Just outside of the fields in Hawaii

Hawaii's desert reminds me of pictures from the Mars Lander. The red dirt sticks and clings to everything.  Some days my rental car and I were completely camouflaged after a light rain and then wind.  In Oahu most of the fields used to be pineapple farms.  That is why you can see bits of black plastic.  The pineapple growers put down layers of black plastic, soil fumigants, and sterilizants to prevent weeds and pests. Soil remediation required mixing tons of charcoal into the soil and raking up bales of black plastic as well as a fallow period before other crops would grow.  

On the way back to the airport in Maui, I stopped by a bird preserve where they were trying to increase the populations of endangered Hawaiian Coots and Stilts.  It used to be a lagoon for farming catfish.  There was a pretty good sized flock of birds and I wished I had a decent camera with me.  If you squint, there is a stilt flying above the water.  I had other pictures of the coots, but I won't inflict smudges on the water on you.  If you go to Maui, it is just off the beach near Kihei.

They had traps set around the perimeter of the wildlife area to catch cats and rats, I think.  There are feral cats all over the island as well as bantam chickens.  I am not sure why the chickens have done so well there, but even the excess cats don't seem to be making a dent in their populations.  The native birds have a more difficult time.  They had carefully replanted the edges in native plants and if you squint and turn the computer around you can see the tiny butterflies on the native succulents.  I really need to bring another camera besides my cellphone. 

Oahu has clustered most of the hotels in Waikiki.  There are a few very expensive ones in other places, but 99% of visitors stay along the thin strip of hotels along the beach.  It is a fun place to stay if you like people watching.  There are crowds of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, European, and a few American tourists.

My first year visiting Hawaii I ate every night at Morio's Sushi - the Sushi Nazi of Hawaii.  Great sushi, low prices, but almost impossible to get a seat.  The waitress the last two years remembered me and saved me a seat at the bar when I was in town.  But, his tiny sushi bar in Waikiki closed and he moved to an even smaller place further away.  I tried to get in one night and couldn't so I ended up at a small ramen shop.  That was my new favorite. Most nights I was the only American there, yet it was packed.  I sat at the bar and sketched and listened in to the other people at the bar joking and gossiping in Japanese.  I don't feel bad at all about eavesdropping when I don't understand the language.  I also went to a Japanese barbecue/bar where not even the staff spoke English and ate something that had small pancakes and stir-fried cabbage. I have no idea what it was since the menu was only in Japanese.    

The beaches and water in Hawaii really feel like something out of a postcard.  It's a tough job, but somebody has to do it.  Next time Leila has to come with me.   

Our new oven

 Before I left for Hawaii, I made this pretend oven for the kids to play with while I was gone.  I need to paint it and add knobs and burners.  It is just plywood but I was pleased how it turned out.  It is just the right size for little kids and I actually like it without a door.

While the little kids were playing with pretend food, Emily made angel food cake from scratch, with no help at all.  12 eggs in one go.  Turned out perfectly. We made creme brulee with the left over yolks.  Not necessarily great for the waistline, but oh so good with raspberry freezer jam.

What is a good teacher worth?

The Heritage Institute recently wanted to compare public teacher salaries with private sector jobs and to settle once and for all the question whether teachers are over or underpaid.  To do this they looked at education level of teachers, adjusted by estimated "cognitive abilities" - How smart they are, benefits - insurance, retirement, summer vacation, and "job security".  They concluded that "public-school teachers receive compensation about 52 percent higher than their skills would otherwise garner in the private sector."

A key part of their argument is that although teachers have bachelors, masters, and in some cases doctorate degrees that their cognitive ability is lower than private sector workers with similar education level.  The authors argue that their degrees in education won't translate well to other fields  and that their "years of education may not be as valuable in the marketplace as for workers in other occupations."  Even their degree isn't as good as other majors because, "Given the relative lack of rigor of education courses, many teachers have not faced as demanding a college curriculum as other graduates." They also suggest that the smarter education majors change their minds and do not become teachers, because " Four-year graduates who became public-school teachers scored 0.23 standard deviations below [on the SAT] four-year graduates who did not become teachers."

This is hogwash.  I agree that education majors take fluff classes and they aren't on the whole good at math.  They avoid hard classes and get away with taking classes on children's literature and teaching methodology, while I struggled with organic chemistry and molecular biology.  But does "cognitive ability" make someone a better teacher? I had a lot of college professors with high cognitive ability, but couldn't teach a dog to chase a stick.  They dreaded it and hid behind powerpoint presentations and high standards to cover for poor teaching skills.  Yes, teachers get summers off.  That is a great perk.  And they have good retirement packages, and good health insurance.  If they are really making twice what they should, then why don't more people want to do it? I certainly don't want to.

