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The chat in the hat
I recently installed a LAN instant messenger program on our PCs at home. Once Little E is in bed, it’s typical for me to retreat to my room to try to squeeze a little more writing or copy editing out of my day. This way, my wife can sit in bed with her laptop, where she’ll often browse the web or watch something before bedtime, and can ask me questions like “Why haven’t you let the dogs back in?” And she gets helpful replies like… this.
(10:26:53 PM) Haven’t heard them at the door.
(10:29:17 PM) Haven’t seen them on the floor.
(10:29:28 PM) Haven’t smelled them, what’s the use?
(10:29:34 PM) Wow, I sound like Dr. Seuss!
😛… Read more
On the way home from picking up pizza today, Little E and I discussed why he laughs at a joke on one of his favorite shows, but doesn’t laugh when he says the same thing himself because it’s not inherently funny on its own.
I had the bright idea, a couple of weeks ago, to design our own Christmas card, have Little E color it, and then I’d rescan it, print copies, fold them up and send them out.
I’d like to take this as a hopeful sign that geekitude and good humor trump everything. The following petition on the official White House web site surpassed 25,000 “signatures” and, as such, now requires an official response:
Sadly, I could probably rake in some pretty decent money by running an over-or-under betting pool on how quickly someone turns this into a batshit crazy conspiracy theory.
There’s a time-honored engineering practice called a fit check. You take real pieces of real stuff – even if it’s not quite to full factory specs – and make sure it at least fits together the way it’s supposed to. If it doesn’t, you refine the shape and size and do another fit check. When everything fits, you’re good to go. Even though it was never meant to fly into space, the shuttle Enterprise (seen here) spent a lot of time strapped to real fuel tanks and real booster rockets at Kennedy and at Vandenberg AFB, because it was the only fully-constructed shuttle that could be spared for fit checks. … 
I should be grateful that my kid is honest to a fault. There are worse problems to have with one’s children. I’m not saying he doesn’t have an ounce of guile – he does – but he doesn’t try to double down on the bet when caught out. I should probably try to write him in during the next election.