Church of Latter Day Saints came to the door.

The other day there was a knock on the front door.

Two, well dressed, polite young men introduced themselves to me.

"Hello, how are you this afternoon sir? My name is Matt and this is Jason and we're going door to door talking about God."

I looked at them blankly.

"Have you ever spoken to someone from the Church of Latter Day saints before?"

I said, "No thanks, I can't talk right now."

"Could we come back at a more convenient time?"

"Sorry, no, I'm not interested."

They smiled and said, "Thank you sir. Have a good day."

I wonder if in their heads as they were walking down our front steps they were thinking, "That poor man is going to Hell. I feel sorry for him and will pray for him tonight."

Blowing bubbles.

The last few days I've been going a bit crazy blowing bubbles for Jake.

It reminded me of a fantasy I had one I was a kid. I imagined that each bubble was it's own universe, with physical laws and living beings and wars etc.

When the bubble burst, the universe ended. Some bubbles lasted longer than others and so these were the lucky "universes". But of course in the end, they would burst. Wind would throw them against a fence or the bubble would lose stability and explode in a rainbow of soap particles.

Naturally, I though that our universe too was a bubble that perhaps someone else had blown us into existence and was watching from an outside meta world that contained other "bubble universes" competing with our own.

Would ours be a long lasting universe? Or would the child stick his finger inside of us just as things got going? We'd see a beautiful rainbow explosion and then everything would end.

Thoughts on Ketchup

I remember when ketchup came in glass jars and it was so thick you had to slap the jar hard. An uncontrolled burst of ketchup would land on your plate. If you didn't shake the jar, a watery substance would leak out.

These days ketchup comes in squeezable plastic bottles. It's no longer thick, but runny. You don't have to shake it anymore.

They've fixed a lot of these ketchup problems, yet somehow there's less satisfaction in eating ketchup. It's too easy.

Spreadable lettuce.

I have a great idea for a new invention.*

Spreadable lettuce. You know how when you leave lettuce in your fridge for a long time, it gets slimy?

Well why not manufacture this process and market it as spreadable lettuce?

It can come in a jar and you just spread it on like butter. It would be sort of a thick, dark green colour, and obviously would have a rich lettuce taste.

___

* Actually I stole this from my wife and added a few more details.

Liquid diets don't help you gain weight.

We weighed the kids a couple days ago. Since taking Jake off his liquid diet (last January) he's gained 20% in weight.*

Mason's still growing, but he's slowing down. Now he's only in the 60th percentile. Still big for his age though.

___

* Moved from 30th percentile on the down syndrome growth chart to 50% approx.

Joe Mooney phoned.

You know you're getting old when you start telling lame Dad jokes.

We decided to spring for call display. The other day someone named Joe Mooney phoned, but didn't leave a message.

I started singing "Leave a message Mooney, moon, moon mooney" to the tune of Billy Idol's "Mony Mony".

It was hilarious and caused huge belly laughs.

There should be hundreds of people walking around our neighbourhood.

We usually go for a night time walk after dinner for a half hour or so. Most of the time we see all the same people - maybe 15 different couples or families at the most, plus a few strangers.

Our complex has hundreds of houses. I would think that at any given time there should be hundreds of people walking around.

Not even close. We've concluded that the vast, vast majority of people who live in our neighbourhood do not walk around.

I guess they stay inside or only drive their cars.

Mason smells good.

When Jake was a baby, he smelled awesome - like cookies. Mason didn't smell like that for the first few weeks and I was disappointed.

But now he does! Something changed in his body chemistry and he smells good. I like sniffing him and then making faces until he smiles.

I don't like some kids.

Yesterday at the park Jake was sitting in his stroller and we were walking toward him. Two kids, maybe 5 or 6, walked around the corner with toy light sabers. They saw Jake and said, "A baby! Let's kill it!"

Then they saw us and got all scared. They went off to the grass and started bashing each other with the light sabers.

As they were hitting each other they chanted, "Kill the baby! Kill it!"

We're in four successive star signs.

Each member of my family is in 4 successive star signs.

Mason is a Taurus. Cindy is a Gemini. Jake is a Cancer and I'm a Leo.*

Four birthdays in a 3 month period and we all managed to squeak into a different star sign. I'm not sure what this means, but it's mildly interesting.

__

*TAURUS

APRIL 21 - MAY 21

GEMINI

MAY 22 - JUNE 21

CANCER

JUNE 22 - JULY 23

LEO

JULY 24 - AUG 23

5 Things Jake's better at than me.

1) Flexibility. He can bend his feet way past he head if he wanted.

2) Resisting junk food. He can easily resist chocolate, chips and ice cream.

3) Sleeping. He's a much better and deeper sleeper. He can almost sleep through anything.

4) Friendly to strangers. He can approach strangers, hug their legs and asked to be picked up. I'm much too shy.

5) Dancing. He's got some great moves. I wouldn't be able to attract as much attention as him if I danced.

I didn't like how our behavioural interventionist was so exhausted.

When you pay $1,500 to have a behavioural interventionist trained to help your son, and then you pay her $16 an hour, you don't want her to show up for work exhausted.

That's what ours did. She'd be totally exhausted from staying up all night. She'd be yawning and falling asleep and sitting on the couch, not doing anything.

She'd be drinking Red Bull at 9am when she showed up for "work", and then she'd leave her can on the counter for me to recycle.

Optimists shower.

If you have a shower or bath in the morning, you're engaging in your first act of optimism. You're saying, "I want start the day, fresh and clean."

You want to feel good. You have things to do and people to see and acts to complete.

If the world were to end or you were to disintegrate into a pile of garbage, you obviously wouldn't shower.*

____

* This entry is adapted from Breakfast with Socrates : an extraordinary (philosophical) journey through your ordinary day Robert Rowland Smith

Sugar cubes are cooler.

Sugar cubes are the coolest form of sugar. It's a cube. That's cool.

You don't have to measure anything because each sugar cube is exactly one teaspoon of sugar. You don't tear open a package and contribute to paper waste and garbage.

And the coolest thing of all is that sugar cubes dissolve in your coffee. One minute it's a cube. The next it's gone.

Sugar cubes used to be used in diners and restaurants when I was a kid. Not anymore. Now it's just the sugar packets because people didn't like the idea of using a sugar cube that could have been touched by a stranger's hand.

Getting ready is a paradox.

When we say, "Let's get ready!" we're participating in a paradox. In one sense, we're inviting the unexpected to begin. We're excited about the unknown and we have a "bring it on" attitude.

On the other hand, the act of "getting ready" requires preparing for the unknown. Getting a hat if it's sunny. Bringing an umbrella. Checking the gas in the car.

So at the same time as proclaiming readiness for the world, we try to minimize any of its affect on us.*

___

* This entry is adapted from Breakfast with Socrates : an extraordinary (philosophical) journey through your ordinary day by Robert Rowland Smith

Who can afford to live there?

Whenever I see a home show on TV I look at the people who own the house and ask, "What job do they have where they can own a home like that?"

Their appearance gives no clue. I'm doubtful that anyone can own a beautiful house in this day and age. Yet many people clearly do, so I'm obviously wrong.

My guess is most of the people on the home shows with gorgeous houses are professionals - accountants, lawyers, doctors or stock brokers.

Clowns part 2

“So you want to build a website, Mr. Kansas, about clowns?”

The 20-year-old Dial a Geek worker stood in Harvey’s doorway. The sunlight exposed the acne on the man’s left cheek.

“Yes,” said Kansas. The door was only partially opened. It blocked a Mossberg 500 pump-action shotgun held in Harvey’s right arm. He surveyed the boy and relaxed.

“Come in then. Don’t stand idle.”

The boy stepped into the home. “We’re offering a hosting and domain name special…” He stopped talking when he noticed the shotgun. Kansas placed it on the foyer table.

Kansas saw the boy’s eyes. “You could have been a clown.”

“You would have shot me?”

“That’s the shotgun’s function, yes.”

“Me?”

“If you were a clown.”

The boy seemed perplexed.

Kansas said, “How old are you?”

“Twenty.”

“It ain’t unheard of but you’re probably safe from clowns. They prefer boys between the ages of 8 and 14. And occasionally girls.”

