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My little Steampunk hobby continues
May 28, 2008 by Adam in Adam's Projects
 My little Steampunk hobby continues. I decided to do something a bit more practical, buying some nice glass jars for my bathroom, painting the tops, and putting fun labels on them.
For the less scientific among you, "Follicle Restraining Gelatine" is hair gel and "Photonic Resistance Cream" is sunscreen. They're way more cool with the new names, though.
Jamie did the calligraphy, which I'm hoping is a sign of acceptance, if not actual enthusiasm. She hardly complained about my paper aging via soaking in tea bags.
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It's back to work for me today, though admitt...
May 27, 2008 by Adam in Family
 It's back to work for me today, though admittedly it'll be a short week before the family reunion next weekend. I'll probably spend today fiddling with phones at work again.
Yesterday was very busy but very fun. In the morning Sam helped me mount the percussion cap rifle on the wall. It had been in the family since before the Civil War, so I felt guilty keeping it up on a shelf. I helped Emma print out a bunch of fairies, cut them out, and hang them from the ceiling as party decorations. Finally the magic party hour arrived and the hordes of friends and family swooped in.
 It was great seeing all my sisters in the same room. Sadie made fairy wings for everyone, which ended up being a safety hazard. Jenny was telling us all about her adventures in France, from driving insanely fast to funny stories about waiters. Seraph and I chatted about Steampunk and the impact of world disasters on the price of clothes. I had fun showing off the Audioscope to my dad, and weaseled an offer of help making brass goggles out of him. My mom talked about Ireland and made me wish I had more time to chat with her. Eventually the kids all went down to the play room and screamed and yelled until the party was over.
Emma got quite a bit of loot. I gave her an MP3 player, which she cheerfully blared the Nutcracker from while she did art projects on Yayoe's giant drawing paper. Emma also ended up with a bunch of clothes, so there was the inevitable fashion show after the party.
As the day wound down, we cleaned up and tried to wrangle some tired and cranky kids through their normal routine. Sam was a bit frustrated with the amount of homework he had to do. His Jimmy Carter report is finished, but now he's catching up with his normal math and spelling. Tonight we have fencing, so it'll likely be another busy day.
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I'm going to declare the Audioscope finished
May 26, 2008 by Adam in Adam's Projects
 I'm going to declare the Audioscope finished. As with most of my hardware projects, there's a comedy of errors that resulted in me having to redo things again. I'd fix one issue, only to have another pop up. The most recent was that one of the speakers stopped working due to a broken connection when I bent the headphone wire to make the mp3 player fit. I also lost one of my fake rivets from the front part.
Still, a bit of soldering and glue later, everything seems to work and it looks appropriately Steampunkish. The speakers aren't as loud as I want, but I'm quite happy with the paint job on the mp3 player. That went fast and worked the best of all my experiments.
It might be fun to do another Steampunk project, but I think I'd stick to something simpler and practical. On the plus side, my office got cleaned up and looks very nice. I really like the dark wood and bare metal look. Plus it helped that I made Sam move all his Legos and other stuff.
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We went to see the new Indiana Jones movie to...
May 26, 2008 by Adam in Family
 We went to see the new Indiana Jones movie today, with Sam and Sadie ganging up to make me wear my "costume". Basically I've got a hat Colin gave me years ago that makes me look like Indiana Jones. The rest of the outfit is pretty standard, but the hat is the key. The movie itself was okay, with excellent action sequences and an okay plot. Sam declared at the end that Raiders wasn't about aliens, and I quietly agreed.
The weekend has been very exciting so far, with another day to go. On Saturday Sadie and Greg came over. The kids immediately swarmed them and gave them a tour of the house. I snuck away and returned with canning supplies. We made apple butter and ginger pear marmalade. Even better was making labels for the jam with made-up names like "Yellow Pony Curd". Very fun.
Today the girls decorated for Emma's party, which is sort of turning into a three-way birthday party for Jenny, Sadie, and Emma. As usual, my gifts were thrown together at the last minute, but they're well meaning. I also mowed the lawns, hoping beyond hope that it'll be somehow sunny tomorrow.
As for the rest of the day, I took the kids to the park, helped Emma play Wii Fit, and did a bit of drawing. Sam really got into Wii Fit, playing an hour yesterday and cheerfully saying how sore he was today. Ah, was a fascinating modern world we live in.
