The Bus Stops Here
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "the_bus" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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11:27 pm
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Voted today
Thanks to Jennifer Kim for reminding me to vote. I almost forgot that we had elections for city council today. Around 11 AM I got an automated phone call with a recorded message from Jennifer Kim asking me to vote. In the end, I decided to accept the recommendations of the newspaper, which meant that I voted against Kim, apparently like the rest of Austin.
The good thing about low turn out elections is that the election workers like kids tagging along. I made my selections on the electronic voting machines then told Annetta to push the big red "Cast ballot" button. She happily pushed it, so I rewarded her with one of the plentiful "I voted" stickers. After I put it on her shirt, all the election workers applauded her. She was so happy. That was really cool. Thank you, Jennifer Kim.
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10:28 pm
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Corny crayons
This evening we ate at home and fed Annetta some baby corn, the kind that comes in cans at the Asian groceries. After eating a couple of pieces, she carefully lined up four side-by-side, all pointing the same way. Then she declared, "Crayons!" and gave us a big smile. Hmmm, can't draw with them, but far tastier!
Tags: kids say the craziest things
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12:13 am
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Annetta Speaks a Little More
Annetta's language skills have grown by leaps and bounds in the last few weeks. Maybe it's school, maybe it's being around more kids, or maybe it's just time, I don't know.
She is now using longer sentences, up to 4 or 5 words. She says things like, "I bumped my hand" or "Daddy want eat my oats?". Her vocabulary has also exploded. The other night she got a new alphabet book featuring several labeled pictures per letter. To our surprise she rattled off the names of many of the pictures.
The latest funny things she says:
1. She's figured out that we count things, so she'll count out "1, 2, 5, 6, 1, 2, 5, 6." Well, I guess it's a start.
2. Every time we drive by our friendly neighborhood HEB grocery store, she excitedly exclaims "ABC!".
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11:53 pm
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Situation normal again
We're all back to normal again after about a week of various cold and fever symptoms. Annetta started with fever and low appetite a weekend ago, then I seemed to catch whatever she had. Luckily all that was over within three days or so for each of us.
Even so, it took a few days for Annetta to settle back down into her regular sleep pattern, which meant we took a few days to get back to normal sleep again.
Luckily we pretty much recovered for the weekend. Yesterday we went downtown in late morning to the Pecan Street Festival. We happened to enter where a little petting zoo was located. Annetta was fascinated by all the goats, sheep, deer, and even kangaroos. They had a couple of small kangaroos that I think might have been wallabies.
After watching for a while, we paid to enter and feed the animals. She was uncertain and a little scared, so I fed the animals while she watched. She did work up the courage to touch a couple of the animals. But after a few minutes too many animals crowded around us and scared her, so we headed out. Despite this, she enjoyed it and liked the animals.
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10:43 pm
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Good weekend weather, good weekend napping
Austin had gorgeous spring weather this weekend, very clear skies, comfortable afternoon temperatures, and generally vibrant colors. So I wanted to get out some and at least get Annetta out, too, even if Pauline wasn't up to now with about a month and half to go.
So late morning yesterday and today I took Annetta to a nearby city park. Somehow we only recently discovered this great little park just a couple of minutes drive away. I just wish it was an easy walk instead.
The park has a playground full of great playscapes, full of steps and stairs, tunnel bridges, and slides. Despite all this, Annetta mostly wanted to swing. The park has a set of little kid swings, one like a heavy chair (intended for handicapped kids but usable by all), and the other like a little plastic basket with four leg holes, so kids can sit securely facing either direction (assuming they don't want to sit sideways and stare at the supporting chain). Annetta would swing several minutes in one, then several minutes in the other, play in the playscape for a bit, then want to swing some more.
I don't know whether these outing tired her out, but she certainly napped the best (and earliest) that's she's napped on the weekend in several months. It's nice to have her nap after lunch, so we don't have to spend all afternoon trying to get her exhausted so she'll nap around 4 PM.
