Yeah....NyQuil is weird.
But here's the pic!
He's adorable, and we think we're going to keep him.
wingnut
17 July 2008
Ohh....My Bad...
When I awoke this morning at 5am, in the middle of a NyQuil-induced stupor, my first thought was that I should probably put a new picture up of Eli, since I just wrote about him and his 1/2 Birthday adventures....
Yeah....NyQuil is weird.
But here's the pic!
He's adorable, and we think we're going to keep him.
wingnut
Yeah....NyQuil is weird.
But here's the pic!
He's adorable, and we think we're going to keep him.
wingnut
16 July 2008
Six Months and One Day.
Elijah Jason turned six months old yesterday.
Today, we celebrated by getting his six month immunizations. That was a blast, let me tell you! Watching your kid go from happy happy joy joy to not-so-happy scream scream instantly is no fun at all.
Especially because the nurse asks you to hold his head and hands. So he's looking right into your soul when his thighs get stabbed by the needles.
All you can do is say, "I'm sorry buddy, you're going to be fine," and then wait until he comes to you with his own children and tells you how much immunizations suck. He was a bit tired too, so that didn't help. The only way to get him to stop complaining was to swing him in his car seat. Which I did. Until my arm cramped and the receptionist got off the phone to schedule his next visit.
I can't think of a better way to celebrate a half-birthday plus one day. Except being a little sarcastic because I don't like watching my kid get hurt.
He's right on track, by the way. The doctor said that anyone who can sit up that well at six months is going to do well. And of course I had to have him sit up, to show off his impressive skills to the doctor.
I recall saying something about him being fluent in English, Hebrew, and Greek by kindergarten in a previous post. I assumed that all the NT Wright and John Crossan I read and listened to would maybe rub off on him a bit. It seems that I might be off by a few disciplines.
Elijah seems to have discovered what I like to call the "PlayBlanket Wormhole". I don't know that he knows he's discovered it yet, but the principles are fundamentally sound, and I would not be surprised if he catches on fairly soon. Yeah, I know. Historical Biblical Studies and Theoretical Physics. I don't think those are even on the same sides of the campus, let alone near each other at Barnes & Noble. Maybe Shan was secretly reading Stephen Hawking and never told me?
A "PlayBlanket Wormhole" exists in the fabric of the Play-Blanket continuum, and can be manipulated to bring two points of the blanket together.
Elijah sometimes plays on his stomach on the Play Blanket. Eventually, a toy or other knickknack that he is drooling on will roll away from him, out of his reach. He will fuss over it for a bit, but usually, in the course of his fussing and reaching for the toy, his hands will instead grasp the Play Blanket, and pull it in. This, of course, brings the toy back within reach, and Elijah can go about his day with no further issues. So even though it may not be intentional, my son has hit upon one of the great theoretical ideas of his time, and he's only six months old.
I'll bet Einstein never did that as a baby. He worked at the patent office for crying out loud.
wingnut
Today, we celebrated by getting his six month immunizations. That was a blast, let me tell you! Watching your kid go from happy happy joy joy to not-so-happy scream scream instantly is no fun at all.
Especially because the nurse asks you to hold his head and hands. So he's looking right into your soul when his thighs get stabbed by the needles.
All you can do is say, "I'm sorry buddy, you're going to be fine," and then wait until he comes to you with his own children and tells you how much immunizations suck. He was a bit tired too, so that didn't help. The only way to get him to stop complaining was to swing him in his car seat. Which I did. Until my arm cramped and the receptionist got off the phone to schedule his next visit.
I can't think of a better way to celebrate a half-birthday plus one day. Except being a little sarcastic because I don't like watching my kid get hurt.
He's right on track, by the way. The doctor said that anyone who can sit up that well at six months is going to do well. And of course I had to have him sit up, to show off his impressive skills to the doctor.
I recall saying something about him being fluent in English, Hebrew, and Greek by kindergarten in a previous post. I assumed that all the NT Wright and John Crossan I read and listened to would maybe rub off on him a bit. It seems that I might be off by a few disciplines.
