The Cook Family

For those times when you need something that nobody seems to have you should check McMaster-Carr.

Years ago I was doing a canoe project and looking for some specific bolts that are longer and smaller in diameter than anyone around Ann Arbor had. I Went to Grainger, Fastenal, and Stadium Hardware (everyone said try there) among others. I spent a half day trying to find the stupid things and had nothing to show for it. I was complaining to my Dad that I couldn't find them anywhere. He asked if I tried McMaster-Carr. They had a great wizard thing to select the specs of the bolt and in a few minutes they were ordered. Shipping is fast too. My last order was submitted at 3pm and with the standard ground shipping it was dropped off at my door at noon the next day. Less than 24 hours for $4.50

Last year I posted on this subject, so this time I will just do a quick reminder. Wrap those gifts in cloth with ribbon. That way there is less wrapping paper that gets pitched.

Here is the Japanese Government guide to Furoshiki cloth wrapping.



Also check out the cool paddle gift tags.

Like most kids, Eli likes Dora the Explorer. There is an episode where they go blueberry picking and encounter a bear. When they see the bear they run away and then row across the "icy cold river" until the bear gives up because he is too cold.

Having camped in bear country with the kids, we have discussed how to behave and some do's and don'ts. One of the things to keep in mind is that when encountering a bear you don't run. Running will only elicit a chase and bears are fast; way faster than a little kid and a monkey wearing boots.

I know that most kids will never encounter a bear or even be in a situation where they could, but Eli keeps asking me why Dora ran away from the bear since he knows you're not supposed to. He will randomly look at me and ask "Papa, why did Dora run from the bear?" Usually the ensuing conversation is followed by Eli affirming that he likes blueberries and asking if I like blueberries.

When we were talking about back-country stuff before our trip, trying to explain a bear bag was pretty tough. Eli kept asking questions like "So we put our food in the bag and give it to the bears?" and "We pick berries and feed them to bears?" Once he saw the bear bag in action he got it though. I am glad that he is able to know that the TV show is wrong, and that it isn't reinforcing a bad behavior.

It is amazing on what kids pick up, piece together, and remember.

On a side note, the same advice is true for encountering humans. When encountering a human, a bear should not run for fear that the human might make chase. My father once chased down a bear that was dragging off his backpack. He still has that pack, teeth holes and all; it came in handy for scaring young Boy Scouts.

Living in SE Michigan the Auto Industry is everywhere. I pass by a few plants each day. One of those is scheduled to close. Lately things appear to be a mixed bag.

Bob Lutz left GM and then came back as the head of Marketing. I thought this was a bad idea. Lutz appears as pompous and crazy. On the Colbert Report he said he didn't believe in man made global warming. Recently he boasted that he could beat any production sedan in a CTS-V. The awesome auto blog Jalopnik took him up on it and it turned into a pretty good publicity stunt. Lutz lost to a kid in a BMW M3, but a few GM ringers beat the BMW. But hey no press is bad press. I heard an interview with Lutz on NPR about it.

Ford announced today that they are actually making a profit. I wonder when GM or Chrysler/Fiat will be able to do that. Though Ford was also hit with the unions voting down concessions today.

Ford has a great lineup. I never though I would even consider buying a car with a blue oval on it, but they now have a few models I really like and would consider. The Flex, Fusion, Fiesta, and new Taurus are all great cars. If they brought the Euro spec Focus over that would be awesome too.

On Thursday I got a call from daycare that Eli had hit his head on a wall and might need some stitches. He was fine until it was time for the sutures to go in. He was really freaked out (and brave) because he was restrained and could see everything close to his eye. This afternoon I took them out he was very well behaved.

Everyone has done it. But there is always a first time. Today I got to witness Amelia hitting her thumb with a hammer. She looked at me with a look of shock and surprise. I can't help but feel a bit proud.

Early on in our diapering experience we read a study that seemed to show that, with the exception of trash, the environmental impacts of cloth and disposable diapering seemed about equal. In this study they considered the processes necessary to produce both the disposable and cloth diapers as well as the laundering impacts. They also assumed some averages. The "average" cloth-diapering parent washes diapers with bleach (not a fun chemical to produce or remove from your water), 2xs per laundering, with hot water in each cycle. It also assumed that the diapers are dried in the dryer and then ironed. That's right, ironed. I know very few people who regularly iron their clothing, let alone their kid's diapers, and most folks I know who wash diapers do a cold rinse followed by a hot wash. In our house, we try to avoid the dryer as it takes a lot of energy and is not very friendly to the diapers. The study also did not consider the fact that cloth diapering may encourage earlier toilet training. While there's no way to prove it, it seems entirely possible that it is so. When Eli was about 22 months we got a parenting email suggesting we start having our child help flush his poop so he'd start to get the idea where it goes. We laughed. Eli had been doing that for a few months because we always flushed his poop: it was not just a learning tool. A month later he no longer wore diapers during the day. I also remember that this study assumed the cloth diapers were only used for one child, which is rarely true. If you check out e-bay or craigslist for diapers you'll find quite a selection. Considering all this, I'd be interested in a new study that considers "averages" that are a little more well researched.

There's a song in one of my favorite musicals that has a verse that goes:
Why did the kids put beans in their ears?
No one can hear with beans in their ears.
After awhile the reason appears,
They did it 'cause we said, "No."

This morning we were having peas for a snack and Eli started putting them in his nose. I asked him not to. I was doing dishes, admittedly, not paying that much attention. All of a sudden Eli was freaking out a little and he said he had a pea stuck in his nose. I looked: no pea. I told him he must have gotten it out already, but he kept insisting there was a pea stuck in his nose. Upon further inspection, there was in fact a pea lodged very deep in his nose. Tweezers seemed like a good implement with which to remove the pea, but I was a little worried about jamming it further in instead of pulling it out. So I tried another tactic. I held the opposite side of his nose and had him blow as hard as he could. Out flew the pea; crisis averted.

