Police were called to a daycare where a three-year-old was resisting a rest.
Sorry, no time for more.

Once again, I find myself in Las Vegas waiting to board a flight to Dallas. Being away from the family stinks. Jared’s tummy still hurts. I miss them already and the week has barely begun. I am on hold on my cell phone, trying to type with one hand. I do not want to be a “road warrior”.

Katie’s birthday was yesterday. We went to Muir woods and saw the new Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The woods were nice but cold. The movie blew chunks. Bad acting. Bad writing. Two thumbs down, way down. Dumbledoor is so un-wise. Booooo. The only bright spots in acting was Hermoiny and Snape. I hope Hermoiny (whatever spelling) has a career after Potter. She is good.

Plane boarding now.

Jared has been sick for the last 40 hours or so. He says his tummy hurts. He kept repeating it, “My tummy hurts, my tummy hurts!?” I told him, “I know sweetie.” He replied, “Listen to my WORDS! MY TUMMY HURTS!” I felt so bad for him.

In Talbots Toy and Cyclery, he threw up on the floor. It didn’t phase him. He felt a little better after that.

Ethan’s bike was stolen from his school the other day. Katie and I have decided to wait until Solstice to replace it. So I said to Ethan, “Mommy and Daddy spoke to Santa…”. Ethan interrupted with a long discussion about whether or not Santa is real. I told him that Santa is a concept like God or Infinity. It is important to exercise your imagination and have fun in life. Of course you can define, with science, why the rainbow exists, but isn’t it fun to think it was painted there by a friendly sky god?

And what about presents? Of course, we can explain how people buy presents, but what is the fun of that? A friendly bearded fellow who eats cookies and milk is much more interesting. What is the point of having an imagination if you don’t use it?

So, I dropped Ethan off at school and a parent said to him, “I heard about your bike, maybe Santa will get you a new one.” He frowned a little and said, “I know the truth about Santa.”

Ethan needs to learn that imagination and science can live side by side.

Let’s make a parallel to “Intelligent Design”. I love the idea that God invented the Earth 4000 years ago; it is a great story. But I know logically that the story is not true. My point is that, we as people need to accept that fantasy is important to our spirits, even though we logically know that it is just fantasy.

In conclusion, “If a cop arrests a mime, does he really have to state that the mime has the right to remain silent?”

Katie got me a new Uke songbook with songs from the 60’s. Right now, I am practicing Daydream Believer and Moon River and Sitting on the Dock of the Bay. The book has many Beatles songs.

One day I hope to be this good. This guy has mad uke skills. Check out the ending, about 3 minutes in. Awesome.

For work, I need to edit a file originally made in Adobe inDesign. I have never used it before. I will report my findings.

Speaking of Design, I just finished reading Donald Norman’s book, The Design of Everyday things. I also just started another of his books, Emotional Design. The books are fairly well written and give a no-nonsense manifesto on why Design (with a capital D) is the most important thing in the world. Everything that has happened in history has been designed. Wars, Inventions, assassinations, Speeches, The Last Dragon. It is the details of how something is accomplished and designed to be accomplished that makes all the difference.

I have been thinking more and more about this subject. I am going to be reading up on this in the coming months. Some books on the radar: The Inmates are Running the Asylum and The Elements of User Experience. That last one looks very good.

This is such a critical area for success. Each area requires thoughtful design. Without it, you have complete anarchy and usually crappy products.

One example recently I have seen is Microsoft Live. There is clearly an intense amount of design work going into this. Is this pronounced L-if-v or L-eye-v? Hmmm.

Ethan had left his Bicycle overnight at his school. We went to go pick it up and it was gone. This is really bad. That bike was perfect. It was light, 6 gears, 20″ wheels with room to grow and most importantly, it was free. Ethan loved that bike. Now we need to get him a new one. We were already planning on getting Jared one for the holidays. Maaaaaaaannnn.

Maybe some puns will help?

I just saw a movie about some guy who had amazing revelations while eating his cereal. It was called Breakfast Epiphanies.

or

I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me.

Which is better?

