Live Granades has been invited to join an ad network. I have no idea how we got onto these people’s radar or why they thought we had the readership (outside of the LOLTrek juggernaut) to support ads, but there it is, we’ve been approached. It creates a dilemma for me that I had no idea we’d ever be faced with: whether or not to make this site more commercial.

Stephen is to blame for whatever traffic we get, what with the aforementioned LOL addictions, the toilet disassembly and the flash video instruction guide. I’m just here for the kid commentary. And the photos, the shiny, shiny photos. So on one hand, I’m sorta flattered that someone thinks we have what it takes to rake in some dough and on the other hand, I think, what the…? ads on a blog? that’s crazy talk. I know people do it. And I’m happy for them if that’s what they want and double, extra happy if they can make a living doing it. I’m just not sure that it’s right for us.

I’d love to be able to recoup some costs associated with the site (thanks to Geof the rates are low, low, low) but don’t want to have flashing, blinking things up all over our page. I’d love to have a wider readership, but that’s an ego thing talking. I guess the real ego here is thinking that they didn’t just send that email specially tailored to make a blog feel special to thousands, or tens of thousands, of other “selected” blogs. Or maybe it’s that ol’ fear of failure rearing its head. The voice in my head that whispers, “No one reads this drivel. Why bother to put ads on a page that no one looks at?” And beyond that, what would we advertise here? Breastfeeding Support Services? Guitar Hero Merchandise? Craft Supplies? Scott Westerfeld novels? Actually, that one isn’t a bad idea. I mean, I’ve read them and love them so I could be a spokesreader of sorts.

So Stephen and I have talked about it. He’s looked at some figures and we have an idea of what it means to put ads on the site in terms of redesign and also what sort of money we’re talking about here. It ain’t much, let me tell you, but all big things start small. We’ve made our decision but wondered what others think and if some of you have been approached in the same way. Maybe this is just the latest in spamming techniques and I’m slow to catch on. Regardless, we’d like to hear what you guys think.

Of Patriot Day, I have nothing to say beyond wondering if every musical card Hallmark will eventually sell for this young holiday will feature Lee Greenwood’s voice.

Of the event it notes, I will point you to 110 Stories, by Mike Ford.

Friday afternoon our doorbell rang and when I answered it was a young man trying to sell his art door to door. He had done several reproductions that he wanted to show me. I told him I was somewhat of an artist myself so my house already had a lot of art. He quickly changed tactics and asked if I would look over them and give my opinion. I said sure. He started flipping through his portfolio and got to a repro of VanGogh’s Starry Night. As soon as Eli saw it he said, “Oh Wow! That looks just like Starry Night.” I thought the man was going to fall and start worshiping at my feet since I had trained my boy so well.

7:48 P.M. Eli goes to bed.
8:01 P.M. Misty rocks Liza in preparation for getting her to sleep.
8:05 P.M. Eli comes out. “I need a snack,” he says, rubbing his stomach. Stephen explains that Eli does not need a snack, and besides, even if he did, he should have eaten his dinner, before leading him back to bed.
8:17 P.M. Stephen goes to the bathroom.
8:18 P.M. Stephen is surprised in the bathroom by Eli coming in. He scrambles to finish up.
8:19 P.M. Eli goes back to bed trailing Stephen’s sterner explanation that Eli should stay asleep.
10:10 P.M. Misty and Stephen go to bed. Before falling asleep, they agree to read for five minutes.
11:01 P.M. Stephen finally stops reading and falls asleep.
4:59 A.M. Liza begins crying. “Couldn’t she have waited another hour?” Misty laments before getting up to feed her.
5:14 A.M. Half-asleep, Stephen hears the soft scrape of blanket across carpet and looks up to see Eli in the bedroom, clutching his space blanket. “Look how light it is!” he says. Stephen vehemently disagrees and leads him back to bed.
5:19 A.M. Stephen thinks, “I really can’t sleep for much longer. I’d better fall back asleep right now.”
5:22 A.M. Stephen thinks, “Right, now I’ll fall asleep.”
5:23 A.M. Stephen thinks, “What about now?”
5:23:05 A.M. Stephen thinks, “Now?”
5:29 A.M. Misty returns to bed, startling Stephen out of his light doze.
5:36 A.M. Eli comes back as well. Misty allows him to climb up in the bed and stay as long as he will be still.
5:37 A.M. Eli fidgets.
5:38 A.M. Eli fidgets.
5:39 A.M. Eli fidgets.
5:40 A.M. Eli fidgets.
5:48 A.M. In a break from Eli fidgeting, Liza snuffles loudly in her sleep.
5:50 A.M. Stephen gets out of bed.