“Our package price is 29.99 a month, which I think you’ll find competitive.” The boy’s voice sounded unsteady.

“That’s reasonable,” agreed Kansas.

The boy looked down at a clipboard. “My notes say you want the website to have a hand grabbing at you.”

“A clown hand,” said Kansas. “Scooping you up like ice cream.”

“We could do that,” said the man. He was perking up. Enthusiastic. “We could do a splash page, where the hand comes forward, right at you.”

“It’s a different anatomy.”

The boy raised his eyebrows.

“The clown hand,” explained Kansas. “The fingers are of varying lengths. It’s why they wear white gloves.”

“Our designer can definitely do a misshapen hand. We can do it in Flash.”

Kansas nodded. “Sure. Make it flashy. I dislike anyone who wears gloves for that reason.”

“Did you have a domain name picked out? I’m assuming it would have the word ‘clowns’ in it?”

“I make a point of looking at a person’s hands and feet,” said Kansas. “Clowns don’t take care of their feet. They have bunions and dead skin and calluses and ingrown nails. Their skin is milky pale. Unnatural. That’s why they wear big shoes, on account of comfort.”

Harvey stopped talking. His eyes focused on a vehicle slowing in front of his house. A courier. He picked up his shotgun and pulled the boy aside, out of his line of sight.

The car stopped. A moment later a courier walked toward them holding a box.

Kansas leveled the shotgun. The courier was almost at the front door. His eyes went wide. He dropped the box at Harvey’s feet and sprinted back to the car.

“Get back!” shouted Kansas. He ripped open the box with his hand. “Could be anthrax or an incendiary device!”

The Dial a Geek employee jumped behind a lamp.

“Cheeses Christ,” said Kansas. “I said Cheeses!”

“What?” asked the twenty-year-old. “What is it?”

Harvey Kansas turned toward the boy and held out a human arm.

“A hand,” said Kansas. “Severed at the elbow.”

The boy’s face did a hiccup.

“I know whose it is too,” said Kansas. “Rip Waychild. He worked for me once. Then the clowns got him. This is their message to me. This is the fourth package.”

“It’s an arm,” said the employee. He vomited a little into the plant.

“Them clowns are dismembering him piece by piece and sending me the parts.”

Harvey Kansas stared at his friend’s arm. “We’ll put that on the website too.”

It's not fair when God punishes us.

I don't think it's fair when God punishes us for the very same traits that he gave us.

If he gave me trait of being lazy, why punish me by holding me back and not allowing me to excel? If he gave me a trait of a bad temper, why punish me by making me lose my friends when I rage?

I'm not even going to mention how unfair it is that God punishes children by giving them cancer or heart defects or genetic disorders.

I think God should not punish people for having a positive trait, and then still failing, despite the trait. For example, God should punish intelligent people who fail school. Or he should punish beautiful people who can't find a spouse.

Clowns part 1

The principal stood on stage and looked at his students over the top of his glasses. The auditorium felt cold.

“Children, it pleases me to introduce a very important dignitary.” He surveyed their heads for a moment and continued.

“Please applaud for mister”… he consulted a cue card… “Harvey Kansas.”

The children clapped and the sound echoed off the polished floors and cinder block ceiling.

A large man stood from a chair and stepped to the centre of the stage. He wore heavy cowboy boots and a worn jeans jacket. A hush fell over the children. All eyes went to the Belgium-made FN F2000 assault rifle with telescope sight and 40mm FN EGLM grenade launcher. He held it loosely in his hands.

“Scholars,” he said. “I thank you for your welcome. I’m here to talk about an imperative matter. Imperative.”

Not one child even fidgeted.

“Clowns,” he said. “They’re a menace. Dangerous and treacherous.”

He pointed a thick finger at the children. “We need to come together as a society to eradicate clowns.”

Still no one moved.

“To terminate them.”

A boy raised his hand. “Do you mean kill them?”

The principal looked at the boy over his glasses. “Say sir.”

“Do you mean kill them, sir?”

“That’s perfectly right,” said Kansas.

“With that?” said the boy, awed by the weapon.

“Often.”

A girl raised her hand. “My dad’s a clown when the carnival comes to town in August.”

“Your dad is not a clown young miss.” He spoke with authority. “You’re dad is only dressing as a clown. Like when you children dress as the devil on the Halloween holiday.”

The girl wasn’t finished. “But my dad…”

“Your dad is not a clown because clowns don’t have children. Clowns steal children and turn them into clowns when they get older.”

Many of the pupils nodded their heads.

The principal stood and told the students that Mr. Kansas would give each student an important flyer.

“You are to call me,” said the man, “when you see a clown. And be hasty about it.”

A bell rang and the principal said a few more things before dismissing the students. They hurried to the exits, chatting, fidgeting and staring at the large man.

Mason had his first immunizations.

A few days ago Cindy drove Mason to the local health unit.

She walked into the nurse's office and chatted about breast feeding and babies. The nurses like to talk.

The nurse pulled out three long needles and jabbed them into Mason's leg.

He screamed.

The nurse advised tylenol or advil. Then they waited in the office for another 15 minutes or so and chatted, while the nurse watched Mason out of the corner of her eye to make sure he didn't have an allergic reaction.

Cindy brought Mason home where he was grumpy all day and demanded that you walk around while holding him. He screamed the instant you sat down.

Mini-mini wheats.

Mini wheats is a cereal that has taken a block of wheat, and made them small and bite-sized. Thus the name mini.

Now they have even smaller mini wheats, mini-mini wheats. I bought a box from the grocery store yesterday.

The box says these mini wheats are "nearly HALF THE SIZE". I interpret that as smaller, but not quite 50% smaller. Perhaps they're only 40% smaller.

But then again, when you think about it, the sentence could mean that they're not quite half the size they're smaller still - they're almost half the size. Perhaps they're 55% smaller and the manufacturer couldn't quite get them to be 50% so they added "nearly" to the box.

Yet those interpretations are opposite. How can "nearly or almost half the size" mean bigger than half the size and smaller than half the size?

I'm going to go with my first interpretation.

My friend called me a clown.

My friend called me a clown because I have funny feet, red hair and white skin.

I said that I would show up at his house and murder him in his sleep. I'd blow a small horn at the exact moment he expired.

Maybe I'll get my friend Ronald McDonald to rape him before I kill him. I haven't decided yet.

He said that he was not afraid of clowns.

Jake doesn't like to hold hands anymore.

Jake used to like holding hands when we walked.

Then I started letting go of his hand, encouraging him to walk on his own.

Now he hates holding hands.

If you hold his hand, he will tantrum by boxing his ears, standing in front of you to block your path, whining, sitting in the middle of the street, or throwing himself on the ground.

What our babysitter said.

Our babysitter said that she had never seen the inside of a pair before because she is "allergic to fruit". She's allergic to them because of the "pesticides". She is not allergic to organic fruit, however.

Our babysitter said that she failed her essay, despite her thinking that it was the best essay she's ever written. A few days later she told us the whole class had failed. Everyone received an F.

Cindy told her that Jake's teeth were so white because they were extra calcified - and this could lead to future cavities. A few days later she told us that she had extra calcium in her teeth and the dentist said this was a problem.

We had ants in our house one morning. A few days later she said that they had ants in their house, in every cupboard, in every box of food.

When the painter came to paint our house, she said she and her boyfriend were painting their house this summer - and her boyfriend's house.

When Cindy said my feet were dirty, the babysitter said that she noticed Jake's feet were dirty from his play mat and that her feet were also dirty from his play mat. The play mat is clean. My feet were dirty from walking around outside.

We ate a large Dairy Queen cake in 2 days.

We went to Dairy Queen to buy Jake's ice cream cake. We wanted a small cake, but they only had large. We reluctantly bought a large.

I had all these plans. I was going to give our babysitter a piece. Our neighbours. Our painter.

But we ate the entire cake in 2 days. Even Jake had 2 pieces.

The cake was over 4000 calories.

China has all the money and USA doesn't have any.

Just read The end of influence : what happens when other countries have the money by Stephen S. Cohen, J. Bradf.

It says that America will not be able to wield as much power and influence on the world stage because it no longer has the money. It's mostly in debt to China.

