What Do You Give A Guy For His 50th Birthday?

I just turned 50 this weekend (insert codger joke here). So, Unknown Wife and I got a sitter and went out to eat some sushi and see The Dark Knight.

But after church today, we stopped by a Learning Express (basically a place with educational toys). Right there on the shelves was a Water Balloon slingshot (in case you're wondering, here's a link to a similar model). When we got home, I got my neighbor who lives three doors down to help me out and started launching balloons down the street and over the trees. We soon had the Unknown Daughter and the neighbor's three sons try to catch water balloons we launched from about 60-80 yards away.

Back in college we used to make a similar contraption called a "Funnellator" by attaching surgical rubber tubing to a funnel. We used it to launch water balloons (and other, far more disgusting things) almost 200 yards with our deluxe model. It surprising how many other contemporaries had similar experiences. In fact, a member of the advisory board for our student-managed investment fund once told me (after a few beers) that he's used a Funnellator to launch a sheep's brain (yes, you heard me right, a sheep's brain - he was a Biology major before he switched to Finance) almost 150 yards to land in at the front-door of one of the sororities' houses.

My neighbor and I are thinking about modifications to the store-bought model to see if we can bring it up to code. After all, you never know when the development down the street might try to attack us. We might bring the engineering professor down the street into the loop to see if we can make something more automated.

Preparedness is all.

The Day My Butt Went Psycho

No, this is not a post about gastrointestinal difficulties.

Today's Wall Street Journal has an interesting story about a new trend in books for boys. It turns out that they don't like to read as much as girls, unless it involves stuff that's gross or at least somewhat inappropriate (real news flash there, eh?). Hence the title of this post. It's the title of a new children's book by Zack Freeman. Here's the description from Amazon:

Zack Freeman is ready to tell his story...the story of a brave young boy and his crazy runaway butt. The story of a crack butt-fighting unit called the B-team, a legendary Butt Hunter's formidable daughter, and some of the ugliest and meanest butts ever to roam the face of the Earth. A story of endurance that takes Zack on an epic journey across the Great Windy Desert, through the Brown Forest, and over the Sea of Butts before descending into the heart of an explosive buttcano to confront the biggest, ugliest, and meanest butt of them all!It's a story you and your butt will never forget!

Another book the article mentions is "Sir Fartsalot Hunts the Booger" by Kevin Bolger.

So boys like off-kilter, gross, and tasteless stuff. Who could have known? Of course, when I brought up the article at the breakfast table, Unknown Wife thought it was inappropriate and tasteless. I, on the other hand, when right over to the computer and ordered the books from our library for the Unknown Son. He's pretty excited about themsince he's just about done with his latest in the Captain Underpants series.

Meanwhile, Unknown Daughter is reading Fairytopia. Thus speaks the chromosomal divide.

Happy 4th of July

We're just got back from a trip to Wal-Mart (what could be more American) to buy some clothes for the Unknown Daughter (she's grown enough that her old bathing suit no longer fits). The Unknown Wife and Unknown Daughter tried on clothes, while I wheeled the Unknown Baby Boy around the store until he went to sleep. Not surprisingly, the large-screen flat-panel TVs did the trick (based on initial indications, he's definitely a boy-child to the core).

Now we're getting ready to grill some critters, followed by fireworks. In the meanwhile, here are some links. They're from a previous year's post, but they.re worth repeating (after all at Financial Rounds, we're all about the efficiency thing):

The Declaration of Independence most people have never read it through. So take a few minutes and do so before going about your day.

Our Sacred Honor - a piece that recounts what happened to the signers of the Declaration

The Pledge of Allegiance - 'nuff said.

The Star Spangled Banner - the words to our national anthem and a video of Whitney Houston singing it.

Now go grill some meat, light some fireworks, and have a happy 4th of July.

Happy Independence Day

A happy July 4th to all the Financial Rounds readers out there.

Start by reading the Declaration of Independence here. Then, to get a good feel for the costs born by the Signers of the Declaration, read this (there are a number of versions of it floating around the Internet, and it's been attributed originally to Paul Harvey, but this one is as good as any).

