A theory we all want to believe!

According to Discover Channel News, we’re smarter and more creative lying down than standing up. This all has to do with something called noradrenaline, which is believed to impair creative thinking, less noradrenaline is released when we lie down. Adland even suggests that this might be the explanation to why Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel is so awesome, any why hookers can come up with so many interesting tricks!

So when you finish the 20 minute experiment from Jeff Risley’s post yesterday, lie down and see if you can think of something really creative to say about it!

Six-Figure Moms

Millions of Six-Figure Moms from Motley Fool – discusses the theoretical dollar value of being a stay-at-home mom.

Distraction

Life can be one big distraction. That guy Joe at the gym – when he wears that great Under Armour getup – now that’s distracting. The kids playing and laughing outside on a nice day – with the windows open in the house – takes my mind from the task at hand every time. The email alert “ding” distracts me from the project I’m concentrating so hard to finish.

So we learn to concentrate. To focus our attention. Think you’re pretty good, right? Most of the time anyway. But, check out Distraction – the television show on Comedy Central. It’s a game show. A really warped game show, at that.

It’s a trivia game really. With fairly easy questions. But the problem is, they try to distract the contestants enough to make them miss the answers. The most humiliating round I’ve seen (and mind you, I’ve only watched 1 episode!) had each of the 4 contestants in a “booth” sitting on a toilet. Pants down and all. Instead of hitting a buzzer to answer a question, the buzzer was activated by taking a leak. But save enough for the next question! And the TV audience could see them from the shoulders up and the knees down. Yikes.

The round of questions with the sexy (and not so sexy) lap dancers seemed tame in comparison. All in all, the show is another great example of television as a vast wasteland.

Carnivorous Plants

My 4th grader came home today with a research assignment from his teacher. (for me!) I’m flattered. On the other hand, he is fortunate – how many teachers have a student with parents who dig up information for a living? So the questions were:

1) Do Venus Fly Traps eat hamburgers?
2) What do you call a plant that is both a “producer” and a “consumer” in the ecosystem?

Question 1, while it makes me think of some funny come-back lines, is fairly straightforward. I’m sure the point is whether they eat meat. Just ask Seymour… As an aside, I do think my kids are the only kids on the block that hear “Feed me, Seymour” on a regular basis…. (And in reality they really like bugs – not beef.)

Question 2. Not so easy. I read some serious biology articles. My head hurts a little. I’m not sure I have the answer still. The closest, I think, is “carnivorous plant” from this MadSci page. I admit I got caught up a bit in this page about carnivorous plants.

Anyone out there know the answer? It takes a village, right?

Andrew’s New Toy

Here is what his new bike really looks like…. photo1, photo2. And from his point of view….

Seems to me that the kids and I are going to have a lot of free time. Not necesarily a bad thing!

SOBs revisited

Andrew is getting a new motorcycle. More later. Meantime, his “gang” posted a photo of how they imagine Andrew’s new bike…

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did

Training

Lots of jobs provide training. We go to seminars, online courses and even continuing education classes. Great stuff. We all want to keep growing, right? But does your company shut down when you have a course? Would they send all their employees out the same day and tell the customers that you are simply closed for business?

School is closed today for students. Professional study day. So we’re going to the National Zoo. I’m sure it will be fun and I know the kids are happy about it. And they might even learn something. But do they really have to close school so the teachers can learn? Isn’t there another way to approach this?

Big Night Out

Andrew sent me an email the other day asking me if I could find a babysitter sometime between the dates of May 4-22. (I should add here that Andrew’s computer is 8 feet from mine.) Here’s the exchange:

Wen-Can you get a sitter for any day May 4-22?

Sure. What’s Up?

Ricky Jay. In DC.

Who’s he and can’t you go with a friend?

He’s a magician. Rather go with you.

I hate magic.

He swivelled his chair around. Now, it seemed, we were going to have to talk about this face-to-face. Turns out, Ricky Jay isn’t a magician per se. He’s a sleight-of-hand artist. And a rather well known one, at that. I found his website The World Wide Website of Ricky Jay.

Of particular interest is the New Yorker article Secrets of the Magus. Very entertaining.

And it’s at a groovy new theater, The Studio Theater. Only seats 350 or so.

So while this may not be something I’d have chosen, I’ll go. Oh, here’s the rub. The Saturday nights sold out so fast that all they have are folding metal chairs in the back. For $75 a pop. Right. So now I’m on a mission to find a babysitter for a “school night.” Wish me luck.

Cream Returns to Stage After 37 Years

Cream Returns to Stage After 37 Years I feel old.

5K

Sometimes I think my expectations are too high. But sometimes I believe that having high expectations yields better results. Like today. Call us crazy, but Andrew & I signed up our family to participate in a 5K run/walk. It was a benefit for the Brain Tumor Society. A friend of ours has a brain tumor. He’s an integral part of this race. And he put together a team. So we signed up. We didn’t think about how hard it would be from any angle. We just signed up.

Yesterday, we went to Hershey Park. What a blast! We went on roller coasters and walked and ate greasy fries and Nathan’s hot dogs and had a phenomenal time. And got home very late. We were tired and dirty and we all collapsed. My point is, that we didn’t think about the fact that the race started at 8:30 a.m. in downtown Washington, DC. Meaning we had to leave our house (with energy for the walk) by 7:00 a.m. What were we thinking?

I, for one, expected that that the boys would rally. That they would understand the importance of the promise to walk — that the sponsors we had expected us to give it our all. That the kids and the adults with brain tumors who pray for a cure expected us to give it our all. So it never occurred to me that we couldn’t do it.

Admittedly, it was a slow start. No one wanted to get up this morning. In the rain. But I got up and had my first cup of coffee. Andrew got up. And somehow, we got everyone in their team t-shirts and pinned their numbers on and we were off.

And we made it. We walked the 5 kilometers. We did have a few running blasts, but mostly we walked. We figure that we finished about 5,000th. To you, that doesn’t sound impressive, I’m sure. To me, it’s a miracle. If you had walked with Max, you’d know that by 2 km the odds were not looking good. But we made it. Just as I’d expected.