Thanks Mom and Dad!

"I hope people reading this don't think Harry is saying that." Amy said.

"Good point." I responded.

Update: A small photo album can be found here.

Christmas 2007

Some Birthday Videos

These are a bit long but I haven't gotten into the whole editing thing yet. And anyway, we Harts are into rambling stories.

Enjoy.



He was into the stickers.

And then we decorated the cake.



I did not help him with the candle. He's been practicing trying to blow out the lights on the tree.

Merry Birthday!

So barring some timezone issues, today is Harry's second birthday.

He started the day with his usual vim.



The world is his oyster.

More Pictures

Thanksgiving came and went with nary a picture taken. It seems that whenever these family events occur Amy and I are too busy running after one kid or feeding and changing the other kid to ever stop and take a picture. So instead of big family photos we have few individual shots of the kids as taken by Amy during the normal course of a week.























This was part of Harry's attempt to be more of an Asian man. Those of you that have seen older Asian men in track suits know what he was going for.























"This is not a chocolate chip cookie."






















"Pretty please can I have fill-in-the-blank"

Antique Animations

Everyone who reads the Hart Herald knows by now that I am a fan of vintage firearms. However you may not know that I am also a fan of vintage animations. For a look back at the internet of the mid nineties, click on the animated gif image below.



Try saying "Hammer Time!" while viewing. I find it helps set the mood.

3 Months Old Already

Where did that month go? Since the last post Eleanor has started laughing, Harry projectile vomited for the first time, and his gun is almost ready to go back into service. Thank goodness for that last one... I only had 8 or 9 years to spare.

I'm sorry to say I have no photos of his little illness but I am heartened to know he is not going to be too PC. He threw up at the multicultural festival. "Your culture makes me physically ill. *burp* In fact, I puke at all of the myriad cultures represented here today!" Of course, it is possible an amusingly timed sudden onset of violent stomach illness is just an amusingly timed sudden onset of violent stomach illness.

And now for the pictures.



Before you can laugh you stick out your tongue to show amusement.






















"Touch the refrigerator? What do you mean you have forensic evidence? Is this CSI or something?"



This is how we got the Cartesian coordinate system.



Eleanor clearly has a future in horror movies. A future that she will never realize if I have anything to say about it. Only harlots get attacked by unstoppable masked machete-wielding psychopaths and I'm raising a good girl.

Harry on the Farm (UPDATED)

Today is Columbus Day. I can't believe we celebrate some Spanish dude's misadventures but I'll gladly take the day off. The family got together with Brad, Stefanie, and Amelia and headed off to Larriland Farm. Harry saw a goat...



but I think he suspected it wasn't exactly a wild animal when he saw the purple collar.



The pumpkin patch was fun, though again it appears these "farms" are a little suspect. Sure there were pumpkin vines, with big pumpkin leaves, and yellow pumpkin flowers but... shouldn't the pumpkins be attached to the vines? Precut pumpkins. At least it wasn't a bunch of pies out in the field.























Being a dad is rough work, especially when Al Gore is probably somewhere shaking his head and shedding that one fake Indian tear over the ridiculously high temperatures. "When will we ever learn to live like cavemen again, cavemen WITHOUT fire?"
























Not soon enough Al, not soon enough.

EDIT: It's the Indian that is fake. For all I know the Italian-American gentleman was truly upset about littering.

UPDATE 2: The tear was fake too. I guess that's why they call them actors.

UPDATE 3: The most recent Nobel Peace Prize winner - "The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level." Can you even say that without a glycerin tear running down your cheek? I tried, but couldn't make it past the first comma.

I would also like to thank Al for raising the bar for the rest of us that use Powerpoint at work. Now, if I don't receive a Nobel Prize for my slides, I'm a failure.

Harry's First Rifle

So I was in NJ for Jeff's Wedding last weekend. (You will hear nothing of this momentous event now as I have no pictures.) Anyway, as seems to be the case recently, a trip to NJ meant coming home with another gun. This time it's Great Grandfather's .22 rifle.



The rifle is a .22 caliber single shot. As Uncle Rich placed it in my hands, he said to me, "This gun has killed hundreds of groundhogs." With reverent awe I took the old rifle and threw it in the trunk.

The only marking on it is "TRU-TEST" stamped in the barrel. No serial numbers, no manufacturer's marks. (Also, no filed off spots where a serial number would have been.) This is another case of retailers putting their own name on a gun made by someone else. It looks like it is either a Marlin 101 or Springfield 120.