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It's that sweet Mocha Friday yet again, my on...
May 23, 2008 by Adam in Family
 It's that sweet Mocha Friday yet again, my one day of indulgence.
The kids were relatively good last night. Emma started to throw a temper tantrum when I told her she couldn't use Jamie's pens. I explained that throwing a fit didn't work and it was better to talk about it. She seemed okay with that and settled down again. We'll see if I can use the whole "logic" approach in the future.
Otherwise Emma was fun to hang out with last night. We drew, played dolls, and ran around outside. Sam dug up an old webcam of mine and made up the "security guard" game. The camera was trained on the big jewel Sadie gave him, and the thief tried to steal it away without being caught. Good times.
It's looking like we're going to have a very exciting weekend. Jamie and I have date night tonight, with Sam and Emma going over to Dave's house. Tomorrow Sadie comes to visit and hopefully make jam. Monday is Emma's bithday. Fun, fun!
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The week has been moving along
May 22, 2008 by Adam in Family
The week has been moving along. I spent yesterday playing with the web-enabled phones that they're installing at RiverBend. It was kinda fun being able to see my phone number and picture on my phone. Today will probably be less play and more work, as I've got a ton of meetings that I need to actually stay awake in.
Jamie and Emma have seemed groggy in the evenings. Mostly Sam and I have been hanging out and visiting. Last night he watched Buffy while I worked on my computer game, then we'd talk about the episode later. I reassured Sam he wouldn't lose his immortal soul if he slept with a girl in high school, though perhaps there were other issues to consider. It's funny that Buffy the Vampire Slayer is an icebreaker for having "those" kind of talks about high school, growing up, and good and evil.
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Perhaps she is greiving the fact that she wil...
May 21, 2008 by Jamie in Emma
Perhaps she is greiving the fact that she will be five soon, and no longer able to legally avoid school, frolic naked at the beach, or pass gas and have people say, "Oh, isn't that cute!"
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Just to document that Emma isn't made up of s...
May 21, 2008 by Adam in Emma
Just to document that Emma isn't made up of sugar and spice and everything nice, I thought I'd quickly relay a temper-tantrum she had last night.
She was yelling and destroying things and kicking. We tried everything, even carrying her around outside like when she was a baby. Not much worked and eventually she got tired and went to sleep.
It was quite surprising to me, though. Normally she's such a sweet girl. I can tell she'll be fun as a teenager.
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Well, Sue, Sam also wants a puppy
May 20, 2008 by Adam in Wielesek
Well, Sue, Sam also wants a puppy....which gives "places to go" a whole new meaning! :-)
(Edit: this is the real Adam. I'm guessing Jamie really posted the above, not me.)
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Oh, dear, yesterday's posting should have sai...
May 20, 2008 by Sue in Wielesek
Oh, dear, yesterday's posting should have said that the Irish do NOT move at the same breakneck speed as Londoners do. Derry is also the only completely walled city in Ireland, and some four hundred years ago, withstood a siege of 105 days.
It's brisk up here along the coast, but this morning is quite clear and sunny. This would sure be a good place to have a farm, and all the hedgerows and stone fences have been in place for the last five hundred years.
Adam and Jamie, you know Sam wants a trip to England, and I have been thinking about all the best places to go.
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Hi, all, and sorry for not posting sooner
May 19, 2008 by Sue in Wielesek
Hi, all, and sorry for not posting sooner. I've been having trouble with internet connection on my laptop. This trip to Northern Ireland has been a good end of the trip, since we both caught colds/flu and have not wanted to gallivant around at breakneck speed. Fortunately, people in Northern Ireland do move at the same speed as in London, so we are having a lovely time. Ireland looks a lot like eastern Pennsylvania, and Oregon. On Sunday afternoon we sat in an ocean front cafe admiring a scene, including mountains coming right down to the ocean, which looked just like Florence. We're in Derry right now, where the McCord part of the family came from. Apparently the Scots were lured here by the British with promises of lots of land, all taken from the Irish, and, according to what we gathered
at the Migration Studies Centre, part of the Ulster Folk Park, realized that the Irish didn't like them and they weren't going to get rich anyhow, so around 1700 started off for America. (There's some religious persecution in there somewhere, as well.) Although the locals all deny any
nationalist/loyalist/Catholic/Protestant conflict, we've seen quite a lot of political graffiti here in Derry. (The
city was originally named Derry. When the English took over,
about 350 years ago, the English renamed it Londonderry, I suppose just to rub the Irish's nose in the defeat. The "London" part has been spraypainted out on a lot of the
traffic signs. If there's anything I've learned it's that
people consider a particular place home, and they're sure unhappy if someone else tries to take it away. We've sure learned a lot of history on this trip. Much love, mom
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New windows and sliders
May 19, 2008 by Judy in Hanes
New windows and sliders. New siding. New garage door. New garage inside. Hope it all works.
