Spencer Greenhalgh likes RSS and thinks you're great for using it

📚 bookblog: La nouvelle sorcière (❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤)

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 10:00:06 -0400

Ce tome n’est pas moins mignon que les précédents, et il y a des cases qui nous ont bien fait rire ! Pourtant, alors que les trois premiers tomes ont été une seule trilogie bien conçue, ce tome ressemble plutôt aux suites qui arrivent après un succès médiatique, qui sont peut-être bons mais qui n’ont pas forcément la même qualité ou plan organisateur.

📚 bookblog: La source des secrets (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 10:38:29 -0500

Après avoir fini les quatres tomes « Bergères guerrières », on revient maintenant à Brume, relisant le troisième tome avant de commencer le quatrième qu’on vient de recevoir.

On aime bien cette série dans notre famille ! Elle est mignonne, bien dessinée, et marrante.

📚 bookblog: L'abîme (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 08:14:40 -0500

Comment dire que j’ai tant aimé une bd qui a fait pleurer ma fille ? C’est vrai qu’il y a des moments tristes à la fin de cette série impressionnante, mais je suis content qu’il y ait des œuvres pour enfants qui osent ne pas tout résoudre. En plus, l’histoire continue à être intéressante et l’art jolie.

Fri, 20 Feb 2026 20:36:28 -0500

For the past three weeks, we’ve been doing “daddy translates a French kids’ comics series” at bedtimes. We just finished the last volume, and it did not end the way kiddo wanted, so we had a conversation about fanfic and fixfic.

introducing the next generation to Numa Numa

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 10:28:02 -0500

Kiddo and I often play a little bit of Switch together right before or after dinner. Last night, she was humming what my spouse and I both thought was a nonsense melody that she was making up—but that immediately reminded both of us of the Romanian dance song Dragostea Din Tei as featured in the classic internet meme Numa Numa.

It turned out that kiddo was humming Dragostea Din Tei—the adults had both forgotten that a version (or sample? I dunno) of the song features in Mitchells vs. the Machines, but she’d watched it recently on her own, and that’s what she had in her mind when singing during Switch time.

Anyway, that turned into explaining to kiddo how we knew the song and watching the meme video together, which she found a lot of fun. We chatted about internet video before YouTube and looked up together how the guy in the video felt about his memetic status, to make sure that we weren’t exploiting him for our own amusement à la Lightsaber Kid. Over the past 18 hours or so, we’ve also basically just had the song permanently stuck in our heads, which we haven’t helped by bringing it up to listen to just one more time.

This has been one of a few moments where my spouse and I have enjoyed reminiscing about 2000s internet culture and trying to explain it to the next generation, and I’m looking forward for the next unexpected opportunity to do so.

Sun, 15 Feb 2026 18:06:03 -0500

All parents should introduce their kids to D&D so that all parents can hear their kids say things like “I don’t think it’s worth it to have the spider fall in love with me.”

📚 bookblog: Le périple (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 09:59:55 -0500

Cette série continue à être jolie et intéressante. J’ai déjà dit combien je trouve l’histoire innovante (alors que des contes d’aventure pour enfant, il y en a des milliers qui se ressemblent), mais je le répète ici.

Mon, 09 Feb 2026 18:02:04 -0500

Local schools have been out for so long that I occasionally forget that they have had class since winter break.

📺 tvblog: Junior Taskmaster Series 1 (❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤)

Mon, 09 Feb 2026 07:24:00 -0500

I don’t think a kid’s version of the show can compete with the sweary semi-sadism of the original, but I’m glad there was a series I could use to introduce a currently-too-young-for-all-that kiddo to the concept. Plus, the kids were cute and funny and most of the tasks genuinely enjoyable to watch.

📚 bookblog: La menace (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)

Sat, 07 Feb 2026 15:35:01 -0500

J’aime beaucoup le dessin dans cette série. Le scénario est fort intéressant, lui aussi, mais il y tant d’histoires de ce genre qui se ressemblent toutes, et je suis content de combien ce monde imaginé ne leur ressemble pas du tout au niveau visuel.

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 15:58:05 -0500

One of the best things I’ve done recently in terms of feeling good about myself as a parent is draw my attention to how often I “show up” as a parent rather than insist on evaluating “how I do” when I show up. (This reflection brought to you by two weeks of snow days).

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 16:56:11 -0500

One of our favorite Eurovision 2024 songs was Finland’s “No Rules!” When tomorrow was announced as our tenth snow day in a row, spouse decided to Weird Al it as “No School!”

Mon, 02 Feb 2026 08:18:23 -0500

Kiddo got excited when the number 67 came up in the D&D actual play podcast we’re listening to. I thought at first that it was a “six seven” joke, but it turns out she liked that it sounded like 6d7.

📚 bookblog: La relève (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)

Thu, 29 Jan 2026 16:46:00 -0500

Mon épouse s’intéresse à cette série depuis un an, et on a donc commandé le coffret complet en faisant notre grande commande de livres français il y a quelques semaines. C’est une histoire intéressante, j’aime bien l’art, et ça fait rire notre fille.

Sat, 24 Jan 2026 08:33:33 -0500

Kiddo has decided that she can get away with ignoring requests so long as it’s because she’s reading something. The most annoying part of it is that she’s right that we’ll grant a lot of latitude for that in particular.

Fri, 16 Jan 2026 15:54:07 -0500

Kiddo objected to my using the word “enshittification” in a family conversation just now—not because it contains a swear, but because it was too complicated a vocabulary word.

🍿 movieblog: A New Hope (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)

Wed, 07 Jan 2026 11:18:33 -0500

After months of pestering her about it, kiddo relented and agreed to watch the original Star Wars with me (which I will always know as ANH even if I complain about special edition changes, so I guess that’s where I am on the Star Wars purity scale or whatever).

I haven’t watched this in maybe a decade? I noticed the seams and flaws in the movie more than I ever have before, but I can’t not give it full marks for the world that it created. It was interesting to think about all the different directions the not-yet-franchise could have taken after this movie and how many of them I might have liked to see, even if I am a Star Wars canon nerd even to this day.

It was also interesting to think how much of that bigger universe I read into the movie now—and how little of it is actually present in what’s kind of a silly adventure movie if you start poking at things.

Kiddo’s reaction was “meh,” so I don’t know how much more we’ll be watching anytime soon, but it was interesting to revisit something I discovered at her age with much older eyes.

Sat, 27 Dec 2025 15:33:29 -0500

Family TTRPG session ended with the players using blackmail to become part owners of the in-universe famous restaurant whose owners gave them their initial quest. Feels like success.

Thu, 18 Dec 2025 20:40:34 -0500

Kiddo learned an effective “stop hiccuping” technique from a podcast months ago, but tonight was my first bout of hiccups since then, and I was skeptical. Well, it turned out that it worked, and now she’s really smug about it.

Sun, 14 Dec 2025 20:34:39 -0500

I see that adding kiddo to the extended family Signal chat has had predictable consequences.

Sat, 13 Dec 2025 12:51:42 -0500

I was left unsupervised during the family visit to the local library’s artisan fair, and so now we have this on our tree.

Tue, 02 Dec 2025 06:27:45 -0500

I promise that I understand all the reasons for different approaches to winter weather, but I will also never stop being angry that my university keeps holding classes on days my kid’s school is canceled.

the simple joy of picking out 'bag your own' Pokémon cards with kiddo

Mon, 01 Dec 2025 08:44:44 -0500

There’s a used bookstore near my in-laws that I enjoy stopping by when we’re visiting. One of the best offerings of this store (at least in kiddo’s mind) is the bin full of Pokémon cards up near the comics. The deal is that you can stuff a provided plastic bag (the kind that comes in board games to hold components) as full as you dare, take it up to the register, and they’ll just charge you a flat five bucks, no matter how many cards you fit into the bag. (You can also fill a larger box for a higher fee, or you can stuff a bag full of Magic cards from the next bin over, but our interest has always been in bagging our own Pokémon cards).

It’s not that we play the Pokémon TCG all that often. Kiddo learned how to play from her uncle a few years ago, and she got a “learn how to play” set for Christmas about a year later, but we play that even less often than we play Let’s Go, Pikachu!, so it’s kind of surprising that kiddo takes so much interest in the bin. What’s more, neither of us knows enough to know what cards would actually be competitive, and it’s pretty likely that any actually competitive cards would have disappeared from the bin long before we ever get there.

That’s not the point, though. Our goal is to find fun Pokémon, cute Pokémon, Pokémon we like, and whatever strikes our fancy—to spend 30-45 minutes sifting through a bin full of cards, to talk to the other folks looking through cards, to help them look for the kinds of cards they think are interesting, and to thank them when they find something for us. I’m starting to build up a decent collection of Gastly, Haunter, and Gengar cards (even if I think the latter are all Dark-type, and I’m genuinely not sure if we have enough Dark Energy cards to field a deck to play them), and we might be close to building a deck for kiddo made up of all pig-like Pokémon, even though I have no idea how well it would play, even in a casual, family setting.

I can’t tell you the last time we’ve gotten these cards out to play, and I do think we ought to make sure that we’re getting our money’s worth out of this fun time together. In the meantime, though, I’ve just been pleased with how fun it is to occasionally spend time with kiddo sharing an interest together and doing something low-stakes but really fun.

Fri, 28 Nov 2025 09:28:49 -0500

Very nearly discarded a custom bookmark given away at my grandfather’s funeral when preparing to sell some books, and now I feel a great moral weight to clearing my bookshelves.

Wed, 26 Nov 2025 13:49:58 -0500

“Don’t listen to Daddy, he’s being meta at you again.”

