Lately, Kazu (age 4) has been asking me questions like "Is Kaminari (one of our cats) our friend?" and making statements like "Friends don't leave us by ourselves."

I was unsure as to why or where these statements were coming from. Usually, they were kind of cute and/or funny in the context that he made them.

Apparently, according to my wife, Kazu was asking some of his fellow preschoolers "Are you my friend?" a couple weeks ago. I guess, however, he was being a bit in-your-face about it (he's very outgoing, but he can also be a bit obnoxious and impulsive at times), and some kid or kids finally said "NO."

She suspects that hurt his feelings on some level, which is probably correct.

I know as an adult that it's generally meaningless and just a part of 'social learning' that needs to happen at this age, but it still makes me a bit sad when his feelings are hurt like that, and he doesn't quite understand what to make of it all.

Giant, prehistoric reptiles, to be exact.

I wonder how this critter compares to Liopleurodon?

In other unrelated, personal news.... that damn stomach virus is still not completely done with me. Lots of tummy cramps and, um, trips to the bathroom. Bleargh.

OK, the weekend wasn't without its upside, but it pretty much sucked, thanks to a stomach virus that first afflicted my two-year-old on Friday and Saturday, and then hit me and my older son on Saturday night.

I'll spare the details. Basically, I starred in the off-Broadway production of One Threw Up Over the Cuckoo's Nest -- playing all over the East side of...of my house.

My sons were both capable supporting actors as well.

So Sunday was spent slowly recovering our strength: re-hydrating, eating a bit, napping, and finishing about 8 billion loads of laundry and cleaning carpets. Kudos to my poor wife, who was exhausted from work (where, as a nurse, she has to deal with super sick people all day) and then struggled to keep up with the barfapalooza.

Other events:

• Got pulled over by a cop for blowing through a stop sign, but he didn't give me a ticket. I suppose that's a plus. I didn't tell him that I regularly blow through that stop sign, because it's in a stupid place (low traffic area where you can see for a long distance in every direction anyway).
• I got choked out-- as in completely out-- at Jiu-Jitsu training. My hands were sort of clamped in so tight I couldn't physically tap, so I tried to say "tap" -- but it probably came out "Taaa-grrgghhzzzzzzzz."

BTW -- getting choked out is an interesting experience -- almost exactly like going under anesthesia. After passing out you go immediately into a dream state and begin dreaming...and then next thing you know your teacher is rousing you back to consciousness. I suffered no ill effects, rested a few minutes, and finished class normally. 

I love the unbridled honesty inherent to young children.

This is a true story from my wife. It happened just a few days ago.

At my sons' swimming lessons, a particularly obese (likely 100LBS+ overweight) swim instructor -- gorgeously shoe-horned into her swimsuit -- walked by my oldest son -- Kazu, age 4.

He actually turned to my wife and asked "Mommy, why does she have boobies on her back?"

I don't think Ms. Boobies-On-Her-Back heard the comment.

My wife never told me if or how she answered Kazu's question, but she was probably stunned and stifling her laughter too hard to remember.

Happy Friday!

...when a bunch of Microsoft marketing people get stoned and brainstorm. Or maybe brain-crap is a better term for it... you decide.

Click on the characters. I dare you.

Props for trying to "think outside the box", but otherwise -- I'd have to say -- FAIL.

Last night my wife and I decided to take the boys to Toys R' Us and then Chuck E. Cheese for some fun and games.

We had $75 in gift cards from their birthdays to burn, and just thought it would be fun to take a 'kids night out' outing with them.

Kazu got a spiffy electronic keyboard. I don't know if he'll ever get into music, but he definitely favors things that involve working with his hands -- including:

• musical instruments
• taking things apart to see how they work
• gears, fans, belt drives
• cooking/making things

Katsuya has tastes more like my own when I was a kid, including:

• Dinosaurs (and he knows "Tops", "Steg-Sorus", "T-rex", and "Waptor")
• Robots ("dobots")
• Monsters ("Monters")

We got Katsuya a collection of transformers--including three 2-packs of mini-transformers, and 3 full-sized action figures (Bumblebee, Camshaft, and Bonecrusher) to add to his growing collection -- which already included the "voyager/movie" versions of Ratchet and Ironhide and a collection of other minis.

