Some time ago, Frankie and thought it'd be fun to take swarming ants and drag them into an artful design by luring them into said art with a stream of sugar. Then, we didn't know what sweetener they'd like best. Cane, honey, Splenda?
This morning we were lucky enough to stumble on a productive line of ants and place a few dabs of sugar and a few dabs of honey. Seems to be a unanimous vote for honey. Still haven't tried the Splenda, although they don't seem to need to lose weight.
About a year ago, I heard a story on NPR about airbag fraud (http://bit.ly/w1fzT). I've been fascinated by domain names for a long time and realized the obvious domain associated with this story had not yet been registered. I had a coupon for a registration at Godaddy.com and registered it for $1.99 plus tax. I fired up a cheesy blog with a handful of posts embedded with relevant keywords. Within about 4 weeks, an open search of the phrase "airbag fraud" gave AirbagFraud.com the top organic listing in Google and Yahoo! The site had a few Adsense thingies on there and net me a few pennies income. Realizing the phrase was too infrequently searched to have any significant traffic, I parked the domain at WhyPark.com and within a few weeks, it dropped below #100 on search engines. I sold the domain (for a buck) and it now sits in someone else's name, useless, still well below #100.
It was an interesting comparison: a barely informative site gave this site one of the most prominent places in the world regarding that expression/topic. In comparison parking the site with even worse content churned by WhyPark.com gave it zero authority; proof that parking a domain is useless.
The NPR story regained its top postion on Google. Definitely worth the $2.00 experiment to play around with search and parking.
Back to my regularly scheduled, boring narcissistic blog entries.
I'm not keen on hunting or guns. But when some creature starts screwing with the first perfect tomato of the season, he could soon be looking at the business end of my new 200 mph gas-powered leaf blower. Tonight's the stakeout.
Nearing the end of her first sleepover with Paige. This morning they were chanting the joy of pork while eating bacon and waffles and now a capitalistic end to the event. Should be interesting when, as 13-year old vegans, they look upon this.
(Not my image), but you get the picture.
I'm scoping out a bike friendly route from East of High to West of Olentangy River Road just north of OSU. I tried the most direct, and, I discovered, most deadly route, N. Broadway. At one point, I got off my bike to cross W N Broadway with the light. Over my shoulder was a big farking sign that said "Yield to Pedestrians" and along came two screaming people in a Civic yelling at me crossing. And that was the minor stuff. E N Broadway (E of High) wasn't bad at all.
It's the beginning of my search. My goal is to get the kid to school as a passenger on my bike on safe streets. It's going to be a challenge.
The only television in our home is via an analog pci card. The tv broadcast plays through some software on a piddly 22" diagonal monitor. Barely visible by today's standards.
Even this concoction of television is causing Frankie to glaze over and watch programs continuously if left by herself. As an only child, this type of activity is welcomed at times when we're exhausted. But, it's getting abused. She can glaze over for hours. It can't be good and we're considering cutting the cable to the tv soon. It's no biggie for Mrs. DavesBeer and I since much of tv is less stimulating than sitting in a dark room alone. And, I always considered myself addicted to it. It just sucks now. The only program I guiltily enjoyed is Hell's Kitchen and I can watch that on Fox or Hulu.
The big challenge of this choice to train her to keep busy and be physically calm for those periods she used to watch tv. Should be interesting to see if it's possible (for us).
I use a simple point 'n shoot. But, this is one of my favorite pictures of all time. Look at that kid.
This thing was like an Aldi cart. Pop 2 euro in, and get it back when finished. Dragging Frankie around the zoo and sprinting to potties was a piece of cake with this and didn't quite look like the stroller.
Frankie's got LOTS of energy, but the kids here are more adapted to staying in step with a FAST walking mom and dad. So, when the walking gets tiring, this cart was very much appreciated. They are popular too. This was the last on this carousel of carts and I was grateful to get it. Frankie loved it.
Every restaurant and cafe seems to have a cat. One night we had one on an adjacent table. The waiter walked by and gave him a little love before he pushed him off.
I thought the frequent stops at cafes would bore the kid, but it happens that it fits with their grazing type meal schedule. Yesterday, we had a pretty rough day with everyone tired. I think jet lag may be over in the short run, but actually takes a long time to get over completely. Tomorrow we'll leave here at 8 and get home by noon. Westbound is always easier.
This morning we're eating in our room for breakfast so Frankie can relax and catch her breath. One of the parents at the conference told us there was a euro-chuck-e-cheese. We can't wait. We're skipping the museum scene for the more kid-friendly things.
I saw this in the stall at the zoo. Because it's in another language, I'm feeling all CSI about it. I gather the perp was male, right-handed, tedious (look how nice that umlaut was), maybe cowardly (it was done in a stall, not in the main bathroom area), creative (pleasant curves on the tag), and I don't know how vulgar he was. I can't read Dutch; for all I know this could be incredibly offensive.
We're layin' low today. We're tired. We took a cruise around the canals today and talked with a woman who looked grateful not to be seeing Europe with a 6 year old. We ate more friets in a bar, drank coffee & milk and Chocomel. Walked too much (with Frankie on my shoulders) and bought all her friends at school a small souveneir.
Here's my kid tips for Amsterdam:
1. Rent a bike for your entire stay. It won't be a waste. One round of whining because their feet hurt will want to make you gouge your eyes out. The risks of biking are far less than the danger your child will be in if they piss you off for hours on end.
2. Eat at the Artis (Zoo); after the sunk cost of admission, it's cheap and they have good food.
3. If your child can't walk about 10 miles/day, see #1.
4. Don't do something like a peddle boat; they don't have a potty. You'll pay lots for the rental and won't get more than 15 minutes use out of it.
5. Do take the canal boats. Can hop on and off all day AND THEY HAVE A POTTY on board.
6. Every bar/cafe has a potty. The owners appear not to care if you run off the street in a full sweat to use it. Buy a coffee from them if you feel bad. Some even have a money bowl near the bathroom. If you do have to pay, it's only 50 cents.
7. Look online and learn the way to cross a street. Your child or yourself can hurt a cyclist or yourself easily.
8. Small stores are all over and a light meal can be found easily: cheese, bread, fruit and wine or beer. LOTS of middle eastern treats are here too (doner kebab, falafel, hummous, etc.).
9. The hotel shampoo can be used for just about anything.
All for now, I'm doing some laundry in the tub this afternoon.
I was fascinated with the bike culture in Amsterdam long before I visited and now I'm obsessed. I was a tad anxious about it because automobiles, trams, scooters, pedicabs, bikes and pedestrians have very specific rules and interrelationships. But, tourists rent bikes all the time, so I figured I'd take a shot. I read the rules quickly, watched a vid at the rental place, picked a bike with a kid seat (the kid seats are not just an attachment, but are built on as a sturdy part of the frame).
Incidentally, I estimate the Dutch (and tourists) walk at least 10 miles a day. What I sometimes forget is Frankie is 6. Almost a big girl, but still unable to walk that much yet; an alternative transportation became necessary and the bike was not just a fun diversion.
The inner city is intimidating; too much for me at this point. We went a few miles outside the city to the Artis. Artis is Dutch for "really, really, exorbitantly-expensive day watching wild animals in captivity for tourist's viewing pleasure." We Americans call it a zoo. I was wobbly at first, then we were off like NASCAR drivers: left, left, left, left, left... Then I got my confidence up to go past the city block we were on an made it to the zoo and a park. Scroll down for a few more pics.