What does it take to be a good teacher? It isn't necessarily what they teach, or even all how they teach, but to me how much they care.  That is hard to quantify and doesn't work in a linear fixed model.

Ms. Murr (Cassidy) 
She was my second grade teacher, and the second crush I ever had.  I was not as smitten as my friend Jeron, but I was more than willing to stay late cleaning chalkboards.  I remember being appalled to find out she was 28 or some ancient age like that, and getting married.  When she was married she invited us to the wedding.  She had a special rule for me.  I was supposed to be touching my desk at all times.  I remember dancing around it while everyone else was working hard.  She was from Georgia and her brother sent us a big box of raw peanuts to try.  We had tornado drills, which was odd for us since there had never been a tornado.  My friend and I drew a whole roll of butcher paper over the break and she accepted it gladly on our return.  She draped it all around the classroom and was impressed by the many dinosaur species we had tried to draw from the Childcraft and a dinosaur coloring book. I read Hardy Boys nonstop that year.  I loved going to school.

Mr. Burda 
My sixth grade teacher always told us he wanted to be a firefighter when he grew up.  This was immensely funny to him.  He cut off his thumb on accident with the paper cutter one day.  He used to read to us hours a day.  One day the principal came in while he was reading to us. The principal was furious, apparently reading out loud wasn't part of the curriculum.  He chewed Mr Burda out in front of us.  When the principal left, Mr. Burda picked up his book and said, "Now, where were we."

That was the first year in Boise, after my parents separated.  I had few friends.  I wanted to be in the Gifted and Talented Program.  I asked Mr Burda if I could go.  He took me aside at lunch and sat staring at me a moment, then said.  "No, I don't think that would be a good idea."  I wanted to know why.  He thought, and then told me he didn't think that the two boys in the GT program would be a good influence on me. (He was right about that.  The first R rated movie I ever saw was at Nate's house.)  He asked me why I wanted to join.  I told him I was bored.  He made a deal with me.  If I finished my assignments early, I could go to the library anytime and bring books back to read.  He had me do my math assignments in different bases: binary, 3, 6, 8, 11.  He had a stack of story problems and would leave one or two on my desk.  He took our class to see the solar eclipse from the astronomy department on campus.

Mrs. Olic-Hamilton
I dreaded 11th grade English.  Mrs. Olic-Hamilton was supposed to be tough and mean, and she was.  We read book after book.  At first, one every two weeks, then once a week.  We had to type our essays.  Now this seems commonplace, but at the time was near impossible for me.  I didn't have a computer.  Mrs. O-H pulled me aside and gave me an electric typewriter.  I fell asleep typing on it sometimes and had to retype the whole page.

She discussed literary theory with us.  We had to write essays using biographical or historical evidence, or deconstructionist analysis of the text.  She required first person sources.  I read letters written by Emily Dickinsen and diaries from the Civil War.  It was a revelation that publishers actually changed the punctuation and wording to make her poems "right."   That year I discovered the Anthology of Magazine Verse from the 1920's and fell in love with the Harlem Renaissance poets. Langston Hughes is still one of my favorites.  I decided that the Scarlet Letter was a response to the rise of liberalism in America and France, and Hawthorne losing his job.  I wrote a short story about the death of my cousin in a car accident - mostly fictional, yet still the best description of how I felt.

One day she asked me to stay behind.  She asked me if I could do her a favor.  Some of the other kids in the class were shy in class.  She wanted to draw them out.  Maybe, I could help by holding back.  She would call on me during key moments to keep the discussion going, but I had to be prepared.  I studied all the harder, and sat on my hands.

Dr. Mooney
Our classroom was painted floor to ceiling with quotes and pictures from books and poems. We read John Donne and T. S. Elliot, "1984", and "Steppenwolf."  Dr. Mooney started some classes by getting out a peanut butter sandwich in a plastic bag.  He placed it on a stool in front of the chalkboard.  Then he sat on it until the end of class, when he took it out and ate it with relish.  One wall was devoted to the "Cereal Hall of Shame." Count Chocula, BlueBerry Sunrise, Uncle Sam's Natural Laxative Cereal.  Some days he would take us to a coffee shop for class, or interrupt the discussion to listen to Neil Diamond or watch bits of Ricky Lake.  Not because he liked them, but because they were that bad.  It could only get better.  We also read a lot, 1-2 books a week, two essays a week, every week.  But where Mrs. O-H pushed scholarship, Dr. Mooney pushed clarity.  Short, clean, precise arguments.  Gripping openings.