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We had a pleasant Saturday, which continued t...
May 18, 2008 by Adam in Family
 We had a pleasant Saturday, which continued to be very hot. After a tasty breakfast, we took the kids up to Hendrick's park where they frolicked in the flowers and chased a turkey around the grounds. We never did figure out why there was a turkey released into the semi-wild, but it gave Sam great entertainment.
Later Sam went to a play date with Chase and Jamie went to help at a garage sale. I took Emma to Michael's to pick up project supplies. She was very good the whole time, quite the contrast from this last week. Afterwards we drew and took it easy.
Jamie made a great salad, out of beets of all things, and we eventually got the kids to bed.
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My little Steampunk MP3 player continues to c...
May 18, 2008 by Adam in Adam's Projects
 My little Steampunk MP3 player continues to come along nicely. I discovered some great gold/brass spray paint that we had. I love the way it looks and it was pretty easy to apply. The hard part was carefully disassembling the plastic case so I didn't break anything horribly. After that I masked off the plastic screen and sprayed away.
I took some black paint, diluted it, and smeared it around to give it the "aged metal" look. Later I took some tinfoil to make the faceplate, sprayed it, and glued it on. To complete the look, I cut the tops off tiny brass nails and glued them on as rivets.
I'd like to add some lettering to the buttons to the right. If I can find some good stamps, I'll probably write on them with a Sharpie and then apply it that way. There's some crazier techniques that involve printing from a computer onto plastic, and then applying that before the ink dries. I'll probably try that as a last resort.
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The Starbucks people gave me a free second sh...
May 16, 2008 by Adam in Family
The Starbucks people gave me a free second shot in my Friday mocha this morning. Already I can sense the Heavens parting and the caffeine angels descending down to fill me with bliss. I'll have to be careful to curb borderline inappropriate humor in my e-mail today.
It was smoking hot last night. I ended up sleeping downstairs as our bedroom was so warm that spontaneous combustion was a real concern. I opened the windows at one point and it didn't feel any cooler outside our house. This morning at seven o'clock I would have cheerfully ran around in shorts and a t-shirt.
I watched the kids last night while Jamie went to eat dinner with Barbara. Emma and I played in the sandbox and got very messy while Sam watched Buffy in the basement.
Emma's having some issues lately, lying and stealing and hitting. While some may think those are admirable traits, it does make living with her occasionally difficult. It sounds like she's picking up some bad behaviors at school, as their teacher wrote a letter to all the parents saying the kids were all acting out. I vaguely remember Sam having a rough spot in preschool, so hopefully this will pass as well.
I'll be glad to put this work week behind me. It's been far too busy, and the move to the new hospital is already generating a ton of work. Unfortunately people keep thinking up more things for us to do, which doesn't help much.
Hopefully I can get the kids outside to play this weekend. With weather this gorgeous, it seems a shame to hide inside the whole time.
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I'm getting a little obsessive about my Audio...
May 15, 2008 by Adam in Adam's Projects
 I'm getting a little obsessive about my Audioscope thingie. I had forgotten about how much time hardware takes and what a big mess it makes.
The speakers are glued in and work fine. If you close the box, it looks and works great. Yesterday I added a light that turns on when you open it. I had it working and looking great, and then this morning it mysteriously stopped working. Now I've got to go through and trace the connections to figure out which is bad.
Sam keeps giving me high praise for my contraption, though, which helps me carry on.
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Sam was actually excited to talk about school...