Finally go spend time with family, friends, grill some meat, and light off some fireworks. And if there's apple pie (See above) or baseball involved, so much the better.

As for the Unknown Family, I'm going for a "quick" 20 mile bike ride, followed by our spending the day spent at a family friend's house. We'll have all the essentials - a passel of kids, a grill with lots of critters to cook, various fruit, potato, and pasta salads, a hot tub to hang out in, and fireworks at the park just down the street.

update: the ride went well, Unknown Son was feeling well enough to play with the other kids for about 2 1/2 hours straight in the hot tub (it quickly became the "kiddie pool, so we didn't fire it up above merely warm), and there was plenty of food to be had. The little man is over his recent bout of chemo-induced nausea and vomiting of the recent post, but he still got tired out quickly. So, we left early (we anticipated this, so we took separate cars) and we're now settling in for a little Tom and Jerry action before bed (we believe in a classical education in the Unknown Household - Tom and Jerry, the Three Stooges, Bugs Bunny, etc...).

I suspect Unknown Daughter and Unknown wife will show up around 11 or so. So a happy 4th once again to all.

What's going on in the Unknown Family

Here's a short update on goings-on in the Unknown Household:

• The Unknown Daughter is now done with school for the summer. I get a feeling that she'll be doing a lot of social activities this summer - since Friday (the last day of school), she's already had one sleepover (at a cousin's house), and has her second one (at our house) this Wednesday. In addition, she's just finished Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard book. She gets a real kick out of describing the plot to others - it's an unusual tale where the humans are largely the evil characters, and the supernatural ones (ghosts, vampires, werewolves, etc) are the good guys. Next on the agenda is Madeiline L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time (she just finished the 6th Harry Potter book, and is looking for some variety before tackling the 7th). All in all, not bad for someone who just finished 2nd grade.
• The Unknown Baby is now starting to make sounds - a LOT of sounds. So, he's become the star of any family gathering (he was anyway, but now that he's "talking" and laughing, we pretty much get a complete pass on having to take care of him at any event with others around --our rule is that to hold him, you have to do the associated diaper change). More importantly, he's now sleeping more that 6 hours at a pop at night. So, we give him his last feeding between 11 and 12, and don't hear from him until about 6.
  
• We've been doing a lot of social things - my sister and law and brother run a golf tournament to raise funds for cancer research (they lost their son to Neuroblastoma a couple of years ago). While we missed the tournament this year, we did make it up for the kid's mini-golf event this past weekend. In addition, the Unknown Wife is hosting her women's bible study group this morning, so the house will shortly be filled with about ten women. Finally, we'll be traveling to West Virginia shortly for a family reunion over the 4th of July weekend.

I continue to work on various research projects. I am finishing up one paper, and thought I only had a bit more to do. Then I decided to update our sample to include the most recent year of data. Unfortunately, as I worked through the program I'd written, I realized that I would also have to update two other datasets that the paper uses. One week, many lines of SAS code, and much profanity later, I'm almost done with the "simple" job that I thought would take only a day or two. So hang on, my coauthors - I'm almost done. Once this part is done, I move on to another piece, which is also in the final stages - once I finish my small part on this paper, we can put all the work we've already done since the initial version together and do the rewrite. My guess is that it'll be at the submittable stage before long. And then, once a third coauthor sends me the data set I need, I can do a bit of analysis on a third paper, which is also nearing completion.

As for the 500 pound gorilla in the room - we're coping fairly well with the whole grieving process. Of course, it's different for the Unknown Wife and I (hey - the process is different for any two people). For me, it's toughest at night (in the time just before sleep)- for the majority of the day, I don't think about it much, except for the odd moments when I see/hear something that reminds me of the little guy. For her, it occurs more frequently, mostly because she's at home most of the day, where she sees more reminders. We each have different "therapies" - for me, I think about Jonathan on bike rides (almost 17 miles yesterday), and for the Unknown wife, it involves talking about him with friends and family.