I was trying to decide where to go to college that year.  My mom made me promise to apply to BYU, really apply, scholarships and all, even though I wanted to go far away.  I didn't feel like I fit in with the other Mormon kids and I wanted to escape.  I applied to Harvey Mudd, Oberlin College, and New York University.  I was offered a large scholarship to Oberlin and a good scholarship to BYU.  I agonized over the decision; I broke out in hives from head to toe.  I did not want to go to BYU, but I felt pulled in that direction and it made no sense to me.  Deadlines loomed and I needed to decide.  Dr. Mooney noticed, and asked me to stay.  "Tell me about it." He said.  I talked for an hour.  He made lists on the board as I talked.  In the end, he erased it all and told me he felt like I was not agonizing over the schools.  They were all good schools.  I would do well at any of them.  The money would work out.  He thought I was deciding between a lifestyle.  Did I want to live as a part of Mormon culture?  He told me he thought it a bad idea, for him, but for me?  That was the question.

I went home, I looked at myself in the mirror.  It was not a hard decision after that.  I went to BYU.

Teachers are so important, because they are there at those key crossroads for kids, and the best ones notice and help where they can.  That is worth more than cognitive ability.  Should we pay them a decent wage to do that?  I think so.  

Emily's room

This post was going to be about finally finishing the endtable for Emily's room.  She had borrowed the end table from the porch to arrange her many special things a few months back and Leila had asked me to make her a replacement table.  I decided to make this one - from a design in Thos. Moser's book on Shaker furniture, with some simplifications.  It took me longer to finish this than I dare admit, since it was still in pieces for Christmas, but I am quite proud of it.  The drawer sticks a little and I compromised and screwed the drawer together instead of attempting the called for dove tails.

But, when I went to take pictures of the endtable, I was drawn in to Emily's intense decoration of her room.  When I was about her age, I shared a room with my sister Anna.  We put the bunkbeds in the center of the room and hung curtains on the bunkbed to divide the room so that we each had our own private spaces.  I moved my rocks and microscope into the closet and decorated it with pictures cut out of my Ranger Rick and Boy's life magazines.

From Emily's room

Emily has built on the same decorating bedrock, but out done anything I had ever attempted. Most of the pictures are from the National Geographic, but include bits and pieces from the Economist, the Scientist, the New Era, candy wrappers, part of an eggnog box, crafts she made in school, for holidays, and a large environmental poster.

The hanging bats were from Halloween and haunt one corner

Her cartoon characters, doodled on scraps of paper during church and school.

From Emily's room

This is my favorite drawing she has done.  It may be hard to see, but it has animals throughout and the letter T is a tree with monkey's hanging from it.  The ocean bubbles up around the word "Earth."

The arrangement of of faces without eyes is a little odd  though, especially since the eyes are distributed between pictures from magazines in the rest of the room.

It makes me feel like the walls are watching me.

As the years go by, she becomes more and more herself and I am happy to see her transform.  

Conversations with Colleen

I am convinced that my daughters' personalities were fully formed before they were born.  When they first opened their eyes and lungs outside the womb, they are themselves.  Colleen(er), as she often adds to her name, most certainly was internally perfectly developed before her physical body has caught up with her.  She often has the funniest things to tell you in her own way.

Her Earth
She regularly tells us about life in her earth.  She has a sister there, she says, named something like Sesskah.  Her sister tells her scary stories about lions sometimes.  They play together in her earth, or argue sometimes.  Once and a while they fight, but mostly her sister is nice to her.  Her mom, in her earth, makes her favorite foods to eat.  When she likes something she will often say that it is exactly like that in her earth - food, games, clothes.

Artist
We watched a PBS show about paper folding, called Between the Folds, fascinating documentary.  She was concerned part way through and asked me: "Why are there not any girl artists?"  I said, "Girls could be artists, I don't know why they haven't talked to any."  She frowned, put her finger to her cheek and tapped it lightly.  After a few minutes, "I am an artist!" she exclaimed and ran to get printer paper out.  For the rest of the documentary she folded the paper into square table-like shapes

This was weeks ago, but has continued to make her paper art, which is getting more complex every day.

Dishes

From Colleen Gardunia

While Leila was in Abu Dhabi, I made each of the girls help due chores after each meal.  Colleen asked me if she could help do the hand dishes instead of clearing the table.  I shrugged, filled up the sink, and waited to see how long that would last.  She washed all of the dishes.  And there were a lot.  She kept up a steady prattle,  "I am the best dishwasher in the entire world!  I wash them so faster.  You don't even have room for them I wash them so faster.  I am a better dishwasher than Emily!" (This is actually true,  Emily touches the dishrag like it is covered in germs and it would be better if the downstairs maid took it away.)  Ever since, she asks if she can wash the hand dishes, along with the affirmations about her dish washing prowess.

