June 2010
3 posts
Blog Reboot
Well, I’m in Detroit and I decided to reboot the blog. So this blog is hereby retired and the new blog can be found here:
http://famousjtakesdetroit.com
I’m writing up a storm over there. Take a look and update your bookmarks appropriately.
And thanks for the memories, Tumblr.
House Hunting in Detroit
So this weekend we made our first big trip to Detroit. This was my second time
in the city of Detroit, the first being for the interview for the new job.
This was Sherry’s first time.
Our mission was simple: find a house. In one day. No pressure! Just
one day to find the place we’re going to be spending the next year in.
It’s not like we came in knowing nothing about...
May 2010
7 posts
Kane County researching legality of outdoor... →
I remember when they first started banning smoking in certain places. The pro-smoking people said, “When are they going to stop?”
Well, we have the answer: they are never going to stop until they effectively ban smoking everywhere.
Just for the record, this ban on smoking applies if you’re outdoors, downwind from everyone, at a private establishment, with a gentle breeze...
Are you an Asker or a Guesser? →
This article claims it will change your life. It just might. I’ve been doing nothing but think about it for an hour now.
Not that anyone asked, but I would say I’m more of a guesser. Since I rarely ask for much and am content to poke and prod until something falls in my lap. Either that or I’m easy to please and don’t really need much of anything.
Except more...
The City Museum in the Wall Street Journal →
For those of you who are fortunate enough not to live in St. Louis, there’s really only one thing you’re missing: the City Museum, which really might be the most amazing place on earth. Read on!
April 2010
7 posts
Summer Vacation
I did summer school a few times when I was in college. I liked summer school. The town was mostly empty, so there was never a crowd anywhere. You could always get a table. The bars all pretty much had a three-month-long happy hour. There was a peaceful, easy-going atmosphere on campus. There was solidarity. Nobody really wanted to be there, not the students, not the poor schlub faculty who...
End of the Road
Sometime about seven years ago, I answered an ad for a software developer in the classified section of the newspaper*. I had an interview with two guys, one about 6’5” and the other about 5’4”. On the table was a mockup of what looked like a large mechanized dildo. I asked, “So, uh, does this thing work like I think it does?”
To which the shorter gentleman...
The Amazing Greek Anarchist Dog
I suspect this dog is secretly the organizing force for the anarchist movement in Greece. In fact, if Ihad to guess, this dog is the one who orchestrated their massive financial meltdown.
Even more pictures of this rabble-rousing mutt here.
Genius
It’s one of those tendencies for all people: if something bad happens, it’s bad
luck. If something good happens, well, of course! You’re just so talented,
what else should you expect?
Of course I would never let myself be so deluded. I’m completely clear-eyed
and dispassionate about all that. The difference is, when something good
happens to me, it really is because...
Bottom Five
I suppose we shouldn’t have expected a nice straight line of progress. Like at
no point should we expect that. Mrs. J never expects it, but I’m an eternal
optimist. I can’t help myself.
No, the best we should hope for is two steps forward and one step back. And
that’s what we’ve gotten.
So here’s the step back:
Sometime in the past few days, Gus...
March 2010
8 posts
Feeding: Update
When last we left our heros, we were going to put the baby down to sleep and hope he’d wake up and let us know if he was hungry.
Well! When the baby is hungry in the middle of the night, he’s not coy about it. He lets out a yell that will rattle the windows.
We also found out that if Gus gets upset, he can stay upset for a while. He cries so hard he refuses to eat, but then he...
Feeding
One of the great things about babies: unless there’s some reason to, you don’t
really have to put them on a feeding schedule. Their bodies want to grow and
they know how much food they need to make it happen. So when they’re ready to eat,
they’ll let you know.*
Well, that’s true of most babies, but then, most babies eat do most of their
eating through their...
Gus Duty
The big difference between the pediatric ward and the neonatal ICU is that the
pediatric ward is quite a bit less hands-off. In fact, someone has to be there
the whole time. It’s like being at home, only you have less room and people
come in at random hours and wake up your sleeping baby.
Well, Sherry has had Gus duty for the first few days, but she had to pop into
the office today, so...
Bummer
Well, it’s not the worst thing that could happen, but it’s up there. Gus had to go back to the hospital. About a week ago he got an upset stomach, and his GI system has been in total chaos ever since. He seemed okay and he wasn’t losing weight, so everyone had a wait-and-see attitude about it.
Well, we waited, and saw that Gus wasn’t getting any better. And then he...
Homecoming
So, yesterday was the day we’ve been waiting for for… Lord knows how long. Gus
finally got to go home! In fact, I have photographic proof:
Yesterday was been a very emotional day. And a very happy day. My Mom spent
the day
looking after Charlie while we were signing papers and what not. She said it
was like someone getting married. I agree. I suppose if there’s one...
February 2010
11 posts
Candidates →
God bless the Internet. All that spare time that would otherwise go to waste doing stuff like, I dunno, getting sunshine, or learning to play guitar. Who needs that when you can spend hours, finger poised over the Tivo pause button, scrawling down names and numbers from a TV show.
