MurDox

Our Spring Break

Sun, 12 Apr 2026 14:31:00 -0500

Norway

Returning to Ireland

Ireland

Introducing Liam

Sat, 29 Nov 2008 13:54:00 -0500

Our son has come! Liam Richard Murphy was born on the night of Tuesday, 28 October, weighing 5 lbs 13 oz (2.6 kg) and measuring 17.25 inches (43.5 cm). We have online ~~pictures of Liam~~ from three days after birth through just last week.

Liam came three weeks earlier than expected (I was induced because of preeclampsia), but he was healthy enough on delivery to go straight into my arms, without pediatric intervention, and was released from the hospital, along with me, after the usual amount of time.

Showered (baby showered, that is)

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 17:34:00 -0500

Our very kind friends Miriam and Meg held a co-ed baby shower for us on a gorgeous Sunday in mid-October, when I was at almost 35 weeks pregnant. It was great: a low-key, congenial, very “un-shower-like shower”, as one guest commented. Mom came down to represent the maternal grandparents and stayed for the weekend. As befits a baby shower, there were babies present, as well as another pregnant friend, who was all but due. Check out the ~~belly comparison~~!

I could've kissed the OB

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 03:41:00 -0500

I could’ve kissed the ultrasound tech, too, for that matter.

Yesterday – Tuesday – was our 32-week ultrasound, the one to determine “route of delivery”, i.e. will Sproglet come out the natural way or will he and I go under the knife at a predetermined time? The reason this was a question was because of a large, inconveniently placed fibroid located behind the birth canal. I’d been put on notice very early on, at around 10 weeks, that I would likely have a C-section birth because of it. Sigh.

Life in Expectant-Parent-Land

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 18:31:00 -0500

Tying myself up in twelve feet of fabric and sticking a nine-pound baby mannequin down my front – otherwise known as “Babywearing” – that’s life in Expectant-Parent-Land. So is standing in an aisle at Target and pondering the difference between six different brands of baby bottles (and wondering why the hell anybody needs so many different sizes and shapes in the first place, not to mention five different kinds of sterilizers). Oh, yes, and sneezing violently from the dust raised by hauling the computers and desks into the dining room from the office/guestroom, soon to be nursery/guestroom. (I don’t even want to think about trying to find homes for all of the papers and other crap that used to be piled up on said desks.)

Wisconsin visit, August 2008

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 07:32:00 -0500

C and I went to ~~Wisconsin~~ last weekend for my & my mother’s annual joint birthday weekend, flouting my OBs’ recommendation not to leave the state after I hit 24 weeks’ pregnant. However, we felt pretty darned safe doing so given that 1) my health is still good, 2) it was only a few weeks after 24 weeks (week 26 1/2, to be exact), and 3) Stevens Point is closer to Chicago than much of Illinois is! It was a great weekend to be there: we missed the Air & Water show, but still got to enjoy the beautiful summer weather.

Holiday Snaps Posted

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 07:25:00 -0500

We’ve posted our ~~photos of the trip to Ireland~~. There’s a few from our day trip to Bray, some more of the wedding, but most are from from Killarney and our drive along the coast through counties Cork and Kerry.

Fun with a Camera Phone

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 20:37:00 -0500

The other day we went to see our friends in a fiddler’s competition at the Old Town School. S took a picture with the phone and ~~with help from the Interwebs~~ I copied one of the images over here via Bluetooth. (For the record, option three is the one I found easiest.) I’ve had a phone with a camera for a few months now but felt inhibited about taking pictures that would never leave the phone. No longer. Watch out world!

Pregnancy Press Embargo Lifted

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 08:05:00 -0500

Actually, it’s been lifted for several weeks now, but I thought that since the news is fit for publication, it could be shared on our infrequently updated website as well. So yes, I’m pregnant—currently at 18 weeks (just over 4 months) as of mid-June—and the baby is due in mid-November. Due date is Nov 18th but we all know that babies stay on schedule about as well as the CTA does.

Next Metra Train

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 21:30:00 -0500

Here’s a little toy application I’m working on in my spare time. So far, it’s only available for two lines: Union Pacific North or BNSF. Once you’ve chosen the stations, you get a live, bookmarkable page that always shows when the next train is leaving.

