October 31, 2004

Halloween, baths, and more photos!

There's a smorgasbord of photos online in the latest batch. Dorothy in her Halloween costume. Dorothy in the bath (twice!). And much more.

Update: I forgot to include a link to the photos of the lunar eclipse that I took. Enjoy!

Posted by Tom Nugent at 08:43 PM | Comments (1)

Playing at the Park on a Warm Day

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While Elizabeth was off at dance practice and work, Dorothy and I went to the nearby park again. It was very warm - up near 70 degrees! I didn't bring my regular camera, so the cell-phone camera had to make do. Dorothy got to have fun on the slides, swings, and the see-saw, and didn't have to be bundled up with mittens either! And yes, that is a Halloween sweater she's wearing, with ghosts, bats and spiders all over.

Posted by Tom Nugent at 01:22 PM | Comments (1)

October 29, 2004

Stupid, !@*$#! Paperwork

This post kicks of a new category, "Rant & Cuss." This post (and probably most in this category) will contain lots of swearing and invective, so if you'd rather not see such things (Hi Grandma!), do not read on.

Elizabeth and I own a two-family house, and we rent out the first floor unit. For the most part, being a landlord hasn't been too bad. Finding tenants takes some work, and of course there can be occasional large expenses if an oven goes kaput. But mainly, it's not too bad (although it's debateable whether or not it's profitable).

But the gawdamn regulations piss me off sometimes. You have to put tenants' security deposit money into a separate account. Fine. But the bank paperwork to open a new bank account is fucking ridiculous! If I as landlord am the only one with power over the account (tenants are just listed as "beneficiaries"), then why in hell does the bank need two forms of ID from the tenants, PLUS their signatures? And a W-9 form? Geezus! Yes, I know the IRS needs to get their greedy little pissant hands on all your income, but you know what? Bank accounts aren't paying SHIT for interest these days. Over the last couple of years, tenants have been earning less than $10 total over the course of the year, and it needs to be split between them! Does the IRS really care about an extra $5 in income? If so, they should take their heads out of their asses and get some real priorities.

One of our new tenants moved out and was replaced by someone else, so being the conscientious person I am, I went to the bank to switch the names on the account (the new and old tenant handled the transfer of money between themselves, rather than going through the bank). I stupidly thought it would be simple. No, it turns out that the bank morons require me to close the old account and open a whole fucking new account! And worst of all, they couldn't re-use all the old paperwork from when I opened the account less than two months ago - I'd need to get my tenants to fill out the forms AGAIN.

And you know what the kicker is? After finding all of the above out, I asked about just taking the old tenant's name off the current account (I'd asked because for some reason, a previous account like this had only had one tenant's name on it), then I could consider switching the accounts to have the new tenant's name later, after getting the paperwork filled out. Taking one person's name off the account wasn't so bad. But then I find out that the bank is reporting the interest income to the IRS for only ONE of the tenants anyway. What the fuck is the reason to have both tenants' names on the account (along with having submitted their social security numbers, among other info) if you're not even going to report the interest income for both of them? Do you just enjoy wasting my time?

Speaking of time: I spent 45 minutes in the bank today dealing with this shit. When I first opened the account, the workers at the bank didn't know how to open this kind of account, and I had to make multiple trips to the bank. In total, I probably wasted 2 or 3 hours opening the account in the first place, plus there's the time it took to get paperwork etc. from the tenants. So let's call it a nice, round 4 hours worth of people's time. All for ten fucking measly dollars in income, of which the IRS would see AT MOST $3.

Does this make any kind of economic sense? Oh yeah, I forgot, you're the big bad fucking government, you have the power to require infinite work on the part of citizens, no matter how small the pay-off is to the country. Moronic asshat of a bureaucracy.


Hmm, after re-reading this post, it seems to me that I need to work on my cussing skills. Ranting language should be more colorful. :-)

Posted by Tom Nugent at 03:21 PM | Comments (1)

October 28, 2004

How to Shoot the Moon

Some people were curious about how I took the photos of the moon during the eclipse. This post explains how.

