Daddy, Papa and Me

Well, Friday...

see if I can remember... should have done it well... on Friday...

6:00am, got up, showered, got Emma's lunch ready
6:30am, went to work
7:00am, Emma got up, Guy got her ready..

8:30am Guy took Emma to daycamp...

work, work, work

2:00pm Went to Emma's third (first, was Hip Hop, second was Bollywood, this was improv) and final performance. Emma's "boys" O and M came too to see. She was extremely happy to see them there!

Kindergarden started this morning! Both of us dropped her off, She was very very happy to see all her friends and her teachers (it's a Montessori school, 3 and 4 year old preschoolers are in the same class as kindergardners, same teachers as last year). Wow, next year is first grade and.. homework!!

This weekend was all work in the day. I decluttered and scrubbed the kitchen, the deck and back courtyard and Emma's room. Bags and boxes of stuff when out to the trash or for giveaway. You should see the kitchen, it looks pristine (lets see how long). Emma's room too, and the deck almost looks like an outside living room :).

A good start for the school year :).

So, my name is Trey and I'm a geek.

Lactic acid fermentation is a process where pyruvic acid is converted to lactic acid and a tad of energy in the form of ATP. Or in more general terms, it's a way for some bacteria to gain energy by converting carbohydrates (glucose into 2 molecules of pyruvic acid into ATP) into energy when there is no oxygen (anaerobic). Lactic acid acts as a great preservative (and is supposed to be healthy) and fermenting was one of the earliest methods to perserve food (like.. before Homo sapiens even!).

A friend of mine got me into making your own sauerkraut. Sauerkraut, like Kimchi, is a lactic acid fermented cabbage. I love both, so I bought a Harsch fermenting pot (you can ferment in any clean glass or earthenware pot, but this makes it easier).

But now I've gotten into all kinds of fermenting things, some successful, some.. well.. let's say I need to try again...

Emma's pediatrician early on asked us _not_ to allow Emma to drink fruit juice because for the most part juices are high sugar (fructose), low nutrition liquids that would contribute to obesity. We were pretty good with that for a long time. Basically, we only fed her orange juice (relatively healthy) mixed with water 1-2 parts juice to 1 part water. As she got older though, this year mainly, she's insisted on full strength orange juice, which we've allowed.

Well, new research says that there is no link between obesity and consumption of...now this is the important part... non-sugar-added juice.

There is a hierarchy of juices though...

I am posting this from my new.......

iPhone!

Yes, after the price cut I couldn't resist :-)

Now when I'm on the road I can post more, though of course typing on this isn't so bad, I'm sure they won't be long posts :-).

Almost exactly two years ago the California State legislature voted to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples, the first state legislature to do so in the nation without judicial directive. It was vetoed by the Governator.

Well, the state legislature did it again, a bill giving same-sex couples marriage equality passed the state senate last week (after having already passed the Assembly).

I expect the governator will veto it again. His "argument" for doing so?

It's the new catchphrase for something old: a sense of community. The idea was garnered from some urban designers and architects found to be a common thread in some very different places that had a strong sense of "community." That thread was "walkable" space, the idea that pretty much everything you need can be obtained within 1/4 to 1/2 mile or so of your home, even perhaps your job.

Not everyone wants this walkable urban space, some prefer driveable suburbia, but the demand apparently far exceeds the supply, from the link above (and an assessment our neighborhood)...

The Republic of T. posts about a documentary called Coming Out Under Fire asks "Does this phrase refer to the present or the past?:

“The United States government wants its citizens to be liars, and to be unaccepting of themselves rather than, say, gay or homosexual. Be invisible and shut up.”

I'd say for some, it's applies now. Sadly.

Due to a lot of factors, such as huge influxes of cash and programs to fight hunger and disease from the Gates Foundation, U.S. aid, UN programs and the like, child mortality is at a record low.

In 1960, 20 million children died. In 2005, it was below 10 million. Considering the world population is >2x it was in 1960, that has been quite an accomplishment.

So, this was a recent conversation with Emma:

Emma: Papa, where to people come from?

Papa: Well hun, Mommies and Daddies both...

Emma: No, I _know_ that, where do their parent's come from? and their parents and their parents...

Papa: Same way we got here.

So tomorrow we are having rosemary chicken and dumplings (no idea for today... planning is falling behind) because I'm going to Tae Kwon Do tomorrow night and need a slow cooker meal and rosemary grows in San Francisco like a weed. Recipe to follow.

Sorry folks, I'm having a hard time getting back to the blogging thing. I'm trying, really I am.

Today's talk is a lot of interesting little tidbits, some funny, some 'cool'... first the funny.

This article just had me cracking up. It's a bit macabre, but this line in particular just had me laughing outloud:

Police are keeping it for Wood.

more...

The people of Burma (or Myanmar) have lived for years in isolation, fear, economic depression and military oppression while the nations around them have slowly but surely become freer and wealthier.

Lets hope the start of this Saffron Revolution ends as well as the Velvet Revolution did.

I pray and give whatever support I can for the people of Burma.

The religous right and the right blogosphere is getting up in arms about this poster depicting the last supper as a group of S&M people, mainly gay men presumably. Yet, as Dan Savage notes, others have parodied the last supper with dead bodies, half-naked models, mobster murderers, satanists, fast-food characters and much much more. Where was the national outrage then? Oh, I forgot... those were murderers and satanists, not gay.

caveat: I frankly find the Folsom street fair poster obnoxious and stupid, but the religious right fell into their hands didn't they? If there was no outrage, no one would have seen the poster.. heck.. I live in San Francisco and the fair it advertises is this weekend and I haven't seen the poster except for this 'outrage'. They knew it would get an response, it did.. now they get free advertising.

The Iraq War: we've all read or heard the death toll of over 3,800 American soldiers in Iraq so far. I was watching Ken Burn's "War" the other day, and that death toll is minor compared to WWII.

Doesn't mean the Iraq War hasn't cost us a heck of a lot. 3,800 dead is not a number to sneeze at, but consider this,

The Iraq War is now directly responsible for the death of anywhere from 750,000 to 1.2 million Iraqis.

And there is the monetary costs: 455 billion to date with hundreds of billions to go, what does that mean?