This is something straight out of a fiction novel. Every year, millions upon millions of crickets are born in Nevada, and when summer hits, they swarm over any nearby town. Imagine waking up to a couple of thousand of these guys running all over your house.



pretty freaky.

But you'll be even more surprised when you find out what defensive weapons residents are using to repel these leaf-thirsty invaders. Read the story Here.

I've know my friend Emm since i was but a wee lad. And now she's given birth to her first daughter!

Presenting Hailey Joy Davis
Born at 12:48pm. 7lbs, 8oz. 19.5 in tall.



Congratulations Davis family!!

This Easter is especially special, because as of last night, my lady Sarah is officially Catholic! That's right! At Easter Vigil Mass, Sarah was Baptized with the waters of life, confirmed with the Holy Spirit, and then celebrated her First Communion. A three-fer! It was quite a commitment, with 9 months of going to class once a week, and 8:30am mass every Sunday. Throw a tiny be-be in the mix, and it makes for quite a difficult schedule to work around. But, she made it through successfully.
Congrats, lady lady!

Check out these pictures of the ceremony below.

Attention, Attention! Today Alexander Tate took his first official steps! There were three of them, and they carried him from the coffee table, perilously across the carpet to a nearby chair. Huzzah! Good show my boy! Seems that my prediction was right on! Good for you, little man!
Unfortunately, this means that now he can scamper away from me twice as fast....

My brother and Mady gave birth to a beautiful baby boy this morning!
Presenting my brother's first baby boy:



Relevant Information:
Name: Noah Dexter Zakrzewski
Time Born: 8am
Sign: Aries
Weight: 7 lbs.
Height: 21 in.

The bad news was that instead of private care, they had an incompetent HMO. Not a good call. There were some serious complications, and the baby barely made it, after a grueling 31 hours of labor.
But make it he did! And a beautiful baby boy he is.

Congratulations to you Mady & Ian!

Alexander now has a boy cousin, and this rounds out a total of 4 grandchildren for my parents.

This is what i do, for those with questions....

This News Article, prominently displayed on Yahoo's front page today, discusses the boundary of space. But it also discusses a rocket for which I DESIGNED the electronics! Joule 2 was a project i worked on towards the end of 2006. That's right! I designed & built the instrument that was able to make the atmospheric measurements aboard this rocket.

How awesome is that??!

For the first time in over 200 years, Pirates have captured an American Vessel. The Maersk Alabama, loaded with emergency food supplies, was traveling in Pirate-infested waters when it was waylaid by Somali Pirates . While this has been happening quite regularly in those waters, never before has it been a US ship. I'm a big fan of pirates in general, but in reality, i'd have to side with the victims on this one.

UPDATE:
What a crazy turn of events! Apparently the heroic crew has fought and re-taken the ship from the pirates! However, the captain has been taken hostage. What will happen next?

ooooohhhh....

UPDATE:
Turns out, the Unites States Navy isn't a panzy when it comes to piracy! A number of Navy Vessels surrounded the tiny boat where the captain was held. Then, on Easter Sunday morning, snipers took out the armed guards holding the captain at gunpoint!
A successful rescue!
Story Here

We live in a very fearful society. People are happy to turn over basic freedoms for the illusion of security. Take for example airports. One terrorist attack and hundreds of millions of dollars are poured into massive government agencies. These agencies then go to extreme measures for your 'safety' in order to........ confiscate your toothpaste.

Benjamin Franklin said "Those who are willing to give up liberty for security deserve neither liberty OR security."

I stumbled upon an article regarding just this thing. And this article is supported by numbers. It lists out your one year and lifetime chances to die of any given occurrence, and finds those that fear terrorism are waaaaayyy over-reacting. I don't want to spoil to for ya, so go check it out.

Unless, of course, you are afraid that your computer will explode when you click on the link....

So... I go to get my monthly pass today at the grocery store. This, I must say, is probably the only redeeming thing about the Metro. I buy a monthly pass at the beginning of the month, and put it in my wallet. Its good for all lines. When a guard person stops me and asks to see a pass, I pull out my wallet, and show it to them. Pretty easy. This saves me from having to every morning put $5 into the machine for a day pass.

