Travel Pete's Journal: Basements, Kids & Mental Health

30 Million Diapers a Day?

You can always tell the families with new children at home. No, not the minivans parked in the driveway (because 3 other cars are already parked in the garage). See, some of us use wagons to trick the eye or SUVs because both women and men like big trucks to scare everyone with.

No, new families are in the homes with shiny new American-sized garbage cans out front.

Green ones, 55 gallon, powered with steering wheels and a cup holder.

Like ours. Woulda bought two if the car wasn't too small.

It's interesting to think that in the U.S.A., about 4 million kids are born each year. Add to this the detail that we've been changing 10-12 diapers a day in the early goings here.

You're talking up to 30 million diapers a day in landfills! Ouch.

That's why we need everyone to start recycling newspaper, plastic, glass and aluminum, to help keep our landfills clear for all the diapers!

And don't get me started, what with living in the drought-conditioned West, regarding the water waste and chemical baths used to clean the cloth diapers.

5 O'Clock Funnies?

I saw this cartoon and thought, yeah, why can't life and the 5 O'Clock news be a bit more like this?

Then I thought, wait a sec, I've been reading all the crime stats, and crime, especially violent crime, is WAY down over the past 30 years. Yet, at the same time, crime reporting on tv is up something like 600% I read in one study, and everyone's running around locking doors, buying guns and guard dogs and alarms for their houses!

Don't give in, life's not going to hell folks. Things just keep getting better ;-) Violent crime is at its lowest level ever since the Justice Department started keeping tabs on it.

Here's another article highlighting decreases in crime and increases in fear purchases. Just google "crime is down" for more!

From the excellent Strange Brew comic

Halloween Preparations in full swing

Fall is here, change is in the air, and the Holiday Season(tm) is now officially upon us as high temps plummet and so does the Sun.

Cool temperatures, highs in the 40s, snow just up the way in the Foothills. Ahhh, transition, some of my favorite times of the year (not including all the other times, which I enjoy as well).

You can also smell the onset of the holiday season as Costco warehouse club had Christmas wrapping paper aisles set up at the end of August. No shit.

With Grampa Bob and Grandma Peggy coming out for end of October festivities, we figured it was high time to get Max and Liam outfitted for the somber American version of Dia de los Muertos.

Max models his new fireman suit!

Outthink, Outwit, Outsteamed

outsmarting your kid, outwitting yourself.

It's all about the steam.

Ya see, Max likes watching Thomas the Tank Engine movies. So, to get him to occasionally not watch, we say that the steam engines need to "get more steam" so we can turn it off.

We should have realized that Max would buy into this a little too fully.

Every morning it's been "Daddy Daddy! Thomas the Tank Engine has more steam!"

Basically, "Play the movie, Daddy..." And he's right. Since he said it first, we can't really say "no he doesn't have more steam" or now we're in an argument with a 2-year old.

Huh.

Luckily, things are better now that he likes watching Dora the Explorer. We've changed our tune and learned our lesson.

No, Max, Dora needs to rest so she can have more adventures.

Daddy's Special Day!

Daddy just got his Pentax Optio 750Z. No, it's not a Japanese sports car, but it's just as fun and the ladies luv it!

I may be the first on the block to own one, but I won't be the last. Yup, it's truly Daddy's Special Day (tm).

First impressions are even before turning it on as I had 3 hours to wait for the battery to charge...

I purchased from Newegg.com. $559 and $107 for a 1GB SD memory card. $7 shipping. Free towel!?! Shipped quickly, no problems, arrived early via Fedex.

So, bergummits, this camera is small.... Smaller than I remember! It's 1" narrower and 1" thinner than my current camera and the same height, and 8.75oz vs. 13oz (i.e. the old Kodak is ~50% heavier).

Size wise, if you put it in your pocket, people won't be making "You're happy to see me" jokes...

