Afternoon Chuckle

I never know what to expect when surfing around YouTube, sometimes you really wish you hadn’t clicked on a particular video and other times you can’t help but smile.

Green Fall Activity: Take a Hike

One of the best ways to instill green values and a love of nature in children is to simply go outside and experience nature. Sadly, we don’t get out often enough. Between our jobs, school, household chores and everything else happening in our busy lives it can seem an impossible task.

One afternoon last week, Brian and Darius went on a short hike at John Boyd Thacher State Park. Darius had been home from school a couple days with strep throat and by this point had recovered enough to get antsy and bored with staying inside. It was a nice afternoon and a perfect day for a fall hike.  This park is a short trip from our home and one that we visit fairly frequently.

They decided to take the Indian Ladder Trail on this hike.  It’s not a long trail but it follows some pretty steep paths at some points.  Thacher Park sits high on an escarpment and has panoramic views to the east and the Hudson River Valley.  This trail descends from the escarpment and takes you down below and along the cliffs where you can see some spectacular geological formations.  At points the trail goes under overhangs and through areas that seem almost like you are in a cave.

I’m kind of sorry I missed this one.  Being the biologist in this family, I often like to tell Darius about some of the trees, plants and wildlife we see on walks like this.  This time when wildlife questions came up, Darius would say, “let’s ask Daddy”.  Along the trip they came upon this small salamander, which I believe is a Red Eft, the juvenile stage of the Eastern Newt.

If your interested in taking a fall hike take a look at Trails.Com where you can use a map tool that allows you to zoom in on an area and see all the local hiking trails.

Banned Books Week: 9/27/08 - 10/4/08

This year’s Banned Books Week: Celebrating The Freedom To Read begins today and runs through October 4th. It is an annual event by the American Library Association, this year (2008) marks the 27th anniversary of Banned Books Week. The ALA website explains one reason for celebrating this event,

Banned Books Week (BBW) celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them. After all, intellectual freedom can exist only where these two essential conditions are met.

See the list of the 10 most frequently challenged books in 2007 and the rest of this post at Book Dads.

Gay Adoption Supported By New Study

An article in the Chicago Tribune today discusses a new study supporting gay adoption.  The report released this month by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute is titled, Expanding Resources For Waiting Children II: Eliminating Legal & Practice Barriers To Gay & Lesbian Adoption From Foster Care.  The report examines the impacts that bans on adoptions by gay men & lesbians would have on the foster care system.  The study concludes that:

Gays and lesbians are an important resource for children awaiting adoption. There is near “universal professional consensus” that these applicants should be judged on their qualifications, not sexual orientation.

Read the full report on the study here.

New Gay Dad: Clay Aiken

The upcoming issue of People Magazine features Clay Aiken on the cover with his newborn son.  Clay publicly comes out of the closet, saying he decided to come out following the birth of his son.  In the article he reflects on this decision,

“I cannot raise a child to lie or to hide things. I wasn’t raised that way, and I’m not going to raise a child to do that”

I suspected this news was coming when I first heard about the birth of his son. When I told my partner about the news of Aiken’s coming out he said, “he isn’t out already?”.  We’ve often noticed that there are no closets when you become a parent.  Just recently our 5 year old son has begun proudly exclaiming to random people at the playground, “I have two dads”.  Thankfully, that news doesn’t raise any eyebrows in a relatively progressive urban neighborhood in the Northeast.

Congratulations to Clay, for the birth of his son and for coming out. Welcome to the world of fatherhood. It’s a fantastic journey, a little bumpy at times, but well worth the trip.

Video: Vote No on Proposition 8

A YouTube video featuring children of gay parents, asking you to vote no on California’s Proposition 8.

Home with a sick kid

On Friday afternoon we got a phone call from school.  Darius had been acting strangely at lunch and then during afternoon story time he fell asleep.  It’s not entirely unusual for him to still nap sometimes at 5 years old, but he never does at school.  The assistant teacher took his temperature and it was 102°.  So that prompted the phone call to come in and pick him up.  Also, apparently several kids in the primary school have strep throat including one of his best friends from another class.

The rest of the afternoon and into the evening he slept, did not eat much and the fever continued. He claimed his throat did not hurt. We gave him Tylenol once and plenty to drink.  At 4 am he got up and went to the bathroom by himself ( a first for the night time) and when I checked on him he said he was tired of sleeping.  I figured he was better.

Later on Saturday morning the fever returned and he put himself to bed and slept some more (another first). This continued for the rest of the day and he still was not eating much, but kept insisting his throat did not hurt. At this point we are struggling with a question that we always struggle with.  When to wait and when to call the doctor?  We’ve known people that run to the doctor or emergency room at the first sign of a sniffle and others like my own mother who always took the “let’s wait and see view”.

Now it’s Sunday morning and the fever has subsided some, he’s awake and watching television.  However, I always make pancakes on Sunday morning and he loves them.  He did not eat any.  He is still claiming that his throat does not hurt.  So we’ve decided to give the doctor a call.  How do other folks handle the decision of when to call, or when to wait?

King of the Hill

A while back I posted here about Brian doing fieldwork for his research on Whiteface Mountain in the Adirondacks. This past week they finished up the measurements they needed to take, packed up the instruments. Here is a picture of Brian at the summit. It’s a little shadowed because the sun is behind him. The large lake you can see is Lake Placid.

He’s a little squeamish about heights and at one point they actually had to climb out onto the roof of the tower on the summit where the intruments were located. Normally heights don’t bother me at all and I love being on a mountain, but I would have had trouble going on the roof of a tower with no railing.

The second picture is from the top of the tower and you get a good view of that portion of the Adirondacks. This picture is looking more towards the north and Canada, which is maybe about 30 or 40 miles from here. I grew up in Massena, NY which is north west of this spot and on the St. Lawrence river across from Cornwall, Ontario.

Albany Wedding March

I previously posted here, about the Wedding March in Albany organized by Marriage Equality New York. I completely forgot to take pictures. It was pretty well attended, for Albany anyway, and we met several friends there. They tried to make a rainbow with rows of people holding different colored umbrellas. The march itself was a short walk, more symbolic than many marches. The press was there but much of the city would never have known it was taking place. Take a look at pictures taken by MENY.

After the march we had a picnic lunch on the Hudson River with friends. It was an enjoyable way to spend a couple hours on a Sunday.

Book Giveway at Book Dads

Book Dads is giving away two books to one lucky commenter in honor of Book Blogger Appreciation Week. The two books are: The Daddy Book and The Family Book by Todd Parr. Please visit Book Dads and leave a comment to enter.

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