Of course, having read the list myself, I suppose I should be more grateful and less critical.
“Constantly subjected to verbal abuse and challenged to prove himself to his...”
–
My new favorite president!
“The very fact that it’s called “the space program” should be...”
– Read the Whole Dang Thing. It’s chock full of revisionist history about NASA. Like his theory that we could have launched a satellite before Sputnik and why we waited.
“Nevada’s budget is so far out of balance that by one account the state...”
– Source
Fortunately that’s just Nevada. I’m sure the country as a whole will never get to that point…
Pet Parade
Charlie loves dogs. Loves them! They’re his favorite thing in the whole
world. Seeing a dog for him is the highlight of his day. If we’re driving
around and he sees a dog out the window, he’ll immediately point and say “Doo!”
which is his version of “dog”.
But for the next ten minutes or so, he’ll keep pointing in the direction he saw
the dog,...
“Headline of the Day: “McDonald’s Fries the Holy Grail for Potato Farmers.”
– NY Time article about awkwardly worded headlines
I love these. Another good one: “Squad Helps Dog Bite Victim”
Nerdy Gift of the Day
Embarrassing as it is to admit it, um, I kinda want them..
Class War →
Long, depressing article. Unless you have a government job, in which case it’s a long, triumphant article
Date Night
Due to a sudden family crisis with the babysitter, Mrs. J and I ended up with a
free evening minus Charlie. Additionally, I had just come into some money. So
we decided to hit the town and have a proper Date Night.
It’s one of those deals where you don’t really realize how bad you need a night
to yourselves until you get one. I was really excited all day Friday in
anticipation.
...
January 2010
5 posts
For the Pet Owner Who Has Everything. →
Words fail me.
A Request
I’m doing some research on diets. If you have ever been on a diet of any kind, I would like to talk to you. If you lost a bunch of weight, I’d like to hear about it. If you didn’t lose any weight, I’d like to hear about that too. Whether you’ve been on dozens of diets or just one for a few weeks in college. Low-carb? Low-fat? Nothing but citrus fruits and beef...
Medical Simulation Models →
This is one of the freakiest collection of pictures I’ve seen lately.
Freakiest part: we’ve actually had one of these in the office. A prize to the first person who figures out which one it is!
Charlie Update
Today’s Charlie Update is about talking. So far, he understands about 20 words or so, and he says about 7 or 8 of them. Things like “dog”, which sounds like “duh”, or “bath” which comes out sounding like “buh”. And some monosyllables
that we’ve taken to mean “Gimme that thing” or “Man, you people are really
bumming...
December 2009
5 posts
St. Louis 2nd-hardest city to find work →
Fortunately I don’t know anyone silly enough to try to find a job around here.
To All Those People...
…who read this story and had a chuckle, you ought to be ashamed of yourselves. There are people dead here, and you’re giggling about it because the city where it happened is called “Espoo”.
For shame.
Catching Up
So, posting has been extremely light on account of me finishing up graduate school and getting that business degree. On top of working. And moving. And having babies. So I have this big pile of news stories I just haven’t gotten around to reading. I made a big-ass Word document and just started cutting and pasting onto the end of it. It’s over 300 pages long.
But I’m...
Freaks and Geeks, finally!
So, I’ve been watching Freaks
and Geeks. It’s that show that I heard someone somewhere go
all bananas over at least once every three months for the last ten years of my
life. And finally, finally, I’m getting around to watching it.
Totally lives up to expectations. Seriously, yo, if you haven’t seen it, make
it happen.
Click
here and order the dang thing!
I know it...
The musically fragmented decade →
When I was in high school, there were about five genres of music people might be into: pop, rock, country, rap, and “alternative”. A few people owned that Bob Marley greatest hits album. That was about it. And even that was about three more genres than when my parents were in high school.
Now musical tastes have gotten so fragmented there’s no way to keep up with these...
November 2009
6 posts
“There’s two ways to make it more complex for the defense,” Leach...”
– Chuck Klosterman - “Eating the Dinosaur”
The Amazing Story of Gus's Birth
In my last post, I mentioned Gus’s esophageal atresia.
Well, one of the side-effects of that is that he could’t process amniotic
fluid. So while most women have two pounds of amniotic fluid, Sherry had more
like six or seven pounds. Like a whole extra baby’s-worth of fluid.
The reason I mention that is because, despite Gus coming a week before his due
date, we had been...
Possessive
I’m just realizing: we have no idea how to do the possessive of Gus.
I think it’s Gus’s, but that kinda looks wrong. But just plain Gus’ also looks wrong
Hmm…
Gus's Health
Two days ago we gave birth to a new baby, Augustine Michael LeBlanc, or Gus, as we’re calling him. And when I say “We gave birth”, I mean Sherry gave birth and I watched and paced nervously.
Actually the birth itself was like a scene from The French Connection, and I’ll tell that story another day.
Right now, I’d like to talk about Gus’s health.
Gus has...