I almost have a lawyer for a brother. The Colorado Supreme Court just posted a list of people who passed the Bar Exam and he’s on it.
Now all he needs is to be sworn in. What an accomplishment. CONGRATULATIONS!
Tag: family
Yesterday we got a dog. We’ve been talking about it for a long time and Laura and I had decided by June to get one after the move. Two weeks ago (or even a week ago) we were expecting to get a dog for Christmas, but on Friday we decided to go look at a beagle that was available at the Humane Society. Since we were looking at dogs, which the kids loved, we visited the Pet Super Adoption that was taking place in Salt Lake City – that’s where we met Zach (he was named Brom there). He’s a Heeler/Terrier mix. He just fit right in with the rest of the family. Since the event was closing for the night and we didn’t know much about heelers (we had focused our research on beagles) we decided to learn what we could about his breed overnight and then adopt him in the morning (assuming we didn’t learn anything too alarming about heelers).
It was interesting yesterday while we were out running errands to see how Zach was so attached to everyone in the family. At one point I got out of the car to run a quick errand and he went from content to nearly frantic (according to Laura – I wasn’t there) until I came back. Later Laura left for a short time and he had the same reaction.
After only 24 hours we have had our first escape (this morning before church) and our first home alone time (church). We also know that Zach can jump the fence so we’re happy to see that he tends to come back. We are already looking forward to the time when we all get used to the new rhythms of pet ownership when we and Zach all know what to expect of each other.
I have been wanting to get a more suitable domain name for Pursuit of Liberty for some time and I have been wanting to do some less political writing (family journal type) here. I finally took the plunge and purchased pursuitofliberty.net (I’m looking into getting pursuitofliberty.com, but while the current owner mulls multiple offers I decided to move ahead with something). Nothing is being removed here although anyone who actually visits the site will see that I have gone back to a previous theme. This will start to be updated less frequently and less politically and I will be developing a more personal theme that fits the different focus of my website. I have imported all the posts of any political nature at the new domain and will continue to write politically as I have been doing – minus the really non-political stuff. For those who are interested in my political writing, here is the new feed. I hope that everyone can make the transition smoothly with me so that all the great comments keep coming.
For those few people who have long wished that I would talk more about my family (Mom) your wish is granted, and you don’t even need to remember a new URL.
Categories
Thanks From My Drive
Yesterday was a very eventful drive. We left by 8:00 am and got home at 12:30 am. We managed to have car trouble that looked worse than it was (it was a blown fuse but the symptoms hinted at the engine overheating or transmission problems). I just have to say thanks to all my family members who offered advise and support (some I was caravaning with and others I wasn’t), the friendly gentleman at Rimco Sales and Service in Cortez, CO and his friends at the Express Lube who looked at my car to help get me on my way.
I also want to say thanks to the Utah Highway Patrol officer who pulled me over when I was speeding to get past an impending road closure and who subsequently let me off with a warning (5 years without any blemish on my record just paid off) and explained that the road was slowed by construction but not closed (contrary to what I had been told). It turned out that the road closure in Price, UT that I had been warned about was posted for Tuesday, August 5th – I was racing for a deadline 72 hours too early.
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Family Vacation
I’m trying to decide if my expectations are delusional, or simply higher than necessary.
This week I am taking an extended family vacation for the first time since I got married. There have been a few gathering similar to this which we have been unable to attend, but mostly our extended family events are holiday gatherings that stop short of vacations for us (since they are often close to where we live). In planning for this vacation I anticipated that I would not do a lot of blogging, but since blogging really is invigorating for me I did expect to keep it up a little bit over the week.
Now I come to the end of Wednesday and I have not even glanced at the news or thought of something that I could write about. I had things to write on Sunday, but I was too busy getting ready. Since then, the only reason I have even been able to check my email daily is that I am trying to secure a lovely house that we saw on Saturday.
Were my expectations to high, or will other trips allow me to do some blogging during the vacation?
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Right, Left, or Straight
I think that Lyall is right in suggesting that we are asking the wrong question in the education debate. He identifies the current question as “How can we reform, improve our system of education today?” He believes that the correct question if we are to come to the answers we need is “What is the purpose of education?”
