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Wow, how did it get to be the end of the year already? I've fallen down on my blogging bigtime, but I have ambitious plans for 2010-- mostly consisting of posting a batch of articles at once and letting MovableType publish them on a schedule. That way when I'm in the blogging mood I can write up a bunch of stuff and post it.

A few end-of-the-year notes:

• Christmas was wonderful, even though (or perhaps because) we were here by ourselves. We gave Mom and our boys a Disney cruise, which means I'll miss the MVP summit this year. I think it's a reasonable tradeoff, though.
• Julie and Paul gave me Cruise Ship Confidential, which was a real hoot. The author struck me as someone I'd love to sit down with over lunch. If you like true-confessions-style books, this one's excellent.
• Lego Rock Band is a ton of fun, especially with the boys. We also gave them Lips: #1 Hits, which is way more fun than I expected it would be. No surprise that the Lips wireless mic works with the Rock Band family, and having a wireless mic makes those games more fun (and easier for us to stage).
• I bought a USMC license plate frame from the Stars and Stripes Shop. It was cheaper than any place else I found, I got it in two days, and they sent me a 10% off code to share: sssfrienddec09. Share and enjoy!
• This year's Aviation Week & Space Technology photo contest winners are even more awesome than usual. The little tiny online versions don't really do the pictures justice; if you can find the print magazine, you'll see what I mean.
• One of my coworkers is an Iowa fan-- the first one I've ever met in the flesh. Too bad his team is going down when they play the mighty Yellow Jackets.
• Speaking of work, I'm really excited about some of the stuff we're going to be doing. I can't share any details yet but there are some exciting things coming up.

I probably won't be posting again this year, so until next time, have a wonderful New Year's Eve and get ready for a great 2010!

Last Saturday was my 41st birthday. Thanks to all who shared birthday wishes with me-- I appreciate the positive energy! I got some great gifts from my family, including COD:MW2, which I didn't even open until I finished Stephen King's latest book (Under the Dome). My mom sent me a copy of David McCandless' spectacular The Visual Miscellaneum, which I've been very much enjoying. Some unknown benefactor also sent me a Cop Tool , which I'd had on my Amazon wish list.

On Monday, I was in Redmond teaching the MCM unified messaging class-- always a fun gig. I've clearly lost a lot of my good travel habits, as I forgot both my laptop charger and my iPhone charge/sync cable. I got to have lunch with Tim, though, so that was a big plus. The best part: it was a very short trip, with only one night away from home.

Tuesday Arlene left for her "New Moon" sabbatical, so the boys and I have been baching it since. Tuesday night there was a youth activity at church, and Tom had campout prep time with his Scout troop, so Matt came to the activity with me. Wednesday Matt and I went to his Cub Scout pack meeting, and Thursday David and I had a home teaching appointment. I'd like to say that we had nutritious home-cooked meals, but... well, not so much. Enough said about that.

Yesterday Tom and Dave had a Scout campout at New Brighton State Beach, so Matt and I played some Lego Star Wars, had a delicious meal at the local Red Robin, and watched UP. (Interestingly, Disney's making a rental version of the disc-- it had more commercials, no special features, and no way to skip to the menu.)

This morning I slept in until 0820 (luxury!), then Matt and I watched Ohio State beat Michigan, did some laundry, and waited for the electrician to come. Shortly we'll go pick up the boys from their campout, then it's off to the Scout Store for some uniform items. I don't know what we'll do for dinner, but it'll be something simple.

I'm certainly looking forward to tomorrow for two reasons. First, my wonderful wife is coming back. Second, it's a Sunday, which means a slower-paced Sabbath day to help recover from the hectic week. Peace out.

Right now I'm on a Southwest flight from PDX back to SJC after a great trip to see Bryan and Katie's wedding. Bryan, of course, is better known as Dr. Bryan J. Rice, high muckety-muck of X-ray lithography for SEMATECH, and, not incidentally, one of my oldest friends. I've known him since my senior year in high school, when we had the good fortune to have the same physics class/ We spent countless hours together working on cars, studying at college (he got his bachelor's in computer science and a masters' in physics in the same amount of time it took me to get a bachelor's alone!), and generally palling around.

David and I left San Jose Friday evening and flew into PDX, where we picked up our rental and headed for the Hotel B. The bride's sister had recommended it; its primary virtues were its low rate ($40/night on Priceline, although they're exaggerating if they think it's a three-star property) and its proximity to Bryan's house, where the wedding was to be held. Overall it was nothing special: the rooms were adequately clean and reasonably well-maintained, except for the incredibly squeaky floors. On the other hand it's right across the street from the Hillsboro airport, which just happens to have a large contingent of helicopters that fly pretty much all day. For most people that would be an unwelcome nuisance but for us it was a bonus.

First thing Saturday morning we headed over to Pine State Biscuits. Summary: A++++ would eat again. In fact, if I lived in Seattle, i"d drive to Portland just to eat there. In fact I"m considering planning a trip up from Morgan HIll to eat there. Turns out they were recently on the Food Network, and i can see why. Large portions, delicious biscuits, and the best stewed apples-- tender without being mushy, and not sickly-sweet-- I've ever had. (Plus the waitress pictured here kept calling David "darling" and batting her eyes at him.) After being thus filled, we headed over to Powell's, another reason why i feel like a future visit to Portland is in order. What a fantastic place! David and I each got a few books. I would happily have bought more, save that I lack time to read them all (I did get the 2009 edition of "The Best American Science Writing", the 2007 version of which I thoroughly enjoyed). I figure I can squeeze that in.

Then, the wedding. Bryan really put on the dog for this event; his backyard was groomed and manicured within an inch of its life, and it was absolutely perfect for the ceremony. The weather, which had been yucky-but-typical in the morning, improved markedly, with clear skies, a light breeze, and plenty of sunshine. I took video of the entire ceremony, but haven't had a chance to edit it yet. In the meantime, here are some pictures to tide you over. We had a lovely dinner and got to meet a few of Bryan's co-workers from Intel, as well as seeing some familiar faces from his family. I'm really glad we were able to attend, even though I'm sorry Arlene had to miss it. (but I get to see her and the boys this week! yay!!)

Today was quiet; we found the Brookwood Ward in Hillsboro and went to Sacrament meeting, hit Pine State again (figuring, correctly, that eating there would cover us for both breakfast and lunch), and went back to the hotel to get David's forgotten retainer. At that point, we decided it would be more fun to take the Portland MAX light rail to the airport, so I returned our car at the airport (remember, it's right across the street!) and we trained it back to PDX. Tonight for dinner it's pasta-in-a-bag, followed by the last part of "Torchwood: Children of Earth," then up and at 'em tomorrow.

[ Update: rewritten because the original's links were bad. I deleted it, and now people who clicked on the original link are getting 500'd ]

Arlene and I upgraded our iPhones to the 3GS model last night, and David got a 3G 8GB to replace his ooold Nokia flip. Tom is awaiting the arrival of his iPod Touch. With that in mind I wanted to link to a few apps that I frequently use. This isn't a complete or exhaustive list, but it's a start.

• The Scriptures, a free app that renders the standard works of the LDS Church (Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon, and Doctrine and Covenants), complete with footnotes and a really helpful search feature.
• The Mormon Channel, which provides a number of LDS Church-sponsored audio and information feeds, including full text of Church magazines, scriptures, and content from General Conference sessions. Interestingly, this is a community-developed app-- I'm signing up to work on it. (It's free.)
• The Weather Channel: all the local forecasts you could possibly want, supported by ads. There's an ad-free Max version for $4 that adds beach forecasts, radar maps, and some other stuff
• feX for Facebook: syncs your Facebook friends list with your iPhone address book (and thus, by extension, with Exchange or whatever you're using on the back end). This is the fastest way to get pictures of your contacts, not to mention their birthdays and so on. It's well worth the $0.99 cost.
• TweetDeck: a great free Twitter client. It's supposed to be able to sync with the desktop version, but I haven't gotten it to work properly yet.
• Blog with iBlogger is $10. However, it's by far the best blogging client I've found for the iPhone. It handles multiple blogs with aplomb and can easily post text and photos. I haven't tried posting any videos yet, though.
• Shazam, a free app that identifies songs for you then lets you quickly buy them from iTunes. Perfect for places where they often play music you don't recognize.
• iPhlix for remotely controlling my Netflix queue (including adding and removing items; well worth its $3 price) and its partner in crime, the free U-verse TV remote control app. Between these two I can remotely record or request shows or movies no matter where I am (e.g. in the back of an airplane somewhere).

Jeri Wendt, a friend of mine from Perrysburg Rotary, sent me this note, and I wanted to share it. If you have a loved one with Alzheimer's in metro Toledo, please look into Paul's Peers and support them in any way you can.

When you come across something that you care about and think others may benefit from you just HAVE to pass on the good word… so, please take a minute and read about something that makes my life so much better.

For those who don't know, my mom has Alzheimer's. My older brother and I share in her care and luckily for us, about three years ago, we discovered Paul's Peers Respite Care in Maumee where we take her four days a week. (See attached article featuring me and Mom!). Paul's Peers is a senior day-care center whose main purpose is caring for elderly people who need assistance. This includes people with Alzheimer's. It is a place to drop off your loved one knowing they will be cared for by the kindest people you would ever hope to meet. For $35 a day you have up to eight hours of free time for yourself and in our case, Mom gets a day away from us. (A win-win situation!)

I am sending this to you in case you know of someone who would be interested in this program. Due to the economy, many people aren't working now and are staying at home with their loved ones eliminating the need for elder care during the day. Much to our dismay, Paul's Peers has had to temporarily stop care on Tuesdays due to lack of enrollment. So… if you have a spouse, parent, grandparent or know of someone who could use this service please let them know. It is a program offered as much for the care giver as it is the recipient.

We would not be able to have my Mom stay at home were it not for this “gem”. We drop her off at 9:00 in the morning and her day begins with a continental breakfast, (donated by Panera Bread), and David, the assistant director, reading the newspaper and discussing current events. The rest of the day the incredible staff keeps things interesting by mild exercises, playing games and cards, watching old movies and listening to music with weekly entertainment such as an accordion player or a story teller. Other events are bi-weekly manicures, trips to the movie theater, crafts, tea parties, church every Wednesday and visits from the children's day-care. The staff patiently learns the likes and dislikes of each participant and gently works with them accordingly. It didn't take them long to find out my mom is an avid gin-rummy player who is tough to beat!

There you have it... now you know. If you don't have the need right now maybe sometime in the future you will have a friend who is at wits end and needs a break. You can offer them a solution.

Paul's Peers Respite Care

St. Paul's Episcopal Church

310 Elizabeth Street

Maumee

(419) 893-3381

Today I got a chance to see a dear old friend, Chris Larsen. Chris and I were roommates in college, but the last time I saw him was at his wedding in 2002 (see here, here, and here). I've had several business trips planned to the Bay Area, but each of them has been cancelled for some reason or other. This was the first time that I was actually going to be in the neighborhood (sort of), so we'd made plans to link up. He came down and met me after church.

For lunch, we hit the Persian Grill. I noticed it yesterday when at the laundromat, but it was closed until dinnertime. I had the makhsoos, which was excellent (I also tried the spiced yogurt, which wasn't bad). As we were talking, I said something about Perrysburg and a man at the next table overheard us-- he's from Perrysburg, and his friend is a former Toledo resident. It's a small, small world!

We then drove the 17 Mile Drive. The weather was fairly poor-- around 55°F with heavy fog. We couldn't really see much of anything until we got near Spanish Point, and even then there was so much overcast that the sea and sky blended pretty much seamlessly. I got a few good pictures of the beach and water, along with the below shot of the Lone Cypress. along the way, we had a great time talking about energy policy, nuclear reactors, the economics of coal-fired power, and the EPA. In other words, just a garden-variety conversation :)

After 17 Mile, we headed over to Cannery Row and hit Ghiradelli's for some ice cream. Chris tried to talk me into ordering the Earthquake, a $30, 8-scoop concoction. Wisely, I declined (though I did ask if they had one I could photograph for the kids!) Chris had his laptop, so he showed me recent photos of his family. I retaliated by whipping out my iPhone and subjecting him to pictures from our whale watching trip and our recent spring break visit to Louisiana. We walked around Cannery Row for a while, still talking about abstruse technical topics, then visited at my apartment for a while. I issued an advance invitation to come visit us in Seattle, and he kindly volunteered to be a trail and mountain guide for the boys and I so we can visit some of the excellent scenery in central California. All in all, it was a great visit, long overdue. I look forward to the next time I get to see him!

Today I got a chance to see a dear old friend, Chris Larsen. Chris and I were roommates in college, but the last time I saw him was at his wedding in 2002 (see here, here, and here). I've had several business trips planned to the Bay Area, but each of them has been cancelled for some reason or other. This was the first time that I was actually going to be in the neighborhood (sort of), so we'd made plans to link up. He came down and met me after church.

For lunch, we hit the Persian Grill. I noticed it yesterday when at the laundromat, but it was closed until dinnertime. I had the makhsoos, which was excellent (I also tried the spiced yogurt, which wasn't bad). As we were talking, I said something about Perrysburg and a man at the next table overheard us-- he's from Perrysburg, and his friend is a former Toledo resident. It's a small, small world!

We then drove the 17 Mile Drive. The weather was fairly poor-- around 55°F with heavy fog. We couldn't really see much of anything until we got near Spanish Point, and even then there was so much overcast that the sea and sky blended pretty much seamlessly. I got a few good pictures of the beach and water, along with the below shot of the Lone Cypress. along the way, we had a great time talking about energy policy, nuclear reactors, the economics of coal-fired power, and the EPA. In other words, just a garden-variety conversation :)

After 17 Mile, we headed over to Cannery Row and hit Ghiradelli's for some ice cream. Chris tried to talk me into ordering the Earthquake, a $30, 8-scoop concoction. Wisely, I declined (though I did ask if they had one I could photograph for the kids!) Chris had his laptop, so he showed me recent photos of his family. I retaliated by whipping out my iPhone and subjecting him to pictures from our whale watching trip and our recent spring break visit to Louisiana. We walked around Cannery Row for a while, still talking about abstruse technical topics, then visited at my apartment for a while. I issued an advance invitation to come visit us in Seattle, and he kindly volunteered to be a trail and mountain guide for the boys and I so we can visit some of the excellent scenery in central California. All in all, it was a great visit, long overdue. I look forward to the next time I get to see him!

Yay! I survived the first week of my training in Monterey! A few random observations:

• Training people 1:1 for 10-12 hours a day is quite demanding. I have to give my students a break every hour or so, not because they need it but because I need it. The energy and enthusiasm of the sailors I'm working with is definitely motivating, though.
• Exchange 2003 looks really old after a year of working with Exchange 2010. It's a little scary, in fact, how old some of the hardware and software that the Navy has to use is; some of the shipboard routers our sailors depend on are so old that the manufacturer doesn't support them any longer.
• Our lunch and dinner meals are catered by the local Whole Foods. Those folks can definitely cook, but it's not as good as Arlene's home cooking. Thankfully they're not providing desserts, or I'd probably blow up.
• I had forgotten what apartment life was like. Arlene and I lived in an apartment the first year and a half of our marriage, but that was a long time ago! The apartment I'm in has noisy upstairs neighbors, plus a cat infestation that results in nightly catfights somewhere not far outside my bedroom window. On the other hand, it's nice to not be in a hotel; I have a real kitchen.
• In Monterey, apparently caffeine-free diet Coke is illegal, because I sure can't find it anywhere.
• The Monterey Bay Aquarium really is as good as you've heard. However, it wasn't much fun going there without the kids. It's just not the same without my family around!

Today I spent some time driving around the city (which didn't take long, hemmed in as it is by Monterey Bay). I toured the aquarium for about two hours (photos here), dropped by the local Goodwill to pick out a couple of new shirts, found a place to do my laundry, and so on. I briefly debated going to see the new X-Men movie but opted instead for some Whole Foods organic microwave popcorn and some more of season 2 of The Wire. Tomorrow I'll be attending the Monterey ward, then my old friend Chris Larsen and I are going to get together and do some sightseeing. It should be a nice relaxing day, which is important given that I start teaching again bright and early Monday.