Simplicity seems to have been the design driver for this firearm. The bolt/firing pin assembly can be removed by holding the trigger and pulling back.



The barrel is secured to the stock via a single bolt. Undo the bolt and the stock comes right off. The bolt threads into the barrel but there are also threads in the stock. These threads keep the bolt from falling out when the barrel is removed. Quite ingenious.





The plan is to refinish the stock and generally clean up the barrel. I don't think I need to do much to the barrel otherwise. This will make a good first gun for Harry (or Eleanor) since it is single shot and you have to set the trigger before you can fire. Harry obviously thinks he's ready now but I think he has to be at least as tall as any gun he's going to shoot.

I caught him practicing his "what are you looking at" look. He also seems to have eschewed shirts sometime recently.

























UPDATE: Amy just commented that the above photo is going to be Harry's teenager look. "Stop joking, Dad. Life is dark."

A Follow-up on Cuteness: Harry Reporting

I submit for the record Exhibit A.

Remington 1900 in Action

So I got some time away from the family and headed out to trap and skeet center with the fully refinished and functional Remington 1900 that belonged to Great Grandfather Hart. It was a lot of fun, didn't blow up in my face, and managed to break a few clays despite having me on the trigger. More importantly I brought a cameraman.

Harry on the Playground (WITH VIDEO!)

So we had Couples Group last night and fifteen kids showed up. In order to save the house we were meeting at from total destruction we headed to the local playground. Harry is very serious about the playground, pausing to laugh only when he actually going down the slide. More pictures here.

But now we enter new ground for the Hart Herald: the embedded YouTube video.




There are funnier videos of that little girl assaulting Harry with kisses but they would probably be flagged as inappropriate by YouTube.

The Eyes

Yikes!

Chiemingo Family Visit

Amy's folks came down on Sunday to visit and see the new addition. We had a good time, ate some stuffed NJ tomatoes and just sort of hung out. A couple of pictures follow.

The Other Delivery

So while I was sitting in the waiting room, waiting for the doctor to shove a needle into Amy's spine and numb the pain, I checked my phone messages. Lo and behold Briley Manufacturing had called to say the shotgun barrel and sub gauge insert tubes were being shipped from Texas.

So we had another delivery on Monday.
Shown here are Great Grandfather's refinished Remington 1900 and the two anodized aluminum insert tubes from Briley.

The tubes help reinforce the hundred year old barrels and make the gun safe to shoot. They also take the gauge down from a 12 ga shell (green) to a 20 ga (yellow). 20 ga is the minimum required to put down really nasty perps like lawyers.

Installing the tubes is easy, you grab a rubber hammer and tap them into place. Here they are nearly completely installed and it's a tight fit. I really can't wait to get Dad and Jeff together and go break some clays.

More Eleanor Photos

We've updated the gallery a bit to include pictures from the recent visits of my parents and Christin. Here's a quick sampling.

A Guest Post - A Musing on "Cuteness"

My name is Harrison Hart and I'd like to take a moment of your time to discuss a topic near and dear to my heart - cuteness. "Dada" is napping right now, poor guy was up all night once again caring for the new arrival. He left me with a video I've seen perhaps two score times and I do believe I finally tire of being instructed by sock puppets on how the typical day goes on the farm. "Moo-moo, oink-oink," I get it. And I really didn't need to know where eggs come from.

Anyway, Dada foolishly left his email up and logged on and I've been perusing some of the responses to his announcement email. "Adorable... So cute... Doesn't look like Dada." I must say I've about had it with these pronouncements. What do you know of cuteness? Let me instruct you as I am, humbly, a true student of the concept.

Cuteness is more than a big head and the proper ratio of eye:nose size. Sure Eleanor has a big head, that's been discussed here already, and her eyes are both large and nicely almond shaped, but these are just the superficial aspects of cuteness. Where's the clever retort using just a syllable or two?

"Would you like to watch a video on where eggs come from?"
"No."
"Ahh, it's so cute when you don't understand what I'm asking you."

I'm sorry, that was really more irony I guess but you get the idea. Eleanor doesn't do anything. She just sits there. If you step on her face, she barely even cries. That's not cute, that's odd.

Uh oh, the big one stirs. I will try to elaborate in future posts but for now I must say "buh-bye."