I got the photos of the moon (more will be in the gallery this weekend!) by turning my camera to full manual and then cranking way down on the shutter speed and closing down the aperture (i.e., increasing the aperture up to f/8), and using a low ISO speed.

At "normal" settings, where the camera decides proper brightness, it wanted the exposure time to be up in the range of 5 or more seconds, an open aperture (i.e., down to ~f/4), and high ISO (200 or 400). This let me see the clouds around the moon, and some stars, but the moon was a white blob, and the exposure was long enough that the clouds were blurry due to their motion (note that all photos were taken with the camera mounted on a tripod, even if it was a flimsy plastic one).

For the full, non-eclipsed moon, I instead set the exposure time very short, in the range of 1/200 to 1/400 of a second, and the aperture was closed up at f/8, and an ISO of 80 or 100. In other words, exposure went down by a factor of 1,000 or more (maybe 4,000? - i.e., a full 10 to 12 f-stops)! This is necessary because the moon is reflecting sunlight. Your camera is tricked into thinking it needs high exposure because most of the field of view is black. But in order to capture details of the very bright moon, you really need a low exposure. With these new settings, the moon came out beautifully but the clouds were invisible (because they were too dim)!

For the eclipsed moon, I had to increase the exposure time, up into the range of 1/10 to 1/30 of a second, and I also opened the aperture down to ~f/6, because it was so much dimmer than the non-eclipsed moon.

Posted by Tom Nugent at 07:35 PM | Comments (1)

Being a Future Astronaut

I'm going to be an astronaut (according to Virgin Galactic, that is)!

Yes, I admit, I signed up to get notices from Virgin Galactic even though I won't have $200,000 in the near future. Here's a letter they sent out a week ago:

Dear Future Astronaut,

Richard Branson and everyone on the Virgin Galactic team were delighted to receive your response to the Virgin Galactic website.

The support shown for this amazing project has been overwhelming and we will very shortly be in a position to discuss with you the next steps on your journey to become a Virgin Galactic Astronaut!

Over the next few days we will contact you again with more details, so there is no need for you to respond to this message.

Many thanks for your interest in Virgin Galactic.

Best wishes,

Stephen Attenborough
Head of Astronaut Liaison


I haven't heard anything more from them about details, but that's OK, because I can't give them money for a while anyway. But I certainly can dream, and plan.

Posted by Tom Nugent at 05:10 PM | Comments (0)

October 27, 2004

Boston Baseball Moon

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The red moon (during the eclipse, as seen from our back porch) for the World Series between the Red Sox and the red birds (Cardinals), on the night that the Red Sox finally win.

Posted by Tom Nugent at 11:51 PM | Comments (2)

Category Re-organization

FYI, I've broken up the "Family & Children" blog category into multiple new categories, and re-categorized all postings back to May-ish. I may want to tweak the category names and divisions a bit more in the near future.

I created the new categories because the vast bulk of the postings to this blog are about "Family & Children" so that single category wasn't doing much good to differentiate between entries.

Posted by Tom Nugent at 02:57 PM | Comments (0)

Squirmbucket

Our most commonly used nickname for Dorothy over the last month or so has been "Squirmbucket." I bet you'd never guess why.

Changing diapers has certainly become more of a challenge, as she rolls back and forth, puts her toes in her mouth, then becomes straight and rigid as a plank, then toes back to the mouth, etc.

Posted by Tom Nugent at 12:56 PM | Comments (0)

October 26, 2004

Budding Kleptomaniac

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I just love this image. Not only is it a foreshadowing of what I can expect while grocery shopping for the next, oh, 10 years of my life. But it also looks so clandestine. Dorothy looks like some investigator or something in her trench-coat, and the quality of the picture (it came from my cell phone) just heightens the "undercover investigative journalism" effect.

Today was the first day where I had to be careful how close I let the grocery cart get to the shelves when I wasn't pushing the cart. I'm sure it won't be the last.

