I'm particularly proud of myself this weekend. I've never been much of a handyman and the DIY gene that others seem to possess has been largely dormant in me. But, I've made a vow to myself that I should begin working on these kinds of skills. So this weekend, I found myself installing our washer and dryer while switching out the three prong plug for the four prong one with the ground connection built into it. I also fixed a piece of furniture that got broken in the move from Chicago. I realize that these tasks are certainly not the Mount Everest of home improvement skills but, hey, you gotta start somewhere, right?
The move itself went really smoothly. Normally when we move during the summer months, the temperature is usually in the 90s with a heat index in the hundreds. Not that weekend. It was low to mid 70s all day Friday and Saturday and only crept into the 80s on Sunday. Monday, our actual move day, it rained, but the rain held off while the movers loaded the truck so it was really just cool and breezy. Also, because of the weather, we were able to move all of the boxes and little odds and ends ourselves and only needed the movers for the furniture which cut our cost in half.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Monday, July 20, 2009
Seeing Stars
Our first night in our new house is here. After a dinner out and some shopping for diapers, we were enjoying each others' company. Nicholas was having a blast running the length of the basement chasing his ball. He grabbed a little soft toy elephant and threw it over my head and laughed. He walked over, crouched down near the corner where it had landed and promptly lost his balance and smacked his head right on the corner. It was the worst injury he's had yet. A bruise line formed with a dent and I immediately went upstairs for some ice. To the best of our ability, we kept the ice on his injury for about 10 minutes.
The swelling has gone down and the dent is no longer a dent, just a line, but we need to watch for concussion symptoms. We will be monitoring his sleeping constantly for the first two hours, then waking him up every four hours to make him walk. This will need to be done for two nights. It's a strange welcome gift.
The swelling has gone down and the dent is no longer a dent, just a line, but we need to watch for concussion symptoms. We will be monitoring his sleeping constantly for the first two hours, then waking him up every four hours to make him walk. This will need to be done for two nights. It's a strange welcome gift.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Begin Crazy in T Minus 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
This is so incredibly ridiculous, I'm almost inclined to believe that it's fake. The text that follows is taken from this site: http://objectiveministries.org/zounds/gaming.html
The review is toward the bottom of the page after the usual stuff about how Christian games are Teh Awzomz (a particularly false statement if you know absolutely anything about the hobby) and Doom is Teh Evul (well duh).
Begin Crazy....... NOW!
______________________
Tetris (Soviet Academy of Sciences, available everywhere)
Tetris
12.10.2008: Tetris is an action puzzle game where the player rotates falling block shapes to make them fit together in a pile. When a row is filled, it disappears, keeping the height of the pile of blocks from increasing. As the game progresses, it continually speeds up until the player starts making mistakes that allow the blocks to reach the top of the game area, ending the game. Tetris is unwinable, you can only put off your inevitable defeat. This fatalistic aspect of the game should come as no surprise since it was originally created in 1985 in the Soviet Union, where the Atheist government taught everyone that there is nothing but a bleak, pointless existence followed by death with no chance for Salvation. It is claimed that the word "tetris" comes from the game pieces all being made of four blocks. In reality, the game was named in mockery of the Trinity by adding a forth hypostasis, the Communist State, to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Because it is simple to program, versions of Tetris can be found on every game, computer, and operating system. There have even been implementations of Tetris done using computer controlled lights in office buildings, turning the lighted windows into the falling blocks. The ubiquity of Tetris is also because it is highly addictive. Its repetitive gameplay and use of a repetitive Russian folk tune causes players to slip into a hypnagogic state, making them receptive to the Communistic themes inherent in the game imagery (everyone is an unindividualistic block that must be made to fit together in Soviet conformity, and sometimes whole lines of people are made to disappear without any explanation). This is intentional, since, like all work done by the Soviet Academy of Science where Tetris was developed, it was part of secret military research, in this case having to do with mind control. (The US military also researched mind control video games in the 1980s, including one called "Polybius", but we never used them during the Cold War, unlike the Soviets who unleashed Tetris into the general public where it's still affecting people to this day.) Because of its fatalistic worldview and the danger it poses to people's God-given Free Will, all implementations of Tetris get ZERO CROSSES. [See our Tetris video exposé on GodTube.]
