Wednesday, December 29, 2004

Gambling That's Good For You

Gambling That's Good For You

I have an idea of starting a casino where its gimmick is a benefit to mankind and advancing civilization. Build a casino in Vegas and donate, say 50% of the profits to technology research and development, architecture invention and maybe some charities. People will come in because 1) it's a casino and 2) dissonance is reduced because money lost is going to a good cause, which is the excuse victims - er, visitors will use after the casino cleans them out.

Now I need a name for this casino.

Monday, December 27, 2004

Today is trash day for the neighborhood. It's also the first pick up since Christmas. On my way into the edition today, I drove slowly to see what all of my neighbors got for Christmas.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas

It was a very merry Christmas. For gifts I received Angels & Demons, Dan Brown's first book before Da Vinci Code, Morrowind game for Xbox, wireless Xbox controller, a couple of nice sweater-shirts, Scrooged on DVD, Run Ronnie Run on DVD, a bottle of wine, a nice inspirational book for fathers with daughters, Scene It the board/DVD game (very fun), a Jeep keychain, a Sherlock Holmes and the House of the Baskerville mug, plus a good amount of cold hard cash.

For myself, I bought a telescope and Half Life 2, Chronicles of Riddick. Merry Christmas to me.

The big gift is coming Feb 1.

Mrs. Lock was pleased with her gifts this year. She had five and she opened them in the following order (intentionally set by me):

1. Deck of cards.
2. Pair of dress socks with diamond patterns.
3. Hand held videogame - baseball.
4. Neil Diamond greatest hits CD
5. Half a caret diamond ring with white gold band.

I tried giving her four hints leading up to the big prize but I don't think she figured it out (thankfully). She was very pleased with all of her gifts except maybe numbers 1-4, definitely not #4.

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

Random Thoughts - I Mean It

Random Thoughts - I Mean It

I have a memo pad, stored online so I guess it's a virtual memo pad, where I leave notes from thoughts I have during the day. Thoughts I know I'm not going to remember in 10 minutes let alone several days later. Many of these entries are the basis for some of my blog posts here. But there are some entries, I really don't know what I was thinking about and as a result, not sure how to comment on it.

But rather than just delete these random thoughts, I should post them in their raw format, the quick entries as I typed out (even left the typos in) to jog my memory later when I came across it, but my memory doesn't recognize what the heck I was thinking about. I'm sure I have a belief about what I wrote, I just can't remember the context. I inserted some comments (in brackets) to clarify a little what I might have been talking about.

Anyway, here it is. Truly random and unsubstantiated thoughts.

For someone to be happy, their partner has to give them what they want. for their partner to know what they want, they ahve to know them implicitly. For that to happen, the partner knows what makes him/her tick. Something unnerving about having someone who knows how to press your buttons.

Create a website that searches a db of lottery results. User enters their number, searches to see if it would've ever hit.
(This may have been an entrepreneurial idea I had instead of a potential blog entry)

Pregnancy like a gun. Even get cocked. Later on, it's obvious the gun is about to go off.

Medication can remove anger out of a family. Kids imitate. Meds keep their parents calm, they'll learn to stay calm from behavior observation. If the kids see the parents take the drugs, hmmmm. Bad.

Conspiaracy theorists give our government too much credit. [Killed] JFK, [faked] land on the moon, 9/11. We can't even find WMD, protect skyscrapers.

I have more respect for [Patrick] Swayze as an actor after he played a pedophile in Donnie Darko.

I'm a slow learner in a lot of areas. But I never quit learning, so caught up since adults quit [learning] when leaving school.

Over-domesticated: Picky of side of garage to park on, side of bed. etc.

My toy as a kid was the vacuum cleaner. I even had a name for it, VC1U2. It helped me with spelling.

People passionate about doc filmmaker Michael Moore. Passion usually derived because it insults their political view. I saw Super Size Me, didn't get emotional because [it insulted my] love [for] fast food.


Ah, feels good to clean the closet.

Someone In Need

Someone In Need

"Costs just pennies a day. Won't you do it?"

Who has that kind of time to set aside just pennies per day?

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

Looking Back

Looking Back

Read this post of mine from a year ago, especially the last sentence.

Update: 62k in 401k. Not sure about ESOP. Should be higher than 30k. 7400 in IRA.

I don't take up crusades, I just question everything and I certainly don't have any answers.

Monday, December 20, 2004

Airing Your Dirty Laundry

Airing Your Dirty Laundry

I thought this was neat and a good, unbiased practice of fine, objective journalism.

Click to enlarge.

Missed The Birth

Missed The Birth

I had a dream last night that my wife got up in the middle of the night, went to the hospital and had the baby while I lie sleeping. In my dream, I woke up the next morning to find a happy and healthy and very big (for a newborn) baby in the crib in our nursery.

My first reaction was stunned disbelief which quickly turned into elation because she was finally here but that quickly turned into anger because I missed out on something important.

I confronted the Mrs. to ask what happened. She told me she was having some problems with the pregnancy, felt some contractions she thought were false and went to the hospital in the middle of the night to get checked out. She thought it was a routine issue and didn't want to bother waking me for it. While being examined at the hospital, she went into labor, had the baby and brought it home in a few hours all before I woke up. I got very mad at her for not waking me even for the problems she was having. I felt very frustrated. I couldn't even express how upset I was that I was not a part of the birth. I complained that I will now have to wait until the second kid to get my chance to witness a birth of my child.