Thu, 20 Nov 2025 19:19:45 -0500

Tonight, I was that parent at the older kids’ science fair, explaining to kiddo that for her poster, we will be generating graphs using high-powered statistical software, which will be overdoing it but make the best ones in her grade.

🔗 linkblog: I’m officially done with YouTube Kids

Thu, 20 Nov 2025 12:49:30 -0500

I’m glad we never started down this rabbit hole, but that’s not to claim that I’m a superior parent for not ever using YouTube Kids. As Johnson says, it’s capitalism all the way down, and all parents are stuck in scary media ecosystems in one way or another.

📚 bookblog: The Dragon Awakens (❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤)

Sat, 15 Nov 2025 07:33:26 -0500

We bought the English translation of this comic after falling in love with the series in the original French. The goal is to donate this copy to kiddo’s school library, but we couldn’t help but read it as a family first. It’s darling and wonderful, but it loses a bit of the fun in translation.

Mon, 10 Nov 2025 10:37:16 -0500

Picking up a sick(ish?) kiddo from school has me thinking of this decades-old panel from Ultimate Spider-Man.

Fri, 24 Oct 2025 11:57:08 -0400

Is there a technical term for the tension a parent feels between disapproving of what U.S. schools emphasize and how they operate but still being proud of their kid for doing well within that system?

Fri, 17 Oct 2025 17:28:54 -0400

Okay, so there are already concerns that quantified behavioral reward/punishment systems reinforce existing inequalities. Did no one at kiddo’s school think about the implications of letting parents literally buy good behavior points by joining the PTA?

Sat, 11 Oct 2025 09:00:46 -0400

We thought we’d intentionally given kiddo an uncommon name, but the local youth soccer league seems to have recruited all of the other kids with that name, and it’s very confusing for her.

Sat, 11 Oct 2025 08:58:56 -0400

Genuinely good kiddo joke: “What do you call it when people made of jewels steal something? An ametheist!”

📚 bookblog: Malaventure en pain d'épices (❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤)

Mon, 06 Oct 2025 20:10:42 -0400

Bon, j’avoue que elle devient de mojns en moins intéressant, cette série, mais je peux beaucoup pardonner pour une aventure en Alsace.

Wed, 24 Sep 2025 06:56:55 -0400

Silly me, worrying about getting up on time to get kiddo to school early for a morning activity. I should have just trusted my brain to continue its streak of waking up an hour early and refusing to let me back asleep.

📚 bookblog: Le dit des cigales (❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤)

Tue, 16 Sep 2025 20:27:33 -0400

Bon, ce tome-ci a été moins intéressant pour moi que le précédent, mais ma fille l’a beaucoup aimé. J’ai trouvé qu’il se passait trop, qu’on n’explorait pas trop la magie dans la série, etc. Pourtant, c’est mignon. En plus, le prochain tome a lieu en Alsace, ce qui sera fort intéressant !

Fri, 12 Sep 2025 15:27:48 -0400

Dad tip: Always build in a buffer between the walk home from school and your next meeting so that there’s plenty of time in case you need to clean up a scraped elbow and serve medicinal ice cream.

Tue, 09 Sep 2025 19:37:29 -0400

I’ve studied enough educational psychology to know I don’t believe in a “general intelligence factor,” but not enough I’m confident I could talk kiddo’s school out of testing students for it.

📚 bookblog: L'île presque (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)

Mon, 01 Sep 2025 20:27:33 -0400

Joli, ce livre ! On l’a depuis quelques mois, mais on n’a jamais convaincu notre fille de le lire avec nous. En relisant la série Brume, on a découvert qu’un quatrième tome va bientôt sortir, et ma fille a insisté qu’on attende pour lire la troisième, comme ça on ne devrait pas trop attendre pour le quatriême.

Grâce aux taxes douanières que notre cher président impose à tout le monde, il est douteux qu’on puisse faire livrer le nouveau tome de cette série-là, mais en attendant, on a enfin réussi a commencer cette série-ci.

Elle est jolie, avec plein de détails amusants, un peu de magie, pas mal de géographie, et des personnages intéressants. On vient de recevoir deux nouveaux tomes (grâce à une librairie francophone à New York), et on est déjà impatients de continuer notre lecture.

Thu, 21 Aug 2025 07:46:16 -0400

For the second year in a row, kiddo’s school is launching a fundraiser at the same time the district announces a decrease in local school taxes, and the juxtaposition is driving me crazy.

Tue, 19 Aug 2025 20:16:23 -0400

Kiddo is strong enough of a reader to do her own bedtime stories, but we’ve recently built up a small collection of French kids’ comics. Since she doesn’t read French, we’ve gone back to me (and mom) reading to her, and that’s kind of fun.

Tue, 19 Aug 2025 16:56:59 -0400

Mais comme ça fait pleurer, la chandon « Secret » de Louane.

📚 bookblog: La forêt des âmes perdues (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)

Mon, 18 Aug 2025 20:12:53 -0400

📚 bookblog: La forêt des âmes perdues (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️) https://spencergreenhalgh.com/relationships/2025-08-18-%C3%A7a-continue/

Wed, 13 Aug 2025 17:05:10 -0400

Kiddo’s school district has gotten rid of ClassDojo (hooray!) and replaced it with what looks like a homebrew platform (tentative hooray?) that still datafies student behavior (boo!) and frames the whole thing in terms of employability and workforce development (super boo!).

Tue, 12 Aug 2025 10:24:32 -0400

In the name of practicing a growth mindset, I am choosing to pat myself on the back for addressing an issue in the kitchen that I likely created through previous inattention.

📚 bookblog: Le réveil du dragon (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)

Mon, 11 Aug 2025 20:09:04 -0400

Elle est jolie, cette série ! On l’a lue en famille au début de l’année, mais j’ai convaincu ma fille de commencer une relecture. On aime beaucoup les dessins, j’adore le langage (que je n’arrive pas à traduire parfaitement), et j’attends avec impatience le deuxième tôme.

🔗 linkblog: Why A.I. Should Make Parents Rethink Posting Photos of Their Children Online

Mon, 11 Aug 2025 07:43:18 -0400

Look, nothing really new in here (Clearview should have made parents rethink the same ages ago, etc.), but yes, AI should get parents to be a hell of a lot more careful with posting pictures of kids.

Wed, 06 Aug 2025 10:37:40 -0400

This, but for communication platforms the local school district uses.

🔗 linkblog: Un adolescent espagnol accusé de créer des images dénudées de ses camarades de classe par intelligence artificielle et de les vendre

Sun, 27 Jul 2025 08:15:16 -0400

🔗 linkblog: Un adolescent espagnol accusé de créer des images dénudées de ses camarades de classe par intelligence artificielle et de les vendre https://spencergreenhalgh.com/relationships/2025-07-27-quel-monde/

Thu, 24 Jul 2025 14:03:05 -0400

Current levels of home maintenance confidence: Feeling like a god for taking a pocket door off its track and feeling utterly intimidated by needing to eventually put it back on.

Wed, 23 Jul 2025 10:58:40 -0400

Went to claim kiddo’s prizes for doing library summer reading and walked away with four free admissions to the roller rink, an EXIT-brand puzzle gamebook, and a bunch of other stuff. Libraries are great.

Wed, 23 Jul 2025 08:25:02 -0400

A dehumidifier that we’ve been putting off taking to an appliance disposal dropoff—for months—decided to magically work for us after a late night fridge leak yesterday. Thanks, little guy. Don’t know what kind of karmic advance we had to call in for that, but I’m grateful.

Tue, 22 Jul 2025 14:39:01 -0400

Bien content que ma fille me fasse confiance pour traduire quelques mots fr français dans une épisode de My Little Pony.

Fri, 18 Jul 2025 12:19:33 -0400

Talking in the car about Unicode standards for emojis, like all daddy-daughter pairs.

Tue, 15 Jul 2025 17:27:31 -0400

Every game I bought myself for kiddo’s Switch has really only gotten playtime if kiddo has taken an interest in it.

Thu, 10 Jul 2025 08:33:21 -0400

Once again, ClassDojo shows how much of its business model is built on creating feelings of parental inadequacy.

🔗 linkblog: Quand les vacances scolaires deviennent un casse-tête pour les parents

Fri, 04 Jul 2025 07:16:41 -0400

Cet été, j’ai beaucoup réfléchi sur combien mon travail de prof rend bien plus facile la vie de parent pendant les vacances scolaires.

Sat, 28 Jun 2025 18:03:50 -0400

Playing the Portal series with kiddo is going well, except that she is (understandably, tbh) freaked out by the Valve screen that appears when you first load it.

Tue, 17 Jun 2025 10:34:31 -0400

What kind of children’s performer has three different “no photos” reminders before the show even starts?

Sun, 15 Jun 2025 11:53:53 -0400

Kiddo’s Father’s Day card has been addressed to “Dr. Spencer Greenhalgh,” which is technically accurate but still feels off.

Thu, 12 Jun 2025 19:52:12 -0400

Has anyone ever tried Kagi’s Kid Mode? It sounds like a great idea but also ups the cost significantly, so I’d like to hear about experiences before deciding.

Tue, 10 Jun 2025 14:33:57 -0400

Every time I think my opinion of ClassDojo can’t get any worse, I discover (or am reminded of) another aspect of their grift.

Tue, 03 Jun 2025 18:45:24 -0500

“What am I, made of jokes tonight?” - kiddo, after telling two admittedly good ones

Fri, 30 May 2025 07:16:45 -0400

So, uh, is my kid’s dream about a peanut butter fountain a good or a bad omen for all the hours we’re spending in the car today?

Thu, 29 May 2025 18:52:00 -0400

Road trip tomorrow, so downloading Portal to kiddo’s Switch to see if she’s old enough to enjoy it.

