As happened last year, we went to Cousin S’s birthday party which included a bounce house.  Also like last year, B and I went into the bounce house to have some fun with the kids.  Finally, like last year, one of us refused to pose for a bouncing photo.  Can you guess who it was?

Was it me?

Or was it B?

Click to enlarge and see just what she’s doing with her finger.

I love science.  NHL does too.  So when I heard about James Lu Dunbar and his The Universe Verse series, I just had to check out his work.  I’ve heard it compared to a mixture of Carl Sagan and Dr. Seuss.  This is a very apt comparison.

I read the first of the series, Bang!, to NHL and JSL.  The book starts out before the Big Bang.  They describe the tiny speck that the Universe began as and then the tremendous explosion of the Big Bang.  The book covers energy cooling into matter, the formation of the basic forces (such as gravity) that dictate how matter behaves.  It goes on to describe the first atoms, how they gathered together into stars and finally how some of those stars became supernovas.

All along the way, the narration rhymes in a manner that would make the Cat in the Hat proud minus made up words.  All of the weird looking words here are actually scientific terms and are used validly.  This is a book that could be used by high school physics students.  It really takes difficult to understand terms and simplifies them without losing any of the wonder of it all.

Of course, considering the weighty subject matter, reading this to a 4 year old and an 8 year old was a risky proposition.  JSL was a bit bored by it, but I didn’t really think he’d enjoy it.  Honestly, the only reason he listened in was because NHL and I were reading it and he didn’t want to be left out.

NHL, my science geek-in-training, loved it.  He definitely didn’t understood all of the physics that was described, but I really didn’t think he would.  What he did understand, though, was that this was an extremely entertaining story of how the Universe was formed.

The second book in the series is called “It’s Alive!”  After a quick rehash of how the Universe was formed, condensed to a mere 3 pages, the book discusses planet formation, the beginnings of life, Evolution, biology, DNA, the food chain and more.  Unlike the first book, this one is in full color.  (Bang! was in black and white.)

I initially planned on reading this to NHL, but changed my mind.  My concern wasn’t about him not liking the book, but for brief references to sex.  Mind you, these are done within the context of evolution and genes combining.  There is absolutely titillating about the presentation. Still, the word was there and I didn’t want my 8 year old asking questions I wasn’t ready to answer just yet.  Here’s the panel in question.  I’ll leave it up to you whether or not you’d show this to a third grader.

There’s still one book that hasn’t been released yet.  After reading the first two, I eagerly await James’ final book of the trilogy.  Reading his blog, it appears that this will cover (in part), agriculture and civilization forming.  If the quality of the third book is as good as the first two, this will be one set that every classroom should have.

The two currently released books in the Universe Verse series can be purchased for $12.95 for the first book and $15.95 for the second.  You can also e-mail him and he’ll send you the PDFs for free.  These will definitely be eBooks that I’ll keep and go over with NHL and JSL as they get older.  I’ll even re-read them myself just for the pure fun of it.

Disclaimer: I received the first two books for free as PDFs, however, as mentioned above, anyone can do this.  No review was required and all opinions expressed above are my own.

A couple of months ago, there was an uproar over Netflix pricing.  Netflix decided that they needed to separate their DVD and Streaming offerings.  Thus, people would need to pay for each plan separately.  The net effect for most people, though was a price increase up to 60%.

Needless to say, folks were *NOT* happy.  Many people talked about cancelling one of their plans or leaving Netflix entirely.  In fact, the loss was projected to hit one million users.  It didn’t help when they announced that they’d lose the Starz titles on streaming.

I myself toyed with cancelling.  We love both their streaming service and their DVD-by-mail service, but it was just going to be too much money.  Still, I couldn’t give up access to that many titles.  Plus, there was another issue.

I heard rumblings that the Streaming Only plan was limited to one stream.  I contacted Netflix about the limit and they confirmed this.  They added that I could get more streams by paying for DVD plans.  2 DVDs-At-A-Time got me 2 streams.  3 DVDs would get me 3 streams and so on.  I questioned how this gelled with the claim of separating the DVD and Streaming offerings and didn’t get a clear answer.  (Just a “we’ll ask our manager and get back to you” that never materialized.)

I figured that perhaps this was an “on paper only” limit that wasn’t enforced.  This hope was bolstered by reports from my Twitter followers that they had watched much more than 2 streams at the same time despite being on Streaming Only.  Then, it looked like Netflix decided to enforce the restriction.  They claimed that users weren’t restricted, but people kept seeing errors when they tried to view more than 1 stream.

Clearly, things were not heading well for Netflix.  They had shot themselves in the foot and were bleeding profusely.  It was time for quick and decisive action.  In a blog post, Reed Hastings, Co-Founder and CEO of Netflix, apologized for the pricing snafu.  At this point, I was ready to forgive him.  He could have made it all better, addressed the problems, and I would have gone back to being an avid Netflix supporter.  I might have even forgiven the price increase.  Instead, he shot his other foot.

