In the last two weeks, I've been offered, and accepted a new job. (There's one to check of 101 in 1001.) I'm excited about what I'll be doing and excited about the people I'll be working with. Also, 3 friends have welcomed new babies into their lives. (Josephine Ann, Elise Marguerite, and Isla Ann are all astoundingly beautiful, an have such classy names too.) As if all that weren't enough. Dean turns two tomorrow. Insane! It's been one long-ass tunnel, but the light at the other end is so bright right now I'm busting out the shade. Thank you to everyone who has been part of the journey so far, you kept me a little step closer to sane.

This video has been making the rounds, and aside from the very slick visual presentation, I'm not sure that it's actually telling us anything new.

It seem that the narrator is saying "People have the capacity to be empathic on a large scale, and we all benefit when they do." This is, in my opinion, true, but not groundbreaking. The example in the video is a monkey watching a human perform a similar action shows similar brain activity to when the monkey actually performs the action itself. This is experiential, learned behavior, rather than an empathic emotional reaction, and so I don't think the parallel exists. Obviously, for a 10 minute YouTube video, they've vastly simplified and condensed the science, so there could be a lot more going on that they haven't covered. Does anyone know where the science is behind this. Does it actually carry over to things like pain and pleasure? Do the pleasure centers of one person's brain activate when they see another person experience pleasure? Does it make a difference if that person is a family member, a stranger or a rival?

Another thing that is mentioned in the video is the social network response to the earthquake in Haiti. The narrator suggests that the response of the world population (by which the narrator, somewhat in opposition to his premise, seems to dismiss the majority of the the population which doesn't have ready access to the internet) is a demonstration of the capacity for altruism beyond the clans one belongs to. I'd disagree with this conclusion simply because, although Twitter and YouTube connections aren't the traditional social groupings the author mentions (blood ties, religion, nation-states) they are, in many ways a self-selected clan. I feel that most people's response was not based on a deep concern for the Haitian individuals, but a reaction to the social mores of their existing clan affiliations.

Over time, society undergoes structural changes, and for the first time in history, geography isn't a major consideration in the formation of social groups for those who have ready access to the internet. But I don't think that this indicates a major shift in how the typical human responds empathically to the world around them. Our social structures are different, but we still prioritze our resources based on what we believe is most beneficial to those people we consider to be members of the groups we belong to. As a personal example, I cannot say that I have more empathy to the people of Haiti than my ancestors might have simply because someone I consider a friend has immediate family in Haiti. My "clan" isn't necessarily larger, just less geographically homogenious.

Am I off base on this, or am I missing something fundamental in the ideas presented in this video? Or are people simply sharing this video because it looks cool, it has a message that people want to hear (or at least want people to hear them sharing), and it fulfills the societal expectation that a modern, well-educated person demonstrates empathy?

It's Mother's Day, and while I love my mom, and my mother-in-law is pretty great too, my wife is super awesome. She's put up with an awful lot of crap from me over the years and put up with an awful lot of crap from all other directions as well. And now, we're raising a son who is amazing. Nicole, I love you!

Happy Mother's day to Mom, Rhonda, and Yvonne. We love you too!

I have some aspirations to be a photographer, at least to the level of making an expensive hobby pay for itself. So, I read the blogs of photographers who do great work. One of those blog is by Bobbi + Mike. The photography is fun, colorful and beautiful. But this post isn't about photography. It's about weight loss. Surprise.

Bobbi has created the Healthy Train challenge to lose weight between now and October. TBWITWW and I have been trying to lose weight, and I thought some extra accountability would help motivate us, so we've joined in.

We've been exercising more, and paying more attention to what we eat. We've also been trying to make sure to do things like always eat dinner at the table and to eat more sensible snacks. We'll probably refine our actions as we go further down this path. I don't think either of us expects to win (although a photo session with Bobbi and Mike would be fun I think) hopefully by October we'll have made good progress in getting closer to a healthy weight for each of us.

Here's my before picture if you're curious. However, you might not want to look if you have a sensitive stomach or overly prudish tendencies. And if you're the sort who finds chubby, hairy, fish-belly white dudes attractive, I'm taken.

Yesterday, we made laundry detergent. It was easy and made quite a bit of detergent for not much money. All it takes is 2 cups of grated soap (Fels-Naptha, Ivory or Zote), 2 cups of washing soda, and 2 cups of Borax. We used a whole bar of Zote, and about half each of the borax and washing soda and made a double batch. So, the total cost was around $15 for enough soap to do about 200 loads of laundry.

Here's the process.Zote smells a bit citrus-like, which is nice.

Grate the soap, you'll need about 2 cups. A finer grate than this would actually probably be better.

Add the grated soap to boiling water. (It might be easier if you add the soap more slowly while stirring, ours clumped a bit.)

Stir until the soap is completely melted.

Transfer the liquid soap to a good sized bucket. (We're using a well-rinsed cat litter bucket, which is big enough for our double batch.)

Add 2 Cups of Borax and stir. At this point the soap/Borax mixture thickened up quite a bit.

Add 2 Cups of washing soda and stir. Interestingly, this made the mixture thin out again.

Finally, add 2 gallons of water and mix. Laundry detergent done!

I'll report back once we've used it for a while and let you know what we think of it in comparison to "regular" laundry detergent. With an almost-two-year-old in the house and spring around the corner, I suspect it's going to get a workout.

For the month of February, the Habari Project has chosen the theme Ownership as its first monthly focus. As part of that focus, we've been challenged to take on ownership of some aspect of the project. I'm choosing two things to work on this month, publicity and screencasts.

As far as publicity, I've created a twitter account called HabariWatch which will be used to track posts and tweets about Habari so that it's easy for people to find out what people are saying about Habari and doing with it.

For screencasts, I'm going to commit to making at least 10 screencasts during the month of February. The first one is up on YouTube. It shows the activation and use of the Flicker Silo. The audio leaves a bit to be desired, but I think it's a great starting point.

Let me know what you think of both HabariWatch and if you have any suggestions for additional podcasts.

I just realized something while watching The West Wing episode in which there is a military funeral complete with a gun salute. The sound of a three-volley salute breaks my heart a little every time I hear it. Even for a fictional character.

The first funeral I attended after Aiden passed away was that of my maternal grandfather. He was a veteran and was given military honors including the gun salute. This was, of course, a rough time for me, and that gun salute broke the thread of self control I had left at that point and left me sobbing. . There are so many things tied up in it for me that I strongly suspect that I'll never hear a gun salute without a tear coming to my eyes. And honestly, I'm okay with that. It may not be much, but it will always remind me that those who sacrifice themselves for our protection deserve our respect. It also reminds me that for every person who receives the honor of our tears, there are hundreds, or thousands who we will never know, but will be missed and cried for by someone.

Military or otherwise, there are so many people who give up something to make us each who we are today... parents, teachers, friends, family and even strangers. If there's something that makes you stop and think of them, even for a moment, you should embrace that and treasure it. Am I the only one, or is there something that always stops you and turns your thoughts around?