But, the sharpest part of the grief has largely passed. For now, it only hits us on occasion, and even then not to badly. It's a lot easier knowing that (1), this is not the end of Jonathan's life (but only the end of this part of his life), and (2), he's not only pain-free, but extremely happy now.

But the human psyche has an amazing capacity for dealing with pain and grief - we're an amazing species that way.

As I said, the Unknown Wife is hosting her ladies group shortly -- As I write, three women have already arrived. So, before I succumb to Estrogen overdose (and start watching the Lifetime channel), I'd better bolt.

I'm Baaaaaaack!

Sorry for the lack of posting lately - it's been a crazy week. But then, lately they all seem like crazy weeks. We survived last week without any need for trips to the emergency room, or grandparents getting injured, but there was still more to come in the Unknown Household.

I woke up last Saturday with my back severely out of whack - my lower back was in a knot, and it hurt to do just about anything other than sit (or lie) completely still). This continued until Monday, when I saw my doctor. She adjusted my sacrum (no, she's not a chiropractor, but she still was able to do it), gave me some very strong muscle relaxants, and told me I need to do more stretching.

On Wednesday my back felt much better so I took the Unknown Son to the Clinic for the routine follow up scans for his original cancer (although he's in remission from the neuroblastoma, he still has scans every six months just in case). Then it was off to the neighboring state for a charity golf tournament my sister and husband started as a means of raising money for neuroblastoma research (their son died of the cancer last year).

Since some relatives on Unknown Wife's side were visiting, she and the kids decided to stay over so that they could visit with family. So, I've almost two full days to myself (they arrive back at the unknown household late Saturday night). I've gotten a fairly good amount of work done (even sent an article out to a journal) and slept in past 9:00 both Friday and Saturday (hey - when you have young kids, sleeping in is a rare occasion)

In any event, it's a beautiful, warm, sunny Saturday afternoon, and I'm SITTING AT MY OFFICE DESK WORKING ON RESEARCH.

Ah well, such is the life of an untenured professor.

Another Week In the Unknown Household

Another week gone by, with the usual ups and downs.

Last week's Friday the 13th episode continued the next day with a phone call from the Unknown Elder Brother to tell me that my mother (age 78) had caught her foot on a rug, fell, and broke her hip. So, we packed ourselves into the car and drove the 80 miles to the adjoining state and to my hometown to see her after she got out of surgery.

The next day, we got another phone call to tell us that she was disoriented and having difficulty speaking. We though a stroke was a possibility, but it resolved itself in quick order, and turned out to be just a reaction to the anesthetic. So now she's in rehab for the next three weeks.

The following day, we got the Shrek-quality toxic waste out of the car (detailing was well worth it), followed by the kids having their last day of school before summer vacation.

The remainder of the week passed without incident, and turned out to be a pretty good one as far as research went. The programming for one project has turned out to be a bit of a hairball (the measure I'm constructing to measure analyst performance is not behaving well). I'll figure out what's the problem, but for now, I'll getting a bit sick of it.

So, I put it aside for a few days to work on another project. I'm looking forward to this one for a couple of reasons: first, because it's with two classmates from graduate school. Second, because it's using a relatively new dataset (I have another paper using the same data set in progress, but one of my coauthors got extremely sick, and we're putting it on the shelf until he recovers). And finally, I just think it;s a pretty good idea. The initial results look as good as any I've seen in recent projects, and overall, it looks like it has the potential (if the results hold up) to be the makings of a really good study.

Then I got preliminary results on another study (with another new coauthor) that also look pretty good. So, this almost makes up for the multiple rejections last week. Hey - it's all part of the game.

What makes both projects kind of interesting is that they both use either a data set or an approach that was initially tried in another project or projects that didn't work out. However, they did give me some ideas for other projects which seem to be coming together.

Finally, we have a minor guest infestation starting tomorrow (the Unknown Wife's college roommate is in town for a couple of days). So, while she madly cleans the house, I took the Unknown Kids to see the Incredible Hulk. They didn't understand a lot of it, but 9-foot tall hyper-thyroidal, muscle-bound savages that like to fight and throw things (like cars) translate to all ages pretty well.