This afternoon we drove downtown, originally thinking to go the arts festival on 1st St, but instead deciding just to walk the few blocks to the Austin Java Co. shop in City Hall. That's the first time we've been there. Annetta began to nap on the way, and napped comfortably in her stroller the whole time we were there. We really enjoyed just hanging out and people watching through the huge front windows.
All in all, a pretty relaxing weekend after all the craziness in the last couple of weeks.
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11:04 pm
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Missing suitcase update
Our missing suitcase from our return flight from Asia in January is still, well, missing. I called American Airlines yesterday. The service representative I eventually talked to was quite nice but had no information.
The one thing I did learn was that it'll be another month before they give up and compensate us. Apparently they just send a check when that happens. No phone call or other notification. I wonder if there's even an apology letter with the check.
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10:49 pm
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Annetta starts Montessori
Yesterday Annetta started going to a new Montessori school nearby. She's an adaptable little kid, so she had no problem getting interested in all their "work" (the learning toys) and no problems with staying with new teachers and classmates.
So far the school has started small, apparently to give the new kids some time to ramp up. They've been open only short days, about a third of a day at most.
Yesterday the owner told me that Annetta did very well and was very interested in all the work. She seemed impressed with how well she did.
This morning when I dropped her off, a new little girl (who appeared older than Annetta) was crying hard for mommy. Annetta hasn't even acted uncertain about being there. She just immediately runs off to play!
We'll have to see how it goes, but I'm hopeful it'll be a good experience, despite the school being brand new. The only concern so far is that she seems to be the youngest kid there. We want her to socialize with more kids her age. Hopefully more will transfer from the owner's other school soon.
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05:42 pm
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Annetta Speaks!
Annetta is at a fun point in her development of speech now. She has started to express herself and imitate conversation, rather than just say a single word or "I want". She's said several amusing things lately:
1. While Pauline was on a call. Annetta put her right hand over her right ear and pretended to be on the phone. She babbled a sentence, paused, said, "I see", paused, said "OK", then pretended to hang up.
2. This morning, she didn't want to stop playing and leave for school, so she said "Don't want school." When we got to school, she said, "I like school!" (And she really does.)
3. When she saw some glass chips at the bottom of a restaurant's ornamental fish tank, she pointed to them and excitedly said "Fish candy!"
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04:03 pm
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Books: best way to go?
After some recent house cleaning, I realized that I no longer want to hold on to a lot of books I have accumulated. I can't really say collected, because there's not some overarching theme or great value or any other reason for collecting them. Mostly I have them because at some point I got them, as gifts, for classes (yes, still plenty of college textbooks in there), for fun, whatever.
So I'm wondering about the best way to get them to go away and not come back. I don't want to just throw them in the trash, and I doubt most have enough value to sell on eBay. Heck, several probably wouldn't get an offer from Half Price. (Anybody want a 25 year old first year calculus textbook?)
For paperback novels, I have heard about bookcrossing.com, which seems an interesting way to dump off a few. How about sites that let you mail away books in exchange for others? That at least would extract some value out of the better novels.
Is there anywhere to recycle outdated books, like old college textbooks? I doubt anyone wants those because students always have to buy the ones their teachers use, even though knowledge like calculus and basic chemistry won't change. And I've got nicely outdated computer books, like an MC68000 assembly language reference, which I probably wouldn't be using even if I were doing embedded programming.
Too bad the Austin public library system doesn't seem to want them. According to their web page, all they do is take old books and try to sell them in order to buy more recent best sellers.
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10:38 pm
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Stepping back in time
On my noontime run today, I listened to Radiolab's podcast "Beyond Time". The most amusing section was about an American artist who moved to Ireland and is, in his opinion, traveling back in time. He's restored his house to its original condition, rides around town on a 19th century bicycle, and generally tries to avoid living with modern conveniences.
The interesting part was the idea that when he rides in to town on personal business, like going to the bank (he won't use internet banking or payment), he feels he's riding forward in time into our hectic, high stress modern world. When he's done, he rides back in time to the calm peace of his home.
