A Free Man

King Solomon, he never lived round here

A Free Man — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 04:49:02 +0000

It is time for this vaccination/autism nonsense to stop.

Last week, British medical journal “The Lancet” retracted a 1998 paper by Andrew Wakefield and colleagues that initiated that panic over a purported link between MMR vaccines and autism. This followed a censure of Wakefield issued by the UK’s General Medical Council for unethical behavior. The Lancet’s editor says that after reading the regulatory decision that the paper was ”utterly false” and that he felt “deceived”.

For those of you that don’t follow these things, here is a brief recap of the history of the MMR/autism scare (I did a couple of more in depth posts on autism and vaccines here and here if you’re interested in reading more). It all stems from the recently retracted Lancet paper, which purported a link between the MMR vaccine and childhood autism. Wakefield and his colleagues claimed that the vaccine caused an irritation to the bowel, making it more permeable to the proteins delivered by the vaccine allowing them to leak into the bloodstream. The researchers claimed that these proteins acted as toxins and caused serious developmental brain damage, particularly autism.

Wakefield’s paper was riddled with problems but problems be damned, the Lancet paper set off a firestorm in the British and world media. For example, in just six months in 2002 in Britain there were over 500 stories about MMR and autism. The MMR vaccine and any other vaccines containing a mercury based compound known as thimerosol (TCV) came under scrutiny by the press. Unfortunately, these stories rarely featured a rigorous examination of the facts on the ground. Every time that one of these stories hit the press more parents opt out of vaccination. Since 1999, the number of parents in the U.S. opting out of the MMR vaccination has nearly tripled. Cases of measles, which had been eliminated in the U.S., are on the rise. There were 72 cases reported in ten states in the first half of 2008. This can be causally linked to people opting out of the vaccine. More striking however, is that nearly 900,000 people worldwide, many of them children, died from measles in 1999. That figure was down to 345,000 in 2005 due largely to an initiative by the Measles Initiative to make the MMR vaccine more available in the third world.

Now we know that Wakefield ”failed in his duties as a responsible consultant”, acted against the interests of his patients and “dishonestly and irresponsibly” conducted his research. In other words, he lied – his results were phony. He was being paid by the lawyers of autistic children. I don’t believe in hell, per se, but I hope there is some particularly nasty place for people like Andrew Wakefield. Measles could have been more or less eradicated in the Western world by now, but for Wakefield’s bogus report and subsequent defenses of his ‘research’.

However, Wakefield is only partially to blame. Without an accomplice, Wakefield’s study would likely have laid dormant in dusty old copies of The Lancet. But Wakefield had a rabid British and American media, drooling madly over a juicy ’science’ story. It was a perfect science story for the media – simplistic, exciting and involving children. And they jumped all over it, competing to see who could come up with the most terrifying headlines linking the vaccine and autism. In the face of overwhelming evidence that Wakefield’s study was a statistical aberration at best or sheer crap at worst, they continued to produce thoughtful stories about the ‘debate’ over the vaccine. To their credit, they’re now falling all over themselves to correct the record, but these things are hard to pull back. And it isn’t the first time the media has gotten a science story horribly wrong, nor will it be the last.

Yes, it is much harder to pull these kind of lies about science back than it is to throw them out there in the first place. There is a generation of parents that will associate the MMR vaccine with autism, despite the fallacy of this association. There is now a generation of children that could suffer from serious diseases that should never have been a threat to them. It is likely that parents - the Jenny McCarthy cohort – who will continue to spurn the vaccine, thus exposing their children – and mine – to diseases that should be non-existent.

Why mine? Because the crucial factor in eradication of particular diseases in a community is the proportion of individuals in the community who are immune, so called herd immunity. If the number of immune individuals is high, the disease can only infect susceptible (or non-immunized) individuals. Those susceptible individuals serve as a reservoir for the disease, allowing it to propagate and be maintained.