You see, Netflix is going to be dividing into two different companies.  Netflix will handle all of the streaming services.  Meanwhile, a new company called Qwikster will handle the DVD-By-Mail services.  This makes no sense for a few reasons:

Queues Will Be Separate

Currently, if you want to find a movie to watch, you load up Netflix, type in the title’s name and you can see whether it’s available via streaming or whether you need to add the DVD to your queue.  Once the split occurs, you’ll have to log into your Netflix account to check whether it is available via streaming.  If it isn’t, you’ll have to log into your Qwikster account to add the DVD to the queue.  This is two separate searches that used to be one search.  Customers don’t like having more work added to perform simple functions.

User Accounts Will Be Separate

Since they will be separate companies, billing and account information will be separate.  Need to update your credit card number?  You can’t just sign into Netflix and do it there.  Now you need to sign into Qwikster as well.  Like before, more work = unhappy customers.

Bad Social Media Planning

As Gizmodo points out, Netflix doesn’t own the @Qwikster name on Twitter.  This would be a problem if it was just some average person.  Unfortunately, the person who owns it is a “foulmouthed pothead” (Gizmodo’s words).  Netflix now must either pay the guy a lot of money to get the Twitter handle or get another handle and deal with constant confusion caused by someone who was there first.  This could have been solved by a free search on Namechk.com or any other similar service.  You don’t announce a service until you have all of your ducks in a row.

Where Do We Go From Here?

So what am I going to do?  Well, it really pains me to cancel the DVD-by-mail, but I think that’s what I’m going to do.  I don’t want to.  I really value the service.  However, at every turn, it seems Netflix is trying to tell me that they intend on making it harder for me to be a customer.

So focusing on just the streaming, I have two main questions for Netflix going forward.  First of all, will the streaming limit still be in place?  If my kids are watching a streaming movie on the Roku in the living room, will my wife and I be unable to stream to our bedroom Roku?  Will additional streams be available as a purchased add-on?  If so, how much will they cost?

In addition, the blog post claims that more streaming selection is on the way.  Honestly, I won’t mourn the Starz loss that much.  I went to look at the Starz content and the first 10 pages or so only revealed a handful of movies I’d like to see.  If Starz is demanding tons of money for a poor selection of content, then Netflix was right to ditch them.  The problem will be what they do with the saved money and how they negotiate for streaming rights.

You see, in the past, Netflix has used their DVD rentals as leverage.  They agreed to withhold DVD rentals for 30 days in return for lower DVD prices and more streaming selection.  With the offerings separate, though, they can’t do this.  They will need to negotiate for streaming offerings on their own.  If history is any guide, the studios won’t want to play ball.  In their mind, streaming reduces DVD sales.  (Never mind that I would have either rented or done without all titles I saw via Netflix.)

If this separation is for real, they’ve weakened their studio negotiating position.  If Quikster-Netflix will still negotiate as one unit with studios then this split is purely a matter of making customer’s lives harder.

Either way, it’s a bad move by Netflix.  Now they have two feet bleeding.  They need to act fast because they have little time to turn this around.  I’m not sure they can, to be honest, but to have any chance, they need to start making intelligent, customer-friendly decisions and FAST!

Arrr, me hearties.  Today be Talk Like a Pirate Day.  We be big Disney fans and me boyos love that scurvy scallywag

Captain Hook.

The little landlubbers also love Jake and the Neverland

Pirates, I thought this be quite appropriate.

Especially because me boyos

met Sharky and Bones at Disney Social Media Moms Celebration.

So pepper ye speech with “arrrr’s” and “avast’s” me hearties.  Shiver me timbers!

As I mentioned yesterday, I tend to avoid getting medical attention for myself.  It isn’t a macho “I don’t need no stinkin’ doctors” kind of thing.  Instead, it’s more of a “I need to do all this stuff for everyone else, how can I take time out to see the doctor/take medicine?”  Sometimes it’s also a “We have so many expenses, how can I spend more money at the doctor’s for me?” thing.  If it’s something serious like antibiotics, I’ll take my medicine on time and if I have a fever, I have no problem going to the doctor.  It’s the little things (insect bites, allergies, nose bleeds) that I avoid seeing a doctor about or taking medicine for.

My Aloha Friday question for today is: Do you avoid seeing the doctor or taking medicine because you are too busy doing things for other people or to try to save money?

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the linky there if you are participating.

Aloha #105

Yesterday, I wrote (in part) about how the mosquitoes ate me alive.  All during the day, yesterday, I was itching away.  Then, today, something interesting happened.  I itched some more.  From new locations.

