On The Move

Lukas likes to be on the move. The swing, the (moving) car, being held while you walk around, he just wants to be moving. He wants to move so much he's taken to moving himself.

Not a lot mind you, and not too fast. But he can squirm and wriggle his way around in his crib and on the floor such that his feet and head will change positions over a night. Kim said she watched him wriggle around 270 degrees one afternoon.

He's not rolling over all the way yet, although he's getting very close. He can get his feet and hips around, but his arm and shoulder are still getting in the way and he flops back. Its only a matter of time.

And Sean? Well, he's much more of a watcher. He'll just lie there and take it all in, no interest at this time of moving anywhere it seems.

A Funeral and A Wedding

Last week I attended my Grandfather's wake and funeral and while it was a sad occasion it was nice to see the family and celebrate his life with memories and stories. He was a much loved man and will be sorely missed.

On the weekend I drove to Toronto to attend the wedding of my best friend and his longtime love. Not only attend, but I was the Best Man (a title I lorded over the groomsman to no end) and had some responsibilities which mostly revolved around being a facilitator and an extra pair of hands. I had a great time and was thoroughly exhausted by the time my head hit the pillow for the evening.

Part of the evening involved some short speeches from the parents, Matron of Honour, and myself. I wrote a toast between the ceremony and reception when I had a 30 minute break (but I had been working on it in my head for a week or more) and was pretty confident going in since I didn't know very many people and I wanted to be relaxed so I wouldn't race through it like I did for my parent's 25th anniversary last summer. I was ok until I go the microphone and spoke into it. Holy crap, my voice booming out in the hall freaked me right out. I was so thrown off by the sound of my annoyingly high pitched voice (I really do hate it) being broadcast so loud that I just about broke down and raced through my toast. Fortunately, I had practised the cadence and tempo a few times in the room and I think I managed to get through it ok, at least that is what people tell me.

For the record, I was tempted to do the funny toast but I know my humour doesn't alway transfer well in that type of medium and environment so I went sentimental instead. People at weddings always love the sentiment; its like a drug that way.

One other thing: I was sweating horribly on my forehead during the ceremony. There was a lot of moving around when we switched the ceremony to inside the ballroom because it started to rain just before, and the tuxedo had a vest that proceed to keep all the heat generated in. So even though we were in air conditioning I couldn't cool off fast enough. I was so embarrassed, I wanted to die. Fortunately everyone was looking at the bride and groom and not me. Sigh.

Remembrance

My paternal grandfather passed away yesterday after a few days battling a lung infection. He was in his eighties and had not been doing well for a while so it was not a surprise. He was surrounded by his loved ones for his last moments.

Good bye Grandpa, I love you and will always remember you. I'm glad my sons got to meet you.

Router Drama

I've talked about my router issues before. Well, inbetween Jan 2007 and today (specifically last summer) the antenna on our wireless network card on the computer broke off (long story) and I had to run a cable from the upstairs office to the downstairs red room where the internet modem resided.

Well, Kim hated the junkie look of the long black ethernet cable running through the house and demanded I fix it. I finally got a new antenna from my sister and this past Friday I decided to get the wireless connection back up and running. The new antenna worked fine and the computer could talk to the router with nary a trouble but the router and the internet refused to play nice together. Sometimes it would connect and be fine and then WHAM no connection. Or rather, no web browsing even though the connection said it was up and running. I was worried that all my messing with the router in previous attempts to solve my issues had screwed it up beyond my ability to recover.

I've never been very happy with the D-Link router so I went to Walmart Sunday morning and looked to see what else was available. Just my luck, a Linksys wireless router was on sale and I picked it up and brought it home. Surely this would be easier and more dependable I thought.

Everything seemed to be going fine with the installation until it came time to connect to the internet and I hit an error. Damn! Several attempts yet nothing would work. I reconnected my cable and decided to check if the password to connect to Bell; yep, got that wrong the first time. Ok back to the router... what? I can't connect!? What the hell!?

Reboot, reset, try again. Nope. DAMN! Why can't my computer even talk to the router now? Half and hour later I realize that I set the router to not use DHCP when I was messing around and hence my computer could not get an IP address from the router. I hard coded its IP address so I could connect to the router (worked), enabled DHCP, set my computer back to using DHCP, and then entered the correct internet conneciton information. POOF! Everything worked.

So... anyone want to but a D-Link wireless router?

Lenscrafters = Idiots

I got a call last night from Lenscrafters that my glasses were ready.

All excited I spent my lunch break driving into Bayshore mall to pick them up. I get there and what do I find out? Only my glasses were ready, my prescription sunglasses were still on order.

*fuming*

Could they not have told me that when they called? I wouldn't have bothered going in until they were both ready in that case! Now I'll have to spend another lunch break driving into the mall when they are ready.

Grrrr.... I hate inefficiency.

