Wow so, apparently if I want something in my life to get better, I just have to write a long, whining entry on this very blog. One week ago today, I laid out the reasons that it has been pretty tough to be in this house, and within a few days, things seem to have made a drastic change.

Here it is, only November 8th, and I swear Henry looks so much thinner than he did in his Halloween pictures. Suddenly he's a very tall, skinny boy. He loves to grab on to the couch and pull himself upright. He's starting to try to climb the stairs. He's undergone an incredible amount of development in a short period of time. And most importantly, he doesn't shriek a constant, mind-bending falsetto squeal these days.

Also, in between then and now, our offer on the home was accepted, and the place "passed" the home inspection. I know it's not a pass/fail inspection, but the house is in pretty good shape and the current owners agreed to fix everything that we listed. There are also some noteworthy things I learned about the house. It uses a well for water; it's an enclosed steel well about 100ft deep in the front yard. This means we can't flush the toilets when the power goes out, because we are not attached to a water supply that has constant pressure. The roof was put on in 1999 or 2000 and they wrapped all the wood trim in aluminum, so there's no exterior painting to do.

Every once in a while, I can't help but feel like we made a huge mistake. I'm sure everything's fine, but it all happened so fast. First it was "Yeah, we may look at houses." Then it was "We're looking at a few homes this weekend and next." Then it was "Okay, we bought a house." I haven't even walked to the back of the back yard yet, and the house is (probably) ours already. There could be an alligator swamp back there!

Halloween was a smash hit in this house. Two Saturdays ago, Jaime and I looked at five houses with our realtor while S&S babysat the boys. We stopped at Cafe Rio for lunch on our way back (ehhh, it wasn't that good) and then hopped over to one of those temporary Halloween costume stores that sprout up everywhere in October. Not surprisingly, the place was pretty ghetto. They had cash registers from 1985 haphazardly thrown on a plywood checkout counter. You could tell all the dudes working there hated their lives. Anyhow, we took the easy way out and spent $55 on two prefab costumes. Elmo for Stephen and a dinosaur for Henry. Stephen immediately fell in love with his Elmo costume and kept wanting to wear it every day for a week.

Last Saturday we looked at five more homes in a different county. This second foray was actually our initial primary location--way out in the country. The first house we went to was only a 35-minute commute from Jaime's work (we drove past her office and timed it). When we left our house, it was cold and rainy, but as we drove there, it turned to sleet, and then snow. By the time we got to the first house, it was obvious that it had been snowing for quite a bit. The plows were out in full force. We looked at what amounted to a bunch of old houses. Some of them were ugly, some were too old, and some were too far out. The second trip was a bust-o. We had only looked at ten houses, but we (mostly Jaime) had already looked at about 200 online and eliminated most of them. So, of the ten houses we had seen, one really stood out. We decided to make an offer on it. The market is really in our favor right now (seller usually pays all of the closing costs these days, and many of the contract/disclosure laws change next year), so we decided to go for it. We were to meet with the realtor on Sunday evening and hash out the details of our offer.

Sunday morning I had a photography job; that went pretty well. As soon as I got home, my throat hurt. I thought maybe it was autumn allergies since the photo shoot was mostly candid shots as the family walked down a wooded path. I started to go downhill fast. Next thing I knew, it felt like the onset of a flu: muscle and joint soreness, stomach ache, fever, sore throat, chills. We met the realtor at S&S's house so they could watch the boys while we worked out our offer. By then I felt like death. I envisioned myself in bed for the next four days; this was not going to be good. I slept horribly that night, but on Monday (Halloween) morning I felt much better. Wshew! No flu.

So, I've finally worked my way back to Halloween. Jaime got off work early and we headed to the mall with our boys in costume. From 5-7pm, the stores at the mall give out candy, so the place is filled with children in costumes, going from store to store. We had a good run and got out of there at 6:05. We rushed home so we could give our candy away to the neighborhood kids. I wanted to be out of candy by 8pm so the boys could go to bed in peace. Every kid who came to our door got three candy bars. I was a candy-gifting machine! It worked out pretty well, too. By 8, foot traffic slowed way down, and we were out of candy.