May 15, 2008 by Adam in Sam
 Sam was actually excited to talk about school yesterday. Stan Love, an astronaut, came to visit his school. Crest Drive got to send along a poster into space, so Stan returned to give it back to the kids and talk to them about his experience.
Sam was talking about things like Stan's faceplate and how he'd have to open and close it repeatedly as they orbited the earth every 45 minutes. Later on I asked Sam if he wanted to be an astronaut when he grew up. "No, I'd probably get sick."
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It's back to a normal work day today, after t...
May 15, 2008 by Adam in Adam
It's back to a normal work day today, after two days of all-day team meetings. Though I'm never fond of endless meetings, we did get a chance to visit the new RiverBend hospital. It was pretty amazing, especially seeing the new operating rooms with a million dollar worth of equipment hanging from the ceiling. The site itself is beautiful as well, with a great view of the river.
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Have you noticed that Sam has this great side...
May 14, 2008 by Sadie in Sadie & Greg
 Have you noticed that Sam has this great sidebar called "gift ideas" on his page? Why don't we all have that? In the meantime, I'll have to post my birthday list here:
A donation to StoryCorps.
A timer, travel toothbrush, wooden cutting board, or anything else from Muji (www.muji.eu)
Two items from Liberation Ink (www.liberationink.org):
Support the Intifada: women's large
Without Justice: Fair Trade Organic Tote
Global Exchange sweat shop free sneakers in women's 9.5. Yes, I've been wearing these same sneakers for more than two years, because they just don't make low tops in chocolate anymore.
Prints from Etsy (www.etsy.com, this one is from johnwgolden)
A cast iron pan and pot, preferably vintage.
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off to Belfast on Friday, Bath tomorrow
May 14, 2008 by Sue in Wielesek
off to Belfast on Friday, Bath tomorrow. Love, mom
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Made it to Singapore safe & sound
May 14, 2008 by Seraph in Cortez
Made it to Singapore safe & sound. It was a really long trip, but we we able to have the afternoon to shop for some samples, and eat some good pepper crab. Tomorrow it's back to the real work, with a factory tour and price negotiations.
Much love to everyone! I can't wait to see all the family in Black Butte!!
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Back in London, catching up with laundry, e-m...
May 14, 2008 by Sue in Wielesek
Back in London, catching up with laundry, e-mail, and planning. Trying to book a flight to northern Ireland, Derry, where our Scotch-Irish ancestors are supposed to have come from Scotland prior to coming to America. Love to all, mom/grandma
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With the loss of three staff members, my job ...
May 13, 2008 by Sadie in Sadie & Greg
With the loss of three staff members, my job has taken a dramatic shift from institutionalizing a national VISTA program to assisting and event planning. There seems to be some assumption that, because I am at the bottom of the office totem pole, I know how to file receipts and schedule other people's appointments.
Alas, I skipped that class on data entry and catering at Smith.
I would be more angry if I had any hope that my previous tasks would be continued. But this gesture so clearly indicates that the last nine months of my work is disposable and anything but central to the goals of the office. At least I don't have to push against constant resistance as I choose whether executive directors eat butternut ravioli or baked cod during their meeting; the office and national network agree that events for people in power are a good thing. Sigh. Hopefully next year's VISTA leader will be more patient with the glacial pace of institutional change.
A few weeks ago, I started to lift weights at work to blow off steam. This morning, I came in to find two other colleagues, in their forties and sixties, respectively, pumping iron as they read through email. I like to think that we're readying for a change.
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Happy belated Mom's Day to everyone
May 12, 2008 by Seraph in Cortez
Happy belated Mom's Day to everyone. We had a nice weekend with Destin & Jorden. I forget how grown-up & easy they are!
Robbie & Isa are geared up for 10 days of "No Mom". They're old pros at this by now, and most of the teary eyes come from me anymore!
I fly out this evening, and I'm trying to take care of last minute stuff at work. There really isn't anyone who covers our jobs when we're gone, so we do a lot of crossing our fingers.
Hey Adam - thanks for the great Steampunk article!
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For those of you who don't follow every obscu...
May 12, 2008 by Adam in Adam's Projects
 For those of you who don't follow every obscure subculture, you might want to familiarize yourself with steampunk. It's basically a romantic combination of Victorian style with modern technology, or at least what high technology might have been like. It goes nicely with my obsessions about antiques and period furniture. Without even thinking about it, I suppose my brass and wood computer is an early version of steampunk.