Elijah seems to have discovered what I like to call the "PlayBlanket Wormhole". I don't know that he knows he's discovered it yet, but the principles are fundamentally sound, and I would not be surprised if he catches on fairly soon. Yeah, I know. Historical Biblical Studies and Theoretical Physics. I don't think those are even on the same sides of the campus, let alone near each other at Barnes & Noble. Maybe Shan was secretly reading Stephen Hawking and never told me?
A "PlayBlanket Wormhole" exists in the fabric of the Play-Blanket continuum, and can be manipulated to bring two points of the blanket together.
Elijah sometimes plays on his stomach on the Play Blanket. Eventually, a toy or other knickknack that he is drooling on will roll away from him, out of his reach. He will fuss over it for a bit, but usually, in the course of his fussing and reaching for the toy, his hands will instead grasp the Play Blanket, and pull it in. This, of course, brings the toy back within reach, and Elijah can go about his day with no further issues. So even though it may not be intentional, my son has hit upon one of the great theoretical ideas of his time, and he's only six months old.
I'll bet Einstein never did that as a baby. He worked at the patent office for crying out loud.
wingnut
10 July 2008
Shan, Eli and I just returned from an unexpected road trip to Toledo, where we attended the memorial service for Shan's uncle's parents. Shan grew up calling them Grandpa and Grandma, even though they weren't technically her grandpa and grandma.
The memorial service was everything a memorial should be: painful, joyful, reverent, funny, honest, heartbreaking, and healing.
Many things could be said, and many things were said. I really only knew them through stories, I only met them a couple of times. The most inspiring was this: That through the 20 years that Grandma Kohn suffered from Alzheimer's, the only person she didn't forget was Grandpa Kohn. Grandpa Kohn put his life on hold to take care of her, because he didn't want his wife in a nursing home. So close and so devoted were they, that when Grandpa died, less than 48 hours later, Grandma followed him.
I can think of few more beautiful examples of Love.
wingnut
The memorial service was everything a memorial should be: painful, joyful, reverent, funny, honest, heartbreaking, and healing.
Many things could be said, and many things were said. I really only knew them through stories, I only met them a couple of times. The most inspiring was this: That through the 20 years that Grandma Kohn suffered from Alzheimer's, the only person she didn't forget was Grandpa Kohn. Grandpa Kohn put his life on hold to take care of her, because he didn't want his wife in a nursing home. So close and so devoted were they, that when Grandpa died, less than 48 hours later, Grandma followed him.
I can think of few more beautiful examples of Love.
wingnut
08 July 2008
Movin' on up!
I've been focusing more lately on improving my writing. I don't know how well it's been working out, since I can't really tell a difference in what I write now versus what I wrote a year ago, or two, or whatever.
This blog is an important part of that focus, and I have attempted to streamline it, simplify it, in order to create a better reading experience for the few readers I may or may not have.
So I recently redesigned the site, and I love the new layout.
I also registered my blog at Technorati, a website that tracks links to your site, and then ranks your site according to those links. I currently have a rating of 1,723,440, which means that in the entire world wide web, there are only 1,723,439 websites out there that have a better rating than mine! I am moving on up!
Blogged.com also rates blogs by content, update frequency, and layout. I am proud to announce that On a Wing and a Prayer has scored a rating of 7.4 out of 10. Also, since blogs are ranked, the best blogs show up first when searched. So if you ever get the urge to skim the aviation blogs on Blogged, I'm on page three. Awesome!
Also, you may have noticed that I changed the font slightly. I like the other font better, but this one is a good deal easier to read, in my opinion. It's easy to change fonts anyway, so we shall see whether I keep it or not.
Anyway, that's it for my blog ramblings. I wonder, if joking about jokes is called meta-humor, and making art as a comment on art is meta-art, talking about the meaning behind the physical world is meta-physics, then what would blogging about blogs be?
Meta-blogical?
Meta-netics?
Meta-reality? (since the Internet doesn't really exist in a physical way anyway)
wingnut
This blog is an important part of that focus, and I have attempted to streamline it, simplify it, in order to create a better reading experience for the few readers I may or may not have.
