Games

If anyone is reading this I have to assume they have this in their RSS feeds, because if you are regularly checking this blog at this point you are a champ, indeed. This blog more or less got really going as an outlet for all the stress and issues dealing with newborn twins and remodeling my home at the same time. Once I moved back home and the twins became potty trained, well, the NEED to get my thoughts out there became much more of a "need" to practice my writing chops. And with all things great and small distracting me, "needs" have a tough time making it to the top of the list these days.

I have decided to make another go of it. I am finishing my first "first author" paper since the girls were born (if you don't actually know me, I am a working astronomer) and that has played some role in the doldrums here at Kicker. I really shouldn't be writing a blog about whatever frothy thought flits into my brain when I need to be writing papers to keep my career on track. Long time readers will note how much time passed from this blog being dormant to the final (almost) publication of my next science paper. For new readers, here is the quick summary: A lot of time. There was really no connection between the two types of writing. I found plenty of other ways to procrastinate rather than write science that were much less fulfilling than this blog.

To get myself back in the swing of things, I will start with a light little bit on games. I am a bit of a board game guy. Nothing major. And I would have to say my playing time has dribbled to painfully small quantities with all this child rearing going on. Putting that aside for the moment, one of the classic board games in Monopoly. It has a lot of structural flaws: too random, too hard to reach end conditions (bankruptcy), and it requires significant trading cooperation among players to even remotely work and be fun. One Scrooge McDuck and this thing will grind on for hours. Still, there is probably no game board as well known besides that used for checkers and chess. And I loved it as a kid. My wife, to my mild chagrin, loves it still.




So here is one juicy tidbit I came across: How to win Monopoly in seven rolls of the dice. This comes from this web page. It prominently features a 21 second game consisting of nine moves. Later in the comments someone delivers the 7 roll variant that I believe is the shortest possible. All due credit belongs to them. They write it up further here. I am merely repeating their findings. Recall that all players start with $1500.

Player 1:

Rolls 5,5 -> Lands on Just visiting Jail
Rolls 6,6 -> Lands on Chance. Card is Adv to nearest utility. Buy it for 150. (P1 now has 1350)
Rolls 5,4 -> Buy Park Place for $350 (P1 now has 1000)

Player 2:

Rolls 3,1 -> Lands on Income Tax, paying 10% or $150 (P2 now has 1350)*

Player 1:

Rolls 1,1 -> Buys Boardwalk for $400 (P1 now has 600)
Rolls 2,1 -> Land on Community Chest. Card is Bank Error In Your Favor +$200 (P1 has 1000)

Player 1 buys 3 houses on Boardwalk, 2 houses on Park Place at $200 a pop (P1 has 0)

Player 2:

Rolls 2,1 -> Lands on Chance. Card is Advance to Boardwalk. Rent is $1400. He can't cover it.

GAME OVER

* It is my understanding that modern Monopoly simplified this rule, making Income Tax a flat $200. In which case, P2 is another $50 in the hole.

This example is great for two reasons. One it is demonstrates how much blind luck there is in Monopoly. In this admittedly freaky example, Player 2 got to roll the dice twice and then went home to weep. Imagine if this were a 3-4 player game. It would then last hours while Player 2 had time to catch up on his Spanish language soaps. "Oh mi amor. No soy Maria. Soy la hermana gemela de Maria, Chiquita! Y Roberto es tu hijo! No lo creo! Es verdad! [SLAP]" Most games in Monopoly are hours longer, but come down to the same problem. Player 1 got some good rolls early and that was that.

Second, I just find it amazing that I have that board emblazoned in my head like that. I was able to play along without even glancing at the board. And I bet many of you readers could as well. You might not know where Kyrgyzstan is on a map, but I bet you can find Free Parking and the Reading Railroad in your sleep. What an odd cultural touchstone.

Evolving Pains

Poor old Mr. Darwin has been the target of attacks from religious zealots for a century and a half now, when all he did was come up with a rational explanation for how all the complex life forms on the Earth came to be. While his original theories had some holes, the basic tenets have in fact been proven time and time again. Scientists watch things evolve all the time. But if you want to argue whether there is enough evidence to truly demonstrate evolution is and has been working on things as complex as man, go right ahead. I disagree, but skepticism is the core of good science so doubt away.

What drives me ape-shit crazy is the Creationists and backers of Intelligent Design attacking evolution, Darwin, and scientists using a logic system that is truly cringe worthy. The theory of evolution is not anti-religion or anti-faith. It provides a rational framework that one could easily believe a benevolent deity would put in place to bring about mankind. Just because something is not in the Bible does not mean it doesn't exist. Penguins are not tricks of the devil either.

Similarly, creationism is not "the other side" of the issue. One is a scientific theory demonstrable through experiment and one is philosophy/religion, revealed to us by God and requiring Faith. You do not teach them side-by-side as competing theories. Might as well complain geology is being taught without a proper mention of mythological volcano Gods. I am not saying this to demean the beliefs of creationists, but to select an example that shows how apples and oranges the two things are. You can't have a scientific argument that goes: You say lava is molten rock heated by the mantle of the Earth, but that cannot be because Vulcan would not intrude into the domain of Pluto, Lord of the Underworld. Both are accurate statements, but setting them counter to one another makes no sense. Knowing about Vulcan and the Greek/Roman pantheon is enriching, but it will not in any way help with the predictions of volcanic eruptions.

So what started me on this mini-rant? This YouTube video from the teen actor Kirk Cameron, famous for his stint on the sitcom "Growing Pains" in the 80s and fervent evangelism. To summarize for those unable or unwilling to watch the video, the big idea is to counter-attack all the media hoopla over 150 years of Origins of the Species by printing their own version of it, complete with a 50 page introduction giving the creationist argument. They will give the book away for free, bing bang boom, everyone will start attending a mega-church.



Because I am a glutton for punishment, I leafed through the introduction to the special Origin of the Species book, available here. Sit back, maybe get yourself a caffeine-free root beer and let me help you savor a fine piece of creationist propaganda:

It starts with 3 pages of introduction stolen from what I can only assume was a grade school book. Certainly not as sophisticated as wikipedia. The type size looks like 15 point Times New Roman. Then it spends another 3 pages giving you the timeline of his life, which they have unashamedly stolen from a Darwin 200th year celebration website (they cite it, but not sure if that forgives a full 3 pages of plagiarism). So yes, they summarize his life in 3 pages and then repeat the summary using a timeline for 3 more.

