tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-40481866988643597242024-03-14T11:49:12.688-07:00Sometimes I'm Actually CoherentA Christian husband, homeschooling father, software engineer and amateur musician bloviates about whatever he feels like at the moment.Timothy Powerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081922327870257027noreply@blogger.comBlogger486125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4048186698864359724.post-29214188926582481252011-03-11T21:07:00.000-08:002011-03-11T22:27:36.588-08:00Misha, 1994-2011<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPDKm8bvnmP3N8NdwwHBoaPEczrHGgE5kxPwuR0RV9mkW_J74e8q9rDCmEx5Ps7Ig-K5NWf9-vkA0lVXlZEwmdPvgDJvzscDSEGB4NSMgYxgYRxRX9W6YjxI5X04u5YZk_S27W6-NAJfg/s1600/Cat_Misha.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 292px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPDKm8bvnmP3N8NdwwHBoaPEczrHGgE5kxPwuR0RV9mkW_J74e8q9rDCmEx5Ps7Ig-K5NWf9-vkA0lVXlZEwmdPvgDJvzscDSEGB4NSMgYxgYRxRX9W6YjxI5X04u5YZk_S27W6-NAJfg/s400/Cat_Misha.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583056036541026290" border="0" /></a>So I haven't been posting in a long time. Yeah, yeah... I know.<br /><br />It's not that there hasn't been anything to write about. Why, the headlines are just full of meaty, maddening, tragic, important stories! Not to mention, there's been plenty going in in my own family too... as the kids are growing up bit by bit, and I've been sneaking on tiptoe back into the <a href="http://www.lightoperasac.org/gallery.html">Opera world</a> (scroll down to the bottom and click the pic with the guy wearing the kabuki makeup and the Darth Vader helmet. That's me as The Mikado, in Gilbert & Sullivan's show of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mikado">the same name</a>. And yes, that cute little girl in the kimono--carrying the huge sword--is the Pillowfight Fairy.)<br /><br />(And if anyone in the Sacramento area wants to see me singing live on stage, here's your chance: this year I'm Private Willis in G&S's show <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iolanthe">Iolanthe</a>. Details are at the above site; shows are the first two weekends in April.)<br /><br />But today I merely have some sad personal news that I know my extended family will want to know about. One of our cats, Misha, has gone to kitty heaven.<br /><br />We've been knowing this was coming, and sooner rather than later; her health has been in steep decline over the last month. The vet had a full ultrasound done on Misha about a week ago and pronounced it Lymphoma, in a fairly advanced stage. She went downhill very quickly; a month ago she was happily jumping up on the furniture, and bugging me to pet her every time I sat down at the computer to goof off. And then, she wasn't...<br /><br /><br />...<br /><br /><br />Back in '94 I was living in a townhouse with two college buddies. Sometime during April of that year we discovered that we had an annoying feral cat that kept jumping our fence and trying to sneak through an air vent into our garage. No wonder--April is in the rainy season around these parts, and this cat wanted a nice, dry, secure place... to have her litter. Yup. One day we went to get our cars, and we discovered we had a whole litter of kittens.<br /><br />And aside from two twins, they all looked completely different.<br /><br />Well, we decided we'd do the responsible thing. We didn't have permission from the landlord for pets in the townhouse, so we decided to get them spayed/neutered, and get them vaccinated, and socialize them so they'd be able to function around humans, and find homes for them.<br /><br />And then we made the mistake of naming them. And feeding them. And petting them.<br /><br />One of the kittens ran off to join the circus before we could get to know him/her, but the other three stuck around. We couldn't find homes for them, but they were completely happy just to stay in the garage most of the time, and sneak in the back door to our townhouse when we opened it up. Yup, we had to catch them and carry them out of the house on numerous, numerous occasions, and they'd be happily purring the whole way.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk5HYY0N-NhFodu_il4SzsFDJzJvcJcsAov3Aa1bzyx4lfDFH13nI9BLRpPGCY8WTbJANhnBJ9eP7CFsLrN2qhkQB144HpjRMUqmdY4cR_K-PXfFfV9MNPHlcky4bPq6OU1FAMXSXAbso/s1600/PicWithMisha.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 360px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk5HYY0N-NhFodu_il4SzsFDJzJvcJcsAov3Aa1bzyx4lfDFH13nI9BLRpPGCY8WTbJANhnBJ9eP7CFsLrN2qhkQB144HpjRMUqmdY4cR_K-PXfFfV9MNPHlcky4bPq6OU1FAMXSXAbso/s400/PicWithMisha.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583056042622870354" border="0" /></a><br />Misha was the dark one of the lot. Her sister Pasha (who, as a kitten, we used to call Paranoid Gold Kitty for a while) is a tabby, and her other sister Niña is an absolutely gorgeous calico. All three of them were very, very plush longhairs; look at that feather-duster of a tail on the picture above. Tonya and I joked that we should brush them a whole lot, and then spin the fur thus collected into yarn, and use it to knit sweaters. (We could probably still do that just from the fur caught in the carpet in their room...) But Misha looked an awful lot like her mommy, except she had a prettier face.<br /><br />And the three sisters each had their own personality. Niña was always very suspicious of people. She warmed up to me and my roommates; she eventually warmed up to my aunt, and later my wife; she still hasn't gotten used to all these short, loud people we have running around here. Pasha turned into an absolute lover, who demands to lick any person she takes a fancy to. She's almost dog-like. She's also dumb as a post, and has always had a clumsy side to her. I swear I've seen that cat <span style="font-style: italic;">trip</span>. I also once watched her take a tumble off a balcony. Over the years, she has put on quite a bit of weight, earning the affectionate nickname "Lardbutt." During the time my aunt was taking care of Pasha, she had to laugh at the irony when she remembered Carl Sandburg's <a href="http://www.bartleby.com/104/76.html">poem</a>:<br /><blockquote>The fog comes<br />on little cat feet...</blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">"Incoming!!!!!!</span>"<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">WHUMP</span><br /><br />But Misha was the sneaky one of the bunch. I remember one incident back when she was a kitten, and we were having to keep them out of the townhouse. She had this way of sneaking in the back door, then bolting down the hall, around the corner, and into my bedroom--whereupon I had to go find her and extract her from among the heaps of bachelor junk I had piled up around the room. Well, one day she did this trick, and I trooped down the hallway and into my room--and then spent ten minutes tearing it apart trying to find her. Failing and scratching my head, I wandered back to the living room, and saw her happily curled up on the sofa watching TV.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">How did she get past me</span>? I wondered to myself.<br /><br />So the <span style="font-style: italic;">next</span> time she got through the back door, down the hallway and around the corner (it happened a lot don't you know), I <span style="font-style: italic;">listened</span>. Her footsteps halted the moment she went around the corner; she didn't go all the way into my room! I walked to the corner in the hallway, leaned carefully around and looked down... and sure enough, there was Misha, hiding with her dark fur in a dark little shadow. That earlier incident, <span style="font-style: italic;">she had outsmarted me</span>. She got me thinking she'd gone into my room, and <span style="font-style: italic;">I walked right past her</span> without bothering to look down.<br /><br />If I'd been a pigeon, I would have gotten et.<br /><br />That was her personality. She loved people-attention, and purred so noisily that veterinarians could never tell how fast her heart was going; but she'd pull one over on you if you weren't careful.<br /><br />Of course, she'd also occasionally try to jump from lofts onto the tops of ceiling fans, so she clearly got some of the same genetic material as Pasha did....<br /><br /><br />...<br /><br /><br />Misha hadn't been in good health this last year. After all, her seventeenth birthday would have been in April; that's getting up there for a cat, even when they are fully spayed indoor female cats. Given that we have three from the same litter, odds are that at least one of them was going to have something bad happen. She'd had to have surgery to remove that gorgeous feather-duster of a tail early last summer, as she'd developed some kind of abscess on it that couldn't be removed any other way. And there were signs at that time that she had other internal conditions starting; we had to put her on a special diet and give her steroids just to get her in shape for that surgery. Still, she recovered from the surgery well, put a good amount of weight back on, and grew enough fur on her little stump of a tail that it looked cute, like the back end of a bunny. Unfortunately, the Lymphoma must have already been in its early stages then. About a month ago she started showing signs of being unable to walk and jump properly, and then her weight started to plummet, and it became obvious the end was near.<br /><br />I checked on Misha before going to work this morning, and she was weak, nothing but fur and bones, but alert. I checked on her when I got home, and she had passed away sometime during the day, in the same spot where I'd left her in the morning.<br /><br />So I went out in our little "orchard" (a corner of our garden where we've planted half a dozen fruit trees) before dinner tonight and dug a hole to bury her in. The Adrenaline Junkie and the Happy Boy came out too. I suspect the Happy Boy (age four) just wanted an excuse to help dig a really big hole, but the Junkie (age six) wanted to talk about Misha with her daddy. Kids process these things differently than we do. I was thinking deep thoughts about mortality; she was thinking about how to keep the bugs from getting all over Misha, and what the word "decomposition" means, and does that mean we would eventually get to see all the bones? (not if I can help it) and why the earth never runs out of people or cats or dogs, if everyone eventually dies (not a bad question for a six-year-old, if I do say so myself).<br /><br /><br />...<br /><br /><br />So, we're thinking of going to the local plant nursery or home improvement store and getting a life-sized sculpture of a cat--preferably something really longhair looking, if we can find it--and painting it in a charcoal-gray/brown tortoise-shell pattern, and using that to mark the spot we laid her to rest. Yeah, we're hopelessly maudlin that way. (At least the grown-ups are. The kids like to talk about decomposition, even if they can't pronounce it properly.) On the practical side, it might scare off a few of the birds, and might briefly freak out some of the neighborhood cats around here.<br /><br />None of us here is distraught; we've definitely had worse. Still, even though I was able to pet her and hear her purr not 14 hours ago, I'm already missing my cat.Timothy Powerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081922327870257027noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4048186698864359724.post-31288705133073180452010-11-08T21:15:00.000-08:002010-11-08T21:39:32.315-08:00A Few New PicturesI caught myself saying something odd the other day. Tonya's parents had been in town for a few weeks to help us while we had our baby, but they had just left; I was leaving a voicemail for a family member, mentioning that the grandparents were now gone...:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">So, we're all alone now. It's just the six of us.</span><br /><br />Tonya got a kick out of the irony of that statement.<br /><br />Anyway, I have a few more pictures of our baby, in case anyone's interested...<br /><br />...which is something I've always found a little ironic. Yeah, everyone wants to see the picture of the little one, because--after all--it's a big event when another little person comes into the world to mess up everyone's sleep schedules. But babies that are <span style="font-style: italic;">this</span> young aren't generally very photogenic. They're cute, but generally much more so in real life than in still photos. Newborn babies in pictures just kinda... <span style="font-style: italic;">lie</span> there.<br /><br />So maybe that's why Anne Geddes dresses them like bugs and puts them in flower pots. They're just so much cuter that way.<br /><br />Ok, since the only pots we have that big have chili pepper plants in them, and chiles and babies don't mix, we decided that the <span style="font-style: italic;">next</span> cutest thing to do would be to put our newborn with a whole bunch of other kids who are still in their pajamas.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyqSkd4TD6TkgHQAdoKI83oWbB0R7bM0zPZ_4ZhG5tg3GPV6CermZNtV4ItWJhLVNz7xANchzaW1rOsYrjUi5YdWHFUMIoVDD_bI4CphvnqFwK6mPgb6Zdg7xlEyEosTuZ-2tzTO5-Dv0/s1600/Enhanced.CIMG1721.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyqSkd4TD6TkgHQAdoKI83oWbB0R7bM0zPZ_4ZhG5tg3GPV6CermZNtV4ItWJhLVNz7xANchzaW1rOsYrjUi5YdWHFUMIoVDD_bI4CphvnqFwK6mPgb6Zdg7xlEyEosTuZ-2tzTO5-Dv0/s400/Enhanced.CIMG1721.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537416631197643538" border="0" /></a>Here's one of the Happy Boy, not yet age four, who really likes his baby brother. He occasionally comes up to us and asks to hold him. But just as I took this picture, the Adrenaline Junkie, who couldn't resist, decided to count his toes.<br /><br />Ok, so here's one with the Adrenaline Junkie in it too.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiML2lebrwOUtgHRV8gRzTj_qLIvVbYOCrMbiWKxTHbyGgDNveF8nLMXMfWV6YYy_HUWkZ0tM_p8SPTPR_HqzE6Ku9Mn9zNBG6imbfPfBHVo9BnqUye75V663J0Wxwy2oljZ2FhuTQXsA/s1600/Enhanced.CIMG1723.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiML2lebrwOUtgHRV8gRzTj_qLIvVbYOCrMbiWKxTHbyGgDNveF8nLMXMfWV6YYy_HUWkZ0tM_p8SPTPR_HqzE6Ku9Mn9zNBG6imbfPfBHVo9BnqUye75V663J0Wxwy2oljZ2FhuTQXsA/s400/Enhanced.CIMG1723.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537416633357613858" border="0" /></a>The Happy Boy looks like he's about to pluck somebody's nose or something. Little babies have lots of cute little body parts after all, that all need to be inspected!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWR9NVJYwwidHNfrYQjXJdtaVHjTZVW69CudKbgcVqjJXuwJ1F9_YEqjzxbaVez0C3bxYnFueuZicvlbeHcKXMMP_-l83tPFnxBLXQN-6i8vAoP5fmadB_kb9WrDTF7T7ahqMRG3auYrI/s1600/Enhanced.CIMG1717.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 281px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWR9NVJYwwidHNfrYQjXJdtaVHjTZVW69CudKbgcVqjJXuwJ1F9_YEqjzxbaVez0C3bxYnFueuZicvlbeHcKXMMP_-l83tPFnxBLXQN-6i8vAoP5fmadB_kb9WrDTF7T7ahqMRG3auYrI/s400/Enhanced.CIMG1717.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537416628833632946" border="0" /></a>And here's the one with all four of our little ones together. The middle two are just in love with their little brother. The Pillowfight Fairy, on the right, is generally more aloof. She's also been through the drill a time or three before; and after all, the Chunk looks an awful lot like the Happy Boy did at this age.<br /><br />Except for all that black hair, and the dimpled chin, and the extremely red/ruddy complexion (which isn't just the reflected glow from his orange pajamas)....<br /><br />Sigh.... :-)Timothy Powerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081922327870257027noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4048186698864359724.post-83702334870943530272010-10-29T11:11:00.000-07:002010-10-29T11:43:54.613-07:00What we've been doing for the last nine monthsAll right, it's actually been closer to eleven months since I last posted. However, we've been doing something extra special for the last <span style="font-style: italic;">nine</span> of those eleven months.<br /><br />Namely, <span style="font-style: italic;">one</span> of us has been waddling around like some kind of penguin/walrus crossbreed.<br /><br />She was so cute. :)<br /><br />Anyway, today was the day.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSAB-rbRLNwlMM7_uyQet-amJPFJV4WUJva4lSHg-wOhTYu3RCs4oPjfu06JBoZnTi29SiFNOu96vGYHOV-8wGdK-lused5vwjC8JU8w39zJGJ0CxaMLA2VPT7qC7IL1e-j_kBNFdaJ00/s1600/EnhancedCIMG1698.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 312px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSAB-rbRLNwlMM7_uyQet-amJPFJV4WUJva4lSHg-wOhTYu3RCs4oPjfu06JBoZnTi29SiFNOu96vGYHOV-8wGdK-lused5vwjC8JU8w39zJGJ0CxaMLA2VPT7qC7IL1e-j_kBNFdaJ00/s400/EnhancedCIMG1698.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5533534668625814018" border="0" /></a><br />What this picture doesn't capture very well is the fact that he's moving at least as much on the <span style="font-style: italic;">outside</span> as he did on the <span style="font-style: italic;">inside</span> for the last few months. He's big, strong, and active, and kept trying to wiggle in such a way as to get all that unpleasant light off his face.<br /><br />Now, for the sake of privacy it's been our policy not to reveal the names of our little ones online, so we won't be sharing the rather manly-sounding Irish name we gave this little cub. We need an online pseudonym for him!<br /><br />The trouble is, we haven't had him around long enough to come up with a good name based on his personality. Even with the Happy Boy, where he got his online pseudonym when still less than a year old, we still had some personality clues--he was usually quite happy and playful, even in unfamiliar settings and around complete strangers.<br /><br />But we have no such clues about this new little guy, aside from the fact that he was somersaulting like a gymnast inside mommy for the last several months. The only other clues we have are from his vital statistics:<br /><ul><li>Born at 1:04 am.</li><li>Weighing 9 lbs, 10 oz...</li><li>21 inches long...</li><li>Had a "strong, lusty cry" before even making it all the way out of mommy. His <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apgar_score">APGAR score</a> was 10 within ten minutes or so after birth, so he's healthy as a horse...</li><li>And apparently, mommy tells me he feeds like one too.</li></ul>So I'm open to pseudonym suggestions in the comments (assuming I have any readers left after 11 months), based on what little we know about him. But to open up the bidding, until I get a better suggestion, I'm referring to him as "The Chunk".<br /><br />Have at it. :-)Timothy Powerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081922327870257027noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4048186698864359724.post-45666881847880443052009-12-02T23:04:00.001-08:002009-12-02T23:23:25.295-08:00Boom The Cannon!It's been a while since I've posted a sample of my eldest daughter's literary attainments online.<br /><br />(Heck, it's been a while since I've posted <span style="font-style: italic;">anything</span> online.)<br /><br />But one never quite knows what one is going to get with the Pillowfight Fairy. In years past we've seen diagrams for schemes of <a href="http://tdpower.blogspot.com/2007/11/first-people-now-sheep.html">airborne sheep rustling</a>, to pictures of dungeons (<a href="http://tdpower.blogspot.com/2009/02/bad-people-only.html">"Warning: bad people only"</a>) to some surprisingly dark <a href="http://tdpower.blogspot.com/2007/08/literary-criticism.html">bus-stop nocturnes</a>.<br /><br />One of the fun parts of being a home-school daddy is seeing the progress that your kids make. I look at those earlier efforts, which were done over two years ago, and I marvel at how much progress she's made since then.<br /><br />But she's still my daughter of course. And naturally, that means her poems involve <span style="font-style: italic;">artillery</span>.<br /><br />Yup. She was assigned today to write a poem, of her own composition, in cursive. Here's what this little second-grade daddy's girl came up with:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLymCX2Q_0vzbLa1N-hMjqKOevkuB4CC-yOhhRzf1wOeKXIOZ_DhKw3kFrxeJ2a-CNM5bEbDF54l6lKu7RlH7Bzi2Go-pPHQJpqkk4mrOPvUHonHTojwlgkI_CkCYoHC-QkjVQA1Awb14/s1600-h/BoomTheCannon.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 308px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLymCX2Q_0vzbLa1N-hMjqKOevkuB4CC-yOhhRzf1wOeKXIOZ_DhKw3kFrxeJ2a-CNM5bEbDF54l6lKu7RlH7Bzi2Go-pPHQJpqkk4mrOPvUHonHTojwlgkI_CkCYoHC-QkjVQA1Awb14/s400/BoomTheCannon.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5410906343196915250" border="0" /></a>Behold! <span style="font-style: italic;">Ye</span> launch a cannonball! For freedom! And messes!<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">That. Is. My. Daughter.