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September 15, 2009

"Daddy's Work"

Abby has been to my office - heck she has been to my office more times than most people who don't work here have since she visited once a week in July and August.  She saw my office when I could not get to files from our recent move, and she came back and "helped" me with files when I could.  Abby knows where I work, though she is only two and can have no concept of what I do.

A few weeks back we think that Abby might have gotten the wrong idea about where I go when I leave the house every day.  You see, the three of us typically go fun places on weekends, but we also go to a lot of places over and over again.  We find a place we like and it becomes habit.  We did our best to get every dollar out of our pool membership, so Abby expected swimming a couple of times each week.

One Saturday Anny was not feeling very well and so I decided to grab Abby and get out of the house because it was an incredible afternoon, and the College Park AirFair 100 was going on - celebrating 100 years of aviation in College Park at the airport right around the corner!  Anny dropped us off so that I didn't have to deal with parking.  I took Abby, some cash, a bottle of water and a diaper in my pocket, and off we went!

There were all sorts of things to see - old planes and new ones, gilders and helicopters, an old car and lots and lots of people.  We walked around and saw some of the planes first, but it was blazing hot and there was no shade, so we made a dash for a covered tent.  They have just reconstructed a new Wright Flyer that will travel from city to city, so it was kind of neat to see that.

Because we got there after Abby's nap, we missed all of the really fancy stuff - the sky walkers and the maneuver displays and such.  I was a little bummed about missing the parachute jumpers, but I am not sure that Abby would have really understood how cool it was anyway, so I got over it.  I knew that Abby would get excited to see helicopters up close, and boy was I right!  We even got to go inside a Chinook that was parked for the day, which she then tried to imitate!

ON A Helicopter!

Flying High

We also got to see a few of the choppers take off, which was jaw dropping for her - we stood right under the Montgomery County Police helicopter as it flew away.

We also got to listen to live music and I introduced Abby to her very first ice cream cone!
First Cone!

The bottom line is that I took Abby somewhere by myself (and have done that a lot since then) and we had an incredible time - but Anny and I agree that we believe it has changed Abby's concept of what Daddy does every day.  It seems that she genuinely believes that I got to the airfield every day and watch helicopters and eat ice cream!

September 04, 2009

I Like You, However

There are lots of blog posts on the internet about all of the God-Forsaken quizzes you can take on Facebook, and trust that there posts about them for a reason.  I have taken everything from "Which Book of the Bible Most Represents You" to "Are You Gay or Not?"*  People take the quizzes because they are fun and sometimes you can get your friends to either stand up for you in defense against "You are The French Taunter from The Holy Grail" - or rail you for it because it's dead on.

There are also polls galore, though most of them recently have been about Michael Vick or Healthcare and you simply say "yes" "no" "maybe" or "what the hell - NO!"**  I do a lot of these, mostly because I like to see the results.  I think that Facebook is skewed, but I'm part of the skew so most often I find myself in the majority.  (I don't think that Facebook is diverse enough, but that is true of a lot of the internet.  Just a lower priority for a lot of people, and that's okay, but it needs to be said.)  Some of the answers have surprised me from some folks, and so honest conversation has been had and I've been enlightened and enlightening.

I like knowing what other people are thinking - not only can it build community, but it can foster better conversations both online and offline.  It's also kind of fun!

However.  (and nothing good ever comes after however.)

In my opinion, polls have no place in news shows.  Neither do Twitter Tweets, they are not news.  I think that we are about five channels too deep on actual news coverage, and to be honest I have abandoned watching any TV news and just check around on the web for reliable news.  All of the cable channels do it and it has got to stop. "@armonroe thinks that the Governor of California started the wildfires to gain publicity for his Surplus Yard Sale and it backfired" should never leave the lips of anyone on television, much less an agency intending to report on news.

It's not journalism, it's crap.  Leave tweets to Twitter, polls to reliable institutions and the news to news makers.
/rant

*Are You Gay or Not quiz was several questions, but the last was simply "Are you gay?"
**What the hell - NO! was my answer to "Should Sarah Palin run for President"