A conservative vice-presidential candidates who has fought for abstinence-only sex-education as only effective way of combatting teenage pregnancy finds out that her own teenage daughter is pregnant.
That's irony for you. Or karma, depending on your belief system.
Every so often during an election year when I get tired of spin, mudslinging, and negative campaign ads, I need to remind myself that these sorts of things have been a part of American politics since the inception of the country.
Today's latest murder was 0.2 miles away from our apartment.
I don't have anything to say other than "that's fucked up". Especially since the people it happened to have the same basic living situation as my family.
Ari Met his first wikipediable person today at the Literacy Volunteers appreciation dinner.
Two weeks ago grandma and grampa took us to the Buffalo zoo.
He slept virtually the entire time.
Except when he's hungry.
They're finally cleaning up Beth Jacob Cemetery in the east side. The last several weeks I've been volunteering to help restore the cemetery (as best we can). It's good to get outside of the house and use my muscles a little. This sunday we're meeting their again, and we might just get to expose a few overturned monuments!
Of all the monuments, this one gets to me the most, especially since I now have a child of my own. The last time I saw it this winter, it was barely visible under the substantial brush and thorns. The area's been cleared enough that the Jewish custom of placing a rock on it can be observed again.
I never thought I'd see the day where there'd be real living people in the cemetery.
I've been contemplating moving out of the City of Buffalo to the suburbs of Orchard Park, which is where I work.
Pros:
- If I buy the right house, I can basically walk to work. I can basically cut at least $150 off my gasoline bill. Gas is killing me right now.
- The above would also be good for the environment.
- If I bike/drive, my commute is 5/2 minutes respectively. So I get home earlier and I have an extra hour to spend with my family.
- Ari would probably get a nice backyard to play in.
- Good school system
Cons:
- I love Kenmore. One of my less grandiose dreams is to live in a cute house in Kenmore.
- I like the city of Buffalo. I don't want to be thought of as "one of those wusses who moves to the suburbs".
- If the Suburban Collapse happens because of increased gas prices, the suburbs will be a bad place to live. Especially if I end up working in the city someday. The city will (possibly) have much better public transportation in the face of this event.
- A house in OP would probably be more expensive than one in Kenmore, and definitely more expensive than one in the city.
- OP is boring. The city has lots of stuff to do.
- A place with greater population density would have more kids for Ari to play with. I don't like the idea of moving to a neighborhood where there may not be many kids for my son to play with. I want him to have the social life I never had as a child.
As of last sunday, Mr. Wiggles has been officially named Ari Nachshon.
Ari is Hebrew for Lion. We named him this because it was a name we could agree upon. Nachshon is from (WIKIPEDIA - Nachshon), a biblical figure who I've always admired since my childhood Rabbi gave a sermon about him doing great things even though he had a lowly name that meant "snake".
Politics has largely been about stuff tangential to real issues since its inception. We've actually progressed quite a bit considering that voters a century and half ago voted for candidates on the quality of their jawlines and candidates would routinely hold drinking parties to ply voters with booze (which is why alcohol sales on election days are banned in some places). And that's why we require a strong education system, because critical thinking is required to ignore the BS and objectively evaluate candidates' pre-political-compromise-plans for dealing with real issues.
Okay, so my first week of fatherhood is past me now.
We took the little guy home on the 17th. It became a little stressful when he had some difficulty feeding, but eventually stuff worked out. Right after he was born, he got jaundice, which he still has but which we're working to lower. Apparently, newborn jaundice is common, but it's a little upsetting seeing your son have yellow eyes.
@inscrutable's family came up and helped us with stuff, like laundry and keeping sane.
Lesson's I've learned:
- You really have to watch them every second
- While you want to be gentle with them, they're hardier than they look.
- The "you'll have to change them every several hours" warning is bullshit. You can change them and they'll go in the new diaper thirty seconds later, and another clean one thirty seconds after that.
- Never be more than five feet away from a pacifier if you lack the ability to lactate.
- Not being able to lactate doesn't mean they won't try to get milk from you anways.
- Having a new child is like meeting somebody new whose personality you're trying to figure out.
