Articles by mgedwards

The Monster Family

Yesterday my son and I sat on the couch talking about our trip to Hershey’s Chocolate World in Hershey, Pennsylvania.  At four years old, he’s quite creative.  With a little help from his dad, who organized his thoughts, my son told this enchanting tale:
The Monster Family lives in our home.  The father is named "Mike," and the mother is named "Voogoo."  They have five monster children.  The oldest is a boy named "Vadubogadah," followed by his brother "Bo." The middle child is a girl named "Logo."  She has two younger sisters, "Tigadoo" and "Bee."  Once "Bee" ate a stinky sock, but usually she eats bath tubs and drinks balloons.  Some of the monsters eat these things, but others eat cars and drink the ceiling.  But they don’t eat the brown cars.  They don’t eat people, either, so there’s no need to be afraid of them under the bed.
 I often enjoy sitting with my son and talking to him about whatever is on his mind.  He has a very big imagination, especially when it comes to making up new languages.  I like to say that he’s fluent in Gibberish.  It seems so easy for him to make up new words or derivatives of English words that form the basis of whatever language he’s developing at the moment.  For example, last night he renamed the days of the week to "Mungu, Tugu, Wugo, Thugo, Fugo, Sago, and Sugu." He seems to like to say "gu" or "gee," and often the words he makes up begin with the initial syllables of the English word and end in "gu" or "gee."  For example, I am "dagee," (sounds a bit too much like "doggy," I think), and his mother is "magee."  Occasionally, he uses Chinese.  His name is "baogee," with "bao" referring to the Chinese word for baby.
 
It’s a fun sport, I suppose, although he speaks Gibberish at times when we’d like him to speak English or Chinese, such as when he meets someone for the first time.  I think that the fact that his parents enjoy foreign languages and that no less than bits and pieces of four languages–English, Chinese, Korean, and Spanish–have been thrown about in his four years of life has influenced his propensity to embrace Gibberish.  Or maybe it’s genetic.  After all, his dear old dad started inventing imaginary languages when he was about nine years old.  Regardless, I consider it a gift rather than a nuisance, because after all, all human languages evolved through the need to communicate between two or more people.  It only takes two speakers to form a new language.  Maybe our son will be the inventor of the next great language–an Esperanto, Elven, or Klingon in waiting.

This year, remember the diplomats too

Dear Reader, you’re in for a rare treat–I posted two blog entries on the same day!  Happy Memorial Day.  I was watching the news earlier today.  It reminded that every year on Memorial Day the media outlets drag out and dust off their flags and wave them on television in honor of those who have died for our country.  Their coverage inevitably focuses on the U.S. military and the soldiers who have died or suffered in the line of duty.  Their sacrifice is noble, and I appreciate their service and sacrifices immensely. 
 
At the same rate, little attention is paid to civilians who serve our country and have died or have been wounded in the line of duty.  This Memorial Day, please also remember the diplomats and other civilians who faithfully serve their country in situations that are often extremely difficult and dangerous.  In some cases, the diplomats remain behind when the troops go home.  For this reason, it is still true that since the Vietnam War, more diplomats have died in the line of duty than commissioned U.S. military officers.
God bless America, and God bless those who serve our country.  Happy Memorial Day.

I need an all-in-one

I went downstairs to retrieve our digital camera from the car this morning.  I realized that I have four small gadgets that I need to juggle on a daily–or at least weekly–basis: 
  1. A cell phone;
  2. A digital camera;
  3. A personal digital assistant (PocketPC PDA); and
  4. A music player (iPod MP3 player). 

They all do one function very well.  Unfortunately, now they’re weighty in my pockets, and my computer desk has a mess of cords needed to synch them up with my computer. 

I decided that I would pay good money for one device that’s both compact and can do all of these well.  Sure, there are devices on the market now that do some of these functions.  For example, my PDA plays music, and some such as the Palm Treo also double as cell phones.  Some cell phones have digital cameras, of course.  And soon Apple Computer will introduce the iPhone, an iPod cell phone.  The disadvantage of these dual-function units is that they lack capacity.  For example, the digital camera on most cell phones offers low megapixel resolution, and the storage capacity on a PDA is too small to store hundreds of songs.  If a company can produce a compact product that functions as a cell phone featuring a PDA with a full operating system plus productivity software (e.g. Microsoft Office) plus a 30-80GB hard drive that functions as a music player and 5.0 or more megapixel camera.  The technology is available to build this device, but it would be too big to be practical.  I imagine that in about five years or so technology will progress to the point where this kind of device will be on the market.  For now, I will continue to carry around four devices that do these four things very well.