Herd immunity is particularly important for diseases like measles. The MMR vaccine is not 100% effective, it produces immunity in 90-95% of people vaccinated. This is usually high enough to protect everyone in a community because of herd immunity. However, when vaccination levels drop then the level of protection offered by the vaccine also drops.¹ In other words, your decision not to vaccinate your kid affects not only your kid but my kid and every other kid in your community. It is a socially irresponsible decision and one that Andrew Wakefield and the media-gasm over his fraudulent science helped to propagate.

Here is the truth: vaccines do not make your children autistic. However, not vaccinating them makes them much more likely to get seriously ill. And it doesn’t have to be that way. Get your children vaccinated. For their sake and for my kids’ sake.

——————————

The Clash “Combat Rock”, a punk classic, is available from

Image credits:

Vaccination

Immunisation and measles graphs

Science news cartoon

¹ Lee & Bishop “Microbiology and Infection Control for Health Professionals”. 2010. Pearson.

This life is sweet. You’re dancin’ in the street.

A Free Man — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 05:07:27 +0000

To those of you shoveling snow or scraping the ice off your windshield or grieving the meteorological predictions of an amphibious rodent I have one thing to say:

Suck it, Northern Hemisphere losers.

February rocks!

Now when you manage to get out of your parkas and your fingers thaw, go and check out my post on The Greenists today. It’s an extension of our conversation about whaling.

————————–

R.E.M.’s “Reveal” is available from .

Music and passion were always the fashion

A Free Man — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 00:52:32 +0000

Not Max, our now five month old son, doesn’t get a lot of face time here at A Free Man. This accurately reflects his position in real life, squarely in the shadow of his older brother. Boy Z walks and talks and runs and throws and hits a cricket ball and thus earns far more than his fair share of paternal attention. Not Max eats and sleeps and cries and soils himself, thus earning himself the occasional paternal grumble and not much more.

It’s not that I don’t like the boy, it’s just that he doesn’t do much.

Dr. O’C has recently, and rightly, begun to point out the inherent unfairness of this situation. Whenever I enter a room, Not Max turns to me and sprouts a big baby smile. One which typically gets ignored in favor of whatever Boy Z is doing at the time. On an academic level I know that it isn’t a good idea to play favorites. But on a practical level, I have a limited amount of time on the ground at home and figure that I should dispense it where it is most valued.

“He’s going to spend his whole life trying to get your approval, Chris”, I’ve been chastised on more than one recent occasion.

Well, as someone who spent a fair bit of my teenage and young adult years in a quest for paternal approval, I could relate to that. Therefore, I’ve been trying to improve the quality of my interaction with young Not Max. It’s getting a bit easier as the boy has added rolling over and laughter to his repertoire.

But he still hasn’t featured much in the space. So, in the interest of reducing future therapy bills, I wanted to give Not Max a blog post in which he featured as a main character. On the rare occasions that the boy gets hot and bothered and it isn’t about food or sleep, the best way I’ve found to make him happy is music. Preferably loud and preferably with paternal vocal accompaniment. Recently we introduced the tried and true door frame bouncer, which offers an extension of our musical appreciation from listening to active participation.

Ah, let me just show you.

Without further ado, here’s your Not Max in his first starring (or at least co-starring) roll:

I would just like to point out that I didn’t choose “Copacabana”, it just came up randomly on my iPod. Truly.

—————————–

If you must, Barry Manilow’s “Ultimate Manilow” is available from .

You might find some fools at your doorstep

A Free Man — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 10:10:16 +0000

I was at the gym this morning. I’ve become slightly addicted to the gym - not in the knocking off convenience stores to pay my membership fees kind of addicted, more of a twice a week endorphin fueled buzz kind of addicted. Anyway, I was at the gym this morning and I noticed that they had installed a heavy bag since the last time I was there. Intrigued, I asked the guys at the front how to use it. Yes, I know, you punch it. And to their credit, the young blokes resisted the urge to indulge in their generational predisposition to sarcasm. In fact, they took me over and walked me through a boxing inspired workout.