Known bugs:

the display is a bit funny if there are no more trains today
some station names are a bit odd

The silliest thing I've seen in a long time

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 21:27:00 -0500

Printed prominently on the box of Jewel 100% Pure Baking Soda:

0 Grams Trans Fat Per Serving

And this is news because…?

Public Law 109-441

Sat, 15 Dec 2007 15:57:00 -0500

In September (yes, breaking news, I know), I attended a ‘listening session” presented by the US Park Service about Public Law 109-441: Preservation of Japanese American Confinement Sites. The session was held at the Japanese-American Service Committee (JASC) building, which also happens to be where ~~my Quaker meeting~~ has its weekly Meetings for Worship.

I arrived a half hour late, having misremembered the start time, and found 50-60 people already present and listening to the end of the US Park Service’s presentation. Luckily, I hadn’t missed the most important part, as this session was only partly informational. The main focus was getting the community’s input about selection criteria for the grant proposals: for what, to whom, etc. We divided into two groups of participants with a facilitator and a note-taker each, and away we went!

Crunchy granola CSA = boring food?

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 21:04:00 -0500

We have, as usual, eaten very well this weekend. Our summers and falls are spent on the “vegetable treadmill” (C’s term) as we cook and eat our way thru weekly deliveries from ~~Angelic Organics~~ box”, a CSA farm near the Illinois/Wisconsin border. In addition to a 24-week “vegetable share”, all of which is produce grown on the farm, we get a bi-weekly “fruit share”: organic fruit from the US (mostly). We’re not vegetarians, but from late June to the beginning of December, we very nearly could be!

Another Year, Another Set of Norway Pictures

Wed, 12 Sep 2007 21:01:00 -0500

Finally, the pictures from our August trip to Norway are up. They’re also on picasaweb, not far from the Ecuador pix, if you know what I mean. (I like the picasaweb slideshow feature even if the rest of the site is not ideal.)

Norway 2007

Wed, 12 Sep 2007 06:24:00 -0500

We spent eleven days in Norway this past August. The impetus for our visit was the first wedding amongst Christian’s Norwegian cousins. We decided to take a five-day road trip as well so as to make it a proper summer vacation. For the days we weren’t on the road, we were in Hamar, staying with C’s ever-hospitable aunt and uncle.

The pictures that C posted speak a thousand words, so I’ll try not to say much—just enough to give a flavor of where we were, especially for those who aren’t as into the Norway “scene”.

Visiting Ireland with Mom (and without Christian)

Tue, 15 May 2007 06:17:00 -0500

Note to those who just want the visuals: the link to the pictures is at the end.

Mom and I decided that traveling together in Ecuador in 2006 was so successful that we would do it again this year – but this time, to Ireland. The impetus came from an article I saw in the Irish times about a Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit at the ~~Irish Museum of Modern Art~~. During a phone conversation in March, I threw the idea out there: “Hey Mom, wanna go see Georgia O’Keeffe in Dublin?” Mom, bless her, didn’t discount the idea immediately. Rather, she thought for a moment, and replied, “Honey, that sounds like a nice idea.”

-9°F (-23°C) and the Bears were in the 'Bowl

Mon, 05 Feb 2007 09:08:00 -0500

The wind chill is – 30°F (-34°C). No wonder it felt like ice cubes were being stuffed into my sinuses as I walked to the train this morning! I can’t even imagine what it must be like for my parents, who still live in my hometown. It’s -15°F (-26°C) up there, and that’s before the wind chill effect.

Chicago was eerily quiet last night. Part of it was that no one, but no one wanted to be out in the cold. The other part was that a large percentage of the city was glued to the TV, watching the Superbowl.

Making Tamales

Sun, 07 Jan 2007 08:14:00 -0500

Several months ago, our friend Sabine had the idea of making Mexican-style tamales from scratch. I was intrigued: most tamales contain lard, and it would be cool to make some that were healthier, i.e. lower-cholesterol/saturated fat and lower-salt; and it would be a challenge!

However, I knew it would take mucho, mucho time (almost any made-from-scratch Mexican food that’s really authentic, like mole poblano, does), so we put it off until the holidays. The postponement gave our activities an added authenticity: making tamales is a ~~Mexican holiday tradition~~. So a week ago, on New Year’s Eve, Sabine and I were in my kitchen, assembling tamale ingredients, tools and recipes.

