Why news screw up science

I'm sure you've all heard the news report about sanitizing a kitchen sponge by microwaving it for 2 minutes [CNN]. All the news organizations jumped on the story and blared headlines about how "Clean your sponge in the microwave!". One little problem. They neglected to mention the sponge must be wet. Seems a rather minor oversight until you realize microwaving a dry sponge for 2 minutes can have some disastrous results [CNN]. This is why you should NEVER trust a news organization to relay scientific findings accurately. They seem to find ways to screw it up.

The Disciplinarian

This weekend, Lauren fought her naps something fierce. After moving her from the bed to the crib and then moving the crib to then moving the crib away from the wall to avoid any home improvements, she still would not go to sleep. Hearing the obvious sounds of my precious little one doing jumping jacks on the mattress, I knew I had to nip this in the bud. I made my way to just outside her door and waited to hear the jumping jacks renew. She complied and I burst in to let her know my displeasure. I had to be the disciplinarian here and I was ready to fulfill that task. I was going to be stern and mean, no cracking smiles, no light hearted humor to get her to smile. She was in trouble and I was going to let her know it. Things were going well right up until she made this face: Head down, eyes looking at me, with a little pout showing. Every woman out there will probably recognize this as the Daddy kiss-of-death look. In the middle of a chastisement, I felt the smile coming. It could not be stopped. The only thing to do was the following:

I'm so mad right now I can't even look at you!
<slowly turn around, commence quiet laughing, wait for humor to subside and look back>
Do you understand what you did is wrong?

Parenting ... it's okay to find things your children do funny, just don't let them see that.

Interview Questions for somebodystrange

Interview Meme Rules are as follows: You comment on this entry requesting an interview. I respond with five questions. The questions will theoretically be tailored to you based on what I know of you (or want to know). You copy and paste those questions into your own journal, and write the answers, along with these rules. Anyone wanting an interview from you continues the game by requesting an interview from you.

1. One sci-fi notion is for every decision you make in your life, every option is taken in parallel universes. If you could visit one of these parallel universes, what decision would have created that universe?
   
2. To what station is your car radio currently tuned? If there are any CDs in your car, what are they?
   
3. You are a villain in a James Bond movie, what is your diabolical plan to take over the world? What color are the uniforms of your henchman?
   
4. Having turned 30, what one thing do you most wish you could have accomplished already but haven’t?
   
5. Kirk or Picard?

Interview questions for redsox_becky

Interview Meme Rules are as follows: You comment on this entry requesting an interview. I respond with five questions. The questions will theoretically be tailored to you based on what I know of you (or want to know). You copy and paste those questions into your own journal, and write the answers, along with these rules. Anyone wanting an interview from you continues the game by requesting an interview from you.

1. To quote from a very off the wall question you posed to me once, which way does Clint dress?
   
2. You recently had sex with Superman and absorbed one of his powers, which one?
   
3. You are kidnapped and forced to watch one of the 24 hour news channels. Which one would you pick and why?
   
4. Name one vice you most wish you could get rid of.
   
5. Name one virtue you possess that gives you the most pride.

Interview Questions for writer_grrl

Interview Meme Rules are as follows: You comment on this entry requesting an interview. I respond with five questions. The questions will theoretically be tailored to you based on what I know of you (or want to know). You copy and paste those questions into your own journal, and write the answers, along with these rules. Anyone wanting an interview from you continues the game by requesting an interview from you.

1. You awake to find yourself in a science fiction novel/movie/tv show. What does the universe look like (popular TV show or a made up one) and who are you (yourself, some known character, some random red shirt schmuck)?
   
2. When the Silver Spoon is made into a movie, who would you want to play the main characters?
   
3. What songs on your iPOD do you wish you had never loaded?
   
4. First to have a child: You or Susan?
   
5. Are you a god?

My Interview Meme

Interview Meme Rules are as follows: You comment on this entry requesting an interview. I respond with five questions. The questions will theoretically be tailored to you based on what I know of you (or want to know). You copy and paste those questions into your own journal, and write the answers, along with these rules. Anyone wanting an interview from you continues the game by requesting an interview from you.