I’ve got to tell you – it was awesome. I’m not a violent guy at all. The last time I was in a fight I was 11 and I’m pretty sure I lost. I’ve got no interest in boxing or martial arts or any of that palaver. But strapping on the gloves and going a couple of rounds with the heavy bag and punch pads just brought out an energy in me that I didn’t know was there. Not agression, it had nothing to do with anger or violence, just some primal male impulse to punch things.

After a half an hour or so, with wrists and shoulders throbbing, I made the decision to take up boxing as a hobby. Or karate. Or ultimate fighting. Anything that involved punching, really.

Later at the gym whilst running on the treadmilly I watched a news (i.e. factually inspired entertainment television) report on the Sea Shepherd ship ‘Steve Irwin’ that had docked in Western Australia. Sea Shepherd is a fringe environmental group that confronts whaling vessels and seeks to stop them from killing whales using whatever means necessary. They’ve rammed whaling ships, used lasers to blind sailors, scuttled ships in harbour, and destroyed nets. The group self-identifies as pirates and has been labeled as terrorists by Japanese whalers and Glenn Beck alike. They’ve been in the news down here recently because one of their boats was sunk off the southern coast of Australia by a Japanese whaling vessel.

I didn’t really have strong opinions about Sea Shepherd when I first heard about this latest incident. I don’t like whaling. I think it’s unconscionable in the 21st century. But I’m not a big fan of extremist tactics either and Sea Shepherd, with a vigour reminiscent of anti-abortion extremists, often put sailors and fisherman at risk of harm or death for the sake of saving a whale.

Maybe it was all the testosterone released by my boxing session, but I got a little hitch in my giddyup when they showed a still photo of the hull of the ‘Steve Irwin’ with flags documenting the ships that they had rammed or sunk I thought – good on them. Fight the whaling bastards. Governments around the world have been unable to stop the Japanese, Norwegians and Icelanders from whaling, so why not a group of environmental pirates. They even fly the skull and crossbones, who doesn’t love a dashing pirate?

I think I’ll even sign up for their next expedition. Maybe I’ll have a chance to use my newly obtained boxing skills on some Japanese whale slayer.

——————————

A few hours later now, fully crashed from my endorphin high, I’m not so keen on Sea Shepherd. The anti-abortion extremist comparison is a good one, actually. Both groups think their cause is just. Both groups think their governments have failed them and thus they are justified in taking illegal and extreme action. Just because I like whales more than fetuses doesn’t make one group better than the other.

So, maybe I won’t be setting sail on the ‘Steve Irwin’.

And something I hadn’t considered about the whole boxing/karate/ultimate fighting idea is that I not only hit but get hit. This doesn’t sound nearly as much fun. So, maybe scratch the mortal combat as well.

But I’ll definitely be back at that heavy bag next time I go to the gym.

—————————–

The Shins’ “Chutes Too Narrow” is available from . If you’re not yet a Shins fan, your really should be. Check them out.

Image credits:

Heavy bag

Sea Shepherd

Sea Shepherd 2

Oh, Your daddy’s rich and your mamma’s good lookin’

A Free Man — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 11:39:30 +0000

The first time you here a kookaburra call is pretty damn spooky. Here, have a listen. But when I hear them now, cackling madly in the Australian sun, I sprint outside for a look. There’s something about these birds, something quintessentially Australian.

And in the height of the Australian summer, on the eve of Australia Day, that’s what I’m basking in – all things Australian.

When we moved to Britain in 2005, I made the mistake of hanging on to lots of trappings of ‘home’. I took comfort in things American. I basked in my very different-ness. And I spent three of the four years we were there hating the place. In that last year, I finally sought what made Britain so, well, Great. Just as I figured it out and came to love the place, it was time to go.