The other night she asked me if she could be an artist and still wash dishes.  I told her that dish washing was a good skill to have as an artist.  She asked if other artists washed dishes.  I told her that I imagine that a lot of them wash dishes for a job sometimes.  Then she wooped and exclaimed, "I am the best dishwashing artist in the Earth!"

Gender roles

From Colleen Gardunia

Lately, she has been very aware of women's roles.  She has asked Leila and I a couple of times about whether girls go to college.  We have always pushed higher education and encouraged our girls in that direction.  She seemed skeptical that girls needed to go to college.  Leila told her of course they do.  She then came to me and asked, "Can girls get jobs?"

"Of course," I said. "Don't you remember Katie that worked with me?"

Colleen scowled, "But she doesn't work with you now?"

"No," I said. "She got a different job"

Colleen brightened.  "Because she had a baby?"

Well, she did, but that isn't why she left." I tried to explain.  "She just wanted to do something different and she found a job with more flexible work hours where she could live closer to her family."

Colleen, skeptically and slowly,  "Right."

I am just waiting to hear what motherhood is like in her earth.

The Future
She has asked multiple times recently, "How many days until I am old?"  Our answers don't seem to satisfy her.  I wish sometimes I could capture our kids at this age and hold them there and they wouldn't have to get older.  But then, I love seeing Emily and Aleah mature and when I glimpse a shadow of the young women they are becoming I am so proud to be their Dad.  Even if that means there are very few days until I am old.

From Colleen Gardunia

The other guys: Candidates that will not be president in 2012.

I love the underdog, especially in politics. I voted for Nader when I lived in Texas, and I can remember watching the Ross Perot infomercials when I was in high school.  It takes a unique personality to spend time and money arguing and fighting against a political process that is impossibly larger and immovable. They remind me of Sisyphus, except they volunteered to roll the boulder up and down the hill. All of them are idealists, some are dreamers, some extremists.  All have a lot of chutzpah.

Republican:  
There are a bunch of candidates that have gotten little to no attention. Here are my favorite of the bottom tier. There are probably two dozen others I found that seemed to be very similar in their devotion to low taxes, repealing health care reform, and hawkish foreign policy.

Buddy Roemer - Definitely my favorite.  I think I would actually vote for him if he was the Republican candidate.  He is trying to fund his campaign only with small donors, which I admire.  He used to be a Democrat, then switched to the Republican party.  He has federal, state, and business experience. Unfortunately, I think he is going to drop out.

Jon Huntsman, Jr.  - The more liberal version of Romney. He has foreign service experience and seems likeable enough.

Democrat:
Almost no one runs against a sitting president of your own party.
Darcy Richardson - even more liberal Democrat. Bring on single payer health insurance!

Randall Terry  - extreme pro-life Democrat.  Is this guy in the right party?


Extreme Longshots:
Rocky Anderson - He was mayor in Salt Lake City and now founder of his own political party.  Why does he think that will translate to the US presidency?  I do not know.

 Vern Wuenshe - He reminds me of a high school economics teacher. No charisma.

John Davis   - the flag painted wrench in his photo is hilarious enough.  Tea Party-esque politics

Mike Ballantine - living in Vietnam.  He is running his campaign from there.  Enough said.

Stewart Alexander and Alex Mendoza Socialists.  Really.  There are Socialists for president!

Scott Keller - Occupy the Whitehouse?  He owns the website in case you were thinking of squatting there.

Peta Lindsay - She is a 27 year old anti-war activist.  She missed class on the day they explained you needed to be 35 to run.  Maybe in 8 years she will run again.

Wacko:
Mosheh Thezion - Doesn't believe in smiling for photos.  Doesn't like having his picture taken.  Doesn't proof-read his website for his campaign.  Quotes a lot of scriptures.

Deonia Neveu - She doesn't believe in being "personally worshipped and glorified", like the other guys? She says she has a lot of drive though.

Jack Fellure - Runs every time.  Last name rhymes with failure.  The Bible is his platform.

Andy Martin - The guy that started the Birther idiocy.  Now is trying to argue for Obama really being the son of liberal activist Frank Davis.

Jeff Siggans - President and Pope.  He is running for both.  Really.

Jonathon Sharkey - This guy should be on a sex-offender's watch list.  He drinks blood, has a bad mustache, and has unhealthy relationships with teenage girls.

