Awww, He has Your ... Nothing?

Edit: Video is now hosted on youtube - for the iPad folk.

None of our relatives think Greg looks like us. Surprisingly, this response has been consistent. The usual statement is, "Awww, he... Well, he doesn't really look like either of you."

This is likely their way of calling him cute.

I've heard well-meaning relatives claim - with great certainty - that a newborn child has her mothers chin, her fathers ears, her uncle's "vague sense of uneasy menace" and so on. (I have nieces.) My assumption has always been that this is silliness. Newborns look weird. You can say whatever you want and have a good time.

Disproved.

More than half of my shiny new son's visitors have looked down on him, become confused, and stated, "Well, he doesn't really look like either of you?!"

I respond reassuringly, "I'm quite certain he's the one I saw come out. He's very distinctive."

I suspect this isn't reassuring to my parents - who may remember that when I was in middle school I lost track of our selected puppy and we brought home with a girl yellow lab instead of a boy. (We later named her Sandy. She was noble, loving, and brave and I'm confident I brought home the right puppy.)

However, the truth is, I've never heard anyone say this before. Sure, all parents share my quiet fear that our child was really an awesome half dragon, half unicorn (our recessive traits) super creature and that the government secretly did a switch, but that's just crazy... right?

The Lowest A

In my spare time, I'm taking a free online Artificial Intelligence class offered by Stanford University. I even signed up for the "real" version that has homework and exams. If I pass I get a certificate!

This evening, they graded our first homework and I'm finally convinced that the class is legit. Behold:

The lowest A. My signature score.

Despite this being a trivial assignment, my having taken K-State's version of this class before, and me being a AI professional that actively uses exactly this stuff as part of my job, I still managed to miss just enough to seriously threaten the B range. Some things never change. Harumph.

Kefir Fail

For the last two weeks I've been trying to make Kefir. Kefir is supposed to be one of the most beneficial probiotic foods in the universe and I've read lots of comments by internet folk that agree. You can buy it, but that's a "lesser" form. The really good stuff is homemade.

To make Kefir, you get some Kefir "grains" and you add them to milk. Then you let the milk sit out for a day. The grains are made of bacteria and yeast and they live and grow and the byproducts convert your milk into awesome immortalizing Kefir.

The dried grains (yellow), freshly out of the box.

The rig: a mason jar with a cheese cloth lid.

I think my grains are damaged. They may be dead. It's very sad.

I've been making batch after batch for two weeks now. Early on, they smelled really yeasty instead of sour, now there's no odor at all. They showed up the same day as Greg, and that meant that they spent a few extra days in the mailbox, but I don't know. I feel like they should have been fine. Maybe I got some sad grains.

Yesterday, I even drank a bit of one batch. I think it made me gassy for about four hours.

At some point, I need to give up on this particular clump of grains and buy a new one, but it's hard. They're alive, you know? I want to help them. It's tough to let go.

Gym/Horse Flooring

I finally found a place to buy horse stall mats! With the kindly help of Will and his high-capacity van, I've added a couple awesome 6'x4' rubber mats to my garage. This is an epic home gym achievement for me.

No longer will I be stuck doing my Turkish getups in the living room like a sucker. No longer will I be afraid that each kettlebell swing will crater my garage floor. Now I can do TGUs in my garage... like a boss!

To show off my awesome new gym flooring, I even made a video of me doing a getup! In my civvies no less.



I got those mats at Tractor Supply Co for $30 each. At $1.25 per sq foot, that's cheaper than any non-equine gym flooring option I've seen. The best part? No more crater fear. Woohoo!

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