It's all in the genes

Lindsey's birth father, Brandon, is in town with his brother, so we've gotten together a couple of times. We had them over for dinner yesterday, and Stace, Lindsey, and Brandon went to the nearby animal park this afternoon. I'll let you all judge the resemblance for yourselves.

Well, good luck to all of you

I think I've touched on this in the past, but I continue to find myself in the odd position of having economic interests that are likely adverse to the interests of most of you out there. By that I mean that it helps me economically when things happen that are bad for all of you. That seems a bit grim.

The two examples on my mind these days are the dollar and the stock market. I've been nervously watching as the U.S. dollar has strengthened against the Swiss franc in the past couple of months. I'm sure to see a substantial cut in my cost of living allowance in April. (But that makes it a little cheaper for all of you to get yourselves over here for a visit, right?)

And as for the stock market, I keep waiting for the next swoon. Things can't keep going up like they have lately. I need to move some things around in my retirement accounts, and it's better for me to do it when the market is down. I want to make these moves by the end of this year. So I'm eargerly watching for signs that the market is headed for a significant slump in the next few months. I'm not completely evil. I don't need a sustained downward period; I just need the market to get sick for a couple of weeks while I do some rearranging, and then I would welcome an incredible speculative rebound that brings untold wealth to all of you.

See, in the end, I just want what's best for everyone. I'm a good person. Really.

Preposition problems

Like most of you, I spend a lot of time thinking about prepositions and other parts of speech. When we first got here, we got some German training from my company. One thing the instructor said was that from language to language, prepositions are pretty much randomly assigned their meanings. My first instinct was to rebel against that claim, thinking that English had it right and that it was just the Germans who were messed up. But upon further reflection, I realized that he's right.

Let's use the word "by" for example. German doesn't have a preposition that's equivalent to our "at." They use other prepositions to convey the same idea. In English, I would say "I work at Thomson." In German, though, I would say the equivalent of "I work by Thomson." (The German word is bei.) At first blush, it seems like the Germans, having failed to invent the word "at," just had to grasp at straws and finally use "by" out of desperation. But let's look at the English word "by."

Here are three valid sentences: "I am standing by Tom." "This book was written by Tom." "By any measure, Tom did well." What the heck is going on? We've used the word "by" in three completely different ways that have nothing to do with each other. Apparently, a few hundred years ago, somebody just grabbed the nearest preposition, which at the moment happened to be "by," and threw it into those three sentences seemingly at random.

Let's try the word "on." The Germans have two different words for "on." "The picture is hanging on the wall" uses a different "on" from "The cat is on the table" (an and auf). But English isn't much better. "The cat is on the table." "Turn on the television." "We're going to the store on Thursday." Good luck trying to explain the sense in that.

And if you want to move beyond prepositions, try to wrap your mind around how we use "going": "I am going to the store." "I am going to shoot you." Non-English speakers really struggle with those two different instances of "going."

I should have seen this day coming twelve years ago

It's been a while since I had a birds-and-the-bees chat with Tanner. (I thought he'd be traumatized by the last one when he was a little younger, but he was actually just 10% squeamish and 90% bored. I probably didn't do it right.) It's been overdue. Circumstances conspired to give me the perfect opportunity last night. So we had one.

The kid's picked up a lot since our last discussion. He told me about the various birth-control options that he'd be learning about once he got to middle school. Not to sound old or anything, but things are a little different these days from when I was growing up. I don't recall asking my parents about condoms when I was eleven years old. But at least he asked. The whole "talk with your kids about sex" thing is actually turning out to be less difficult than I thought, which maybe is the moral of the story.

One of the things that's worried me the most over the years is trying to teach him not to make the mistakes his birth parents made, even though those mistakes are what led to his existence. He doesn't seem to be conflicted by that message so far, but it's an interesting balance.

I saw this day coming twelve years ago

The moment you first become a parent isn't generally one of the most rational moments in your life. When the nurses brought a five-day-old Tanner to us in the hospital and we saw him for the first time, my first thought when I looked at him was, "That cowlick is cute as the dickens right now, but man, he's going to hate that thing when he's a teenager." (Side note: I had a similar moment of intellectual silliness when he broke his arm at age three. His arm was bent like a bow. Not pretty. For an irrational moment, I looked at it and thought, "Maybe it's not really broken." Nice try, Dad.)

Those of you who know Tanner know that one of the things that makes him Tanner is that swirly cowlick that's just to the right of center in his forehead. When he was little and he drew pictures of himself, he'd draw a little swirl in the center of his forehead to represent the cowlick. That's how much that cowlick is a part of him. We don't want him any other way.

But the long-anticipated moment has arrived. The poor boy has needed a haircut for weeks. I haven't had time to take him. Of course, that's one of those problems in life that doesn't go away on its own; hair doesn't stop growing if you just ignore it. Anyway, the bottom line is that the kid's hair looks just awful right now. (If he ever reads this posting, I think he'll agree with me.) I mentioned to him that we really need to take him to get a haircut. That's when he told me that he doesn't want a haircut because when his hair is long in the front, it hides his cowlick. That's the first time he's ever expressed any sensitivity about his cowlick.

And thus begins adolescence . . . .

Stupid is as stupid does, part 2

(For part 1, see here.)

So I'm making dinner for the kids tonight, and I realize that I need to hurry and heat up some vegetables. (I try to make sure they get at least one serving of fruits or vegetables at dinner, although I don't hit 100%.) There's a bag of frozen vegetables in the freezer. It's been opened before and it's being held shut by a plastic clip. I pull out the vegetables and think to myself, "You know, smart guy, that clip's been in the freezer and is probably going to be awfully brittle. If you try to open it right away, you'll likely break it. You'd better wait for a minute while it warms up. Well, nah, you're in a hurry, and everything will probably work out fine. It won't break. Just go for it."

Anyone want to guess how the story ends?

A near mis-adventure

Remember how springlike it was around here? Well, that all vanished overnight in a wave of snow, flog, and heavy winds. It's winter again. Tanner was quite insistent that we go skiing despite the unpleasant conditions. So, off we went.

Our adventure was cut short after about a half hour when the snowplow pulled over to let us pass and we found ourselves on a deserted, narrow, snow-covered road somewhere in the mountains. I decided we weren't going skiing today after all. The kids are now happily outside playing with their sled. It was just like Minnesota: last week, the kids were by the lake on their roller-blades with their jackets in the car; this week, it looks and feels like Christmas. It won't last long, though. Spring is inevitable.