Sick & snowy

Fri, 01 Dec 2006 08:21:00 -0500

The former is what Christian and I are, unfortunately. I got hit just before Thanksgiving and have gone from sore throat to cough to congestion and cough and exhaustion. I just now seem to be coming out of it (I hope). C, who had hoped he was the Typhoid Mary, says his throat is starting to get sore. Ha!

As for the latter, last night the ~~first major winter storm of 2006/07~~ hit Chicago. Most flights are cancelled, the city’s trucks are spewing salt and scraping snow, the roads are ice rinks, Metra and other public transportation is running late, and it will continue to blow and bluster all day long. Isn’t winter fun?

Joint Jewish Wedding Anniversary Adventures

Sat, 23 Sep 2006 10:29:00 -0500

The background: Meg and Jonathan got married in late September 2003. Christian and I got married in mid-September 2004. Miriam, who came to both weddings, put the pieces together when she told the four of us, excitedly, that we shared a wedding anniversary according to the Jewish calendar.

Thus we always will know that we all were married on the second day of Rosh Hashanah. None of us being Jewish, we use it as a reason to get together to celebrate our weddings. (That our anniversary is a Jewish holiday makes it a lot easier to figure out when to celebrate.)

Too darned hot!

Mon, 29 May 2006 08:48:00 -0500

Last week the high temperature for the entire day was 59°F (15°C). This morning, at 9 am, it’s 79°F already and the forecast high is 87°F (31°C)! Furthermore, we’re on the top floor of the building, so we get the full blast of the sun. We haven’t yet hauled the AC unit from the porch into the bedroom – it’s a big momma and probably dusty as hell too from a winter spent on the back porch – but last night we needed not one but two fans in order to fall asleep.

An avocado adventure

Sun, 26 Mar 2006 09:40:00 -0500

It’s a sunny Sunday morning, I’ve finished the mystery novel I started yesterday, the cat’s been on my lap for nearly 45 minutes, I’ve not yet had breakfast and there’s still two hours to go until I need to be at Meeting. What to do?

Hmmm, make some muffins. Banana muffins. So I go to the kitchen, check the bananas that have been loitering in the door of the freezer for the past several months—and there’s only two. I need three for this recipe. What to do?

March Madness

Sat, 18 Mar 2006 08:53:00 -0500

No, not basketball: the ~~Green Fever~~ that has seized Chicago, that most Polish – or was that Mexican? – oops, Irish of towns. Last weekend the city dyed the river green and held the downtown St Paddy’s Day parade on Saturday and the Sout’side Irish had their parade on Sunday. Last night, which was the actual holiday, there were once again green-bedecked revellers out in the streets.

We celebrated Ireland’s national day by going out for Indian food on Devon Ave. with our friends Max & Cynthia. We sweated our way through spicy south Indian curries and dosai. I drank not one but two mango lassis, the first because I was hungry (it arrived before the food did) and the second because my mouth wouldn’t stop burning.

Blankets

Mon, 27 Feb 2006 19:42:00 -0500

My brother-in-law has a knack for finding marvellous books. The most recent of his book-gifts is Blankets, an autobiographical coming-of-age story set in a small town in north-central Wisconsin. I mean, who would ever think there would be a graphic novel about growing up in the cheesehead boonies in the 80s and 90s—and that it would be really entrancing?

Craig Thompson wrote and illustrated the story. His childhood experience was pretty rough. He really didn’t fit in anywhere: he was a farm kid who preferred drawing to sports; his family was extremely evangelistic; and his hometown was so small that it made ~~Marquette, Michigan~~ (population approx. 21,000) seem large and intimidating.

Ecuador pictures on line!

Mon, 13 Feb 2006 19:22:00 -0500

I know that our “bleaders” have not been waiting with bated breath, but I’m still excited that the pictures from my trip to Ecuador in January are now available to all. Thanks to Christian’s technical skills, with just a few clicks you can marvel at aereal views of volcanoes, wince at the sight of roasting guinea pigs, check out the local handicrafts and be dazzled by multi-hued flowers. Enjoy!

