December 2007

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23 December 2007

Today we all piled into the car to head down to the Tennessee Aquarium to pick up Alora. She's been by herself in Alpharetta visiting the family down there for the past few days. Oh, and Cara had to work - although she really enjoyed having the afternoon at home all to herself. Tonight we've still got some wrapping to do.

Anyway, we met Alora and my parents at the Big River brewpub for lunch. Then we walked over to view the fishes. The kiddoes just love fishes.


18 December 2007

'Tis the season for mythology, be it the Middle East's Jesus, Europe's Santa Claus or America's Rudolph and Frosty - tall tales to tell around the fire during the longest nights of winter. The girls already have plans to stay up on movie marathons over break. I have an inherent distrust of fiction, however, because it can so distort our realities. Logic can only take a person so far when the starting assumptions are falsehoods. As such I've never labeled packages for my children "from Santa", and I've always striven to help them see past those who do. Nevertheless, the lies of fiction can lead us to greater truths and become such a part of our culture that to not be conversant in them is like not knowing basic vocabulary. Of course, some will always miss the wisdom and cling to the story as truth - very few with Frosty, most children with Santa, and most American adults with Jesus. All the stories represent a reverence for children and a hope for the darkest parts of winter. These fables belong to the prescientific childhood of our species, and yet most continue in it - even creating new myths like the "threat" of global warning and string theory.

I once dreamed of winning a Nobel Prize, but after this past October I came to question this dream. Sure, the peace prize has gone to some misfires before, but to celebrate alarmist pseudoscience and backdoor socialism is beyond reproach. Which brings me back to mythology. If the Earth is only 6000 years old, then there hasn't been much of a change in the climate and current changes are a big deal. However, if geologists are correct and 4.5 billion is closer to the mark, then for most of Earth's history it has been much warmer than it is today. Earlier this month in Gore's home state of Tennessee I visited a Miocene dig (7-4.5 Mya) where the same species of alligator now found in the Florida and the other Gulf States has been found. It was quite a bit warmer here then!

C.S. Lewis wrote a book a number of years ago, The Screwtape Letters, wherein a devil tries to tempt a man away from Christianity. The book ends with the devil failing because the man dies in war. Let me say that again for emphasis: The man is better off dead because then he is beyond temptation. Can there be a better example of how false premises lead to logical conclusions which are patently ridiculous?


15 December 2007 - Yesterday the kiddoes made gingerbread houses...


You'll note they are now safely atop the fridge as they lost a few candies this morning. Maxwell and Zara did the train and Alora and Brittan made the house.


12 December 2007

Yesterday my Cara turned twenty-eight. I didn't do a very good job of fêting the day. Cara wanted a new stereo and bras - I took her out shopping a couple times this past week to pick them out, but she couldn't find what she wanted. Cara is generally too selfless of a person to pick out stuph for herself. We went out to Olive Garden, her favorite restaurant, after work. The kids ate well and went to bed early. Nevertheless, I hadn't written her a poem or helped the kids make cards. I used to right poems alot, but haven't much lately. Oh well, here it goes.

28

Not long ago in Manassas,
A blink of an eye really,
A child was born who grew into a beautiful woman.

Nearly half her life she's given me,
As I have given her,
Yet we still find new ways to -

... to love our family.
... to build our house.
... to live for eachother.


6 December 2007

There is nothing quite so pitiful as a two-year-old with diarrhea. For a child used to being able to control their bowls it can be a bit disconcerting. Let's just say that the bathroom has never been cleaner.


2 December 2007

To keep little children from wandering under the trampoline while people were jumping on it, we have plastic chicken wire all the way around it. When we got Flash the bunny, we realized that this was a great play to let him run around outside and get some exercise. However, he tends to just sit under there without some impetus to run. Zara works, but she is a little too rough in her excitement; hence we have settled on Molly, who just chases Flash without trying to capture him or pick him up. Eventually Flash or Molly gives up and then they sit or lay next to eachother. At first Flash would leave if Molly even tried to sniff his butt and a new round of chasing would ensue, but after a while the bunny was letting Molly lick and clean him - even rolling over so Molly could get his belly! Fast forward a couple months to today. After playing under the trampoline and getting cleaned particularly well by Molly I let Zara hold Molly in Alora & Brittan's room. I was in the kitchen cleaning when Alora and Brittan ran to tell me that Zara had pulled off a bunch of the bunny's fur. He did indeed have a patch on one side where the fur had come off, but I have a hard time believing Zara would do it - usually she just holds Flash too tightly or in way that look uncomfortable to him. He is amazingly tolerant of her though, and doesn't often try to escape her clutches. At the same time I don't think he would just lay there if Molly was licking his fur off (not to mention there was a good 10 minutes in between Molly's licking and the fur being lost). Perhaps it was some combination of the two. Either way I think we shall keep them both away from Flash for a while.


1 December 2007

Last night we had the Loewens over for dinner and taught them to play canasta. They live just down the street and have two girls - making their house a frequent destination for short bikerides by our girls (including Brittan, who has finally overcome her fears and mastered biking).
.

Today was a banner Saturday and, as usual, we spent it together as a Family Day. Maxwell and I both woke up early - at our everyday programmed times really, but everyone else slept in because of our late night last night. Maxwell decided we ought to make pancakes, so we headed to the kitchen. I don't like the stickiness of pancakes covered in syrup which the epsilons tend to spread all over, so I had the brilliant idea of adding the syrup to the batter instead. Maxwell concurred with this strategy so we pursued it, but with limited success. He enjoyed the results even though it was partially burnt, partially undercooked and in more pieces than pancakes should be.

The late morning saw us heading over to Oak Ridge Highway for the annual Karns Christmas Parade. Our town's parades are always fun affairs, from the KHS band to the Andy Griffiths Show Rerun Watchers club. Pretty much anyone who wants to be in the parade gets to be, and most of them throw candy to the spectators.

For the afternoon we headed up to Gray, TN to see the new paleontology museum which opened there a few months ago. Run by ETSU, it's a very well done presentation of the Miocene dig which has been ongoing there since a roadcut discovered the deposit in 2000. The kids could really get immersed in the science, even getting the opportunity to sift through some of the site's dirt to search for fossils (all we found was bark). Cara was excited because they need volunteers to excavate, clean and reassemble the glut of fossils discovered on the site.


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