Gradin.com » child

Lost and Found: 1 Grecian ‘Stache

Olaf — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 19:07:19 +0000

All of you will surely recognize the man on the left. His biblical image comes at you in all of its hair and puffy-shirtness like a thunder clap. Yanni stands as the hairiest, women-loving man I know [of]…though Hugh Jackman must be at the top of this game too! And on his right is the much subdued version of the eighties visage, also Yanni. When did this happen? No ‘stache to whisper its childhood stories to concert viewers. No curly locks of Grecian do to reveal the arcane secrets of musical composition. It’s a transitive state of Yanni’s image much in the same way we all saw Metallica shed their fettered styles of 80′s heavy metal.

So Yanni will be coming to Duluth in April at the Gwinnett thingy (Arena, perhaps?). I know most of my known world will simply abuse me verbally for going to a Yanni concert (which will actually be my third or fourth), but I couldn’t give a crap. If you’ve never seen one of these concerts, you really don’t know what you’re missing. It’s a phenomenal appreciation of the musical arts, internationally complete. I suppose many of you only like your music for its pop artist front [wo]man, but I really enjoy the instrumental musicality of it all. I would compare what Yanni conducts on his stages to that of the Cirque du Soleil band (on a small scale) and Dream Theater / Liquid Tension Experiment. You could draw comparisons with Phish and Wide Spread Panic. All of these bands have two things in common: they’re killer jam bands and composed of some very talented musicians.

Scientist Poop and the Epic Fail

Olaf — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:42:51 +0000

Our son recently contracted Streptococcus within his person. We’re all familiar with such things, but the signs of this particular infection alluded us. We knew he had a stomach ache, but little else. The stomach ache became chronic and Balthazar the harbinger used is poo oracle to let us know something was truly wrong. We found out later in the week that Balthazar had experienced several “Scientist Poops,” which turns out to be what the slow-minded adults refer to as “diarrhea.” I asked Balthazar why he called it this, and he simply said it was because it “looked like Scientist.” I still don’t really know what this means, though I imagine any hopes that he may one day become a brilliant scientist are now futile.

In a completely unrelated story…

Humans give off subtle signs of emotional and physical wellness through involuntary interactions of the psyche. Some of these things manifest themselves as physical aberrations, though primarily they go unnoticed by all but the most well-attuned.

My lovely wife, mother of our two children, gave me these subtle signs recently in a way that could not go unnoticed. At some ungodly hour of the wee, my wife woke me with slurring speech to notify me of my duty for the baby girl in the house. She had been working late that night, and had probably only just gotten to sleep an hour earlier when Sorscha woke her. I took on the charge with no questions. When I reached for Sorscha, I found that she was rather soaked, as well as the pad she lay upon. During these cold nights, her pajamas take the form of what’s known as a Sleep Sack. It’s a wonderful invention in which you simply bag your child in a zipped enclosure and allow them to steam gently in their own moisture. Some (ours) include the ever-helpful swaddling wrap that Velcros tightly around the child so as to prevent escape and recognition as anything but a human-faced grub. When I opened her sack, I found that she was completely naked and a loose diaper was balled-up in the corner of her little sauna. It was as if the changing included such activities as:

Open zipped-enclosure
Toss in diaper and seal tightly
Gently shake to activate absorption.

Needless to say, I performed the cleanup, fed her, and reintroduced her to a drier version of her bed.

And the message was well-received that my wife was rather beyond simply being “tired.” Sleep deprivation can do some interesting things to a person, but thankfully humans have an innate method by which these things can be communicated.

A Baby Changes Everything

Olaf — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 21:48:20 +0000

Remarkably, the biggest change at the Gradin household is simply in our perception. There are all sorts of things that change when a new child is born into your family. Your free time dries up, your bank account empties, you become more selfless. But when you already have an older child, the thing we noticed was that the older child stopped being a baby in our eyes. I never realized how big he was – how big his hands were. It’s harder to carry him sleeping into his bed at night. This new addition, so small and defenseless, makes us realize in ways you can’t truly convey to anyone that she’s the only baby in the house. Perhaps Balthazar became “our first child.” Even though he’s only five years old, I sense that he’s more in charge of his destiny and in self discovery now. Sorscha, on the other hand, seems to have so much more malleable potential tied up in her.

