Travis Seitler » kids

Longs Park has a Petting Zoo!

Travis Seitler — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:00:54 +0000

Nicole and I took the kids out to Longs Park on Sunday afternoon. We had a good time just relaxing, goofing off at one of the playgrounds, and hanging out at the petting zoo. Yes, I said “the petting zoo.” At a park!

This is just one of the many reasons why I love Lancaster County.

Yeah, Batman just liked to mess with our heads.

Travis Seitler — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 09:30:10 +0000

And here I thought I was the only one:

For those of you who don’t know what this is about, you were apparently doing your homework or something equally unimportant when the rest of us were watching “Perchance to Dream.” That, of course, is the now-infamous episode of Batman: The Animated Series where the Caped Crusader gets stuck in a Mad Hatter-induced dream world. Ol’ Brucey didn’t realize he was dreaming, however, until a crucial point where he attempted to read a newspaper (9:35 in this clip)—and the text was jumbled beyond all recognition. In the climax of the episode, Bruce gives us this encapsulated science lesson:

“That’s because reading is the function of the right-side of the brain, while dreams come from the left-side. It’s impossible to read something in a dream.”

One of the things that sets Batman apart from a bunch of other superheroes is that he’s supposed to be a detective (one of his “official” nicknames is “World’s Greatest Detective”), so when Mr. Wayne dishes out a nugget like this, his fans assume they’re being taught something that’s… well… true. The show left us young viewers under the impression that you really couldn’t read text when you were dreaming. Which meant that when I later had dreams where I could read, I took it to mean that I was special or had some sort of above-average right/left brain connection.

And now, finally, after years of bewilderment and self-doubt, my gullibility has been immortalized in a webcomic.

How to stay up-to-date on toy recalls

Travis Seitler — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 09:30:14 +0000

As we’re getting ready to move, we’ve gotten to the point where we’re packing up most of the kids’ toys. That got us wondering: what with all of the recalls that have been issued lately because of lead paint and all (why on earth isn’t China under a trade embargo yet?), are any of the toys in our house unsafe? I mean, Joshua seems like he’s half-puppy; he’s always chewing on something.

So while looking around, I got a bit overwhelmed by the huge lists of recalls. Thankfully, it looks like we’re okay, but I was wondering if there might be an easier way to keep track of new notices.

Well, there is. Just plug the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission’s child products RSS Feed into your feed reader of choice (Google Reader, Feedblitz, Sage, etc.) and you’ll get updates as other items are recalled! (The CPSC provides a number of other recall feeds, too.)

I hope you find that as helpful as I do.