So, I took the time to figure out how the cabinets we bought in Houston fit together. It looks like we’re missing a shelf, since there are holes for 4, but we only got 3.

Julie and Stella just made a beeline past my office door giggling on the way to the potty. Julie has started trying to potty train Stella today. I’d say that we are potty training Stella, but Julie is doing the bulk of the work since she’s the SAHM and it would feel disingenuous. Like saying “we’re” pregnant. The hearts in the right place, but it definitely doesn’t speak to the person doing the bulk of the work.

That said, last night I went into the bathroom and there was Stella’s potty setup. Next to it was a small roll of toilet paper and a reward grid. Julie has a complex rewards system for Stella. It’s super cute. Julie’s such a good mom.

Now hopefully Stella will get the concepts. She’s very cooperative, but from what I can tell I think we’re at 0-5 with the panties loosing

This Craiglist ad brings up many questions:

The color is aquamarine. These are considered “his and her” recliner/rockers, so one is slightly smaller than the other.

There are some pulls and scratches on the front panel, but otherwise in good shape. Non smoking household, but we used to have a cat (months ago), hence the scratches.

While I have some questions about what happens if you and your rocker mate are the same size, I’m really only interested in the cat. What happened to the cat. Why did you have it a few months ago, and where did it go?

Pope named editor of Austin Business Journal

Not as interesting as you had hoped was it?

So the Californian Supreme Court overturned the state’s marriage ban. A ban that was voted for by 60% of voters in that state. It’s sure to be a popular decision. Especially with the talk radio set.

So why do I think this is a bad thing? Because it’s still legislating marriage. Marriage is inherently a religious institution. If you look at the number of different ways marriage is instituted around the world it quickly becomes obvious that the United States doesn’t just have a legal framework for marriage. It has a legal framework for a generalized Christian marriage. Then it heaps a ton of laws on top of this religious event.

I feel a lot of sympathy for the religious right on this one, because they are having their religion dictated to them. Their vision of marriage has been turned into a legal right that can be modified and changed with prevailing societal norms. We’re so used to marriage being part of the state that it doesn’t seem odd anymore. But what if communion was state sponsored? Or confession? This is the key reason that the framers of the constitution wanted a separation of church and state.

A democratic religious state would still be much freer than a complete theocracy. Look at Iran. There’s still an large amount of dissent in a country that we think of as pretty theocratic. But that’s at least partially because once a government becomes theocratic it begins watering down the religious aspects for practical concerns. After all, it’s goal is to build roads and provide electricity, and if it needs to interpret a few religious laws in new ways to do so, it’s probably going to.

Look at the LDS Church. They had polygamy as necessary to get into heaven. But even though they were a predominantly Mormon territory they denounced that part of their religion to become a member of the United States. This is what happens when politics mixes with religion. The religion always loses.

Let’s throw marriage out of the government. Civil unions for everyone. Even civil unions for polygamists. It would simplify our legal system immensly. And then you could get married in a church in whatever way you want. And no one could say a thing about it. And if your church wanted to ban gay marriages because your god hates gays, that’s your complete right. And that right wouldn’t interefe with life insurance benefits or alimony payments.

What do you think? Do you think the state should be in the marriage business?

So we headed up to Brushy Creek on Wednesday despite the threatening skies. Really not a bad drive. It took us 45 minutes with very little traffic. I’m trying to run the entire Sunstroke Stampede series this year so there are a few more trips up North in our future. We’ll see if Julie stays on board.

I started a little too far in the back of the pack, and I probably lost a few seconds trying to navigate around people. I find it hard to find a good spot though. That said it was a pretty decent first race. I finished in 27:05. Which is a pace of 8:41/m. Not even close to my best time from last year - 25:19, but I’ve been slacking.

Next Wednesday - 5/21 - is at Town Lake. Just park on the North Side of the lake right under I-35. The run kicks off at 7pm and is $10. Just bring the cash to the park and you can run. No pre-planning necessary. I’d love to see some of my blog readers out there. It’s a great run.

So, I had a post about my weekend weeding the yard. It was fascinating, and unfortunately for you was destroyed when my system crashed. I know you’re disappointed. But I can’t muster the energy to rewrite it. So lets talk about this Salon article.

Since I know most people don’t read articles here’s the short summary. Basically the author is talking about those Favorites sections of Facebook and MySpace:

But why do we spend so much time crafting such elaborate summaries of our buying habits? It gets us dates, for one. If a girl posts a halfway-decent photo and expresses a taste for George Saunders, “Lolita” and the Clash, she is guaranteed an e-mail asking her to elaborate over drinks next week. (I speak from experience.) But the prospect of trolling for dates doesn’t explain the zeal with which people throw themselves into perfecting these lists, as anyone who’s received an e-mail notification informing them that a faraway friend has just removed “The Flight of the Conchords” from her list of favorite TV shows can attest. We don’t shill for profit; we post these lists to give people a sense of who we are. We plot points on a graph and hope it — we — will be interpreted correctly.

