I know that many of you aren't using Firefox yet. In fact, 62% of visits to this site are through Internet Explorer, better than the 89% market share that Microsoft currently has.

If you need further persuading, read this article in the New York Times.

And then click the icon in the right column of this site, and enjoy.

Liv reacts to Santa's unexpected early visit


He shoots, he scores


Si shows off his new wheels

Blow it out! Don't eat it!

On December 1, Simon's gastrointestinal tract went on strike. After some fierce negotiations, the transit systems resumed their normal schedules yesterday in time for Simon to come home on his birthday.

While it was tough to be in the hospital for the past three and a half days, we were thrilled to have Simon back to his sweet and funny self by the time he was discharged today. And we're glad that we have a day to be together as a family before we get to Monday.

I've posted some pictures of our adventure below.


The only family time we've had this week




Simon finds a better use for the lid that keeps his food warm


Simon shows his displeasure at being in the hospital on his birthday with bold abstract strokes


Hurricane Simon
(The hospital threw a little birthday party for Simon, with presents and everything!)

I think Drew's team lost 4-0. He has a mean cross-over dribble, though.

Today marks the 1.0 release of Firefox and officially kicks off Browser War 2 (Electric Boogaloo). I am plugging Firefox partly because I love a grass-roots movement showing signs of sticking it to Microsoft, but mostly because it is an excellent, highly customizable browser.

Though you may have problems getting the site to come up as the servers are being flooded today, I recommend clicking here or on the Firefox link to the right and experiencing it yourself.

I just finished an excellent, though dense, book about the inherent conflicts between capitalism and democracy. In The Soul of Capitalism, William Greider shows how the popular concept of the free market isn't really free. What is the value of individual well-being and dignity, of equality? What is the value of open space and unspoiled air and water?

Nature adds nothing to growth until someone cuts down the trees. Or a river becomes a free dump for factory wastes.... These goods are not counted, economists would say, because how could you? They are unpriced assets, neither bought nor sold.... [But] priceless does not mean worthless.

Greider further explores some of the inherent wastefulness in consumerism, the failings of the free market to provide protection of the environment and workers' rights, and the way capitalism drives political corruption.

Surprisingly, though, this is an optimistic book:

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." That remark has been attributed to Margaret Mead but, whoever said it, the observation resonates down through our history. In democracy, the deep politics originates in social reality, not in legistative halls. People everywhere have the ability to alter social reality, at least in their own surroundings. When they decide to act on their convictions, sooner or later the politics will follow. A meaningful minority can change the nation. I saw it happen in my lifetime. The civil rights movement--composed of the humblest, weakest citizens in the land--set out to liberate themselves from the racial caste system and, as Martin Luther King, Jr., prophesied, they liberated a lot of white people too.

We don't have to lose our sense of self, community, or justice in the name of economic progress. Besides, how much economic progress have we really made when a man with crushing chest pain has to think twice before going to the emergency room in the fear of economic ruin for his family?

Greider makes a pretty good argument that if corporations are forced to take the long view, and not just focus on quarterly earnings, they will start to account for all the priceless things they now ignore. He includes examples while acknowledging that they represent a tiny minority of businesses.

If you find this book too dense, another similar book that tweaked my perspective and was a quicker read was Eric Schlosser's Fast-Food Nation. I'll warn you, though. You might not want to eat fast food again.

What books have you read lately?

Had to lighten things up around here. Courtesy of NTodd.

"Whenever I despair, I remember that the way of truth and love has always won. There may be tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they may seem invincible, but in the end, they always fail. Think of it: always." - Gandhi

Carved from Drew's own design, featuring spider eyes, a heart for a nose, and a Spongebob Squarepants smile

We went to the library today to find that they had booths set up for early voting. It was the same as regular voting, except I basically filled out and turned in an absentee ballot. I marked my preferences with a number two pencil. No chads, no black box touch screen computers. Kerry was the top choice on the ballot, which I figure is probably good for a fraction of a percent. (If Bush had been listed second on the infamous Florida butterfly ballot, we wouldn't be at war in Iraq.)

I like the idea of voting on election day, but I thought I'd avoid all the Republican obstructionists.

I can't imagine that I will ever vote in a swing state again.

"Feels like the world's at stake..."

This picture of Monument Valley (looking southward) was taken on my flight from Las Vegas to Cedar Rapids.



Last night when we were looking at the picture, we went to the Wikipedia to find out more about Monument Valley. We found this handy illustration there (click to enlarge, as always):



This picture is rotated about 45 degrees counterclockwise because the photographer was flying from San Francisco to Houston and the view is looking more westward. I thought it was cool.

Anyway, we spent another half-hour just randomly looking up whatever came into our heads. I'm adding the Wikipedia to my links (on the right) because I find it totally fascinating. Here is how it describes itself:

Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org) is a multilingual "copyleft"
encyclopedia that is editable by anyone. It is collaboratively edited and maintained by thousands of users via wiki software, and is hosted and suported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. In addition to typical encyclopedia entries, Wikipedia includes information more often associated with almanacs, gazetteers, and specialist magazines; and coverage of current events.

I could go there right now and add my knowledge of TiVo or whatever.

This is democracy (or anarchy?) applied to product development. It is the same philosophy that gave birth to Mozilla Firefox and Linux, which gave birth to TiVo!

We call her Electra

What do adult brothers do when confronted with a child's play thing?

