Sigh.
Girls, I did not make a post in October. One-liners do not count. There should be pictures, and depth. That is sad. I need to have more .. of the things that are good for you.
In Ohio football trumps halloween. On thursday there were kids trick-or-treating and I asked why and they said "tomorrow there is football game, so we do it tonight".
We liked "Big Hero 6". It was good.
Lots and lots and lots of unpacking. Winterizing. It is -5 out there with windchill. Micro has a very adverse biot number so she doesn't like cold much. Mini loves it - she runs and plays and makes snowballs.
We now have internet at our home. Yay! Netflix again.
Sigh.
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Early September 2014
I just inspected a candidate new home. I hope it works out and is good for you. I think it might do well. It costs substantially less than our Phoenix home and will give you, mommy and me a place to make a home.
I think that a good first step will be a fence. It will be pretty and should help you and micro to know the bounds of the yard. In retrospect having a place that is set aside as "my own" is something I never had until I was an adult.
You have had, your math mom and I have worked hard and intentional to give you, a hundred good things in your childhood that we did not get in ours. Exposure to violence, experiencing hunger, parental abandonment, the intelligence poison of "modern" public education, being bullied, robbed - these were kept away from you as a good gift.
Friday, August 29, 2014
Late July 2014
Hello Big Girl. Big girls now. My girlies.
I am re-reading "Letters from Dad" - it inspired me in this blogging endeavor. Rereading it helps me think through the reasons why I do this and it helps to evaluate the message.
If you were to get three wishes from a Genie in a bottle would you waste them? I wish I knew whether this was a wish. In a way this blog is a wish. It is, likely, to last longer than I do. It is a message in a bottle. I can speak now into it, and be assured that at some point, if you want, if you know, if you want to listen - you can hear ... or at least read. It gives me a sense of connection. In that miracle - that instant of connection across the years it would be a waste to say words that are less than all I mean. To the degree that I can help myself not make that error, I want to give you an intentional and non-random or accidental message.
You are my delight. You are strong and smart - courageous and funny. You are all that every person should aspire to be. My brain asserts itself and says you have flaws. In the eyes of my love for you - you are transformed. There is a self that is you that I can access through that vision, and that you can't access. If you can't access it - is it really you. It could be. If you want it to, if you are open to it, if you receive it, then it might.
Mini - I want you to work hard. You can never work harder than you can, but if you are willing to push yourself then you will learn the lesson that every great person knows: you can work much harder than you think you can. Basketball and ballet, business and productivity - they are all about mental toughness. You have an amazing mind but it will not bloom unless you work it hard. You were using sign-language at 6 weeks old and pictures of it are in this blog. I think you might have a bent for biology, morphology, and nomenclature - a natural doctor or vet from when you were less than 1 year old. You don't have to be that. You could be any number of great things. I think might be one of several things that are aligned with your natural strengths.
Mikro - I know that you are strong. You are very kinesthetic. You stood on your own strength at six weeks. It took that long because I was afraid to hurt you by allowing you to try it the day you were born. You are strong in body. I hunger for you to get a posture of balance. Imbalance is to become all of one thing and none of another. You have a capability for hard work, but it needs to be balanced with direction. Oh I want you to succeed. I can't begin to tell you how I long for you to have great things.
I pray for you two nearly every day. Nearly every day. God keep you. God fill you with light and life. God give you a good future, a good hope. God keep you.
I am re-reading "Letters from Dad" - it inspired me in this blogging endeavor. Rereading it helps me think through the reasons why I do this and it helps to evaluate the message.
If you were to get three wishes from a Genie in a bottle would you waste them? I wish I knew whether this was a wish. In a way this blog is a wish. It is, likely, to last longer than I do. It is a message in a bottle. I can speak now into it, and be assured that at some point, if you want, if you know, if you want to listen - you can hear ... or at least read. It gives me a sense of connection. In that miracle - that instant of connection across the years it would be a waste to say words that are less than all I mean. To the degree that I can help myself not make that error, I want to give you an intentional and non-random or accidental message.
You are my delight. You are strong and smart - courageous and funny. You are all that every person should aspire to be. My brain asserts itself and says you have flaws. In the eyes of my love for you - you are transformed. There is a self that is you that I can access through that vision, and that you can't access. If you can't access it - is it really you. It could be. If you want it to, if you are open to it, if you receive it, then it might.
Mini - I want you to work hard. You can never work harder than you can, but if you are willing to push yourself then you will learn the lesson that every great person knows: you can work much harder than you think you can. Basketball and ballet, business and productivity - they are all about mental toughness. You have an amazing mind but it will not bloom unless you work it hard. You were using sign-language at 6 weeks old and pictures of it are in this blog. I think you might have a bent for biology, morphology, and nomenclature - a natural doctor or vet from when you were less than 1 year old. You don't have to be that. You could be any number of great things. I think might be one of several things that are aligned with your natural strengths.
