Same Clothes, Bigger Belly

That was then (28 weeks):

This is now (37 weeks):

For those who are checking daily, here’s a long overdue update. I have been working (only about 8 hours/week now) and feeling good. I’m having the normal aches and pains, some problems sleeping at night, but overall, I’m feeling good. My last day at work will be Apr. 7–unless I go into labour early!

Our friends and families have been very generous to us and, through showers and parties, we have accumulated a ton of gear for the little dude. (Thanks everyone who has contributed!)

My sister Kristi comes tomorrow to visit for 5 days. I’m excited to see her, we haven’t seen each other in about a year.

Stay tuned for a birth announcement!!

Contact Change

We’ve cancelled our College Station phone number. So 979-696-1349 won’t get to us anymore. So, if you’ve been using that number, update your phone books to 734-330-2296.

Or you can get our new cell numbers from us (just got them today). But we’re not giving these out on the web. (Canadians: don’t bother asking for our cell numbers; if you call them, we’ll get hit with charges we don’t need to get hit with!)

End of the line

Unfortuantely, the Aggies season came to an end yesterday. I guess there’s lots of things that could be said, but the fact is, we didn’t get the job done. Until next year…

Sweet Sixteen!!

Aggies 72, Louisville 69! On to the Sweet Sixteen for the first time since 1980!

Let the Madness Begin

Some of you may be aware that March Madness has begun. I’m pleased to note that A&M won their first round game against Penn, 68-52. We had a bit of a scare, when Penn took the lead (39-37) with 13 minutes left in the game. But we righted the ship and everything turned out alright. Next up: Louisville, Sat. afternoon. I’ll keep you posted.

UM Grad Students in Action

I suspect that most of our regular readers won’t be interested in this, but I’ll post it anyway, and let you decide for yourself. The philosophy grad students here at Michigan have recently started a group blog as place for informal philosophical interaction. I’m a contributor to the blog, and have already contributed a post, which has generated some discussion. So, if you want to see what kinds of things concern philosophy grad students, or if you’re just interested in figuring out what exactly takes place during philosophical interchange, check out Go Grue! from time to time.

(Grue? What’s that?)

(For the interested: I’ll post links to my Go Grue! posts in the sidebar. Read them at your own risk.)

Hello world!

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An alternative way to help alleviate poverty

Many people care about alleviating poverty. However, some of those people are averse to donating money to charity for whatever reason (it promotes indolence, it prevents people from taking responsibility for themselves, it undermines economic efficiency, etc.). The trick for such people is to find a way to alleviate poverty that nevertheless promotes their ideals. Well, Kiva may just be such a solution. Kiva is a website that enables ordinary people with some disposable income to use their capital to finance small business ventures in developing countries through existing microcredit institutions. I’m not going to go into detail about how this works; you can read about it yourself. But the basic idea is simple: Entrepreneurs in developing countries are credit risks; thus, they are unable to secure the capital they need to finance business ventures. Microcredit organizations fill the gap by lending money to such people. The loans enable entrepreneurs to start up a business or grow an existing business. Such businesses provide income and jobs to developing areas, as well as provide necessary goods or services at a reasonable expense to their clientele. Thus, microcredit (ideally) enables people in developing countries to take responsibility for their needs, promotes economic efficiency in an area, and instills pride and dignity in the entrepreneurs, all of which aid in poverty alleviation. The bottleneck for microcredit institutions is coming up with the capital to loan. That’s where you can make a difference: you can loan some of your money (through microcredit institutions) to entrepreneurs. (I stress loan; your money comes back to you via repayment.) The bottom line: regular people who have a little capital can make a big difference for those who lack such capital and who are excluded from traditional financial institutions from getting their hands on it. At the very least, Kiva is worth a look.