It is at this point I imagine most young readers would drop the book or skip over the introduction altogether. For those with stronger constitutions, they next start discussing DNA and how complicated it is, quoting scientist after scientist who die a little inside each time their own words are so mangled and misused. They then move on to how 4% similarity to chimps is not a big deal, before we hit the real meat: the section on transitional forms.

Again, I only skimmed this whole "Intro" (although it does not take long to read thanks to the giant type; 50 pages my ass) but this is the most effective section. Eight pages listing evolutionary hoaxes and failed attempts to identify missing links. Obviously there is some gross misunderstanding of what the fossil record tells us, but at least this attacks the scientific theory in a scientific way. From there they start to drift off into chicken and egg issues (which came first, heart or blood) and how darn complicated and interconnected the eye is, both of which I find to be very weak arguments, but at least it is still sorta attacking the theory. Finally we get a confused page on vestigial organs demonstrating that they don't really understand evolutionary theory (duh) -- somehow having extra organs we don't need is not an increase in complexity but a devolution? 29 pages in, 20 pages attacking evolution, the theory. That is all we are going to get.

Now comes the good stuff. A page calling Darwin a racist and a sexist, followed by a zen poem (not really, but it almost reads like one) about how man can not make one blade of grass. Seriously random digression. Then we finally get Darwin directly connected to Hitler. The section is entitled "His Famous Student" as if Darwin knew the man and hadn't died 7 years before Hitler was born. This is mostly 3 pages of Hitler quotes where Hitler uses the term evolution. Most of these passages out of context make little sense (I think they made little sense in context, too) and many are not even particularly ominous -- They are just an opportunity to italicize that Hitler liked using the term evolution in Mein Kampf. For instance:

In our case this term has no meaning. Because everyone who believes in the higher evolution of living organisms must admit that every manifestation of the vital urge and struggle to live must have had a definite beginning in time and that one subject alone must have manifested it for the first time. It was then repeated again and again; and the practice of it spread over a widening area, until finally it passed into the subconscience of every member of the species, where it manifested itself as 'instinct. -- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

Then we get a Hitler Hit List (Hitler should have been a Top 40 DJ), where he organizes the races of the world into their various levels of ape-ness. Hint: You want to be Nordic or German. 36 pages in and I am now strongly offended.

At this point the "Intro" goes off the deep end and becomes a Born Again Christian tract. 3 pages on how Darwin was not an atheist, two pages on how Pen Jillette (!) once wrote how he could understand evangelism if a person truly believed in a Hell, then 10 pages about a choice between the original Mona Lisa (it was important not to get a copy), the keys to a new Lamborghini, a million dollars (in cash), or a parachute. Somehow that was directly translatable into a choice between the four major world religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity.

Oh, and we are being pushed out of a plane, so don't even try to hang glide using the Mona Lisa because that frame is old and will not withstand that kind of stress.

Important to this discussion is the fact that on February 24, 2005, nine-year-old Little Jessica was kidnapped, brutally raped, and then buried alive clutching a stuffed toy. Yes, this crime is horrific and would normally be obscenely out of place discussing the great world religions (were we discussing world religions?), but it is important because it demonstrates that there is a Just God. Somehow.

Mix in hellfire, a random selection of sins from the ten commandments, condemn homosexuality (always important), and then ridicule and demean Hindus, Buddhists, and Muslims by summarizing their faiths with single paragraphs based on the writer's in depth knowledge of similar single paragraph summaries he read ten years ago, before ending with the declaration that therefore, obviously, Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation.
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That.... Is a big waste of money.

They have somehow deluded themselves into believing that this will counter the big, bad secularists with this book giveaway.

1st of all, 18-21 year olds is hitting the issue a bit late. Especially for getting people on board the gospels.

2nd, Origin of the Species is not exactly Robert Ludlum. Most of those kids are not going to even crack the spine of that baby, especially with all the other stuff they have to read.

3rd, Mainly, they are opening themselves up to ridicule. This reads like propaganda. College students love the feeling they are being manipulated by clumsy, transparent propaganda.

I am sure some confused young people might latch onto it as the truth they half-believed already, but I think it is equally likely a similar number will be convinced the other way by the multiple controversies/debates this will spark if anyone actually notices this going on.

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But Kirk Cameron actually looked pretty good. He is almost 39 years old.
Clean living, I guess.

Terror, The Kind You Feel In Your Nether Parts

None of you understand. I'm not locked up in here with you. You're locked up in here with me.

This charming gentleman is Rorschach, the bracingly psychotic vigilante from the Watchmen. Eventually the law catches up to him and he is placed in a prison, where every thug he has locked up over the years is anxious to get their hands on him. At least, they are until it becomes apparent that the balance of power is not quite what they thought it was, as made apparent in his quote.

Similarly, every time you start to think you are getting a handle on this parenting thing, something comes along, knocks you on your ass, and makes you realize it is not your kids trapped in the house with you, but YOU who are trapped in the house with them.

WARNING: This post is a little darker than my normal fare. If you just want funny pictures, scroll down a bit. You have been warned.

It started out as a typical Tuesday. I am scrambling around trying to get the girls ready for Daycare. They need breakfast. They need to be cleaned up. They need clothes. They need suntan lotion. I need to get my own sorry self presentable. I need to load up the car. Tuesdays also offer the extra complications of house keeper, who comes once every two weeks, and gardener, who is relevant because I have to make sure not to leave the dog outside to run away or maul a poor dude making minimum wage with a leaf blower. This Tuesday had it all going on. And of course the girls are always taking advantage of my split attention to demolish something.

Finally we are ready to hit the highway (the housekeeper had gotten her weeks mixed up, so cross that one off the list), but we have to hit the potty one more time before the road. We are now into our 2nd month of serious potty training, where we have taken away the diaper safety net and now march boldly around in our underpants. The girls are doing very well, but they are far from foolproof. Sometimes they give you warning, sometimes they just pee on the floor. Thank goodness for hardwood floors is all I can say. However, if you are diligent and get them to the bathroom after meals, before car rides, and more frequently at the end of the day, they can stay 'Clean and Dry' as our personal mantra goes.

