We Co-Sleep, But Don’t Want to Argue About It

Over at Music City Bloggers there is a post about co-sleeping that thankfully hasn’t erupted into a full-on war over what is right and what isn’t.

We co-sleep with our four month old, and I think it’s great.  Of course, nursing, kicking, crying, grunting, cats, and trains don’t wake me up, so not a problem for me either way.  :)   The biggest advantage I’ve noticed so far is that the baby actually likes bedtime.  Hopefully this will carry over into toddlership.  The other advantage is that we get to spend as much time as possible with her while she still likes us.

However, that doesn’t make it right (or wrong).  Honestly, I don’t understand why people get so militant about this kind of stuff to begin with–breast feeding, co-sleeping, etc.  Do what works for you and your kids.  We’ll do what works for us.  It seems like most people spend their entire parenthood in survival mode, so I’m not sure what qualifies them to give advice or direction.  Or as I so tactfully put it on a message board a few years ago…

You worry about screwing up your kids, and I’ll worry about screwing up mine. 

The Poll is Off — Evel Knievel Dead

My latest poll allowed readers to choose Evel Knievel as the biggest jerk, and now I feel really bad about it. Evel Knievel died today at the age of 69. A sad day.

Over his career, Knievel was said to have broken practically every bone in his body — some multiple times. With his red-white-and-blue jumpsuits, shock of hair and stone-faced mein, he was a fixture on ABC’s program “Wide World of Sports” in the 1970s, his stunts perennial ratings-grabbers.

Needless to say, I’m removing him as one of the choices from the poll, and I have to hand it to the my readers on their foresight–not one person had chosen him and I’m currently tied for the lead. How fitting.

My absolute favorite toy as a little kid was the Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle. I’d wind it up as fast as it would go and send Evel flying up a ramp made out of an album cover and the phone book.

Thanks for entertaining us for all those years!

Chickens and Eggs — I Love ‘Em Both

Katherine Coble on Ron Paul’s campaign:

 I would simply say that it was the growing respect for limited government in advance of Dr. Paul’s candidacy which has bouyed him so long. In short, he’s not the father of the movement. Our movement is the father of his candidacy.

Miss Milwaukee 1959

Joanie Cunningham All Grown UpFirst of all, thanks to those of you who continue to vote in my idiotic polls. They usually start off as stupid ideas that pop into my head. They later graduate to stupid ideas that show up on my blog. I then spend a week or more trying to figure out if there are any real conclusions I can draw about my readers from the answers. For this past poll, I think I was pretty successful in doing just that.

When asked the question “which one?” of the women from Happy Days, 33% of respondents chose Jenny Piccolo, which was one of two correct answers. Why Jenny Piccolo? She was a minor character, right? She didn’t contribute much to the show until long after Fonzie jumped the shark and Marcy’s second husband (Married With Children reference) showed up, right?

Good point. But savvy male viewers, even in their early childhood, could infer quite a bit about Jenny Piccolo. One thing was certainly implied by every reference to her–she was bad. Not crackwhore bad. Naughty bad. Bad influence on Joanie bad. Break curfew bad. Willing to kiss on the first date bad. I guess in the 50s you’d take whatever you could get as far as naughty goes. Either way, guys knew that Jenny Piccolo was down. Not only that, but she was the hottest of the available choices. Jenny Piccolo is the only acceptable choice for the type of guy who’d be looking to hook up while on vacation for a week in Milwaukee.

The only other acceptable answer was Lori Beth, but only 17% of respondents chose her. How does she qualify as an acceptable answer? Well, Ritchie Cunningham picked her didn’t he? Lori Beth was a nice girl, at least on the surface. She was the anti-Jenny Piccolo. She had Ritchie p-whipped (the “p” stand for “prude” of course). Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham loved her, The Fonz respected her, and Potsy and Ralph were on a never ending quest to find a girl just like her. I have a theory that Lori Beth and Potsy actually hooked up in the bathroom at Arnold’s one night after getting all hopped up on root beer floats. I also suspect that Rick Ocasek wrote “My Best Friend’s Girl” about Lori Beth from Potsy’s perspective. But that’s here nor there.