11 years ago today, our family received a wonderful gift: a new baby boy. We named him Thomas Raphael: Thomas because we liked it as a good, strong name, and Raphael after my grandfather and great-grandfather. In the years since, Tom has been such a blessing to us. He is compassionate, energetic, smart, athletic, and generally fun to be around. Happy birthday, Tom!

11 years ago today, our family received a wonderful gift: a new baby boy. We named him Thomas Raphael: Thomas because we liked it as a good, strong name, and Raphael after my grandfather and great-grandfather. In the years since, Tom has been such a blessing to us. He is compassionate, energetic, smart, athletic, and generally fun to be around. Happy birthday, Tom!

I can't believe I've forgotten to blog about this, but apparently I did: we're moving to Seattle.

When: it depends on when our house sells. It's on the market now. We've had a few showings, with good feedback thus far. In fact, as I was writing this, we got notice of another showing tomorrow, and we have an open house on Sunday. Houses are selling better in Perrysburg and Sylvania than in the overall metro Toledo area, so we'll have to see what happens. We might get a buyer tomorrow, or it might be in 2010. This uncertainty would normally be driving me CRAZY but it hasn't been too bad (see below to find out why).

How: we don't know yet. Ideally the house here would sell before the kids start school in the Seattle area (so, before about 1 September); that way we could move without the disruption inherent in a mid-year move. We'll probably do the U-Pack thing again, at least for most of our furniture, then hire a real mover for anything fragile or valuable. That's probably the best balance between cost, hassle, and breakage. As of right now we're planning to drive cross-country to actually get there, but we'll have to see what the weather's like when we get ready to go. Matt and I want to hit the C.M. Russell museum's bison exhibit on the way if at all possible, and according to Tim and Julie there are lots of other cool things to do en route.  

Why: this is a simple question, but with a complicated answer. We moved here in 2002 to be closer to my parents after my dad had an unexpected blood clot that hospitalized him; Tim being here was an unexpected bonus. We quickly grew to love Perrysburg. People here have a great sense of community, our local church ward is full of wonderful people, the schools are excellent, and it's a vibrant place with excellent services.

Over the last 18 months or so, though, I've gradually developed the realization that it would be best for 3Sharp if I were in Redmond more often, even permanently. After Dad's accident, Mom decided to move down to Louisiana, and with Tim gone too, much of the initial reason to live here was gone. Arlene and I started talking about the possibility of moving several months ago, but neither of us took it seriously-- we agreed to put off a serious exploration until after New Year's Day. So, we did, and all was well.

I thought about moving, and made some desultory (and, frankly, rather lazy) attempts to pray for guidance, but to no avail. Shortly after the first of the year, we had a Sunday School lesson that covered Doctrine and Covenants section 9. I was already generally familiar with the principle: the Lord expects us to do the legwork, examine alternatives and options, and make decisions using the brains He gave us. We can always seek confirmation of our decision, but that's not the same as asking Him to tell you what to do. That was the missing ingredient.

So, I went back and started really thinking about it seriously. What were the pros? (Where to begin? Much less travel for me; great opportunities for growth for the whole family; proximity to the temple; beautiful scenery; new things to explore; a really diverse environment for the boys, a whole new part of the country to explore, more gluten-free foods...) What were the cons? (Housing costs, obviously, plus the upheaval of dragging everyone across the country, particularly for Arlene) On balance, I decided that the pros outweighed the cons, so I told Arlene what I'd been thinking about. She too had been giving the idea a more serious look. Once we started praying about it, it became clear that moving was the right thing for our family to do-- but that it would happen when it happened, not necessarily on our schedule.

Where: somewhere on the east side of the metro area. Our office is in Redmond, so I'd like to be reasonably close to it. There are some great bargains in Snoqualmie and other nearby areas, but I don't know if I'm ready to take on a 30+ minute commute each way after nearly 11 years of commuting from the breakfast room to my office down the hall. I'll be in the office some days and working from home some days, so that will help make the transition easier. We've been making heavy use of Redfin to look for houses: partly because it's effective, and partly because it's fun to window-shop.

More news when there is news-- now I have to go clean up my office before the showing tomorrow.

I can't believe I've forgotten to blog about this, but apparently I did: we're moving to Seattle.

When: it depends on when our house sells. It's on the market now. We've had a few showings, with good feedback thus far. In fact, as I was writing this, we got notice of another showing tomorrow, and we have an open house on Sunday. Houses are selling better in Perrysburg and Sylvania than in the overall metro Toledo area, so we'll have to see what happens. We might get a buyer tomorrow, or it might be in 2010. This uncertainty would normally be driving me CRAZY but it hasn't been too bad (see below to find out why).

How: we don't know yet. Ideally the house here would sell before the kids start school in the Seattle area (so, before about 1 September); that way we could move without the disruption inherent in a mid-year move. We'll probably do the U-Pack thing again, at least for most of our furniture, then hire a real mover for anything fragile or valuable. That's probably the best balance between cost, hassle, and breakage. As of right now we're planning to drive cross-country to actually get there, but we'll have to see what the weather's like when we get ready to go. Matt and I want to hit the C.M. Russell museum's bison exhibit on the way if at all possible, and according to Tim and Julie there are lots of other cool things to do en route.  

Why: this is a simple question, but with a complicated answer. We moved here in 2002 to be closer to my parents after my dad had an unexpected blood clot that hospitalized him; Tim being here was an unexpected bonus. We quickly grew to love Perrysburg. People here have a great sense of community, our local church ward is full of wonderful people, the schools are excellent, and it's a vibrant place with excellent services.

Over the last 18 months or so, though, I've gradually developed the realization that it would be best for 3Sharp if I were in Redmond more often, even permanently. After Dad's accident, Mom decided to move down to Louisiana, and with Tim gone too, much of the initial reason to live here was gone. Arlene and I started talking about the possibility of moving several months ago, but neither of us took it seriously-- we agreed to put off a serious exploration until after New Year's Day. So, we did, and all was well.

I thought about moving, and made some desultory (and, frankly, rather lazy) attempts to pray for guidance, but to no avail. Shortly after the first of the year, we had a Sunday School lesson that covered Doctrine and Covenants section 9. I was already generally familiar with the principle: the Lord expects us to do the legwork, examine alternatives and options, and make decisions using the brains He gave us. We can always seek confirmation of our decision, but that's not the same as asking Him to tell you what to do. That was the missing ingredient.

So, I went back and started really thinking about it seriously. What were the pros? (Where to begin? Much less travel for me; great opportunities for growth for the whole family; proximity to the temple; beautiful scenery; new things to explore; a really diverse environment for the boys, a whole new part of the country to explore, more gluten-free foods...) What were the cons? (Housing costs, obviously, plus the upheaval of dragging everyone across the country, particularly for Arlene) On balance, I decided that the pros outweighed the cons, so I told Arlene what I'd been thinking about. She too had been giving the idea a more serious look. Once we started praying about it, it became clear that moving was the right thing for our family to do-- but that it would happen when it happened, not necessarily on our schedule.

Where: somewhere on the east side of the metro area. Our office is in Redmond, so I'd like to be reasonably close to it. There are some great bargains in Snoqualmie and other nearby areas, but I don't know if I'm ready to take on a 30+ minute commute each way after nearly 11 years of commuting from the breakfast room to my office down the hall. I'll be in the office some days and working from home some days, so that will help make the transition easier. We've been making heavy use of Redfin to look for houses: partly because it's effective, and partly because it's fun to window-shop.

More news when there is news-- now I have to go clean up my office before the showing tomorrow.

I bought a portable air compressor/brad nailer kit and a Blu-Ray player. Go charity!

Here's a great article by Cam Beck dissecting the origin of the Marines' familiar all-purpose exclamation. The best part of the article:

To further demonstrate the indefatigable utility of OO-RAH, I've compiled a top 10 list of possible meanings:

1. I am a Marine.
2. I enthusiastically accept your message.
3. I am excited to be here.
4. Pleased to make your acquaintance.
5. What you ask of me, not only will I do, I will do in a manner befitting a Marine.
6. I expect good things out of you.
7. Good job.
8. I am not supposed to be motivated about performing this task, but I will force myself to express excitement for the benefit of my fellow Marines and to tactfully annoy my superiors who gave me the task.
9. I love being a Marine.
10. I am about to destroy something.

Last week I was able to have a very enjoyable visit with Woody Windischman. He was passing through Toledo, so we met at the friendly neighborhood Waffle House. We chatted about SharePoint (or, more accurately, I listened), the ins and outs of being an independent contractor, and the publishing biz. He had just received his author copies of Professional Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007 and he was pretty excited about it. This morning, via Twitter, he announced that it's now #3 on Amazon's list of intranet/extranet books. If you're interested in SharePoint Designer, give it a look!

So the boys and I took care of the Christmas Fish on Christmas Eve. First we called Bassett's Market. Nope, they don't process fish, but they suggested calling Churchill's. Nope, they share a sink between the seafood and deli department and didn't have time to sanitize it-- but they told me to call Rohr's. I did, and they handled the fish with no muss and no fuss. (Turns out it was a snapper from Costa Rica, not a rock cod). As a bonus, the boys and I had lunch at the Chinese buffet across the street from Rohr's.

As a second bonus, the smoked salmon arrived Tuesday as planned. Good eatin'!

As Christmas approaches, we've had a steady feed of packages arriving at the hacienda. This is normal around this time of year; with Mom, Tim, us, and Julie all in different states there's a fair amount of interstate commerce goin' on. This afternoon, though, I was surprised to find a large white box outside my door.

The return address said "Seattle Fish Co." That was my first clue. The second clue was the overpowering odor of fish that filled the kitchen when I opened the inner styrofoam cooler. Wrapped in paper was a plastic bag containing (wait for it)… a whole fish, head included. I immediately moved it out to the garage (which is cold enough, luckily, to store fish), then called the sender to figure out where this fish came from.

"Hi. Someone sent me a whole fish," I said. "I think it's a salmon."

"Well, we don't ship whole salmon," said the lady on the other end. "Does it have a head?"

"Yes, it does, with an eye and everything."

"Oh, that makes sense then. Someone just called me about this-- there was a shipping mistake. You got a rock cod."

After a bit of research, they called me back. A business associate had ordered some smoked salmon to be sent to us. Somehow, this order was transmuted into an order for a whole rock cod, which they promptly shipped. We thus received a fresh, yet unexpected, Christmas surprise. The good news: I'm going to take it to the market tomorrow and have it filleted and cleaned, then we can have some Boxing Day cod fillets. (Better news: the salmon is on the way and will arrive on New Years' Eve!)

As Christmas approaches, we've had a steady feed of packages arriving at the hacienda. This is normal around this time of year; with Mom, Tim, us, and Julie all in different states there's a fair amount of interstate commerce goin' on. This afternoon, though, I was surprised to find a large white box outside my door.

The return address said "Seattle Fish Co." That was my first clue. The second clue was the overpowering odor of fish that filled the kitchen when I opened the inner styrofoam cooler. Wrapped in paper was a plastic bag containing (wait for it)… a whole fish, head included. I immediately moved it out to the garage (which is cold enough, luckily, to store fish), then called the sender to figure out where this fish came from.

"Hi. Someone sent me a whole fish," I said. "I think it's a salmon."

"Well, we don't ship whole salmon," said the lady on the other end. "Does it have a head?"

"Yes, it does, with an eye and everything."

"Oh, that makes sense then. Someone just called me about this-- there was a shipping mistake. You got a rock cod."

After a bit of research, they called me back. A business associate had ordered some smoked salmon to be sent to us. Somehow, this order was transmuted into an order for a whole rock cod, which they promptly shipped. We thus received a fresh, yet unexpected, Christmas surprise. The good news: I'm going to take it to the market tomorrow and have it filleted and cleaned, then we can have some Boxing Day cod fillets. (Better news: the salmon is on the way and will arrive on New Years' Eve!)

From Peter Shankman's HARO newsletter:

So, the General Post Office at 34th St. and 8th Avenue is the one that gets all the letters addressed to "Santa - North Pole, Earth" every year. Well, did you know you can go and pick up as many as you want? I did! Meagan's job this morning was to go to Toys R Us and buy a "Baby Alive," a "My Little Pony," a giant Teddy Bear, Play-Doh, Batman Indoor RC Racers, a Remote Control Helicopter, and right now, she's struggling to figure out how to wrap all this stuff when NASA is constantly jumping in the wrapping. It's a pretty decent feeling today here at HARO Central.

This is a great idea-- I wonder if there's a Toledo (or Seattle?) equivalent. Kudos to Peter for thinking of it!

Update: looks like the USPS has stopped Operation Santa for the time being. That stinks.

From Peter Shankman's HARO newsletter:

So, the General Post Office at 34th St. and 8th Avenue is the one that gets all the letters addressed to "Santa - North Pole, Earth" every year. Well, did you know you can go and pick up as many as you want? I did! Meagan's job this morning was to go to Toys R Us and buy a "Baby Alive," a "My Little Pony," a giant Teddy Bear, Play-Doh, Batman Indoor RC Racers, a Remote Control Helicopter, and right now, she's struggling to figure out how to wrap all this stuff when NASA is constantly jumping in the wrapping. It's a pretty decent feeling today here at HARO Central.

This is a great idea-- I wonder if there's a Toledo (or Seattle?) equivalent. Kudos to Peter for thinking of it!

Update: looks like the USPS has stopped Operation Santa for the time being. That stinks.

Congratulations to my brother Tim on the publication of his first book work: the Linux chapter in Next Generation SSH2 Implementation. Devin has a chapter in there too-- it's like old home week. (Personal to our sister: it's your turn now!)

Congratulations to my brother Tim on the publication of his first book work: the Linux chapter in Next Generation SSH2 Implementation. Devin has a chapter in there too-- it's like old home week. (Personal to our sister: it's your turn now!)

Amazon just e-mailed me an announcement: if you buy a minimum of $25 worth of stuff from their Music CD, Audio/Video, Camera, Photo & Video, Office Products, PC or Wireless stores in a single order, you get an instant $5 credit at AmazonMP3. This is particularly cool because AmazonMP3 has a long list of albums priced at $5 and under.

I'm normally not a huge Oprah fan, but she's giving away 8 MP3-format Christmas songs by different artists, including Faith Hill and Aretha Franklin. Visit http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahshow/20081118_tows_holiday/2 to download them.

Go Bucs!

I got rickrolled for my birthday today.

I'm in Redmond for meetings with customers and our team. Our company tradition is that we bring in cake of some kind when people celebrate their birthdays; my birthday is tomorrow, and Jason Weiss (one of our QA team members) has his birthday today.

About 1:30p, everyone gathered in our break room, and Paul Flynn brought in a big ol' chocolate cake. It was strangely rectangular, but the frosting made it look good. I was a bit skeptical when Paul said he'd baked it himself, but I took the proferred knife and tried to cut it. It was oddly crunchy when I cut it. Paul let me saw away at it for a few seconds, then removed the cardboard box that was covering the real cake... adorned with a picture of RIck Astley himself. At the same time, Tim started playing the original rickroll clip from YouTube.

This all came about because back in the spring I managed to rickroll nearly the entire company via a well-crafted e-mail. Apparently they collectively decided to get their revenge on me via cake, so I am happy to say that the cake was, in fact, not a lie.

I grew up in Louisiana. In a state where people are buried above ground to keep their corpses from floating off, basements aren't very common. My grandparents live in Alexandria, in the central part of the state. Their house had a basement, the entrance to which was a 3' x 6' trap door behind the wet bar. Entering the basement was always a big event. There were all sorts of wonderful things down there: mysterious jars of cannery products, stacks of yellowed old newspapers, piles of ancient National Geographic back issues, and so on. That's what I thought a basement should be like: rare, mysterious, a little scary, but ultimately familiar.