</span>Timothy Powerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081922327870257027noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4048186698864359724.post-87798783395038480102009-11-27T21:57:00.000-08:002009-11-27T22:58:08.770-08:00A Quartet of Fun VideosOk, so I haven't been blogging much lately--and I haven't been blogging as many of those long, wordy, overly-sincere disquisitions on What's Wrong With the World And How To Solve It.<br /><br />I suppose you could look at it like this... it is, after all, that time of year when we're supposed to give thanks for the blessings in our life, right? Well then, perhaps my readership should Give Thanks that they don't have to sit through another of my 5000-word manifestos today. :)<br /><br />And I'm thankful that I don't have to write them just yet.<br /><br />Instead, I've been collecting some fun videos I've been seeing online lately, and thought I'd pass them on. No doubt you've seen some of them already, but perhaps you haven't seen all four.<br /><br />So, we'll start with one that's hit the internet lately in a really, really big way. It's shown up on a lot of people's blogs, including that of my <a href="http://wpower.blogspot.com/2009/11/another-post-second-one-two-tonight.html">sister-in-law</a> (although that's not actually where I first saw it). Behold: the Muppets do Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody.<br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/tgbNymZ7vqY&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/tgbNymZ7vqY&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />And, as usual, Animal steals the show. But Beaker (who, along with the Swedish Chef, is my favorite Muppet) puts in a pretty good showing, too.<br /><br />(Oh, and my sister-in-law has some wonderful Thanksgiving-day pictures of my three kids, and their two cousins, playing in a pile of leaves. Take a look <a href="http://wpower.blogspot.com/2009/11/thanksgiving-pix.html">here</a>.)<br /><br /><br />Ok, here's the next one, which has been all over the TV lately, so most people have already seen it. But if there be any more Luddites out there like Tonya and me who don't watch TV, then you might <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> have seen it yet, in which case you are welcome to treat this post as a public service. With a hat tip to <a href="http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/theanchoress/2009/11/20/cop-vs-kitty/">The Anchoress</a> (where I first saw it myself), I give you Cop vs. Kitty:<br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/i_zRPWyATZw&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/i_zRPWyATZw&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />You know, I'm glad that this wasn't my cat Pasha doing that. What's cute with a three-lb kitten would, with my arthitic yet lovable 15-lb lardbutt, be downright tragic.<br /><br /><br />Ok, here's the shortest video of the bunch. I had been web-surfing a few nights ago, when the Pillowfight Fairy came over to the computer and saw some random link about albatrosses (the seabirds with the 7-foot wingspans). So we clicked it, and watched some video on them.... and then clicked on some more, and some more... and eventually we were watching all kinds of nature videos. (By the way, the ones of albatrosses landing on ground, as opposed to on the water, are good fodder for seven-year-old humor. Apparently, albatross stall-speed is faster than albatross running speed, so their landings tend to involve plenty of unintentional mayhem. Especially when they land on a beach crowded with other albatrosses.) Well, we went from albatrosses to frogs, to insects to...<br /><br />...to this one that was temptingly captioned, "Frog vs. Dragonfly". What we expected was another of those videos showing nature in all its gory glory, red in tooth and claw (or whatever it is that frogs have). What we <span style="font-style: italic;">got</span> gave everyone an unexpected and surprisingly hearty laugh.<br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ohcDPgd1V5Y&hl=en_US&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ohcDPgd1V5Y&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />Geez. That's not much better than what Pasha could have done.<br /><br /><br />Ok, here's the fourth one, which is the longest video of the bunch. I was reading along on the Wired website, on a story entitled <a href="http://www.wired.com/underwire/2009/11/wired-gives-thanks/">Thanks a Lot: Pop Culture's Finest Moments of 2009</a>. Now, I'm never one much to put the phrases "fine" and "pop culture" in the same sentence, unless the sentence is something like, "That's a fine load of <span style="font-style: italic;">pop culture</span> you've managed to land us in this time." Nevertheless, I was bored, and there was a cool picture of Superman next to it, so I thought, "meh..." and clicked. (I was actually more intrigued by the picture of Dr. Horrible next to the story immediately underneath it. Apparently, there's going to be a <a href="http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2009/11/10-geeky-things-to-be-thankful-for/">sequel</a> to <span style="font-style: italic;">Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog</span>! Huzzah! I say.)<br /><br />There's actually some interesting stuff on that list of pop culture. But the one that caught my eye was for an episode of the latest Batman animated TV series, <span style="font-style: italic;">Batman: The Brave and the Bold</span>. Now, the title itself does nothing for me, sounding too much like that of a soap opera. But the Wired write-up of this particular episode made me cock my Spock-brow:<br /><blockquote>After decades of taking the animated Dark Knight deeper into the shadows, Warner Bros. lightened things up with this bright series, which is resiliently clever. Nowhere is its broad, demographic-crushing appeal more brilliant than in this musical episode, which features the vocal acrobatics of the resurgent Neil Patrick Harris as the Music Meister, a villain who can send humanity into a trance by singing (mostly about himself). Ranging from outright cheese to subversive comedy, “Mayhem of the Music Meister” found Batman hitting the high notes, literally, while beating back a horde of ballet-dancing supervillains and superheroes, all while sampling iconography from Milos Forman’s Amadeus to Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns. Best animated hero worship of the year, hands-down. —Scott Thill </blockquote><br />O.M.G. An episode of Batman... done as a musical? All the superheros and supervillains singing and dancing? Subversive cheesiness? I. Am. So. There. So I clicked on it, and had a big dopey grin on my face for the next twenty-three minutes or so.<br /><br /><object bgcolor="#000000" width="410" height="341"><param name="movie" value="http://www.veoh.com/static/swf/webplayer/WebPlayer.swf?permalinkId=v192822022sc45ehc&player=videodetailsembedded&videoAutoPlay=0&id=anonymous"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.veoh.com/static/swf/webplayer/WebPlayer.swf?permalinkId=v192822022sc45ehc&player=videodetailsembedded&videoAutoPlay=0&id=anonymous" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" bgcolor="#000000" allowfullscreen="true" width="410" height="341"></embed></object><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">View More <a href="http://www.veoh.com/">Free Videos Online at Veoh.com</a></span><br /><br />I especially liked Batman's deadpanned line at the end of the "Death Trap" song about halfway through.<br /><br />I remember, as a kid, that occasionally the powers-that-be would do something weird like this in one of the cartoons that I watched at the time, and I always found it hokey to the point of being <span style="font-style: italic;">totally embarrassing</span>. <span style="font-style: italic;">Why do they do stuff like this? Don't they know how dorky it is?</span> And then I grew up, and discovered that these were often the only episodes of the cartoons in question with <span style="font-style: italic;">anything</span> like a long-term redeeming quality. By the way, this includes the "Kill the Wabbit" Bugs Bunny/Elmer Fudd episode, which in hindsight (and a bit more immersion in the lore of Wagner) becomes freakin' brilliant.<br /><br />Anyway, this is the kind of episode that I once would have totally embarrassed me by its sublime dorkiness. So I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. :)Timothy Powerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081922327870257027noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4048186698864359724.post-61365707348294672822009-11-16T19:31:00.000-08:002009-11-16T19:32:53.559-08:00A Sign That Our Daughter's Moral Training Is Not Complete...From the Adrenaline Junkie (Age 4.9):<br /><br />"Sometimes I feel like... like... like I don't have enough things."Timothy Powerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081922327870257027noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4048186698864359724.post-57420144963839744092009-11-14T09:00:00.000-08:002009-11-14T09:09:35.464-08:00Where the Heck do They Learn These T hings?So the Happy Boy, still aged two, just ran up to me.<br /><br />And, of course, being two, he made absolutely no attempt to stop.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Whump</span>.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"Ow</span>", I explained, somewhat annoyed. "Why did you just do that?"<br /><br />And my two-year-old boy, who's not yet speaking in complete sentences, looked straight up into my eyes, and sweetly explained:<br /><br />"Torture Daddy."<br /><br />Where the heck do they pick these things up? He's <span style="font-style: italic;">two,</span> and he already has a firm grasp of the term torture.<br /><br />And although he can't pronounce it yet, it appears he also has down the concept of "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortification_of_the_flesh#Examples_of_mortification_of_the_flesh_in_Christian_history">mortification of the flesh</a>", as we just caught him intentionally (and happily) running headfirst into the cabinets....Timothy Powerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081922327870257027noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4048186698864359724.post-60012848718359283232009-11-12T21:45:00.000-08:002009-11-12T23:18:54.200-08:00A Tale of Time TravelSaw something recently that tickled my funny bone, in an intellectual sort of way, and thought I'd share it with y'all.<br /><br />Background: My wife has somewhat unusual tastes in entertainment fare, when compared with most of female-kind in this country. She's one of those types highly-sought-after by us geeks, who actually enjoys science fiction. She once went to a Star Trek convention, and was <span style="font-style: italic;">mistaken </span>for being in costume. Yup, she had just dressed in what for her was normal street-clothes, which happened to consist of a very 80's-style red jumpsuit with black turtleneck and black boots, and she just <span style="font-style: italic;">happened </span>to be mistaken for one of the women in Khan's posse....<br /><br />Okay, she enjoys more than just science fiction; she has enough girlyness in her that she occasionally watches the 5-hour BBC Pride & Prejudice miniseries that we have on DVD. Still, she doesn't usually go for the really weepy stuff. She likes explosions.<br /><br />And big muscles.<br /><br />(Hmm. Makes me wonder... How'd she wind up with me? Must be the potential for explosions....)<br /><br /><br />...<br /><br /><br />Ahem. Anyway, her favorite sci-fi sub-genre is Time Travel. Yup, she loves stories where people go back in time and accidentally cause themselves not to be born. Or they become their own parents or something. Pretty much, the more convoluted the story, the more it makes your mind bend just thinking about how they got themselves into this mess, or how they're going to get out of it by the end of the hour, and she's there. She was a big fan of the time travel stories on Star Trek; she was a big fan of Dr. Who; and she <span style="font-style: italic;">loved</span> Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (a judgment with which I heartily concur).<br /><br />So of course, I had to share the following news with her when I saw it online the last few days. It gave her a bit of a smile. Hopefully it'll do the same for you.<br /><br /><br />...<br /><br /><br />But first, I have to pose a time-travel thought experiment.<br /><br />Suppose someone builds a time machine, and uses it to go back into the past. What would happen?<br /><br />Well, there are two schools of thought. One is that the timeline doesn't change, because everything the time traveler does when he gets to the past <span style="font-style: italic;">already</span> happened. If the time traveler loses his wedding ring in the past, his contemporaries from his home year will be able to find it exactly where he lost it. In fact, someone may have found it already, in the intervening years between when the time traveler lost it in the past, and when he started out on that journey in the future. Under this school of thought, the time traveller can't do anything that wasn't already done before.<br /><br />A good movie that appears to take this approach is Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. ("Trash can... remember a <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096928/quotes">trash can</a>!")<br /><br />The other school of thought is that the time traveler <span style="font-style: italic;">can</span> in fact change the past, and by doing so will change the future. This is the school of thought on display in the Back to the Future movies. Marty has to fix the past before he goes home to the future; otherwise, since he accidentally broke up his parents, he would cease to exist.<br /><br />Oops.<br /><br />Well, just for kicks and giggles, let's assume that the latter of these scenarios is true--that a time traveler from the future <span style="font-style: italic;">can</span> change the past to something different from what happened in the time traveler's history. What then?<br /><br />Since I'm a geek, allow me to go to the diagram.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxo3xYl3ACZOP8_8nwoNEnXzwej7hKTJTMZwESUBrurscyxazdRI0GEzAVcpdY2WBGNBU3LwT6ydf_X0I7ajE-xo6Rd2k2FUwwy8jYo7loczgk040fy2h1L3OaECUKtieTFPUZzie1zLE/s1600-h/TimeTravel1.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 127px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxo3xYl3ACZOP8_8nwoNEnXzwej7hKTJTMZwESUBrurscyxazdRI0GEzAVcpdY2WBGNBU3LwT6ydf_X0I7ajE-xo6Rd2k2FUwwy8jYo7loczgk040fy2h1L3OaECUKtieTFPUZzie1zLE/s400/TimeTravel1.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5403470725968864466" border="0" /></a>Let's say the above diagram represents a time-line. Now, let's say that a time travel experiment is started up that makes changes in the past.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1lG-2u64lZKzNB0bdvToRbcbk-LHpvdwCwpZnRK6uwLAf3MKgeEOB50wFOmOzWRhiP8ZfnWA11fZMfgz2RgUQHNbOWjHj9C4Tehmo85KmKPeuo-Lk9VMA_csxMZuhuGjGyZqBNwibU9k/s1600-h/TimeTravel2.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 127px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1lG-2u64lZKzNB0bdvToRbcbk-LHpvdwCwpZnRK6uwLAf3MKgeEOB50wFOmOzWRhiP8ZfnWA11fZMfgz2RgUQHNbOWjHj9C4Tehmo85KmKPeuo-Lk9VMA_csxMZuhuGjGyZqBNwibU9k/s400/TimeTravel2.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5403470623418520034" border="0" /></a>So far, so good. The trouble is, since the past has changed, that means that the timeline diverges; from the moment in the past that the time travel experiment makes something <span style="font-style: italic;">different</span> happen than what went before, the time line has changed--and the remainder of the original timeline, the one on top in these diagrams, never happened.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrARJ2DhtgDhpFJkONeecaqMXaucSSkANEjuq44vVw1vulLExW2hjk0tzA1g7GHd298kKSRt9udX_HlppeEKbp4wCbkYGjwIaIzZwBdgQfSawr_1F0Jbao4-dGeE0ArNPUEh5BMQhBJ_o/s1600-h/TimeTravel3.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 127px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrARJ2DhtgDhpFJkONeecaqMXaucSSkANEjuq44vVw1vulLExW2hjk0tzA1g7GHd298kKSRt9udX_HlppeEKbp4wCbkYGjwIaIzZwBdgQfSawr_1F0Jbao4-dGeE0ArNPUEh5BMQhBJ_o/s400/TimeTravel3.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5403470620657792626" border="0" /></a>So really, only the bottom timeline exists anymore. And it is identical to the first timeline, up until the point where the time traveling object appears (seemingly out of nowhere, as observed by people in the past). From that point on, the timelines start to diverge.<br /><br />Now here's where the fun begins. The timeline is now proceeding differently than it did before. This may in fact cause changes to the circumstances of the time travel experiment itself! What happens then? Well, that experiment will then be run at a slightly different time, and send its payload to a slightly different time in the past, causing yet <span style="font-style: italic;">another</span> timeline to form (and voiding the remainder of the timeline we just constructed, too). And then <span style="font-style: italic;">this</span> timeline will cause changes to the circumstances of the time travel experiment, causing yet more changes in the past....<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjAIDhkt627BPxrGtTD8cJRfusCxGyDJ3RQLrOvIhPFsdQ2F3Az4-ZhxA4G1VTXuXB-B59jiYUf1tTCbGHYFRqUyjhRmjy3Q7cxeBZsQOFjCffJx9YV3D4ng9mZWg4UgUjtvF5OQUtR_I/s1600-h/TimeTravel4.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 188px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjAIDhkt627BPxrGtTD8cJRfusCxGyDJ3RQLrOvIhPFsdQ2F3Az4-ZhxA4G1VTXuXB-B59jiYUf1tTCbGHYFRqUyjhRmjy3Q7cxeBZsQOFjCffJx9YV3D4ng9mZWg4UgUjtvF5OQUtR_I/s400/TimeTravel4.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5403470614250289266" border="0" /></a>Now, it seems to me that these alterations to the past timeline would <span style="font-style: italic;">accumulate</span>; they wouldn't necessarily void each other. If the first experiment puts a bowling ball back through time, that changes the timeline; then the <span style="font-style: italic;">next</span> iteration puts a nectarine through instead, what then? Well, since the timelines are identical up until the point in time that the time travel causes them to diverge, it means all the old alterations would still be there as well--including the bowling ball. (Though I'm certainly open to the idea that someone with greater powers of logic than me will come along and contradict this point. If I'm really lucky, maybe he'll come from the future!)<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMADrDhE8iOBRGKFqblbjWlF7KmrMWze_MClsrHEEIscBkHu5wjbYpUl_nPDHzfK9_qm9U1TVzzrDIvqvS46mdnexrqHegFAghYjGI2lTWXw9fUtpAgiNL7XQDj8FH6oMevUBU6naKfeE/s1600-h/TimeTravel5.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 188px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMADrDhE8iOBRGKFqblbjWlF7KmrMWze_MClsrHEEIscBkHu5wjbYpUl_nPDHzfK9_qm9U1TVzzrDIvqvS46mdnexrqHegFAghYjGI2lTWXw9fUtpAgiNL7XQDj8FH6oMevUBU6naKfeE/s400/TimeTravel5.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5403470611639769554" border="0" /></a>So what's left? Well here's the catch. Ever heard of the "Butterfly Effect"? Any change to a chaotic system, no matter how minor, causes little changes... which cause bigger changes... which eventually cause the system to look completely different than it would otherwise have been. This has long been a bugaboo in the world of weather forecasting. The problem is that weather systems are so sensitive to initial conditions, that missing the tiniest cause--like the flap of a butterfly's wings--will eventually cause the predictive model to yield wildly inaccurate results. The addition of that butterfly's wing flap could result in a hurricane showing up at a different time and place than it otherwise would have, for instance.<br /><br />But don't we have the same thing in time travel? One minor change sends out eddies and ripples into the timeline, which grow--uncorrected--until the future looks nothing at all like it would otherwise have been. And this huge loop of time-travel changes, with each iteration changing the past, and in turn changing itself, would be dumping an <span style="font-style: italic;">awful lot</span> of unpredictable, disruptive factors into the past.<br /><br />Eventually, <span style="font-style: italic;">something</span> is going to break. Rather, one of these changes will--through random chance--cause a tornado to hit the time travel research lab. Or will cause the wrong congressman to win the election, who decides to cut the research funding. Or will cause a giant fire-breathing turtle to appear and devour the lead scientist.<br /><br />After all, this time-travel cycle can happen an arbitrary number of times, and is guaranteed to go on until the cycle is broken--by some sequence of events that <span style="font-style: italic;">stops the experiments</span>. Then, you have a stable timeline, with no more loops.