(Yet another reason why) scientists are cool....

Famous far side.

Well, just last night I was reading with Jake. We had gone to the public library and as usual we had walked out with something like this:

• 1 Dvd for Lily - usually a Disney movie


• 1 DVD for Jake - usually something from the "Land Before Time" oeuvre


• 1 DVD for Kim and I to watch that we invariably don't get around to.


• 3 or 4 books for Lily, usually split half and half between picture books (Curious George, eg.) and beginner chapter books (like this generation's Encyclopedia Brown, Cam Jansen*)


• 2 - 4 CD's for me to arrrhsimilate


• A non-fiction book or two to keep the trivia flowing


• 8-10 dinosaur books for Jake

We've been going semi regularly for years now, and at this point Jake has checked out just about every dinosaur related book in the Kalihi-Palama library at least a couple times.

Well, they got a new one in and he found it. A very good one at that - lots of great illustrations and some fairly high level writing (for a kid's dinosaur book) that go into some pretty obscure topics like radiation, cladistics, classification, and more.

Anyway, we were reading about stegosauria and as I was reading I was surprised by the author's description of a fight with an attacking allosaurus. He said that the stegosaur "swung his thagomizer, striking the meat eater".

Thagomizer? No way.

Way.

A paleontologist and fan of the Far Side actually used the term in a peer reviewed journal article and the term has since become accepted scientifically.

*Cam Jansen should not be confused with Tek Jensen.

Kids love to measure things

 

A picture of our regulation issue "door-jamb-with-markings-of-the-kids-heights-over-time".

Nothing too remarkable. Kids (and parents) have been doing it since time immemorial. I'm sure there are caves in France with heretofore unexplained markings that are just this.

Lily just measured Jake the other day and used tape to mark his height.

Well and good.

On the otherside of the doorway you can see this one:



Slayed me.

"Dad ! Wake up !"

A little before 7:00 a.m. (HST) Lily ran in and woke me up.

"Barak Obama's becoming president! Turn on the TV !"

TV went on in time to see the VP swearing in and then stayed on for the good stuff. Kids were late to school. I couldn't stop watching until W was safely out of camera shot. These have been a long 8 years.

I don't feel the same elation like back in 1992 when Bill was elected. Probably because back then it didn't seem like the outgoing prez had completely screwed up, oh, well just about everything like W has done.

Definitely a more sober inauguration.

1-20-09: An end of an error.