Daddy, Papa and Me

What you can do....

Yep, someone snuck into our house, in the middle of the night while we were sleeping and robbed us. They took our very nice TV, DVD player and DVR.

Those things can be replaced (though the TV was a large-screen LCD that we can't afford to replace any time soon).

It's the feeling of security we can't get back.

Oh, she has them all right. The weekend before last we went to Washington D.C. to go to a conference and to visit relatives in Maryland. As we were walking to the musuems (Emma's choices were Air and Space and Natural History, more on that later), we passed the Capitol building. Guy and I explained to Emma that the people that work there were those we chose to make the rules for our country. She seemed mildly interested, but soon we were at the museum. Thought that was the end of that.

Apparently not, because now Emma is coming up with all kinds of legislation that she wants to see enacted by "those people in D.C." Such as:

A law requiring reduced driving.
A law banning smoking
A law to help pigs from being eaten

There are a LOT of reasons to become independent nationally from oil (not just foreign, but completely): reduced pollution, reduced dependence on foreign oil (most of which is from dictatorships and those who are not "friends"), and importantly, reduced greenhouse gases and global warming.

It's starting to become, though not there yet, financially feasible for us to do this... at least for our house. There is a house like this already in SF, though a bit more than I want :). So, here is my wishlist for the next 5 years:

1. Solar panels to produce about 60-70% of our current electricity needs (according to a solar audit I did a while back).

2. A micro wind turbine to produce about 10-20% of our current electricity needs.

Your advice that is.

Writing about our trip to D.C. reminded me of an incident while waiting to get on the plane.

As parents, and particularly as fathers, we have gotten our share of unsolicited advice. And as white fathers of an black daughter, we've definitely have gotten a lot of advice about her hair.

Some more welcome than others...

Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich can save the world apparently :D.

The UN IPCC report that came out earlier this year had a graph of 10 different major computer models of how global warming would affect the arctic ice. The most likely outcome is in dark green, the worst case model was the that bottom dotted line.

ALL the models were way off.

The black line is from the actual data to date.

You've heard that statistic right? It's a sad and alarming one. That there are more black men in jail than in college. Well, this article suggests it's not so. Are more black men really in jail than in college? -- baltimoresun.com

So, Terrance has a list linked from Popular Mechanics about which 25 skills a man should be able to do, and a fix of that list from a reader.

Hmm, lets see how I do...

No, it's not a bad movie.

Three years ago, I posted a list of occupations of same-sex couples who were married in Massachusetts. It was quite a diverse list showing that we are everywhere :)... well, apparently we are also professional ghostbusters:

Somerville lesbian couple run ghostbusting nonprofit - Somerville, MA - Somerville Journal

(link from a friend in MA :)

We were robbed a couple weeks ago. We reported it to the police, they came and took our statements. They were very nice and helpful. It does look like our insurance company (or Amex) will pay for the loss (they've been very helpful). So that takes care of the financial end.

As to the insecure feeling it gives us....