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This is what it looks like when you put the dads in charge. During our Christmas trip to D.C., Sally and Jennie (Matt’s sister) were out shopping one day, leaving childcare in the hands of two calm and capable males. Peanut allergies be damned. If a family-sized jar of creamy peanut butter is what it takes to make these kids sit on the couch and behave themselves, then so be it. At least they’re using a spoon.       Sorry for the hiatus, folks. Christmas travel, law school graduations, strep infections, and computer problems have conspired to keep us away from our blog. Here are a couple different sets of pictures from our pre-Christmas trip down to Oklahoma for Susan’s graduation from law school. For those of you who don’t know her, Susan is Sally’s middle sister. She just finished law school, and threw one heck of a couldn’t-have-done-it-without-you party. We’re proud of you, Sue.
January 8, 2007 - 3:44 pm
Glad to see you guys are back. Hope you're all feeling better. We're battling a round of colds at our house too. Congrats to Susan. It's fun to see pictures of the family. The kids are growing fast. The New York Times ran a list of fifteen questions that all couples should ask before they marry. Reading the list, I noticed that it’s practically identical (in scope if not in particularity) to the themes covered by good old Father Dave Farnum in our marriage preparation with the Catholic Church. For all the complaining that couples do about attending these churchy sessions, more people should use them. You might walk into a church marriage-prep session expecting the goal to be conversion or simple spiritual platitudes. This list reminded me, though, that Dave’s primary concern in our wedding prep was the nuts-and-bolts of marriage: who’s going to dress the kids? How many checking accounts? Sure, he was interested in our spirituality. More particularly, though, he wanted to know if my thoughts on such matters were compatible with Sally’s, and that we had the tools to work through our differences. As we approach five years of marriage, I’m glad we were asking these questions from the start.
December 22, 2006 - 3:05 pm
Excellent questions. After 16 years, I find that it's good to KNOW where your mate stands on ALL of those issues. When you think of all the possible answers to those questions and the potential clashes…isn't it a miracle we've found our mates. GOD is SOOO good…dg
December 29, 2006 - 1:31 am
When are you going to put up Christmas Pics!!!
January 1, 2007 - 7:32 pm
come on Gulde's, getting restless here! need pics!
January 2, 2007 - 12:33 am
count me chimed in with Amber. she's on to something. i also wanted to offer my sincerest congratulations and tip of the hat to the funniest/saddest Christmas card ever in the history of photo cards. damn, i wish i was a gulde!! This is a recording of a conversation between a guy named George Vaccaro and Verizon customer service. Apparently, Verizon had quoted George a data transfer rate of “.002 cents/KB,” but when he received his bill he discovered that they charged him for .002 dollars per KB. While you and I may know the difference between two thousandths of a cent and two thousandths of a dollar, it is clear from this call (and a follow-up email received by George) that Verizon does not. If a single call-center person made this thoughtless mistake, I could understand it. But there were at least five different Verizon employees who told George that some fraction of a dollar is equal to that same fraction of a cent. If you listen to the audio file, you will be astounded by George’s patience with his tormentors. If only I’d had that patience when I taught math to high schoolers in 1997. This particular decimal/unit related story reminds me of my first day teaching a remedial math class. Not knowing where exactly these kids stood on math skills, I started with what I thought was a simple question. I wrote two numbers on the board: 2.99 and 3.01. I made them big, one on each side of the board, so everyone could see. “Which one of these numbers is bigger?” I asked, wanting to get the ball rolling with an easy question. The class was split. Worse, those who happened to choose correctly didn’t have particularly sound reasons for it. My pulse quickened. I started sweating. Any illusion of myself as a competent teacher vanished as I started to realize the distance my students needed to travel. Not all illusions. I had the answer – the laserbeam that would burn this concept into the hearts and minds of my students. These kids all used money. I would reach their minds through their wallets, and use dollars and pennies to illustrate the importance of decimal places. For a moment, I was Mark Thackery and Jaime Escalante rolled into one. “Would you rather have two dollars and ninety-nine cents, or three dollars and one cent?” I asked one of the more outspoken students, and then stood back to bask in the glow of lightbulbs clicking on over each head in the room. The student rubbed his chin thoughtfully, and then stage-whispered, “man, you can’t buy shit with that.” It was that kind of year. There were many more days when I could be found arguing on behalf of ideas that I’d once considered self-evident – such as 3.01 > 2.99. So, hats off to George Vaccaro. His patience during this twenty-minute phone call should be an example to us all.
December 11, 2006 - 3:11 am
Not a bad way to pass the time. I enjoyed the phone call. I wish I knew what happened next!
December 11, 2006 - 3:47 pm
Dude,
December 11, 2006 - 4:15 pm
Andrew is listening now!
December 11, 2006 - 8:56 pm
Isn't this maddening!
December 12, 2006 - 9:07 pm
This is priceless. Thanks for the laugh. I am absolutely amazed at his patience. I would have gone ballistic five minutes in. BTW, I passed the recording along (giving Matt full credit) to a bunch of people. I also found the guy's blog: http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/ According to the blog he was eventually credited for the charge. Karen This weekend, we bundled up the kids and went to the zoo for a little pinch of their Holiday Magic (all rights reserved by Brookfield Zoo). Santa and Mrs. Claus were there, and they consented to be photographed with our children. Francis was very reluctant until Mrs. Claus gave her two floating-glitter pens. Sally and I were discussing the lost art of the santa photo on the drive back. Sally has these beautiful photographs with santa from her youth. Sally’s santa pictures are quality prints, from a time before cursed cheap photo printers. Just as important, they’re artful photos: they’re thoughfully composed and reasonably lit. And they’re not from some fancy studio; they’re the product of a department store in Lawton, OK. The difference between then and now is apparent to anyone with eyes. At Brookfield this weekend (and at Marshall Fields last year) some poor Santa was photographed again and again under bad light, in front of an ill-conceived background, and by untrained staff who then printed the image immediately with equipment they didn’t know how to use. I don’t have a copy of the actual picture on flickr, but trust me, it was bad. Santa photos used to be nice. Now they’re not. Why is that? The department store in Lawton, undoubtedly hired a professional photographer to come take pictures of little Okies sitting on santa’s lap. Somewhere along the way, department stores decided that digital photography and portable photo printers could replace the human photographer. The stores had incentive to replace him. Surely its cheaper not to hire a professional photographer for this gig. Not only that, but his schedule probably limited the number of hours the stores could offer santa photos. Why not put a machine and a few button-pushers in his place? Who’ll notice?
December 7, 2006 - 9:22 pm
Whoa, whoa… spousal miscommunication here. Lawton has no such department store. Dear Lord, leave anything to Central mall in OK and trust me, they'll "Brass Buckle" it. No, no… the photos he's refering to are from when we lived in Seattle. They were taken at Marshall Fields and Nordstrom.
December 7, 2006 - 11:51 pm
Matt, do you also find that the early bird specials at the cafeteria are getting too darn late, and are you constantly bemoaning the presence of kids on your lawn? 🙂
December 15, 2006 - 5:08 am
Hahaha, I was like what? I mean I am older than Sally and I don't remember those good 'ol days and then I saw Sally's comment and was like ok, that is what I thought! Clarksville is like Lawton, so we are heading to the Green Hills mall on Monday in Nashville in hopes of the perfect Santa pic. Seriously the Santa here is way skinny and his beard does not fit his face and it is all tangled, so white trash Santa, in a good way white trash, did I just write that? Ok, enough rambling, my first glass of champagne since I was pregnant and nursing constantly, hahaha. Ok, really enough. I could keep typing, but now I am starting to annoy myself. |
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