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Originally uploaded by rolandthomas

Look at me! I’m so happy! I love my Mommy & Daddy — and they love me so much too!!

Winter 2008/2009 Pictures of Kenzie

- Roland

the Little God is lying on his stomach
sucking on his hands,
breathing softly,
his head flopping from side to side.

sometimes the Little God smiles,
even laughs,
in his sleep.

what is the Little God dreaming about?

maybe about us.

the Little God was born

in the fall of last year
on a beautifully gorgeous sunny day
with clear skies and crisp, cool air,
it was a potent reminder
that a change was in the wind
for the Little God’s parents.

the Little God’s papa looked in his eyes,
saw the majesty,
heard mercy and grace,
felt hope,
and knew devotion.

A life committed
to helping the Little God
learn what needs to be learned
about this life
so that one day
he can have a Little God of his own.

Posted via Pixelpipe.

Posted via Pixelpipe.

This evening, I held my six-week old boy in my arms, standing up as I gently rocked him to sleep. His head in the crook of my left elbow, my right hand caressing his head, with all that fine, jet-black hair. I am whispering to him as his eyes flutter and his mouth makes soft sucking noises.

And I realize that I cannot think of anything else I would rather do in this world. I want to freeze this moment, stretch it out and savor our own special time together.

I’m crying.

He is so beautiful. And I’m a dad.

No, I’m not talking about THAT amazing event, I’m talking about something else. Something even greater than that — when I say “WE”, I’m talking about what Julia and I did.

We are proud to announce that on October 9th, 2008 at 4:01pm, our son Kenzie Morris Thomas arrived in our lives at 6 lb 7 oz and 19″ long.

It has been a long, long road for me to finally settle down and have a family, going from one relationship to another, almost finding the right one a couple years ago, until I met Julia last year. She is an amazing person, so different from me, yet so alike. She captivated me the very first moment that I met her and I have never changed my mind or regretted that meeting since.

And now from the very short time that we have been together, we have produced this:

Kenzie Coming Home from the Hospital

Kenzie at Home Sleeping and Eating

This announcement is very late, but I do need to make it for posterity and for my family. I never thought that being a new parent means having so very little time for yourself. I now measure my free time in minutes, trying to time it every three or so hours between feedings and naps.

Just in time for Halloween, and it’s down right scary.

Your computer is going to read your mind!

http://www.learnenglish.org.uk/games/magic-gopher-central.swf

Well, the computer, of course, is not reading anyone’s mind.

There’s a neat trick in math where subtracting the sum of the digits of a two-digit number from itself always equals a multiple of 9.

So, for example if you have 43, then 43 – 7 = 36. Or 28-10=18, 57-12=45, 32-5=27, etc etc etc

Now look at the symbols in the game for 9, 18, 27, 36, 45, 54, 63, 72, 81, 90, 99. They’re all the same, ain’t they? All the other symbols are just filler to fool you.

Now that you know how it works (and Knowledge is Power, I always say) you can go and impress your friends.

There are lots of cute tricks with the number 9 — such as adding the two digits themselves in the multiples of 9 (i.e., 18, 27, 36, 45, 54, 63, 72, 81, 90) also equal to 9. And these multiples are palindromes (”mirror images”) of another multiple. So 45 is a palindrome of 54, 36 is a palindrome of 63, 81 is a palindrome of 18, etc.

These weird properties of 9 is the reason why the ancients thought 9 had mystical powers and associated it with the occult and witchcraft.

Blessed be!

This is great article — if you thought there was a single factor that caused the mess we are in, this just might be the smoking gun:

Agency’s ’04 Rule Let Banks Pile Up New Debt, and Risk

The entire article eviscerates the SEC and its pro-business, pro-deregulation chairman Christopher Cox:

The commission’s decision effectively to outsource its oversight to the firms themselves fit squarely in the broader Washington culture of the last eight years under President Bush.

A similar closeness to industry and laissez-faire philosophy has driven a push for deregulation throughout the government, from the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Environmental Protection Agency to worker safety and transportation agencies.

I love my conservative friends dearly, but I really will never understand the way a Republican’s brain works: they say they want government out of people’s private lives, but the party platform wants a constitutional ban on gay marriage and abortion (and I would think choosing your mate and what you want to do to your own body is about as private as you can get).

They want government out of people’s pocketbooks, but that idea of de-regulation and hoping that the markets will police themselves is the ultimate example of naivete and cluelessness.

They want to regulate what should not be regulated, and don’t want to regulate what should be. There is certainly enough criticism about liberalism, but I think I’ve framed the conservative ideology pretty succinctly.