Daley Ponderings

I guess I fail the test , since I answered "no" to both questions, though I suppose Brad Andresen from college (the one who always said of me, "You're more liberal than you think you are.") would be happy to hear that I'd be more likely to think it alright to slap my dad... (More)

So, I know you can't believe anything you read in a newspaper, but if the newspaper calls you and tells you something, then can you believe it?  How about if both Pittsburgh newspapers call? We've heard that Judy was acquitted of two of the three charges brought against her, but... (More)

Would you send your nine-year-old on a New York City subway by himself?  Would you send him on a horse from Oklahoma to New Mexico and back by way of the deserts of Texas - taking his five-year-old brother along? It can be frustrating sifting through the chaff at the children's... (More)

4/10 - Noah comes up to me, winking, and says, "Mommy, me one eye!"  It was hilarious.  (I couldn't wink until first grade.) 4/11 - Guess which story this is, by Noah: "Let me in.  No, no, no.  Blow up house!" 4/20 - What does Noah say when... (More)

3/29 - Jonathan was upstairs quietly playing for a very long time.  When he finally came down, he showed us what he had been working on the whole time.  It was a completely filled in color-by-number page.  He read the colors all by himself to see which one went with which... (More)

I was adding more materials to our garden beds, and wanted to mix it in by hand.  It doesn't work so well to lean over with Faith in the backpack, so I set her down on the ground behind me.  Well, that ground was not so level.  She went tumbling over, and the worst part was that... (More)

3/6 - Jonathan beat Heather in chess, fair and square! 3/18 - Noah said, "I love you" for the first time.  It was to Faith.  Later that day, he said it again to Daddy as he was leaving to go shopping.  He has yet to say it to me, but I know it will come.... (More)

 I've been mentioning my garden doings on Serina's blog and in private emails with her, and I thought I'd compile and post the relevant info here. March 15: Whoohoo! I just placed my order with fedco , and we’ve been preparing our squares out front. Jon just... (More)

Speaking of news, I forgot to post here that the closing arguments for Judy's trial are scheduled for tomorrow, and I'll be heading to Pittsburgh to hang out with folks who will be there in her support.  Of course, this might be the first time a scheduled meeting actually happened when it... (More)

Most of you who know me realize that I don't hardly pay any attention to news, and particularly since I started working from home, I can't even get my daily news reports from conversations in the common area.  So, I generally figure I don't know most of what is "going on" in the... (More)

The IRS hasn't published their calculator yet, and I have been reading about lots of people trying to figure out what to do with line 70 on their 1040 (ie. the famous RRC that is causing probably more time wasted than was worth the money that was sent out last year. So, I wrote a... (More)

We've gotten two calls in the last couple days from people claiming that we called them, and quite irate about it.  What they didn't realize is that you can't really trust the caller-id values displayed on your phone - they are trivially forgeable by anyone, and I think relatively hard to... (More)

1/23 - Faith's matching lower tooth came in. It looks like she's teething again, maybe some top teeth on their way.  She, like Noah my other early teether, is interested in solid foods already.  Jonathan bought her (with his own money) some little cereal pieces, the kind that dissolve... (More)

Mydad had mentioned a news article story a month ago about some company charging a whole bunch of people $.01 each on their credit cards; presumably with the thought that no one would complain about a $.01 charge, and since they charged a million people or something, they made a bunch of... (More)

Very early in the morning, we got up, had breakfast and said goodbye to Sarah (all the other Dutlers said goodbye the night before.) Janet and Stephan came to pick us up and we crammed all ourselves and stuff into the mini-minivan. They took us to the Basel airport where we spent quite... (More)