I wonder how this is any different than the Amish. They must live a life that's largely the same as Amish from 100 or more years ago. I have heard that at least some Amish do use some modern technology in limited ways, so they may not live quite as purely as this artist tries to. But then again, is he really living like people of bygone days? He's able to make his point, in a life as performance art way, but is he really just a Luddite rather than the time traveler he says he is?
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05:41 pm
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More running and RadioLab
For this afternoon's half-hour run on a treadmill at the gym, I listened to the RadioLab podcast on Mortality. The hard science stuff about cellular aging was really interesting, but what got me thinking was the part about the effects of aging on society.
The case in point was Japan. For some time it's birthrate has been below the replacement level, so the population is getting older on average every year. Japanese for whatever reason tend to be long-lived, so there are lots of elderly people depending on the merely old for daily care.
This reminded me of Singapore. While I was there, I saw several news shows talking about the societal aging they are facing. My sister-in-law made that point that within two generations they have gone from a society with people as its only resource to one where even that resource is getting scarce. They are now one of the fastest aging countries in the region, maybe the world.
Not only is this a strain on the retirement system, but also it's a strain on families. RadioLab made the point that the burden of care in Japan rests on the family, but the families are getting so old that the elderly feel they are too much burden. They don't want to be taken care of by foreign workers, so now they are developing robots to help with daily hygiene.
So I wonder if this will play out the same in Singapore. They are relatively prosperous country, but there is also a strong culture of hiring maids from the poorer countries that surround it. I believe there may even be a provision to hire an extra maid to help care for an elderly parent. But will the maids really want to do this work? Will the elderly feel embarassed about getting cared for by foreigners?
Another contrast that struck me was that I just didn't see a lot of people out exercising in Singapore. I've heard from various source, including a podcast from ChinesePod, that in big cities in China, the parks are filled in morning with the older folks exercising. Some of the quality of exercise may be debatable, but they are out there trying. I just didn't see that in Singapore. I don't know whether there just aren't enough retirees to be out there in big numbers or if it's just nobody likes exercise. Singapore has a hard-driving, long work hours culture that just doesn't seem to allow for a lot of exercise time.
America going to face these issues soon enough. I wonder if we'll learn anything from Asia.
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05:37 pm
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You will forget everything, but your blog can remember it for you.
Today while running outside in our beautiful 70 degree and sunny weather I listened to a Radio Lab podcast as I often like to do. Today I selected the episode on Memory and Forgetting.
This is easily the most mind-blowing episode I've listened to so far. I'd heard about how unreliable our memory can be, say how we disagree with other observers of an accident, or how suggestible we can be when questioned by police. We're all familiar with how memory of events can fade. But now research suggests that we don't really remember anything in perfect detail.
And can be made to forget. Completely. Almost like in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. They talked to a researcher who has found a chemical that causes the brain to start to forget something it has remembered after recalling it. Incredibly, just remembering something causes the brain to recreate it and, in effect, re-remember it. Just at that point, the chemical causes the brain not to store the memory away again, to forget.
It's not perfect, but the researchers believe they have a way to lessen the effects of post-traumatic stress syndrome. Just in time for thousands of veterans from Iraq to return home, I'd say.
The rest of the episode isn't quite as incredible, but still very interesting, entertaining, and thought provoking. If memory isn't perfect, it makes you wonder just how accurately you remember anything. And I wonder if it explains why cramming for tests can be so effective. You cram a lot of information in your head then recall it during the test, when you remember it best, and you may not have any incentive to really remember it, so the memory just evaporates after the test. So what then is the value of good grades and standardized testing, if in large part those depend on information that can be crammed.
At least we have now have blogs to remember for us! As long as the servers don't crash.
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05:31 pm
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Our little graduate
This afternoon Annetta received an honorary degree (actually, a T-shirt) from the Children's Research Laboratory at the University of Texas. She received this honor for participating in a language study.
The researcher and her assistant are interested in determining if kids can learn a second label (name or word) for objects. Apparently the prevailing theory is that once kids learn a label, they won't replace it or supplement it with another label.
The experiment basically just involved Annetta getting to look at and play with several toys using words she already knows, then giving her some and telling her a different name. Later they tried to see if she learned the new name. She learned all the new names, and even said some when she next saw the toy. She's a fast learner.
