Barry’s Daily Web News

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Sean is 27 months old today. Unfortunately, this wasn’t one of Sean’s better days. When we went for our evening walk to the park, he pitched a fit halfway there, so I turned around and took him home. He did have some fun playing in the back yard.

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Here’s a news title that certainly suggests cause to be alarmed. Over one thousand mammals are faced with extinction over the next 30 years. I was curious, so I tried to research how many mammals have gone extinct in the past 30 years. As far as I can tell, the last mammal to actually be extinct was the tasmanian tiger, which went extinct in 1936. This means that in the last 65 years, zero mammals have reached extinction. So, a study that suggests 1000 mammals face extinction in the next 30 years looks pretty silly to me. Of course, a more accurate title, like — 24% of mammals will face reduction in numbers — wouldn’t raise an eyebrow at all.

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What a difference a day makes. Sean had a great time at the playground tonight. It must have been due to one or more of the following factors:

1. Sean had a nice long nap

2. Sean had just taken some decongestent medicine
3. It was a beautiful evening, breezy, with temperatures in the seventies.

We stayed at the playground for almost an hour, and I had to practically drag Sean off as it started to get late. I was glad, as this might be the last evening with temperatures in the seventies until this October.

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It cooled off today. The high was only 98 degrees, and we had a nice breeze. So, I walked Sean over to the park. Unfortunately, Sean must not be feeling well. Not only did he not eat much of his dinner, but he didn’t want to stay long at the park, and didn’t want to walk home either. He did recover after his evening milk, and we both went into the back yard to play. He had fun going up and down the slide.

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Today was consumed doing yard and house work. With the hot weather, Sean was cooped up in the house for most of the day. Sean did get to splash his feet in the pool after I went swimming after the yard work this morning.

From Hell

The second movie of the weekend was From Hell. Yet another Jack the Ripper movie. This one involved a big conspiracy theory invovling the royal family and the masonic order. I thought the movie was difficult to follow, and was disappointed in the end when the cheesy conspiracy theory was revealed. Even Johnny Depp couldn’t save this movie. I rate this movie a C.

But it.

The Others

The first movie of the weekend was The Others. I didn’t care much for this movie. I thought the movie was very slow in developing, and the twist at the end was a rip-off of the Sixth Sense. In fact, make sure you have seen the Sixth Sense before bothering with this movie. I rate this movie a C.

But it.

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Sean and I were able to swim in a nice clean pool this evening. The pool water has warmed up to 77 degrees, and Sean was able to stay in for over 15 minutes before he started to get cold.

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We now have a brand new pool pump motor. I was impressed with the local pool store. I took in the old motor and pump assembly into the store, asking for help. They removed the pump from the motor, and reinstalled it on a new motor. In the process, they pointed out that the shaft seal had worn out some time ago. This allowed water to seep into the motor, causing the eventual failure. Of course, the new motor wasn’t cheap, so I’m sure the store was rewarded for their efforts. The entire operation, including my time to remove and reinstall the motor and pump took less than an hour and a half. I’m happy that this is taken care of, because it is starting to get hot enough that we need the pool.

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I’m sure everyone has heard Dan Rather’s comment about patriotism causing the censorship of journalists, but I couldn’t help but to comment. First of all, this is not censorship as defined by first amendment rights. Second, isn’t the real problem that the left of center criticisms by the news media are not as important to the country as the war on terrorism? Perhaps Dan Rather himself is smart enough to know that criticism of the government at this point in time will show just how out of touch he is with the country as a whole?

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It looks like the motor for the pool filter pump may have finally given out. Tomorrow’s task will be to try and get it fixed. Poor Sean. He didn’t get to do either his walk or his swim in the pool. I will make it up to him tomorrow.

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It was a cool 98 degrees today, so I walked Sean over to the park. Actually, the evening sun was still strong enough to make it uncomfortable. Sean was either bored or too hot, as he wanted to leave the park after only 20 minutes. I am beginning to think Sean enjoys the evening walk more that playing at the park, so we went the long way home, which is close to two miles or so. Sean had a good time on the long walk, so I might do this again.

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Sean hit another milestone today. He finally had enough courage to take on the ball pit at the playcenter.

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Check out the affect of “media bias” on these two articles on Enron and the California energy crisis, first by the WSJ, and second by CBS Marketwatch. Personally, I think CBS and Gray Davis have it all wrong. The energy trading market was created entirely by the state regulators, not by Enron. This “market” is completely artificial. The way the electrical grid works is that enough power must be supplied for all of the electricity used. If insufficient power supply exists, the entire grid goes down. The key to cost efficient elecricity supply is to bring just enough power generation online to keep the grid running. The energy “market” is just paying for the peak power generation. The state utilities and regulators were trying to “game” the “market” just as much as Enron. The state regulators could easily have signed long term contracts, avoiding the whole issue. This is what Enron convinced many large business in California to do. If the regulators would have signed the contracts before it was obvious that California had insufficient power generation to meet the needs of the state, the whole crisis could have been avoided. The only thing Enron is guilty of here is just being more effective at trading than the regulators. Someone at Enron should go to jail for securities fraud, but if anyone should go to jail over the California energy crisis, it should be Gray Davis.

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We watched our friend’s daughter this evening, so I had two kids to walk over to the park. I figured it would be good practice for when we have two kids. The girl we were watching is a little younger than Sean, and walks much slower than Sean, so it seemed like it took forever to reach the park. Sean didn’t seem to mind the slower pace. The two kids played on the slides for a bit, then I put them both on the swings. Shortly after that, Sean ran towards the road, stopping when I told him to. He reached out with his hand, indicating he wanted me to walk him home. I took advantage of this, as I knew I needed the cooperation of both kids to be able to walk home. We had a nice walk home, and everyone had a good time.