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WiiFit has a rather low opinion of me. Cara got it from the kids for Mother's Day, so it likes her.

Today we established Maxwell IS allergic to poison ivy. What fun!

For Christmas we asked for swingset contributions in lieu of presents because our house is already overflowing with toys. Many generously added to the money we had set aside for this expendature, but we were saddened to learn when we went to pick it out that swingsets are a seasonal item - not available except by special order until spring. We also learned that standard models no longer included monkey bars, which was at the top of the girls' list! So we ordered a jungle gym to arrive for Christmas to take the place of monkey bars and waited for swingsets to appear in stores, which they did just a couple weeks ago. Despite rain delays I was able to complete construction earlier this week and now the kiddoes are all enjoying it:

The kids have only one week of school left before summer presents its myriad of opportunities and boredom. Hopefully the arsenal of intellectually stimulating activities I've got lying around will keep them busy. I've just finished reading Dawkins' The Selfish Gene which took almost a month of spare moments, but Brittan, for example, sat down and read Orwell's Animal Farm yesterday afternoon. The girls are long past the point were I can keep up with my own reading and theirs. Maxwell, on the other hand, is at the start of his reading career, although he would deny it. He's a funny guy. He will deny that he has mastered a skill if put on the spot but deftly apply it when you're not paying attention. Zara, on the other hand, is only too happy to show off that she can count objects. "Dad! Wash!" is her frequent refrain when it seems that I am not playing the reverential observer well enough.

Today's bane of coherent thought: Dora the Explorer cash register.

We've had a productive couple of days helping Papa and Emma clean up the basement and talking to Papa. Alan, Bev's brother, came down from northern Virginia to spend the day with us as well. Tomorrow we're heading back to K-Town.

Charlottesville - This weekend Cara and I are up in Virginia with her mother to help out her grandfather. Since he's been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, we're trying to help him set up the necessary structure for Bev to take care of him when he can no longer take care of himself. Unfortunately the nature of Alzheimer's makes this an eventuality rather than a possibility. My parents are staying with the kiddoes in Knoxville and my mind was kind enough to remind us all the hereditary nature of Alzheimer's - that is, in another 20 years we may be taking care of Bev and in another 50 I might be taking care of Cara. But I'm still pinning my hopes on Nintendo to save me the hassle. Okay, so really it's the video game industry as a whole, but the Wii is such an innovative toy I'd bet on Nintendo to lead the development of brainscanners in the next generation of video games. There are already crude brainscanners for gameplay that allow a user to move onscreen objects up or down which have been shown off at tech conferences, but the mass-market versions are 5-7 years off. So how does this new way of playing video games lead to an avoidance of Alzheimer's? Thousands of people have brain disorders that provide the funding and spur research mapping the human brain and brainscanning technology today. Millions of people play video games. The massive research push for better brainscanners which will come when they are used for entertainment will give the technology a giant leap closer to the goal of quickly and affordably mapping all the neurons and their connections in an individual human brain. Then all we have to do is write the software to for a human neuron and build a computer model of the individual brain in question (which will require a computer with more memory than any have today). Trends in these technologies point to a two or three decade time horizon for development. If you're going to loose your mind, just digitize it!

Took the kiddoes to the zoo last week and we did a little filming...

Today at school Alora and Brittan are meeting Andrew Jackson VI, who is sort of related to the original Andrew Jackson. Although president Andrew and his wife Rachael had no children of their own, they adopted Rachael's nephew and named him Andrew, Jr. This Andrew had four children, the youngest of which he named Andrew III. Andrew III and his son Andrew IV both had two sons, naming the eldest Andrew. Andrew V also named his first son Andrew VI. Andy VI, however, has two daughters so he'll probably be the last in this line. Anyway, the girls were given an assignment to write down two facts about Andrew VI's illustrious ancestor, which I thought was a bit beneath them. So after a quick lesson in essay-writing they produced a couple of papers about the USA's seventh president. Brittan covered his childhood and Alora his presidency.

Kate and and Howie have created a blog, The Forever Endeavor, to chronicle the experience of pregnancy. Like a wise man once said, there should always be a baby in the family - and Zara set the table for dinner last night so I don't think she qualifies anymore. While there have been many additions to our family over the past years through marriage, births and adoptions, my 4 children have been the only new additions since 1995 that I have had a genetic investment in. Roughly 1/16th of the genes which formed me are now building a new life inside Kate, including exactly the same mitochondrial DNA (assuming no mutations since Nana in either of our lineages, a fairly likely prospect). Yes, I know that's the same amount of DNA I share with my mom's mom's mom's mom (Minnie Emerich 1869-?), but it's still kinda cool.

Getting old is waking up at five in the morning and not being able to go back to sleep.

Last month when I did a race Alora and Brittan realized there was only one girl in the 10 and under age group. So they resolved to run my next race with me to win prizes. And they did. Alora came in at 31:51 with me chasing behind her. I got a bad cramp the last half mile or so because I drank some water in the shower before the race. But I had to run to keep Alora running because all she wanted to do was beat me. So I got 31:56. Brittan, whose competitiveness is not quite so fierce, let me pass her after the second mile and came in at 35:08. There were two other girls in the race under 10, so Alora placed 2nd and Brittan placed 3rd in their age division. (full results)