So I recently redesigned the site, and I love the new layout.
I also registered my blog at Technorati, a website that tracks links to your site, and then ranks your site according to those links. I currently have a rating of 1,723,440, which means that in the entire world wide web, there are only 1,723,439 websites out there that have a better rating than mine! I am moving on up!
Blogged.com also rates blogs by content, update frequency, and layout. I am proud to announce that On a Wing and a Prayer has scored a rating of 7.4 out of 10. Also, since blogs are ranked, the best blogs show up first when searched. So if you ever get the urge to skim the aviation blogs on Blogged, I'm on page three. Awesome!
Also, you may have noticed that I changed the font slightly. I like the other font better, but this one is a good deal easier to read, in my opinion. It's easy to change fonts anyway, so we shall see whether I keep it or not.
Anyway, that's it for my blog ramblings. I wonder, if joking about jokes is called meta-humor, and making art as a comment on art is meta-art, talking about the meaning behind the physical world is meta-physics, then what would blogging about blogs be?
Meta-blogical?
Meta-netics?
Meta-reality? (since the Internet doesn't really exist in a physical way anyway)
wingnut
03 July 2008
My Continuing Love Affair with Things that Destroy Hearing, or Why I love the Fourth of July
With the holiday weekend coming up, I thought it might be fun to talk about some Independence celebrations of years gone by.
The Fourth of July is one of my favorite holidays, and has been for a long time. I've wondered why that is, and I think the answer may lie in the fact that it's an overt, obvious holiday. In the winter, everyone gets time off for Christmas and New Years, but do people really celebrate Christmas? You never know. They could celebrate any one of the number of different winter holidays. It just so happens that their "Solstice Celebration" looks exactly like your Christmas Dinner.
The same for Memorial Day and Labor Day. Everyone goes to the beach, or someplace at least relatively close to the "Great Outdoors". But it's usually pretty warm on those days anyway, who's to say that they wouldn't be at the beach in the first place?
The Fourth of July is distinctive, in that everyone knows who is celebrating. Why is the neighbor on the corner dropping M.O.A.B.s from his roof? Why, because it's the Fourth of July! Never mind that every car alarm in the neighborhood is going off, and I now have to pry my wife and our two cats off of the ceiling. Eli? He sleeps right through it. Everyone knows he's simply the biggest patriot on the block, and Thank God that he has the willpower to drive down to Indiana to purchase his illegal celebratory tactical nukes for the rest of us!
I have watched fireworks in many different places, but I think my favorite is downtown Grand Rapids. The crowds, the hustle and bustle and noise of city life, it sets the perfect tone for a loud, bright celebration such as July 4. I am willing to brave the traffic and the crowds to be a part of this celebration. The way the fireworks reflect off the river and the glass buildings, the way the booms echo through the canyons of the city, it is simply an incredible experience.
My favorite year for fireworks was the year that our huge group of friends all went down there and hung out. In the far corner of Calder Plaza, near the tire swing, there is a small grassy area. This grassy area has a fence on one side, where it looks out over Monroe Avenue, just across the street from the DeVos Convention Center. We were all sitting and smoking, just having a great time being downtown and being together. We were laughing a bit, because that used to be a great spot to watch the fireworks, but this year, the construction had started on the conference center, and we could only see about half of every shot that went off! After the fireworks were done, I got down on both knees, and asked Shannon to spend her life with me. She replied that when I bought her the ring, she would give me an answer. Oh yeah....small details....
Of course, that was the year after she had asked me to marry her. We were sitting on the other side of the river that time, on the bike path down in front of the Ford Museum, and her question got a bunch of people's attention. So did my reply, which was, "Are you serious? That's not how it works. I'm not going to answer you." When we both started laughing, I think those people thought we were crazy.
Another favorite year was when we were up at Shan's aunt and uncle's house, which is on a lake. Every year, the lake association gets together and puts on a display, so everyone goes out on their boats to watch. Apparently, that was too boring for everyone on our boat, because we started jumping off and swimming around in our clothes. And it was pitch black. With other boats around. In an unfamiliar lake.
