsters that they face. I also have a problem with dialogue which means that we spend a lot of our time role-playing by description or roll-playing. I need to get better at my role and I know what needs to get done. I just don't know how to do it.

Did you hear about the high school teacher that got dooced?

Dooced: to lose one’s job because of one’s website.

There was a high school teacher at Fegner High in Chicago who had a blog called "Fast Times at Regnef High". In it he complained about fellow teachers, the students, and his job there in general. All was going well until he decided that he wanted someone to read it. He told some fellow teachers about it. No sooner than he did, knowledge of the site leaked from those teachers to other teachers and on to the students. The story hit the papers in Chicago and got some exposure nationally. You can imagine what happened next. Everyone got rather upset about his unflattering descriptions of them. The teacher has not returned to his job recently as he is "afraid for his life."

I have some level of sympathy for the teacher. He started the blog as a stress relief from his job. Teaching in an inner city school is rather stressful especially when you are dealing with an uninterested student body, an underfunded school district, and other teachers who have long since lost the desire to really teach. I have a friend who was teaching in an inner city school in St. Louis but quit after his first year because he couldn't take it any more.

That said, the teacher in question failed to undestand one of the basic tenants of free speech. You can say what you want as long as you are prepared to accept the consequences. I can say that all men are pigs, but I should be prepared to accept the scorn of my fellow men. The teacher in question was not prepared to accept the consequences of what he said. He said it anonymously and viciously. That he said it in a public manner and then publicized it is stupid but immaterial to the point that he was not willing to stand behind his statements.

The good in this story, if there is any, comes from the reaction of the rest of the school. They are attempting to use this in a constructive manner to address some of the issues and perceptions raised by the blog. And they are doing it without the teacher in question whose fitness as an educator is somewhat in doubt.

TV DVD Review: Buffy Season 2

The second season of Buffy begins after the summer focuses on the changing relationship between Buffy and Angel. In the first part of the season, they fall in love. But things go so well between them that Angel's curse is undone and he loses his soul again. This season also sees the introduction of Spike and Drusilla as the main antagonists to Buffy.

One of the things that I liked about this season is that each of the members of the Scooby gang gains more depth and changes as the season progresses. Willow stops pining for Xander and gains more self-confidence. Cordelia develops past her role as the World's Biggest Bitch. Xander shows his growing darker side. The first season was mostly about Buffy. That changes somewhat as some of the sidekicks get to have their time in the spotlight.

I also liked how the Monster-Of-The-Week plots kept referencing back to the main story. In the first season, some of the MOTW episodes were so disconnected from the main story that they could have been reinserted anywhere. In the second season there is a lot less bloating to be trimmed away from the story.

2006 River to River Relay Recap

I wasn't really confident going into River to River this year. I'd slacked off in my training ever since the St. Patrick's Day 5M Run. I was still running, but I was averaging close to 2-3 times per week instead of the much preferred 4-5 times. Then when I was running, I was putting more effort into shorter runs instead of the long, slow distances that are needed to boost your endurance. The 5K that I ran on the track on Monday was encouraging. It showed me that I could run at a pretty decent pace and sustain it - at least for one 5K. The question was could I do it three times in the same day running over hills.

Friday on the way down we started choosing relay legs. I knew that I wanted to run something other than legs 5 and 8 since I'd run them before, but I didn't know what those legs would be. After some discussion, I ended up choosing leg 7. Leg 7 has a hard first leg, a moderate to easy second leg, and a moderate third leg. It has few significant climbs and a lot of long downhills. I was pretty happy with my choice.

The morning was slightly stressful. I had set our wake-up call for 4:30, which was when we were supposed to meet in the lobby. Instead of getting out near 4:45, we ended up getting out at 5:00. But we still managed to get to the start line in plenty of time before our runner took off.

We set our lineup like this:
1 - Norman Bates
2 - Dead Squirrel
3 - Duzzy Cum
4 - Help Me I'm Wet
5 - Mother Mary Nipple
6 - Whiney Bitch
7 - Waldo's Pimp
8 - Halley's Comet
A - Blows Like a Freight Train
Blows ended up running leg 9 for Norman and 20 for Help Me. I think both of them could have run their legs, but we all wanted for Blows to just a chance to do some running.

The weather was great if perhaps a touch warm. It was in the mid-70s all day long. Late in the day there were some clouds and a few minutes of rain, but other than that it was beautiful. I took the precaution of wearing a long sleeve shirt when I wasn't running to keep the run off of my arms. I put some sunscreen on my neck and legs but opted not to put any on my face as I was nervous about it dripping into my eyes.

Since I was running much later in the day, I followed my usual practice of walking a quarter mile or so down the way to cheer on the runners as they came in. Everyone seemed to appreciate the gesture. And since I was usually out at the last bend before the finish, it helped the other runners see that they were really almost done. It also worked out for me. Not only did I get a chance to warm up and stretch out, but I also got to spend some time by myself away from the hustle and bustle of the exchange point. That far away from the exchange point the noise is significantly reduced, so I got to spend some time listening to nature. It was very relaxing.

The only not relaxing part was that I had runner's trots all day long. I kept myself hydrated, but most of my nourishment came in the form of Power Bars and dried fruit. The combination did not make for a very comfortable tummy and I spent most of the legs that I wasn't running dropping off a load in the portapotty before running out to cheer on the runners. I was able though to check out the portapotties all throughout the day. Tip: the portapotties kept getting cleaner and better stocked the farther from the start line we went.