I just finished watching a most fascinating movie called The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara. The title refers to the Secretary of Defense during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Only the greatest authors in history could dream up such a hero/villain as ambivalent and ambiguous as real life. To me, he is everything that is great and wrong about America at the same time.

A couple of quotes that hit me:

Referring to this country's unilateral action in Vietnam, he said, "If we can't persuade nations with comparable values of the merit of our cause, we better reexamine our reasoning." Does that sound familiar to anyone?

Regarding his dealings with the press: "Never answer the question that is asked of you; answer the question that you wish had been asked of you." Clearly, this has become one of politic's ten commandments.

There is a whole lot more. You should watch it.

Hint: Zion National Park is in the background (right side)


The view looking north from our property

Sometimes, this city is so gosh-darn baseball-and-apple-pie American that it is a bit surreal. I am reminded of the scene in Funny Farm where everyone acts like the people in Normal Rockwell pictures so their hated neighbor can sell his home. Come to think of it, our neighbors were having an open house as the balloon flew over. Hmmm.

Last night: Liv's bed was clean when we put her in it


Tonight: Olivia dreams of being a swimmer

One day we'll reach a great ocean
At the end of a pale afternoon
And we'll lay down our heads just like we were sleeping
And be towed by the drag of the moon
- Sting




Simon usually likes baths


Olivia trying to look mad

Here's a classic for you

There's something about these pictures of my neighbor's tree. Can't put my finger on it...

I heard from a few of you that the comments require you to sign up for blogger. (You can actually chime in anonymously, but that's no fun.)

Now when you click on comments, you can leave your thoughts without registering and with any name you so desire. You do not have to include your email address or URL. In fact, I recommend against including your email address unless you like more spam.

It's more fun when you post comments, so post away!

Via Engadget...

Some guy found a memory card with a year's worth of photos on it when he was riding in a New York taxi. You should go see what he is doing with them.

Update: I guess the guy found where his pictures were. All the pictures have been taken off the site. The only thing left there is a message reading, "That's it. Sorry folks." Too bad.

"Prime numbers are what is left when you have taken all the patterns away. I think prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them."

I'm sure many of you are aware of this controversy, but I need to weigh in. I picked up the first book chosen for Salt Lake City's book club, SLC Reads Together. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is the story of an autistic teen who sets out to solve the mystery of who killed the neighbor's dog.

Nevermind that SLC is promoting literacy and common understanding through a community book club. The important thing here is, *gasp*, there is profanity in this book. What is it with would-be censors these days? Don't they understand that they are just making the book more popular? It's a good thing, though. This was a great book. I highly recommend it, as long as you can avoid having a heart attack when you read the dreaded "c word".

My take on profane words: They are the code words that people don't speak. Some people have decided to identified by the words they don't use, like the Sneetches who are proud that they don't have stars. If you use profanity, you are out of the club. I try not to swear around people because I know they will get offended. But if someone swears casually (i.e., without hurtful intent) around me, I will treat him no differently than someone who says, "Oh, poo."

Bottom line: swear words were invented with the intent to divide us. And it's working.

I know some of you will disagree, and that's okay. I'm probably wrong.

I am 33 years old today, so I started wondering when I'll be a third of a century old. With the help of this handy site, I know that I should celebrate January 7, 2005. Other fun facts that I learned:

• I turned 1 billion seconds old on my sister Janet's 40th birthday, May 17, 2003. (And everyone thought we were having a party for her!)


• I missed my 10,000th day celebration on January 24, 1999


• I will be 20 million minutes old on September 17, 2009


• I likely won't live to see my 1,000,000th hour. I would have to live to be 114 years old (October 6, 2085), though the website didn't have any opinions of the odds of that happening.

I also found out that I was born the same day as David Arquette, so I am really excited.

We took a short trip to the Twin Cities and had a nice time. Of course, we had to spend a day at Camp Snoopy in the Mall of America. My only disappointment on the trip: no authentic Minnesotan accents. (Brook claims to have heard a "You betcha" at Walmart and was asked if she wanted the wet wipes in the bag--pronounced with a long a--so I'm jealous.)


Okay, so the quality isn't great, but if you take a photo of the TV monitor, you don't have to buy the picture.

This has to be one of the best polls ever. I want to know what "other" words people are using. Fanta?

Update: I found the "other" data here. (Warning, some people used some not-so-nice terms for their answers.) Though not common in the States, Fanta is apparently used by Russians as a generic term for soda, er, pop, er, soda pop.

I love it when people try to get cute with naming their businesses. We walked by the Dress Barn today. That name evokes a certain dirtiness, or maybe one might think that they sell only large clothing, i.e., we'll dress you if you are as big as a barn. Am I the only one that has had this impression?

There is a hair salon in North Salt Lake called Snarlz. First of all, nice z. Only slightly better than using ks wherever possible, like Kwik-E-Mart. But the dumbest thing is this: isn't a snarl a bad thing with hair? It would be like me starting a medical clinic called The Clap.

Of course, my first choice if I were to start a restaurant in Utah would be Squeat, which is Utahn for "Let's go eat!" I think it would be catchy, but then some guy with a blog would make fun of me, I'm sure of it. Now that it is written down, maybe that word looks too much like sweat, which isn't very appetizing. I could spell it Squeet, which looks more like sweet. Much better.

After a week of soggy weather, it was an ideal day for a walk to the park.