Dad Benitez shares his fatherhood experience

Dana Glazer, the Visionary behind ‘The Evolution of Dad Project‘ ran into Ralph Benitez on a recent camping trip and when Dana learned more about Ralph’s fatherhood experience he decided he’d just have to get it on tape.

Fatherhood brings with it different experiences for each of us and Ralph’s experience is as unique to him as each of us are as individuals. He was kind enough to share his moving experience so please set aside 5 minutes to watch this video from The Evolution of Dad video collection.

Hope you enjoyed his experience. What’s yours?

Why are car seats for kids mandatory?

If you’re OK with the nanny-state telling you how to raise your children then please don’t watch this video. I’ve often wondered whether car seats were more hype then true safety devices that made a difference. It’s always annoyed me when I need to take a car seat out of one car to load it into another for the little kids.

This 20 minute of Steven Levitt is interesting and worth watching regardless of how you feel about car seats. The question it leaves me with is on what basis did the government give itself the right to order us by law to place our children in car seats? Was it strictly a way to appear to be doing something for our kids?

What’s next? In-car helmets? Don’t think it can’t happen… I grew up when there was no seat belt law, no helmets for biking, and the government didn’t dare intrude on these personal decisions parents made on how to raise their children safely. Better stop before I get onto a rant….

Daniil Simkin and Dmitrij Simkin - My Way

A friend sent me a link to this video and while I’m not much of a ballet fan I found this performance by the Simkin’s of Russia, a father and son team, quite entertaining. They dance to Paul Anka’s ‘My Way’ and the performance makes quite a statement about living your life in your own way and driving yourself to be the best you can be in whatever it is that makes you you. At least that’s my interpretation of this performance.

I hope you enjoy it. (4:43)

For more information on the son, Daniil, visit Daniil’s Website.

Statue of an american soldier in Iraq

This statue currently stands outside the Iraqi palace, now home to the 4th Infantry division. It will eventually be shipped home and put in the memorial museum in Fort Hood , TX.

The statue was created by an Iraqi artist named Kalat, who for years was forced by Saddam Hussein to make the many hundreds of bronze busts of Saddam that dotted Baghdad.

Kalat was so grateful for the Americans liberation of his country; he melted 3 of the heads of the fallen Saddam and made the statue as a memorial to the American soldiers and their fallen warriors Kalat worked on this memorial night and day for several months. To the left of the kneeling soldier is a small Iraqi girl giving the soldier comfort as he mourns the loss of his comrade in arms.

Oops.

Actually when I went to snopes I learned that the statue is very real and has extraordinary origins in Iraq, but the story above isn’t exactly accurate. For the truly interesting story and truth visit the Snopes version here: Kalat.

Black Bear Blues

Tonight we confirmed our fear that we had a black bear ransacking our trash cans, bird feeder, and gorging on the dried cat food we feed to our pond fish.

About 15 minutes before total darkness my wife spotted the bear sitting down in the corner of our field watching over our house apparently waiting for more darkness and to be sure we were finished outdoors. We watched it walk slowly up the side yard, turn towards the house, walk out behind our pool and then down to the pond. I’m sure he was disappointed when he realized he hadn’t saved any food the night before for tonight.

About that time my wife talked me into calling the police. Why? I’m not quite sure but, I was glad the first officer to arrive was able to get a good look at this bear as he calmly trotted back into the woods. I was having a nice chat with the officer about the road we’ve lived on for 23 years and how it had become the 2nd most dangerous road in the state. This, thanks to over 10,000 cars a day and a 55 mile an hour speed limit. Strange having so much crazy commuting traffic in front and a wild black bear just a couple hundred feet away trying to survive in the suburbs.

While we were talking two more policemen pulled in because they wanted to get a glimpse of this bear as well. Black bears just aren’t seen in our area any more and these guys were probably also itching for a chance to fire their weapons. Those two didn’t get a glimpse, but we did take time to try out one of their radar guns at the end of the driveway checking out the speed of the cars cruising down our stretch. Surprisingly no one was speeding out of the 15 or so drivers that went by. I would have bet anything that in 15 cars we’d have at least 1. Oh well. Poor guys, no bear, no gunshots, no high speed chases.

A short while ago, a full hour later my wife saw the bear again walking right out back by the pool.

What to do. Having a black bear out back to watch is very cool and the teens think it’s great. But, we have a 5 year, a dog (who is glad we finally figured out why he’s been acting like a cat!), and koi in the pond. Do we co-exist? Do we shoot it? Do we try to get it tranquilized and transported a couple of hours away? Would they even do that?

I have no idea what we’re going to do about it, but I was looking forward to a soak in the hot tub tonight and this visitor has caused me to scrub that plan so it won’t be long before we do something!

Advice welcome.

Bear info: bear.org

<Update 07-14-08: We haven’t seen Mr. Bear since I posted about him. Seems his fondness of us and our home was tied to the easy meals he was fetching from our trash cans. He’s moved onto greener pastures, or so we hope.>

Protect your car

Here is info worth the price of your car.