And there are more!  Wikipedia has a whole list of alternative parties and their candidates here, including Roseanne Barr and the Naked Cowboy.

Kate: my new yoga instructor

Kate telling me to put my heels to the floor. 

Last year when I went to Hawaii, I woke up at 4 in the morning in my hotel room and was bored flipping channels.  I was going to go for a run, but my hotel - long story- was in a warehouse district by the airport and the tattoo parlor was still open and I just didn't feel like it.  I ran across a yoga show, tried it that morning and felt great all day.  Sore in weird places, but good sore.

Kate showing me Down Dog

I decided that while I was there I would try to continue to wake up at that time so that I wouldn't want to stay up late when I got back.  Every day I woke up to yoga at 4:30, ate breakfast at 5:30 and out at dawn.  I haven't been terribly consistent about it since, but I really enjoyed it as a form of exersize.  I am not very coordinated or flexible, so it is pretty funny.

Oops, I am off track.  

Kate likes to go down and do exercizes with me.  She is actually quite good at them.  Much more flexible than I.

Caught back up. 

One of these days I would like to take a yoga class, but the idea of paying, going to a room full of people in stretchy pants, and doing it discourages me. My back and neck have never felt better though than when I am consistent about practicing.   

Continuing traditions: Nausea and bowling for the New Year.

Unfortunately, this year we have tried hard to truly celebrate Christmas with the stomache flu for everyone. Aleah, Colleen, and Kate each have thrown up in their beds now. I have felt car-sick nauseous all last night and today. Uggh

 On a more positive note, we had great fun bowling, thanks to Leila's parents. Definitely, a new holiday tradition. All of the kids scored higher than me though, but I am just waiting for the day when they don't have bumpers. I am a very erratic bowler. Either it goes in the gutter or I get a spare/strike.

Leila consistently knocked down 6-8 pins.  Somehow I still outscored her.  Aahahaha.

Aleah tried to throw the bowling ball like a shotput a couple of times.  But usually took advantage of the gutters to knock down the pins. 

 Emily was consistently the best bowler. I bet she would have won even without the bumpers.  Look at that good form. 

Kate camped out at the ball return and rolled each ball into place.  She also was the cheerleader.  She would cheer and clap for everyone.  

I helped Colleen roll the ball.  When she rolled it by herself so softly that it was not for sure that it would make it all the way down the lane.  

Leila's trip to Abu Dhabi

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Our good friends in Abu Dhabi were kind enough to host Leila for a visit before Christmas this year.  Here are some of the highlights.

Nothing says "Romance" like a tire repair kit for Christmas

I debated what I should get Leila for Christmas this year.  I had told her that her trip to Abu Dhabi was her Christmas present when I booked the tickets, but it seemed kinda cold to not have something to unwrap.  Her bike has been broken for a long time and I thought I would put new tires on it and fix it up for her present. So on Christmas Eve, because I procrastinate everything, I went to Ames to get supplies and planned on finishing the job before she got back from visiting her friend in Des Moines.

I had visions of wheeling the fixed bike inside before she got up with a bow on it.  Then, in my mind, we all went for a ride on Christmas morning to exercise off gorging on cinnamon rolls and candy before we devoured Swedish meatballs and mash potatoes.

I stopped first at Kmart, because Kmart would be open on Christmas Eve.  I was in the store for 5 minutes and came out to the car and saw my back tire was almost completely flat.  I must have hit a nail or something.  I could here the air hissing out from a puncture.  No problem, I could fix this.  I went to the trunk and couldn't see where the spare tire was hiding.  I looked under the car.  No spare.  Then I took a deep breath, and got out the manual in the jockey box.  According to the manual the spare was between the seats and under the floor.  Of course.  I got it out and found the tiny jack and started turning it so that it would jack up the car.

That is when I realized I had no way to remove the security lug nuts. Leila told me there was a tool for that in the jockey box later, and that the proper name for them were "security lug nuts." In my mind they were the "@#@#@#$*(&#$&$^^^ nut-with-the-crazy top." I looked in the manual and there was no mention of "@#@#@#$*(&#$&$^^^ nut-with-the-crazy top."



A couple of people stopped and offered to help.  None of them knew how to get the "@#@#@#$*(&#$&$^^^ nut-with-the-crazy top" off either.  It was getting dark.  I went back into the store and went to the automotive section.  No tool for "@#@#@#$*(&#$&$^^^ nut-with-the-crazy top." But there was a tire repair kit with a sealant and an air compressor that ran off of the cigarette lighter.  That could work I thought.

