Friday, May 27, 2005

Forgiving Newsweek

Google News - Korans were mishandled

Shouldn't we all be forgiving Newsweek for the treatment and misguided blame they received? I think Sarahlynn had it right in the first place.

Monday, May 23, 2005

Site Seeing

We all know that Google Maps now can display satellite images of the location you're mapping. Today's cool site is http://www.googlesightseeing.com. They've got all kinds of interesting things that are captured by the satellite imagery that Google Maps uses:

Like a military bombing/firing range:
http://www.googlesightseeing.com/2005/04/13/b-bomb/

Overlapping season in Utah:
http://www.googlesightseeing.com/2005/04/23/overlapping-seasons/

The martian landscape of my old stomping ground, Wyoming:
http://www.googlesightseeing.com/2005/05/13/mars/

Is it any wonder they chose Wyoming to film parts of Close Encounters of the Third Kind:
http://www.googlesightseeing.com/2005/04/12/devils-tower-wyoming/

And parts of Starship Troopers:
http://www.highways.info/highways/Wyoming/photo_23906.html

Sunday, May 22, 2005

Geeky Stuff

I got a new geeky shirt for my birthday last night, so I thought I'd share a couple of my favorite geekware... see if you can guess what they say!

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Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Event Horizon

Ellie achieved a new milestone today on her journey from toddler-hood to little-girl-dom. She used the potty!

We're not interested in pressuring Ellie to learn how to use the toillet. Kids with Down Syndrome often potty-train late, and we don't want there to be any stigma around going to the bathroom. But, Ellie's developing some regular habits and is showing some awareness about pottying. So, we decided to get her a potty chair.

Sarahlynn found a great one! It's all wood with a plastic pot, and has a book rack on one side and a toillet paper roll holder on the other. Everything a kid needs!



Tonight, Ellie was showing signs of need to go, so I put her on the potty. She acted like it was perfectly natural, took care of business, even picked up the book next to her and handed it to me to read to her!

I'm officially, now, one of those parents...

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Question and Answer

Here are Sarahlynn's questions for me:

1. If you could wave a wand and get rid of Ellie's Trisomy 21, would you do it?
It took me a while to figure this one out, but the answer is "yes." I had to reconcile the idea that I have absolute, unconditional love for my daughter; but I still would want her to be different if that were possible. It's a paradox, but it works.

It's kind of like this commentary I heard on NPR yesterday. It was talking about the similarity between quantum physics and the nature of love. The commentator was explaining that one part of modern physics is the statement that when you try to picture the motion of an electron around the nucleus of an atom, you have to accept that the electron is moving around the nucleus in all possible paths at the same time. That makes it impossible to predict with certainty where the electron will be at a point in time. His corollary in love is that love looks and feels like all other emotions at the same time. Love is part admiration and part frustration, part envy, part pride, part comfort, part fear, etc. Interesting.

2. What is your favorite thing about yourself?
Right now, I'd have to say my problem solving and analytical skills. But really, that's just because I had two coworkers pump up my ego today. My boss's boss told me the really smart college kid we just interviewed was someone that he wanted me to mentor and turn into another me. And then another coworker made an "I'm in awe" kind of comment as I was helping him do analysis and research to figure out how some of our code works and what the related data really means.

3. What do you miss most about where you grew up?
Mountains. Even the little dinky one behind my parent's house.

4. What's the monster under your bed?
AAAHHH!! There's a monster under my bed?? Is that like "the monster at the end of this book?" Or the monster under Opus's bed? Really, though...
- That I won't be a good enough dad or a good enough husband.
- That I'm no where close to as smart as I think I am.

5. What's the best book you've ever read?
The Mythical Man Month
You know, I'd rather name a fiction book, but this book is both very educational and enjoyable to read... So...

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