Housekeeping

Loads of things I've been meaning to mention but, with one thing and another, haven't.

1) TheBoy's Illness. I'd previously mentioned that he was seeming sick. Well, 8 hours of non-stop screaming, followed by a night lying on the floor next to him, and a visit to the doctor provided a verdict: walking pneumonia... or rather, crawling pneumonia. So, Zithromax for the germs. And an albuterol inhaler for the wheezing. Second time he's had albuterol inhalers and he's not even 1 yet. I'm seeing asthma in this boy's future. He seems mostly healed up now, but gets tired and cranky a bit earlier in the day. This is exacerbated by a clingy phase he's going through and the bad habits we let him develop while he was ill (no, not cigars and whiskey. I refer to his waking during the night and demanding our immediate attention. This will end soon, mark my words).

2) The Racine Zoo. Before TheBoy was in full scream mode, the three of us (The Fishmonger, TheBoy and TheGirl) spent the day oot and aboot (look, I can write Canadian!) in Racine. We visited the Racine Zoo and then lunched at the Groundskeeper. We generally had a very nice time. I highly recommend hitting feeding time at the monkey house (AKA The Castle). Quite a sight to see. Makes a high school cafeteria seem mild by comparison. While most of the animals at the zoo (lions, a tiger, monkeys, orangutans, a giraffe, a rhino, aligators, some sort of mountain goats, meerkats, coatimundi and more) seemed to be in reasonable (if not luxurious) accomodations, TheGirl and I were a bit put off by the African Penguins. They seemed to have no access to water, and were standing in a small glass-walled room surrounded by the aligator pond. Which is probably why they aren't given access to the water. Still, I wonder if the poor little guys ever get to go for a plunge. I'll be sad about them 'til I hear they do.

3) The neighbor's party. Very calm and relaxed. With TheBoy screaming for nearly the entire length of the party, we opted not to attend, but the party seemed very much in control, with no more than 2 dozen people at any time. No idea why there was a porta potty. Perhaps it's an inside joke.

4) TheWife's Birthday. It all went swimmingly, if you ask me.

We met for dinner at the Asiana Restaurant in Racine (which I've also seen referred to as Asiana Bowl, Asiana Korean Restaurant and Asiana Korean-Japanese Restaurant). The meals were quite tasty. I had a vegetarian stir fry of apparent Japanese origin, TheWife had some Korean thing which I forget, and TheGirl had chicken cutlets with panko breading. The Korean eggrolls and strange and delicious pancake looking thing which we had for appetizers were also quite tasty. Best of all, they were very accomodating of TheBoy. When our miso soup was brought to the table, our waitress asked us if it would be OK to bring him some rice and miso broth. We said it was, and he loved the bowl of rice, broth and tofu that she brought. Then, when he started getting 'grabby' during dinner (grabbing first my plate, then my beer bottle, then my napkin, and on and on), our waitress (who I think may also have been one of the owners) stopped by to ask if she could hold him for a bit. We said 'Sure!', and she spent the rest of our dinner strolling him around the restaurant (remaining mostly in our view), entertaining him. Quite the treat for us. I consider it a special fortune, since she wouldn't have been able to be so sweet to us if the restaurant had been as full as it deserved to be. A quick stop at Sugar Shack for ice cream, consumed while relaxing on a Monument Square bench, while caressed by gentle lake breezes, completed our dining.

TheWife opened presents when we got home. Once again, TheBoy had the best gift, a fused glass pendant from etsy.com. TheGirl's gifts (a Vera Bradley luggage tag, and a beautiful scarf) came in second, while the Vera Bradley messenger bag I bought TheWife is still on the potentially to be exchanged pile (right colors, wrong style. I knew it, too).

And that's it for now. We're hoping to visit the Keno Drive-In tonight. Expect a review and pics before next week!

A moment of science

As we all likely know by now, Mr. Wizard recently passed away. In order to honor his memory, rebecca from skepchick has proposed the we all engage in a 'moment of science'. Watch the video below (thanks to astropixie, another member of SUGAA for pointing out the video), then make a short science video and post it to youtube as a response. Surely someone out there has some raw footage of interesting projects they've worked on that could be gussied up into a science demo with a bit of voiceover work (say... the effects of gravity on pumpkins, or somesuch). I'm drawing a blank on what to do, but mayhaps I'll come up with something in the next few days and film it over the weekend. I urge you all to do the same!

Bit of a niche market, I'd say

Uh oh...

I'm home right now, waiting a few more minutes before heading to my Dr. appointment. I've been a bit nervous about this weekend. TheWife is off to a reunion, and I'm home with the kids. TheGirl will be no problem, but TheBoy is suffering and cranky. He's got some sort of small sores in his mouth. Of course, the doc's office says he doesn't need to come in unless he's got a fever... which he doesn't, yet. Add to this that the new neighbors (let's call them the North Neighbors_ are having a BBQ to which we've been invited. For normal humans, this is a nice thing. For me, totally stressful to attend without my socialization- support net - also known as TheWife.
In any case, socializing with the neighbors may be the least of my problems this weekend. TheWife just called from the car as she was leaving for work. The neighbor's are having a Port-o-let delivered. Man, oh man. This looks like it's going to be some party! Fortunately, both of the kids can sleep through just about anything. And if it looks like fun, maybe I'll see what the range is on that baby monitor...

