Want to feel old?

Do ya? Do you want to feel really, really old? Then take a gander at this:

That's right. This is a current picture of the baby on the cover art of Nirvana's Nevermind. He's now 17 years old. How's THAT make you feel?

More useless information crammed in my noggin

Ooooooooooooooooooooh, let's name the zones, the zones, the zones. Let's name the zones of the open sea. Theeeeeeeeere's epipelagic, mesopolagic, bathyal, abyssalpelagic. All the rest are too deep for you and me to see.

This has been my weekend. For those of you unfamiliar with the quote, it's the song Mr. Ray first sings in Finding Nemo (one of Lauren's favorite movies). Now, I don't mean we watched FN (Our subtle way of mentioning the movie title without Lauren going into full pleading mode). As I am wont to do around the house, I will occasionally distract the kids with singing. One day, I tried out this little gem because I thought Lauren would enjoy the long monosyllabic intro. Much to my chagrin, she loved it soooo much, she demanded and encore ... and an encore ... and an encore ... and an encore. I will state that the second sentence of this song required some googling to figure out, but my first pass was surprisingly close with a simple phonetic recall of what was sung. Anyway, I now know the 5 zones of the open sea. Jepoardy!, here I come!.

I get scared everytime I need to cross the Mississippi

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Know who's selling your data

If you have a gmail account, there is a nifty feature that you may want to start using immediately. Essentially, your one gmail address can be expanded into an unlimited number of emails by simply adding a "+" to the end your user name. For example, if Mr. Foo was submitting his gmail address foo@gmail.com to the Bar corporation, he could write the following: foo+bar@gmail.com.
Seems pretty neat, but why would you want to do such a thing. Here is where that little trick becomes invaluable. Later on, Mr. Foo notices his account is getting bombarded with spam. He's given his gmail address to his bank, to his credit card company, and to various other institutions that seem to require email to do business. By using this feature, Mr Foo might notice that most of his spam is coming not to foo@gmail.com, but rather foo+bar@gmail.com. Pretty neat! We've just determined that the Bar Corporation has been selling Mr Foo's information.
Just a little FYI for those out there who may not know it already. For more information, you can check out my source for this: Extreme Tech.

waaioyiurryaaa Nvioaaaua vuaoa muurraoaao haauuoowaaaua namaaoaoao?

rruuuwuooo wouauiooigaaaoou rruaouuovoao Rrraaoaa huoaurrauuao nuuuorauaou ruyiga haauuhuuouuau hrrouauor naaaa rooiaoo ryuuooamaua waaoauoo?

Borrowed from the Hirsute Encyclopedia aka Wookiepedia.

Happy Cookie!

Father's Day was pretty nice around here. We spent a lot of time playing outside in the heat, but Lauren adored it. She was on pretty good behavior too. The highlight of the day came after a put some air in a tire that had gone flat. When I walked into the house, Lauren runs up and yells "Happy Cookie Daddy!". I was a little confused as to the greeting, but joyfully accepted the smile and hug. She then ran into the playroom where Mommy and Eric were. Mommy whispered a little something, then Lauren turned around and said "Happy Father's Day!". I was very proud. She then helped me open some presents (a Cold Stone GC and dark chocolate). I was delighted and got up to give Debbie a hug and kiss when Lauren grabbed my hand and started dragging me into the kitchen. When I spied the kitchen table, everything made sense. Pointing to the kitchen table, gleefully shouting "Happy Cookie Daddy! Happy Cookie!", Lauren introduced me to a giant chocolate chip cookie with icing.

Happy Cookie Indeed!

Eric Stats

Just had Eric's 2 month check up. Here are the vitals:

Weight: 14 lbs 8 oz (70th percentile)
Height: 25 inches (90th percentile!!!)
Head: 39.9 cms (50th percentile)

Return of the possum ... or is it? Dun Dun Duuuun!

I had to call an animal eviction firm again. A smell began to emanate from our basement that was less than pleasant. As the dutiful father, husband, and supposed man of the house, I was required to poke my head around in the ceiling of the basement. My search was for one of 2 thing: a dead animal or a live one. Do not ask me which I preferred because I still don't know. While I didn't find anything living or dead, I did spy something to horrify me. After our last encounter with wild life, I felt I had done a good job making sure the little buggers would stay out. Apparently, the little buggers scoffed at my silly notion of securing the house. There ... in the ceiling ... right where the previous possum had made his home ... there was a brand new, nice and comfy, bedded with leaves and insulation, nest. WTF!!!!!!!!! How the hell did he get in this time? I think I need to step up my prevention efforts now.
The good news is that it does appear the nest had been unused for some time (much like Dantooine). I may have hindered their ability to get in the house by blocking a major hole they had dug under the deck. Who knows? The animal eviction guy gave me some pointers on filling in the remaining areas with dirt and rock and monitoring for any activity. *sigh* Looks like I may have to try my hand at concrete work again.

The Angel and the Hellion

As the title suggests, there is a bit of a conundrum occurring in our household. The one child is an absolute joy. The child listens and smiles lots; is generally just very pleasant to be around. The other child screams, hits, throws, and has tantrums to rival any minor league baseball manager. The main problem we're having is it's the same child.
I imagine around this time, every parent realizes their dear little angel is actually a slight schizophrenic. This weekend could not be a more perfect example. On Saturday, Lauren woke up and had to think to herself: "Today, I think I'm a hellion". Fortunately, we had no real plans, but she just refused to cooperate on anything. She lost watching Dora in the morning because she kept running off when I was trying to dress her. She lost going to the big park because she ran away from me at our favorite breakfast restaurant when I let her come with me to pay the bill. We had at least 3 separate time outs, but I'm pretty sure we could have just sat her in the chair and told her to stay there all day. We tried church too, but she was barely tolerable even there. What really got our ire up though was when I realized I could not find her pajama top anywhere. Debbie and I both realized that if it wasn't visible and it wasn't in any of the drawers, there was one logical place left: The Diaper Champ! Opening the Chamber of Doo-Doo revealed she was having more fun with it than we thought. Not only was the pajama top in there, but so was a dragon, queen, 3 fences, bed, table, king, and other items associated with her castle.
Then, Sunday arrived. She woke up happy, congenial, willing to help, and generally cooperative all around. She was good enough to go to the big park (there's a little one around the corner, but the big one has more slides and more kids which we thought she would enjoy). She was happy during quiet time (as far as I know, no other items other than the cotton stink bombs have gone down the gullet of the Ca-Ca Chomper). What a great day!
I'd like to order more of Angel Lauren, but I have a feeling Hellion Lauren has a lot more of appearances to make. And ... yes ... I did enjoy coming up with the Diaper Champ monikers.

At some point, I would like to ...

travel to Kangaroos or spend a few days in Tequila.