Mikro - I know that you are strong. You are very kinesthetic. You stood on your own strength at six weeks. It took that long because I was afraid to hurt you by allowing you to try it the day you were born. You are strong in body. I hunger for you to get a posture of balance. Imbalance is to become all of one thing and none of another. You have a capability for hard work, but it needs to be balanced with direction. Oh I want you to succeed. I can't begin to tell you how I long for you to have great things.
I pray for you two nearly every day. Nearly every day. God keep you. God fill you with light and life. God give you a good future, a good hope. God keep you.
Late August 2014
Hello mathgirls.
It is late in August and I am 1800 miles away. You are (in theory) going camping up on the rim. There was a traffic issue so I don't know anything about timing or how it is all working. I hope that it is amazing. Would you notice? I would like to think that I would and that you would, but we miss it. Sometimes when you are a kid, or adult ... basically a human ... . Sometimes when you are a human you miss it. Sometimes you get it. Missing it feels exactly like it is not there, when it actually is. If you ponder a little bit, think on the days you have had, not just remembering or replay them, but asking them good hard questions, then sometimes you can learn where you missed. It is an imperfect science ... or art.
I wanted to tell you something, something important. I forgot what it was. The snarky person might call it senilty or suggest that it must not have been important. The emotion behind the words I wrote in the preceding paragraph distracted the attention of my memory and I misplaced what I wanted to tell you. I was remembering times that I thought were booring or empty as a kid, and realizing that they had some serious magic that I missed out on. Regret is strong when you get older or ... middle aged.
I ate dinner at Cracker Barrel. They had a waitress there, a kid. Slightly older than you. I don't know her name. She mentioned her boyfriend. I asked how they work in conflict resolution - a critical part of any relationship. Unless you have serious ptsd or damage - nearly anyone can survive when it is peaceful, and easy. It is the hard things - the winters - that must be endured. The challenge then, with the weather and with relationships, is to be able to live well enough in the good times, but also to know what it takes and be adequately staged for success in the hard times. How you fight as a married couple can make or break the relationship. She just withdraws. The waitress said she shuts up, and suppresses.
So I want to tell you about it. Are you ready. One of the very dumb (dumb dumb dumb) things that your gender in our current society does is lionize sucking it up and suppressing. That stages women for so much failure. I wanted to tell the waitress - take a class in negotiation. Learn to both advocate for yourself and communicate your desires. Instead of screaming, or self-strangling, why not a balanced and sustainable approach that leads to success in life. Why binge then starve - an emotionalistic anorexia - when a balanced diet and healthy emotional state can give you a stunningly more rewarding life? I wanted to tell her that debate might do it, but negotiation is responsible for her gender making substantially less than men for the same job. It isn't all the gap, but it is a good chunk. It is accessible. Why not learn it, right?
I remember now, what I want to tell you. Given time and the natural decay of the burst of emotional fog the librarian of the mind comes back online and functions again. I like it here at night. It takes so long for the sun to set, so I missed until this day the experience. When I drive around this place there are so many trees it feels like it is an inhuman jungle. You might get that at first. It feels so far divorced from the community of humans - but it isnt. At night the lights show through. You can see the houses and roads through the greenery and you realize that this is a town bigger than Payson. Heh. Did you see that. You are likely going to be camping on the other side of Payson this weekend and I brought it up. It is nice to know that humans live here - somewhere.
I read an article today that says give your best everywhere, but don't make your work the best of you, because when your work is over, you lose too large a piece of your self. I don't want that. Not for me. Not for you. Not even for your kids.
I love what I do. I need to get working now while I can. There are things that you are going to need that if I work now they get provided.
I love you. I wish you were here with me, and I know that will come in time. In my heart I am comforted by what I think is a whisper from Providence saying that things are in bigger hands than mine. It is both scary and comforting.
Good night. I love you and miss you. You are my favorite little persons - both of you - my favorite little people in the whole wide world.
It is late in August and I am 1800 miles away. You are (in theory) going camping up on the rim. There was a traffic issue so I don't know anything about timing or how it is all working. I hope that it is amazing. Would you notice? I would like to think that I would and that you would, but we miss it. Sometimes when you are a kid, or adult ... basically a human ... . Sometimes when you are a human you miss it. Sometimes you get it. Missing it feels exactly like it is not there, when it actually is. If you ponder a little bit, think on the days you have had, not just remembering or replay them, but asking them good hard questions, then sometimes you can learn where you missed. It is an imperfect science ... or art.
I wanted to tell you something, something important. I forgot what it was. The snarky person might call it senilty or suggest that it must not have been important. The emotion behind the words I wrote in the preceding paragraph distracted the attention of my memory and I misplaced what I wanted to tell you. I was remembering times that I thought were booring or empty as a kid, and realizing that they had some serious magic that I missed out on. Regret is strong when you get older or ... middle aged.
I ate dinner at Cracker Barrel. They had a waitress there, a kid. Slightly older than you. I don't know her name. She mentioned her boyfriend. I asked how they work in conflict resolution - a critical part of any relationship. Unless you have serious ptsd or damage - nearly anyone can survive when it is peaceful, and easy. It is the hard things - the winters - that must be endured. The challenge then, with the weather and with relationships, is to be able to live well enough in the good times, but also to know what it takes and be adequately staged for success in the hard times. How you fight as a married couple can make or break the relationship. She just withdraws. The waitress said she shuts up, and suppresses.