Our team had decided to decorate our van with discounted Easter items. We tied some bunnies to the van, hung some off of the windows, and placed a pair under the windshield wipers. Duzzy Cum and Dead Squirrel ran their legs wearing rabbit ears. I tried them on, but they didn't work with my head. By the end of the day, we got a lot of comments on them and had people cheering for us as we rode. Tip: If you are putting together a team, I would suggest trying to come up with some sort of similar theme. It really helps other teams put you and your runners out. It also helps you pick out your runners from afar and your van from among the many identical other vans.

My first leg has a slight downhill followed by a steep uphill for almost a mile. The next mile is mostly downhill. The last mile has a slight rise, but is relatively east. I smiled a bit when I was on the steep uphill as the runner in front of me called out to a runner in front of her to ask if she saw the top of the hill yet. It was just nice to know that the other runners were feeling it too. I ended up passing a couple of the other runners and finished the three mile leg under 24:00, for a better than 8:00 pace.

My second leg started out with a slight uphill followed by a flat-ish stretch before going downhill for a mile into the finish. I really cruised through this stretch, aided by the sight of another runner about 400m ahead. I just kept working and reeled him in half a mile before the finish. I was able to make good use of the downhill to lengthen my stride and keep up a good pace. I finished this one around 7:30/mile pace.

My last leg had a slight rise into a steep long downhill. In the last mile there are a couple of hills which are tantalizing as you can see the finish for most of the way in. At the receiving handoff, it started to rain. It kept up for the first mile, washing all of the sweat from my head into my eyes and mouth. But then it stopped and the sun came back out. I was able to pass someone on the home stretch but that was the only person near me the entire leg. But there is just something so fulfilling about cruising into the last exchange of the day. I never quite got my time for this leg, but it felt pretty good.

The last step of the day is for the team to gather together and run through the finish line together. Not having learned from my experience last year, Halley caught up to the group, ran with us briefly, and then sprinted through the finish line by himself. Oh well - maybe next year. After the finish we went up on the levee and took some pictures. Our overall finish time was 12:04 which, coupled with our early start time, meant that we had plenty of time to finish before the sun went down. Unfortunately the weather had other plans and it started to pour shortly after we finished. We headed back to the van and then on home. After we got back I took a shower and then we went to dinner. There was some talk of a hash after dinner, but with my stomach full of food and my eyes full of sleep, discretion was the better part of valor.

---

Results are in. And we didn't finish last!

Fear of the Future

As a devout atheist, one of the things that I don't get is the belief that there is a heaven. That means in other things that I only get one kick at the can. I'm not going to come back as a squirrel, spend the rest of eternity floating on a cloud, or decide to torment the poor souls that decided that it would be a good idea to build a house on my burial ground. My personal belief is that if I am to have a "life" after death, it will only be through the effect that I've had on other people and my children. In my quieter moments, I seriously worry about the world that we are leaving to our children and grandchildren.

The most obvious point of concern is the environment. We don't know the effects from the poisons that our generation and the ones before have spewed into the air and water. We are developing new foods by operating at the genetic level when we don't know what the end result of our manipulations will be. We are creating super bacteria by overusing antibiotics. Then there is the fact that there is only so much oil left on the planet and with emerging markets now wanting a larger piece of the supply we are being put in a situation where we will be draining the planet faster than ever.

The point on oil brings us to the political landscape. In the past dozen or so years, things have gotten downright frightening. There are a number of states that are falling into the grasp of reactionary radical Muslims. While I think that Islam as a religion is good, the combination of fanasticism, the strong belief in martyrdom, and the weapons of a modern state is not good. The fanatically religious are getting very politically involved all over the world from Afghanistan and Iraq to our boy Georgie and Company in DC.

I'm not sure what the solution is, but I hope for Oliver's sake someone finds it.

Gearing up for River to River

The River to River Relay is now only two days away. For those who haven't tuned in, River to River is an eight person - eighty mile race across Southern Illinois. This will be my third year running the race. The first two times have been great and I'm really looking forward to the third time. I've started mentally gearing up for the run. I know my training isn't quite where I'd like it to be. After doing the St. Patrick's 5M run really well, I got lazy and haven't put in enough work recently. This week I've been doing mostly fat burn pace workouts to keep my cardio up while allowing me to rest somewhat.

On Monday night I went to the Wash U track and did a 5K just to see how well I could do it. My original plan was to start with a 10 minute mile and then see where I was. I started much faster than that (~7:45 pace), but I was able to maintain that pace and finished sub-25:00. That gives me a lot of hope that I might end up being okay. The only thing that I'm afraid of is the hills, but there are an awfully large number of hills on this course. We'll just have to see.

Our team is one of the two hasher teams registered. We currently have eight runners with one alternate. Our other alternate, Poke My Heine, had to drop out as she just moved to DC. The other team, however, is down to 5 runners. They've asked if we can help. I'd be happy to lend them our alternate (splitting to 8/6), but I don't necessarily want to split the teams into 7/7 even though that would give both teams the best chance to finish. It blows my mind that a running group of our size can't find another couple of runners among the group and its extended networks. On the other hand, we did field two teams of ten before the defections. Maybe I'll just blame the defectors.

On On!

