Picture Update

The pictures are up! This month's pictures include images from Grandma Jackie and Dad-Daddo's visit as well as a little trip to the park with the Sanders' Triplets to feed the ducks...

Foucault's Pendulum

A couple of weeks ago, while reading Foucault's Pendulum on the beach, a man walked up to me. He was an older man, probably retired, and looked like the sort of person who had plenty of time to read books on the beach.

"Are you reading that book," he asked?

"I'm doing my best," I said.

"Are you understanding it? I mean, do you get it?"

"I think so," I replied.

"The only book that I can think of that is harder to read than the one you are reading now," he said to me, "is Ulysses."

Well, he definitely had a point. I may not be quite as well read as the man on the beach, but I do have some limited experience with Ulysses and it is a difficult read. Foucault's Pendulum isn't much better in this regard. After many failed attempts, I have never finished the former and I have to admit that I did have moments where I struggled through the latter.

It's a shame, really, that Umberto Eco couldn't have made Foucault's Pendulum more accessible. Ultimately, I think it's a relatively important book and should probably be read by more people. But, instead, people will turn to The Da Vinci Code, which has (one could argue) a lesser point of view.

Let me clarify. Eco's book covers much of the same subject matter as The Da Vinci Code, however Eco covers the subject matter in a much more complete way. Where The Da Vinci Code tells the story much as an Indiana Jones movie might, Eco delves into it and is able to connect the plot to virtually everything that ever existed.

For example, there's a passage in The Da Vinci Code where a couple of people get all excited over the Golden Ratio. In fact, they get more than a little excited over this number; it is the number. Yet the characters in Foucault's Pendulum, while interested and intrigued by such a connection, are further educated about them:

"Gentlemen," he said, "I invite you to go and measure that kiosk. You will see that the length of the counter is one hundred and forty-nine centimeters—in other words, one hundred-billionth of the distance between the earth and the sun. The height at the rear, one hundred and seventy-six centimeters, divided by the width of the window, fifty-six centimeters, is 3.14. The height at the front is nineteen decimeters, equal, in other words, to the number of years of the Greek lunar cycle. The sum of the heights of the two front corners and the two rear corners is one hundred and ninety times two plus one hundred and seventy-six times two, which equals seven hundred and thirty-two, the date of the victory at Poitiers. The thickness of the counter is 3.10 centimeters, and the width of the cornice of the window is 8.8 centimeters. Replacing the numbers before the decimals by the corresponding letters of the alphabet, we obtain c for ten and h for eight, or C₁₀H₈, which is the formula for naphthalene.

"Fantastic," I said. "You did all these measurements?"

"No," he replied. "They were done on another kiosk, by a certain Jean-Pierre Adam ... With numbers you can do anything you like."

It is with connections and explanations like this that Eco truly makes one think about the symbiotic nature of all relationships and how everything is tied together. Through the course of the book, Eco is able to explain the motivations of Napoleon and Hitler, anti-Semitism and conflicts in the Middle East in general.

By comparison, The Da Vinci Code explains why one particular historical artist is of some interest.

To that end, the story lines of both books are relatively complex, and I feel that Eco needlessly made the story more convoluted by telling it in a non-linear fashion. Additionally (this isn't criticism of Eco but insight into why I think the book was hard to read at times), since the book was originally written in Italian, I'm not sure how much was "lost in translation." That is, Eco already uses more than just Italian in his writing (there's French, Latin, Russian, and many others) and the translator only translated the Italian into English. Thus, there were some places where I just had to skip sections, hoping that if the section I was skipping was really important to the story line, it would be made available to me at some point.

I honestly don't know if information was withheld from me by the translator, but I do feel that I did end up with a pretty firm grasp of what Eco was trying to say. And, in my opinion, what Eco has to say is more substantial and empowering than what is to be found in The Da Vinci Code.

The truly funny part of this, at least to me, is that there are groups organizing to deconstruct The Da Vinci Code because apparently some people who have read it forgot that it was a work of fiction....

Yet Foucault's Pendulum gets lost in the background. Perhaps it's because the book was published some fifteen years ago. Perhaps it's because the book is somewhat difficult to read. Perhaps it's because of the secret that the book holds and is ultimately revealed at the end.

In respect for those who may read this book (and I do hope that is most of you), I will not reveal the secret. The secret in Foucault's Pendulum is not bigger than any other secret. There are no "bigger secrets," because the moment a secret is revealed, it seems little.

But this book is not little. Despite the level of difficulty, this is an incredible book that does have wonderfully fluid moments (some chapters just breeze by, but have just as much substance as any of the more "complex" sections).