So I want to tell you about it. Are you ready. One of the very dumb (dumb dumb dumb) things that your gender in our current society does is lionize sucking it up and suppressing. That stages women for so much failure. I wanted to tell the waitress - take a class in negotiation. Learn to both advocate for yourself and communicate your desires. Instead of screaming, or self-strangling, why not a balanced and sustainable approach that leads to success in life. Why binge then starve - an emotionalistic anorexia - when a balanced diet and healthy emotional state can give you a stunningly more rewarding life? I wanted to tell her that debate might do it, but negotiation is responsible for her gender making substantially less than men for the same job. It isn't all the gap, but it is a good chunk. It is accessible. Why not learn it, right?
I remember now, what I want to tell you. Given time and the natural decay of the burst of emotional fog the librarian of the mind comes back online and functions again. I like it here at night. It takes so long for the sun to set, so I missed until this day the experience. When I drive around this place there are so many trees it feels like it is an inhuman jungle. You might get that at first. It feels so far divorced from the community of humans - but it isnt. At night the lights show through. You can see the houses and roads through the greenery and you realize that this is a town bigger than Payson. Heh. Did you see that. You are likely going to be camping on the other side of Payson this weekend and I brought it up. It is nice to know that humans live here - somewhere.
I read an article today that says give your best everywhere, but don't make your work the best of you, because when your work is over, you lose too large a piece of your self. I don't want that. Not for me. Not for you. Not even for your kids.
I love what I do. I need to get working now while I can. There are things that you are going to need that if I work now they get provided.
I love you. I wish you were here with me, and I know that will come in time. In my heart I am comforted by what I think is a whisper from Providence saying that things are in bigger hands than mine. It is both scary and comforting.
Good night. I love you and miss you. You are my favorite little persons - both of you - my favorite little people in the whole wide world.
Friday, August 22, 2014
Mid August, 2014
What is the proper way to say hello and I love you to the two most excellent kiddos in the world? When I say hello kiddos it seems to lack the sense of affection. I love you.
I'm in an airport in Ohio waiting for a plane. Eating a burger and waiting to be in air-travel for the next 7 hours.
Plane is here. Gotta go.
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
The lies in the Frozen song "Let it go"
Mathgirl,
I told you there were several dangerous lies, ideas that will put you on a failing path so early in life, in the song "Let it go" by Idina Menzel.
Here is a link to the lyrics, and the song:
The snow glows white on the mountain tonight
Not a footprint to be seen
A kingdom of isolation,
And it looks like I'm the queen.
Her fear and the darkness made it a kingdom of isolation. She could have done it differently, the isolation was her choice. When you are ruled by the darkness then you are the slave, not the queen. The illusion of power made her more a slave, and less free.
The wind is howling like this swirling storm inside
Couldn't keep it in, heaven knows I tried!
Suppressing feelings is always a bad thing. Being a loose cannon and not have discretion on how you vomit your emotions on others is always a bad thing. They are the two extremes that orbit the center of balanced expression. Courtesy is the art of living well with others - and part of it is not rude, or violent. Part of it is about being genuine.
Let it go, let it go
Can't hold it back anymore
Let it go, let it go
Turn away and slam the door!
Letting it go is not how wonderful things are made. Hard work and discipline, in retrospect a small price, are what it costs to do great things. It has been said that "eternal vigilance is the price of freedom". Take the aroma of that as a gift - freedom is the fruit of a tree who's seed is hard work.
It's funny how some distance
Makes everything seem small
And the fears that once controlled me
Can't get to me at all!
The fears that controlled her still control her. Running from fear only makes it larger, not smaller. She was just as much a prisoner of fear in the ice palace as she was in the cold bedroom.
It's time to see what I can do
To test the limits and break through
No right, no wrong, no rules for me I'm free!
There are always limits. God has limits, self-imposed but globally constraining. Knowing the rules, what they are or have changed into is how to achieve victory, success, and life. Breaking them for the sake of breaking them is a waste of energy - dissipation. Being without rules makes one a slave, not free. Appropriate rules for the person, for the community - that is where actual freedom lives.
My power flurries through the air into the ground
My soul is spiraling in frozen fractals all around
And one thought crystallizes like an icy blast
I'm never going back,
The past is in the past!
It is dangerous to make an oath in anger. Never going back is not an option. We are products of our history - created by it. It leaves more fingerprints in us than we can ever count. No matter where we are, we are also where we were. In her fear, and even rejoicing in never going back - part of her was back.
Let it go, let it go
And I'll rise like the break of dawn
Let it go, let it go
That perfect girl is gone!
In the end she says "that perfect girl" is gone. She means the opposite of those words. If you were truly perfect - the last thing you want is change. She means that the imperfect, broken, failure she felt like is something that she can put behind her. It still defines her actions. It is a lie.
