BilikFamily.com

Ordinary Time. It's not just a part of the liturgical calendar that we're about to re-enter. It's the way January starts to feel after a while. I certainly don't see a lot changing this week.

Electrician - Michelle is probably going to have the electrician who did our basement work come back to do a myriad of small jobs around the house. I know... "but Scott, you're an electrical engineer. You have a masters degree!" There's a world of difference between knowing how to design a microprocessor and wiring your house in a way that meets local building codes and won't rile an inspector. She wants to change the fixture over the kitchen sink, put an overhead fixture in the study, put some more outlets in the garage, and I want a switch at the top of the basement stairs to turn off the basement overhead lights when the kids forget. (note: that's "when" not "if") It's not rocket science work, but I prefer to work with low voltage DC rather than 120AC. It's harder to get killed touching digital logic than it is mis-wiring your house.

School - The other big recent news is that Michelle is looking at kindergarten for the twins. In the past she homeschooled the girls through kindergarten and is doing preschool with the twins using similar materials now. Nonetheless she's thinking that next fall, she may want to put them in a small, private school. She's had a few recommendations from good friends that she's been investigating. Keep in mind here in Milford there is no public school kindergarten. (Heck, we just got electricity and telephone! *smirk*)

It's that way for most of New Hampshire. Kindergarten is just an out of pocket expense. Only a few local districts splurge for covering it. This has brought about a local market for a decent number of small private facilities that specialize in preschool and kindergarten to fill that gap. It's not unlike the recent nationwide surge in daycare facilities. The nice thing is that unlike the public school, one size fits all model, each of these private pre-K/K schools has it's own character. Christian, non-Christian, structured, Montessori, conservative, liberal, etc. About the only thing I can't find nearby is a Catholic kindergarten. Go figya! “Dem darn Catholics, I mean, Papists!”

Timothy - Mighty Timbo continues to make progress toilet training. How to not be to graphic in describing this... Well, he seems to have good control in the #1 domain, but on #2... well, he's not (to quote Alyssa) a “Super Duper Pooper”. Still, considering he only started this weekend, he's been doing well without a lot of pressure from us.

We're also teaching the twins how to use the bathroom without the aid of a "potty seat". Daniel is doing well. Michael needs better aim. Ahem. In training Timothy, Michelle has bypassed the "potty seat" entirely. On the funny side, Timothy did accidentally put his foot in the toilet today. Luckily, he hadn't gone yet. He was just getting onto the toilet and "misunderestimated".

There. Have we had enough body function talk?! Good. Moving on.

Work - The only other big focus for Michelle and I at the moment is my job. Or more properly, my long term employment future. Let's just say that things look reasonable. Decent opportunities are out there. It would not be prudent to write more at the present.

Energy - My friend, Ed, pointed me to an interesting article about coal. Specifically it addresses our concerns about radiation emissions with nuclear power plants but discusses how our radioactive emissions from coal plants are significantly more than people are aware and yet we seem to have no concerns in that domain. Excerpts:

“Americans living near coal-fired power plants are exposed to higher radiation doses than those living near nuclear power plants that meet government regulations.
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The amount of thorium contained in coal is about 2.5 times greater than the amount of uranium.
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The population effective dose equivalent from coal plants is 100 times that from nuclear plants.
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The amount of uranium-235 alone dispersed by coal combustion is the equivalent of dozens of nuclear reactor fuel loadings.”

I'm such an energy geek! These, though, are the kinds of things I rather enjoy studying about energy. More than half of the energy sites I read are all very leftist, environmental sites filled with societal self loathing. I have to skim through all the righteous, self-congratulatory "oh, if only the rest of America was as enlightened" writing by the "green" writers to get some non-editorial info. (example)