Friday The Thirteenth Hits the Unknown Household

I'm not superstitious, but sometimes you have to wonder. Here's a Friday the Thirteenth play in five acts

Act 1:
We go to Unknown Son's regular chemo treatment (he's now on a once every three week schedule). While Unknown Wife and U.S. were taking care of the chemo, I took Unknown Daughter to an outside garden that's part of the hospital. She starts running around (U.D. has a LOT of energy), promptly falls, and badly skins both knees, her chin, and her forehead (it was a pretty impressive fall). The one bright spot in this episode there's no better spot to skin your knees than at a hospital.

ACT 2: The fall
That night, we get home and U.W. goes on a walk with a neighbor. While I'm upstairs changing to get ready for my bike ride, I hear a thump followed by a moan. I run downstairs to see U.D. sprawled across the stairs moaning. Apparently, she'd slipped on the stairs while walking down and landed hard. The edge of the stairs nailed her right in the back (across the floating ribs). I carried her to the couch and all she could do was gasp in pain, unable to take a full breath. At this point Unknown Wife gets back, and we decide to take her to the emergency room to get her ribs x-rayed.

ACT 3: Projectile Vomiting
Since it was almost 7:30, we decided to take both cars -- U.W. took U.D. and U.S. in the SUV, and I followed in the old beater my kids refer to as "the stinky car" (a 1993 Honda civic with 150,000 miles on it (but it's paid for). That way, I I can be there to help out, and UW can leave
Epilogue: sore back, US is fine, car needs detailing, and UW can leave early with US if there's a need to stay for a while. The hospital's close (about 6 miles), but halfway there, I see U.W. pull over into a parking lot and open the rear passenger door. It seems U.S. announced "I have a headache and I feel sick". This was followed immediately by extreme chemo-induced vomiting. Of course, we forgot his basin, there was not enough warning to get the door open, so the back to our SUV is now covered in Shreck-worthy quantities of vomit.

We transfer him to my car and follow U.W. and U.D. to the ER.

ACT 4: Two for the Price of one
While on the way to the ER, we have to stop three more times for U.S. to empty the remaining contents of his stomach. Once at the ER, he continues vomiting (once it starts, he gets into a cycle). So, while U.D. is waiting to get X-rayed, we have him admitted to get fluids and Zophran (an anti-nausea medication).

ACT 5: The aftermath
Unknown Daughter was given a clean bill of health (it was only a bruise), so I took her home at approximately midnight. Once there, I cleaned the SUV as best I could (that's why I got to go home earlier). Meanwhile, Unknown Wife stayed with Unknown Son until the fluids and Zofran took effect, and crawled home at 1:30.

By next morning, both kids were fine. And it'll only cost about $200 to have the SUV detailed (believe me - after this episode, this is definitely a job for a professional).

Oh, and Unknown Daughter has a mild case of paraskevidekatriaphobia.

Tough Times Ahead

This tough to write. The recent post on the Unknown Son's treatment was somewhat encouraging. In the blink of an eye, this one turns our lives around 180 degrees.

This morning, Unknown Son tried to go for a walk around the hospital unit (the walking helps expand the lungs, and would speed his recovery). We noticed after a few steps that his left leg was dragging. We put him back in bed, and he was unable to squeeze my hand with his left hand. A quick CT scan followed, and revealed that the cancer had spread to his brain – in three separate spots. We hadn't known this previously since all our scans had been focused on his chest region. One was pretty large, and since it was on the right side, it was the likely cause of the problems with his left leg, arm, and hand.

This changes everything – he now likely has a matter of days rather than weeks. We gave him some radiation to see if we could slow the swelling, but at best that only buys a bit of time. So, we took him home tonight in an ambulance so that he can be in familiar settings and be as comfortable and safe as possible in the short time he has left with us.

In the meanwhile, The Unknown Wife's mother and father and one of her sisters are here. Her other sister and her family (and my mother, brothers and sister) are coming down tomorrow to lend support and see the boy.

Please keep us in your prayers as we ease his transition. For him, this is not the beginning of the end of his life – only the end of the beginning. But even though we know that he's going to a place with no more pain or limitations, and only joy, it’s going to be a rough week or so for us – likely the toughest we’ll ever have to go through.