Smart car thieves peer through the windshield of your car or truck, write down the VIN # from the label on the dash, go to the local car dealership and request a duplicate key based on the VIN #.

I didn’t believe this e-mail, so I called Chrysler-Dodge and pretended I had lost my keys. They told me to just bring in the VIN #, and they would cut me one on the spot, and I could order the keyless device if I wanted.

The Car Dealer’s Parts Department will make a duplicate key from the VIN#, and collect payment from the thief who will return to your car. He doesn’t have to break in, do any damage to the vehicle, or draw attention to himself. All he has to do is walk up to your car, insert the key and off he goes to a local Chop Shop with your vehicle.

Don’t believe it? It IS that easy.

To avoid this from happening to you, simply put some tape (electrical tape or duct tape) across the VIN Metal Label located on the dashboard. By law, you can’t remove the VIN, but you CAN cover it so it can’t be viewed through the windshield by a car thief. I urge you to forward this to your friends before some other car thief steals another car or truck. I slipped a 3 x 5 card over the VIN NUMBER.

10 most amazing pictures taken by the Hubble Space telescope

Astronomers selected the ten most amazing pictures taken by Hubble Space Telescope in last 16 years.

“…they illustrate that our universe is not only deeply strange, but also almost impossibly beautiful.” Michael Hanlon/AH (Nov 25th, 2006)

After correcting an initial problem with the lens, when the Hubble Space Telescope was first launched in 1990, the floating astro-observatory began to relay back to Earth, incredible snapshots of the “final frontier” it was perusing.

Recently, astronauts voted on the top photographs taken by Hubble, in its 16-year journey so far. Remarking in the article from the Daily Mail, reporter Michael Hanlon says the photos “illustrate that our universe is not only deeply strange, but also almost impossibly beautiful.”

Hubble telescope’s top ten greatest space photographs:

Voted #1

The Sombrero Galaxy - 28 million light years from Earth - was voted best picture taken by the Hubble telescope. The dimensions of the galaxy, officially called M104, are as spectacular as its appearance. It has 800 billion suns and is 50,000 light years across.

#2

The Ant Nebula, a cloud of dust and gas whose technical name is Mz3, resembles an ant when observed using ground-based telescopes. The nebula lies within our galaxy between 3,000 and 6,000 light years from Earth.

#3

In third place is Nebula NGC 2392, called Eskimo because it looks like a face surrounded by a furry hood. The hood is, in fact, a ring of comet-shaped objects flying away from a dying star. Eskimo is 5,000 light years from Earth.

#4

At four is the Cat’s Eye Nebula

#5

The Hourglass Nebula, 8,000 light years away, has a pinched-in-the-middle look because the winds that shape it are weaker at the centre.

#6

In sixth place is the Cone Nebula. The part pictured here is 2.5 light years in length (the equivalent of 23 million return trips to the Moon).

#7

The Perfect Storm, a small region in the Swan Nebula, 5,500 light years away, described as ‘a bubbly ocean of hydrogen and small amounts of oxygen, sulphur and other elements’.

#8

Starry Night, so named because it reminded astronomers of the Van Gogh painting. It is a halo of light around a star in the Milky Way.

#9

The glowering eyes from 114 million light years away are the swirling cores of two merging galaxies called NGC 2207 and IC 2163 in the distant Canis Major constellation.

#10

The Trifid Nebula. A ’stellar nursery’, 9,000 light years from here, it is where new stars are being born.

Cheap mosquito deterrent

Came across this tip from one of those emails that makes its way to thousands of recipients. I haven’t tried it, but I have tried many other far more expensive “solutions” so I’m looking forward to trying this one. We have a pond in our backyard, as well as, some soggy areas a few hundred feet from the house so mosquito control is serious business for us.

The secret tip? Listerine. That’s right, Listerine. If you spray Listerine around the area out back where you’re going to be or around your doorways into your home you should notice a dramatic decrease in the number of mosquitos buzzing around. Please let me know if you’ve tried this and what the results were. I’ll do the same in a couple of months when mosquitos are trying to invade again.

Baby management software for geek dads

For those of you who are geeks and looking for ways to automate this “fatherhood thing” you should check out Babblesoft’s Baby Insight product. Baby Insight is a Web-based tool that allows you, mom, nanny, or any other caregiver involved in caring for your baby to keep track of a babies busy newborn schedule that includes; eating, pooping, sleeping, changing diapers, etc…. You can even track what’s going on through your mobile device.

The video below from DadLabs will give you more detail in less then 3 minutes.

The new youtube nonprofit program

YouTube rolled out a program for nonprofits that will help charities promote their cause using the power of video. They’re offering a free video camera to the first 300 nonprofits that sign up and no doubt they’re going fast.

U.S. nonprofits with 501(c)(3) tax status are eligible so get in touch with your favorite cause and encourage them to check out this new program.

The current Featured Video was made by Autism Speaks and it illustrates just how effective this can become for nonprofits. If “a picture is worth a thousand words” then a short video is worth a hundred thousand times more!