Case is a satin metal finish. Well, it feels and looks like metal, but it's impossible to tell these days. Actually, it's a bit of both. The lid that opens to the battery/SD card compartment is definitely plastic, although it still looks like satin aluminum on the outside. The main housing does appear thin metal. The housing of the Swivel LCD is plastic.

The 4-way menu wheel feels decently responsive and easy to use (unlike my Nokia 3650 cell phone 4-way which is a friggin' joke. There's a button in the middle of the wheel, and all buttons are definitely on the smallish side, but feel solid and not loose.

Mind you, there are probably a lot of advances you modern digital camera owners already have that I'm just getting after 3 1/2 years of suffering... Like, oh, a shutter lid that closes over the lens to protect it and a display that swivels and can be inverted to protect it.

I mean, wow... Even better, it looks retro and unassuming. I love that.

Anyway, I've just got it turned on and it's complicated, muy complicated if I want to do anything but use the auto mode. I mean, it has a picture mode called "Fireworks." That's cool. And "Food." How weird is that? It allows you to take good pictures of, you guessed it, prepared foods.

Pictures and a formal usage review coming up tomorrow.

Drapes are not blinds

Drapes are not blinds. Nor are they curtains or shutters.

Drapes. Are. Drapes.

Yup. I learn something new each day.

Yesterday I returned to Pottery Barn (where we got the drape rods). I said, "I don't get it. If you have the drape rods hooked to the wall with posts, how do you slide the drapes past these posts to close the drapes completely?"

The guy said, "So, you close your drapes often?" I mean, brutal. Ouch.

Really. I've never felt more inadequate and illprepared in front of a gay man in my life.

So, drapes are decorative. Got it.

Shutters are shady. Curtains close completely, and Blinds do what they say.

There ya go.

These are drapes. New drapes, as it happens.

See more drapes and our (nearly) completed Parisian Library here.

Oh, and it turns out that drapes do actually have one thing in common with blinds, curtains and shutters. They are all hideously expensive.

Rapids take on New England

My article is entitled Worst to First @ Worst....

The Rapids used to be the worst MLS team, now they are the best, leading a strange league all around. And, they are now going to play the New England Revolution, who has descended to become the worst. Huh. Nobody here in Colorado would have guessed this.

Anyway, it's online at American Soccer News

As always, it can be accessed 365*24 at the BilFish Socce MiniSite just look for the 9/17/04 article entitled Worst to First @ Worst.

This was supposed to be my last article (for a while) before Liam arrived, but since he was early I had to scramble to get down to Rapids training sessions to get the interviews and get the article finished on time.

Cappuccino & Children

Ahhh!

My first good cappuccino in a few days (since Saturday) was enjoyed this morning.

Yup.

Oh, by the way, we just had our second kid!!!!!

Woohoo!!!!

And we just got back from the hospital yesterday afternoon so I could stop pretending to enjoy hospital coffee.

Liam Robert Fisher was born Sunday morning, September 12 at 9:37am. He was about 19.5" long and 6lb 13oz big.

He was also two weeks early, the little rascal!

As the email I sent out Sunday afternoon said, a real early bird surprise. Kathy's water broke Saturday night around 11:30pm and things went quickly from there.

Mom and baby are doing very well, and Max and Daddy are also doing just peachy. Max spent a couple of evenings with Grandma O'Neill while the adventure took place.

Here are the first few pictures of Liam's grand adventure in life!

Stay tuned for more...

Soccer: Pedro the Playmaker

Yuppers... The Rapids won a game, finishing in convincing style.

Strange... but, well, 2-1 over Dallas puts Colorado in 2nd place in the Western Conference, not too shabby.

On the other hand, I've been battling the Rapids to provide me the access I need as a journalist to provide good articles. This was no different. Luckily, despite contrary indications from the Rapids front office staff, I've been effective thus far, although I question whether Colorado's only big soccer team is worth spending so much time on.

At this point, it's a one-way relationship. I feel like I'm giving and giving and, well, this just ain't a healthy relationship, ya know?

Longest article I've written to date on American Soccer News.