I woke up at four this morning, with an unsleeping Emma. I wasn't able to get back to bed as I lay next to her, so I dreamed up this wacky device called an Audioscope. It's basically a modern music box, with tiny speakers hooked up to an mp3 player in its heart.
It works, in the sense that it plays music, but it still needs a bit more fiddling. The speakers have to be screwed in. I have a cool light that causes a tube full of fluorescent dye to glow, but it's not hooked in. I'd like to make the mp3 player itself less plastic looking, perhaps covering it in leather.
Sam thinks it's immensely cool and even Jamie hasn't made her usual level of fun of my little obsession. Hopefully it'll work out and be a vaguely practical art object.
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Happy Mother's Day, everyone
May 11, 2008 by Adam in Family
Happy Mother's Day, everyone.
The kids have been a little wild, but we've generally been having a good time. We picked up some art supplies and have been doing strange and mysterious things. I'm working on an odd Steampunk mp3 player. We'll see if it turns out.
I've also been trying to pamper Jamie today, as best I can.
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Cafe du Artistes kids, thanks for letting me ...
May 11, 2008 by Sue in Wielesek
Cafe du Artistes kids, thanks for letting me use your laptop.
E-mail us, or post! We loved La Roche and the house there.
This morning, at our lovely hotel in the lovely countryside, I
was greeted by Jenny in her jammies, cup of coffee in one hand and a equally welcome bouquet of French wildflowers she picked for Mothers Day! What a woman. I would highly recommend her as a travelling companion - very organized and competent, and her usually quick witted self. We've had fun on this trip.
Back in Orleans for the night for Bob and me, then the plan is to go to Normandy tomorrow; Jenny and Jeannie back to Paris by train tonight. Love to all, and Happy Mothers Day.
Thank you for calling, Sadie! Hugs to Seraph, Robbie and Isa, too.
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The SQL injections attack continued today
May 10, 2008 by Adam in Adam
The SQL injections attack continued today. I missed a few vulnerabilities, which was really annoying. Fortunately I'm getting really good at cleaning things up. I also hardened my backup strategy. I now keep a full week's worth of data and move my backups to another computer. The only hole is if all the computers melt into a puddle. I may end up sticking a spare memory stick in a fireproof, immobile object and back up to that.
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It's been a weird day
May 09, 2008 by Adam in Adam
It's been a weird day.
Waking up to find my web site under attack was no fun. A combination of luck, barely successful planning, and some antique coding styles managed to combine to make everything fixable. This weekend I need to put things aside and improve my backup and security. As I was driving to work, my stomach in knots, I realized that millions of years of evolution didn't really prepare me much for the threats of the modern world.
I also got hit by this weird nostalgia as I coded away at my grand Patient Tracker. I'm thinking it was a combination of coffee and listening to Barenaked Ladies. Ah, well, when I get home, I'm sure the kids will snap me back to normal.
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This morning was far too exciting
May 09, 2008 by Adam in Family
 This morning was far too exciting. Fortunately it's Mocha Friday.
When I woke up this morning, I discovered that this web site was hit with an obscure hack called a SQL injection attack. Even worse, my backups weren't adequate, and had carefully backed up the damaged web site. Fortunately I was able to fix the vulnerability (I think) and clean up the data. I feel like a space cowboy, firing off my six-guns at high-tech banditos.
Fortunately the rest of my life has been calm and pleasant. Yesterday the kids were running around outside having fun, Emma wearing her ballet outfit and bunny ears. The neighbor boy pulled Sam over for some programming consulting. Emma and I made a little box for her stuffed bunny. Sam's gotten into Buffy the Vampire Slayer and is watching a couple episodes a day.
Tomorrow Jamie's off helping a friend with her garage sale. If the weather is nice, I'll try to take the kids outside somewhere. Busy, busy.
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Here are the kitten's at 3 weeks old
May 08, 2008 by Seraph in Cortez
  Here are the kitten's at 3 weeks old. So far we've been calling them Nightwalker, Small One (or Snowball 1), and Big One (or Snowball 2). I think they're all girls - haven't looked to closely.
