Braking

Ballerina Swimsuit

Avery has insisted on sleeping in her ballerina swimsuit for the past two nights.  She's tried to convince me that she should wear it to school, but I've been successful at cajoling her into more appropriate attire.

Every time Avery watches Angelina Ballerina - her new favorite show - she takes off all her clothes, puts on her ballerina swimsuit, then does her best to imitate the dancing she sees on the show.  I got some video of this and hope to put a video on the Trio blog soon. 

Hard Brakes

D and I switched insurance providers.  One option with our new insurance is to install a device that reports our driving speeds and other information to the company for each trip we make.  We get a 5% discount for participation, then up to a total of 25% discount based on when, how much, and how we drive.

We can log into the website and see how long each of our trips lasted, see our speeds, and see how many "hard brakes" we had.  Now it seems to be a competition between us as to who has fewer "hard brakes."  So far, I'm winning, but I think that's only because he did all the driving over the weekend.  Had I done half the driving, I think we would be tied.

Even though this has the potential to actually raise our rates (I don't think it will), I find it useful to be able to see how long each trip I make is.  For example, I now know that it takes 11-12 minutes to drive Avery to school.  It takes D 20-22 minutes to get to work. I love statistics, so I am a bit enamored with this right now.  Of course, when it bites us in the ass, I'll be mad, but for now, I like looking at the stats.

It also occurred to me that, with this technology, it would be really easy to monitor the speed of any new drivers, e.g. teenagers.

Books

I'm not particularly into either of the two books I'm currently reading, however, both are good enough that I will finish them.  The book on the Chinese Cultural Revolution is just a bit slow moving, though it's good enough that I will finish it.

I am also reading A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery.  I'm going to finish it, but I really dislike the author.  He's injected himself into the book in a way that I find to be offensive.  It's also very poorly edited. It doesn't follow a time line, nor a geography, so it's hard to get a grip on what is going on where and why.  The author is a journalist by trade.  I can see his ego through the writing.  I imagine him to be one of those journalists running around in war zone seeking the most glamorous stories while leaving the less flashy stories untold.  

Who Knew?

I wouldn't be allowed to adopt a child from China!  From an article online:
China has already cracked down on U.S. adoptions in recent years — it now bans adoptions by single women, anyone who has ever taken medication for depression and anyone with a body mass index of 40 or higher.
Good thing we ruled out international adoption early on!