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Everybody dance!
I found this wild video out of South Korea. It must be the best choreography I've ever seen:
Nevermind. The embed video doesn't work. Here's the link:
A Baby Shower
My sister is now 35 weeks pregnant and although I haven't seen her recently, my Mum tells me that she looks her 35 weeks and some. Apparently, she's big and uncomfortable. The summer heat hasn't been good to her and I believe that she's ready when baby is.
Baby has been confirmed to be a girl, which excites me because I have a huge amount of a hand-me-down stuff from Abby. As Abby outgrows her clothing, I've been boxing it up and sending it to my sister. They have recently moved into a new, bigger place and I think that they're happy for the help.
Her baby shower is on Saturday and I've been gathering gifts for her since I found out she was pregnant. I wanted to give her lots of small items. Things that other people won't think to give her but that I've found very helpful with my two.
For example, I've started with a large plastic container. It's the same one that I have used for both Jake and Abby as Keepsake Boxes. I've kept baby shoes, tiny socks, certificates, cards, hospital notes and anything else that pertains to their first year in there. And then I've filled the box with other gifts, everything from baby medicine droppers and nappy bags to clothing and washcloths. The box is full and I hope she loves it.
So on Saturday, I'll be off to Montreal again to rub my little sister's belly.
It's all in the name
Teddy sat alone, staring blankly past his computer screen and through the open window of his quaint but cluttered home office. Surrounded by stacks of well-thumbed magazines and a dozen or so takeaway cups with dried coffee or pop in the bottom of them, he felt confused and thoroughly mentally blocked. He was sure that he’d been sitting there, still, for hours, when in reality he’d only been there about twenty minutes. If Teddy had taken the time to think about it, he’d have known that because he could hear the lady next door calling her kids in for lunch.
What can I call it, Teddy thought to himself as he watched that little brat from next door continue to throw his baseball back and forth to his buddy despite the call from his mother. What do you call a great idea that you’ve had and that you feel so proud of? And the bigger question was: what name could possibly do it justice?
Teddy started to think about it deeply. He raised his thumb to his lips and flicked his nail back and forth over his tooth, like he always did when he was nervous or concentrating really hard. The name had to be memorable above all else. It needed to be short and it definitely needed to intrigue people into looking into it further. It didn’t really matter if the name didn’t describe exactly what it was, which in actual fact was a website that allowed users to get personalized news simply by logging in and choosing their preferences. Users could also submit their own stories and highlight exceptional blog entries for others to check out. And best of all, there was a ranking badge that users could put on their websites to fairly measure how interesting their story was to readers with common interests. But Teddy knew that no name could describe all that and still be truly fun.
Teddy sat with slumped shoulders, feeling like this seemingly simple task had beaten him. Nothing was coming to mind!
THOOF!
It hit him. No, not the revolutionary, mind-blowing name, but the baseball. Right between the eyes. Teddy blinked madly, trying to refocus his gaze. As he shook his head to try to alleviate the headache that was quickly forming, he spoke out loud, “catchy name though.”
“And,” Teddy added, “it works out really well because they’re my initials too! Theodore Hemmingway Orlando Oswald Fullerton."
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Got it!
As is typical for me in recent times, I finally rangled Saturday off work. I say 'finally' because I did that today, two days before my sister's baby shower. How do I always manage to leave things so late? Well, I blamed it partly on my employer, who demands about a month's notice for days off. They do this because they like a head start on the schedule and the rest of us just suffer with it.
Life, unfortunately, doesn't always happen with a month's notice so I was unprepared for the baby shower. Amazingly, I ended up scheduled to work 3 to 7 on Saturday and started searching for someone to take my shift. Of course, being a Saturday, no one wanted it.
Then finally, the other day, L said that she'd do it for me. Hallelujah! Today, I finalized it with my supervisor and the day is mine.
I must say that I'm just really pleased not to have to tell my sister that we won't be there. She, by the way, knows about the shower. My Mum has apparently asked her for a list of people she'd like invited. Not very good with secrets, my Mum. 
Madeleine McCann - again
All these new clues about Madeleine McCann's disappearance have me perplexed. Contradicting information is released almost every day and I'm really starting to question where things are going wrong. Are the police forces involved messing things up? Do the McCanns and/or their friends know something that they're not telling? Or is vague and incomplete information being reported for a reason? Even if that reason is simply that the public need not know the exact details and cards are being played close to chests.
In the beginning, I wrote about how I couldn't believe that the McCanns had left their children alone in that apartment - and I still stand by that jugdment - and, today, the Daily Mail writes about how an hour of time seems to be missing from their scenarios. By that, they mean that almost a whole hour is unaccounted for and it seems that neither the parents or the police can confirm when (between which check-ins by the parents) Madeleine went missing.