As always, if Hurricane Ivan somehow skips from Florida to trash the servers in L.A., you can find the article backed up on my Soccer MiniSite. Look for Pedro the Playmaker written 09/05/04.

Wish upon a star

Ever read about a guy's life or job or whatever and get this feeling, "Yeah, I could live out my days doing that and die happy?"

I did recently. An old SKIING magazine issue profiled this 34 year old guy (Obviously, I'm much younger at 33, 32 at the time it was published) who started Mad Mountain Tavern in 1992 at Mad River Glen ski area. When not pouring aprés ski drinks and jäger blasters, he's out photographing weddings, mountains and snow.

Mmmm....

Anyway, it's got me thinking again. What else could I do that would force me to get up each morning and do what I love every day?

It's what I call the "A-ha" feeling. One of my favorite bands, the Norwegian Supergroup always transports me to a better place. Norway, mostly.

I have some ideas, I'll be working through possibilities in coming entries.

Strange Brew: Wiley Coyote

Another blast from our past. Clearly, I must be about the same age (or 4-year old mentality) as the cartoonists...

Ahhh, yes, the future is now.

Enjoy all the wackiness of Strange Brew for yourself!

37 weeks: Full term, baby!

"Congratulations!

Your pregnancy is now considered full term — meaning your baby is developmentally ready to handle life outside the womb. (Babies born before 37 weeks are pre-term and those born after 42 weeks are post-term.)

Your baby probably weighs a little over 6 pounds at this point and measures between 19 and 20 inches, head to heel."
——from our weekly baby e-newsletter

Wow. Pretty cool, huh? So, we're getting ready. The crib is going back up in Max's room this morning (well, Max & Liam's room). Two weeks ago Max got his "bigger big boy bed" which is a twin on a wooden frame we got from the neighbor who was moving and didn't need it anymore.

It's embarrassing, but it took us something like 10 days to find a cheap twin mattress in Denver. This despite having a nationwide mattress mfgr called "The Denver Mattress Company" based here. Sheesh...

So, things are rolling along. My good friend Janice "Space Cadet" Houston is having her first child this week (maybe this past weekend, I'll have to check my email!) and all signs are go, so it's definitely baby season.

I even mashed up a banana to add to plain yoghurt for the first time since monkey-mashing for Max's early breakfasts when he ate the soft stuff, probably more than a year ago.

Yep, it's definitely baby season! And Kathy's looking forward to just 9 more days of work before some much-deserved time off. From getting paid to work, that is.

Anyway, this is just to alert everyone that I'll probably miss a day or two of blogs unless the baby conveniently arrives Friday night (scheduled for Saturday the 25th of September). And, of course, blogs could be very sappy and baby-oriented for a while.

:-)

My Atkins Diary: Follow-up

Here's an article that indicates some potential problems with the Atkins' diet.

The Lancet is a premiere English medical journal, but this article seems a bit weak to me...

It just says people have more side-effects during the diet. The researcher then goes WAY out on a limb to suggest that having constipation could somehow hurt in the future.

Hopefully, there's more to it in the actual medical journal article. Either way, they're right, there are effects from draining carbos from your diet, definitely.

On the other hand, the article seems to be confirming two things I find interesting about low-carb diets:
1. It's not water loss, it's real fat loss
2. People can stay on the Atkins diet better, and lose more weight and have better blood lipid and cholesterol levels.

Definitely something to consider though. Like I've repeated and repeated, what are the effects of carrying around a lot of fat? Now that, to me, is really bad. Not only is it inherently unhealthy, it means you can't exercise, which makes everything worse.

My Atkins' Tip Series
Atkins Diary I: why
Atkins Diary II: the menu
Atkins Diary III: Diet Secrets
Atkins Diary IV: More Secrets!
Atkins Diary V: Cartoon
Atkins Diary VI: Mental Game
Atkins Diary VII: The Lighter side (humor)
Vitamin Supplements
Atkins Diary VIII: Final Tips
Atkins: Followup

By the way, it's now March 2005... and I've kept off the weight, so that's good. As I've said, I usually just need a jumpstart back into better eating and exercise habits and Atkins did exactly what I'd hoped.

