Why I Love My Husband: A Photo Essay

He has a really big heart.


He's ridiculously smart.


He makes life loads of fun.


He loves little kids and they love him. AND he is better with babies than I am!


He's intense and SUPER patient.


He's artsy and oh-so-talented.


He makes me giggle.


He makes me feel really adored.


He totally loves animals--to the point that it's comical. Have you heard him talk about Alpacas?


He knows exactly what to say and do when I'm feeling down.


He makes me beam.


He is my eternal companion.


HAPPY 24th BIRTHDAY, JAMESON! I LOVE YOU LOTS!

from Hemingway's Big Two-Hearted River

Nick looked at the burned-over stretch of hillside, where he had expected to find that scattered houses of the town and then walked down the railroad track to the bridge over the river. The river was there. It swirled against the log spiles of the bridge. Nick looked down in to the clear, brown water, colored from the pebbly bottom, and watched the trout keeping themselves steady in the current with wavering fins. As he watched them they changed their positions by quick angles, only to hold steady in the fast water again. Nick watched them a long time.

He watched them holding themselves with their noses into the current, many troughti n deep, fast moving water, slightly distorted as he watched far down through the glassy convex surface of the pool, its surface pushing and swelling smooth against the resistance of the log-driven piles of the bridge.

Deep Stuff

4th grade social studies in this state is all about California history. It's actually really cool stuff. I've been doing a much better job teaching the content this year than I was last year. Sigh. Anyway, for the past few weeks we studied the Gold Rush and all of the transformations that came because of the discovery of gold. This week we started a new chapter: "How Did Women Help California to Grow?" (Kind of a strange title, but the content is good). Today we read about a woman who lobbied for the rights of the Chinese and how prior to her advocacy, Chinese Americans were not able to go to school. This connected really well to discussions we've had previously in my class about segregation in the United States--which my students know is illegal under the law. The question came up today from a sweet Juliana who asked with great disbelief, "So Mrs. Haslam, because segregation is over, there are no schools that are segregated?" It was sad for me, because I couldn't answer that in the affirmative, nor could I answer proudly. I attempted to explain de facto segregation (no, not really). Instead I explained that "legally" no school can discriminate based on race but that people tend to go to school where they live and often (and unfortunately) that divides us along racial lines. I don't think I thought about such things when I was in 4th grade. One of my kids then raised his hand and thoughtfully stated, "Ya, I used to go to a white kid school." (By the way, there are 3 white children at my school. The kids told me. Clearly, they're counting).

Monday Fact

For every dollar spent in Washington, lobbyists earn an ROI of $220.

Monday Useless Links

On executive pay, something nobody seems to know how to change. Perhaps it has to do w the fact that executives make the decisions?

Best firefox add-ons.

More on the death of youtube.

Apartment potatoes.

Cut the energy bill.

Progress in Colombia.

Who knew that the Obama administration would pump new life into lobbyists!

funny wife.

We went to Berkeley Bowl this weekend and I found kumquats, which you don't see often enough. Dad and I used to get them each time I'd come home from working out at the batting cages in San Marcos at a little produce stand. Maybe my favorite fruit.

Anyways, we got kumquats and I was raving about them to Jessie, so she tried one. She proceeded to make probably the best sour face I've ever seen. I couldn't stop laughing.

---

I'm getting the fishing gear out, as the season is upon us and Golden Gate Park has a casting pond upon which one can practice. Anyways, I had taken out my fly box to show Jessie (she's never seen flies before)."Is that a bug?" "How much did all those cost?" (I assured her that I'd accumulated them over the last decade, and that my dad had provided them - sometimes willingly, other times ignorantly). I showed her that they're made from thread and feathers, so she touched one. I explained that they get re-used over and over, to which she replied "Eww, so I just touched something that has been in a fish's mouth? Nasty".

Pt. Reyes & Capitola

Each of these cities is a must see for those living in the Bay Area.

After Jameson got back from his Point Reyes backpacking trip, I really wanted to see what he'd hiked, and wow, just driving along the 1 wore me out. My husband's a stud.


This is us in Capitola--a darling little town that was formerly unknown to us till our friends from San Diego took us there. Reminds me of Italy. Such fun!

Thursday's Useless Links.

Expansion of executive power.

The internets are dying. Or just our nation's greatest time waster.

Here's hoping that I'll be able to legally employ my workforce.

Doomsday.

Blame game?

I had this idea at the beginning of this year. Were I a freshman, I'd totally do this. $1.

Wednesday Fun Fact*

Many fly-fishing words and phrases have ancient origins that have little to do with their modern meanings. The word "cast is one example -this once meant a fly-fishing leader with several flies attached at various points along its length. Another example is the "X" designation used now to indicate sizes of monofilament leaders. A century ago, leaders were made of short sections of silkworm gut. Dried gut sections were drawn through diamond dies that shaved and reduced their diameters; 4x-drawn gut, for example, had been through four such drawings that ultimately determined its thickness. The higher the x-number, the finer the leader. The nomenclature remains long after the process is gone.

*i'm stealing this idea from Noah. Thanks Noah.

Wednesday's Useless Link

Funny Obama parody.

more awesomeness

Burrito Blaster on MAKE: television from make magazine on Vimeo.

awesomeness

things will never be the same (that's just the way it is)

We've made a few minor adjustments to the blog.

1. New links added specific to our (immediate) family. You can see our picasa web gallery, which is linked to our iPhoto library, which basically houses all of the photos we have. Also, a new website, jkh, which is private (you can request an invitation if you so desire).

2. Commenting form adjusted. This may be temporary, we'll see how much spam we get. You can now comment without a google or open ID (that means you mom[s]). Just click the little word at the bottom that says "# comments" and leave your thoughts. We like hearing from ppl.

3. An effort to organize the blog postings by category or type (i.e. school updates, trips, political commentary, photos, stupid links, etc). You'll find these categories on the right hand side. Work in progress. (organized by poster too. jkh = hazzy, jlh = principessa)

gm

Rick Wagoner was supposedly a pretty nice guy (who became the fall guy). He'll be okay (23mm severance + pension).

It is, again, disappointing to see that Obama isn't taking the moral high(er) ground and holding the union bosses responsible. So much for changing washington.

spring break report

I'm too lazy/busy at the moment to write up a report of the spring break trip. It will probably happen at some point.

For now, the links below should give you an idea of what happened.

Trip Album

Blog from Chris