How Is This Still a Thing?

So... there's an apparently famous rapper named B.o.B. who made waves last week by declaring his belief that the Earth is, contrary to all scientific knowledge accumulated over the past several hundred years, flat.

And... apparently there's a whole group of other associated morons who believe the same thing.

But... really? Is that really possible? I know that the world is just filled with idiots, but this seems a step too far.

I Love This Stuff

Warning! Anti-cynic alert! 

An Irish Bus Driver's Act of Kindness Will Cheer Up Anyone's Cynical Mood: Too Funny To Unfriend

The Making of a Plan

Okay. The plan is for me and my two girls - ages four and three - to pack our stuff, hop on an airplane, and move to India for four or five months.

That sounds insane to me right now. It also sounds like a remarkable adventure. An insanely remarkable adventure.

I can live with that.

We'll be living with my parents-in-law, and they claim to be excited at the prospect of our impending arrival. The girls will be attending a preschool while we're there, and are also excited at the prospects of taking dance lessons and perhaps kiddie yoga. I plan on writing a lot and traveling a bit, and I will intensify my Hindi studies while there. Hopefully the girls will pick up a fair amount of Gujarati while there, and then when we return they'll both be attending Spanish-language school.

Exciting. I'll keep nobody up-to-date with new posts as our plans solidify.

Even the Kids

My daughters have begun singing Christmas carols in the vain hope that setting the mood of the winter holidays will cause them to appear faster. In that vein, my older daughter has taken to singing We Wish You a Merry Christmas, though she has confused some of the words.

Good tidings we bring, to you and your kids,
Good tidings for everyone including your kids.

Fare Thee Well, Severus

Though he's best known for portraying the nefarious wizard Severus Snape in the Harry Potter movies, Alan Rickman was, in fact, a stage actor at heart. He died today, from complications related to cancer, at the young age of 69.

I hope he enjoys exploring the great beyond...

Darwin Award

We have a set of wax fruit that my daughters picked out from the Dollar Store. They know that it's a set of wax fruit because, as I said, they are the ones who wanted it. The other day my three-year-old took a bite from the wax apple and then got angry at me when she realized it tasted awful. She threw the broken fake fruit down on the ground and stomped off to the other room.

Are you kidding me?

Did Not See That Coming

Before leaving India, I said good-bye to my lovely three-year-old niece, Hana.

"Bye, darling," I said as I wrapped her in a bear hug. "I love you and I'll miss you."

She looked at me, snarled, and replied, "I'm going to eat the hair off of your face."

Now I know what Clarice Starling must have felt like.

Greetings from Abroad

Hello to all of you... which, coincidentally, happens to be none of you.

But that is okay. I don't mind shouting into the wind. This is like writing in an echo chamber. All of my words, all of my ideas bounce around inside my head, onto the computer screen, and then back into my head. It's a closed ecosystem.

My family and I have been in India for the past two weeks, living with my parents-in-law. To be more specific, we are in the state of Gujarat, in the town of Vallabh Vidyanagar. My wife's great-grandfater, Bhaikaka, founded the town many years back with the idea that it would be a center of learning in the rural heartland of the state.

And you know that Bhaikaka is either historically-significant or a Brazilian soccer player because nobody else can get away with using only one name.

Over the last half-century, Vidyanagar has indeed blossomed into a sprawling town replete with schools, universities, and post-graduate facilities. It's located right next to Anand, a booming city of some 600,000 people, and is sandwiched between Vadodara and Ahmedebad, the two largest cities in the state of Gujarat.

We'll be here for another four or five days, and then it's back to Chicago.

Signing off from sunny India.