So, this time around I’m leaving all that American nonsense behind. Yes, I am an American. Never try to hide it. But barring anything unforseen and earth shattering, I’m going to be an American living in Australia. My boys are going to be raised as Australians and I’m going to do my best to insure that they get the best of that.

We’re Australians.

And every day that I listen to the news from the country of my birth, I’m more convinced that this is a good thing.

Like tens of millions of other Americans, I got infected with Obama fever back in 2008. Full of his particular brand of Hope™, I bought into the idea of a transformative politician that would take my creaking country forward into a new progressive behemoth. Tears rolled down my cheeks when his victory was announced. I walked a little straighter as an American abroad after that, full of hope and pride in my country.

A year later, I feel worse that I did at the height of the Second Bush Dynasty.

Worse, because I’ve come to realize that Obama, like Clinton before him, has chosen to govern as a “pragmatic” centrist. That despite all the high flying rhetoric, he has to deal with the same right wing opposition that Clinton had to deal with and as a result, nothing truly transformative is going to get done.

Worse because I now realize how nasty some of my countrymen can be. Worse because I realize that despite massive majorities in two of the three branches of government, real change is not an option in American politics. Worse because I see the vitriol becoming more vitriolic, the polarization becoming more polarized, the black becoming more black, the white becoming more white and the gray? What gray?

I feel worse because I know that any kind of real health care reform is dead. That the system is rigged against real change. That banks and insurance companies and investment firms are more important to those who govern – Republican or Democrat – than you are. Beautifully illustrated by the Supreme Court granting huge multinational corporations the same rights as you and I. And guaranteeing America’s fate as an oligarchy. “Jennifer Government“. Read it. It’s our – well, your – future.

I feel worse as I realize that the nasty, hate infused post-9/11 nationalism wasn’t just a passing trend. That it has blossomed into a particularly vicious sort of populism that loathes the ‘elite’, the educated, the thoughtful, the well-spoken. A sort of populism that feeds on sound bites and half truths and ignorance.

I feel worse because nothing ever changes. Because Barack Obama is no different that George II, Slick Willie, George I or Crazy Ronnie. Because the system is rigged.

I feel worse because I can’t go ‘home’ again. That I’ve had a taste of the alternative and it’s too sweet on my palate to give up. I spent 33 years as an American in America, becoming more and more frustrated and disillusioned. Feeling more and more powerless. Now every day I’m gone, I feel lighter. Happier. I can watch American politics from afar with mild amusement. I can enjoy it for it’s entertainment value. It’s the best reality TV show that nobody has thought to produce.

When it doesn’t affect you.

Go ‘home’ again?

Nope, I’ll take my adopted Antipodean island. I’ll take her languid climate and her blithe people. I’ll take her byzantine cricket and her bizarre ‘football’. I’ll take her dotty, drunken politics and her genial socialism. I’ll take her genial patriotism and inflated sense of international importance. Hell, I’ll even take her unfortunate penchant for mullets and coupe utility vehicles. Because it is summertime in Australia and the living is easy.

I’ve probably managed to piss off my American readers and offend my Australian readers. Ah well, what the hell. I’m going to the beach before the cricket starts and I have to fire up the barbie.

Happy Australia Day.

———————————-

John Coltrane’s “My Favorite Things” is available from .

And they all have pretty children…

A Free Man — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 12:30:42 +0000

I have been trying to think of ways to describe the unique sound of a plastic cascade of Lego tumbling from its appropriate receptacle onto the floor. If you’re a parent or like me, a childhood afficianado of Lego, you know what I’m talking about. There is no other sound like it. It likely strikes fear into the heart of the parent who obsesses over a tidy household, but for me it strikes a chord of joy.