Posted by Tom Nugent at 11:44 PM | Comments (1)

Bath time!

Tom and Dorothy, and our friend Susan and her son Ian, all made a visit to Babies 'R' Us today. They picked up a winter coat for Dorothy (in glamorous leopard print faux fur - photos undoubtedly will be coming soon), and Tom also got her some new bath toys. We decided to try giving her a bath in the "big girl" bathtub. Since our bathroom configuration makes it a little difficult to sit next to the tub and reach her easily, I got in with her.

She loves the new toys and the bigger bathtub! She figured out right away how to move forward and backward by kicking her legs and bouncing up and down, and she had lots of fun grabbing the new toys. We (of course) took plenty of photos, and some video as well. More photos will be in the next set this weekend, but here's an "appetizer":

bath-PA262502-reduced.jpg

Posted by Elizabeth Nugent at 09:41 PM | Comments (0)

Some Kind of Wonderful

I was just feeding Dorothy her breakfast of Apple-Blueberry puree and rice cereal, and singing her part of the song "Some Kind of Wonderful." I had just finished these lyrics: "Don't you know my baby, she's all right // Ya my baby, she's clean out of sight // Don't you know she is // She's some kind of wonderful // Yes she is she is // She's some kind of wonderful" when suddenly Dorothy let rip a long toot on the methane organ.

Yeah, she's some kind of wonderful, all right. :-)

Posted by Tom Nugent at 08:58 AM | Comments (1)

October 25, 2004

The Taste of Tylenol

Dorothy's been waking up around 10pm most nights lately, and being pretty fussy. We can get her to calm down if we hold her for a while, but she won't go back to the crib. We've been giving her Baby Tylenol or Baby Motrin to help with teething pain (if that's what it is), and she seems to fall asleep shortly afterwards.

Just now we were doing it again. I had a kleenex available, to wipe off any Tylenol that she spit out onto her lips. I had her pacifier in one hand, and the medicine dropper in the other. The bottle of Tylenol was over on the nightstand, to keep from getting knocked over (that stuff stains cloth pretty nastily). After I gave her the dose of Liquid Happiness, I suddenly was one hand short of the three I needed: one for the dropper, one for the kleenex, and one for the pacifier. After fumbling for a second, I stuck the medicine dropper in my mouth. YUCK! Not only did it taste like medicine, but I think one of us had shed a hair or two onto the dropper.

These are the kinds of battlegrounds we find ourselves in these days. Overall, I probably can't complain. :-)

Posted by Tom Nugent at 10:27 PM | Comments (0)

Pooping It All Away

Last Thursday, Dorothy pooped six times at daycare. On Friday, she pooped five times at daycare. These were in addition to the minor poops she had in the morning before daycare (one per day). On Saturday, she had four and a half poops. Sunday, she finally got some rest, although a small diaper rash had developed and was hard to eliminate (no pun intended).

When we went to the doctor last Tuesday to see if she had an ear infection, they weighed her in at 18 pounds, 14.4 ounces. After all this pooping, I think we need to re-weigh her - she must be back down to 12 pounds! :-O

The ladies at daycare seem to think that Dorothy is just pooping more because she's been having pears and peaches for her solids lately, plus we'd added a bit of water to her milk. Elizabeth and I think that she's just clearing out her system after having had only teensy tiny poops for a couple of weeks. We'll see how she does over the next day or two to find out the answer. If she's not done with the heavy pooping by now, then she's well past "cleaned out" and into "holy cow!" territory.

Posted by Tom Nugent at 12:33 PM | Comments (0)

The Spider and the Slide

OK, there's more photos online. Photo subjects include Dorothy playing with a giant spider, and going down a slide, and more!

Posted by Tom Nugent at 11:37 AM | Comments (0)

October 24, 2004

Teeth Everywhere!

I know how much everyone prefers hearing about poop instead of teeth ;-) but you'll just have to wait to hear the latest poop escapades. Right now I need to tell you about the invasion of the teeth.