When my parents moved to Perrysburg, the house they bought had a big unfinished basement. Dad quickly filled it with woodworking tools, a huge L-shaped workbench, and a small finished office stuffed with every kind of ham radio you can imagine. Many of the tools in the basement were familiar: there was the old red air compressor that I'd used for hundreds of hours while refinishing and repainting cars, and the ancient Zenith Transoceanic that we used to listen to the BBC and WWV while out at the fishing camp he built way down on the bayou. There was scrap wood, and an old dresser from my boyhood that had repurposed for component storage, and a bookshelf full of solvents and cleaners and various other hazards. In short, it was a familiar place for both of us, filled with things we understood and knew the measure of. We spent probably a hundred hours building a bed for David (a project which, truth be told, would have taken him maybe 15 hours had he done it without my inexpert help).

Of course, the basement was more than a workshop; it was somewhat of a gathering place. Julie, Tim, Arlene, and I would go down there at Christmas time to wrap presents, safe from the running feet and peeping eyes of the kids. Traditionally we'd go out shopping with the old man on Christmas Eve and come back laden with his selections, which of course he wasn't going to wrap himself. The boys would go downstairs and sit on his lap while he twiddled radio knobs, asking questions so fast that he couldn't finish the answer to one before the next one popped out.

Now, a year after his death, the basement is mostly empty. The woodworking tools are gone, parceled out to people with the knowledge and space to use them. The remaining radios sit silent. The workbench is mostly clean, although both the air compressor and the Zenith remain. I took the tools and supplies that I could use, knowing that as I maintain and use them that I'm preserving some small part of the things he taught me. It's a lonely place now, and one that I avoid. I miss him terribly sometimes, but never more so when I go down those steps, past the framed pictures of Tim and I in dress blues, under the "I (heart) my truck" license plate, and into that basement: no longer mysterious, no longer even familiar.

This is a pretty sweet deal: Amazon will sell you a Kindle for $259 if you apply for (and qualify for, it must be said) their Amazon-branded credit card from Chase. See details here. (Bonus link: James Fallows on how to avoid becoming a Kindle nerd-bore).

Wow, I've been busy the last week or two! It started with a trip to Redmond to teach a group of Microsoft's global ISVs about the APIs of Microsoft's unified communications products. I got a lot of great real-world feedback about how these customers are using the APIs, which we'll be using as we continue to work with other customers who want to add communications, collaboration, and scheduling to their applications. (Plus, while I was in Redmond I found Carolina Smoke, an unexpected bonus).

Then I came home, where Arlene and I completely redid the living room: we painted all the walls, hung the TV on a wall mount for the TV, and installed a new TV stand. Of course, none of the steps were actually that simple. For example, I'd read that Behr Silver Screen made a good projection surface, so I painted one wall with two coats... only to find out that it was not a good projection surface. Four coats of eggshell white later, I was ready to move on to the other walls. The carpet installers came yesterday, so we're officially finished with that room (except for the speaker stands, which aren't here yet).

Then the boys came back from their trip to Louisiana, so it was back to normal life for a day, then it was time for David's Boy Scout camp. While he was gone, Peter, John, and Paul Flynn from 3Sharp came to town for our quarterly meeting; along with watching some truly excellent thunderstorms, we got a ton of work accomplished. It's amazing what you can do with four smart guys locked in a room for two days.

Now we're having a temporary lull before the big fireworks on the 3rd and our whale-watching trip to Seattle next week. I'll try to blog somewhat more regularly, but no promises.

Wow, I've been busy the last week or two! It started with a trip to Redmond to teach a group of Microsoft's global ISVs about the APIs of Microsoft's unified communications products. I got a lot of great real-world feedback about how these customers are using the APIs, which we'll be using as we continue to work with other customers who want to add communications, collaboration, and scheduling to their applications. (Plus, while I was in Redmond I found Carolina Smoke, an unexpected bonus).

Then I came home, where Arlene and I completely redid the living room: we painted all the walls, hung the TV on a wall mount for the TV, and installed a new TV stand. Of course, none of the steps were actually that simple. For example, I'd read that Behr Silver Screen made a good projection surface, so I painted one wall with two coats... only to find out that it was not a good projection surface. Four coats of eggshell white later, I was ready to move on to the other walls. The carpet installers came yesterday, so we're officially finished with that room (except for the speaker stands, which aren't here yet).

Then the boys came back from their trip to Louisiana, so it was back to normal life for a day, then it was time for David's Boy Scout camp. While he was gone, Peter, John, and Paul Flynn from 3Sharp came to town for our quarterly meeting; along with watching some truly excellent thunderstorms, we got a ton of work accomplished. It's amazing what you can do with four smart guys locked in a room for two days.

Now we're having a temporary lull before the big fireworks on the 3rd and our whale-watching trip to Seattle next week. I'll try to blog somewhat more regularly, but no promises.

Major props to Peggy Simon, family friend and regular reader! (Betty says hello, too.)

Major props to Peggy Simon, family friend and regular reader! (Betty says hello, too.)

So, Devin tagged me with the latest random meme circulating through the intertubes. Without further comment, here are my five quotes:

Bear Bryant's devotional

Time is the one thing we can't get any more of. How we choose to use our time says a lot about our self and our values.

"I teach them correct principles, and they govern themselves".

Joseph Smith, Junior, founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said this when asked how he managed the rapid early growth of the church. This is exactly the strategy Arlene and I are trying to follow with the boys, but some days I think it works better than others.

"It doesn't matter how long you've been in the Corps; you'll always be a boot to someone."

My senior drill instructor, Staff Sergeant Taylor, told our platoon this one night at Parris Island. His point has stuck with me ever since: no matter how smart or skilled you are, there's someone out there smarter and more skilled, so don't get cocky.

"Don't get stuck on stupid".

Lt. Gen. Rusell Honoré said this during a press conference after Hurricane Katrina. Would that the national media had taken his advice. I try to take it daily. When you think you're not stuck on stupid, that's precisely when you need to double-check.

"What you do speaks so loud I cannot hear what you say."

Ralph Waldo Emerson is the claimed originator of this quote. I have never been a big Emerson fan (even less so after reading Kim Stanley Robinson's climate-change trilogy), but this quote neatly sums up the importance of trying to live in harmony with one's beliefs.

In retaliation, I tag Arlene, Julie, Tim, and Ed.

Devin has earned big props in two ways.

First, his session on using DPM 2007 with Exchange at MMS was the second-highest-rated session of the day yesterday. Given the quality of the other sessions, that's saying a lot.

Second, yesterday marked the fifth anniversary of Devin's start date at 3Sharp. Devin has really matured and grown his skills since his start, and he's been a major contributor to our growth and success. I look forward to having him around for the next five years-- thanks, Devin!

My friend Jason Buffington (XBL: DarkJediHunter) is now famous after writing this review of SceneIt! for Xbox.com. We loves us some SceneIt here, and I encourage you to check it out if you like family games or movies.

Arlene just found an ad for a new gluten-free product supplier: TastesLikeRealFood.com. They sell several kinds of imported flours and mixes from Norway. With a name like that, no doubt their stuff is good, so we ordered the sampler to try it out.

Mad props to John and Becky, who are celebrating the first anniversary of the Flying Bean. I'm not a coffee drinker, but I am an aviation enthusiast, so I love going there. John and Becky are superbly friendly, and they actively support the local community. (Plus they make great hot chocolate!)

We just got back from a draining trip to visit my aunt Debby, Dad's sister. She was diagnosed earlier this year with small cell lung cancer, no doubt brought on by a combination of a lifetime of smoking and a lifetime of living in Louisiana. Recently her health worsened quite a bit, so we moved up our plan to visit her during the kids' spring break. Instead, Arlene and Tom left Thursday (TOL-CVG-ATL-BTR) and Matt, David, and I left first thing Friday (DTW-IAH-LFT). It took a lot of fancy dancing on the part of Delta's Medallion desk, but we ended up with five frequent-flyer tickets, though we couldn't get in to New Orleans because of the Jazz Festival. Sadly, Debby passed away early Friday morning, so we extended our trip to attend her funeral on Monday.

Debby was a very practical, level-headed woman with a wonderful sense of humor. When I was a kid, she used to call me "Professor" because of my bad habit of correcting everyone around me (fortunately I don't do that much any more!) I wish I had videotaped her description of her trip to Rome to visit the Pope last year; she had us all in hysterics with her descriptions of Italian men and her banter with the priest from her home parish who organized the pilgrimage. She really helped a lot as we struggled to come to terms with Dad's death last year, and I will forever be indebted to her for teaching my dear wife how to cook a number of Cajun dishes, as well as how she welcomed Arlene into the family and made her feel immediately at ease.

It was really great to see everyone, though it was under sad circumstances. (Well, OK, I admit it: I was only somewhat pleased to see John, Lee Anne's dad there. He kept going on about how great Texas is for some reason.) On the bright side, we got to meet Doug's wife Shawn (who is a real keeper! welcome to the family, Shawn!), and all of us got to play with Russ and Allyson. That helped take the sting out some.

Having recently experienced it myself, I know how hard it is to lose a parent, the more so because Jody and Eric lost their dad in 1986. That puts them in the unenviable position of having to handle all the estate details themselves, precisely at the time when it's most difficult to do so. Fathers Ron and Pat conducted a beautiful funeral mass, and that helped, as did having so many extended family members around. As always at any family gathering, the food was excellent. We made a side trip to Dave's Cajun Kitchen, which I recommend in the strongest possible terms.

We just got back from a draining trip to visit my aunt Debby, Dad's sister. She was diagnosed earlier this year with small cell lung cancer, no doubt brought on by a combination of a lifetime of smoking and a lifetime of living in Louisiana. Recently her health worsened quite a bit, so we moved up our plan to visit her during the kids' spring break. Instead, Arlene and Tom left Thursday (TOL-CVG-ATL-BTR) and Matt, David, and I left first thing Friday (DTW-IAH-LFT). It took a lot of fancy dancing on the part of Delta's Medallion desk, but we ended up with five frequent-flyer tickets, though we couldn't get in to New Orleans because of the Jazz Festival. Sadly, Debby passed away early Friday morning, so we extended our trip to attend her funeral on Monday.

Debby was a very practical, level-headed woman with a wonderful sense of humor. When I was a kid, she used to call me "Professor" because of my bad habit of correcting everyone around me (fortunately I don't do that much any more!) I wish I had videotaped her description of her trip to Rome to visit the Pope last year; she had us all in hysterics with her descriptions of Italian men and her banter with the priest from her home parish who organized the pilgrimage. She really helped a lot as we struggled to come to terms with Dad's death last year, and I will forever be indebted to her for teaching my dear wife how to cook a number of Cajun dishes, as well as how she welcomed Arlene into the family and made her feel immediately at ease.

It was really great to see everyone, though it was under sad circumstances. (Well, OK, I admit it: I was only somewhat pleased to see John, Lee Anne's dad there. He kept going on about how great Texas is for some reason.) On the bright side, we got to meet Doug's wife Shawn (who is a real keeper! welcome to the family, Shawn!), and all of us got to play with Russ and Allyson. That helped take the sting out some.

Having recently experienced it myself, I know how hard it is to lose a parent, the more so because Jody and Eric lost their dad in 1986. That puts them in the unenviable position of having to handle all the estate details themselves, precisely at the time when it's most difficult to do so. Fathers Ron and Pat conducted a beautiful funeral mass, and that helped, as did having so many extended family members around. As always at any family gathering, the food was excellent. We made a side trip to Dave's Cajun Kitchen, which I recommend in the strongest possible terms.

This is a great way to make me eat more salad: serve it in a container made entirely of bacon. Methinks I've found a new site to add to my aggregator. (Julie, let's try this at the next family get-together!)

This Saturday, Arlene is throwing a baby shower for our friend Rachael. The boys and I want no part of that, so we have alternate plans. First, we'll go to Mark Wasylyshyn's re-election pancake breakfast. With all-you-can-eat pancakes, this is a pretty good deal in my book. After that, we'll head to karate for the Saturday morning double-header: an hour of grappling, followed by an hour of sparring. Matthew is excited that his sparring gear finally came in, so he'll be out on the floor mixing it up for the first time. After that we should have time to grab a quick lunch before our monthly leadership seminar starts. These seminars are usually lots of fun; past seminars have focused on stick fighting, knife defense, and yoga (along with a good bit of character education).

By that time, the shower still won't be over, so we might take in a movie, or maybe hit the library. After that, Tom and I will work on his Pinewood Derby car, and after that we can hopefully go home and feast on the leftover food from the shower.

Wow, what a day! As I write this, I'm in seat 15E on Northwest flight 208. It's an exit row, so I can sit in reasonable comfort. The iPhone is rocking some Rock Band songs, and I'm working on UC Metro stuff (well, except for right now!)

Last night, Arlene and I left some Russell Stover mini-boxes on the kitchen table for the boys. This is a fun tradition, except for the part where they want to eat all the candy immediately upon sighting it. This morning, David made the bus without incident, and Tom woke up about 45min earlier than usual. He had decided, more or less at the last minute, to make a special Valentine for his friend Amber. This was a good move, because Amber is going to be gorgeous when she grows up and it's important for Tom to score brownie points now, before adolescent stupidity sets in.

Anyway, once the boys were off to school, I worked for a while, then Arlene and I made a quick run to PF Chang for some delicious take-out lunch. This was followed by more work (big surprise there!), then a trip to see David's orthodontist.

That's right; I said "orthodontist." My little boy, the one who was deathly afraid of Santa Claus for his first couple of Christmases, is now entering the teenage netherworld of steel wires, rubber bands, and meticulous toothbrushing. He's taken it really, really well (helped, no doubt, by the fact that the ortho folks said his smile already looks great, not to mention the ice cream the patients get when they leave), so today he got his separators in. These are little rubber rings that encircle his molars, gently pushing them apart. Next week, he gets his molars wrapped in metal so that the arcwire can be anchored to something solid, then they bond the brackets to his teeth with duct tape (kidding; it's some kind of exotic dental glue). There are lots more details that I'm skipping because frankly they're not that interesting unless a) you have a tooth fetish or b) it's your child. The important details: brush and floss regularly, don't sip sodas all day, and (the best part) pay up front to get a 5% discount.

I've been remiss in not writing this post before, but I was reminded by a recent news article. (The antichrists of Westboro Baptist Church were apparently planning a demonstration at the funeral of Marine Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach. The CO of Camp Lejeune told her Marines to stay away, but of course the Patriot Guard had plans to be there.)

Dad occasionally rode with the Patriot Guard chapter here in Ohio. He believed strongly in their mission, and he very much enjoyed the opportunities he had to ride with them. I contacted the Ohio ride captain to ask if they could render honors at Dad's services, and they exceeded my expectations. At the visitation, they maintained an 8-person honor guard for more than four hours, providing a line of flagbearers flanking the entrance to the funeral home. At the funeral itself, they provided both an honor guard at the service and a motorcade escort to the reception. All of us very much appreciated their presence. They showed the utmost respect, and it was an honor to have them there rendering honors to Dad.

nola.com has a great slideshow of pictures from the LSU vs Ohio State game. (Just a reminder: LSU won the national championship, 38-24).

If you're having an office, church, or family party, you may be struggling with what to give people-- especially if you have a white elephant gift exchange. Allow me to offer this excellent list of suggestions. Lots of potential here!

(n.b. Julie has written a wonderful tribute to our grandfather-- see here.)

Tim Bloch was born in Alexandria on January 30, 1919, the son of Raphael Bloch and Alix Kilpatrick,
and died on December 3, 2007. He was graduated from Jonesboro-Hodge High School and subsequently attended Louisiana State University until he enlisted in the Army Air Corps. He was stationed at Hickam Field in Hawaii when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. He also served in the South Pacific as a B-17 pilot and in the Italian theater as a squadron commander. He was highly decorated for his service. In May of 1943 he married Phyllis Gibson Barton of Napoleonville.

