According to John Dvorak's recent article (bullet #3), if I am to be a stereotypical blogger, I'm supposed to apologize profusely for not having written in four days. Then I'm supposed to rave about weblogging and how great it is. OK John, now onto what I'd like to do.
First off, you may recall that the other day I wrote about a pill to mitigate against the need for exercise. Well, on the heals of this comes discussion of a pill to mitigate against the short term need for sleep. Unlike similar pills based on stimulants, this supposedly doesn't make you crash afterwards. It was originally developed for people with sleep disorders like narcolepsy but could have other potential uses. The possibilities for abuse are scary if you think about it. I submitted the story to Aquinas Cafe who accepted it today.
Speaking of the Cafe, they pointed me in the direction of this great homily by Fr. Roger J. Landry about our response to the recent Church scandals. I was thinking of quoting a sentence or two, but there were sooo many good points, I'd rather you just follow the link and read the article. It was inspiring. I would have loved to have heard the homily in person! I had never heard of the website that hosted this: the Catholic Educator's Resource Center . I thought I was pretty familiar with the good online sources of solid Catholic information but this one looks like it may be one that I'd not seen before. I'll have to check back again soon. It looks like they have some good content there. The folks at Catholicity also thought Fr. Landry's homily was "perhaps the single best commentary on the matter." They had several other good commentaries on the recent scandals as well.
Michelle is once again proving that I am not worthy, not by a longshot. This mother of four decided today to do the edging all along the sidewalks and driveway today. She did this while the boys were napping! In a strange twist Abby was happy to be outside with Michelle helping her collect the chunks of lawn that Michelle would carve out. Michelle says she wanted the grass out of way for later when we re-seal the driveway.
We're starting to think that perhaps the housing market is just too overpriced. To quote our national stock guru, it seems to have "irrational exhuberance". Any home that we would like to buy is already under contract before we can even get to see the house. Sometimes a house is under contract in hours. Literally! It's truly insane! Considering that our house is "only" valued around $220K, we've been hard pressed to find anything at $300K that we like as much as our own house. Why spent all that money to be less happy? Perhaps something will show up, but soon we may just call the move off and focus on upgrades for our current house. Michelle has already called a few folks to talk about putting central air conditioning in the house and is talking with someone about possibly putting vinyl siding on in a few months. It may be hard for Chicago and LA residents to believe, but air conditioning in Nashua isn't quite the requirement as it is in other parts of the country.
As I wrote the other day doing some digital photo cleanup can be fun, but it possible to go too far with picture editting. My friend, Will, passed on this fun link where people would use Photoshop to massage a given picture in absurd ways. Later they rate each other's silliness. It funny to see how much a given image can be manipulated. It's just goes to show you that you can't believe what you see anymore.
The boys went for their regular checkup today. They each had three shots. Luckily these will be the last immunizations until they are five years old. The amount of immunizations kids have these days is almost scary. Isn't it ironic that the common things can't be prevented but the rare (yet often deadly) things do have a shot? They are both the same height now: 31 inches. Daniel is still a pound heavier. He's 23 1/2 pounds, Michael is 22 1/2 pounds. Considering that they haven't been able to hold down food since last Friday, I wonder what their weights would have been before their sickness. Luckily they seem to be almost completely back to normal. This means, of course, that we have to make sure things are prepared accordingly: move the keyboard, elevate the cat bowl, gate the dining room, etc. etc.
Well, that's about all for now. Abby's 4th birthday comes up soon. Michelle picked up a few presents for her tonight while I stayed home with the kids. Stay tuned for news on Abby's birthday...