🍿 movieblog: A Minecraft Movie (❤️❤️🖤🖤🖤)

Sun, 25 May 2025 18:53:13 -0400

Man, I really wanted to like this movie. I’m glad kiddo enjoyed it, I did appreciate some of the Jared Hess vibes, and some of the visual design was pretty good, but this was just an excuse to make a bunch of Minecraft references in a movie, and I have never been more aware of green screens in my life.

Fri, 23 May 2025 17:12:57 -0400

Kiddo just apologized for being the “baron of bad news,” and that’s how we’re all going to say it from now on, okay?

Tue, 20 May 2025 08:52:50 -0400

Kiddo: wonders why I am talking about disabling predictive text on the iPad she’s using

spouse: “well, Daddy is a monster who doesn’t even use autocorrect”

me: “excuse me, I think you mean I’m a ‘mnoster’”

Mon, 19 May 2025 17:48:10 -0400

Kiddo is a wild mix of adventurous and picky when it comes to food. She does not want the unobjectionable ravioli the rest of us are eating, but she is powering through the too-spicy-for-her curry leftovers in the fridge.

🔗 linkblog: Open Letter to the Guy with “Dad” in His LinkedIn Headline

Thu, 01 May 2025 09:55:51 -0400

🔗 linkblog: Open Letter to the Guy with “Dad” in His LinkedIn Headline https://spencergreenhalgh.com/relationships/2025-05-01-bookmarking-this/

Sun, 20 Apr 2025 15:19:21 -0400

My dad just now, describing the other guests coming to Easter dinner: “Oh, I’d say they’re about your age. You know, around [lists some ages a full decade younger than me].”

Fri, 11 Apr 2025 18:48:07 -0400

There was a Little Free Library just outside tonight’s restaurant, so kiddo’s working through a new book while we wait for food.

Sun, 06 Apr 2025 08:50:17 -0400

Setting up iMessage on an iPad for kiddo to use has immediately turned into Homestar Runner references, and I’m okay with that.

🔗 linkblog: Parents Gently Explain To Child That Their Money In Heaven Now

Fri, 04 Apr 2025 17:11:28 -0400

🔗 linkblog: Parents Gently Explain To Child That Their Money In Heaven Now https://spencergreenhalgh.com/relationships/2025-04-04-this-got/

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 02:31:26 -0400

Love a 2:30am tornado warning family huddle in the pantry during a week where I was already not getting enough sleep.

Wed, 26 Mar 2025 06:57:39 -0400

Whatever gets kids to read, I guess, but I have never encountered a less sympathetic protagonist than Greg in “Diary of a Wimpy Kid.”

Thu, 20 Mar 2025 15:22:45 -0400

Kiddo enjoys sending me messages encrypted in runes, and I enjoy brute forcing an interpretation like that scene in Cryptonomicon.

Tue, 18 Mar 2025 16:30:41 -0400

This afternoon was going pretty well until I totally spaced on kiddo’s orthodontist appointment. 😬

Sun, 23 Feb 2025 18:06:04 -0500

Kiddo accidentally emotionally traumatized a giant shrimp in her first D&D session this afternoon, and I honestly think that’s a great introduction to the game.

Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:19:01 -0500

The guy who runs Kentucky high school speech and debate found my name somewhere, remembered me from when I was a student at those competitions, and invited me to help judge a state championship next month. I am dangerously close to Nerd!Uncle Rico territory right now.

🍿 movieblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for The Princess Bride

Sun, 16 Feb 2025 19:10:38 -0500

It was really fun to introduce this to kiddo this weekend by watching it as a family. I don’t think this movie will ever be as good as it was when I was a teenager, before I could see the seams and tiny faults with it, but it will always be beloved in my family—and now including kiddo.

Sat, 15 Feb 2025 07:48:22 -0500

My office neighbor is starting a “department and friends” campaign, I asked if there was an age limit, and that’s how kiddo is joining her first D&D game later this month.

Tue, 11 Feb 2025 20:11:36 -0500

I’ll say this much: A snow day is a heck of a lot easier when the university (i.e., mom and dad’s employer) also cancels for the day.

Fri, 07 Feb 2025 17:55:51 -0500

“Tsk, tsk, tsk, what an uncaring dad I have!”

watching Star Trek: Lower Decks

Fri, 07 Feb 2025 11:37:18 -0500

Whenever we visit my in-laws, it’s a tradition to put any kids who are present to bed and then gather around one of the big TVs to watch something together. Sometimes it’s something that one family is watching and introducing to another, sometimes it’s something that we’re all watching and are at the same place in the season, and every once in a while it’s something new.

When we drove down to visit in January, I took advantage of that third possibility to get everyone to try Star Trek: Lower Decks, which I’ve wanted to watch for a while but never had the chance to. It’s vaguely been on my radar for its entire run, but I don’t watch a lot of TV and the only TV I watch is with my spouse, and I just was never sure that it was going to make it onto our screens. My spouse is not entirely Star Trek-averse—she was a big fan of Zachary Quinto as Spock in the Abrams movies—but we have different preferred nerddoms and I’m not even as Star Trek literate as I’d like, so even though the show sounded interesting, it just didn’t seem feasible.

Just before visiting family, though, I’d listened to an episode of The Incomparable that recapped the entire series and decided to make a push for it. My spouse, her brother, and I watched the first two episodes of the first season, and I think we all fell for it. It is a raucous and very funny show, and I think that won my spouse over even if some of the Star Trek inside jokes weren’t as funny.

Anyway, she and I continued to watch the show since that visit and are now most of the way through the first season, which we’ll probably finish sometime this weekend. We’re both invested in the goofy characters, and having a show with a short runtime is also really helpful. Changes in work schedules have made it even harder to watch TV than usual, but having the option of a 25-30 minute episode makes it more reasonable that we can find something to do together instead of heading to bed as soon as kiddo is finally down. We’ve also been using episodes as “chasers” after watching a longer episode of Silo on the weekends.

I’m thrilled about this development and really excited to (hopefully) make it through all five seasons of the show.

Wed, 05 Feb 2025 12:21:23 -0500

Today is “getting siblings and parents on Signal” day.

pushing back against and testing limits with kiddo's school projects

Wed, 29 Jan 2025 09:57:03 -0500

Since kiddo was really little, her aunt has been sending her “notable women,” “notable people of color,” “notable Indigenous people,” and “notable queer people” books, which has been good for just setting a background level of what we want our kid to be aware of as she grows up. When she came home with a “famous American” project, she was pretty clear up front that she was not going to choose a dude, and she turned to her little collection of books to come up with the three names that she needed to turn in to her teacher for approval before she could start the project.

After she started throwing around a few names, though, I double checked the project description, and we realized that this is a “walking poster,” where she’s going to stick her face in to portray whichever “famous American” she chooses. This turned into a brief chat about how if that was the case, she shouldn’t really pick a person of color so that we didn’t wind up in a blackface or whitewashing situation. This kind of sucked, since kiddo had come out swinging with a broad perspective on “famous Americans” and the very format of of the project got in the way of her doing so. I just finished writing an email to her teacher asking if in future years, the project might involve a more traditional project, so that students can choose people who don’t look like them. We’ll see how that goes.

Speaking of seeing how things go, once kiddo and I talked about the unfortunately unfortunate implications of picking a person of color, she turned to her “notable queer people” book, and that’s where she got her three names from. I honestly don’t remember what the current laws on the books are about queer content in Kentucky public schools, but I’m wondering what—if any—response she’s going to get about picking transwomen and lesbians as her famous Americans.

I’m not great about pushing back against schools when something rubs me the wrong way (exhibit A here is ClassDojo, which I’m just preemptively too exhausted to put up an extended fight about, even though I’d have a professional advantage in doing so), and I don’t claim to be any kind of hero for making a bare minimum of effort here (most of credit goes to kiddo and to her aunt). I expect that I’ll need to get better about this in the years to come, though, so I hope I learn enough from this time around to do better in the future.

Sat, 25 Jan 2025 08:16:13 -0500

Kiddo just told me to “make an Insight check” after fibbing to me about something, so it sounds like that D&D actual play podcast we’ve been listening to is making an impression.

Mon, 13 Jan 2025 18:08:50 -0500

I want to be clear that I am not upset at my kid for checking out this soulless Grinch platformer—I am upset at whatever executives and IP holders thought a Grinch platformer was a good idea in the first place.

Mon, 13 Jan 2025 17:49:18 -0500

School district has explicitly said it’s not going to make a decision about tomorrow until between 2:30am and 5:00am, so we have to get everything ready tonight knowing full well that it might prove to be vain by the time we get up. Yayyyyy.

Mon, 13 Jan 2025 07:02:26 -0500

For what it’s worth, Calvin and Hobbes reruns also get me this morning.

Mon, 13 Jan 2025 06:57:32 -0500

Well, at least some of today’s comic strip characters also have a “non-traditional instruction” day.

🍿 movieblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Vengeance Most Fowl

Thu, 09 Jan 2025 10:27:28 -0500

I don’t think anything beats The Wrong Trousers in the Wallace and Gromit canon, but this could have been much worse as a follow-up to that classic. It’s silly (mostly in good ways), subtly but wonderfully British, and kept kiddo laughing. It’s the best Wallace and Gromit I’ve seen for a while, even if it isn’t as good as the classic stuff.

Tue, 31 Dec 2024 20:38:39 +0100

I know that all kids parrot what they hear their parents say to a certain extent, but kiddo has gotten very pro-public transport lately, and it makes me very happy.

Mon, 23 Dec 2024 08:34:05 -0500

We have some neat family holiday plans this year, so naturally the part of my brain that likes to imagine how things could go wrong is working overtime right now.

Mon, 09 Dec 2024 07:11:28 -0500

Sun. afternoon, after chatting with other parents at birthday party: “Wow, spending time with fellow adults is great.”