By Yesterday afternoon, we had settled on the terms of our offer . We got the house! At least, it appears that way. Closing date is December 13.

Despite all of this good news, the past few weeks have been really rough. We have been making excuses for Henry for months now. "He's sick" or "he's teething" or "he's constipated," but no, Henry just hates his life. For a while he was doing this constant, loud grunting sound which was driving me crazy. Now he has progressed into the shriek. Lots of parents warn you about the high-pitched squeal, but Stephen never did that. Right now, Henry does it constantly, and it rattles me to the core. It hurts somewhere between my ears that I can't define or explain. He does it when he's happy. He does it when he's angry. He does it when he's hungry. He does it when he's trying to get the cat's attention. He does it every second of every day. It's hideous. I always thought parents were stupid to "warn" me about a child developing some sort of squeal, but now I get it. I understand. Comprendo. No mas. It's not just that, though; it's a whole host of things. For instance, Henry woke up at least five times last night, and then he got up at 5:10am ready to go. I'm no longer making excuses for him. He's just a butt.

It's not just Henry; it's Stephen too. At two and a half years old, the unending tantrums have finally kicked in. I know it sounds stupid to say this, but the kid has no sense! He just goes nuts! He's also eliminating the nap from his repertoire. That wouldn't be so bad if he was the only kid, because a nap is kind of restrictive and keeps you in the house. I'd rather him keep napping if Henry's going to nap, though. Okay, well I've passed the 900-word mark for this entry. That's far too much yapping, don't you think?

Note: This is part 5 of a 5-part tutorial series for beginners. Articles are as follows:

Part I: Shooting In Manual Mode: Intro
Part II: Shooting In Manual Mode: ISO
Part III: Shooting In Manual Mode: Shutter Speed / Exposure Time
Part IV: Shooting In Manual Mode: Aperture
Part V: Shooting In Manual Mode: Conclusion (Exposure Triangle)

All three of these factors (ISO, Shutter Speed, Aperture) work together to make your final product. Each one plays off the other in some way. This is why it is commonly referred to as the Exposure Triangle. Each is a piece of the triangle--they are separate but they can not stand on their own.

First try taking some photos in Manual Exposure Mode (turn the 'wheel' on your camera to M). You may have to consult your manual to find out how to affect each setting, but you can just try turning all the different wheels on your camera and seeing which setting they affect. On my camera, I can change the shutter speed with a wheel on the top of my camera (close to where my right index finger naturally sits) and I can change the aperture with a wheel on the back of the camera (close to where my right thumb naturally sits). I have to push the ISO button on the top of the camera and spin one of the wheels to change the ISO. (Tip: never use AUTO for ISO setting). So first try setting the shutter speed to 1/100s and the f-number as low as your lens will allow. Take some pictures and see if they are bright enough. If they are not bright enough, you will have to raise the ISO. If they are too bright, then you are in good shape; you can increase the aperture's f-number or decrease the shutter speed. At first it can be deceiving that the shutter speed displays simply as "100" for 1/100s and "200" for 1/200s. Essentially, the higher the number, the shorter the exposure time, because the actual exposure time is the inverse of the number displayed on your camera's display.

My suggestion is to force yourself to use the Manual Exposure Program for a while until you get used to it. It's only three settings, so it becomes second nature pretty quickly. While I can make that suggestion for you, I also have to admit that I did a photography job yesterday, mostly candid photos of a family as they walked down a wooded path, and I did not use Manual Exposure mode one time. I set my ISO to 200 and used the Aperture Priority shooting mode. My reasoning for this was that I was trying to take candid pictures of a family that included both a dog and a two-and-a-half year old child, and I needed to be quick on my feet.

So, I'm not really saying that you have to use Manual Exposure Mode all the time; it does have its disadvantages. I will, however, go so far as to say that if you have a DSLR, you should never use the fully automatic setting. Become familiar with the priority shooting modes (Av, Tv) as well.