I loved Lego as a kid and was the proud owner of garbage pail full of thousands of bits and pieces. I don’t know how many hours I spent on the living room floor constructing imaginary empires of small plastic Danish blocks. The first time I heard the distinctive Lego sound in my own house, happy memories of those long gone hours came flooding back. We had bought Boy Z a box full of used Duplo for his second birthday on eBay. Used because, well have you seen the price of that stuff new?

He didn’t get into the Lego much straightaway, but in the last few weeks he’s been pulling it out on a daily basis. That crashing cascade of Lego is almost always followed by a hopeful request to help him build houses. And I am overjoyed to serve as an assistant contractor. I don’t like to shill for any product, but Lego is a springboard for an active imagination. I love to watch him starting to put together elaborate scenarios as we build more and more intricate houses, towers and castles. This is the stuff that makes all those 2 a.m. wakeup calls worthwhile.

————————-

I’m thinking that A Free Man has reached its sell-by date. Posts have been sparse around here of late. That isn’t because I’m suffering from writer’s block or that I’ve run out of things to write about, it’s because I’ve run out of things that I’m comfortable about writing in this forum. Despite it’s apparent anonymity, too many people know who I am – family, high school acquaintances, annoyingly determined students (shouldn’t you guys be studying for that exam?). Apparently you can type my first name, my city of residence and my job into Google and this is the first hit.

I’ve been struggling with this for some time and I think I’ve finally come up with a solution – a new blog. A secret little box for all the things I can’t write here. I know, I know. I can barely get a post a week up over here, but I’d like to think that with a mask I’ll be able to be a bit more prolific. I guess we’ll see.

I’m not shutting this site down, I’m just going to keep it as what it was originally intended to be. An innocuous Daddy Blog. I’m not going to link to or publicise the new site, that would rather defeat the purpose. You can ask for the new address, but don’t be offended if I don’t give it to you. That likely means that I know you in real life or like you too much to let you in on the darker corners of my mind.

—————————

I have no idea where I got this Decemberists cover of Malvina Reynolds’ “Little Boxes”, but it featured on the opening credits of the wonderful “Weeds” – a show to which Dr. O’C and I have become addicted.

May no man’s reins ever chain you

A Free Man — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 06:13:34 +0000

We went to see “The Boys are Back” over the weekend. It wasn’t a film that either of us wanted to see, in particular, but we had a babysitter and an itch to spend some time in the cinema and it was either that, “Avatar” or a legion of other anodyne Hollywood swill.

I’m not sure that I’m glad we did. It’s not that it is a bad movie, it was very nicely done. Directed by Scott Hicks (”Shine“), and set in South Australia, it is the story of a single father (Clive Owen) suddenly thrust into full-time parenthood after the death of his wife. The scenery is stunning and the acting very good. It is a compelling story and despite a fairly depressing and demoralizing first hour, comes together happily at the end.

I like a happy ending.

But it got my mind working, racing in circles. The conflict in the film is the Clive Owen character’s development from virtual absentee father to single Dad. What made it so poignant for me was watching how badly he screws it up through the first three quarters of the film. He just doesn’t get it and does virtually everything wrong. I cringed at several obviously stupid parenting decisions and shook my head knowingly with the inevitable results.

One of the continual sources of stress for me is I am that Clive Owen Character. That I’m constantly screwing up while some celestial moviegoer shakes their head knowingly as I get it massively wrong? There is so much more to this fatherhood gig than I ever thought – the daily

On a daily basis, I think I do OK. We get through without much permanent injury. But when I look beyond the day, there are so many big questions, big issues that I just don’t know how to handle – from potty training to driver’s training. And when I think about the big issues, I start to get a little panicked. What’s the right way to teach them to read? Am I pushing them too hard or not hard enough? How do you deal with unacceptable behavior?

And that’s what got me thinking about spanking. Dr. O’C pointed out a recent well-publicized study from the U.S. claiming that children who are spanked may grow up to be happier, more productive adults. I cringe when I hear this kind of thing on the news, because without even looking much further I just know that it is likely to be bogus.

