t 'n t luoma

Kush and Ethan had a blast together on their last day. Each found interesting things to explore, although the Exploratorium is meant for kids a bit older. Kush was enamored with the floating beach ball. They had a blower setup so that the ball, when carefully placed, would be levitated at a certain height. The height could be changed by blocking the airflow with your hand, which was great fun for children of all ages :-)

Ethan... well, Ethan was pretty much just looking around for things to bang with his hammer (shocking, I know). He was also quite interested in a tiny basketball meant for an exhibit. He skipped the experimentation phase and went right to the “grab the ball and run around” phase. (Why mess with what you know ;-?)

Looking at the pictures below (and seeing them together these past few days), you’d never know that they had only met a week ago. Tonight they were playing ball and Ethan had his “full body smile” as Vivek called it. It has really been good for Ethan to have someone else around his age to play with for an extended time.

Tomorrow we start to head north. We were waiting our replacement Discover card, but we called tonight to find out that they never sent the replacement card. I had a feeling... Anyway, they are supposed to send it on to our friend in Seattle. ARGH! This should have been easy!

I just realized that even with all those trips into San Fran, we never made it to the Apple Store! They even had several demos going on tonight. Bummer! Oh well... I doubt we’ll make it tomorrow either. Today we were actually home fairly early, around 4 p.m. Going in again tomorrow would probably take time better spent heading north.

Oh well... today was a nice day, a little slower paced than our last few have been, which was good. Took about 50 pictures with the new camera today and was impressed with it thus far. The closeup picture (above) is my newest desktop picture, which you can download in 640x480 (34kb), 800x600 (49kb), 1024x768 (73kb), or 2272x1704 (original size 739kb!!).

Almost forgot.... we went out for pizza tonight. At least, I thought that we were going out for pizza. Tracey ended up ordering BBQ chicken instead, but by the time she had told me that I was already looking at the pizza options and was hungry for pizza... so I ordered one for myself. Couldn’t settle on one topping, so I asked for 1/2 Pepperoni and 1/2 Beef (after I considered Italian Sausage). Ethan ate about 43 crutons (the waitress was nice enough to bring him a small bowlful and some crackers after he ate the initial 7 off Tracey’s salad).

Tracey’s meal came, and the waitress said, “They had a little problem with your pizza. They read the slip wrong and made it 1/2 beef & pepperoni, and the other half is pineapple. They said they’d give you the one they made by mistake for free or they can make you a new one.”

Now we will ignore the question of why pineapple is even an option on pizza... I’m sure there are people who like it, although I’ve never met any. It seems rather odd to put fruit on a pizza. I’m not suggesting a constitutional amendment to prohibit it, just seems strange to me. The real question that I was faced with was: do you want to wait longer for the pizza you ordered, or take the free pizza which is 1/2 correct.?

Not feeling all that particularly interested in waiting, I decided to take the mistake pizza (which also prevented it probably going to waste, although perhaps the waitstaff would have eaten it). The “meat half” was very good, and with a little help from Tracey we finished off most of the pineapple side too (after removing said fruit, of course).

Afterwards we went down to the drug store in search of children’s cough medicine since Ethan has had a cough going on for several days which has kept Tracey up at night. Last night he was up from 2:30 - 5:30 in a combination of coughing and not getting a nap during the day, which throws him off quite a bit. I was also on the hunt for some low-carb chocolate (because when you’ve just eaten ¾ of a pizza, it is important to get low-carb chocolate fix... note: this is not an Atkins’ approved schedule).

While there I saw another example of a store stocking plan which seems to be gaining popularity; namely, the combination of several potentially embarassing items into one aisle. Specifically I have noticed many stores which stock condoms, feminine hygiene products, and early pregnancy tests all in the same aisle. It strikes me as a wholistic approach to that whole general area. Diapers are also present on occasion, perhaps as a subconscious reminder to those who are considering condoms but feel too embarassed to buy them, as if to say, “Unless you want to end up buying those you should get these...” Perhaps I’ve given it a bit too much thought, but I’ve seen it in enough places that it has made me wonder if there is some intentionality about the placement of all those items in the same area.

Well tomorrow will probably be a day spent mainly in the car, so I am going to get to bed before it gets too late.