Max's Second Christmas

Katie and I show our typical ability in trying to get Max to smile for a photo. This was (by far) the best take out of a dozen or so in this series.

Given his clumsy knockdown of the three-block tower at the start, I was shocked at the end of taking this video. Max was just learning how to stack blocks at this time, and I happened to be taking video while watching him build the tallest tower I'd ever seen him build to date.

For Christmas, Max got a set of Duplo blocks, but he preferred playing with the box they came in.

I was enjoined to dress Max in "something festive" for Christmas. The only thing I could find that fit that description was a silvery Halloween costume, which Max enjoyed showing off to everyone. Here, he giggles as he chases aunt Laura around the dining room table.

Max has connived aunts Missy and Tina into playing one of his favorite games. While Max sits on the top step, Missy shovels snow into a pile in front of him. Max then scoops the snow into his lap, turning to Tina when his mittens collect too much snow.

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Can You Cross Your Toes?

Katie and I had a heated discussion the night before last. We were sitting on the couch watching Jon Stewart when she noticed a large, apparently cancerous growth sticking out of the bottom of my foot. She asked what the big lump in my sock was. "That's my toe," I responded, nonplussed. I had crossed my first and second toes, causing a lump to protrude from the bottom of my sock. Katie was quite alarmed. "You can cross your toes?" "Sure, can't you? Everyone can cross their toes!" "Of course I can't cross my toes. Who can cross their toes?" And I confirmed that Katie could not, in fact, cross her toes. Even manipulating her toes with my fingers, I could not get her toes to stay crossed. She just has very short toes. That led, of course, into a discussion of who was the freak. Were my long, crossable toes abnormal, or were her stubby, uncrossable phalanges the outliers? In case you're confused, here are some pictures. First, of my v...

Max the Model

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Leagalize drugs!

The Economist has a wonderful editorial this week about legalizing drugs. I wholeheartedly agree that the world will be better off by far if the United States legalized, taxed, and regulated illicit drugs such as cannabis, cocaine, and heroin. The goods that will come from legalization: 1. We will save the $40 billion the US spends trying to eliminate the supply of drugs. 2. We will save the costs involved in incarcerating so many drug offenders (as well as gain their productivity in society). 3. We will gain money through taxation on the legal drug trade. 4. Legalized drugs will be regulated, and thus purer and safer to take. 5. With all these savings, we will have lots of money to spend on treating drug addiction as a public health issue rather than as a law and order issue. We will have lots of money to fund treatment programs for addicts that are ensnared by the easier availability of drugs. 6. We will prevent tens of thousands of killings in countries that produce drugs when proc...

J. Michael Andresen

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