P.S. Yes, perhaps they didn't know because each set of glasses was a separate order. In that case I say its time for them to update their archaic methods to the 21st century. Luddites.

You Picked The Sun?!

Here is a video clip of a guy on the French version of "who wants to be a millionaire?" trying to decide from a multiple choice question what revolves around the Earth: the moon, the sun, Mars, or Venus.

Its a little sad he didn't know the correct answer. But whatever, sometimes people just don't know the very basics of our local neighbourhood and I can forgive one person for being a little ignorant.

But he is so unsure he polls the audience. Over half (56%) picked the Sun as the object that revolves around the Earth. Oh. My. God. I've said it before and I'll say it again: people are stupid.

This is not some piece of trivia, this is the very basics of how the Earth operates, our day and night cycle, the phases of the moon and the tides of the oceans. The only small consolation is that the rest of the audience had the basic education to pick the right answer.

*pause*

You know the correct answer is the moon, right? Sigh.

Afterthought: Maybe its just people moronic enough to want to be in an audience for the borefest that is this show are skewering the results. We can only hope.

Tennis: Turned the Corner?

Since the once-a-week Tennis season started against Andrew, I have been losing.

We typically play one full set (i.e. first to win 6 games) and then followed by a half set (first to win 3 games). For the first 7 weeks Andrew won every full set and 2 out of 4 of the half sets. I sucked.

For the first couple weeks, physical conditioning combined with being out of practice was slowing me down. Then my speed improved but Andrew was still schooling me as his rust was shaken off.

My difficulties seemed to be three things:
1) My first serve was being easily handled by Andrew so he continually broke my service and took early leads.

2) My aim on hitting the end of the court was off and a lot of balls were landing out as a result.

3) My backhand sucked.

Last week I felt the aim was improving and my backhand was coming back finally, but I was still losing. I got angry and I started hammering my serves in a way to burn some frustration off.

And what do you know? They landed in. A lot. And suddenly things began to fall into place for me.

We got rained out last week while I was losing 5-3 but I took the lesson to heart and this week I came out blasting my serves. I had traded power for accuracy earlier in this season (and perhaps late last season) but now I brought the effort up the accuracy remained. The upshot is that Andrew had a harder time returning my serves and those he did get back were not the power returns I had to dig for. Suddenly things felt different, better.

Not only did I get more aggressive on the serves, I also added a bit more aggressiveness to my forehands and backhands; now that the rust was shaken off I was able to hit them accurately and low to the net and ground, forcing Andrew to dig more often and give me more opportunity to get a point. The end result was and early lead, maintaining my service, and winning the set 6 to 4.

My new style of play cost me a bit though as I felt noticeably sore in my shoulder in the second half set from all the hard serves in the first full set, and my energy levels were lower than usual. Andrew whipped me quite soundly 3-1 in the half set but we both know all the glory to be had is in the first set.

Next week I'll have to see if I can maintain the pressure and score another victory.

Optical Illusions!

Optical Illusions Galore!

Weekend Wrapup

We had beautiful weather on the weekend for the Boys Dedication and lots of family members came out to celebrate and in some cases meet them. Afterwards we had a barbecue outside where I was once again the Grill Chef and only once did I have to call for water to put out a grease fire. I didn't need those eyebrows anyways. I was told the meat tasted good so I'm going to assume they were telling the truth. Ah, my legend as the master BBQ chef continues to grow!

Meanwhile, the boys were passed around and the Dullemond family members pronounced Lukas as the definite Dullemond baby with his old-man eyes and high-and-prone-to-wrinkles forehead. I guess that makes Sean the Graves/Crouse baby. Hopefully Lukas didn't also inherit my lack of cushion on the bottom.

By the way, I've officially had my parent's declared as rich. Not only were they so generous to trade our broken down car for their van, they went and bought a brand new vehicle for Terry (a Jeep Patriot which is, if I'm not mistaken, the first ever brand-new (i.e. not-used) vehicle they have ever purchased) AND this past weekend they were having central air installed! Sure, it was a used unit and installed by Uncle Jerry, but nonetheless its a huge step up from "open windows at night and keep closed during the day" air conditioning they are used to in Greenbush for the past 25 years.

Of course, they are rich now when they have the boys to spoil. I can hear it now: "Why don't we have a Playstation 5 like Grandma does?"

Sigh.

"Race" is SOOOO 19th Century!

One of the most bothersome things to come out of the U.S. presidential election campaigns this year is the constant talking about Barack Obama's "race":

"He's black."

"He's half white."

"He's a secret Muslim."

"He's a Christian."

"He's too black. "

"He's not an authentic black."

"He's the first black president."

"He's talking white to black voters."

OH MY FREAKING GOD! ENOUGH ALREADY!

In my opinion, the concept of human "races" has long since been discredited as bogus and divisive. Its time to move past skin colour, eye shapes, and other physical characteristics and realize that its all about where you grow up and how you are raised that matters. The blood in all of our veins is still red (barring some medical conditions) and people should be more concerned Obama's qualifications and positions rather than the supposed colour of his skin.