So here I am. End of another long morning, doing the last potty break before the road. I got Kayla up first because she had done close to nothing after breakfast and therefore was more likely to have built up a dangerous bladder level. As is almost always the case, they fight tooth and nail to avoid the toilet and then once there they want to stop and have tea and biscuits while discussing the events of the world. They don't want to go because they don't want to interrupt their playing, yet it wouldn't take very long if they just did it and went. For the girls I think this might be fundamental: They will keep playing up to the point that they wet their pants until they understand that they actually get more playing in if they go use the potty fast.

Also I think there is some basic clenching fine motor skills that need to be mastered, but I think I have digressed into childhood development of waste removal functions quite enough, thank you.

So Kayla is there on her special seat with steps when I hear Rylie getting into something in the kitchen. Earlier they had hit this one drawer filled with toddler/baby odds and ends, including a bunch of old pacifiers that they never used as babies but now like to suck on occasionally, mainly so that they can fight over the pink one. Now when they get into these drawers (which they are not supposed to do) they usually make a mess, scattering odds and ends around the kitchen floor, half of which then need to be washed as they were really not intended to be dropped into the dust bunnies under the stove and then placed in anyone's mouth (please recall the house keeper was supposed to be there today, so the dust bunnies are more like dust badgers). Kayla is definitely in no hurry to finish up, so I figure this is the standard twin distract and grab. I don't think they plan these (yet) but they know how to take advantage.

Now I am hearing some rustling like plastic bags and I know I have to go investigate personally, as Rylie has probably gotten into the sandwich bags and when they do that they tend to scatter them everywhere. And once again, a sandwich bag is not so good at holding sandwiches after being stepped on by dirty baby galoshes. I tell Kayla to stay put and go into the den/kitchen.


Since my massive remodel, the tv/den and kitchen have all become one big great room with an island sitting about two thirds of the way across as I enter from the bathroom. I can't see Rylie because she is on the other side of the island, which happens to be where the drawers with tantalizing kid oriented stuff and sandwich bags are kept. More plastic rustling. I make my way around the island and that is when I see Rylie.

With not one, but two plastic bags on top of her head.

I have seen my share of horror movies and murder procedurals, so I know what killing someone by placing a plastic bag over their head looks like. It looks like this.


Absolute terror, like I have not felt in a very long time with adrenaline released into the blood stream in a single giant splash. A wave of awful tingling traveling up and down your spine and curling around your groin. Real, honest to god I am being attacked by sabretooth tigers, primordial terror. The closest I can recall in my personal experience was the time when I got a call from a hospital nurse to tell me my wife had been in an car accident. Candy only had minor whiplash, but the thick-headed nurse not only failed to start the conversation by telling me she was all right, but actually stopped talking after relating only the fact of the accident, forcing me to ask if my wife was all right. When I found out she was my relief was almost matched by my anger. But as scary as that one sentence on the phone was, it contained no visual to match your child with multiple plastic bags completely over her head.

I let out a "Rylie No!" in a voice which did not sound like my own. It sounded like someone from a movie who had just discovered a dead loved one. So, that is what it really sounds like. It is basically involuntary, an almost hindbrain request that the reality presented before you be declared immediately null and void, as if by just stating a firm negative with all your will you can make it be not so.

There was no pause in my motion. The moment I turned the corner marked the moment I reached for that bag over her head. I think I got off the 'Rylie No!' at about the same time as I pulled the top bag off. It came free easily, its plastic sides sliding easily off the plastic below. Then I grabbed the second bag, which was smaller and more snugly gripping her head.

I think at this point (1 second?, 3 seconds?) I had taken in the scene enough to realize that Rylie did not seem to be in immediate peril. She was moving and not in obvious breathing distress. So when it resisted me I did not tear that second bag off her head with all my strength. But I still yanked that fucker off. Yes I did.

So there we are, on the floor. Rylie is balling because she has been completely overwhelmed by the vehemence of my actions. I am hugging her and telling her she must never ever never ever never ever put plastic bags on her head and hugging her and Kayla has now wandered out of the bathroom with pants around her ankles wanting to know what is going on and I am checking Rylie to make sure she is fine and trying to sound calm enough to not put Kayla into tears and she should never ever never ever put plastic bags on her head.

And I still need to potty Rylie and get her into Daycare.

With a little time to reflect I don't think she was in that much danger. Those plastic bags are actually small enough and, more importantly, stiff enough that I think it would be very hard to asphyxiate yourself with one. Also, the system seemed to work. Rylie got into trouble, the parent heard something going on, went to investigate and stopped it before it got too crazy. It has made me consider all the various plastic bags lying around. A really flexible and big one could be quite dangerous, particularly if it were strong enough to resist a thrashing 2-year old. Those dry cleaning ones strike me as Black Mambas of the plastic bag world.

From now on my clothes are either dirty or cotton or one time wear.



OK, I think that is enough of that. I'll put away the flashlight under my chin and we can leave the fire and go back inside somewhere with bright, artificial lighting. Not everything the girls put on their heads is a Johnny Space Commander product. Sometimes it is a simple pull-up diaper that transforms my terrible twos into terrible twojahedins.



The wifey did not want me to post these, her reasoning being that they were just too embarr- assing. That once something is on the internet it is out there for the world to see...forever. I have two things to say to that: #1 Everyone has embarrassing childhood photos and I suspect the next generation is going to be a lot more comfortable with the digital photograph and the ease with which it is transmitted around the world. I listened to a whole NPR episode about the kind of stuff kids are putting on facebook. Believe me, a diaper on the head is tame, tame stuff. #2 THEY PUT DIAPERS ON THEIR HEADS! Come on, that is just too damn funny to keep to myself.



And let me assure you, this was not a one time event. They have been crazy obsessed with putting those pull-ups on their heads for weeks. [So, yes, I suppose the plastic bag incident was a bit forseeable.] A week ago I went to do the final tucking of the girls into bed and had to pull the diaper off the head of a sleeping Kayla. She had fallen asleep with it on. Sigh. And let me also state for the record that at no time did anybody suggest or encourage this, except by laughing our asses off and taking pictures, of course.