The Efficient Life

In America, we strive for maximum efficiency, which coincides with maximum productivity.

However, neither of these are necessarily conducive for maximum enjoyment, leisure or happiness.

Bit of a problem there.

By way of example, I present a recent errand I ran. I needed to get tickets for the Colorado Railroad museum for the weekend in October that Thomas the Tank Engine visits.

Normally I'd hop in the car, get down there and back and be sitting at my computer in about 15 minutes.

Instead, I chose to ride my bike, stopping by Poor Boys Bagels for breakfast and then meandering over to the Museum. Got my tickets, shopped around the store for a bit, and had a leisurely ride back.

It was great. But, it took an hour. And made me realize that we don't use cars to deliberately avoid exercise, fresh air and good experiences. We use it to gain 45 minutes of time.

It just occurred to me that the 60 minutes I spent biking around Golden were really quite enjoyable. I enjoyed the life of leisure for an hour, got some fresh air and exercise, relaxed a bit, and generally have good thoughts about my time spent.

Huh. Wonder how I would have spent the 45 minutes I gained if I'd driven?

Eggplant Parmesan Lasagna

Mmmm... Tasty delights from the kitchens of Cooking Light!

Turns out it was better than "normal" Eggplant Parmesan, which can be a bit greasy since it's fried. This is baked.

And did I mention tasty?

Especially with homemade lasagna noodles and spaghetti nests I made yesterday, thanks to Mom-in-Law moving to town and gifting us a great Pasta grinder metal thingee from Italia!

A few small personalizations have been made to the recipe, but otherwise it's golden as is! Sized for 4 adults and a kid.

I'll skip miscellaneous descriptions such as "sun-ripened" or "freshly ground."

Sauce:
t olive oil
C chopped onion
2 garlic cloves minced
C dry red wine
2C no-salt-added diced tomatoes with juice
1/2t thyme
1/2t rosemary
1/2t pepper
Dash salt (or no salt if diced tomatoes above have salt)
2C no-salt-added tomato sauce (or 1 15oz can)

Eggplant:
2 eggplants, cut crosswise into 1/4 inch slices
Sprinkle of salt (to cover eggplant slices as they dry)
T water
t olive oil
2 egg whites
C breadcrumbs, italian seasoned if possible or just add Italian seasonings

Other ingredients:
C shredded mozzarella
4T shredded parmesan
1/4t pepper
6 lasagna noodles (preferably homemade :-)

Directions:

Sauce: heat olive oil in saucepan on med-high. Sauté onion till slightly golden. Add garlic and sauté another minute. Add wine, cook a few minutes. Add tomatoes, tomato sauce, salt, thyme, rosemary and pepper. Reduce heat, simmer 20-30 minutes until a touch thickened.

Preheat oven to 450F.

Eggplant: Arrange cut eggplant slices on paper towels, sprinkle both sides with salt. Let dry for 15 minutes. Pat dry.

You'll be dipping the eggplant into an egg mixture, then breadcrumbs. In one bowl, combine water, oil and egg white and whisk. Put breadcrumbs in the other bowl.

Dip eggplant in egg mixture, then coat in breadcrumbs (dredge or double dip it). Coat baking sheet with cooking spray and add eggplant pieces. Bake at 450F for 20 minutes, turn after 10. Cool on wire rack.

Lasagna
Combine cheeses and pepper. In two 8x4 non-stick bread pans, spoon about 1/3 cup of sauce on bottom.

Then repeat layer 3 times:
1. Noodle
2. Eggplant slices
3. 1/4c sauce
4. 3T cheese

Ending with cheese on top. Bake at 450F for 40-50 minutes. Dee-lish!

Serve with remaining red wine. I accompanied it with maple-glazed acorn squash rings, sweet and yummy. Supposely you can freeze it. I'm testing that now, and will provide results as they become available.