Technologeeeeee!!!!

So after 3 years of being tied to my desk, my company is finally getting me a laptop. Can you say working from home? I knew you could.

The argument has been made among friends that by having this available at my home I'll be expected to work in my free time, but what they don't realize is I barely do any work in my work time, so the odds of that are slim.

It will be nice to have a second laptop when I go back to school. It happened a couple of times that I needed the computer and my wife was editing or doing something equally time consuming and there was a small scuffle over it. Hopefully such confrontations will be eliminated. Of course I could have just shelled out the $200 for a notebook, but I'm nothing if not stingy. that's not really true, I think it's just that I rarely find justification for spending money on myself.

Of course it will probably have the same if not more restrictions on it, so I still won't have Angry Birds available while I work.

What a Great Idea #13

I had an idea for how to get to other heavenly bodies (moon, Mars) faster. The biggest problem we have is getting all the stuff necessary to sustain life to the place we want to sustain life, along with the life we want to sustain. So why not send the stuff first? Just get a big block of ice (like a couple of tons worth) and put a big honkin' rocket under it, and hit launch?

I mean, you don't really even have to put retro rockets or stabilizers on it. So what if it crashes? as long as you send it somewhere that the sun won't hit, it will stay ice. Same with the frozen TV dinners the astronauts eat. Although you would probably want them to land nicely. I don't know about you, but I would hate for the peas to get mixed in with the cherry crumble.

I'm definitely one of those people who prefers that the different types of food on my plate don't touch each other. I mean, the point of having mashed potatoes with gravy is to taste mashed potatoes and gravy. But that doesn't mean I want to see what gravy and fruit salad tastes like. You gotta keep 'em separated.

Back on point, once you got the food and water on planet, start sending buildings. Modules of pre-fab housing and what not. As it is everything is automated now a days, so they could probably come up with something that assembled itself. By the time humans got back to the moon there would already be a little city waiting for them.

Heck, for that matter why don't we send a robot to the moon that can build a runway? Then we could take the shuttle to the moon, land it, and take off again. It can't be that hard to build a robot that can level dirt. All you really need is a flat stretch of ground to land a plane. Obviously the shuttle would need to be modified since it was only built for Earth-orbit, but all I'm saying is it can't be that hard.

Only Fools Rush In

So some dear friends of ours invited us to their super awesome community swimming pool (which is much nicer than ours) for the fourth and we happily accepted. I was excited to take my oldest daughter because it had been quite a while since she had been in a swimming pool. She had enjoyed the ocean after a little convincing, but wasn't a fan of the lake we visited. Essentially I was still on the fence as to whether or not she is afraid of the water. I am no longer on the fence.

She was terrified. It was ridiculous. Their pool complex has a great kiddie pool with turtles and frogs and whatnot, and the entrance to the pool is a sloping tile path made up to look like the beach, so you don't even have to go down steps to get into the water. No sooner did the water start to lap at my daughter's feet did she let out an ear-piercing scream. I was a little surprised by that, since she had been in deeper water in the bathtub and seemed to enjoy bath time immensely.

And she couldn't have been safer. I got her the water wings for her arms and the little pink inner tube to go around her. Now you may say that's a bit of overkill, but it turned out to be just right, since I found out through experimentation that she couldn't use the wings properly to support her weight and keep her face out of the water, and taking off the wings and just using the ring would have resulted in her slipping right through it. I didn't test that particular theory, but I felt confident in it.

As a result of her overwhelming trepidation she spent the entire time clinging desperately to me, all the while loudly proclaiming that she wanted her mommy and she needed to get out. Now you may think I'm a bad dad for forcing my 2 1/2 yr old to face her fears, but you don't know about the times she was distracted from that fact that she was surrounded by tens of thousands of gallons of water.

For instance when the pool operators came around with free little rubber duckies (cuz that pool is awesome) that you could fill with water and they would shoot it out their mouths. She took great delight in spraying me with water or getting sprayed herself, all while perched on my knee. And when I would move quickly through the water, or spin around while holding her, her face would light up and she would even occasionally smile.

Some of my fondest memories are of playing in the swimming pool as a child, and I want nothing more than for her to have that same joy at swimming, but I know if I push her too much she'll just end up hating it. Does anybody know how to convince you child that swimming is fun without scarring them for life? Any help would be appreciated.

What A Great Idea #12

So I was thinking to myself, people like to tan, but one of the many drawbacks is it takes a while. Another is that it's hard to maintain the privacy necessary to get a good, all-over tan (if you know what I mean). Well here's the solution. It's called Sun-Up.

Sun-up is a panel or group of panels measuring 6 feet by 3 feet that you place around the area you want to do your tanning. The biggest benefit is that they catch the rays that you miss, and redirect them back to you, which cuts your tan time in half. They come on legs that can be adjusted to perfectly catch the sun and direct it back to you. They are tall enough to block out nosy neighbors or, if you're in a hotel, can be set up on the balcony to provide a privacy screen that really cooks.

