Nine years ago Brooke and I celebrated our first married Valentine’s Day by making our first large joint purchase: her piano. This V-Day we picked out a minivan, but couldn’t take delivery of it until this week.
I know what you’re thinking. “Oh, Jeremy, that’s soooo romantic,” but seriously? A minivan?
Miles: “I can’t find my fro-up.”
Jeremy: “What?”
Miles: “My fro-up like Ben’s.”
Brooke: “Why are you looking for throw-up?”
Miles: “No, FRO. UP. See?”
Brooke and Jeremy realize that Ben is eating a “fruit roll-up.”
—–
Miles: “Hey Dad! Look! I’m going to be a….” [BANG! CRASH!] “…a baseball player!!”
Jeremy: “OK, but a baseball bat is an outside toy.”
I was going to blog about the Golden State shutting down and laying off tens of thousands of state workers because the legislature can’t agree on a budget. Democrats are in control and want to raise taxes, but many Republicans have taken a pledge not to do so. Since California requires a 2/3 vote to raise taxes – and the Democrats won’t cut services instead – the process is frozen and the state is going under.
Then I thought I should blog on this more ridiculous note from my state. According to the ever-sensationalist New York Post, Governor Patterson gave huge pay raises (46% in one case) to his close associates. This wouldn’t be such an issue if not for the fact that he has told state workers to forgo their standard 3% raises or face layoffs. Of course, the governor’s spokesperson claims these were “promotions,” not raises. Fine, tell me to which vacant spots these people were “promoted.” If those positions didn’t exist before the “promotions,” then these are nothing more than raises.
But both of these pale in comparison to this tidbit from the New York Times:
[Judge] Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., and a colleague, Michael T. Conahan, appeared in federal court in Scranton, Pa., to plead guilty to wire fraud and income tax fraud for taking more than $2.6 million in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers run by PA Child Care and a sister company, Western PA Child Care.
See, Conahan was in charge of the budget for detention and had the county’s juvi closed because of its “poor condition.” The state then had to send young offenders to privately-owned (read: for-profit) detention centers. Ciaveralla then shipped kids off to the centers at an alarming rate: 25% of his defendants (versus the state average of 10%). Of course, the state, ergo, the taxpayers, had to foot the bill for these incarcerations.
In exchange for this assistance, the companies that ran the prisons sent money to a company in Florida that was controlled by the two judges. You could call it a “finder’s fee.”
Wait. You mean, these two men, entrusted with serving out justice by the people of their state, instead ruined the lives of possibly 5,000 children for what? Money. $2.6 million. This seriously makes me ill.
PS – I missed post #600. This is #601.
Yeah, right. Like I can get anything done when the Tour of California is on. I’ve heard it said that football was made for television: It has built-in commercial and replay breaks. Well, cycling was made to watch online. Take a look at the new-and-improved Tour Tracker (click for a larger view):
On the left you have a chat history for the commentators; on the right are the GPS-tracked rider and a map of their locations; the bottom shows the stage profile and the location of the tracked riders; in the middle is the all-important video feed – this year with pitcure-in-picture so you can follow the breakaway and peleton at the same time; above that is a time, which I’ve minimized here to show more video.
Yeah…. I’m getting nothing done today.
If you ever decide to steal a bicycle, don’t steal a one-of-a-kind model that was custom-made (and custom-painted) for Lance. I mean, you can’t ride it in public (I’m fairly certain someone would recognize it); you can’t sell it, not even on ebay. It’d be a lot of work for a rig that would sit in the basement (or on a trainer).
Oh, and the ever-clever Patrick O’Grady offers another distinguishing feature of the bike: It’s “speckled with the slobber of doe-eyed fanboys with man-crushes.”
I came across a “How nerdy are you?” quiz and I just couldn’t help myself. I thought I would be an entry-level nerd because I’m not a trekky, I don’t play D&D, and I don’t even have a WoW account. Apparently none of that matters. I’m a…
Oh, dear. You mean normal people don’t know their own IP address? You at least know your domain’s IP range, right? You’ve never cracked any software? not even a URL hack?
Oh, well. I’m sure I’ll find some solace tonight by furthering my regex skills… (Or is that not something normal people do on a Saturday night?)
UPDATE: There’s a second version of that quiz. It give more detailed results:
Clarence Center, where a plane crashed into a home last night, is about an hour west of us. The young woman who was in the house and escaped with her mother is a senior at the college where I teach. Her father didn’t make it out.
I came across a terribly interesting article in the San Jose Mercury News on the root causes of California’s financial crisis. It turns out that state spending has increased more over the last five years than have the population and inflation. In other words, it’s not just a growing population or a decrease in the value of the dollar that can explain the budget deficit. In fact, more than $10 billion is unaccounted by those factors.
So, the reporter concludes, it’s an increase in services that is to blame for the shortfall. Looking at the data, increases in prisons and hospitals, and decreases in DMV fees are the main culprits. But at a deeper level, the problem is that many of the policies that required the increases (e.g. expanded health care coverage, three-strikes laws, etc.) were ballot measures. Take those out (and a few court cases the state lost) and the budget shrank – after you adjust for inflation and population growth.
In California, a simple majority (either of voters or state legislators) can expand or create new services, but raising taxes requires a two-thirds majority (CA Constitution, Article 13A, Section 3). Does anyone else see a problem with this?
Now for the choice quotes:
“Everybody’s got somebody to blame, but in the end these are services people wanted,” [said Stephen Levy, director of the Palo Alto-based Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy].
[...]
“The spending is not out of line. It’s what voters wanted, and some programs grow faster than the rate of inflation,” said Jean Ross, executive director of the nonprofit California Budget Project.
What I hope they mean here is that the government isn’t out of line by doing what the voters asked, but, in my opinion, the spending itself is. It’s OK to want a big house and a car with an iPod jack. It’s not OK to go buy those things when you cannot afford them. But that’s just what the state has been forced to do by the voters.
“Our society is moving in the direction of, ‘I want more from government but I don’t want to pay for it,’” [Mike Genest, the Governator's state finance director] said. “Right now we have leaders making hard choices out of necessity, and we need to continue that.”
Could it be that the current state of our governments, both local and national, actually reflects the irresponsible actions and habits of We the people? Maybe it’s time we all start making choices out of necessity.
1. He eats slices of apple like watermellon. I guess he doesn’t like the peel.
2. I’ll have to remember not to leave my snow gloves in the washroom sink to dry… Miles can’t see over the edge of the sink, but he can reach the faucet and wash his hands. So now my gloves are soaking.
There are some tricks that combine a little computer knowhow with some understanding of young children that may help keep your sanity. I had been thinking about this one ever since we noticed the twins would sleep better in the bathroom with the fan on.
Using the free audio editor Audacity (there are others too), generate 30 seconds of white noise (click Generate->White Noise). This resulting sound may be a higher pitch than most people (including your baby) would want to hear, so adjust it by clicking Edit->Select->All, then Effects->Change Pitch. In the dialog that appears enter -70 or -80 (-80 will give you lower-sounding noise) in the Percent Change field and click OK. If it’s still too high-pitched for you, change the pitch again.
Save this as a wav (or mp3, if you’re so inclined), and set it to repeat in your music player. Any baby within ten feet will be asleep in a minute or so. Isaac’s lying in my lap in a trance listening right now.
There are websites that generate white noise, and CDs of white noise, but I found many of them to be too quite for what our babies need.