Monthly Archives: June 2008

Dirty Diapers

I just saw Mira go into the bathroom with a handful of what appeared to be dirty diapers.  “Why,” you might ask, “is she walking around with dirty diapers? Why doesn’t she just throw them in the garbage and be done with them?”  One thing that might help you understand is that I saw her with cloth diapers.  You see, Cubie uses paper diapers only about half of the time.  The other half of the time you will find a cloth diaper covering his poopee parts.  So, you see, Mira was carrying cloth diapers into the bathroom, where, I can only presume, will be rinsing them out before they go into the dirty cloths hamper in the utility room.   I say I can only presume because I don’t watch this happening.  And, needless to say,  don’t do it myself.  To me, cloth diapers are a luxury, a sort of San Francisco yuppie housewife hobby.  I would not want to deprive Mira of the full experience.

In fact, I’ve come up with a number that represents the likelihood that you will find me cleaning a dirty cloth diaper.  This number is so small that can’t be represented in the decimal system of numbering.  Let me try is

 “Why are we using cloth diapers?  This I don’t know.  The only justification I’ve been able to come up with is that aesthetically they are more pleasing among the mid-century decor of our condominium.  

Family Time

Today we spent the day in Santa Rosa with grandparents Schwirtz, David and Harmony, and Julie and Richard. Everyone was there for a barbeque, a swim, chat in the front yard and lots of baby and pet viewing. It was hot, but not a problem under the shade tree. Star Trek episodes ran on in the house for people who did not want to brave the heat.

Murphys

We took an unexpected trip this weekend up to the gold rush town of Murphys in the Sierra foothills. We came for a memorial service for my cousin at the park in town. This is Robert II’s dad’s side of the family. Robert thought it was important to come up and pay respects, even though he is not very close to this side of the family. Anyway, we met Bob I and Gertie here, who drove down from Shingletown.

Murphys is quite a place. It is on highway 4 going into the Sierras, on the road to Markleeville south of Lake Tahoe. There are trendy restaurants, cafes and boutiques. It looks like quite a pleasant place to have a home, or a second home, except for what appears to be a pretty regular invasion of loud motorcycles and cars on the weekends. Any house would need to be off the main highway. We’ll check it out.

This is fathers day weekend, and since these days the only gifts we are giving are framed photos of Robert III, that’s what Robert I got.

Clone Lawman

“He looks just like Bob.” That’s the first thing out of the mouth of anyone who meets Robert III. Yes, he looks like me. We’ve been looking at old baby photos, and at this point RIII looks even more like RII than RII did when RII was RIII’s age. If you follow that.

This weekend turned out to be pretty uneventful, other than some drinks on Friday night at the Serpentine, where we sat at the bar and chatted with all the other parents who had kids there. And there were a lot. Seems to be a phenomenon here in SF. Babies in bars. I guess it is new. In any event, I had never noticed it before. When you don’t have one, you don’t see them, I guess. I felt sorry for all the single people sitting around having to put up with diaper bags, strollers and goo-goo talk.

On Saturday we went over to the Penikis’s for a barbeque. Gunar is the grill master. Again, more babies and talk about babies. Phadra Penikis is already walking at 9 months. RIII needs to get a move on.

Today it was church, breakfast in the Inner Sunset and then some open houses on the hill. Nothing too exciting in that department. We are not looking seriously until we can get the condo rented and figure out something wrt career. RIII was a Sheriff today. Don’t misbehave, or he’ll be forced to use his six-shooter.

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First Sale Doctrine: Making it Up as we Go Along

Last month a district court in Seattle issued an order telling Autodesk, the maker of the AutoCAD software product, that it could not use its copyrights to prevent a man named Timothy Vernor from selling copies of that software on eBay. In Vernor v. Autodesk, the court ruled that the so-called first sale doctrine leaves Autodesk without the exclusive right to distribute copies of AutoCAD possessed by Vernor. Given the interests of my current employer, I am not going to comment here on the correctness of that opinion. Nonetheless, the case is worthy of comment because it takes, in my experience, an unusually strict interpretive approach. It’s also a fun decision. In it, I hear the exasperated voice of a trial judge trying to make sense out of a meandering legal doctrine.

Shingletown

This weekend we are visiting Shingletown, the home of Robert I and Gertrude Pierce. We are taking a holiday on Monday, so will return on Monday night. It’s a couple months since Robert’s parents have seen Robert III, so that’s the primary reason for the visit. It also gives us a chance for a bike ride or two.

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