UPDATE (1.8.2009): The Secular media must be reading my reviews because shortly after I exposed Tetris for what it really is, they started trying to counter my exposé (without mentioning it, naturally) by promoting a so-called "study" hastily printed in some Darwinist online journal that claims Tetris is beneficial to mental health. They say soldiers should play Tetris within 6 hours of being in combat to keep them from having post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The only way that could happen is if all our soldiers were equipped with Tetris games in the field! And how did they learn this? They showed subjects some sort of snuff film with like people being killed (where did they get this? do the police know about it?) then had the subjects play Tetris. What kind of sick experiment is this!? Before I was born again I saw a Secular movie called, I think, "the Parallax View", where a shadowy corporation is brainwashing people to become assassins by showing them a propaganda movie that has all sorts of disturbing images mixed with words like "GOD", "LOVE", "COUNTRY", etc. They didn't have them play Tetris afterwards, but I guess that's how they do it nowadays. I asked my Game Theory professor Dr. Holgroth about this and he thinks this whole thing is a plot by the militant Atheists to undermine our military. We try to install a Christian worldview in our soldiers in basic training and military academies, then when they are deployed, anti-Christians sneakily put Communist propaganda in their hands to condition them to associate relief from traumatic stress with a Godless worldview. (For those suffering from PTSD, do not be tricked by crypto-Communists into playing Tetris! Real relief from PTSD can be had by taking beta blockers, SSRIs, and memorizing scripture.)
The review is toward the bottom of the page after the usual stuff about how Christian games are Teh Awzomz (a particularly false statement if you know absolutely anything about the hobby) and Doom is Teh Evul (well duh).
Begin Crazy....... NOW!
______________________
Tetris (Soviet Academy of Sciences, available everywhere)
Tetris
12.10.2008: Tetris is an action puzzle game where the player rotates falling block shapes to make them fit together in a pile. When a row is filled, it disappears, keeping the height of the pile of blocks from increasing. As the game progresses, it continually speeds up until the player starts making mistakes that allow the blocks to reach the top of the game area, ending the game. Tetris is unwinable, you can only put off your inevitable defeat. This fatalistic aspect of the game should come as no surprise since it was originally created in 1985 in the Soviet Union, where the Atheist government taught everyone that there is nothing but a bleak, pointless existence followed by death with no chance for Salvation. It is claimed that the word "tetris" comes from the game pieces all being made of four blocks. In reality, the game was named in mockery of the Trinity by adding a forth hypostasis, the Communist State, to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Because it is simple to program, versions of Tetris can be found on every game, computer, and operating system. There have even been implementations of Tetris done using computer controlled lights in office buildings, turning the lighted windows into the falling blocks. The ubiquity of Tetris is also because it is highly addictive. Its repetitive gameplay and use of a repetitive Russian folk tune causes players to slip into a hypnagogic state, making them receptive to the Communistic themes inherent in the game imagery (everyone is an unindividualistic block that must be made to fit together in Soviet conformity, and sometimes whole lines of people are made to disappear without any explanation). This is intentional, since, like all work done by the Soviet Academy of Science where Tetris was developed, it was part of secret military research, in this case having to do with mind control. (The US military also researched mind control video games in the 1980s, including one called "Polybius", but we never used them during the Cold War, unlike the Soviets who unleashed Tetris into the general public where it's still affecting people to this day.) Because of its fatalistic worldview and the danger it poses to people's God-given Free Will, all implementations of Tetris get ZERO CROSSES. [See our Tetris video exposé on GodTube.]
