A few months after my friend Chris moved to Salinas, she called me in a panic. Her husband was still in China, in the interminable wait for spousal visa, and she’d just found out he’d been arrested. As any spouse would be, she was upset. He’d been arrested for practicing Falun Gong: it’s incomprehensible for…
Category: Daft Musings
Eight Things About Me
Shelly tagged me. I tend to be fairly forthcoming in my blog, so I didn’t know if there were eight things about me others didn’t know already, and if there were if they’d be eight things I’d be willing to share publically as well. But Shelly’s were clever and interesting (and I only knew one…
The Great Passport Wait Continued
Back in March, I took my children to the post office in Willow Glen to renew Neil’s passport and to get a new passport for Kelly. At the same time, I sent in the paperwork and money to renew my own passport by mail. As I wrote then, it took an extraordinarily long time to…
The Burbank Fry’s Electronics
Peter wanted to visit the LA-area Fry’s Electronics. Nominally, he wanted to have some extra batteries on hand for Neil’s audition, which featured a Lego robot Neil programmed himself. But moreover, he likes the theme of this Fry’s. All Fry’s Electronics have a theme. Sometimes, they’re subtle, like the giant capacitors at the original Fry’s…
The Passion of the Christ
A few days ago, Peter and I watched The Passion of the Christ, Mel Gibson’s movie about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. I am pissed off! Not because of the movie, but because of all the b.s. put out about the movie when it was in the theatres. According to the reviews and columns I…
Russians versus Germans
I recently joined a Yahoo group for German-language children’s activities. I’ve been in Yahoo groups for Russian-language activities, but I am overwhelmed by the difference between the two nationalities. On the Russian boards, the Russians almost always write in English. Sure, some of it is due to the fact that not everyone has a font…
Queen of the Pool
It’s summer again, which means I’ve returned to my Sisyphean quest of getting the perfect chemical balance in my pool. Just as background, if you hire a pool guy to take care of the pool, he typically siphons the dirt off the bottom and sides and throws in some chlorine with each visit. I fired…
Earthquake!
A few minutes ago, the house rocked enough for me to run down and grab Kelly. As usually happens with earthquakes, by the time I moved, it was already over. I checked the USGS data and found out there was a shallow 3.4 magnitude earthquake about 8 miles away. I must be getting hypersensitive in…
Steve Coogan Karma
On Friday, Neil’s school had a movie night where we could it on the lawn and watch “Night at the Museum” on a large screen. It was a lot of fun being outside with other families, and “Night at the Museum” is a great movie. However, as Octavius, a Roman general appeared on screen, Peter…
Random Friday Musings
Biking, reading and researching has taken up time I used to devote to blogging, but there are a few tidbit musings I thought I’d throw out to regular readings. First of all, my friend Shelly managed to get her mother, the guru of the “IHHEBY” philosophy to make a more in-depth appearance on her podcast….