Category: Uncategorized

One of the great things about going to the same place for the past few years is that other families do the same and the kids become friends. So Danielle (9) and Tori (5) had a built in crew:

Good friends make a great vacation…

There is a new geek blog called “What If?”, subtitled, “ANSWERING YOUR HYPOTHETICAL QUESTIONS WITH PHYSICS, EVERY TUESDAY.”

The first question was:

What would happen if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at 90% the speed of light?

The blog describes in great detail the effects of a baseball moving that fast. The details are fascinating (involving constant fusion at the front of the ball) and the end result is:

Everything within roughly a mile of the park is leveled, and a firestorm engulfs the surrounding city. The baseball diamond is now a sizable crater, centered a few hundred feet behind the former location of the backstop.

But the blog is not without a sense of humor:

A careful reading of official Major League Baseball Rule 6.08(b) suggests that in this situation, the batter would be considered “hit by pitch”, and would be eligible to advance to first base.

Bill Simmons describes the Seattle Sonics ending up in Oklahoma City in traditional divorce terms. Oklahoma City is the 20 year old yoga instructor who steals the husband away, that you aren’t supposed to like. But the article ends up describing why the 20 year old yoga instructor turns out to be really awesome.

These people arrived a good 45 minutes early for last night’s Game 1 — and by “these people” I mean “everyone with a ticket”.

Just read it, it’s classic Bill Simmons…

The statistics on how many people get their news from the Daily Show is a tad scary, but honestly, this this humorous part of the Daily Show is a better analysis of the racial elements of the Trayvon Martin killing than anything I’ve seen.

A 12-year-old kid added a new page to the history books of skateboarding earlier this week, pulling off the first 1080, a three-rotation aerial maneuver that has eluded the world’s best for the past half decade.

Check it out…

I’m linking to this Bad Astronomy post because

• a) The video is cool
• b) How often do you get to use a blog title like that?

For political junkies, InTrade is fascinating. And it’s predictive value, while imperfect, has proven very good.

Tonight the polls in Michigan closed at 9ET. All the major news networks are calling the Republican primary too close to call.

But the InTrade market on Romney winning the Michigan primary, which had been hovering around 60% all day, shot up above 90% right at 9ET. It was at 98% by 10ET. Major news networks are still calling it too close to call.

So which is it? A lock or too close to call?

We’ll see tomorrow. I’d go with InTrade, but I’m also going to bed…

My daughter Victoria (5) has had a history of ear infections. She saw an ENT specialist last January when it seemed a bit bad and he was concerned. But after a dose of hard core antibiotics she was OK.

This fall, she had another run of ear infections. She’s a classic second child. Social, very independent, and extremely stubborn. So it’s generally hard to tell when “not listening” is deliberate or medical. But regardless, her ENT specialist determined that her hearing is compromised and that’s no way to raise a kid.

So tomorrow she gets tubes in her ears.

It’s super routine. Apparently after well checkups, getting tubes is the #2 reason for a kid to go to the hospital (I haven’t confirmed that particular statistic, so don’t take my word for it).

Regardless, having your 5 year old go under is still a bit nerve wracking. She was such a good girl today talking to the anesthesiologist and the surgeon. And she generally is very brave with this stuff. But at the end of the day, tomorrow she has to leave me and go into a room with strangers and be put under.

She’s probably been compensating for this her whole life so this should be a big deal for her going forward.

But I’m still nervous for her. Welcome to parenting…

We were completely lame this year with no Christmas card. We didn’t have a nice picture of both girls and I didn’t have time to pull off the montage concept with multiple pictures that looks artsy while masking the fact that you don’t have one good picture.

What can I say? We’ve been busy.

Anyway, happy holidays to all. Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it. And a sincere wish that 2012 is a great year.

I needed a visual, so we did this picture today. Not great, but Merry Christmas from Danielle and Snow White Victoria…

If you don’t need to drive or take care of small children, this beer Adoration from Ommegang is quite yummy (10% alcohol content).