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There are many reasons we like living in Jenkintown — good schools, easy train ride into town, strange people — so here’s a little glimpse into the sort of drama that always seems to be percolating everywhere. This time, Jenkintown, 1910, by way of the local, local newspaper conglomerate:

Senator’s Daughter Found – Mrs. Hallowell Irwin, daughter of the late Senator Thomas B. Harper, who mysteriously disappeared from her home in Jenkintown, several weeks ago, was found in a hotel in New York and brought back to home at Jenkintown on Saturday. Although no reason is ascribed for Mrs. Irwin’s absence, which kept her relatives worried for some time, it is believed that she became despondent immediately after her father’s death and wandered away.

Two sentences, but a whole world of mystery.

Also, unrelated but in the same article:

Boy Dies of Lockjaw – Valek Dranaka, aged 17 years, of Bridgeport, died on Saturday in the Norristown Hospital of lockjaw, which developed from blood poisoning, following a wound on the leg near the ankle, the result of having been struck with the iron point of a bobbin while at work in Loes’ mill, Bridgeport.

Just a reminder that life was harder, death more frequent. This young boy, who should have been in high school, but was working in a mill, killed because his nicked ankle became infected. Think about that the next time you hear someone cranking on about modern medicine.

A new app claims to answer the one major objection I had to buying an iPad: where’s handwriting recognition? So this means I’m buying an iPad, right? No, are you kidding? They’re expensive. I’ll manage without…for now…

…and when I get one, it’ll have this:

Hokey smokes!

Quick point of sanity: You really don’t have to tell the five year-old that your fourteen year-old lab is not a puppy. She gets the distinction. (This doesn’t apply to the pups or their owners below.)

Don’t be fooled by the enormous golden retriever, Abby, here. She’s not just a sleepy older pooch on the, erm, husky side.

She’s like a trapdoor spider, waiting for two year-olds to lick. I believe her tongue was big enough to get all the spaghetti sauce off Ben’s face in one go. You see, there’s a reason we do this after dinner.

This pup, on the other paw, truly was sedentary.

Lastly, Cocoa was a sweet older beagle that we’ve seen a few times, but never has been captured, until now. I like this pic.

An Iggles fan, even in the off season.

All pictures courtesy of Julia, click ‘em to embiggen.

I have a secret jones for tiki culture. My iPod’s full of Les Baxter‘s exotica, and my bookcase holds copies of Trader Vic’s Tiki Party! and Sven Kirsten’s indispensable Book of Tiki. Something about the misappropriation creative remixing of other cultures really inspires me.

I can draw a direct line between this interest and the fact that both times my parents took me to Walt Disney World as a kid (at age 5 and again at 10), we stayed at the Polynesian Resort. Something about the combination of indoor fountains and air conditioning still gets to me. (I can draw a similar line to my love of monorails.)

That’s why I loved this quick review of the “Boutiki” shop at the resort. I won’t steal any of Shawn Slater’s images, so you’ll have to click the link yourself.

The Tactical Pants Review: I’m a big fan of cargo shorts. They’re the official shorts of fatherhood, with plenty of room for cameras, juice cups, toys and whatever random cool rocks your kid hands you. But I’m beginning to realize that shorts aren’t necessarily becoming of a grown man in certain instances. Florida, sure, and even the Jersey beach, but elsewhere it seems a little less than adult. I might invest in a pair of lightweight tactical pants for those non-dressy occasions when shorts make you look like a slob. A dork, maybe. But not a slob. Perhaps.

WikiAnswers: What are the advantages of a saltwater swimming pool? I had my first saltwater pool swim this weekend. My god, it is a thing of beauty.

Kayak.com’s Explore feature: One good reason to have tactical pants is traveling. I mean, really, why look like a chump when traveling? This is a nice feature for midafternoon daydreaming.

I’m too lazy to look it up at the moment, but I’m going to assume that the hadal zone gets its name for Hades, the underworld. Hell.

It is literally the crushing depths, about 6,000-11,000 meters, and certainly hellish, indeed. A couple of years ago, one group from the University of Aberdeen sent some probes down to see what’s shaking. (Called HADEEP, short for hadal deep, which is kind of an obvious name, really, but the whole thing is genius, read the blogs from their expeditions here and here, good fun.) One of their discoveries was this species of snailfish, pseudoliparis amblystomopsis, the second-deepest species of fish ever recorded.

Scientists from the expedition described them as “surprisingly cute.”

And they are cute. A cuddly species of fish that look like giant tadpoles. How adorable. Oh look! Here’s a group of them frolicking on the ocean floor.

Except they’re not frolicking, they’re likely stripping clean a corpse. Yes, giant tadpoles that strip dead, fallen flesh. Yay! And that’s what they call food that’s dropped from on high, “food-falls.” The snailfish religion probably involves a lot of looking up and praying for a whale to have a heart attack.

It seems innocuous, after all they’re just part of the circle of life, the janitorial part. Of course, I think there is reason to believe that they’d take matters into their own hands, which is why I’m not going down there. Well, that and the crushing hell part.

With one of these bad boys: Evil Baphomet Goat Head Ouija Board Satanic Nemesis

Man, why couldn’t Parker Brothers make ‘em like this? That’s just gorgeous. And the name! Good gravy, its enough to cause pause for even the most lapsed Catholic parents. I have half a mind to buy one for my godson.

So, how do Ouija boards work? Evil spirits and the ideomotor effect. Learn more here. And this handy-dandy video, staring the Amazing One:

This week we’ve introduced the kids to Walking with Dinosaurs, which takes you to a place and time were reptiles were huge and CGI budgets were relatively small. We were two episodes into the the six-part series when the five year-old noted that there only seems to be a handful of different species of dinosaurs around in any given epoch. Generally, each episode features a meat eater, a plant eater, a very big meat eater and a turtle.

Continue Reading Things that won’t kill you in Australian waters:...

Is this dog talented or what? A tremendous amount of personality, just by sitting there.

Bo, who we caught along with yesterday’s Sonny, is either trying out to be the next Nipper, or wants to know when Julia is going to take the #&*! picture already.

But, you see, its the ambiguity behind her portrayal that sets her apart from other dogs.

Or, she’s just a dog.

I’ve said it before and it bears repeating: parenthood isn’t a title, it is a long term process of applied heartbreak. It is an exquisite, beautiful heartbreak, but it provides a necessary lesson in letting go of nostalgia for the sake of the moment.

I say this — and here’s the relevance to the puppy hunt — the evening “nice walk,” a tradition begun when Julia was about two, used to be a chance for Dad and daughter to hang out a bit after dinner and before bath. Taking puppy pictures sprung from that. Of course, now Benny is of “nice walk” age, and it has really affected how we go about our hunts for the puppies of Jenkintown. Continue Reading Puppies of Jenkintown: Sonny at Sunset