Questions courtesy of the fabulous Mrs. Tora Pines:

1. Have you found yourself saying certain things to your daughter that you recognize from your own parents?
Actually, this disease began even before Lauren was born. For example, if someone were to ask me if today is Friday, my knee jerk response is "All day!" ala dad. I do expect some of my dad's more famous phrases to come into use. Things like "What were you thinking?!?! Don't you know you could have been hurt?!?! *smack*". That was one of my favorites.

2. What movie should I watch that I would never think of watching?
I would be a lot better at this question if I had seen more than 2 movies in the past 26 months. One movie does come to mind that is rather obscure. The movie is called Last of the Dogmen starring Tom Berenger and Barbara Hershey. My father-in-law introduced me to the movie and I absolutely loved it.

3. What would it take to lure you to visit us the next time you are visiting your East Coast family?
Funny you should mention this. Right now, we have plans for a 2 week vacation in August that may include a stop by the Pines household. As you may know, we go to Ocean City every year in August. This year, the trip will be August 11th-19th. The Saturday before, Debbie has a friend getting married in South Carolina. Rather than fly to and from SC on one weekend, than fly to Baltimore the next, we figured this might be an opportune time to visit some friends in North Carolina. However, I subscribe to the Ben Franklin rule of visiting: Guests, like fish, begin to smell after 3 days. :) So, we would hit Baltimore early this year (either Wednesday or Thursday). This leaves enough time for a side trip to DC and a nice respite at the Pines Household for a day (or more). Seem like a plan?

4. Can you name a prank you pulled (or helped pull) sometime in your life for which you never got blame (or credit)?
When it comes to pranks, I'm a bit of a wuss. Most of the ones I pull are benign enough and tend to leave my fingerprints all over it. I've done things like tape a penny to the ear piece of a telephone. There's also the tape a penny to the bottom of an optical mouse (my pranks tend to involve currency for some reason, go figure). I will instead, relay the best prank ever pulled on me. Freshman year at Valpo, our floor at Lankenau was very close. So close, that I rarely locked the door. When some floormates saw this, they decided to use this opportunity to move everything in our room from one side to the other. It was such a beautiful prank that, upon entering the room, my first reaction was to make sure I was in the right room. When I realized it was the right room, it took me a while to figure out what had happened. That was, by far, the best prank I had ever seen (this was prior to the Internet posting stuff like this almost everyday).

5. What's something I don't know about you that would completely surprise me?
My mind is a dark, strange place where few have the temerity to tread (that's not a surprise, I know). When I was young, I read a book whose name escapes me, but I think it was called Starwolf. After reading this book, most of my doodles in high school took on a military theme with elaborate drawings of fight scenes between foot soldiers, armor, rocket ships, and a combination of these. From this I developed in my mind this intricate secret society of warriors where, like fielding a football team, high schools had to form armies to fight one another for supremacy. There were a lot of rules about hierarchy, command structure, engagement, etc. Naturally, in this dream scape, I was a superb soldier and commander who conquers most of the high schools east of the Mississippi before graduating (did I mention I daydream a lot). This elaborate and complicated day dream extended itself to my college days and so forth. I won't spend much time on this, but these thoughts still pop up in my head today. I know. I am deeply disturbed individual.
I have written this second paragraph about 3 times trying to give a surprising insight into my high school years. I actually have several, but I think I am going to go with this one: During my entire 4 years of high school, I never used the rest rooms there for fear of getting caught in the classic bully-nerd situation. Keep in mind, I was never threatened by anyone or made fun of in a demeaning way. I just feared the possibility so much, I never wanted to put myself in a situation where it might happen.

Grrrrrrrr

I recently moved to a new group within my company. I am very excited about this oppurtunity, but I hit my first sour note today. We had a 7:30 am conference call this morning to discuss some architecture issues with a group in India. Getting to a conference call at that ungodly hour requires a lot of effort on both my and Debbie's part. It is especially hard on Lauren whom we have to wake up. We even had to get her out the door after watching only 1/2 a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. The horrors. So imagine my frustration when I sit down at my computer and see this email:

Time 7:26 am. Subject: Conference Call Cancelled

GRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!