I remember having to work one year on the fourth, and so we watched the fireworks in the bucket of the de-ice truck, which is on a fifty foot boom. There we were, seventy feet above the ground, able to see all around us! It was great! We counted at least six different firework displays that night.
Lately, we've been going to my parents house, which sits on a hill. We are able to sit on the back deck and watch a few different displays from far off. And for added effect, their neighbor is the biggest patriot on their block, and has the biggest stockpile of the loudest illegal celebratory tactical nukes in the neighborhood. We usually don't see their cat the next day though...
Anyway, what are some memorable Fourth of July celebrations for y'all?
wingnut
The Fourth of July is one of my favorite holidays, and has been for a long time. I've wondered why that is, and I think the answer may lie in the fact that it's an overt, obvious holiday. In the winter, everyone gets time off for Christmas and New Years, but do people really celebrate Christmas? You never know. They could celebrate any one of the number of different winter holidays. It just so happens that their "Solstice Celebration" looks exactly like your Christmas Dinner.
The same for Memorial Day and Labor Day. Everyone goes to the beach, or someplace at least relatively close to the "Great Outdoors". But it's usually pretty warm on those days anyway, who's to say that they wouldn't be at the beach in the first place?
The Fourth of July is distinctive, in that everyone knows who is celebrating. Why is the neighbor on the corner dropping M.O.A.B.s from his roof? Why, because it's the Fourth of July! Never mind that every car alarm in the neighborhood is going off, and I now have to pry my wife and our two cats off of the ceiling. Eli? He sleeps right through it. Everyone knows he's simply the biggest patriot on the block, and Thank God that he has the willpower to drive down to Indiana to purchase his illegal celebratory tactical nukes for the rest of us!
I have watched fireworks in many different places, but I think my favorite is downtown Grand Rapids. The crowds, the hustle and bustle and noise of city life, it sets the perfect tone for a loud, bright celebration such as July 4. I am willing to brave the traffic and the crowds to be a part of this celebration. The way the fireworks reflect off the river and the glass buildings, the way the booms echo through the canyons of the city, it is simply an incredible experience.
My favorite year for fireworks was the year that our huge group of friends all went down there and hung out. In the far corner of Calder Plaza, near the tire swing, there is a small grassy area. This grassy area has a fence on one side, where it looks out over Monroe Avenue, just across the street from the DeVos Convention Center. We were all sitting and smoking, just having a great time being downtown and being together. We were laughing a bit, because that used to be a great spot to watch the fireworks, but this year, the construction had started on the conference center, and we could only see about half of every shot that went off! After the fireworks were done, I got down on both knees, and asked Shannon to spend her life with me. She replied that when I bought her the ring, she would give me an answer. Oh yeah....small details....
Of course, that was the year after she had asked me to marry her. We were sitting on the other side of the river that time, on the bike path down in front of the Ford Museum, and her question got a bunch of people's attention. So did my reply, which was, "Are you serious? That's not how it works. I'm not going to answer you." When we both started laughing, I think those people thought we were crazy.
Another favorite year was when we were up at Shan's aunt and uncle's house, which is on a lake. Every year, the lake association gets together and puts on a display, so everyone goes out on their boats to watch. Apparently, that was too boring for everyone on our boat, because we started jumping off and swimming around in our clothes. And it was pitch black. With other boats around. In an unfamiliar lake.
I remember having to work one year on the fourth, and so we watched the fireworks in the bucket of the de-ice truck, which is on a fifty foot boom. There we were, seventy feet above the ground, able to see all around us! It was great! We counted at least six different firework displays that night.
Lately, we've been going to my parents house, which sits on a hill. We are able to sit on the back deck and watch a few different displays from far off. And for added effect, their neighbor is the biggest patriot on their block, and has the biggest stockpile of the loudest illegal celebratory tactical nukes in the neighborhood. We usually don't see their cat the next day though...
Anyway, what are some memorable Fourth of July celebrations for y'all?
wingnut
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