"We Americans spent more than we earned; we consumed more than we produced. We borrowed the money to buy the stuff from the people who produced it abroad and sold it to us. We paid them in dollars; they took the dollars and lent them back to us, so we could do it again. It worked well all around. They sold more, banked the money, and felt richer; we bought more and felt prosperous." p91.

Since a huge percentage of China's riches come from USA debt, China can't let the USA fail. They're in a sort of sick, co-dependent relationship.

Mel Gibson is not a nice man.

Mel Gibson hates Jewish people. He said this to a police officer who arrested him for drunk driving in 2006.

He's racist. He hits women when they're holding his kids. He said this to his then wife in a tape-recorded phone call released in 2010.

This was his apology in 2006:

After drinking alcohol on Thursday night, I did a number of things that were very wrong and for which I am ashamed. I drove a car when I should not have, and was stopped by the L.A. County sheriffs. The arresting officer was just doing his job and I feel fortunate that I was apprehended before I caused injury to any other person.

Obligatory new baby comments.

When you meet someone with a newborn baby you must say how cute the baby is. You must compliment the baby's name.

You must tell the parents how quickly you were able to train your own newborn to sleep through the night. Or you must complain that it took you a long, long time to train your newborn through the night.

This is obligatory.

I almost acidentally killed our babysitter.

Our babysitter has told us a number of times that she's deathly allergic to nuts - especially peanuts. If a peanut particle touches her arm, she breaks out in hives.

If she eats a peanut she has to be rushed to the hospital immediately.

The other day I asked if she wanted a coffee. She said yes so I poured her coffee and handed it to her. I said, "It's flavoured."

She said, "Oh, what flavour?"

I said, "Hazelnut."

She put the cup down and turned away. Cindy said, "Good thing she didn't drink it!"

"I'm sorry," I said to the babysitter. "I really wasn't trying to kill you."

I would have served 10 years in jail for involuntary manslaughter and the kids would have grown up without a father.

When Jake gets angry.

When Jake gets angry or frustrated he takes his baseball hat and off his head and throws it as hard as he can on the ground.

Like a baseball player losing his temper with the umpire.

It's funny, but you can't laugh. Other people also find it funny.

Switching Jake's schedule.

We changed Jake's schedule to a later one and he's happier.

He used to wake up at 7am. The last two days he slept in until 9:00am.

We used to put him down for a nap around 1pm or 2pm.

Now it's 3:30pm.

He used to go to bed at 8pm. Now it's 9pm.

He seems to like it better. The only problem is we have one hour less time for ourselves at night.

I would hire the girl who works at McDonalds.

The other day we went through the McDonald's drive thru to buy $1.00 drinks. At the drive thru window we asked if the deal applied to ice tea as well. The girl said yes.

We got our drinks, paid and drove away.

I said to Cindy, "If I had a business, I'd hire that girl."

She asked why.

I said, "Because she's confident and talks in a loud voice."

We had ants.

The babysitter discovered ants coming in our front door. I spent 15 minutes stepping on them all and then I sprayed the front door with ant poison to block their entrance.

I waited about 10 minutes and stepped on all the other ants that I had missed. I swept up their carcasses and dumped them outside in the grass.

Then I mopped the floor with Mr. Clean.

Cougar at Jake's pre-school.

A few months ago when we were enrolling Jake in pre-school for this coming September, the teacher told us that the kids often go outside and feed the goats. A couple goats neighboured the pre-school.

A couple days ago in the paper I read that a cougar killed two goats in Maple Ridge. Conservation officers were hunting it. Guess what? It's the same two goats that Jake would have been feeding.

The owner came out at 9:30am in the morning to feed them and they were dead. She saw a cougar poke its head out of her barn.

Later, a professional houndsmen treed the cougar with his dogs and they shot and killed it. The city wanted it killed because they didn't want a dangerous cougar hanging around a preschool and daycare. Well done city!

Mason is one week old

Mason is now a week old.

He does three things. Sleep. Eat. Cry.

He poops a lot, but I don't count that. He also looks around a couple times a day.

He's a night owl - meaning he's awake all night and demanding to be held. He sleeps all day.

We have to somehow reverse this, but all the books say you can't do much about it for a newborn. He also, at one point, fed 11 hours a day. Yesterday it was down to 9 hours a day.

Jake kissed him for the first time yesterday. He kissed Mason's back, after I prompted him. So cute. Also, Mason has very light, cute blond hair all over his body. I like to tickle it and kiss it.

It feels like we're going away for 2 weeks.

Now that we've scheduled the baby to arrive on Tuesday, we're busy packing and making preparations.

It feels like we're going away for 2 weeks.

Hopefully it's only going to be two days. Last time it was 42 days in the hospital. I think that's probably why I feel like we're going away for 2 weeks.

Also, the hospital claims they don't supply blankets or diapers or wipes. So we have to pack all that crap.

This makes our luggage look HUGE as well. Yes, we have luggage.

I really hope we get a private room. I don't want to share a room with 3 newborns and then try and sleep in a chair beside Cindy's bed. But oh well. I've done it before and I can do it again.

Someone took my shoes.

Yesterday at our neighbour's birthday party I couldn't find my shoes.

I glanced at the feet of one of the guests and he was wearing my shoes. He was standing in the backyard taking pictures of his family.

He was an older gentlemen. This presented me with an interesting, but awkward situation. I had to go up to him and ask for my shoes back.

I don't believe this has ever happened before.

I said, "Excuse me, I think those are my shoes."

He said "Oh sorry!" in an accent and took them off. I put them on and went home.

The never-ending job interview.

I like it when places give you one job interview and then hire you. It's happened once or twice.

(It happened at ipackets. They hired me after meeting me for 20 minutes, but 6 months later they were out of business.)

Unfortunately, that's just not the trend anymore. Now the trend is toward multiple interviews.

On Friday I have my third interview with a big company. This one is a panel interview with all the managers.

I also had to do a grammar test and two writing tests. I also had to show them my writing samples.

The bad news is that it takes forever to go through their hiring process. The good news is that maybe lots of applicants will drop out somewhere along the line and I'll get an offer.

Triple washed vegetables.

Cindy went to Superstore the other day and bought a bag of green beans. I read the bag and it said "triple washed!"

Triple! The beans weren't washed once. That wasn't good enough. Twice - nope not good enough. Three times!

But the funny thing is when I opened the bag, the beans seemed a little slimy. So I had to end up washing the slime off.

That defeats the whole purpose of buying washed veggies.

On the plus side, I guess that means these beans were quadrupled washed.

I hate it when the government bribes us.

In July the BC provincial government and the Ontario provincial government are adding a new tax - the HST - that will increase the rate we pay on lots of stuff.

In Ontario, the government is sending everyone a cheque for a $1000. (I think. That's what I heard, anyway.)

A couple years ago the BC government did something similar with the carbon tax.

This is such an obvious ploy to buy-off the voters. If the government truly wanted to help us save money on the tax, lower the tax rate. Or give a 60 day grace period. Or, best yet, don't even bring in new taxes.

Why spend all that money sending money back to the people who had to send money to the government in the first place?

I napped in the car while at work.

I used to do this when Jake was born. I'd go out to the car at lunch and recline the seat and nap for a half hour.

Then I'd go back to work after my lunch break.

Well I did it today at work - and it felt good. I heartily recommend a good nap.

I was parked in the shade so the sun wasn't too hot. Had the windows cracked open so I'd get a nice breeze.

The kids were playing far away so I wasn't bothered by their screaming voice.

Felt good.

No one really sees you either, because your seat is reclined. The only way is if they came up to your car and looked in the window.

I don't like being publicly acknowledged.

Last week at our annual general meeting, I was publicly acknowledged several times.

I don't like it. Actually, I should say, I don't like it when I'm there. I don't mind being acknowledged when I'm not around. But when I'm there, it's awkward.

I'm never really sure what facial expression to have. Do I grin? Keep stern? Look down? I don't know. I kind of keep my face pleasant and I look at the speaker. During applause I nod my head in a quick thank you.

Sometimes I clap, but then I quickly stop because I realize I'm clapping for myself. However, if I'm being acknowledged along with other people, I do clap and feel it's okay because I'm clapping for them, not for me.