I went out, put the spare and jack away.  Poured in the Fix-a-Flat, plugged in the little air compressor, and waited.  Sure enough, it did blow up the tire.  The instructions said to drive around to spread the goop around inside to plug the holes.  I made it downtown and checked the hole.  It was still losing air somewhat. I thought I could make it back home, so I turned around to go home.

I made it to Target before I realized the tire was not holding.  At Ag, one of the production guys had fixed my lawnmower tire with a kit like this one.  I had seen the same kit used on tractor tires and for 2 dollars I bought one at Target. I also bought a small tool kit, just in case.

To fix the tire, you are supposed to clean it out with the awl/rasp and then coat the rubber plug with glue, plunge it into the tire with the needle-like tool and then pull out the needle leaving the plug in the tire.  I pushed and strained.  I could not get the needle with the rubber plug into the hole.  I tried to make it wider with the rasp and by pushing as hard as I could I got it finally in and plugged.  I filled the tire up again and drove straight home.

The tire has held air since then.  Amazing.  I was impressed by the number of people that offered to help me out on Christmas eve.  I was rather irritable when I got home finally, but since Leila looked so forlorn, I couldn't stay mad.  I did give her tire repair supplies for Christmas.  And she had the good manners to pretend to be surprised and to appreciate her gift.

That is why I married her.

Christmas at the Gardunia's

Our tree this year

 When Leila and I were at BYU, before we got married, we often went out on double dates with Craig, my roommate.  She was usually Craig's date, but that is another story.  Before Christmas we went to Salt Lake to see the lights and eat Chinese food with Liesl Talbot.  After we dropped Liesl off, Craig, Leila and I were in the car, driving back to Provo.  Craig turned to Leila and said, "Leila. . . (Long pause in which I thought "please don't ask her what is going on between us, because I don't know quite how to answer that.") ...what are your Christmas traditions?" Leila audibly sighed with relief because she was thinking the same thing as me.  We still chuckle about it.

Ninja snow man and other homemade decorations. 

A for Aleah and marbleized ball. 

I think about that this time of year, because it was funny, and because we don't have really defined Christmas traditions still.  Let's scratch that  The more I think about it, we have great Christmas traditions, they just seem ordinary to me and I tend to be more like Eeyore.  Each year we have a tree. In Texas we cut down scrub cedar for our Christmas tree each year from the abandoned lot near my office by the railroad.   We give each other presents, that we open on Christmas, not Christmas Eve.  My siblings and I have a gift exchange mediated by my sister Anna.

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We always have a family picture taken in November which is given to Grandparents as part of their Christmas gift and we often start Christmas cards or a letters, but often don't get them mailed out on time.  But we mean to each year, and we do think of all of our friends and family that live so far away.  We make cookies and pie for Christmas dinner.  We usually have ham, Christmas, ie funeral potatoes.

Aleah as Mary 2007 - she kept the blanket wrapped around her head for days.

On Christmas Eve the kids and I dress up and act out the Nativity scene.  I am the donkey and the girls fight over who will be Mary.  (Because secretly I think it is funny to be the ass). Leila traditionally gets overwhelmed by it all at this point and designates herself as the narrator.  After the kids go to bed, Leila and I stay up late wrapping presents and getting stockings done.  And at our house Santa brings you something in your stocking - traditionally olives for me.

Our house Christmas 2009 - no decorations or snow this year.

One of our Christmas traditions that I would like to get rid of is the Christmas stomach flu.  (Now, to me the flu is nausea and vomiting, not Influenza.  This started soon after Leila and I got married when we went to her folks for Christmas.  That was a rough trip.  On the way there we were in a car accident on the freeway up to Snoqualmie pass.  Then we got to Gig Harbor and it was a full house, and the then the throwing up started.  First Eric, then me, then Leila, and so on.  Another year we went to Utah and Emily and Aleah threw up Christmas Eve and Christmas.  This year, Aleah has started Christmas out with this tradition by throwing up all last night.  Let's hope it doesn't spread to the rest of us before Christ

She has



Photo of half finished christmas presents in the woodshop.

Goals - Guaranteed to fail

I have a bad history with goals.  Secretly, I feel like if I vocalize a goal, write it down, tell Leila about it, that pretty much is the end of that endeavor.  I have thought a lot about that this last week.  And the end of the year seems to loom larger to me than Christmas right now.  That and I am procrastinating finishing Christmas gifts.

