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In speaking with a relative-in-law recently, I thought of my earlier post about video monitors. The relative-in-law mentioned the phenomenon that the baby will sense your presence when you go check on him, reminiscent of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. If you open the door to see if the baby is asleep, that action will awaken him when he otherwise would not have been awakened.

I haven’t decided whether to call it the Heisenbaby Uncertainty Principle or the Babyberg Uncertainty Principle. Either way, the principle is that measuring the state of the baby will affect the state of the baby. The benefit of using a video baby monitor, as opposed to an audio baby monitor, is that it minimizes the effect of the Heisenbaby Uncertainty Principle.

On a related note, here is a story. When our oldest was a baby, his crib was within sight of the dining table, through an open doorway. We were remodeling the bedrooms and so his crib was temporarily in the living room. We found that if we were at the table and he was in his crib, he would be content as long as we didn’t make eye contact with him. If we did make eye contact, then he knew that we knew he was there and he would cry to be picked up. Some mealtimes, especially when grandparents were over, were interesting: “Whatever you do, don’t look directly at the baby!”

“For a thousand years in Your sight Are like yesterday when it passes by, Or {as} a watch in the night.”
– Psalm 90:4

We took my wife to dinner for Mother’s Day. This particular restaurant had free suckers, and the kids knew it. So when they were done eating, they asked for them. Since it was Mother’s Day, we let the kids get one sucker each so that my wife could enjoy the rest of her meal in peace.

One child chose watermelon, and the other chose blue raspberry. I am not quite sure how raspberry got assigned the color blue. My guess is that when the artificial flavor industry giants collude, they decided that there were too many other red flavors and not enough blue flavors. Really, is blueberry the only other blue flavor?

Green has lime and apple, yellow has lemon and banana, red and pink have cherry and strawberry and watermelon, and orange has orange and peach. I suppose purple is used only for grape – they could have also chosen purple for raspberry. Not all raspberries are red – there is the black raspberry variety. They could have made the color for artificial raspberry flavor as black. Black raspberries are more like a dark purple, so I think purple would be a more fitting color than bright blue.

The child with the blue raspberry sucker of course had his tongue turn very blue. I asked what flavor he had, and he replied “blue raspberry”. I said that I have never seen a raspberry that’s blue. So he picked up the sucker wrapper (which had blue raspberries drawn on it), showed it to me, and said “Now you have!”

“The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind; and God saw that it was good.”
– Genesis 1:12

We recently had the award night, last night of the school year, for our church’s Awana program. That went well and was done shortly after 8 PM. We then walked down the street, about three buildings away from the church, to the local store and got some ice cream. Each child got a soft-serve cone. They ate those, then we got in the minivan and drove home, arriving around 9 PM. Then it was bath time, one child at a time. At 10:00, they were still jumping around, not exhibiting any signs of sleepiness.

Finally, after some bedtime books, the younger one was asleep at 10:30 and the older one was asleep around 11:00, about 2 hours after his normal bedtime. They woke up at 7:30 the next morning, so my wife didn’t even get to sleep in to make up for the late night.

Conclusion: Do not give children large ice cream cones within an hour of their expected bedtime.

“I will not give sleep to my eyes Or slumber to my eyelids,”
– Psalm 132:4

As I was looking at washing machines in an undisclosed big-box store, I noticed a certain price tag.

For those who can’t see the image, I will give the text here. It says “New Lower Price $648 Was $648”. I am glad they reduced the price, as $648 was a bit much for that washer.

“The merchant uses dishonest scales; he loves to defraud.”
– Hosea 12:7

The generic create-a-face-with-a-magnet-and-iron-shavings game has some specific offshoots. The game/puzzle is the magnetic doodle thing with a face printed on paper. The most notable derivative is the Create A Commie, but the store also has Fuzzy Philosophers. The philosophers don’t look as fun as the communists, maybe because the philosophers have a normal face for a base, not a deep, more-than-sunburn, red face.

“Those who fashion a graven image are all of them futile, and their precious things are of no profit; even their own witnesses fail to see or know, so that they will be put to shame.”
– Isaiah 44:9

Why is the saying “24/7/365”?

It is meant to show that something is continuous, all the time, and never stopping. It gets the point across to the listener, but upon further analysis, I found some problems. Translated into plain English, the saying would be something like “Every hour of the day, every day of the week, every week of the year.” But that would be “24/7/52” since there are 52 weeks in a year.  For those who are wondering: 365 weeks is a little over 49 years.

You could say that it means “Every hour of the day, every day of the week, every day of the year.” But that would be redundant (if it is every day of the week, then it would already imply every day of the year) and inconsistent (the progression is from smallest to largest – repeating the unit of day ruins the progression). Why not just say “Every hour of the day, every day of the year”? So an alternate to “24/7/365” could be “24/365” instead of “24/7/52”. Neither one of the alternates has the same ring to it, but I think such ring is acquired by repeated use.

“Every day I will bless You, And I will praise Your name forever and ever.”
– Psalm 145:2

Well Susan Lefevre (AKA Marie Walsh) is back behind bars. Is that a good thing?

For those who don’t know the story: Susan Lefevre walked away from a Michigan prison 32 years ago and has been living a normal life in California since then, marrying and having 3 children. Her original conviction was for drug charges, selling to an undercover agent. She has been discovered in California and was recently re-arrested, being held in a California jail awaiting extradition to Michigan.

What are the benefits of re-arresting her? They are to see that justice is served, punish her for escaping, and provide a deterrent for other criminals by demonstrating that the laws are still enforced. What are the problems with re-arresting her? They are cost and her effectively 32 years of parole.

What is the point of putting someone in prison? To punish her, rehabilitate her, protect other citizens, or all of the above? If it is to protect other citizens, then I doubt that applies to this case. She is not a threat to anyone. Now on to the other points.

If it is to punish her, then are there other means of punishment that are not going to be a drain on society? Why not leave her out of prison, but sentence her to some monetary fine and community service? That would provide a benefit to society, rather than costing taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars per year to lock her up. Some punishment is needed to keep the laws valid, but not jail time in this case. The prison space is needed for everyone who is currently dangerous and causing problems.

If the point is to rehabilitate her, then I argue she has already rehabilitated herself. If 32 years of being a productive member of society and committing no more crimes doesn’t mean you’re clean, then what does? Some may argue that she was living a clean life only to avoid being detected and captured. But aren’t there plenty of people out there who don’t have a criminal record who are doing the same thing? Some people need money, but the only reason they don’t rob a bank is because they don’t want to get caught. It’s too tricky to judge people on their intent. A parolee is judged not on his thoughts, but on his actions.

But what lesson is this teaching other criminals? Are they being taught that if you escape, just keep quiet long enough and then you’ll be forgiven? If everybody did what Susan Lefevre did, what would happen? There would be no more crime, no more welfare, etc. There are some dangerous criminals who should be rounded up. It helps this case that there is no direct victim or victim’s family. It would be hard to say she should be left alone if, for example, she had murdered someone. Why should she get to live a nice life while her victim doesn’t get to live? But that doesn’t apply to this case. How do we encourage criminals to leave the crime behind and become productive members of society?

If I were the governor of Michigan (currently Jennifer Granholm), I would be tempted to stop this whole debate by pardoning this woman. But the system should be adjusted to account for these types of cases. I think they will be more common in the future, as states are sharing their records and advances in technology and forensics allow DNA and other things to be tested and cross-referenced. Filling the prisons with non-violent criminals who have been clean for decades makes sense only if the prisons are empty and there is no one else to put in there. But an appropriate punishment should be determined, in order to provide a deterrent for those who are tempted to escape from prison.