Note: This is part 4 of a 5-part tutorial series for beginners. Articles are as follows:

Part I: Shooting In Manual Mode: Intro
Part II: Shooting In Manual Mode: ISO
Part III: Shooting In Manual Mode: Shutter Speed / Exposure Time
Part IV: Shooting In Manual Mode: Aperture
Part V: Shooting In Manual Mode: Conclusion (Exposure Triangle)

Aperture is the hardest concept for new photographers to understand, and for that reason I will skip the technical explanation (I'm not going to pretend I understand every bit of that explanation, heh). Just like every other setting on a camera, changing the aperture affects the brightness of your image (all other settings being equal). Aperture is measured in f-numbers.

Basically, the lower the f-number, the brighter the image. A lower f-number means there is a larger opening to let light in through your lens. Typically speaking, if your lens can go to a lower f-number than someone else's lens, then your lens is more expensive. This is why your lens' lowest f-number is listed right in the name of the lens--it's that important. I have a lens that can go down to f/1.2, and it can practically take pictures in the dark (without a flash). A kit lens can normally go down to f/3.5 (or f/4.5 if it's a zoom lens). The number that most people can rattle off is f/2.8; this is an industry standard of sorts for portrait photography.

As with everything else in photography, Aperture is not only about the lightness/darkness (exposure) of your image. Depth of field can be altered by changing your selected f-number. The best way to explain depth of field is with a photograph. This photo of some kind of vegetable cocktail illustrates the concept very well. The left image has a low f-number and only the front cocktail glass is in focus. The image on the right has a very high f-number and nearly every cocktail glass is perfectly in focus. The image on the left has a narrow depth of field and the image on the right has a wide depth of field. It should also be noted that the f/20 shot requires much more time and preparation to capture. Any photograph that uses a high f-number uses a very long exposure time and consequently requires a tripod.

Changing the aperture inevitably changes the look and emotion of your photograph (that is not necessarily true when changing the exposure time or ISO). When taking a portrait, a lower aperture is normally used so that the background is out of focus. If the background is in focus, it is competing for your attention. That is not desired for portrait photography. If you want to capture a landscape image, on the other hand, one typically wants everything to be in focus if possible; this requires a higher f-number. A higher f-number has a larger depth of field, but it requires a much longer exposure time. It is letting a much smaller amount of light into the camera, so a longer exposure is needed to compensate for this loss of light.

Note: This is part 3 of a 5-part tutorial series for beginners. Articles are as follows:

Part I: Shooting In Manual Mode: Intro
Part II: Shooting In Manual Mode: ISO
Part III: Shooting In Manual Mode: Shutter Speed / Exposure Time
Part IV: Shooting In Manual Mode: Aperture
Part V: Shooting In Manual Mode: Conclusion (Exposure Triangle)

In my opinion, Shutter Speed is the easiest concept to understand in regard to capturing images. Normally, the sensor ("film") is completely covered; it stands by in the dark, waiting to be called upon to capture the light when the shutter is opened.

If your exposure time is one second, it will literally open the shutter for one whole second and let the light in to the sensor during this time. While this long exposure time allows plenty of light to reach your sensor, your image will most likely suffer from a large amount of blur. This is because no human can keep their camera (or subjects, as the case may be) still for a whole second. I have my own personal rule of thumb regarding handheld shots. I can barely hold still for a 1/100s exposure time. I know people can hold their camera relatively still for 1/50th of a second, but I am not one of them. Maybe if I can brace myself on a tree or something, I can attempt a few 1/60s or 1/80s exposures.

Now, let's say you are blessed with ideal shooting conditions. Nice, bright, partly cloudy day with the sun behind a cloud. In these conditions, you can easily push your exposure times to 1/500s or maybe even 1/1000s. These exposure times are used to "stop time"--those photos where you can see every drop of water that someone has splashed into the air. If people could use 1/500s for every picture they took, they probably would. Unfortunately, lighting conditions dictate everything about photography, and lighting conditions typically warrant longer exposure times.

If your camera is on a tripod and your subjects are stationary (landscape photography, inanimate objects like statues), then all bets are off. Any shutter time is acceptable in those conditions. Most professional landscape shots use very long exposure times (>20s) to achieve the desired effect for landscape photography.

