What I Learned From Dora

There are stories of how much I loved doing jigsaw puzzles in my youth.  

And frankly, if you lived where it's 115 during the day, you'd find excuses for staying in-doors, too.  But, regardless, I do love doing them now- especially the Christensen ones with the fancy fantasy characters.

It's one thing I really miss about being the parent of a toddler and two cats- they ALL want to take your pieces and store them somewhere for you.

I'm really looking forward to the time where I can sit down with my daughter (I know the cats will always want to "help") and do a puzzle together.   She's currently fascinated with a 100 piece holiday puzzle with a gingerbread man on it.  And though we tried to put it together, she just doesn't quite get the concept.  She knows that the pieces make a picture...and that one side doesn't have a picture, but she hasn't made the leap to realize that YOU need to build the picture.

So, despite several attempts (and recounting of the pieces), we aborted 100 piece puzzle in lieu of something more her speed.  She had received a Dora the Explorer puzzle as a gift- a little framed wooden one with 12-15 pieces...you know the type?

Well, as I was helping her, I realized that all the pieces are not only interlocking, but they're also interchangeable.

Now, honestly, how is that helpful in learning how to do a jigsaw puzzle!?!  

No wonder the kid doesn't understand about a unique fit!  When I was a kid- before the beginner puzzles (primer puzzles!!?) were made of wood, they were made of cardboard.  I had one with Mickey on roller skates (70s, you know?  Everyone was on roller skates).  It had 25 uniquely shaped pieces, as well as the pattern for the pieces pressed into the cardboard.

You GOT the idea that you're supposed to find the matching shape piece and put in the matching pattern "hole".  

You GOT what the point of a jigsaw puzzle was- it's to match the correctly shaped pieces together; the image is secondary.  (This is probably why, to this day, I strongly feel that looking at the image on the box is CHEATING!  You need to match the pieces and the image magically appears).

Anyway, I went in search of a 25 piece puzzle that had uniquely shaped pieces.

NO LUCK!  

Thanks to Melissa and Doug, ALL of the 25 piece puzzles that I could find are the wooden framed type with interchangeable pieces (not to mention STEEPLY more expensive than a little cardboard puzzle, which I couldn't find).  The next step up was 35 pieces, which is exponentially more difficult than a 25 piece puzzle, but at least I found one with a Princess made by Ravensburger, who generally makes good puzzles.  

I did find a "box set" of Winnie the Pooh wood puzzles, but the pieces didn't fit together- what good was that!?!  And when you tried, you either almost broke the balsa piece or got a splinter trying.

But I never thought I would be SEARCHING for those cheap little cardboard training puzzles.  If anyone finds them, please share.

The Xmas Letter...

I have always hated the Xmas letter.  It's pretty much the most impersonal recollection of the past year, with the only interesting element being whether or not you rated being mentioned.  I didn't used to mind them, but when a relative died and it was skipped in the letter by another relative...well, that pretty much placed me on the side actively against the stupid letter.

But this year, I've received yet another downgraded example of the letter:  The Xmas postcard.

On the front, there's a collage of pictures.

On the back, is the stupid letter- boiled down to a paragraph.

In this letter, the family talked about how their daughter was learning her letters and numbers.

That doesn't sound bad, right?

Well, the kid's almost two years older than our daughter...who is happily reading her Disney Princess book.  While the kid is not slow, it does make one wonder about putting that kind of content in the letter

But, then, what else would you put in the letter?

Hence, the letter is dumb.

In fact, with the price of postage now equating the the air mail of my youth, I been relegated to eCards...which no one seems to mind and there's no guilt about clicking Delete after you read it.

It's That Time of Year Again!

Reading and Paint

So, my daughter is learning to read, right?  And so we're getting early reader books.

These books are also called, "primers".

I'm also painting the house a lot lately.  The first layer of paint is called...

..."primer".

Why is it that it's a "Prim-er" when you read and "Prime-r" when you paint?

Well, That's a First

Today, I was told (thankfully) by a recruiter that they just didn't see enough biology and medical background in my resume to work on an EMR (that's Electronic Medical Records system- the thing that the doctors and nurses look at instead of you when you go into to see them now).

Anyway, yeah...what a shocker.  The irony is that I had to take so much of my biology background OUT when I tried to break into IT because no one thought that the two really meshed at the time (man, I'm dating myself).  I had changed all of my lab work to sound more like IT work so that the auto-scanning programs wouldn't just throw my resume out for lack of experience- which would have been the truth then.  You know, "programmed DNA" and "quality assurance of" this or that solution.

So, it's a complete shocker to be told I just don't have enough biology in there.

Everyone embrace the long resume.

And at this time, only one comment really comes to mind:

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

LOL!!!!!


Gets me every time!

Healthcare Prices

I'm looking for a new vet for my cat.  The last one put him in a muzzle because he didn't have a rabbies shot and the vet was afraid he might get bit by my non-rabid cat.  Of course, the vet didn't tell me all of this until AFTER I had left my little baby with him and returned to pick him up.  I've never had such a supposedly educated person freak out so much about a disease he'd, himself, been vaccinated AGAINST getting!

So, you can see, I will never return to that cat-hating vet.

But, now my cat has managed to get himself some pink eye- or at least a scratch on his eye and we need to go get it taken care of.

Now, this is probably not going to be someone I go back to because, well, I don't take my cats to the vet unless they're sick.  So, like anyone else in my position, I pulled up Google Maps and looked for someone close.

After checking their website, I have this simple question to ask all healthcare providers:

Why don't you post your prices?

Don't pretend that you don't use a price sheet.

And, especially for vet care, where most people who go are in the same position that I'm in- a single, short office visit.

But the concept is the same for ALL healthcare- humans, too.  It seems to me, that if Obama wanted to provide reasonably priced healthcare, the first place to start would be a little healthy competition among clinics and hospitals by posting their prices.

Another Energy Recycling Opportunity

Lately, it's been rather cold here in Minnesota...and with the cost of heat always rising, it makes you think of other ways that we could capture energy.

Notice I didn't say generate energy...because the first law of thermodynamics says that energy can be neither created nor destroyed- only transformed.

Ok, so, enough of the science stuff.  Now for the inventions of the future!

1. Gyms.  Like, work-out gyms.  Why aren't we harvesting some of the heat energy that is burned by the users of the equipment?  Like having some sort of little hand-held device that allows you to charge up batteries while endlessly climbing stairs...or a giant turbine at the top of the building?  I know that I build up a static electricity charge every time I walk on the treadmill because when I reach for the controls, there's a large blue arc that discharges when I touch the controls (promptly followed by my hair suddenly falling down- guess it's a bit Einstein-y when I walk).

2. Treadmill desks and elliptical desks.   Honestly, I couldn't picture the elliptical desks, because the elliptical machine involves the whole body and how can you type when your hands are on the handlebars?  Well, here's a picture of the incorrectly named elliptical desk.  It's basically just an ergonomic bicycle desk.

Anyway, all of that energy that is created by manually pumping those peddles...why aren't we recharging our cell phones or powering our iPads?

3. The last one is rather disgusting, but you have to wonder...particularly in Hollywood....what happens to all the fat from liposuctions?  People ATE those calories.  That's stored energy.  What happens to it?  Is it burned for energy?  (Now, I know from working with doctors that some of that is actually used for fat transplants for burn victims and the extremely malnourished- not kidding- but there are an awful lot of skinny people in southern California...).

Stay tuned for more energy capturing ideas...