Below are the 13 most recent journal entries recorded in Michelle's LiveJournal:

Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008
12:21 pm	Welcome Home! Got home last night from a great Caribbean cruise vacation with Jerrod and the kids. Jerrod went straight to work in Philadelphia from the airport while the kids and I drove back to CT. Walked in the house to find it raining through the ceiling from the 2nd floor into the kitchen. I think I just stood there for about a minute to really embrace the horror of it. I asked the kids to run upstairs and check all faucets/showers. The faucet of one of the master bath's sinks was on and overflowing. My diagnosis: our newest kitten, Little Bit, was lounging in the sink, stepped on the drain stopper to close it and later brushed up against the lever for the faucet, turning it on. Before I left I made sure to clean the kitchen well and do the best I could to get things organized, in spite of the mess of packing, so that I could come home to a clean (well clean enough for me) house. I hate walking into a messy house after being on vacation, it's such a downer. I would consider this an epic failure on that front. Now I am exhausted from managing this mess. And worst of all, I have to talk with the insurance company. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 5th, 2007
12:20 pm	Floor! here's a situation from a live game at foxwoods. what's your ruling?: limit HE, 3 players in the pot, seats 8, 10 & 1, seat 8 is in the SB, the turn comes down: after a couple of moments, 10 seat bets, 1 seat raises, now the action stops and 8 & 10 are talking. apparently 8 never acted and the dealer wasn't paying attention (shocker). 1 seat says "sorry, you're too late." the floor is called. from the ensuing discussion it is clear that the 10 seat knows that the 8 seat hadn't acted, and may even have been the one to stop the action to ask the 8 seat. the dealer had nothing to add to the discussion. your ruling? ( the foxwoods ruling ) (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, November 30th, 2007
10:09 am	Follow up - I don't want to go to Mexico I came to know this song because it had upset my daughter Abby. She came home from school, telling me that they sang a mean song in music and described the song for me. She heard the teacher sing it, became upset and excused herself from class so that she wouldn't have to participate. I'm proud of her for handling it that way. Interestingly, no one (myself included) identified the reason that the song was upsetting to her as a potential problem. I think the reason for this is that children don't come to judge things with the broad set of knowledge and experiences that adults use. Kids are also limited in their ability to detect things like nuance, context and facetiousness. Because of these limitations, they are also likely to paint people, things and ideas in broad strokes. As a result, situations that require judgment may be interpreted by a child much differently than you might expect and adults often fail to consider the unintended consequences. There is also the matter of introducing a negative impression to children about a country/culture that they don't have much experience with to provide them with some positive counterbalance or means for understanding. This is why I think its best to keep things like this rhyme out of the environments of children. Back to the reason why it upset Abby. She doesn't have any reason to believe anything lousy about Mexico. As far as she knows they make good food, they have fun music, the language is fun to speak and they are our neighbor. She knows that there are lots of different cultures in the world, with different traditions and values and that makes the world interesting. Abby's father is a police officer. He's a principled man and a great father and the kids adore him. When Abby heard this song, she heard an indictment of police officers. That police extort money by brute force and make people fearful. She doesn't associate this with Mexico so much, because she doesn't have any complex ideas about Mexico. But she does have these ideas about police officers. She doesn't think that Mexican police officers and US police officers are likely to be much different. After all, they are all just people trying to do a difficult job. And frankly, I think she's probably right, in spite of all the lousy images in my head that I'm trying to get past. So there you have it. Kids aren't little adults and they often don't interpret things as you think they would. I'm so proud of my kids. They're very sensitive and I'm glad that they feel like they should speak up when something isn't right. I won't even get into how difficult it is to keep kids from casually throwing descriptions like "big fat" around when it's so prevalent. Having a teacher reinforce it is aggravating enough. So yeah, I emailed the teacher. :) (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, November 29th, 2007
12:58 pm	aww..how sweet Are you familiar with this nursery rhyme? I don't want to go to Mexico No more, more, more. There's a big fat policeman At my door, door, door. He grabbed me by the collar, He made me pay a dollar, I don't want to go to Mexico No more, more, more. Would you allow your kids to sing it? How would you feel if it was taught to your kids by another adult? What if that adult was an educator? (13 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, November 16th, 2007
3:17 pm	stand back!... I got a phone call last night from the lawn care company: lcc: would you like us to come out and do the lime application? me: what does the lime do? lcc: it lowers the pH and lowers the acidity in the soil me (repeating aloud for j's benefit): it lowers the pH and lowers the acidity. really? lcc: yes me: okay hangs up Me to j: so, who's the bigger fool? Me immediately agreeing to purchase a product that was described to me wrongly or the fellow who doesn't understand the information about the product he's trying to sell? In other "science" news, j and the kids come back from their madscience class and abby runs in exclaiming, "mom, we did science!" I couldn't help but think of xkcd. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, September 10th, 2007
11:59 am	liberty video here is an elegant presentation on the philosophy of liberty from the International Society for Individual Liberty. spread the word! (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, July 31st, 2007