Note: This is part 2 of a 5-part tutorial series for beginners. Articles are as follows:

Part I: Shooting In Manual Mode: Intro
Part II: Shooting In Manual Mode: ISO
Part III: Shooting In Manual Mode: Shutter Speed / Exposure Time
Part IV: Shooting In Manual Mode: Aperture
Part V: Shooting In Manual Mode: Conclusion (Exposure Triangle)

One thing that we humans do not fully understand is how severe of an adjustment our eyes and brains make when walking from outside to inside or vice versa. You don't really have to think about it. When you walk outside, you say "Oooh, it's bright out here," and then your eyes adjust within ten seconds and everything's fine. Even in a well-lit home with sunlight streaming through the windows in the middle of the day, the world outside your home is literally hundreds of times brighter than the world inside your home. We do not realize the full extent of this because our eyes and brains adjust to these differences very quickly and accurately. Your camera, on the other hand, requires you to guide it through these changes. Typically, a camera attempts to make up for these differences by using the inbuilt flash when indoors, because nearly every camera is not well-equipped for shooting indoors. If I'm shooting on Manual Mode outdoors and I walk inside without adjusting my camera at all, the resulting indoor images will be severely underexposed (read: every pixel will be black) and completely unusable.

ISO is one of the easiest concepts to understand in photography: the higher the ISO value, the more sensitive your camera is to light. All other things being equal, a higher ISO will produce a brighter image. In order to understand ISO, one must have a basic understanding of film speed. Higher speed film (higher number) is more sensitive to light, so it can be used in situations with lower levels of light, such as indoors with no flash. High speed film (or high ISO values) make it easier to shoot in most kinds of light, but as always, anything that makes it easier to shoot also comes burdened with a sacrifice. This is a steadfast rule in the world of photography; never forget it.

The sacrifice one makes when using higher ISO values is that the photograph/image is much lower quality all-around. One could use ISO 800 for outdoor photography, but that is extremely rare because photographs taken with higher speed film are more "grainy" and are lacking some of the detail. If your lighting situation can afford you using ISO 100, you should try to stick with that. Images captured with a high ISO rating (800 or greater is a good rule of thumb for most cameras) have much higher levels of image noise. Regarding images, noise has the typical definition: anything random and unwanted in your image. It is basically a bunch of dots/specks that interrupt your image and keep it from being as sharp as it could be.

Here are a couple rules of thumb:

1. Use ISO values that are multiples of 100. Try to stay away from ISO 125, 160, 250, and so forth. ISO ratings that are divisible by 100 are a "full stop" apart. All other ISO values are digitally interpolated and are therefore believed to be inferior. This point has been debated quite a bit, and different people come to different conclusions based on the model of camera that is tested.
2. ISO should be the last thing you modify in a low light situation. Again--this is debatable. But here is how I come to this conclusion: no matter what other factors are present (tripod, lighting), a higher ISO value will degrade your image quality. The shutter speed and aperture may change the look and emotion of your photograph, but a higher ISO will always degrade the quality. Always. Some people may argue this point and say that they "like" grain/noise. That is a matter of taste, but a noisy image is undoubtedly a lower quality image. Keep your ISO as low as the lighting situation will allow. I have a very low noise camera model, and I still try to never go above 400 ISO.
3. Test your ISO values while viewing your images at 100%. Look, if you want to be sure that ISO 1000 is "too high" for you to use, capture a bunch of images at ISO 1000, and look at them on your PC at 100%. This means that every pixel in the image will take up one pixel on your monitor. In order to do this, you will most likely have to zoom in so far that you will not even be able to tell which part of the image you are viewing. That's fine; ignore all that. Check the quality of the image file without any regard for it as a photograph (remember, this is just for testing purposes). Is there a lot of noise? Come to your own conclusions. Draw your own line in the sand about what values you will not use. I personally try to not go above ISO 400 (which is unfortunately the 'default' value for a lot of cameras on auto mode), and I definitely do not go above ISO 800 unless the circumstances are extremely dire.
4. Buying a better lens will not help. The way your camera behaves at different ISO values will not change if you buy a $1000 lens. It is a function of your camera's sensor and there is nothing you can do to change that. Buying an expensive lens may afford you the ability to sometimes use a lower ISO value (due to some other factors covered in different sections of this tutorial), but it will not change how your camera behaves at a given ISO.