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Dorothy is 90! Quite the milestone! We had a ...
May 07, 2008 by Danica in Danica Miller
Dorothy is 90! Quite the milestone! We had a small gathering of friends on Monday night to celebrate with cake and champagne. It's been a festive week here in Rochester - because of Dorothy's significant birthday for sure! We made it to the Rochester International Film Festival a couple of nights and the Lilac Festival and shopped 'til we dropped one day. Who could ask for more?!
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Oh, Isa, we love you and Jenny and I are so sorry
May 07, 2008 by Sue in Wielesek
Oh, Isa, we love you and Jenny and I are so sorry. Get better soon. Love, Grandma Susie and Auntie Jennifer.
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Breaking News" in the Cortez household (sorry...
May 07, 2008 by Seraph in Cortez
 Breaking News" in the Cortez household (sorry, really bad pun). Isa broke her left wrist yesterday afternoon. She fell durning a game of Darth Vador tag in fitness club.
It was a clean break, and she'll be in a cast for 3 weeks (luckily kids heal 2x a fast as adults). I'm a firm beliver that ice cream can cure anything, and after the hospital we went for some of the sweet stuff. So far she's been a trooper.
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Hi, sweeties, I can't possibly convey how be...
May 07, 2008 by Sue in Wielesek
Hi, sweeties, I can't possibly convey how beautiful it is in a seaside town on the southern France coast, with ancient castles on the hills guarding the town. Adam and Jamie, we have to make a trip to France. Emma will leave speaking fluent French, and your high school and college French will certainly be adequate to get around. To tell the truth, I could get around easily with high school Spanish, and there is nearly always someone in every establishment who speaks English. It's easy to drive, and the roads are good. I personally want to rent a place for a month some time in Paris and go to every single museum. The
pre-history is amazing. Bob and I went to a museum under Notre Dame which is an excavation of the early Roman town.
Later this week, we're going to one of the caves in Southwest France which has cave drawings. This country has something for everything. Seraph and Robbie, how about a trip to England, with Sam, in the summer of 2009, and Adam and Jamie, a trip to France the next summer. And Sam, it's time for you to learn Greek, and we'll sneak off to Greece
some spring break. Anna says Greece is amazing. Sadie, did you get the message that we don't get in until May 23rd? I'll send you the exact time, and info about the key. I miss you, and I look forward to meeting Greg. Love to all, the old mom
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The weekend draws to a close
May 05, 2008 by Adam in Family
 The weekend draws to a close. Emma is asleep. Sam's reading Buffy comics in his room. Jamie better be moving towards bedtime herself, as Emma's been keeping her up at all hours. Bad dreams and growing pains I think.
Friday night John came for a sleepover with Sam. The boys were amazingly good, mostly because we stuck them in separate bedrooms at eight o'clock sharp. The next day we all had a hearty breakfast and I tried to make sure Emma stayed out of the boy's hair. We had a brief break before our second play-date arrived. Sam helped me trim back the butterfly bush so that we could put in Sam's dream shed. We're still not sure what the dream shed will look like, only that it'll take up a lot of room.
Chase came over to play with Sam and I took Emma to the park. Eventually everyone went home and we had a quiet evening.
Sunday began with breakfast and lots of espresso. Sam and I went to Iron Man and thought it was a very good film. Afterwards Jamie made an amazing brunch that we invited Dave, Kirsten, and Josh over for. The scones were to die for.
I took Emma to the Fairy Festival, where she learned about fairies and capitalism. You bought tokens at the front and Emma spend a long while deciding what to spend them on. Eventually she decided on a host of games arranged around a giant Candy Land game board. We waited behind the hordes of moms with their fairy-themed children, finally returning home with a bag of assorted erasers, Slinkies, and bracelets.
Sam, Josh, and Jamie went hiking while Emma and I had quiet time. When they returned, I did a bunch of garden projects. We moved a Japanese maple out of the way and hung up the hammock between two trees. It was an instant hit with the kids. We also tightened up our ancient bench, hopefully staving off disintegration a couple more years.
Tomorrow is back to the daily routine. Hopefully everyone will get some sleep tonight.
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I do love when this blog becomes a utilitaria...