Oliver at the restaurant

Since my wife and I only have Oliver, we are still able to go out to restaurants. But I'm not sure that that is still the case. Our typical restaurant story goes something like this:

We arrive at the restaurant somewhere between 5:00 and 5:45. We have to eat early because Oliver gets really cranky when he's hungry. We'll have either brought something small for him to eat like a cheese stick or have just fed it to him recently. The small snack is to take the edge off. We'll order our food quickly asking for whatever was ordered for Oliver to come out as soon as possible. We keep him entertained and in his place until the food arrives. Depending on how long the food takes, he may or may not lose his patience with the whole process. If we're lucky, he eats much of his food before he loses patience. As soon as he loses patience though, he starts whining and crying. The whining and crying can be allayed somewhat if one of us takes him out of his chair and holds him, but the only thing that really makes him happy is to get down and wander around. Inevitably, we'll eventually give in and one of us will continue eating while the other follows him around the restaurant. We'll pick him up if there is anyone nearby or if he is getting close to a serving area, but he likes smiling at people and isn't yelling or screaming. A couple of tag-ins and outs gets us to the end of dinner. We'll leave a good sized tip and beat a path for home.

I know that a lot of people's pet peeve is the child wandering around in a restaurant. I've heard from former wait staff that children underfeet can be a hazard. We try and balance responsibility and, well, irresponsibility by letting him go but following him. It's worked so far, but still I think our restaurant days may be swiftly coming to a close.

Google responses

"Doesn't feed himself toddler"
I find that it's better not to eat toddlers - they give me gas. But if you wait until they are more of a kid, then they go really well with mint sauce.

Seriously, I know what boat you are in. When children are babies, it is just so much easier and cleaner to feed them yourself rather than let them try to feed themselves. But the problem is that the only way that they'll learn how to feed themselves is to try and fail and try again. There are a number of different ways to start feeding your children and to start them feeding themselves. You can feed them the bulk of their food first and then let them try the rest on their own. You can let them try to feed themselves first and then swoop in at the end to make sure that something went down. Or you can let them try to do it themselves while you try and feed them in between self-fed bites. I'm more of a try it yourself first kind of dad.

"Magic the Gathering Prerelease Dissension St. Louis"
Good luck to you, sir or madam. The site that you are looking for is Moy Events. If you are looking for a forum for St. Louis gamers, try Ogre's Cards.

"Puerto Rico Board Game"
I've only played Puerto Rico a couple of times and lost each time, so I wouldn't come here looking for strategy advice. I like the game, but I don't think it would end up in my top five as the game takes too long. And as the parent of a small child, I keep noticing how chokable all of the pieces are.

"still breastfeeding grown children, desperate housewives breastfeeding, breastfeeding mainstream movies"
I don't want to open old wounds so I'll leave this one alone after I say that the age at which a mother and her child decide to stop breastfeeding is a personal decision. They will choose whatever works best for their family. And it is OK if their choice is different from what you would pick.

As far as breastfeeding in mainstream movies, I can't think of it coming up very often. Meet the Fockers had a set of scenes about it (albeit with Grandpa wearing a synthetic breast). There is a scene in Look Who's Talking ("Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" "Yeah, lunch!"). There's the Blue Lagoon. And ... And ... There just haven't been that many movies done about the after birth period. I can't say that it makes me particularly sad.

"criticisms of freakanomics"
I've addressed this a couple of times since my initial review of the book.

"myspace criticisms"
I've addressed some of my concerns with MySpace a couple of times since I joined.

"kill moss in sidewalk"
I occasionally get traffic that involves people wanting to do violent things to moss. But this request conjured a mental picture of someone fitting me for cement shoes.

5000 Visits!

Yesterday, I passed the 5000 Visit mark. I'd like to thank all of the folks who wasted their spare time visiting my site and apologize to all of the gardeners who came here accidently. BTW in case you are wondering, Growing Moss is a good name for a blog at mypetr0ck but it is also apparently a really good name for a gardening site.

Over the past few months I've been watching my Site Meter information. I spend a lot of time checking out the referral information (what link you clicked on to get here). The referral information gives me some idea of who it is that is coming to visit and what information if any I can make sure to feature to bring them back. Site Meter stores the last hundred hits, so I need to check it a couple of times a week to make sure that I don't miss anything. From my referral information, I see that most of my visitors either bounce in from someone else's blog (like Sarahlynn or Andi), type the URL on their own, visit due to something that I post on another blog (Blogging Baby, STLBloggers), or are errant web searchers. Sometimes I get someone who is looking for something relevant.

I've been able to write new posts on average once a day. Recently I've had a little bit more trouble finding material to write about. Some of the things that are going on in my life aren't quite yet ready for prime time. Eventually I'll be able to share some of them. Other things I'm hesitant to write about due to metablogging issues.

Review: All the President's Men

I was flipping channels Saturday night and came across a showing of All the President's Men. The film tells the story of the investigation of the Watergate Hotel break-in by a group of burglars who became linked to President Nixon. Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) and Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) are the pair of investigative reporters who take on the story and follow the leads. They are helped by a number of sources including the mysterious-no-longer Deep Throat (Hal Holbrook).

Roger Ebert was called it the quintessential newspaper movie. It goes into exhaustive detail about the process of investigative journalism. The whole of the movie is a quest to get a source, a confirmation of the source, and get the information into print. Along the way there are various conversations about the ethics of using unnamed sources that have a different slant for today's audience.

As I watched, I was struck with a profound disappointment. The story itself was interesting but only in that I knew what the end result was. The movie ends having just kicked over the first of the dominoes that ended with the resignation of the president. But there isn't really the sense to the casual observer that that is what happened. The end three-shot of Nixon's inaugration and Woodward and Bernstein at their typewriters is interesting, but doesn't provide any sort of finality. The movie just ends with the teletype displaying the next in the series of big headlines.

An interesting HITG (Hey Its That Guy)- Sloan, the head of finance, is played by Stephen Collins of 7th heaven. His wife is played by Meredith Baxter, who would go on to be Elyse Keaton on Family Ties.

