The kid's been on a ballet kick [sic] lately. However they emerge, it's interesting how gender coded interests are probably reinforced and encouraged by parents almost without thinking. Would she stay as interested in ballet if we didn't respond so well to it, or if we didn't then spend our YouTube surfing time looking at Nutcracker performances and Balanchine instead of diggers and explosions? [That said, her favorite YouTube clip at the moment IS of the Ariane 5 rocket launch which took my wife's first satellite, the XMM-Newton X-ray telescope, up into space.]
Anyway, this is all just an excuse to point out the hilarity of the idea of ballet bootleg video. Imagine what'd happen to this cameraperson if he was in the third row of a Green Day concert. Or of Superman.
I think that's Gorby's head in the next row up.
Wow, you're wife has her own x-ray satellite?
Should we call her Mrs. Evil when she sends the world a message that we must pay a ransom of one MILLION dollars or face certain annihilation...
or is she just using it to look through people's clothes?
I'm worried now that your kid will be pursued on her moped through the streets of Paris by a guy with a clean-shaven head and a radio earbud.
You've got to tell us more about that satellite. You can't just casually throw something like "my wife's first satellite" (especially the "first" part) into a post.
Really dude. Throw us a bone. What's the deal with your wife and her satellites?
Secondly, cough up the money and order the ABT Nutcracker with Barysnikov and Kirkland (amazon.com where else).
the wife works for the NASA; it was for her X-ray astrophysics research fellowship that we originally set up shop in DC.
NASA was, at the time, working on the next-generation x-ray telescope, which was a JV with Japan's space agency. The final assembly and launch were the two reasons we went to JP the last two summers.
Unfortunately, somebody-san built some exhaust vents pointing into the satellite instead of out into the vacuum of space, so as soon as the thing turned on, the X-ray detectors got coated with liquid hydrogen and failed.
At least that's how this 20-year veteran of dealing with Japanese bureacracies sees it. I'm sure NASA has agreed to see it differently in order for Japan to save face.
Now, though, she's onto the next, next-gen X-ray satellite telescope, which is being destroyed quite effectively before it launches, thanks to Military Industrial Complex cost overruns on the shuttle and some cockamamie mission to Mars smokescreen. [Don't get me started.]
As for the Nutcracker, I have a feeling we're a Balanchine family, since the wife also danced with NYBT as a little girl.
Odds she's gonna freak when she sees me writing all about her: about 1:1.
[and I would be wrong, she just wanted me to point out that she's not an engineer, but a scientist. It's the difference between the buzzcut and the longhair NASA's.]
Dear Dr. Evil (Mrs. Daddytypes): Please don't freak out that you got blogged. I'm thrilled to know that a dad that has yet to finish a single toddler bed has a wife that can send x-ray telescopes into space. Let's hope the kid takes after you.
Ballet is fascinating, not that I took it myself, but I watch two little girls who take ballet and it is fun to watch them to do the routines throughout the house.
I find it very cool that you can write the phrase that involves the words "my wife's first satellite".
The gender thing is interesting since I am really noticing it with the girls little brother, who at thirteen months is quite the gadget freak to the point that we can no longer use our laptops in front of him (well we could but it would involve loud ear piercing shrieks combined with chubby hands pulling the laptop off of our laps.) And he has started climbing the bookcase for remotes even though he still prefers crawling as his main method of transportation.
I would like to close with the fact that it is incredibly cool that you watch both ballet and satellites with your daughter. She is very lucky.