It was one of the more emotional dreams I've ever had. The end is definitely near.

Thursday, December 16, 2004

Diaries Of A Newborn's Father

Diaries Of A Newborn's Father

I'm not there yet, but in a month and a half I will be. I was given a head's up by a friend who is there now. This was his experience that he felt should be shared with me in some sort of destructive, intimidating, scare your pants off sort of preparation I guess.

A baby will definitely test your patience. It will amaze you how frustrated you'll get when they have been fed, burped, changed, and for some unknown reason are still crying their head off.

I consider myself to not have much patience....and I know I've been pushed to feeling crazy to the point where I go to [Mom] and plead for her to take over, just for a bit until I get back to sanity.

You find yourself mock crying with the baby, knowing you are an idiot because they are nowhere near comprehending what is going on..they can't help it....but you do it anyway when you get into frustration land.

Not that it excuses it at all, but I've seen the path that people take when they abuse babies...I'd never allow myself to walk it of course.....but I have seen from a distance the path.....love blocks you from ever going there...but people who can't love or don't care....I know where they have allowed themselves to go

And this is with a non-colicky baby. I COULDN"T IMAGINE HAVING A BABY WITH COLIC!

*shiver*...No.

No no no.

Can't imagine that.

Anyway, we put him to bed in his crib....have the baby monitor thing going and we lay down for sleep, listening to his breathing through the little baby monitor. Over time you get used to a hiccup not being an emergency. or a cough or a sneeze not being reason enough to bolt out of the room and rush to his aid...

Over time.

They say eventually you'll (or you're supposed to anyway) get to where if you know they don't have a good reason to cry (food/diaper/burp) then you'll let them cry

I can't even fathom that stage yet though.

Oh I start that stage, feeling confident, then the cry continues...

30 seconds go by.... I'm standing strong.

60 seconds....worried look upon my face, but still not moving.

120 seconds....straining now, the cries have got louder...surely he'll stop when I don't come.

180 seconds....shit, he's still crying....obviously something must be wrong right?

182 seconds...oh fuck it....something's wrong, Daddy's on his way!

It's pathetic, but repetitive

The positive side....

There are many, but one in particular blows away all the negative that you stop counting the positives. When you first are able to make them laugh.

It won't be something you'll be able to repeat regularly, probably; but I was able to make him laugh three times in a row with pauses in between to confirm it was me doing it. Fourth time wouldn't come but those three were so amazing. He looked into my eyes and giggled that whole body giggle that babies do, because there is so little of them; easily melted away any concern or previously thought "important" thing that was on my mind.

Thursday, December 09, 2004

No Virginia...

No Virginia...

Teaching your kid about Santa Claus is a bad thing. You may think it is harmless and something cute and everyone is doing it so it must be ok, but perpetuating the myth that a fat man lands on rooftops, sliding down chimneys to deliver gifts to the whole world and ignoring a bright kid's inquisitive nature about how it is physically possible to travel to every inhabited location on the planet in one night or exactly how this jolly man gets access to houses that have no fireplaces, well you're basically just showing your kid that you can lie to him.

It's no different then a guy who bold face lies to his friend that his fly is open then promptly fingers his nose as he checks out your fictitious observation. The victim is going to think twice next time you tell him something that might be in his best interest. It may be funny to you and the victim may appear to laugh, but something dire has just happened.

You think since they were kids they will forget. But you don't understand the power of the subconscious mind. You have irrevocably damaged your child's trust in you for the rest of his life.

It's better to come clean now and instruct the child in the importance of rituals and culture should you continue to observe Christmas in its playful ways.

Oh, and the same thing goes for the Easter Bunny, Harry Hanukkah, Jesus, etc.

Expecting Parent's Dream

Expecting Parent's Dream

I had a dream last night that I was changing a kid's diaper. It wasn't even my kid and I barely knew the parents but this kid was drenched in his own urine so I went to work. I took off the soiled diaper and saw that he had beaded drops of urine all up and down his body. I basically gave the kid a wipey-dipe bath getting all of the contaminant off of him, put a new diaper on him and he was as good as new.

Why am I dreaming of changing diapers?

Wednesday, December 08, 2004

Couple of thoughts:

Do people who paint camouflage consider it an art form? How do they know where to put the green and the black and pick the size of shapes?

Will Astronomers 2000 years from now (re)name the celestial bodies names like Jesus, Buddha, Hare Krishna, Larry?

Lest We Forget...

Lest We Forget...

Yesterday came and went with little fan fare. Why should there have been fan fare you ask? Well, it was 53 years ago yesterday that the United States was attacked by an Axis power, drawing us into the largest war this world has ever seen.

December 7th is Pearl Harbour Day.

It got very little mention or observance, at least from the sources I use to get my currents events and I wonder if this is what will happen to 9/11 in 50 some years?

Thursday, December 02, 2004

"I'm not a Republican but I'm saving up to become one."
-- Emo Phillips

Wednesday, December 01, 2004

It's December already.

Mrs. Lock is in the 8th month of her pregnancy. That leaves *counts on fingers - 5,4,3* TWO months left before parenthood is thrust on me. Two months of horrible horrible freedom.

Bring it.