My friend Erin wrote this year not on the goals she had, but the person she wanted to become over this next year. I love her goal to get "some swagger."  I love this idea and started writing a list of the things I want to become over the next year or the things I want to learn or do.  But they all distill down to daily, or repeated action, that end up not being sustainable, and I quickly drop them for short term time fillers.  If my goal were to watch Jon Stewart every day after the kids go to bed, I guarantee I could do it for a year.  If my goal were to read a SciFi book a week, you could bet I would do it.  Instead I, like most people, try to make goals that are good for me, and apparently I don't really want to do those things, or else I would, right?  I like sweets.  I love watching TV.  I don't really like to exercise. Apparently I don't like to read my scriptures every day, another goal I fail at repeatedly.

I envy people who have the strength of will to keep up a daily, good-for-you activity.  While thinking about how to make myself build good habits and improve myself, I stumbled onto a blog category of 365 day projects.  There are a lot of photo-a-day blogs.  The link is to a metasite that compiles these blogs; I bet Kodak's film department head curses the development of digital cameras every time they look at such a site. That is a lot of pictures, beautiful pictures.  I found a series of eat-better/local/organic/vegetarian-for-a-year blogs, many inspired by the book, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle," which I read a few years back.  Here is another about a family's experiment of a farm for a year that turned into their life.  When I was searching for a list of blogs to write about it became a game to find a phrase and add "for a year" to it and see if such a site/blog existed.  For exercize buffs: Running for a year, yoga for a year,  or go the otherway with Daily Mcdonalds aka Supersize Me.  How about a "book a day for a year" - yep, someone has done that.  "No environmental impact for a year", someone has tried that too.  The list could go on and on.

Am I building up to making this blog a record of my Jon-Stewart-watching-every-day-for a year goal?  No,  but I do want to find a way to motivate myself to do the daily work that is required for many goals.  As Juma Ikangaa once said, "The will to win means nothing without the will to prepare. " I had that on a poster on my wall when I was 16.  I felt like I accomplished a lot of things that year.  I practiced every day.  I read my scriptures.  I fell asleep doing homework most nights.  I was a stress case though.

My goal for this year is to build good habits.  I would like to be the sort of person that can do something good, every day, even if it is hard.  I think I will try to find something small that I can do everyday, and I will try to report in periodically, but I will not inflict 365 days of blog posts to it.


As a postscript, I ran into a website of poems compiled by the US Poet Laureate for a poem a day, that I couldn't help sharing:

http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/

Scratch - Something worthwhile for kids on the computer.

My mom is working for NSF this year as an Einstein fellow.;  As part of her job she reviews grants and attends conferences focused on education of math and computer science.  When she came to visit for Thanksgiving, she introduced us to a program called Scratch for learning computer science methods.  My kids are entranced by it, and it is pretty cool.

My kids spend a lot of time using paint on the computer anyway, but now they can animate their digital drawings, add music, sounds, and automate actions of their characters.

Here are some recent Paint drawings from the kids, I will let you guess which one's were Kate's and which from Emily.

This is Emily's first project.  Almost every key does something to the character.  The middle keys play music and other keys change the character.  Emily has talked about doing an animated storybook with it. You have to give permission for the Java plug-in to run and then you can explore Emily's Scratch project.  The little kids also play around with it, but haven't run any commands, they are entranced by the enhanced paint options and  preloaded characters.  Kate just clicks like mad until the screen is a scrum of characters.

Learn more about this project

Jury duty

The phone rang at 7:30 this morning. My first thought was that I had forgot to call Aleah's school to tell them she was going to be late/absent.   She woke up in a dreadful funk and was coughing, wheezing, and oozing, so I sent her back to bed and figured I would bring her to school when she was feeling better.   The woman on the other end of the phone asked for me by my full name, like my mother would when I was in trouble,  and reminded me that I hadn't called in for jury duty on Friday.  The Judge was expecting me at 8:30 she said.  I told her there was no way I could make it.  I had the kids.  They were sick.  She said the judge could hold me in contempt and send the marshalls with a summons.  I decided I could try.

I called a couple of families with young kids from church and found no one that could take the kids on short notice.  Then I remembered the Shooks - no kids, but retired and home.  They agreed, I bundled them in clothes and coats, dropped them screaming at their front door, and drove to Des Moines.

I was already a half hour late.  I parked in the parking garage next to the courthouse, and then realized I needed to go another mile to the federal courthouse.  I didn't have time to hunt for more parking, so I ran.  Wheezing through security, the guard informed me that it was against federal law to bring my cell phone inside and I would have to return it to my vehicle.  I was over a half hour late and didn't want to run all the way back  so I stashed it under some dried grass next to the river.  I felt like I was burying evidence.