His business interests were many and varied. He served as state president of the Louisiana Realtors Association, and was proud that Tim Bloch Real Estate served the community for 50 years.

Tim was known as an affable, capable, responsible civic leader. His wit and humor were a delight to his family and friends.

He is survived by his wife, Phyllis Bloch; his brother, Samuel Wheadon Bloch of Kansas City, Missouri; his first cousin, Virginia Wheadon de Gravelles of Lafayette, Louisiana; two daughters, Ann Bloch Robichaux of Perrysburg, Ohio, and Betty Barton Bloch of Metairie, Louisiana; two sons, Ray Beasley Bloch and Daniel Timothy Bloch of Alexandria, Louisiana; and grandchildren Paul Robichaux, Julie Robichaux, Tim Robichaux, Christopher Bloch, Clayton Bloch, Ashley Bloch, and Melissa Bloch.

The funeral was held at St. James Episcopal Church on Wednesday, December 5. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be sent to the Rapides Parish Library, 411 Washington St., Alexandria, Louisiana, 71301, or to the charity of your choice.

I'd signed up for a Krav Maga-based gun defense class at our martial arts school. It sounded like a fun way to spend an afternoon, and indeed it was-- all the more so because, at the last minute, Arlene decided to join me! Instead of a typical date, we spent four hours pointing training guns at each other, then taking them away with a variety of strikes, blocks, and pins. She was definitely better at most of the techniques than I was, as we found out during the stress-based testing. It was definitely a different way to spend time together (and sorry about accidentally hitting you in the nose, honey!)

This is the first time in a long time (like, nearly 15 years) that I've been to Alexandria twice in one year. We were there earlier this year for a great family reunion; this time, sad to say, I was visiting my seriously ill grandfather in the hospital. Despite the reason for the visit, it was great to see everyone-- Ray, Dan, Ashley, Melissa, Grandmaw, Betty, Clayton, Laura, and Chris were all there. Ashley is only a few months away from graduating from high school; Melissa and I had fun learning how to balance chemical equations (OK, not really; I don't think she enjoyed it much); I watched Oprah with Betty (cracking wise all the way)  and Chris cooked two splendid meals. Last night, I had the first fried trout I've had in at least 20 years, and as a bonus he cooked the best hush puppies I've ever tasted. Tim arrived last night, so we got to visit for a bit (and he told me about his new blog, which has some hysterical pictures so far.)

BTW, the Alexandria airport is terrific! The terminal is beautiful (although there are no concessions in the gate area), and there's free WiFi. I only wish the Toledo airport were as attractive, clean, or well-maintained.

Arlene just returned from Best Buy with a brand-new box of win: Rock Band Deluxe Edition. It's a Christmas present for the boys, but I wonder if they believe in early Christmas? It seems a shame to leave it boxed up given the upcoming four-day Thanksgiving weekend. Maybe I can sneakily rock out after they go to bed tonight...

Super cool: Devin is this month's MVP of the Month! Congratulations!

Technorati Tags: 3sharp

I know what Julie's getting for Christmas.

Below is the text of the original eulogy I wrote for Dad's funeral. I ad-libbed a great deal of additional material; rather than edit the text to reflect what I think I might've said, I decided to go with the original. Writing this, and speaking at Dad's funeral, was an extremely difficult experience. It was an honor I might rather not have had. However, I remember once turning down the opportunity to speak at a dear friend's wedding and declining because I didn't think I had anything to say. I still regret that, years later, and was determined not to make the same mistake again.

Arlene and my mom have both done an excellent job of sending out thank-you notes to the many, many people who have expressed their condolences on Dad's death. The whole thing is still overwhelming, but it was made much less so by the love and concern of our friends, loved ones, and community members. However, I haven't really done my part, except for writing letters to the hotel and the hospital. This post is by way of thanking the many people and organizations who have done so much to help us, including the Wood County Sheriff's Office, the folks at the McVeigh and Witzler-Shank funeral homes, the members of TRAC and WCARES, and Dad's co-workers from Dillin and Hoffman-- to say nothing of the dozens of people who sent flowers, food, sympathy notes, and prayers our way. Thank you all so much.

Mail from Mom, program director for the Toledo chapter of the Arthritis Foundation:

The Arthritis Foundation, Greater Illinois Chapter is participating in the “Make My Non-Profit Run Better” contest for a chance to win an office technology makeover from RK Dixon. The winning organization will receive new office and network equipment valued at $30,000. The runner up will receive a makeover valued at $15,000.
This is a great opportunity for us, as you know firsthand the time it takes to raise this amount of money. This makeover would allow us to be more efficient in providing services for those who need it most. And, typically, money raised tends to support our mission, rather than offset business technology costs.
How can you help? For once, not by donating money, but by voting! The organization with the most votes will be selected as a top five finalist. The more votes, the better chance we have to win.
Go to www.rkdixon.com (click the “Make My Non-Profit Run Better” logo) and vote for the Arthritis Foundation, Greater Illinois Chapter until Sept. 5th. But, stay tuned … if we are chosen as a finalist we will need your votes again! We need this makeover to help us run better.
Please forward this email to any friends or colleagues who you feel would be willing to vote for us.
Happy voting and thank you for your support!

Our local chapter, along with several others, "belongs" to the Greater Illinois Chapter; if they win, the money will go to improve their technology infrastructure across the Illinois / Ohio / Indiana region.

No, she didn't just turn 16 (that's illegal in Ohio, y'know). However, today Arlene and I are celebrating our 16th wedding anniversary. It's bittersweet, because on our 11th anniversary we moved here to be closer to my parents, and Dad's death is still terribly fresh in our minds. However, I'm so thankful to have Arlene as my wife! (It doesn't hurt that she got me an iTunes card and a new karate kicking bag, either.)

ARTHUR DAVID ROBICHAUX

Arthur David Robichaux, age 62, passed away Monday, August 13 in Albany, New York as the result of injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident. Dave was born on August 5, 1945 to Adele P. and Eugene J. Robichaux in Houma, Louisiana. He graduated from St Francis de Sales Catholic School in 1963, where he was a member of the 1961 Louisiana state champion baseball team. He received his MBA from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

He was employed as a senior vice president of sales and marketing by Dillin Development Corporation of Perrysburg. Dave was active in many community and service organizations. As K5EYP, he was an amateur radio operator for more than 45 years and was named TRAC Ham of the Year, served as president of the Lake Erie Amateur Radio Association, and founded the Wood County chapter of the Amateur Radio Emergency Service. He was a deputy in the Wood County Sheriff's Office Auxiliary and was also highly active in the Perrysburg Rotary Club, the Fraternal Order of Police, the Glass City Chapter of the Harley Owners' Group, and the Ohio chapter of the Patriot Guard Riders.

Dave is survived by his wife, Ann Bloch Robichaux; his children, Paul E. (Arlene) Robichaux, Timothy D. Robichaux, Julie A. (Paul Wallich) Robichaux; grandchildren, David P. Robichaux, Thomas R. Robichaux, Matthew C. Robichaux, and Charles B. Wallich; sisters Debby (James, deceased) Verret and Norma (Edgar) Babin, and brothers Errol (Terri) Robichaux, and Mike (Debbie) Robichaux, along with extended family and loving friends. He was preceded in death by his parents and two brothers, Robert P. and Eugene J. Robichaux.

Friends will be received on Friday, August 17, 2007 from 4-8 P.M. at Witzler-Shank Funeral Home, 222 E. South Boundary Street, Perrysburg, Ohio (419-874-3133). Memorial services will be held at 10 A.M. on Saturday, August 18, 2007 at St Rose Catholic Church, 215 E. Front Street, Perrysburg, Ohio, immediately followed by a reception at The Church of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints Chapel, 11050 Avenue Road, Perrysburg, Ohio. Dave was a strong supporter of the many charitable works done by the Perrysburg Rotary Club. In lieu of flowers, charitable donations in Dave's name may be made to the Perrysburg Rotary Service Foundation or any charity of the giver's choice. Condolences may be made to the family online at www.witzlershank.com.

I'm sitting in the middle row of my minivan, working on a proposal and checking my e-mail while we're rolling down the Ohio Turnpike. My iPhone is doing a great iPod imitation, and we'll be in Syracuse for dinner. Life is good.

We'd planned Saturday to be a big day, and it was!

We started with breakfast at the hotel, then we drove down to Provo to give the boys a quick tour of BYU. Of course, we don't know enough about BYU to make it a real tour, so instead we went to the campus bookstore. Each of the boys got a T-shirt, Tom got a hat (which he hasn't taken off for longer than an hour or so), and Arlene bought some craft stuff-- mission accomplished. After BYU, we swung back up I-15 and stopped at the Ikea store long enough to get me a refill of Swedish salt licorice. I still prefer the little licorice mints I got when in Norway, but Ikea's a lot closer. One more craft-store stop and then it was time for a break at the hotel.

After the hotel, we loaded up the car (and cameras) to head out to Antelope Island State Park. Despite the 95° heat, the boys were all in good spirits, and why not? The entrance to the park is a 7-mile-long causeway that connects the island proper to the mainland. As we expected after reading the park brochure, there were masses of birds flying around the causeway area; once we got onto the island proper, we hit the beach. We discovered that skipping stones in a lake that ranges from 4%-33% salinity (seawater is about 3%) is challenging because they tend to bounce right out when you skip them. We also discovered clouds of brine flies nesting on the rocks of the beach. It was really something to see the clouds move in unison when disturbed-- sort of spooky, actually.

We hadn't told Matt, but Antelope Island is home to a substantial herd of buffalo (err, bison). We drove over to Buffalo Point and took the trail up to Buffalo Point. It's only about 650' AGL, but it was quite a hike for Matt and Tom. They're now bona fide mountain climbers, and we have pictures to prove it. Sadly, the restaurant was closed so we couldn't have a buffalo burger. We did drive around the loop road in an attempt to see the herd, which was parked up on a ridgeline with no road access. One old bull was right near the fenceline, so we got a good look at him. That made everyone so happy that we had to stop at Dairy Queen on the way home :)

We got to Vernal and found the Holiday Inn Express with no trouble. There are 10 or so hotels in Vernal, and all of them were full except for this one. It turns out that the natural gas industry is booming in Vernal, so all of the hotels are normally full. This Holiday Inn just opened, so they had a few rooms left for about double the normal price of rooms at other hotels. Since the alternative was to sleep in the car, we checked in then met Brandon and Celeste. Brandon's now working for an oilfield services company, and Celeste is a schoolteacher during the school year and a forest-fire crew dispatcher during the summer. We only saw her for a few short intervals during our visit because this is the height of fire season, with several active fires in her region.

Our first stop was the Utah Field House of Natural History, a beautiful museum with some fantastic dinosaur models. There's a lot of detail on how fossils are formed, along with some excellent fossils and a number of partial and complete dinosaur fossils. After the Field House, we went on to the Monument proper, passing Brandon's former ranch and a gift shop that has a dinosaur that you can sit on-- this was quite popular with the three dinosaur wranglers in the back seat.

At the Monument, we saw a number of fossils, plus a neat cave that contains a number of ancient petroglyphs. Almost every 60 seconds, Matt would exclaim "Look! I see a dinosaur bone!" or something along those lines. We drove down to the bank of the Green River and skipped stones for a while, then made our way back to Vernal for a short break / rest period. Then we went to the Johnsons' house for a barbeque featuring beef from their family herd. David and Tom rode four-wheelers. In fact, I took Matt on a short ride down the street, so everyone except Arlene had a turn. When the boys weren't riding, they were hitting golf balls or playing Guitar Hero II with Brandon's little brother. The steaks and company were great, and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

Friday morning we had breakfast at the Lamplighter, then picked up Brandon's boat and went to Red Fleet Reservoir, which I'd never heard of. It was the most beautiful place I've ever seen: 650 acres of lake nestled between stunning multi-colored cliff walls. No one was there, so we had the lake all to ourselves. One of Red Fleet's claims to fame is its set of fossilized dinosaur tracks, which we got to see up close. This sent Matt to new heights of dinosaur-spotting ecstasy (well, to be fair, the other two were just as excited). Then we fired up the boat and went tubing. Matt and Arlene wanted no part of it, but David and Tom loved it. Brandon and I took turns driving for about an hour. We had just broken out the kneeboard when we noticed a big squall line moving in from the west; Tom got in one kneeboard ride (in which he got up, no small accomplishment for a boy his age), then we had to take off. We made our way back to Salt Lake uneventfully, then ate dinner at the Melting Pot, a first for the male members of the family. If you haven't been there, it's essentially a fondue restaurant: you get a cheese course, an entree, and dessert, all of which you dip in various sauces, cheeses, and so on. It was quite good, and even Matt, who has recently decided that he's a picky eater again, was able to find stuff he liked.

Wow, I needed a vacation! On Tuesday, I flew from Seattle to Salt Lake City; Arlene and the boys flew from Toledo and met me at the airport. We'd reserved a room at the Embassy Suites downtown, which is about a mile from Temple Square. By the time we got to the hotel, it was about 8p, so we just had dinner at the hotel restaurant, the Plum. The food was OK; nothing particularly special, and certainly expensive for what we got.

Wednesday morning we got up and made the trek to Temple Square. We tried to take the TRAX train, but it took me so long to get tickets that I missed the train-- it left after Arlene and the boys were aboard. They met me at the next stop, and we walked the rest of the way. Temple Square itself, as always, was great. When we went into the Tabernacle, they were doing an acoustics demo-- the presenter drops a couple of straight pins into a wooden box, and, sure enough, you can hear it throughout the building. We had originally planned to see a Mormon Tabernacle Choir rehearsal, but there were none scheduled.

We met up with a friend of mine who runs the Church's messaging operations and he gave us a behind-the-scenes tour of the area, including the tunnel system that runs underneath the square. We also got to go on the Conference Center stage, which was really neat. Although I'm comfortable with public speaking, it's hard to imagine speaking in front of 21,000 people-- some of those seats look very, very far away.

Wednesday night we had dinner at Rodizio Grill, a Brazilian churrascaria that's one of our all-time favorite restaurants. Given that its menu centers on meat, it was a big hit with the boys. Tom and I tried a chilled strawberry soup that was quite good, and Matt (to my surprise) really liked the spicy chicken breast.

Thursday morning we got up and hit the road to see our friends Brandon and Celeste in Vernal, a small town in eastern Utah that's chiefly famous for being near the Dinosaur National Monument. The drive to Vernal is absolutely stunning, with lots of mountains and beautiful stratified rocks; the route goes through Park City, then on to Heber City, then through the Uinta National Forest. The high point of the drive is at Daniels Summit, 8020 feet above sea level; my favorite was the mesas, some of which have absolutely flat tops. I kept looking for Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, but didn't see them.

When we got to Vernal, the real fun started.

My main man jbuff, a lead PM on the Microsoft DPM team, has finally started a blog. Drop by and show him the love if you're at all interested in data protection or continuous backup.

Today is my dear wife Arlene's birthday! Today, like every day, I'm reminded of how lucky the boys and I are to have her. Many happy returns (and let there be gluten-free cake!)

Wow, it's been nearly two weeks since my last blog post, and longer than that if you count the time since I actually posted anything interesting. Consider this a catch-up post for all the stuff that's happened since the beginning of April or thereabouts.

Family reunion: after the New York roadshow event, I flew down to Jackson and met up with the rest of the family; we drove down to Alexandria for a day and thence to Houma. We had a wonderful time seeing both halves of the family and eating some amazing food. (I still haven't unloaded my pictures from my camera, but I'll try to get that done in the next few days.) It was especially good to see some of the Houma relatives whom I'd never met (like Jody & Eric's kids) or hadn't seen in a long time (pretty much everyone else!) Disclaimer: I still haven't unloaded my camera pictures or photocopied the 1" stack of family history data that Aunt Debby gave me. Yes, I'm behind.