Susan

Kudos! To the photographer and her “able technical assistant”!
I like the shots you chose to share (out of the many more that I know you took) and the way you’ve sorted them into something meaningful for the viewer.
Love, Mom

Language Quirks

Mon, 13 Feb 2006 19:17:00 -0500

It’s a peril of living in another country: you notice things the locals don’t pay much attention to. Every nationality has characteristic errors of spelling and grammar. Germans like to refer to a “Happy End”; French are liable to ask “please to” do something. Here’s a couple of errors that I think are characteristic of U.S. citizens.

misplaced first-person nominative. “He’s been very kind to John and I.” It should be “to me”, not “to I”. They have some strange thing they teach in schools here called “sentence diagramming” but apparently it can’t get rid of this tic. Maybe it even makes it worse. Somehow there seems to be a notion that “me” is deprecated, to be avoided.
past tense of “to lead” should be written “led”. The “lead” that rhymes with “led” is Pb. I suspect people want “lead” to be conjugated the same way as “read”.

I don’t really mind these quirks. I know I’ve written “it’s” when I meant “its” and probably vice versa. English has too many strange rules and weirder exceptions. It’s just interesting to see what mistakes otherwise well-educated people make and it’s particularly interesting when those mistakes reveal nationality.

Das Wunder von Bern

Sat, 04 Feb 2006 08:12:00 -0500

I’ve been concerned for a while about my ever-weakening German language skills. For example, a year or so ago, a former classmate from ~~Carl-Orff-Gymnasium~~ was in town for an Accenture training and we went out for tapas to catch up. I was incredibly embarassed to find that in addition to having lost vocabulary and making lots and lots of grammatical errors, I was losing my accent! My accent, which I had worked so hard to achieve!

Damnit, damnit, damnit!

Sat, 28 Jan 2006 06:54:00 -0500

Perhaps I’ve been reading ~~Julie & Julia~~ too much lately, but I can’t help but be grumpy when all in the past 24 hours:

my boss, whom I adore and really depend on, tells us that she’s leaving in mid-February to go work for World Relief (damnit!!).
I give myself a nasty little gash on the thumb while cutting potatoes with one of the very nice but hyper-sharp Global knives I gave C for Christmas, and it still aches even now. (Last night, when replacing the bandaid, it started bleeding again immediately – 3 hours after the original gashing! Those are damned sharp knives.)
I wake up before 6-effing a.m. on a Saturday morning with a headache (in addition to the aching thumb) and can’t fall back asleep.

I know that none of these matters are particularly earth-shaking, and that yesterday work otherwise went fine, I made my train, I even got to work out, the weather was good and the dinner we made was very tasty, but at 6 am on a Saturday, my sense of proportion gets out of whack and the negatives outweigh the positives.

Ecuador, Day 8 - Cuenca, Day 3: Tranquility and Tear Gas

Fri, 20 Jan 2006 17:46:00 -0500

Today saw us off to the markets in Gualaceo (pop: 12,000) and Chordeleg (pop: 5,000), two small towns east of Cuenca. After driving through a canyon, we stopped to visit Crisitina, a mestiza who specializes in ikat weaving. The whole time we were with her, she never stopped weaving, even for me to take a picture of her.

In Gualaceo we saw ceramics, a fruit & veg market (where I saw fingerling pink and white potatoes! Can you imagine?), and a meat market, with roast chanchos (pigs) and cuyes (guinea pigs). Chordeleg is a center for jewelry making, particularly gold and silver filigree. Filigree doesn’t appeal to me personally, but the work is extremely impressive.

Ecuador, Day 7 - Cuenca, Day 2

Thu, 19 Jan 2006 17:52:00 -0500

Thank God we came to Cuenca. The altitude – 7500 feet, I think I remember – is hugely better for Mom, and probably for me as well. The city is built on a more manageable scale than Quito, and also is just a lot prettier. Better architecture, heaps more historical buildings, better maintained buildings, and more green space. Plus our tummies are doing so much better… it really improves one´s mood not to be ill.

Quito, Ecuador: Day 4

Tue, 17 Jan 2006 16:06:00 -0500

So far I and my mother have been traveling for 4 days in Ecuador, not counting the day we both arrived. To be truthful, I´m not sure Quito would make my ¨favorites¨ list of cities that I´ve visited.

Let me emphasize that the quiteños themselves are lovely. Almost invariably, they´ve been friendly and helpful, and as a bonus their Spanish is very easy to understand. The ~~Museo del Banco Central~~ has a thorough and amazingly well organized exhibit of archeological artifacts, including a large section of artifacts made from gold and other precious metals, plus the modern art section is pretty cool too. The area where we´re staying – La Mariscal, a.k.a. New Town or “Gringolandia” – feels quite safe, and we´ve not had to deal with as much heckling as I´ve gotten in other Latin American countries. Our hotel, La Casa Sol, is very attractive and conveniently located and the staff are fabulous. Since the economy is ¨dollarized¨, there´s none of the stress of trying to make instant currency conversions in one´s head. Internet cafés are available everywhere, and there´s a couple of pollution-free trolley-bus lines.