Note: This is part 1 of a 5-part tutorial series for beginners. Articles are as follows:

Part I: Shooting In Manual Mode: Intro
Part II: Shooting In Manual Mode: ISO
Part III: Shooting In Manual Mode: Shutter Speed / Exposure Time
Part IV: Shooting In Manual Mode: Aperture
Part V: Shooting In Manual Mode: Conclusion (Exposure Triangle)

I had a longtime fear of mastering my own songs. What is commonly referred to as "audio mastering" usually involves only a few subtle changes to the final recorded version of a song. These are things like evening out the amounts of bass and treble with the rest of the frequencies, making sure the volumes are consistent throughout your songs, and lowering the levels of some problem frequencies like noise and hiss. If something is properly mastered, it will sound good in laptop speakers and expensive studio monitors alike. To a guy like me, this was always daunting and intimidating until I actually sat down and attempted to teach myself. Just like with most things in life, it was only intimidating because people who are "in the know" want it to be intimidating. If everyone realized that most mastering technicians are just following a few rules to make all songs sound alike, then those guys would no longer be able to charge a thousand bucks to master an album. Of course there are a lot of people who actually stand out from the rest... people who are very good at it and deserve to get paid for what they do.

Many things in life are like that--shrouded in mystery for no good reason. Photography is no exception; it is made out to be something that's very difficult to do without the aid of your camera's built-in shooting modes. People who know how to take photos without the "assistance" of their camera's auto/priority modes are partly responsible for keeping it shrouded in mystery. I have no problem coming out and saying that taking photos in Full Manual mode is very easy and it can be reduced to three variables: aperture, ISO (film speed), and exposure time. Together, these are commonly referred to as the exposure triangle. And each of those variables all has to do with "brightness" of an image. Unless lighting conditions are absolutely ideal, then you have to make sacrifices to get your pictures looking the way you want. There are certainly other things that separate some photographers from the pack. Style, attention to detail, and lighting are all very important and have nothing to do with your camera or camera settings.

Too much emphasis is placed on the camera that a photographer owns. If you take good pictures, people say "you must have a very nice camera." Photographers do not like this at all--the idea being that the camera is responsible for the pictures and not the person taking them. Imagine eating dinner at someone's house and saying "That was a delicious meal. You must have a very nice oven." Or telling a painter "What a nice painting; you must have very nice brushes." At that point you are transferring the compliment away from the cook/artist and crediting the tools they used to make the meal/painting. A camera is just that: a tool. No camera automatically takes beautiful pictures. If you play the piano very well, people don't say that you were just playing on a nice piano; they are inclined to give the instrumentalist 100% of the credit. People realize that it takes a lot of time, practice, and effort to play an instrument well or make a masterful painting. This emphasis on someone's camera leads to an unnecessary mystique about people's cameras and the way they go about shooting images. It's just like anything else: it takes patience, knowledge, and experience to do it well.

Most people who know how to shoot in Manual mode keep their camera parked on the M. This isn't because you can take better pictures with Manual mode; it's just because it allows you more control and knowledge of the situation. If you don't quite have enough light, then you will quickly find out in Manual mode, whereas using one of your camera's shooting modes will oftentimes give you a false sense that your camera is taking good photos.

Checking back through this blog's archives, I see that Stephen slept through the night from the age of 3 or 4 months, with very few exceptions. Henry is now seven and a half months old, and he never sleeps through the night, with very few exceptions. He completely sucks at sleeping and napping. It's terrible. We sort of knew how spoiled we were with Stephen, but we couldn't really comprehend it because we had never experienced the other side of it for ourselves. Well, now we know what it's like to be the parent of a mortal, less-than-angelic child in regards to sleep. It's terrible. Who wants to wake up every single night for the better part of a year? What's the point of that? When does it stop?