As Elizabeth mentioned in the comments to "Symmetrical Again", Dorothy's first two teeth, the bottom front incisors, came in around August 20th. Next the top two front incisors were bulging from behind the gums, but it took until October 7th before one of them finally showed itself. It took until October 21st for the second top front incisor to show up.

Now, suddenly, there appear to be at least three more (possibly four) either on the verge of erupting, or already showing enamel. The odd thing is, if they are teeth, they're coming "out of order." According to Elizabeth, after the top front incisors, the bottom second-from-front incisors are normally next. But this weekend, we saw what appeared to be top canines and possible the top second-from-front incisors all poking some white out. I haven't yet taken a picture, since seeing these putative teeth requires pulling her upper lip up and back. If they're still visible over the next couple of days, I'm going to try.

UPDATE: Apparently Elizabeth was wrong. It seems the top lateral incisors (second-from-front incisors) are next after the top front incisors. And according to this site, the canines don't come in until almost 2 years of age! But the front molars do come in after the lateral incisors, so maybe we're seeing those instead of canines. Or maybe they're another set of cysts (perhaps "Epstein's pearls"), like she had back in July.

Posted by Tom Nugent at 09:12 PM | Comments (0)

Ribbed For Her Pleasure

When I finished my drink after lunch Saturday, I let Dorothy play with the bottle. She loved chewing on the cap, which had a "ribbed" texture to it:

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For all you people who thought that the title of this entry was referring to something else, even in this family-friendly blog....get your mind out of the gutter! ;-)

Posted by Tom Nugent at 10:40 AM | Comments (1)

October 22, 2004

Small Demand, Large Income

From a recent Wired magazine article titled The Long Tail:

The average Barnes & Noble carries 130,000 titles. Yet more than half of Amazon's book sales come from outside its top 130,000 titles. Consider the implication: If the Amazon statistics are any guide, the market for books that are not even sold in the average bookstore is larger than the market for those that are.
Similar statistics apply to movies, music, etc. The story really brings home how much the Internet is and will change the distribution of entertainment. Some of my favorite bands, small pro a cappella groups such as The House Jacks and M-Pact will be able to survive and thrive without needing to become mega-stars.

Posted by Tom Nugent at 08:21 PM | Comments (0)

October 21, 2004

Symmetrical again

Dorothy got her first upper front tooth a couple of weeks ago, but the second one has been ready to burst through for quite a while. Today it finally did. She didn't have a tooth there when we dropped her off at daycare this morning, but she did when I put her to bed tonight. And it's sharp - sticking your fingers in there to check on her teeth is like sticking your hand in a meat grinder sometimes.

So you can expect to see more toothy smiles in the Gallery soon!

Posted by Elizabeth Nugent at 09:05 PM | Comments (3)

Poop Day!

For the last week or two, Dorothy's poop has been relatively dry, small and solid (as opposed to pasty). That and her frequent arching of the back made us suspect she was constipated, but of course she's not able to just tell us "give me the prunes!" Since she was producing at least some poop every day, it wasn't cause for concern. Over the last couple of days, we've tried to reduce the amount of rice cereal (which has iron, a possible cause of constipation) and increase the fruits & veggies she eats, switch over to peaches and pears which help free up the poop, and add some water to her milk.

None of the changes were major, and we hadn't broken out the prunes yet. It's a good thing we didn't. Today at daycare, she had six bowel movements! SIX! I'm so glad today wasn't a Tuesday. :-) We'll see how she does tomorrow, but hopefully her system is cleared out and she's feeling better.

In related news, last night was the first night that Dorothy approached a pre-Seattle-trip sleep schedule. Our first few nights back in town sucked, because she'd wake up every two or three hours screaming and needing to be nursed. Last night, she at least slept until midnight before waking for the first time. We'll see how she does tonight.