Breakfast on Pluto

Sat, 31 Dec 2005 10:18:00 -0500

Christian and I went to the movies last night – more for him to get out of the apartment than for anything else – and saw Breakfast on Pluto. It’s directed by Neil Jordan (“The Crying Game”) and stars Cillian Murphy. The film’s central character is Patrick “Kitten” Braden, a gay cross-dresser: his abandonment as a baby, his childhood and adolescence in the 70s in a small Irish town near Northern Ireland, and his coming of age in London.

Adult Dogs Learning New Tricks

Fri, 09 Dec 2005 22:39:00 -0500

Yup, that’s us, and that’s what we did on Monday night. We finally used one of our wedding gifts, a gift certificate to The Chopping Block, a high-end cookware-and-cooking-classes shop not far from where we live. (The staff very kindly allowed us to use the certificate, even tho’ it had expired in September – shame on us!)

We signed up for an evening class called “Knife Skills”, which one of Christian’s coworkers had taken and raved about. We figured that learning to use knives more effectively would help us with our weekly battle to use all of the vegetables from the Angelic Organics boxes. I also was looking forward to learning more about choosing knives – and how to give myself fewer cuts.

Culinary inspiration

Mon, 21 Nov 2005 06:13:00 -0500

…is something we need during the summer and fall months. For the past few years, we have bought a “share” from Angelic Organics, an organic/biodynamic CSA farm in northern Illinois. A “share”, in CSA terms, is part of the farm’s produce. Hence, every week from late June through early December, we swing by the Uptown drop-off site to pick up a box of vegetables that the farm has produced.

We also get a box of ~~organic fruit~~ every other week. That’s not produced at the farm – where in Illinois can you grow pomegranates? – but rather they work with a supplier who sources the fruit from organic growers on the west coast and, occasionally, Mexico.

Baking Barm Brack

Sun, 23 Oct 2005 22:01:00 -0500

A few weekends ago, Christian suggested that we make barm brack, since Halloween was coming soon.

“Huh? Barn Black?” I replied. “What’s that? And what does it have to do with Halloween?”

(I should note that as a multi-cultural couple, we have this type of conversation every few months. They’re occasionally bewildering and/or frustrating, but mostly they’re part of what we enjoy about each other.)

So we Googled it, and predictably found loads of frequently repeated information on the bread’s origin as well as recipes. Briefly, barm brack is a sort of fruit bread made in Ireland, and seems to be associated most strongly with Samhain (Halloween). I think it’s akin to plum pudding, insofar as they both have symbolic coins and whatnot baked in them.

Anniversaries: How to Celebrate

Tue, 20 Sep 2005 20:01:00 -0500

For most of the weekend I was out in the suburbs at the Great Lakes Software Symposium. I was spending the nights in a cheap motel the other side of the highway. On Saturday, I drove back into the city, we had dinner at home and we both drove out to spend our anniversary night at the motel.

Sunday felt more like the anniversary day. I got out early, at 5:15pm: woohoo! By six we were biking the trail in one of our old haunts, Busse Woods Forest Preserve, near I-290 and Higgins. Afterwards, we had dinner at Gaylords, also a place that brought back memories.

Green Card Holder

Tue, 20 Sep 2005 19:49:00 -0500

Got a nice first anniversary present on Saturday: a small card from USCIS that says I’m a legal permanent resident. Time from initial application to getting the card: about eight months. Mind you it’s still not a process to be undertaken lightly, but I didn’t experience any of the horror stories that I have heard and read about. Even so, the authorities here probably know more about me than any other government, including my own. Oh, well.

Second Day

Tue, 23 Aug 2005 07:19:00 -0500

My first day was essentially all taken up with new employee orientation. The employer is part of a travel and real estate conglomerate; much of the orientation was taken up with explanations of the various branches of the business. There was a fair amount of material on ethics and the company’s code of conduct. I didn’t notice anything unusual in that, but the instructors were semi-apologetic. Enron and Sarbanes-Oxley were given as reasons.