When you hear it, you think that there is something about a former you - the you that you are now that could use changing. You have no idea how perfect you are. Love transforms. It causes one to see the silver through the tarnish - see the wood behind the paint. My daughter, you are a treasure to me and in my heart and my eyes you are perfect. When I hear you sing the words - words that will come true soon enough as you grow and the perfect little girl is gone no matter who you become - I want to weep. I never want the perfect you that you are to be gone.
You were not born to be a child - but you don't have one drop of the ocean of damage and hurt that the person who wrote the lyrics has. There is no storm to rage, there is no rules to break free from. I respect that you want a battle to fight, a prize to win, and a rubric for meaningfulness a meaningful life. I don't know exactly what you should be - there are many doors open at this point. I am here to enable and empower you, but the doors that you walk through are - each step of the way - your choice to walk through or burn.
I love you. I am committed to you even if you can't see me. Your mathmommy and I - we are here for you.
You should do what nobody in your generation is doing. You should understand that, and make the most of it - and make of yourself the amazing you that you could be.
I told you there were several dangerous lies, ideas that will put you on a failing path so early in life, in the song "Let it go" by Idina Menzel.
Here is a link to the lyrics, and the song:
The snow glows white on the mountain tonight
Not a footprint to be seen
A kingdom of isolation,
And it looks like I'm the queen.
Her fear and the darkness made it a kingdom of isolation. She could have done it differently, the isolation was her choice. When you are ruled by the darkness then you are the slave, not the queen. The illusion of power made her more a slave, and less free.
The wind is howling like this swirling storm inside
Couldn't keep it in, heaven knows I tried!
Suppressing feelings is always a bad thing. Being a loose cannon and not have discretion on how you vomit your emotions on others is always a bad thing. They are the two extremes that orbit the center of balanced expression. Courtesy is the art of living well with others - and part of it is not rude, or violent. Part of it is about being genuine.
Let it go, let it go
Can't hold it back anymore
Let it go, let it go
Turn away and slam the door!
Letting it go is not how wonderful things are made. Hard work and discipline, in retrospect a small price, are what it costs to do great things. It has been said that "eternal vigilance is the price of freedom". Take the aroma of that as a gift - freedom is the fruit of a tree who's seed is hard work.
It's funny how some distance
Makes everything seem small
And the fears that once controlled me
Can't get to me at all!
The fears that controlled her still control her. Running from fear only makes it larger, not smaller. She was just as much a prisoner of fear in the ice palace as she was in the cold bedroom.
It's time to see what I can do
To test the limits and break through
No right, no wrong, no rules for me I'm free!
There are always limits. God has limits, self-imposed but globally constraining. Knowing the rules, what they are or have changed into is how to achieve victory, success, and life. Breaking them for the sake of breaking them is a waste of energy - dissipation. Being without rules makes one a slave, not free. Appropriate rules for the person, for the community - that is where actual freedom lives.
My power flurries through the air into the ground
My soul is spiraling in frozen fractals all around
And one thought crystallizes like an icy blast
I'm never going back,
The past is in the past!
It is dangerous to make an oath in anger. Never going back is not an option. We are products of our history - created by it. It leaves more fingerprints in us than we can ever count. No matter where we are, we are also where we were. In her fear, and even rejoicing in never going back - part of her was back.
Let it go, let it go
And I'll rise like the break of dawn
Let it go, let it go
That perfect girl is gone!
In the end she says "that perfect girl" is gone. She means the opposite of those words. If you were truly perfect - the last thing you want is change. She means that the imperfect, broken, failure she felt like is something that she can put behind her. It still defines her actions. It is a lie.
When you hear it, you think that there is something about a former you - the you that you are now that could use changing. You have no idea how perfect you are. Love transforms. It causes one to see the silver through the tarnish - see the wood behind the paint. My daughter, you are a treasure to me and in my heart and my eyes you are perfect. When I hear you sing the words - words that will come true soon enough as you grow and the perfect little girl is gone no matter who you become - I want to weep. I never want the perfect you that you are to be gone.
You were not born to be a child - but you don't have one drop of the ocean of damage and hurt that the person who wrote the lyrics has. There is no storm to rage, there is no rules to break free from. I respect that you want a battle to fight, a prize to win, and a rubric for meaningfulness a meaningful life. I don't know exactly what you should be - there are many doors open at this point. I am here to enable and empower you, but the doors that you walk through are - each step of the way - your choice to walk through or burn.
I love you. I am committed to you even if you can't see me. Your mathmommy and I - we are here for you.
I never seriously thought about conquering the world by force until you came along. Your parents are committed to your well being with a strong ness that is almost alien to them. Alien in both strength and personality.
You should do what nobody in your generation is doing. You should understand that, and make the most of it - and make of yourself the amazing you that you could be.
Addendum:
My friend Lynn suggests that where the bible says "if you speak all the languages of men and angels and know all mysteries but have no love then you are an empty clanging noise and you have nothing" in the first letter to Corinth church - it speaks here too. Elsa was not rich in love; she was poor. It is insufficient of you to aspire to such a small thing.
Saturday, August 9, 2014
early August 2014
Hello Mathgirl.