I’m doing my best to ensure that I don’t lose sight of the treasures still to come in our first-born while our attention is diverted to this little girl. It can be a struggle keeping up with everything at home while still making time for me and Balthazar to play the games we used to play. Easing that, he’s recently really gotten into board games. I can keep an eye (and ear) on Sorscha while we play board games without being too distracted to give him my attention. It’s also easier to allocate this time, as our outside time has been cut short for the coming winter.

This experience of having our second child – some 5 years apart from our first – has given us new wisdom that I feel one can only gain through life.

One cannot fully appreciate what happens to the being at the birth of your first child. You undergo a transformation unlike anything before or after that moment. I remember seeing a baby born vaginally when I was an adolescent, and the experience gave me some spine-tingling chills that hinted at this fact. When we had our first child, the internal shift from my awareness of self: man, husband, child, protector, supplier, etc., went spiraling around and may have momentarily just been forgotten. It didn’t matter anymore. The thing I remember most – and perhaps something that sums up a great deal of this feeling – is that I lost my sense of invulnerability. Perhaps it’s passed on to the next generation – much to a parent’s chagrin.

Now at the birth of our second child, we see the real development of our first. Less of the initial surge of fatherhood that fills you, though a new awareness of everything that can’t be ignored.

I really mean to say that there are some lessons in life that we’re taught, but can never be appreciated until experienced. You were told that you’d one day look back at your school days and realize you were having the time of your life. You’re told that a child will change you. I’ve heard that time flies as you get older. “One day you’ll understand…” All of these things go unheeded as our elders press them into our heads. Being at the crossroads of naivety and understanding, I want to impart a sort of enlightenment to those behind me on the path. But who am I kidding? I’m just saying the same thing…

Offspring, Part Deaux

Olaf — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 01:42:20 +0000

In nine days, we’ll be a family of four, having welcomed a new baby girl into the Gradin household on the 24th of this month…at 6:00am. That’s how we role. My wife likes to plan for the unplannable. However, she has made certain assurances for this life-event, and I have little doubt that this date and time are correct.

We’re all looking very much forward to meeting her. You might find yourself wondering what her name is going to be, but you will keep on doing so. So far, absolutely zero people in the known universe (besides Amy and I) are aware of her name. There’s a chance that an advanced race of telepaths may have already discovered our secret. It’s a game we played with Balthazar’s name as well. The reason is largely because we’re not interested in hearing anyone’s doubts, concerns, suggestions, or comments otherwise on our name choice(s). It’s hardest with family, which always has a certain lasting psychological and emotional consequence on the mind. While the name is very important, it is of little matter what that specific name is, really. Once a child’s name is set, it’s generally hard to imagine that child by any other name. That said, the name is nothing more than a parental choice – a right. It’s perhaps the first of many experiments that will imbue your legacy, because what are children if not the parents’ result from hypothesis and experiment.

No doubt many of you wait with bated breath. Still others dread the possibilities. Maybe in the end it will be no big surprise at all.

The First Day at School

Olaf — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 17:58:12 +0000

Yesterday was Balthazar’s first day of school. It started early that morning and the whole family was up for the affair. We drove him in and walked him to his class. It’s one of those “big steps” in a child’s life. I am excited about the idea of him becoming independent and beginning his formal education. He’s growing up and I look forward to all the things we’ll do together in the years to come. Amy, on the other hand, has a distinctly different take on her little baby’s first steps in the big world. Her experience was miserable as a child, and didn’t apparently get much better in later years. She hated school, and she doesn’t want Balthazar to have a hard time either. Balthazar began his journey into the world with a brave heart. I was proud of him for being so courageous in the face of the unknown – I had very few worries.

