Love will win

June 13, 2016
· Martin Kelley

I haven’t post­ed any­thing on the hor­rif­ic mass shoot­ing because like most of you, I’ve been in shock, try­ing to learn and try­ing to make sense of some­thing that will nev­er make any sense. I don’t have any pro­found insights on the shoot­ing. I don’t want to claim I know the real rea­son this hap­pened and I don’t want to mansplain a list of fix­es that will keep it from ever hap­pen­ing again. I’m griev­ing for the vic­tims and their families.

I ache for my LGBTQI fam­i­ly who are too used to ran­dom vio­lence, both mass and per­son­al. I wor­ry for the way the shooter’s eth­nic­i­ty and alle­giance will only be used to jus­ti­fy more big­otry and vio­lence. I’m sick of liv­ing in a world where ISIL thinks mass shoot­ings are a jus­ti­fi­able polit­i­cal state­ment and I’m sick of liv­ing in a coun­try where the NRA and its politi­cians think it’s okay to sell military-grade assault weapons. I pray for sim­ple things: love, heal­ing, con­so­la­tion. And I cry inside and out. Life and love will win out.

And, from Friends Jour­nal:

Historic Cold Spring Village in Cape May, NJ

June 11, 2016
· Martin Kelley

Down near the tip of South Jer­sey is Cold Spring Vil­lage, a nine­teenth cen­tu­ry liv­ing his­to­ry muse­um just north of the Vic­to­ri­ana of Cape May Point . We vis­it­ed for it’s “Hands-On His­to­ry” week­end. In August, our 12 year old Theo will be a junior appren­tice in the broom-making shop. We also vis­it­ed here about this time of year in 2013.

Fran­cis liked sit­ting with Lau­ra on these rock­ers and asked for a pho­to of the two of them. 
Oink and baa 
In the book­bind­ing shop, lit­tle kids can use fin­gers and ink pads to draw leaves on trees. 

Bike to Work 2016

May 31, 2016
· Martin Kelley

May 20th was Bike To Work week, which I rode for the third time in recent years. This year I rode 32.1 miles, from 5:53 to 9:00 a.m., for a total time of 3:07 hours and speed of 10.3mph.

I had a phone with Google Maps direc­tions strapped to my han­dle­bar but did­n’t need it much as I’ve learned most of the route by now. Every time it feels less out­landish to do this ride, to the point where I might just spon­ta­neous­ly do it again this sum­mer if I find myself awake ear­ly. This year I got an ear­ly start, nev­er stopped for snacks, and only occa­sion­al­ly stopped for pic­tures, which togeth­er brought me in far ear­li­er than I’ve man­aged before.

Ready to leave, 5:53am, mile 0 of 32. 
Mile 10/32. This tenth of the ride is a most­ly for­got­ten 18 cen­tu­ry coun­try road. 
This is a very half-hearted bike lane. 
The longest part of my route is also one of my favorites: a rail­road avenue along the old Read­ing line going through cute old towns. 
Mile 22/32: the old­Had­don Heights train station. 
On the Ben Franklin bridge: almost there! 
Pass­ing by work a lit­tle before 9 a.m.
At work: time for a shower! 

The route (minus the blocks right around my house for privacy):

Delayed readership

May 12, 2016
· Martin Kelley

A Quak­er edu­ca­tor recent­ly told me he had appre­ci­at­ed some­thing I wrote about the way Quak­er cul­ture plays out in Quak­er schools. It was a 2012 blog post, Were Friends part of Obama’s Evolution?

It was a bit of a ran­dom post at the time. I had read a wide­ly shared inter­view that after­noon and was mulling over the pos­si­bil­i­ties of a behind-the-scenes Quak­er influ­ence. This sort of ran­dom­ness hap­pens fre­quent­ly but in the rush of work and fam­i­ly I don’t always take the time to blog it. That day I did and a few years lat­er it influ­ence spline on some small way. 

It reminds me of an old obser­va­tion: the imme­di­ate boost we get when friends com­ment in our blog posts or like a Face­book update is an imme­di­ate hit of dopamine — excit­ing and ego grat­i­fy­ing. But the greater effect often comes months and years lat­er when some­one finds some­thing of yours that they’re search­ing for. This delayed read­er­ship may be one of the great­est dif­fer­ences between blog­ging and Facebooking. 

Baby name popularity trendsetters?

May 10, 2016
· Martin Kelley

The most pop­u­lar post on my blog, year after year (and now decade after decade), is a 2005 piece on baby names: Unpop­u­lar Baby Names: Avoid­ing the Jacobs, Emilys and Madis­ons. We used the tech­niques list­ed to aid in our attempt to give our own kids clas­sic names that would­n’t be overused among their peers. The 2015 num­bers are out from the Social Secu­ri­ty Admin­is­tra­tion. How did we do? The charts below shows the respec­tive rank­ings from 2015 to the year they were born.

theodore

francis

gregory

laura

The names of our two “babies” — Gre­go­ry, 5, and Lau­ra, 4, are both less pop­u­lar now than they were the year we named them. Yea! They’re both in the low 300s – viable names but far from overused.

Fran­cis, now 10, was drop­ping in pop­u­lar­i­ty and drop­ping into the low 600s. With that trend, we actu­al­ly wor­ried about the name becom­ing too unpop­u­lar. But an uptick start­ed in 2010 and became pro­nounced in 2013 when an Argen­tin­ian named Jorge Mario Bergoglio decid­ed to start call­ing him­self Fran­cis. The name is now in the high 400s.

The pop­u­lar­i­ty of our eldest son’s name, Theodore (“I’m Theo!, don’t call me Theodore!”), start­ed off in the low 300s was hold­ing steady with­in a 20-point range for years until around 2009. In 2015 it cracked the top 100. It’s only at 99 but clear­ly some­thing’s hap­pen­ing. Equal­ly dis­turb­ing, “Theo” was­n’t even on the top 1000 until 2010, when it snuck in at posi­tion 918. Since then it’s leap 100 spots a year. It’s cur­rent­ly at 408 with no sign of slowing.

And for those of you look­ing to spot trends: did we just call our names ear­ly? Maybe “Fran­cis” isn’t a slow climb but is about the go shoot­ing for the top 100 in two years time. Maybe “Gre­go­ry” and “Lau­ra” will be all the rage for moth­ers come 2020. Yikes!