The trip to the East Coast started off poorly. We had decided to attempt public transportation to get to SFO. Unfortunately, I had read the CalTrain schedule incorrectly. We waited for 45 minutes at the train station wondering where the train was. I re-checked the schedule and realized the next train didn’t come for another 45 minutes. We panicked slightly. I got the car, re-packed, and headed for the airport. We parked in long term parking ($11 per day) and barely made the plane.

It was a red-eye which we thought would work out. I got about 3 hours of sleep. I find it incredibly difficult to sleep while sitting up. Plus, little kids wiggle in their sleep. We arrived and took a shuttle to Enterprise. Here, the trip took a turn for the better. We had such amazing service at Enterprise. They literally treated us as well as could be imagined. They didn’t do the hard sell at all. They showed me the cars available and helped me decide which one. They helped pack the car. They spent extra time making sure everything was ok. We love Enterprise now.

The GPS on the Laptop was incredibly useful. We were never lost, even in rural Connecticut.

We arrived at the Hotel and was completely surrounded by Lipkas with their Lipka kids. There were as many kids as adults. It really was very nice.

The Bat Mitzvah was very nice. Abigail gave a speech where, I swore, she was about to denounce the entire religion and then at the last second made a recovery and said it was all good. Very sophisticated thinking, indeed. The party was in a nice restaurant. Great food. We sat with Mike, Linda, Jordan, Bruce, and Nicole. At one point Katie starting smacking me when she realized that Matthew Solomon was the name of one of the murderers in the family. She thought Matt was tainted as a name for our youngest. I disagree. I think it is like Garp’s house. What are the chances of TWO murderers in the family named Matt?

At one point, the DJ had a karaoke dance off thing. I didn’t see the main event. Apparently, Ethan danced while Cousin Noah sang ‘The Eye of the Tiger’. If you have never seen Ethan dance, then you are truly missing a unique experience. It is sort of like Break-dance Fighting meets Napoleon Dynamite. In the end, Ethan and Noah won the contest and beat Abigail. Ethan gave the prize to Abigail.

The rest of the trip was uneventful. Everyone was on good behavior. We played football in the yard with all the kids. Abigail lost her earring in the yard, and everyone scanned the yard until it was found. Olivia found the earring to everyone’s joy. Lipka’s can do anything when they put their heads together. Even though she is a Graff. Oh well.

We swam in the hotel pool. We drove all over. We spent a day with Shanna and Nanna. Cousin Elizabeth and Genna are very smart. While Elizabeth was answering all kinds of commands from Mikey, all Matthew wanted to do was butt heads. He is a terror these days. Way too much energy. We need to put weights on his legs.

The flight home was good, although I almost missed the plane. I literally got on the plane as they were shutting the door. We had to be escorted and run through security. When we stepped off the flight, I realized, I left BOTH our car keys in my jacket back at my dad’s house. This made Katie very angry. We got two cabs home, because we didnt fit in one car.

Finally, we are home. It was a tiring trip, but lots of good times. I am hoping our next trip is to meet the family someplace nice like the Caribbean.

I hope I am remembering all the little details. So much fun, so little blog.

I couldn’t afford to buy cotton so I decided to be abrasive, and steel wool.

Every proposition failed. I wish Prop 80 had done better, but I blame the phrasing of the proposition. It should have read, “Should California regulate Energy?” Instead, they put all this confusing language about limiting choice. No one could read the thing and understand what it was doing.

Penny voted no on all propositions for just this reason. She votes for Governor and Legislators. They get paid to make law. Why are they asking her to make law? She doesn’t know the answer! So instead of asking the population a sensible questions which could help communicate a popular “vision”, they ask specific questions that we can not answer properly. I believe the across the board NO vote was sending this message. This election was a complete waste of tax payers dollars.

New Proposition: Should special elections for propositions be eliminated? I vote Yes.

Q: How can you tell when a bucket gets sick?
A: It becomes a little pale.

The Jets, Sunday night, ALMOST won the game against the Chargers. They had 1st and goal with a minute left. Score a touchdown and win. Simple as that. They called 1 run and three timing passes. All losers. They lost the game. I can’t believe it! I am so sick of them losing all the time. When will we be released from this loser’s hell?

Meanwhile, I think Brooks Bollinger is doing fine. Not great, but good enough. It is so easy for me to think there is a ray of hope. Truthfully, if they had won that game, they would have a very different outlook right now.