This one is no exception. The ’study’ was a survey of adults and teens undertaken by Marjorie Gunnoe, a psychologist at a Christian college in Michigan. Not only is it unpublished and has not undergone peer review, but her work has been rejected by two professional journals. Gunnoe’s study is in direct contradiction to previous published studies that have found that spanking may have detrimental effects on behavior and mental development, makes children more aggressive and is associated with a lower IQ in children.

I don’t actually know how I feel about spanking kids. The idea of spanking my own sons makes me a little bit squeamish, but I’m not completely opposed to it in theory. I can see that it could be a quick and effective negative reinforcement for a child who is doing something dangerous. I think the risk, for me, is that it is a slippery slope. If I can justify spanking under extreme circumstances I might turn to it in anger. And if I start hitting my kids in anger, well, that’s a path I don’t want to go down.

I guess that kind of slippery slope is what worries me about the way that this study is being reported - that it may reinforce some negative parenting behavior. Gunnoe is careful to note that her study “is not a green light for parents to spank their children, but rather a red light for those groups who want corporal punishment banned.” But most people do not read beyond the headline. The headline of this particular story is that spanking is actually good for kids. It is easy to imagine that someone who is already heavy handed with their kids might take this to mean that they can carry on with the beatings or even escalate.

As is always the case with this kind of story, I reserve most of my disdain for the media who have picked up on an unpublished study by an obscure psychologist at an obscure religious college and published it as scientific gospel. I’m sure that the legion of toddlers who are getting spanked on the back of your stories will thank you, guys. Well done.

————————-

Another thing I liked about “The Boys Are Back” was the soundtrack. Heavy presence by Icelandic post-rockers Sigur Rós, but the song that stuck with me was this one from Ray LaMontagne’s “Trouble”, available from .

Image credits:

The Boys are Back

Fleurieu Peninsula

The Boys are Back

Happy death men stand in line

A Free Man — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 11:44:20 +0000

During my family’s trip Down Under, my Dad and I were talking about future visits back and forth between Australia and the States.

“And when the boys are teenagers, I’m just going to send them to Florida for the school holidays. Let their grandparents deal with their hormonal butts”, I ribbed.

“That’s OK”, my Dad replied with disturbing solemnity, “I’ll be dead by then.”

Stunned silence. My Dad has a sense of humour so dry that it borders on Saharan, so I coughed a hesitant chuckle.

“No, seriously. I’m 63. My father died in his early 70’s, so did his brother. We [surname redacted] men don’t live very long. I’ll be gone before they’re teens.”

My Dad, always the life of the party.

That being said, it wasn’t a month earlier at a dinner party that I announced to my guests:

“Did y’all know that as of my birthday, I’ll be statistically halfway through my life? Truly middle aged?”

Stunned silence, followed by nervous laughter.

“That’s assuming that we’re talking about the American average life expectancy of 75.6 for men rather than the Australian average of 78.9. If I get the Australian bump then I’m another year away from half way.”

Apparently, a cavalier fatalism is an inherited trait.

——————

I’m not really a fan of Echo and the Bunnymen, nor any music of the 80’s. It’s all just too…synthetic. But, this is a perfect accompanying track. Their 1980 debut, “Crocodiles” is available from .

And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere and gie’s a hand o’ thine

A Free Man — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 02:36:08 +0000

The Australian sun has been fierce in the waning days of 2009. And the north wind, roaring in ruthlessly from the hard baked, dusty interior. Summer is here and 2010 is poised to start with a fiery fury Down Under.

I like the heat. One of the many reasons I was happy to move down here. I like the way the sun feels on my skin, drawing sweat out of my pores. But days like today, with that hot north wind overpowering our feeble old air-conditioning system, it is a bit much. It’s all I can do to lay on the couch with my laptop under a vent wheezing lukewarm air and hope that the kids sleep just a little bit longer. And it still feels a bit odd, this kind of heat on the last day of the year.

