Sheesh, is this ever a weighty thing - Einstein's views on God.
I like reading it, though, because I find this kind of view compelling. I'd say the following quote is a fair encapsulation of my own thoughts:Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion.
If Ludwig Bemelmans hadn't drawn pictures on his walls, he'd never had written "Madeline."
Anyway, from today's Writer's Almanac:It's the birthday of the author of the "Madeline" books, Ludwig Bemelmans, born in Meran, Tyrol, Austria (1898). He was rebellious as a child. He went to many different schools, but he failed out of all them, so his family sent him to work with his uncle, who owned a chain of hotels. When he shot and almost killed a waiter for one of the hotels, his parents gave him the choice of reform school or emigration to America. He chose America and arrived in New York when he was 16 years old.
I wonder if writing on walls gave him the inspiration for the crack on the ceiling that had the habit of sometimes looking like a rabbit.
He worked at a series of hotels and then started his own restaurant, which became very successful. He didn't think about becoming a writer until a friend in the publishing industry happened to see his childlike drawings on the walls of his apartment. His friend suggested that he write and illustrate a children's book.
And so he wrote his famous book Madeline (1939) ...
There is some really cool weather today - lots of tiny little storm cells everywhere. Sunny in one place, with strong storms just a couple of miles away.
If you look out of four different windows - north, south, east, and west - you'll see four different skies.
White clouds, gray clouds, blue skies, lightning. Everything is out there today.
I like spring. Everything is so uneven.
...is to justice what church music is to music.
This guy was the head honcho of the camp I went to when I was about 12 years old:
BELLEVILLE -- More than 14 years after he was removed from active ministry following accusations that he sexually abused boys, Robert J. Vonnahmen, who once directed a Catholic youth camp, has been removed from the priesthood by Pope Benedict XVI.When I went to camp there, I remember the older kids saying, "Don't go anywhere alone with Father Vonnahmen." It sounds like the pope finally got the same message.
Vonnahmen, who has denied allegations of sex abuse, was accused by victims of accosting them at Camp Ondessonk, a popular Catholic children's summer camp in Southern Illinois, in the early 1980s.
The Pope has revised the Catholic Church's teachings about Limbo. As I understand it, the new teaching is that Limbo may - or may not - exist.
Or something.
It's all very confusing, which may be intentional.
This season, it's all you can eat in the right-field bleachers at Dodger Stadium.
If your kids use Agent Cool Blue mouth rinse, they should stop.
Apparently the preservative in the mouthwash doesn't adequately prevent bacteria from growing in the bottle (after your kids backwash into it, of course).
As for me, I think it's perfectly reasonable that the Chicago Bears' Brian Urlacher was fined $100,000 for wearing a hat. Without a doubt, this infraction is:
The man who wrote, "Please Don't Bury Me" may not want to choose cremation, either, unless he wants to add 110 pounds of CO2 to the atmosphere.
(And maybe that turning into a diamond thing isn't such a good idea after all.)
So ... our options now seem to be:
Today is the 10th anniversary of the day Mari-Rose and I met. What else was going on that day?
It's funny what you can find when you Google your own name.
These John Bowens aren't me, either.
A friend of mine recently sent me a link to a site she created, the Origami Resource Center.
There are some pretty cool photos there, and links to lots of free diagrams. So if you have some paper just begging to be folded, check it out.
Personally, I think I'll try to learn some of the dollar-bill designs. I think it would be kind of cool to leave tips with origami-folded bills.
School called this morning. Anya told her music teacher that she had a rock up her nose.
They told her to try to blow it, and sure enough, out came a rock. They're not really sure how it got up there, and Anya wasn't saying.
It's good to be 5.
This is a pretty interesting infographic. It's all of major league baseball's retired numbers. It shows some odd little quirks.
For example, I wouldn't have guessed that the most retired number (other than 42, which all MLB teams have retired because: A. Jackie Robinson wore it, and B. It is the answer to life, the universe, and everything) is 4.
Off the top of my head I can only think of one retired 4: Lou Gehrig.