Now you are probably thinking to yourself, "That was awesome. Diaper head pictures. Could anything be funnier?!"

The answer is, in fact, yes: Diaper Head Video.





If this ends up the next Dramatic Prairie Dog I am probably going to be in big trouble. Yes, that is a continuation of the Twin Mind Meld from over a month ago. I think mankind may be in danger.



So lets close this blog entry out with some pure, wholesome cousin adorability. Here are the twins and their cousin Claire on Easter. They are sitting on a mat in my dad's exercise room. The fact they are (more or less) sitting still for these shots is a minor miracle. I can only assume they are catching their breaths long enough to gather the energy to spring up into the air, off their father/uncle's cranium, across the room like spider monkeys, and onto the exercise bike from where they will leap without regard for any possible death or dismemberment onto the weight bench... which they will then promptly start licking. Yeah. Too many jelly beans.



And with that I will take your leave this week (month, half-year, whatever). One reason this blog entry took awhile is that my home computer died about three weeks ago. I have been getting by on laptops and the kindness of strangers, but the big post I had planned was basically tossed out the window. I also hope to get back to my previously planned format of old and new baby adorability, but just needed to get this slightly darker episode out of me.

I finally get it. Nothing is more terrifying than your own kids. Sorry mom and dad.

Fast Forward

Greetings fellow earthlings! While I traveled aboard my fabled space craft through the limitless dark of space to worlds both far and unfathomable, mere weeks passed for me while millenia turned back here. Is there still a place called America, or have the continents drifted so far as to leave this blue ball topographically unrecognizable? Do humans still even use their tongues and fleshy lips to communicate or have we finally evolved to point of brain-to-brain interlocution. Do I need to get myself a clone for organ replacement or has the Replacement Revolution already occurred? If so, ignore this opening sentence and let me begin again:

Salutations my androgene brosters. I am Jim Billy 4.0. I and my nearly limitless supply of similar genotypes eagerly await a recharging meal of yeast paste and reprocessed sea water. Also, death to the primagenitors! Now, where may I acquire a sexless, white jumpsuit with an absurdly large diagonal purple stripe?

Or at least it feels like it has been that long.

As has been quite apparent, my posting has been somewhat irregular for roughly a year now. Except for a few drips and drabs I have dropped like tantalizing bread crumbs, this blog has been effectively defunct since I moved back into my palatial Valley Glen estate (over 2000 square feet now, woohoo!). The number one reason is, of course, gross laziness. The number two reason will be covered in the next post (stay tuned). But the number three reason was that once I fell far behind it became harder and harder to catch up.

The primary on-going reason for this blog is to try and record the ongoing trials and tribulations of fatherhood. Not only is this a creative outlet and frustration release, but in theory it might be nice to have something I could show my kids someday, especially as we more or less completely dropped the ball on baby books. You know how the second child always gets short shrift on the baby book? Well, when you have twins it is instantaneous tiny shrifting. No time, no time. Anyways, once I fell behind during the summer of exhaustion ('08) I had a very hard time moving forward, because I didn't want to leave stuff out that had happened. Of course, events that happened 6-12 months ago don't have the driving immediacy of more recent events so instead of putting anything out there, I just spun my wheels and waited.

Now I am determined to get back in the game. Rather than just jumping ahead in the "story" or trying to go completely back a year, my present solution is this: Two part posts. BAM! Genius. One part present day, the other blasts from the past. That is a one two punch of baby adorability that is without mercy.

Or alternatively, it will be a god-awful mess. Time will tell. And just like the Bush legacy, it may truly be centuries before we can know for sure.

As I have babbled on for quite a bit already, for the "present day" half of this blog let me simply post a video of the girls attempting a Vulcan mind meld. Honestly, to this day I have no idea what they were up to, but it was definitely some sort of bizarre twin behavior, the sort of thing you might expect to see in the hallway of an empty hotel or anything from the set of Full House. They were doing this for a couple of minutes before I thought to grab my camera.



My mind to your mind.

Now compare that to this next series which are the remaining shots from our trip to Austin in January 2008. You can clearly see the toddler/baby split. Today they got hair, high level speech, 10 more pounds, several more inches of heights, and, of course, green-striped shirts. Totally different.

Here we are packing to go on the trip. This was back in the days when we didn't have to pay to fly the girls. The airlines just made us check them inside luggage.

Ho ho, you have seen through my little charade. The airlines didn't make us do anything. Rylie just climbed into the bag and we couldn't get her out, so we gave her a box of graham crackers and zipped it up. Tip the skycap an extra twenty and you are traveling light.

Oh yes, there are levels and levels to my deceptions. Did we enclose my 1-year olds in suitcases and sneak them on a plane or were they just playing with them? You may never know.

It was the second one. The playing thing. That is what happened. Now you know.

Here are the twins in their metal cages of doom from the first hotel we checked into. I suppose the bars are close enough together they are not going to choke themselves, but it did not strike me as the safest or most comfortable crib I had ever run across.

Let me take this moment to bitch about the Austin Hilton Garden Inn. Because I made my reservation late (typical) I ended up at this "overflow" hotel. But not all nights were "overflow" nights, i.e. the conference discount did not apply to all nights... only some of them.

Mind you this was their comp- lication, not mine. I just wanted a hotel for 3-4 consecutive nights with no trouble. Their reservations lady dealt with all of the ins and outs this oddly byzantine reservation structure and assured me I had a room. Not so. They lost the second half of the reservation, where I was supposed to be paying more, by-the-way. And despite having a wife and two one-year old babies they kicked us out of the hotel, this even after a great deal of pleading to the contrary. They put infants on the curb. This adorable face (Classic Kayla), out in the winter cold.

Sons of bitches.

Fortunately the story has a happy ending. We were able to force our way into their sister (and superior) Hilton Hotel, which was closer to my conference and less money. So [cover the eyes of the little ones] FUCK the Hilton Garden Inn. Fuck them. All right, let's move on.

I might have oversold the "out on the streets" angle a little bit, as I actually did have family in town. This is Mark Land and his kids with my kids. Mark is my step brother, a generally good guy who was the closest thing I had to an older sibling growing up.


