J. Michael Andresen

Max took his first steps on his birthday, when he took three half-falling steps to get from the ottoman to me sitting in a chair. Since then, he has mostly been perfecting his short-distance walking between pieces of furniture in the living room. Last Friday, he suddenly blossomed. He discovered that he has enough balance to go long distances as long as he went relatively slowly. In the intervening week, he has gotten faster and faster. Here he is, showing off his mad skillz:

Some months ago, I received this email: Common Phoenician transportation was by means of ships. Most often Phoenicians would travel by sea on ships called galleys. Galleys ate large ships that can be used either for trade, travel or war. The Phoenicians were one of the first people to make and use galleys along with the Greeks. More than often galleys were used for transportation for trade between varios civilizations such as the Greeks, Syrians and many other civilizations. Galleys were made from wood found in local regions in Phoenician territories. Galleys had large masts that had sails used to propel the galleys via wind power. They also included a set of oars on both sides o the ship so that oarsmen could row the ship when's winds were in unfavorable conditions. As time passed a many renovation to the galley occurred. Biremedes were introduced as an advancement on the original galley. The biremedes were a second row of oars to further increase the rowing capabilities of the ga...

A guest blog post from my co-parent: Max is now more than 1 year old and has clear likes and dislikes. Max Likes: Grape tomatoes—he seriously loves these and will eat lots and lots of them; the other day I think he went through almost a pint Lettuce, even undressed. Wiggling his barefoot toes in the grass, which I’ve only let him do once Being outside Dancing—“dancing” meaning waving his arms and twisting at the waist when any of his toys make music or other sounds, such as the rumbling of a truck’s engine, when we sing to him, or when we say “dancing” Waving hello and goodbye to people, cars, animals, and objects—It is very exciting to Max when someone waves back, which isn’t that often because people in cars don’t usually see Max and people on foot are often past Max by the time he waves Balls Kissing (often sloppy open mouthed on the mouth), hugging, head-butting and biting (the head-butting and biting seem to be extensions of affection rather than something done out of frust...

Randall Munroe on the has performed a large experiment in color perception over at the xkcd blog. Basically, 222,500 people sat down in front of their computers and typed in the name they would ascribe to a wide panoply of monitor-produced colors. Language Log calls this "the largest scientific experiment ever run by a cartoonist." The list at the end of the most outrageous individual entries was entertaining, but my favorite part was his analysis of the responses that occurred numerous times and in a gender-biased fashion: Here are the color names most disproportionately popular among women: 1. Dusty Teal 2. Blush Pink 3. Dusty Lavender 4. Butter Yellow 5. Dusky Rose Okay, pretty flowery, certainly. Kind of an incense-bomb-set-off-in-a-Bed-Bath-&-Beyond vibe. Well, let’s take a look at the other list. Here are the color names most disproportionately popular among men: 1. Penis 2. Gay 3. WTF 4. Dunno 5. Baige I weep for my gender.

This is the image on a new billboard that was put up over the weekend on my route to work. My first reaction was to note that there are very obvious reasons for why our neolithic forebears domesticated chickens to eat and cats to kill rodents rather than the other way around. That is beside the point for the ad campaign, though. The billboard's message is that we should treat chickens with the same respect as we treat cats because they are equally cute. I finally had to concede that ad campaign raises a very good point. Changes should be made. Although my current pet cat has been spayed, a quick trip to the nearest alley with a can of tuna fish should allow me to collect enough individuals to start a breeding program. My goal will be to create a strain of fat felines with nicely marbled meat that is more suitable for human consumption.

Max had lots of friends visit on Saturday: On Sunday, the entire family came over. (Also visiting was Missy, but she was the one taking the pictures!)

No, I haven't syndicated my blog with one of the nation's foremost newspapers in order to increase my commercial appeal. I am just noting that the fine folks at The Washington Post won the most Pulitzer Prizes this year, beating The New York Times by a single prize. This means that the answer to Question #5 on the 2010 Prognostication Quiz is A. The Washington Post . Here are the Post -er boys and girls: Ron Craig Beth K. Missy Gloria Beth Z. Zhiqi Janette Katie Carol Zoe Rich Leanne Leader Board Ryan's remarkable run has finally come to an end. After running off four correct prognostications in a row, he has finally showed some vulnerability. Is this a momentary lapse or the harbinger of a long, hard decline? Stay tuned to find out. Ryan maintains his lead at the top of the pack, but Ron, Craig, and Beth K. have advanced to within one point of him. The Wall Street Journal (Ryan's pick) was rather ingloriously shut out of the prizes for a second straight year. Inter...