Word of the Day

Fodder

YUCK

All three of us are sick. Will started it-- he started in with a cold last Friday, which he promptly gave to James and me. Then Will's cold (helped along by the inversion that's been hovering over Provo for the past two weeks) degenerated into asthma AND croup. Lovely. So we're all hacking and coughing our way through this week. At least Will's a happy sickie though-- it doesn't seem to bother him. He just wheezes and smiles at the same time. I wish I could say the same for me:). It wouldn't be so bad if Will wasn't one of those babies who turn into insomniacs when they're sick. But oh well. We're all beginning to mend, it's just going slow. We can survive, right?
Anyway, moving onward. I'm actually quite proud of myself this week. There's a new book out, called The Enemy at Home, by a man named Dinesh D'souza. It's been kicking up a lot of dust around the conservative blogosphere. I read an interview the author did with National Review. Frankly, the entire premise of the book disgusts me. His thesis is that liberalism and the American Left are at least partiallyto blame for 9/11, and that if American morals were more, well, moral, then we wouldn't be a target for terrorism. He blames the atrocities at Abu Ghraib on liberals/liberalism. The whole book seems to be appeasement fodder, not to mention equating Americans (albeit amoral ones) with terrorists. Anyway, long story short, I put a review on Amazon (which normally I wouldn't do without having read the book)... and people liked it. Or at least one guy who describes himself as a liberal "applauded my good sense and courage". Sorry for blowing my own horn-- but I do think it's cool:).

New Lens, Recipe Site

We got our coveted 50mm prime lens today -- no zoom, but a cheap, crisp, fast lens that isn't made anymore. It's absolutely GREAT for low light portraits. So we promised ourselves that we wouldn't get more lenses, but prices are rising since they aren't made anymore, and we got it in a bundle that we can resell -- I'm hoping the final cost will be about $35, which is dirt cheap.

What is so great about a lens that doesn't even zoom? Well, it's a LOT cheaper to get a great lens that doesn't zoom than one that does. Hundreds and hundreds of dollars cheaper. That's a big motivator. Also, this lens is "fast" -- you can set it to have a very large opening (aperture, also called f-stop) to let light in. This large opening also means it has a very small depth of field, so you get a nice blurred background effect. The depth of field is so shallow, this picture of will has his shirt being a bit blurry! You can of course adjust the aperture to make more in focus. We'll be using this lens a lot.


I've also decided that I'd like to make a recipe sharing site. Blogs don't work so well for sharing and searching recipes, but they do capture the social/sharing aspect well; recipe sites make searching for recipes you've seen before easy, but also just list everybody's cream of mushroom soup & chicken recipes without discrimination. So I'd like to combine the two into an odd but interesting combo, (kinda like dipping french fries in a chocolate shake). It will probably take a bit to develop, but it would be fun too. If you have any must-have features, let me know!

Hey!

It works!
We've been trying to teach Will to go to sleep on his own, and after much trial and tribulation: Da da da daaaaaa! He fell asleep with only a minimum amount of fussing. I'll take it!

Massive number of photos now on Flickr!

Blogger makes it pain to upload photos, so I'm putting them all on Flickr now. We've got the 150+ Walsh Wedding photos, and we're putting up Lichfield pictures and Will pictures (of course) too.


http://flickr.com/photos/46011929@N00/sets/

Grad school and other random thoughts

Well, we're two days into James' grad school experience, and he's exhausted. I can't say that I blame him-- I would've hated going back to school eight months after I graduated. He doesn't even mind the classes-- it's the inevitable jumping through hoops that bother him. Still, at least it'll all be over just over a year from now. Then we get to start living "real life"-- whatever that means. It'll sure be nice to be done with school though. I'll admit, it's a little disheartening-- after this semester, Mike and Cara are done, Adam and Amanda are done, Austin and Andrea are done, Bre's done, Rob and Kathryn will be off to med school (VERY not done), and Eddie and Andrea have been done. Dan and Cindy are in Salt Lake. And then there's us. Really, who'll be left? Danny will finish in December, and then he and Bre are gone... Matt and Kylee will still be here, but that's about it. Scary thought. James and I have so many great friends... it's a sad thought that we're all getting scattered across the country. The idea of having to build more relationships that even approach the closeness of the ones we have is staggering. And it's not like our friends are replaceable... part of the pain of being decent human beings is missing people, I guess. And I sure hope I'm a decent human being.:)
Boy, this is a cheery post so far,eh? Time for happier stuff, or at least stuff that's not so utterly gloomy:
Will is getting really good at rolling over, not to mention somehow squirming himself halfway across the room. Heaven help me when that boy learns to crawl. I've learned today that he HATES Gerber's peaches and bananas. As in uncompromising, undisguised, loathing. I would have paid to have the camera handy when he first tried those bananas.
President Bush is giving "The Speech" tomorrow. I think the concept of a surge is a good idea, but I read somewhere today that he has a timetable for handing security over to the Iraqis. If it's a goal, then all is well and good. If it's a deadline, which amounts to the same thing as a "phased redeployment" (read, "retreat"), then the cowards in Iraq and the appeasers here have won. What we're currently doing could obviously use some change... I just hope it works.
That wasn't cheery either, was it? Hmm...
James has found a setup for speakers that doesn't require having three phone books stacked on top of the subwoofer.
I CAN NOT find the remote control to our DVD player. The monster that steals socks from the dryer is apparently branching out.
Will likes Wallace and Gromit.
This post is forever long. I'll post some pictures of Will later, but good evening for now.
Oh, word of the day: verbose. See loquacious:).

"Terrible life choice"

I started my "terrible life choice" today.

I'm looking forward to my classes (except stats, which will be useful but slow). It does feel odd to be back in classes again after an eight month hiatus. it is also odd thinking of this as the beginning of the end for us; I should be done next April.

I also start officially "working out" tomorrow with Matt Duff, although I have to find some way to get 24 Hr Fitness to drop the $100 activation fee... They have promotions often to do that, so I hope I can weasel out of it. So, Matt is very energetic about working out (peer pressure for the last month and a half anyone?), and I'm more concerned about the time commitment, and getting the $100 waved; it doesn't seem to bother anyone else, but knowing that if I wait a month until it goes on "sale" I can save $100... that's a bit of a downer for me.

I honesty feel more tired than anything; I almost had a routine down with everything that I was comfortable with. Now I'll be back to 6am wakeup times, and half the income we were on. Of course there shouldn't be any more $10,000 medical bills for a while, which will help. And with my job I can't really complain -- and I'm not -- just feeling... tired.

So off to bed for me...