John Martyn

R.I.P. John Martyn. I'm not a fan of all of John Martyn's music, but some of his early 70's stuff is pretty great. Also, dig the all-time cool album cover (Stormbringer!!!)

He died today of pneumonia. Check him out here:

http://www.arthurmag.com/magpie/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/06-john-the-baptist.mp3

Birthday!!!

Happy birthday Bell!!!! I hope it's full of wonderful things!!

Future Ninjas!!!

Here's Jack showing the skills that keep us on our toes 24 hours a day. Finn never got out of his crib & Jack's been perfecting his technique for a while now. It's really impressive how agile he is for a little guy. He's also pretty fearless - a very soothing combination. As I type, he and Finn are creating a massive death-slide out of the couch pillows. Boys are so much fun!!

More Good!!!

Well, here I am at traffic school : (

Okay - I didn't come to a complete stop at that stop sign, so I accept my debt to society. I guess one ticket in ten years isn't so bad, but man is traffic school different now! Here I am in pajamas in our living room, listening to the rain outside and wating for the timer to go down so I can take my next quiz. It's all pretty weird, but I guess is an example of how the Internet has improved things - if made us a bit more anti-social.

Anyway, it gives me a chance to post a great new find. Speaking of the Internet improving things, this really could be the greatest web idea ever! It's called the Good Guide (no relation to Good Magazine, although both definitely are), and the concept is brilliant: you can enter in a product or type of product and the site will tell you, basically, how "green" the product is. In other words - what is the environmental impact? Are there any unsafe chemicals used? Is it organic?

As if that wasn't enough, you also find out if there were any questionable labor practices used (sweatshops, etc.) and what political parties received the company's donations!!! It's also really clear and easy to use! There's a basic score for stuff & you can go into detail on everything - It's super-easy and informative. Unfortunately, it's also pretty new, and so they don't have everything yet - no food for example. But it seems like they're trying to update quickly, and what they do have is very helpful - I'm already making a deodorant switch!

The thing that really strikes me about the site though is that if many people started using this, then companies would be more likely to see these issues as being important to consumers and begin to change their habits accordingly. It may seem idealistic, but I was actually really inspired by the site! I hope that more people find out about it & check it out. Here's the link:

http://www.goodguide.com/

Well, on to the next quiz.

Books!!!

Well, we at the Dore house are a little disappointed in the Obama presidency. The economy is still in a slump, the war drags on, and our environment remains unclean. Promises, promises... Anyway, if you're still interested in the guy, there is a great article from the New York Times about the books that he likes - I've got to love a guy who lists Moby Dick as one of his favorites (are we both D***heads?) Maybe there is hope after all!! Read the article here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/19/books/19read.html?_r=2&em

Also - Lost tonight!!!!

Good!!!

One of the best online magazines is called Good, and it really is! I'm bringing it up now because they have tons of great inauguration stuff today, including the whole ceremony in case you missed it. Also check out the great "Zagat" style cabinet review, and the reassuring link to the Obama White House communications blog - very impressive. You can check see what Good is here:

http://www.good.is/#/about/what_is_good

Wake One Morning...

Well, my lesson plan went out the window this morning! Instead, I watched the inauguration ceremony with my 11th grade class - a much better use of all of our time I think!!! They laughed at me for crying, but it was such a moving event!!!

For the most part, I think that it was over their heads, but at the end, as Bush flew away in a helicopter, we all sang "Na na na na, hey hey, good bye!!!" At least we were all united in being ready for a change. Good luck President Obama!!!

Zoo!!!!

We had a great day at the zoo on Sunday with the Gambells.

It was a typical perfect L.A. day in January, and most of the animals were actually moving around, instead of the usual simultaneous sleeping and hiding. A great day to take our guys to the zoo.

Felix seemed especially into the monkeys (not surprising as his parents call him monkey), and Jamie held his stroller up many times so that he could get a better view. What a good dad!!

Finn liked the hippo, who gave a great display of teeth. I thought the tigers were especially great today as they were doing a great deal of tigering, to the delight of all of the onlookers. It made me think of the terrible attack in San Fransisco a couple of years ago, and glad of every foot of the space in between them and us!!

One of the amazing things that we discovered on this trip is that Amy has the magical ability to make the animals poop by merely gazing at them!!! There must be some way to turn this into cash!


We talked about how cool it is, even in our over-stimulated day and age, that you can still get a little zing of the wild from seeing these incredible animals. It was a great zoo day!

The Death of Khan

R.I.P.

And the moon is climbing high...

Man, I think tonight's moon is even more amazing!!! Once again, the camera completely doesn't do it justice, but it is one of the best "harvest" moons I've ever seen. Hope you all caught it!

Moonshine!!!

Hey y'all - it's the biggest, brightest full moon of the year tonight - and a beautiful night to boot (at least in Atwater). This picture doesn't do it justice at all - go check it out!!!

Crazy!!!

How's this for crazy: researchers in Japan have apparently figured out a way to begin to take the images directly from a person's brain and view them on a computer screen!!! They do this by analyzing the cerebral blood flow, and are able to show their subjects images to that are then transfered from the brains to a monitor. The scientists predict that they may be able to actually see people's dreams before too long!!!! I'm not sure how accurate this is, because I've just seen it on one kind-of-obscure web site, but how insane would that be?????

