Kirk blAug

Perhaps one of the most important and fun holidays that our family celebrates during the year is Pi Day. Pi , as most educated folks know, is a mathematical constant that is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. It is one of the the most used and thus important constants in mathematics, science, and engineering. The transcendental number π rounded to two decimal places is 3.14 and so on March 14 we celebrate Pi Day! Over the past couple of years, we have developed a routine way to celebrate Pi Day. Namely, we eat various forms of pie for all our meals. Since breakfast is commonly some form of energizing food, or basically a glorified morning dessert, I thought that it would be fitting to eat dessert pie for breakfast on March 14. Sometimes we get a variety of dessert pie from the frozen food section and sometimes we go to a bakery or pie shop. Perhaps this year I will bake one myself. For lunch we enjoy some form of pot pie. Chicken pot pie, beef pot pie, and veget

A few days ago Chris, Jupiter, Tsunami, and I took a quick trip back to Nebraska to see our newborn niece. We decided to fly since we really did not have a lot of time to drive, visit, and then drive again. It was Tsunami's first time on a plane and Jupiter had not remembered being on a airplane when he was about Tsunami's age, so we did not know for sure what to expect. Jupiter had been excited about getting on the airplane since we told him about the trip. He wanted to sit by the window so he could look out and so we told him that he could. He loved almost every minute of it. From the time we got on the airplane, he was very thrilled by the whole experience. As soon as we were in the air, he was fascinated by everything outside the window getting smaller, the clouds as we started to fly through and above them, and even the novelty of the tray table kept him busy for much of the hour that we were in flight. The only time there was any problem was when he developed pressure in

Apparently the UN convention on the Rights of the Child aims to state basic rights that children are allowed by virtue of their own individual existence. However, it shall not be ratified in the United States if so called "pro-family" organizations have anything to say. They want to make sure that children are seen as property of the parents, subject to all the backwards thinking that comes with that responsibility. From the Harvard Humanist Community Project : The text of the treaty itself covers a lot of freedoms such as freedom of thought, conscience, religion, opinion, and expression, as well as more concrete things like the rights to health care and an education.  Unfortunately, objections like those at ParentalRights.org have prevented this treaty from ratification in United States (the only other nation to similarly refuse is Somalia).  What could a “pro-family” parental rights group possibly have against this?  Fancy that, they made a list of their objections [in thei

First, you put the baby down in its crib for some rest. Nap time can begin. Then the baby decides it is hungry. So you mix a bottle of formula or prepare some milk. You feed the baby. The baby falls asleep while eating and NOW nap time can begin. But wait. What is that smell? You carefully try to change the baby without waking it up. The baby wakes up. The baby has more room and is hungry again. You feed the baby again. The baby is asleep. Nap time can FINALLY begin. Except now you realize the three-year-old is not napping due to all the noise from the baby. So it goes... There was a point in time when nap time for the boys meant break time for dad. Never again.

I was browsing around Facebook on my phone while I feed Tsunami a bottle early in the morning the other day, when I came across this thread: This is just the sort of thing that makes it seem justifiable for women to be afraid of men. This is also an example of what makes it hard for me to be male without having women assume me guilty until proven innocent. I know that for the most part, these kind of things are said without intended harm, but this misogynist superior male attitude leads down the road to inappropriate touching and rape. As you can see above, some women are just as much to blame. And not only rape, but the kind of rape that people, like Ron Paul, try to justify : MORGAN: Here's the dilemma, and it's one I put to Rick Santorum very recently. I was surprised by his answer, although I sort of understood from his belief point of view that he would come up with this. But it's a dilemma that I am going to put to you. You have two daughters. You have many granddaugh

Earlier this week I came across this comic from The Oatmeal . It is worth looking at. Go ahead and read it , then come back. I will wait. Okay, back? Good. I thought it did a pretty good job of describing one reason that piracy is growing, so I shared the link on Facebook and Google+ with the following comment: This is why piracy exists. The studios continue to drag their feet at offering competitive or reasonable methods to acquire the media. The studios are just as guilty of the loss incurred by the artist if not more so than the customer who pirates. The artist is also responsible for finding a reliable distributor who is not going to make it difficult for customers to acquire the content. Piracy happens because it has the competitive advantage, not monetarily, but by ease of access. Then later that same night I came across Andy Inatko's blog post commenting on the comic . I thought he had made a few good points in his commentary. His post is also worth the read and I suggest

Today Chris, Jupiter, Tsunami, and I decided that we would find something to do outside since the weather was supposed to be in the upper 40s to lower 50s. I previously mentioned that we possess a membership to the Missouri Botanical Garden . The membership also gets us into the Butterfly House as well as the Shaw Nature Reserve at no charge. We had not yet been to the Shaw Nature Reserve, so Chris suggested that we check it out. We were all glad that she did. The trail we followed was about a mile hike from where we parked our car, to the lake, and back called the Wolf Run Trail. This trail was generously recommended to us by the kind lady at the desk in the Visitor Center located at the entrance to the reserve. She asked me if Jupiter was an avid walker and how we planned to carry Tsunami on our walk before coming up with the perfect suggestion. When we first got out there we were up on a hill and the 15-20 mph winds made us wonder if walking trails at the reserve was such a good