At this point I am going to name you mathgirl, though the math is more about me than you. Your 2 year old baby sister is the new mathbaby.
I am living in hotels in Ohio. Working a new job, trying to move. Arizona is going into another recession. It is actually just continuing the one that it had been in. One can't treat the symptom and remove the disease. One must treat the disease. Treating the symptoms works to hide minor ailments, not major damage. The politicians who never read this should hear it.
So here is a picture of two fish. Which would you rather be, the one on the left with a drain that can only take a portion of what you need to live, or the one on the right who will run out of water, dry up, and die?
Our "leaders" have decided on policies that, at all scales, make us the fish on the right and not the fish on the left. Production (creation of water) is in China. Capability to make production is there to, not here. We have some water left, and we can make a temporary water called credit, but even the value it creates is moving out of our nation and our communities. Walmart can out-compete every mom and pop. McDonalds can out compete the locally grown, locally sourced, sustainable models. It is only a matter of time, not of "if".
Between now and system death we must make wise decisions.
There is a (false) legend that a ancient group that was destroyed in the following way. They were made to form a ring of people facing inward. Every odd person stepped forward and every even one stepped backward. The ones who stepped forward were killed by those who had stepped back. This process was repeated over and over until there was only one person left. It is said that there was a clever soldier who realized the position of the soldier who would survive, and by taking it was able to save his own life.
There are places where every metaphor breaks down and the same is true with this story. This myth puts saving ones life as being higher than being required to kill ones comrades. I don't like that, but I feel like we are on the titanic and the captain and senior officers are all drunk. The rate per iteration of deaths was 50%. Each time this was repeated about half of the people died. In our case the rate is lower. It is not uniform in geometry, but it is uniform in other dimensions. Fiscal responsibility. Building community. Building sustainable community economics. Building a culture of actual empowerment. These are the things that are going to make us more successful. Buying into consumerism. The gang or drug culture. Fiscal irresponsibility. Unsustainable practices. These are going to take away our tomorrows. These are the dimensions along which the pseudo-decimation is going to be most visible.
I want to live. I want you to live. Some folks say "living is more than survival" but that is a poor picture. It is a consumerist picture. True life, true heart health, is like standing on the top of a hill in that there are a number of ways to go down. Too much pleasure is as bad as (or worse than) too little. Eating too much is just as unhealthy as eating too little. Those who starve as children often become obese as adults - the body and emotional centers lead us along roads of darkness sometimes. Balance is the wonderful trick of finding the place where, by staying there, any change in it leads to less life. It is a Nash equilibrium.
I have to go. Lunch calls. Duty calls.
PS: I need to put the pictures from the "Commemorative Air Force" museum tour here. I wish your mathmom had more "Grand Canyon" and "Montezuma's Castle" pictures. I would put them here.
At this point I am going to name you mathgirl, though the math is more about me than you. Your 2 year old baby sister is the new mathbaby.
I am living in hotels in Ohio. Working a new job, trying to move. Arizona is going into another recession. It is actually just continuing the one that it had been in. One can't treat the symptom and remove the disease. One must treat the disease. Treating the symptoms works to hide minor ailments, not major damage. The politicians who never read this should hear it.
So here is a picture of two fish. Which would you rather be, the one on the left with a drain that can only take a portion of what you need to live, or the one on the right who will run out of water, dry up, and die?
Our "leaders" have decided on policies that, at all scales, make us the fish on the right and not the fish on the left. Production (creation of water) is in China. Capability to make production is there to, not here. We have some water left, and we can make a temporary water called credit, but even the value it creates is moving out of our nation and our communities. Walmart can out-compete every mom and pop. McDonalds can out compete the locally grown, locally sourced, sustainable models. It is only a matter of time, not of "if".
Between now and system death we must make wise decisions.
There is a (false) legend that a ancient group that was destroyed in the following way. They were made to form a ring of people facing inward. Every odd person stepped forward and every even one stepped backward. The ones who stepped forward were killed by those who had stepped back. This process was repeated over and over until there was only one person left. It is said that there was a clever soldier who realized the position of the soldier who would survive, and by taking it was able to save his own life.
There are places where every metaphor breaks down and the same is true with this story. This myth puts saving ones life as being higher than being required to kill ones comrades. I don't like that, but I feel like we are on the titanic and the captain and senior officers are all drunk. The rate per iteration of deaths was 50%. Each time this was repeated about half of the people died. In our case the rate is lower. It is not uniform in geometry, but it is uniform in other dimensions. Fiscal responsibility. Building community. Building sustainable community economics. Building a culture of actual empowerment. These are the things that are going to make us more successful. Buying into consumerism. The gang or drug culture. Fiscal irresponsibility. Unsustainable practices. These are going to take away our tomorrows. These are the dimensions along which the pseudo-decimation is going to be most visible.
I want to live. I want you to live. Some folks say "living is more than survival" but that is a poor picture. It is a consumerist picture. True life, true heart health, is like standing on the top of a hill in that there are a number of ways to go down. Too much pleasure is as bad as (or worse than) too little. Eating too much is just as unhealthy as eating too little. Those who starve as children often become obese as adults - the body and emotional centers lead us along roads of darkness sometimes. Balance is the wonderful trick of finding the place where, by staying there, any change in it leads to less life. It is a Nash equilibrium.