I would have to say all things considered, if you can be the oldest sibling go with that. Nothing wrong with Mark, per se, I just don't like being on that side of that power dynamic. Then again, there is no joy quite like irritating an older brother, so maybe I will have to re-evaluate.


Back to the wee ones. While Daddy sometimes attended boring lectures on space and time, Team Elf Kicking, Inc. managed to find plenty of time to hit the town. We had lunch with margaritas, toured the local children's museum, went to the LBJ presidential library, and visited the University of Texas alumni club and Bevo museum.

The girls do love their quesadillas and mommy and daddy sure loved their margaritas. Check out the picture of father and child gracing the very top of this blog. Can you say pupil dilation?


Here is the gruesome twosome at the children's museum, standing on some sort of platform with a tree growing out of it. Inside. Good going, Austin, now my children don't know where trees grow.

And is that Kayla playing a piece of corn like a clarinet? Kayla, that is a grain not a woodwind! Dammit, this means another 12 hours in the learning tank...

Er, I mean, "napping box."

Having fully planned out my daughters' future we took them to their first presidential library so they can start to get a feel for the position. Well, only one is going to be president and the other will be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. But someone besides her presidential sister will have to appoint her. I will not have my girls accused of nepotism. Who will be prez I will let them decide among themselves. Probably whichever one gets a photograph taken while using a corn cob bong, well, they'll have to settle for Justice.

The LBJ library is nice because it has an actual reproduction of the Oval office: 7/8 scale.

That's right, 7/8. Why make one so close and not just do it 1 to 1? (Yes, I know, probably because it had to fit in the building already there.) The point of a scale model is to build it to a different SCALE. Imagine building a scale model of a battleship to 7/8 scale. It would be awesome because you could also use it as a battleship. Only it would cost more to build than the battleship it is scaled to, as it requires bizarre 7/8 parts.

The LBJ presidential library is located on the University of Texas, also home of some sort of impressive cattle ranch. I mean pictures of cows are EVERYWHERE here. I wasn't entirely clear whether they milked them or slaughtered them for hamburger, but clearly that building behind the girls can hold a lot of big bull behind.

They also have a Bevo museum below the Alumni club where we grabbed some food. For the mascot impaired, Bevo is the name of the Bull that UT people love so much. More specifically, they love his horns. As, in "Hook'em Horns!" Then for some reason they shake their hands in the surfing term, hang loose. Or the rock and roll praise for the devil. It's two fingers up is all I know, and that is a dangerous place to be.


Supposedly the origin of the Bevo name is that Texas A&M grabbed poor Bo, as he was known at the time, and branded "13 - 0", the score of A&M's 1915 win over Texas on his rump. A creative U of Texas fellow, rather than live with such ignominy, altered the brand so it read "Bevo" instead. Like all good stories this one is completely false, but in the presence of a good story vacuum apocryphal tales reign supreme. <-- This could be confusingly mistaken for a terrible mishmosh of a metaphor, when in truth it is merely a proven scientific fact.

That's right. Science. If you can't handle it, get out of the beaker.

Anyway, here is one last picture of the cuties, Kayla up front. Holy Creh-Ap they have grown. If I changed that much in a year I could be a Satyr by now.

Some people suggest I may already be one. [Suggestive eyebrow wiggle]

Finally, I would be remiss if I failed to mention our final night in Austin, where Candice and I grabbed a baby sitter, dinner, and a movie. But not just any movie, but a full, bad-to-the-bone, Elvis sing-a-long. If you have not seen the '68 Comeback Special I would strongly recommend it. Not only does it have some of the greatest live Elvis performances ever captured on film -- just raw, growly, powerful, and awesome in a way his radio relase stuff doesn't even glimpse -- but it also contains perhaps the most surreal, bizarre, funny, and oddly revealing (and not in a good way) pre-recorded musical sequence (Trouble/Guitar Man). He fights people in a bordello using Kung Fu, I shit you not. Staggeringly awesome. I am not at all the Elvis demographic and it blew me away, all the way from the folk/blues pure live stuff to the ultracampy musical extremes.

Austin is kind of a quirky town, holding out as best it can against the raging storm of TEXAS that blows all around it. Check it out but stay away from Hippie Hallow.

Dem peoples is nude.

Paralyzed

I have a tendency to procrastinate.

Please, please no need to defend me. Seriously, a write-in campaign is not only unnecessary, it is completely illogical as I, not some third party, am saying it and where exactly would you write in anyway?

It is true, I put things off. I find excuses not to do something unless a deadline looms and there really is no way I can accomplish my task unless I start immediately. And yes, I am the only person like this in the whole world. It is not human nature at all.

I bring this up because it ties into another personality quirks of mine. I have been known, on occasion, to obsess about things. Particularly things I can micro-analyze. It matters little what my personal stake in the matter is or how much I really know about the subject, I am absolutely game for breaking down the minutia of any and all available on data for any little thing that peaks my interest, whether it be the combat mechanics of the video game City of Heroes or the likely future signings of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

It of course goes without saying that I rarely turn this laser-like focus on anything that might be useful to my career, like maybe finishing up a paper or two. [By-the-way, this is about to get seriously navel-gazing bad, involving political talk. As a bonus there are some babies at the end, so feel free to treat them as your reward... or just skip my blather. It really is the way to go, especially since you are probably reading this post-election.]

So along comes the 2008 Presidential Election, arguably the most exciting election in a generation, if you don't count that all too exciting post-election brou-ha-ha we had down in Florida (Al somebody-or-other... I've blocked it all out). History making candidates and inspiring speeches up the ying yang. Economy tanking and a couple of wars still brewing on the back burner, so the stakes are indeed high. I dare say the typical, cynical American has probably paid a bit more attention to this free-for-all than they have in some time (or ever?). Sure, we are all burned out by an election cycle that seemed to start sometime before the election of Zachary Taylor, but it is almost go time. The finale. Even if you no longer like the book, you want to read that last god-damned chapter.

Now what else does politics have? Polls. And 50 states. And 35 senate races with a possible (but longshot) filibuster-proof majority for the Democrats in sight. Hell, there are even a multitude of competitive Congressional races, filled with odious and idiosyncratic candidates. Boy, that is a lot of data. One could spend hours pouring over those tea leaves, trying to predict the future. Now several months ago this was ok. At worst there was a poll a day and only a mild urgency to go along with it.

