Helping my 6 year-old learn to read
Long-time readers of this blog may remember the less-than-smooth toddler years my son Robby enjoyed. There were the febrile seizures (now outgrown, thankfully), the strabismus in his left eye requiring eye surgery in both eyes, and the speech and developmental delays that were thankfully diagnosed early (and for which he received regular speech and physical [...]
While in DC…
… my son visited the Supreme Court. Since he and his brother were out of class for a week, they needed to do an independent study which they would then present to their class. Ricky went to the Supreme Court, and built this PowerPoint presentation all by himself (OK, I helped with the template - [...]
Welcome to Cody!
Nearly nine months ago, our beloved dog Tioga “died”:http://www.rklau.com/tins/archives/2007/08/01/thanks-for-the-ride-pup.php. It was just a week after we moved to California, and we missed him terribly.
At the end of last year, we started to feel ready for a dog in our house again. We reached out to the “Northern California Golden Retriever Rescue”:http://www.golden-rescue.org/ group to see whether [...]
Back from Yosemite
Just got back from a wonderful three day vacation at Yosemite National Park. This is my fourth time to Yosemite - and my first in the fall. Wow… the park is a remarkably different place in the fall. The lack of crowds was certainly nice, but it was like exploring an entirely new park.
Lots of [...]
Safer toys
Several months ago, I “wrote about”:http://www.rklau.com/tins/archives/2007/05/07/open-source-parenting.php the horror I experienced reading about Magnetix toys “in the Chicago Tribune”:http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/specials/chi-safety-magnets1-story,1,4110861.story?coll=chi-news-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true. These toys - dozens of which were in our house at the time - had killed a young boy and injured many others. What was worse, the manufacturer and the government were both made aware of the [...]
Thanks for the ride, pup
Eleven years ago, Robin gave me a trip to California as my law school graduation gift. There really wasn’t much choice about where we’d go once we got to San Francisco: I’d visited Yosemite as a kid, and couldn’t wait to see the park again. It touched me like few places had (or have since), [...]
Traveling with pets - fly Continental
Among the thousand and one things we need to nail down before actually moving to California (estimated time of departure: 2 weeks away) is getting our dog out to California. When we moved to Chicago over six years ago, it was touch-and-go: American Airlines will not fly pets if either city in the trip will [...]
Behind on e-mail
Grandpa’s memorial service was wonderful. His sons (my Dad and my Uncle Chris) both spoke, as did the four grandchildren (me, my brother, and my cousins Lauren and Heather) and a few others (including “Mel”:http://www.lakeportsquare.com/community/content.asp?SubnavID=37#mel_penny, who met Grandpa just a few years ago, but amazingly enough went to the same high school in Milwaukee nearly [...]
Remembering my Grandfather
My grandfather, Richard Wallace Klau, died tonight. My Dad’s been with Grandma and Grandpa for the last week, and I got the news a few hours ago that he’d finally lost his battle with the infection that the doctors couldn’t get a handle on. He was 79 years old, and was approaching his 60th wedding [...]
Open source parenting
If you’re a parent, particularly of boys, you need to stop what you’re doing and read the Tribune’s “special report on Magnetix”:http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/specials/chi-safety-magnets1-story,1,4110861.story?coll=chi-news-hed. It’s breath-taking, and not in a good way.
I’ve stolen a few hours this evening brainstorming how the tech community might bring its resources to bear on this particular challenge. It’s already proving to [...]
