My wife said she was reading a book called, Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Baby by Dr. Marc Weissbluth and it recommended putting her down quickly. So, in hopes of not losing my sanity, I got a kindle version of the book and began reading.

The first few stories of other parents is what really caught my attention. Another couple, just like us, were putting their baby to bed very late and dealing with an upset baby. They talked to Dr. Weissbluth and he recommended putting her down in her crib very early, like 7ish, and just leaving her there. They did it and much to their surprise, after a good five minutes, their baby was sound asleep and nearly slept through the night.

I didn’t believe it at first. I was fighting to get her to sleep and she just wouldn’t. Now, granted, she’s only two months old. I did think we were jumping the gun a little and even in his book, Dr. Weissbluth said that 0-4 months is more of a go with the flow type of mode. Still, another couple and baby did it, so I thought, what the hell.

Now, before I get to my story, let me say that there are tons of baby books out there. Doctors by the hundreds put out books, trying to make some ground breaking claim, so they can sell lots of books, but actually some of their advice is suspect at best. I submit to you the whole mess about inoculations causing autism. Quackery is alive and well in our world unfortunately. Still, they aren’t all bad. Yes, they are all trying to sell books, but some really have something good to say.

So it was with a hopeful heart that I put my baby down in the crib at 6:45 two nights ago and cross my fingers. She whined a little, cried a little, but after about ten minutes, out cold. Yes, she was asleep. Sure she woke up a few times and I shh’d back down and she went back to sleep.

Last night, we put her down at 8:30, a little late, but sure enough, she slept a till past 1am before needing a feeding. Keep in mind, no baby 2 months old is going to make it all the way though the night without a feeding. They just can’t get that much food down.

But, apparantly, they can and do sleep solidly when just given the chance. No bouncing needed, no walking, rocking, nothing. I can now put her in the crib around 7pm and she will be out in a few minutes. Tonight she did fuss a bit for while but eventually, out cold.

To any new parents I strongly recommend giving Dr. Weissbluth’s book a good read. Consider, for your own sanity, putting the little one down early, let the sleep! And then you can too!

The Vibram shoes are just like gloves for the feet. They allow for individual movement of the toes. The shoes are very snug and when first purchased were very hard to get on. They wear in like any other shoe and now I can slide into them without much effort.

So first, the good. They are very comfortable. After some time you barely know you are wearing shoes. Your feet can really feel the ground as you walk. Now, I don’t have the full sports version, so I feel more of the ground as I walk. The full sports styles have tougher soles for running. These just have a thin rubber sole that allows for walking on most surfaces, but I wouldn’t recommend going rock climbing in this style. There are styles that you can do more rugged outdoor activities with, however.

Now, I don’t about the improve posture bit that they claim with these, but you do feel the workout in your calves and in your arch. Wearing these for the first full week really started to hurt. But they were so comfortable I just kept wearing them.  They have made my feet tougher, no doubt about it.

Sock free is another benefit, at least to me. I hate socks. Curse the man that invented them. Want to cure smelly feet in the nation? Ban socks and you will.

For me, there is really only one bad, and honestly it’s kinda a good. If you like attention and talking to strangers, wear them. Just about everywhere I go I get comments from people asking me how they feel, can you run in them, are they comfortable. Once, a lady stopped and exclaimed, “Feet! Two feet!” while pointing at my Vibram shoes.

Friends have said, “I can’t believe you walk out of the house in those” and other basically sarcastic remarks. That’s fine, i’ve always been the odd ball out anyway.

So if you are adventurous, can take a few stares, and really want to improve your foot arch strength, try the Vibram shoes. They are the inventors, I think, so I would not try some off brand. Besides, they are only a hundred bucks or so. You can order them right from their site at http://www.vibramfivefingers.com/index.htm Enjoy!

I haven’t been posting for a while but you can expect to see some updates as I give this little baby a ride. First impressions are the laptop is SMALL and very light. I only got so far as to hold it up in the air and triumphantly yell “KAHN!!!” It was the only battle cry that came to mind.

How did I get one you ask? I just filled out the form here: https://services.google.com/fb/forms/cr48advanced/

Give it a try, you never know!

I think if anything all this data means is we don’t know exactly what is going on. Does the climate change, getting hotter and colder? Yes! We KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Earth was once covered with Ice. We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was once hotter than it is now. So, nailed it, give me a fruit smoothie and I’m off to eat Chinese food.

Is it really that simple? Is anything? No. Of course not. How silly of you. It’s true we are using oil and coal and they do have some negative impacts. Oil spills are generally considered to be a bad thing, even by Oil tycoons. Coal, well, need I say more than simply ‘coal..”? Dan Aykroyd once lived in a mansion that sat on top of an underground burning coal field, poor nose-less guy. Not to mention the countless numbers of good men that have either died or suffered miner’s cough and other ailments from working in them.