A few times I watched other people who were being publicly acknowledged. They seemed just as uncomfortable and confused as me.

Last year was worse than this year because last year I had to stand up and give a wave. Very awkward and embarrassing. This year I didn't stand up. I stayed in my seat and tried to will myself to disappear.

Jake lied.

Cindy caught Jake in his first lie.

He was playing with the kitchen drawers and he got his finger caught in the drawer. He started to cry and ran over for a hug.

A few minutes later he went back to the drawers. Cindy was watching him. This time he faked hurting himself and ran over for a hug.

My son has discovered the joy of lying.

***

Another cute thing he does is direct our gaze by pulling our face in the direction he wants us to look- which is mostly at him.

The other day he was sitting on my lap while we watched Youtube. I guess he was signing for a certain song and I was watching the computer. He gently grabbed my face and turned it toward him so that I could see his signing.

Why we're all fat.

We consume more calories than we burn. The extra calories are added to our body as fat stores. That's the simplest, easiest and most accurate description about why we're fat.

I just came back from the grocery store and noted that a hummus and flatbread snack pack, 110 calories, cost $2.19

A large bag of sun chips, 980 calories, cost $2.99.

Per calorie, junk food is shockingly cheap. Another reason why we're all fat.

Many activities are sedentary. Think surfing the internet, working in an office, watching a movie, watching television.

Our government cut school sports funding by 100% this year. A week a ago they came out with a report saying elementary-aged kids are fatter than ever.

More reasons why we're fat.

The most serious holiday.

I wrote in an older blog post that Remembrance Day was the saddest and most solemn of all holidays.

Mother's Day is the most serious of all holidays. If you don't honour your mother, you're in big trouble. She will be devastated. Mothers take this day very, very seriously.

On the flip side, father's day isn't much of a big deal. Half the cards are gag cards making fun of fathers' incompetence and farting problems. Dads don't care.

Mother's Day is the only day that galvanizes men everywhere. For every other holiday, we let our wives take care of the festivities. But for mothers day, we actually have to make an effort.

For example, a friend and I once agreed that if there were no women on earth, all holidays would simply die out - because men wouldn't care enough to keep them going. Perhaps mother's day would be the only exception - we'd keep mother's day alive to honour the women who no longer exist on earth.

Do you ever? (part 1)

1) Do you ever just want to buy a bunch of paper plates and cups and plastic forks and just eat off them for a few weeks so you don't have to bother with the dishes?

2) Do you ever want to make the crybaby face when someone honks and yells while driving?

3) Do you ever want to scream in the ear of the person in front of the line who's taking an hour to buy 20 different lottery tickets and bonus numbers, "YOU WILL NEVER WIN!!"

4) Do you ever use calendar dates to determine what clothes to wear? Like after April 15th, no matter how cold it is, you will no longer wear a jacket. After June 1st, you will always wear shorts?

5) Do you ever secretly wish that the oil spill in the Gulf will never be stopped until the entire Gulf of Mexico fills with oil and kills every marine animal?

Countries with natural resources are not necessarily rich.

I often hear people say that Canada has a bright future because we have lots of natural resources.

Unfortunately, there's not a clear link between natural resources and wealth. Look at African countries rich in diamonds. Look at south Asian countries rich in gold.

Look at middle eastern countries rich in oil. Low standard of living and widespread poverty.

Here are two quotes supporting this statement.*

"There is a striking correlation between a country's level of human capital and its economic well-being. At the same time, there is a striking lack of correlation between natural resources and standard of living." p. 106.

"Economists believe that a rich endowment of natural resources may actually be a detriment to development." p. 222

*Source:

Naked economics: undressing the dismal science by Charles Wheelan.

Who's going to pay for the oil spill?

British Petroleum (BP) is getting a lot of heat for the latest environmental disaster. Twenty-five thousand barrels of oil are gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, every day.

I haven't been following the story very well. I did hear that President Obama said, "BP is responsible for this leak and will be paying the bill."

Really?? BP is going to pay the bill. Don't mind my skepticism, but did the wall street banks pay the bill for their shady business practices, which brought down the economy?

No, of course not. The taxpayer paid the bill.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that BP will not be paying the whole cleanup bill. Sure, they'll pay a little. Not all of it though.

Obama said, "We're going to do everything in our power to protect our natural resources, compensate those who have been harmed, rebuild what has been damaged and help this region persevere like it has done so many times before."

US taxpayers better hold on to their wallets.

My boss and I wore the same clothes yesterday.

Ewww, this is a gross story. Apparently my boss and I wore the same clothes yesterday to work, strictly by accident.

I swear I didn't phone her and ask her what she was wearing so we could coordinate our wardrobe.

I didn't even realize it until halfway through the day. She sits behind me so I rarely turn around and look at her. I only discovered it when I met her in the hallway on the way back from the bathrooms.

She said, "Nice shirt!" We were wearing the same shirt.

I looked at her pants, but they were different. Thank goodness.

I'm slumming it a work.

When I go to rich companies for job interviews I realize how much I'm slumming it in my current job.

Today I had a job interview at a huge auction company - a company that makes billions and billions of dollars. Their building was like a glass palace. They had an in-house cafeteria, daycare and fitness room.

They had glass elevators and huge walkways and giant pillars. They had LCD monitors embedded in the glass for chrissakes.

Here, I work out of a classroom in an old elementary school that's closing in a month and a half. The fluorescent lights in the classroom hum. My boss sits so close to me that I can hear her breathe. The hallways smell like chemical disinfectant.

There are no LCD monitors embedded in the glass, but there are stick-figure paintings of people and animals pinned to bulletin boards along hallways.

I now judge people based on their parental skills.

You know you're getting old when you start judging people on whether they're good parents.

We had some friends over for lunch last Sunday. We had never met the husband, but afterward we judged him as a cool person and friend-worthy because he was a "good dad."

Before kids, you judge people on their sense of humor or personality or generosity.

After kids, you judge them on what kind of parent they are.

Good parent means good person. Bad parent means bad person. It's a nice, easy way to simply, and it seems intuitively accurate.

If there's someone we don't like, but he or she seems like a good parent we have to qualify our judgement. "I don't like him - but he is a good Dad. So I'll give him that much."

Our babysitter can't handle Jake.

So we found out this weekend that our babysitter can no longer handle Jake. This was the person we were planning to have take care of Jake for a couple days when the baby is born.

She could handle him when he was one, but she doesn't seem to be able to handle his terrible twos phase.

We dropped him off at her house over the weekend and when we came back 7 hours later, he hadn't eaten or drank anything. He has been balling his eyes out. He had been inconsolable.

What happened? Why didn't he get fed? She said, "I didn't want to upset him anymore." Apparently he went on a hunger strike and she didn't push him.

Well Jake needs to be pushed. A lot. Sometimes downright forced. We often need to "help" him eat by holding him still and putting the food in his mouth for him.

We don't expect our babysitters to do that, but we do expect an attempt. How can we drop him off at her house for 2 days? He needs food and drink, and we don't want her hooking him up to the feeding pump.

Grrr. So frustrating...

Big lips.

I saw a clear picture of the baby's face. It has HUGE, HUGE lips. Like we're talking Angelina Jolie's lips.

Maybe it's a girl - with lips like that. Or perhaps it's a boy and he'll simply grow into those lips.

We saw one of those 3D scans. The hospital has the new machine. (Last time with Jake we paid $50 for one of these scans to find out the gender. You could also buy a full tour with videos and pictures and order DVDs.)

Cindy has skinny lips. I have one skinny lip and one fat lip. My top lip is basically non existent it's so skinny. My bottom lip is a bit fat. Cindy's family has skinny or normal-sized lips.

My family has skinnyish lips, I think. I don't really remember because I don't spend a lot of time looking at people's lips.

Is this actually a benefit of a job?

Last week during my telephone interview, when we were discussing salary, she told me a range which was too low.

I told her this and she said, "Oh but don't worry, that doesn't include overtime!" She said it brightly, excitedly, like this was a huge benefit.

I said, "Pardon?"

She said, "Most companies don't pay you for overtime, but we do. That will push your salary up to your range!"