Back from the 23rd floor of the Beast

Fri, 19 Aug 2005 05:59:00 -0500

I had never wanted to darken the doors again of the Chicago office of then-Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), now-US Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) after a traumatic experience I had with the INS in the 90s. NEVER. But faced with the reality of being married once again to a non-US citizen, it was clear to me that I didn’t have much choice in the matter if we were going to stay here rather than go back to his side of the pond.

It's the little things that count

Mon, 25 Jul 2005 09:24:00 -0500

The high temperature in Chicago reached 104°F (40°C) yesterday afternoon. In our living room, which is on west side of our top-floor apartment, it got up to 98°F (37°C). The rest of the apartment was a balmy 93°F (34°C). Even the wooden floors were hot, leading us to believe that our neighbor downstairs isn’t faring any better.

We had air conditioners running in both bedrooms, and a friend who doesn’t have a/c came over to cool off. Exiting from the artificially cooled air into the convection oven that was the rest our apartment felt like a physical blow.

Dealing with Adversity

Fri, 08 Jul 2005 11:31:00 -0500

Everything you need to know you can learn on the Internet. Just yesterday I happened across an item on the death of James Stockdale, including a reference to a presentation by Stockdale on stoicism as exemplified by Epictetus.

Remember that you are an actor in a drama of such sort as the Author chooses—if short, then in a short one; if long, then in a long one. If it be his pleasure that you should enact a poor man, or a cripple, or a ruler, or a private citizen, see that you act it well. For this is your business—to act well the given part, but to choose it belongs to another.

That's my torii and I'm sticking to it

Wed, 06 Jul 2005 07:17:00 -0500

By the end of 10 days in Japan we felt thoroughly “shrined out”. However, looking back, we didn’t really see that many Shinto shrines and/or Buddhist temples—at least, not as many as we could have…

It seems that shrines are always Shinto, and they always have a particular kind of tall open gate called a torii at the entrance. Temples always Buddhist, and seem to be the only ones whose names end with the suffixes ”-en” and ”-dera”. However, confusingly, there is often a Shinto shrine on the site of Buddhist temples. The way it was explained to us is that the Shinto shrine is honors the spirit that is helping to protect the temple from harm. Long live syncretism!

Japan, Days 3-6: Tokyo, Kyoto, Nara, Uji, Kyoto, Tokyo

Thu, 30 Jun 2005 15:22:00 -0500

Three days and various temples and gardens later, we are back in Tokyo, where we will stay for the rest of our visit.

Kyoto, the grandaddy of all temple towns, was the base for our operations, and where we spent the first and third days. Our second day was spent in Nara (home of the “pesky” tame deer) and Uji. We were accompanied by a very expert English-speaking guide named ~~Doi-san~~. Doi-san did an excellent job of clarifying and explaining what we were seeing in a manner intelligible to gaijin. Descriptions of temples and such will come later (I don’t want to mix them up). We do have pictures on-line, but please note that they do not yet have descriptions nor thumbnails; they’re full-size and may take quite a while to load.

Japan, Day 2 - Tokyo

Mon, 27 Jun 2005 18:39:00 -0500

Sunday was still damned muggy and hot – in fact, I think even hotter than Saturday was – and the weather definitely affected how much we were able to pack in.

My father-in-law was excited to go to the Nezu Institute of Fine Arts, as it’s well known for its displays of painted screens. However, what we found was an exhibit of ~~chaire~~, small containers for holding tea. Sunday was the last day of the exhibit. The Japanese crept along the display cases, inspecting each small, fat earthenware bottle for minute differences; those differences were however lost on us gaijin.

Japan, Day 1: Tokyo

Sat, 25 Jun 2005 16:02:00 -0500

We got into Tokyo at 4 pm on Friday afternoon, having been in the air 13 hours and having left Chicago at 1 pm Thursday afternoon! Such are the strange things that happen when one crosses the international date line. I imagine it will be similarly disorienting when we return to Chicago; we’ll leave Tokyo one day and find it’s 2 hours earlier on the same day when we arrive at O’Hare after flying for 12 hours!

Another New Toy

Sat, 11 Jun 2005 16:32:00 -0500

We got about US$150 in Crate & Barrel gift cards for our wedding last year. Why people gave them to us is a bit of a mystery to me since we didn’t register there, nor do we ever shop there. However, cards like those are an easy gift, and eventually we did find things that we did want from C&B, like “bistro” wine glasses (the kind without stems) and a cookbook holder.