If you are looking for a quick, easy read, this might not be the best book. However, I would recommend that you do visit this book the next time you want to see the world from a different perspective.

Grade: A

I am what I am

I didn't realize Aidan was such a philosopher already....
Here's a sampling of some of our conversations:

Me: Aidan, are you tired?
Aidan: No Aidan tired, Aidan! (meaning: I'm not tired, I'm Aidan)

This is pretty much his new standard reply.

Aidan, are you hungry?
No Aidan hungry, Aidan!

Aidan, are you being silly?
No Aidan silly, Aidan!

This morning Aidan did something (I can't remember what) and I told him he was very nice to do that...

Aidan, you are a nice person.
No Aidan nice person, boy!

Florida Trip: Days 9, 10 & 11

We're back. We drove back in two days and Renee's starting to show signs of wear, although I think it has more to do with first signs of the pregnancy than too much time in the car. Most prevelant has been increased tiredness and a sore back; pretty much the same symptoms as last time.

On our last day in Florida, we got a chance to get out to the beach during sun set. It was very cool. The weather was beautiful and Aidan was having a blast running in and out of the water (it was low tide).

Aidan had a lot of fun during the drives. We listened to a lot of Wiggles songs; Aidan's favorite at the moment is "Hot Potato" and he'll start signing it spontaneously sometimes along with the "hot potato" movements (similar in style to when one plays the "one potato, two potato" game). Very funny.

The rest of our vacation pictures have been posted, so feel free to check them out.

Saturday's drive: Siesta Key to Ocean Springs, Mississippi (636 miles)
Sunday's drive: Ocean Springs to Austin (609 miles)

Grand Total: 2471 miles

Florida Trip: Day 8

Today is the last full day for Sandra, Eric and Krissy; they will be heading out tomorrow morning. Aidan calls Sandra "Aunty" and, of course, calls Eric, "Eric." But they are always together, and so when we refer to them, we say "Aunty and Eric." However, Aidan sort of drops the "and" and refers to them as "Aunty Eric," almost as though they are one person...

But tonight, "Aunty Eric" wanted to take everyone out to dinner for one last hurrah. They brought us to Selva Grill, which was absolutely wonderful. If you are every in Siesta Key, I highly recommend finding this place....

Florida Trip: Days 5, 6 & 7

The last few days have been lots of fun, basically involving nothing other than sitting on the beach or at the pool. It doesn't get much better than that.

The only thing other than that worth of note is that Aidan has taken to singing songs a lot lately. Any old phrase, such as "I want to eat a mango, Mommy," is turned into a song by simply adding a rhythm to it and then either screaming the last word (which requires one to raise ones eyes and chin to the sky) or saying the last word with as low of a tone as possible (which then requires one to lower ones eyes and chin).

But today, today was a new adventure for us. We made the quick drive (57 miles) up to St. Petersburg to do some shopping and see some sites. Our first stop was to The Pier, which apparently is a pretty popular tourist attraction. We then headed out to Great Explorations, a place my sister and I went to about 8 years ago. It is a children's museum, but they call themselves a "hands-on" museum, which is probably more accurate anyway. We all went and had a great time (time went by so quickly we didn't realized that they were about to close the place).

To finish the day off right, we went to see a baseball game: Red Sox versus the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. We had great seats (section 141; left field, three rows from the fence) and got to see a bunch of players up close. While we were waiting for the game to start, one of the ushers came over to Aidan (who was sitting on my lap) and presented him with an official Major League baseball. It must have been used during batting practice, because is had a little blemish on one side. Aidan was somewhat interested, but I was thrilled for him. At the end of the game (which, by the way, the Red Sox won), I tried to get the ball autographed for Aidan, but to no avail.

During the game, Papa taught Aidan how to call players "out" and "safe."

Florida Trip: Day 4

Sandra, Eric and Krissy all arrived today. After getting them situated, we all spent most of the day at the beach. It was exhausting, but fun. We played paddle ball and chased each other in the water. When the tide went out, Aidan liked to have someone write names and the alphabet in the sand.

The game with the alphabet was very fun. First, you would scratch out the alphabet as Aidan did his best to sing it to you (he does very well, missing only a few letters). Then, you ask him to find a letter based off of a word he knows, such as "where's the letter for daddy?" The alphabet, scatched in the sand, is probably 20 feet long, so Aidan has to run back and forth looking for the letters. It was really fun.

Later, we all went out to Turtle's for dinner and then headed out to "downtown" Siesta Key, which is really too small to be referred to as a downtown. Anyway, we visited the public beach, which was pretty cool (the sand at these beaches are all pretty wonderful — feels liks you're walking on baking flour — but these public beaches seemed nicer than the one we were on (Renee thinks it's because they comb the public beach).