In addition to that, Henry is generally terrible at napping. At Henry's current age, Stephen was sleeping ten hours a night and taking two naps a day totaling 3-5 hours. Henry maybe takes 2 hours of naps in a day. One positive is that I can synchronize Henry with Stephen's once-a-day nap schedule and get some time to myself in the middle of the day (12-2pm maybe). Recently I use this time to make an attempt at napping myself, which is completely wasteful and stupid of me.

Well, football is back, which means I have self-imposed sleep deprivation a couple nights a week. It also means I drink a lot more beer, like a good American. Stupid. I was doing so well, too.

I think I'm going to attempt to not drink any soda--diet or otherwise--for the entirety of 2012. Soda is about as useless as the NFL, so I don't know why this should be hard. I've done well with my 2011 goal, which was to not use any tobacco product of any kind. This included bumming single cigarettes off people or using Steve's snus. I've stuck to it 100%, so it will most likely become permanent. I remember my parents having a conversation with each other when I was younger that New Years resolutions are pointless because one can make positive changes to their lives any day of the year. I have often repeated this cynical notion for most of my life, but I eventually realized that it doesn't really make sense. You can buy your wife a dozen roses any day of the year too, but you do it on Valentine's Day because it is the day that you show your love for someone. There are certain days to do certain things; we can't all do everything on every day. Anything that prompts you to do something beneficial for yourself is, well, a good thing, obviously. I had a couple other ideas of things to do for 2012 but none come to mind at the moment. How about not impregnating my wife? We'll save that for 2013, hopefully. That's a good goal.

Recently I've come to see the importance of abstaining from things. I don't think we should have everything that we want simply because we can. It's important to have rules to live by--things to make us stop and think about the things that we are doing. I made a conscious effort to take six months off from making music in order to get my motivation back. I still have over two months left on that, and I've done somewhat well. I haven't opened Buzz (software) in any of this time. I've done some other things to ensure that I don't get completely out of practice. I used some stretching software to slow some earsauce songs down by a factor of 5-10 times. I took my favorites from that project and am putting together a sort of "aside" album of free music. I should be done with that this weekend.

Anyway, that's enough stream-of-conscious rambling for now. I just figured I needed some text on here to break up the constant barrage of pictures and videos.

Joel Roberts Poinsett. A lifelong American diplomat, secretary of war under Martin Van Buren. While ambassador to Mexico, he brought the first poinsettia back to the United States.

Patrick Hooligan. A notorious hoodlum who lived in London in the mid-1800s. His name became a generic term for "troublemaker."

Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. An Austrian novelist. His books reflected his sexual disorder, a craving which was later dubbed masochism.

Charles Mason/Jeremiah Dixon. English surveyors. In the 1760s, they were called in to settle a boundary dispute between two prominent colonial families--the Penns of Pennsylvania and the Calverts of Maryland. A hundred years later, the line they laid out became the North/South border.

Arnold Reuben. A New York deli owner in the 1940s and '50s. He put corned beef, sauerkraut, and Russian dressing on a piece of rye bread and named the whole thing after himself--the Reuben sandwich.

Sir Benjamin Hall. the "chief commissioner of works" for the British government in the 1850s, when the tower clock on the Houses of Parliament got its largest bell. Newspapers of the time dubbed it "Big Ben," after Hall.

Pierre Magnol. A French professor of botany in the 1600s. Gave us the flower name magnolia.

Alessandro Volta A celebrated Italian physicist. His experiments with electricity in the late 1700s led to the invention of the dry-cell battery. The volt was named after him.

Belinda Blurb. A model portrayed on a book jacket by American illustrator Gelett Burgess. She inspired the common term for a publisher's comments on a book cover.

Samuel A. Maverick. Texas cattle baron in the mid-1800s. Had so many unbranded stray calves that they became known as mavericks. Eventually, the term came to include independent-minded people as well. Also Sarah Palin's favorite person.