Google Maps Reach Ireland

Fri, 29 Apr 2005 08:09:00 -0500

Search doesn’t quite work, but if you know where to zoom in to, it’s all there (at least in the more urban areas). For example, there’s Tubbermore Road.

Better hot than never

Fri, 08 Apr 2005 07:32:00 -0500

A few weeks ago, C and I took the massive step of purchasing tickets to travel to Japan in June. As his father’s been reminding us, it’s our last chance to have free room and board and a semi-native guide in Tokyo, since C’s dad is retiring and returning to Ireland. It’ll be horrendously hot and humid, but I never, ever thought I’d ever go to Japan, so…

Grain o' rice update

Tue, 22 Mar 2005 16:08:00 -0500

Hurray, hurray, the orthopod said I don’t have to wear a sling! I still have a broken radius – that hasn’t changed – but since it’s so small a fracture and I have full range of motion again, I just need to be careful to not lift heavy things with my left arm or otherwise strain it. It’s been a bit hard to remember to follow his instructions, since presently I’m travelling on business and juggling a laptop, a purse and a really heavy suitcase. But oh, what a relief, no more sling!

Orchid Pictures

Mon, 21 Mar 2005 18:09:00 -0500

Long after the trip to Hausermann’s Orchids, we present the pictures we took. Many of these pictures are taken using the close-up lens adapters I got for my birthday. (Thanks!)

A grain of rice

Sat, 12 Mar 2005 09:03:00 -0500

I was running down the stairs Thursday morning, trying to catch the early train, and missed a step after the turn at the 2nd floor. Since I hadn’t been holding either railing, instead of tumbling down the remaining 6-7 stairs, I flew down them.

Terrifying it was to be in freefall, and then I landed with a hell of a thud on my forearms, knees and face. My head and neck were throbbing, and I heard a clatter. Lying there, my nose smushed into the carpet, I thought, “Oh, shit, my glasses are broken, and I leave for Brazil in less than a week! What will I do?”

Quite an Itinerary

Mon, 07 Mar 2005 09:24:00 -0500

Arguably this route would have made sense a century ago. (I’m deliberately ignoring any difficulties a war would introduce for that first leg.) These days, it only makes sense if you are in no great hurry at all.

Dep. Fushiki
On ship
Arr. Vladivostok, transfer to Trans-Siberian Express
On train (Khabarovsk)
On train
Arr. Irkutsk
In Irkutsk
Dep. Irkutsk
On train (Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk)
On train (Omsk, Yekaterinburg)
Arr. Moskva Yaroslavskaya
In Moscow
Dep. Moskva Belorusskaya
Warszawa
Arr. Berlin Lichtenberg
In Berlin
Dep. Berlin Ostbahnhof
Arr. Paris Nord (via Brussels)
In Paris
Dep. Paris Nord, Arr. London Waterloo
In London
Dep. London Euston, Arr. Birmingham New St.
In Birmingham
Dep. Birmingham New St., Arr. Dun Laoghaire (via Holyhead)

[Updated 7-Mar-2005: hope the edited text is clearer now.]

Free Annual Credit Report

Thu, 03 Mar 2005 19:50:00 -0500

Since the first day in March, we in the Midwestern states get to see our credit reports free online once a year. It’s not that easy to find where, but Google did show ~~an article in the Indianapolis Star~~. Reading the sidebar, we found that you have to go through www.annualcreditreport.com—it’s not enough to go through one of the normal credit agency web sites.

Nothing to get excited about, though we did not go so far as to check our actual credit scores. (That’s $5 extra.) There are no signs of identity theft.

Orchids

Thu, 03 Mar 2005 08:31:00 -0500

On Sunday afternoon, at the invitation of friends, we went to the open house at Hausermann’s Orchids in the western ‘burbs. We left our cars near the expressway on the west side of Chicago and piled into the van with his parents and his grandmother to drive out to Villa Park, yet another suburb where I haven’t been before.

What greeted us, in addition to door prizes and snacks, were several acres of greenhouses teeming with orchids of all shapes, colors and sizes. It was simply gorgeous, to the point of being overwhelming. It also was a great opportunity to try out the new close-up lenses that my folks gave C for his birthday.

