Cruel and Unusual Geography

Half our household is on a hardly-ever-have-gluten diet. It probably should be a gluten-free diet, but once in a while it’s a treat to have “normal” fish and chips, or have a bowl of breakfast cereal that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.

While it’s possible to buy all sorts of gluten-free breads these days, it is expensive, and other (more severe) allergies make many breads unsuitable. We often bake our own, and have tried a number of different recipes and pre-mixes. Recently I’ve been experimenting, and have come up with a recipe that my son describes as “weird, but really nice”. It is a moist loaf with pretty good (for gluten-free bread) keeping qualities and a mildly nutty taste. (My son is anaphylactic to several types of nut, so never gets to taste them. That’s probably why this bread tastes odd to him.)

Here’s how I make it: Continue reading

Yes, I know it’s not a competition, but it’s still nice to hear when one’s kids do well. My kids raised over $300 dollars for World Vision each in the recent 40 Hour Famine.

I’m especially proud of my 7-year-old daughter, who raised more than any other child at our church, and was 4th overall. And at something over $8600 we apparently raised more than any other church in New Zealand.

But I’m not competitive.

I like maps. Especially old maps. Especially old maps of places I know.

Just the other day I came across an old book of maps on TradeMe. It was issued by the A.A. quite a while ago — long enough ago that it predates publishers annotating maps with the date they were drawn. The maps inside are in good condition, although the cover shows evidence of a life in a grubby glove box.

Although there’s no direct evidence of the date of publication, there are enough clues in the maps themselves that I could probably pin it down reasonably well. These are artifacts that someone from New Zealand, especially the areas I’m familiar with, will be aware of. Here are some of the things I’ve noticed:

Continue reading

Yesterday I asked the question

If you, for some strange reason, wanted your child to be kidnapped and held overnight by a stranger, how long would you have to leave him or her outside, alone and unsupervised in America, for this to be statistically likely to happen?

There were a number of answer offered, ranging from a rather pessimistic 17 minutes to “their entire lifetime”. The answer, calculated by Warwick Cairns, author of How to Live Dangerously, and published by Lenore Skenazy on her excellent Free-range Kids site is an astonishing 750,000 years! I can only guess at the methodology used to reach that number, but suspect that Lance Wiggs has it right in his comment. I didn’t even pay much attention in stats class back at school, so can’t comment on what “statistically likely” means.

It’s worth remembering, too, that almost all abductions are by family members or others known to the child — abductions by a stranger are (clearly!) very rare.

I’d like to close with Lance’s comment. He’s right, and I’ll write more about this later.

Almost all people are good.

There are more charities competing for my money than I can possibly afford to support. If I were to be honest I’d admit that I could support more, but am too selfish. Nevertheless, below is a brief list of charities that I personally think are worthy of your support: Continue reading

Folks worry, a lot, about supervising their kids. Here’s a quick question for you:

If you, for some strange reason, wanted your child to be kidnapped and held overnight by a stranger, how long would you have to leave him or her outside, alone and unsupervised in America, for this to be statistically likely to happen?

Now, the fact that I’m asking this should suggest to you that the answer isn’t what you’d expect.

Go on, hazard a guess. Post your best guess in the comments, or send to me written in blunt crayon on the back of a postage stamp.

I’ll post the answer tomorrow.