Category: Humor

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Fun with Atheism

One of the things I’ve been able to do this year is teach robotics, using the Lego MindStorms NXT system, at the Academy for Science and Design chartered public school, in Merrimack, New Hampshire. I volunteer two mornings a week, and teach two different student groups, numbering about 10 each. Until December, the program focused on FIRST LEGO League, in which we were competing. Since then we have taken up building robots for an intramural robot Sumo competition.

A few weeks ago, we mentioned a requirement of ethical behavior in class. One of the kids pondered, “Why should I care about ethics?”

“Because God requires it,” I replied. (Just because I’m working in a public school, there is no reason to pretend I’m not a Christ-follower. I don’t beat them over the head with it—indeed, it hardly ever comes up—but it is the foundation for my moral beliefs, including why we need to behave in an ethical manner.)

“But I’m an atheist,” claimed the student, “so that doesn’t apply to me.”

“Well, then,” I suggested, “The FLL program requires it; your school requires it; and this class requires it. Will that suffice?”

A few moments later I asked the student, “So, you’re an atheist? Really?”

“Yes.”

“Honest to God?”

“Ye—waaaaaaaaiiiiiiiit a minute.”

We’re still laughing about it.

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The Geek Is Strong in Her


Actually, that’s my propeller beanie.

Growing up in our household, it isn’t likely that Naomi would be able to escape the culture of Geekdom that pervades it. Still, she has proven herself to be independently minded in a number of ways. For example, she has developed, without our influence, her own belief in Santa Claus, which none of the boys did. (We chose not to foist the Santa myth on the children, but she’s picked it up on her own, from television and other media, and adheres stubbornly to his existence.) She is crazy about ballet and girl clothes, and can even dance beautifully while using a hula hoop, both activities being entirely self-taught.

Still, she plays World of WarCraft (we joke that she has a level 5 Piercing Shriek) and Halo, loves Star Wars, Lego, and “Dr. Who” (although we had to cut back on the last one, as it was giving her nightmares), and reads MegaTokyo. So, here are a few of the more interesting ways she makes us smile, as we rub our hands together and laugh maniacally:

When I saw them go on sale at ThinkGeek, Nichelle insisted that I buy a Flux Capacitor replica. So, one Sunday, when I was bringing the Flux Capacitor to church to show off (we have a Geeky church), Naomi exclaimed, “Dad! We forgot to bring a second lot of plutonium!” Then, she ordered, “Mom! Get it up to 88 miles per hour!” and started chanting, “Do it! Do it! Do it!” (Back to the Future has always one of Naomi’s favorite films. It’s also where she learned to swear … and then of course not to swear.)

The other day she casually remarked, “The Mach 5 rules; the Mach 6 drools.” (Yes, we are Speed Racer fans as well.)

A few weeks ago, we went out for go-carts and putt-putt golf, and in the lot was a small, shed-like (TARDIS-like) building with double-doors on the front. NaNi called out, “Look, Dad, a time travel machine!”

And she likes science as well, including begging to go places like the Museum of Science. We were talking about the moon, and I asked her, “Where does the moon gets its light?” She responded, “From the sun.” I was thrilled, impressed that she understood reflectivity as it applies to moonlight at four years of age. Then she said, “Yeah, the sun turns into the moon at night.” We’ll keep trying …


NaNi mocks Isaac in the time-honored manner: “Look, I’m Isaac … Duuuuuuh.”

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Shiver Me Timbers! Talk Like a Pirate Day Be on the Morrow!

‘Twas A grand, glorious day when I awoke. “Wench!” demanded I, “Where be me mornin’ grog?”

But then I learned a right powerful lesson: Be not calling a fair lass a “wench,” if’n she be stronger than thee. Painfully quick the lesson was, and quickly painful.

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Walking? Nyet.

This comic from Bloom County keeps coming to mind. (Copyright 1983, the Washington Post Company. Used under the “Get with It, This Is the 21st Century” interpretation of the Fair Use clause.) See http://www.berkeleybreathed.com/.

Today I received numerous answers from my doctor; unfortunately, they were all along the lines of “Those results were negative,” or “I don’t know.” I do know that I’m still running a fever (even after 5 days of antibiotics), but it seems to be slightly more controllable with medication, and it is nearly impossible for me to walk, even with Vicodin helping to manage the pain.