So let me get this straight. The salary is low but if I work extra long hours, I'll have an average salary? In other words, I get to work longer and harder for an average salary and this is a benefit!!! Wow!! Sounds like an amazing place to work!

The only problem is I want to work smarter not harder. I don't want a job that requires working long hours and weekends just to earn what everyone else in the industry is already making.

It's beyond me why they think this is actually a benefit. But I've come to expect that many corporations and human resources people choose to be deluded.

Always read the label.

Here is the label on one side of a box of cookies we bought for Jake:

Advancing Nutrition is Beech-Nut's pledge to provide nutritious food choices for your toddler. Let's Grow! products are made from natural and essential nutrients of the highest standards.

Here is what the other side says:

% Daily Value

Vitamin A 0%

Vitamin C 0%

Calcium 0%

Iron 0%

Child prodigies don't turn out to be geniuses.

Apparently if your child is a prodigy, you shouldn't have high expectations for when they're an adult.

According to a book I'm reading called The genius in all of us : why everything you've been told about genetics, talent and IQ is wrong by David Shenk, there is no association between child prodigies and adult geniuses.

The author says the child prodigies DO turn out to be more successful than average - but almost all of them fail to make a comparable mark in the adult world.

"As a rule, child prodigies are not adult-level innovators but masters of technical skill; their spellbinding quality comes of of natural comparison with other children's skills, not because they truly compare to the best adult performers in their field." p51

He says that child prodigies and adult geniuses have different skills. A child prodigy typically masters technical skill - think of a 5 year old violinist. While an adult genius, develops some unique or creative way of thinking.

***

As a side note, he said that many young children today are as gifted as Wolfgang Amadeus was on the violin. Today, it's less exceptional because we know that a huge part of talent can be harnessed through the environment. We half expect there to be lots of young, talented violinists.

In Mozart's day, this was less understood.

My experience with Chinese food.

We ordered Chinese the other night and I thought I'd write about my experience. I haven't had Chinese food in ages. It reminds me of when I was a kid - our family would often go for Chinese food.

When we ordered they guy spoke broken English and he got part of our order wrong. Oh well. That's par for the course. It's expected.

Guess what? Chinese food tastes the same as when I was a kid. There has been no progress in Chinese food over the last 20 years. It's kind of like the Big Mac. The same wherever you go.

We got a lot of food for $30. 5 meals worth to be exact. I wonder how they stay in business? Food is expensive in BC. Where do they buy their food so that they can feed you 5 meals for $30?

The old joke with Chinese food is that you can stuff yourself and 30 minutes later you'll be hungry. I stuffed myself and it actually took 62 minutes before I felt hungry again.

They sent us 3 fortune cookies with forgettable positive fortunes. Jake was distrustful of his cookie and wouldn't try it, even though we told him it was a cookie. He enjoyed watching us break our cookies open, however.

We ordered 4 or 5 courses, but they all kind of blended together on my plate so that I didn't really know what I was eating by the end. So even the different dishes of Chinese food taste about the same.

We ended up throwing out a lot of it after the second day and 5th meal. By that point it no longer looked appetizing, and our palates were sick of it.

That is my 2010 Chinese food experience.

Jake gets too excited for bed time stories now.

We realized a couple nights ago that Jake gets too excited when we read a bedtime book. It actually wakes him up.

For bedtime, we want him to be drowsy, not alert. So we've had to cut out the bed time books. (He does get plenty of books during the day.)

Instead, we let him watch a signing dvd on the computer. He doesn't blink much and the tears run down his face.

It puts him in a daze and he goes to bed easier - plus he learns some signs.

Act your age!

There are a few things you can you say guaranteed to make people mad. One of them is "Relax!" or "Calm down!" Another one is "Act your age!".

Speaking of this, I'm flipped through How not to act old : 185 ways to pass for phat, sick, hot, dope, awesome, or at least not totally lame by Pamela Redmond Satran.

The book is mildly interesting for about 5 seconds. It might make a good gag gift for someone's birthday if you want to tease them about age.

But reading a whole book about the topic? Pages and pages about it? Naw. It might be worth a 300 word article in a magazine. A whole goddamn book??

I do agree with one part. It says "Don't act like the mommy" at work. In other words, don't buy donuts for people or buy birthday cards or organize good bye lunches. Don't do any of that crap.

It's what old people do. Don't nanny.

Now for my opinion: When you do things like this at work it also lowers everyone's professional opinion of you. I'd say you lower your chances of getting a promotion if you're always cleaning people's dishes in the kitchen or working on a social committee.

Why? Because leaders never work on the social committee. They never buy cards for anyone or order birthday cakes. They don't care. They're leaders. That work is for the receptionists or the HR people.

Things you should do.

I enjoyed Richard Wiseman's new book 59 Seconds: Think a Little Change A Lot.

He looks at a whole bunch of psychological studies and lets us know the results. Then he summarizes what we should do to improve our lives, based on actual science.

This approach is in sharp contrast to 99% of self help books, which don't do any of this. Instead, their authors say what they think, and base their opinions on personal experience.

Anyway, from memory, this is what the book (and science) says you should do:

- Have a plant at your desk at work

- Do a puzzle to distract your conscious mind before you make a complicated decision

- To get over being mad at someone, don't get worked up by punching a punching bag. Instead, write down the ways in which you have learned from the experience.

- To be happier, write down the things you're grateful for. Do a small act of kindness.

- To lose weight, keep track of the calories you consume and how much you burn by doing basic exercises. Hang a mirror in your kitchen and use smaller bowls and utensils. Start off eating at a normal pace, but slow down as the meal progresses.

- To have a better marriage, every once and awhile write out why you're lucky to have your spouse.

- Don't visualize success, visualize practicing.

- Dogs are better than cats at lowering stress.

- To get someone to say yes, lightly touch their arm.

- Phrase something in a unique way to get a more positive response. E.g instead of saying "It costs $3." Say, "It costs 300 pennies."

- Servers who repeat your order back to you get more tips than those who say "Coming right up!" or a similar phrase.

- In job interviews try to say the negative stuff about yourself at the beginning of the interview.

These suggestions are all backed up by scientific evidence and references listed at the end of the book.

A few good quotes I came across.

There are dictionaries filled with quotations from famous personalities. I will never be in one. Even if I were famous, I'm just not that quotable.

I read The Prophet by Kahil Gibran and came across some outstanding quotes:

Your daily life is your temple and your religion.

For what is to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?

Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked, And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.

Child prodigies dpm

How do I relate-socially with someone who's 19?

I have another phone interview today. The woman sounds very very young. Early 20s is my guess. Maybe even 19.

I wrote in an earlier posting that I've decided to treat phone interview more like social chats. Most phone interviews are more like elimination interviews. A sure way to be eliminated is to start stiffly talking about how qualified you are for the job.

"What a loser," the interviewer would think. "Why would I want to hire a cold dude that only talks about his work?"

But if you're social during a telephone interview, the person will say, "Hey, he's pretty cool. Plus his resume shows he's qualified. Let's call him in and see in person."

This technique has worked for me 100% of the time! (1 for 1).

Now the problem is, because she's so young, how do I relate? I've never spoken socially to a young person before.

I have no idea what young adults talk about from ages 18 until about 25. How do I sound cool and hip, without coming off as trying to hard?

I need to think of some great stories to tell.

Jake poured water down his shirt and pants.

This morning at breakfast I gave Jake a cup of water. I filled it with too much water though and when Jake drank, he dumped it down his shirt and pants.

He did this two or three times. A bit of water went in his mouth but he choked on it because he's more used to the sippy cup.

I went upstairs and got a new shirt for him so he wouldn't be cold for the rest of breakfast. After breakfast Cindy had to change his pants and diaper.

Today is my one year anniversary at my current job.

I have now been working here for one full year.

It's been neither good nor bad. I'm treated decently and the work is dull.

I haven't learned anything, nor increased my skills in any major area. Nothing really bad has happened and nothing really good.

The best thing that happened was that we moved closer to my house. The worst thing that happened was we lost a couple employees so I had to do more administrative work.

I'm not upset at all that I'll be leaving this job shortly. Nor would I be upset if I had to stay another 6 months or until I found something better.