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEAlEMXFzb5osGkEgXJFsks44RI4t0avHC9_sTUQCA5O9csrPc92pdeSf9suOPLhieL_Zn5NM3QSvdgaL-Fg-_F_QcJ0aMIFIeBctfq6cW-fIy-Lo7_soq5l6zl0J7RezQvAItQ4zmUFM/s1600-h/TimeTravel6.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 129px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEAlEMXFzb5osGkEgXJFsks44RI4t0avHC9_sTUQCA5O9csrPc92pdeSf9suOPLhieL_Zn5NM3QSvdgaL-Fg-_F_QcJ0aMIFIeBctfq6cW-fIy-Lo7_soq5l6zl0J7RezQvAItQ4zmUFM/s400/TimeTravel6.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5403470607403407026" border="0" /></a>Now, this timeline will have a lot of seemingly-odd, highly coincidental events in it, that to an objective observer just seem to conspire to shut down the experiment. Like that out of season tornado, followed by that crooked election, followed by that fire-breathing turtle. The observer might be tempted to think that God doesn't actually <span style="font-style: italic;">want</span> us to discover time travel, right?<br /><br />Either that, or God has an absolutely <span style="font-style: italic;">wicked</span> sense of humor. And He's into slapstick.<br /><br /><br />...<br /><br /><br />So what would these "highly coincidental" events look like in real life, that would prevent time travel from happening?<br /><br />Well, it might look a little like <a href="http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2009-11/bread-loving-bird-shuts-down-lhc">this</a>.<br /><blockquote>Baguette Dropped From Bird's Beak Shuts Down The Large Hadron Collider (Really)<br /><br />The Large Hadron Collider, the world's most powerful particle accelerator, just cannot catch a break. First, a coolant leak destroyed some of the magnets that guide the energy beam. Then LHC officials postponed the restart of the machine to add additional safety features. Now, a bird dropping a piece of bread on a section of the accelerator has, according to the Register, shut down the whole operation.<br /><br />...<br /><br />With freak accident after freak accident piling up over at CERN, the idea of time traveling particles returning from the future to prevent their own discovery is beginning to seem less and less far fetched.<br /></blockquote><br />Incidentally, I loved the comments on this article. I got a particularly good laugh from <a href="http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2009-11/bread-loving-bird-shuts-down-lhc#comment-46308">this one</a> by HyMinded:<br /><span class="submitted"></span><blockquote><span class="submitted">11/05/09 at 11:10 pm </span> <p>The bird's briefing:</p> <p>The approach will not be easy. You are required to maneuver straight down this trench and skim the surface to this point. The target area is only two meters wide. It's a small thermal exhaust port, right below the main port. The shaft leads directly to the reactor system. A precise hit will start a chain reaction which should destroy the station.</p></blockquote><br />...<br /><br /><br />But what's <span style="font-style: italic;">really</span> funny to me--partly in a "ha-ha" kind of way, and partly in the Spock-eyebrow-amused kind of way, is just how many serious scientists are taking this kind of reasoning seriously. After all, my little exposition up above seems pretty tongue-in-cheek to <span style="font-style: italic;">me</span>, but apparently no one can find the logical flaw in the thing that can break the whole argument down. Take a look at <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20091111/wl_time/08599193737000">this article</a> from Time describing the same incident, and tell me if that isn't the case.<br /><blockquote>While most scientists would write off the event as a freak accident, two esteemed physicists have formulated a theory that suggests an alternative explanation: perhaps a time-traveling bird was sent from the future to sabotage the experiment. Bech Nielsen of the <span style="background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; cursor: pointer; -moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-origin: padding; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous;" class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1257983346_2">Niels Bohr Institute</span> in Copenhagen and Masao Ninomiya of the <span style="background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; cursor: pointer; -moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-origin: padding; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous;" class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1257983346_3">Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics</span> in Kyoto, Japan, have published several papers over the past year arguing that the CERN experiment may be the latest in a series of physics research projects whose purposes are so unacceptable to the universe that they are doomed to fail, subverted by the future.<br /><br />...But ever since the British physicist Peter Higgs first postulated the existence of the [Higgs Boson] in 1964, attempts to capture the particle have failed, and often for unexpected, seemingly inexplicable reasons...<br /><br />In a series of audacious papers, Nielsen and Ninomiya have suggested that setbacks to the LHC occur because of "reverse chronological causation," which is to say, sabotage from the future. The papers suggest that the Higgs boson may be "abhorrent to nature" and the LHC's creation of the Higgs sometime in the future sends ripples backward through time to scupper its own creation. Each time scientists are on the verge of capturing the Higgs, the theory holds, the future intercedes. The theory as to why the universe rejects the creation of Higgs bosons is based on complex mathematics, but, Nielsen tells TIME, "you could explain it [simply] by saying that God, in inverted commas, or nature, hates the Higgs and tries to avoid them."<br /></blockquote>Yeah. That and the fire-breathing turtles.Timothy Powerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081922327870257027noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4048186698864359724.post-73348367765859139152009-11-05T08:16:00.000-08:002009-11-05T08:21:38.281-08:00What I've Been Doing All SummerDon't have a whole lot of time to post now, but I know that there are a whole bunch of people out there who've been wanting to see this. I might update this post a little later with more details about my little girl's Wood Elf outfit...<br /><br />Behold, the Adrenaline Junkie's Halloween costume:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCyRykd_qJ73jdYCBIvjwPLEiOM47Ww428g3WLutaB8rmDfyJnNfeZ83yQ2kpD4dqhIOox1tsyD1y8e_2wG4lb8NXVe7-1ZSADWc7BQDq9iKxBxZ5ZleKnGxESoPtiy4pesr66BL_kCQo/s1600-h/Elf1.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 192px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCyRykd_qJ73jdYCBIvjwPLEiOM47Ww428g3WLutaB8rmDfyJnNfeZ83yQ2kpD4dqhIOox1tsyD1y8e_2wG4lb8NXVe7-1ZSADWc7BQDq9iKxBxZ5ZleKnGxESoPtiy4pesr66BL_kCQo/s400/Elf1.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5400655194081938530" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuoODeQFwdAtYeCBkbIx6g1S4pKRZdXi6Op2k-iW7pkcn8ppjnB2NiKqn5fNUpk1Y3BsnHszmptsugwyvfUv46cYtjf-pnr8go7-vg9fVhIS8B5lUj0rculKvEZBAj-sqQsxGImTVpoys/s1600-h/Elf3.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuoODeQFwdAtYeCBkbIx6g1S4pKRZdXi6Op2k-iW7pkcn8ppjnB2NiKqn5fNUpk1Y3BsnHszmptsugwyvfUv46cYtjf-pnr8go7-vg9fVhIS8B5lUj0rculKvEZBAj-sqQsxGImTVpoys/s400/Elf3.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5400655181580693058" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTq6OPgBBI0-6DApr731HclsKynZWP6icCJg74vGh7jLwc7mLuHxb8VRgw_I8OKJ-75idiV6wxxvP0OTCJIZ3HvROXAiB4w9E7zLT8USvSytLuIYYCGkemxJwsZtXbhP7keTOfD3xjJC4/s1600-h/Elf4.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTq6OPgBBI0-6DApr731HclsKynZWP6icCJg74vGh7jLwc7mLuHxb8VRgw_I8OKJ-75idiV6wxxvP0OTCJIZ3HvROXAiB4w9E7zLT8USvSytLuIYYCGkemxJwsZtXbhP7keTOfD3xjJC4/s400/Elf4.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5400655180593210386" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt3D1rYF7CBfDD0935Nl_YHt8zVSRAIfLCcVwnhTuYvB37csDBeTw0Ium67FGBYgw2wU7mHcMSJIqJDvOt9iQ4ImRriHKVoL5YlK4cUkkzka9qDoqL6kZ8W39Uqy7vqtNzshb4WwlkuUg/s1600-h/Elf2.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 185px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt3D1rYF7CBfDD0935Nl_YHt8zVSRAIfLCcVwnhTuYvB37csDBeTw0Ium67FGBYgw2wU7mHcMSJIqJDvOt9iQ4ImRriHKVoL5YlK4cUkkzka9qDoqL6kZ8W39Uqy7vqtNzshb4WwlkuUg/s400/Elf2.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5400655173692737906" border="0" /></a>Timothy Powerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081922327870257027noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4048186698864359724.post-80107451954225848142009-10-02T22:39:00.000-07:002009-10-02T23:09:33.842-07:00Assume a Perfectly Spherical WomanNo, that wouldn't actually be anyone I know. It's a little like that Perfectly Frictionless Ice that they keep asking you about in physics class--it doesn't exist in the real world, but <span style="font-style: italic;">assuming</span> it does actually allows you to solve the math problem.<br /><br />Well, I'm not sure this counts as an end to my months-long blogging hiatus, but I thought I'd pass along a bit of a Public Service Announcement:<br /><br /><a href="http://improbable.com/ig/winners/#ig2009">The 2009 Ig Nobel awards have been announced!</a> This is usually the scientific highlight of my year, and this year has some good ones. Perhaps not as good as last years study of how the analysis of archaeology sites--and our reconstruction of ancient history--can be scrambled by the actions of a live armadillo, but pretty good nonetheless:<br /><br /><blockquote>PEACE PRIZE: Stephan Bolliger, Steffen Ross, Lars Oesterhelweg, Michael Thali and Beat Kneubuehl of the University of Bern, Switzerland, for determining — by experiment — whether it is better to be smashed over the head with a full bottle of beer or with an empty bottle.<br />REFERENCE: "Are Full or Empty Beer Bottles Sturdier and Does Their Fracture-Threshold Suffice to Break the Human Skull?" Stephan A. Bolliger, Steffen Ross, Lars Oesterhelweg, Michael J. Thali and Beat P. Kneubuehl, Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine...<br /><br />CHEMISTRY PRIZE: Javier Morales, Miguel Apátiga, and Victor M. Castaño of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, for creating diamonds from liquid — specifically from tequila.<br />REFERENCE: "Growth of Diamond Films from Tequila," Javier Morales, Miguel Apatiga and Victor M. Castano...<br /><br />MEDICINE PRIZE: Donald L. Unger, of Thousand Oaks, California, USA, for investigating a possible cause of arthritis of the fingers, by diligently cracking the knuckles of his left hand — but never cracking the knuckles of his right hand — every day for more than sixty (60) years.<br />REFERENCE: "Does Knuckle Cracking Lead to Arthritis of the Fingers?", Donald L. Unger, Arthritis and Rheumatism...</blockquote>And here is the one that inspired the title of this post:<br /><blockquote>PHYSICS PRIZE: Katherine K. Whitcome of the University of Cincinnati, USA, Daniel E. Lieberman of Harvard University, USA, and Liza J. Shapiro of the University of Texas, USA, for analytically determining why pregnant women don't tip over.<br />REFERENCE: "Fetal Load and the Evolution of Lumbar Lordosis in Bipedal Hominins," Katherine K. Whitcome, Liza J. Shapiro & Daniel E. Lieberman, Nature...</blockquote>You know, I've always kinda wondered about that myself. I suppose I'd just assumed their physics resembled those of those old <a href="http://sites.google.com/site/weebleswobblecollection/">Weebles</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weeble">toys</a> from way back when I was a kid.<br /><br />For obvious reasons, there are some fun pictures at the Ig Nobel site (and elsewhere, all over the 'net) of this last one being demonstrated:<br /><blockquote>PUBLIC HEALTH PRIZE: Elena N. Bodnar, Raphael C. Lee, and Sandra Marijan of Chicago, Illinois, USA, for inventing a brassiere that, in an emergency, can be quickly converted into a pair of face masks, one for the brassiere wearer and one to be given to some needy bystander.<br />REFERENCE: U.S. patent # 7255627, granted August 14, 2007 for a “Garment Device Convertible to One or More Facemasks.”</blockquote>Well, of <span style="font-style: italic;">course</span> you need two. After all, only half the population is female...<br /><br /><br />...<br /><br /><br />As I said, I'm not sure this post heralds the end of my blogging hiatus. I actually like having that extra time in the evenings to do stuff. And I am doing stuff! Some time, of course, is spent doing the chainmaille that will become the Adrenaline Junkie's Halloween costume (which is shaping up to be <span style="font-style: italic;">totally awesome</span>); but I also started up an exercise routine about last May or so, that has knocked about 10% off my weight. And it has just been plain <span style="font-style: italic;">nice</span> to be able to sit around and not worry about whether I needed to get online to <span style="font-style: italic;">feed the beast</span> tonight.<br /><br />But I'll eventually get around to that post on Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems I've been meaning to do for aeons.Timothy Powerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081922327870257027noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4048186698864359724.post-34286759093378159502009-06-21T22:04:00.000-07:002009-06-21T23:19:29.395-07:00Building the Home ArmoryOk, so I haven't blogged since sometime in May--and even then it was a bunch of odd limericks.<br /><br />But, things haven't been slow around the house. We have in fact been busy with a bunch of other stuff--everything from lawn work, to new exercise and diet stuff (which I <span style="font-style: italic;">might</span> blog about, if another bout of blog ennui doesn't set in), to dress-making, to...<br /><br />Yup, my new (and rather expensive) hobby:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjB6Vh1QD1RIo6dFz1xzJnXeTFCvoTenoBvjrOEex8DVN1cShLqIK-_US-6ZJsRY_RbG_tysAQeaaqDq4yh3nx-vmoryHp1nq5ZFrPifPgLT6yKryvYiwZ-vvZWNXJ3A2IVP7nz_1SCE4/s1600-h/Armor1.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 270px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjB6Vh1QD1RIo6dFz1xzJnXeTFCvoTenoBvjrOEex8DVN1cShLqIK-_US-6ZJsRY_RbG_tysAQeaaqDq4yh3nx-vmoryHp1nq5ZFrPifPgLT6yKryvYiwZ-vvZWNXJ3A2IVP7nz_1SCE4/s400/Armor1.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350015814579986530" border="0" /></a>Dressing my toddler in maille.<br /><br />What you see in the above photo is my little kid wearing his hauberk for the first time. It wasn't actually the first time I'd <span style="font-style: italic;">tried</span> to get him in it; this was just the first time he actually cooperated. And let me tell you, you think it's hard getting an uncooperative toddler in his <span style="font-style: italic;">PJs</span>? PJs are a <span style="font-style: italic;">cinch</span> next to that thing. If he doesn't want to wear it, it ain't going on.<br /><br />Well, I actually got him in it, and took a few pictures, and was feeling very, very happy. So! I pulled down one of the helmets and one of the swords I'd made <a href="http://tdpower.blogspot.com/2007/09/ride-of-funny-hat-brigade.html">way back in late 2007</a>, and got them on him. Let me tell you, he was noble, he was gallant, he was cute as a button! So I tried to take another picture, and <span style="font-style: italic;">the camera chose that exact moment to tell me that the battery was dead.</span> Figures. Immediately after that, he pulled off the helmet, dropped the mighty blade Årþørsgrößtetüðpik, and ran off to go do one of those things that toddlers are always running off to go do. The moment was lost. Sigh. I've never since been able to get him back in the whole get-up.<br /><br />But! Some time after the camera's battery was re-charged, I corralled his four-year-old sister and dressed <span style="font-style: italic;">her</span> up in the whole getup. Behold my midget valkyrie:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir6MLq8jN8OhCv8b_kBooMJbT2xAoaESP-BrvzhMYYttOL4YrHgyPPeFMZIOsGvlJ2hAEeKsywkrKoCOTd8LV1rUWEZaU3oB64UeYmWBeopsjsXOAkQBGTwyBxwO-OJU4_jhKoGvPq4WA/s1600-h/Armor2.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 276px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir6MLq8jN8OhCv8b_kBooMJbT2xAoaESP-BrvzhMYYttOL4YrHgyPPeFMZIOsGvlJ2hAEeKsywkrKoCOTd8LV1rUWEZaU3oB64UeYmWBeopsjsXOAkQBGTwyBxwO-OJU4_jhKoGvPq4WA/s400/Armor2.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350015819495523730" border="0" /></a>With pineapples on her PJs. Very apropos.<br /><br />Hm... That's very nice and all, but at some point I'm going to have to make a coif with mantle. That neck looks pretty vulnerable.<br /><br />Ok. Well, one thing about making maille is that you never know in advance how it's going to turn out; and when I tried it on the kids, I discovered that it needed a fair amount of adjustment. The seams under the arms pulled a lot of slack out of the chain pattern, and made the armholes too tight. And the neck was too big. The trouble with toddlers (<span style="font-style: italic;">one</span> trouble with toddlers, actually) is that they have really big heads (proportionately), and really narrow shoulders. Any neckhole that's big enough to go around their heads, is also big enough to slip off their shoulders and make it look as if they're wearing strapless gowns. And let me tell you, strapless gowns would be a big hit on a medieval battlefield.<br /><br />But one <span style="font-style: italic;">other</span> thing about making maille is that you can always go back and change it after the fact. It's not like cutting cloth, where after the cloth is cut you can never put it back the way it was; with chain, you just add more until you have what you want. So, I started doing ad-hoc modifications until I had it the way I wanted it. I added some width to the arms, I built up the neck, and I added a slit in back (with clasps) so that the head could make it through the newer, tighter neck-hole.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhorzI-AV0F9aLVrkXeQXA432k7cW9CDK5inT9VqahRHqW-7qjngWTGBkT0BCxErLoC17g6iOiHtqu3WdUpjv1ILIfvjd8qo6UlTMQtg3ZUqqoM9xrUX0Ybl_WmHdB7HMuK9aAJrjMWFzY/s1600-h/Armor3.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 255px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhorzI-AV0F9aLVrkXeQXA432k7cW9CDK5inT9VqahRHqW-7qjngWTGBkT0BCxErLoC17g6iOiHtqu3WdUpjv1ILIfvjd8qo6UlTMQtg3ZUqqoM9xrUX0Ybl_WmHdB7HMuK9aAJrjMWFzY/s400/Armor3.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350015822234163906" border="0" /></a>And here the little knight is, doing something a little more studious than his normal dragon-slaying maiden-chasing routine.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2cTdfV8B3aYp6XdV8GqgBq1X8OtOQc082MrgO4q_E2donrBZHVgs-Bl0nDmiRzvbxh0pJRhiRmIUlIO3nXtDod7ff_NyM5bOj8hMy_lVWhAhjYcOrXwDc5I5iPtCWeLbIeHy9MhwHQfg/s1600-h/Armor4.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 265px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2cTdfV8B3aYp6XdV8GqgBq1X8OtOQc082MrgO4q_E2donrBZHVgs-Bl0nDmiRzvbxh0pJRhiRmIUlIO3nXtDod7ff_NyM5bOj8hMy_lVWhAhjYcOrXwDc5I5iPtCWeLbIeHy9MhwHQfg/s400/Armor4.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350015825889090850" border="0" /></a>And here he is looking for dragons under the dining room table. Nope, no dragons here, but there are some maidens lurking about in the shadows...<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgc2fIv7fbWu7WT_a6K1Pp43jUueMaIObkrxHwx64_Staz-qeSPbztHEQmlc0b_SgDY29g5CXukNiDnhz7qsL0M8_Fm2SeUld1ejhSZkzyO-ymvILSZsA3QKCqz5z_qRdD-HIrktfoqVE/s1600-h/Armor6.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 242px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgc2fIv7fbWu7WT_a6K1Pp43jUueMaIObkrxHwx64_Staz-qeSPbztHEQmlc0b_SgDY29g5CXukNiDnhz7qsL0M8_Fm2SeUld1ejhSZkzyO-ymvILSZsA3QKCqz5z_qRdD-HIrktfoqVE/s400/Armor6.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350015579966897266" border="0" /></a>And here's the full get-up by itself.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtRMyCvkqbF2u1q8sX2U5QfMMpEu1Dff8l2vvQ02nJsfW_lAaVJE6-1p3PaKbrBQ4DbxHg5I0oOrN9uCDLu5uhwBflOE7aSswwPi9hqMQ-YpS6pw5YfWPGIoKejo4sgTudFP1typc4WZc/s1600-h/Armor5.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 249px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtRMyCvkqbF2u1q8sX2U5QfMMpEu1Dff8l2vvQ02nJsfW_lAaVJE6-1p3PaKbrBQ4DbxHg5I0oOrN9uCDLu5uhwBflOE7aSswwPi9hqMQ-YpS6pw5YfWPGIoKejo4sgTudFP1typc4WZc/s400/Armor5.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350015826759393938" border="0" /></a>I've actually added a few rows to the torso since this picture was taken, so it's a bit longer now. I'm thinking I'll keep adding a little at a time for now, until it gets to just above the knee, or until I run out of rings. Gotta protect the family jewels, and all.