So keep us in your prayers.

Great Reading List Of Children's Books

The Unknown Kids are both voracious readers. Not only that, but they know what "voracious" means, and how the word is connected to the words "carnivore", "herbivore", and "omnivore". And that's pretty good for a first grader and a third grader (hey, I have to spend at least a little time bragging on the Unknown Progeny).

So, if you have your own young bibliovore in the house, here's a great list of children's books from Theresa Fagan. She also writes:

The most serious battle going on in this country is over the souls of our children. It is impossible to exaggerate the power of the image to form or deform the way they think. It is crucial to arm them with heroes that make virtue attractive. This will entail exercising your God-given authority, but that’s what it’s for.

For starters, get the TVs and computers out of their bedrooms, and drastically curtail their use. Cut the plugs if you have to. Then, stock the house with good books.

When they’re bored, they will read.

A lady after my own heart.

HT: Craig Newmark, who finds a lot of stuff I can steal.

Happy Memorial Day

Here's to a Happy Memorial Day to all of you and yours. The Unknown Kids and I are planning on going to a parade in the morning, the zoo in the afternoon (hey - monkeys are cool), and picking up the Unknown Wife (from her Girl's Weekend in Chicago), at the airport in the evening.

Please, take a minute to thank a current or past service member for their service.

Since this makes it the third year in a row, I guess it's now officially a Financial Rounds tradition that I put up a link to Ronald Reagan's classic "The Boys of Pointe du Hoc" speech. He gave it to commemorate the 40th anniversary of D-Day (compliments of American Rhetoric).

Memorial Day

It's Memorial Day - time to remember and honor all those who fought to preserve our way of life.

As I've done in previous years, here's a link to Ronald Reagan's classic "The Boys of Pointe du Hoc" speech, given in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of D-Day (compliments of American Rhetoric).

After that, go see this PowerPoint file sent to me by Bob Jensen. If you don't have Powerpoint click here to view it without music. If you do have it, download the file here (both stored on DocStoc).

Now it's off the the movies, followed by charring some animal flesh on the grille.

Interesting Times In The Unknown Household

For a number of reasons, I haven't been blogging much:

• First off, I'm still in post-semester recovery mode. This happens every Spring - after the semester is over, I need a week or two to decompress, clean out the detritus of the year from my office, and kick back a bit before refocusing on my summer research goals. This time around, between the timing of exams and faculty meetings, it was worse than usual.
  
• Second, we've catching up on some "family time". We offloaded the Unknown Baby Boy (UBB) to the Unknown Sister-in-Law and took the kids to Six Flags in Lake George for a couple of days. Unknown Son is currently into a minor Looney Tunes obsession, and they have an entire section of the park with an LT theme. Without UBB, we got to focus on the older two kids, and we even got a couple of good nights' sleep.
  
• We're also cleaning up the Unknown House. Because of all the craziness we've had this spring, we're doing Spring Cleaning this time around in June.
• Meanwhile, we've been arranging some pretty cool stuff for the kids. There's an organization called Famous Fone Friends that works with sick children. They've arranged to set up a meeting between Unknown Son and the author of one of his favorite book series (he lives about 80 minutes from us, and agreed to meet Unknown Son for lunch at a nearby restaurant for lunch). In addition, U.S. will be getting a phone call from Sam on iCarly. The organization also sent Unknown Daughter an actual script from the Hannah Montana show (her favorite), so she's also pretty excited.
  

On an unrelated note, we just got some potentially disturbing news regarding the Unknown Son. A recent CT scan showed a couple of irregularities in his lungs. We'll be doing a biopsy next week so we'll be keeping our fingers crossed.

Next week continues the crazy pace. We travel to my sister's house for Memorial Day, have a meeting with the Stem Cell Transplant unit at Children's Hospital of Boston on Tuesday (if the irregularity mentioned above turns out to be nothing, this will be the next step in his treatment), and have a biopsy to check out the irregularity in U.S.'s scan scheduled on Wednesday. So, regular blogging might resume by the end of next week.