Things have been busy at home and work. A few weeks ago when things were less busy we went on a vacation to the UP. We split our time between a canoe trip and visiting family.

There have been a few movies shot in our area recently. The first is Whip It. They did some filming down the street. The trailer has hit the tubes, and the movie comes in October.

Check out 1:22 on the trailer. That is about a block away from us.

Once again we have expanded our garden this year. More room for veggies was the goal. We also plant some foods and herbs intermixed with our flowers and bushes though. Last summer we were expecting a baby mid-summer so we didn't do too much. We stuck with tomatoes, cauliflower, peppers, greens/kale, and various herbs. This year we are adding eggplant, peas, bush beans, cucumber, cabbage, and more greens/kale. We also have added a huge garden at my parents house. We have a huge plot to add pole beans, carrots, beets, melons, squashes to the overflow herbs, tomatoes, eggplants, cucumbers, bush beans, and greens.

I am thinking about doing a rainwater collection system combined with a soaker hose setup to water the veggies. I have been looking online and some of DIY systems look pretty cool. I really should get on this before the summer drought gets going.

Each year we have lived in out house we have expanded the garden. Today is a wonderful day and we have been working outside since church: mowing the grass and planting seedlings into egg-cartons. Mowing the grass is like driving to work. You are left to your thoughts, the whir of the blades drowns out everything else and I was thinking about yard work and gardening when I was growing up.

Having a yard in the city is really different. Weed whacking only happened a couple times a year when there was going to be a party, now I feel bad when there is some tall grass around a tree. In the country nobody cared about dandelions. They were a fact of life, and nobody cared about how they looked, or how to get rid of them. Who is crazy enough to try to get rid of 3 acres of them? I just spend 4 hours mowing them along with the "grass." Now I have a city yard and I spend time digging the "evil" dandelions out. In the country "grass" was any green thing that wasn't in the flower beds and smaller then a tree. If it was in a flower bed then it was classified as a "weed".

On the subject of weeding, it is one of the things I remember spending most of my summers doing. We had all sorts of good home grown food: corn, carrots, peas, tomatoes, and more. At the time I didn't care. Us kids hated working in the garden. It was a chore that we avoided and when we did something bad we were punished by pulling weeds in the garden. A garden that is roughly the same size as the yard I now own. Maybe that is why they had five kids? Now I stare at that garden as I get ready to plant more vegetables in it. We don't have room for everything we want to plant so we are going to have an annex garden at my parents.

For a long time that garden wasn't used. It went along with other things that we did when I was young that dropped by the wayside. The garden laborers got busier and started to leave the house and there wasn't time for the garden. It's hard to remember that we used to be members of a food co-op and had closets full of canned food. They were replaced with Meijer and then Costco, but in recent years my folks have started to get back into gardening. I can't help but wonder if we will stop doing those things when the kids get older.

For now Eli loves the garden. He plays with the rakes, hoes, and shovels. Whenever we drive in or out of the driveway he screams "I can see the peas!" I am sure that will change when he becomes a teenager, but who knows.

Almost every time we go to church Eli makes a comment about wanting to go to Pease auditorium (EMU's lovely performance venue which is is across the parking lot). We've been to a couple of concerts there, and Eli has really enjoyed them (and you can't beat the price). So when we got to church on Sunday we got to tell him that we were in fact going there later today! Eli spent the next several hours fixated on going to "Uncle Nate's" concert at Pease Auditorium. (Side note, he says auditorium really funny, but I can't even say it the way he does, let alone type it.) We settled into our seats and Amelia was immediately in Grandpa's lap (he was sitting behind us with Grandma and Aunt Catherine). The Alumni Band began the concert and Amelia fairly flew off his lap. At first I thought she was trying to get to me, but then I noticed her eyes were glued on the stage. If desire was a mode of transportation, she would have been on the stage a moment after the performance began. Eli, too, sat rapt, enjoying every note. Amelia was so delighted she started cooing. Loudly. Loudly enough that Nate asked us later if she had been making noise during the first piece. We gave her a passie, but that doesn't really keep her quiet when she's happy. Mostly the passie just ended up on the floor... As you can guess, the entrancement did not last, but eventually Amelia nursed to sleep, and Eli was able to run around the lobby as a new group set up. He did really well for about 2/3s of the 2 hour concert. About half way into the final third, I busted out the snacks and gave him peas (yes, peas in Pease) 1 at a time. It worked. We got to see (almost) the whole performance. The music was great, but watching the total enchantment of our children was, well, priceless.

The other day I was in the car with the two kids after having picked them up from day care. I was talking with Eli about how we wear out seat belts so we don't fly out of the car if we get in an accident. The next thing I hear from him is something about pee in your pants and fly out of the car. He took "accident" as a peeing your pants kind of accident. So I then had to convince him that there are different kinds of accidents.

I can just imagine him thinking that he would pee his pants and then be ejected from the car if he wasn't wearing his seat belt.

I heard an interview with the author a while back on NPR. The book had some interesting bits in it. The author tried to make it exciting and put too much story into it. I enjoyed the history of the compass and how navigation changed as a result. Also cool was how that navigation was then applied to discovery. I was really impressed that the ancient Chinese who used the compass as a diving tool knew about declination. The compass had to travel to the Mediterranean though to find use for navigation.

The Riddle of the Compass

I also found this way cool chart showing the variation of declination over time (1590-1990).