ISS Flyover

Thanks to an alert from... hmmm... let's call her... Mighty Ow, I was able to catch the International Space Station zipping by overhead last night, followed at a respectable distance by the Space Shuttle Atlantis. The hazy layer of clouds might have obscured lesser satelites (and did, in fact, obscure the expected Iridium flare from my seeking eyes after several additional minutes of cloud arrival), but the ISS and HST managed to shine through the haze.

I've watched satelites pass by before. One fine summer evening, I sat out on our deck with DORADO and picked out dozens passing by before the cricks in our necks and the strange feeling of being watched sent us back indoors. On a clear night, it is only necessary to remove unneccessary light sources and gaze quietly upward for a while to find the tiny dots of light whizzing by. (if partaking of certain alkaloidal chemicals, I understand that it is not even necessary to gaze upward). But the ISS/HST combo put these puny pricks of light to shame.

For these lights were not only wonderfully bright. Their paths through the sky were also unusual, for these two pinpricks of light following the same trajectory through the night skies. Separated by only an armslength handsbreadth of starfield (say that three times fast), they soared along. As I understand the situation, the shuttle had separated from the ISS only a few hours earlier, and was still building up the separation.

Seeing a satelite whiz by always gives me a little burst of pride in Mankind. To think that we (or rather, We) have sent these small packages to their ridiculous heights, where they travel at their ridiculous speeds, solely to help people in SanFrancisco order prank Tandoori deliveries for their friends in London... well that's pretty damn cool.

But to see two spots of light whizzing by, slowly separating like friends in the parking lot after the show, and to know that there are actual people on each of them working hard to figure out what to do with this whole "space" thing and , more immediately, how to deal effectively with the ridiculous heights and speeds without getting smashed against our little planet... well that's pretty much blows my freaking mind!

PS: If you're interested in seeing the space station, or Iridium flares, or other interesting manmade satelites, check out heavens-above. They can show you just what's coming and when, and they'll give you nifty little sky maps to help you find it.

On Abbott...

An open letter to the people of Thailand, French AIDS activists, and all those who think Abbott Labs is terrible for actually charging people for it's products:

You're a bunch of idiots. By taking these actions against Abbott, you're actually hurting victims of AIDS. You see, Abbott Laboratories (and pretty much every other pharmaceutical company) is a business. That means they make products and attempts to sell them for a profit. Pharmaceutical companies were traditionally big money-makers, and they still are, but their profit margins are shrinking. You may think this is great, but it turns out to suck for those with AIDS.

You see, when profit margins shrink, R&D dollars shrink, too. That means fewer drugs will be developed, and the choice of which drugs to fund becomes more critical. So Abbott needs to decide: do we try to find a good drug to fight, for example, osteo-arthritis, or do we look for a drug to fight AIDS? Hmmm... one of these will target a growing and profitable market of the 'aged', the other will target a market that is increasingly overseas and low-income. Now a company might decide to try for the AIDS drug anyway. Developing a successful AIDS drug brings prestige, and the market in developed nations is still strong. But if offering an AIDS drug becomes a liability, there is little incentive to develop such a drug.

Perhaps the idiots, once they've successfully stopped capitalist experimentation on AIDS drugs, will start their own non-profit pharmaceutical company. Perhaps they'll sink their life-savings into a research co-op and find a cure for AIDS which they'll then distribute for free to the world. But I doubt it.

PS: This is a personal diatribe. It reflects only my opinion, and does not necessarily represent the opinion of my planet, nation, state, village, industry, employer, insurance company, favorite cereal manufacturer or any other organization to which my feelings might be attributed.

What to do with harissa?

I picked up a jar of harissa at Woodman's last week. It's a red pepper paste used in Tunisia, Morrocco, and probably loads of other places, as well for all I know. After I got it home, I thought - shit, what am I going to do with that? I dug out the cookbooks, but came up empty, save a recommendation to use it as a condiment. But surely, there must be recipes that use it, right? What do I do with harissa? Well, thanks to the internet (all hail, mighty tubes), I have my answers. (anyone know where I can pick up some pickled lemon?)

and Father's Day is now past.

Damn it! Why do I only find the coolest ideas for gift-giving after the holiday has already passed? (And why do the coolest gift giving ideas cost over $300?). As you can no doubt see from the photo at right, I have discovered the CruzinCooler.

"Wow!", you're thinking, "That's a helluva cooler! But surely it will be too slow, and won't hold enough 'adult beverages' to be worth my while." Well, that's where you're wrong. Again. You might want to stop guessing on these kinds of things. It's getting embarassing.

In point of fact, this cooler will achieve top speeds of 13 mph (with a maximum range of 15 miles), and will easily hold a case of canned beer, PLUS eight pounds of ice. And let me note that those who think going 13 miles per hour while sitting on top of a cooler filled with beer have obviously never gone 13 miles per hour while riding a cooler filled with beer!