After school, Balthazar was to take a bus over to his after-school care with some friends – apparently more like 20. We knew it was a lot to manage in one day, so we agreed to pick him up early from there. He barely managed to get out some vague details about his day before he passed out completely in his car seat. The guy was worn flat-out by his adventures. It turns out his day was a mixture of fear and fun. We weren’t able to convey the amount of time he’d spend at school, though technically it was less than what he spent in pre-K and after-school before. He got scared and cried a little bit early in the day. After some lunch and recess time, it sounded like he came to better terms with it.

As parents, we hate to know that our child was upset and afraid. You’re completely helpless when they’re away and having these feelings. I guess that’s what it is that parents really get upset over when their child gains some independence. You really feel the need to continue helping them and holding their hands when obstacles arrive, but you just have to let them make a go at it themselves. You do everything you can to ensure that they’re going to do good in the world and that they’ll have every manner of protection at their disposal, then you send them out the door to see how you did. It surprised me a lot that he had an emotional break-down at school. Not that that’s unordinary by any means, I just thought that he would have such a great time.

Today is Friday and he’s off on his second day at school. As a testament to his courage, he said yesterday that he wanted to go again. Even though there were some rough spots to contend with, Balthazar has stood back up to give it another try. I believe that he’ll have done much better this time, and he may even begin doing the things that we all loved at school; making friends.

Top 5: Things You Wanted to Know About Me

Olaf — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 14:41:50 +0000

The meme is apparently now a lost word; used only by uncool dads and hipless (as in the lack of being hip) half-wits. I’m getting on in years, relatively speaking, and am inclined to use such lingo as to embarrass those who would be so easily offended.

For lack of better alternatives, I bring to you the current meme on my plate. Young whipper-snappers may be unfamiliar with this word, but it is essentially an Internet chain-letter. Spazzmanda passed this on to me from her blog, where she refers to such activities as “tagging.” I always thought that was a cultural art of defacement by way of graffiti, but what does an old fart like me know.

The Rules: Rules are posted at the beginning. At the end of the post, the player tags 5 people and posts their names. Then the player goes to each of the “named” people’s blogs and leaves a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. If you’ve been tagged, you do the same, letting the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer. Your answer, of course, is the answer to the following questions. Here we go!

1. What was I doing 10 years ago? One decade ago I was two months from my 2nd wedding anniversary with my lovely wife, Amy. We had no children, though we had pets. We were in our first year at our first house together (and current house). Amy was still in school at North Georgia College and State University (though it may not have been a State University at the time), and I was working for…Whittman-Hart, perhaps. I was a consultant beginning to cut my teeth on information systems security. It would be my primary job and objective for the next several years. I registered gradin.com for the first time – it was a standard 2-year registration and cost me $70.00 (I think my last registration was $8.95 for a year). I was finally able to access my awesome Mindspring account web space using my rocking X2 US Robotics Sportster (externel) modem via www.gradin.com. I was working in Allaire’s Cold Fusion, though I couldn’t afford a license for the server to host my own site using their technology. I used Allaire’s Homesite as my primary editor with Photoshop and Fractal Painter as my graphics packages. I think I was trying to get onto Bellsouth’s xDSL beta program, but with no luck due to my distance from the carrier. I was, however, involved with Wachovia’s beta online account access. It was a glorified BBS – awesome!

2. What are 5 things on my to-do list today? I’ve got ESX hosts to convert to 3.5i, installable. SAN storage to attach, and VMs to migrate both through traditional migrations, as well as the new and improved Storage VMotion. I also have some process proposal documentation to get done for the collected efforts of the Norcross lab engineering team, as well as that of our Hillsboro office. I hope to get some ping-pong in at lunch, ride my bike 10 miles back to my car, and then facilitate a drum circle for 100 people in northeast Georgia with some friends.

