Asymptomatic

There must be intelligent life down here

Unknown Family Vacation
June 15, 2011

As summer approaches each year, and this is part of the problem for more than one reason, we start scrambling to assemble some kind of family vacation for the four of us. Often, it feels like we’re the only family that doesn’t bother to plan their vacation until a couple of months before we want to go, always “last minute”. For a few years now, we’ve failed to put anything together based on where wa want to go rather than what is left available.

For example, the past couple of years, we’ve gone to Williamsburg, Virginia. Strangely enough, I like Williamsburg. It has just enough of everything that it seems like a vacation destination. Virginia Beach is only an hour drive away, the historical stuff is pretty cool, and Busch Gardens is right there, with the water park that is even better. Plus, it’s only a few hours drive from home, so the travel costs aren’t crazy. Actually, this was the selling point for this vacation - cheap travel, many activities. But everyone else is getting tired of it, and we’d like to try somewhere else.

My Kid's Hero Is Not Me
May 26, 2011

I came upon a homework assignment on the kitchen table entitled “My Hero”. While I wasn’t expecting to be the subject of such a report, I was surprised by the opening sentence:

Now Abby’s not the sort to pick some singing pop star as her hero, but explicitly calling out her parents (and pets?) as people that are not her hero was a bit unexpected. Like I said, I’m not looking for adulation, maybe just a little recognition. Or something.

Deimos is Hurt
May 12, 2011

There are a few other happy things going on this week that I could write about - Abby’s Spring Concert, the school’s spring fair, Berta’s trip to help her sister move, and the kids’ going to a musical with my mom - but I’m finding it difficult to enjoy any of this fun stuff or even concentrate on work since yesterday afternoon.

Berta noticed that Deimos had escaped the house on Tuesday evening. He has been doing this a lot. He’ll sit, waiting for someone to open the door, and spring out, often even darting between your legs. I’m not sure what his obsession with outside is, but when he can’t make his escape he’ll sit at each door, front and back, and meow for a good long while. But he ran out the front door on Tuesday night when Berta came in from a short shopping trip, and we didn’t think to look for him outside before we went to bed.

The Nintendo 3DS
May 11, 2011

It seems not too long ago when the Nintendo DS came out and we were all wondering why they needed two screens instead of one. I think I’m still wondering why, but at least they’ve made good use of the two screens in games that have been released since. But now the Nintendo 3DS is out, and I’ve got one (as I’m wont to do with pretty much any significantly interesting gadget), and it has me asking a bunch of other questions.

The 3DS is essentially a DSi with some minor hardware and software changes. Obviously, the major thing is the addition of a no-glasses 3D screen. Only the top screen is in 3D and it’s been made wider, making it not only wider than the original DSi screen, but wider than the bottom screen that’s on the 3DS itself - which seems weird to me.

Stay at Home Clique
May 10, 2011

Both Berta and I work during the day. This will not come as a shock to most Americans who have families like ours. We could have chosen a smaller house, a smaller family, a tighter budget, but we like the way we live and it requires two working parents. What is perplexing is how many parents in our area don’t understand this and count on the opposite to be true.

Maybe it’s a strange assumption on my part to believe that stay-at-home parents are not the norm. I think it’s pretty common here where we live. I suppose the natural tendency would be to assume that other parents or families also live the way you live until you find out otherwise, so maybe it’s normal to be constantly questioned as to why we can’t be involved in various school activities during the work day, as if it’s abnormal not to be available.