After getting the toys and a trip to Chuck E. Cheese, it was back home to play with the loot, take a bath, and head to bed. Everyone was very tired, but it was a good night.

I don't put much stock in automated readability tests, but what the heck. I was curious. :)

The Blogalyser reveals...

Your blog/web page text has an overall readability index of 15.
This suggests that your writing style is conventional
(to communicate well you should aim for a figure between 10 and 20).
Your blog has 7 sentences per entry, which suggests your general message is distinguished by clarity
(writing for the web should be concise).

CHARACTER MATRIX

male		female
self		world
past		future

Your text shows characteristics which are 52% male and 48% female
(for more information see the Gender Genie).
Looking at pronoun indicators, you write mainly about yourself, then the world in general and finally your social circle. Also, your writing focuses primarily on the present, next the past and lastly the future.

...as in, my shit is wrecked this morning. I did 5x5 sets of deadlifts on Sunday (Starting at 235lb and working up to 270LB), and then rowed a 3K. All in all, a good workout. But I'm definitely starting to feel it.

To top things off, I had a terrible stomach ache last night and just can't seem to wake up this morning. I'm starting to wonder if I have a bit of the bug that's been plaguing my kids (poor little guys).

Other news from the weekend:

• Wife and I managed to catch up on "Lost" and spend some time together on Saturday -- sort of a "date night" that's been long overdue.
• I (finally) got a killer deal on a dumbbell rack -- 3-tier, four feet wide, brand new, and 50% off! No more dumbbells littering the floor of our home gym.
• Kazu "helped" me assemble the dumbbell rack. Mostly he just hung out with me while I put it together, which proved difficult because I was constantly concerned for his safety, and my stomach ache wasn't making things easier.  Kazu was so excited just to be "helping" he was a non-stop chatterbug the whole time. Funny little guy!

Friday night sparring class in BJJ was great last night. I came home feeling like a steamroller had plowed over my body, which pretty much described my evening of getting choked, crushed, and arm-barred. Par for the course for a Friday night, really.

What set the night apart was my instructor calling me over to tell me how well I was doing. In particular, he liked the guard/open guard/closed guard/hooks-in guard I was using to successfully befuddle a much bigger (though less experienced) guy. (I was giving up about 100lbs to this dude).

Anyway, he went on to give me some pointers, tell me I was doing really well, and asked me how long I'd been training-- which I think means I may be 'on his radar' for a promotion to blue belt in the not-too distant future.

So all in all, I got ruinated, but I still came away from the evening feeling good.

The amazing Randi posted this on his Web site today. I liked it so I thought I'd post it here.

"Science tells us what we can know, but what we can know is little, and if we forget how much we cannot know we become insensitive to many things of great importance. Theology, on the other hand, induces a dogmatic belief that we have knowledge where in fact we have ignorance, and by so doing generates a kind of impertinent insolence towards the universe. Uncertainty, in the presence of vivid hopes and fears, is painful, but must be endured if we wish to live without the support of comforting fairy tales. It is not good either to forget the questions that philosophy asks, or to persuade ourselves that we have found indubitable answers to them. To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can still do for those who study it."

Unfortunately, my wife and I both work today and won't likely be able to really celebrate much.

I'll be heading (almost) straight home, with a brief stop or two to pick up some goodies for the wife. She's already showered me with a variety of treats (some gourmet coffees and, um, various meat products that I like).

Unfortunately, in honor of Lent, she's giving up chocolate--which puts a major crimp in my ability to give her some yummy treats that I know she likes. I'll have to find something else in the meantime and get her something extra for Easter, I guess, when the chocolate ban is lifted.

I have been running on about 4-5 (broken) hours of sleep per night for about the last three nights--maybe more--mainly due to both of the kids being sick (poor little guys).

I can get by on caffeine and such for a while like this, but ~3 consecutive nights is pretty much my limit before a crash becomes imminent.

I was already feeling the impending "crash" at 6:00pm last night, and wondering  if I'd make it past the usual night-time routines (bath-time for the kids, cleaning up after dinner, feeding the dogs, etc.)