3. Snacks I enjoy: Have you tried my nuts? They’re salty and dimensionally variant. I enjoy the texture especially, though others are just happy I am able to share – there’s more than enough for everyone to enjoy! I also like beef jerky and granola bars.

4. Places I’ve lived: I’ve had a good spread in my life, though as of late my homestead has been very static. I began in Ocean Springs, MI; moved to Plano, TX, and then jumped to San Diego, CA shortly thereafter. We moved a couple of times there, but finally moved out the state to Tuscon, AZ. From there, we departed for Waycross, GA, and then onto Gainesville, GA where I live now. I’ve moved several times throughout both of these places in Georgia, and I’ve been here the longest amount of time so far.

5. Things I would do if I were a billionaire: This is actually the title of a post I’ve been working on for a while now. It’s a recurring theme throughout our decade+ of marriage, and one that will most likely continue to develop and mature in time. The most boring thing I think of from our list is to pay-off debt and acquire some commercial real estate to lease. There’s money accumulation prospects in that, so we would do well to set ourselves for the inevitable loss of said billions through the frivolous purchases from our list. There are two more intriguing opportunities: 1) Develop a waterfront district on Lake Lanier – a boardwalk with shops and dining – that aids in the lake’s restoration efforts, as well as providing some awareness about the lake’s ecosystem. 2) Convert an old mill on the outskirts of town into a turn-of-the-century arts and crafts guild. History tells us that these guilds are mere congregations of passionate people in the arts and crafts and generally have no ability to sustain themselves financially.

5 “Tagged”

The Year is 2035…

Olaf — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 20:25:02 +0000

Perhaps some of you are aware of Charles Lindbergh’s other work. Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic Ocean in 1927, but a few years later he was able to get some time with the surgeon, Dr. Alexis Carrel to discuss some common interests. It turns out that Lindbergh believed it to be possible to build a heart valve replacement synthetically. Carrel was already in the process of studying organs outside of the human body in his own designs, but infection inevitably set in and destroyed the parts. With Carrel’s help, Lindbergh was able to build the perfusion pump by which organs could be maintained “indefintely.”

There’s a more sinister element to this story when you tie Carrel to this story. Carrel was influenced by the times leading up to World War II in Europe and believed he was working towards a common ideal of eugenics. While he might have used the word eugenics at the time, put in perspective with World War II most of us think Adolf Hitler, Nazi Germany, and genocide. There were some debates in the late 1990′s that give rise to the question of whether or not Carrel was involved in any inhumane practices to harvest the organs on which his experiements relied. In Carrel’s book; L’Homme, cet inconnu (Man, The Unknown), published in 1935, he advocated the use of gas chambers to rid humanity of “inferior stock.”

It’s 2035 c.e. now and the 100th anniversary is upon us to commemorate Lindbergh’s and Carrel’s fantastic inventions based on the perfusion pump. Young adults, classrooms, and spoiled children everywhere are keen on one thing this Christmas – the Centennial Man!

In 1935 Charles Lindbergh and Alexis Carrel unveiled the perfusion pump; a thing of science fiction creativity and unimaginable medical repercussions. In its early years, the perfusion pump could maintain whole organs outside of the living anatomical system. Soon after, these pumps were perfected to maintain more complex systems for extended periods of time. Now, it seems, organic cellular metabolism has no mortality given the proper, sterile conditions of its vascular system. What was once termed “a twist of vitrified bowel oozing out of a clear glass bottle” becomes the concept for Rockefeller University’s “Centennial Man.” The Centennial Man will last 100 years with no maintenance at all and fully encapsulates the human anatomy for the entertainment and education of its controller. The Centennial Man is operated on a simple wireless controller which takes standard programmable function logic from a computer system running the Centennial Man SDK. Provided with over 140 pre-built routines, you can control Centennial Man to behave as though it were alive! Centennial Man is made entirely from natural organs encased within a cadaver for life-like simulations. While not exactly the perfusion pump of 1935, Centennial Man is based entirely* on a microscalar version of this premise – systematically reintroduced inline with the organs and vascular system of the anatomy to maintain the organic cellular functions as if it were a living body. Only this body will last 100 years through the genius of a fluid regenerative micro perfusion pump system!