"Still not good enough!" you say? Well, then check out one of the higher level items, which top out at a remarkable 15 mph! There are also cooler wagons available. This is a product pretty much designed for Middle Bro's neighborhood. And at only $350 for the low end model, how can he pass it by? Hopefully, he'll pick one up for me, too. I'd be the hit of trick-or-treating with this thing.

Vision games

My online friend and former coworker (well, that's what I heard, anyway) poppgrrl over at grrltalk has posted some lowtech but curiously amusing little vision tests / seek-and-finds. Popp on over and have a look. (heh-heh. get it? Popp on over to poppgrrl? I'm so damn funny.)

Milwaukee Mass portrait

Get down to Menomenee Valley Community Park (Milwaukee's Canal St below the 35th st viaduct) by 10 am tommorrow morning if you want to be a part of the Milwaukee Mass Portrait. They'll be taking a picture of the crowd that shows up and distributing it as a free postcard. If you sign up a crew of people to be there, they'll make sure your crew gets postcards. The website has all of the details.

I was thinking I'd try to make it, but then I realized that I have to get TheGirl to a birthday party by 12:30. I'm guessing the traffic will be deadly, and things will run behind schedule. making a 12:30 b-day party might be a bit optimistic. But let me know if you go! (or if you manage to score a postcard)

Oh, and after the photo is done, why not hang around Milwaukee until the evening for COVENIGMA? Yes, COVEN as in Coven, that low-budget horror movie famously produced by Mark Borchardt in the fabulous documentary American Movie. Covenigma runs 5-midnight on Saturday, at the Times Cinema. Be there or be square.

88Nine

Ok, I guess I'm a little slow (yeah, yeah), but somehow I've completely missed out on Radio Milwaukee until last week. It's a new (well, since February) non-profit radio station out of Milwaukee. They're playing an interesting mix of stuff. I'd name some bands, but I've never heard of most of them before, so my fragile memory won't grab them. Suffice to say there's indie rock, R&B, classic rock, reggae, hip-hop and more. Nothing too experimental. Nothing too harsh. I'm digging it. It sounds like an MP3 player set on random, but an MP3 player owned by that cool kid who knows all the really good music. check it out. (And if you can do streaming, listen online!)

Evaporation

Check out this cool t-shirt at Etsy! The graphic is an illustration of evaporation from an old Japanese text book. Alternatively, it could be taken as a representation of The Rapture. Something for everyone, I guess. You choose. A bargain at only $15 plus shipping! (This isn't mine, and I don't know the folks selling it. I just think it's really cool).

A riddle

Q. What time is it when Bush visits Albania?
A. Time to get a new watch!

Check out the video here (the sites in dutch(?), but it's a nice vid), or a news story here.

PS: The White House denies his watch was stolen. Ok, if they say so.

BestStuff

I haven't had much of a chance to explore the site, but this seems like a pretty cool idea. Set up a free account. Find a category, or create one, then enter the best things in that category. Others can vote on which item in that category is best. For instance, in the category Best thing to say while taking a photo, we find the suggestion "Soylent green is people." In the category Best Cheese, we find around 50 contenders, ranging from Mozzarella at the top with 65 votes (at the time of this entry), and poor little Maasdam(a swiss type cheese from the Netherlands) at the bottom without a single vote. Maasdam will likely go and eat some worms now. Pobre rosita! Pobre pequeno Maasdam..

Bad gift for the six-fingered man.

If I didn't already have a drawer full of rarely-worn t-shirts, (and if I wasn't a total cheapskate) I'd buy myself one of these. Excellent, simply excellent.

(BA - The title is the link. But so is this.)

"Not funny! Blood!"

Check out this funny little youtube video. What a good big brother. He must think his Dad is an uncaring idiot.

The little book of Hindu Deities

Some guy from Pixar has produced a cartoon style book of Hindu deities. Pretty interesting! It seems like it's geared to a slightly older crowd than the kid's book nature of the drawings would suggest. Witness the illustration of Kali, at left. Skulls, arma and a severed head. Not good for bedtime stories... but pretty cool! Some of the illustrations are available as posters or t-shirts, too. I expect the Kali design to be a big hit with the hipsters.

(Y'know, the more I look at this, the more it reminds me of Muppet Babies. Still, pretty neat.)

Cliffside park

I spent part of the morning wandering around Cliffside park in Racine county this morning, getting muddy and shooting pics. I found all manner of things... unidentifiable wildflowers (what is that three petalled yellow one in the mosaic?), butterflies(the little guy in the top row of the mosaic was fearless, repeatedly landing on me, and letting me take macro shots from an inch away!), fossils (clusters of fossilized shells), and tracked down the rusted out truck again (noticed some old grafitti on it: "I kissed Kim Unrein here 3-26-81 6:22"). I took a load of pics, check out my flickr account for the full set! Best of all, I got home just as it started to rain. Nice timing, eh?