baffle them with bullshit. I gave my talk in the Math Club this last Wednesday in hopes of attracting some students to work on a research project. I spent a while coming up with the title. It needed to be completely accurate and yet have that arrogant flair which is typically found in titles of science talks/articles. I think I nailed it.

How ’bout dem apples! It was a really fun talk to give because I had to engineer it to a different audience than I am accustomed to. Typically I present material to other faculty (not at Spring Hill of course) or to graduate students. For this talk I was presenting to undergrads. Some of them had taken very little mathematics. So, I needed to throw out all of the high powered jargon and assumptions and really get at what was going on. It was an incredibly instructive exercise. I have given a talk on this stuff to PhD’s before using fancy terminology and, quite frankly, I wish I had given them the talk I gave the math club folks. Oh well. Lessons learned I suppose.

On a completely unrelated note. I have a series of Demotivators^TM up on my door at work and I found some software online here that lets you make your own. I made Perspective below.

We all decided to go camping this past weekend since the weather had been cooler. So we set up a camp in the backyard and planned on having smores. We never did get the smores going; I feel badly about that. I had the fire ring set up, but by the time we got everybody out there Scout was through for the day. Dad and Scout snoozed while Melinda and Drake stayed up for a while reading stories (Including “Just Me and My Dad” a little monster book that Melinda bought me when Drake was born. It’s about camping.) and talking. I think Drake had a really good time and Scout didn’t really seem to care that much one way or the other. I didn’t really expect her to be excited about it, and I was pleased that it didn’t give her any grief. She slept like a stone until about 7:00. That’s pretty late for her. Drake and Mom finally got it out of the tent about an hour later. I think that Drake was a little confused about where he was when he woke up, but he was fine. We’ll need to do that again soon. It was fun.

Melinda has outdone herself with the costumes for the kids. Drake is going to be a pirate and Scout is going to be a banshee (of course). Melinda made Drake’s costume out of one of his old shirts, one of my old shirts (for the sash), and a pillow case. Scout’s costume is made out of one of my old white shirts and some cheese cloth. They turned out really great. We couldn’t afford store bough costumes this year and Mom really came through. We spent a little extra on Drake. We bought him a pirates hat, sword, flint lock pistol, and an earing. It was also a good excuse to go check out the local Halloween store. I always love that.

This weekend Grandmom and Granddad will be here. Drake has been excited for over a week. So has his Mom and Dad. None of us can wait for Halloween. It will be Melinda and my fourth anniversary which means I need to look for linens. Wish me luck.

Yeah, sorry. It’s been a while since I have had any time to write an entry. I have been really busy at work with grading recently and I have been feverishly finding out where I have been and what I have done (and with who) over the past ten years. More on the latter later. By the time I’ve had a moment to breathe after getting the kids to bed, I am usually dog tired. Scout wakes up at about 5:30 these days and Drake gets to bed at close to 11:00pm. So, on a good night, when the kids don’t wake up and need help getting back to sleep I get at most 6 and half hours of sleep…provided I ignore my wife and go right to bed after Drake falls asleep. Not cool. We typically like to stay up and at least recognize one anothers’ existence for a while. On a good night we’re both coherent enough to play a game. I sure miss spending time with my wife. The kids are getting better at entertaining themselves. Shoot, they have even begun to play together a little bit. So, hopefully soon Melinda and I will be able to let the kids play and have a cup of coffee.

First of all, in the latest greatest potty related news, Drake has been out of diapers for about 2 weeks. He’s had very few accidents and he even sleeps without a diaper. We were a bit apprehensive about taking Drake out of the house for an extended time because we were worried that he might have an accident and he would be embarrassed. Fortunately, this hasn’t been an issue. We all went to a birthday party for Drake’s friend Georgia recently. The party was held at a local park (Georgia’s parents are smart) where there wasn’t a bathroom. One of the older boys needed to go to the bathroom so his mother helped him “water the plants.” Soon thereafter all of the boys that weren’t wearing diapers wanted to pee on a tree. Later on Drake one-upped everyone by pooping in the woods.

We also went to the exploreum with the kids to get them out of the house. (Drake used the public bathroom with no problem). The current exhibit at the exploreum is “Grossology”, which illustrates the not so nice aspects of the human body. It’s great. They’ve got machines that let you smell the different bacteria responsible for foot, mouth, armpit, and anus odors. Another machine that stimulates simulates a fart. One simulates vomit. My favorite is a kids play area that represents the digestive tract. Kids climb a little wall to get into the mouth, go down a slide into the stomach, then crawl out a tube to exit the rectum.

Scout had a good time here too. Before we went to the Grossology exhibit, we all went to the Wharf of Wonder. Scout had a great time playing in the “water” (a big sea of plastic balls). She’s sitting up easily by herself now, and she can really get moving when she needs to. I don’t think it will be much longer before she starts walking. She is getting more of a personality as well. She wakes up every morning in such a good mood ready to play. It takes her Dad a little while to get into the swing of things, but not too long. That kid has got a great smile. She’s laughing a lot more now too. I found a few good spots to tickle her and she absolutely cackles.

We all went to the Five Rivers park the other day. This is a new park (that we mentioned in our grant proposal) near our house that is in the delta formed by, ready for this, five rivers. It’s still a bit of a work in progress, but they have set up a room that has many stuffed animals that lived in the area. My favorite is the one below. I think they should ask the taxidermist for their money back. I think the cat is supposed to be running. What does it look like this cat is doing to you?

I have one more picture that I threatened Melinda with posting. We all went out for a walk and this is what Drake was wearing. His mother dressed him. Poor kid.