Educators will enthrall their students with a complete functioning anatomical system to dissect. Impress your friends with your very own animated cadaver – program it scratch your back, rub your feet, or fold your clothes. The possibilities are endless!

* Centennial Man does not have a functioning nervous system. To replicate this function and provide programmability, the nervous system (including the brain) has been replaced with advanced micro circuitry and an AI logic core function processor. Carbon nano tubes are necessary to interface this system with the various micro perfusion pump systems and vascular control valves to maintain their viability within the system.

Centennial Man requires special food, available from most major retailers, to maintain its growth nutrient and blood supply to organs. Centennial Man also discharges an excrement approximately weekly that should be disposed of properly.

It’s Like Watching NASCAR on Acid

Olaf — Tue, 27 May 2008 03:13:20 +0000

We went out on Mother’s Day with some friends to see what we all knew would be a bad movie, Speed Racer. Between the 9 or so adults, there were also 3 children around Balthazar’s age. If nothing else, we thought they would thoroughly enjoy the over-the-top cheese and hyper-saturated pop-film. We might have all enjoyed it [some] if it hadn’t been for the fact that it lasted about 70 minutes too long.

I will admit, there were some classic Speed Racer moments that I enjoyed, but they could have been wrapped up into a hip music video or something. Perhaps a short film. The effects were awesome in many cases, over the top in the others. However, I recognize that it was an effect the Wachowski brothers were going for. The effects didn’t bother me too much, though the final race is pretty mind-bending. If you suffer from epileptic seizures from flashing lights, this movie is probably not for you.

The Home School Phenomenon

Olaf — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 15:14:07 +0000

Man has been on a quest throughout time to find the riddle of the root of all evil. Ole-Magnus Saxegard, a student of the Sydney-based University of Technology, explores this riddle in his latest frame-by-frame Flash animation (A History of Evil). It is a brilliant vision. If he’s looking for further inspiration to this age-old question, I have yet another clue…from the future!

I have noticed over the past several years that home-schooling seems to have risen in popularity. Initially, I was impressed at the number of people involved in the home school method. I later learned that many of these home school students actually get together on some routine frequency to develop socially, as well as to share the responsibility of teaching across multiple parents. I can’t say for sure, but I’m guessing this is a bit of a regression. Didn’t school systems start this way? Finally,there seemed to be an ulterior motive to home schooling. There have been a rash of parent vs. government cases over the last decade regarding the use of faith-based programs in school systems. Of late, Darwinian Evolution and Intelligent Design are the major contention points. Home schooling seems to be the concerned parents’ answer. A parent that disagrees with the educational system – perhaps also disagreeing with private systems, or unable to afford them – can pull their child back into the home where teaching is at the discretion of the family. From a Little House on the Prairie ideal, this seems like a charming social shift in America. However, I see it as a disaster for our future. If children are taught through home school primarily to reinforce religious perspectives on science, then our legacy’s potential for critical thinking is severely limited. The views of the parents will extend through to their children, and while not obviously as detrimental as racism, will inevitably give rise to ostracism.

See: Twin Cities Creation Science Association Sponsors Home School Science Fair

World of Wheels

Olaf — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 16:11:07 +0000

We attended our first ever World of Wheels show in Atlanta this year with friends. We are largely unfamiliar with the “World of Wheels,” as it were, though it was actually cooler than I had imagined. Balthazar had a time running from brightly colored car to Hot Wheels-inspired dream. We enjoyed the fantastic detail put into the artwork in the show. I didn’t realize that the pros painted pin stripe details by hand! We watched a guy doing some work on a Power Wheels truck. The highlight for the boy was a Lightning McQueen replica and a cameo appearance of SpongeBob and friends. While the Nickelodeon cartoon stars don’t exactly say “World of Wheels,” they did entertain the children.