Exchange Connections: we left New Orleans on April Fool's Day and headed to Orlando for Exchange Connections. Great show, although I didn't see as much of it as usual. Arlene and the boys came with me, and we spent a fair amount of time at Disney. I'd stacked all my sessions on one day, so apart from a few breakfast and dinner meetings with people I didn't get out and about as much as I usually do.

Disney World: wow. We'll never go during spring break again, I hope. It was insanely crowded. David and I rode the new Expedition Everest ride, and someone was kind enough to hook us up with some Dream FastPass tickets at MGM so we could get in to some of the more crowded rides (like Lights, Motors, Action!) The "Finding Nemo" musical at Animal Kingdom was excellent, and we enjoyed the dining as well. A special treat: we stayed at the Renaissance Orlando near Sea World for two nights. It's undergoing renovation, but the guest rooms had already been redone, and they were superb! (Arlene and the boys made a side trip to Sea World one day. Their verdict: not worth the money or bother.)

Tons of work: where to begin?! Recounting all the things I've been doing would be too much like actual work. I can say that the Data Encryption Toolkit is in the bag and will be launched very soon (good thing, given that even companies that should know better sometimes lose data). The Exchange roadshow is nearly done (tomorrow, it's DC; yesterday it was Phoenix), and I have a few other things in work that are keeping me maxed out until about the end of June.

Everything else: of course, there's ongoing family life too. Tom's baseball season officially kicked off, Matt's soccer season is in full swing (or full kick, or whatever), and karate continues apace.

This weekend, we had several firsts:

• Tom had his first baseball practice. The league he's in now allows stealing, bunts, and some other subtleties that they don't use in the 8-and-under league. He and his teammates have a fair amount to learn (as do I). The only mar on an otherwise perfect practice was the fact that it was 40° and blustery. Hopefully the weather will improve soon!
• David had his first young men's campout. The Scouts went to the church granary, had an overnight campout, and did some service work around the granary and grounds. He came home happy but tired, because he stayed up all night ("most of the night", in his words) talking to his pals.
• David gave his first talk in church, on honesty. He'd prepared a talk, but (true to his genetics) he started extemporizing about halfway through. He did a great job, and I know he was relieved to have it out of the way.
• Arlene made her first trip out of the house since her foot surgery-- first to Meijer with Mom, then to church. She was getting a little stir crazy, so both excursions were welcome.

What a busy day! Here's a partial list of the things we did:

• Cleaned most of the house. This is a big deal since we stopped using a housekeeper, but the boys did a good job of their assigned task with (miracle of miracles!) zero complaining.
• Went to karate class. This is a big production, because it requires getting all 3 of them into their uniforms, but it's fun to go with them. Last time David was my partner; this time, it was Thomas.
• Went to Radio Shack (iPod cables for the gym TV) and the bank.
• Installed Arlene's Valentine's Day present. Yes, that's right. I bought my wife a toilet for Valentine's Day. Not every husband can pull that off, let me tell you right now.
• Helped Dad remotely troubleshoot his balky printer. We didn't figure out exactly what was wrong with it, but at some point it decided to start working on its own (probably from sheer terror at the thought of more troubleshooting!)
• Unpacked and tested the copy of Dance Dance Revolution Universe for the Xbox 360 that I bought Thursday. This game might as well be titled "Hey, Paul, Your Dancing Sucks," but we had a good time playing it with the kids.
• Watched Facing the Giants. Wow. Amazing movie; I'll write a more detailed review soon. We had a great family discussion afterwords; the movie touched on a lot of important spiritual principles.

I was pretty tired after all that fun; let's just say I welcomed a quiet Sunday as an antidote!

I'm not sure which surprised me more: a new blog post from John, or that he didn't know about the Outlook date control's mad interpretative skillz.

Big day today.

First, we got about 6" of snow last night. No big deal, except that the steady wind drifted it to 12-15" in spots... like all along our front sidewalk and 2/3 of our driveway. David, Thomas, and I went over to Mom's to clear her driveway, which went fine until the ancientvenerable snowblower conked out. I then used our small blower to clear our driveway and sidewalks; that only took about an hour.

Second, today is my dear sister's birthday! Happy birthday, Julie! Enjoy your Wii!

Third, Arlene and I have a saying: "every day is Valentine's Day". While it helps to think of it that way, given that today really is Valentine's Day, I just want her to know how much I love and treasure her. Thanks, darling, for 15 great years... and counting!

The latest craze sweeping the series of tubes is "5 Things", a sort of chain letter in which victims participants are supposed to list 5 things that others may not know about them, then pass the baton on to some other people. Thanks to Charles Robinson, I got tagged. Without further ado, five things you probably didn't know about me:

1. My first "real" job was at L & N Photo, working for a man named Harry Green. I was 10, and earned the princely sum of $1/hr for doing odd jobs. I usually spent the money on superballs from the Winn Dixie next door, since I couldn't actually afford any of the equipment there. Thus began my lifelong interest in photography, sadly unmatched by any actual talent.
2. My 10th grade English teacher once wrote on my report card that if I would only get over my fascination with technology I might someday make a good writer. Perhaps he was right :)
3. As a lance corporal in the Marine Corps, I once had to give an impromptu brief to General Al Gray, who was then Commandant of the Marine Corps. Fortunately my nervousness didn't show, the brief went well, and I got a meritorious promotion to corporal out of the deal.
4. I've never been snow skiing, snowboarding, or anything related. In fact, the first time I saw snow (that I can remember) was at age 15 at the YMCA of the Rockies with Aunt Betty.
5. I love fixing mechanical things like engines. In high school, my dad and I rebuilt a VW Super Beetle, a '73 Chevy pickup, a '57 Chevy Bel Air coupe, a '64 Corvette, and a Cessna 210 (OK, we didn't rebuild it, but we worked on it a lot.) My favorite part of being in the Marines was learning to fix helicopters, and I'm eagerly looking forward to helping my sons learn some of the same skills.

Now, the fun part: I get to pick the next set of victims. I nominate Tim (whose new blog I can't find), Jim, Devin, Arlene, John (but first he'll have to fix his blog), and Jonathan.

This may be one of the funniest things I've ever seen: an old-school classroom instructional video on how to properly talk like a pirate.

Yes, it's true: 15 years ago today, Arlene and I were in Atlanta getting ready to get married. It's hard to believe so much time has passed! Since then we've moved from Atlanta to Huntsville to Perrysburg, had three sons, gone to a lot of fascinating places together, and-- most importantly-- grown in our love for one another.

So, a big shout out on the off chance she's reading this: I am so very thankful to have you for my wife. Every day I thank God for sending you to me, and I look forward to many more years together. I love you, and I always will. (And I promise never to introduce you as my first wife, like John does.)

Attention Arlene: Stampin' Up had its annual convention this past week in Salt Lake City. This writeup from the Salt Lake Tribune blames energy and travel costs for lower attendance. Personally, I didn't attend because I don't own any stamps, but that's just me. (See also this article from the Deseret News.)

Excellent news: Stefan Robichaux, my fellow Cajun Marine, is off the hook for borrowing a picnic table for his marriage proposal.

Yet another test.

Update: chmod u+x is your friend. Comments should work now.

My wonderful wife Arlene now has a blog: arlenesplace.com. Feel free to drop by and leave her a comment saying "hello".

I recently finished helping my friend Brian Dreier build a new web site for his Japanese sword business, Ronin Swords. Along the way I learned a ton of new vocabulary (for example, I now know what tsuka-maki are, not to mention same). If you're into actual or reproduction Japanese swords, check out Brian's site at roninswords.com.

So, yesterday I turned 37. I had a great birthday weekend nonetheless.

It started Friday morning, when the first words I heard from my dear wife upon awakening were "We really need to wash that gray off your temples." Hmm. Maybe not. I earned this gray, dontcha know. Anyway, we had dinner plans with our friends Matt and Anita to celebrate my birthday and Anita's (a week early, but who's counting?), after which we planned to watch a movie on the projector.Mom and Dad agreed to keep the boys overnight so we could make an early-morning trip to the Detroit temple. We had a great dinner at Biaggi's, but I noticed that Arlene was acting a little oddly-- before we left the house, she closed all the blinds, and at dinner, she jumped up from the table and (almost literally) ran off to the ladies' room at one point, and I saw her fiddling with her phone under the table-- usually I'm the one doing that as I check mail or my calendar _ When we got back to our house, I walked into the kitchen and heard an odd sound accompanied by a bright flash of light-- followed immediately by shouts of "Surprise!" I just about fell over; I never in a million years would have expected Arlene to throw me (or, more properly, "us" since it was Anita's party too) a surprise party. I suppose that's what makes it surprising! We had a delightful time with our friends (thanks to everyone who came!) and hit the rack for a 5am wake-up the next morning.

Our temple trip was wonderful. I always enjoy going to the temple, but this time I'd taken the time to prepare better through prayer and scripture study. What a wonderful learning experience! Since we accepted President Hinckley's challenge to try to read the entire Book of Mormon before the end of the year, I've definitely noticed that I have been more attuned to spiritual experiences, and this has made attending the temple much more rewarding. I'll make an extra effort to go to the Seattle temple when I'm there this week.

To top things off, we were able to stop off at the Whole Foods in Troy and load up with gluten-free goodies (plus some more of my favorite potato chips), followed by a delicious in-car breakfast (organic banana, a bottle of some kind of smoothie, and a really tasty raspberry cream cheese croissant). Matt and Anita are wonderful conversationalists, so the trip passed quickly in both directions.

Saturday night we had the Rotary auction, which is always fun. There weren't any good electronics (apart from the ones I donated), but I got some Mud Hens tickets, a year of lawn treatments, and a few other cool odds and ends. The highlight of my evening came when I beat Cory Eckel (our bishop, a former BYU football player who has more athletic talent in his pinky than I do in my whole body) in two games of mini-basketball :)

After two late nights, Sunday was best of all-- we didn't do much of anything, in keeping with it being a day of rest and all. Matt and David were both sick, so it was a fairly low-intensity day.

Monday was my actual birthday; the boys got me some sweatpants and a new bicycle pump (since they broke the old one), and Arlene gave me a much-needed Books-a-Million gift card and a big pot of chicken and sausage gumbo. We also got our outdoor Christmas lights put up. It may seem early to those who live in more temperate areas, but while we were hanging the lights it was about 45 degrees, overcast, with a steady 10-15kt wind. That's as good as it's going to get until April or so.

Newegg has the Samsung ML-2010 laser printer (review here) at $127.95. Scroll down to "Combo Specials" and pickup a free Rosewill Wireless Keyboard and Mouse combo. Enter promo code "sam2010" during checkout for $40 off the printer. Send for the Newegg-exclusive $50 rebate. Shipping is $14.95. Your net cost: $53 or so.

The Greater Toledo chapter of the American Red Cross is low on blood... again. They're operating a blood drive at the St. George Orthodox Cathedral building (738 Glenwood Road, Rossford) on Saturday, August 20, 2005. Hours are from 0830-1330. If you're eligible to donate (over 17, over 110lbs, good health), please come by and donate-- donated blood saves lives. If you want to reserve a specific time, you can make an appointment on the GiveLife web site-- just use TOLEDOROTARY as the sponsor code.

Day 2 of our trip! I almost forgot to blog it, but then I saw a Wall Drug brochure on the table and that sparked my memory. We woke up in Worthington, had a delicious [sic] hotel breakfast, and hit the trail headed west.

Some things in the world stand up well to repeated viewings-- places you'd be willing to see again. Others are worth one visit, no more. Our first stop fell into the latter category: the world-famous Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD. I'd never heard of it before; it's basically a small sports arena whose outside is decorated with (you guessed it) corn (see picture below). It was fun, and there were lots of other Nice Things in the surrounding area, including statues of Elvis and the Blues Brothers. Mom got some pictures of the boys with Mr. Corn, the Corn Palace mascot, but I don't have them here.

After a long and not particularly interesting drive, we hit our second planned stop: Wall Drug. This was another category-2 attraction; they have every kind of western-themed souvenir crap you can imagine (and a lot you probably haven't), plus some mildly interesting curiosities. The boys loved it; my favorite part was the ice cream we had there. Then it was back on the road, a dinner stop at the Fuddruckers' in Rapid City, and on to the campground!

It's made of corn!

Tim with the King

The Greater Toledo chapter of the American Red Cross is low on blood... again. They're operating a blood drive at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints building on Ohio Route 795 in Perrysburg. The drive is on Saturday, April 30, from 10am to 3pm. If you're eligible to donate (over 17, over 110lbs, good health), please come by and donate-- donated blood saves lives. If you want to reserve a specific time, feel free to email me and I'll get you signed up.

After seeing SantaSpeaking.com mentioned in the WSJ, I decided that Thomas might need a call from the Big Guy to help focus his attention on his behavior a little bit. I booked him for a call between 4-5pm on Saturday, which meant he had to miss part of a friend's birthday party. He wasn't very happy, especially when we wouldn't tell him why he had to stay home. About 4:58pm, the call finally came. Earlier in the day, I'd dropped by Radio Shack and got the cable necessary to hook up my phone to the computer (courtesy of my Griffin iMic). While Arlene answered the phone, I ran downstairs and fired up Audio Hijack; I was a few seconds late, but I caught most of the call (including the part where Santa says Thomas needs to "exercise more.. exercise more self-control"). Enjoy!

Courtesy of my friend (and fellow MVP) Martin Tuip, this video of water going over Snoqualmie Falls, which are more impressive than usual thanks to a large mass of unexpected snowmelt.

All you have to do is play a simple board-game trivia contest. See http://www.delta.com/dashtothegate. It takes about 5 minutes. Now Arlene, David, Thomas, and I all have more miles than we did before! Yay! Let's go to Hawaii!

For some reason, MasterFoods (the fine folks who bring us, among other things, M&Ms) don't have a MasterList of their gluten-free products on their web site. I called their customer care hotline and spoke to Tammy, who told me that they don't make the list broadly available. However, when pressed, she admitted that plain and peanut M&Ms (but not the crispy kind, which are nasty anyway) are gluten-free, as are Snickers, Skittles, Starburst, Milky Way bars, Dove bars, and 3 Muskateers bars. So, if you need Arlene, you might be able to find her by following the trail of forbidden candy wrappers...

We didn't go to the airshow Saturday because we were supposed to go fishing; when the weather prevented that, we decided to give it a miss. We didn't go on Sunday because it was Sunday. (The Thunderbirds will be in Lafayette at Halloween, and the Blues will be in New Orleans the week before; maybe we'll go for one of those). Anyway, Micah eases the pain with a trove of cool airshow pictures, including an album showcasing Air Force One's arrival and a great clip of the Thunderbirds taking off. Micah, you can definitely put me down for a copy of the DVD when you get it done!

Last week, David experienced a rite of passage that most young men face at some point: he started learning to cut the grass. Our yard is about 2/3 acre, but it's got a fairly regular shape, so I put the mulching plug in, gassed up the mower, and outlined an area for him to start on. He had a great positive attitude at first, but that faded somewhat when two of his friends came over to play. He didn't much like that Thomas got to play while he had to cut (though he liked it a little better when he got a crisp $5 bill as payment). You can definitely tell that the yard was cut by an amateur, as there are lots of wandering, curved tire tracks and more than a few little triangles of missed grass. Overall, though, he did well. Thomas picked up a quick $2 for sweeping the sidewalks and piling up a bunch of tree branches that we'd trimmed. Now they're both talking about cutting yards next summer. Hooray for entrepreneurial spirit!

Last Friday: my friend Chris, his wife Karen, and their three kids leave for the Outer Banks. Last Saturday: my friend Nathan, his wife Camille, and their three kids leave for the Outer Banks. Today: Hurricane Alex. Be careful out there, guys; we'll be praying for y'all.

Tonight we had the four missionaries over for dinner. The discussion turned to one of the young women in our ward-- she's very attractive. I told Arlene that she cleaned up nicely, whereupon Thomas shouted out "But you cook even better than you clean, Mom!" Hilarity ensued.

This is very cool: my old friends Lawrence and Elaine MacDonald are now enroute to Poland. Why? So they can adopt some children, of course, those two being natural-born parents. Good luck, Godspeed, and don't forget the good-luck charms.

