Organ Donor

After watching this 90 second video, I registered to become an organ donor.

I registered here: https://register.donatelifecalifornia.org/register/. I told them they can have anything except my heart and they can’t use me for “research”, which is (I assume) mostly being a cadaver for med school.

Thanks to Jim Fourniadis and Paula Peters for pointing me to it.

Summer in Full Swing

Summer is in full swing. Abigail is growing like crazy! Megan has been posting photos on Facebook. If you want to see them, ping me to ping her :-)

The plum tree in the back yard gave us about 10 pounds of plums… kinda all at once. I had been using a broom with a potato masher taped to the end to pluck individual fruit off the tree then I thought how I really wanted all the fruit that was about to fall off the tree. I gave the tree a shake and it was suddenly raining plums! DUM BUM BUM DUM plums hitting the ground and me with my arms over my head getting hit by ripe fruit! It was wonderful!

Last week a friend on our new parents group said she had too many lemons so we went over and got like 20. Megan got this great photo of Abigail swimming in lemons! I’ve got a photo of the lemon curd we made with it. It came out AMAZING, along with the lemon cake!

In the photo:
* Megan’s home made lemon curd in the big jar
* (what’s left of) My home made plum jam and plum coffee cake
* Caitlin’s home made ghee

Thoughts About A Patio

Megan and I want to put a patio in our backyard. It’ll be about 12’x12′. There are a zillion options. What are your thoughts? Do you love YOUR patio?
Our thinking involves: easier surfaces to have family play play time on (smoother? softer?), natural beauty (not looking like a big concrete pad), cost (looks like wood is 3x the cost :-( )

The Most Exciting Half-Hour of Your Life

The most exciting half-hour of your life begin when you click “Play”. View full-screen.

Facebookification of the Internet?

Where is all the internet traffic going? Facebook?
Here’s my daily page-view stats for the last 2 years:

No matter. I blog for me.

Baby Pix!

Cloud Gazing last week. We lay there for 10 minutes looking up at the clouds and sun glittering through the trees in the back yard. Perfection!

Abigail in the midst of the contents of her toybox. Many of these toys were given to her by friends; it feels great that friendship surrounds her!

My view as I write this post this morning!

And sometimes there are tears!

Unsubscribing From Dell Catalog

“I don’t mean to be rude but I will not buy another Dell product until I stop getting your catalog.”

I’ve been getting unwanted Dell catalogs for more than a year. I’ve tried their automated unsubscription system and online chat multiple times. I called them today opening with this line. The guy on the line said he’d fix it. I’ll get back to you all in 2 months with an update.

Why is email being made to be useless?

Short form: sellers: if you offer weekly, monthly, and quarterly email options, you’ll have a place in my inbox. If not, you are out!

In the last few months, I have started getting daily emails from lots of the companies and organizations I have relationships with. Who the hell wants a DAILY email from their pharmacy or clothing retailer? I can’t imagine who buys that many drugs or clothes! Of course I have to unsubscribe from these things lest my inbox become useless. What bugs me is that none of these companies offer reasonable ways of me keeping in touch! I would stick with them if they offered weekly, monthly, or quarterly mailers.

Be a Teacher Assistant at The Crucible this summer. Make things that go!

Hey, this summer at the Crucible I’ll be teaching youth classes in Kinetics and Electronics along with some friends. Would you like to be a Teacher Assistant?

The program is running most weeks June 22nd thru Aug 7. Each class runs either in the morning or afternoon for 5 days. Monday-Friday 9a-noon, Monday-Friday 1p-4p; pick one or both… each week starts a new session.

– A little experience with basic electronics is helpful (basic soldering, switches, DC motors)
– Be able to relate to 8-14 year old kids that are already excited about building stuff.
– Be able to have fun learning how to do the stuff you don’t know from the experienced teachers while working with the kids

It pays $12.50/hr and you can get discounts on Crucible classes.

Look up the class times and descriptions: http://thecrucible.org/2015-youth-camps/

The July 6-10 class is extra special. We’ll be building smart Sumo-bots and the like. Arduino and programming skills a definite plus!
https://newstore.thecrucible.org/?product=youth-kinetics-immersion-program

A Day Off

I haven’t had a day off school in what feels like a million years. Not been getting nearly enough sleep either. But the end is in sight. I got a luxurious 9 hours of sleep last night, gave myself the daymorning 10am to 12:30pm off. And I feel quite a bit more human now. When school is done for the semester in week, I will sleep like the dead.