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We picked some blueberries this past weekend. The older kids were responsible enough, but the youngest did not care for the bucket.

So I am proposing a policy for any of the You-Pick places (all of whom seem to have lost the letters ‘Y’ and ‘O’).

Sure, it might not be the best public relations move, but it would help keep profits up.

Now that our youngest no longer qualifies as a baby, I’ve thought of some things that would have been nice to have when he was an infant.

Inventions for Parents of Infants

1. One-Way Pant Legs
   
   I can’t even count the number of times that I would get one pant leg on the kicking baby, only to have him work that leg out of the pants while I was trying to get the other leg in. We would go back and forth a few times – this leg in that leg out, that leg in this leg out, etc. – before I could manage to get them both on at the same time.

   If the pants were lined with a directional material, similar to but not as sharp as snakes’ teeth, I would have no problem getting fussy babies dressed.

   The only drawback would be changing them out of the pants. The material would have to be cheap enough to be disposable so that one could cut them off. Single-use, disposable pants. Probably would have to have the diaper built in or something.

2. Non-Contact Thermometers
   
   They have these for industrial use. For example, no one is going to stick any probes in a crucible of molten steel to make sure it is hot enough. But that’s overkill for parents. A squirmy baby does not like having thermometers held under his armpit (or anywhere else, for that matter), and those ear thermometers are touchy too.

   Why not adapt the current non-contact thermometers for use on a child? Kid looks or sounds sick? Zap him from across the room. You just need a clear line-of-sight to his forehead.

   Take care when using the optional laser sight though – you don’t want to damage his eyes.

3. Pacifier Strap
   
   The baby cries because he doesn’t have his pacifier. His pacifier doesn’t stay in his mouth because he’s crying.

   Classic Catch-22.

   Solve that dilemma with a strap of elastic attached to the pacifier.

   Make it decorative elastic, and it can double as a baby girl’s headband.

4. Double-Sided Squeegee Tissue
   
   It doesn’t take a baby long to fear the tissue. You see his runny nose and reach for a tissue. He sees the tissue and prepares for his evasive maneuver. As you approach, he waits. Timing is critical. You apply the tissue then he acts – shaking his head from side to side to ensure that all the facial tissue does is smear the contents of his nose across his cheek, making more of a mess instead of less.

   It might be cost-prohibitive for an item as disposable as facial tissue, but we need a tissue with a squeegee on each end. That way, any mess is kept instead of smeared. And a squeegee needs to be on each side, because you never know which way your baby is going to go (“he always turns to the right in the bottom half of the hour”).

5. Baby Monitor Snooze Button
   
   With our first child, we learned by accident that he could sleep through the night. He was sleeping 3 or so hours at a stretch, which after a few weeks made for some weary parents (i.e. us). One early morning, around 2:00 or 3:00, he starting crying. I was too tired to get out of bed, so I assumed my wife would get him. She was too tired, so she hoped I would get him. Both of us fell back asleep and neither one got him.

   Then we both woke at 5:00 and panicked – “did you get him?” “No, I thought you did.” “Is he okay?” We rushed to his crib and found that he was sleeping peacefully. After that, we let him cry for 10 minutes or so before we would get him during the night. He rarely made it for all 10 minutes.

   So what I recommend to new parents, after the first month, is to get a baby monitor with a snooze button. The baby starts crying, the monitor wakes you. The baby’s cry sounds normal, so you push the snooze button and the monitor goes silent for the next 10 minutes.

   The baby learns to deal with it, the parents get some more sleep, and everyone is better off.

Potato cannons are fun for a while, but then it just seems a waste. Flinging tubers far and wide, just for the sport of distance or accuracy. I wonder if we could kill two birds with one stone, or with one potato for that matter.

What if we put hot oil at the end of the potato cannon so that it fried the potato as it exited the barrel?

Then, when you are done firing, you would have some sides for your next meal. However, no one fries a whole potato. So we need to put a slicer of some sort at the end of the barrel, to cut the potato into the desired shapes and sizes. I’m picturing thin wires, like a cheese slicer. Here are some suggestions:

Of course those last two would be cabbage and oranges, respectively, instead of potatoes. I was thinking about having a no-pulp option for the orange juice, but I think that would damage the cannon somehow. Just stick with pulpy orange juice and strain it later.

We went to a restaurant on the way home from a book sale. The lot was crowded, but there were two spots available. I saw one spot had a sign in front of it, so I took the other one.