The quote is "One scenario being considered by police is that the checks may have consisted of parents listening out for crying children from outside a bedroom door rather than a visible check."
May? I wish I knew for sure whether that was being reported accurately or not. Are they seriously saying that the police don't know whether the McCanns made a visual check of the children and simply stood outside listening? I have to assume that this is coming from a reasonable source because it says that this is being considered by the police.
How on earth could the police not know this vital answer? I mean, just yesterday, it was reported that the police had definitely abandoned the idea that Madeleine had been abducted and were now shifting their focus to the idea that Madeleine had been killed in the room. Her parents were furious, it was reported.
So what's going on? Perhaps we're getting too much information. Perhaps we are reading too much into all this. My kids change on a daily basis and I've pretty much stopped writing about the new things they can do, because the very next day, they can do something else or I realized that the thing I wrote about the previous day was just a fluke. It is very easy to release information that seems contradictory even with something as simple as a child's development. Maybe Maddie's story shouldn't be reported in such detail.
But hey, what do I know?
Note: I know that commentors on my blog might slag off my source (the Daily Mail) as a less-than-reliable tabloid paper. But this kind of thing has been reported elsewhere as well. I am questioning the investigation as a whole.
Disrupted Horizon
The statistics provided by Disrupted Horizon, the Business 3.0 Consultancy are as follows:
1% of businesses know how to know what they don't know
4% of businesses know what they don't know
95% of businesses don't know what they don't know
The top statistic refers to those rare businesses – only 1%, in fact - who are aware of their shortcomings but know how to find out the things they need to know. These companies are obviously the ones that grow and thrive and, ultimately, succeed.
The second statistic refers to the business that is aware that there are things it doesn’t know but doesn’t know how to take things further.
And, the last statistics refers to companies that think they know all they need to know and that, obviously, is a very dangerous to be. It means that the business lacks something and that no one is doing anything about. These are the companies that need a bit of outside help in order to keep things afloat.
As someone who has recently been looking into starting her own small business, I find these statistics to be very scary. As I looked through the Disrupted Horizon website, I came to realize just how important it is to “know what you don’t know”!
Disrupted Horizon is a consultancy company that offers their Business 3.0 Health Check to highlight the places where businesses can make improvements. From marketing and PR to distribution and advertising, it is amazing how many things can be tweaked to increase exposure and maximize revenue.
I found the Disrupted Horizon website to be interesting because of all the examples they gave. It helped to make their statistics realistic to me and to “put a face” to the numbers. I found their Land Rover Discovery example to be the best one. It tells of how a disgruntled Land Rover owner had written about his vehicle woes on the internet. This then showed up as one of the highest ranked pages on Google when the words “Land Rover Discovery” were entered into the search engine. In other words, anyone who wants information about that product would possibly read the negative review first! Obviously, that is not what Land Rover would want and I wonder how much business it has cost them.
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Raising a Teenager
Sometimes, it's Abby's fault. Very occasionally, it's Jake's fault. Last night, our lack of sleep was Ruth's fault. I won't go into detail because she probably wouldn't be happy for me to do so here, but suffice to say that there was worry, confusion and eventually seething anger. All from me, anyway. I'm not sure how she feels about it all but I am certainly getting a taste of what it's like to raise a teenager who, like every other teenager, believes they know best.
I can look back at my teen years and know that I was a handful, but I always, always concerned myself with my Mum's worry. My absolute biggest regrets were the few times my Dad would tell me that they were disappointed in me. Those words always stung me to the core. I couldn't stand seeing them disappointed in me.
But I would say that my teen years, although I gave my fair share of lip, were pretty smooth sailing.
My twenties (at least the portion where I was still living at home) were slightly more rocky. I had the freedom to come and go pretty much as I pleased. All my Mum asked was that I kept her inform so that she needn't worry. I still caused worry though by coming home late into the night and I couldn't understand why my word of "I'm alright" wasn't good enough. I see now.
I must say, though, that I always made sure that I was home before my Mum had to go to work. How thoughtful of me, huh? I sound so pompous!
Anyway, Stephen and I were back in bed by about 5:30am. Our night included Stephen going out in the car at about 4am, the phone waking Abby (she was awake about an hour) and a telephone debate with a stranger. Finally back in bed, Stephen and I lay there awake, our minds churning over the vast amount of input we'd received over the previous 3 or so hours. By 8:30am, I could ignore Jake no longer. I got up and fed him, and me, and now Abby's up too. It's 9:45am and I'm feeling tired.
It'll be time to rouse Ruth in a few!
Baby Shower
The baby shower was a huge success. My sister was thrilled and got loads and loads of gifts. We played games and ate. A lot. Stephen and I spent most of our time chasing Jake and Abby around though so we were pleased to finally get home around 8pm. Exhausted.
