Darn near march 2015

It has been months since I posted and so much has happened.

We have enjoyed the Indiana/Ohio/New Jersey winter.  We have hiked many frozen nature trails and looked at waterfalls.  Ice sculpting, Mathgirl, you loved it.  You and the mathbaby have taken to sweets.  We had Christmas at your grandma Tema's house and it was wonderful.  Not too much snow,  but gosh can it get cold here.

In Dec 2013 I had the worst Christmas of my life, (thank you Jon and all) and I have to say that Christmas 2014 was stunningly better.

You are such a reader.  You loved the book Radio Rescue (link) about a young ham operator in the 1920's who helps people and carries messages for sailors to their families.  You want to become a ham.  The world doesn't have much use for noble spirited people like you - but you don't do it because the world needs.  You will, like me, have to do it because of who you are.  If the king of the moles requires you to give up light and warmth in exchange for being "queen" the you, like Thumbelina, will be compelled to say no.

You love sledding and snow.  You have fun with the neighbor boys sliding down hills at the golf course.  You are growing your courage.

We may have found a church with life in it.  There are many churches in this part of the country - a building on every corner - but does Jesus walk down the halls?  That is the question.  Where does he love to hang out?  I think that the Pharisees with their deep-culture were offensive to him.  Those inside the organization do not have the ability to measure the cost of entry.  If the cost is higher to the lost, the one that Jesus came to rescue - then I don't think he would rejoice to send folks there to be helped.  I think a place that is good to the lost is good to him.  We may have found that - or at least that for us.  We will test to be sure.

It is nice to hear you and mommy sharing pages as you two read through Little House on the Prairie books.  You look at Pa and Ma and the various girls and you see .. us.  And the idea of who Pa is in the books comes through and is imputed to me.  And that is good and bad.  I get a benefit of a good name - but it isn't exactly my name.  In some ways it is worth aspiring to - but I am never going to make it.  In some ways it tells you who I am in ways you would not know.

I have been thinking about you and about "outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell.  It is an unintentional roadmap for parents to chart world-class success, as a team, and avoiding a few of the big world-class-failure-makers, for their kids.  It says that 10,000 hours (or so) gives world class mastery in a topic.  The right kind of vision for the topic and the right kind of fit of the topic and kid are what make the magic.  I am trying to make what I see as a good breakthrough, perhaps even some defining work, of the next 20 years to be yours.  Mommy is helping.  It is grace - our current job and location allow it.  Hint: (the animal morphology and biology you love, deep belief/Q networks (link, link), and the idea that there are no service jobs after about 2025 - the minimum wage increases are going to strongly drive move to highly automated "productivity".  We expect it to take a couple of years to work out some of the kinks.  If we are moving to a second aristocracy then I don't want you being a serf.  I don't want to do it but the politicians in charge of the US are just obliterating the middle class - and the current middle class is both to dumb to realize it, to blind to look for it, and to powerless to do anything about it.

I love the painting that you gave me.  I put it on my wall.  Thank you.

I have to go.. I may be waiting for "compiling" but I have to work nonetheless.

EDIT (26-Feb-2015):
Slashdot gives an article that says that 47% of total US jobs could be automated by 2033.  (main-link, paper , link, link).  I guess we are going to see either a second rise of the unions, or the current sold-out unions are going to betray on a grand scale the people they are meant to protect and serve.  Which one of those sounds like "politics as usual".

Jobs that are going to be computerized, according to the paper, major in "administrative support and secretarial", "sales and sale related", and "service".  It is the death of the McJob.  Also adjacent are "construction and extraction", "production", "transportation" and "installation, maintenance, and repair".  The jobs less likely to be computerized include "management, business, financial", "education, legal, community service, arts and media", "STEM", and "Healthcare practitioners".   I guess they don't believe in Baymax.