BunkBlog

I know I’ve never mentioned how unique my son is. Today, after eating some of the marvelous, only available one month a year, Pecos Sweet cantaloupe ice cream, he lectured me about how important it is to eat hand-made food instead of machine-made. He even generalized to say that hand-made things are better than machine-made things.

This, after we had scallops and shrimp on wilted spinach for dinner (which he ate without complaint, but did say it was only “a double” and not a home run). I love this kid; we obviously are raising him right.

A friend once mentioned that his children wondered why he called Hastings a record store – what are records? It goes even further afield when I think of my son. He doesn’t really deal with CDs even; it’s all a playlist to him. In fact, his current playlist is posted online, just because I’m that kind of geek.

Proving that he is definitely my son, notice the totally eclectic nature of his choices. It’s important to note that I only add songs to his playlist when he asks me to. He recently asked for the Ramones “I Wanna Be Sedated” and I was astonished to realize that I didn’t have that ripped yet – soon that will be rectified.

Seriously, what other child nearing his seventh birthday wants Harry Belafonte and Elvis Costello and The Beatles? What other child has even heard of Ozomatli? I have a cool kid.

UPDATE: As noted in comments, Alex’s mother also has very eclectic musical tastes. One of our earlier conversations when we first met was our mutual astonishment that the other had heard of, much less listened to, Ani DiFranco.

Friday, we had planned to go to the Kiddie Park and Witte Museum. The Kiddie Park is one of those seemingly anachronistic places you probably remember, but thought didn’t exist any longer. They have a carousel from 1918, and a bunch of rides that no adults can fit into. They even have a tiny roller coaster, just like they had at the park near my grandparents’ house in the late 70s. And it only costs eight bucks for the day. Alex wanted to spend every minute possible on the roller coaster, and was nearly inconsolable when it was being maintained at one point.

The Witte Museum has a nice variety of dinosaur skeletons, live and stuffed animals, as well as a great children’s section with hands-on areas devoted to air and electricity and weight and all that jazz. There was a bicycle on a high-wire that you could ride, and he did. Overall, a very fun day.

Of course, we spent much time in the hotel pool. For dinner, we walked across the UTSA campus and hit the Mercado. After a small amount of dithering, we decided on Mi Tierra, the oldest of the restaurants there. Alex had enchiladas, and I had the chicken enchilada in mole sauce. If you’re not familiar with mole sauce, it’s chocolate and spices together, and is very yummy. I’m not normally a fan of spicy things, but mole sauce sneaks up on ya, since it’s so incredibly rich and dark, then hits you with the pepper. Of course, the quart-sized margarita may have colored my memory a touch.

And then it was Thursday, and the Boy had to watch bizarre Japanese cartoons before breakfast. Our big trip of the day was to the Natural Bridge Wildlife Park, a drive-through safari. Great numbers of animals, and many of them came up to the car for photo opportunities and food. The ostriches, never considered the smartest animals in nature, proved to be dimwitted and aggressive. Geez, you’d think the park owners never fed them, the way they tried to climb into the passenger seat for more pellets of compressed grass.

We had enough safari around lunch, so we hit the nearby Natural Bridge Caverns. I’ve been in a few caves, and never have I been in one that was so uncomfortable. The place was 70F and 99% humidity – most caves I think are cooler, if just as humid. Anyway, that was pretty neat, Alex loved it, and then we went back to the pool at the hotel.

Dinner on Day Two was Joe’s Crab Shack, which neither of us had been to before. We shared a meal that was supposed to be 27 shrimp (9 each of three styles), but we counted the tails – 34. The waitress obviously thought my son was adorable – it happens frequently.

Another walk along the San Antonio Riverwalk, and off to bed. End of Day Two.

I’ll let y’all know how this tastes tomorrow. It’s got caramel and apples baked into an apple cake. Oh, yeah.

Alex and I hit San Antonio two weeks ago, and I’ve just not felt like writing much since we got back. Now that the sunburn has faded, I’m more willing to hang out in the computer chair.

We started out with Ripley’s Believe it Or Not, which was pretty bizarre, even if the Boy didn’t spend much time looking at anything, but more time telling me it was time to go to the next room. That’s his ideal exhibit – the next room. Whatever is in this room is never as cool as what will be in the next room.

Alex has been begging to go to the Alamo for months, so we hit there next. The Alamo is kind of unique in that it is a national monument that is run by a private non-profit organization. And, unlike the Park Service, they don’t charge admission! Alex was again interested only in the Next Room, of course. Maybe he’ll be more interested in a few years.

