Joe and Steve

In an episode we haven't seen, Joe replaces Steve as the human on the series Blue's Clues. We don't get cable, so we watch Blue's Clues on old discount VHS tapes, and we only own a few. We have the episode where Joe first appears on the show as a guest, but it is still a mystery how Steve, the first green striped host, escaped, er I mean left the show.

So we are speculating on how they transitioned this role:

1. Did Joe poison Steve with Mrs. Pepper and Mr. Salt?
2. Did he booby trap Mailbox?
3. Did he hook ticky tock up as a countdown timer to an explosive?

Of course it wasn't any of these, fortunately confirmed by this article at the Cincinatti Enquirer.

Some things I learned:

• In real life Joe is not actually Steve's brother
• Joe alternates between colors because mothers were complaining that their children wouldn't change their green rugby shirts.
• Joe's previous appearances included Shakespeare plays in New York
• They have to act in front of a blue screen. I'm sure they could take on any weatherman's job after this show.

And if you would like to catch up on what Steve is now doing, he has his own web page now, and appears to still have his sanity: http://www.steveswebpage.com/

Skimming the Surface

When I go to the library I inevitably check out more books than I will ever read in the time I am allowed to have them. I end up returning my bound guests reluctantly, promising myself that the next time I'm at the library I will try again at liberating them from their shelves, but instead of following through on my promise, I betray the books and find some other topic that catches my interest. I would say that part of this "constantly skimming" problem is my unsystematic approach to consuming information, but I think I get to blame some of the problem on our information soggy environment.

With the easy access to information we have now someone can be continually window shopping without ever investing in learning something substantial. I think that this makes it critical that we choose what we consume carefully and according to a plan that takes us where we want to go. Otherwise we will constantly be flitting from source to  source, never inhaling deeply enough to be fill ourselves with deep understanding.

I'm not arguing that we completely eliminate spontaneity (Don't the 'a' and 'e' in "spontaneity" seem placed backwards? It is almost as if the word is warning you not to be too spontaneous). It's just that in our current environment the default modus operandi can end up being spontaneity 24 hours every day. If we don't consciously choose what we are going to pay attention to, there are plenty of people who will kindly step in, crowding our senses, and tell us what to do, watch, and immitate. 

After writing this I remembered that Dallin H. Oaks addressed this in his talk titled Focus and Priorities. think I'll go back and read it in depth this time.

Looking to move

I ran across a couple of good sources if you are looking to relocate:

 Best Cities for Relocating Families

• It was interesting to see that our current home city is on the list of "Small Markets"

Money Magazine's Best Places to Live 

• It looks like house prices are pretty high in all of the top ten places. Maybe it is inevitable that moving to a nice place means that you will have to spend upwards of $400,000 for a home. I hope not.