That is, if my head doesn't explode before then...

Stick A Fork In Me!

The semester is now officially over at Unknown University. I gave my last final Tuesday afternoon (the last slot in finals week). Unfortunately, grades had to be turned in by 4 today (only 48 hours later).

I finished the almost all the grading last night at 3 a.m. (except for the final assigning of grades). So, it looked like the coast was clear.

Unfortunately, nothing is ever easy in the Unknown Household.

This morning, Unknown Elder Son was looking and feeling washed out. So, after a quick trip to the local hospital to have his blood counts taken, it turns out he needed a blood transfusion (not an uncommon thing - anemia is a common side effect of chemo).

Unknown Wife took him in for the transfusion, and I got to attend the faculty meeting with the Unknown Baby in tow (he slept through the entire morning, which is probably the best course of action when on a faculty retreat). After lunch, I left to feed him and drop him off at a neighbor's house for the afternoon, so I could finish the grading.

Now it's off to Six Flags for the weekend. Since the Unknown Sister-In-Law is taking care of the little one for the weekend, it'll be almost like we're a family of four again.

Happy Mother's Day

We're off to a neighboring state to visit my mother for Mother's day. It'll be the first time my side of the family gets to see the Unknown Baby Boy in person.

As for the rest of my life, I have a final exam to write for Tuesday, followed by an executive education class on Wednesday, a Faculty retreat on Thursday, and a trip to Six Flags in Lake George over the weekend (Unknown Older Son is a big Loony Tunes fan, and we wanted to go there before his stem cell transplant in early June).

So, blogging will continue to be light for the next week or so.

Now go tell your Mother (or the mother of your children) how much you appreciate her.

A Good Conference, Followed By More Crazy

I thought I'd put a few impressions of the EFA conference from this past week. While pretty short, it was a very good time: catching up with old friends, making some new ones, getting a lot of work done, and SLEEEEEP!

Because of all the other stuff going on in the Unknown Household, I was only able to get away for a day, so I took an early Friday flight to Baltimore, followed by the train to Washington. I arrived at the conference hotel just before lunch. Between 11:00 Friday and 1:30 Saturday (when I took the hotel shuttle to the airport for my return flight) I

• Had two papers presented (both were presented by coauthors), and received good comments on both. In both cases, the papers were well received by the discussant and the audience.
  
• Met with coauthors on three papers (the two mentioned above and a third one that's also coming along nicely). On two of the papers, we just talked briefly to discuss what needs to be done next to get them out the door. On the third paper, my coauthor and I spent about a hour applying various methods of statistical torture to the data, yielding some pretty nice confessions (oops! - that would be "results").
• Arranged to present a paper at my undergraduate Alma mater in the fall. I know a good number of the faculty, none of which were there back in the dark ages when I was an undergrad. We've been talking about my coming to present some of my work for some time, and it looks like it'll finally happen
• Talked with another potential coauthor about combining some of my data with his methodology.
• Most importantly, I went to bed by 9:30 and (since there was no-one clamoring for a 3 a.m. feeding) slept almost 9 1/2 hours without interruption. Woo Hoo!
  

Just to show that nothing ever changes for long, when I got back, I called the Unknown Wife, and she said it was all right to go to a book store and veg a bit (it's one of my favorite ways to decompress).

Of course, this was followed by a second phone call an hour later telling me that Unknown Son was getting nosebleeds. We called the on-call oncologist and was informed that he was likely low on platelets (they are the clotting factor in the blood, and often get depressed following chemotherapy). So, it was a quick drive home, followed by a trip to the ER, followed by an overnight stay at the hospital so he could get a platelet transfusion (since it was the weekend, we couldn't do it on an outpatient basis.).

He was discharged the next morning, and all's been quiet since.

For now.

We Are In Final Approach

Once again, it's that happy time - the end of the semester at Unknown University.

I teach my last classes tomorrow - in one, I hand back some assignments and talk about the final (that means today is all about the grading, and in the other (the student managed fund), I hand out stock assignments for which they must come up with final analyses.