The past week, however, has been some sort of Greek-Hades inspired torment, or perhaps just a dubious gift from that cursed Monkey-paw. Beware getting what you wish for. There are now something like 30+ polls a day, ranging from national to state to senate to congressional. This means one can literally spend 30 minutes pouring over the data from one poll, read some commentary on that data, and then click refresh for the latest poll. With 30+ polls there is a mathematical certainty that some will be significant outliers, causing mini-bursts of ridiculous optimism followed (30 minutes later) by gut-churning panic.

Yes. It is ridiculous. It is like checking your stocks every couple of hours. Meaningless and it will make you pull your hair out. A wise man would shut down his browser and retire to a room for contemplation. But there is only about 24 hours left anyway.

Might as well feed the beast a final meal.

So here are my predictions, for the whole world (5-10 people who read this blog) to see:^

Obama 367
McCain 171

I give Obama the Gore states+NH (or Kerry states+IA+NM, if you prefer). Don't waste a micro-second worrying about PA, that was a McCain Hail Mary and there is no one even in the end zone.

Obama will easily win CO+VA+NV. He will squeak out wins in OH+FL. MO+NC+MT are toss-ups that will come down to very tight get-out-the-vote efforts, where Obama will crush McCain. MT is my biggest gamble, as the polling there is sparse. MT has a Democratic governor who is going to be re-elected big time which I think tilts it to Obama.

Indiana and North Dakota would be prime candidates for giving McCain indigestion if the map didn't indicate they were going to be the least of his problems. However, as toss-ups with not much else going on (besides anti-Repub mood) I got to think they will come home for McCain.
Other close ones will be Georgia, where the African American vote looks to be surging, and his home state of Arizona, where the latinos are turning against McCain. I think he wins both in the end, but man would losing AZ be embarassing.

My pick for surprise state would be South Carolina. I don't believe it likely, but it is being very poorly polled and lies right between NC and GA, who are breaking hard for Obama. If African Americans come out like gang busters it might surprise an otherwise sleepy electorate. However, SC just does not have the cosmopolitan big cities of its otherwise demographically similar neighbors, so I don't see it happening.

Senate:

+8 for the Democrats.
They get VA,NM,CO,NH,AK,NC,OR + MN.

The first 5 are virtual locks at this point, thank you convicted felow AK Senator Stevens (R). I would be very surprised at this point to see either NC (Hagan) or OR (Merkley) go Republican, with the Obama coattails in effect. MN will be a nail biter. I think Coleman (the Republican) is a fraction of a percentage point ahead of the Democrat (Al Franken), but Obama is going to have massive coattails in Minnesota and a superior GOTV, so I think Franken just pulls it out.

This give the Democrats 59 seats, if you include the left-leaning Independents. Sanders of Vermont is a safe bet, but Lieberman could be prickly, as there is a movement to take away some of his power, having campaigned actively for McCain and all that.

The remaining contested seats are:
GA, which might be the most interesting state of the night. Will the new, black voters all come out to play? Chambliss (R) holds about a 3-4pt lead over Martin (D). I think the new voters chip a couple points off that, but not enough to win it out right. They MIGHT push Chambliss under 50%, though, which would force a run-off of mega-proportions (Repub filibusters on the line).
KY, where I think McConnell holds off the challenger (Lunsford). The last of the poll average gives him something like a 3-4 point lead. Obama will not do that well in this state and does not have anywhere near the GOTV machinery in place that he has in NC, for example. The polling is sparse here and McConnell appears to be flirting with the 50% mark, so this is the race to check for a tsunami of Democrats.
MS, the Repub (Wicker) has about a 5pt lead over the Dem (Musgrave). Again, a very Republican state that has just not gotten anywhere near the resources of Georgia. Still, it has a very high African American population, so even a failed Obama-surge (and it will fail) might make it interesting.

Surprise state: Texas. Rick Noriega (D) is a strong candidate facing a weak incumbant, Cornyn (R). Texas is an expensive state, however, and the Bush/Repub-mojo is still strong here. There have been very few polls, however, and they have been a bit erratic: 6-7 point race one week, 15 point the next, and then a final poll with massive undecideds. If there has been any late movement and the latino/black vote really turns out it might surprise. It won't, but if it gets close it would be a good start for de-nutballing what should otherwise be a more Democratic state.

Congress:

260 Dem
175 Rep

Or a gain of 23 Seats. I have not endlessly analyzed this one (even I have only so much time to waste), so I have relied on what I have read elsewhere. Basically the Democrats are going to gain 15 seats and lose 1 and participate in about 19 tossups, almost all for Republican held seats. I more or less split the toss-ups in half and assumed one surprise seat for Dems to get there. If this is truly another wave election, I think the Dems could gain as many as 10 more seats.

---

All right. Enough of that. Here are the babies:



These shots are quite ancient at this point, coming from our trip in January to Austin, Texas. They are barely the same people. It just goes to show how ridiculously out of date my babies pictures have gotten. In these pictures they are still babies. Today, they are toddlers. Crazy. I apologize if the pictures are slightly blurred. Those babies were flopping around like seal lions on crack cocaine.



We took these baby in bean bag pictures in front of the Google room set-up at the American Astronomical Society meeting I was attending (my reason for being in Austin). Leave to Google to provide comfy bean bag chairs for people to just, you know, chill in if the conference had just become, like, too much you know? I guess what I am saying is that if you want to project a serious, business-like attitude, bean bags don't do it. Google, of course, wants anything but that.



So there, Amy. Babies in Beanbags As requested a million years ago.

Enjoy.

^I reserve the right to delete the whole thing if something disastrous and unexpected happens tomorrow. No need to pour that much salt in my own wounds.

Dieser Verrückte Messingaffe

Guten Tag from the land of schnitzel, spatzle, and highly questionable political philosophies. I may look a little different than you last saw me. I have not posted in a while and in the meantime have decided to grow a giant metal monkey out of the back of my head.