Debugging for dummies

If I were to ask you to name the top ten most head thumpingly obvious things to check when you are getting an error for duplicate symbols, would you check to see if the same file was being included twice? If so, do you want to work with me? Please??!?!?!?!?!

What's your blog path?

I was talking to some friends last night and we were talking about what our blog path is. Like me, for instance, my path looks like:

Sarahlynn,
Paul,
Flea,
Andi,
Daughter Of Opinion,
Elitsirk,
CPA Mommy,
the-berry-patch

and then I'll make some of my own entries. After that, I'll check

STL Bloggers to see if anyone that I read there has posted,
Blogging Baby,
The Blog Fathers,
Dad Gone Mad, and
Kevin Smith.

What's your blog path?

What do you do when your good baby isn't?

Yesterday was an odd day for my family. When I got home from work, Oliver was playing outside with Mommy. But when we brought him inside, he started screaming. We went through the usual list - hungry? wet? tired? sick? bored? scared? and drew blanks. He didn't want to eat anything and was upset at all of the things that we offered. After minutes of this, he finally calmed down and ate something. Then it was time to go and the screaming started again as we put him into his car seat. He was screaming the whole way until we got to the restaurant. Thankfully he was good at the restaurant or it would have been a very short meal. But the screaming started again when we went to put him in the car. The screaming stopped when we were at the meeting, but started again when it was time to go. He calmed down by the time we got home and was asleep when I got back from the grocery store.

I guess we should just be thankful that screaming is a sometimes mode.

Stock. Capital Gains. Ack!

The first job that I had when I got out of college in 1997 was at a company called TALX. While I was there I put a chunk of my earnings into the employee stock purchase plan. When I left TALX in 1999, I let the stock just sit there. A couple of years ago I activated the dividend reinvestment option on my stock. And then I let it sit.

Every quarter I get a statement telling me how much the stock is worth. And every quarter I start thinking about selling a chunk of the stock and buying something else. I've heard that diversifying your portfolio is a good investment strategy. I don't want to do it though. While the stock has done well for me, I'm not afraid of losing the potential earnings should it continue to climb. I'm also not even considering the potential loss of value if it should tank. At this point it's just found money. The thing that prevents me from selling the stock is that I don't want to lose the substantial chunk that would be capital gains.

By this point I've held it long enough that I think that it would "only" be subject to the 18% capital gains tax. But 18% is still a big chunk of change. Considering that I would be looking to take that money and buy another stock with it, it seems like a faulty proposition to avoid a potential loss by taking an immediate loss (capital gains plus broker commission) and a future loss (capital gains on the new stock). But I guess there is no way to make money without getting taxed on it.

Until I get over my fears of loss in Canfield I trust.

Google responses

"Myspace spam, myspace criticisms"
Myspace spam is the thing that most often sends traffic to my blog (besides the unfortunate gardeners who stumble onto it. Sorry guys, I'm of no help. I've got two brown thumbs). Myspace is somewhat unique in that there doesn't really seem to be a defined way to screen out spam. Don't get me wrong; I appreciate that nubile twenty-somethings want to get in touch with me. But semi-porn spam aside I haven't gotten anything else. There was a comedian who spammed me ahead of a visit to St. Louis, but that is borderline acceptable. It sure beats viagra spam or mortgage spam.

"Messy dads"
I'm not quite sure what this person was looking for, but they found me after my post on Messy Night. Other than how I normally dress, the only time I end up especially messy is when I try and help Oliver eat.

"freakanomics complaints"
On digestion I can see where there would be a lot of room for criticism and complaints about freakanomics. After all, the author says that Roe vs. Wade was a significant factor in the crime reduction that was seen across the country in the 1990s. But that is one way to read the data. I guess we will see if his interpretation is valid in twenty years as the Court starts to roll back protections on abortion.

"board game"
I've given my reviews of several board games. My favorites are still Settlers of Catan and Carcassone. Recently I've started to enjoy Through the Desert. It's sort of funny now, but you would really have to twist my arm to get me to play Monopoly or Risk. There are just too many better games out there to play.

"10K races in st. louis"
It looks like there are something like ten 10Ks in and around St. Louis this summer. I am aiming to participate in half of them. I just like the distance. It's not in the marathon class of distances, but it still requires some level of training. It's long enough to switch from anaerobic speed to aerobic speed. The other part of the attraction may be that they are somewhat infrequent becoming a good waypoint for my fitness over the course of the summer.

"green dress run hash"
I had a lot of fun at GDR this year. I'm sorry that I missed the festivities before and after the run, but as far as I can tell my liver thanks me for it.

"magic the gathering anonymous support group"
I appreciate that many players nicknamed MtG "card stock crack," but it really isn't addictive. I can stop. Really I can. Just let me open another booster.

La Leche League tonight

Tonight is the LLL meeting for this month. Usually it is on Thursday but they are varying from the usual schedule of LLL meetings on Thursday because of Holy Week. We usually meet in a Catholic high school, and I imagine that they'll need the room on Thursday. And I think tonight may be one of the last LLL meetings that I go to for a while.

It's not that I think that we've completely outgrown the meetings. It's just that the meetings usually start about the time that Oliver goes to bed. By the time we get home from the meeting, Oliver is falling asleep in the car. A good post meeting transfer means that he stays asleep after we get him to bed, but we don't have many of those. So what will likely happen is that my wife will continue to go while I stay home with Oliver.

I'm looking forward to taking these nights solo. I don't get the opportunity to spend that much time alone with him at night. I know that I can take care of him as evidenced by my wife's trip. It will also provide my wife an opportunity to get out of the house and hang out with friends at night (albeit once a month for this).