Today is Tim's birthday. What a pleasure it's been to spend more time with him since we moved up here! I'm impressed with, and proud of, how he's developed as a well-rounded person since the days when he used to sleep on Kermit the Frog sheets. I enjoy his company, and I'm happy-- and thankful-- to be his brother. I'm just sayin'. (Now, back to work before the slave drivers notice I'm blogging again...)

Kate Gregory, the woman who got me started in book writing, has a blog. How cool is that? Kate, welcome to the wide world of blogging!

Imagine if Grandma Bloch had her own Cajun cooking show. If you can form that image in your mind, you've got a pretty good idea of what "Miss Lucy's Classic Cajun Culture & Cooking" is like. I stumbled across it while setting up the new TiVo (turns out it's on RFD-TV, which bills itself as "Rural America's Most Important Network"). It's terrific. I just ordered two of her cookbooks, Classic Cajun and Classic Cajun Deux. I'll report back on whether the recipes are any good, but I'm betting they will be.

That would be Tim, who now has a real blog.

On our previous visit to MGM, we had a great time but didn't hit most of the big-ticket attractions because we went around dinnertime. This time, we hit the park first thing in the morning. We started off with the Indiana Jones stunt show, which recreates a couple of scenes from various Indy movies. It's actually quite cool. Thomas was particularly enthralled, since now he knows how to throw a character punch (plus there were lots of explosions, always a plus for the 5-year-old set.)

Mom, Thomas, and I rode Star Tours, which was mildly amusing; it's a simulator ride through a Star Wars space battle. I rode the Tower of Terror-- it was great. You go up in a Twilight Zone elevator, then you free-fall a random distance, then you repeat that cycle a few times. Matt has since taken great delight in pointing to the Tower every time he sees it and intoning "Tower of Terrrrrr!"

David, Mom, and Thomas went to the Drew Carey "Sounds Dangerous" show, which the non-Disney guidebooks all describe as lame. They all liked it, though. For lunch, we had reservations at the Prime Time Cafe, where the schtick is that you're eating at home with "Mom". Our waiter, Mickey (yes, that's really his name), was very zealous at reminding the boys to keep their elbows off the table, and he wouldn't let Arlene or David order dessert because they didn't clean their plates. He also did something that I found incredible: after Thomas popped Matthew's balloon sword, Mickey went next door to the Indiana Jones shop and bought Matt a plastic sword to replace it. Try that at Burger King.

I didn't keep any notes on them, but there were two other noteworthy activities. David and I played Millionaire, which was loads of fun. It was wicked cold in the the studio, though. I squeezed in a ride on the Rock-n-Roller Coaster. I'm not a huge Aerosmith fan (as in, I wouldn't have them over to dinner), but this ride was particularly good at providing an immersive environment-- you see a projection of them in the studio, then descend into a very realistic parking garage for a "limo ride" to the concert. A very fast, smooth launch and several corkscrews.

Then we went back to the hotel and ate dinner at the Rainforest Cafe, one of our favorites. The food was excellent and served in large portions (I recommend the Parmsesan-crusted snapper). We got a coupon from the hotel concierge that gave us head-of-the-line seating and a free appetizer. The animatronic animals are pretty neat, and they play some really invigorating background music. The fish tanks are impressive, too. Note that there are two of these restaurants here: one in Downtown Disney and one in Animal Kingdom. Then, to bed.

Pictures:

For day 3, we went to the Magic Kingdom. It was, well, magical. We got up, ate breakfast at the bus stop, and caught the shuttle to the ticketing and transportation center, where we caught the monorail. The boys and I sat in the front cabin with the driver, giving us a great view of the lake and various Disney resort hotels on our way. When we got there, Arlene rented a stroller and we set off for Fantasyland, but not before seeing Cinderella's Surprise Celebration. This was certainly a surprise, since we had no clue it was going to happen. Thomas particularly liked it; he has a real crush on Cinderella.

Last time, we hit pretty much every ride in Fantasyland. This trip, the park was more crowded and we had, shall we say, a difference of opinion among the boys over what they wanted to do. We hit it's a small world, the Peter Pan ride, and Mickey's PhilharMagic, a simply brilliant 3-D film with terrific effects (including a 3-D apple pie with accompanying scent.) I thought it was one of the day's highlights.

We also finally visited the Haunted Mansion, on which Thomas hid his head the entire time. David seemed to like it pretty well. (Hopefully on Monday we'll go back and hit Winnie the Pooh, which was a big hit with David & Thomas last time.

We had lunch reservations at the Crystal Palace for a character lunch. The food was quite good (but pricey), and the boys were delighted to visit Tigger, Pooh, Eeyore, and Piglet. After lunch, we hit Tomorrowland. To my disappointment, the ExtraTERRORestrial Encounter ride was closed, but we managed to ride the Tomorrowland electric railroad and the famous Tomorrowland go-karts. David and I each drove one; Matt was busy napping. After Matt woke up, David, Matt, and I went on Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin; Arlene and Thomas had already been. We squeezed in a visit to Frontierland at some point, but I honestly don't remember when; all we did there was visit Goofy's Diamond Dance Jamboree-- country music, line dancing, Toy Story 2's Woody, Jessy, and Bullseye, and, of course, Goofy. We all loved it. (We also rode the steam train, but darned if I can remember when).

We had burgers from the Starlight Cafe for dinner, then we navigated over to Main Street for the Spectromagic parade. Although this was billed as all-new, much of it was familiar to use from our previous visit. Matt in particular seemed to enjoy it, but we hightailed out of the area before the fireworks started. Here are a few excerpts from the day's pictures (actually, they may be from other days; I've given up trying to keep track):

For our first real vacation day, we went to Animal Kingdom. It's the largest park in terms of area, but it has relatively few things to do. We started off with an invigorating shuttle bus ride, then made a beeline straight for the safari ride, which is basically an open jeep you ride on a track through a zoolike area. We saw several elephants, a group of giraffes, some Thompsons' gazelles, a few oryx, a batch of hippos, and a lioness. Matthew was entranced, especially by the elephants. This was Arlene's favorite ride. We also went for a walk on the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail, where we looked for (but didn't find) the legendary white-bellied go-away bird. Next, we wandered over to the Asia section and the Kali River Rapids. Matt and I sat this ride out, since a)I didn't want to get wet and b) Matt was too small. The riders were unanimously thrilled with it. After a quick snack, we went on to see It's Tough to be a Bug. Mom and the older boys loved it; Matt spent the whole time with his face buried in Arlene's shoulder. David and I rode the Dinosaur thrill ride, which he said was "so turbulent" that it "aggravated his motion sickness". Indeed. So, here are a few pictures:

So, yesterday we packed our stuff and set out for Disney World. It was snowing.

We got to the airport about an hour earlier than I would have if traveling alone�a wise precaution given that we had all three boys. Checkin was uneventful, but then we hit the first of several travel snags: our inbound aircraft from Cincinnati was delayed due to weather. It arrived about 20 minutes late, and we hustled aboard. Then we had two rounds of de-icing, which the boys liked pretty well (we told Matt that they were spraying the plane with orange juice to make it sticky). Bobby Brown, the flight attendant working our flight for ACA, was bar none the friendliest, most cheerful FA I�ve ever had, anywhere. His boss is getting a glowing letter.

Our flight to CVG was bumpy, and we got there just in time to board our connecting flight to Orlando. Borrrrring, smooth flight. The real fun began when we got to Orlando: our luggage wasn�t there. The DL ramp folks in TOL hadn�t loaded it because our aircraft was overweight. I guess they figured bumping luggage for a party of six was better than bumping three sets of two, or something. Anyway, I didn�t find that out because Thomas and I had gone to the Budget car rental counter. Imagine this scene: a 50-foot-long counter with about 15 computer terminals and 17 people in line� manned by two rental agents. When we finally got to the head of the line, the very helpful agent fixed up our reservation and arranged to have an Explorer for us, so I went back to baggage claim to check on our bags. DL promised to have them delivered to the hotel. (They eventually arrived around 11:45pm, festooned with big red "VIP" tags. Evidently "VIP" in Delta's lexicon means "leave off airplane"). We trooped out to the parking area and boarded the Explorer, which turned out to have a defective airbag. Oops. Back to the rental island, where they instead gave us the minivan that I should have reserved in the first place. (All this way to take an exotic vacation, and what am I driving? A minivan. Sheesh).

We found the hotel easily, unloaded our carry-ons, and walked across the street to Downtown Disney. I have some good pictures of Matt with Buzz Lightyear and the older boys at the Lego store, but they�ll have to wait until everyone else wakes up and I can find the camera. Everybody remained really cheerful and flexible throughout our travails yesterday, which I appreciated greatly.

This morning, our plan is to hit Animal Kingdom early to ride the safari ride, then see Legend of the Lion King and some of the other live shows (because I�m in a hurry now I�m not linking to any of the Disney pages for these; you can find more links here

So, the mercury posse came back today with a Lumex, a mysterious device whose noise level is only exceeded by its cost. It's basically a portable mass spectrometer that can be used to measure extremely low levels of mercury. The State of Ohio standard is less than 1 µg/m³. In the breathing zone, our levels were lower than that, but inside the affected cabinet and on the floor beneath, we were around 1.4µg/m³.. So, according to the health department, we're still contaminated. Time to call State Farm and give them the good news: at minimum, we need to replace the affected cabinet (which of course means we'll probably have to replace the others, since matching a 12-year-old cabinet set is unlikely) and the contaminated section of floor. Since the floor is 12-year-old sheet linoleum, it's probably going to have to be replaced too. What the hey, let's remodel the kitchen.

Y'all might not be aware that Mormons, who don't observe Lent, do observe Mardi Gras. Last night we had a big ol' Mardi Gras party / surprise birthday bash. Arlene and I had been kicking around the idea of a large party for a few months, even though we're not really big entertainers. We decided on Mardi Gras as an appropriate occasion and started laying in supplies. Zatarain's and Tony's were prominently featured, along with a large bag of decorations and beads that Betty brought up when she came to babysit for our trip to Seattle earlier this year. Arlene spent all week in front of the stove, and Mom pitched in to help with the decorating, provisioning, and general preparation.

All I did was hang a few beads and boil 4 pounds of shrimp using an ancient family recipe (involving, of course, chemical weapons like this). Arlene made gumbo, red beans and rice, jambalaya, crawfish étouffée, and assorted fixings (salad, French bread). Everyone ate hugely, and we had a wonderful time-- I have pictures to prove it. The highlight of the evening was Matt's emergence from the basement (where he'd been lured by our bishop on the pretext of talking to him privately), at which point we all had our party hats on and the candles in the ice cream cake lit. Big fun! (Now, of course, Arlene's out of town, so I have a whole house full of Mardi Gras decorations to take down and store.)

Sigfried Weber (Exchange MVP, developer par excellence, and gracious host) finally has his own blog. For his most recent trick, he's made SharePoint emit properly formed RSS. Drop by his site and say hello!

A friend of mine is selling 800-Flowers gift certificates for 65 cents on the dollar. How is this possible? He bought a ton of them during their end-of-the-year promotion, which gave 100 Delta frequent flyer miles for each $1 spent. He's legit. Contact him at andymo99 AT aol DOT com if you're interested.

Longtime readers may remember my post about Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 23rd Marines. Now their most famous alumnus, Brian Taylor, has had part of his journal serialized in the Wall Street Journal. It makes for gripping reading, not least because Cpl Taylor has a real facility with the language. Here are parts 1, 2 ("Into Iraq"), and 3 ("The March to Baghdad"). Part 4's coming this Friday. I understand that he's working on a book, which I'm eager to read.

Many happy returns of the day! I'll see Julie's picture and raise her a blog written by the two Mars rovers.

My friend Bob Thompson accidentally found my Australia travelogue while searching for information on the upcoming solar transit of Venus. He was kind enough to tell his readers to come here, so welcome to all y'all! So, just so it's not a wasted trip, a few interesting things:

• This blog has lots of details on the SPOT "smart watch" implementation (see also SPOTStop and SPOTbuzz)
  
• The last chapter for Secure Messaging with Exchange Server 2003 is done and gone. The book will be on shelves in early April.
  
• It looks like I'm going to be writing the Exchange Cookbook for O'Reilly. Co-writing is actually the proper term; fellow MVP Missy Koslosky and future MVP (and our co-worker) Devin Ganger are working on it with me. There's a non-working website for the book; I'll have content posted shortly.
  
• My lovely wife has some new stamping projects ready for her workshop tomorrow; see the gallery for details.
  

Since my last post, Mark got enough signatures to file for the March 2 primary. He's having a "meet the candidate" event this Friday, 9 January. It's from 6-8pm at Nazareth Hall in Grand Rapids (yes, there is a Grand Rapids, Ohio... that's your useless information for the day). Come out and meet Mark and find out why he'd make a terrific sheriff for Wood County!

We have a family tradition: every year, on Christmas Eve, we read the Cajun Night Before Christmas to the kids. Some years I do it, but Dad's much better at it, so he usually performs. This year, Dad recorded it to send out to friends, and I snagged a copy to post here for your listening enjoyment. We're ready for Christmas now: the batteries are all charged, Santa's snacks are laid out, and the (white, dead) turkey is in the fridge, ready for tomorrow's trip to the oven. Merry Christmas to all!

Update: removed the link to the recording at the publisher's request.

My friend (and fellow Rotarian) Mark Wasylyshyn is running for sheriff of Wood County. His candidacy had to be suspended because of an archaic Ohio law that prevents municipal employees from taking part in most kinds of political activity; because he's a sergeant in the Perrysburg Police Division, the law prevented him from continuing his candidacy. Fortunately, he had the gumption to ask the Perrysburg City Council to pass an ordinance overriding that law, and eventually they did. Because Mark had to suspend his candidacy until the ordinance took effect, he's behind in the process of gathering signatures to get him on the ballot. To help fix this, he's sponsoring a petition drive at Maggie's Family Restaurant (at the corner of Ohio Rt 25 and Roachton Rd) from 5-7pm on Monday, 12/15.

If you're over 18, registered to vote in Wood County, and a Republican, please come by and sign the petition. If you're not, well, come anyway; you'd probably enjoy meeting Mark, who I know will do a terrific job as our next sheriff.

It's a shame that Julie is better about posting pictures of my kids than I am. No more! I've added a holiday photo gallery for your enjoyment.

A brief sampling of the choices I have for allocating my time tonight: football (LSU vs the hated UGA Bulldogs, in high definition), reading (Wilson's Blind Lake), video games (XIII, Splinter Cell), and work (the book, a competitive battlecard, and a long planning document for Microsoft Consulting Services). So, I've compromised: I'm watching the game (and it's glorious now that my antenna is cooperating) while working on chapter 14 on the laptop. At halftime I'll break out XIII.

We had a marvelous Thanksgiving, with turkey (Dad: "What kind of turkey did you get at the turkey farm?" Thomas: "A white dead one"), Arlene's apple pie, rice and gravy, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, peas, and plenty of loud noise from the Three Boys. We missed Julie and Paul (especially when it came time to eat), but they'll be with us for Christmas.

I was thinking yesterday of the many things I have to be thankful for, but I think I can sum them up thusly: my family and I are healthy and safe. That's enough all by itself, to say nothing of the many trappings (great job, good friends, clean laundry, electricity, antibiotics...) After watching the new Christmas video we got in this month's Ensign, I'm especially thankful that God loves us enough to have sent his Son to be our savior and redeemer. (Note to the non-believers: you should still see the video for no other reason than to hear the glorious music of the Tabernacle Choir, especially if you have a surround sound system-- magnificent!)