<br /><br />And in case you're wondering, it's made out of "bright" aluminum--it's an aluminum alloy that contains some magnesium and some other stuff to slow it's tarnish rate. It's <span style="font-style: italic;">very</span> shiny. The shirt weighs something less than four pounds. If it were made of stainless steel instead, it would weigh three times as much, and my little knight would be pinned to the floor.<br /><br />...<br /><br /><br />Ok, so that project is pretty much done, aside from the constant after-tweaking that we arteests can never seem to resist doing to our works. Now what?<br /><br />Well....<br /><br />That picture of the mighty blade Årþørsgrößtetüðpik? Well... it's not looking like it's in too-good of a shape anymore. After all, blades made of cardboard don't last very long. Årþørsgrößtetüðpik and her sister blade Uncalibur-ated are more than a year-and-a-half old, which for cardboard blades is something like 173 in dog-years. It was time to get some new swords.<br /><br />But the thing is, you don't want your kids injuring each other, so you need to find something either really lightweight, or really foam-like. Now, there are various piratey-looking swords out there, but they don't actually <span style="font-style: italic;">look</span> right with chainmaille. You want <span style="font-style: italic;">straight</span> swords for that kind of work--nice long ones, so the combatants can swing at each other while yelling taunts from Monty Python ("Tis but a flesh wound!" "What are you going to do, bleed on me?") (Which reminds me of <span style="font-style: italic;">another</span> bit of our cultural corpus I'm going to have to introduce them to someday....) Now, Nerf has a few foam swords out, and they are long, straight ones... but they have neon yellow and blue hilts, and look like they are straight out of some Manga comic (which they probably are).<br /><br />Nor could I find anything online that looked right.<br /><br />So?<br /><br />So I took a trip to the local hardware store, followed by the local fabric store, then came home, and....<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHkY7239HrnR5CIex4yAXh6qgfpJ-kBkoxWM6yStX15-BhphgLj00GhAeO7nZBLwyH-2HrgiHEr42jYQicGRwzH1wpIPgbPLinzMumqdvUcfl4shQLpPJY2FPkofqHLXyYSwgNhuuGwnA/s1600-h/Swords4.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 385px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHkY7239HrnR5CIex4yAXh6qgfpJ-kBkoxWM6yStX15-BhphgLj00GhAeO7nZBLwyH-2HrgiHEr42jYQicGRwzH1wpIPgbPLinzMumqdvUcfl4shQLpPJY2FPkofqHLXyYSwgNhuuGwnA/s400/Swords4.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350015568394838242" border="0" /></a>Is it just me, or does my wife look more enticing than usual tonight? There's just something about a woman with a big-ol' honkin' sword....<br /><br />(Now, if I could just get <span style="font-style: italic;">her</span> in maille, well... I'd be in absolute Valhalla.)<br /><br />Basically, I got a length of half-inch PVC pipe for the core, which I cut down to a decent length for blade-plus-hilt. I also got a length of wood with a square cross-section of 1.25", and cut that into pieces for the hand-guards and pommels. To make the blade, I wrapped the PVC pipe in thick foam padding, then wrapped the padding in duct tape; I inserted the hand guards and bolted them in place; then I wrapped the hilt in duct tape, put the pommel on the bottom, and bolted that on.<br /><br />The first sword I wrapped a bit too tightly. The foam is a wee bit too compressed, so it hits a bit harder than the other two. Somehow, the Pillowfight Fairy figured this out, and now, of the three swords, she wants to use <span style="font-style: italic;">that</span> one all the time. Go figure. We don't let her.<br /><br />(Incidentally, that's the one that Tonya is wielding in that picture above, with that smile on her face that says "The Beatings Will Now Begin". No wonder I think it's so sexy....)<br /><br />Ahem. Anyhoo, these swords are an absolute <span style="font-style: italic;">blast</span> to play with. The two girls and I had them outside earlier today, and they ganged up on me. You know, I may be bigger, stronger, and more coordinated than they are, but there are <span style="font-style: italic;">two</span> of them; and when they figured out that "<span style="font-style: italic;">We can attack him from opposite directions, at the same time!</span>" I really had to do some scrambling.<br /><br />I also showed them how to do a decent parry. Now, <span style="font-style: italic;">that's</span> a good Fathers' Day activity.<br /><br />Tonight as I was taking the pictures that follow, the girls were smacking each other silly--including one instance where the girls simultaneously raised their swords high up in the air, and then whapped each other clean on top of each other's heads. It was almost as though they'd choreographed it....<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3byyZNr8edgs-EIIOuOheaQscWmNqJuIqMC-qGl9-7fnqqKwjn4k8AmDGMMqtljv9I-CQBp0DIW4iXiLZXtvUEqqtto2MS93MePNb3rh5jwrwm3SM_TFlYpm2zfRmXPumzWWFmW57RRE/s1600-h/Swords1.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 370px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3byyZNr8edgs-EIIOuOheaQscWmNqJuIqMC-qGl9-7fnqqKwjn4k8AmDGMMqtljv9I-CQBp0DIW4iXiLZXtvUEqqtto2MS93MePNb3rh5jwrwm3SM_TFlYpm2zfRmXPumzWWFmW57RRE/s400/Swords1.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350015575778808162" border="0" /></a>Obviously, they have to treat them as two-handed swords. The swords are a little too heavy for them to use one-handed. I suspect, if they keep playing with them like this, that will change pretty quickly....<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRjXlacBVH8-yds9rb8iSj32DAM93zPwQKVNtf9zK3g7b_NWhYJpB9S_ijcwQRQ1voiY4K4N5IlpOMoJfCveRCTVENu-MxA8fA4lcBhQvFO6_awM2HHFl8ZPKYXLCNO0iixr0xftlJiyw/s1600-h/Swords2.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 353px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRjXlacBVH8-yds9rb8iSj32DAM93zPwQKVNtf9zK3g7b_NWhYJpB9S_ijcwQRQ1voiY4K4N5IlpOMoJfCveRCTVENu-MxA8fA4lcBhQvFO6_awM2HHFl8ZPKYXLCNO0iixr0xftlJiyw/s400/Swords2.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350015574935893090" border="0" /></a>It was rather funny. At one point the conversation sounded like this:<br /><blockquote>Fairy (echoing Daddy from earlier in the day): "You need to learn how to parry."<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Whap.</span><br /><br />"See?"</blockquote><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUnqcbjyRosyTqZcnx6PX4uDFP6AqYRtHUDUHEt0ZtFzm2I4NNtu2WQj_2wC0XLQixh6RN7nCDZcGFsSb2l8KPIMoisE438PXl5m4wAVNem2jLCzEpssJNTy-luwdpsp4lJFMdxM7ImNE/s1600-h/Swords3.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 305px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUnqcbjyRosyTqZcnx6PX4uDFP6AqYRtHUDUHEt0ZtFzm2I4NNtu2WQj_2wC0XLQixh6RN7nCDZcGFsSb2l8KPIMoisE438PXl5m4wAVNem2jLCzEpssJNTy-luwdpsp4lJFMdxM7ImNE/s400/Swords3.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350015574163865106" border="0" /></a>Somehow I can't see this last picture without thinking to myself: "Luke... I am your father."<br /><br /><br />...<br /><br /><br />Ok, so what's next?<br /><br />Well, I still have a few (hundred, maybe thousand) rings to add to the torso of the Happy Boy's hauberk. After that, I have a new shipment of rings coming from <a href="http://theringlord.com/">The Ring Lord</a> with which to make an outfit for the Adrenaline Junkie. I've got this cute little idea planned out for a wood-elf outfit for her, to be made from aluminum rings that have been anodized to <span style="font-style: italic;">look</span> like bronze (but weigh only about three-tenths the amount), and from overlapping metallic scales of <span style="font-style: italic;">green</span> anodized aluminum.<br /><br />And as I said, this is a very expensive hobby. I need the Junkie's outfit to take a <span style="font-style: italic;">long</span> time to make... so that our finances can recover before I start making the Fairy's outfit. <span style="font-style: italic;">She's</span> actually wanting something in <span style="font-style: italic;">pink</span>.<br /><br />Did Valkyries ever wear pink?<br /><br />I think not. (Gag.)Timothy Powerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081922327870257027noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4048186698864359724.post-67203589020938941012009-05-27T21:07:00.000-07:002009-05-27T22:09:01.966-07:00Meine Gesamtkunstwerkpoesie ist VerpfuschtFunny how having a hobby like chainmail leads the minds in weird directions.<br /><br />I had a bit of a slow workday today, and my mind began to wander to about the third maille project I have planned after I finish the one I'm working on now. My daughters have decided they want maille dresses, of course; so I have to think of ways of making maille dresses for them that actually <span style="font-style: italic;">look </span>right. I mean, that's one heck of a novelty item, there; it's not likely they'll be wearing these things to church some bright and cheery Sunday morning. So I don't just think about the maille outfits themselves, I think about the <span style="font-style: italic;">whole ensemble</span>.<br /><br />Q: Why the heck would a girl be wearing chainmail?<br />A: <span style="font-style: italic;">Because she's a warrior maiden, darn it!</span><br /><br />So, the next question becomes: what kind of warrior maiden?<br /><br />Well, I have a cute little wood-elf outfit in mind for the Adrenaline Junkie, when I get done with the hauberk I'm making for the Happy Boy. But after that, for the Pillowfight Fairy?<br /><br />Gotta be a <a href="http://tdpower.blogspot.com/2007/09/more-than-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about.html">valkyrie</a>. <span style="font-style: italic;">Definitely</span> gotta be a valkyrie.<br /><br />Well, as I said, it was a slow day at work; and as I was sitting there in front of the glowing box, my mind started to move onto valkyries. And then I started thinking about Wagner's Ring Cycle, and about Brünhilde, and...<br /><br />See, now, this is the way my only-sometimes-coherent mind works:<br /><br />...and then I started to think of a limerick about Valkyries.<br /><br />?!?!?!?!<br /><br />Yup. Bet you never thought of that one before. A <span style="font-style: italic;">limerick</span>, of all things, for crying out loud? Wagner in his grave has just rolled over.<br /><br />Well, yes. After all, there's something subtly humorous about the Ring Cycle. It's so big, and so grand, and so darn <span style="font-style: italic;">serious</span>, that it walks very close to the edge of self-mockery. And it only takes a little push before it tips over--like that glorious "Kill the Wabbit" number that Warner Brothers did back in the sixties, that youtube has quite lamentably taken down for copyright reasons. I mean, photographs like <a href="http://www.cancellidiasgard.net/portale/images/stories/gallery/WotanFarewellBrunhildeS.jpg">this one</a> do tend to lend themselves to parody and ridicule, precisely <span style="font-style: italic;">because</span> the people therein take themselves so seriously.<br /><br />So--the limerick! Take a good long look at the photo at the link, try to ignore the fact that the bearded guy is Wotan (a bass) and not Siegfried (a <span style="font-style: italic;">heldentenor)</span>, and...<br /><br />...well, it works best when read out loud, very dramatically. Think William Shatner dramatic.<br /><blockquote>The young heldentenor, he <span style="font-style: italic;">swünz</span>,<br />At the song of great Hilde von Brün's;<br />With her spear, shield and armor<br />So nothing can harm her<br />Magnificent, iron <span style="font-style: italic;">ballünz.</span></blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"><br />[insert sound of record scratching...]</span><br /><br /><br />...<br /><br /><br />Ok, so much for my Gesamtkunstwerkpoesie. By this point I was in the rhyming mood. I was also approaching <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogons">Vogon</a> territory, but I was having fun.<br /><br />So!<br /><br />Well, I suppose I should have stopped, but I didn't. So somewhere from the depths of my head (depths of my <span style="font-style: italic;">head?</span>) I coaxed this one out, on a topic near and dear to my wife and me right about now:<br /><blockquote>A tutor who tuted the flute<br />Tried to tutor his toddler to <span style="font-style: italic;">pooot.</span><br />But the bairn loved the <span style="font-style: italic;">swooshie,</span><br />And quite feared the <span style="font-style: italic;">flooshie</span>,<br />So the toddler <span style="font-style: italic;">pooot</span> tut'ring was moot.</blockquote>And no, this limerick was not autobiographical. Not even in the slightest.<br /><br />Y'all are lucky that I decided not to rhyme <span style="font-style: italic;">flusher</span> with <span style="font-style: italic;">gusher</span>. I was tempted to, but that might have been pushing it a little too far. And the whole flusher/gusher thing isn't autobiographical, either. Nope. Not at all.<br /><br />Once upon a long time ago, I blogged a limerick I had thought up, and my sister-in-law (who had just had a long-distance online haiku contest with a friend) <a href="http://wpower.blogspot.com/2007/09/my-brother-in-law-is-brilliant.html">quipped:</a><br /><a href="http://tdpower.blogspot.com/2007/09/poetical-contemplation.html"></a><blockquote><a href="http://tdpower.blogspot.com/2007/09/poetical-contemplation.html">This</a> makes me think that a limerick contest with Tim would be inadvisable. </blockquote>I appreciate the sentiment, of course... but the more I write these things, the more I think that limerick contests are probably inadvisable under <span style="font-style: italic;">any</span> circumstances.<br /><br /><br />...<br /><br /><br />Which brings me to the third one. At this point I was almost but not quite rhymed out. And I was definitely in Vogon territory by now. So I thought of one that my mother most likely would approve of, as would my wife. The sentiment here should be well considered by anyone who decides to do limericking on the internet:<br /><blockquote>Don't advertise smut with a bugle!<br />With naughtiness one must be frugal.<br />Though your <span style="font-style: italic;">meaning</span> be mean,<br />Your <span style="font-style: italic;">words</span> must be clean--<br />Lest you draw all those perverts with Google.</blockquote>So that's probably it for one day. I'll try to be more productive at work tomorrow.<br /><br />P.S. Here's a little fun one I saw somewhere. Do I have any commenters that can interpret this one for me?<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivOJf7p04z_ro_GVfAOGgyDAF_WTsa9qCwKIuxhueVkeJkbNwiJ6_1f1CwN8ic9TT2wOm8tv18_SP9G1VH7HuK40dFYjt3bvNBwaH7fK7y9pibaZFt-G8Q203at3-7MOqamgS5ZLFSy3U/s1600-h/LimerickEquation.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 358px; height: 103px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivOJf7p04z_ro_GVfAOGgyDAF_WTsa9qCwKIuxhueVkeJkbNwiJ6_1f1CwN8ic9TT2wOm8tv18_SP9G1VH7HuK40dFYjt3bvNBwaH7fK7y9pibaZFt-G8Q203at3-7MOqamgS5ZLFSy3U/s400/LimerickEquation.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5340734974660723330" border="0" /></a>Timothy Powerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081922327870257027noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4048186698864359724.post-63421776649195663542009-05-26T21:34:00.000-07:002009-05-27T00:27:03.227-07:00Noble, But Doomed?Ok, so it's been another two weeks since I dressed Bob and Larry up in maille. And it's been a whole lot longer since I actually wrote something substantial about anything.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Does this mean you'll actually be writing something substantial tonight?<br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></span>Possibly. Although I'm not so sure it's all that substantial. Well, I think it's substantial, but I have a way of getting worked up over things that seem minor to everyone else around me. So what <span style="font-style: italic;">I </span>think of as substantial, winds up striking everyone else as mildly humorous, in a <span style="font-style: italic;">there he goes again</span> sort of way.<br /><br />But then, I suppose that the best way to entice me out of my blogging slump is to give me a news story that tickles one of my pet theories.<br /><br />(Man, Orwell would have hated that sentence. A person is slumping, so you entice him by ticking the theory he keeps as a pet....)<br /><br /><br />...<br /><br /><br />All Orwell aside, <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/26/tenth-amendment-movement-aims-power-states/?test=latestnews">here's</a> a news story I saw recently. I've actually seen similar things at other sites. But for those who don't want to plow through the article, there's a nascent political movement out there to try to bring back our Constitution's Tenth Amendment.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Tenth Amendment? What's <span style="font-weight: bold;">that</span>? And what do you mean, "bring back"? Where has it been hiding?</span><br /><br />It's this little inkblot* at the end of the Bill of Rights:<br /><blockquote>The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.</blockquote>If I recall my political history correctly (and I may not), it was added to the Bill of Rights to assuage a specific fear of the Federalists, thus gaining support for its passage. And this specific fear is actually a very interesting one.<br /><br />The Federalists opposed the Bill of Rights on two major grounds: first, they believed that it would be unnecessary. Since the national government would be a republic answerable to the people and to the states, the theory went, it would have natural limits on its power to oppress the people. That is, if they attempted to stifle Freedom of the Press, the people and the states would rise up and throw all those bums out, and (presumably) put <span style="font-style: italic;">new</span> bums in who would undo what the previous bums did. I think we can safely say the Federalists got that one wrong.<br /><br />But their second objection (in my opinion) was a bit more substantive. The constitution granted lists of powers to the various branches of government, with the implicit (unwritten) understanding that these lists represented <span style="font-style: italic;">all</span> the powers that were being granted. That is, if the Constitution said you had the authority to regulate usufructs, salt pork, and left-handed tennis matches, then you <span style="font-style: italic;">only</span> had power to regulate usufructs, salt pork, and left-handed tennis matches; you had no authority over anything else. It was understood at the time the Constitution was written that the national government's jurisdiction was over <span style="font-style: italic;">only</span> those things that were specifically mentioned in the Constitution; everything <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> mentioned therein was forbidden to the Feds, and either was the province of the states, or (if the states didn't want to regulate it) belonged to the sphere of private life and commerce. This principle was called the <span style="font-style: italic;">Enumeration of Powers</span>, and this principle--originally unwritten--was one of the bedrock principles of limited government.<br /><br />The Federalists' fear was that, by listing a set of <span style="font-style: italic;">rights</span> in the Constitution, it would make it easier for future tyrants to weaken the principle of Enumerated Powers, and even start treating those listed rights as the <span style="font-style: italic;">only</span> rights the people have. Ok, so let's say the Constitution grants the Grand Pooh-Bah authority over usufructs, salt pork, and left-handed tennis matches; and let's say it explicitly grants the people the rights of Free Speech, Free Love and Free Bacon. Now you have <span style="font-style: italic;">two</span> enumerations. What do you do with things that aren't listed on either list? The Federalist fear was that the very existence of the enumeration of rights creates a gray area that shouldn't be there; people might look at these two lists, and say: "The Right of the People to Sing in Public isn't listed among the rights of the people. And it's just plain annoying. And it's probably an usufruct anyway, since no one around here seems to know what the heck that means. There oughta be a law!"<br /><br />The net effect of a Bill of Rights, in the Federalist view, was actually to <span style="font-style: italic;">weaken</span> the powers of the states and the rights of the people--since it weakened the principle of Enumerated Powers, which is so important to limited government. And it would tempt those in power to read the Bill of Rights as an <span style="font-style: italic;">enumeration</span> of the Rights of the People--meaning, if a supposed right wasn't on the list, it perhaps didn't exist....<br /><br />I think the Federalists were a lot closer to the truth with this argument than they were with the other one.