Well, the morons who run the Metro have come to the misguided conclusion that they're not making as much money from fines as they can. So get this, they've DONE AWAY WITH THE MONTHLY PASS. That's right. After using the passes for 13 months with no problems what's so ever, they are getting rid of a perfectly good thing. Instead, they have this retarded thing called a TAP card. What you have to do, is slide the thing on a reader each time you board a train. The "idea" here is that you can buy a bunch of tickets ahead of time and electronically put them on the TAP. Its great for students that take the metro every couple of days, but for me, its a horrible idea.

You can still buy a monthly pass, load it onto the TAP, and it gives you unlimited rides for that month. HOWEVER, you are required to swipe it at every stop!!! That's SIX swipes for me, every day. One for each line, both ways. Instead of having to just getting on the next connecting train, i now have to go out of my way to find a machine, stop & wait in lines to swap this lame card. And here's the kicker. If I don't swipe it? I GET A FINE. YEA! And there in lies the point. They're hoping that you fail to swipe so when they check, BAM. Ticket. It doesn't matter that you paid for a full month and have unlimited rides. Because you didn't swipe it, you get a $250 fine.
What a bunch of morons. You can claim that they're doing this to save paper. Well guess what, Kemosabe. Rather than having to apply for a TAP card, wait for it to arrive in the mail, load the darn thing monthly, and swipe it six times a day, it's easier to just buy a paper day pass once a day, in the morning.

Group think strikes again.

Alexander is now 11 months old. He's quite strong. We had these grey portable barriers blocking off unfriendly baby areas, such as bathrooms, the kitchen, and behind the couch. Well, being portable, they're by definition movable. And he-man Alexander can move em'. Hes quite determined to get into these places and pretty much always does.

I keep my phone behind the couch, by the door. It gets plugged in there for charging. Of course when babies invade, it makes a wonderful target. A long, quite exciting snake-like black cord, and when pulled, presents the miscreant with a reward in the form of a nice light show; the dying silent scream of my cell phone hitting the floor.
Well, two days ago the room is eerily still, I knew something to be immediately amiss. And there he was behind the couch with a long black cord running from his lips. I shriek and say "don't put THAT in your mouth!" I immediately pull it out, but its too late. To the delight of my devilish child, the phone charger no longer works.
My phone is dead.

Parenting Lesson #43 : babies & technology don't mix.

So i've been thinking about a number of interesting events lately. Taken separately, they may not mean much, but as a whole, i think they are transpiring to remove something we see every day. I'm talking about Newspaper Dispensers.
You know the ones. They're out in-front of every grocery/liquor store. They're near bust stops, streets, and post offices. They're ubiquitous around plazas and malls. As a matter of fact, you probably see a few of them every time you leave the house.
Here are a few i snapped pictures of.





These timeless specimens may be some of the last of their kind. They are now becoming an urban endangered species.
How long will these boxes say around when their owners are falling? One by one? How much longer can they remain an asset to humans until their mere presence becomes a blight? How many people carry a dollars worth of quarters around in their pockets when the change is so useless, and in an era of plastic? How can they compete with the likes of new technologies that promise to bring you the latest news, wirelessly, to the palm of your hand?
This is by no means the end of paper, and there will always be a need for flyers advertising a garage sale or a band playing at a local bar. But i maintain, that within the next few years, these urban dwellings that have for decades housed your local sources of news, just like the news paper sellers of the past, Extra! Extra! First trans-Atlantic flight successful!, will be no more.

On the red line on the way home, I had the pleasure to have a whole row to myself. Until the next stop, of course. Here, two individuals boarded.I say individuals because they were about as individual as you can get.
The first one was what can only be described as a Rastafarian Gangsta. This 6 foot tall merry gentleman had 2 fool long dreads, a bight, bright red,yellow & green Bob Marley t shirt, a skull necklace hanging from his neck, and a pair of matching spiked wrist guards. What really sealed the deal is when he put on his ipod and started rocking out to death metal. Awesome.
The second individual was also quite interesting. It was a kid; probably around high school age. And he was dressed up as a doll. I kid you not. Curly brown wig, and all. His pasty white skin showcased the matte pink cheek makeup rather well. He had this starry-eyed look in his eyes, and was looking around, rocking his head, merrily trying to get in-touch with some inner part of himself that was clearly not there.

Only on the red line....