Yesterday I spent much of the day helping to hang up Dad's 50-1200MHz ham radio antenna. This involved: a cutting torch, large iron plates, the attic, an 8' stepladder that doesn't really fit into the closet where the attic door is, two trips to Home Depot (thanks, Tim!), and a Genie stick boom that the boys were afraid to ride on. Oh, let's not forget the FRS radios (handy for talking between the attic and the boom platform), an ancient Black & Decker 1/2" drill that's almost as old as I am, and some hot dogs with chili-- the traditional family Saturday lunch during the many years we've spent working on cars, boats, airplanes, and various fixed structures. Oh, and the drill press.

The finished product is now on display, but here's a sample.

I was trying to explain to Arlene that we should move to Salt Lake City and buy this house. She was all for it, until she read the ad and found out it had 13.5 bathrooms. Apparently this historic mansion is currently fitted out as an inn, which is what I'd do with it. Arlene could be the chef, the boys could clean the bathrooms, and Betty could live in the attached carriage house. In the winter, we could all ski. If we knew how, that is. On the other hand, moving to SLC would be a bit too much upheaval, and I can only imagine how many honey-dos a house that size and age would generate.

An acquaintance of mine is a translator and author who lives in France. He posted some pictures of the view from his yard. Wow. They're even better than John's frosted leaves.

Arlene got a special treat today: a jury summons. The questionnaire asks all sorts of interesting things (have you ever had a bodily injury claim filed against you? who's your lawyer? are you friends with any law enforcement officers?). My favorite was the exemption checklist; apparently in Wood County you can be exempted if you're in poor health (but only if you're also over 70) or if you're a cloistered member of a religious organization. Since she doesn't qualify, we'll wait to see if she gets the "yellow card" that notifies her that she's been selected for an actual trial.

Julie, according to this article, you're not a spacker. The term has been hijacked to mean a "new breed of computer crackers who earn a living in cahoots with spammers." Of course, the article's author is a bit of a spacker himself. Perhaps WordPirates should get involved...

Yesterday I had the pleasure of addressing the Perrysburg Rotary. The topic, you ask? Computer security, of course. Just like usual, I ran about 15 minutes long (people who have been to my sessions at TechEd or the MEC can attest that I've gone longer), but it seemed to be well-received. The presentation itself is here.

I also got three raffle tickets for our annual auction. 250 tickets, at $50 each, makes a nice chunk of change for the Rotary Foundation's local projects, including the new park near Ft. Meigs Elementary. The winning ticket nets some lucky person their choice of a Caribbean cruise to Cancun for 2, a ski trip to Colorado for 2, or some cash. Winner need not be present. If you want a ticket, let me know. (I know I have one or two Toledo-area readers... think of how nice a February cruise would be!)

My dear mother is worried that we're not reading enough. In an effort to reassure her, I thought I'd share the contents of my current reading stack, in no particular order:

• Bayou Farewell: Mike Tidwell's account of the ecological destruction of the Louisiana marshlands and the way of life surrounding them
  
• When the King Took Flight: overly earnest but still fascinating history of Louis XVI's flight, capture, and execution during the French Revolution. (I'm about halfway through this now)
  
• Empires of Light: fascinating account of the three-cornered battle between Edison, Westinghouse, and Tesla for economic and technological supremacy in the early electric industry. Jill Johnnes is a terrific storyteller. (Halfway through this one too).
  
• Fistful of Rain: I'll read anything by Greg Rucka.
  
• Positively Fifth Street: journalist goes to Vegas to write about the World Series of Poker and ends up placing fifth. Absorbing. (I still count this as in the queue even though it's returned 'cause I owe an overdue fine on it).
  

First, my old pal Tara Calishain (author of the NYT-bestselling Google Hacks) has a hysterical new blog. She reads press releases and sorts the wheat from the chaff. Today's installment: Hello Kitty Tongue Tape, along with items both obvious (apologizing can often deter lawsuits) and unexpected (Sony introduces new robot dogs). Go there now.

Scoble's blog turned me on to this fascinating blog, where Loren is busy building learning applications (like WritingPractice) for the Tablet PC. I may have unloaded my Tablet a little too soon...

This is what I should have done in the first place: set up a gallery for Arlene's craft pictures. Here it is.

Wow, my wife's creativity is endless! I can't believe no one is posting comments. I guess my techno-nerd stylings have scared away all readers with a taste for rubber stamps and crafty scrapbook stuff. (Hey, maybe if I write "Stampin' Up!" ten or so times this page will rise to the top of Google's search. Worth a try, eh? Stampin' Up !Stampin' Up! Stampin' Up! Stampin' Up! Stampin' Up! Stampin' Up!) Note: the cards themselves are here now.

And another one... actually, it's now in the gallery.

Another note to Pauline: a) please get a faster Internet connection. b) Here's a scrapbook page for your consideration... actually, it's in the gallery now.

Personal to Pauline: here are the pictures you wanted to see: one, two, three, and four.

UPDATE: make that five projects, as you can plainly see.

Tonight we had my brother Tim and two of my aunts from South Louisiana, Norma and Debby. Thomas has been on an age kick lately and frequently asks people how old they are. Transcript:

Thomas:	Who's the oldest at the table?
Norma:	I am, and I'm not afraid to admit it.
Thomas:	But Aunt Debby has many more wrinkles. She must be older.

I wouldn't share this with just anyone, but I know I can trust y'all not to rat me out. One of my publishers sent me a pound of chocolates, for no particular reason. The boys and I plan to eat it all before she comes back (in between swilling beer, playing poker, spilling cigar ashes on the carpet, and watching ESPN HD Discovery HD). Shhhh!

According to this story in US News & World Report, a 7% reduction in body weight lowers your risk of diabetes by 58%. That's a hell of a trade. The original source for that datum is here. Even when you factor in the 30 min/day of exercise that the NIH recommends, that's still a pretty good deal. Compare the 58% reduction to the 31% reduction obtained by taking Glucophage, and it looks even better.

So, here it is. I currently weigh 195. That makes my target weight 181. I'll keep you posted.

This is what Dad, Tim, and I did over Memorial Day weekend-- it took us all day Saturday and all day Monday. Arlene and Mom made a couple of lumber runs and supplied (or is it plied?) us with good food. I spent some time the following week adding the glider on the right and making a few structural mods, then the following weekend Dad, Tim, and I added the tube slide. The kids have been enjoying it immensely, and it was tons of fun to build. The only work left to do is minor; I need to hit it with the belt sander and follow up with some stain. If it ever quits raining, I'll be able to finish it.

In his own words:

I went to Rotary with Daddy today. It was fun. I met new people and new friends. And I had a great time. So, I had lunch at Rotary and also I got to listen to speeches and Daddy bought an Army pack of cards for free since he got an answer right.

I did buy a deck of cards at a charity auction, and they sure weren't free, but other than that everything is as he describes it.

So, here's a breakdown of yesterday:

Activity	Score
Yardwork	+5
Just because I wanted to	+25
Trip to Lowe's		+10
And buying something		+20
It was lumber		+50
More yardwork		+0
Using concrete		+25
And a saw		+100
Hanging out with Tim	+50
While using power tools	+125
Dinner	+10
It was gumbo	+25
For the 2nd night in a row	+50

In the morning, Thomas and I dug up a bunch of, well, crap from the front beds. I then dug up a couple of dead bushes in the back yard, then watched Thomas cut down a tree that had grown into the fence. We went to Lowe's to buy lumber, concrete, swingset parts, and other essentials; when we came home, I took down about 20 feet of old side-yard fencing, with lots of help from Tim. Tim and I reset two fenceposts and fixed a sagging section of fence, then I dug up some more crap while Tim made a custom fencepost to replace one that had rotted. We reset that too (so much for the rest of the concrete), then made a huge run to the dump. Then gumo, after which came the Great TV Adventure, about which more later.

I downloaded a nifty little package called ChangeDesktop that does pretty much what its name implies. Every hour, it changes the background of my two desktop monitors by randomly choosing an image for each monitor from the 1900+ photos I have filed away. Not coincidentally, most of these photos are of family members. It's wonderful to see the progression of our sons over the years, but at the same time it's bittersweet to see (e.g.) a photo of David at age three: I can clearly see how that little proto-David had the seeds of the David I see now, and it's hard to be reminded of how fast they're growing and how little real time we have with them. Excuse me while I go snivel for a bit.

me is glad dat there's a way to turn ordinary text into da wicked way dat ali natters. now i too can be wicked, just dig im. (courtesy of the Ali G translator) Betty and Julie, please use your new powers responsibly.

So, this morning I was thinking about my sister. She and I are about as different as two people in the same family can be. She is socially and politically liberal, and I'm not. I am religious, and she's not. I tend to be more technical, and she's twice the people person I'll ever be, not to mention that she unfairly got all the artistic and creative talent. (OTOH Tim and I can use power tools, so I suppose it evens out.) Despite our differences, and despite the fact that I unmercifully teased and persecuted her when we were younger, I love her, and I just wanted to make that fact widely known among the seven or eight people who read this blog. So, props to you, younger sister.

Faithful readers may have been wondering what happened... one minute, I was on vacation; the next, dead air. We finished our vacation (summary: the Naval Aviation Museum is still great, the New Orleans sun felt terrific, and there's a wonderful po-boy place called Radosta's that will be a touchstone of every future NO trip I take). Then we came home, celebrated Easter, and packed Arlene off (with the usual suspects) to the American Quilting Society annual convention. In the meantime, I'm taking the boys to fun places (the eye doctor, the grocery store) and their usual events (baseball, primary activity, school, and so on). That's cut into my blog time pretty severely, since I now work when the baby's asleep.

I did manage to snag a new home theater system, which has greatly improved the feel of the Xbox and the few movies I've had time to watch. It's not nearly as fancy as the system I wanted, but it's a good starter, and the price was right. It's really hard not to crank up the volume on Halo when the kids are asleep, though.

We had a great day yesterday! We began with a walk on the beach (pictures to follow once I get to Betty's high-speed connection-- this modem bidness is the pits). Matthew didn't care for the sensation of the surf on his feet (which he calls "tickle tickle"), but he liked the sand, and he thought the seagulls were quite all right.

After our beach foray, we loaded up the truck and took the ferry over to Dauphin Island. We visited the Estuarium, a terrific hands-on marine museum. All three of the boys were enthralled, particularly with the jellyfish and the petting zoo tank of fish. On the return ride, we saw several pods of dolphins. Matt didn't seem to care, and Tom had trouble spotting them, but David was delighted (and told everyone about it, loudly). After a tasty hot dog lunch, everyone took naps, except for me: I slaved away over my laptop. We made a foray to the pool, which was too cold for Matt's liking. Are you sensing a pattern here? We made an emergency grocery store run, after which Arlene baked some chicken and made a salad and fixins' while I took the boys for another beach walk. After dinner, the boys played for a while and hit the sack. So did we (but not until we watched the tail end of Married By America-- after all, what's a beach vacation without guilty pleasures?)

Saturday dawned, well, early. That was OK, since Arlene and I both had separate breakfast dates. She got together with Pauline and Susan at Cracker Barrel, and the boys and I headed for Waffle House, followed by the Space and Rocket Center. Coincidentally, the day we were there was the 10th annual running of the Great Moon Buggy Race. We saw a couple of buggies plus lots of rockets and stuff; our friends Jonathan and Daniel joined us, then Daniel left and we had a delicious lunch at an old favorite. Later we joined the Wagners for dinner at their (really lovely) new home, followed by a visit to the local go-kart park. Then to bed.

Sunday morning, everyone got up, packed, and showered, then we headed off to the good old Athens ward for church. We had a wonderful time seeing our friends, but it was only a brief visit because we had a looooong drive in front of us. The drive was torturous painful well, it was seven hours in a car with three little kids. Thank goodness for Hank the Cow Dog, the one audiobook that would actually play on our CD player. We arrived at our condo, unpacked, drove back to Gulf Shores for dinner, and went to bed. Tomorrow, the beach!

Day 1 was pretty uneventful. We loaded up all of our considerable arsenal of crap, then Mom drove us to the airport. Our flight from Toledo to Cincinnati was perfectly uneventful. We had a delicious lunch of airport-kiosk soft pretzels in Cincy, then flew to Huntsville. Matthew was fussy on the airplane but a nap soon cured that. Afte rour arrival, we picked up our rental, a Chevy TrailBlazer. It's a bit smaller than what we were originally promised, but it seems pretty nice so far-- especially since we can drive it from here to New Orleans and drop it off at no extra cost.

We had a backyard barbecue with our friends the Huffords. I'm not sure whether the boys or I were happier to be outside in the sunshine, but we had a delightful time and some very nice steaks. Afterwards, we went to the Athens ward building to see one of our friends' sons receive his Eagle Scout award. It was well-attended, so we got to see a goodly number of our friends from Athens. The ceremony went on for a while, though, so it was easily 9:30 by the time we got the three wise guys in bed. They all slept well and woke up this morning full of beans. More tomorrow.

Ahhh, family vacation. Right now everyone's still asleep, but I expect that to change shortly. We're off for a week: to Huntsville today, where we'll get to see a number of our friends. On Sunday, we drive down to Gulf Shores to spend a few days at the beach, then to New Orleans for a short visit, then home again next Friday. The boys don't know where we're going yet; they've been told it's someplace with electricity and good food, and that it's possible that we might see penguins (at the NO aquarium). Updates here will be more sporadic than usual. I have a number of things to write about, including some comments on Rick Atkinson's Pulitzer-winning Army at Dawn, a sharply drawn and very readable history of the WWII campaign in North Africa) and a review of my earlier posts on where the military comes from. However, I have a nagging feeling I will be too busy eating shrimp, going to my favorite museum, and keeping the boys from scaring other vacationers. Maybe I'll get to find out which truck stops really have WiFi-- that guy from T/A never called me back.

Two quick notes: thanks to Anders for the cool blockquote style, and brother-in-law Paul has a new blog.

Update: Anders asks if I can attribute this. No, not exactly; my pal Kim Cameron-Webb sent it to me, but she got it in email. If anyone knows the original source, let us know.

Jeremy seems to have broken TrackBacks somehow. This post is solely to add a TrackBack to see whether it works. Move along; nothing to see here.

Could be that I know some people who are getting these for Christmas...

My friends Tyler and Rima have a daughter with sensory integration dysfunction. I'd never heard of it, but they've launched a pretty comprehensive website that explains it and provides a wealth of educational and teaching resources. Check it out.

It's hard to adequately describe how good the boys were yesterday. Everyone got up and ate breakfast without major incident; the boys got dressed without complaint and watched the cartoon version of "Elijah" while Matt and I showered, then it was off to church. Unfortunately, Matt had a bad case of the wiggles, so he and I spent most of sacrament meeting out in the hall. To make things worse, I had the effrontery to try sneaking out of the nursery, and he didn't like that one little bit.

Once we got home, it was time for lunch. When Arlene's out of town, I try to eat as much stuff that she doesn't like as possible, so for lunch we had fresh-made (bread machine, alas) sourdough bread and Seabear salmon chowder. The boys fell upon it like they hadn't eaten in weeks; everyone had seconds. Matt napped while the boys watched a video and I made ice cream (cookies and cream, another Arlene not-favorite.)

A friend of ours from Alabama is deathly ill, and another friend is undergoing chemo after a dual radical mastectomy. Arlene had been planning a visit for a while, but friend #1's health was deteriorating quickly, so we decided she should go sooner rather than later. With David's birthday coming up on Tuesday, "sooner" meant "0530 Saturday morning". She packed Friday night, got up early and drove to the airport Saturday morning, and was in Huntsville by 0945. In the meantime, I was here with three small, noisy, active boys. Here's what we did.

0715: Matt got up, so I brought him back to my bed for some cuddle time.
0745: Tom got up; the first words out of his mouth were "Where's Mom?" followed closely by "Can you scramble some eggs for breakfast?"
0810: woke up David.
0820: Dad called to invite us to McDonald's for breakfast. Too late; the eggs were already in the skillet. We plan to meet at 0900 to go see some model trains at a local hardware store.
0840: Cycle all three boys and myself through the two showers. This happens in a surprisingly orderly manner. Everyone ends up bathed and dressed in about 25 minutes.
0910: Pick up Dad and Tim and drive to the train place.
0940: Observe expressions of stupefaction and wonder on faces of all three boys. This lasts until one of the hardware store guys comes over and actually turns on one of the trains, at which point Matt starts to cry.
0942-1015: Try to convince Matt that he likes trains, at which I fail miserably. Dad compensates by giving him some circus peanuts.
1020: I buy some spacers for the kitchen and we set off for the barbershop.