Lori Beth is the long term girl. She’s the type of girl you want to date for years. If you play your cards right, you can build up her hopes that you’ll one day marry her and have a couple of kids in your middle class house. She’ll stay home and bake cookies while you get up every morning and head off to your dad’s hardware store. Of course, you have no intention of ever following through, but still. Her hopes will finally be dashed one steamy night at Inspiration Point when you accidentally call her…

Leather Tuscadero? Someone actually chose Leather Tuscadero? Uh, not sure if you were aware, but Leather Tuscadero doesn’t even like dudes. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I don’t like dudes either–at least not in that way. Is that the attraction to her? Some kind of psychological thing that makes you want what you can’t have? Are you that much of a masochist? Oh wait, maybe the “leather” part of the name ties in there somewhere. If that weren’t enough, she looks like Joan Jett on a 12 day meth binge. She was only included on the list as a trick answer, and you fell for it. I’d never even have considered her if I hadn’t been thinking about…

Pinky Tuscadero. Those of you who chose her, I get it. Sort of. I was just as worried as you were when the Malachi brothers gave her the Malachi crunch in the demolition derby. But please, let’s think this through. She’s a carny–a sideshow act. She’s just one step above the usual crowd of groupies that follow Fonzie around. She’s always leaving to go out on the road and jump her motorcycle through a hoop of fire or something. I half expected her to turn up on an episode of The Dukes of Hazzard playing a middle aged woman who comes back and reveals to Bo and Luke that they are actually her sons whom she left with her brother Jesse in order to keep them from finding out that Roscoe was their real father. That would explain where they got their daredevil genes wouldn’t it?

The obvious wrong choice out of this list, Joanie, was chosen by 25% of respondents. Who picked Joanie? Identify yourselves! How can you do that to your boy Chachi? And that’s nothing compared to the fact that she’s Ritchie’s sister! His little baby sister! Is nothing sacred anymore? I’m more disappointed in those of you who selected Joanie than I am in those who selected Leather.

I’ve learned a lot about my readers from this poll. Now how can I top it?

Your Computer Will Get Thinner–Guaranteed

I’ve been saying for quite a while, at least 5 years, that we aren’t far away from a time when your desktop computer will be little more than a browser, with all of your applications and data stored server side–somewhere out there.  The day may be closer than you think according to the Wall Street Journal.

Google is preparing a service that would let users store on its computers essentially all of the files they might keep on their personal-computer hard drives — such as word-processing documents, digital music, video clips and images, say people familiar with the matter. The service could let users access their files via the Internet from different computers and mobile devices when they sign on with a password, and share them online with friends. It could be released as early as a few months from now, one of the people said.

I think this is a good and bad thing.  Good because it will open up the ability to store and share information between individuals.  Bad in that Google is the entity doing it.  As far as I can imagine, no competitor has both the resources and the power to do it.  Microsoft?  Maybe, but they are going in so many directions and have their fingerss in a lot of pies.  Google is web focused.

Red Light Cameras — The Real Enemy

From the KNS

Knoxville police arrested a man Sunday morning for allegedly shooting a traffic light camera several times at the intersection of Broadway and Interstate 640.

Surely I’m not the only one snickering at this.  How can the police find the guy who allegedly shot a traffic light camera three times at 2 a.m. in Knoxville Tennessee, but still don’t know who shot Tupac on the Las Vegas strip in front of countless witnesses?  There really is no justice in the world.

Before any of the anti-gun nuts start asking for bans on .30-06 rifles, let’s remember…

Guns don’t take photos of your car and send you expensive traffic tickets in the mail…RED LIGHT CAMERAS DO.

CyberMonday Pre-Rush Post

I’ve returned safely from the land of dialup and am back in the real world with an extra 5 or 6 pounds.

If my site is down later, don’t worry.  It’s more than likely getting slammed by CyberMonday shoppers who are getting everything here instead of one of the other 100,000,000,000,000 sites they could hit.

Honestly, I don’t quite get it.  Why Monday? I guess because everyone has a high speed connection at work?  But don’t most people who would do their Christmas shopping online have a high speed connection at home as well?

Write It Down You Selfish Jerk!

After I posted my grandfather’s Thanksgiving thoughts last night, I spent the next few hours re-reading some other things that he wrote. I will definitely be posting more of it in the future. He was a great storyteller, and there are plenty of good stories in his memoirs.

TCH brought up something in the comments of that post that I think was pretty significant. We’ve all but lost the art of good, personal writing–letter writing was what he called it. I’m making a call right now with my small little voice that we do what we can to remedy this. If your parents and/or grandparents are still living, encourage them to chronicle the big events in their lives at a minimum, or to write an entire life story. You’ll be surprised how much entertainment and wisdom you can gain from their experiences, and you’ll probably make their day by just showing interest in their lives.

In the same vein, it’s worthwhile for all us to do the same. Blog software makes that easier than ever before (you don’t have to make the blog publicly available) but a pen and pad work just as well. I actually have everything my grandfather wrote scanned and converted to .pdfs, and it is cool to see it in his handwriting.

Some of the best stuff my grandfather wrote was about what it was like growing up in the 1920s and 1930s. It is really interesting to me because he grew up about 10 miles from where I did; yet his experiences were so different from mine. It is strange to imagine, but the way we grew up would be very foreign to the way kids are growing up today. Your personal description of the Atari 2600 or riding a bike with no helmet may actually interest someone somewhere down the line.