Sun. evening, after Zoom siblings’ game night: “Why don’t I do this more often?”

Mon. morning, barely functional from not enough sleep: “Oh, right.”

Wed, 04 Dec 2024 20:14:11 -0500

Kiddo did lots of fuse bead art with cousins over Thanksgiving. When I complained that the train in the instruction manual was out of the 19th century and that kids’ stuff never acknowledges awesome modern trains, she improvised this high speed beauty for me.

Tue, 03 Dec 2024 20:19:09 -0500

Duolingo is one of those apps I really loved once but now can’t see as anything but creepy adware. It’s hard to complain when it’s teaching kiddo more French than I ever managed to, but I still worry I’ve sold her soul to that little green owl.

Mon, 02 Dec 2024 17:37:59 -0500

Kiddo is expressing her distaste for her “read aloud” homework by putting a lot of obviously false enthusiasm into her performance.

Sun, 01 Dec 2024 17:50:53 -0500

Kiddo’s describing defeated Pokémon as “dying” is really forcing me to confront the premise of the series.

Tue, 26 Nov 2024 18:05:43 -0500

Love that our family makes a point to stop at the Kentucky Artisan Center rest stop instead of the Buc-ee’s just up the road. Further love that my favorite locally-made tea company can always be found there.

Tue, 26 Nov 2024 16:52:05 -0500

Freeing our family from Audible by starting a libro.fm account is a normal thing for a dad to be proud of, right? (Don’t tell me if the answer is no.)

Sun, 24 Nov 2024 10:50:48 -0500

We picked up some of the Exploding Kittens-brand goofy party games for our upcoming big family Thanksgiving, and my inner board game snob is kind of offended at how actually fun they seem.

Sun, 24 Nov 2024 07:51:27 -0500

Nancy is giving me the courage to finally confess that I do not really like the sweet-potatoes-slathered-in-marshmallows dish.

Sat, 16 Nov 2024 19:14:01 -0500

Kiddo, covering up one of the tines on a fork: “Look, now it’s a threek!”

Sat, 16 Nov 2024 10:40:47 -0500

Kiddo, putting away laundry: “My sweater! Come feel its soft wrath!”—

Fri, 08 Nov 2024 20:05:19 -0500

I have resorted to cheating to figure out the best ending of kiddo’s current “choose your own path” comic. Cheating has helped me determine what the best ending is, but not yet how to get there, so more work to do.

Tue, 05 Nov 2024 19:53:34 -0500

I don’t know what (if anything) to make of this, but the roller rink appears to be a dependable place for experiencing parental pride.

Thu, 31 Oct 2024 17:52:48 -0400

I first met my spouse in college, where she was doing biology while I was doing French, so even though I’m now a tenured professor in a technology-focused major, I still think of her as the “STEM parent” for the purposes of helping with kiddo’s homework.

family's first comic con

Sun, 13 Oct 2024 06:06:43 -0500

We are big fans of libraries in our family. In fact, live near the border between two counties, and we split our library visits between the Lexington Public Library (where we are residents) and the Jessamine County Public Library (where we are not). Luckily, Kentucky library systems tend to be fairly liberal in handing out library cards, so this isn’t usually a hassle (this was not the case in Central Michigan, but that’s a story for another time).

Even though LPL is a bigger library system, JCPL frequently shows up its bigger neighbor. For years now, JCPL has held an annual “Comic Surge” event—a mini comic con with local vendors, artists, and cosplayers. We’ve been meaning to visit a Comic Surge basically as long as we’ve known about it, but it has always managed to conflict with some other October activity.

This year, we finally managed to make things work! We’d been planning to attend for weeks, and even when a funeral came up in the afternoon, we still managed to arrange the day so that we could run by the library in the morning. It wound up being a lot of fun, and I think it will be a must-do event for us for many Octobers to come.

Here are some highlights:

cosplay

Years ago, my spouse picked up a Squirrel Girl costume for some Halloween-adjacent event she was attending. It was a child-sized costume, which was too small for her and (at the time) way too large for a then-tiny kiddo. So, spouse she used the ears and tail for the event and then we put the whole thing away for kiddo to grow into. Since kiddo has always known it was around, and since she read the first two TPBs of The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl over the summer, it seemed like an easy way to show up to the event with a costume.

Well, the morning of, it turned out that we’d waited too long, and kiddo is now too big for the costume. This led to some panic and disappointment, but my very gifted spouse managed to deconstruct key parts of the costume and pin them to some of kiddo’s clothes that fit the same color scheme, so we still had a costume. We dressed up a baby kangaroo stuffie as squirrel sidekick Tippy-Toe (it was the closest we had), and called it good.

Kiddo loved it, and she got a lot of attention at Comic Surge. Squirrel Girl is not the best known Marvel character, but her fans really love her, and so I feel like everyone who recognized the costume insisted on flagging kiddo down and making a big deal out of it—in a way that they wouldn’t have for a more mainstream character.

vendors

I love seeing local artists, and I think it’s even more fun at an event where the baseline level of nerdiness is higher than it would be at, say, “just an art fair.” It is odd to have vendor booths at a library, but I’m here for it. The idea of a library doing a comic con is a bit weird, but I’m so here for it. It’s the very model of what a library could be if we’re expansive with our imagination of the mission of a library,

I walked away with another deck to add to my small Keyforge collection and a Star Wars print from a local artist. I wound up getting the deck for free—the guy was selling it for $2 and insisted I just take it when it turned out we’d forgotten to bring cash and he didn’t take cards. The print—Biggs Darklighter, heck yes—was $10, a great deal for a decent quality, large print. The artist was fun to talk to as well: He had fun stories of doing art for actors who come to cons and giving them one copy in exchange for signing another.

Other vendors were fun, too—some weren’t all that impressive, but I love seeing small artists do geeky art, and there was a lot of it here to take in and have fun with.

conclusion

We had a blast, and I think we’ll make this a high priority when October 2025 rolls around. It also made me interested in trying a local con sometime. I don’t know that I’ve attended this kind of event since Star Wars Celebration II back in the early 2000s, and the price tag on some of the events I’ve seen lately has made me hesitant. The whole family had fun here, though, and it seems worth a try to do a bigger, longer event sometime in the future.

Thu, 10 Oct 2024 21:13:29 -0400

The spookiest things in our house right now aren’t the Halloween decorations, they’re the ultra high visibility vests we keep by our bikes and startle me with an eerie glow every time I open the door into the dark garage.

Tue, 08 Oct 2024 15:44:04 -0400

“Aw man, I’m not as good as catching flying socks as I am at catching a frisbee.”

Sun, 06 Oct 2024 10:28:52 -0400

Nothing like taking a break from trying to convince kiddo to help with weekend chores to try to convince kiddo to help with farm chores in our shared Stardew Valley game.

Sat, 28 Sep 2024 12:01:34 -0400

A family lunchtime discussion about centaurs has devolved into wondering what the rules of genetic inheritance are in Greek and Norse myths—and some speculation as to whether I was cursed by Athena long ago and am only masquerading as human.

Fri, 27 Sep 2024 15:17:12 -0400

We’re riding out hurricane effects here in Kentucky by making sure everyone in the family has pajamas on by 3:15.

🔗 linkblog: I Love My Kids, But I Sometimes Regret Having Them - The Rev. Dev.'

Tue, 24 Sep 2024 12:56:18 -0400

It is hard to have honest conversations about the difficulty of parenting: Even in reading this post, I tensed up, because these are things you aren’t supposed to say. I’m glad someone was vulnerable enough to write this.

Thu, 19 Sep 2024 19:27:37 -0400

I made a BASIC joke for kiddo’s lunchbox note today. Turns out I forgot to actually put it in her lunch, but once we both got home, I was pleased to see that she puzzled out the syntax on her own.

Tue, 17 Sep 2024 20:39:27 -0400

Real uptick in emphasis on grades, homework, and tests in kiddo’s school this year, and I’m torn between a paternal impulse to get really invested in all of that and my professional disdain for how invested we all get in all of that.

13 family conversations from before, during, and after a graveside service

Fri, 13 Sep 2024 17:06:43 -0500

I. With Siblings in a Sibling-Only Chat Separate from the One with Parents and Partners

We process the news together (I’m not the one to start the conversation but glad for the sibling who did). It’s not a deep processing, but I’m not sure we would have done this much even a few years ago. We plan to send flowers to the widow, decide who’s going to write the note, and settle up over Venmo. We coordinate flights and talk about travel logistics, especially while our parents are waylaid with a surprise surgery that is making a hard week even harder. We talk about how other family members are doing. It shows that we’re all well into adulthood now, and that sometimes we even act like it.

II. With Some Family Members Over FaceTime, As We’re Coordinating Travel

Spouse and I share how kiddo is sad about missing the deceased but that she has expressed a feeling that he is present with her during those moments. Sharing this has the desired effect in the conversation: bringing comfort to the family members who find it theologically significant. We have a considerably less theological worldview, though, and we wonder how to validate kiddo’s experience within the framework of how we do things in our home. It’s a reminder that we’ve made a lot of religion-related changes in our family since kiddo was born, and that we’re still figuring out our new ways of seeing things.

III. With Distant Relatives in the Airport, Who Had Been on my Flight Before We All Got Deplaned Because of a Maintenance Issue, and Are Now Waiting with Me for the Replacement Plane

I apologize for almost beaning one of them with my suitcase while getting it out of the overhead bin back on the plane. The truth is that I didn’t recognize him at first, and it takes a few minutes and a couple of passing references before I even remember the other’s name. I don’t see anyone from this side of the family very often, and especially not relatives this distant. It’s an instant connection, though: we swap stories, and I’m glad for mutually supportive extended families. I’d forgotten that one of them had done his Mormon missionary service in the same part of the world I had, so that comes up, but it’s usually not worth the hassle or potential awkwardness to advertise my immediate family’s religion-related changes in a broader family for whom Mormonism makes up a lot of the connective tissue. As complicated as my mission memories have become, I have some that remain genuinely positive, and it doesn’t feel misleading to stick to those.

