Bohring

performance of a lifetime

I will admit that my first reaction to Maggie's mentioning that Emily would be performing a 'solo' in the Music Camp week-end performance last night was dread. Emily learned at an early age in the back of the car to imitate a certain local voice who tends to waver in their notes and pulls it off beautifully. But the 18 month old Em tended to take these unintended lessons right to the Saturday-afternoon-Star-Search heart. There have not been a few times I have erupted in request to quit her singing... I've even been a bit convicted about it once or twice (she is a kid, after all, even if she sounds like an "Idol" reject).

But last night, she did beautifully. Nothing to make me want to sign her to an agent, but a nice sweet gentle voice singing of God's goodness. I was proud, and my ears were unharmed.

As an aside, Maggie has started teaching Emily on the piano this past week. "Dad, you should come hear me... I know a ton!" Just think what she would have known if she started last week. I cannot believe we missed such an opportunity.
-aeb

another birthday not noticed

We must admit on the parent end here that we allowed Garrett to not really notice his birthday. It will be another year or two before he realizes the world revolves around June 5th, and with Louise's birthday, traveling to Florida twice in the previous three weeks, generally being tired in the parenting role, and (as previously mentioned) Garrett not having a clue, we settled in for a minor, throw a few presents his way and give him an extra hug, birthday celebration.

I dare say he has celebrated three unheralded birthdays.
I wouldn't be surprised if we go all out next year
and take him to Dave & Busters or Atlantic City.

He's a sweet kid. Doesn't cause much trouble, excepting in the "I like to obey as slowly as absolutely possible" issue that is common in his species (homo tantrumus). I'm thinking we've been home about 3 months, and all things considered, it probably couldn't have gone much better. It would have been helpful is mommy #2 (yours truly) showed a bit more grace and patience. In the 'now', I get frustrated at the things he gets frustrated at in a "c'mon, quit whining over something so trivial". But on the other hand, two months ago I was frustrated with a lot more than that... so I would like to hope that this family is learning to live together.

Little color commentary for those not in the house as I write this: in the 6-7 minutes it actually took to type this up, you need to add Eliza coming and complaining that Garrett took her "house", which actually meant "horse", which is actually Louise's horse in her room, which they two-terrible-two's aren't supposed to be in alone. One round of trouble. Then we stopped to clean up what only parents of young children can understand as a mess for about an hour, then Eliza dumped out the just-filled-up trash can full of little pieces of propagating junk, denied it completely, and then ran off to take Garrett's something-or-other. He's yelling at her at the moment.

Well, Happy Birthday Garrett. Enjoy the 31 cars you got;)

campin'

Starting tomorrow I am going to music camp every morning this week. From 8:30-12n. I don't know what we're going to do other than music stuff, but there is a performance Friday night to show what we've learned.

From June 16-20, I will be going to ACT Drama camp in the town where my Grandma lives in Florida, which means Louise and I get to go to Grandma's house BY OURSELVES without Mom and Dad. Pretty exciting stuff. She has a pool, a playmate next door, a long, flat driveway for bike riding, a beach, a big TV, Mary Poppins on DVD, and a huge bucket of ice cream in the outside freezer. I am sure Louise and I will be living it up.

155 day Election prophecy

This isn't at all political... just some rudimentary analysis of trends:
In the last four elections (1992-2004):

• 36 of 51 states (incl. D.C.) voted completely consistent from '92 - '04 election to election... either voting four times for Democrats or for Republicans;
• these 36 states account for 244 electoral votes for Democrats (18 states + D.C.) and 148 electoral votes for Republicans (17 states), providing a pretty solid starting base for each party going into a national election;
• by law, a candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win the election;
• therefore, if we make the initial assumption that these 36 states will continue their voting trends over the last 20 years, the democratic candidate for President will need 26 electoral votes or the republican candidate for President will need 122 electoral votes to win the election.
• these votes are coming from 15 states, with 146 electoral votes (state, # of electoral votes, and the last four election results):
• Arizona (10) (3R, 1D)
• Arkansas (10) (2 R, 2D)
• Colorado (9) (3R, 1D)
• Florida (27) (3R, 1D)
• Iowa (7) (1R, 3D)
• * Kentucky (8) (2R, 2D)
• * Louisiana (11) (2R, 2D)
• * Missouri (11) (2R, 2D)
• Montana (3) (3R, 1D)
• * Nevada (5) (2R, 2D)
• New Hampshire (4) (1R, 3D)
• New Mexico (5) (1D, 3R)
• * Ohio (20) (2R, 2D)
• * Tennessee (11) (2R, 2D)
• * West Virginia (5) (2R, 2D)

* These six states have correctly voted for the election winner in each of the four elections. They are batting 1.000.

• there are a couple of points in the above that are make their outcome in this '08 election pretty easy to predict:
• Arkansas and Tennessee were carried by the home-state Clinton/Gore tickets of '92 & '96, but were handily won by Republicans in '00 & '04. It is likely they will go Republican;
• Montana's single Democrat vote was in '92, but has continuously trended more Republican in each subsequent election;
• New Hampshire went all 1792 on us in the '00, but won't be found making that diversion of character again - pretty easy to bet Democrat here;
• a revised likely projection of the electoral votes without either candidate spending a dime on spin after accounting for the first 40 states (the 36 original and the 4 above) has the Democratic candidate for President needing 22 electoral votes or the Republican candidate for President needing 99 electoral votes to win the election.

For the final 11 states, I must say that things are looking pretty good for Obama... if he picks up Florida and sleeps through the rest of the campaign, it would look like a pretty reasonable win. Before we write McCain off however, I need to mention that the Republican candidate won 9 of these 11 states the last two elections (including "my precious", Florida). Six of these states (AZ, FL, KY, LA, MO, WV) have grown consistently more Republican in their voting over the past four elections (including Florida), giving the Republican candidate a strong shot at their 67 electoral votes. 
Result: there is a large lead for any Democratic candidate in 'guaranteed' electoral votes, but the 11 swing states have favored the Red Elephant in recent years. With Florida and Ohio carrying 47 total electoral votes and the remaining nine states carrying 77 (of which 40 are trending Republican), these two states will be the battleground of the election. If a single candidate wins both of these states, they will certainly win the election. If they lose them, there is almost no chance of them winning the election. If they split (which hasn't happened since '92), the college will implode and we'll play King of the Hill to see who will lead us.

Conclusion:

• McCain will cover the spread on his initial 17 states and 123 electoral votes,
• He will take care of the three anomaly states and their 24 electoral votes,
• He will carry the six Republican trending swing states (including Florida) and their 67 electoral votes,
• He'll pick up his three western neighbor swing states (CO, NM, NV) and their 19 electoral votes,
• He will lose the tenth swing state (IA) because eventually luck runs out,
• and His realistic understanding of the globalization of the world manufacturing economy will be exploited by the Obama campaign to the effect of Ohio and its 20 electoral votes being won by the Democrat;
• McCain: 29 states, 263 electoral votes;
• Obama: 21 states (and D.C.), 275 electoral votes.