Joe Ganley

This picture, taken by my daughter,

followed by a conversation with my neighbor, inspired a quick round of other simulated Ashley destinations:

Labels: ashley, funny, images, kids

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People may have noticed that the photos of my children are no longer public on Flickr. After the third time someone with no photos of their own on Flickr favorited a picture of my 12-year-old, I decided it was time to draw the curtains. If you're a friend of ours, email me and I'll give you access.

Labels: kids, personal, photography

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Yesterday my youngest daughter asked me, "Where did the first people come from?" I tried to explain evolution to her, in terms that a 6-year-old can understand. This is difficult to do, but then I got an unexpected assist: She said, "Oh, like in Spore!" Spore FTW!

Labels: education, evolution, kids, software, spore

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(I found this draft sitting in my account from last August.)

My daughters and I got attacked by yellow jackets on Sunday. We were traipsing around in the woods in a local park, and suddenly my youngest, about 15 feet from me, starts screaming like I've never heard her scream before. I look over, and she's standing still, with a bunch of yellow jackets on her and many more swarming around her; presumably she had stepped on a nest (they nest underground). I always worry, and I know I'm not alone here, how I might react in such a situation, but gratifyingly, before my conscious brain even figured out what was going on, I bounded over, grabbed her, and ran. I got us 50 feet away or so, and then swatted the bugs off of her; meanwhile, a bunch of them are stinging me. Once she was clear, I got rid of the ones on me. All in all, we got off pretty easy; she got 6 or 7 stings, and I got about a dozen. My middle child, who was outside of the main fray, got a couple too. Fortunately, none of us is allergic. The worst part, perhaps, is that youngest was already sort of freaky about bees, and now will surely be moreso. The pain went away pretty quickly, but two days later, they still itch.

Labels: bees, kids

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The other day my 7-year-old saw me working on my blog, and informed me, "Daddy, 'blog' is not a word. 'Weblog' is a word, but 'blog' isn't." She has some authority on the subject. A while back my beloved keyboard died, and I clipped off the cord and gave it to her to play with. Now, whenever we have guests over, she brings down that keyboard and "makes them a web site," interviewing them and banging away on the keyboard.

Labels: blog, kids

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When I was a kid - and yes, I feel like a total geezer when I start sentences that way - there were a lot of shows on prime-time TV that were ostensibly adult shows, but that were wholesome enough for even fairly young children to watch. I'm thinking of The A-Team, The Dukes of Hazzard, Scarecrow and Mrs. King, Salvage One, Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers in the 25^th Century, and so forth. Not exactly the highest-quality television, but shows that the entire family could watch together. Today, we like to let our 12-year-old watch TV with us after the two younger girls to go bed, but there is almost nothing on network TV at even 8:00pm that we will let her watch. We watch a lot of Discovery (particularly Mythbusters) and TLC. Those are great, and surely more educational than those shows I watched when I was a kid, but it would be nice if there was some fiction on TV that was suitable for young people as well as adults. I'm surprised this void exists, and I wonder how other parents fill it. Do they watch the same educational programming we do? Do they not let their kids watch network TV at all? Or are they letting their kids watch the shows that I find unsuitable, and if so, are they being too permissive or am I being too restrictive?

Labels: kids, tv

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Our friend Robin gave us these wonderful paintings of our two younger daughters for Christmas. Thank you, Robin!

Labels: art, kids, personal, robin

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