IV: With a Relative Whose Exact Degree of “Government Can’t Tell Me What To Do” is Not Something I Paid Attention to When Younger and is Hard to Pin Down Now

Reminding him that I do social media research gets him asking about free speech issues, Section 230, and that sort of thing. I always wish I were better read on this, but I remind myself that I follow this more closely than most people do (even—especially?—people with stronger opinions than mine) and share what I usually teach my students: These issues are super complex; despite some earlier skepticism, I’ve come around on Section 230 being A Good Thing; there are plenty of things protected by the First Amendment that he doesn’t want in his replies; and content moderation is more often a question of business strategy (for better and for worse) than actual free speech issues. I think I do okay, but I’m also not trying to convince him any further than “moderation is not the bogeyman Jim Jordan makes it to be.”

V: With My Siblings and Parents, Over a Lunch Provided by the Local Mormon Congregation

We’re eating in the “cultural hall” (Mormonspeak for a church building’s gym, which are famously also used for funeral events, wedding receptions, dances, and so many other things), and my Dad points to the basketball hoop where he first pulled off a slam dunk. We ask him how much time he spent dribbling and shooting here, and he tells us more stories. My Dad’s faith stuck with me a lot longer than his love for basketball ever did, and our other conversations are a reminder that Mormonism is a deep part of me and that I don’t really mind that. This remains true even though simply arguing for a more grace-oriented and less perfectionist approach to Christianity (hardly the least heretical of my views) was already enough to receive some side-eye the last time I attended church in this building. We debate whether the glutinous casserole served up alongside our ham is properly called “Mormon potatoes” or “funeral potatoes,” and we gobble down familiar rolls that one sibling (even further removed from Mormonism than I am) later describes as one of the religion’s greatest contributions to the world.

VI: With A Very Distant Relative Whom I Don’t Recall Ever Meeting

I am instructed that later in the day, I should gather up my brothers (is my sister off the hook? also, is this guy going to be open to a conversation about gender not being a binary and where all six of us land on a more inclusive spectrum?) so that he can tell us a story about his time in Vietnam. It’s not a happy story, I’m told, but it will teach us about why he loves our country so much and how much God loves us. He regrets not having known us while we were younger and wants to make up for lost time. He assures us that even though “they don’t let you give hugs anymore in church,” the young women in his congregation still come up every Sunday to greet him with a hug. For all of our adulthood, we siblings are still on the young end of this family gathering, and someone’s eager to mentor us.

VII: With My Siblings, Pretty Shortly After Conversation VI

We discuss strategies for getting each other out of any conversations we don’t want to be in throughout the day. Someone says that we’ve been given explicit permission to do this from the kind of family member whom we might have expected to encourage us to be patient and polite, and that emboldens us. I volunteer as tribute in case it comes down to it, some siblings make it clear that they don’t want to have someone else process trauma at them while we’re already at a funeral, and we agree to split up and rescue each other as needed.

VIII: With my Brother, Uncle, and Uncle’s Girlfriend, in the Car on the Way to the Cemetery

I ask one data science question while we talk about the grad program my brother is in. I barely know what I’m asking about—I teach an intro to data science class, but three of my siblings work with stats and programming way more than I do—but the exchange impresses my uncle that his nephews know a few things. The ML classification that my brother was talking about was sports-related, though, and once everyone else starts focusing on that, I have nothing to say, because I just don’t sportsball.

IX: With Myself, During the Graveside Service

How is someone trying to embrace nonviolence supposed to feel at a military cemetery? I think I can separate my increasingly negative feelings about the U.S. military from a family member who served in that military and whose death I am mourning, but is that really possible? Did that employee (volunteer?) from the cemetery who’s leading the service really just refer to “the Civil War, or the War Between the States, begun by the North”? Is that as Confederate-apologist as it sounds, and if so, what the hell? Why am I getting distracted by all of this instead of thinking about the deceased? Does this make me a bad person?

X: With My Youngest Cousins, As We Semi-Awkwardly Cross Paths a Couple of Times During the Afternoon

This is not really a conversation, because I can’t remember who’s who and am too embarrassed to ask anyone. All the other cousins grew up near each other and gathered for monthly dinners and holidays. We lived “way out in Kentucky” and saw folks once a year—if we were lucky. I’m the oldest child of an oldest child, and the gap between me and the youngest children of the younger children is enough that we just didn’t bond even when we did spend time together. I don’t regret not being on Facebook (anymore) or Instagram (ever), but I wonder if I’d know them better if I were.

XI: With My Very Distant Relative who has a Story to Tell, as My Sibling is Flashing me a Heart Sign for Giving Them an Out Before the Story Starts

It’s a genuinely moving story, even if I have not asked to hear it. I don’t draw the same patriotic, miraculous, conclusions as the storyteller does—war is hell, etc., and the reason I try to distinguish individual soldiers from the military is because of how often those soldiers are obviously also the victims of their own country’s warmongering—but I’m glad to have heard it in a way that I didn’t expect. A brother notices the conversarion and comes to give me an out, but we’re almost done, and I figure if he’s told the story once, he may not try to corner anyone else. Indeed, he encourages me to charge my siblings $5/head to hear the story, so I laugh and say I’ll think about it.

XII: With Siblings and Cousins, Carefully Because Our Parents Are Sometimes in Earshot, and Some of What We Say May Sound Like Criticism Even if That’s Not What We’re Trying to Do

We talk about how anxious we are, and how anxious our kids are, and how we want to teach our kids to deal with their anxiety early on so that they don’t wait until their 30s to learn healthy coping mechanisms. We talk about how much the world sucks—especially for not-cis-males—and about how our kids are already picking up on the suckiness and wonder how to teach them about those things without just making them more anxious. I glance at cousins’ ears, comparing piercings against Mormon norms (0/ear/male, 1/ear/female, and there isn’t anyone who falls outside those categories), and wonder how many of them have also made religion-related changes in their family. I know one is weighing those changes now, and in a separate conversation, we talk more about parenting: how a relative on the other side of my family corrects kiddo when she uses my sibling’s pronouns, how I’m not sure who’s going to ascribe theological significance to kiddo’s new tarot deck or how to respond to that. In hindsight, I talk too much while I should be listening.

XIII: While At the Deceased’s House, to Spend Time with His Widow, Who Wants Us to Lay Claim to Some of His Belongings as Mementos

We tell stories of briefly lost children—including when I was four and wandered out of a bookstore in what had then-recently been the DDR, and it took deceased to realize I might be at the police station instead of even further down the street—and for the first time I hear that kind of story not as the lost child but as the frantic parent, and wow does that hit differently. We discuss which books, or clothes, or knicknacks should go home with whom. My cousin puts on a hat and for the next 15 minutes, everyone is compelled (as if by magic) to tell him how much it suits him. No one claims the Kama Sutra or older-than-the-deceased sex manual that are surprising/awkward/hilarious to find on a bookshelf, but I talk to my brother about which John le Carré novels to try (and snag a couple myself). The deceased was a gifted photographer: Prints are too hard to bring home in suitcases, but he had folders and folders of photos on his laptop, and some people figure out whose Google Drive has space and start uploading. One sibling goes through photography equipment, trying to tell the widow how much they’re worth (we’re already on the lookout for hidden cash caches because the widow’s finances aren’t in great shape) and only hearing back “but he would want you to have them.” We work out a compromise, and then chat sleepily in the living room as the camera bag gets packed back up and we talk about flights home the next morning.

Mon, 09 Sep 2024 17:52:02 -0400

Being a parent sometimes means developing strong opinions about things you knew nothing about before your kids were born—like what the best optional-second-player mechanics are for platformer games.

Sat, 07 Sep 2024 11:01:50 -0400

“That kid spends too much time listening to audiobooks and podcasts while already doing other things,” I think to myself as I turn back to the dishes while putting my earbuds in.

Sat, 07 Sep 2024 09:32:49 -0400

After a few days of griping that the library has once again misplaced one of the books we turned in, I have indeed found the book in kiddo’s room.

Fri, 06 Sep 2024 08:35:51 -0400

Spouse bought some “chai spice” nut butter last weekend, and—tragedy of tragedies—I’m the only one in the family who likes it. It is a bit more peppery than I usually like chai stuff, but my increased toast consumption wouldn’t indicate as much.

Sun, 25 Aug 2024 13:20:30 -0400

Last Christmas, we got kiddo one of those Wreck this Journal books, which is why there was a block of ice with “figure out a way to freeze this page” peering out from it that was melting in the sink while I was listening to French internet radio and making a batch of muesli this afternoon.

small victories in home maintenance

Sun, 25 Aug 2024 11:00:00 -0400

Prominent among my assorted shortcomings as a spouse and parent is a near-total ineptitude in the realm of home maintenance and repair (as evidenced by my previous posts on the subject). So, a few years ago, when our house’s carbon monoxide detector started its dystopian shrieking in the middle of the night to let us know that its battery was low, I blearily woke up, tore it out of the wall, disassembled it until it stopped sounding like something out of 1984, and decided to worry about it in the morning.

It wasn’t long before I’d forgotten where I’d put the detector and the “replace carbon monoxide detector battery” task in my to-do app joined a bunch of other aspirational home maintenance tasks as things I feared I would never really get to. Several weeks ago, though, someone I follow on Bluesky (well, via RSS) posted about his family’s carbon monoxide detectors going off, and that was spooky enough for me to feel urgent about not having any detectors in the house.