I will have a more detailed timeline of events in future posts but for now let me announce the arrival of Eleanor Jang Hart at 9:02pm on August 8th, 2007. She weighed in at 7lbs 15.5oz and a length of 20 7/8in. Both Mom and Baby are doing well.

So I will leave you with some pictures. Feel free to try to determine who she looks like. A slightly more expansive gallery can be found here.



Today, after some rest, she calmed down a bit and took on a more serene mood.

Poles in the Right Half Plane

So Harry got his first sore throat this week. We will be returning to this tidbit of information later but first, a joke.

A flight is arriving in Prague one day when the pilot comes over the intercom and tells the passengers that they can get a wonderful view of the city if they look out the starboard side of the aircraft.

The plane promptly crashes.

Why?

The Poles were in the right half plane.

The above is an example of Control Theory Humor. I do not recommend it since it is invariably associated with lots of complex math. For instance, to "get" that "joke," you would need to read through the entire Wikipedia entry here and then maybe here pertaining to polar plots, imaginary numbers, transfer functions, and whatnot. Not worth it I say.

However, having said that, taking a course on Control Theory does make you look at the world a little differently. Let us return to the case of Harry's sore throat. Harry's throat is what would be referred to as the "plant." Harry's brain is the controller. So what happened with Harry's feedback loop?

Input to Plant- Irritation to Throat
Output from Plant - Pain
Input to Controller (Harry's Brain) - Pain
Output Command from Controller - Cry

Input to Plant - Increased Irritation to Throat
Output from Plant - Increased Pain
Input to Controller (Harry's Brain) - Increased Pain
Output Command from Controller - Cry Louder
.
.
.
Input to Plant - Increased Irritation to Throat
Output from Plant - Pain like you wouldn't believe
Input to Controller (Harry's Brain) - Pain like you wouldn't believe
Output Command from Controller - Scream Head Off, Writhe, Climb to Top of Crib, Fall Due to Gravitational Forces

Input to Plant - Irritation to Throat Gone, Pain to Noggin'
Output... You get the idea.

A long way of saying it was a long night.

UPDATE: Bonus points if you realize the joke is pretty silly. After all, only one Pole would need to be in the right half plane for the whole system to be unstable. Are we to believe only tourists are sold tickets for the seats in the right half of the plane while native Poles are stuck with the leftie seats? One Eastern European equivalent of Rosa Parks and they'd all be doomed.

UPDATE 2: Where did they bury the survivors?

Taco Recipe

Chris came down the other day and instead of going out to get Chipotle, we decided to make him tacos. I wasn't sure how Chris would react since he is really a meat and potatoes kind of guy. IT turns out he liked them as much as Amy and I do. This past weekend we expanded our test sample to include the members of our church couples group with similar results. Even the toddlers ate them, for the most part. There are always those kids that only eat individual foods at a time. Recipes are lost on those kinds of kids.

I wish I had a picture but I think you can all envision what ground beef and taco shells look like.

2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 Small onion, chopped
3 Medium cloves garlic
2 tbsp chili powder
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/4 cayenne pepper
1 tsp table salt
1 pound 90% lean ground beef
1/2 tomato sauce
1/2 cup low sodium chicken broth
1 tsp brown sugar
2 tsp cider vinegar

1. Heat oil in large frying pan and cook onions until soft, ~5min.
2. Add garlic and spices and cook for 1 min.
3. Add ground beef and break up with wooden spoon. Cook until browned.
4. Add tomato sauce, chicken broth, brown sugar, and vinegar
5. Simmer for 5 minutes

Of course this doesn't cover all the various extra bits, tomatoes, lettuce, sour cream and all that.

You can find more great recipes like this at America's Test Kitchen

Jack Sack

So I got my latest fun toy in the mail the other week. The messenger bag known affectionately as "The Jack Sack" is used by Agent Jack Bauer in the series 24. Agent Bauer is always pulling out some interesting gadget or spare clip from the Jack Sack so I decided I wanted one. Unfortunately, it seems my bag was defective.

Toddler Blogging

Tired of guns and enchiladas? Here are some more pictures of Harry. I figure we need to get these up before he is completely overshadowed by the new arrival.

For only 75 cents a day...

... less than a cup of coffee, you too can sponsor a child.