On the bright side, my echocardiogram concluded that the enlarged heart shown on my chest x-ray was simply a test anomaly. This also concluded that, if I do have rheumatic fever, it hasn’t done any damage to my heart. Still out there is the possibility of Lyme disease.

One ironic thing is that I have a severe vitamin D deficiency—just like what incapacitated Nichelle for many years. (See, there would have been ROI on that cube with a window view I recently requested at work.) However, the vitamin D deficiency isn’t likely to be the cause of my symptoms, as it wouldn’t cause the localized swelling, nor fever, and wouldn’t have set in so suddenly. (It’s also easily treated.)

I see an infectious disease specialist tomorrow, and I see my rheumatologist again on Thursday; we hope for more definitive answers. So far a large number of things have been ruled out. I’ve had so much blood and fluids drawn in the past week, that my weight has dropped 3 pounds.

I am grateful for the dedication my ever-growing medical team has shown. My fellow church members and family members are praying for my recovery. My wife and children are incredibly helpful. Nichelle keeps life manageable, and the kids typically function as my extended arms and legs, without complaint.

I have gotten much support as well from my co-workers. Many have called or e-mailed to see how I am doing. “Tovarich” Gary Dlugy is going to feed my tarantula, Susan (named after one of our VPs at Kronos). Sarcasm master Joe Royal sent these words of encouragement, which would have left me rolling on the floor if I’d been able to do such a thing:

Things are a little dull without you. Meetings start on time and stick to the agenda. Management is starting to be worshiped. It’s becoming a very unproductive work environment.

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The Wii Fit / Whee Fit

Again attacking the stereotype that video games are for people who only wish to exercise their fingers, Pretendo® began preorders for its Wheeâ„¢ Fit home exercise product, just in time for Mother’s Day. Get Fit and have Fun with this latest home fitness device for the Pretendo® Wheeâ„¢!


Nichelle Wilcox, a personal fitness trainer and Mom in Nashua, N.H., loves her Wheeâ„¢ Fit!

Enjoy these thrilling exercises:

Thank you for choosing the Whee™ Fit exercise peripheral from Pretendo®, for use with your Pretendo® game system.

Enjoy the following exciting exercises (we recommend starting with Dialing Panic, shown on page 2):

Snowboarding (core muscles, legs)
Play your favorite snowboarding game while standing on your Wheeâ„¢ Fit. Imagine the thrill of controlling the onscreen movements via your
Wheeâ„¢ Fit device.

Basic Balance (core muscles)
Close your eyes and try to balance on the Wheeâ„¢ Fit.

Advanced Balance (core muscles, cardio)
Close your eyes and try to balance on the Wheeâ„¢ Fit while in the middle of a busy freeway.

Shower Power (core muscles)
Close your eyes and try to balance on the Wheeâ„¢ Fit while taking a shower.

Advanced Shower Power (core muscles, cardio)
Close your eyes and try to balance on the Wheeâ„¢ Fit while atop a tall hill during a thunderstorm.

Bumper Jumper (hands and fingers)
While standing on your Wheeâ„¢ Fit, grasp the rear bumper or side mirror of a vehicle stopped at an intersection. The Wheeâ„¢ Fit will score points for each second you remain gripping the vehicle. If you hear the sound of approaching sirens, discontinue use.

Advanced Bumper Jumper (hands and fingers)
While standing on your Wheeâ„¢ Fit, grasp the rear bumper or side mirror of a vehicle as it enters the freeway onramp. The Wheeâ„¢ Fit will score points for each second you remain gripping the vehicle. If you hear the sound of approaching sirens, discontinue use. Game ends if an arrest is made.

Push ’em Up (arms, chest, and shoulders)
Place the Wheeâ„¢ Fit in front of you on the floor, and use it as a platform for performing push ups.

Advanced Push ’em Up (arms, chest, and shoulders)
Place the Wheeâ„¢ Fit in front of you on the floor, and use it as a platform for performing one-handed push ups.

Super Advanced Push ’em Up (neck and tongue)
Place the Wheeâ„¢ Fit in front of you on the floor, and use it as a platform for performing push ups with your tongue.

Press Stress (arms, chest, and shoulders)
While lying face up on the floor, grip the Wheeâ„¢ Fit in both hands, and press it up toward the ceiling.

Advanced Press Stress (arms, chest, and shoulders)
While lying face up on the floor, place a small child on the Wheeâ„¢ Fit device. While gripping the Wheeâ„¢ Fit in both hands, press it up toward the ceiling.