When I think of all the funny stories I have accumulated over the years, it is sad to think that they will all die with me. Maybe I’ll record them all, at least cleaned up versions of them, and no one will care. But maybe someone will. I should at least give them the opportunity to decide if any of it is worth the bother.

This Thanksgiving Post Trumps Them All

Earlier today I started on a post about Thanksgiving, how it is my favorite holiday, a truly American holiday, etc. Then my aunt forwarded this little excerpt about Thanksgiving that my grandfather wrote a few years before he died. Boy did my post look stupid.

I’ll stop writing now. His words are much better than mine.

In 1944 as a soldier in the U.S. Army, we left San Francisco, California in February headed for somewhere in the Pacific Islands to do our bit as Air Borne Engineers to rid the islands of invading Japanese.

It was a sad sight as we stood on deck looking back toward the U.S. to see the Golden Gate Bridge sink slowly out of sight as the Pacific Ocean water raised in the horizon. I think our thoughts were unanimous that we may never see The Golden Gate again.

After 22 months of service in New Guinea and the Philippine Island, we had finally liberated the islands and the Japanese had surrendered and the Army began demobilizing.

On November 5th, I boarded the USS General Collins in Manila Bay to start the long journey home. We took the Northern route which according to the curvature of the earth was the shortest route. Somewhere around the Aleutian Islands, we hit a typhoon. Reports were that waves of 50 foot engulfed the ship and we were hold bound for a long period of time. This was the longest period of scare that I went through. Most scares were short lived. Here I was headed home but can we make it? Thank God, we did. It took us 16 days to get back to the United States.

The last day of our 16 day journey we were in the chow line for our Thanksgiving Day dinner with turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce, a regular Thanksgiving meal feast. It was Thanksgiving Day, Thursday November 22, 1945. A call came down from the watchman in the crows nest that the Golden Gate was coming into view. The chow line disappeared. Remembering the time involved watching it sink, I knew I had time to eat so I went straight to the serving counter and had my choice fill.

I went out on deck after I had lunch and the Golden Gate was slowly rising out of the water. The closer we got to it, the higher it rose from the water. As I watched and my heart beat became faster and I became happier. It dawned on me that the majestic portals under the canopy of heaven which we must pass through was the reward of peace that we had victoriously won as victors of the “War to End all Wars, WWII.”

Dinah Shore was on the deck of the tug boat which met us to help with the docking. She sang and welcomed us back to the state side. We debarked on to a ferry which carried us to Pittsburgh, Ca. There, we were picked up by trucks and carried to Camp Stoneman.

For the dinner that night, we had steak fried to order with all the trimmings and all the fresh milk we could drink and all the ice cream we could eat. Quit a treat after 22 months in the tropics.

Thanksgiving has a lot of special meanings to me. A lot to be thankful for. I love to be with friends and family. I love to eat, hunt, relax and be selfish when I boast that Thanksgiving means more to me than any one else in the world!

This time of year is a very sentimental time for me. November 5th leaving Manila headed home, November 11, Veterans Day, November 22nd, landing in the USA. Every Thanksgiving is November 22nd for me. December 5th, I was discharged from the Army, December 7th reached home. Remember Pearl Harbor.

I really should post more of what he wrote in the future. This one little piece says a lot about him.

Remembering the time involved watching it sink, I knew I had time to eat so I went straight to the serving counter and had my choice fill.

If I’m lucky I’ll one day develop the patience and common sense that he had.

Amazon’s Kindle — I Don’t Get It (Yet)

Amazon launched its new ebook reader this week, and while I can definitely see the value in owning one, I think I have to pass for now.  The big obstacle for me?  The price.

$400 is pretty expensive, even though the gadget is cool.  Amazon is footing the bill for their reader’s connectivity to the Amazon ebookstore, which is nice, but they are still charging for the books.  I would be much more likely to buy one of these if it came with some free downloads, at least 15 or 20.  Seth Godin wanted to give his books away with each reader, but Amazon balked at the idea.  For me, that could have been the justification I was looking for.

I’m still tempted, because something like this is perfect for me.  I’m always reading 4 or 5 different books at the same time, and it would be great to be able to take them all with me on one little device.  This one is billed as being able to hold 200 titles.  Also, it would be great to use when traveling for the holidays.  Nice features like reading blogs through RSS and a built in music player make it a little harder to resist.

I’ll probably end up waiting for the third generation of these things before I commit to buying one.  I’ve already been burned by first generation mp3 players and digital cameras.  The price will drop and the products will get better.  I’d also like to hold one in my hands befre I throw down the money.  Still, a really cool idea, and this is the direction everything is going anyway.