There's a lot more to this study, because they told me that they've been at it for about four years now. They had to try several variations to see what even works as an experiment, then try variations of the experiment to make sure they understand the behavior they are researching.
The funniest part was Annetta's behavior when we were preparing for the experiment. Pauline and I needed to complete a form to indicate Annetta's knowledge and use of words for toys and food common for her age. Any time we had to discuss whether she knew a word, she nearly always repeated it clearly as soon as she heard it. In the end, we determined that she knew and used at least 30 words, and that's not close to her whole vocabulary.
We all had a fun time during the study and at the lab, and the researchers were kind enough to stick around afterwards to let her play with all the toys in the lobby and answer our questions. Hopefully Annetta will have another chance to participate in a study soon.
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11:07 pm
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Annetta @ 2 Years
This past Friday Annetta turned 2 years old. The lowlight of her day was a trip to the pediatrician, who pronounced her in excellent health and developing well, then proceeded to prescribe a vaccination. Annetta didn't quite know what was going on before the shot, but this time she knew she really didn't like it when she got it. She burst into a crying fit and mystified a couple I suspect were Chinese on the way out through the waiting room by repeatedly crying "bu yiao!"
We celebrated her birthday on Saturday with a party at home with her grandparents and many of our friends and coworkers, mostly ones with little kids of their own. Here's a couple of pictures from her party.
At two years old, she really acts like a little person now. She now tells us what she wants to eat; she can climb, run, and jump; she uses short sentences; she has favorite TV shows; and she likes to imitate us shopping, reading, and sometimes even diaper changes. She generally seems to learn quickly. Sometimes too quickly!
Aside from behavior and skills, she's much easier to care for now. About the only holdover from the baby days is diaper changing. She still sleeps in her crib, but she sleeps through the night. She eats normal food, albeit chopped up for her. Her clothes look more like little versions of older girl clothes. She walks on her own a lot more, although she still wants carried some.
We hope to get her enrolled in a new Montessori school soon. One is opening nearby on a convenient route to work for me. Annetta thrived in her school in Singapore, so we want a similar structure for her here.
Annetta is a fun, happy little kid. Hopefully her soon to arrive brother will be more of the same!
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01:55 pm
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Post Postsingular
Yesterday evening I finished reading Postsingular. As I mentioned before, it's wacky but definitely has interesting ideas about how a huge, powerful computing network could grow to encompass everything and integrate human and artificial intelligence. Still, I thought it dragged a bit at the end as a race against time plot line plodded it's way to an obvious conclusion.
The experience of reading the novel on my phone was a good one. I really like the convenience of having something to read when I get a few minutes here and there. My phone has a two inch diagonal screen in a portrait orientation, so each page has enough lines of text to keep me from paging constantly. For me, it's quite readable, but then again, I still have good eyesight.
So now I'm going back to booksinmyphone.com to download another book. I have decided to read Siddhartha by Herman Hesse next, mostly on the strength of a recommendation by ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) goulo some time ago.
Tags: what i'm reading
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05:22 pm
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The driving lifestyle, or the lack of it.
Yesterday evening while driving indole from the airport where he's staying, he asked me what were the big shocks when moving back here to Austin and the US in general after nearly four months in Asia. Besides the obvious weather difference, he suggested driving was a big one because I didn't drive the whole time I was there.
Actually, getting back in the car after a few months felt totally familiar, as if I had driven it just the day before. Absolutely no adjustment back to its controls and seats like I experience after renting a car.
What I realized was a big change was how I differently I used the time freed up by not driving. While driving, it's dangerous to do much more than listen to the radio or talk to a passenger. In Singapore, I generally rode public transportation, rode a taxi, or walked. While traveling alone, I generally had my phone or my iPod handy. I frequently read a book on the phone or listened to podcasts, which I could concentrate on because I wasn't also concentrating on driving.
