Learning

Aeriana has been learning and growing so much, it still blows my mind how exciting it is to watch her grow. As I've mentioned before, we're working with Aeriana on sign language and she's done pretty well... at least enough to help her communicate her basic needs/wants to us and prevent (some, but unfortunately not all) melt-downs. Over the last few days I've seen her do two words together for the first time (though Erin has seen it before), she said "more food" and "milk please" in sign language ('please' being a relatively new development on its own that we're pretty excited about). Being the pushy father I am, I tried to get her to say "more food please" today... which promptly resulted in an Aeriana-Overload. For now we'll stick with just two words, two words is fine with me.

On top of that, she's been learning that it's fun to walk around with clothes over her head. Doesn't matter whether it's her clothes, or mine or Erin's, she just thinks it's fun. Fun for us is watching her walk around with her head covered and seeing 'walk - bump into wall - fall - laugh - stand up - repeat'.



Erin has also been learning... learning how much "fun" being pregnant with a little one is. In all honesty, Erin is a champ and is doing an excellent job (as Aeriana's communication skills can attest to). We're getting more and more excited for May 11th when we get to find out the gender of Aeriana's new sibling (though we're already convinced it's a boy...)

I've also been learning too, spending some free time checking out Photoshop tutorials and playing around with some fun effects. I still have a TON to learn before I consider myself even moderately decent at Photoshopping, but I'm having a blast learning the many many things you can do with this awesome program. To test out some of my new-found knowledge, I figured I'd play around with some pictures of my sisters three adorable kids.

"What do you mean it doesn't revolve around me?"


"Oh Tink, of course I believe in fairies!"


"Did somebody call for a HERO?!?!"

Labels: Aeriana, Brett, Erin, family, pictures

posted by Brett at 10:47 PM 7 Comments

Coolest Website Ever?

Delete that question mark... the answer is yes. I stumbled across this today and just had to share.

The Website: worldrps.com

The Subject: Rock, Paper, Scissors

The Way It Shines: Ever had a disagreement with someone about the intricacies of Rock, Paper, Scissors? No? Um... uh, me neither. That would be way to dorky. ... ... Okay fine, I admit it, I am in fact a dork. If you are as well, you'll enjoy the complete and utter breakdown of the game that you used to think was just a simple game of luck.

Preview: RPS Gambits


A subtle, yet aggressive Gambit. It was the first of the Triple Gambits developed in the early 1890s. The Avalanche is a relentless and devastating offensive maneuver, which requires bravado bordering on recklessness to execute.


Formerly known as Confetti, the deadpan delivery of three successive Papers is the ultimate in passive-aggressive play.


This move took the 1967 RPS World Championships by surprise and is arguably still one of the great surprise offensive moves. The rapid switch from offensive to defensive play can force an opponent into a vulnerable spot.


Anyone up for a tournament?

posted by Brett at 2:55 PM 1 Comments

Sweet Car + IPCC = Annoyed Rant

Erin might kill me for going off on a tangent, but maybe I can forestall some of her wrath by promising that I won't go on another rant like this... for at least a few weeks. ;-)

The issue at hand started with a car company in India introducing a revolutionary new car, the Tata Nano, due out in July. This car is incredible. It has very few features - no A/C, no radio, no airbag, low horse-power... but the tiny thing seats 5 people (barely), gets over 50 mpg in the city (60+ on the highway), and amazingly costs less than $2000. Seriously.

The car is being sold in India and is targeted to the population who rides mostly on motorbikes; entire families squeezing onto a single motorcycle, with babies and children being clutched close as they weave in an out of traffic. The Nano will finally give a huge market of Indians a safer way to travel that is still affordable and gives them a huge amount of personal pride. What a wonderful development.




At least, I think it's wonderful. Rajendra Pachauri doesn't seem to think so. Dr. Pachauri, from India, is an economist and chairman of the glorious (pardon the sarcasm) IPCC, he (representing the IPCC) was co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 along with Public Enemy Hypocrite #1, Al Gore.

You'd think Dr. Pachauri would be happy for his fellow Indians to progress, to be able to provide safety and pride for their families. Instead the 'scientist' says he has nightmares about the car. Bad experience with the iPod Nano causing bizarre trauma and a desperate need for counseling??? Nope, he's terrified about the carbon emissions that this development will cause.

Let's not mention the fact that man-made global warming is a fallacy and that CO2 emissions have never been shown to have any real effect on the global climate... let's ignore that for now. Dr. Pachauri works for the UN, he travels frequently, lives lavishly, and gets paid extremely well. I have no idea what kind of car he drives, but I can bet it doesn't get between 50-60 mpg. Would Rajendra be willing to transport his family through the streets of a big city on an old motorbike? I think not, but he has nightmares about other people not having to do so.

Dr. Pachauri is a perfect reflection of Al Gore; they both profess to believe the world is headed into the toilet due to man-made global warming (more likely they have personal financial reasons, you know - their jobs, to promote the deception). However both of them are willing to let third-world citizens suffer in poverty to prevent man-made global warming and they refuse to change their own lavish lifestyles. I don't have details on Pachauri, but Al Gore's Tennessee home results in 22 times as much CO2 emissions as the average American household. And that doesn't take into account his other two homes, his multiple cars, his entourage, and his frequent travel (often via private jet). I can't imagine that Al's good buddy Rajendra lives too differently.