Franz Anton Mesmer. An Austrian physician who popularized outrageous medical theorieis on animal magnetism in Paris in the 1780s. He mesmerized the public.

Guy Fawkes. English political agitator who tried to blow up Parliament in 1605, but was caught and executed. The British began celebrating November 5 as Guy Fawkes Day, burning effigies of "the old Guy." Since the effigies were dressed in old clothes, the term guy came to mean bum. In America during Colonial times, its meaning was broadened to mean any male.

William Russell Frisbie. American pie maker. Founded the Frisbie Pie Company in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 1871. In the early 1900s, students from Yale--located up the road in New Haven, Connecticut--found they could flip the Frisbie pie tins like flying saucers.

Madam de Pompadour. Mistress of King Louis XV of France in the mid 1700s. Popularized the hairstyle that reappeared, in modified form, on the heads of Elvis and James Dean.

I try not to live my life in fear. Different people would have you be afraid of different things. Nancy Grace wants you to be afraid of anyone who may ever come in contact with your children in any way. Dr. Oz wants you to be afraid of apple juice and energy drinks. Hank Williams Jr. wants you to be afraid of our democratically-elected president. Jenny McCarthy wants you to be afraid of vaccinations. Alex Jones wants you to be afraid of.... well, everything. That list could go on and on, as you well know. Some people literally think that everyone is trying to hack their Wi-Fi network, kidnap their children, and riddle any car with bullets as soon as someone shows disapproval of their driving. That's fine (I suppose), but it's also fine if I choose to ignore those people and live my life.

The problem is that this thinking affects me even if I choose not to buy into it. Being a thirty-something-white-male puts me in the category of "strangers that people avoid." For instance, I can't offer to help a middle school kid carry something heavy into their house. I can't offer to give a couple of women a jump if their car won't start unless there are 30 witnesses present. Women love to say that chivalry is dead, but what has really happened is that any man who offers to help a woman is "creepy" and any man who even speaks to a child he doesn't know is a "pervert." The result is that my only option is to sit by and let people suffer unless the person in need is a man similar to me in both age and stature.

But it's different when dealing with your children. Now I have to try to strike a balance between choosing not to live in fear and being a "bad parent." [If you ever wonder what it takes to be a bad parent, just think of all the things that made someone a good parent 30 years ago.] Even 15-20 years ago, most parents did not know where their kids were for a few hours a day. In the summer, I would get on my bike and I'd be gone. No cell phones. No GPS. No chip implanted in my skull. You can't do that anymore. There is a very specific chain of custody with your children that is arranged with cell phones, background checks, and bodyguards.

Clearly I jest... but to what extent? Bill Burr jokes that "anything they're doing to your dog now, they're going to be doing to you in ten years." This is a reference to the tracking microchip implanted in most dogs. Is too much safety really a bad thing? Is there such a thing as too much safety?

[Without getting too much into politics,] I for one would rather err on the side of freedom than on the side of safety. I don't fear terrorists as much as I fear having my phone tapped by my own government. I value the freedom I had as a child. I could venture deep into the woods across the street from my parents' house, far from the eyes of any authority. And what did I do with this freedom? I caught crayfish in the stream. I cleared out bike trails with a baseball bat and a rake. I climbed up the bank of the river, grabbing on to exposed roots, pretending it was a massive cliff.

This is why I'm looking for a house with a significant amount of land. I want my children to experience some of that freedom that is oh-so-hard to come by these days. I want to be able to send my kids outside to play without it being a death sentence of boredom and drudgery in a fenced-in area the size of a tennis court. Due to a nearly-collapsed housing market, it appears that my wife and I can afford our dream home at the age of thirty. For this we are grateful.

Maybe I'm projecting my desires onto my children. They will probably care little about how I grew up, just as when I was young I cared little about how my parents grew up. But it's worth a shot, and it's hard to have a love of the outdoors when you hardly have any room to breathe.

Life is good, and I have nothing but thanks for this opportunity. [I am, on the other hand, already upset by the rapid-fire emails from the realtor and my wife reading the stats out loud all night of every house within 100 miles.]