The job is entirely neutral - neither good or bad - like an Arrowroot cookie.

Stop talking about it and do it.

I've noticed lately that I've talked a lot about cleaning the house and doing taxes. I've told Cindy probably 5 times that I was going to work on taxes. I started telling her this back in late February.

It's April and I still haven't started. Why not?

Yesterday I read a blog post about how people who announce their intentions are less likely to make them happen.*

I agree. This advice does fly in the face of self-help authors who suggest that you should announce your plans to everyone you know. Supposedly by doing this you obligate yourself to actually competing your projects.

But, in actuality, the theory says by announcing your plans you're tricking your brain into thinking that you've already taken the first step. You get a tiny sense of accomplishment. Therefore you have no motivation to actually complete them.

So keep your plans quiet. Instead of spending energy announcing the plans, just do them.

___

* Reference: “Symbolic Self-Completion” (1982) by Peter Gollwitzer

A mini-confession.

I'd like to make a small, unimportant confession.

Whenever I hear the "David Suzuki Report" on the radio, I turn the station. It starts off with David Suzuki saying something like, "Here's another small thing change we can make for this planet that we all depend upon."

Then he suggests making a change to reduce consumption or waste or help the environment. I'm sorry but I don't want to hear it. It bores me.

I know this is bad. I should want to help the planet that we all depend upon. I should want to do these things.

I don't. Then I feel guilty for not wanting to listen to this very important public announcement.

Maybe it's because David Suzuki yelled at my wife when she was a little girl because she was too loud on his television set. Perhaps I'm holding some resentment toward him.

Will this ever happen at work?

ROWE stands for "Results Only Working Environment". It seems like every time I read a business book I hear about a successful, forward-thinking company who has abolished all meetings, attendance and schedules.

Employees can show up whenever they want and leave when ever they want. As long as they get the work done. "Results-only".

This sounds too good to be true. But the business books proclaim that this new management style makes companies more efficient, stronger, happier and their employees love it.

I'm sure they do - if it exists. I'm skeptical. First, I don't think many companies can go this route. They need schedules and meetings and managers and timetables. Most of these kind of companies profiled in business books are software development companies.

Second, the vast vast majority of managers or leaders or executives within a company believe in top-down management. They don't want their employees to have free will. They themselves worked their way up the ranks and are successful in the top-down system.

They're not going to suddenly say, "You know, as a leader, I'm not really needed even though I worked my way up into this position for 15 years. I'll let my employees have all the power."

Third, if ROWE makes companies so much more successful, why aren't all companies doing it?

Sorry, it won't happen. I'll mark this down as "a nice-sounding but totally impractical idea."

A new syndrome.

There's a new syndrome out there. Tiger Woods' Syndrome. I saw a book about it in the grocery store.

The book is called The Tiger Woods Syndrome - Why Men Prowl and How to Not Become the Prey.

The book seems to be geared toward women, who don't suffer from the syndrome. I would think the book should help the people who suffer from this syndrome.

The description says that this syndrome is an "epidemic sweeping the nation". That's very scary.

Is it contagious? Is there medication? Treatment?

The description goes on to say that this is the "beginning of an awakening of America".

Yes it is. I had not heard about this epidemic (soon to be pandemic?) sweeping the nation until I had seen this book in the grocery store.

As a man, I'm at high risk. That's not good at all. Just another thing to worry about.

When motivation goes wrong.

Common practice often lags behind social science. Motivation is the perfect example. We think that we can motivate people by offering rewards like money or coupons or benefits.

This does work, but only for dull, repetitive tasks.

For the important tasks, you can actually decrease motivation by offering money. I'm reading Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink.

He cites an experiment with school-grade children who liked to draw. The experimenters measured how much time children spent drawing.

Then they offered the children certificates and other prizes for drawing. The children started drawing less.

Versions of this experiment have been replicated over and over again. Not only does offering if-then rewards fail to motivate people, if also stifles creativity.

Adults who were paid to solve a puzzle took longer than those who weren't.

The theory is that by offering money for something that people already enjoy we cause them to think of the task as "work". They lose pleasure in the task. When the children were bribed to draw, they felt like they were losing their freedom to enjoy something they already loved.

I watch other babies.

As the days get closer to the birth of my second child, I find myself watching other little babies. Just today I was watching a mother carry around her son at the library.

Yesterday I was watching a baby in a stroller.

I'm trying to remember what it's like to have a newborn. If I remember correctly, it's pretty easy. They don't do much except look around and sleep.

The hardest part is changing their diaper (which is pretty easy because their poop doesn't get bad until they start eating sold foods) and not sleeping at night (which is hard because you're so tired all the time).

Other than that, it's not too tough for the Dad. For the Mom feeding adds a whole new dimension of difficulty. I don't envy women.

I always feel a little creepy when I watch kids. Men are villanized as molesters so I get self-conscious about watching kids. Because I'm self conscious, I sort of secretly watch them, which I'm sure makes me look even creepier. Then, because I feel even creepier, I start to feel ashamed of myself.

The arrow of time.

Yesterday's post about time was both confusing and fascinating. Here's another fascinating thing about time: it only moves in one direction.

The arrow of time points toward entropy. Things tend to get more disorganized. That's why scrambled eggs don't seem to reassemble themselves or divers jump out of the water and land on the side of the pool completely dry.

But why does time's arrow point in one direction? I don't know. You can argue that it needs to point this way in order for there to be a cause-and-effect relationship between events and things.

Yet I heard that from a purely mathematical angle, it doesn't matter which way time flows. Physicists' calculations work both forwards and backwards.

There may be other parts of the universe where time flows backwards. Or perhaps in the vast multi-verse, there are universes that exist in which time flows backwards. We just can't see them.

I think it would be cool if, at the end of the universe, time reversed itself and ran backward until the big bang again. Then our bodies would reform and be resurrected and we'd live until we got smaller and smaller and eventually disappeared inside our mother's bellies.

What is time?

Time is the duration between events.

An interesting question is why is there a duration between events? Why doesn't everything happen at once?

If everything happened at once then the universe would be created, evolve and die out all at the same time.

That seems impossible. Chemical reactions take time. Eating takes time. Moving takes time.

On the other hand, thanks to Einstein, we know that time itself is relative. The faster something travels, the less time it experiences compared to something else travelling slowly.

So if you travelled at the speed of light, everything around you would appear to happen all at once. You wouldn't see any duration between events. People would be born, live and die in the same instant.

Interestingly, to them you would appear ageless and unchanging.

The more I think about time the more my brain starts to hurt.

The right way and the wrong way.

Jake's caregiver told Cindy that her husband doesn't have patience with her own 2 year old son. She said men don't have the patience to deal with small children.

She also told Cindy that she can't stand when her husband does things to help out with the kid because "he does them wrong".

I said to Cindy, "Oh man what a typical woman! It's her way or the highway!"

Cindy said, "I'm not like that."

I said, "No, you're not too bad. But you do want it done your way."

She said, "No, I want it done the right way."

I said, "Yeah, which is your way."

She didn't have much of a response to that.

Postscript:

When I told Cindy I was going to put this conversation on my blog, and recounted the conversation, she said, "That's not exactly how it went."

I said, "Sure it is. It's my blog so it can go the way I want it to go. When you set up your own blog you can write your version of the conversation."

Life doesn't wait for you.

I've always heard that life doesn't wait for you. It passes you by.

This isn't the case for my sister, who has been travelling in South America since the Fall. Apparently now her old apartment and her job are waiting for her when she returns in the next month.

I guess this is a good thing. You have something to come home to. But it's also a bit depressing. I was told that life goes on without you. Whenever you "come back" things are different.

That won't be the case for my returning sister. The same job and the same apartment.

It seems to me that whenever you're back, you should face a new situation. A new life. You could start over again and that's refreshing.

But returning to the same old has to be a bit of a downer. Within days, it will be like you never left. Your 6 month life journey will be reduced to a week's vacation.

That kind of sucks.

On the plus side, you don't have to worry. Things are in a holding pattern, and that can be comforting. It's all a matter of perspective I suppose.

Double strollers are beasts.

We went looking for double strollers last weekend. We're definitely going to need one. Jake can walk pretty well now, but he often asks "up" every 5 minutes or so because he gets tired out.

