Tuesday, January 10, 2006

How to Save the World

Wow. I really, really like this quote of T.H. White's Once and Future King, pulled by How to Save the World
"The best thing for being sad," replied Merlyn, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then--to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the thing for you. Look at what a lot of things there are to learn--pure science, the only purity there is. You can learn astronomy in a lifetime, natural history in three, literature in six. And then, after you have exhausted a milliard lifetimes in biology and medicine and theocriticism and geography and history and economics--why, you can start to make a cartwheel out of the appropriate wood, or spend fifty years learning to begin to learn to beat your adversary at fencing. After that you can start again on mathematics, until is it is time to learn to plough."

I haven't figured out what my resolution will be this year (I've got some left, don't I?), but maybe I should try to do this, learn something everyday.

And as I was telling Spencer the other day, "No, people don't learn something new every day, but they should. And learning what happened lately to a movie or TV star doesn't count either."

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Call the FBI, I've been kidnapped

It is common to hear how pregnancy will cause emotional swings, but I had no idea what that would mean.

Sure, Kristi has been a bit more moody the last couple of weeks. As we talk she has fought a bit harder for ideas that seem a bit unreasonable. And yes, she has cried more lately. But it's all good. I love her, she loves me, we're going to have a baby.

On Monday I found out what all of the talk is really about because she really did go a bit wacky on me.

I was in the garage, selling some of the old Lone Star Games inventory to a local casino party operation (they will come and host a Casino Night event for your business or charity). We were outside quite a long time discussing business, chips, tables, etc. After loading up the first 17,000 chips and seeing them off I entered the house through the front door. I couldn't find Kristi, but I figured she must be in the bathroom. No big deal.

Boy was I wrong. It turns out she was simultaneously looking for me in the garage while I was looking in the house. When I wasn't there and the buyers were gone she figured it was because I was kidnapped. They must have wanted the poker chips, but didn't want to pay for them. So after taking the chips they decided to take me too.

At this point she comes stumbling into the house; trying to call my name through the sobbing. Hoping against hope I was still alive.

By the way, I was alive. I was just next to the back door, letting the dogs into the yard.

I must have related this story a half-dozen times or more, but I think it was probably William who told me the most useful information. "Jeffrey," he said, "it doesn't get any better."

Monday, January 02, 2006

A Very Happy New Year

Hello everyone!

It's been a good year even though we didn't spend enough of it together. If you're on the list to get one of Holiday Greeting cards you'll note the absence of the traditional recap of the year.

I wrote the letter, but Kristi didn't want to send it because she thought it was sad rather than interesting. I personally think the year was filled with a number of interesting things even it it wasn't quite as exciting as some previous years.

We really enjoyed the holidays together, spending most of the time in pursuit of the simple things, like cuddling with each other on the sofa.

But boy, have things picked up and gone crazy since then! We've been open to having children for the last couple of years. So far, we've been pretty passive (not using protection), but we were not getting any traction this way. Kristi talked to her doctor in November and was put on a fertility drug to increase the chances of ovulating. If it didn't work I was going to ask my doctor to check my sperm. As luck and love would have it, I don't need to see my doctor. You see,
Kristi's pregnant!
So please, send your congratulations to me. And your condolences to her Honestly, would you want me to be your child's daddy? :-)

Actually, I've been thinking about how I wanted to raise my children for almost 20 years. I'm not sure any of the ideas are going to survive the first night, but I am very excited and looking forward to the first addition to our family.

I found the The Baby Name Wizard: NameVoyager a couple months ago and thought it was fun to see how the popularity of baby names has changed over the last 130 years. Now I plan to be looking at the site a bit closer.