I think the critical distinction between those questions is that the one we are asking publicly is equivalent to a game we used to play in the car as kids called “Right, Left, or Straight.” (RLS for short.) In that game we would drive until we got to an intersection and then Mom would call out “Right, left, or straight?” We would then vote (by who yelled the loudest generally) to determine which available path we would take. There was no right answer to the question, but there was also no knowing where we would end up before it was time to return home. The question we should be asking is like sitting down in a family council and asking where we want to vacation this year. Again there is no single right answer, but there are plenty of places you would not want to go where you might find yourself if you just hopped in the car and played RLS for your summer vacation.
The first option can be fun, but not very productive. It is useful in changing course, but not in determining the desirable outcome. Once you have determined the desired destination then there is an innate game of RLS to arrive there (the difference being that there is now a correct answer to the question when you come to an intersection).
My answer to Lyall’s new and improved question was that the purpose of education should be to provide the foundation of basic skills like the three R’s and to teach students how to face challenges and find answers to questions. Lyall contends that there is another part to education that involves (as I interpret it) education regarding right and wrong, fair play, and other generic moral issues.
Who is right? join the discussion by commenting here or there.
I have been thinking a lot about my ideal living situation. It’s really something I have been exploring for years. My thinking is not confined to my own ideal, I also think about what is ideal for people generally (a pretty gray area) and about why situations that are not ideal for me are ideal for other people (which is total guesswork without some outside input).
I am considering factors such as the size of city to live in ranging from millions to tens, the proximity to amenities and services, which amenities or services are most important, the distance between houses, the culture of the neighbors (assuming you’re in a place large enough to have neighbors), the size of the house, and the size of the property.
For myself, I prefer a small community where people know each other and are tightly knit but not close-minded. The house does not need to be very large, but it must be configured in a way that is conducive to the family life that we are trying to create (it would take a whole series of posts to describe the family life we are trying to achieve). I could live on as little as a quarter acre in the right circumstances, but would be able to tolerate much more various conditions around me if I had at least 2 acres to work with. It is imperative that any living situation leave me with the opportunity to garden. I absolutely cannot live with neighbors so close that it takes less than 5 people to span the distance between separate houses.
I can easily live 2 miles from the nearest store, but I believe that 10 miles would be fine (I’ve never done that before so that’s not guaranteed). The only utilities that I must have are access to water (I don’t think I would mind a well), electricity, and an internet connection – although I would prefer a sewer system over a septic tank.
So what’s your ideal? Over the next few weeks I hope to write up the advantages and disadvantages I see in different sizes of cities as well as generic thoughts on the advantages of rural, suburban, and urban settings. Please chime in with any insights or experience you have on the benefits or drawbacks of various living situations.
Laura made an interesting observation today. She suggested that cell phones might actually make for stronger extended families with nearly ubiquitous features such as free nights and weekends and free long distance as well as not quite universal features like free calls within the network or plans such as T-Mobile’s MyFaves. Of course that would depend on whether people use those features to connect with family members, but the potential is certainly there. I know I have talked with my not-local family members much more since getting my cell phone with many of those family-friendly features.
Categories
A Dose of Competition
Today was a work day for the kids because they have not had to do any of their regular work in the last week. Unfortunately (but unsurprisingly) we found that they seemed to have misplaced their ability to work. They spent 3 hours on a room that should have been done in 30 minutes. Savannah and Alyssa finally perked up and started working like they’re capable when I challenged them to a race. The race was to see if they could finish the family room they had been working on for nearly 3 hours before I could empty the sink and load the dishwasher.
It really should have been no competition but I managed to nearly finish by the time they passed their quality check. The really nice thing was that I didn’t have to remind them to get back to work. Even when they started dawdling a bit they kept working because I didn’t tell them at the beginning that there was basically no way I could win.
Even after the race was over they kept working on the other tasks that still had to be done. It’s nice to find some effective motivation – I hope I can use that technique in the future.
Categories
Things Unknown
It’s amazing how an difference so small that we can’t even predict it can very noticeably change the outcome of a standardized process. I saw this in action today while baking cookies.
Laura and discovered that the cookies cooked differently on the two cookie sheets we have. We could put the dough on one cookie sheet and place it in the oven and then fill the second cookie sheet and place it in the oven. We could then take the second cookie sheet out when its cookies were done and
remove the cookies before the cookies on the first sheet finished cooking. Same oven, same batch of dough, different cookie sheets (though they were both the same size – there were no differences to make us think they would cook differently).
As I thought about that it struck me how often there are small differences that we can’t account for in advance.I suspect this is one of the reasons that standardized programs run by large bureaucracies are so universally inefficient.