Of Hooves and Horsepower

The deal breaker for me is performance. While the Versa is not the fastest car in the world, horse acceleration is unacceptable. A horse goes zero to sixty in… never

Santa Claus vs. The Tooth Fairy

“If you get something nice now under your pillow, that means you may only get a dollar in your stocking on Christmas Day.”

“That’s okay,” said Daniel. “That way I don’t have to be as good at Christmas.”

Free Range Tree

We stopped at Ack Ack Nursery to see what they had for sale that met all of our arboreal criteria. The tree had to be taller than we were. It had to be big enough to support the weight of the occasional bird. Most importantly, we needed a tree that couldn’t escape.

All You Can Eat

“Daniel, I’m sorry I ever doubted you,” I said. “You really don’t like anything more than mashed potatoes, do you?”

Off to See the Wizard

I pointed out how the film went to color when Dorothy arrived in Oz. It turned out Daniel hadn’t noticed. He just thought it was “the color of Kansas” before that.

Childhood Conspiracy Theory

“Black and white pictures have shades of gray, no colors.” Daniel gave me a long look.

“Dad, are you obfuscating me?”

I almost choked on my malt.

Dad Homework

“You know your children better than I do. Please tell me in a million words or less about their passions and their strengths. How do you think their story will be written in the future?” Wow, I thought to myself, it’s been a long time since I had to write a theme for school.

White Castle Word Problem

I came up with 14,038,358,400 sliders required to reach the moon and back.

“You forgot the ones for lunch,” said Daniel.

Oops. I came up with 14,038,358,404 sliders.

Daniel Discovers the Moon

It occurred to me this was a case of too much information. We’ve trained telescopes on the moon for four hundred years. We’ve sent spacecraft past it. A dozen men have walked on it. When you can go to a museum and inspect a piece of the moon up close, what can you discover with a standard set of eyeballs from a quarter million miles away?

Thoughts on the End of the Death Penalty in Illinois

I’m a Unitarian Universalist. We have a set of seven principles that help us with questions of morality. The death penalty bumps up against four of them at least. Despite that, I do have a nagging suspicion there are certain acts that so violate societal norms that – yes, they should merit death. But I can’t say – specifically – what they are.

Satellite Déjà vu

While the original satellite burned up over the Pacific Ocean in 1970, a group of engineering students and scientists at Montana State University at Bozeman were inspired to build a new version of Explorer 1.

Loserwear

For every team that wins, another team has to lose. At some point in the season every team (with the possible exception of Detroit) did the math and figured they had a shot at something worthy of printing on a T-shirt. But a lot of these items would become sadly unnecessary come January.