Ok, so, bottom line, coal and oil are bad, mmkay. And, they have this pesky problem of being exhaustible. Meaning, we’re going to use them all up one day. Going to happen, no doubt about it, period, end of story.

So, my point here is, do we really care about Climategate? Shouldn’t we explicitly not care? Why do we need a bunch of scientists to come up with a reason why using coal and oil is bad when we know it’s bad for other reasons? The obvious answer is money of course. Economies are based on oil. Can’t just stop using it at the drop of a hat.

My point here is, world, lighten the hell up. Climategate or no climategate, the climate of the Earth is going to change because, well, that’s just what it does. It changes. There was a mini-ice age in the middle ages. It happens. It’ll happen again. Are we speeding it up? Maybe, but clearly not so fast that it’s changing in the next five or ten years. And guess what, in the next fifty, when China and India add another billion or so people to the middle class, the oil consumption rate is going to go through the roof, which of course will use up all the oil, causing economic turmoil, mass starvation, dogs and cats living together, you get the drift.

What Climategate is going to do is turn attention away from actual science, actual thinking, and turn it towards bickering, side taking and basically time wasting. And then Keanu Reeves will show up in a big ball of light space ship and have little metal insects eat you. Gross. Who would want that?

My advice to you. Try to use less, drive less, reduce your consumption of items. Or if you don’t want to, then don’t. Either way, we’ll be ok. Why? Our Artificial Intelligent overlords will be being invented in about 20-30 years and they’ll tell us what to do. So knock your sox off, stop paying attention to this dribble and look into something with more merit, like did Tiger Woods cheat or didn’t he?

Today I wanted to post about Christmas. Seems fitting being that it is today. We are not really celebrating Christmas this year due to my Grandmother’s passing. We’ll have dinner and a few presents, but it won’t be like years past. In the past we would have rivers of presents lining the tree, on the piano, the floor, everywhere. It was so bad you couldn’t walk some years through the hall. My mother loves getting presents for people.

Which bring me to the point of my post. What is Christmas today. I ask because I love Christmas but am not really that religious. So is it a religious holiday or has it grown to a national tradition? I’ve argued this with friends, some Jewish, who feel that Christmas is solidly a religious holiday. To be sure, most Jews do not celebrate it for the religious connotations. And also, a great deal of Christians do feel it’s about the celebration of the birth of Jesus. Where then do those people, like me, who have some of their fondest memories of Christmas as a child but aren’t religious at all fit in?

Initially I’d say, you fit in where you choose to. I have a friend that is an Atheist and he loves celebrating Christmas. For him it’s a time to come together, forget grievances, and celebrate all the good fortunes we have in our lives. The quandary comes in when you try to share a family, household, traditions with those that feel Christmas is more than a national holiday.

I feel that Christmas is what you want it to be. A jolly fat man in a red suit flying around the world delivering presents really doesn’t have much to do with Christianity. In fact, the more we look and investigate, Christmas was actually created and celebrated by ancient people’s. Perhaps not in it’s current form but the Winter Solstice was celebrated on December 25th many years before Christ was born.

What does all this have to do with me? I am starting a relationship with someone that does not want a Christmas tree or to celebrate Christmas. It’s a point of contention for sure. She is Jewish and feels that the holiday can dilute a Jewish home. The Jewish people, of which I partially belong on my father’s side, are a people that hold strongly to their traditions. I can respect and understand this but at the same time does the inclusion of a new tradition really threaten existing ones?

I have found that answer to be yes, oddly. Even though Christmas truly does pre-date Christianity, due to how deeply it is now intertwinedwith Christmas, makes it, to some, a religious holiday. That fact precludes it’s inclusion in many households, not just Jewish ones. Though the holiday Thanksgiving is welcomed by all that come to the U.S., as is Halloween, Christmas is not. I find it interesting that Halloween, with heavily rooted traditions in pagan beliefs, is so widely accepted and Christmas is not.

It seems that Christmas has become the last stand for many. Jews even modified their own holiday, Chanukah, to include the giving of gifts instead of putting up a tree. That was not part of the holiday before the 1900′s and I don’t believe that aspect of the tradition is done in Israel. Chanukah isn’t even a major holiday for Jewish culture, it’s really meant for just the kids.

The end result? I may not get a Christmas tree for a few years. People, and cultures, are tend to borrow and even steal traditions from one another rapidly. Just as Christmas has roots in ancient cultures, it has been modified and fitted to fit the times and people of today. I suspect that tradition will continue for years to come, the slight tweaking of traditions from culture to culture, year after year.

Bottom line, enjoy the holidays. I find it equally as interesting that every culture has some form of celebration during this time of year. Christians, Jews, Muslims, most celebrate something. So even if your situation changes, you’ll likely be able to celebrate some type of holiday during the winter solstice. You could even celebrate just the solstice itself and honor the real origins of this time of year.

And with that, I wish you all Happy Holidays!