Board Game Reviews

For Sale was a nice, light board game. The game plays quickly with two phases - property acquisition and property sale. It reminded me somewhat of a game of hearts/bridge in that the properties are numbered 1-30 with higher numbers "trumping" lower numbers in the property sale phase. With each game taking about 30 minutes, it was easy to segue from this game to the others once everyone arrived. This is one that I may go out and buy myself.

Cloud9 was described to be as a painless way to play chicken. The players are part of a skydiving club. The navigator rolls some number of dice and the players guess whether the cards in his hand match the die roll. If the other players guess that they won't match, they bail and then move a certain number of squares forward. If they match, the remaining players advance to a higher/more profitable place to jump from. The game play was a little kludgy but still enjoyable. I wouldn't however recommend buying this one.

Marracash is currently out of print. But it was so enjoyable that I have a hard time picturing why. The game takes place in the markets of Marracash. Players take on a mix of roles from shop owner to guide to auctioneer. As a shop owner, you get money from the tourist who visit your shop. As a guide, you get a cut from the proceeds when you lead a tourist into another player's shop. As an auctioneer, you auction off unowned shops in the market and get a cut of the sale price. The idea is to end the game with the most money. The game played quickly and appears to be quite deep in terms of strategy. If it weren't so hard to find, I might try and pick it up.

Caylas is similar to Puerto Rico. There are a number of similar mechanics and a number of variations on how to proceed. We got about a third of the way through before calling the game. I enjoyed this one, but I don't think it is the kind of game that I would want to purchase as I tend to like games that are a bit shorter in duration.

The last game we played was Sabotuer. In Sabotuer, the group is secretly divided into miners and saboteurs. The miners lay down tunnel sections leading toward the gold. The role of the saboteur is to stop the miners from reaching the gold. The game reminded me a cross between Miles Bourne and Pipe Works as you are creating a network to get to an end point and trying to avoid disasters along the way.

Raining and Pouring

When it rains, it pours. For me, this saying most immediately applies to the weekend of April 22/23. I've been training for the River to River relay which is on Saturday. That's been my focus for the past couple of weeks. I just got a reminder from my college fraternity, APO, that they are having an alumni banquet on the 23rd. I really want to go to that. Thankfully it's later in the day, so I can do both. We will however, have to get a babysitter if we're interested in going as it's not a kid-friendly event.

Then I checked the Wizards website and the Dissension pre-release is the same weekend. Somehow I don't think I'll be able to go to it as I'll have already been away for several dozen hours before I'd be leaving. This will make two prereleases in a row that I've missed. Considering that I haven't purchased any cards in quite a while, this may be the beginning of the end of me as a Magic player.

Weekend Update

My weekend began on Friday when I went upstairs to get Oliver out of bed. As soon as I picked him up, I smelled that something was off. When I went to change him I knew that I wasn't going anywhere that day. In one of the most impressive displays of excrement that I've witnessed, Oliver had filled his diaper with diarrhea from tail bone to pubic bone. It was literally a ten-wiper as I tried not to fall over from the smell. After I got him changed, we went into the kitchen and he wanted a banana. All day long he was eerily pleasant until it came time to drop another load. I would think that he was going to pull out of it only to have him erupt again. So we stayed in only going out for a walk to the grocery store in order to pick up some Pedialyte which he despises and rake the front lawn. I tried to get him to take some breast milk from a sippy cup, but he was having none of it. Either he likes it still warmer than I had it or only straight from the tap.

Saturday ended up being more of the same. We had to cancel plans with the family on account of Oliver's fecal distress. I took Oliver on a walk to the zoo. We went through the River's Edge which worked fine until I went to take him out of his stroller. After he was free, he did not want to go back in. I finally managed to coax him back in and head off to Bread Co to meet up with Mommy.

Saturday night I left Oliver in the able care of his mother to go to a friend's house for Board Game Night. I got to play a couple of games that I'd never played before - For Sale, Cloud Nine, Marracash, Caylas, and Saboteur. I enjoyed all five of them. I'm looking forward to BGM2.

Sunday we walked up to Delmar to cheer on the participants in the St. Louis Marathon. After we got back, it was time for a nap for Oliver and Mommy. While they were sleeping, I got started on shifting books and furniture around in our mostly finished office. We're still a bit away from getting it working, but I'm hoping that we get it ready soon. When Oliver woke up I took him for a run. After the run, we finally had our first solid-ish poop of the weekend. Yay!

Since he was good to go, we could go to Paul and Sarahlynn's place for a BBQ. They reeally know how to cook for a BBQ. I got to see a lot of friends. It was nice to see everyone. While we were there, Oliver got to go headfirst down their speedy slide. I got to play Oliver-catcher. We finally took off near 8:00.

Post 300 - Discourse and the Internet: Anonymity on Growing Moss

The Internet is a wonderful thing. In its infancy, captains of industry and wage slaves all had the same standing. While you could figure out that a particular handle might belong to a given person, there was always room for uncertainty. And sometimes you couldn't figure out who the handle belonged to and were left just dealing with the handle as it presented itself and its ideas. But the anonymity of the handle meant that the person behind it was somewhat insulated from the repercussions of anything that the handle did.

With no repercussions, people have felt free to unchain their inner id. Don't like someone? Create a new handle and start a flame war. If the person complains, the originator has lost a handle that they didn't have a lot of attachment to. With no face to face interaction, many of the social guidelines that people follow don't apply. Unmoderated forums end up a rough and tumble environment. Sure, you can't actually spit on someone online, but it doesn't take a long time to chase someone away with an avalanche of L33t Sp3ak to chase away the Lam3rz.