I could swear that I didn’t have these new bites yesterday, but there they are.  Either they were there but I was distracted by other ones, or my area has become infested with ninja mosquitoes.

I imagine the ninja mosquitoes snuck into our room late at night from a gap left by the window air conditioning unit.  Silently, they flew across the room surveying their potential targets.  Then, they zoomed into action.  They attacked my neck, my ear, my arms and my legs.  With their attack completed and their bellies full of TechyDad blood, they crept back out the same way they got in.

Until now, I’ve been trying to “tough it out.”  The itching is horrible, but I’m the kind of guy who doesn’t seek medical treatment right away.  It’s not a macho thing.  I just put other people’s needs ahead of mine.  “Sure, I’m itching all over and this cream could stop it, but first I need to finish this page for someone and make the kids dinner and a few more things.  Then maybe I’ll break out the itch cream… perhaps.”

Well, today I broke down.  I ran to the pharmacy on my lunch break and bought a tube of anti-itch cream.  I am now in the process of identifying my itchy spots (kind of hard to pinpoint them when there are so many bites) to slather cream on top of.  I apologize in advance for any bad mental images of me slathering cream all over myself.

*itch* *itch* There’s another one. *slather* Ahhhhhh!

I’m sitting here scratching my legs, arms, and neck.  Why, you ask?  Last night, our handyman stopped by to fix some stuff on the outside of our house.  The kids wanted to see what was going on so we let them outside.  Then, quickly getting bored of guys standing on a van’s roof inspecting siding, they decided to play with some balls instead.

While they did this, I took the opportunity to go to our tomato plants.  You see, I had watered them earlier and noticed a big, brown spider on one.  A kind of spider that I haven’t seen before.  Being the geeky bug photographer that I am, I tried to get a photo of him.  Unfortunately, the shy spider sensed my efforts and crawled to the safety of the underside of a tomato leaf.  While I was in my work clothes, I wasn’t going to get onto the ground to get a good photo.

Luckily, I was now in casual clothing.  So down on the ground I went, positioned my lens pointing up, and captured a few shots of the mystery spider.

Here’s a crop of the original so you can better see him since I know you all are so eager to see it up close and personal.  (Don’t forget to click the photos to see them larger.)

I even got a shot of the spider on its web.  This is the spider’s underbelly.  Would this count as spider-porn?  Look at that cephalothorax!

Getting back to the itchiness, though.  As night descended and our handyman finished up his work, I began to get the boys ready to go in.  At about this time, I began to realize that I was itching.  Not just from one spot either, but all over.  It felt like my legs and arms were on fire.  I suddenly realized that all of our running and playing had turned me into a mosquito all-you-can-eat buffet.

We shuttled the boys in and we all took showers.  I scrubbed extra-hard with an abrasive shower scrub brush.  It might not have been the best thing for me, but it felt SOOOO good.  Sadly, the itching continued well into the night and the next day.

Just to end on a non-itchy note, I’ll flash back to the weekend when we went to a local amusement park for the last time this season.  The last time the boys went with B, she was alone and thus NHL couldn’t go on the bigger kid rides.  (B couldn’t go on with him and leave JSL alone.  Neither would NHL go on them by himself.)  This time, though, we were able to split up.  NHL and I headed for the rollercoaster and Ferris Wheel.  JSL and B went to the more little kid-friendly rides.

As we boarded the rollercoaster, I realized I had made a horrible mistake.  I left my camera at home!  Bad, photographer geek!  Therefore there is no photographic evidence of our thrilling rollercoaster trip.  (Well, mildly thrilling.  It’s a small rollercoaster for a small amusement park.)

As we boarded the Ferris Wheel, I remembered my camera phone.  Of course, my fear of falling kicked in once we got to the top.  The rocking cart, long way down and very windy air at the top all factored in.  Still, I managed to shoot a few pics before fear completely took over and I clutched my phone close to me as if it were going to leap out of my hands and plummet down.

As we were up in the air, I even spotted B and JSL heading for a ride.  We yelled at them and they finally looked up.  B took a photo of us hanging in the air.

Next time we go (which will have to be next year), I’ll need to take my camera up with me.  Yes, I’ll brave my fears if it means getting a nice photo.  Geekiness overrules fear in my book!

Update: Thanks to @reptileadventur, we now know that our mystery spider is a marbled orb-weaver, Araneus marmoreus.  From this website, I learned that it doesn’t bite humans, but dines on flying insects.  (Given my recent encounters with mosquitoes, I say dine away Mrs. Spider!)  I also found out that it builds its web at dusk every day and waits there or in a nearby retreat.  Once an insect hits the web, “the spider runs out and wraps the prey in silk. After the prey is immobilized, the prey is bitten and eventually eaten.”  Yummy!