Infuriating

There were noises coming from the nursery to clue me into the fact something was going on. I simply ignored them. So, I got quite a shock when I went to get Lauren and saw her like this:
 
Now, my initial reaction was shock and anger, but that cute little smile disarmed the feeling almost immediately. That and, when she saw me, Lauren held up a rather large piece of wallpaper like a cat holds up a prized bird and said in her proudest voice: "Daddy ... RIP!!!". All I could do was smile and say "Yes dear, you ripped *sigh*". Good thing we were planning on changing the wallpaper border anyway, otherwise this would be extremely infuriating.

Big Day Planned

With Debbie abondoning Lauren and I tomorrow for work, I am trying to figure out what to do. By our lonesome, we are going to go shoe shopping. Lauren's shoes are getting smaller by the minute and it's time we get her a new pair. Not really wanting to just sit around the house, I figured I am up to the challenge of finding a good pair of shoes for a 2 year old. Hopefully, my sanity will remain intact for that portion because I also thought tomorrow would be a good day to redeem a Build-A-Bear gift certificate Lauren got for her birthday. So, it should be a fun day, if a little exhausting. I can't imagine how this would work with 2 in tow!

What becomes of a good mind

This morning, I was surprised by how long Lauren slept. 8:45. That's the time of her first stir this morning. Normally, one would think this is a wonderful gift. Who wouldn't want to sleep a little later, especially when the previous night was spent playing cards with the neighbors until 1? However, something has happened to my mind after becoming a parent; something that has rendered the supposed gift a source of incredible angst. You see, my mind finally realized that at 8 o'clock I had heard absolutely no sounds coming through the baby monitor. A mild sense of discomfort washed over me. Did she sneak out of her room? Of course, this thought leads to an even more disturbing thought: Did she sneak out and fall down the stairs and is now unconscious on the landing? So, instead of enjoying this extra sleep, I am now lying awake in bed wondering what horrific injury might have befallen my little girl. I now have to get up to check the door. Relieved to see it still shut, I return to bed to try to enjoy this unexpected respite.
After still hearing nothing by 8:15, my imagination began to concoct fantastic scenarios to explain this silence. Maybe someone snuck into the house and took her. Maybe a flying monkey swooped in through the window to kidnap her. So now, the thought occurs that I need to go into the room to see if she is still there. Then my mind comes to its senses, realizing that if she is sleeping, going into the room would surely put an end to that. But ... what about the flying monkeys? How can I be sure she is still in there? In the end, I decide I have to just let my imagination run wild until I get audible confirmation she is still in there.
Instead of enjoying a long, restful sleep, my stupid imagination had to go off and freak me out, forcing me to lie awake and hope for any sign of life from the nursery. *sigh* What hath parenthood wrought upon my once beautiful mind?

Thankfully, fireworks were avoided

How did you spend your New Year's? I spent mine installing a light. Of course, this wasn't the take out the old light and put in the new light. No, that would be too easy. This had to be the cut a hole in the ceiling, install a junction box, THEN install the light and run wires. And leave it to the Home Depot DIY Book to make me feel inadequate. I believe the estimated time for this job for a beginner was about 3 hours. I did it in 6. Yeah for incompetence!!
The job wasn't as technically difficult as it could have been. The joists in the ceiling run perpendicular to the direction I needed to take the electrical wire, so instead of trying to gut a big ass drill and go through 3 joists, I got one of those hide-a-cord thingies. Easily saved me from making this a 2 day job or more. Also, the light is actually connected to an outlet that is controlled by a light switch, so that saved me a lot of time too.
One good thing about all of this is there were no fireworks. The light did not explode when plugged in and I never got close to feeling those mild tinglies you get before the giant ZAP! And now, we are finally able to play in the playroom after the sun goes down! HOORAY!

PS There is no better feeling than doing a job like this and then hearing your daughter squeal: YEAH DADDY!