I allow anonymous comments on my blog. I don't do it in any way to contribute to the problem of unchained ids. Rather I do it to allow people who happen to read my blog but are not themselves set up on Blogger to comment on something they see here. But I'm going to establish a rule that unchained ids get deleted. If you can't stand behind your comments or offer something of substance to the debate, you don't have a place here. Can someone sign up for a new handle everytime they want to cause me trouble? Yes, but at some point it has to be more trouble than telling me that I suck is worth.

"Fuck 'Em If They Can't Take a Joke" Explained

One of my sayings (that I'm sure that I borrowed from somewhere) is "Fuck 'Em If They Can't Take a Joke." What I mean when I say it is that everyone has to maintain perspective in a discussion. If I'm talking about religion or politics with friends, we all need to keep in mind that we want to stay friends at the end of the discussion. Spirited debate is good until one or more of the debaters loses perspective and becomes unmeshed in a win at all costs mentality. At that point, I have no more use of them, so fuck 'em.

A Casualty in the Mommy Wars

Avid readers of my blog (all two of you) may have caught a post that I had up on Thursday unmasking the identity of Anonymous. As happens all too frequently in the information age, the post was made without all the facts. The facts that I had fed into the assumptions that I made leading me to the wrong conclusion. As you can imagine, the party that I named is quite pissed at me and rightfully so. I just hope that our relationship is not irrepairably strained because of it. The party in question tracked down Anonymous, and Anonymous apologized to the named party. I need to do so as well.

Where I went off track was the tone of the comments that were directed to me about me. I thought that only someone who knew me personally and hated me would get that personal in attempting to hurt me. It wasn't just that Anonymous told me that I was a dork (when it's as plain as the nose on your face it's hard to deny), but Anonymous attempted to subvert the trust that I have in my friends and family. I'd like to thank my friends who came to my defense. You guys rock. For family, that's my fault. I didn't take into consideration the very personal nature of the topic. I've talked a bit about how personal people take it when someone suggests that they may not be raising their children as well as they can, but I didn't take my own words to heart.

What if...

On the The Berry Patch, Amanda poses a what if. One of the What ifs that I've been wondering is "What if you could meet yourself from some alternate future where you had made a significantly different decision?" It could be anything - a different choice in college, breaking up with someone or not, an accident that happened or was avoided. How different might your life had gone? Would your perspective on life have been any different? What would you say to your alternate self?

I can think of a number of seminal moments in my life - dislocating my shoulder, choosing a college, choosing a high school, student teaching, picking my extra curricular activities in college - which if I'd chosen differently I would find myself in a very different position.

Random thought: Would the world be more peaceful if it were polytheistic?

Most of the major world religions are monotheistic. More than just monotheistic, but each believes that its incarnation of God is the only way to see God and that everyone else is some form of infidel. But what if people recognized Abba, Yahweh, and Allah as different gods and Heaven as different for each religion. Would that make for a more peaceful world as the Gospel of I'm-Right-You're-Going-To-Burn no longer made sense? Or would it be much like it has been where different religions underwent campaigns to eradicate the other religions?

DH-BF 2: Anonymous, Everybody. Everybody, errr, Anonymous

For those tuning into the exchange, my response turned into something more than a comment:

Anonymous, I don't mind that you disagree with me or think I'm creepy. As a matter of fact, you probably know me well enough to not need to divine it from the fact that I play D&D. I'm actually far nerdier than I let on. I wear a shirt to work that says "Geek." My wife bought it for me. After all when it is as plain as the crooked nose on my face, why try and hide it. BTW, your ad hominem attacks seem well practiced. Did you perchance pick on the fat kids or the nerds in school? Just sign up for a blogger name so that you don't need to hide behind anonymous.

There were a couple of elements that I've responding to in your post. First, I'd like to call for a closer reading of my original post. It's a weak defense, but it's just a start. Then I would like to talk about extended breastfeeding. Next up for discussion is La Leche League (LLL) followed by my response to what I read of your critique of my parenting style. Finally I'd like to conclude with a discussion of the phrases mainstream media and social norms.

If you reread my post, you'll notice that I didn't note that he was five until it came time to set up the "punchline." If she had mentioned that the kid was five, I didn't hear it - too busy trying to get stuff done around the house. I might have even been painting figurines but probably not just then. And when the punchline came I was unhappy. They took an opportunity to show breastfeeding a non-infant as a good and healthy thing and flushed it down the toilet. I was unhappy because they did go to extremes. It sets up anyone who breastfeeds their child beyond some mystical cutoff is a "LLL crazy."

I'd like to hear your opinion on when this mystical cutoff for the cessation of breastfeeding is by the way. I'd hate to offend you if you are still a reader when/if we've passed it. Elements that you cite for the cutoff are proficiency with cutlery, the spoken word, and some level of gross motor system. Many of these elements are present as early as six months. Is a year too long? Two? Three? We already know that you think that five is too long. But the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Family Physicians, and the World Health Organization disagree with you and agree with me. In total, they say that extended breastfeeding is nutritionally, immunologically, intellectually, and emotionally healthy for the child and to the mother as well. It sounds like a pretty complete package. Definitely a far cry from "retard(ing) the child's development as an independent and social being when it is face down in mommy's boobs."

