Answered but not Asked

There are a lot of pieces of advice which would-be parents get.  Some of the advice is good, and some of it is terrible (feel free to ignore any).  There are, however, a few areas where I got completely surprised by parenthood, so I thought sharing my example could be a little helpful.

• Work on your upper-body strength.  A newborn is something like 8lbs, but they grow and get heavy fast.  This is doubly-true with car seats, strollers, etc.  You’ll get stronger no matter what; if you start a little early, you can reduce your risk of a tendon problem, muscle tear, etc.  
• Baby sleep is different from adult sleep.  Daytime naps beget and abet nighttime sleep.  That is, “he hasn’t slept all day, so he’ll sleep well tonight” is unlikely to be correct.  Some kids sleep well on the go, but some don’t.  Each kid is different, and different parents are different.  
• If there is work that needs to be done one your house (eg refinishing floors, painting, fixing AC etc), it is a lot easier to do that during a pregnancy than once you have a kid.  It’s also easy to put things off, thinking “I have time for that.”   That rarely makes for less actual work.
• There is little that makes the horrible IKEA instructions look better than everything else’s instructions.  I’m pretty convinced that some of these things are actually IQ tests, and I failed.  I think this must be common.  I very cleverly and wrongly installed two different car seats.  

Enjoy the whirlwind!

Last [year], I gave you my heart…

Last year was a mixed bag for me.

On the one hand, the rabbi of my synagogue betrayed the community in a devastating manner- undermining confidence in institutional and hurting a whole lot of people, with the implication that litigation will now roll over the community like a wave of suck. The feeling of today, the tenth of Tevet, the day on which Jerusalem was besieged, don’t feel inappropriate.

On the other hand, our daughter was born, and I think the experience of being a dad is about the coolest thing ever. Our community (the same one which is getting slammed so badly, first by the actions of the rabbi, and now by lawsuits and recriminations) was extremely kind, generous, and loving – welcoming Roya with open arms. Beautiful. My parents also have been wonderful- we’ve spent a lot more time with one set, and the other set are moving here to be closer. Only good things there.

I think the gripping hand is that the year gave me a great example in how God’s hand is what guides events, and how much of life is actually outside individual control. I can at best control my own actions, which are now not even a majority in my own house.

I hope those things which are out of control are positive for all of us in 2015.

A Slip In Time

This is the first original explanation explaining the passage of the “A”CA I’ve yet seen. Everything else looking at the difference between European state-run health care systems and the US one has basically boiled down to either “American Exceptionalism” or “Insufficient Progress” depending on the opinion of the possessor.

I think Hoyt might have really hit the nail on the head with this one.

According To Hoyt

I’m not going to pound on the fiasco that is the “socialist convention named” Affordable Care Act.  (There is no affordable in the care act, just like there was no Democratic in the Deutshe Republic and there certainly is very little input from the people in China’s People Republic.)

I’m not going to pound on it, only examine why our reaction to the fiasco it is (and likely will continue being) is so immediate and in your face, when it is true that in most countries with centralized health care, people are fond/proud of it in some way.

Honestly, I think the left had convinced itself that even if it were a very rough start, as this is proving, we would swallow and go along, because other countries have/had.  They thought we would grumble, and moan, but eventually we’d be happy to have that government-provided-health care and not mind too…

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More USPS follies

You might think that the Christmas season, the busiest package mailing time of year, would be anticipated by the Post Office. But you’d be wrong. Many businesses hire seasonal temps to handle the extra load, but apparently not the USPS.

At the Georgetown PO, I’ve been in line for ~40 minutes and am about halfway through the line. There’s one teller open. When another clerk came out of the back, the first clerk closed her station.

Wasn’t there a whole bunch of handwringing about the USPS financial viability? I think I might have an idea about where they’re missing the mark.

A mass of incandescent gas

Number of days in Israel: 6
Number of clouds observed in that time: 0

Number of days in the Washington DC area: 5
Number of times the sun was visible: 0

They tell me that there is a big fusion reactor 93 million miles away, but I can’t say that I’ve seen much evidence for it recently. I’ve been waiting for a voice to call out: “I COMMAND YOU TO BUILD AN ARK…”