Not that I’ve read that many, because there are so many bad ones that it’s easy to not give them a chance, but MAN this was good.

Better than books 5, 6, and 7 of the actual Harry Potter canon.

The hook is that Voldemort is finally defeated when Harry Potter is 30, and everyone Harry loved is dead. He has nothing to live for, and manages to send his soul back in time to merge with his 11-year-old self. Bottom line: Book One starts with Harry having a complete knowledge of the future.

Of course, this taps into a fantasy I’ve long had, about “if I knew then what I know now.” I’ve often daydreamed about such a thing myself, either when life gets cruddy or just to make things better or more interesting…

(Of course, when my daughter was born, that put a stop to that kind of fantasy. I could never, even in dreams, go back in time to before she was conceived, as that would undo her existence. She’s so important to me that I can’t even entertain the notion, not even in a daydream, about her being erased; none of the amazing benefits of this sort of time travel come close to outweighing the devastating cost of such a thing.)

So Harry has future knowledge, but he’s also got horrible nightmares from seeing everyone he cared about murdered by Death Eaters, and he has guilt of all the manipulating of his friends he’ll have to do to make things turn out better this time…

It was started in 2005 and isn’t finished yet. There are 38 chapters, all of them brilliant. Some fics have good plots, this one has that and has very high quality writing as well.

I went to the author’s site and donated some money to hopefully encourage him to continue, sooner rather than later.

There are a few indoor playgrounds in the area, but they cost money and are for somewhat older children.

One nice place is an indoor play area in Tanforan Park, a shopping mall in San Bruno, on the San Francisco Peninsula.

If you’re in the Bay Area looking for indoor playgrounds or places to go with your toddler, this is a nice enough place.

It’s not large, and on Friday nights it can get rowdy with older kids, but it’s got a soft spongy floor, and soft plastic structures to climb on or through.

Tanforan used to be a racetrack, so it is themed that way. There is a saddle, two horses, a horseshoe garland, a pair of binoculars (functions as a double tunnel) and a car with a slide.

It’s inside the mall right outside the lower level entrance to Target. There is a storage area for shoes and cushioned benches inside for parents to sit.

Along the walls is a distortion mirror, a bas-relief like racing scene, and some toys where you flip panels or move a ball through a maze.

The structures are such that bare feet provides excellent traction allowing kids to crawl up anything if they know how.

If your child is small, you’ll want to keep an eye out that bigger kids don’t jump off the taller structures without looking, particularly on busy Friday nights.

In addition, a short distance from the play area is an island with rides. Like the horsey rides of old outside supermarkets, but on steroids. They have a helicopter, a space shuttle, a ride which mimics a roller-coaster (with video screen) and more. They are 75 cents or a dollar.

Another ride island is on the upper level above the food court. That is my preferred location in the evening as it is usually uncrowded. Furthermore, the ice cream truck ride moves on its own every few minutes (to entice passers-by) and many of the buttons work whether you put money in or not, making it a great budget choice.

The rides all say 3 years and up, but if you’re responsible and don’t leave your child’s side for a moment, you can enjoy them much earlier.

Note: Tanforan Park was remodeled and now they call it “The Shops at Tanforan” which I think is a STUPID name so I don’t call it that. Also the old mall layout was nicer, but I guess I’m in the minority because it was a pretty dead mall until the remodel. And the play area is new so I guess I’m happy about that, now that I have a child to use it.

It was quite a while before she saw me doing this, and our resulting surprise was mutual. She couldn’t believe I wasn’t taking them outside, and I honestly hadn’t realized that’s what she was asking. I just figured she didn’t like them in the bathroom for some reason. It had never occurred to me to evict them.

Growing up (in that same house), we never killed spiders. I was taught that they ate insects, and so we respected them. My brother even had a bunch of pet spiders in an aquarium for a while, and later got a tarantula. We had them in our rather wilderness-ish backyard, and they’d occasionally come in the house, and just let them alone. At one time, we had a spider just on the wall of our living room, for months, which we called “our front-room spider.”

Part of the reason my wife doesn’t like spiders is apparently she’s been bitten by them. I have never gotten a spider bite. My theory is that of mutual respect. They know I like them, and in return they like me.

On the oh-so-wonderful occasions I get to crawl under the house in the 14-inch dirt-floored crawlspace, blowtorch in hand, to fix the plumbing, I see hundreds of spider webs and egg sacs. That would be horrifying to most arachnophobes, but it doesn’t bother me. They see me coming, say “it’s okay, he’s cool” and leave me alone.

My mother was an interesting woman. The stereotype is that women are more likely to be squicked out by bugs and such, but she always liked spiders. We once had fleas and needed to bug-bomb the house. She handed me a cardboard box, and told me to go throughout the house, collecting all the spiders, and take them outside so they’d be safe.

After we bug bombed the house, she told me to go ahead and put them back.