One of the reasons blogging has been light - welcoming a new grandchild to the world ;-)

Jack with his dad (my older son)

The most recent addition to my family is Jack Hunter Witt, fifth child and third son of my older son Charlie and his wife Mai Lea. He was born at 1:17 on the afternoon of Thursday, September 20, weighs 7 pounds and 6 ounces, and is 2.5 inches long. Jack has a small amount of light brown hair plus all of the appropriate body parts, in the appropriate amounts.

It is not a slight thing when those so fresh from God love us.

~ Dickens

Infant Sorrow by William Blake

My mother groand! my father wept.

Into the dangerous world I leapt:

Helpless, naked, piping loud; 

Like a fiend hid in a cloud.

Struggling in my fathers hands: 

Striving against my swaddling bands: 

Bound and weary I thought best

To sulk upon my mothers breast.

Wednesday links

Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day, me hearties! Instructions, translators, and the Dave Barry column that started it all.

The Great British Hedgehog Census.

Swirling your wine is not pretentious; it's just good physics. My favorite part is how the analysis of the physics became someone's PhD dissertation.

Hey, Firefly fans - tomorrow is Unification Day. 

MIT Researchers Develop Seamless Underwater-to-Air Communication System.

Found: A 1699 "Beard Tax" Coin That Stopped the Tsar’s Police From Shaving You.

ICYMI, Tuesday's links are here, and include Great Britain's network of secret nuclear bunkers, the Night of the Flaming Ballerinas, the man who cut out his own appendix, inventing a longer-lasting popsicle, and, for Dr. Samuel Johnson's birthday, a selection of his excellent insults and Scotland-bashing quotes.

Tuesday links

It's the birthday of Dr. Samuel Johnson: here's a selection of his excellent insults and Scotland-bashing quotes.

Great Britain's network of secret nuclear bunkers. Related to London’s secret nuclear reactor.

The man who cut out his own appendix.

The Night of the Flaming Ballerinas.

Someone alert the Nobel Prize folks: Inventing a Longer-Lasting Popsicle.

“A Cacophony Of Hell”: The Story Of The Ramree Island Crocodile Massacre.

ICYMI, most recent links are here, and include the anniversary of Skynet self-awareness, drinking habits of Revolutionary-era Americans, how LBJ used to mark his territory (yup - just the way you think), and an excellent supercut of random items used as improbable weapons.