MuffinBlog

For anybody who’s still monitoring this blog, I just updated the photos section of the site with photos of the kids for all but December of 2008. Enjoy!

Peter

Oh boy am I out of touch right now! All this moving and preparing to go back to school business has been occupying most of my time. I haven’t had the time to really pay attention to the details of what is going on in the world lately, but some things did catch my eye.

The Bushie-infested FCC is trying another push for greater media consolidation. After all, it was great for selling the Iraq war. Why not improve upon this successful mechanism for mass mind control?

Somebody in congress is trying to sneak billions of dollars in “guaranteed loans” (i.e. subsidies) for the nuclear power industry into a spending bill. Apparently none of the big banking entities (the traditional financial allies of the ruling elite) don’t even want to back construction of these plants, so the only choice left for the industry is corporate welfare. One question: where the hell are the billions for alternative energy research and infrastructure?

Finally, I found it quite amusing (and by amusing I mean embarrassing…but in a good way) that Al Gore stood up in front of the world and said his own country is mainly responsible for preventing progress during climate talks in Bali, Indonesia last week. Then news comes in Saturday that the US changed it’s mind and came to some agreement with the other talk participants. I’m not a Gore sycophant, but I do think he couldn’t be more effective right now as an individual trying to “change the world”. If he were POTUS, he’d be bogged down by politics and maintaining the largely unchecked, capitolistic status quo of the country. As a former vice president who isn’t afraid of the political ramifications of putting the US on the spot for being irresponsible, I think he carries a lot of influence.

The last couple of weeks have been eventful. We vacationed for just under a week in San Diego…right when the wildfires started wreaking havoc. Luckily we were able to visit all of the attractions in our itinerary before some of them were closed. It was bizarre coming back from the downtown area where the air was clear to just north of the city where the smoke choked everyone who found him or herself outside. We were under a voluntary evacuation at our hotel and decided to cut our visit short by a day. The air quality would have prevented us from doing much outside, and the extra hotel room was probably useful for somebody displaced by a mandatory evacuation. And of course we were worried that they’d have to kick us out anyway to prevent us from burning to death. It worked out well because we had a lot more work preparing to move back to Illinois than we thought.

This past Saturday the movers came. Anna had been worried that they wouldn’t be expecting to pack our stuff for us, but I kept insisting that everybody who hires movers expects their stuff to get packed for them. So of course the guys do a walk through and immediately call their boss. They weren’t expecting to pack our stuff, and didn’t have any supplies. Luckily we had saved a bunch of boxes from the move out to Arizona. Unluckily the U-Haul place in Gallup doesn’t sell packing supplies, and cleaning out Wal-Mart and Home Depot amounted to only 24 small boxes. Somehow we made due, though, and after an unexpected delay we left town Sunday (today) for Albuquerque. We’re sort of dreading how much extra they’re going to charge us beyond the estimate because of the flub.

Tomorrow we get to drive 11 hours to San Antonio to visit my sister. Given that Jaidee has been sick and whiny lately, it should be an interesting road trip. Still, we’re glad to finally be on the road. The Navajo Reservation was a very worthwhile experience for both Anna and me. That said, we’re glad to be going back to family and the familiar. As Judy Garland famously said, “There’s no place like home.”

I neglected to mention in my last post that there are new photos for September. There may also be some additional photos in other months since I created the photo pages directly from my photo managing software without any effort to select just those that I thought were decent or redundant. Chances are your time is better spent looking just at the latest September photos.

I just took some video of Jaidee cruising and speaking. Enjoy!

I just added some new videos of Jaidee since she’s been walking. She’s even faster on her feet now, but we have yet to get it on tape.

It was both sad and funny when I was grabbing the video off of the camera. Anna had just returned to work after lunch, and Jaidee was in my lap because she had been crying when Anna left. Every time a clip with Anna in it came on, Jaidee would start crying again. She was tired anyway. She went to sleep soon after I finished.