Super Advanced Press Stress (arms, chest, and shoulders)
While lying face up on the floor, place a small automobile on the Wheeâ„¢ Fit device. While gripping the Wheeâ„¢ Fit in both hands, press it up toward the ceiling.

Mallet Fun (arms and shoulders)
Using a 3-pound sledgehammer, strike the Wheeâ„¢ Fit directly in the middle. Try for 100 reps!

Luge Run (arms and shoulders)
Lay down on the Wheeâ„¢ Fit, and use your arms to propel yourself across the floor.

Advanced Luge Run (arms and shoulders)
Lay down on the Wheeâ„¢ Fit, and use your arms to propel yourself down a steep hill.

Super Advanced Luge Run (arms and shoulders, cardio)
Lay down on the Wheeâ„¢ Fit, and use your arms to propel yourself down a steep hill that bottoms out onto a freeway.

Luge Flight (arms and shoulders, cardio)
Lay down on the Wheeâ„¢ Fit, and use your arms to propel yourself down a steep hill that terminates in a ski jump.

Dialing Panic (fingers, cardio)
Using an ordinary telephone, practice dialing 9-1-1 and describing the current situation to the friendly emergency operator.

Yes, folks, this is what we gave Nichelle for Mother’s Day, along with a promise to buy her a real Wii Fit when they were available.

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I Told You I Was 1337!


I told you I was 1337, as this compilation screen shot shows.

I grabbed this screen shot at work today. Every developer wants to write 1337 code, but I think this proves that I’m doing it.

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2008: Year of the Nerd

I hesitate to include this, but this is the sort of thing that goes on at a New Year’s Eve party at Heritage Baptist Church.

In addition to “praying in” the new year, we also spent several hours playing board games and doing improv skits. Lynn B., our great game organizer, ran a Family Feud session, which was quite fun, although at first we demonstrated our vast lack of knowledge in how this particular game show operated. Once it got going, the competition was fierce.

I loved the fact that all the kids were involved as well. David was interviewed by me in one of the skits as an eyewitness to the events of “The Ugly Duckling”; in his version he ran over the Ugly Duckling with his car! Tom H. brought a snowball inside, which ended up recycled a number of times by being thrown or dropped down the back of people’s shirts. Pastor Erik told people (not necessarily children) not to run about 4,328 times. Phil L. and David E. carried Isaac outside a couple of times and threw him in a snowbank.

Afterward we went home and let the kids stay up as long as they wanted, as is our tradition on New Year’s. NaNi didn’t make it much after 1:00. David was up until about 4:30. Isaac stayed awake until 6:40 p.m. on the first. We woke him up for dinner, and trounced him at Halo 3, which is extremely unusual, but shows how drastically sleep deprivation can affect performance and critical skills.

Late afternoon on the first, we were in the process of getting ready to go see Enchanted, when David came in calling, “It stings! It stings!” I thought he’d hurt or frozen his hands, until he pointed to his head. Isaac had accidentally hit him across the eyebrow with a snow shovel, splitting the skin open quite deeply, so we went to the emergency department at SNHMC instead of to the movies. (The physician’s office had just closed.) David was very worried about stitches, but got to have his skin superglued together instead.

While David and I waited, and waited, and waited in the waiting room, Nichelle was at home making beef enchiladas, our last bit of holiday eating-too-much-for-our-own-good.

Welcome, 2008!

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Erik DiVietro IS Jack Ryan

Erik DiVietro posted this via his MySpace page. As I hate MySpace, and loved this, he gave me permission to cross-post it here.

Erik treated one of those inane e-mail surveys as if he were Jack Ryan, the protagonist in most of Tom Clancy’s novels. (Also, I should note that, just like Erik, I’ve read all of Clancy’s novels. Clancy peaked with The Sum of All Fears—avoid the movie, though—and really hasn’t done remotely as well since.)

I completed this entire survey as Jack Ryan, of the Tom Clancy novels. It is disturbing that I retain this much information about a fictional character, and more so that I do it about MANY fictional characters.

1. If you were to kill a man, horror movie style, which kitchen utensil would you use?
Horror movie style, eh? That’s a tough one. I had an Ayatollah killed by sending in the B-2 bomber with a bunker buster.