I assumed it was a spot for take-out or pregnant women or something like that. Here is a picture of the spot:

On our way out, my wife read the sign and made a comment like “That’s not good”. In case you couldn’t read the sign in the previous photo, here is a close-up:

And my wife was right – if no employee is the best employee, that must mean that all the employees are equally bad, right?

Or maybe he was just late that day, which would make him not the best employee anymore.

Or maybe part of his perks for being awarded “Best Employee” was that he got an extra vacation day.

Or maybe he happens to live close to the restaurant so he can walk or bike to work.

It doesn’t really matter – our spot was closer to the front door anyway.

I recently had occasion to be scorekeeper for a kickball game. The usual scorekeeper advised me to have one team’s score on each hand and when the teams switch sides for kicking or fielding, then I was to swap hands so that the hand closest to that team had that team’s score.

It was an easy enough concept, but I have only 5 fingers on each hand so I was hoping for a low-scoring game. My backup plan, if the score went above 5, was to use sign language. I know enough ASL to be able to count to 10 on one hand.

The problem was the final score was 17-16. I had to count to 10 for each team and then I had to start back at one and remember to add 10.

After the game, I got to thinking of how I could have handled each team’s score on one hand. My solution for how to keep score with one hand?

Count in binary, using each finger as a bit.

For 5 bits, the maximum count is 31, so I can now handle a score of up to 31 to 31.

My recommendation is to use your left hand palm-down and your right hand palm-up so that the LSB is on the right, as it should be. I practiced, and I found that although the bits are in correct order if you use your thumb as bit 0, it’s harder to read. I keep my thumbs as bit 4 because I don’t have to move them as much that way.

Here’s a diagram:

The first pair of hands shows the standard binary form. The second pair of hands shows the decimal equivalent, for those familiar with the concept of places. Instead of 10s place, 100s place, 1000s place, etc., we have 1s place, 2s place, 4s place, 8s place, and 16s place.

We have been listening to a lot of a particular CD of children’s songs lately, so I have some of them floating around in my head.

I will share them with you here, so that you too may have them floating around in your head. I think research has shown that if you can get a song stuck in someone else’s head, it leaves your own head.

Old MacDonald

Old MacDonald had a farm and Bingo was his name-o.
B-I-N-G-O
B-I-N-G-O
B-I-N-G-O
and Bingo was his name-o.

Song of Many Lyrics

Baa, baa, black sheep, have you any wool?
H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky
Now I know my A-B-Cs
Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full.

Head and Shoulders on the Bus

Head, shoulders, knees, and toes.
Knees and toes.
Knees and toes.
Head, shoulders, round and round
All through the town

I wonder how many people are named “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt”?
Actually, I wonder how many people have the name of “Jingleheimer”. If that is anywhere in your name, I doubt it matters what your first or last name is.

Tom Brady made headlines again. This week it was for restructuring his contract. Why it was notable was that he agreed to take less money. It was a refreshing change from the I-deserve-more attitude that’s prevalent today. Mr. Brady’s action garnered a bunch of positive comments, because he is putting the team’s needs before his own. By taking less money, he allows the team to spend more on other players and make the whole team better.

It certainly sounds about right. Brady has all the money he needs. His competitive desire is not for more money but for another Super Bowl victory.

All that news broke and was being reported before it was confirmed. That got me thinking “What if it’s not true? What if it’s a PR stunt or something?” And that made me think of this, the point of today’s post:

What if a team could indirectly coerce a star athlete into taking less money by leaking reports of his unselfish contract restructuring?

This could work for any team whose league has a salary cap. An athlete on the team is taking a disproportionate amount of the salary cap, but there are no negotiations to change that. An unnamed source from the team leaks a news report about how the athlete is agreeing to take less money for the good of the team. Headlines the next day tout the unselfish attitude of the athlete, radio call-in shows are buzzing about how nice the athlete is, blog posts abound with comments of how we need more people like him.

Later that day the athlete, his PR firm, and his agent meet. Their first reaction would have been to issue a statement saying the report is false and the athlete will be abiding by the terms of his current contract. But they realize that all the goodwill he has gathered that day will be lost and the public will turn against him and thus his spokesmanship earnings will be at risk. So they decide to issue a statement that says the contract is still is negotiation and the terms are not final. The athlete ends up taking one for the team, but not because he wanted to.

That would be underhanded of the team, and it would probably work only once. And if it did work, then what’s to stop the athlete from getting back at the team the next year? Maybe by leaking a false report that the first 500 people who show up at the manager’s house on such-and-such a date will be entered into a drawing for a free luxury box for the season, or call the team offices today for free jerseys, or – sticking with the monetary theme – the team will be lowering ticket prices 10% this season.