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Baby: Taking risks, responsibility, and a society grown on fear
Wed, 17 Jan 2007

We've all said it, but maybe it bears repeating -- too many people are either opportunistic or stupid (or both), resulting in all those completely frivilous lawsuits that sometimes pay out. You know the ones - you hear about some jackass who will sue some entity or person when really they just did something stupid. How soon until someone goes after the city due to tripping on sidewalk cracks? The problem we have is not only is this expensive on the system, but out of fear the cities will no doubt invent crackless-sidewalks, or rubber-sidewalks.. at enormous taxpayer cost. Anyway, this instinct to sue makes organizations sometimes overly cautious.. all bad for advancement as a society. It breeds corporations into a culture of lawsuit defence, which can be benefitial, but is it where we want to spend our energy? Anyway.

I write today because sometimes it annoys me when I think about how paranoid people have gotten with respect to their kids, and how other people and organizations will prey upon those paranoid people. Ex: Many sources suggest 'baby mirrors' are actually a bad thing, but really.. they should never have been invented, and paranoid people should know better than to buy them. (A little mirror system to make it easier to see your baby while they're tucked in the backseat of your car; to wit, the baby mirror can become a projectile in an accident, and really.. should you be watching your baby when you should be spying on the road? Just as bad as the cellphone I say..) Example the second: Bouncy-chairs for babies have seatbelts now, since some tiny percentage of children got hurt, likely due to silly parenting or bad luck. Most likely bad luck. Ex: We're all guilty of using training wheels on a bicycle, but maybe thats not so bad. Ex: Bicycle helments as a legal requirement.. another toughy -- saving the medical system costs, or frivilous?

Either way -- when I was young we let physics teach children lessons -- if you biked too fast, with no helmet, no training wheels, and wiped out.. well, you learned not to do it like that again. Sure it hurt a little (and I had some winners!), but you learned both physics, and how to not be stupid.

With all this technology to protect companies from lawsuits (not really to protect people as you might assume), we're really just building a society that is scared -- a generation of wussies.

How are we to expect to return to the moon, or to head to Mars, or do anything halfway interesting really, when our kids aren't allowed to go to the park and play without 50 parents standing in a circle around them? Will they take the dive and start a new company to produce some cool gadget, when they've been raised never to take risks, or that someone would always be there to run to?

While we will for sure take good care of our future child, we'll try not to go 'too far' and over-protect the poor thing .. sometimes you need to let a knee get skinned, don't you?

(I have worried for months about what we will do the first time our very own child comes home with a bloody nose; I know every parent will come down and crap on me for this posting, but I do not suggest letting your kid run willy-nilly around.. but I just mean -- lets not teach our children fear, lets teach them to have spirit and take calculated risks.. or even to just take a jump shot once in awhile.)

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Rants: On getting slower. Unsmrt-erer.
Sun, 14 Jan 2007

This last year I found myself on several occasions trying to remember something I very much know I could recall on demand a couple years ago. After wrapping up two long full days of baby-classes I'm sure that I could absorb and process much more information when back in school. I imagine like anything else those are skills - muscles needing flexing - and so with day to day life post-school you get lazier in your mass cram abilities. But damn, it does make you feel a little slower...

Some future day I hope to remember to tell our grown up child: You won't understand this but we were on top of things once; after raising a baby and managing its poop and food and temperature and every minutia in its life for years at a time, of course we lose the ability to be objective and rational. Thats how I think it'll go anyway .. these two days of learning the stages of labor and delivery and how to deal with scary body things, and what to do after you get home (how to swaddle and diaper a squirmy baby :), and how to expect to lose parts of your life now over to taking care of a baby... it does make you wonder, and you know.. makes you excited. With only some 5 weeks to go, we're starting to want the baby right now .... gorramnit.

But anyway, the reason I'm posting today -- when you go on a trip and take 7000 photos with your digital camera, only send a few per day to your friends. Or better yet - take only 10 or 20 per day, of interesting things. Always including people, or something exceptional. No need to take pictures of your toilet or food, and if you do.. don't send them to friends. Spare them :) But save yourself -- you won't want to look over those thousands of photos down the road. (On the other hand maybe take a million photos and rely on good solid not-invented-yet photo management software to auto-pick interesting scenes...)

Anyway, whew, wiped out after long classes :)

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Dining: Best west-side fajitas. West side of the Earth, anyway.
Sat, 13 Jan 2007

I briefly considered clutching this information close to my heart while rolling pig-like in the mud, but this restaurant absolutely needs to stick around. So I can tell you about it and still feel self-serving, that you and I are sharing some deep Mexican cuisine conspiracy.

Rio Grande Cantina is located in northern Mississauga, upon the east side of Dixie Road south of Aimco and somewhere north of Eglinton Avenue. A little plaza sporting a Yuk Yuks, an Irish pub, some variant of Indian restaurant.

Like pants have two legs, Mexican restaurants must have a certain look and feel when in North America, but this fine place differentiates by opening up into a little gift shop. My cynicle nature didn't care for this at first, but it's always good to know where you can - in a pinch while on the run - find good hotsauce. Still, the simple interior of most restaurants like this is welcoming and homey, so nothing to complain about here. Decent music (and not too loud), a hearthy atmosphere, and cheap tables.. good to go.

I ordered chicken fajitas (that or a three layer club sandwhich are my yardsticks by which diners are compared), while my wife ordered a beef burrito ('wet rolled' for sauce and melted cheese on top.) Its hard to really say what happened here for most assurredly sed food arrived, but it was hot-damned fantastic. We left stuffed silly, but not full and satiated .. but let me start at the beginning. We received the obligatory freebie chips-and-salsa, with warm tortilla chips and homemade salsa. Really good, and I'm again inspired to find a good sweet-but-tangy recipe so I too can have good salsa on demand. The main course arrived and it too was tasty and full of flavouring spices, without being hot. (My wife is having huge heartburn issues with the pregnancy, so keeping the hot-ness down is a priority.) Food was heaped up, fairly priced, and seriously gorramned delicious.

The place was fairly quiet at 6:15 on a Saturday evening, and no rush. (I mean, it was prompt, but relaxed so we could chill if we liked.) The chef was out and about a few times, and I had to pass along the word that everything was just peachy. We'll go back, and soon so as to not forget. Damn. Really, I wished the tummy had a latch to open up a backup storage area so I could drop in another order.

<Pats belly>"Soon my precious, soon."

P.S. I should note that Mississauga has become home to numerous Mexican restaurants of late; Mexicali Rosa's has opened up a joint, and several fast food places have popped up, including the nearly famous Burrito Boyz. Be sure to check 'em out :)

P.P.S. As a brief aside, let me humbly note that it would appear there's been a new Trancers film. Zombies and future-cops sent to the 80s ftw!

P.P.P.S. While I'm linking to goofy things, check out Christopher Walken

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Baby: No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!
Tue, 09 Jan 2007

So much to say that will have to wait for later. I did have brainfart a moment ago though, which I thought I'd share.

I've long thought it'd be cool that my kid will be aces with Pac Man (or hate video games altogether, we'll see). And that I'll be there the first time the child comes home with a bloody nose or skinned knee, and be there to show the kid how to use a flashlight, and how to operate a little plastic hammer to knock blocks through a template. Cool.

The brainfart was this -- that in addition to all those iconic first moments, I'll be there to show the kid how to motherfrapping ROCK OUT. Bring on some Sepultura or The Troggs or something, and I'll show the kid how to gorramned headbang. Sign of the cow, diapers, and headwaving, and babymoshing.

Oooh yeah, this is going to be a good year :)

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