May 05, 2008 by Sadie in Sadie & Greg
I do love when this blog becomes a utilitarian bi-lateral communication method, ripping it from its place as a widely-read, open public blog and centering exactly where it should be, at our kitchen table in Eugene. Mom, I miss talking to you constantly about everything. I can't wait to see all of you at the end of May.
Providence is wet, for the good of my community garden plot. Several friends and their new partners came over for brunch- the best idea I've had in months. I had to stop downstairs, and didn't feel the least bit guilty asking my robed neighbors for a chair like it was a cup of flour. It reminded me what makes a community luminescent and connected. Borrowed chairs.
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Dammit, Jim, we need to standardize keyboards...
May 04, 2008 by Sue in Wielesek
Dammit, Jim, we need to standardize keyboards around the world, and Im fine if its some way other than American style.
We are in Paris, where all future family reunions should be. We leave for Orleans tomorrow, and on to Perpignon the next day. Glad to hear Dad and the home boys and Yayoe are bearing up. Jenny and Jeannie taking Paris by storm at night, and hitting the cultural highlights by day; the Louvre today, the
Eiffel Tower yesterday, and the Luxembourg Gardens and Champs de Ill???? the afternoon we got in on the Chunnel. Anna has been a great guide. Alls well, and thanks for the message, which made perfect sense. We dont get bqck until the 23rd, Sadie. Ill e-mail you where the key is. Love to
all, Mom
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I have an important and weird message for my mom
May 04, 2008 by Adam in Family
I have an important and weird message for my mom.
In order to get linens in Lyons, contact Dominique Muller. Her phone number id 04 7890 8682. Her cell phone is 06 7520 9046.
Jamie handed me a piece of paper with limited instructions, so I hope I got that right.
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Oh no, Sadie! Pretty soon you will be playin...
May 03, 2008 by Lohring in Lohring
Oh no, Sadie! Pretty soon you will be playing Monkey Island and Missle Command. You could even try Pong, but you were pretty little when we were playing that. Adam was an expert. Try to find The Datestones of Ryn. I never found out what that game was about.
I'm barely surviving my return to fatherhood. I still have some control, but there are two weeks to go. There are still no visable bruses on the boys and no blood spatters on Jenny's walls. Seraph, send in reinforcements soon!
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I just played Dark Tower
May 03, 2008 by Sadie in Sadie & Greg
 I just played Dark Tower. I almost wet myself it was so exciting. This is the beginning of a 80's nostalgia gaming trip that I've accompanied Gregory on, including viewing related genre films like "the last starfighter." While this ties in neatly with my indie persona, these activities are in no way ironic for my gentleman friend. Next up: all of John Hughe's films.
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Emma just told Jamie that she had "sensationa...
May 02, 2008 by Adam in Emma
Emma just told Jamie that she had "sensational motherness".
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It's Mocha Friday, yet again
May 02, 2008 by Adam in Family
 It's Mocha Friday, yet again. I just started sipping away at that delicious treat.
Poor Emma bonked her lip yesterday. Evidently there was a collision between the children and a fall to the floor. I think she's okay now. Last night we continued our grand play pretend story. I think I was a baby deer for awhile, though there were breaks for cereal and drawing quilts. Mostly Emma had problems sleeping last night, getting up with bad dreams repeatedly. Jamie was looking somewhat haggared this morning as she was getting Sam his breakfast and Emma slept in.
The weekend should be somewhat exciting in its own way. Hopefully I can take some kids swimming, though that's getting to be more of a challenge. Sam has two play dates tomorrow, and I'm hoping to go see Iron Man with him on Sunday. I'm hearing very good things about the movie and I'm a sucker for that genre.
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May already! Emma turns five later this mont...
May 01, 2008 by Adam in Family
May already! Emma turns five later this month, plus Sadie visits, plus we have the big family reunion. It's amazing how much seems to be going on these days.
Life's been moving along as normal. My usual day is getting up at 5:30, going to work, coming home to play with the kids, and then doing a short workout and show watching before bed. Lately I've been playing pretend with Emma while Sam plays on the computer. Emma's stories involve me playing a host of characters, from Peter Pan to the school bully. It's sometimes a challenge for me, but I know she likes it so much. Hopefully when she's old she'll remember that I spent many an afternoon pretending I was a pirate, Peter Pan, or some other odd character.
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