Toyah

My daughter will be born in one and a half months, assuming everything goes well (and there's no reason to think otherwise). I'm not the kind of father-to-be that carries ultrasound pictures around in my wallet, but it's getting close, and I'm starting to realize that it's getting close. I'm starting to go to bed, and wake up, thinking about how just going to bed and waking up will be different once she's born.

Everyone says life changes dramatically after children, and they also say that even if you think you're prepared, you can't appreciate how dramatically until you experience it. So I'm curious to see how much it changes. I suspect that it will change a lot, and yet not be quite the 180 degrees different that folklore tends to suggest. It's the dramatic stories people like to tell, not the ones about the night(s) that their kids slept all night long and never woke up once. Ask me again in two months and I'll let you know!

We are pretty close to ready. We have a ton of baby clothes: lots of friends randomly gave us things that they found at a garage sale this summer, plus we had two baby showers; one from our church and one from Debbie's sisters. We need to finish painting the changing table, and paint the dresser. My mom and dad sent us the cradle I used as a baby, and for which we only need to buy sheets. The swing is set up (and our dog Striker seems to be okay with it), so we're pretty well ready. Poor Debbie is certainly ready, and she still has six weeks to wait.

My baby girl will be here on or about December 12...

Labels: baby news

This week the Telegraph of London is publishing a list of the top 100 most influential liberals and top 100 most influential conservatives in the United States. These lists don't really matter that much, but it is fascinating to see a list that includes politicians, celebrities, and academics compared to one another based on their "influence" in a sort of guilty "I read People Magazine" kind of way.

It's interesting, for instance, to see my old boss, Gary Bauer, sitting in the conservative ranks at number 70 between Erik Erikson, a blogger and founder of redstate.com, at number 69, and Chuck Norris, an actor, at number 71. Or consider that Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stephens--a member of the impartial and apolitical judicial branch--at number 64, well above "liberal lion" Ted Kennedy, who's way behind at number 85. (I wonder what Ted thinks about that?) Of course, in interest of full disclosure, Justices Scalia and Thomas are also on the list, and to the extent that anyone is influential among conservative lawyers, they certainly are, though I'm not sure I'd say they're influential in politics, per se.

It is also interesting to see the view of American politics from across the pond. The very fact that such a list exists certainly speaks to America's influence and power--I mean, who from overseas would really care to know the top 10 American partisans, much less the top 200.

So far the list has numbers 61-100. The rest of the lists will be revealed later this week. I'm betting Rudy and Hillary will be Numbers 1.

Labels: politics

Merrill Lynch thinks that posting to Toyah is the same as posting to chat rooms and message boards. I apologize for not making my presence felt more frequently.

-I loved the story about the cross-country driver. That was awesome. I love driving fast, but there is no way that I would be able to do that.
-Today there was a lot of buzz in the financial world about Merrill Lynch and its CEO. I don't really see much coming of all the mess, but the news stirred up my Friday.

I hate the Red Sox. I hate the Patriots. It is funny that I pulled for those teams when the Yankees and Rams were the big boys of the leagues. Don't get me wrong....I still hate the Yankees and Rams, but now the Red Sox and Patriots are too loved by ESPN.

It is time to get off of this computer...I have a wife that requires attention. Keep your minds out of the gutter.

But amazing, too!

Driving New York to LA in less than 32 hours...

So glad I wasn't on any of those roads when they were driving.

As a map geek, I find one of the most useful products of the current internet age is the instant online map. From the humble beginnings of MapQuest and TerraServer, to Yahoo and Google maps, to the incredibly advanced Google Earth, we have seen a dramatic revolution of online mapping software. Although Google Earth can do almost anything, there are still a few other sites out there that are worth a mention. Other cool map services include Social Explorer, which uses Census data (I think) to give you demographic representations for geographic areas, Zillow.com, which shows you how much your neighbor's house is worth, and USANaviguide, which gives you detailed overlays of Zip Code areas on Google maps. And if you like historic or more detailed maps, check out The University of Texas PCL's online map collection, which has scanned versions of historic and current maps from all over the world. If you know of an online maps service I might be missing, please pass it along!

Labels: maps

You might recall that I posted back in January on Blackwater, the private security contractor founded by Hillsdale College graduate Erik Prince. It seems Blackwater's back in the news, now as a target for those whose life's ambition is to assure an American defeat in Iraq.

Books in Bulk, from the New Yorker.

Like my last book report, this one comes courtesy of the Free Book table at Mossey Library. Peter C. Newman is a journalist by a trade, and apparently one of Canada's more respected ones at that. Clearly he has spent much time researching the Hudson's Bay Company: there are three volumes covering its history from beginning to present. Caesars of the Wilderness is the middle book.

He said the title reflects both the conquering nature of the HBC, as well as the wildness of the land they tamed. This book focuses mostly on the rivalry between the HBC and its most serious competitor: the Northwest Fur Company. Between them, the two companies set the stage for western Canadian civilization, or so he argues. And I find it hard to disagree. One major point that he often emphasizes is the relationship between the HBC white men and the Indians. Unlike in the American West, they were mutually beneficial to each other, and therefore Canada saw few instances of bloody Indian/white violence. The relationship was not exactly equal: the whites always regarded the Indians as inferior, and the fur trade was clearly detrimental to the Indians in the long run. But largely due to this amiable relationship, the Canadian west was settled in a generally peaceful manner.

It's hard not to notice a bit of pro-Canadian bias showing through, most notably in the comparisons he draws between the American and Canadian wests (though they may well be valid). It hardly detracts from the story, however, which is chiefly a recounting of the extraordinary exploits and labors of the fur men over centuries of HBC dominance. I can't even imagine working as hard as they did: paddling an overloaded canoe upstream at 45 strokes a minute? 60 strokes a minute if it was an express canoe! And that was the easy part: the streams and rivers were linked with frequent portages, where a man was expected to carry 90 pounds of furs or trade goods along the trail, which might be as long as 15 miles. All this on a bit of pemmican.

I don't think I've ever met anyone who knew anything about the Hudson's Bay Company, except that it existed. If you've never spent some time with them, you're missing out: in a large part they created western Canada, and contributed much help even to the early settlers of American Oregon and Washington. Besides, Caesars of the Wilderness is a rollicking good read!

Labels: books