I have to go. Lunch calls. Duty calls.
PS: I need to put the pictures from the "Commemorative Air Force" museum tour here. I wish your mathmom had more "Grand Canyon" and "Montezuma's Castle" pictures. I would put them here.
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Early July 2014
I wanted to play in a stream this last sunday. There are none in Phoenix that aren't yucky. We decided to go to Christopher Creek in Payson. While there Math-Mommy and Math-Girl wanted to dig fossils.
Here is the route:
We then headed down 260 to the Paleo site.
Here is what it looks like when you first drive in.
Now, most people don't know much about fossils. They think "Night at the Museum" or "Jurassic Park" but in reality 99.5% of all fossils are marine invertebrates. That means shellfish or plants.
At the Payson Paleo site you find tiny little stone shells, sometimes leaves, worms, or worm tunnels, etcetera.
Now I think it would be neat to see if one could look at the non-planar layers of mud that make this up and estimate timing of seasons from the seas where these tiny stone shells in layer after layer after layer on the top of high mountains.... must not digress.
So here are my girlies on the west(right when looking from the parking area) hill getting fossils or at least playing in the dirt.
And these are the worlds cutest math-kiddos playing with beach-toys on a mountain top digging fossils. The little screener thing is really nice for helping let dirt through, but keep the shells.
I wonder if there are microfossils to be found in this, plankton, or krill (whatever they are) or such.....
Here is the cutest micro-mathbaby. She is pretty sure she loves that binky, but when I asked her to take it out for the picture - she did.
Isn't she beautiful? Happy little kiddo on a very old seabed, on a mountain top.
We did get to splash in the creek, but I didn't get any pictures.
Here is the route:
We were only able to start out around 1:30pm. This put us in Payson around 2:30-3:00. We stopped by Walmart for some toy shovels and pails. These are great for the beach and great for the mountains too.
Here is what it looks like when you first drive in.
It is a little turn-off on a gorgeous mountain road. Everything is dry because it is the middle of summer in Arizona.
So you park up near the gap in the guard-rail and you can walk in through it and up to the lamellar deposits. I think they are shale, but they are soft and you can break them with fingers or a plastic hammer. Sometimes you get clumps that look like a tiny pile of stone leaves ... it is trippy. But I digress.
After you pass through the gap, you (like math-girl) must walk up to the gate, and go through it.
Then you walk up the path to the hill.
Now I think it would be neat to see if one could look at the non-planar layers of mud that make this up and estimate timing of seasons from the seas where these tiny stone shells in layer after layer after layer on the top of high mountains.... must not digress.
I wonder if there are microfossils to be found in this, plankton, or krill (whatever they are) or such.....
We did get to splash in the creek, but I didn't get any pictures.
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Early April 2014
Hi there, mathbaby. Mathgirl.
So we were talking about the Clone Wars episode "Duel of the Droids" where R2-D2 battles it out against the evil R3-S6. (link) Anakin never liked R3, and I suggested it was because of "gut".
I tried to talk with you about two very hard things, but very valuable things:
.....
So I watched this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjMqMLZIt30
I think that reading the book and watching the movie might be a good thing. Life is short. Your choices make it meaningful. Wasted opportunity is one of the great sins. I want you to be able to make great choices and to be able to make the most of your opportunities. Seriously - my eyes are tearing up.
I love you.
So we were talking about the Clone Wars episode "Duel of the Droids" where R2-D2 battles it out against the evil R3-S6. (link) Anakin never liked R3, and I suggested it was because of "gut".
I tried to talk with you about two very hard things, but very valuable things:
- You need to know how to "hear" your gut
- You need to know when you can trust your gut.
First I said, look at that star, then touch your eyelid. Now realize that your finger touching your eye is on the other side of the star. The world you perceive is internal to you, and is not the same thing as the real world. When your heart "breaks" I am not refering to the muscle in the real world, but the emotional center you associate with it in your perceptual world. In the same way that the muscular pump is not the same as an emotional center, but they have similar designators between the two world, the "gut" is not the digestive/absorbtion tubes in your bowels, but is a different center in your perceived self.
I think that Anakin had a gut-feel about R3, but didn't know how to trust his gut, or even to recognize when it was speaking to him.
I had your mathmommy tell you two things: once when she ignored what she heard, and once when she listened. That gut will keep you out of trouble, and when it speaks loudly then the trouble is deep. You wanted to know the particulars of how those boys hurt your 17 year old mom, but telling you those details too young will compromise your innocence. One of her friends from high school was trying to do something evil to the adult her, but she listened to her gut and even though there was no reason to avoid that person she did so - and so cleanly sidestepped all the ugly. Some day I will tell you about my versions of those.
.....
So I watched this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjMqMLZIt30
I think that reading the book and watching the movie might be a good thing. Life is short. Your choices make it meaningful. Wasted opportunity is one of the great sins. I want you to be able to make great choices and to be able to make the most of your opportunities. Seriously - my eyes are tearing up.
