The Rotton Family

Thomas chuffed along.  Suddenly he noticed he was on the wrong track to fill up the oil car.  So Thomas backed up and chuffed onto the right track.  And then, he arrived at the oil thing.  He lined up the car.  The machine put the oil in.

Suddenly, Thomas noticed that the crank was stuck on the oil pump.  So Thomas wheeshed away to tell all the engines.

Thomas saw Duncan.  “Hello,” Thomas said.  “Did you know that the oil machine was broken?”

“Yes,” said Duncan, and he chuffed away.

Then, Thomas reached over to get his next load.  He coupled onto a very special coach.  Along the way, he met Sir Thomas Hatt.

“Hi Thomas.  I see you’re pushing the special coach today.”

And then, Thomas kept chuffing on.  He chugged away.

He passed Duncan again, who was still at the signal.

Then Thomas kept chuffing along.  Duncan backed up, and Thomas backed up.  He switched tracks and hooked up to his old cars.  And then he chuffed away.

Thomas chuffed right past the signal.  By the time Thomas chuffed past, Duncan had to stop again because the signal had gone back down.

Thomas was tired.  He was pushing a lot of loads today.  He really wanted another train to help him.  And suddenly he saw who wanted to help him:  It was Duncan.  So when the signal went up, Duncan chuffed away to help Thomas.

Then, after Thomas coupled onto the big load, he pulled and pulled into the siding and Duncan got out of Thomas’ way.  Thomas chuffed into the siding.  Duncan chuffed into the front, coupled onto the front car, and the two engines chuffed away.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/RECALL-PAMPERS-DRY-MAX-DIAPERS/124714717540863?v=wall

I normally don’t pay much heed to Facebook campaigns like this, but when I heard about this one on the Wall Street Journal This Morning podcast today, I took notice.

I’ve always used Pampers Cruisers (and Swaddlers) on my kids, the younger of whom is 22 months old. When Pampers switched to the new Dry Max style, we saw some negative reviews for it on Amazon (we use Subscribe & Save to buy them), but they mostly complained about their performance, capacity, etc. (I’m trying to keep this as delicate as possible.)

But soon after starting Sasha on the new diapers, she developed a nasty rash all down her, um, crack that for a little while had a few open sores. For over a week she was in so much pain that she screamed during her bath. I didn’t put two and two together until I heard this report and saw the Facebook page. After all, she had diaper rashes with the old style, so I never assumed it was the diaper causing it.  But the timing, and the fact that she hasn’t had a diaper rash in a long time, made me consider that there really was a connection.

Her rash has gotten a bit better, even though we’re still using the Dry Max. We are going to encourage her to use the potty more (something we’ve gotten away from in all the craziness of moving to a new house), and we’re going to try Huggies for awhile and see if that helps with the rash.

I don’t want to jump on the “Recall Pampers Now!” bandwagon, but I do want to take reasonable precautions to make sure my daughter is happy, healthy, and not in constant pain from diaper rash.

Tony Kornheiser, Kevin Sheehan, Jeanne McManus and Gary Braun discuss the impending blizzard about to strike Mays Landing, NJ.

Weather Report

UPDATE 4/15/10: This has now been renamed “Hoya Street.” Clever.

Or maybe “Redacted Old Georgetown Rd”

If you ever want to have a conversation with my daughter, it would be helpful to know the following words:

app·a·cha

noun
applesauce.
ORIGIN sounds like applesauce

choo choo

noun
train.
ORIGIN from the sound that trains make

hot dog

noun
Mickey Mouse.
ORIGIN from the “Hot Dog Dance” at the end of every “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse” episode.

nom·nom

noun
food she likes.
ORIGIN I think she got this one from the Internet

for·cha

noun
sweater or sweatshirt.
ORIGIN I have no idea

Update: oh, I was pretty close on the “official Apple case that could be used as a stand” thing too, wasn’t I?

Well, let’s see how I did with my predictions:

• Well, I couldn’t have been further off on the name. Apple seems stuck on the “i” prefix, though they avoided iSlate in favor of “iPad”. Honestly, iSlate would’ve been better.
• Hardware keyboard = yes, Bluetooth keyboard = no. There’s an available hardware keyboard dock which I’m not thrilled about. But there IS (thanks to @macosken for pointing this out to me) Bluetooth on the device, so 3rd part Bluetooth keyboards are not outside the realm of possibility. Of course, no Bluetooth keyboard yet exists for the iPhone or iPod Touch, due to Apple’s limitations.
• No OLED option, I think because the size of the device vs. the cost of OLED screens. But there are several options as far as memory size, plus 3G access is a separate charge, meaning you don’t HAVE to get 3G capability if you don’t want it.
• No camera. WTF?
• But YES on the microphone. DING DING DING! I got that one right. Of course, I had assumed video recording capability which would require a microphone. So the fact that there is a microphone without a camera leaves me slightly baffled.
• It’s 0.02 inches THICKER than an iPhone 3G(s), so I was wrong there. But they’re comparable.
• Even though it’s not OLED, it’s still (technically) HD, boasting up to 720p.

So overall, I don’t think I was any better or worse than anyone else as far as predictions go. The price point I was sorta right on, saying that the low model would go for $499, but I figured that would be for a 32GB model. Instead, that’s what Apple’s charging for their 16GB model. I think most people were calling it a lot higher than that. But yes, I did say the 64GB model would go for $699 which is what it is (minus 3G), but to be fair I had thought that the 64GB model would be OLED (which it’s not).

Overall, I’m giving myself a C. Your thoughts?