As always, the last week was crazy - the student-managed fund class makes a presentation to the Alumni at the end of every semester, and it's always a mad rush to get it done. They did it this Saturday. As usual (with one or two "foot in mouth" moments) they did a job that far exceeded expectations.

So, all I have left is a bunch of grading (for tomorrow's class) and a couple of exams to write. Then it's back to research (lots of projects to rein in) until Unknown Son starts the next round of treatment.

As my end-of semester treat, I get to fly to Washington for a couple of days for the Eastern Finance Association meeting - catching up with old friends, seeing a few presentations, and (best of all) getting a good night's sleep (Unknown Baby Boy is cute, but it'll be a while before he sleeps through the night). So, I'll take the opportunity to sleep 8 hours without interruption. Woo Hoo!

Marital Insurance

I'm a flaming extrovert: I strike up conversations with people waiting in line, with the guy (or gal) in the seat across the aisle on planes or trains, and in general with almost anyone I spend some time with.

The good thing about this is that I find out a lot about people, and much of it is pretty interesting. Last night, I was on the train, and I started talking with the guy across the aisle. He was a fellow extrovert (and, it turns out a law professor at Harvard), so we had plenty to talk about. Thanks to him, I picked a great idea for all you married guys.

This guy (Dave) got married on May29th almost 24 years ago. Since then, he's sent his wife three dozen roses on the 29th of each and every month since then. I asked if he ever forgot, and he responded "no - they do it automatically and just put it on my credit card. Every month they put together a mix of different colors (red, pink, white, etc...)".

Of course, she doesn't know about the auto-delivery part of the process.

This may be one of the best things you can do for the long-term health of your marriage-- make your wife feel special and appreciated every month. And as an aside, they last a couple of weeks, so if you're covered if you screw up for almost half the month - it's pretty hard not to get the benefit of the doubt when there are flowers you recently bought her all over the house.

Think of it as another monthly bill - in your budget it should go under "insurance'.

A Quick Update

I just realized that I've gone 11 days without posting - the longest stretch since I started the blog. First off, Unknown Baby and the rest of the Unknown Household are doing fine.

Not surprisingly, having Unknown Baby around has been time consuming. We've done this twice before, but I was much younger then (Unknown Daughter is now eight years old, and I was 40 when he arrived). The sleep deprivation isn't nearly as bad as it was for Unknown Son (who might be upgraded on the blog to Unknown Elder Boy) and Unknown Daughter. I'm a night owl, so I've been taking the 10 p.m. and 1 p.m. feeding. This way, the Unknown wife can get some sleep (as they say down South, "If Momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy"). Unfortunately, I seldom sleep past 7 or so, so I end up about an hour short of sleep every night. Not great, but livable.

I've discovered that third kids are much easier than first one, because you're not nearly as stressed out about breaking them. Here's one example: The other day, Unknown Baby managed to mess himself while I was changing him (he seems to do that often - usually with what looks like a smile - Stewie Griffin watch out). Unknown Wife wondered whether or not we should give him a bath, since he had a doctor's appointment in about an hour. I just picked him up, took him to the sink, and hosed him off with the attachment. We didn't have his little baby towel, so a dish towel worked just fine. Unknown Wife was a bit surprised at my solution, but Unknown Mother In Law and Unknown Father In Law (they're visiting for the week) just laughed. Hey - it's a guy thing.

In any event, I'm still trying to get my research out. The only difference is that a lot of the SAS programming now takes place in hours between 10 and 1 while I wait for the little guy to wake up for his feeding. Surprisingly, I get a lot done.

Ah well - enough for now. Back to SAS coding.

Happy New Year

I get to close out 2008 on hospital room duty with my son. He's doing well - had his breathing tube out yesterday, is eating regular food, and slowly recuperating. He should be moved out of the ICU tomorrow and into a regular room. With some luck, he might be home by Monday the 5th.

The Unknown Wife and Daughter are going to a neighbor's house for a little New Year's cheer (the non-alcoholic kind, since Unknown Wife is expecting), and then home by about 10.

Here's hoping 2009 finds you healthy, prosperous, and happy.