This has been an interesting week.

My two year old continues to want to climb everything in the house.

My four year old has decided he now owns the house.

I have a new fridge, not by choice. The old one decided it was time to depart the realm of the working. There's nothing like four kids and no cold food. The peasant's were not pleased.

The teenagers continue to dwell in the subterranean.

My wife had a major collision with a bass drum on Friday, resulting in a hospital visit. The drum won.

Given the soap opera level of drama going on, I'm going to try and update this blog at least once a day for posterity's sake.

Warmth!

It's finally gotten decently warm here in Ohio. I'm looking forward to a nice summer with plenty of time outdoors. Given my libertarian leanings and desire to be optimistic I'm staying away from political comments for a while.

It's time

It's time to ressurect this diary and to once again write.

Diaries are subject to the whims of life

Work, kids, dogs, bills, family, obligations and life can slow one down.

I need motivation to write, and even moreso to make excuses and justification to avoid doing so.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend

Looking at the John Mccain and Mitt Romney buddy buddy pictures, and given the overt hostility between these two in a very antagonistic primary, it really is easy to correlate why some think Al Qaeda may be working in concert with some in Iran. As someone who has spent a lot of time in the Middle East, the one thing Persians and Arabs are is pragmatic.

Autism and Vaccines

This has been a very difficult subject for me to address being the father of an autistic child who saw noticeable changes in his son following his being vaccinated.

I've read much about this, and I accept the fact I'm not an immunologist, but I also feel parents and others who have good first hand accounts of changes also have knowledge and a baseline of experience are wrongly being discounted.

My autistic son is 15. He went from normal in the development cycle to having autistic tendencies after being vaccinated almost 14 years ago. I inquired about this to doctors and were reassured the vaccines were not the root of the problem. I, like most parents, knew nothing of the fund out there for reparations due to vaccine accidents, nor of the immunity the vaccine makers enjoy.

Like most parents I spent the majority of my time following research, finding ways to better educate and mainstream my child, and to try and make him as comfortable as possible to spur the growth and social skills that so many ASD children lack.

Fourteen years later I'm learning things I should have known in 1994. The vaccine lawsuit pot is not generally known. The fact so many other parents see the exact signs and things I see is scorned in a derogatory manner by so called professionals, who admit they still are generally in the dark about the causes. To date, there is still not even the simplest of studies contrasting vaccinated to non vaccinated and the rate of autism.

There are valid needs for vaccinations and they have done immense good for the world. However, the side effects are not well presented to parents, and information regarding vaccines is sorely lacking. The attitude of this debate is too polarized and lacking in valid studies and good comparative analysis.

It's time for the discussion to quit being run by the CDC, and for our elected officials who are seeing their own kids becoming autistic to legislate proper research and to push for independent studies by groups not affiliated with the vaccination companies.

Media Center DRUMMED

I love media center. I like the fact I can tape my favorite shows, like Lost and Battlestar Galactica and watch them at my leisure, anywhere in my house.

Houston we have a problem. Thy name is DRM. Some of my shows in Media Center seem to not be able to be recorded, due to broadcast flags. I don't have this problem with my DirecTV DVR, but media center has informed me they can't tape shows due to content issues.

Er, what?

I've perused the MS site and it's not very helpful. I'm running Media Center 2005, and most of the answers pertain to Vista.

I wonder if apple has a version of this that works better?

Sometimes it's good to stop and smell the roses

In this case, to ride the waterslides and lounge in the hot tub!

Three day weekend and indoor waterpark trips are a nice break from the corporate grind!