Emma's Eyes

Usually, when people see me after a while, they ask about Emma. She's got a leg tumor and some other problems, but is sweet as pie in spite of it all.

One of the problems is her eyes. To put it gently, they tend to cross. Her right eye tends to drift off course a bit.

As it turns out, this is strabismus, a generic term for any visual defect that causes misalignment of the eyes. Her particular type of strabismus is called accommodative esotropia. That's a fancy way of saying she's really, really farsighted. So farsighted, that her eyes need to cross that much in order for her to focus.

The first step in her treatment is glasses. There's a chance that glasses alone might help. We'll see if we have to do any patching or anything else from there.

We did find some pretty cool Dora The Explorer glasses that were purple, so she's excited. I'll try to get a picture or two up when they come in.

Friday Mythbustin': Crunch Away That Tummy!

Myth: If you have a tummy, if you do enough sit-ups, it'll go away.

Fact: If you do enough sit-ups, you'll have rock-hard abs underneath that tummy.

There still seems to be this persistent myth that muscle can "turn" to fat, and vice versa. That's biological nonsense. That's like saying your hair could, somehow, turn into fingers. It's made up of different biological "stuff."

The only things you can do with fat is burn it or add to it. Period.

And, unfortunately, your body does not select which fat to burn based on what part of your body you're working out. It will still pull fat from the next place it has set up to pull fat from.

On the other hand, that might be fortunate. Because what it means is, you don't have to work your abs harder than any other part of the body. Do a few exercises for it, just like you would for your chest or your back, to make it stronger. Follow your normal combination of a healthy diet, cardio, and weights. That'll get that belly down, and insure there's something nice under there when it's gone.

Oh, And As For The Thief:

I'm thinking alligators.

Tale Of The Tape . . .

. . . will be updated soon.

In the meantime, head on over to Dave Ramsey's website and nose around a little.

To Whoever Is Stealing . . .

. . . from my wife's container garden:

For a couple of bucks and some water, you can grow all the cilantro and chiles you want. I'll be more than happy to help you get started. But the cilantro and the chiles are our favorites, too, okay? So please just leave ours be.

Quotes of the Day

Thomas A. Edison:

Restlessness and discontent are the first necessities of progress.

Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.

Jeffrey R. Holland on Thomas Edison:

Thomas Edison devoted ten years and all of his money to developing the nickel-alkaline storage battery at a time when he was almost penniless. . . .

One night the terrifying cry of fire echoed through the film plant. Spontaneous combustion had ignited some chemicals. Within moments all of the packing compounds, celluloids for records, file, and other flammable goods had gone up with a whoosh. Fire companies from eight towns arrive, but the heat was so intense and the water pressure so low that the fire hoses had no effect.

Edison was 67 years old — no age to begin anew. His daughter was frantic, wondering if he were safe, if his spirits were broken, how he would handle a crisis such as this at his age. She saw him running toward her.

He spoke first. He said, "Where's your mother? Go get her. Tell her to get her friends. They'll never see another fire like this as long as they live."

At 5:30 the next morning with the fire barely under control, he called his employees together and announced, "We're rebuilding." Then, almost as an afterthought, he added, "Oh, by the way, anybody know where we can get some money?"

Virtually everything we now recognize as a Thomas Edison contribution in our lives came after that disaster.