If you are interested, check out this link - there is also a great Youtube video of their results so far. Not quite dreams yet, but pretty amazing nonetheless:

http://thoughtware.tv/videos/show/3258

Discovery Cube!!!

For his birthday last year, Bell and Steve gave Finn his choice between a trip to the Aquarium or a trip to the Discovery Cube. Finn was quite torn, because he loves everything having to do with the ocean, but when he found out there was a special bat exhibit at the Discovery Cube, he was sold. Of course it's taken us many moons to get there, but we finally made it this past Saturday, although without daddy (this is an Em report).


We've driven past the Discovery Cube, which is off of the 5 freeway in Irvine, many, many times and always been intrigued by just what there was there to be discovered. It turns out - there's quite a lot!


We don't have any pictures from the bat exhibit, because it was very dark, but we had a great time there. Finn's favorite part were some enormous bat ears that you could stick your head inbetween so that you could hear the way that a bat hears.




















Bell and Finn pushed their hands and faces into a pin wall. I never realized how much Bell looks like Han Solo! The next picture is Jack and a tornado. It's kind of hard to see, because the tornado is designed so that kids can disrupt the airflow - as Jack is doing here with a kiss - but as soon as the kids step back, it turns right back into an Oz-worthy storm.

It turns out that the dinosaur (who you can see from the freeway) is an enormous brachiosaurus that the kids can run through. It was hard to do him justice, but his entire mid-section is open so that you can see the food he is eating moving through his digestive track - and I do mean all the way through. That's right, the next picture is a picture of Jack playing on a mountain of dinosaur poop.

Finn and Bell also braved a 3D dinosaur movie that was apparently really cool, but a little scary. Good thing Jack kept me company outside.

The giant cube (which you can also see from the freeway) turned out to be an enormous solar panel that partially-powers the museum. There was also a geyser, a machine that kids could make whirlpools with, a wind tunnel, a very cool play area for little kids with a Yellow submarine that made bubble noises when you were inside it, and many, many other amazing things to discover.

Pretty neat, huh? We thought so! Thanks Aunt Bell and Uncle Steve!!!

Conundrum!!!

Just in case ANYBODY cares, pre-sale tickets for the 2009 Dead tour go on sale next Tuesday(Jan. 13). YES, Jerry's still dead and it'll never be quite the same again, but its still fun to go see the rest of the band & the folks & the buses, etc.

Dan & I saw them on the last tour, I think 4 years ago (!!!) and it wasn't spectacular, but it WAS in Orange County (sorry Bell), and they did have Joan Osbourne (!!!) singing. This time it's at the Forum and no Joan : ) Also, back then, they had an annoying guitar player named Jimmy Herring who goes tweedly tweedly tweedly a lot. This time the band's got a decent guitar player named Warren Haynes from Govt. Mule & sometimes Alman Bros. So it coooooooooould be OK.

Anyway, I totally want to go to the show at the Forum on May 9, BUT it's also the weekend of the Whole Earth Festival at Davis. This was a great gig for us last year, BUT we don't know if we're in yet. And the show could suck, BUT it could be good. So it's a conundrum.

Just in case anyone else wants to go, tix are available here:

http://dead.net/dead09/?signup=1#

Christmas Morning!!!

Well, as Ryan says, here are the obligatory Christmas morning pictures. I'm sure that they probably look a lot like many other Christmas pictures that you may have seen, but you may not have noticed the subtle difference.

Which is - if you look closely at some of the pictures, you will see that there is an actual elf in attendance. The ears are a dead give away.

Other than that, it's pretty much your basic blizzard of presents and wrapping paper. We had a great time, but it might not be too exciting for others to see. I do however like the last picture (especially the look on Dad's face) that, I think, perfectly expresses the incredible weariness that settles in after the presents have all been opened. It's always fun, but the afternoon nap is really nice.

New Year!!!

Happy New Year everyone!!! It's been a crazy couple of weeks, but we're back in business. We've had Christmas, New Years, various illnesses, and no phone service, but the biggest thing for us this year is that we finally moved in to our new place!! We'll miss the little old house - I can't believe we were there for 8 years! But we had definitely outgrown it - about two years ago actually, when Jack was born. It served us well (and was incredibly cheap), but it was time to move on.

To some, our new place might not seem like a huge change - it's only got one more room, but to us, it's like a palace! It also has many wonderful extras such as a great view of Griffith Park, a playground for the kids, a dishwasher (Em's favorite thing I think), a gym, and a swimming pool (!!!). But the best thing is that we're no longer sleeping in our living room!! As Dan sang when he came over last night - we're movin' on up!! We're all very happy here, but it's still a mess, so I'll post pictures when things are presentable.

In the meantime, back to Christmas.

After frantically shopping (see earlier blog), it was so nice to finally get to Mom & Petur's house for their traditional Christmas Eve party. They had a smaller party than usual this year, but it was a great group of friends and family including both sisters, Jamie and Felix (first Christmas!!), Em's mom Panna and her husband Larry, and Dad and Molly who made a wild journey down from Oregon (an epic story in itself).

We had a great dinner and did the traditional tree lighting & singing. It may not have been as big as previous parties, but it felt very special and intimate. I especially liked when mom's friend Gila sang the tradtional Chanukka song for lighting the Menorah. It's always such a perfect way to begin Christmas!