Posted by Tom Nugent at 08:59 PM | Comments (0)

October 20, 2004

The colors of autumn

It was a gray day yesterday, but the changing colors on the leaves stood out in such contrast that I combined a couple photos to show how it really felt:
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Posted by Tom Nugent at 09:23 PM | Comments (1)

October 19, 2004

Will This Be Me?

Go read the last item here. I'm giving 50/50 odds that will be me in another few years... :-O

Posted by Tom Nugent at 08:27 PM | Comments (1)

Unhip Parents

I don't think I've ever considered myself very hip. I still have to give strong kudos to Being Daddy for his Unhip Parent's Manifesto. My favorite is the quote from an older colleague of his:

"You know, before you have a kid, you think you know what love is. You love your family and friends. You love your wife. But I'll tell you, you don't know what love can be until you have a child. It is deeper, truer. You know that you would die for your child. That you would do anything them. It teaches you how to be more patient, more selfless, more loving. It makes you a better human being. And those are good reasons to have a kid."
Posted by Tom Nugent at 08:16 PM | Comments (0)

What It's All About

I'm not sure I would have said it quite this way, but I also probably couldn't have said better than MetroDad just what parenting is all about: that happy feeling you get when your baby smiles at you.

Posted by Tom Nugent at 07:55 PM | Comments (0)

October 18, 2004

(Un)Lucky Satellite

A recent story from the AP (note that the link will probably change soon, but you can probably find it elsewhere) begins:

A section of a Chinese scientific satellite that was returning from orbit crashed into an apartment building, wrecking the top floor but causing no injuries, a newspaper said Sunday

The part I like is a quote by one of the inhabitants of the apartment building:

"The satellite landed in our home. Maybe this means we'll have good luck this year," the tenant of the wrecked apartment, Huo Jiyu, was quoted as saying.

I don't quite follow the logic here. A satellite landed in the wrong place and demolished your house. So that means you'll have good luck? Does this idea come from the It-can't-get-worse line of reasoning?

Posted by Tom Nugent at 08:13 PM | Comments (1)

October 17, 2004

Seattle Trip Photos

I've posted a set of photos from the trip to Seattle. As always, it's hard to narrow them down to a reasonable number of shots to put online (yes, this is a vastly reduced set!).

Posted by Tom Nugent at 11:28 PM | Comments (2)

October 16, 2004

Going Home

(Note: I wrote blog entries earlier in the week, but didn't have a chance to post them until after we got home. I've back-dated the entries for when I wrote them, so make sure you read the last few entries to catch up.)

It's been quite a busy week out in Seattle. Elizabeth and Dorothy flew down Monday morning to Medford for the funeral of Dr. Don Meamber, Elizabeth's grandfather. Dorothy did wonderfully on all the flights, sleeping through much of them. I spent the day working at LiftPort headquarters in Bremerton (across the Puget Sound from Seattle). Dorothy and Elizabeth returned on Tuesday morning, and then we drove to Bremerton for a full day of work for me. On the way, we got to cross the Tacoma Narrows bridge. Above the sign for the bridge was a warning sign saying "High Winds." I imagine they do a lot more wind analysis on the bridges they build around there than your average bridge. :-)

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were full days at LiftPort for me. We had some MBA students from the University of Texas out to work on a school project by helping us with business plan analysis. Also on Tuesday, Newsweek sent a photographer out to take some photos of the LiftPort robotic lifter and the people. We may be in a Newsweek story next week! They didn't have time to take a photo of Dorothy in her LiftPort onesie looking up the ribbon at the robot, but that's OK, because I got a few. Unfortunately, Dorothy wanted to lean forward and grab the ribbon more than she wanted to simply sit and look up along its length. :-)

On Tuesday, I lost my voice to laryngitis. After working hard before leaving Boston, I came down with a cold the Friday before our flight out. It was mostly just post-nasal drip, but after talking for most of the day on Tuesday, my voice went out. So I've had to whisper for most of the trip out here, which is annoying to say the least. It is funny, though, when others unconsciously start whispering back to me. :-) When they do it on purpose, though, it's not funny.