Oh clever reader, you have seen through me already. I see that I will have to come clean. That is actually the Heidelberg Monkey, which sits just to the right of the old bridge crossing northwards from Heidelberg and across the picturesque Neckar river. It is traditional to take this demeaning photo upon arrival. I was going to abstain, but then I thought of my valued readers (for the first time in six months) and went through with it. Fortunately there is always a Japanese tourist around to help out.


Heidelberg is a major tourist destination, even this late into the season. Actually, as you can probably see in the accompanying photos, early autumn might be the perfect time to visit as the leaves are changing, making the surroundings picture postcard pretty. I've marked the location of my hotel, the Goldener Hecht, or "Golden Pike"(the fish not the spear) on this overhead shot. Right next to the old bridge with the aforementioned monkey.




There are several reasons why tourists flock to Heidelberg. The main one, apparently, is that Heidelberg is one of the few German cities that the Allies didn't bomb into oblivion and then fly over and bomb it further into oblivion -- outer oblivion where the rents are cheaper but the commute is long -- and then, after a cup of tea and crumpets, return once again to blow up any pieces that looked like they could still sustain terrestrial life. So, because Heidelberg was so dull that the Allies ignored it, it is now one of the few cities in Germany where the majority of oldest buildings were built pre-1945.


The Heidelberg castle looms over the old part of the city (also looms above my head in this photo) and while it looks a bit like it was bombed, it in fact has not faced hostile fire since the Palantine war of succession (yeah, I had to look it up too). It mostly just suffered from neglect and bad luck, having been struck by lightning and later used as a stone quarry for the local rich. The view from the castle is killer, but the sight not to be missed is "the Barrel."




OK, you could miss it and make through the rest of your life without any significant regrets, but it IS a very big barrel. It is capable of holding some 220,000 liters (that's 58,000 gallons to those us metric-ally impaired), and is in fact the largest wooden barrel ever actually used to hold wine. I figure that in 1751 it was what the typical over-compensating Count purchased instead of a Ferrari.

This claim to fame oddly implies someone built an even bigger wine barrel somewhere, but never had the stones to actually pour wine into it. A simple google search finds that it is twice the size of the current wine barrel record, and in further even more unhelpful news: the largest wooden barrel factory in the world is right here in the good ole USA! But I can't find any mention of a bigger barrel, so perhaps the Germans are being unnecessarily coy.

Seriously. It is a big barrel. No one would dispute it.



Producing considerably less excitement is the Apothecary museum, also located at the castle. Apothecaries were medieval Pharmacists, always good for a poulstice or a purgative to help you with your palsy, catarrh, or excessive choler. What apothecaries had were lots and lots of jars. So if you want to see lots and lots of jars an apothecary museum is the place for you. And yes, bring the kiddies, as they also have a wonderful Kinderapotheke, where they will have non-stop fun opening and closing empty jars.



While at the castle I was not on any sort of official tour. In fact, the conference I was at had basically just dumped us out with a "Have Fun" for 2 hours. There are not two hours of things to do at the Castle (see Apothecary museum, above). There were some official tours wandering around. Not all were in English, but enough were that I caught some bits and pieces. The best bit and/or piece was about this "footprint" in the stone of the castle balcony. Now the flagstones are solid stone, so it is highly unlikely the shape could be anything more than some flaw in the stone that had weathered strangely (footshape-ishly?) with time.

Still, more than one tour was told a tale of an unfaithful Countess and her paramour. The Count returned early, so the lover grabbed his trousers and sprang from the window to the balcony far below, leaving the print. Fantastic tale until you realized that the leaper had to clear 50-60 horizontal feet to even make it to the stone in question. Meaning he would have to leap from such a height that there really should have been a large, puddle-shaped depression in the ground.


After a full five days of talks covering the minutia of the properties of galaxies that can be discovered by studying one transition line of hydrogen (in its defense, it really is a very powerful transition line... the biggest, really) I was ready to stretch my legs a bit. On the north side of the Neckar river the land rises up rapidly. About a third of the way up runs the Philosophenweg, or Philosopher's Way, a strolling path that was once used by the likes of Goethe and Heidegger to clear their heads for really big thoughts. Or possibly to romance young German maidens.

So either I strolled the same pathways used to unlock some of the mysteries of human existence, or I wandered the same roads used to get into the lederhosen of the some Bavarian Milk Frau Farbissina.

To go all the "Way", one has to gain some serious altitude quickly. By the time I climbed up the narrow, tunnel-like stairway I was huffing and puffing like the Big Bad Wolf, although fortunately no houses were damaged thanks to the general lack of Germanic straw housing. Once up there the views were fairly spectacular, although there was a lot of haze making it difficult to far into the distance.


Above the Philly-way is some lovely German forest that one can hike up through. To climb all the way to the top is about twice the vertical gain of the initial ascent to the Way, but it is much more gradual with lots of gorgeous spots to hang out and just be. Fall is just a great time to do the hike, as not only is the temperature pleasant, but everywhere is a thin layer of leaves that transform every journey into a shush-sush of floating through the trees.



At the top of the mountain (Pfft. they call anything over 1500 ft a mountain. If you ain't a mile up, it ain't a mountain.) Lies the Heiligenberg, which translates as "Holy Mountain".

I did not follow the arrow to Hirschgasse, so I do not know what it is, nor do I want to. Knowing the Germans, it is probably a dark place, lost in the misty shadows of time, where the faerie folken once ruled and seek to again, if only a tiny tear in the fabric of reality can be made using the misguided actions of a bumbling but well-meaning professor or similarly bookish academic-type. No sir, I would have nothing to do with that probable Hellscape-to-be.




Hmmm. A Google search indicates Hirschgasse is probably just a Guest House with a couple of charming restaurants.

But most likely dark, malevolent restaurants where the supper... is you! Or a beef pie with a side of julianned carrots. So choose wisely!

Ahem. Where was I?... Oh yes. Heiligenberg.




Heiliginberg has been a site of worship for just about as long as anyone can remember, going back to the days of the Romans who built a temple during their stay here (and by stay, I mean the time they spent slaughtering barbarian germanic hordes.) That same sight become St. Michael's Monastery sometime about a thousand years ago. Here is a shot of the ruins taken from the highest remaining bell tower, the tippy-tippiest top of the mountain. (It still grates. You just don't grow up at the foot of the San Gabriel mountains and call 1500 feet a mountain. My front door step was 1500 feet.)


