busy summer already!

...but not too busy to post a few awesome pictures....here comes a long set of them...hold on to your hats!

Spencer Solves the US Debt Problem: Fire Sale of Guam

My dad went to business school, or so he tells me whenever I suggest he changes the asset allocation in my 529 plan. According to my Dad, in business, if you're short on cash, you sell any asset that's not core so you can save the company. My mom - a doctor by training who excels at diagnosing any cough or sneeze from me as a potentially fatal illness - would liken this to cutting off a gangrenous toe so it doesn't spread...but that's gross.

So the US is short on cash - well, we get plenty of cash from China...but apparently their funding agreement dictates that starting in 2010 Tim Geithner has to start delivering hamburgers to Beijing on a bike.

Did you know that we own Guam?

How much do you think Guam is worth? In my free time...between visits to the playground and poops...I've done a few calculations.

In San Francisco's tony Pacific Heights neighborhood, houses are going for roughly $1,000 per square foot. I'm rounding here - I don't want to get 50 emails from recent buyers in Pac Heights bragging about how they got their place for only $950/sqft.

The total size of Guam is 209 square miles, which is about 5.8 billion square feet. At Pac Heights values, that's a total value of $5.8 Trillion! And I could make a good argument that all that beach front property should go for way over $1K/sqft.

Once you take out the 6% real estate commission (those damn real estate agents!), that would leave $5.5T to pay down the national debt.

Now sadly, that only takes out about half of our debt....so Puerto Rico, watch out. You may be next.


OK enough about economics - let's get to the important stuff: me!

I'm currently in intense training for the 2010 mini-x-games (which will be broadcast on ESPNBaby). Today I set up a little stunt set in my living room - I'm not kidding, I set this up myself (note from Spencer's Dad: he's not kidding...). Check out my mad couch diving skills!





Don't worry, I won't get too crazy with this. Our windows are baby proofed. I already tried.


I found some pictures on our little PowerShot from when my grandma Joyce came to visit a month or so ago - and realized there were a few cute ones on there! Here's one of my mom, grandma and me at the playground.







And a few months ago my parents went with some friends up to wine country for the weekend...and I totally forgot about this shot at a winery where I was playing with my dad's sunglasses!






This was the same place where I saw a cat playing around with a partially-disemboweled mouse that was clearly peeping for its life...not for the squeamish. Yes, the cat eventually ate it. Just like in National Geographic!







OK, OK, just a few more ludicrously cute shots of....me!









Love,
Spencer

Am I past my prime?

You know what everyone says about parents, children and photography: parents take more pictures in the first month than they do in the rest of the kid's life total. And, despite the fact that Google had to build 3 new cloud computing centers just to house my parent's pictures of my birth (yuck!), I didn't believe that my parents would fall into this trap. How wrong could I have been!

Notice that I haven't posted a blog entry in over 3 weeks. I can tell you honestly, it's not for a lack of interesting political events that require - nay, that beg for - my commentary. Rush Limbaugh AND Dick Cheney dominating the conservative airwaves? Shouldn't they be flogging diet pills on late night infomercials instead? Arlen Specter leaving the republican party because the card-carrying republicans from the Alabama section of Pennsylvania wouldn't vote for him in the primaries? (Have you ever been to Alavania? It's scary. Deliverance scary. I would have used the contraction Pennsylbama, but that sounds too much like the part of PA that votes for Obama. Makes me wonder whether the Obama campaign team could have won Alabama by calling it AlObama? Although that does sound a bit middle eastern, so maybe it's better he didn't hire me as his AlObama campaign manager. Also, I'm not yet 2. But I digress...)

Anyhoo, it's sad to see how few pictures there are of me as of late. I had my dad download pictures from the last month, and there were fewer than 30 of them....fewer than 30! With this shana punum, you can't even get 1 per day?



OK, so it's a shana punum, but a very dirty shana punum.

On that point, how many bananas do you think I can stuff into my mouth?



What I have noticed is that my parents are taking more videos of me. I think this is a fair trade, only because I am even more cute in real life. Here I am doing a bit of a magic trick...escaping from my high chair. I have NO idea how I got stuck in that position, but I still beam with pride at my escape technique!




Have I ever mentioned how much I like being tickled?





So anyway, there were enough pictures for me to throw a few uber-cute ones at you.

I'm learning to use the ipod. I can actually change songs now to find my favorites!






OK, what's with this picture? Oh yeah, I was trying to do a front flip, and failing miserably.





And to finish off, three ludicrously cute pictures in succession....like a 3 gun salute to Spencer!









Happy Memorial Day to all the veterans in my family! Oh wait, we're Jewish. Enjoy the day off work then!

Love,
Spencer

just a quick post today...

....i'm just so, so busy practicing for the olympics - here's my first attempt at a back flip...ok, a series of attempts...



Love,
Spencer

I'm 15 months old!!

Wednesday was a day of great pride to me. My parents give so much to me. They feed me, they change my diapers and my clothes, they take me to fun places like the playground and they let me play with their electronics even though the likelihood that I drool on something and ruin it is high. But Wednesday, I was proud to become something extremely important to them: a tax deduction.

My Dad frequently tells me I owe him big time - he says January babies are the least tax-efficient babies anywhere, since the IRS doesn't draw a distinction between a baby born on Jan 1 2008 or December 31 2008 - it's the same deduction. But someday when I know the appropriate words I'll tell him that if he'd offered me a cut of the deduction to come out three weeks earlier so he could have gotten that 2007 tax deduction, I might have gone for that.

So what have I been up to since the last time I blogged? I'm happy I'm pretending you asked.

The biggest news is that I took my first trip to sin city! No, not San Francisco dearest evangelical readers. I'm talking about Vegas, baby, Vegas! I went to visit my Grandma and Grandpa for Passover!