Our friend Yuying from the MIT Ballroom Dance Team now lives in Seattle, and she and her husband Shawn graciously let us stay at their place. Thank you again! It was great catching up with Yuying, who I danced standard with for a little while back in 1997-98.

Overall, Seattle is an interesting place. The population is supposedly less than that of Boston, but it's got a lot more space. The weather was trying to give us a false impression of the area -- it was mostly sunny almost the entire week, and didn't really rain at all that I noticed.

The ferry system is nice. You can drive or walk onto the ferry in Seattle, and it'll get you to Bremerton in about an hour. Not terribly fast, but you can spend that hour up in a comfortable lounge reading, or sleeping, or whatever. Dorothy and I went without the car on Thursday, and got to have fun with some other babies taking the ferry at the same time.

Our flight home left before dawn on Saturday morning, and so far Dorothy has again been a champ. She slept through the entire ascent in our second leg. I think she will have taken 10 flights in her life by the end of the day today (separate legs of a day trip count as separate flights), when she's not even seven and a half months old yet. She's a regular jet-setter!

Posted by Tom Nugent at 02:27 PM | Comments (0)

October 12, 2004

Earning Wings

On the second leg of our flight out to Seattle, Dorothy was presented with "wings" by one of the Northwest Airlines' flight attendants. They give them to all kids.

Now that the FAA is awarding commercial astronauts' wings , I wonder how soon it will be until those wings become simple little plastic trinkets to hand out to children on space flights, rather than their current status as a rare status symbol. (Were pilots' wings also originally only assigned to airplane pilots, and whene did they start?) When that day arrives, then we'll know the space frontier has been irrevocably opened.

Posted by Tom Nugent at 07:21 PM | Comments (0)

October 10, 2004

Heading West

As I mentioned previously, Elizabeth, Dorothy and I are in Seattle this week. I'm out here to work at LiftPort headquarters (I need to talk more about LiftPort in this blog - look for an entry soon). Originally, Elizabeth's parents were going to be out here, and she'd be able to visit with them (at least in-between all their intense Dorothy time). The unfortunate death of Elizabeth's grandfather has caused a change in plans. She will be flying with Dorothy down to Medford, CA, in order to attend the funeral on Monday. Later in the week, we're hoping to get to see a bit of the sights of Seattle, a city I've never been to before.

Yesterday (Saturday), we flew out from Boston in the late afternoon. The amount of stuff we had to bring is ridiculous. I swear that our total amount of luggage more than doubles from what it would be without Dorothy along. Overall, Dorothy did amazingly well on both legs of the flight. She nursed on ascent from Boston, and didn't fuss much. She took a half hour nap during the flight, and nursed on the way down into Detroit.

Posted by Tom Nugent at 11:20 PM | Comments (1)

October 07, 2004

Emptying the Camera Card

I just put up a new batch of photos because I emptied the camera's memory card before we leave town for Seattle.

I don't think I mentioned our trip to Seattle here yet. Hopefully I'll get to it tomorrow...

Posted by Tom Nugent at 11:36 PM | Comments (0)

October 06, 2004

Goodbye, Pardner

Dear Dorothy,

You are seven months old today, and today we got the news that your great-grandpa Meamber had passed away. I’m sorry that you’ll never get to know him, although I’m very grateful that he was able to meet you and hold you before he died.

Grandpa was a doctor. He wasn’t the kind of doctor where that was just his job and he went home every night and left it behind him – he was the kind of doctor where being a doctor wasn’t what he did, it was who he was. He was a very smart young man, who went to medical school intending to do research in an MD/Ph.D. program. Before he could finish his Ph.D., he joined the Navy and went to World War II. When he came back, he decided to be a practicing country doctor instead of a researcher. He delivered babies, set broken bones, and was on hand at every high school football game to treat any injuries as soon as they happened.