La Leche League's mission is "To help mothers worldwide to breastfeed through mother-to-mother support, encouragement, information, and education and to promote a better understanding of breastfeeding as an important element in the healthy development of the baby and mother." My own personal experiences with the organization in all of the meetings that I've gone to is that it is a great source of information to aspiring breastfeeders, a good support group for those mothers who choose to breastfeed, and an excellent source of information on parenting styles. I understand that not every group is created equally. I've had friends tell me that they went to a meeting that was rather militant. As I said, that's not been my experience. If you, your friends, or your family has had a bad personal experience with La Leche League, I'm sorry to hear it. Perhaps the group that they went to didn't fit their style. There are others out there from which an aspiring breastfeeder can get support (in St. Louis, Kangaroo Kids is one such place). I'd urge anyone who is considering breastfeeding to get involved in one of these support group. After all they didn't leave the factory with an instruction manual. I've never felt that the group preyed on my "natural parenting style" but rather offered suggestions on how to do it more naturally. Some things we picked up. Others we left behind.

I've written that every parent is sensitive to critiques on their parenting style. We all want what is best for our child and for many that means that parenting becomes some sort of competition. Anonymous, I'm not trying to critique your parenting style. But I do read your post as containing critiques on mine. Let's see "parental overcompensation", the cow comment, "warehouse their kid at daycare", "crazies", "insecure", and "single-minded zealots". I almost don't know where to begin. I'll leave the crazies and insecurity and zealot. I do like how you are making me out to be some sort of breastfeeding terrorist though. Nice work.

Let's start with the cow. I'm glad that you express a certain level of support for the whole idea of breastfeeding. At least we have something in common. I'm glad that you are not grossed out by a flash of breast either. Bravo for you. But where does the cow thing start? From day one? After a year? From the definition of the process it would almost seem like in your words that any amount of breastfeeding is a display of parental overcompensation. After all from day one, the milk that the mother is producing is "even to this day is much better than what my child could get anywhere else." Certainly better than an actual cow, or a goat, or even another mother. And most definitely better than formula. The action of breastfeeding is in actuality a process of "milking" the mother. Mom, cow, I get it. But there we're overcompensating again. Damn it. We'll have to stop. But the thing is that we aren't actually overcompensating. We're doing the thing that all of those organizations that I cited earlier tell us is best for our child. Now let me go back to revisit part of what I didn't say earlier. All of this support is that as long as it is mutually desired by mother and child. But if mom wants it and baby wants it, it's a unquestionably good thing.

That leaves us with warehousing my kids at day care. To a certain extent, I'll agree with you. If it were a practical option for my family I would have quit my job and stayed home with Oliver. It was really only a practical option for me to quit my job since my wife makes a non-trivial amount of money more than I do. We could have rejiggered our finances, put off major home improvements, and made it practical for me to stay home. If I'm being totally honest with you, that would have been a disaster. I see how other people interact with their children. I just keep forgetting to talk to Oliver. One of our favorite games is where I play the Kissing Monster and I chased him around the house. Great fun, but I don't say many words other than "I'm coming to get you." When I drive Oliver to the warehouse, I don't sing and sometimes prefer to have a book on tape or NPR or the oldies station on. While I'm good at cooking and cleaning I'd be a disaster as a SAHD. I'm getting better about being self-motivated, but there is still a certain amount of prodding needed to get me to do anything. So we chose not to do that. And Oliver is not showing any ill effects from it. He's a happy, well-adjusted, confident toddler. Could he have been better at home with me? The world will never know.

All in all, I think we've done a good job. And you missed the chance to take swipes at early potty training, co-sleeping, and delayed introduction of solid food and cow's milk. Still I take some measure of offense at your critiques.

Finally I'd like to discuss the mainstream media and social norms. The mainstream media has little care for social norms. It cares about ratings and will do whatever it takes to get them. I offer as proof "Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire." On the other hand, the mainstream media is also willing to give you the same thing over and over again until the golden geese is dead and only bones remain. Witness CSI, CSI:Miami, CSI: New York, Law and Order, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. Or it will tell you what you want to hear and not challenge you. Witness the kid gloves treatment of Bush after 9/11. Hell, our elected officials were even willing to let him wage war on a concept. But sometimes, the mainstream media can be effective at changing the level of debate. Witness The Morning After. It isn't too much to hope that someone would take a chance to add something to the debate.

I've never much cared for social norms. I'm a nerd and I always have been. My fraternity had girls in it. I played Magic: The Gathering, Dungeons and Dragons, and computer games. Once held a bag of frozen peas up to my nose after breaking it against a car so that I could play computer games. My last two cars were selected primarily because of fuel economy not performance. And so I shudder when Anonymous holds up social norms as a measuring stick of how well I'm doing. Upholding social norms isn't always a good thing. Racism, anti-Semitism, sexism, homophobia, and smoking were at one time also social norms.I don't think society is better off now that they aren't as prevalent. Minimalist breastfeeding is now a social norm. In the future it may not be. So if the general public isn't comfortable with the idea now, well, fuck 'em if they can't take a joke.

MySpace criticisms

I've been playing around with myspace over the past couple of weeks. I've caught up with some old friends (Hi Tammy! Hi Zoey!) and co-workers (Hi Wesley! Hi Enrique!). I even have my very own stalker (Hi Kat!). I've played the Kevin Bacon Game with other movie buffs. I've jumped on hasher groups. So it's fun, but I still can't make up my mind whether I like it or not.

The biggest problem is that the user interface is terrible. For example, every time I click on one of the groups I subscribe to, it opens a new window. If I click on the same group later it will open a new window, regardless of whether or not I already have a window for that group open.

The forum code is horrid. Whenever I open a thread I start at the first post (especially annoying on the KBG thread of 100+ pages). When I make a post, the link on the confirmation page takes me to the first post in the thread. The forum hierarchy is also all messed up. There is one hierarchy under Movies - General. I'd think that they could break it up by genre or decade or something. The hierarchy under games is similarly wide.