2. Did you ever swallow a coin?
No, but I did buy a helicopter once.

3. What was the worst gift you’ve ever received?
That moron Tom Clancy ruined my legacy by writing Teeth of the Tiger

4. What is your most embarrassing childhood memory?
That my father almost arrested John Clark

5. How many kids do you want?
I have four. For some reason, every time my wife and I slept together in another country or in a time of international crisis, she got pregnant again.

6. What’s your moms middle name?
She didn’t have one, but her maiden name was Burke

7. Have you ever operated a fire extinguisher?
In ways the manufacturer never contemplated.

8. What did you eat for breakfast?
I skip breakfast a lot, and Kathy is always getting on my case about it.

9. who do you hate?
Used to communists, then the Japanese and then the Asian-financed terrorists. Oh, and bureaucrats. MAN do I hate them!

10. what do you hope to have accomplished by the end of this year?
When you’re Jack Ryan – there is nothing left to do. I made millions on the stock market; I wrote books; I was a Marine; I’ve been head of the CIA, Vice-President and President. SHOOT…I single-handedly brought peace to Jerusalem. I stole an entire ballistic missile submarine from the Russians AND forced the head of the GRU to defect! There’s nothing I haven’t done.

11. do you have any reallllly crazy relatives?
Apparently, I have two twin psychotic nephews. My daughter is a little strange as well.

12. Did you ever wake up under the influence of NyQuil, completely unable to move?
I was addicted to painkillers after I almost broke my back, and had a drinking problem that forced me out of government service for awhile.

13. Are you feeling nostalgic right now?
I’m a former president of the USA, of course.

14. Did you own a Lite-Brite?
My grandkids do; but it is nothing compared to the NSA command center.

15. Can you dive?
In a wetsuit? No. I’m a terrible swimmer; but I did operate the dive planes of the Red October under Captain Marco Ramius

16. Do you own a mouthpiece for anything?
Not really.

18. Have you ever used a pogo stick?
Is that anything like a 9MM handgun? Or explosives?

19. Who was the most creative bum you’ve ever met, trying to get some money from you?
Probably Ed Kealty.

20. What’s your favorite Jelly Belly jelly bean flavor?
Can of INTERNATIONAL WHOOPIN’. That’s a flavor, right?

21. favorite food you CRAVE?
I love my wife’s cooking. Of course, every time she makes a special meal, people seem to try to kill us.

22. When was the last time you pulled lint out of your bellybutton?
What do I look like? A democrat?

23. Did you ever use someone else’s toothbrush?
There was this crisis where the president thought the Russians were launching nukes at us, but it turned out to be a BIG misunderstanding. But I stayed up for like 3 weeks without sleeping, so I probably did.

24. Do you REALLY floss everyday?
Of course. I’m a Georgetown alumnus.

25. what is your favorite cologne/perfume you always wear?
Cologne is for men who haven’t killed Irish terrorists with their own hands.

26. If you were on Double Dare, would you take the physical challenge?
Look. I’ve been dropped from helicopters onto submarines in storms; I’ve been shot at by drug czars; and I was there when a crazy Japanese pilot flew a 747 into the Capitol building. My wife and I survived nuclear blasts AND two different version of the Ebola virus. You got nothing on me.

27. What’s the largest living organism that you killed?
Shoot. I’ve killed so many things. Probably my father-in-law’s ego.

28. Did you ever take a lighting bug and smear its guts on your arm so you get a cool glowing effect like war paint?
Who writes these stupid questions?

29. What’s the best toy you’ve ever gotten in a McDonalds happy meal?
an armored limousine Hot Wheel

30. if you could be anywhere in the world doing anything right now what would it be?
Back in the Oval Office, ordering Clark and Ding to take care of people.

31. Can you juggle?
HELLO! Fearless leader of the free world here!

32. how do you feel right now?
nostalgic, see 13 above.

33. Do you remember that square candy bar called “Chunky”?
I do. Ate many a Chunky bar out of the CIA vending machines.

34. Predict the length of the next Peter Jackson movie.
Longer than Bear and the Dragon felt but somewhat shorter than Executive Orders actually was.

35. What was your favorite toy as a kid?
G.I. Joes.

36. Are you willing to go the distance?
That’s one heck of a question to ask me. How many of you have even TRIED to read all my books?

37. Did you answer question 17?
How could I? It was stolen by Arab terrorists bent on bringing down the free world through Internet hacking.