Now you may be asking yourself, why would I want to lug around 6ftx3ft panels on my vacation? The answer is you don't have to, because Sun-Up is completely collapsible. The 6ft tubes that make up the sides of each panel can be separated from the top and bottom and folded in half, and the top and bottom are used to roll up the reflective Mylar sheet in the center to prevent creases or crumpling. All in all each panel ends up being only 3ft long and only a few inches wide.

By using hollow tubing and Mylar, the overall weight of each panel is kept relatively low, while the feet have a variety of hooks, pegs, and holes that can be used to strap or pin them down to prevent them from falling over or blowing away. Of course with such a thin material the Mylar will be reinforced at the ends where it connects to the frame, and elastic will be used to allow for movement and prevent tearing.

Random

I wish I knew how to beat-box.

If I'm going to start talking about my kids on here, I'm going to have to come up with an alliterative male equivalent of a Mormon Mommy Blogger. Divine Daddy Blogger seems too pretentious.

I have no idea how to raise girls. I think I'm just going to teach them football, fishing, and shooting guns and see how they do in the world.

I need to get a bigger car. I currently have a Saturn that my family fits in, but just barely. When we go to visit people, anything we take with us has to go on my wife's lap. I think I want something with a third row, but beyond that I'm open to anything. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I think I want to start a garden. I used to help my grandmother with her flower garden and giggle when she would talk about planting pansies. That was always fun. I'll have grow something more manly of course. And not tell any more stories about me giggling.

Should I get an iPhone? I enjoy playing games on my wife's, and always having the internet available is convenient, but it seems like wherever I go there's internet available (work, home, school, etc.). Is it really that much more convenient?

Telephonic Invasion

So I was working late yesterday when I got a phone call. I looked at the caller ID and saw it was my wife, so I answered it. After getting no response, I gave a more forceful "Hello?", to which I heard my daughter's voice pipe up with a cheerful "Hi Daddy!" Now this is not an uncommon occurrence. On a regular basis my daughter will want to talk to daddy and asks my wife to contact me for her. The missus dials me up and then puts the baby on, listening to what I say and prompting the appropriate responses.

So I played along, as I usually do. There were 2 things odd about it this time, however. First, her answers were coming much more rapidly than normal. The pause of listening to her mother's prodding was all but eliminated. Second, the conversation was lasting a lot longer than it usually does. We talked about her day, how the new baby was doing, and the general well being of the household.

Finally I asked her to put her mommy on the phone. After an extended pause I heard my wife's surprised exclamation asking why my little girl had mommy's phone. It turns out my 2 year old had unlocked the iPhone, called my number, and had a rather lengthy conversation all on her own. Apparently she had made her usual request to call daddy, but my wife had been busy right then and told her to wait. Which she didn't.

I'm not sure if I should be proud of her mastery of technology or terrified of the implications this has for her future telephone usage.

Something Something Airplane Food

I'm a dad again! Another beautiful little girl. Everyone says she's beautiful (and I agree), but in the same breath they say she looks just like me. So which is it? Cuz you can't have both. I've told that joke so many times it's lost all its funny. It had some, honest.

I've agreed to go for child number 3, but if that one is a girl too then I'm done. I'm not willing to risk having 4 daughters. I don't think I could handle it. I'm fairly certain I'll struggle with 2. The fact of the matter is if they turn out looking at all like their mother, I won't have adequate ammunition to fend off the suitors of 4 young women.

What's funny about all this is that I was told that having daughters was God's way of punishing you for any inappropriate things you did during your dating years. I used to believe it too because I knew some real scoundrels in the military who fully deserved the gaggle of girls they were blessed with. The only problem is how it applies to my situation. I barely dated. I didn't even have the opportunity for inappropriateness. So I'm no longer sure how accurate that is.

We are lucky in one regard. We went to the doctor on Valentine's day to find out the missus was at a 2-3, and his offer to induce was quickly accepted. Fortunately he couldn't do it until the next day, when my daughter was ultimately born. This is lucky because in 25 years when she does have a boyfriend, he won't be able to give her one gift and claim it for both Valentine's day and her birthday.

This is the stand-up routine my sleep deprived mind came up with over the last week. Beside all that, I'm back in school. I finished up the ol' Associate's Degree (is there an apostrophe there? Associates Degree doesn't seem right.) and have moved on to the big time university. I decided to go with the night classes because ultimately I want a Master MBA and every MBA program in the area said they didn't care where I got my undergrad stuff done as long as I had the GPA. So I took the easy way.

And now the bad news: The diet got away from me. I blame meals brought to my house. Thanks to the kindness of ward members, I have almost gained as much as my wife lost giving birth. Not quite the accomplishment I was going for. Well, I guess I will have to get back on it. Just as soon as we finish all the leftovers.