A shout-out.

If you haven't heard of Dara Torres yet, check her out.

It's about time we had some Olympic heroines over the age of 20. :)  I can't wait for August to watch her swim.

7.5 months and ten answers.

And 1.5 to go.

If I were to make myself a t-shirt to communicate to the world for the next seven or so weeks, here are the top ten questions I'd answer on my chest so people could stop asking:

1.  Yes, I am often hot and uncomfortable these days (very perceptive!).

2. It's a boy.

3. August 15th.

4. We'll tell you his name once we meet him and see how he responds.

5. Slightly irritable and voluminous, but overall in good health.

7. Still at work.

8. Indefinitely, potentially, or possibly back to work in October depending on the job market.

9. She's looking forward to being a big sister.

10. No, we're probably not really ready, but what new parents ever are?

Early on the bandwagon?

I am aware of all internet traditions. 

Aren't you? 

For Warcraft fans only: some of the best Guild names EVER are eventually mentioned in the comments field.  "She Swore She Was Level 18" made me snort coffee out my nose.

New survey!

Part II of the Pew Foundation's recent research involving religion and public life in America has just been released:

U.S. Religious Landscape Survey

Among the findings, surprising and not so surprising, from the 35,000 respondents:

24% of respondents classified themselves as Catholic.  Mainline Protestants were at 18.1%, while evangelical Protestants composed 26.3%, mostly Baptist.  So that explains something about why evangelicals have been so influential in the past few elections.

In Catholic politics: 33% describe themselves as Republican or leaning Republican; 48% describe themselves as Democratic or leaning Democratic.  Most describe themselves as "conservative" or "moderate".  The other social and political views info is unsurprising perhaps, showing significant splits within the Catholic population on the issues of abortion laws and homosexuality.  

Abortion remains a contentious issue in this population with 48% stating it should be legal in all or most cases; 27% legal in some cases; 18% illegal in all cases.  I wish this stat had been around when I was still taking women's studies courses, as a few of my professors insisted that all Catholics and all Christians wanted to make all abortions illegal.  I'd have loved to be able to prove their sweeping generalization wrong because it hides an important conflict within a population they'd like to overlook.  Also, in self-defined conservative evangelical churches, only 25% of respondents believe abortion should be illegal in all cases.  This reinforces other studies I've seen which indicate the vast majority of Americans would like to see strict regulations on abortion but not outlaw it completely.  Not that this is an issue where simple majority-rule democracy should necessarily be the guiding moral standard, but I did find the data interesting because of the obvious distance between church leaders and believers on this issue.

Another interesting data point was the apparent Catholic commitment to environmental causes--60% of Catholics are in favor of stricter environmental regulations.  Perhaps this shows we're taking our responsibilities as stewards of the earth more seriously these days.

Anyway, the site is easy to navigate and the stats aren't lost in pages and pages of prose, so if you're curious about religion in America, I can wholeheartedly recommend taking a look at the data.

Camping. A guest post by the bug.

This is my dad.

This is me and my mom at the Rocky Mountain National Park. We're sitting by the fire.

We're sleeping together.  It was very cold. That's my new sleeping bag with the flowers.

This is a girl elk.  She doesn't have horns on her head.  That's how you can tell.

This is my mom and daddy.  I took this picture.  We were hiking and they were smiling and said "Cheese!"

Then we packed up and went home. It was a good trip. My favorite part was the sleeping. Because I like staying up forever in the tent.