I did some research and decided to replace our smoke detectors with combination detectors that would detect both smoke and carbon monoxide. After a trip to Lowe’s and spending what felt like way too much money (but safety first, I guess), I finally had the equipment I needed to feel safe again. The problem was that the breaker panel has long been my spouse’s domain, not mine, and I knew I needed to flip off the right circuit to safely install everything, so the detectors sat around for another few weeks until some of our summer chaos calmed down and we were both around the house and had enough time to tackle it together.

That was yesterday! Kiddo hunkered down with a book, spouse took care of the breaker panel, and I armed myself with a stepladder and screwdriver to get the darn thing done. Given that I honestly can’t remember how long we’ve gone without carbon monoxide detectors in the house, I ought to be feeling pretty sheepish at how long this took me to get done, but I actually feel pretty proud of myself instead! It helps that one of the smoke detectors I replaced had been there for a couple of decades, seemingly never noticed by the previous owners, so maybe I’m not the only one who struggles with all of this stuff.

Sat, 24 Aug 2024 14:57:27 -0400

Kiddo has been really into Greek mythology lately, and this has culminated in presenting me with “twelve trials” à la Heracles—but that basically get me to clean her room.

Thu, 22 Aug 2024 07:08:57 -0400

“Well, I GUESS I’d better stop talking about the FURIES [of Greek myth] so my dad can go off and have a good time at WORK!” I mean, I’m just trying to get us out the door to school on time, but I still feel like I’ve been owned.

Tue, 20 Aug 2024 07:17:15 -0400

After many years of living rent-free in my head, the Daniel Tiger “go potty” song has retreated beyond the limits of my perfect, immediate recollection. I am experiencing a complicated mix of relief and nostalgic sadness.

Sun, 18 Aug 2024 16:39:29 -0400

This afternoon has been a reminder that we are a family that a) plays library for fun and b) gets distracted from playing library by the books that we’re supposed to be checking out to stuffies.

Wed, 14 Aug 2024 06:47:23 -0400

Kiddo’s first day of school, and despite getting plenty of sleep, I’m just exhausted from getting up earlier than I have been. Making it through with the help of a favorite D&D actual play podcast, but this still doesn’t bode well for next few months.

📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for The House in the Cerulean Sea, by TJ Klune

Sat, 03 Aug 2024 15:53:47 -0400

My spouse has been trying to get me to read this book for ages. I’ve never been resistant to the idea, but I just never got around to it! Finally, I made some time this week to try it, and I see why she was so keen on it.

The sense of humor reminds me of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, but whereas H2G2 is goofy to be goofy, this has a really cozy story and important message at the heart of it. The worldbuilding is subtle (to the point of ambiguous—my spouse and I argued about where and when it was set), the characters are fun, and it’s just a delight to read.

Mon, 29 Jul 2024 20:04:29 -0400

Germany’s submission to Eurovision 2023 was a goth metal song called “Blood and Glitter.” It’s a fun song, but I wish this toy bin I’m washing out in the sink were less reminiscent of that title.

surveillance (but not accountability) in school acceptable use policies

Mon, 29 Jul 2024 09:54:48 -0400

It’s that time of year (again) for signing the acceptable use policy for kiddo’s school, and I’m again grumpy about a lot of the details in here. Some of these details are me being a nitpicky academic, like the use of the word “technology” to refer to digital technologies alone. Others strike me as more serious, though.

Let’s take a look at this paragraph, listed under a “Roles and Responsibilities of Parents/Guardians” header:

The District expects parents/guardians to partner with us in teaching students to use available technology safely and appropriately. Although FCPS devices are monitored and every effort is made to prevent inappropriate use, it’s impossible to block all unsuitable content. Parents are accountable for overseeing what students access through any non-District wireless or cellular connection, as these are not maintained by the District. Parents are responsible for monitoring student activity on FCPS devices when used outside of class. The District is not liable for any damage or loss resulting from the use of personal devices in the school setting.

I’m struck by the juxtaposition of “we are monitoring what your kids are up to” and “it’s up to you to make sure that your kid doesn’t access anything bad online.” Now, reading the paragraph again (and with an effort to be more charitable), I recognize that there are some distinctions here between using school devices on school networks, using school devices at home, and using personal devices at school. At the same time, though, the frank admission that the district is surveilling my kid accompanied with a) an admission that that’s not going to prevent everything and b) a plea for me to get involved in this surveillance really rubs me the wrong way.

Here’s another fun passage, under “Roles and Responsibilities of Students”:

All communications, data and files stored or transmitted via the District network are considered property of Fayette County Public Schools and may be reviewed and/or removed. Within reason and legal guidelines, freedom of speech and access to information shall be honored.

Look, I’m not going to encourage my kid to use the school Wi-Fi to do non-school tasks, but I don’t love the way that FCPS is giving itself permission to review everything and anything done over the school network. I’m also struck by how much wiggle room there is in “reason and legal guidelines,” especially in a state like Kentucky, whose lawmakers seem pretty keen to restrict student access to information for culture wars reasons.

AUPs suck, and the state of educational technology in K-12 schools is pretty sucky, too. I’m still going to sign the damn document, because I don’t know that there’s any practical way around this, but I wish I were doing more to resist all of this.

Now onto the Chromebook User Agreement, where I can think about just how much influence a company like Google has in my kid’s public school. 🎉🎉🎉

🍿 movieblog: ❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤 for Inside Out 2

Wed, 19 Jun 2024 11:23:53 -0400

There’s lots to like about this movie: a good message, some good jokes, and some animation gags that I really liked. It’s hard to live up to the original film, though, and this just didn’t feel as tight. Parts of the plot felt rushed, the internal logic of the first film wasn’t as present, and it felt repetitive with some of the plot beats. I’m glad I saw it, but I think the first captures most of the magic that’s here—and more besides.

Mon, 17 Jun 2024 19:45:38 -0400

Kiddo has a stuffy which is a garden-style gnome but with a mermaid tail instead of a pointed hat. This is super cute but has caused long-running family arguments about which end is “up” for the creature.

Tue, 11 Jun 2024 16:57:24 -0400

In further evidence that libraries are magical places: Two days in a row, we’ve gone to summer events at different branches across town and, without prior coordination, run into kiddos’ friends.

Sun, 09 Jun 2024 16:53:01 -0400

Turns out that explaining to kiddo how to pull off a victory against long odds in the Pokémon TCG scratches the same strategic itch as doing it myself, so she got to beat me, and I still had a satisfying game.

Sat, 08 Jun 2024 10:37:41 -0400

Saturday morning spouse conversations: “What if I dressed up as such-and-such Eurovision act for Thanksgiving?” “I know you meant Halloween, but I like the idea of Thanksgiving better.”

Thu, 06 Jun 2024 17:58:08 -0400

The most expensive part of this round of strep throat is going to be the 40% of summer camp tuition that corresponds to the days kiddo won’t be attending.

Thu, 30 May 2024 10:51:00 -0400

Today in first day of summer vacation adventures: Finishing this round of braces! Cancelling library plans because we drove over a nail? Figuring out safest way to bike home after we drop off car at nearest tire place! Maybe some Minecraft once we get back?

Wed, 29 May 2024 17:54:27 -0400

Working on kiddo’s spice tolerance: “My mouth is like an oven, but in a calming way.”

Tue, 28 May 2024 18:04:11 -0400

Dear “Dad of the Year” jury, I submit to accompany my application these words that I pronounced after my kid asked to play in the backyard after having a whole park day at school: “Haven’t you played outside enough today? Let’s stay inside and play Switch instead.”

Fri, 24 May 2024 07:16:23 -0400

Spouse made the mistake of asking some innocent questions about Animorphs last night, and now kiddo is asking me whether worksheets or quizzes would be more pedagogically effective for the Animorphs Academy classes she’s planning for the weekend.

Wed, 22 May 2024 17:23:27 -0400

Kiddo and spouse got drenched by a surprise rain shower biking home from school today. Once dry, kiddo expressed more respect for me as a consistent bike commuter but less respect for me as the person who decided today was a bike-to-and-from-school day.

🍿 movieblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for If You Were the Only

Mon, 29 Apr 2024 13:53:23 -0400

I have a bunch of small complaints about this movie, but I came away from it generally feeling like it was well done, so I’m erring on the side of a more positive rating. I don’t know if that makes me an uncritical movie watcher, but whatever.

For the most part, I liked the aesthetic choices! It bugged me that the spaceship was modeled after a space shuttle, because that doesn’t make a ton of sense, but I did appreciate that the film went with shorthand in terms of set design instead of trying to make it realistic or whatever.

I also thought the premise of the movie was interesting. At the end of the day, I don’t know if I agree with how things turned out for the characters, and I think the movie got a lot less interesting once they returned home. It was interesting to see the movie play with some compelling questions, though.

I could go on with nitpicks, and I suspect that some of those nitpicks would turn into bigger flaws if I really sat with them. It wasn’t a bad way to spend a Saturday night, though.

Sun, 21 Apr 2024 18:50:35 -0400

For someone who is actively apathetic about professional and collegiate sports, I can get dangerously close to being that dad at kiddo’s soccer games.

Thu, 18 Apr 2024 15:10:37 -0400

Kiddo had extra book fair money this morning, so she went back and bought her teacher a small book on a topic she knew her teacher likes 🥹

Mon, 15 Apr 2024 18:21:37 -0400

Currently doing dishes while answering kiddo’s questions about Animorphs worldbuilding. Might be at my dad peak right now.

Sat, 06 Apr 2024 12:52:07 -0400

Finally got the rest of kiddo’s soccer schedule! Relieved that there’s no conflict with Eurovision 2024, because that would be a real dilemma for our family.