Fortunately, Kazu was also very tired last night as well, and he went to bed early. Katsuya took longer to put to bed, but I still got to read and finally hit the hay around 9:30 or 10:00p.

I was so wiped out I don't think I woke up all night. I didn't even hear/notice Katsuya come and climb in bed with us during the night (which is pretty normal for him anyway--he's just at that age.)

I  slept until about 4:00am, when my wife woke me up because she suspected one of the dogs had pooped downstairs.

Fortunately, she was wrong, but it still kind of mucked up my last hour before the alarm was set to go off--but I still managed to sleep another 30-40 minutes before dragging my butt out of bed.

It wasn't a perfect night, but it was an immense improvement over the norm. (Hopefully, the 'norm' will get better as our kids get older.) :)

What do you get when you combine "backyard wrestling" with folks dressed up in crazy giant monster ("Kaiju" in Japanese) costumes?

You get this!

Is it just me, or does that like a crazy, silly good time?

I've added some new photos to the Dec2007-Feb2008 Album. Included are pictures from:

• Katsuya's birthday
• Kazu's field trip to the Imagine museum
• Romps in the snow

Sorry for the big horkin' album, but it's either tons of albums with fewer pictures, or tons of pictures with fewer albums.

Kazu is still on the mend but doing better. A visit to the doctor's office last Friday revealed ear infections and possibly early signs of pneumonia. He started on Zithromax, a powerful, 1/day 5-day antibiotic. He's already doing much better.

Katsuya, unfortunately, now seems to have a nasty bug. He briefly had a temperature yesterday and he's been very congested and snotty, although so far nothing too alarming. He may not need antibiotics, but we'll see.

Now, it's probably just a countdown until mom and dad get this crud. (Sigh)

My oldest son Kazu started running a nasty fever about 3:00am on Thursday. He was pretty much down and out for most of the day. When I got home, he had just awoken from a nap and he was  sweating, crying and miserable.

Fortunately, that fever had broken, and restored some of his spirit. We managed to get some fluids in him and he  peed twice (good because we don't want him to get dehydrated).

Unfortunately, the fever came back later. I was up most of the night with him, giving him Tylenol and rubbing his forehead with a cool rag.

I suspect mommy will be taking him to the doctor ASAP this morning.  I sure hope the little guy starts feeling better soon.

More like bionic contact lenses, but still -- the potential for this technology is mind-boggling.

A Finnish man got part of his jaw replaced -- a bone transplant basically -- by bone cultivated from his own stem cells. How cool is that?

Full story

Note: No embryos, animals, or livestock were used for this procedure. :)

Wow, so what do you get when idiots decide to produce a peer-reviewed creation "science" journal?

Idiots reviewing idiots, of course. An exponential increase in idiocy. Asshattery. Jackassery. Dumbassery. All kinds of assery.

And good for a little Friday humor.

After an asscrack full of creationist crap,  check out the No Answers in Genesis Web site to purge yourself with the enema of science.

Today my second son turns two years old.

The "official" party is tomorrow. It will be a simple gathering of family and friends. We'll be converting the home dojo to a party room for the affair.

Some amazing things about my son Katsuya:

• He learned to walk and talk quite early. He's been speaking in full sentences for about the last 6 months.
• He loves "dobots" (robots) and dinosaurs. He can even correctly name and identify Triceratops ("tops"), Stegosaurus ("steg-sors"), Tyrannosaurus Rex ("rex"), and Velociraptor ("waptor"), and he'll mimic me when I tell him the names of other ones like Allasaurus ("Al-sorus").
• He also loves sharks and bugs. He'll pick up a small toy bug and make it "fly" around the house while he makes buzzing noises.
• He also makes many of his action figures, bugs, sharks, and "dobots" fight with each other.
• He knows karate... or at least practices it. I'm not sure exactly where he got it from, but he occasionally breaks into little stances and punches his arms -- all with a very stern look on his face (his "warrior" face I guess). And no, I didn't teach it to him directly. I suspect he picked it up from mostly from cartoons and our occasional,  social visits to my former dojo.

He is an amazing little guy. Happy birthday Katsuya!!!

(I'll get pictures of the party and such after the weekend.)