Yes please

On Sunday, after church, the whole family was hanging out on our bed, when out of the blue Olivia said, "Daddy, do you want me to hit you in the head?" Unfortunately I was too busy laughing to take her up on the offer.

Man of the soil

I spent all day Saturday doing yard work. I edged all the sidewalks, fences, trees, and flower beds, then got some gas for the mower and mowed all the grass. I took a break for lunch, then trimmed some hedges and bushes all afternoon. It was nice at 8:30 or so when I started, but I was reduced to spraying myself with the hose by the end of the day so I wouldn't overheat. I'm a little sunburned a sore now, but the yard looks nice, and now that summer is winding down it might stay that way for more than a day.

I realized too late that I should have taken before and after pictures of the bushes. There are still lots of bushes left to trim, though and now that I've thought of it, I'm really tempted to set up the tripod and make a time-lapse video. Would it be better if it showed me doing the trimming, or just have the bush trimming itself?

Unintended Consequences

It seems like there has been a rapid increase in problems like allergies, autism, and depression that we have yet to fully explain scientifically. In thinking about it broadly, though, the root cause has to be a combination of these three things:

1. Weakening gene pool - Medical science has allowed people that otherwise might not have reproduced to reproduce, potentially weakening the gene pool.
2. Increased recognition - These conditions existed, but were not previously diagnosed either because they weren't recognized (depression), they were hidden (autism), people died of other causes before the condition could present (cancer), or the cause of death was attributed to a more common condition.
3. Environmental changes - Our lifestyle has changed more rapidly than the body can adjust to.
   

It's the third point that is really interesting to me. When it comes to medicine and nutrition, I think of what the most natural state of a human would be, if he were living as an animal. He would be in constant contact with nature (and germs), subsisting on basic plant products and occasionally obtaining meat, etc.

My life now so little resembles that "natural" state that it's almost comical. I can eat whatever I want whenever I want, I live isolated and sanitized from nature, and I interact with thousands of artificial mechanical, electronic, and medical innovations that are meant to improve my life. But are there unintended consequences?

Think of all the things that have changed in just the last few hundred years, probably for our betterment, but that could potentially affect our body in unintended ways. Here's some stuff I thought of in no particular order:

• Microwave ovens
• Anti-bacterial soap
• Antibiotics
  
• Immunizations
• Cell phone signals
  
• Television/radio signals
• Watching television (brain development)
  
• Preservatives
• Artificial sweeteners
• Fast food
• Fluoridated water
• Refrigeration
• Pasteurization
  
• Prescription meds
• Pollutants (air, water)
• Standardized food (lack of genetic diversity)
  
• Birth control pills
• C-section births
• Higher survival of premature birth
  
• Growth hormones
• Fertilizers
  
• High fructose corn syrup
• Enriched food
• Hydrogenated oils
• Increased meat consumption
• Increased sugar consumption
• Non-stick pans

How many of these are the lead paints of today? What are some others?

Blogen

I realized the other day that be follows the same pattern as other older verbs, like take or eat in that it adds -en in the past participle to become been. Pronouncing it as two syllables ("bee en") also sheds light (sheds sound?) on the British pronunciation (like bean).

Riding a separate train of thought, but relating to the same suffix, was my curiosity about the word chicken. Like many common animals, terms exist for male and female chickens, rooster/cock and hen, and young chickens are called chicks. Seeing as how chickens have been around a long time, I was wondering if chicken was actually once the plural of chick, much in the same way children is the plural of child and brethren the plural of brother, oxen/ox, etc, and the term was borrowed as the term for all roosters, hens and chicks.

And if that is the case, were we only a linguistic alternate universe away from calling rams and ewes lamben? What about kittens? This is why BYU needs to give access to the OED to alumni.

So Merriam Webster online has some limited etymology and it looks like chicken is actually a diminutive from of the word that eventually became cock in English and kitten is also a diminutive of cat. Kind of disappointing.

So the moral of the story here is: -en can be a past participle, a pluralization, or a diminutive. Huh.

Florida

And the last reason I haven't blogged in a while is that we've been here:
We went to visit my brother Alex in Clearwater, Florida. We went to the beach as soon as we got there, because Olivia had been very excited to go back to the beach and play in the sand. They have very nice fine soft white sand there and we all had fun getting wet, playing in the sand, and finding shells on Friday night and all day Saturday.

Sunday was Niya's birthday, so we had a little party for her:
On Monday we took the trolley from Ybor (a cigar town, thus the Indian) to Tampa to see some of the touristy stuff around there:
Olivia and Carmen were both very well behaved the whole trip, and made lots of new friends.

I think Niya liked having the girls around more than us, but who can blame her:

On Monday night Alex and Stacy volunteered to babysit and Amber and I went back to the beach to browse the shops and watch the sunset without the girls:
Alex had to work on Tuesday, but he was nice enough to leave a car and we spent our last hours on the beach before packing up and heading home:
Oh, and I saw our house from the airplane on the way back. Cool.

Ding

Reason #2 I haven't blogged in a while is that a week or so ago some woman decided to go straight in the left lane of a two-lane left turn. I happened to be in the right lane, also turning left. I was a little ahead of her and saw her a little too late in my peripheral vision and tried to straighten out and avoid her but not before she dented my wheel well with her Hummer.

Anyway, the car is all fixed up now, and I think it's all taken care of except that it still smells like poisonous chemicals inside.

Sick

This post is very late, but I had to post this sad picture of Olivia feeling very sick:
About two weeks ago Amber and Olivia came down with some kind of flu (we're not sure what varieties of H and N it was) and were pretty much down and out with a fever for a couple days. I luckily didn't get it, so I was able to take care of the kids while Amber groaned.

Olivia had spots of some kind (although she'd already had the chicken pox vaccine and a reaction to it a long time ago) and Amber's symptoms stuck around and seemed to morph into a cold and maybe something else before she finally got better, just in time for the trip. This is part of the reason I haven't blogged in a while.