New Year’s is not my kind of holiday. I don’t remember the last time I stayed up to see midnight and it isn’t going to happen this year either. It isn’t an age thing, I’ve never very comfortable with the forced jollity of the holidays and New Year’s. After two big holidays in the span of a month, it is just a bit cruel to tag another one there at the end. I’m not sure who New Year’s is for, but it isn’t for me. Even at my late-twenties partying prime, I found New Year’s more of a chore than a pleasure. I had to do something on New Year’s or else I was one of those losers who sat around by themselves on the holidays and died in their apartments and didn’t get found until the neighbours phoned the police about an unpleasant odour.

I put so much pressure on myself that I often would collapse in a heap of drunken anxiety before I even went out for the night. One of my most vivid memories of New Year’s Eve is one in the mid 90’s in Athens, Georgia on which I was supposed to go into town for the night with some friends that I didn’t really like. I did so much pre-party drinking of Henry McKenna that by the time I was supposed to meet up with my friends, I was too drunk to leave the house. I welcomed in the New Year on my roof with my strange little cat blasting Radiohead’s “OK Computer”. I don’t actually know how I got off the roof.

These days, I don’t have the insecurity about my rotted corpse being found by neighbours. I don’t care whether or not I’ve got anything to do for the New Year. I don’t drink these days and my fear of heights tends to keep me off the roof. I still listen to Radiohead, however, and New Year’s can still kiss my butt.

The cool change came, as expected, late this afternoon. The wind shifted direction, blowing cool and soft out of the south, bringing with it a blessedly refreshing drop in the temperature. As the afternoon waned, we headed for Casa Arizaphale for a New Year’s Eve Barbecue. There was swimming and backyard cricket and homemade fireworks. As I write this, it is not yet midnight – young kids aren’t really conducive to seeing in the New Year ‘properly’ – and chances are I won’t make it til 12:01.*

Last year, my first holiday season Down Under, was a difficult one. I was having problems with the transition to my new home, the seasonal reversion, a general feeling of displacement. But things have turned around a bit this year. I’m warming to Australia, especially her people. Time spent with family has assuaged some of that displacement. And on nights like tonight, as I did a lazy breaststroke in the pool, I can see the advantage of having these damned holidays in the summer.

Still not much of a fan of this particular one. But what the hell – Happy New Year!

Now, I’m going to bed and try to get a decent night’s sleep before one of my kids wakes me up before dawn.

————————-

* I actually did. I got sucked in to John Irving’s latest novel and heard the boom of fireworks from Glenelg. I headed out on the balcony in an inappropriate state of dress and watched the fireworks show.

————————-

Barenaked Ladies’ “Barenaked for the Holidays” is available from .

Image credit:

Outback

Will I be with you or will I be among the missing?

admin — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 03:41:58 +0000

I’m firmly entrenched in a post-Christmas/midsummer haze of test cricket, soaring temperatures and boundless little boy energy.

The holidays were…fantastic.

I don’t know that I’ve ever thought, spoken or written that particular combination of those four words before. But this year was something special with family visiting and a proper American Thanksgiving and a gaggle of young kids at Christmas.

It wasn’t perfect. With family come the inevitable spats and the predictable dramas. And there are still bad days and sometimes it’s too hot and you’re too tired. And there was the thing at Carrickalinga.

But you take the bad with the good and you get on with wringing joy out of life wherever you can and when the hell did I become such a Pollyanna?

At any rate, I just wanted to pop up and wish you all a Happy New Year and post a couple of holiday themed slideshows for those of you that know me well enough to want to see endless family photos.

First, my family’s visit to Oz at Thanksgiving….

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

and second, Christmas with Dr. O’C’s family…

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

————————

Nancy Wilson’s cover of the Frank Loesser holiday standard is available on “A Nancy Wilson Christmas” .