I fear that I will soon lose all my readers to my more erudite (and, graphically speaking, much more talented) sister.

I found several courtesy of this link. Some of them are better than others; regrettably, all of them have better artwork than mine (well, except for this one).

David's very sensitive to girl-y things and tries hard to avoid them. I wonder if this might change his mind? After all, she's a) armed and b) in uniform. (Note to self: find out why none of the Amys I know resemble this).

Last night we got about 3.5" of snow in our yard. It's beautiful, or it was until the boys and I went outside and started tromping around in it. Now it looks like a herd of buffalo materialized in our yard (well, there aren't any buffalo chips; other than that, there's no difference.)

I added some pictures from Arlene's stash to the wedding photo album.

I can only use one word to describe the ceremony: beautiful. (That's because I can't fill in all the details, like what kind of lace was on Debbie's dress or what sort of shoes the bridesmaids wore. Too bad.)

The sun was lowering over some picturesque hills as we arrived at the winery. We parked in a dusty crushed-stone parking lot, and I was a little worried that this was a bad sign. We quickly ended up on a covered walkway that wound past the (functioning) waterwheel; the walkway carried us through some nicely landscaped bushes to what I can only describe as a peninsula-- and it was gorgeous. Wedding guests were seated on a patch of emerald-green grass (clearly, ChemLawn had been there recently), with a sort of moat in front of them, maybe 2.5' deep. On the other side of the moat was a poured-concrete platform, where the wedding party stood; the moat joined with a scenic pond, complete with some geese and swans.

The ceremony was quite moving. Everything went smoothly (yay!), and their pastor did an outstanding job while still maintaining a sense of humor. We were favored with a scripture reading from Chris' sister and a song from a cousin of the bride, followed by a brief outdoor reception with hors d'oeuvres and wine (this being, after all, a winery). We got to visit with the Larsen family and with various and sundry other guests, then it was time to head in for dinner and the big reception.

David brought home his first published story this week, written with his pal John in the computer lab at his school.

John and David were 18 when this happened. We were dating vampire women. At first they fooled us both, but at the dance they still fooled David but John was not fooled. David got bitten by one of them and John socked him in the face.

Wow. A real chip off the old block. I wonder if I can incorporate vampire women and fisticuffs in my next book.

So, I arrived at the Sacramento airport to meet Arlene's flight. I got there about two hours early; my intent was to find a quiet place to work, eat lunch, finish a chapter, and send it to my editors before she got there. Mistake #1: there aren't anyquiet places at SMF, which appears to be a major Southwest operation. I mean, no one expects airports to be as quiet as libraries, but these folks were noisy. Mistake #2: there's no food on the terminal side at the airport-- all of the restaurants are past the security checkpoint. Mistake #3: there's no good way to connect to the Internet at the whole airport. No wireless, no LAN ports, few working pay phone data ports-- not my favorite.

I did manage to finish the chapter, and when Arlene's flight arrived (about 1:20, 20min late, thankyouverymuch) we went to get her bags. Unfortunately, only one arrived-- it seems the fine folks in Toledo forgot to load it, and it had been routed Toledo-Cincinnati-Salt Lake City-Sacramento. It was slated to arrive at the airport at 4pm, and we were supposed to be at the wedding rehearsal at 4:30-- two hours away. We hopped in our rental Fedmobile and set out for Murphys (named after two brothers who struck it rich selling supplies to gold-seekers).

or, how Paul and Arlene went to a bunch of new places, met interesting people, and ate good food.

So, my bud Chris finally decided to get married. (Well, all right; "finally" has some unfairly loaded implications, so strike that from the record). Fortunately for us, his wedding was the Saturday after MEC, and I was already going to be in the neighborhood. Accordingly, I planned to fly from Anaheim to Sacramento, and we arranged for Arlene to meet me there on Friday afternoon.

First, I had to get there. I arrived at the John Wayne International Airport (great name, huh?) and checked in for my United (motto: "At least we're not Northwest!") flight.

The last time I flew United was during their infamous "Summer of Hell", and so I wasn't looking forward to the flight delay I fully expected.

0705: wake up to the sound of Matt talking into his baby monitor. Too bad he was speaking Ukranian.

0730: head over to Mom & Dad's with the baby and my laptop. Upgrade the firewall firmware so I can VPN to my mail server.

0815: breakfast with David, Matthew, and Arlene. Atypically, Tom was still asleep.

0845: start cleaning the garage. Today's mission: clean up enough so that the cars can be parked inside.

Last night, we marked the one-week anniversary of our move-in by having our first homecooked meal in the new house. That was courtesy of our new stove, which finally arrived yesterday morning. Roast, rice and gravy, corn, and French bread-- good stuff.

Almost everything is unpacked. My office area now has electricity, thanks to the efforts of my dad and brother. The radon mitigation system is installed, all of the phone jacks work, there's wireless upstairs, and the kitchen is mostly functional. We ordered the new countertops; David's had his first soccer practice, and we've met most of our nearby neighbors.

The only major fly in the ointment is the roof. It leaks, which we knew. It doesn't have any felt under the shingles, though, which we didn't know. Somehow the seller kinda forgot to tell us. The lack of felt isn't causing the leaks, but if felt were present it would be helping to stop them. In Perrysburg, if you don't have felt under the shingles, your roof doesn't meet the building code. We're pursuing our options with the seller to find out whether we can get him to pay, or whether we'll have to (yuck) get a lawyer.

It's been a busy, busy week. The trucks are unloaded; we've been to our first official church meetings as members of the Perrysburg ward, and our house is slowly but surely taking on the character of a home. Today I'm trying to catch up on email and blog entries (I'll backdate them, so be sure to look over the last few days of August). I've also promised to hang a new shower door in the master bath, and Tim and I are going to install some upstairs ceiling fans in the bedrooms. Tomorrow, it's back to my normal writing schedule.

I was going to write a (hopefully) funny post about how Arlene & I celebrated the day yesterday, but I'm too tired. We spent all day Friday packing and loading trailer #1, with much help from friends from church. We got about 2/3 of the trailer loaded that first day, including the refrigerator, the piano, Arlene's heavy credenza and china cabinet, the sofa, and my Monster Steel Desk (tm). We ended up rejiggering a bunch of the load on Saturday, with yet more help from church friends (including some of the same folks who came and sweated with us on Friday).

Now, the trucks are both loaded, and we close tomorrow on this house. This afternoon I met Chris and Lisa, the buyers, at our house to do a quick walkthrough and to let them get their cats out of their cat crates. Since it's going to be their house in 18 hours or so, I didn't see the harm in letting them do so. They seem like a great family, and their kids are obviously excited about the new house, new neighborhood, etc. We had a nice visit, then Tom & I left to go visit the Crosbys and the Chandlers. By the time we came back here, we were both dead tired. Tom, in fact, was so sleepy he didn't want anything to eat; he just zonked out in the van on the way back. Now he's asleep, and I will be shortly.

Tomorrow at 0930 we close, then I have to go to the bank, get a dog leash, get the dog from the kennel, and get up to Ohio. Somewhere in there, I have to meet the ABF drivers at our house so they can ship our stuff, then it's off to the great white north.

Busy last couple of days. I finished another book chapter; the modem in our TiVo died, and our moving preparations are picking up speed. The big truck will be here tomorrow about noon, and we have several shifts of friends from church coming to help us load and pack.

Arlene and I both have talks to give at church on Sunday, plus I have my regular Sunday-school class to teach. Right after church, she'll leave to drive up to Perrysburg with David and Matt. Thomas and I will stay here for the closing on Monday, then drive up. Our stuff will leave on Monday and arrive sometime later in the week. Of course, the idiot sellers still haven't told us which of the inspection defects they're going to fix, and their realtor isn't even returning our agent's phone calls-- not a good sign. It would really stink if we had to put our stuff in storage to await our closing date, but we may yet have to.

We close on the sale of our Capstone Lane house in seven days: next Monday, 8/26. Our house now looks like the Box Fairy came to visit; there are full, partially full, and disassembled boxes everywhere. Our friend Andy the painter is coming to repaint two rooms today; I have about a dozen items on my to-do list (including cancelling dentist appointments for next month, calling the satellite TV people, and arranging the final details for our moving trucks.)

Most of the equipment in my workroom is taken apart and packed. In the process, I've been doing a Thomspon Deep Clean®, during which I found some Valuable Stuff. I also accidentally shipped a perfectly good replacement disk drive back to Maxtor, instead of sending them the broken one they were supposed to get. Time to add "Call FedEx" to my to-do list.

In the meantime, I am pushing to finish chapters 8 & 9 of my book before we move. Since the truck will arrive on Friday sometime, that gives me a pretty tight deadline. Off to work.

The incessant parade of minor real estate annoyances is beginning to get to me. I am torn between being thankful that we're able to buy a home and move on one hand and, on the other, the urge to start living in a cardboard box. We've completed the home inspection on both houses; our repairs are (mostly) done here, but we're waiting for the Ohio seller (oops; I almost wrote "remote end"-- guess what I've been writing about?) to tell us what they're going to fix. We're also waiting to get a final closing date on our Alabama house. We're also waiting for our mortgage lender to decide if they need blood samples, fingerprints, brain scans, or anything else. On top of that, we're waiting for the results of the Ohio radon test, and we're waiting for the buyer to tell us what color they want the boys' bedroom painted, and.... I'll stop there before I begin to hyperventilate.

	Not appearing soon on MTV's Cribs: our new house. It's about a block and a half from Mom & Dad's, which is great for the kids. 4 bedrooms, 2 full baths and 2 half baths, and a basement. The pictures don't do it justice, mostly because I'm not much of a photographer but also because my camera doesn't have a wide enough wide angle.
The kitchen features some really awful wallpaper (you can't really tell from the small picture, but trust me: it's bad), plus some disco-looking pink countertops and a broken microwave. However, off on the right-hand side (where you can't see it in this picture), there's a great breakfast room. The door in the upper-right corner leads to a library/study with beautiful wood paneling.
	The family room has a great full-brick fireplace and a little shelf/cabinet combo that should be just the place for keeping snacks. The master is on the ground floor (to the left in this picture), and the other bedrooms are upstairs. There's a nice-sized formal dining room through the door in the upper-left corner; behind the wall on the far left is a formal living room with dark rose carpet that will (hopefully) match some of our furniture.
It's a two-story house: 3 bedrooms up, master suite down. There's an unfinished partial basement, which is so ugly I'm not including its pictures. A little paint, though, and a lot of electrical outlets will turn it into a dandy office space. There's even a small ground-level window, so I can see whether the neighbor's car is there-- what joy! We got a terrific deal, mostly because the house has been vacant and on the market for over two years. We're really excited; our excitement persisted even after going to the mortgage company to sign up for 20 years of indentured servitude. Arlene & I are driving home tomorrow. On Saturday, I'll pick up a UHaul trailer and fill it with stuff-n-junk, then drive back to Ohio Sunday after church. That way I can be here bright and early Monday morning to register David for 2nd grade and to attend our home inspection. More news when there is news.

On Saturday, I had the boys at the barbershop to renew their summer tennis-ball haircuts. Arlene called and said "Gosh, I wish you could come up and look at houses". So I did: the three boys, the boat, and I all headed north on I-65, leaving about 1630 Saturday afternoon. My plan was to stop for the night somewhere around Louisville. Unfortunately, I didn't plan on the annual Street Rod Nationals, held each year in Louisville during the first week of August. Every hotel we checked, from fleabags up to the Louisville Hilton, was full. We sure did see a lot of cool cars, though.
Actually, David and I (the others were asleep) ended up in the middle of a parade/drag race in front of the Executive West hotel.

It is done. The house is officially under contract. Our time on the market: a respectable 62 days. The only bad thing is that the buyer wants to close no later than 3 September, which doesn't give us much time to find a house, move our stuff, etc. We have to get David enrolled in school, get bandwidth for me, find doctors and veterinarians, and so forth. Fortunately, we have family and friends in the area, not to mention what appears to be a good ward of the Church. I'm very thankful to Heavenly Father for making this such a smooth process so far-- our family prayers have definitely been answered!

I can already tell that today is going to be great, this despite going to bed at almost midnight and getting up at my usual time of 0430. Why? Well, first, I was able to get out of bed; that's always something to be thankful for, although it's easy to forget sometimes. Next, I finally got the book review template to work the way it should-- if you look on the right-hand column of this page, under the "What I'm reading: dead trees" section, you'll see some links that now connect to a MySQL database of book reviews. I still have some kinks to work out, plus a huge backlog of reviews to type in, but the basic feature works OK and the template doesn't look too bad. Try it out.

The big news is that late last night we spoke to our REALTOR and got the full scoop on the offer. The money's a little low, but they want to close very soon, which suits us just fine. We issued a counteroffer, which we, our REALTOR, and the buyer's agent all expect to be accepted. Hopefully by the end of the day we'll have a contract, which is the other reason today has such great potential. I also get to play hooky this morning and take the boys to the Space & Rocket Center. What else could I possibly ask for?

Update: a friend of mine who lost his job as an Exchange admin a couple of months ago just got a new job. Good karma all around!

I just got a cryptic phone call from our REALTOR:

Janet: "Who was the last agent to show your house?"
Me: "agentName. Why?"
Janet: "I need her phone number."
Me: "phoneNumber. Why?"
Janet: "She's supposed to be faxing me an offer for your house."

So, I'll believe it when I see it, but we're cautiously optimistic. Think good thoughts for us!

UPDATE: the offer was legit. It was a bit low, so we'll be countering. However, I'm about to book Arlene a plane ticket so she can go househunting.

	When my grandmother was a little girl, she wanted to be Marie, Queen of Romania. In celebration of her birthday today, I thought I'd post a picture of her in royal costume (doesn't she look the part?), plus another taken recently in her natural habitat: feeding the birds and explaining nature to a small child. So, Grandmaw, happy birthday, and many happy returns of the day!

Happy birthday, America! We celebrated today by swimming twice, once in the morning and again before dinner, eating steaks on the grill, watching some baseball on TV, and letting Matthew test a swim diaper for the first time. All in all, a great day! Besides the young American pictured at right, we also have two short QuickTime movies of David and Thomas falling into the pool like scuba divers.

By special request, before-and-after pictures of Matthew and his birthday cupcake.

before...	after!

Baby Matthew celebrated his first birthday yesterday. I have some hysterical pictures and video of him "eating" [sic] a cupcake that I'll post later today. He was really excited by the cupcake, but puzzled at the icing. I expect he'll handle it better next year.

Selling a house is frustrating, and I think the biggest reason is the amount of uncertainty. Will our house sell in a week? A month? A year? What about our poor ex-neighbors who listed their house, bought another one, and then couldn't sell the first one for 500+ days? We sure don't want to end up like them. We have a good Realtor, and since we've worked with her before we have some idea what to expect... but that doesn't change the fact that the house might sell tomorrow, not until after Christmas, or not until the cows come home.

Close behind the uncertainty is the hurry-up-and-wait factor. We'd much rather have this house sold so we can get serious about finding a new house, packing up our stuff, and moving. We'd obviously prefer to move before the new school year starts, but if we can't, is that worth getting a bridge loan and betting that our Alabama house will sell soon? Who knows.

Peter, my friend and business partner, got flying lessons for Fathers' Day. After he picked me up at the airport, we compared notes on instructors, equipment, and so forth. As I expected, it costs more to learn to fly in Seattle than in Decatur, AL, but for the extra money he's getting newer equipment (a Cessna 172S instead of the old-but-sturdy 150 I'm flying), access to a simulator-equipped classroom, and some other goodies. He's awfully excited, and I wish him the best of luck.