Thu, 04 Apr 2024 13:52:27 -0400

Kiddo’s been visiting grandparents since Sunday, and her books are still strewn about the living room, so time to admit I’m part of the problem here.

Mon, 01 Apr 2024 19:10:13 -0400

Kiddo is at my parents’ for her spring break and has discovered a box of my old Animorphs books. I’m excited to share yet another nerdy thing with her but also thinking about how surprisingly violent that series is for purported kids’ books.

Thu, 28 Mar 2024 19:25:20 -0400

Turns out that biking to and from soccer practice might be a bit too much to ask of kiddo in a single night. At least I got to chat kids and bikes with one of the other soccer dads.

Wed, 20 Mar 2024 12:54:22 -0400

“By the way, daddy, I don’t really have laser eyes. I just made that up as part of the game.”

Wed, 20 Mar 2024 12:23:52 -0400

Doing some quick math to compare how old I was when I first watched Star Wars to kiddo’s current age. Also hoping my parents haven’t tossed out the cassettes I got at that age in case I want to hunt down a VHS player and watch it that way.

Tue, 12 Mar 2024 18:28:04 -0400

I’ve never really gotten any practical use out of my political science minor from college (understandable, since it was mostly a way to recoup classes after changing majors), but I appreciate how it makes me look smart to my spouse when we watch politically-themed media.

📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy, by Megan Bannen

Wed, 28 Feb 2024 21:39:20 -0500

Romance is not my usual genre, but this came recommended by my spouse, who rightly guessed I would enjoy just how bonkers weird this story gets. It was a fun read!

Wed, 28 Feb 2024 17:57:43 -0500

“You’re not a dentist. You’re just my parent who occasionally checks my teeth.”

Thu, 15 Feb 2024 19:46:58 -0500

Everyone else seems to be getting over The Family Cold, so if I can just avoid catching it in the first place, we’ll be on track for a fun weekend.

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 08:17:18 -0500

“Dad, what’s a… lunch-ee-on?” “A Luncheon? It’s an evolution of Eevee. Lunch-type Pokémon.” “Dad! No, it’s not!”

Sun, 21 Jan 2024 19:24:35 -0500

Kiddo has gotten really into this series of books focused on coding concepts (which I have mixed feelings about, but at least they’re by Gene Luen Yang) and that led to the adorable moment of her trying to pronounce ifelse as though it were a word unto itself.

Sun, 21 Jan 2024 17:00:13 -0500

I kind of suck at most home maintenance/repair tasks, so I like to ask my dad for help when he’s in town. Either he knows what to do, and we take care of it, or he doesn’t know either, and I feel more like I can be a successful adult despite my lack of skill in this area.

Tue, 16 Jan 2024 07:32:04 -0500

In our family this January, severe weather means checking three different schools’ responses before figuring out what our day looks like. Today’s combination of decisions has worked out, but we’ll see how the rest of the week turns out.

Mon, 15 Jan 2024 12:15:38 -0500

On one hand, doing replacing snow days with “non-traditional instruction” feels performative and inequitable, and I don’t think I like it. On the other, if kiddo isn’t going to have school tomorrow, I don’t necessarily mind her having things to keep her occupied while I do some work.

Fri, 05 Jan 2024 17:14:21 -0500

Two minutes into her first experience with a main-series Pokémon game, kiddo realized she could name her rival “Chicken,” so I’d say we’re off too a good start.

Thu, 21 Dec 2023 20:27:58 -0500

Update: Kiddo’s learning binary led to bedtime stories being partially replaced by a discussion on how number systems work, binary and hex, and how Daddy used to pass notes encoded in base 3 to his best friend in middle school.

Thu, 21 Dec 2023 19:47:40 -0500

Kiddo surprised me today by learning how to count in binary from a library book. I’d checked out the book for her, but I wasn’t expecting such an immediate pay off. I’m skeptical of the “kids gotta learn CS” agenda, but I’m also proud of her when she does.

Sun, 17 Dec 2023 21:57:47 -0500

Shoutout to the girl who made an impromptu gift of a McNugget Buddy to my kid at tonight’s Christmas potluck. Didn’t even know those were a thing until kiddo became a recipient of one, but it was a cool thing to do.

📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Adventuregame Comics 2: The Beyond, by Jason Shiga

Fri, 15 Dec 2023 11:46:38 -0500

I’ve been meaning to read (play?) this for months, ever since we bought it for kiddo after she recovered from being sick. Today, she’s sick again, so we went through it together.

This continues to be a great series by Shiga! I might like the first one more, but only slightly. The Beyond is surprisingly thinky for a kid’s book, has interesting puzzles, and there’s a hidden ending that I know exists but need to figure out. I hope Shiga has plans for more of these.

Wed, 13 Dec 2023 15:35:22 -0500

I love knowing that there’s a webcomic-to-children’s-book IP pipeline out there. Gives me some hope for humanity.

Fri, 08 Dec 2023 17:46:48 -0500

Kiddo learned what a bulletin board is from Stardew Valley’s quest mechanic and made one out of construction paper for asking for help with things around the house.

Mon, 04 Dec 2023 17:49:28 -0500

I know that video game adaptations of other properties are always dodgy, but how did they make Wreck-It Ralph’s so dang bad?

🍿 movieblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for The Muppet Christmas Carol

Sun, 03 Dec 2023 13:49:58 -0500

It has puppets, Christmas, and social justice—what more can you ask for? This is at least the third year in a row I’ve watched this with kiddo, and it still makes me laugh and cry when I watch it.

🍿 movieblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Wish

Fri, 24 Nov 2023 12:22:46 -0500

So, the thing is that I don’t really love the genre of the classic Disney movie, and this suffers from a lot of the issues of that genre. As a somewhat self-indulgent anniversary celebration, though, I think it’s a good homage to the past 100 years of Disney, blending the tropes of the genre with modern sensibilities and interesting animation.

Thu, 23 Nov 2023 19:39:10 -0500

Kiddo has no cousins on my side of the family, so during our Thanksgiving Zoom call, we successfully lobbied to add her to the siblings and partners gift exchange we do every Christmas.

Sun, 19 Nov 2023 20:00:25 -0500

Comme mon épouse se débrouille en français, on s’en sert pour parler des cadeaux devant notre fille exclusivement anglophone. Mais comme « Pokémon » serait quand-même reconnaissable, mon épouse a dû trouver une circonlocution : « le jeu vidéo de… pochette…. monstre ? »

Sun, 19 Nov 2023 19:35:04 -0500

Spouse and I have been using French to talk about Christmas presents in front of kiddo. Tonight, I got to hear spouse refer to “monsters of the pocket” so that kiddo wouldn’t recognize “Pokémon” in the middle of an otherwise incomprehensible-to-her sentence.

Sun, 19 Nov 2023 12:09:54 -0500

Spouse typically has a strict after-Thanksgiving rule for Christmas decorations, so the fact that we’re breaking them out today should tell you something about the week we had.

Tue, 14 Nov 2023 17:10:35 -0500

“Just as I suspected, Daddy… You’ve been listening to We Will Rock You!”

Mon, 13 Nov 2023 17:08:17 -0500

For orthodontic reasoms, kiddo has to brush teeth after eating basically anything, and we usually double check after each brushing. This just happened while I was making myself some chai, so she complained my fingers tasted like tea when I was poking them in her mouth.

Thu, 09 Nov 2023 19:12:43 -0500

Kiddo gets scared by even the mildest of spooky things, but she also loves the “jibblies” monster from Homestar Runner and does imitations of it where she says legitimately creepy things, and I don’t know how to reconcile those.

Tue, 07 Nov 2023 15:00:17 -0500

Did early voting on Saturday, so I guess my civic contribution for today is giving kiddo extra screen time while her school is being used as a polling place.

in praise of 'dad friends'

Thu, 02 Nov 2023 16:22:01 -0400

I have a “dad friend” I see most afternoons as we’re waiting for our kiddos to get out of school. He walks his kid home every day, and I either walk home or bike home with kiddo (a lot of walking recently because weather and a broken bike have been getting in our way). So, we hang out where all the walking parents hang out and chat for a few minutes before heading home. I’m on the list of approved people to pick his kid up, I keep meaning to add him to the list of approved people to pick kiddo up, our kids have been in the same class for two years in a row, and our shared relationship with the school and our kid’s teacher is pretty much the whole basis of our relationship.

There are plenty of differences between us. He’s got a decade or two on me and at least one grown kid from a previous marriage. I (mostly) grew up here in Kentucky, but left for college in Utah and then grad school in Michigan before coming back to work here. He grew up in Bulgaria and went to college in Moscow before moving here to Lexington—and I think he’s actually lived in Kentucky for longer than I have, even if you didn’t count the decade or so I went away.

Yet, we’ve got a lot in common, too, and so we never run out of things to talk about in our 5-15 minute almost-daily encounters. We both work for the local university, so we talk about that. He actually did a master’s degree in the college I’m in, so we talk about faculty we both know. We both do tech stuff for our jobs, so he asks me what software I use in my data science class (it’s R) and I ask him WordPress and other web development advice, since I teach a bit of that and do a bit of it for professional organizations I’m involved in. Today, we talked about music, and it came out that we both enjoy French rap (or at least one album apiece; his from MC Solaar, mine from Bigflo et Oli) despite neither of us expecting to list that particular genre on our list of favorites.

I’m not great at making or keeping friendships, especially in this period of my life, where keeping my job going, keeping my kid alive and thriving, and keeping my health up seem to take up so damn much of every single day. As I write all of this, it occurs to me that maybe I could do more to turn this “dad friendship” into a different kind of friendship—we live nearby, we have similar interests, and we get along well, so maybe we’d enjoy hanging out outside of this one context? Yet, even if it only ever stays a dad friendship (see the “so damn much” from earlier), it’s really nice to have someone to talk to about kids, work, and other random stuff for a few minutes a day, almost every day. That seems to me to be worthy in and of itself.

