Puppet Show

The boys had a brief period of non-destructive play. So I filmed it.

Notice that Cat E. Cat (that's his name) is carefully placed to watch the show.

DNA Test

I sent off for a DNA test from www.familytreedna.com, so that I can track my relatives, or something like that. I had to take DNA by scraping my cheek and popping it in a test tube thing. Just like on CSI. Except it was nothing like CSI.

First of all, I had to scrape for 60 seconds to get enough of a sample. Sarah (or 'the cute one off CSI' as we call her around here') can do it in about 4 seconds. But I suppose if they showed her doing for 60 seconds to each suspect, that would take up most of the program.

Then, I had to not eat for an hour beforehand. They never worry about that. I also had to take 3 samples, at least 4 hours apart, to make sure that it actually worked.

Now maybe I'll be added to some database and thrown into prison, as a result of some Crime Scene Investigator's failure to understand the prosecutor's fallacy.

Birthday

We went to a birthday party at Mountasia Family Fun Center in Santa Clarita.

It had go karts:

Which Alex didn't want to go on, so that's Dan with me.

Miniature golf, and some mad, unsteerable boats. For some reason, the videos I took were a bit random, but here they are anyway. With a somewhat inappropriate soundtrack (but I'm limited in my choice of soundtrack, for reasons that you're probably not interested in, dear reader). Oh, also, it was really windy so all the sound that was recorded originally was wind.

Nice sign on the entrance though, eh?

Cruising

The boys and I went for a bike ride (well, I went for a run next to them) along the beach bike path. (After Susanne had come and released the keys from the trunk of the car for me). They were so proud of how far and how fast they'd ridden that they posed for photos.

Alex

Dan

On knowing everything

When I was about the age of the twins, I thought that teachers were all knowing. (Before I left for school once, my mother told me that she was going to call the school, at 11 o'clock, to speak to my teacher. When I got to school, the teacher said that at 11 o'clock, she was going to get a phone call. I mean, wow!).

The boys seem to have a similar belief.

They asked me about my job, and one way to explain it is to say that, some of the time, I'm a bit like a teacher. They seem satisfied with that description (otherwise it's a bit beyond them - I tried to explain psychometrics once, but didn't get far).

Being children, they ask questions. Daniel asked "Daddy, if aeroplanes fly very high, why don't they crash into the moon or the Sun?" Alex interjected "Daddy isn't that kind of teacher. He doesn't know everything."

Hot on the left

The taps in our bathrooms don't have any sign on to say which is hot and which is cold. I presumed it had fallen off, or something like that.

Then, a couple of days ago, I realized that every tap I've seen here has the hot on the left. I wondered if that was some sort of massive coincidence - it's the sort of thing I can never prove (in a Popperian sort of way). So I typed "hot on the left" into Google. And it's true, in America, they put the hot tap on the left.

How sensible is that? Why doesn't every country do that?

I also learned that the brakes are the other way around on American bikes - the back brake is controlled with your right hand. I never really noticed that was the sensible way around to do it, until I moved here (with my UK bike) and realised that when I want to turn left, which is across the traffic, I need to brake with my right hand. My left hand is busy indicating, so I need to use the front brake. It would be nicer to use the back brake. I'd change them over, if I thought I'd ever get used to it.