<br /><br />So to placate the Federalists' objections and get them on board, two Amendments were added to the Bill of Rights. The Ninth Amendment was written to preempt the argument that the rights in the Bill constituted some kind of enumeration:<br /><blockquote>The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.</blockquote>And the Tenth was written to reaffirm the principle of Enumerated Powers--that the power of the National Government was limited to only those powers explicitly granted it in the Constitution:<br /><blockquote>The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.<br /></blockquote>All very well and good.<br /><br /><br />...<br /><br /><br />So what the heck happened?<br /><br />After all, if you take the Ninth and Tenth Amendments literally, then the Federal Government has no legitimate authority over anything not specifically listed. That is, Congress wouldn't have power to legislate <span style="font-style: italic;">anything</span> regarding education, or health care, or funding for the arts, or environmental protection, or pensions (like Social Security). All of these things would be "reserved to the States respectively, or to the people," because none of these things show up in the lists of powers granted to Congress to legislate.<br /><br />But... one of the powers the Constitution <span style="font-style: italic;">does</span> grant Congress is the power to regulate "interstate commerce."<br /><br />What does that mean?<br /><br />Well, here's what many, many successive Supreme court rulings have said: anything, that in any way, shape, or form, affects any transaction that might <span style="font-style: italic;">conceivably</span> cross state lines, counts as interstate commerce. The education you get in Kansas may some day wind up being used when you do business in Mississippi, so education falls under "interstate commerce". The doctor who treats your bunions went to school in North Dakota (because all good things come from North Dakota, I'll have you know), and the medicines he uses were developed in Massachusetts, so medicine falls under "interstate commerce".<br /><br />In fact, the food you grow on your own family farm, which is grown for your own family's consumption--and is never traded for money, let alone sent across state lines--still affects the market. After all, if you didn't grow that food, you'd have to buy it, so your choice to grow it has economic impact, and thus--ahem--can be regulated under the "interstate commerce" powers. No joke--the Supreme Court case that decided that one is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn">Wickard v. Filburn</a>, 1942.<br /><br />To make a very long story short, these two amendments--the Tenth, in particular--have for all intents and purposes been nullified by successive Supreme Court cases. <span style="font-style: italic;">Everything</span> affects interstate commerce, if you interpret the term broadly enough; and as a result, Congress can get away with passing just about any law it wants, on any topic. It's been this way since at least the time of FDR--but it was moving that way at least a generation before.<br /><br /><br />...<br /><br /><br />So now we're actually seeing a movement to roll back the power of the Fed. The article I linked to above notes a recent attempt by the Feds to force the state of Maine to issue Fed-approved ID cards to the entire population, and Maine said, well... <span style="font-style: italic;">no.</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">And the Feds backed down!</span><br /><br />So now we have the State of Montana getting into the act. Being a very outdoorsy kind of State, with a great heaping helping of that Western Libertarian character about it, it's no surprise that the population has a very strong hunting/gun culture. And they don't take too kindly to out-of-towners coming in and telling them what guns they can and cannot purchase, and what hoops they have to jump through to do it. So the governor recently signed a bipartisan bill stating that guns manufactured <span style="font-style: italic;">in</span> Montana, to be purchased by the <span style="font-style: italic;">people</span> of Montana, for the benefit of the people of Montana, do <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> come under the heading of "interstate commerce"--because there's nothing "interstate" about it. Therefore, such manufacturing and sale need not be registered with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, since Congress has no authority to regulate in this case.<br /><br />The Feds, needless to say, are not amused.<br /><br />The article goes on to mention that 35 states have jumped in the pool with some kind of legislation asserting their 10th Amendment rights to blow off Federal legislation on topics not explicitly granted in the Constitution. It mentions things going on in Georgia, in Texas, in Utah....<br /><br /><br />...<br /><br /><br />Believe it or not, I'm only now getting to the part that I find <span style="font-style: italic;">really</span> interesting. I mean, I find all the above interesting, but here's the part where my frustration really starts to kick in.<br /><br />Sigh.<br /><br />I'm all for these efforts, and I hope they succeed. They have my support, and I will cheer them when they are occasionally victorious. But in the long term, I doubt there will be many lasting successes.<br /><br />The underlying problem is that the state governments no longer have an effective check on the power of the Feds.<br /><br />But first, I have to back up a bit. The guys that wrote the Constitution understood something about power: anyone who has it, wants more of it, and will use what power he has to gain more whenever he has the opportunity. The motives change from one person to the next, of course; some people with power want to wield their power for the Benefit of Humanity. Others just enjoy the thrill of squashing their opponents like bugs. But it's very rare to get people in positions of power who want <span style="font-style: italic;">less</span> power than what they have. After all, given how fierce the competition is as you climb the greasy pole, it's not likely someone gets to the top who <span style="font-style: italic;">doesn't</span> want to wield the power. If they didn't want to wield the power, they wouldn't have been climbing the greasy pole in the first place.<br /><br />And when you have this kind of situation, with Government run by a class of people who want to Change the World and squash their enemies and retire as comfortably and as young as possible, little obstacles like Constitutional <span style="font-style: italic;">Thou Shalt Not</span>s are easily ignored. After all, if everyone <span style="font-style: italic;">else</span> in government concurs with your overreach, then who's going to stop you? And who's to call it an overreach, anyway?<br /><br />So when every position in Government is filled by power-grubbers, each of which wants to expand their little empires, how the heck do you keep Government small, under control, and accountable to the electorate?<br /><br />The Founders' answer: <span style="font-style: italic;">you set it against itself</span>. You design it in such a way that <span style="font-style: italic;">no one's</span> power grows, except at the expense of someone else's; and you give this someone else a veto on whoever it is who's trying to usurp the power. When you've got a government designed like this, it's slow, and inefficient, and rancorous--but when it <span style="font-style: italic;">does</span> pass something it means that whatever it is has some kind of <span style="font-style: italic;">real</span> consensus behind it, and is less likely just to be a power play.<br /><br />So we have what we glibly call checks and balances: The President can't do something without Congress, and Congress can't do something without the President, and the President must consider the People or risk becoming ex-presidential, and Congress has to defer to the people or risk becoming ex-congressional, and the judges are selected for their positions by the President, with the advice and consent of the legislature. Despite my distaste for the things that come out of Washington these days, the system works pretty well, most of the time; all things considered, our government is still more limited than most developed nations' governments, and I think that's a <span style="font-style: italic;">really good thing</span>.<br /><br />But...<br /><br />Back in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution">1913</a>, I think we made a terrible mistake.<br /><br />Here's the trouble. Prior to the 17th Amendment to the Constitution, senators were selected in a manner directed by the legislators of the various states. If the legislators of one state wanted the senators to be elected by the people, well and good; but if in another state they wanted the senators picked by the governor and ratified by the legislature (like ambassadors are now), that was legal.<br /><br />And yes, this produced a bunch of highly corrupt machine politicians. Yes, yes, yes; I know all that.<br /><br />But it also gave the <span style="font-style: italic;">state governments</span> a seat at the Federal table, and that made a huge difference in what got passed. This goes back to what I said earlier about checks and balances: in order to keep <span style="font-style: italic;">one</span> power player from getting to powerful, you set it against another power player with the power to veto him. Well, prior to the 17th Amendment, the States could effectively veto the Feds. After all, when a state's senators were selected by the governor or legislature, those senators had to do the governor's or legislature's bidding in Washington, or they quickly found themselves ex-senators.<br /><br />And this meant that, if the Federal government tried to run roughshod over the rights of the states back prior to 1913; if they'd tried to push unfunded mandates on the states; if they'd tried giving orders to the states on how to run their health care or their educational systems; the Senate--answering the desires of the state governments--would have put a big, fat <span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;">no</span></span> on whatever plan that was. The Senate <span style="font-style: italic;">was</span> the check against the power of the central government; any attempt to increase Washington power at the expense of the states, pretty much had to get the states' consent first.<br /><br />But now the Senate, being popularly elected, isn't much more than a somewhat more pompous version of the House, and it provides the states <span style="font-style: italic;">no</span> protection against Fed encroachment. The states have lost their check, and governmental power has become unbalanced.<br /><br />In such an environment, it should come as no surprise to anyone that the 9th and 10th Amendments have become little more than inkblots--<span style="font-style: italic;">there's no governmental body dedicated to defending them anymore</span>. That used to be the Senate's job; but it's no one's job now. And no matter how much one may <span style="font-style: italic;">like</span> the ideas behind these (or any other) Amendments, if there isn't a governmental body dedicated actively to protecting them, then they might as well be inkblots*.<br /><br /><br />...<br /><br /><br />So what of the Federalism movement? Well, I'm for it. And <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/script/printpage.p?ref=/nrof_bartlett/bartlett200405120748.asp">I'm not the only one</a> who thinks the 17th Amendment was a bad idea. Apparently Democratic former senator Zell Miller thought so too, and introduced a bill to repeal it just before he retired from the Senate.<br /><br />I'm all for states standing up and defending their rights, too. After all, one thing the Constitution definitely does <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> do is give the Feds the power to give <span style="font-style: italic;">orders</span> to the states. For that matter, the Constitution doesn't give a general police power to the Federal Government, either; nor does it require the states to enforce the federal laws. If a state decided simply to refuse to enforce a law on behalf of the federal government--as California does with medical marijuana--the Feds have a much, much harder time keeping the people in line. In fact, in many cases the only leverage the Feds <span style="font-style: italic;">really</span> have over the states, is the lure of federal funding--that is, <span style="font-style: italic;">if you comply with these laws, we will give you cash for X, Y, and Z.</span> And in most cases up until now, the states have taken the bait. As the article said:<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>Robert Natelson, a law professor at the University of Montana who was involved in drawing up that state's sovereignty resolution over a decade ago, argues that states up until now have been unwilling to take action of any real consequence in checking federal power.</p><p>"Back then they passed the resolution, but they didn't turn down any federal dollars," he said.</p><p>"If the states are serious about returning the federal government to its historical origins, they're going to have to do more than pass resolutions. They're going to have to turn down money and litigate."</p></blockquote>Very true. And so whenever I hear of some governor turning down Federal money--as <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/1573/story/1542617.html">Sarah Palin did recently</a> with the Federal economic stimulus money--it really does warm my heart. When a state rejects such money--and the strings that come with it--it often leaves the Feds with <span style="font-style: italic;">no</span> leverage in the matter, no ability to bully the state government back.<br /><br />Well, I can hope that we'll see more of this eventually. I'm not completely hopeful at this point; it's still a little too much windmill-tilty. But it's fun to see this sort of thing happen, even if it is only a little bit here and there, around the edges.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />*Inkblot--I'm referring here to an argument by legal scholar and former Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork. In his view, the <a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=4048186698864359724">9th Amendment</a> is so indeterminate in meaning, that if it were blotted out with an inkblot, this wouldn't actually change the practical meaning of the constitution in any way. As such, I think "inkblot" is an appropriate epithet for any clause that is conveniently interpreted away by the courts....Timothy Powerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081922327870257027noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4048186698864359724.post-26282799378673937422009-05-11T21:18:00.000-07:002009-05-11T21:26:53.900-07:00Hey, Arby!This one's for you. <a href="http://tdpower.blogspot.com/2009/05/time-for-second-monthly-carnival-of.html?showComment=1242042540000#c4561114807131910010">Ask</a>, and ye shall receive:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2RhlsL9QW2sFJ-ApbBcxTgywU0pFHNJFUymlm6GvVdoJGtf0p5xKSDrfX3HrNuqk3WQkBN1gbkVmj9KGvSeoadCDzi23idlVGCaeWFO61HMMSTgKs21BgVeUAWOuQNaXVo4hsCXKcy-w/s1600-h/MailledVeggies.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 339px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2RhlsL9QW2sFJ-ApbBcxTgywU0pFHNJFUymlm6GvVdoJGtf0p5xKSDrfX3HrNuqk3WQkBN1gbkVmj9KGvSeoadCDzi23idlVGCaeWFO61HMMSTgKs21BgVeUAWOuQNaXVo4hsCXKcy-w/s400/MailledVeggies.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334787363299651042" border="0" /></a>Let it never be said that I'm unresponsive to my readers. That is, except for the occasional unannounced two-week hiatus....<br /><br />Altogether now:<br /><br />They're coming to take me away, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TgNCoVmziQ">haha</a>....Timothy Powerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081922327870257027noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4048186698864359724.post-48868722511651065232009-05-10T21:13:00.000-07:002009-05-10T22:21:58.224-07:00Time for the Second Monthly Carnival of Tonya!Ok, ok, so I haven't been blogging much lately. I've been busy with other stuff.<br /><br />And <span style="font-style: italic;">what</span> could <span style="font-style: italic;">possibly</span> be more important than blogging? Well, I've been crafting some maille, for one:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGj7xzPaz5I-Oy2AEQcXHN6lmJYXcz9xa_jdGDV3xfKa9M2zzch_8RL8j1NgYjMOX-0oOrqQhtrLCMhq7dZLN1AffVU7fQVZBkhv0P4pfgHEp_xfOEmG4EAkXVwB9ybg1eL-JZJPy1uMU/s1600-h/ArmingTheBear.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGj7xzPaz5I-Oy2AEQcXHN6lmJYXcz9xa_jdGDV3xfKa9M2zzch_8RL8j1NgYjMOX-0oOrqQhtrLCMhq7dZLN1AffVU7fQVZBkhv0P4pfgHEp_xfOEmG4EAkXVwB9ybg1eL-JZJPy1uMU/s400/ArmingTheBear.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334415142572246722" border="0" /></a><br />I know what you're thinking, because you're thinking it so loud I can hear it all the way over here: <span style="font-style: italic;">He's cracked. He's gone completely mad. Anyone who starts crafting chain eventually goes a little nuts, and starts putting it on their teddy bears, and then on their sofas, and then on their cabbages and eggplants*.... It was bound to happen sooner or later; it just happened a little faster to you than we expected. Tim, it's been nice knowing ya, try not to dribble all over the nice young men in those clean white suits....<br /></span><br />Well, you'd think that, and there may in fact be some truth in what you think; but no, I'm not actually crafting a hauberk for the Happy Boy's little friend. Although you have to admit, he's pretty cute, no?<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbaDKldT7lWPBUoF_BRPa_uaxoHwqNTAVgDSos6YEmrnXdgLZBXMy3mdzobfY_heVSKG-OVLva4G3hDto4Rz2fVeBho6hNfsFkvH9ymPnA3bS8TDQfDYL95G-ddbx1deyxiNe77H83um0/s1600-h/ArmingTheBear2.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 369px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbaDKldT7lWPBUoF_BRPa_uaxoHwqNTAVgDSos6YEmrnXdgLZBXMy3mdzobfY_heVSKG-OVLva4G3hDto4Rz2fVeBho6hNfsFkvH9ymPnA3bS8TDQfDYL95G-ddbx1deyxiNe77H83um0/s400/ArmingTheBear2.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334415142744299554" border="0" /></a><br />No, we're not planning on loading up this little guy for bear. (ba-DUM-bump!)<br /><br />We're planning on loading up <span style="font-style: italic;">this</span> little guy for bear:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw8ZsqnzWFye9hKDSVjMeOLfa0IkH9kUfGM3oEG5aCcfRgqMKlnyDP8-wOyeVqSBYm750n8xHwKBg50d4mu2YIG2pBJZAkJYtsH3IE-B0WZfiZALo7vxUc4LGKiI6oPjpbM6e4RvR0HkI/s1600-h/ArmingTheBear3.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 378px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw8ZsqnzWFye9hKDSVjMeOLfa0IkH9kUfGM3oEG5aCcfRgqMKlnyDP8-wOyeVqSBYm750n8xHwKBg50d4mu2YIG2pBJZAkJYtsH3IE-B0WZfiZALo7vxUc4LGKiI6oPjpbM6e4RvR0HkI/s400/ArmingTheBear3.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334415149803986274" border="0" /></a>That would be the little one in the lower right.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Oh, as if that makes it any better! Ok, so you're planning on chaining 15,000 rings so you can put your <span style="font-weight: bold;">toddler</span> in a hauberk, for crying out loud. That's only marginally less un-sane than putting it on a teddy bear.</span><br /><br />Yup, sounds about right. Though I don't know that we'll actually get to 15,000 rings. I'm about halfway done now, and I'm only at about 6,000.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">That settles it. Completely cracked.</span><br /><br />So maybe it's for the best that I haven't been blogging. After all, If "Sometimes I'm Actually Coherent", then that leaves all the <span style="font-style: italic;">other</span> times, I'm afraid.<br /><br />But! Fear not. My intrepid wife has been blogging a lot more than I have. If you haven't been following her blog, she's cooked up a trio of big meaty posts over the last two weeks. Given that I haven't been writing anything, I thought I'd throw my remaining regular readers a bone and send them over her way.<br /><br />First, there's her post entitled <a href="http://tkppower.blogspot.com/2009/05/life-without-baby.html">Life Without a Baby</a>, which is very poignant. We've had four babies, spaced roughly two years apart each. That means that since Tonya became pregnant with the Pillowfight Fairy in early 2003, we've constantly either had a baby (or <span style="font-style: italic;">very</span> young toddler) in the house, or we've been <span style="font-style: italic;">expecting </span>a baby. The Power household has been all babies, all the time, since 2003. And with the loss of Baby E three weeks ago, we now find ourselves babyless--none in the house, none on the way, and <span style="font-style: italic;">possibly</span> (given Tonya's and my ages) none left to come. Tonya was feeling a bit melancholy about this fact. Before we got married, and even in that brief time between our marriage and the birth of the Fairy, we never really thought of ourselves as "baby" people--but that changed in a big, big way when our children came along. Now that we're facing the possible end of the "baby" phase in our lives, we're having to look forward, and it's not without some sadness.