There was a drum circle going on this night and we all got to see a really big python (someone from an animal sanctuary brought it). But Aidan wasn't really all that interested. All he wanted to do was run.

It started like this: Aidan would take my hand and Aunt Sandra's hand, then he'd tell us to run. So we ran with Aidan doing his best to keep up with us. I never got a chance to see what it really looked like (he was always running with me), but I bet it looked a lot like he was running like a gazelle. His feet barely touched the ground, but he was churning his legs as fast as he could as though he was running. We had a blast doing it, and lots of people commented on how fast a runner Aidan was.

Then, we headed out to Olga's Ice Cream (I think it was Olga's). It was quite a fun day...

Florida Trip: Day 3

Today's drive was an easy trip to our destination: Siesta Key. We arrived around 2:15 p.m. We unpacked as quickly as we could and ran off to the beach, which is about 100 yards from our 2-bedroom beach house. We will be sharing accomodations with Renee's dad and step-mom, who should be arriving later tonight. Renee's friend Krissy will also be rooming with us, but she will be arriving tomorrow morning; Renee's sister and her boyfriend will also be arriving tomorrow (same flight as Krissy), but will be staying in their own room.

The place we're staying at (Sara Sea Inn) is really nice. It looks like a tropical oasis. Actually, I guess it is, as it's in Florida and all...

Today's drive: Tallahassee to Siesta Key (340 miles)
Total miles: 1226

Florida Trip: Day 1 & 2

We are off to Florida to send off Renee's sabbitical in the proper way. We plan on spending all week at Siesta Key, just outside of Sarasota. As is our usual method, we are driving there and decided to leave last night after we got home from work. Last night's drive was pretty uneventful and relatively short (the main motivation for leaving last night was to make sure that we got past Houston and didn't get stuck in rush-hour traffic).

There was a terrific lightning storm as we drove through, with some lightning strikes looking like they hit the ground not too far from us. One did a loop directly above the road in front of us and another one was a deep red and looked like a tree trunk as it went straight down from the sky to the ground. It was all very incredible. But driving through it was fairly easy.

We stopped for the night in Beaumont and were back on the road this morning by about 9:00 a.m. No big adventures on today's drive; we stopped in Tallahassee, Florida.

As an aside, Aidan has taken to a new, strange habbit: He likes to take his nap in the car only after he has been completely covered with his blanket — head and all. He insists on it and won't fall asleep until this happens. It's terribly cute.

Thursday nights drive: Austin to Beaumont (256 miles)
Today's drive: Bueamont to Tallahassee (630 miles)
Total miles: 886

Big Brother

I can see how the title of this entry might be a little misleading. This is not going to be an entry about George Orwell or his famous book....

The story begins for me as I was about to leave the office yesterday to go home for the evening. I was in some meetings and heard the phone at my desk ring, so I ran to get it, except the voice-mail picked up right before I did.

I knew it was Renee, and I tried to call her back; the phone was busy and I was sure she was leaving a message, so I tried back a few moments later.

It was in fact her and after she answered she just asked, "are you coming home early?" I was in meetings, but I knew that we had a lot of packing to do for our trip (we were leaving for Florida the next day) and Renee was having some difficulties with that process (the cat had a bathroom-break in the suitcase as Renee was packing it with clothes). Renee seemed a little out-of-sorts, so I asked if she was okay, she replied she was, just come home. But she still sounded odd, so I asked if she was okay again just as she hung up.

So, I left as soon as I could and when I got home Aidan was asleep on the couch. I thought it was quite precious, but figured I had some work to do (I had to mow the lawn before we left, and then start packing). So, I headed off to the bathroom to freshen up....

While in the bathroom, I heard Renee start talking to Aidan; it sounded as though he woke up. When I opened the door to the bathroom and came around the corner into the kitchen, Renee was holding Aidan in her arms. I figured that he just wanted to greet me as he usually does when I get home. Then I saw his shirt. It said "Big Brother" on it. The first thing I thought of was that Renee must have gotten the shirt somewhere from a "Big Bothers/Big Sisters" event or something. Then it dawned on me....

Aidan's going to be a big brother!

And now, the same story from Renee's perspective...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I took Aidan to a store this afternoon to purchase him a new toy for our upcoming road trip. While I was walking down one of the isles I spotted my friend Natalie from La Leche League. I hadn't been to LLL in two months because of camping and then a trip to NJ, so we had a lot of catching up to do. The topic of conversation shortly switched to our similar child rearing methods and our children (Natalie has an almost three year old daughter and an infant of about 4 or 5 months). After talking about her last pregnancy and how the siblings are doing together, I mentioned to her that I worried about not being able to decifer another pregnancy. Well, she reminded me of some of the specific symptoms that she was sure I would encounter because of my practices and it happens I was already feeling one of those symptoms so I went home, took a test and the rest is history.

