Josh Renaud

Revenge of the baby-sat

Any Calvin & Hobbes fans out there? Some of my favorite storylines in that comic involve Calvin's battles with his babysitter, Rosalyn.

I bring this up because we are fast-approaching a major milestone... For the first time, leaving our girls with a non-family-member babysitter.

It almost goes without saying that I have been looking forward to this for a long time.

I have loved my beautiful baby girls from the day Jadzia first arrived. But I lost a lot of freedom that day. I'll never be like I was before, that's certain. But I am really looking forward to being able to take out Yoli for a date every once in a while.

I'm just hoping my girls don't act like Calvin while we're away.

Getting to know John Becker

I've already written in detail about the murder of John A. Becker in 1917 in Chicago.

But my main purpose in researching him was to try and see if I could find out what he was like as a person. I still have a ways to go. But here's what I've found so far.

To write my story about John Becker's murder, I researched a lot of records about the case. Some of these have some interesting little bits about him personally. But I have to admit that to this point I have been a little bit disappointed, especially in the local St. Louis newspapers that had access to his family.

In any case, here is a bit of a mini-profile on John Becker:

Before he enlisted in the Navy in May 1917, John Becker worked for the Anheuser-Busch Brewing Assocation as a glassmaker; he also possibly worked for them in some capacity as a driver. This was just a couple years before Prohibition.

At the time of his enlistment, Becker was five feet seven and one half inches tall and weighed 151 pounds. He was blonde; his enlistment papers describe him as "ruddy."

Becker and most of the rest of his family were Catholic. I have found some of his siblings were baptized at Our Lady of Perpetual Help and others at Holy Trinity.

Speaking of siblings, Becker had two brothers and five sisters. He was the sixth child born in the family.

He was of German descent. His mother, Catherine Brinkmann, was born in Germany. His father, Frank J. Becker, was born in Kentucky, but Frank's parents were German immigrants. The family lived in north St. Louis. Over the years they lived on streets like Salisbury St., Vest Ave., and N. 25th St.

Multiple friends and acquaintances confirmed that Becker enjoyed the occasional drink, but he wasn't prone to get drunk.

"Becker was a peaceable fellow," said Mathew Mullen of naval company I. Mullen was from St. Louis and had known Becker for 10 years. "He drank beer. I never saw him drunk."

J.A. Krusberg, commander of Camp Perry at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station, said that Becker drank a little, but was always on time.

The St. Louis Star said Becker's relatives indicated he had never been in trouble.

Becker did meet a girl in Chicago, Mary Williams. She was a telephone operator and met Becker through mutual acquaintances. They visited in person only once, but stayed in touch for a month by writing letters and making phone calls.

Williams told authorities that Becker had a cousin in Chicago who lived on Gladys Ave.

Other documents

I mentioned in my story behind the story entry that I had the opportunity to scan several documents in John Becker's official military personnel file. I have now put two of these online as PDFs for anyone who might like to look at them:

• Cook County coroner's inquest A 60-page transcript of the testimonies of the witnesses.
• John Becker's service record This is incomplete, but it has the most interesting pages, including the pages with his signature and fingerprints.

I died and went to Atari heaven

When the day comes that the Renaud Empire is firmly entrenched across the globe, one of the significant changes it will lead to is the re-establishment of the Atari computer.

Yes, those who know me well know that I always have been (and will be) an Atarian. True, I eventually became a Mac user. But in the same way that I am a Texan-in-exile who lives in St. Louis, I am also an Atarian-in-exile forced to use a Mac.

And so it was with great joy that I stumbled onto the weblog called "Dadhacker" written by a former engineer from Atari. He has some amazing stories (very well-written). Here are just two:

Donkey Kong and me - He tells how he got hired at Atari and his first project was porting Donkey Kong from the arcade to the Atari 8-bit computers.

The Atari ST - He describes Atari's implosion in the early 80s, leading to the takeover by the Tramiels. He surived the Tramiels' purge and helped with the launch of the Atari ST line of computers.

Push-ups

Yes, Ludi can do push-ups. Better than me, too. Keep reading to see a video.

To watch this movie, you need Apple's QuickTime software installed on your computer.

The echo whisperer

In recent months, Jadzia has been greatly expanding her speech capacity in English and Spanish.

She does something now which seems unusual (though maybe other folks out there have experienced this, too). She whisper-echoes Yoli and I when we talk.

For example, if I'm reading a page in a book, after I finish the sentence or paragraph, Jadzia will quietly repeat the last word I said (or an interesting word she heard). She does this all the time, whether we are reading or whether I'm giving her a little speech about something.

It's kinda cool. It's as if you can see her brain expanding. :)

Donkey Kong and goats

A few photos for your enjoyment. This is Jadzia at the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo.

Yoli shows Hayden how to play the guitar at Christmas.

Yoli gives Ludi a baby koala ride.

Ever since Christmastime when we began reading Jadzia books about the birth of Jesus, she has really been fixated on Mary, Jesus and Joseph. She likes to pretend she is Mary (as you can see here) and calls her dolls (or Ludi) "Baby Jesus."

Yoli made a pixel-perfect cake representation of Donkey Kong for our "Kong Night" when we had some friends over to watch "The King of Kong."