Well, actually it's up to $1.00 a day but that's inflation for you. Harry is just being whiny and playing the "I'm pathetic" card in the above photo but there are some other kids that could actually use your help.

Holt Sponsor a Child Site

Spinach Mushroom Enchiladas

And now for something completely different...

A recipe to try that's reasonably healthy and quite tasty.

Ingredients:
2 tsp olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp cumin
8 oz mushrooms, sliced
6 oz baby spinach
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp light cream cheese
16 oz green salsa
8 tortillas
1/3 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese
1/4 sour cream

1. Heat olive oil in large skillet over med-high heat. Add garlic, chili powder, cumin and mushrooms; saute 5 min
2. Add spinach and salt; cook 1 min or until spinach wilts
3. Drain; return mushroom mixture to pan
4. Add cream cheese; cook 2 min, stirring frequently; remove and set aside
5. Heat 1 cup salsa over low heat
6. Dredge tortilla through salsa; spoon 1 tbsp mushroom mix in tortilla
7. Fold and place on Foreman Grill; cook until done
8. Top with salsa, cheese, and sour cream

It should look like this.

The New Baby

So we are in the home stretch awaiting the arrival of the second child. We have known for sometime that we are going to be having a baby girl but after the last ultrasound we have a new tidbit of information.

We are going to be having a baby with a 97th percentile head. Of course when I say "we" I really mean Amy. I will just be there marveling at our giant brained daughter and trying to think of something comforting to say to Amy. Perhaps "With this giant brain of hers she will undoubtedly get a full ride to some prestigious school."

Anyway, without further ado I present a 97th percentile baby girl head.


And now I will add a hint for those who wish to guess the name of our top heavy baby. The name appears in The Lord of the Rings. Of course this clue has already been widely disseminated but I have another. What would Samwise Gamgee do in my situation?

Great Great Grandfather's Gun

So I went back another generation and picked up James Hart's shotgun from Jeff. This one is an import from Belgian made by the Neumann Brothers. The Brothers went out of business in 1957 and those World Wars that kept starting in Belgium may explain why no records of these guns exist. What I have been able to determine is that the gun is worth very little and is considered a "Wall Piece." It is basically something you'd find in a T.G.I. Fridays next to a giant moose head and a picture of Marilyn Monroe.

A series of photos follow showing the "before" state of the gun.

A side view of the gun showing the double triggers and the external hammers. Note the markings indicating it was "Machine Made." There were no fallible humans involved in this work of art. The other side says "Neumann Brothers" but I didn't think that was as interesting.













Hammers cocked. The mechanism for this gun is very simple and there are no safeties to get in the way of smooth operation.

















The barrels are not fluid steel like the Remington 1900 but rather laminated steel. The gunsmith wrapped steel wire around a mandrel and then heated the whole thing up until the metal fused. The result is a pleasing banded look that is too weak to withstand modern shotgun shells. Still works as a wall ornament of course.

Hunting Clay Pigeons in the Wilds of Maryland

Spent most of today shooting with Jeff, Hutch, and Jake. My shoulder hurts. We shot a round of Sporting Clays, which is a game similar to skeet but involves moving around to a bunch of stations and shooting at random targets. It is basically golf with guns. Some of the stations are just sort of cut into the middle of the woods.

Jeff shooting a rented Beretta Over-Under.

Me on my trustworthy Remington 870 pump.

Jeff won out of the group of four but foolishly bet lunch with Hutch on the results of a single station. It appears Jeff's skill degrades with pressure while Hutch rose to the occasion. Lunch was on Jeff.

I also shot the old Remington 1900. Apparently I got it back together correctly but it kicks something fierce and had nothing but a hard plastic buttplate to transfer the recoil into my already tender shoulder.

Hesler House

Saturday after the picnic we went to the Hesler's new house in Virginia. We, of course, had an excellent visit and I especially enjoyed meeting little Matthew for the first time. The following picture was taken at the end of an evening in which nothing stronger than lattes were consumed.

Church Picnic

The church picnic was today. I'd say more but I'm exhausted from chasing Harry around in the oppressive heat. I'm not sure why he can't be more like the Chinese kids at church that are all slothful and timid.

Harry wanted in on the action.

Eric made balloon animals for the kids. (He also knits.)

Don't know these kids but I caught the air rocket in mid ascent.

I realized it was time to go when I found Harry preparing to Sumo Wrestle a hot dog.