Today marks a very special occasion.  (Well, by the time most people read this, it’ll be yesterday, but I’m going to publish this just before midnight so it’ll technically be correct on the day.)  Twelve years ago, on September 12th, I had just come home from Rosh Hashana services.  After being offline for two days, I was ready to spend some time on the computer.  I signed on, figuring I’d waste a couple of hours and then go to sleep.

Little did I realize that, at the same time, B was on her computer.  She had forgotten that she even had a chat window open.  When she noticed it, she glanced at the people in the chat room.  My name must have caught her eye as did the “Nice Jewish guy looking for a nice Jewish girl” tagline that I had added a couple of weeks prior.  She sent me a message.

As we conversed, I knew right away that there was something different about her.  I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I knew that something special that made her stand out from other ladies I had met.  Not only did we like many of the same things, but I didn’t feel nervous around her at all.  That was very odd.  I usually would get so nervous that I’d say or do something wrong that I’d freeze up and do nothing.  With B, however, I didn’t worry or freeze up.  Talking to her (and later being around her) just felt natural and right.

Long, late night chats became long, late night phone calls.  This turned into a face-to-face meeting that we couldn’t bear to end.  (We drove my parents, who had accompanied me to the outlet mall but then made themselves scarce, crazy by continuously delaying leaving by “just 5 more minutes.”)  Those all-too-infrequent meetings turned into a marriage proposal (aka squashing bugs) which B accepted.

All because of a forgotten open chat window and an entry into a chat room “just to kill some time.”  Happy Day-We-Met-Online Anniversary, B!

I didn’t really want to write about this.  I guess mainly because I like to avoid bad subjects and focus on good ones.  After seeing all of the 9-11 coverage and thinking about it, though, an idea popped in my head.  No matter how much I wanted to write about other things, I kept thinking back to 9-11.

When I first heard about the planes hitting, I was in my office.  It was like a bad movie come to life.  I kept feeling like at any moment, there would be a climatic battle, the good guys would win over impossible odds, the credits would roll, and then we’d see everything go back to normal.  Sadly, that wasn’t the case.

As the planes hit and the towers collapsed, I was worried about my father and my friend, G.  My father worked in New York City at the time and, while he wasn’t near the World Trade Center, we didn’t know if all of New York City was going to be attacked.  G, meanwhile, actually worked in the World Trade Center.  I couldn’t remember if he was in one of the towers or other buildings.  I got on AIM and connected with some ex-co-workers of mine and G’s mom.  She hadn’t heard from him.

Then, I heard that the towers collapsed.  At first, I thought that the person meant that the top few floors collapsed, not the entire building.  As the enormity of what was happening sank in, I began to panic thinking that G had been killed.  Finally, we heard from him that he was ok.  He got out of the subway, saw the two towers smoking and got as far away as possible.  (I found out later that he worked in one of the other WTC buildings.)

Ten years later, I was thinking about the attacks during NHL’s first day of Hebrew school.  I was thinking of how I would describe 9-11 to NHL when, suddenly, it hit me: Terrorists are bullies.  Bullies in a school setting rule by fear.  Whether it is fear of being beaten up, fear of being excluded from social cliques, or fear of being embarrassed in front of your peers, bullies thrive on fear.  They attempt to define the rules to position themselves at the top of the social heap at the expense of others.  Often, bullies don’t even have the muscle to enforce their threats.  However, they rely on fear to magnify their perceived power.

Terrorists are like the grown-up, international versions of bullies.  They want the world structured a certain way.  It isn’t.  They could work within society, but they honestly don’t have enough power to enact the changes they desire.  So, instead, they rely on fear.  They use fear to magnify their perceived power.  They use fear to get people to do what they (the terrorists) want.  They use fear to get their way (or else).

Meanwhile, I thought back to my feelings during the events of September 11th.  I remember feeling so helpless.  There were so many people that needed help and I was powerless to do anything.  I remember thinking that, if only I was a comic book-style superhero, I could help out.  I could activate my power ring or quickly change into my costume and then fly there at supersonic speeds to rescue people when they needed help the most.

Sadly, I don’t have super-powers so I was forced to sit on the sidelines watching it all go down on TV.  There were real superheroes there, though: The first responders.  Think about it.  If Spider-Man, Batman, or any other superhero saw a building on fire, what would they do?  They would hurl themselves into the building without a thought in their head about their own safety.  They would do their best and push themselves beyond all normal (and superhuman) limitations until everyone was safe.

On 9-11, firefighters ran up the stairs of the burning twin towers.  They ran up holding a hundred pounds of gear and without any thought of their own safety.  Yes, many people were killed that sad day, but 20,000 were saved.  This is in no small part thanks to the firefighters and other first responders.  Toss a cape and mask on them and you had a legion of superheroes saving lives.