It's Steve (now in blog form)

I got a special request for pics of something cute from NettaTheNinja so here you go.

One thing I take especially seriously as a parent is hygiene and home sanitization.  Consider this series of events.

Madi gets a treat

She shows it to the dog

You can have a bite, Mr. Doggie

I’ll finish it, nom nom nom…

If you have kids you understand the real fragility of material things. Here’s a little site dedicated to the havoc kids can cause in your home. Yes, the pic is the unfortunate result of some kid attempting to send his toys to the great beyond.

http://shitmykidsruined.com

When you talk to most parents about what it’s like having kids, they’ll tell you that it’s a beautiful and fulfilling experience. That’s not a lie, exactly. It’s like that sometimes, but that description does exclude a lot of the truth.

Let me preface this with the fact that I love my kids and am so glad I have them around, but, short of working in a slaughterhouse or public sanitation, I think folks are utterly unprepared for the amount of bodily fluids they’re going to have to contend with while raising children. Let me paint you a picture of this morning.

I’m having a nice Saturday morning at home with the family. My boy was watching cartoons and I was bouncing the baby and snuzzling her belly to make her giggle. That’s when things when horribly horribly wrong. The moment when I realized she had puked on the top of my head was when I went blind. This was initially a result of it running down my glasses, but soon the burning effect of semi-digested formula on my corneas has shut vision down entirely. I was still holding the baby over my head so I decided it was time to holler for help.

Still blind, I could hear my wife coming from the kitchen. My hope was that she would either relieve me of the baby or at least wipe my face off. Instead, all I heard was footsteps heading in the wrong direction. My brief optimism that she’d gone in search of a towel was dashed as I began to see the camera flashes through my closed eye lids. My further attempts to request assistance were squelched by a combination of her laughter and the fact that the vomit had run into my mouth (Note: if you have a baby’s vomit in your mouth, do not attempt to breathe through your nose. The rest of the day will be spent with everything smelling like baby vomit). Eventually, the baby was taken and I got to spend some alone time in the shower wondering if I could ever really get clean again.

So kids, if you’re out there thinking, “I’m gonna have a baby because it will (a) love me, (b) fix my relationship, and/or (c) give me an awesome tax deduction”, remember that the truth involves a lot more vomit than you’d imagine.

A couple of months ago I hit the super awesome Maker Fair in San Mateo.  While I was there, one project really caught my imagination. The picture is of my very own rhombic triacontahedron.

Brought to us by the folks at http://bulatov.org, this little guy is what I would have previously considered an impossible shape. It’s made out of steel and I have no idea if it would even have been possible through a CNC or casting process. It was executed using a 3D printer developed by MIT that can use bronze steel instead of the plastics most common in 3D printing. Think of this being built up one thin layer of molten steel at a time. That is freaking cool any way you think about it. I’m usually pretty adverse to buying things for myself, but this completely blew me away.  Some of the other options. It was really hard to pick one.

This is why I picked this particular one. Look how she spins!