One bird flew over the cuckoos nest

Lots of stuff in the press about “bird flu” this and “bird flu” that.

And you hear lots of numbers thrown around. For example in this CNN.com report where China says it is a “serious epidemic”. They have had 20 outbreaks in the last month alone.

Now I love this bit:

The latest cases resulted in the killing of nearly 175,000 birds.

Gee, doesn’t that sound like a lot? They are working hard to control this thing!

Em, maybe not so much. Did you realize that the United States (which, last time I looked was much smaller population-wise than china) produces more than 7 billion chickens a year? Did you know that a fair size poultry plant will process more than a million in a day? And that the loss of 200,000 is just a blip in the annual production of just one manufacturer, not to mention an entire industry?

So, hopefully what they’ve done will contain the latest outbreak. But 175,000 birds is a lot, but also not so much in the grand scheme of things.

I won’t even talk about how little I trust any “official” numbers from the chinese government. Have they started counting HIV/Aids as a disease yet?

Turkey Day is coming!

Crap, I blink and suddenly tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Who let that happen? Did everyone get the e-mail except me?

I’m kidding, kinda, since we’ve been planning for this for over a week now. I have a hotel room booked near my parents’ house. It’s a Holiday Inn express, so I can feel smarter afterward (lookout, internets). Only there’s a hitch. There always is.

Our baby, with her gift of timing, came home from the sitter yesterday with a fever. And not just a fever for the flavor of pringles, but a honest-to-gosh makes her miserable and wow-can-she-be-a-cranky-little-wanker infection of some kind. So I call my folks and say we may not be coming, after all. We’re officially “waiting and seeing” how things develop or devolve.

This isn’t really that bad; as much as I love my family, (and I feel rotten for actually writing this down but here it is), spending 5 hours in the car each way (for what is usually a three hour drive) plus over $200 for a hotel room starts to chafe me a little bit. The trips where you actually spend more time in the car, sitting in traffic, than you do in face to face contact with family or friends make you just heart your cell phone rollover minutes that much more. Add in a sick kid (or more, we’re waiting to see if anyone else catches it) and it’s just better to skip this one and move on to the next.

So chances are we’ll be home, playing with Tivo, perhaps I’ll actually write a meaningful post or two, maybe we’ll go see this new movie about some “boy wizard,” I dunno. We do have a soccer practice this afternoon, first.

I hope everyone of you do NOT have the joy of a feverish two year old, nor the thrill of a long drive to grandmas, and that Santa brings you a big turkey this year. Oh wait, that’s supposed to be the bunny. Sorry.

Oh, and watch the Macy’s Parade! In a kevin bacon sorta way, you know somebody (at least one) who will be marching in it. My neice niece (been hittin’ the eggnog this AM) is in the drill team, third row. Don’t ask me the name of the drill team, it’s like “all american” or “americas best” or “we picked you because you’re really good” or something like that. Third row, got it? She’s the talented one, probably freezing her ass off but that’s the price you gotta pay for art.

Bondage

No, not that kind. However, as usual when a new HP movie comes out, my blog is being flooded with people searching for Emma Watson’s Breasts™, so mentioning bondage or perhaps other fun indoor sports will increase my hits even more.

Whatever.

So, I realized over the weekend that my son (eldest, almost 8) and I have a wonderful way to connect, in that strange way that males sometimes can. Not hunting, or sports (although he is getting quite good at evaluating football and baseball), or even barbeque or beer. Mmm… beer. Wait, where was I? Oh yeah, male bonding.

Turns out we both have a huge love of Jackie Chan and kung fu movies.