The hypocrisy just drives me nuts, that these wealthy people who could retire in luxury today if they wanted to, are so strongly against the poverty stricken in India getting a small hand up. To give you a rough idea... it would take about 300 of the new Tata Nanos on the streets of India to equal the CO2 emissions of Al Gore's first home (again, not counting his two other homes, his cars, his entourage, and all of his flights - by the way, one hour in an average private jet is equal to approximately one year in an average American car). That's 300 families who will be traveling a lot safer and holding their heads a little higher.

Crazy hypocrites aside, I am very pleased to see the developments in India. This release may provide inspiration and motivation for auto-makers the world over to re-think their current market plans. It may also inspire many people in first world countries to reconsider whether they actually need all the expensive gadgets in their cars/homes. I, myself have taken a few moments to rethink my auto-lifestyle... and I've confirmed that I do indeed need automatic doors, power steering, and an iPod connection in my gas-guzzling minivan. But that's just me.

More reading (you made it this far, why not continue?):

Hypocrisy

Gore's Home

Gore vs. Bush?

Labels: politics

posted by Brett at 5:45 PM 0 Comments

A Pretty Good Day

Three things made today especially incredible.

First and foremost, we went to the doctor for Erin's second ultrasound. This was where they check the probability for Downs Syndrome and trisomy 13/18. The results were quick and joyful, the baby looks very healthy. The visit reminded us of the same visit with Aeriana, the baby was so active the nurse doing the ultrasound got a little frustrated (looks like we've got another little ninja). We enjoyed seeing the new baby roll, twist, wave, scratch his/her head, and even perform a half-decent somersault. There was also a little relief to confirm once again that there is only one baby... after the cruel joke in the video we thought for sure we'd be "punished" by having a little surprise.

The second great thing was our trip to pick up our new minivan... new to us at least. We signed for a nice 2005 Chrysler Town and Country on Saturday and were able to pick up the crisp/clean babe baby magnet after work today. When we got married Erin and I swore we'd never get a minivan, with our infinite coolness *cough* we understood that minivans were lame. Of course that mentality slowly reversed itself after Aeriana was born to the point of us being thoroughly convinced that we couldn't live without a minivan. I would probably have beat myself up a few years ago for saying this... but it felt really good driving that beast home.

And last, and probably least (when compared to the two above), we bought Erin a plane ticket to Italy today. I'm going on a business trip at the end of April there and we found a good deal for plane tickets and our amazing, incredible, wonderful, thoughtful, dazzlingly attractive (oops, did that just push it too far?) friends Matt and Renee agreed to watch Aeriana for us. So we'll spend a few days on a beautiful lake in northern Italy (where Erin will enjoy the scenery and I will be in meetings all day), and then we'll spend a few more days in Milan taking in the sites. We are extremely excited, and extremely grateful that Erin will be able to come with me.

All in all, not a bad day.

Labels: baby

posted by Brett at 10:38 PM 7 Comments

Important Math Principles

I understand salesmen, even if many of them can be annoying. I completely understand that their job is to make money by getting you to spend money, and it's their job to 'help you see' that you actually need to buy more than you originally thought. What I don't understand is what happened over and over again last night.

I'd walk onto a used car lot, grab the attention of a salesman, and give him the price range of car I'm looking for (specifying that I mean out-the-door, after taxes and title). The salesman tells me to follow him and leads me to a much nicer car than I expect. He tells me how great of a car this is and how he thinks I'd like it (cause he knows me so well). And then I look at the sticker and realize that this car is advertised for more than twice what I quoted to the salesman.

Really? I mean I can understand a couple thousand more than my quote if you're ambitious, but more than twice as much???

Needless to say I didn't have much to look at last night. It seems with the economy in shambles all the used cars are being snapped up and it's only the new cars and just-off-lease cars that are left.

Erin suggested I quote the salesmen 50% of what I'm willing to spend and then maybe I'll get to see the cars I want. I guess cooperative mathematical success is not expecting others to do their math correctly, but instead understanding exactly how their math is wrong and preemptively changing the values to make the final answer correct.

And speaking of important concepts in math...

posted by Brett at 8:52 AM 3 Comments

Orlando

After we were married, the first time I spent the night without Erin was while on a stake youth trip to Palmyra, NY for a few days.

After she was born, the first time I spent the night away from Aeriana was for a one-night date with Erin in NYC.

The second time for both was this past week when I took my first business trip, spending a few days in beautiful Orlando. I missed both of my girls very much and was happy to be home on Saturday, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy some time by the pool, reading two books cover to cover, and generally just having fun (even the work part of the trip was enjoyable).

I also took a little time to snap some pictures, and then played around with some new photoshop tricks I've been reading up on (including a cool technique called High Dynamic Range photography). Granted I'm not about to frame it, but not bad for a relative rookie if I do say so myself...


This is the hotel's golf lodge at sunset.

Of course this was just the first of what I expect will be several business trips this year... you think the photo ops will be impressive enough to make me not miss my gorgeous wife and sweet daughter? Nah, I wouldn't bet on it.

Labels: Brett, pictures, trips

posted by Brett at 11:38 PM 1 Comments