Get this - my parents wanted to take a picture of me pulling down the arm of a slot machine (even though they're just for show these days...apparently fat Americans can't be bothered to do anything more than push a button) and some random worker bee comes over and says that I can't touch the machines because I'm underage. How ridiculous! I'm 15 months old - what, do they really think I'm going to retain that experience? Don't you think they should change the rules - perhaps there should be an age minimum AND an age maximum to touch the slot machines? Net/net is I couldn't get a killer shot of Spencer playing the Wheel of Fortune slots. It's society's loss, really.

Also in Vegas were my cousins Sam, Ryan and Sydney, who I like very much because they play with me constantly.







This was my second Seder...although truth be told I don't really remember last year's seder. As you can see from this picture, I don't remember much from this one either...





I sat next to Sam for the Seder and couldn't stop reaching for his yarmulke...so....shiny....must.....touch.





Oh, did I mention? Matzoh sucks. They don't call it the bread of affliction for nothing.





We did take a quick trip to a nearby casino to go bowling (the shiny floors were so....shiny.....must.....walk....on.....them)...





...and to play in the game room. I pretty much camped out the entire time in the skee ball alley. Literally. Don't even think of messing with my skee ball alley.






Here I am giving a big high five to my Aunt Carin (that's grandma in the background).







And here I am trying to grab Grandpa's glasses!






OK, I feel the need to post a couple of videos.

Here's one of my new favorite activities - walking through my daddy's legs. If he were a bit taller, they would be daddy long legs. Bad joke, blame my genes.




Here's 90 seconds of pure, unadulterated Spencer joy:





Love,
Spencer

Spencerdamus

I'd like to take a few minutes to quote myself from my November 6th blog posting:

"My prediction: Bristol's engagement will be off by Monday. In fact, it's probably off already and they're trying to get back the deposit on the wedding igloo."

OK, so it took a little while longer to negotiate with Nukchuck the igloo owner than was anticipated, but Levi finally got some sense. What real man wants a child named Blurg or Radial anyway?

I'll admit my blog postings have become a little less frequent lately. I think my mom and dad have slowed down their picture taking and video taking, and I have to admit I'm a little bit offended. Everyone warned me this would happen....

So I have a new favorite activity: bathing. I love taking baths these days! Especially now that when I fall under the water I can pick myself up and not completely freak out either me or my parents. My hair is SOOOO long lately that it makes for some great bath pictures....


Here's my dad doing the tidal wave!





I love it when my dad pours water on his own head!







I still love my Spencer chair - and I'm getting so big for it!!






Here I am taking a pratfall that even Chevy Chase would admire. Notice how I hop right back up as if to say "nobody saw that!"





Don't get the wrong idea here...I didn't DRINK the beer, I just loved sucking on the cold bottle. But it smelled SOOO good.




Even though I didn't have a single sip, doesn't it look like there was some terribly cute beergoggling going on....





OK, here's my favorite video in a long time - sometimes I forget that my dad isn't an inanimate object...





Love,
Spencer

back from boston

I took my first visit to Boston this past weekend. According to my parents, Boston is the city where they met, fell in love, and decided they were going to make a Spencer. I don't know what that means, but if they ever tell me a stork was involved I'll know they're not being straight with me. I'm WAY too heavy for a stork to carry.

All in all, I loved Boston, you know, except that I have decided that I'm a California boy who really doesn't like the winter. Did you know that standing outside in 30 degree weather without mittens will make your hands really, really cold? I don't think humans were meant to live in such a harsh climate. And humans weren't meant to speak with Boston accents, either. But I digress.

Let me start off, dear readers, with a few terribly cute pictures of me, including one where I'm channeling an 18th century british lord guffawing. The first picture really shows how I'm filling out my Spencer chair, doesn't it? Remember when I fit entirely in the seat? I'm like a giant.




Not only do I like to guffaw like an 18th century british, lord, but I love to giggle in general. This one's a bit embarrassing, but once I start laughing it's tough to stay upright!



Here's a short clip of me and Kiley playing - you know what they say, when a boy tries to shove a girl into a cabinet, he's really telling her how much he likes her...



I've been spending a lot of time climbing on my dad recently. Every time he relaxes on the floor, I jump on top of him!



Here's one of my new favorite clips - what energetic young boy doesn't like to chase bubbles?


In Boston I got to see my Aunt Belinda again! We went to the playground and had a ton of fun. Well, if you ignore the frostbite. Here I am in the swing....




And playing with my Aunt Belinda around the splinter-ridden wooden fence - they need to babyproof that place!




OK, this is the cutest picture of me and my mom....ever!





We went to Boston for a bit of a reunion with my mom's friends from medical school. We stayed in a beautiful house on the beach in Plymouth, which is where Plymouth Rock is, which is, apparently, NOT where the Mayflower landed despite what my parents' American history textbooks said. I think the only thing that ever landed on Plymouth Rock was seagull poop.

Here I am with my mom on the amazing lawn that led from the house to the beach...




And here I am with my dad too...he didn't go to medical school but he's still ok.




There were 4 boys under the age of 3 in the house...and if you're a raging conservative you'd probably say there were 6 given that two of the women were pregnant. That's a lot of infant testosterone - needless to say the parents were exhausted!





Remember my friend Jacob from Mexico? He was there too. Apparently he now considers me one of the family, so much so that he's willing to try to eat my apple right out of my hand!





As much fun as I had in Boston, it was good to get home. Here I am wandering around the airport - 2+ hour delay before heading back to San Francisco! Ouch. That terrible sound you here was the fire alarm - apparently I was just too hot for the airport to handle!


Love,
Spencer