If only we were all colourblind. (But then we'd have those claiming who the real "greys" are and who are only half-grey. Sigh.)

More Religion Madness

Give it a read. From the news article:

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35, Orlando) --A UCF student claims he’s getting death threats for messing with something sacred.

Webster Cook says he smuggled a Eucharist, a small bread wafer that to Catholics symbolic of the Body of Christ after a priest blesses it, out of mass, didn’t eat it as he was supposed to do, but instead walked with it.

Catholics worldwide became furious.

Webster’s friend, who didn’t want to show his face, said he took the Eucharist, to show him what it meant to Catholics.

Webster gave the wafer back, but the Catholic League, a national watchdog organization for Catholic rights claims that is not enough.

“We don’t know 100% what Mr. Cooks motivation was,” said Susan Fani a spokesperson with the local Catholic diocese. “However, if anything were to qualify as a hate crime, to us this seems like this might be it.”

Now before you say "that's not normal religion" I've got news for you; it is.

This Is Why I'm Not Swayed

Courtesy of Sandwalk I read the "rational" arguments for the existence of God from the Christianity Today magazine written by Christian philosopher William Lane Craig.

I fully admit my education in philosophy is not very deep, but I am familiar with formal logic which is the basis of these arguments.

The cosmological argument

1. Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause.
2. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.
3. The universe exists.
4. Therefore, the explanation of the universe's existence is God.

The kalam cosmological argument

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

The teleological argument

1. The fine-tuning of the universe is due either to physical necessity, chance, or design.
2. It is not due to physical necessity or chance.
3. Therefore, it is due to design.

The moral argument

1. If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.
2. Objective moral values and duties do exist.
3. Therefore, God exists.

The ontological argument

1. It is possible that a maximally great being (God) exists.
2. If it is possible that a maximally great being exists, then a maximally great being exists in some possible world.
3. If a maximally great being exists in some possible world, then it exists in every possible world.
4. If a maximally great being exists in every possible world, then it exists in the actual world.
5. Therefore, a maximally great being exists in the actual world.
6. Therefore, a maximally great being exists.
7. Therefore, God exists.

Really? Those are the best they have? The number of assumptions and leaps of faiths in those arguments is astounding and I'll have to read that article just to see his defences to the objections, but at first glance none of them are new and all have been discussed and discredited in my opinion.

I am not swayed.

He's Got Personality

The boys are growing quickly and some clothes have already be regulated to the "outgrown" pile. As they grow their unique personalities develop and change and it amuses me to no end.

For a few weeks Sean was known as "Grunter" because he would spend many minutes grunting loudly and excessively. "Is he pooping?" "Nope." "Is he upset?" "Nope." It seems he just liked the sound of his own voice in a manner of speaking. He has mostly stopped doing it lately but it was quiet weird for a while there.

Lukas has his own quirks. Every once in a while you can be holding him and he will suddenly thrash his face and head back and forth like he's scratching his nose on your shirt. He usually seems quiet agitated and grumpy when he does this but the violent head shaking is like nothing I've seen. If you're not careful his noggin might pop your lip in the process. Lukas also likes to be on the move, holding him is not enough like it is for Sean. Either walking around, or moving in the stroller, or riding in the swing, he has to be moving sometimes. I think he gets frustrated he can't move himself around yet. Poor guy. We think he will be the physically active one while Sean seems to be more content to watch the world go by.

You never know, things may change.

"What's That?"

So Erin and the Kids moseyed on up to Carleton Place for Canada Day (Or Canada Evening by the time Erin got there) and we had a BBQ and visit before Kim and Erin took the Kids to see the fireworks while I babysat the Boys.

I got them to bed and went to bed myself with the baby monitor on and fell asleep before Kim got home. Of course, I had the baby monitor on my side of the bed so I could here better, but never thought to move the power cord that comes with it from Kim's side. Around 5 in the morning Kim wakes up and is surprised no sound from the boys room was heard and she gets up and realizes the battery died in the middle of the night. Poor Sean probably woke up hungry at 3am as normal and cried (well, grunted) himself back to sleep when we didn't show up. I'm a horrible father.

Fortunately, he woke up again soon after and was fed. He seems to have suffered no visible long term effects beyond an accusing glare whenever I'm near.

Erin and the Kids stayed over so last night after dinner I took them to the riverfront to play in the splashpad (which they did a little) and swim in the river (which they did a lot of). Afterwards while trying off I hear one ask "What's that?"

It is, of course, a bloodsucking leech attached to her foot. The other girl realizes she has one too, attached directly to the panic button on her foot. I quickly dispatched the little fiends and calmed the girls down with "its no worse than a mosquito, they are not poisonous or anything like that, just icky." It worked and we were soon on our way.

Side note: first time I've ever encountered a leech up close and personal.