Barry Allen or Wally West?

I was recently asked which was my favorite Flash and I instantly said, Wally West. Not that Jay Garrick doesn't have any die-hard fans out there, but Flash fans pretty much split into two camps: Team Barry and Team Wally.

Why did I pick Wally without a second thought? Two reasons:

1) Wally is a much more interesting character. Bare with me here... I see Barry Allen as a Jesus Christ figure, he was pure and perfect from the get go and the best thing he did was sacrifice himself to save us. Wally West is more of a Buddha figure. He's not perfect. In fact, in the beginning, he's a bit of a brat. He has to work to better himself and he tries different things and different paths. After he attains enlightenment by entering the speed force, he uses he new understanding to continue helping humanity. Both stories are great, but Wally is more relateable a character (to me anyways.)

2) Wally and I have grown up together. Wally went from Kid Flash to Flash around the time I was in middle school. He grew into the role of the Flash and became the best Flash while I was in college. He got married and had kids around the time I did. So if I seem biased it's cause I've spent more time with Wally West over the years.

New Space Vision

On Thursday Obama spoke about his new space vision. I'm not going to go into it cause it's been all over the web for the past three days, but if you've read some of my other space-related posts you'll know I totally agree with it.

Let the private companies deal with shuttling people to and from low Earth orbit and let the big government funds take us to more distant locations. Will it work? Probably not, but we know the old way wasn't working cause we haven't gone anywhere in some 30 years. At least this has a chance.

If it works, I envision privately built ships taking us to privately built stations and bases in orbit and on the moon with NASA ships exploring asteroids and Mars and other far-off targets. If it doesn't work we'll be exactly where we are now so no harm no foul.

Some links:
http://www.space.com/news/obama-speech-nasa-plans-reaction-100415.html

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2010/04/15/2271747.aspx

Sleeping Through the Night!

Sleeping
Originally uploaded by alexthoth

Okay, Sophie's a bit older than a month now and she's slept through the night (in her own crib) for two nights in a row. This is a major milestone for us. I hope this is a new trend. If it is, the worst part's over. Woo!

Nocturnal Baby Log, Stardate: -313148.85

Our little fam
Originally uploaded by alexthoth

Baby Sophie is officially one week old and she had her first away mission around the block.

We seem to have worked out a system to control the baby at night with Marge and I taking turns and allowing us each to get small amounts of sleep. We don't know if this will work tomorrow night as we've had such systems before only to fail the following night... the baby is like the Borg. She constantly adapts to our defenses.

Finally got to meet Sophie!

Originally uploaded by alexthoth

Born: Feb. 16th (Fat Tuesday) at 4:30 p.m.
Weight: 7 lbs. 8 oz.
Length: 20 1/2 inches
Sign: Aquarius/Tiger

Name meaning:
Sophie: Wisdom
Aden: Little flame
Hernandez: Bold voyager

She has Marge's hair and eyes and my complexion and mouth (supposedly) and a baby button nose which will only last her til her teens if her genes have anything to say about it.

Right now, Marge and I are beat, but we're getting ready to bring her home.

This is it...

Alex & Mai
Originally uploaded by alexthoth

We're approaching the home stretch! Any day now Sophie will be born. I thought I'd be more nervous, but really at this point, I just want her to come out so we can meet her. She's due Thursday (the 18th), but I don't think Marge is going to last that long before popping.

Next post will hopefully include a pic of Sophie.

2010 - 24 Stories Challenge!

At the beginning of the year I set myself the challenge of writing two strange short stories a month and put them on my new blog Ibis Ink. Since this is just a fun exercise and I won't even try to publish, I can crank them out. Don't know if I'm going to be able to keep this up once the baby is born but if all goes according the plan I should have 24 tales at the end of the year.