🔗 linkblog: Mario et ses amis font équipe dans 'Super Mario Bros. Wonder' - rts.ch - Arts visuels

Mon, 30 Oct 2023 06:50:45 -0400

Il a l’air bien sympa ce jeu. Ma fille ne sait pas encore qu’on lui achète un Switch pour Noël, et je me demande si on va finir par y jouer.

Sat, 28 Oct 2023 17:11:06 -0400

Kiddo has reached the “I want to read while you buy a few groceries, please steer me so I don’t walk into anyone” stage of bookwormdom.

Thu, 26 Oct 2023 15:03:09 -0400

I would never visit a casino or place a bet, but I’m putting off the last mow of the season until tomorrow morning, when it might rain and get all the leaves wet, so clearly I’m still a gambler.

Mon, 23 Oct 2023 18:20:07 -0400

Kiddo picked up a new library card over the weekend (lots of Kentucky counties do reciprocity agreements, so we collect them), and she’s incensed that there’s a 25-book limit at this system (we regularly check out 50 books each from two different counties).

Sat, 14 Oct 2023 10:19:15 -0400

It’s one of those Saturdays where I step out of the shower, and kiddo has left me a secret message in hieroglyphics to decipher.

Sat, 14 Oct 2023 08:01:19 -0400

Ma nièce est à Londres, et elle est toute contente de nous envoyer des photos de la fameuse Voie 9 3/4 de Harry Potter. Pour moi, il serait déjà magique d’avoir une vraie présence ferroviaire chez moi—la gare de King’s Cross m’est plus intéressante que Poudlard.

Thu, 12 Oct 2023 14:51:28 -0400

When my sister was in town last week, kiddo insisted on drawing her a surprisingly accurate diagram of how data gets transferred over the internet, so I brought it into the office for the next time I have to teach it.

Tue, 26 Sep 2023 16:33:51 -0400

Someone let us go to our local indie bookstore the week that kiddo is recovering from a rough semi-allergic reaction, so now she has a bunch of new stuff to read, and we have a lot more loyalty points.

Mon, 25 Sep 2023 07:28:56 -0400

Welcome to Mysterious Malady Monday, every parent’s favorite way to start the week!

Sat, 23 Sep 2023 11:18:47 -0400

Kiddo just responded to an instance of sexism in the past with a sarcastic “thanks, history!” and I think this should become a standard answer.

🍿 movieblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 pour Le Petit Nicolas

Sat, 09 Sep 2023 17:27:52 -0400

Je dis pas que c’est un chef d’oeuvre, mais ça faisait plusieurs années depuis la dernière fois que j’ai regardé ce film, et on s’est bien amusé, ma fille et moi. Ça donne envie de lire les livres.

Sat, 02 Sep 2023 08:37:03 -0400

Je regrette ne pas avoir réussi (pour le moment) à enseigner le français à ma fille, mais ça reste utile pour parler en secret avec mon épouse.

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 15:51:41 -0400

This is apparently the second August in a row I’ve complained on here that I’d much rather pay higher taxes than deal with another school fundraiser.

how is this more preferable than taxes?

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 15:09:34 -0400

Kiddo’s school is contracting with a company called Booster to raise $78,000 for new technology for the school. U.S. schools are, of course, underfunded, and I’m generally in favor of getting more money into their bank accounts. I have a number of concerns about this fundraiser, though, and it’s making me grumpy.

what “technology”?

I have a PhD in educational technology, which means two things in this context. First, I’m very aware of the fundamental—and often useful—role that technology plays in learning, so I’m not opposed to updating the tech in kiddo’s school. Second, and in contrast, I’ve spent a fair amount of time reading critiques of educational technology. Consider this observation from Larry Cuban’s 2003 book Oversold and Underused, which is describing attitudes toward educational technology in the 1990s:

Although it would be preferable to attribute expenditures for technologies to rational deliberations among public officials and corporate leaders, the broad support for new technologies in schools across all sectors of society suggests that more was involved than rational decision making. The reasons given for wiring schools and investing in equipment reveal less concern over whether the computer was effective in raising achievement or transforming learning and teaching than over the perceived imperative of simply getting machines into schools. Decisions to purchase hardware and software or wire schools were as much symbolic political gestures as they were attempts to actually acquire the right tool to get a job done well.

I’d like to know what technologies that this school is investing in. There are purchases that I would think are legitimate, but if it’s more ClassDojo? Heck no, I don’t want to raise a penny for that. Also, is this investment in technology about a kind of posturing, or is it something that’s actually going to help the class out?

who benefits?

As far as I can tell, the Booster company takes at least a 5% cut (more likely, at least a 7% cut) of the money raised for the school. I get that any private company that supports school fundraising has to pay its bills, but I don’t love the idea of a company whose whole business model is making money by offering “exciting, high energy event[s] to get students excited and motivated to participate.

What’s more, I’m the kind of dad who reads privacy policies and terms of service, and I don’t love what I see there. For example, here’s a fun line in the privacy policy:

If fun run participants or their parent/legal guardian (if child is less than 13 years old) opt to allow us to use or share Business Information and other data with trusted affiliates, independent contractors and other businesses for marketing and business purposes, we may choose to do so.

“Business Information” refers to:

information that tells [Booster] specifically who a visitor is and their contact information, including their name, email address, street address and telephone number.

To its credit, Booster claims that they

do not rent, lease or sell Business Information or Google or Gmail information or contacts to any marketeer.

Yet, “data is oil” or whatever, and if Booster is reserving the right to share our data with “trusted affiliates, independent contractors and other businesses,” it’s because they know they can squeeze some value out of it on top of the cut that they take from the money we’re trying to donate to our schools. Don’t love that.

What’s more, to register kiddo with Booster for the purposes of the activity, the company also benefits from my decision to:

assume all risks associated with Participant participating in the Events including, but not limited to, personal injury and fatality, which may be caused by, without limitation, falls, contact with other participants, weather related conditions (including high heat and/or humidity), and other conditions at the site(s) of the Events, all such risks being known and appreciated by me. Having read this waiver and knowing these facts and in consideration of your accepting Participant’s entry, I, for myself, and for Participant, Participant’s heirs, executors, administrators and anyone else entitled to act on Participant’s behalf, to the full extent permitted by law, waive and release the organizers of the Events, Booster and all other sponsors, suppliers, agents and independent contractors of the Events, and each of their employees, officers, agents, volunteers, representatives and successors (collectively, “Booster’s Representatives”) from all claims, demands, actions, causes of action and liabilities of any kind arising out of Participant’s participation in any of the Events. This release includes claims based on the negligence of any type whatsoever of Booster and Booster’s Representatives, but expressly does not include claims based on their intentional misconduct or recklessness. I understand that by agreeing to the release and waiver herein, I am assuming full responsibility for any and all risk of injury, fatality, or property damage suffered by Participant while participating in any of the Events, and I am releasing claims and giving up substantial rights, including any right to sue.

I mean, really?

why not taxes?

The thing that kills me most about all of this is that it’s coming at the same time that the local board of education is announcing lower tax rates for the current school year:

The Fayette County Board of Education is continuously committed to being a good steward of the community’s investments in our public schools. These decisions will mean lower tax rates for 2023-24—good news for all property owners in Lexington. Combining this fiscal stewardship with sound academic and strategic goals, Superintendent Demetrus Liggins brought to the board a way that helps to keep tax rates steady for personal property and motor vehicles, with a decrease in the real estate tax. The real estate tax rate approved Monday night results in a decrease of 2.3 cents—$23 in taxes for real property assessed at $100,000. This plan will benefit not only taxpayers but also our students. Given the growth of our community, these changes will still lead to an estimated $316.1 million increase in revenues to help fund the strategic investments of our district to support our students and staff.

I’m not a public policy expert, so I’m not fully equipped to evaluate all of the claims being made in that announcement. If schools still don’t have the money to get all the equipment they need, though, shouldn’t we be raising taxes instead of lowering them? (Alternatively, if the technology isn’t necessary, why are we raising money for it?) What’s more, I live in a relatively wealthy part of town with one of the nicer schools in the area for kiddo’s age. Using fundraising as a mechanism of school improvement (again, if indeed this technology investment will improve the school) is going to benefit some schools at the implicit expense of others.

So, charge me all the money in taxes you want, schools. Heck, I won’t even blame you for being in the crappy situation that makes you turn to fundraising instead of being able to ask for more taxes from the local population. But please understand why I’m grumpy about this creepy fundraising parternship—and why I’m not going to participate.

In the meantime, now I have to explain to kiddo why she doesn’t get a cool keychain like the other kids in her class, because this whole thing is based on a petty behaviorism instead of the kind of sense of public duty that could help us build adequate funding for schools. Ugh.

Sun, 20 Aug 2023 07:42:19 -0400

Inspired by a sci-fi book I’m reading, I made an off-handed quip this morning about becoming a disembodied simulation. Kiddo responded that she preferred to have a “huggable, play-withable” daddy.

Wed, 09 Aug 2023 17:54:34 -0400

Does anyone have experience arranging for language lessons for kids? I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m reasonably competent as a French teacher and as a dad, but not the combination of the two.

Mon, 07 Aug 2023 17:24:40 -0400

I don’t like the card game War as a game, but I’m increasingly appreciative of it as a way to spend time with kiddo.

Fri, 04 Aug 2023 20:12:10 -0400

We decided to stuff this weekend full (early anniversary dinner and movie, then visit to friends across the state, then family visit to water park) so naturally kiddo tested positive for COVID-19 tonight.