11:17 pm	the smell of hospitals in winter ooh ooh. j & i just had dinner at a little local joint called the wood 'n tap tonight and on the way in i spotted a poster for, omg, counting crows in concert. here, like, aug. 18th soon. wow, instantly i feel like a teenager. i just love (old) cc and have never seen them live. the funny part is (well not ha ha funny) i've checked their website several times over the past couple of years and there haven't been any tour dates that worked for us. accordingly, as soon as i'm not paying attention for a couple of months... of course i bought tickets as soon as we got home. hell, i even bought them on ticketmaster. i hate ticketmaster. i'm so excited. i can easily think of more than 20 songs that i would really like to hear. let's all hope that the new stuff is kept to a minimum. but it's not all that easy, so maybe I should snap her up in a butterfly net, pin her down on a photograph album I am not worried, I've done this sort of thing before (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, July 30th, 2007
10:44 pm	you okay mom? after the kids returned from football & cheerleading practice tonight they wanted to sit and watch tv for a few minutes while they finished their ice cream and berries. "can we watch double dare?" uh, okay. many of you are probably familiar with double dare. we were watching the family version, with 2 teams comprised of 2 adults and (presumably) their 2 children. to quote the wiki entry the game goes like this: "I'm going to ask you a question, and if you don't know the answer, or think the other team hasn't got a clue, you can dare them to answer it for double the dollars. But be careful, because they can always double dare you back for four times the amount, and then you'll either have to answer the question or take the physical challenge." so here comes the question: the U.S. government has 3 branches. one is the executive branch. what are the names of the other 2 branches? first team deliberates, then: dare. me: what!?! oh wait, there must be some "next level" thinking going on here. opposing team also thinks, then: double dare. me: slaps head, confused about why they didn't answer. original team: we'll take the physical challenge. my head explodes. that's right, out of 2 families of 4, not one person was able to /name/ the branches of our government. michael: you okay, mom? then the next question, to wrap it all up nicely: in the nfl, what is the penalty for holding? first team, without hesitation: 10 yards correct! Pictures are better than words because some words are big and hard to understand. -p. griffin (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, June 24th, 2007
12:19 pm	vegas back from vegas. i wasn't going to play any wsop events on this trip, but that was because i didn't know that there was a 3k limit event. i didn't have any interesting situations come up nor did i make many hands, so it was pretty boring. my table draw was fine, minh ly was to my immediate left and he kept trying to give me chips but failed repeatedly by backing into various straights. lost a big pot with aces when a guy called 2 cold on the flop with a gutshot straight draw. in the 5 or 6 hours that i played: no one stole the blinds, there were no blind on blind confrontations and there were no walks for the blind. most pots were contested by at least 4 players for multiple bets. so if you made hands you were going to pickup chips. ( more trip report ) (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, June 14th, 2007
3:19 pm	Your Urgent Action Needed This is a very important time and your urgent action is necessary. In spite of our ongoing efforts, we continue to have problems. In retrospect, our prior work was only half-hearted. We had taken a myopic view, looking only at one piece of the problem puzzle at a time. Obviously our work in creating many new pieces of legislation has helped tremendously, but it is now clear that we need to attack the crux of this issue, the entire network of problems. Problems are causing us to lose quality time for ourselves and our family. These problems will not stop there and will even target hard working people at their places of business. Problems affect the health of adults and children alike. Problems also continue to prevent children from reaching their true potential in school. All you need do, concerned citizen, is stop for a moment and realize that everyone around you continues to suffer from problems. You can help by supporting the Happy and Safe Americans Act. Yes we're making strides by drawing up other numerous pieces of legislation to ban trans-fat, get rid of guns, stop people from gambling and increase the amount of money the Government can have to help us all, among other helpful initiatives. However, it is entirely clear that we are missing the big picture. We must pass this desperately needed piece of federal legislation to end problems before it is too late. Congress would be derelict in its duty to take care of this country and its unknowing subjects if it does not act to protect us from this epidemic of problems. Please act now because time continues to pass. Call and write to your congressman and urge him or her to support the Happy and Safe Americans Act. You can also help even more by donating lots of money to the Association for a Problem Free America and to any candidate who will lend their vote in favor of the Happy and Safe Americans Act. Let's make America great again fine citizen and thank you for your support. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, June 4th, 2007
11:59 am	Hi Dr. Nick! Flipping through a nursing "career guide" I glimpse an ad for (Hollywood) Upstairs Medical College, which prompts a page flip-back to, err, (SUNY) Upstate Medical University. heh. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, May 13th, 2007
9:11 am	Mother's Day Classic Here's a classic for all the moms and their children. The Lanyard is one of my favorites from Billy Collins. When I read the poem it makes me weepy and when I listen to Collins' reading I find much more joy in it. Guess that I naturally suppress the whimsical tone, but that's the nature of art; it exposes you. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, May 5th, 2007
2:49 pm	Is that still happening? Recently I was talking with someone and the genocide in Darfur came up, to which she replied, "Oh is that still going on? I haven't heard anything for a while." So it seems fitting that if I ever post anything that it should be this. The US Holocaust Memorial Musem has teamed with Google, among others, to bring us closer to the crisis in Darfur via special layers and updated satellite imagery through Google Earth. You can find it here. Yay for technology! (2 Comments |Comment on this)