Double strollers are huge and heavy. They won't fit in our regular car. They barely fit in the minivan. Pushing the thing around is like driving a truck.

When you buy one, you need to take into account your baby car seat. Does it fit in the stroller? You should hope so or you have to buy another baby car seat.

***

Other boring stuff about strollers:

We went to three stores. Walmart, The Bay and Sears. Walmart only had one stroller, chained up to you couldn't even roll it. Plus it seemed crappy.

The Bay had a good stroller that we wanted, but it was cheaper at Sears.

So now we'll just wait for a sale.

I had a job interview 2 days ago.

It went pretty well. I had read in Richard Wiseman's new book, 59 Seconds, that the scientific studies about job interviews shows they're not really about qualifications. It's about social comfort.

If you ingratiate yourself to the interviewer you have a good chance of getting the job. So I tried a new strategy. Think of the interview as 25% social. I had a couple of social stories rehearsed - one about driving, one about hay fever and one about coffee.

I used 2 out of 3.

Turns out the manager was also a laid-back, social guy who said, "I'm not into the whole job interview thing." Our interview was basically like a conversation between two people. He was on "holiday mode" because, well, he was on holidays.

He had come in to work just for the interviews. He said he was interviewing 3 candidates, one internal. That worried me a little - an internal candidate. But he said she annoyed him with an email so I might be okay.

A guy remembered someone from his pre-natal class.

Yesterday at work the delivery man said to one of the teachers, "Gord?? Is that you??"

"It's me - Mike! From our pre-natal class!"

Not that surprising a conversation - until I tell you that their prenatal class was 22 years ago. He remembered him from 20 plus years ago!

In our prenatal class with Jake we didn't stay in touch nor make friends with any parents. Of course, Jake was too sick so we missed our reunion.

Also we were a shy group and none of the parents really talked to each other much.

I do remember a few people from the class. Most notably a couple named Tim and Robyn, who were sort of like the class clowns.

They were the ones who made jokes throughout the class. The cool kids.

Cindy and I began calling our prenatal class the "Tim and Robyn show" because the class would be all about Tim and Robyn and their challenges of pregnancy.

So I suppose I will remember them for awhile - maybe even 20 years. Certainly if I bumped into them I doubt I would recall their faces though.

This time around we're not doing a pre-natal class. No point. We are doing a hospital tour, however, and it costs $25.

It's also an hour and a half. Why does it need to be so long? Maybe that takes into account bathroom breaks and slow waddling? Maybe the actual tour is only 10 minutes.

Jesus has brothers and sisters.

Lots of people don't know that Jesus had siblings. He's the oldest child, and his younger brother, James, headed up the Jerusalem church for awhile after Jesus's death.

At least, that's what I'm learning from reading The brother of Jesus and the lost teachings of Christianity by Jeffrey J. Bütz.

The author says that many religions say that Jesus did NOT have brothers and sisters. Like Catholicism. They say he only had "cousins". Other religions say that his brothers and sisters were actually step-brothers and sisters (from his father's other wife).

Traditional Christian doctrine shows Paul as the next leader of the Christian church after Jesus's death.

But this book argues it may actually have been James, and that James's story is more interesting because it's not well known and may even be repressed by the Church.

I just started the book so that's all I know so far.

Easter isn't a big deal.

From the ages of about 10 to 30 Easter isn't a big deal. Then you have kids or get married and Easter becomes more of a big deal.

It's the lost holiday. The holiday that disappears and them emerges later in life.

When you're a kid you care about easter because it means Easter Bunny and candy. When you're an adult you care only about the long weekend.

I suppose too if you're religious you would care about easter. I'm not religious.

Cindy tells me that you can send easter cards out to people nowadays. Last week she saw a huge lineup in the mall to sit on the Easter bunny's lap.

Don't remember that when I was a kid. Sit on the easter bunny's lap?

How to never get fired.

I'm skimming Linchpin by Seth Godin.

The book's about how to make yourself indispensable to your employer, thus guaranteeing employment. It's important to do this in today's economy you know.

He talks about how traditionally employers wanted compliant, robotic employees. This creates a problem for us middle class employees. We're replaceable because we're so robotic.

Also, our wages don't increase much because why would they? There's always a huge pool of robotic workers who can pretty much replace us at any time.

He argues that ABC (Attendance Based Compensation) is dead. You just can't expect to show up to work and get paid anymore.

I skimmed the first few chapters and then stopped reading. No point to continue really, as it seemed like common sense. Don't know why it needed to be a huge book. A few paragraphs would have done just fine.

Food items should be named by their first two ingrediants.

One of my best ideas when it comes to food labelling is to abolish food brand names. No more cheerios or Coke or Mars bars. Get rid of the brand name.

Instead, we refer to the food item by its first two (sometimes three ingredients).

For example, Coke would be re-named, "Carbonated water sugar drink". Corn Pops cereal would be called "Corn meal and sugar cereal". Aunt Jemima's maple syrup would be called "Glucose sugar and water syrup".

In fact, pretty much every packaged food would be called something sugar. Sugar is almost always in the top three food ingredients.

Real foods - like all natural peanut butter would actually be called "Peanut butter". Milk would be called milk and eggs would be called eggs.

The benefits of my idea is that it will give us more awareness of what foods we are actually consuming. When we see that our frozen blueberry waffles are actually called "wheat and corn meal waffles", we'll be less likely to consume them.

Why it's hard to find a job here.

Well I had another phone elimination interview last week. I hate these pre-phone interviews where they ask you questions in hopes that they can eliminate you from their short list.

I wrote another blog entry about the challenge of a phone interview - how to keep my voice positive and upbeat when I sound naturally depressed and monotone.

I sensed I did okay in this phone interview. Hopefully he'll call me in for a real interview this week.

Anyway, a few people have asked me how the job market was here. I don't really know at this point. My impression is that there are jobs here, but they're hard to get because of a hugely qualified pool of workers.

In other words, when you apply for jobs your biggest obstacle are the hundreds of resumes from people who are very highly qualified.

It's an employers' market, and they have the best of the best lining up to work for them. That's why it's hard to get a good job.

(At least this is what I tell myself whenever I get rejected for a new job.)

Tattoos are ugly.

I don't like tattoos. I think they're ugly and that people look better without them.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind tattoo art. There are some amazing tattoo artists. I just don't like markings on the skin.

I realize I sound old- fashioned. I'm about 10 years older than when tattoos became acceptable - especially for young women. The Brittany Spears of the world.

Now I think at least half of women under the age of 35 have tattoos.

When you're young, you want a tattoo because they're cool. You don't think about how the tattoo is going to look on your loose, wrinkled skin when you're 50 years old.

I believe people generally don't like the decisions their younger selves made. Tattoos are the perfect example. Your younger self makes a short-sighted, dumb decision that your body has to live with its whole life.

Sometimes a random good thing can happen.

A few days ago I said that we had taken Jake out of daycare. Sadly, we only gave the daycare about 8 days notice or so. The contract said we needed to give them 6 weeks notice.

I felt bad about it, but knew that they would keep our deposit. So we'd really be ripping them off only $500.

I told them and sent them a letter. They said no problem, and that was that.

Then a day later they phoned my cell and said, "We want to return your deposit as well."

I was like, "Wha???"

She said, "You guys have some special circumstances with Jake."

Here's the thing, these are new owners of the daycare. They've only been in charge for a month and they've only met Jake a few times. So they don't even really know us, nor were they around when we regisered Jake two years ago.

They're doing this out of the goodness of their hearts! Weird. But hey, I'll take it.

So there are still some good people out there in the world.

***

Cindy said that this may actually be a trick. Because they asked for our original contract that showed the deposit amount. She said that what they're really going to do is take that contract and use it as proof that we really didn't give them enough notice, and they're going to sue us and ask for the $500. Wow, that would be pure evil. I'm amazed Cindy would actually think of this.

Dreams are not real.

Here's a passage in a spiritual book I recently read. The book is called Journey to self-realization: discovering the gifts of the soul by Paramahansa Yogananda.