I raced upstairs, checked in, sprinted down to the courtroom for rollcall.  Made it.  Then waited for an hour until the judge, the defendent, the lawyers, and police settled in.  There were two plainclothes policemen sitting in opposite corners.  Each of them were checking their email on their blackberries.  Apparently the ban on cell phones only applies to civilians.

The judge was in his sixties.  He gave very clear instructions about the indictment, the commitment and responsibility of being a juror, and then they turned what looked like a wooden bingo contraption and drew names.  Only half of us would be chosen initially.  The rest would wait, and assuming that the lawyers didn't exclude all of the rest would be free to go.  Of course, my name was on the top of the list.

Each of us were asked about our age, jobs, family, places we lived the last 10 years,  and if we had any reasons for being excused.  I had already discussed my situation with the clerk and she told me that it probably wasn't good enough to keep me off the jury so I didn't mention it.  Then they followed up with specific questions about previous court cases we had been involved with.  One fellow had two felonies, he  was a little bitter about it.  Apparently the police overstretched their bounds, so he said.  Some of the jurors worked together in the same company.  One woman had a vacation in California scheduled.  He asked if she could rearrange her flights.  We had filled out forms and mailed them in weeks ago.  He asked me follow up questions about Nicaragua, my educational background in genetics, and whether I had ever been arrested.  I told them about getting arrested as a kid driving an ice cream truck and getting robbed in Nicaragua.  That got a chuckle.

Each set of lawyers asked further questions.  The prosecutor tried to exclude the felon.  His motion was denied since enough time had passed that he was eligible to serve.  The defense asked repeatedly to each juror if we understood that the defendant was innocent until proven guilty and whether we agreed that the burden of proof was on the prosecution.  He was a more personable lawyer than the prosecutor.  He asked me again about Nicaragua.  He asked us if we were biased by cultures or lifestyles that are not directly related to the case that may be distasteful for us.  I raised my hand and asked him if he meant that we were going to need to judge whether certain lifestyle choices were related to the case given evidence presented by the prosecution.  He clarified and asked me more questions.

Then we waited, while the attorneys passed lists of jurors back and forth between them.

The judge finally announced around lunch time the final jury selections.  I was free to go.  Thank goodness.  I didn't feel like arranging babysitting and spending this whole time off as a juror.

Looking back at November

From Nov 2011

Once data was rolling this fall, I let most things slide.  I tried keeping up at home by coming home at a decent time, but would go back after the kids are in bed.  Once advancements were done, there were winter nursery plots to put together, meetings in St. Louis, and reports to write.  I kept telling myself that I would update my blog, practice my violin, and a list of other things as soon as it was done.  Well, that part of the year ended with Thanksgiving, thank goodness, but my emergency work list is still quite long.  I have to get ahead this week because Leila is going to Abu Dhabi next week and I will be home with the kids.

Quick summary of our month:

From Nov 2011

Kate still is the cuddliest kid, but talks up a storm, hangs on her dad, sucks her thumb-while twirling her hair, sits on the counter while we cook, and would gladly eat fist fulls of bread dough.

From Nov 2011

Aleah has been sick this month, more missed school, but is excelling anyways.  She has lost teeth on the top and the bottom and turned 7 this month.

From Nov 2011

Tuesday, Bro.  Hawkins came over and helped me install a 220 electrical hookup for the new electric oven-gas range.  He is a retired electrician and with his help we were able to thread the electrical conduit between the walls of the basement to the breaker box and connect it to a 50 Amp breaker.  Then on Thursday we spilled cranberry sauce along the top of the stove and it managed to drip inside the guts of the machine and short out the electrical controls to the gas range so that it continually clicked and tried to light itself.  I stomped around and growled at anyone that came near me until I figured out how to take it apart and repaired it.  We are back in business, but need to rig some gaskets around the electrical controls so that future spills won't do the same.

From Nov 2011

After a bit of a delay, we had a great Thanksgiving Feast with all the trimmings, but only five kinds of pie: Apple, mixed-berry tart, cherry, pumpkin, and chocolate.  Next year with a working oven we will have to have everyone over for pie and there are a list of custards and puddings I would like to make also.

From Nov 2011

There were still enough pies for breakfast, lunch and dinner till Saturday.  I love pie for breakfast.

From Nov 2011

My mom came to visit.  The girls were giddy and tried to show their Grandma how much they loved her at all times.  Looking at the pictures, you can sure see the family resemblance between Emily and my mom.

She brought each of the kids the perfect presents.  Aleah and Emily got a paint by numbers kit.  Aleah immediately sat down and had her's finished by the end of the day. She used her birthday money to buy an even more complicated one that is almost finished also.  She has decided that she wants to be a painter when she grows up because it is so "awesome."

From Nov 2011