<br /><br />(And fear. The Pillowfight Fairy is six-and-a-half now, which means she's halfway to being a teenager.)<br /><br />Then, there's her next post, entitled <a href="http://tkppower.blogspot.com/2009/05/end-of-school-evaluation.html">End of School evaluation</a>. About a year ago Tonya planned out what she wanted to get done with the Pillowfight Fairy's first grade year, and I posted about that <a href="http://tdpower.blogspot.com/2008/04/our-lesson-plan.html">here</a>. It was an ambitious plan, and prompted one of our commenters to remark:<br /><blockquote>Four to six hours a day of rigorous academics for a SIX-YEAR-OLD?!!! Unless you have a certified genius as a child, you are setting yourself up for misery and failure....</blockquote>Ahem. We have experienced neither misery nor failure. Draw your own conclusions. :-)<br /><br />Well, we're proud to say that we made it through, and the Fairy made it through, and we haven't wound up in an institution yet (though I'm getting pretty close, as the pictures attest). We had to make a few changes to our plan, and didn't get everything done that we'd wanted to, but we did get most of it done, and we're very proud of how much the Fairy has learned in the last year. Tonya is also in the process of putting together <span style="font-style: italic;">next</span> year's plan; one of us will probably blog about it a bit more when that's complete. Things are going to be a bit more tricky next year, too, since the Adrenaline Junkie will be doing her Kindergarten year.<br /><br />Third, Tonya has this endearing way of trying to fill every waking moment with Productivity. (That is, until she gets wiped out by the day and spends her evening hours playing Civilization.) So what will she do during the summer months, until the time to begin the next year's academics? Well, she's decided to <a href="http://tkppower.blogspot.com/2009/05/summer-ambitions.html">make a couple of dresses for the girls</a>. She's already got the fabric, the patterns, and all the materials; she's already measured the girls; and she's starting to cut out the pattern pieces. Oh, and incidentally: our girls are shaped weirdly. I know, I know: as any boy can tell you, <span style="font-style: italic;">all</span> girls are shaped weirdly--but ours are shaped weirdly even when compared to other girls. When Tonya measured them out yesterday, she discovered that the Pillowfight Fairy (age 6) has:<br /><ul><li>Size 4 chest;</li><li>Size 4 waist;</li><li>Size 5 hip;</li><li>Size 7 back-of-neck to waist;</li><li>Size 7 height.<br /></li></ul>The Adrenaline Junkie, age 4, has:<br /><ul><li>Size 3 chest;</li><li>Size 3 waist;</li><li>Size 4 hip;</li><li>Size 5 back-of-neck to waist;</li><li>Size 5 height.</li></ul>This has created something of a conundrum for Tonya. Does she:<br /><ul><li>Pick the biggest sizes for each of the girls (7 for the Fairy, 5 for the Junkie) and just make the dress in that size--recognizing that they might be swimming in them, but hopefully giving them a little room to grow?</li><li>Make a dress with hybrid sizes--cutting (for instance) on the size 7 lines for the vertical directions on the Fairy's dresses, and on the size 4 or 5 lines for the horizontal directions? This would take a bit more work and would give a higher chance of making mistakes, but would give a trimmer-fitting dress.<br /></li></ul>Tonya is leaning toward the first of these two options, but is planning on doing some tailoring after she's had a chance to fit the dresses on the girls. Fact is, they might <span style="font-style: italic;">never</span> grow into the dresses width-wise; <span style="font-style: italic;">thin</span> runs in the females in Tonya's family, at least until motherhood changes the shapes of their bodies. Tonya made herself a skirt when she was in Junior high, when she was 5'2" and had a waist size of <span style="font-style: italic;">18"</span>. And that measurement, dinky as it is, is actually equal to the 18" waist that <span style="font-style: italic;">her</span> mom had <span style="font-style: italic;">on her wedding day!</span> And our girls are likewise feather-weight when compared to their (often much shorter!) age peers.<br /><br />Anyway, when those dresses are done, either Tonya or I will have pictures up on our blogs.<br /><br /><br />...<br /><br /><br />And this blog? Well, I'll try to step up my blogging pace, although since I haven't been spending as much time online lately, I haven't been seeing as much worth writing about. And I still have half a hauberk to finish, of course--after which you'll get to see some pictures of our little knight in shining armor.<br /><br />After that? Well, I confess that I do have a whole bunch of other chainmaille projects lined up....<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG-90Pl5UZ8xpGcV3RD4VFWcZUjQf8PCCGgBeZE41-MtHOuxinH5fHaIG0zOr8uv-s651wXOyEx0Kw60RFZj7tGoIpx6bQajf1-Dg44cYrQnzukYLbKVWbaMHEo9Kechi1M96MTIv6d1I/s1600-h/NextUp.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 206px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG-90Pl5UZ8xpGcV3RD4VFWcZUjQf8PCCGgBeZE41-MtHOuxinH5fHaIG0zOr8uv-s651wXOyEx0Kw60RFZj7tGoIpx6bQajf1-Dg44cYrQnzukYLbKVWbaMHEo9Kechi1M96MTIv6d1I/s400/NextUp.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334415147774058722" border="0" /></a><br />*Although if you actually <span style="font-style: italic;">are</span> going to maille your cabbages and eggplants, I recommend you use <a href="http://theringlord.com/cart/shopdisplayproducts.asp?id=29&cat=Machine+Cut+Stainless+Steel+Rings&websess=11723516053185">stainless steel rings</a>. I recommend 16 gauge, 1/4" inner diameter for an aspect ratio of about 4, which seems to work well for the European 4-into-1 weave. And it won't tarnish or leave black rub-off on your vegetables.Timothy Powerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081922327870257027noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4048186698864359724.post-2966817560216960712009-04-27T23:49:00.001-07:002009-04-28T00:03:59.209-07:00Bidding a Fond Welcome Back To a Fellow BloggerAbout <a href="http://tdpower.blogspot.com/2008/10/bidding-fond-farewell-to-fellow-blogger.html">six months ago</a> I had the unpleasant task of removing a fellow blogger from my blogroll. Arby's Archives, which had been one of my daily reads (when he posted daily, that was), was no more. For some reason--which I have been coming to sympathize with--Arby just decided to up and delete his blog entirely.<br /><br />Well, he's back. He may not look like Cary Grant anymore, but his much wrinklier visage hasn't dimmed the sharpness of his pen, or something. Insert your own profound-sounding metaphor if you don't like mine.<br /><br />Be warned when you visit his new site, though: it appears that he and The Boss (his feminine side) decided to put their kids in public school, and judging from the tone and timber of his first three posts, that turned out to be a disaster. If the state of education is something you get worked up about easily, then Arby's new blog is so far about 75% red meat. They're planning on going back to homeschooling right quick.<br /><br />(And if you <em>also</em> get worked up about Scouting, or about pubescent boys who haven't discovered how to combat B.O. yet, then the other 25% of the blog is also red meat.)<br /><br />So without further ado, Arby's new blog is entitled <a href="http://boardinginbedlam.blogspot.com/">Boarding In Bedlam</a>.<br /><br /><br />...<br /><br /><br />P.S. Arby, I'm curious--any particular reason you went with Blogspot this time instead of WordPress? I don't have any particular reason for asking--I'm just curious.Timothy Powerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081922327870257027noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4048186698864359724.post-52400320268060303472009-04-22T22:18:00.000-07:002009-04-22T23:00:26.865-07:00Things To Do With Cupcakes When You're DepressedOk, I cheated. We're not actually <em>depressed</em>. We obviously wish things had gone differently, but Tonya is home and on the mend, and a great deal of future uncertainty has been removed from our lives. What we're feeling is complex, but has a whole dollop of <em>relief</em> thrown in.<br /><br />And it doesn't hurt that we have a much higher-than-normal quantity of chocolatey baked goods at home. You see, Monday was my 38th birthday, and Tonya had both picked up a devil's food cake to celebrate, and made a huge batch of chocolate cupcakes. She had then decided to decorate the cupcakes by spelling out the words "Happy Birthday Tim" on them in frosting--one letter per cupcake, so it only spells the phrase correctly if the cupcakes are properly arranged.<br /><br />So the timing of events could be seen at least in part as one of those Mysterious Ways In Which God Moves--he timed things so that we would have the maximum amount of chocolate on hand when we needed it the most.<br /><br />I know, it's a minor thing... but it's often the minor things that keep us rooted in the real world when all kinds of surreal, <em>unreal</em> events are swirling about us. My younger brother tells of the time he and his wife lost a child three years back, how he was resenting the fact that their eldest son, who was then two, wasn't staying depressed like Daddy was. He wanted to play! He wanted to run! He wanted to splash in the bathtub! --as was appropriate for an energetic then-two-year-old boy. And somewhere along the way something clicked in Daddy's brain--<em>maybe my little boy is the one who has things right</em>--whereupon Daddy climbed in the bathtub right along with his boy, and they started splashing together. Note that Daddy was still wearing most of his clothes at the time. And they splashed, and laughed, and tickled, and Daddy <em>remained sane</em>. To this day, he still refers to his now-five-year-old boy as his <em>hero</em>.<br /><br />So here's the minor thing that's been going on over here. See, we've had grandparents over who like cupcakes. And we have kids who (obviously) like cupcakes too. So throughout the last few days, the various letters of "Happy Birthday Tim" have been vanishing, one after another. One of the y's went away, then one of the p's..., and--well, it looked like it needed a little cheering up.<br /><br />So every time I noticed a letter missing, I'd try to rearrange the cupcakes into a complete phrase. And then someone would eat another one, and I'd have to rearrange them again. Or I'd pick the next cupcake to eat, by figuring out an anagram that uses all but one letter that I couldn't get to fit. Or after a while, I'd just start rearranging them every time I went into the kitchen, just because anagrams are that much fun.<br /><br />Really.<br /><br />And of course, there were a bunch of cool words that I never got to use because I couldn't figure out what to do with the <em>rest</em> of the letters. Thus, I wasn't able to deliver any wisdom on "Parthia". But for the most part, I think I did rather well.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGAm2zeQI5I87Ll1Ey_9EH7N9AB3eDLNjpMDIQKzisfS0ofB0BMx5t46_mCSqNqJuSB3O9ILxmt9NqmwDHSEULTojuVSPSZHSULNzajMivBh-csaRGenQL44Mes7QUcsbnIqw5EGbG7D8/s1600-h/Anagram1.JPG"><p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5327756737665284178" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGAm2zeQI5I87Ll1Ey_9EH7N9AB3eDLNjpMDIQKzisfS0ofB0BMx5t46_mCSqNqJuSB3O9ILxmt9NqmwDHSEULTojuVSPSZHSULNzajMivBh-csaRGenQL44Mes7QUcsbnIqw5EGbG7D8/s400/Anagram1.JPG" border="0" /></a></p>Ew. Not a good thing to do to your harp.<p><br /></p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbHhx9a27sU23zc9geNMYd6Rn_UxK9WVQJAIYBYd4GxHlVkBEomp2Wehi-dku8PFrSkEACdRvFBFcMyjqKFPF-SmNQ0itZhuL3KzEMzs3FWJKiPCGY2SO0lT_4NEtKO1_B0JlB-YbZRX4/s1600-h/Anagram2.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5327756735411464946" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbHhx9a27sU23zc9geNMYd6Rn_UxK9WVQJAIYBYd4GxHlVkBEomp2Wehi-dku8PFrSkEACdRvFBFcMyjqKFPF-SmNQ0itZhuL3KzEMzs3FWJKiPCGY2SO0lT_4NEtKO1_B0JlB-YbZRX4/s400/Anagram2.JPG" border="0" /></a>We got a book of the Arabian Nights for next year's homeschooling, and read through some of it. Some of those stories are <em>really</em> funny.</p><p><br /></p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiveWX1KxYREo6hHx57YKPGQoPU_Qb9C5OzGIF1PjmGfZks8m-uurC6SlnzZW7JaEs5Nq5bd64s7Bpj4-cDOGaFqIfs6fbCUE-xrp5EJjjcgrZA3EWIA5MPWFrqW3F03trqtgXpR2Lyxrk/s1600-h/Anagram3.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5327756735151431362" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiveWX1KxYREo6hHx57YKPGQoPU_Qb9C5OzGIF1PjmGfZks8m-uurC6SlnzZW7JaEs5Nq5bd64s7Bpj4-cDOGaFqIfs6fbCUE-xrp5EJjjcgrZA3EWIA5MPWFrqW3F03trqtgXpR2Lyxrk/s400/Anagram3.JPG" border="0" /></a> Don't invite he.<br /><br /><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSSRKmQqNoKD7Gjvb7Bx-aHIrVY3pn-CmsZFgzrbLx0KBNFjeyBfWiz0Dh6VFZGoDJ14Cz1B56FfE-XHij4VM1tjlyRPLEDW7y1x3Ipu_tSO8gaFVafBfgAudltqwj_G4vDL9rQOXv6v4/s1600-h/Anagram4.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5327756728634057106" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSSRKmQqNoKD7Gjvb7Bx-aHIrVY3pn-CmsZFgzrbLx0KBNFjeyBfWiz0Dh6VFZGoDJ14Cz1B56FfE-XHij4VM1tjlyRPLEDW7y1x3Ipu_tSO8gaFVafBfgAudltqwj_G4vDL9rQOXv6v4/s400/Anagram4.JPG" border="0" /></a> I bet bartenders hear the "bar paid myth" quite a bit, actually....</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6HkMgxS0IUBzsDcN0mffwZgqEATX3fNQyBogSGivrAXfCle2wZzftptnyojsSjox1YDuHF-GrkvmG2k-fcLmxlYNrIcn2eqHPfTSFWZx6gvZJgGUDXosJpW5U6MHegyNgopL8kD96jwQ/s1600-h/Anagram5.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5327756730943174418" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6HkMgxS0IUBzsDcN0mffwZgqEATX3fNQyBogSGivrAXfCle2wZzftptnyojsSjox1YDuHF-GrkvmG2k-fcLmxlYNrIcn2eqHPfTSFWZx6gvZJgGUDXosJpW5U6MHegyNgopL8kD96jwQ/s400/Anagram5.JPG" border="0" /></a> Ew.</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9LtPLY0_6ZwOoDWZnfxz0Ipz1rz4qJXg9D-Iyz1LSIc12D58Lurdaecp4ij5vC2qG4i_xckNiorPbDt_9p2DDJnBRep5Nz3_-hV6lUI5JIg7XQT8wAcJZxMg00bWhDQ1GGlH4C96T7MQ/s1600-h/Anagram6.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5327756506559875138" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9LtPLY0_6ZwOoDWZnfxz0Ipz1rz4qJXg9D-Iyz1LSIc12D58Lurdaecp4ij5vC2qG4i_xckNiorPbDt_9p2DDJnBRep5Nz3_-hV6lUI5JIg7XQT8wAcJZxMg00bWhDQ1GGlH4C96T7MQ/s400/Anagram6.JPG" border="0" /></a> And if anyone does business with the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_in_Black_(film)">M.I.B.</a>, I'll bet it's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA">DARPA</a>.</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRbVlJPuyZZxqmk4WPNHWPdJcCw3egnbv9KPp3owWrs3-Y9dIF01AOwEZgcv2_qWu5h7FdgXLqgVwzOVa1qJdLKIEfmjCsF0rr42r-WI1mmyfn4e6tatwypMXt2_nDhRRO9VZjSGbVkT8/s1600-h/Anagram7.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5327756500707502658" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRbVlJPuyZZxqmk4WPNHWPdJcCw3egnbv9KPp3owWrs3-Y9dIF01AOwEZgcv2_qWu5h7FdgXLqgVwzOVa1qJdLKIEfmjCsF0rr42r-WI1mmyfn4e6tatwypMXt2_nDhRRO9VZjSGbVkT8/s400/Anagram7.JPG" border="0" /></a> These are known for tormenting garden gnomes.</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzNtKPLBDq5NcQmnLLtuJcvKBZ7b5qQFNXlTw0-7k-y09GPT1xlILFBvbtBCrVamhBtJvEZADC4vYJQf_2sULTfslMECMxJ6hFRRaRnrHYEaZsO7JVnM_cbSAz6dyqD69_N_ADzPXuQhU/s1600-h/Anagram8.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5327756500116273122" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzNtKPLBDq5NcQmnLLtuJcvKBZ7b5qQFNXlTw0-7k-y09GPT1xlILFBvbtBCrVamhBtJvEZADC4vYJQf_2sULTfslMECMxJ6hFRRaRnrHYEaZsO7JVnM_cbSAz6dyqD69_N_ADzPXuQhU/s400/Anagram8.JPG" border="0" /></a> Well, I had letters for it...</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitDiPdRYqj8OZcK2NGSwnj8JDoDCgP7p_F6snomKfuZsKWThtDVoK5peY0rS0gzlBxihF-RSKp4c0-kgUrKlEQPkH3OM9GBPCixUtPXD_m3MVpwGEB6plBR0spg9QDJxYwRXqN0i3hX-A/s1600-h/Anagram9.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5327756496086039378" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitDiPdRYqj8OZcK2NGSwnj8JDoDCgP7p_F6snomKfuZsKWThtDVoK5peY0rS0gzlBxihF-RSKp4c0-kgUrKlEQPkH3OM9GBPCixUtPXD_m3MVpwGEB6plBR0spg9QDJxYwRXqN0i3hX-A/s400/Anagram9.JPG" border="0" /></a> An' da wife she slap da me.</p><p><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjltJ-Jv-Kbb9hoJkVNJjqxP_Thf7he89k5A7MUcvbidoxFBR0b80-8NGEpAb9iNJEAfcwF5mkAxO_EDpZLdSczQAGAYmZrMjTm352ZPDDL2dXbGyoh5o5QYk_XRrIOC6PVvhQLj2oo_RI/s1600-h/Anagram10.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5327756493897378610" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjltJ-Jv-Kbb9hoJkVNJjqxP_Thf7he89k5A7MUcvbidoxFBR0b80-8NGEpAb9iNJEAfcwF5mkAxO_EDpZLdSczQAGAYmZrMjTm352ZPDDL2dXbGyoh5o5QYk_XRrIOC6PVvhQLj2oo_RI/s400/Anagram10.JPG" border="0" /></a>Good that <em>someone </em>did. Those bartenders have to make a living somehow.</p><p>So we've been having fun with this. And I think this newfound hobby of mine has actually been cutting down on our family's cupcake consumption, because everybody has been fearful of taking the wrong cupcakes and leaving me with an unusable collection of letters, like when you have a bunch of stuff on a scrabble letter rack that just <em>doesn't spell anything</em>. Truth be told, I'm afraid that someone will come along and eat all my vowels.</p><p>Though it actually got easier when someone came along and ate the y's...</p><p></p>Timothy Powerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081922327870257027noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4048186698864359724.post-63438026417372881662009-04-21T15:12:00.000-07:002009-04-21T16:13:01.344-07:00Baby E.Well, this was the Big One.<br /><br />Baby E. entered this world at 3:24 this morning, and left it not much more than two hours later. We did have the chance to hold her, and feel her breathe, and feel her move, before she quieted down and left us.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiClaUGJaG0Ww3gggVVP5HV6iGNr5ZTlKpzxvXYOQ51Sz58NxJdwfbHr7ILBhWgNdPkHrzSb0KhON3FVSIGA4YO1wg0OeeEGrdPoFlVL9cuDpmhJFPt87pt3BYlaBdNDhtKugf0Ei1dTY8/s1600-h/BabyE.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 251px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiClaUGJaG0Ww3gggVVP5HV6iGNr5ZTlKpzxvXYOQ51Sz58NxJdwfbHr7ILBhWgNdPkHrzSb0KhON3FVSIGA4YO1wg0OeeEGrdPoFlVL9cuDpmhJFPt87pt3BYlaBdNDhtKugf0Ei1dTY8/s400/BabyE.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5327271624526433970" border="0" /></a>I apologize that these aren't the prettiest baby pictures you've ever seen; before you can bathe a baby, the baby's temperature must be above some minimum threshold, and Baby E's temperature never got high enough. But there really wasn't time to worry about making them pretty. At the time, we didn't know how much time we had with her, so we did our best to make every moment count.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-3TzqAC9m7QBA3uPOL0s-u9t-pXVAnG_j1_FVKP8Mnm4Ri6cGboEIRiQnHcNkidX4KBOWrxmcAA9w85dVUZ6LKvT93dqo4J4tC9Cj0PFUZdPCq0TYOzJHAJDRqGs2BdYrxOK89SVs9AQ/s1600-h/BabyEAndMommy.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 317px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-3TzqAC9m7QBA3uPOL0s-u9t-pXVAnG_j1_FVKP8Mnm4Ri6cGboEIRiQnHcNkidX4KBOWrxmcAA9w85dVUZ6LKvT93dqo4J4tC9Cj0PFUZdPCq0TYOzJHAJDRqGs2BdYrxOK89SVs9AQ/s400/BabyEAndMommy.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5327271622423585346" border="0" /></a>Aside from being emotionally drained, Tonya is recovering from the delivery well. This baby came about four weeks early (which caught us by surprise), which meant among other things that Baby E. was much smaller than our other kids were at birth--she was only 5 lbs. 9 oz (and 18.5 inches long), as opposed to the Adrenaline Junkie's 8 lbs, 2 oz--let alone the Happy Boy's 9 lbs 7.5 oz. Under normal circumstances, 5 lbs 9 is not a <span style="font-style: italic;">big</span> baby, but still within the normal, healthy range; but Tonya's body was accustomed to much bigger babies, and when the time came, Baby E. arrived <span style="font-style: italic;">much</span> faster than anyone expected. The doctors had just gotten done saying that they'd be back to check on us in an hour, when Tonya involuntarily gave an almighty push and Baby E was there....<br /><br />So now what?<br /><br />Well, we're not entirely sure, but the first step is for Tonya to continue recovering. She should be coming home sometime tomorrow, and I'm going to be on Daddy-On-Steroids duty for a while. Thankfully, we have grandparental support to help out. When Tonya is home and has had a chance to catch her breath, then we'll start figuring out what to do. The hospital will keep Baby E. for the next two weeks, so we don't have to make any rushed decisions. That's very nice.