When your uncle Jeff and I were little, we used to go to Yreka every summer to go backpacking with Meemom and Poopop and Grandma and Grandpa. Meemom and Poopop and Jeff were all fast hikers, and I used to get left behind with Grandma and Grandpa, who were a little slower. Grandpa told me I was his “pardner,” and we could always hike together. I used to sign his birthday cards “Love, Pardner.” We would fish together, too, and I learned to play bridge on those trips, with Grandma and Grandpa and Poopop.

Grandpa knew all the tricks to feeling better and getting better when you were sick. He taught me how to stop hiccups with a spoonful of sugar, and that you could avert an ear infection by taking a decongestant as soon as your ears started to ache – two tricks that I know I’ll use on you when you get older.

Grandpa was a jogger long before it was popular to jog, and was careful about his health. I remember when he went on a macrobiotic diet for a while, and used to drink miso soup all the time – we all hated it. He was also careful about how much salt he ate. One day at the dinner table, he asked someone to pass him the salt, and everyone stopped eating to stare at him in disbelief. It turned out that his doctor had told him that he was getting too little salt, and that he had to eat more.

When I was in high school, Grandpa got sick – he had developed a tumor on his pituitary gland. He had surgery in San Francisco, and stayed with us for six weeks of follow-up radiation treatment. Every day, he used to jog three miles to the BART station, then take a train into San Francisco, and a bus to the hospital. He would be irradiated for a couple of minutes, and then would turn around and take the bus back to the train, and the train back to Orinda, and then jog the three miles home again. On the very last day of his treatment, the bus driver made him show ID to prove that he was entitled to the senior citizen fare.

Grandpa loved genealogy, and he researched all about his ancestors and Grandma’s. He wrote a book about them all, and about himself and Grandma – I have a signed copy for you for when you are old enough. He had typed all the stories on a computer that we gave him when we got a new one, and Meemom and Aunt Barbara and Uncle Jeff all worked to put them together and to have the book printed, as a surprise for his 60th wedding anniversary.

Grandpa loved your Grandma Meamber, one of the Grandma Dorothys that you are named after, very much. They were in a terrible car accident five years ago, and were both in the hospital for a long time. At first, they had to be in separate rooms. When they could finally be in the same room, they were so happy. They had the beds moved together so they could hold hands.

When you were two months old, we traveled to Chicago and to California so all your relatives could meet you. We drove up to Yreka to see Meemom’s family on Mother’s Day weekend. Grandma and Grandpa both got to meet you, and hold you in their arms for a while. Grandpa had delivered so many babies in his career, it seemed that his hands knew just what to do as soon as he took you. He settled you in on his lap, and you just beamed and snuggled him. That was the last day I ever saw him.

I wish you’d been able to know Grandpa, but I hope that I’ll be able to keep him a little bit alive for you with the stories about him, and with all the stories he preserved of the whole family. Even though he didn’t know you for long, he loved you.

Love,
Mommy

Posted by Elizabeth Nugent at 08:27 PM | Comments (0)

October 04, 2004

X-Prize is won

Alright already. Since I'm being heckled (by those who apparently have nothing better to do with their work days ;-) ) for not immediately posting the latest X-Prize news, I'll do it now.

The X-Prize has been won! The X-Prize has been won!

So, does anybody want to give me $200,000 so that I can buy a flight from Virgin Galactic in 2006?

Posted by Tom Nugent at 12:38 PM | Comments (2)

October 02, 2004

How Many Pictures Can We Take?

Apparently, we can never take too many photos, because we keep putting up more. This latest batch has Keith's visit, as well as my parents' visit, plus some more solid food battles, and more!

Posted by Tom Nugent at 07:39 PM | Comments (1)

Child-Free Extremists

Catawumpus posted a good rant about extremists in the "child-free" movement. I think she summarizes my feelings very well: If you don't want to have children, that's completely fine and acceptable. But to spew hatred and anger to those who have kids, and to the kids themselves? Not only is it ugly, but it's stupid: these kids will be the ones taking care of you when you're old and retired.

Posted by Tom Nugent at 02:49 PM | Comments (0)