I could listen to podcasts in my car, but it's a pain. The car doesn't have an iPod connector, so I resort to an FM transmitter shell to play the sound through the car radio. I need to dig that up and put in my car so I can at least listen to podcasts while driving to work.
Still there's a lifestyle and quality of life difference here. On any morning with good weather, I walked home from dropping Annetta off at school. That was a 20 minute walk with a little bit of up and down to it. I would usually listen to chinesepod.com free podcast lessons, which are roughly 10 to 15 minutes long. Sometimes I could listen to the lesson twice. So I would work on Chinese and get easy exercise while enjoying the start of the day. Back here in Austin, I'm back to driving everywhere, have to make time to run for exercise, and haven't been listening to Chinese lessons.
Strange how different circumstances lead to such different behavior.
Tags: reflections on singapore
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12:08 am
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Suitcase missing; forms filed.
Today we finally sent in all the forms American Airlines asked us to fill out for our missing suitcase. You have to list all the contents (that you can remember at least) and a value for each item. They even want receipts for anything valued over $100.
We listed all we could and gave them everything else they wanted. There has been no update from them since mid-January, so I really think we'll never see our suitcase and its contents again.
In that case, they do pay some money as compensation. You can elect to take the compensation as American Airlines vouchers worth 20% more than the cash compensation. Nice try, but no thanks, give us our cash!
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11:36 pm
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Postsingular phone
I'm most of the way through Postsingular by Rudy Rucker. It's full of typically Ruckeresque wackiness with lots of intriguing speculation on a world changed by extremely powerful computers. I won't review it; you can visit his website for the novel if you want more details.
I actually started reading this while in Singapore late last year. I enjoyed listening to podcasts while walking home from dropping Annetta off at school or when riding the bus or MRT. Still, I didn't always have my iPod with me, but I always had my phone. On one morning walk, I thought my phone would make a great little ebook reader with it's big screen.
A little googling later, I discovered BooksInMyPhone.com. They package books as little Java applets you can install on your phone. Their instructions don't cover installation on all phones, but some more googling revealed the secret magic key sequence to install the little applications. For some reason, they install as games on my phone, but whatever, the applets make good use of the screen and keypad to display books.
As you might expect, the website if full of classics that are out of copyright. Interestingly, it also features books released under the Creative Commons license. I expect I'll be loading more books in my phone after this one.
Tags: what i'm reading
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11:51 pm
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Chinese New Year, finally celebrated
We were busy during the week, so we celebrated Chinese New Year yesterday. The focus of our celebration was dinner with my in-laws here in Austin and a mutual friend couple and their baby. We went to Shanghai, where I had previously eaten only dim sum.
The food was good, although it was slow to arrive. I especially enjoyed a dish named "duck with eight treasures" or something like that. The steamed fish and roasted chicken were also very good. Everyone thought the sea cucumber dish wasn't as well prepared as it should have been.
Earlier in the day we went to Chinatown Center. It was packed, with a lot of non-Asians curious about the shows in the big tent in the parking lot. We didn't even try to get in there. We ate a late lunch then went grocery shopping. While walking between stores, we managed to score a free ballon for Annetta. Here's a couple of pictures to enjoy
Happy Year of the Rat!
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05:10 pm
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New hot water heater, part 2
Just before noon the installers showed up at our house with the new hot water heater. I was very pleased that they came at the start of the noon - 3PM window I was given yesterday evening. In about an hour and fifteen minutes, they had everything installed and working. Yay!
The old water heater appeared to be the original one installed in the house. Our house was built in 1987, and the lead installer looked at the tag and said it was made in 1987. So I think we were lucky to have gotten years of useful life out of the thing after we moved in.
The downside to this is in the meantime, Austin city building codes have changed, so they needed to do extra work to bring us up to code. Now water heaters have to be 18 inches off the floor of the garage, whether they are electric or gas. The new water heater was short enough to fit with a little rerouting of the piping, and luckily it was just thin enough to fit in the closet as well. I didn't measure that before I went to Lowe's. The closet turns out to be wider than it is deep
The good: we have hot water again!
The bad: the installers had to do extra work
The ugly: the extra work doubled our installation cost. :-(
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