<br /><br />We have a lot of people to thank for the help they've already given. My wonderful brother and sister-in-law, Rick and <a href="http://www.wpower.blogspot.com/">Wendy</a>, high-tailed it hither at about 9:00 last night to keep an eye on the kids, when we realized that we had to go to the hospital pronto. Then, around 10:30 when the doctors verified that Tonya was in active labor, my Mom and Dad started packing, and hit the road for the two hour drive up here, so they could relieve Rick and Wendy, so <span style="font-style: italic;">they</span> could get some sleep for their workday. Then Tonya's parents came up this morning with the RV so they could stay with us long enough to help us get healthy and back on our feet. And, of course, there are all the people who've been praying for us since we got the Trisomy 13 diagnosis back in December; we owe you all a huge debt of gratitude.<br /><br />With all the stuff we have to deal with, blogging will be irregular for a while. Not that it was very consistent before....Timothy Powerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081922327870257027noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4048186698864359724.post-40095725730202416132009-04-20T21:05:00.000-07:002009-04-20T21:08:50.492-07:00We're Headed to Labor and Delivery TonightWell, that post on Gödel's incompleteness theorems will have to wait.<br /><br />Tonya has been having fairly strong contractions every five minutes for the last hour--along with a little bleeding--and we've been instructed to go to Labor and Delivery. We're waiting for our first-line-of-defense child care to show up (thanks, Wendy!), and then we're off.<br /><br />Be praying for us. We don't know yet if this is the Big One or not. We've had false labors before, on other pregnancies--but not when it was our fourth one, and there are some signs that we're much farther along this time than we were in those instances. We're not sure what will happen.<br /><br />So as I said, be praying for us. Thanks!Timothy Powerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081922327870257027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4048186698864359724.post-71468833431678901132009-04-18T22:41:00.000-07:002009-04-18T23:31:16.174-07:00Yet More Amazing News From That Amazing State......which would be North Dakota, of course.<br /><br />Of Course! Regular readers of this blog know that I've got a soft spot in my heart (head?) for the Land of Flat. I lived there (Minot Air Force Base) for a year and a half while growing up, and it was one of the nicest places I've ever been.<br /><br />Sure, it gets a bit nippy there in the winter. And every decade or so Grand Forks gets washed away by the Red River. But aside from that, it's what Paradise would look like if Paradise was a vast, featureless plain.<br /><br />So whenever news from North Dakota pops up, my ears perk up. And news from North Dakota usually puts a smile on my face, because it somehow always seems to run contrary to whatever other doom and gloom stories happen to be running out there. My <a href="http://tdpower.blogspot.com/2009/01/more-news-from-north-dakota.html">last post</a> on North Dakota was about how the entire state had a grand total of <span style="font-style: italic;">two</span> murders last year, and neither of them was a shooting. Yup, the per capita murder rate was less than a <span style="font-style: italic;">third </span>of some of the more orderly continental European nations; and the per capita <span style="font-style: italic;">gun</span> murder rate was 0.00.<br /><br />And then my reader/commenter/co-blogger Roger Z left a comment with some additional <a href="http://tdpower.blogspot.com/2009/01/more-news-from-north-dakota.html?showComment=1231465740000#c6838331002356942492">North Dakota news</a> that brought a smile to my face: The state has a growing number of millionaire oil tycoons. Turns out that there's a hefty amount of oil under the ground in big swathes of the state; and the ground in question is divided up into family farms that have been in their respective families for generations. A lot of long-time farmers are putting an oil well or two out in their fields, getting wealthy, and <span style="font-style: italic;">staying farmers</span>--continuing to drive around the old beat-up pickups and tractors.<br /><br />Then, of course, there was the North Dakota story from last December, which alleged that it has the <a href="http://tdpower.blogspot.com/2008/12/how-to-lie-with-statistics.html">most corrupt state government</a> in the union. Of course, there were so many irregularities in the way they handled their statistics and interpreted the results, that it makes one wish that the reporters had actually spent some time in the North Dakota school system--because then their reasoning skills would likely have been better, and they wouldn't have written the story in the first place.<br /><br />Well, today I saw a <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123998769476529637.html">new North Dakota story</a>, that again made me smile. Courtesy of the <a href="http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/76895/">Instapundit</a>, it appears that the only two areas of the country to have <span style="font-style: italic;">improving </span>employment figures over the last month were the District of Columbia, and North Dakota.<br /><br />And it's pretty obvious why the District of Columbia had increases in employment, so I'm not so impressed there. Even so their story isn't great; their overall unemployment rate is much higher than the national average.<br /><br />But North Dakota? It was the <span style="font-style: italic;">only</span> state to have unemployment <span style="font-style: italic;">drop</span> in the last month. There were three others where unemployment stayed even; the other 46 states saw increases of varying magnitudes. My home state of California, I'm ashamed to say, has an unemployment rate of well over 11%--and that's dragging the national average up.<br /><br />And North Dakota? According to the <a href="http://www.bls.gov/news.release/laus.nr0.htm">Bureau of Labor Statistics</a>:<blockquote> In March, Michigan again reported the highest jobless rate, 12.6 percent. The states with the next highest rates were Oregon, 12.1 percent; South Carolina, 11.4 percent; California, 11.2 percent; North Carolina, 10.8 percent; Rhode Island, 10.5 percent; Nevada, 10.4 percent; and Indiana, 10.0 percent. Nine additional states and the District of Columbia recorded unemployment rates of at least 9.0 percent. The California and North Carolina rates were the highest on record for those states. (All state series begin in 1976.) <span style="font-weight: bold;">North </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Dakota registered the lowest unemployment rate, 4.2 percent, in March.</span> Overall, 12 states and the District of Columbia had significantly higher jobless rates than the U.S. figure of 8.5 percent, 25 states reported measurably lower rates, and 13 states had rates little different from that of the nation. (See tables A and 3.)</blockquote>Emphasis added, of course.<br /><br />You know, I suspect I need to post about <span style="font-style: italic;">bad</span> news from North Dakota sometime; something looks bad about the state, I post it. But I suspect I'd be waiting a long, long time before coming across such a story, unless the headline was something like "Spring Thaw on Lake Sakakawea Sends Idiot's Car to the Bottom."<br /><br />But that one happens every year, so it's not exactly news, it's more like a sporting event that people bet on: "What day is the ice going to break, and whose car is going to get dunked?"<br /><br />Anyway, good to see more news from North Dakota. News from my former home state nearly always makes me proud to be from there, and even a little homesick--unless it's news about the <a href="http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/02/27/snowiest-winter-ever-recorded-in-north-dakota/">weather</a>.Timothy Powerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081922327870257027noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4048186698864359724.post-8722837282016595062009-04-17T23:42:00.001-07:002009-04-17T23:59:56.739-07:00Bacon--Is There Anything It Can't Do?I've been feeling a little guilty about not blogging so much lately. All this cutting and bending metal has been fun (and you should see the little piece of dragonscale maille that I've been putting together lately!), but I've been neglecting my readership. Ah well. I'm thinking that, with the one-year anniversary of that post I did that picked a fight with a herd of Objectivists ("Since I started with good premises, and reasoned without error, my argument will contain no inconsistencies. Therefore since you claim to have found an inconsistency in my argument, it means <span style="font-style: italic;">you</span> must have made an error somewhere, and it's up to <span style="font-style: italic;">you</span> to find it..."), I would go ahead soon and write up something about Godel's Inconsistency Theorems.<br /><br />But not tonight. Tonight, we play.<br /><br />It seems that Popular Science's resident mad scientist, Theodore Gray, has built what essentially is a blowtorch, where the oxidizer is pure O<sub>2</sub> gas, and the fuel is--what else?--<a href="http://www.popsci.com/bacon">bacon</a>.<br /><br />Well, actually--prosciutto. Turns out that plain old American bacon doesn't have the structural integrity, so he had to go with something he considered more "industrial grade". But he then proceeded to turn it into what he refers to as a "bacon lance", which is a bacon-fueled variant of the more mundane (but still awesome as heck) "thermal lances" that are used to cut metal.<br /><br />Hmm... that means that, at least in theory, bacon is capable of rescuing people from collapsed buildings. Nice.<br /><br />Of course, as awesome as this is, I still think it's a poor use of perfectly good prosciutto, although I bet his lab smelled absolutely heavenly after he used his bacon lance to cut through that metal pan in the video.<br /><br />I also love this little note at the end of the piece:<br /><b><span style="color:red;"></span><blockquote><span style="color:red;">Achtung!</span> Theodore Gray is trained in lab safety. Don't try this at home...</blockquote></b>Yeah, and you might run out of bacon.Timothy Powerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081922327870257027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4048186698864359724.post-67429039934443934952009-04-16T22:18:00.000-07:002009-04-16T23:06:47.551-07:00It's Time for the Carnival of Tonya!Well, I haven't been in much of a blogging mood lately, but my lovely bride has been cranking them out.<br /><br />Blog, posts that is. Although the phrase "cranking them out" somehow seems appropriate to a pregnant mother of 3 kids ages six and under....<br /><br />Ahem.<br /><br />On April 7, as she was thinking about Tax Time, she did <a href="http://tkppower.blogspot.com/2009/04/responsibility-is-it-counter-cultural.html">this</a> post on responsibility. She is coming to the conclusion that personal responsibility is increasingly a counter-cultural virtue; that we tend to "delegate" away our responsibilities, from finances to education to child-rearing.<br /><br />Then, on April 11 she <a href="http://tkppower.blogspot.com/2009/04/is-this-nesting-instinct.html">posted</a> about her sudden urge to get all the loose ends in our life wrapped up <span style="font-style: italic;">now,</span> before the baby comes next month. Now, it's a well-observed phenomenon that expecting mothers get this terrible urge to clean, rearrange furniture, and get everything ready, just a few days (or hours!) before they get this terrible urge to <span style="font-style: italic;">push</span>. Tonya was wondering whether her urge to wrap everything up was a manifestation of this "Nesting Instinct". Have to say, though, I'm skeptical. Tonya gets like this periodically whether or not she's eight months pregnant....<br /><br />But I <span style="font-style: italic;">really</span> liked her latest <a href="http://tkppower.blogspot.com/2009/04/are-you-familiar-with-book-of-job.html">post</a>. The Biblical book of Job is my favorite book of the Bible, because of all the hard questions it tackles head-on. What is justice? What is truth? What is wisdom? Why do good people suffer? Why do bad people so often <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> suffer? What should we do when events occur that run completely contrary to our faith? The book of Job tackles all this very challenging material in an intellectually stimulating way, and with a surprising amount of (often very black) humor.<br /><br />My favorite line of the book is Job 12:1. After a rather self-righteous and ignorant speech by one of Job's friends deriding Job's wisdom and trying to get him to repent of his (non-existent) sins, Job just rolls his eyes and delivers this sarcastic gem--which for full effect, you have to read out loud:<br /><blockquote>No doubt, you <span style="font-style: italic;">aaaare</span> the people, and wisdom will <span style="font-style: italic;">diiiiie</span> with you....</blockquote><br />Appropriate inflection added by me, but was undoubtedly in the original.... :-)<br /><br />Tonya expands on a <a href="http://tdpower.blogspot.com/2008/12/may-i-wax-little-philosophical.html">point</a> that I made back in December, but does it from a more theological direction. I mentioned that we were taking the news of our Trisomy 13 baby better than so many of the people around us were. Well, Tonya mentioned that she's been understanding lately something of what Job went through. It's not that we're suffering anything like he did--that's not it. Rather, imagine what Job must have been thinking while listening to his friends' theological babblings--how he must have been thinking, "They have absolutely <span style="font-style: italic;">no</span> idea what they're talking about," and, "how shallow and unthinking their 'wisdom' is!" and, "how in the <span style="font-style: italic;">world</span> do I explain what I know in such a way that they'll actually <span style="font-style: italic;">get</span> it?" and "...it's like I'm talking to a wall here..."<br /><br />Well, Tonya has been noticing lots of people greeting her at church with well-meaning attempts to <span style="font-style: italic;">bolster her faith</span>, without really understanding Tonya's situation, <span style="font-style: italic;">or how much faith she already has</span>. (Incidentally, that's <span style="font-style: italic;">my</span> assessment.) We meet people who have been praying for us that God would deliver us from this trial--by healing the baby, or otherwise making everything better. Well, we'd certainly be grateful if God decided to do something highly miraculous and give us a perfectly healthy little girl.<br /><br />Of course, that would take about the same size and kind of miracle as God deciding spontaneously to turn her into a boy.<br /><br />So we nod our heads and smile, and thank them for their concern; there's no need to get into theological debates with your well-wishers, if you can avoid it. But Tonya's given a whole lot more thought to this than they have, because it's happening to <span style="font-style: italic;">her</span>; and as such, she may well be seeing God's work a bit more clearly. God does not just make life easy for his people. Rather, he gives his people what they <span style="font-style: italic;">need</span>. And sometimes God's people need trials that make them stronger, that bolster their faith, that give them sympathy for the suffering of <span style="font-style: italic;">other</span><span> people around them. A miraculous healing of our baby would certainly be appreciated; but for us to endure this trial with faith and grace, and to emerge on the other side of this trial with greater strength and experience, may well serve the <span style="font-style: italic;">true </span>needs of the Kingdom of God better.<br /><br />Anyway, I'm summarizing a wee bit too much of what Tonya was writing, so I'll suggest that you go over there and read the whole thing.<br /><br />(By the way... It's this kind of thinking that I saw in her, that convinced me that I needed to marry her in the first place....)<br /><br /></span>Timothy Powerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081922327870257027noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4048186698864359724.post-5016625684478941292009-04-04T21:07:00.000-07:002009-04-04T22:18:08.922-07:00Blog? What Blog?Well, well. I knew if I went much more than a week without posting something, people would start wondering if we'd dropped off the earth or been eaten by ducks.<br /><br />Nothing so dramatic, I'm afraid. Starting about two weeks ago, a serious case of ennui set in. Also:<br /><ul><li>I started making things out of chain--of which I have a few pictures to share a little later. I found that after the kids went to bed each night, I had the choice of sitting down at the computer and typing a whole lot of <span style="font-style: italic;">whatever</span>, or sitting down at the table and <span style="font-style: italic;">bending metal</span>. The latter kept feeling more compelling, somehow.</li><li>For that matter, I have been making a conscious effort to spend less time web-surfing. I find that I'm a whole lot more informed about the world when I'm spending more time online, but (relatedly) it makes me a lot more annoyed with the world. I'm generally a happier person when I <span style="font-style: italic;">don't</span> know what's going on. :-) But as a result of my being offline more, I tend not to come up with as many ideas worth sharing....<br /></li><li>We were also out of town for a couple days there.</li><li>And then I managed to catch one of those generic diseases that's going around lately. We've got a lovely young lady in our office who's had a constantly-mutating virus, or a series of viruses with shifting symptoms (congestion one week, sore throat the next, coughing the week after that), for the <span style="font-style: italic;">last four weeks</span>. It's gotten to the point that my office-mates have named the virus after her. ("Oh, you seem to have caught the 'K' virus...") The trouble is, she just <span style="font-style: italic;">happens</span> to be a veteran chain-maker too, so we've been spending much time shooting the breeze lately and showing off our latest works to each other. So I guess it was inevitable that I would wind up with the 'K' virus. I've been pretty weak and surly this last week.</li></ul>So that's my excuse. We'd finally get the kids in bed, and I'd hear the little voice on my right shoulder telling me, "They really need to know how you're doing". And then I'd hear the little voice on my <span style="font-style: italic;">left</span> shoulder telling me, "<span style="font-style: italic;">They</span> need to get a life. And so do <span style="font-style: italic;">you</span>."<br /><br /><br />...<br /><br /><br />So, what has been going on around here? Well, my lovely wife posted <a href="http://tkppower.blogspot.com/2009/03/one-post-month.html">this</a> about two weeks ago, and things haven't changed <span style="font-style: italic;">that</span> much since then.<br /><br />And then we've been getting over the K virus lately. At one point or another it hit pretty much everyone in the family. For a while there we had both the Pillowfight Fairy and the Happy Boy on antibiotics at the same time.<br /><br />...Oh, yeah. I nearly poisoned my daughter. I was supposed to give her two <span style="font-style: italic;">teaspoons</span> of amoxicillin, and I gave her a dose of two <span style="font-style: italic;">tablespoons</span>. She took it like a trooper, so I can be proud of that. But shortly after giving her the dose, after some odd things spoken by my wife and daughter, I realized that I'd just given her <span style="font-style: italic;">three times</span> what I should have done. You know that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach that you get when you realize that something <span style="font-style: italic;">really, really </span>bad has just happened? Well, I'm not entirely over that sinking feeling yet. I felt absolutely <span style="font-style: italic;">awful</span> as I dialed up the nurse to explain what I'd just done to my kid. And the nurse was very calm and reassuring, explaining that this sort of thing happens all the time. She called up the Poison Control Center just to be safe, and they said just to keep an eye on things and call in again if anything else comes up. As it turned out, the Fairy suffered no side effects or anything; she was absolutely fine. <span style="font-style: italic;">My</span> nerves were shot, but <span style="font-style: italic;">she</span> was just fine.