I love you.
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
So your Auntie-Bee said...
Hey there.
Your auntie drives me to work two days a week.
She recently said
Your auntie drives me to work two days a week.
She recently said
"someday your daughter is going to be living this song".
And I was like "what, huh, what song".
This is the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ml1u8qEBH7g and it is by the band Play
Here are the lyrics of relevance, I think:
Won't someone tell me what is happening to me
Why am I so misunderstood
Why can't they see
Now I'm caught between the devil and the angel
That I used to be
They say I'll understand it all in good time
But age ain't nothin' but a number in my mind
Goin' crazy with this push me pull me
Caught between wrong and right
I wanna give in to the woman in me
I wanna be someone they don't want me to be
The moral of the story is I got no choice
I must not chase the boys
Why am I so misunderstood
Why can't they see
Now I'm caught between the devil and the angel
That I used to be
They say I'll understand it all in good time
But age ain't nothin' but a number in my mind
Goin' crazy with this push me pull me
Caught between wrong and right
I wanna give in to the woman in me
I wanna be someone they don't want me to be
The moral of the story is I got no choice
I must not chase the boys
So it is a confession. It is your auntie saying that she was there, that your cousins were there.
It is also a warning.
You are half way to where they go to eat you. They change you from a person to throwing you into a gladiatorial ring to go feral. They want to make you bleed. If they can keep you in that cage long enough, you will want to make people bleed.
Sad and scary seasons are coming for both of us, kiddo. If we had what looked like a brain, or some good game theory then maybe we might formulate an approach, and have a strategy in which we can have nonzero confidence. I want a strategy like that. A lot.
When I hear things like this, and ponder them, it makes a bat-mitzvah or its cultural equivalent seem like a funeral for the little girl I know and love right now. The idea of her really being gone forever and something else that grew in her - some alien seed - makes me tear up and want to cry.
Thursday, February 27, 2014
End of Feb 2014
Some days they are going to pound you. The world. Other people. Time and circumstance. You are going to have good days, sure, but you are going to have days where you start at zero and it all seems to go down from there.
I'm telling you this so it won't surprise you. They will punch you in the nose and make you cry. They will take your lunch money, and try to fight you for your soul. They own neither. They don't have a right to either. If you don't fight and fight - even if you don't want to fight - then they will take both.
To win a battle takes heart. It takes strength, mind ... tactics and strategy, but without heart there is no victory. The will to fight.
So in order to not get crushed, mowed down, or eaten ... you have to set aside part of your will for these unexpected battles. Much like you always have enough money in a bank account to deal with emergencies, you need to have enough emotional/will reserves to fight off these sorts of unexpected attacks from the sides.
And people will conspire to suck you dry of will.
Here is a beautiful lecture on time and capacity by Randy Pausch. (link, link) I hope that by the time you read this, the videos still exist.
Randy says of creativity that you have to find the times that you are most protective and guard them fiercely. Times that are low-productivity can be spent on things like paperwork, or riding a bicycle around the block, or something. Anything.
I think that you need to find the sources of strength of will, of courage of conviction, and guard them fiercely. Like an ancient hunter tribes-woman you carry your fire with you. You must make sure it does not die, it is not rained out. That you have materials to quickly and effectively make use of the tool that it is.
Your family can lift you up or bring you down. Most days you lift me up. I fight the fight because I know you need me to. That need, my experience of the reality, and importance of it, its impact to you, and who you are to me - it gives me fire. My siblings, my brothers and sisters - sometimes they do good, sometimes great harm. They taught me that they are not waterproof. They will put rain on my fire, to try and quench me. Some are addicted to drama - the slew rate, how fast they are falling, is more important than having their feet on solid ground - they will will push you off a mountain and fall into the ocean with you if they can just to experience the fall. Stay away from them.
Games. Doing things. These are intermittent. I play chess tactics, or video games. Mommy plays crosswords. They are like gathering seeds. Small and easy to find one. Not easy to get enough to feed a family.
Don't let them get you down. Ronald Reagan, speaking about a day when others were trying to break his soul, and steal his hope and make his life meaningless - to eat him without pity or even consideration of him as anything more than meat for the fire - he said "don't let the turkeys get to you". Gather now, conserve and grow a will strong enough to resist turkeys. Know what they are, something about how they work, and have enough informed will, and understanding, and strength, and tactics and strategy - to fend them off.
I it is my sincere prayer that the days when you must fend them off are few, rare, and not hard. It is also my prayer that you are unrelenting, and victorious in the battle - when it is most important.
I love you kiddo. God be with you.
I'm telling you this so it won't surprise you. They will punch you in the nose and make you cry. They will take your lunch money, and try to fight you for your soul. They own neither. They don't have a right to either. If you don't fight and fight - even if you don't want to fight - then they will take both.
To win a battle takes heart. It takes strength, mind ... tactics and strategy, but without heart there is no victory. The will to fight.