So true. But what the author doesn’t mention is the shame we feel when we are misinterpreted. I’ve trained Amazon and Netflix religiously. I’ve rated 2550 items on Amazon. 1203 movie ratings on Netflix. And yet I go to the recommendations page on Amazon and they’re recommending “Panic at the Disco”? I’m not a “Panic at the Disco” listener. I don’t listen to that pop-punk crap (except that one song). What are you saying about me? Why does Netflix keep recommending “Fried Green Tomatoes”? That totally doesn’t fit in with my B-Movie, Documentary, and Art Film persona.

Of course, chances are I would actually like these things. But they’d never show up on my Facebook list. People might get the wrong idea about me. I need to go buy the new Douglas Coupland novel to compensate.

UPDATE: I forgot about last.fm. Which is the ultimate damnation. We craft these ideas about what uber cool music we listen too. But last.fm records everything we listen too and tells us what we really listen to.

I thought Julie was the Cure fan…

So, I was thinking about how I personally could help to promote light rail. Far too often I hear people just regurgiating stuff like “CapMetro is ineffecient” and “all the buses run empty”. Obviously these are people who don’t know the facts or just choose to ignore them. But there’s a part of our brains that like to cling to these almost religious beliefs and defend them to the death.

So as I was running around my neighborhood this morning (not on trails, but some are due this Fall). I realized that we should try to get people excited about this route. Point out where it does go. Point out the other bus (and train) routes it intersects. Point out the new projects that are being built along its route. To that end I want to compile a list of cool places to live and work and go that are within a mile of this proposed route. I’m going to try to keep updating it. If you have cool places leave them in the comments.

Here’s the route again for reference:

View Larger Map

Here’s a density map from the chamber of commerce. A bit hard to read, but it proves that this route already goes through some of the most dense parts of Austin:

Arts (Wow, The Theater Community in Austin needs to get behind this. We’re only missing approx. 4 theaters)

Austin Museum of Art

Arthouse

Arts on Real

City Theater

Salvage Vanguard

The Vortex

The Long Center

The Dougherty Arts Center

Bass Concert Hall

McCollough Theater

Payne Theater

Brocket Theater

UT Lab Theater

Restaurants

Hoovers

East Side Cafe

Sandy’s

Parks

Ladybird Lake Hike and Bike Trail

Waterloo Park

Little Stacy Park

Lakeshore Park

Auditorium Shores

Living (Trying just to list only new stuff here, and doing a poor jobs of getting actual names)

360

CWS Towers

Four Seasons Residences

Star Riverside Condos

Mueller

AMLI Residential Riverside Project

Sutton Co. Condos

Cypress Real Estate Advisors Mixed-Use Project on Lakeshore

W Hotel and Residences

Brazos Lofts

The Paramount’s Loft Project

Shopping

HEB on Riverside

Misc

AirportKOOP Radio

Peter Pan Golf

Riverside Golf Course

The Convention Center

Education

ACC Riverside

University of Texas

Health

Brackenridge Hospital

Dell Children’s Hospital

Employment Centers

Met Center

University of Texas

Capitol

City Hall

Mueller Employers

Sports

Erwin Center

Royal Stadium

Disch-Falk Field

Connections

All local bus routes (1-37)

All flyer bus routes (I think)

Commuter Rail

Hotels

4 Seasons

Ok, back to work. You guys help me fill in the rest. I think this is making a pretty good case for light rail.

It looks like the second largest cause of death for children in Austin might be because of the uptick in co-sleeping:

Travis County officials warn parents — don’t use alcohol, drugs or sedating medicines if you chose to sleep with your infant. The safest place for you baby to sleep is a crib or bassinet. Always place an infant on their back to sleep.

This is especially scary since:

In 2007, seven children died of suffocation or asphyxiation. And so far in 2008, Travis County has already reached that same number.

I definitely sleep to heavily to sleep with a child in bed.

So I started writing a comment on M1EK’s analysis of the light rail plan, but it got to long, so I’m posting it here.

Riverside makes a lot of sense for the first rail route because it’s low hanging fruit.

1. There’s plenty of space in the median to run rail lines. Probably the least disruption on this route of any major road in Austin. There just isn’t another road with as much traffic, and as much space to put rails.