<br /><br />Now, if it had been Acetaminophen, that would have been <span style="font-style: italic;">really</span> serious....<br /><br />(P.S. The spell checker doesn't like "amoxicillin". It thinks it's some unholy combination of penicillin and amontillado...)<br /><br /><br />...<br /><br /><br />So what of those wires that I mentioned in my last post?<br /><br />Well, they got here eventually. They took the scenic route, but they got here. After spending the weekend in Winnipeg, they hopped a truck down to Minneapolis, then down to Cedar City, IA; and from there they headed west, west, west--all the way along I-80.<br /><br />And then it landed on our doorstep a week ago Friday--mere hours after we had left town to visit with Papa and Grandmother for the weekend. Thankfully, my brother and sister-in-law were taking a bit of a fun drive the next day, and were able to swing by our place to snag it before the neighborhood gremlins could. No telling <span style="font-style: italic;">what</span> they'd do with 2 pounds of 16-gauge Nickel Silver wire....<br /><br />Anyway, after taking off Monday with a bad case of the K virus, I was feeling a little better by the evening, so I started making up some rings and seeing what I could get them to do. By yesterday night, I'd completed this:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFWzb0HfIJj-ElJpMU0Nq9nNKG05U-X23rCEYTr9MbwNRgi7fkLyOvTtxyUyefvkBjgFdGWxZvuf995XZApr5tGdh7NM5tRHGLOPxlKNIx4dzO32nv3VJTq_Fwys1XZiefOSBNse1Ep_Q/s1600-h/BikerNecklace.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 358px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFWzb0HfIJj-ElJpMU0Nq9nNKG05U-X23rCEYTr9MbwNRgi7fkLyOvTtxyUyefvkBjgFdGWxZvuf995XZApr5tGdh7NM5tRHGLOPxlKNIx4dzO32nv3VJTq_Fwys1XZiefOSBNse1Ep_Q/s400/BikerNecklace.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321063110388246418" border="0" /></a>And here it is on my very long-suffering wife, who's 7.5 months pregnant, barely mobile, and wiped out after another day full of Toddler Wrestling:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpBB5ek5WlUUkyNn72E4cuieMhlRgQx7XJX011-8px5sa_GeMclHD4wjqf6wDVAp-OjouVSU__G9E2GQCfmgCLapZFyl6Gi3fb8d_h1oigcDW7E7p882KoS4HCkk_H_C9ND_I4yC26uDk/s1600-h/WifeWithNecklace.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 256px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpBB5ek5WlUUkyNn72E4cuieMhlRgQx7XJX011-8px5sa_GeMclHD4wjqf6wDVAp-OjouVSU__G9E2GQCfmgCLapZFyl6Gi3fb8d_h1oigcDW7E7p882KoS4HCkk_H_C9ND_I4yC26uDk/s400/WifeWithNecklace.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321063114878137362" border="0" /></a>I really like the way it turned out. It's hard to tell from the pictures, but it's actually made of three different kinds of differently-colored metal--bronze, stainless steel, and nickel silver (which, for clarity's sake, <span style="font-style: italic;">contains no actual silver</span>). Up close you can see the colors clearly; but from a distance, the different colors trick the eye into seeing <span style="font-style: italic;">shadows</span> where there are none. As a result, the chain looks like it has more depth and intricacy to it than it actually does. It's a neat visual effect.<br /><br />It's also a <span style="font-style: italic;">heavy</span> chain. A boxchain pattern with over 400 rings of 16-gauge wire, wrapped around a 1/4 inch mandrel, makes a <span style="font-style: italic;">heavy</span> chain. It's the kind of chain you would expect to find on bikers.<br /><br />Of course, that's not the only chain I've made so far. As I was impatiently waiting for the Canadians to get their act together, I took a trip to the local craft supply store to see what they had, and found some 20-gauge soft copper wire for beading projects. Close enough, said I! I picked up a small spool of pure copper, and a small spool of silver-plated copper, and got busy making little trinkets for my daughters.<br /><br />Here's the first one I finished, for the Adrenaline Junkie (dressed in this picture in her Sunday finest. That's why--aside from the smile--she looks like she's about to go to a funeral).<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPXSic13zEFrMXOU_tOgimvMY7hrIkpTkGAyU5woSztL0k2vLfF4RC_dvXx01HdoKyNw4gpjck4uilOcr1ZtPCuknInGOOgflwlGuXe5-ze9Jfd0u_uTpQnA1Sqo7RKkgCThaD32198WY/s1600-h/JunkieWithNecklace.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 338px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPXSic13zEFrMXOU_tOgimvMY7hrIkpTkGAyU5woSztL0k2vLfF4RC_dvXx01HdoKyNw4gpjck4uilOcr1ZtPCuknInGOOgflwlGuXe5-ze9Jfd0u_uTpQnA1Sqo7RKkgCThaD32198WY/s400/JunkieWithNecklace.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321066315715899490" border="0" /></a>And here it is up close, so you can see a little of the detail...<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM0NoxTO-nERRQ3zRbT9ap-m6nPqbdVb84PBhygUZl9gV5Y_ptXipf0qprXA-ie8uu83LR-fhEjJwwV8rRg6hMYUhz7kn7c6wHTxz3CuqwtT83rJIGb3YYxae-zZ-LQHjSSZCuVmA_8Iw/s1600-h/Necklace.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 224px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM0NoxTO-nERRQ3zRbT9ap-m6nPqbdVb84PBhygUZl9gV5Y_ptXipf0qprXA-ie8uu83LR-fhEjJwwV8rRg6hMYUhz7kn7c6wHTxz3CuqwtT83rJIGb3YYxae-zZ-LQHjSSZCuVmA_8Iw/s400/Necklace.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321066315237236658" border="0" /></a>And here's the one I made for the Pillowfight Fairy:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzRH2N_MdtSjYP4Fnty6Qn5x0smEyXXAvQF9iipzUX0KeIy4X4z7Ie9xdwxtrHeoymR7n_wKpq-5nNuhpKbDOGmljYgR3O2vnbknpoi7hkrJFtCiO7QjdlcbPrQDxADxdbOM8_dM71Ic4/s1600-h/FairyWithNecklace.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 261px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzRH2N_MdtSjYP4Fnty6Qn5x0smEyXXAvQF9iipzUX0KeIy4X4z7Ie9xdwxtrHeoymR7n_wKpq-5nNuhpKbDOGmljYgR3O2vnbknpoi7hkrJFtCiO7QjdlcbPrQDxADxdbOM8_dM71Ic4/s400/FairyWithNecklace.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321066318957750402" border="0" /></a>She likes to wear it long, of course, but it's not always practical that way. So I included a hook on it, so it could be doubled around the neck and hooked in back, like this:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNCjDu19AlIjY9bUvOX5zDxbJlP6i-QN1INME83RngQphEX53Pa59Na_51FJ07WI51ma1oe_W7kz63qSDcGWTs4MnyGuy5ExfZ4y-4meyE9_3rsM6dS3JUY-1WowgNF4dblxIEvowpYIE/s1600-h/FairyWithDoubledNecklace.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 289px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNCjDu19AlIjY9bUvOX5zDxbJlP6i-QN1INME83RngQphEX53Pa59Na_51FJ07WI51ma1oe_W7kz63qSDcGWTs4MnyGuy5ExfZ4y-4meyE9_3rsM6dS3JUY-1WowgNF4dblxIEvowpYIE/s400/FairyWithDoubledNecklace.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321066308466361922" border="0" /></a>Each of these necklaces took on the order of 400 rings to complete. The different lengths of the necklaces are due to the different patterns, some of which are denser than others. The Adrenaline Junkie's necklace--which is very short, so that Tonya can <span style="font-style: italic;">barely</span> wear it as a choker--takes about 25 rings per inch. The "biker" chain takes about 16 per inch, and the Fairy's spiral chain takes about 12.<br /><br /><br />...<br /><br /><br />So now what?<br /><br />I'm not sure how much I'll be blogging in the immediate future. I figured I needed to write an update to let everyone know that we're still here. But you know, it's actually been a little liberating not trying to blog every day. And bending metal is actually a very <span style="font-style: italic;">fun</span> activity.<br /><br />I'll try to be a bit more prolific than once every two weeks, though.Timothy Powerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081922327870257027noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4048186698864359724.post-772952460226229492009-03-20T22:04:00.000-07:002009-03-20T22:54:46.655-07:00Stimulating the Economy in WinnipegWell, this last week has been rather busy, what with kids fighting off the creeping crud, and Grandparents in town, and medical appointments for Tonya's pregnancy, and a whole bunch of other things going on. So I haven't been blogging much lately. If you're one of those rare souls who has come to expect a daily fix, I must offer my sincerest apologies, and humbly offer the suggestion that you take up a hobby or something.<br /><br />Like maille! Which, after all, is the subject of this post.<br /><br />Or rather, is the <span style="font-style: italic;">starting point</span> for this post. Last weekend I placed an order for some chain-making supplies from <a href="http://theringlord.com/">these guys</a>, who are major suppliers in the maille community. Now, they don't just buy from manufacturers and resell it; they <span style="font-style: italic;">make</span> a lot of the stuff themselves. They're not so much like Amazon, which stocks huge numbers of titles in warehouses somewhere waiting for orders, and then re-orders when their stock gets low. Rather, these guys appear to start manufacturing <span style="font-style: italic;">when they get your order</span>, so you get it hot and fresh. Even if all you're doing is ordering wire, they still have to measure the right amount and wind it on a spool for you; but if your order is more complicated (a few hundred hand-cut rings, for instance), it can take some time to get the order ready, because they <span style="font-style: italic;">will </span>go through the whole process of hand-cutting the rings for you.<br /><br />So I placed my order last Saturday, and waited...<br /><br />...and waited...<br /><br />...and visions of ring patterns have been dancing in my head ever since. I've been <span style="font-style: italic;">so</span> impatient.<br /><br />Who would have thought I would one day go practically nuts because my shipment of <span style="font-style: italic;">wires</span> hasn't come in yet?<br /><br />("I would", say my wife, mother, and half my readership in unison...)<br /><br />Well, yesterday afternoon we checked the website to see the status of the order--and it had shipped! Hooray! Now I know that it's out of the hands of the manufacturers, and it's safely in the secure grip of the UPS Ground people. Now all we have to do is wait a little bit more... and wait... and refresh the computer screen to see how much farther...<br /><br />Now, the thing you have to realize here is that The Ring Lord is located, of all places, in Saskatoon.<br /><br />(That sounds funny, doesn't it? I never would have guessed that Sauron was a Canadian, or that Mordor was in Saskatchewan.)<br /><br />Ahem. So now that I've done my part to stimulate the Canadian economy, I'm sitting here in a suburb of Sacramento daily checking my account to see how much closer I am to having my preciousssss. And, as of today, I've discovered that my package is traveling...<br /><br />East! Toward the Land of Shadow!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhguFz4AqVOeuJd85BZDqFHRjyPpRNTlOaeA-h8Wifvei77WZj3W4XW-ChkaO2z1_zUhhBztEw3V2Qzj2-JlAO8Z2HfQ3IyG6OLp_X2QG8fDyySWgN1zEQ-V9l0VsnHiS3AQJ1mmtKQz5w/s1600-h/Itinerary.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 354px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhguFz4AqVOeuJd85BZDqFHRjyPpRNTlOaeA-h8Wifvei77WZj3W4XW-ChkaO2z1_zUhhBztEw3V2Qzj2-JlAO8Z2HfQ3IyG6OLp_X2QG8fDyySWgN1zEQ-V9l0VsnHiS3AQJ1mmtKQz5w/s400/Itinerary.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5315507584599082290" border="0" /></a>No, no, no! Wrong direction! There's a straight line that runs from Saskatoon, to Helena, to Boise, to Sacramento (which is apparently not important enough to show up on this map, unlike, say, Yellowknife).<br /><br />Ok, ok... I probably shouldn't refer to Winnipeg as the Land of Shadow. I'm sure it's very nice, although perhaps not this time of year. (I lived in Minot, N.Dak. for a year and a half, and I <span style="font-style: italic;">know</span> what it's like there this time of year. And both Saskatoon and Winnipeg are farther north than Minot is. Not that you can tell from this map, which didn't find <span style="font-style: italic;">anything </span>in N.Dak. worth showing.)<br /><br />But the way my package is headed, it looks like it'll wind up in Chicago or something. And I'm not sure I trust the town that is now going to require you to <a href="http://housingdoom.com/2009/03/13/new-law-requires-home-sellers-to-provide-fingerprints/">provide your fingerprints when you sell your home</a>.<br /><br />Suddenly I'm reminded of an old comic that I used to love called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tick_(comics)">The Tick</a>, which was a glorious spoof of the whole superhero genre. In one episode, the Tick and his sidekick Arthur are trying to drive to New York City, but they keep getting lost. Arthur is getting really annoyed by the fact that he keeps seeing cacti, when "I should not be seeing a cactus on the way to New York!", but the Tick is waxing poetic about all the sights of "America the Beautiful! (And parts of Canada and Mexico too)."<br /><br />At this rate, by the time my little wires get to me, they will be far better traveled than I am, at least since the kids came along. And they'll probably have Chicago fingerprints all over them.<br /><br /><br />...<br /><br /><br />On a completely different topic, my wife has a book about the history of Canadian-American relations that she picked up when she visited Toronto over a decade ago. She finally decided to start reading it a few nights ago got through half of it, and then gave up because everything after 1812 was so boring.<br /><br />And she's pretty tolerant of boring.Timothy Powerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081922327870257027noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4048186698864359724.post-12096593600104325752009-03-15T23:35:00.001-07:002009-03-16T00:23:46.256-07:00So What Good Is a Mandrel If You Don't Use It?Ok, so I had a really, really productive day on Friday, which I described in withering detail to my remaining loyal readership. And the highlight of that day--to me, anyway, was that I got to Build Stuff. In preparation for my foray into maille crafting, I built a mandrel.<br /><br />And yet, as enjoyable as it was just to be able to <span style="font-style: italic;">build stuff</span>, Friday's activities left me, well... unsatisfied. There was one very important item on my shopping list that I couldn't find, and that was the <span style="font-style: italic;">wire</span>.<br /><br />Yup. Plain old wire, of the sort that could be made into maille. Here's the trouble, though: to make good maille, you really need better wire than what you can find in <span style="font-style: italic;">most</span> hardware stores. Yeah, you can find 16-gauge galvanized, and a lot of people do make their chainmaille from this material; but it's not the prettiest stuff around, and it does get that old-metal smell after you've been working it for a while, and while it starts out shiny, it doesn't take long to turn dull gray and stain your hands that color too.<br /><br />So if you want your maille to look pretty, you need some better materials: you need stainless steel wire, or bronze, or brass, or nickel silver, or "bright" aluminum. The trouble is, it's not always easy to find good quantities of this stuff. You might get a little in a craft store, or you might not; you can't always tell in advance.<br /><br />So I decided to go online and order from a place that <a href="http://theringlord.com/">specializes in maille-crafting supplies</a>. I am now eagerly awaiting an order for three two-pound spools of 16-gauge wire: <a href="http://theringlord.com/cart/shopdisplayproducts.asp?id=121&cat=Stainless+Steel+Wire">stainless steel</a>, <a href="http://theringlord.com/cart/shopdisplayproducts.asp?id=134&cat=Bronze+Wire">bronze</a>, and <a href="http://theringlord.com/cart/shopdisplayproducts.asp?id=120&cat=Nickel+Silver+Wire">nickel silver</a>.<br /><br />And this stuff is going to be delivered in two to three weeks. <span style="font-style: italic;">Weeks</span>, I tell you! Good heavens, I've become impatient in my old age.<br /><br />(I suspect my mother is reading this and thinking to herself, "What do you mean, <span style="font-style: italic;">become</span>? You've <span style="font-style: italic;">always</span> been like this....")<br /><br />So earlier today I remembered that we had some wire hanging around from a project I did many moons ago, and I fished that out. Turns out it was 19-gauge galvanized steel. "Close enough", I thought, and I got out my mandrel.<br /><br />Again, the girls pretty much dropped everything they were doing to come over and watch. I tell you, given how fascinated they are by all this, <span style="font-style: italic;">they're</span> likely to be making maille one of these days.<br /><br />And without too much trouble, I made over a hundred rings in under half-an-hour or so. Much to my surprise, every step of the process went as smoothly as everything I'd read online said: I wound up a big coil on the mandrel, then I cut off the ends and slipped the rod out, then I took the aviation snips and cut several links at a time off the coil. With the first several that I cut, I closed them into rings immediately after cutting them, to check to see how well they closed (and thus whether I was cutting them well), and everything looked really good--the cuts had a nice, flush surface, and they sealed up fairly tightly with little or no gaps.<br /><br />So now that I had a small batch of rings, I got my pliers and set to work:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyboKJ34t4tC-OHOeB0_3ktcEFjc3Yk2AeHrSsrwwdifUvSo57qM5aDeQh58JtEH_2HzL_xFFRN4yf6I4XNQAjUd3SXoKjd8nv7WBtejBiIt-UTk5yT0RMEs8YrVZuSjJrt3g2_HkAOK4/s1600-h/MailleSample1.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 351px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyboKJ34t4tC-OHOeB0_3ktcEFjc3Yk2AeHrSsrwwdifUvSo57qM5aDeQh58JtEH_2HzL_xFFRN4yf6I4XNQAjUd3SXoKjd8nv7WBtejBiIt-UTk5yT0RMEs8YrVZuSjJrt3g2_HkAOK4/s400/MailleSample1.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5313670627634878034" border="0" /></a>Voila. There you have an honest-to-goodness swatch of European 4-in-1 (meaning that each ring not on an edge goes through four others.<br /><br />And, of course, I learned a few things. Just as I found with the whole lockwasher experiment from last week that your pattern can be too dense, so this time I found that your pattern can be too <span style="font-style: italic;">sparse</span>. I'm using 19-gauge wire (0.040 inch thickness) on rings with an inner diameter of 0.25 inches, meaning that my Aspect Ratio (inner diameter divided by wire thickness) is 6.25--and that's a pretty high aspect ratio for the European 4-in-1 pattern. That means that the project is going to be <span style="font-style: italic;">too</span> flexible, and thus isn't likely to ward off all those sword blows as well. Thankfully, the wire I ordered is 16-gauge (0.064 inch thickness), so the Aspect Ratio will be closer to 4. That will produce a denser, stiffer weave, but not too dense to work.<br /><br />And if it doesn't work, I'll just get a thicker shaft for my mandrel. :-)<br /><br />Anyway, I'll leave you with one more picture of my handiwork. Just for giggles I threw in the little lockwasher-weave that I did last week. I note how clunky and crude it looks next to the piece I did tonight. Interestingly, as different as they look, the rings on the two swatches had the same inner diameter; so had I done the same pattern, the pieces would have wound up about the same size for the same number of rings. (In fact, the new piece would have wound up slightly <span style="font-style: italic;">larger</span>.) As it was, the new piece took 124 rings, compared to the 96 lockwashers in last week's project.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBCw4xOP_twzASA8EaOhSNl5xNMX-iSZ7MNKxLrNiuLQVfxy8FfU3M0r97T-XG4ib9SLEFre-iqdi1ZgUTrpiNboAxjlWx3Y4LlxuBqJyg2-MG6NG0j8oCjhaBdS2iDw55jI-cHdfzc-Q/s1600-h/MailleSample2.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 269px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBCw4xOP_twzASA8EaOhSNl5xNMX-iSZ7MNKxLrNiuLQVfxy8FfU3M0r97T-XG4ib9SLEFre-iqdi1ZgUTrpiNboAxjlWx3Y4LlxuBqJyg2-MG6NG0j8oCjhaBdS2iDw55jI-cHdfzc-Q/s400/MailleSample2.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5313670629767869474" border="0" /></a>I've also thrown in a penny for scale, and the coil of wire I used. Note how shiny the wire looks on its spool? And note how dark gray the maille looks that was made from it? <span style="font-style: italic;">That's </span>how quick galvanized steel tarnishes when you work it like that, and why I'm going to try to avoid it on my projects.<br /><br />Anyway, despite the fact that my finished swatch feels to me less like armor and more like fireplace grate/curtain material, this was still a fun little project, and a good learning experience.Timothy Powerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081922327870257027noreply@blogger.com0