We got a copy of Lilly’s Chocolate Heart yesterday in the mail. The card said, “Welcome Baby Liza!” But the card wasn’t signed so I don’t know who very thoughtfully sent Liza this cute book. Stand up and be thanked, whoever you are.

I am a have-more.

When I was younger, I thought I was a have-not. I was wrong. I was a have-less, maybe. I grew up and married into a have family. Now I think we might live in the have-more category. I am now so used to being insulated in my community of other have-mores that I am shocked when I come face to face with have-nots.

Sunday my mom and I took the kids and we went to a flea market in Ardmore, TN.

Ardmore strattles the border of Alabama and Tennessee and is only a few miles from my door. We live in a affluent community, especially as compared to the rest of the South. In 2000, the median income for a household here was $63,849, while the median income for a household in Ardmore was $33,571. In Madison, 52% of people over age 25 hold at least a bachelor’s degree. In Ardmore, that number is only 13.6%. Even Huntsville, next door to us, isn’t as affluent. The tech jobs and military contracts bring in the money. To the surrounding communities (and even our neighboring states) we look rich because we are.

I forget that in poor, rural places not as much emphasis is placed on education. People don’t have the money to go to college, which prohibits them from getting better paying jobs. They stay in their small towns working blue collar/minimum wage jobs without insurance or other benefits. I was reminded of all of this on Sunday.

How could I tell that the people we saw were poor?

I saw very few adults with a full set of teeth. People who don’t have access to health care don’t get routine preventative treatments–in this case, dental cleanings, x-rays, and fillings. They wait until the tooth is so bad that it has to be pulled or just rots away. Don’t believe me? Check out some statistics at the CDC. Southern states have bad percentages for pretty much every question asked. Oklahoma scores are just as bad and I’m guessing the lack of health/dental coverage for Native Americans on reservations there has something to do with those numbers. Having a full set of teeth is a luxury of the haves.

The other experience was just as damning but much more subtle. A lady we were talking to at one stall was teasing Eli about trading Liza in for a puppy. (He didn’t want to make the trade, sweet boy!) I made my standard joke about how she would return the baby when it was feeding time. She looked at me as if I were suddenly not speaking English. “You mean, she doesn’t take a bottle?”

The working poor can’t afford to nurse their children even though it’s less expensive to breastfeed. They can’t take the time off work to nurse or to take breaks to pump milk. Nursing is also a luxury of the haves. Breastfeeding is something educated women are able to do because they either have a good enough job that they can afford to jump through all the hoops breastfeeding entails, or their spouses make enough money to support them staying home to care for their children. In my community breastfeeding is a norm.

I wondered if there were actual statistics to back me up on this and indeed the CDC comes through again. Check out especially Maternal Education, Maternal Marital Status, and Poverty Income Ratio.

And here’s a truly amazing graph I ran across while looking for my statistics. See what floor you live on. Are you a have-not? I’m guessing you aren’t if you are reading this at home on your computer. A have-less? A have-more?

The gulf between where I live and Ardmore is so wide it’s personally embarrassing for me. Before Sunday I had forgotten how blessed I am in every single aspect of my life and that’s embarrassing. I had forgotten how close to my own door the have-nots live. And that’s the most embarrassing thing of all.

I have survived Dragon*Con. All three of my panels went well, most notably the one on Bose-Einstein condensation. My room was nearly at capacity, I had a lot of questions from the audience, and I got to whirl a ringing alarm clock over my head. Good times.

The two space panels were okay, but the audience was indicative of how uninteresting space is to most people. At my first space panel, I and a friend of mine were nearly the youngest people there by a decade. Sadly, I neglected to take this fact into account, and used lolcat-style pictures for my Hubble history talk. When I showed the first picture with kitty pidgin caption, two guys in their mid-twenties went “snrk.” The rest of the audience was lost.

Our Dragon*ConTV bits went well this year, most notably our music video for Re Your Brains by Jonathan Coulton. That particular bit of insanity culminated in the most surreal moment I experienced: being on stage during the Masquerade intermission, leading the crowd in singing the final chorus.

When the audio from my talks is available, I’ll post those and PDFs of my presentation, so you can experience the magic from your own computer. Since the talks took an hour, you might want to double the audio’s speed so it takes half the time and you can enjoy hearing me sound like Alvin.