Mars and the Red Rectangle

I know, I know... you've all seen Mars before.

But check out the details in this picture.

And then there's the Red Rectangle. It is "one of the most unusual celestial bodies in the galaxy ... Astronomers know of no other nebula like it in the universe."

Dad-daddo and Jackie

Aidan's Grandpa Bob (aka Grandadoo, or as Aidan says it, Dad-dadoo) and Grandma Jackie are going home tomorrow. They spent the last few days with us and we had a blast.

Sunday was spent entertaining the two moms (Renee and Jackie), as it was Mother's Day. I made them my "famous" waffle breakfast and watched one of Renee's all-time favorite movies.

Tonight, Aidan entertained his grandparents for us while Renee and I got to go out to one of our favorite restaurants (Fonda San Miguel).

The visit was very fun (and fairly short) and, unfortunately, we didn't get a chance for many photo opportunities. But I have a bunch of pictures from April that I still need to share with everyone, so look forward to a picture update one of these days....

A Visit from the Grandadoo

Aidan's Grandadoo and Grandma Jackie are in town for a visit; they flew in last night from Connecticut and will be staying through next Wednesday.

Today's adventures included a hike in the Barton Creek Greenbelt and a trip down to Gruene, Texas; we had dinner at the Gristmill and played a game of horseshoes before dinner.

Good Eats

McDonald's doesn't necessarily say that its food is "health food," but it doesn't say that its bad for you, either.

Most kids probably dream of eating nothing but McDonald's all day, every day and most parents probably wouldn't let their kids eat with such reckless abandon. Still, a lot of people eat a lot of fast food, if only for the convenience factor. Then we rationalize the frequency of eating fast food by forgetting the "fast" part and remembering the "food" part; since it's "food," it must be nutritious.

What would happen if kids could indulge in their fantasy of eating McDonald's food every day for every meal? We could theorize about it and discuss it to no end, but someone wanted hard evidence. That someone was Morgan Spurlock.

Spurlock decided to make a movie out of the experience and the end result is a film, which will be released on May 7, called Super Size Me. The basic idea was that Spurlock would live on nothing but McDonald's for an entire month with three simple rules:

1) No options: he could only eat what was available over the counter (water included!)
2) No supersizing unless offered
3) No excuses: he had to eat every item on the menu at least once

The end result? Spurlock gained about 25 pounds; his cholesterol went up 65 points; he complained of chronic headaches and the doctors who were monitoring him referred to his liver as pâté.

Maybe Spurlock's test environment isn't all that realistic. Other than the blatently irresponsible, no one really does that. Right?

Everything revolved around the student center when I was in college (and it probably is still that way at UT). The student center had (not sure what is there now) a Wendy's and a Taco Bell and a Pizza Hut, to name just a few fast food restaurants. If you were being remotely social at all, you were hanging out at these places. But it was also a convenient location, so if you got hungry at all while on campus, you probably looked for food here.

So, think about needing the convenience of fast food because of a busy college schedule combined with the repressed childhood fantasy of eating fast food all the time. The end result is pretty much what I saw while in college: fast food joints readily available on campus providing virtually every meal to college kids who didn't have the willpower (or desire) to walk away.

An eating pattern is created and it carries through; I still see this with adults, although it isn't nearly as intense. But it's still the "fall back" position; the default behavior. When time is short and there is a certain amount of pressure to find a meal, odds are, it will be fast food. And that probably happens more often than you think.

I have difficulties staying away from fast food and they don't even offer all that much for vegetarians (I usually end up with a Wendy's salad or the Veggie Burger from Burger King). It is a very tough pattern to break.

Maybe Spurlock's scenario really isn't all that far fetched....

Yet Another Reason

Not that there aren't already a zillion good reasons to support breast-feeding, here's one more:

Breast-fed children in the United States are 20 percent less likely to die during the first year of life than whose who are not nursed.

Picture Update

We are supposed to be camping this weekend. However, the weather took a turn for the worse and we decided against going. I was able to get my new hiking boots before we left; they are probably one of the best boots that I've ever owned, although at this point it's a little early to give them this title.

So, since I have all this "free time" (i.e., since we're not camping), I thought I would take advantage and publish all of the pictures that Renee brought home with her from New Jersey!

Enjoy.