I'm also surprised that there is only one retired 7 (Mickey Mantle). Generally, better baseball players get lower numbers, so you would think that there would be a slew of retired 7s. But nope, it's just Mickey.
I only recognize a few of the other "unique" retired numbers. 17 is Dizzy Dean. 45 is Bob Gibson. 72 is Carlton Fisk. 43 might be Dennis Eckersley, but I'm not sure.
Yesterday evening I was coming up the stairs when India shouted to me excitedly, "Dad! Come look in Anna's cage!"
I replied, "What, did she have babies or something?"
India squealed, "Yes!"
I went over to look, and sure enough, Anna had 9 pink, wriggling babies stuffed into a corner. So there are now 19 of us:
It's like Noah's Ark in here.
PS: In a few weeks we'll have some baby hamsters to give away.
From today's Writer's Almanac:It's the birthday of humorist Leo Rosten, born in Lodz, Poland (1908). His masterpiece was The Joys of Yiddish (1968), an unofficial lexicon of Yiddish words, phrases, and rhetorical devices, illustrated with proverbs, quotes, and jokes.
My favorite word in that definition is "enshrined."
It was Rosten who first set down in print the famous definition of chutzpa as, "That quality enshrined in a man who, having killed his mother and father, throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan."
From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, this tidbit:With Sunday's two hits, including his first home run of the season, Pujols avoided the ninth hitless series of his seven-year career.
Seven years ... and he's gone hitless in a series only 8 times. You figure in a 3-game series, a player will get about 12-15 at-bats. Plus you have to take into account the days when he doesn't play, plus the fact that they play more 2-game series than they used do.
The Astros series was the 310th in which Pujols has appeared. Of his eight hitless series, two occurred in two-game series last season against the Cincinnati Reds and New York Mets.
And that's just amazing.
Sometimes you come across a factoid that's a plain-old headscratcher. I read this today in a report on food safety:USDA has historically outspent FDA in food safety activities despite the fact that it regulates approximately nine times fewer facilities. This imbalance in spending is also noteworthy considering that the food products USDA regulates account for almost four times less consumer spending, and are tied to about two times fewer foodborne illness outbreaks than those for which FDA is responsible.
For the record, USDA regulates meat, poultry and eggs. FDA regulates pretty much everything else. I guess the lesson here is: buy lots of meat, poultry and eggs.
Yesterday was Easter. So the Writer's Almanac said:The word "Easter" comes from an ancient pagan goddess worshipped by Anglo Saxons named Eostre. According to legend, Eostre once saved a bird whose wings had frozen during the winter by turning it into a rabbit. Because the rabbit had once been a bird, it could still lay eggs, and that rabbit became our Easter Bunny.
Hmm - I can think of at least one other reason why eggs would be considered a symbol of fertility ...
Eggs were a symbol of fertility in part because they used to be so scarce during the winter. There are records of people giving each other decorated eggs at Easter as far back as the 11th century.
Turn me into a diamond!
Apparently you can really do it. You just subject someone's ashes to extreme heat and pressure, wait a few months, and voila! You have been turned into a diamond.
A court in Germany didn't let this woman turn her dad into one, but I think it would be awesome. I'm not kidding, either.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have an accidental hamster.
Yesterday evening, Quinn and I went to the park, where we discovered three hamsters that someone had dumped in the playground.
Rather than leave the poor things there, we made a quick trip to Petco and bought a hamster cage and supplies.
By the time we got back, we could only manage to rustle up one of them. Quinn named her Anna, after one of the stepsisters in the Cinderella story - you know, Anna, Lana, and Banana.
So ... we have a hamster. Anna.
Yesterday, April Fools' Day, the strangest thing happened as the girls and I were leaving the library. In the parking lot I did a double-take because I was sure that someone had moved our car. This is our car:A white '94 Olds Cutlass Ciera, license plate number G24 5403.
A few spots away from ours was this car:
A white '94 Olds Cutlass Ciera, license plate number G24 5043.How very strange.