Browsing through the list of available users is a hit and miss proposition. Some users use the generic template which is awkward, but easy to use. Some users customize their template in ways that make it easy on the eyes. And some users change their template to make it bright and colorful that it becomes very difficult to find the text admist the swirls and pictures. It's nice that they put some effort into their profile but some restraint would be nice.

The content of the profiles varies from user to user as well. I've decided that I won't spend much time paying attention to users whose profile consists of a suggestive picture and few personal details beyond female, straight, 18-20 and single. You, sir, are just looking for people to screw around with. You are spam and unto spam you shall return. Other profiles look interesting until you start reading them. I understand that some people don't necessarily care about spelling or punctuation, but I'm not one of them. If you want to sound like anything other than a drunken monkey, pause, spellcheck, and move on.

I keep running across people who are in my extended network, but I don't really have any way to browse just those users or to see how they qualify. It would be nice if I could alter the parameters that have people qualifying for my extended network rather than scrolling through that person's profile to guess why.

I haven't played with the music or movies sections. The classifieds aren't used for much in the St. Louis area. I'm not particularly drawn to the club scene, so they events area isn't as useful as it might otherwise be. But I can see why it would be invaluable to single people.

Unless myspace provides me with more utility, it might join the long list of interesting internet items that I don't use any more.

Sometimes the nightmares happen when you are still awake

I'm driving down the road. Up ahead there is a green light. As I approach the intersection a car starts out from the right. I swerve into the left lane, avoiding the collision. A couple of minutes later I start thinking about the other possibilities. What if he'd waited another five seconds and there wasn't time to swerve? What if I'd tried to brake and had slid over the gravel from the construction along the sides of the road? What if there had been a car in the left lane? I hadn't checked my blind spot before swerving. Every one of these scenarios becomes a nightmare of the car crash. Would the collision hit my wife and/or child? Would we be able to get out?

Yesterday I had a different kind of day-mare. After leaving Chicago, we started along I-55. As we approached Springfield, we hit some bad weather - winds, rain, thunderstorms. I turned off the book on tape and kept going. We started passing other cars that had pulled over to the side of the road. I turned on the radio and scanned until I came across a weather bulletin. It seems that the weather that we were driving through included a couple of funnel clouds that had touched down on the other side of Springfield, which we had just recently passed. As we are getting this news, we come to a spot where the traffic on the highway has stopped. There's twisters in the area and we're stopped on the highway. My guess is that there is something down on the road. A couple of minutes pass. Finally there is some movement ahead and we start moving. Nothing down - I guess the people just wanted to stop where they were with something overhead. Nevermind all of those people piled up behind them. At least we were moving - the whole time we are listening to the radio and the DJ is telling us to take cover. But where? We aren't at home. Every store that we drive past is covered in glass. The DJ keeps listing counties affected by the warning, but the names of the counties don't mean much to me. Eventually she starts listing cities, but even though the names are familiar, they are just names on highway exits. We press on. The rain is intense, but the winds aren't severe. Finally it starts to slacken and then we're through. But my day-mares start where the twister is coming and we're still stuck in traffic. Or speeding along the open road when a funnel cloud sideswipes us.

I suppose there were smarter things that I could have done, but in the end we arrived some safe. This time.

Weekend in Chicago

This past weekend I took my family up to Chicago to visit my family. That is the married/created family to the my parents and siblings family. We left Friday niught about the time that Oliver was going to sleep. The trip up was pretty good. My wife and I chatted until she got tired and then I plopped in Ender's Game. Of course I didn't have her awake to switch disks, so when the disk ended, I turned off the radio. We got to Chicago a little later than I'd planned, but my parents were there to greet us. Oliver had woken up just before we got there and favored my parents with some smiles. Then he went off to bed. I stayed up for a bit and looked through some old pictures with my mother. It was funny to see young Adam who stopped smiling in pictures all of a sudden.

In the morning, my wife took charge of Oliver and let me sleep in (thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou). It seems that I'd missed a trip across the street to the park and the "zoo" in the park. When my parents got up, I took Oliver off to visit my mother's office and the library where she volunteers. At the library, Oliver was all smiles. We picked up a couple of age-appropriate books to look at and then headed home.

My brother and his girlfriend were there and were very happy to see Oliver. We had some lunch and took a trip to the park. Oliver got to see the Llamas, the cow, the sheep, the swan, and the goats - basically the entirety of the zoo. Then we played on the equipment with my brother and his girlfriend taking turns sending Oliver down the slide. Oliver got a chance to chase some ducks and then it was time to go back.

After the park, it was back to the house where my other brother's wife and daughter had arrived. At first, my niece was very reserved, but after some time and a snack, she began to play with her cousin. My brother made it out and I got to talk to him a bit as we watched the children play. Then it was bed time and my wife and I watched When Harry Met Sally before bed.

In the morning it was my turn to take the morning shift and Oliver and I played for a while. When my parents woke up we went to Baker's Square for breakfast. Then we went to see my brother and his girlfriend in their new place. We toured the condo and then retired to the first floor to talk and watch Oliver play. A multitude of Zerberts later and we were on our way. Oliver fell asleep in the car and we had to skip a trip out to see my other brother. We'll have to go over at some point so that Oliver and Ardelia can play together in her own space.

All in all it was a good trip to the city. I always intend to try and make time to see my friends when I come into the city, but our stays end up being so short that there is just not time to do more than see family. The other issue is that I haven't felt that I could leave Oliver solely in the care of my parents. Now that he needs less carrying, it enters the realm of possibility though.