UPDATE (1.8.2009): The Secular media must be reading my reviews because shortly after I exposed Tetris for what it really is, they started trying to counter my exposé (without mentioning it, naturally) by promoting a so-called "study" hastily printed in some Darwinist online journal that claims Tetris is beneficial to mental health. They say soldiers should play Tetris within 6 hours of being in combat to keep them from having post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The only way that could happen is if all our soldiers were equipped with Tetris games in the field! And how did they learn this? They showed subjects some sort of snuff film with like people being killed (where did they get this? do the police know about it?) then had the subjects play Tetris. What kind of sick experiment is this!? Before I was born again I saw a Secular movie called, I think, "the Parallax View", where a shadowy corporation is brainwashing people to become assassins by showing them a propaganda movie that has all sorts of disturbing images mixed with words like "GOD", "LOVE", "COUNTRY", etc. They didn't have them play Tetris afterwards, but I guess that's how they do it nowadays. I asked my Game Theory professor Dr. Holgroth about this and he thinks this whole thing is a plot by the militant Atheists to undermine our military. We try to install a Christian worldview in our soldiers in basic training and military academies, then when they are deployed, anti-Christians sneakily put Communist propaganda in their hands to condition them to associate relief from traumatic stress with a Godless worldview. (For those suffering from PTSD, do not be tricked by crypto-Communists into playing Tetris! Real relief from PTSD can be had by taking beta blockers, SSRIs, and memorizing scripture.)
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
The Good Times
First, to add some sort of closure to the last post, I know that I cannot do anything rash. I would love to watch Nick full time and it's a huge temptation for me to deem that the perfect reason to leave my current post, but I must stick with the job at least another year before I make any decisions. Not to say that caring for Nick isn't a good reason because this is an extremely cute time in his life and it is slipping away much too quickly. Needless to say, it's a very difficult choice.
Speaking of Nick, now that he's been around for almost a year and a half, we're watching friends who currently have little ones under one year and realizing for certain that Nick was a more difficult baby than many. So many of them write to say that their spawns have smiled at four weeks, that they laugh and giggle at 8, they rolled over at 16. Nick did none of that. I do not exaggerate when I say that Nick didn't smile until he was at least 5-6 months old. He didn't roll until seven or eight months and didn't crawl until ten. He cried or screamed often. I'm not sure if it was something we did wrong or simply his disposition or a combination of the two, but it is hard not to be a bit jealous of our friends who got smiles and giggles in the first three months when we had none.
He's making up for it now though. His good days are phenomenally fun. He enjoys throwing blankets at me, hearing me imitate Elmo, tackling me on the living room floor, and trying to get past me as I poorly block his way to another room. When I eat his belly he sometimes laughs that hysterical baby laugh that's part yell and part hysteria, the kind of laugh that is probably making him pee in his diaper. He likes trying to make me laugh, too. He has learned to close his eyes on purpose, squinting them shut tightly for a couple of seconds. It almost always guarantees the payoff he's looking for. He'll put a spoon or a sippy cup in his mouth and hold it with only his teeth and looking for my applause. With the spoon, I sometimes bite the other end and pretend to fight him for it. He'll grip it tightly even through his own laughter. On the days that he does go to day care, as I enter the room to pick him up, he looks up, catches my eye, and runs full tilt into my arms to give me a hug and suddenly all the hard stuff we dealt with never mattered.
Speaking of Nick, now that he's been around for almost a year and a half, we're watching friends who currently have little ones under one year and realizing for certain that Nick was a more difficult baby than many. So many of them write to say that their spawns have smiled at four weeks, that they laugh and giggle at 8, they rolled over at 16. Nick did none of that. I do not exaggerate when I say that Nick didn't smile until he was at least 5-6 months old. He didn't roll until seven or eight months and didn't crawl until ten. He cried or screamed often. I'm not sure if it was something we did wrong or simply his disposition or a combination of the two, but it is hard not to be a bit jealous of our friends who got smiles and giggles in the first three months when we had none.
He's making up for it now though. His good days are phenomenally fun. He enjoys throwing blankets at me, hearing me imitate Elmo, tackling me on the living room floor, and trying to get past me as I poorly block his way to another room. When I eat his belly he sometimes laughs that hysterical baby laugh that's part yell and part hysteria, the kind of laugh that is probably making him pee in his diaper. He likes trying to make me laugh, too. He has learned to close his eyes on purpose, squinting them shut tightly for a couple of seconds. It almost always guarantees the payoff he's looking for. He'll put a spoon or a sippy cup in his mouth and hold it with only his teeth and looking for my applause. With the spoon, I sometimes bite the other end and pretend to fight him for it. He'll grip it tightly even through his own laughter. On the days that he does go to day care, as I enter the room to pick him up, he looks up, catches my eye, and runs full tilt into my arms to give me a hug and suddenly all the hard stuff we dealt with never mattered.
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