So in order to not get crushed, mowed down, or eaten ... you have to set aside part of your will for these unexpected battles. Much like you always have enough money in a bank account to deal with emergencies, you need to have enough emotional/will reserves to fight off these sorts of unexpected attacks from the sides.
And people will conspire to suck you dry of will.
Here is a beautiful lecture on time and capacity by Randy Pausch. (link, link) I hope that by the time you read this, the videos still exist.
Randy says of creativity that you have to find the times that you are most protective and guard them fiercely. Times that are low-productivity can be spent on things like paperwork, or riding a bicycle around the block, or something. Anything.
I think that you need to find the sources of strength of will, of courage of conviction, and guard them fiercely. Like an ancient hunter tribes-woman you carry your fire with you. You must make sure it does not die, it is not rained out. That you have materials to quickly and effectively make use of the tool that it is.
Your family can lift you up or bring you down. Most days you lift me up. I fight the fight because I know you need me to. That need, my experience of the reality, and importance of it, its impact to you, and who you are to me - it gives me fire. My siblings, my brothers and sisters - sometimes they do good, sometimes great harm. They taught me that they are not waterproof. They will put rain on my fire, to try and quench me. Some are addicted to drama - the slew rate, how fast they are falling, is more important than having their feet on solid ground - they will will push you off a mountain and fall into the ocean with you if they can just to experience the fall. Stay away from them.
Games. Doing things. These are intermittent. I play chess tactics, or video games. Mommy plays crosswords. They are like gathering seeds. Small and easy to find one. Not easy to get enough to feed a family.
Don't let them get you down. Ronald Reagan, speaking about a day when others were trying to break his soul, and steal his hope and make his life meaningless - to eat him without pity or even consideration of him as anything more than meat for the fire - he said "don't let the turkeys get to you". Gather now, conserve and grow a will strong enough to resist turkeys. Know what they are, something about how they work, and have enough informed will, and understanding, and strength, and tactics and strategy - to fend them off.
I it is my sincere prayer that the days when you must fend them off are few, rare, and not hard. It is also my prayer that you are unrelenting, and victorious in the battle - when it is most important.
I love you kiddo. God be with you.
Friday, February 14, 2014
Feb 2014: Star Trek and Gender
Mathgirl,
I read the following Slashdot article:
I love you kiddo.
I read the following Slashdot article:
- http://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/14/02/14/1341220/star-trek-economics
- https://medium.com/editors-picks/29bab88d50
It suggests that star-trek is a prototype of a extreme-productivity civilization. Not a utopia, but closer than now - in theory.
I had the following as my response:
I read through about 75% of it. It is not a great read. It takes a lot of time to get to a little meat.
It relies on "social pressure" to stop conspicuous spending. Lets see that work for real in womens shoes and I might believe it possible. Otherwise there is a substantial bit of anthropology that the author is hand-waving his way past.
Reproductively speaking, the minimum cost of reproduction is much smaller for the male than the female. For the female the time-cost is 40 weeks, while for the male it can be around 4 minutes. That is a 100,000 to one ratio. Although females have oestrus cycle times that are 9x less frequent than optimal cycle-times for males, this does not establish a reproductive cost equality.
This high asymmetry in cost drives different general normative behaviors.Game theory says that when the costs are so asymmetric, and so much larger, then you will see radically different optimal strategies. For women they have a huge vested interest in maximizing the input the man gives - they are selective in partners, and selective in frequency. This also drives a strange phenomena of "Costly but worthless gifts facilitating courtship". (link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1559891/?tool=pubmed)
The most archaic, currently used, non-worthless gift that can be given is not gold, diamonds, cash, or camels - it is footwear.The pub-med article is worth reading. This approach can help you pick guys who are not players, when you are older. I don't like dating, but there is a selectivity in courtship - be selective. You are amazing. You are worth being selective.
If your "social pressure" to stop "conspicuous spending" can actually apply to womens footwear, then it has substance. Don't just stop sales, show that the desire has been resolved. It has not been resolved in Europe - this means that the fundamental forces are still extensively at work in that culture. It also means that the Star Trek economy, while worth considering, is still a work of fiction.
Best regards.
I love you kiddo.
Thursday, February 6, 2014
Feb 2014
You are selling girl scout cookies. Your mom is too. It is definitely a team activity. She is as excited and aggressive as you. I wonder what hunger inside her heart this is filling.
You have a solid bit of cute going on there. Your smile is the engineered one you have, not your giggling/delight one, but the one you save for pictures. You hunger to have a control on your own appearance.
My friend Lucy L. is having another "Gateway to Godly Womanhood" party for her youngest daughter. In chatting with her she says that enjoy the pure, sweet person you are now, because that goes away at ten. The idea of you pickling or something isn't very fun, but Lucy knows kids and I respect her wisdom.
We got binoculars for my birthday (yay mathmommy) and we use them for looking at airplanes and stars. It is a good thing.
Your cousin Isaac came to cubbies yesterday. You were delighted to have brought a visitor and he enjoyed it too. He needs to get out and play more. He doesn't do that enough. Neither do you. Neither do I.
I gotta go, kiddo. Its early AM and I have to get working. See you this evening.
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