Now if you got a Holy mountain top, no reason to skimp on your monastaries. A second one, St. Stephan's is about 5-10 minutes walk from the first. It also has one remaining tower, from which I took this vertigo-inducing shot. Neither of these towers which I climbed actually withstood the centuries, of course, but were rebuilt/restored so German hikers would have something further to climb as they ran out of hill (There, I said it. It's a Hill. I feel better now.). The St. Stephan monastery was restored over a century ago, although obviously with regular maintenance since then.


All very charming, I hear someone saying, but when I go to Germany, I want creepy reminders of one of the grimmest periods in human history. Well, you are in luck, for the Nazis built a giant outdoor amphitheater on the Holy Mountain top, between the sites of the two ex-manastaries. The Nazis, of course, loved the idea of a place that might once used for the worship of Wotan being adapted for propaganda rallys run by Goebbels himself. The place practically hums with that Roman/pagan fascist architectural vibe the Nazis loved so much. You can almost hear the hollering crowds of intolerance. It is called the Thingstatte, apparently named after an ancient Nordic/Germanic gathering of people in an outdoor setting (a "Thing"). To me the name conjures images of some sort of prehistoric leviathan that has crawled its way from the lightless depths of the sea to feed upon unsuspecting mankind, as helpless and vulnerable as a newborn babe before its awesome hunger.

So that works too, I think.
------

I am going to try and kick start this blog, which has been decidedly languishing for some time. I have about six months of architecture and babies to catch up on which is probably too much, but I will try and summarize some of the best bits in the next few posts. I know people come for the babies, not the travelogs. In parting, let me pass on the inscription emblazoned on the bridge, next to the Heidelberg Monkey, translated of course. To fully appreciate the quote and statue, it might help to know what that big disk the monkey holding is supposed to be:

A mirror.

"Why are you looking at me? Haven't you seen the monkey in Heidelberg? Look around and you will probably see, more monkeys like me."

Back Home

Yes. I am back home. And moving back home has eaten large hunks of my personal time as well as removing regular access to home internet. So I haven't posted squat since St. Patty's Day.

And guess what. I don't have time for an extensive post today, either. So major updates on the home, girls, and facial hair will have to wait another week. In the meantime I give you, possibly the greatest video of all time.

I am thinking of entitling it: "It's Whats For Dinner."

Lace Curtain Irish

Ireland is known for beautiful lush green landscapes, hard drinking pub patrons, potatoes, sheep, and lace. Today you can't travel around the Irish countryside without coming into constant contact with all of them, but this was not always the case. It was in the lean times of the great Irish potato famines (1845-1852) that many a farmwife took up the lace making trade to keep her family from starving. It was really from this outpouring of desperation that the Irish lace tradition sprung. While today it seems that every window in Ireland overflows with lace, for most of the 2nd half of the 19th century it was only the very wealthy that could afford such an extravagance. The poor seamstress in her cottage had to sell just about every piece she created just to stay alive. The lucky few who had the means to purchase curtains AND food gained the nickname, "lace curtain Irish". You can think of that as a euphemism for "high and mighty sons of bitches that think they are better than me."





Of course the Irish potato famines had much larger global effects than just bringing the world Irish lace. The population of Ireland dropped 20-30% over that 8 year period. Nearly two million people. The unlucky ones perished, mostly of starvation related disease, but roughly half left Ireland altogether in what has become known as the Irish Diaspora. As of today, something like 80 million people worldwide claim Irish descent, half of which reside in the United States. This can be compared to the present population of Ireland of about 6 million people (coincidentally roughly the same population as in 1845, so you can see things didn't exactly turn around for the Irish post-Great Famine). To put it another way, people of Irish ancestry make up 15% of the U.S. population, second only to those of German descent (17%). I am not certain how much crossover there is between the two groups, but if my personal genetics are any indication it is 100%.



So back to the lace curtain Irish.

When the tidal wave of Irish immigrants began crashing onto American shores in the 1850s, they found that some Irish had proceeded them. As is sadly traditional among immigrants, the established, wealthier Irish looked down on their poorer, newly arrived cousins. The wealthy called them Shanty Irish, while the poor referred to the rich as lace curtain Irish, borrowing the term from home and applying it whether their snobby cousins had lace curtains or not.



While I trace my personal Irish genes back through several different lines, I believe
most of them to have been lace curtain Irish, i.e. they settled pre-Great Famine. For instance, despite several fascinating coincidences with the Colberts of the Chickasaw Nation, best research seems to put the oldest Colbert ancestor we can find living in Virginia back in the 1820s (Anthony Colbert, I believe. Sadly I don't have the extensive genealogy work my mother has done in front of me at the moment), with a homestead located on what is today the West Virginia/Virginia border. I don't take pride or shame in the lace curtain Irish title. I recognize that it was once a pejorative, but one now so faded by time that it only adds color to my family story.



So here are my girls, modern day lace curtain Irish. I guess we can reclaim that term in order to empower ourselves. Or we could just not take ourselves that seriously and enjoy little girls with shamrock hats running in and out of diaphanous lace. Yes, those are the same hats as last year (check out the Fight Cranial Panis Mica ad to the right). No, they don't really fit any more. I had to turn the hats inside out and upside before jamming them down on their heads. They seemed to like them. Hopefully the pressure from the hat won't stunt their skull growth (although that could be therapeutic... again, check the Fight Cranial Panis Mica ad). I always try to get (and post) equal numbers of photos of the girls, but in this instance Kayla was being quite coy, letting Rylie (in the darker green) take most of the spotlight.



So I expect some of you, if you are still reading my blog after such a long hiatus, would like to know more about the remodel. The short answer is that it is still not done, but we are close. If the present projections hold we should be able to start moving back in at the start of April. I will have much more info (and pictures) in a future post that hopefully will be more like 3-4 days from now, not two months.



Another great diaspora was that of the Jews, driven out multiple times from multiple places, although usually after the fall of a Temple. Lace curtain or not, that really makes my girls Double Diasporatic. And that means double tough. If you are smart, you do not mess with an Irish street tough. An Irish street tough Jew?

Fuggedaboutit.



Happy St. Patrick's Day!