We ate the first night at the Rainforest Cafe. Yes, it is kitschy. Yes, the food is nothing to write a culinary review about. But, where else can you eat your dinner surrounded by rubber animals that come to life every ten minutes, and have a thunderstorm indoors every half hour? Exactly. It was a hit, of course.

We rented a room at the Radisson. For a well-known hotel, it was remarkably average. They did have a pool and hot tub, so we spent many many hours in the water. That ended up being the highlight of San Antonio for Alex – the hotel pool.

[K]ids don’t read for pleasure. And because they don’t read, they are less able to navigate the language. If words are the coin of their thought, they’re working with little more than pocket change.

Writing Off Reading

Kids are graduating with incredibly high GPAs and can’t recognize words like “advocate.” Ouch.

We have pictures!

Why are most notorious killers of recent years referred to in the press (and thereafter by the public at large) by their full names?  This never happens with other criminals or subject of news stories. John Mark Karr, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Wayne Gacy, John Wilkes Boothe, Mark David Chapman…It almost seems like the intent is to make the suspect sound sinister or peculiar, and thereby make them obviously guilty.  After all, if your average person told you to call him John Jacob Smith, you’d think he was pretty darned strange, no?

Off for five days of vacation fun with my son.  Don’t break anything while I’m gone, ok?

Samuel Jackson on the Daily Show tonight was the first time I’ve seen an actor do a promo appearance with Jon Stewart and actually talk about the movie.  When Robin Williams was touring for RV, he did schtick about the President and other random Robin things.  When Will Farrell was doing appearances for his latest NASCAR thing, he mentioned the movie briefly and then wandered off into other stuff.

Only Snakes on a Plane can get actors and talk show hosts hyped enough to talk about the movie as if that’s the reason they got together that day.  And, seriously, Samuel Jackson seems to be a very animated fella. He even used the word “blogosphere” without sounding like a clueless dork.  Sweet.

Snakes on a Plane, not Ferrets on a Panel Truck.  Oh yeah.

And

are really going to love this post…

Sure, I’m on vacation, but there must be something better to do with my time than play Dice Wars all night long, right?  Oh, there isn’t?  Cool.

OK, someone suggested I put together a quick tutorial or how-to on digital video creation.  Home videos have grown increasingly easy to record, and the output is so much better than the old super-8 film days, but it’s still not easy for some. So, without further ado, Gary’s Video Tutorial. It’s on a wiki, so if you have something useful to contribute, feel free.  I’ve still got to add something about titles and overlays.

Japan has been using liquid explosive detectors in its Narita International Airport in Tokyo and demonstrated the technology to U.S. officials at a conference in January, the Japanese Embassy in Washington said.

The administration’s most recent budget request also mystified lawmakers. It asked to take $6 million from the Sciences & Technology Directorate’s 2006 budget that was supposed to be used to develop explosives detection technology and divert it to cover a budget shortfall in the Federal Protective Service, which provides security around government buildings.

Bureaucracy impedes bomb-detection work

I just cannot think of a comment that isn’t filled with cursing.

I can’t imagine what one could add to the headline to make this story any more clear. Can you imagine buying one of these drives to play Blu-Ray movies in your new home theater PC and finding out that you can’t? Are they just encouraging piracy now by their total incompetence at this Digital Restrictions Manglement crap?

Just to prove what lovely and thoughtful human beings they are, the RIAA has introduced a motion in one of their extortion filesharing cases. The defendent has died, so they’re allowing the family sixty days to grieve before they sue the children. Anyone still think the RIAA is a reasonable group of people?

Stephen Colbert did a skit on The Daily Show last night. There were about 30 seconds of genius. See if you agree.

It is a mistake to believe there is no threat to the United States of America. We’ve taken a lot of measures to protect the American people. But obviously we still aren’t completely safe.

Well, gee. Perfect safety hasn’t been achieved? Let’s give up a few more of our ideals and rip up the last few shreds of the Constitution. What’s amazing to me is that the President isn’t pointing out how the system worked. This is a success for the British security services, an event which shows that law enforcement and good investigation skills actually function as you would hope. The plot was thwarted, all is right with the world. The US and UK should be celebrating this accomplishment, and instead we’re taking people’s water bottles away and making flying just a little more irritating yet again.
Of course, the President is perhaps not crowing about this successful investigation and series of arrests because the British did it using the systems and methods that don’t actually violate their citizens’ rights. Yep, they actually used policemen doing their jobs, not random wiretaps of every phone call and email. They didn’t need to lock people up for years without charges, finding extraordinary means of avoiding domestic and international legal challenges. They did things in ways that violated no law of the land, completely without controversy. Maybe we don’t want to talk about that.