"In your dreams, you can make yourself whatever you want to be, you can do whatever you want to do. Sometimes you are sick, and sometimes rich, and son on. Mind can do anything in that dream state. When you learn how to control your mind during the waking state, realizing that its power is part of the consciousness of God, you can similarly have complete mastery over the body. Mediation upon the soul is the method by which the mind can be made to work its wonders under your control. When you find your true Self, the soul, you shall see that the body is nothing but an emanation of God."

I chose this passage because it's the sort of typical thing we hear when we read spiritual books. First of all, I don't really understand his point.

Second, the mind cannot control the universe. Your thoughts have no effect on the outside world. People who think this are dualists and dualism has been dead in philosophy and science since Rene Descartes.

Third, your mind does not give you complete mastery over your body. In fact, we don't really even control our minds. That's an illusion. This leads me to my fourth point:

Four, if you think about it, you can't even control your dreams. Literally in your dreams at night, you have no control, freedom or self-will. You are simply a robot moving from one scene to another. You do silly things and behave in bizarre ways.

As for your day dreaming, these can be controlled. Slightly. For a few moments. But if you've ever tried to sustain a daydream for more than a minute you will realize it's almost impossible to keep your mind focused. You'll start thinking about other things.

So there.

Thomas the train is a negative show.

In an older blog post I wrote how, as a parent, you learn to watch television critically. I argued that TV was much too flashy for children and is probably bad for their brains:

"The problem is that every time the screen on the TV changes it makes a little flash. In the old days, the screen didn't flash much because it didn't change much. Now when you watch TV, it's almost constant flickering and flashing."

I didn't mention content, but that's another thing you have to be aware of. Take the very popular show "Thomas the Tank Engine". It's a British show about a blue train named Thomas. And it's very bitter and mean spirited.

In every episode the trains are mean to each other, jealous, reckless or behaving badly. (It's a British show so what do you expect - British people are mean and cranky.)

I mentioned this to another parent and he said that I need to "get over it" and that Thomas has "good messages" and that I'm "too uptight". Maybe.

But Jake only has the attention for the first half of the show. He sees the meaness and then loses interest and never sees the resolution. Basically, he's being exposed to mean behaviour.

Most other shows are fine. The characters are nice to each other. My wife tells me that Care Bears is brutally horrible and that they're vicious to one another.

And of course Looney Tunes is bad because it's violent and mean. Don't think it's on much anymore as it's no longer poltically correct. My friend informs me it's on every day on Teletoon Retro. Oh.

The Hunger Games

I read some good teen fiction last week: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

The book does just about everything right. Good writing, interesting plot, the perfect mix of violence and excitement, good characters.

It takes place in a creepy, alternate world in which they put a bunch of kids in an arena and watch them kill each other for fun. That sounds pretty brutal - but remember the book is for young adults.

There is some brutality, but Collins doesn't go overboard. Mostly it's just exciting and fascinating. I've already put a hold on the sequels Catching Fire and Mockingjay (out in Aug, 2010).

I'm hoping when the movie comes out, it won't ruin the story.

5 Random Things I Hate (part 5)

1) I hate when you go to a public bathroom and there's a series of instructional signs about how to wash your hands, step-by-step, with helpful photos. Cmon people. At this stage of the game if you can read and follow instructions but don't know how to wash your hands, you should be killed.

2) I hate when you get a bill in the mail and there's an extra flyer in the envelope, printed on glossy paper, in colour, that explains how the company is so environmentally friendly. Stop killing trees you liars!

3) I hate when restaurants advertise that their food is "made from the freshest ingredients". I hope so! I hope that I'm paying $20 for fresh ingredients! The fact that you're telling me this makes me suspicious of you. Now I don't want to eat your garbage food.

4) I hate it when you buy one item at a store and it prints out a never-ending receipt! Why does a receipt for one item need to be as long as my forearm? Sometimes there's more than one receipt. Why do I need two or more separate pieces of paper! Answer me!

5) I hate it when companies send you letters that say "we missed you!" No. You mean you missed my money. You don't me on a personal level, nor do you care. So tell it like it is! Write me a letter that says "We miss your money!" Always replace "money" with my name in any personal correspondence.

If I could go back in time I wouldn't be able to convince myself to invest in the internet.

If I could travel back in time to the glory days of the internet - back when I was in university - I wouldn't have been able to convince myself to invest in all today's popular websites.

I would have thought that Google was impossible. How can a search engine search the entire internet in 0.1 seconds?

Youtube - no way. I would have argued that people would simply just watch TV. The quality is better and America's Funnies Home Videos was a pretty bad show - a website of home videos would be just as bad.

Twitter. I would have argued that Twitter is a useless service. Why would anyone type what they're doing and send it to all their friends? Why wouldn't they just tell their friends what they're doing or - better yet - just meet their friends in person. Same with Facebook, though I would have thought the concept was pretty cool.

I do remember being very impressed with email at the time.

Why I don't like the fantasy genre very much.

I'm not a huge fan of the fantasy genre. I'm not a hater, and I can certainly tolerate a good story. But I'm just not that into it.

From the library I borrowed Promethea Book One by Alan Moore and J.H. Williams, a fantasy graphic novel. While reading this I figured out why I don't like fantasy novels. The characters can't really die. Or if they do die, they can come back to life.

In this story, the main character is from a fantasy-realm that takes place in our imaginations and simply cannot die. That bores me.

How can I feel scared for a character if they can't truly die? If I know the character can come back to life, well, that's boring.

Same problem with video games. If you die you can always start over.

The most interesting worlds are the ones where death is permanent and inevitable. Like our world.

Jake is officially out of daycare.

Well it's official. Jake is finished daycare. His health is simply too fragile to risk going back. He's been in daycare only 2.5 weeks since January. The rest of the time he's been home sick.

He's very skinny now and has lost all the weight he gained in the Fall. Poor guy. The last time he got sick from daycare we said we'd give it one more try. He lasted 3 days and then was sick again.

So it's over.

Now the hard part is for Cindy to look after a two-year old at 30 weeks pregnant. Yikes. We might be able to get in-home support from the local association who funds Jake's daycare, but we'll see.

I drew a picture of Jesus and scared my wife.

Yesterday some religious people came by and wiggled a flyer through our door so that it landed inside our house. I felt annoyed, but that's beside the point. (Couldn't they just leave it on our porch with all the other junk mail?)

The flyer had an illustration of Jesus with his wrists bound in rope. It said something like, "Jesus died for your sins, what are you going to do for him?" He was also wearing a crown of thorns.

So I did what any good Christian would do and drew a picture of Jesus in my sketch book. It took about 35 minutes. Then I showed my wife who said it was scary. She said that my Jesus made it look like he wanted to kill her.

So I basically drew an evil Jesus.

Stillface.

I think that would be a good name for a comic book character: stillface. What power does Stillface have?

The power to render you livid by keeping his face blank at all times. By not engaging or reacting to you in any way!

Especially when you're angry. His face turns to stone. Still face! You have a complete tantrum and he does nothing. No reaction.

I watched a video on Youtube where psychologists were experimenting on babies. The Mom went stillface and the baby freaked out and started tantruming.

I needed Stillface yesterday at work. A woman phoned and started ripping into me, trying to get me going. I'm sorry to say she succeeded, a little. She got me slightly riled. Not much though and I managed to end the call pretty quickly.

But I could have been more monotone and Stillface. I could have infuriated her even more! Ah well. Until next time.

Procrastination can be good.

The next time someone says you're procrastinating tell them no, you're "incubating". Apparently this is a real thing. Incubation. (I read it on the internet so it must be true.)

People who procrastinate might actually be "incubating" their idea. Their brain brain works behind the scenes to process, sort and organize whatever they're working on. Then when they actually start the project they do much better.

I've noticed this with writing. I'll have a pretty good idea for a story or novel and, instead of sitting down and writing it, I feel compelled to mull the story in my mind for a few days, weeks, months.

The trick is forcing yourself to stop the mulling. Stop the incubation when it's complete. If you don't stop the incubation, it will turn into procrastination.

I think we all have a window for the things we need to do. Depending on motivation, money, skill, luck and circumstance the window is either open for a long time or a short time.

If the window closes and we miss our opportunity, it's very difficult to open it again. So the trick is to never let that window close.