Annotate the Planet

Fri, 25 Feb 2005 16:54:00 -0500

Jon Udell has been experimenting with Google maps. The result is interesting in itself, but his closing remark fires my imagination. He says he’s been wondering what we’re going to do with the GPS-enabled phones that everyone will have within a few years. His answer: “we’re going to annotate the planet”.

Beware of Purple Cows

Wed, 09 Feb 2005 09:01:00 -0500

Susan came across the story of the infamous Purple Cow ditty in the ~~Writer’s Almanac of January 30, 2005~~ (under Literary and Historical Notes).

In case you forget, it goes like this:

I never Saw a Purple Cow;
I never Hope to See One;
But I can Tell you, Anyhow,
I’d rather See than Be One.

Turns out the author wrote a sequel:

Ah, yes, I wrote the Purple Cow;
I’m sorry now I wrote it;
But I can tell you, Anyhow,
I’ll Kill you if you Quote it.

Mouse prevention through roommates

Tue, 08 Feb 2005 08:18:00 -0500

We have cats again. This time it’s permanent, unlike the long-term cat-sitting arrangment we had last year. Their previous owner developed asthma and had to let them go. Thanks to e-mail and a mutual acquaintance, they came straight to us without having to make an interim stop at a shelter.

So, the cats: AJ is small, gray, female, playful, cuddly and very outgoing; Lieber is big, black, male and still hiding under the guest bed after a week of being with us. It’s a HUGE bonus that they don’t have their front claws. I’m embarassed to say it, but in fact we might not have taken them fully clawed; it was such a hassle to deal with the previous cats’ destructive tendencies.

Florida (in retrospect)

Thu, 27 Jan 2005 18:23:00 -0500

The scene:

A small house in Gainesville (n. central Florida) and a state wildlife refuge in Homosassa Springs (on the Gulf coast)
No snow and no ice; some clouds, some sun, and a small downpour on Saturday afternoon; temps ranging from the 30s (0 C) to the 70s (18 C)
Brownish grass and some bare trees but in general quite a lot of green and even some flowers

The cast of characters:
Lead roles:

Off to Florida

Fri, 21 Jan 2005 12:14:00 -0500

As a surprise for my birthday, Susan booked us on a flight to Orlando this weekend. Even called my boss to check it was okay to leave early to catch the flight. That means we’ll probably be missing the 12”/30 cm of snow forecast for Chicago tonight.

We’re actually going to rent a car and drive to Gainesville where we are visiting friends.

I always like Friday but this is something extra to look forward to.

Honeymoon photographs online!

Fri, 31 Dec 2004 17:13:00 -0500

If you read this website (and I’m aware of how few of you there are), you know Christian and I married in September 2004. You also know we went on our honeymoon to northern Chile in November.

The timing for the trip was great. We had a chance to recover from the wedding; the weather in Chile was extremely pleasant (November is late spring there); I had a business trip to southern Chile in the middle of the month; and my employer was amenable to me taking vacation time afterwards. (So nice of them to subsidize our honeymoon!)

Visitors

Fri, 31 Dec 2004 17:03:00 -0500

Four-legged, very small and brownish-grey, unfortunately. We’d much rather have the two-legged kind, as they generally don’t gnaw on electrical cords.

They’ve been hanging around the kitchen since about November. Our landlady has been very responsive and is actively trying to rid the place of them. The exterminator put down some poison & a few glue traps, one of the results of which was a stuck, shrieking mouse. I simply couldn’t imagine what the noise coming from the pantry was and when I found out, I was horrified. Call me wimp if you like, but I couldn’t bear the thought of a freaked-out mouse ripping itself from the glue trap and running up my arm just as I was about to pick up the trap. So I closed the pantry door and the kitchen door and hid out in the living room until Christian came home.

The Morning After

Sat, 11 Dec 2004 11:06:00 -0500

I’m glad I was able to find a clinic that specializes in doing ~~the exam~~. The doctor at Uromed, Ltd was friendly and business-like. I got jabbed a lot but really, adults are pretty good at ignoring what they don’t want to see. There’s very little pain involved—I think it’s just looking at the needle that has upset me in the past.

Last night we had dinner with friends. It was low key and relaxed, a good way to end the working week.

Medical Examination

Fri, 10 Dec 2004 14:39:00 -0500

Today I have an appointment to have a medical examination required as part of the process of getting the paperwork I need to stay in the country. The whole thing is pretty odd. On the one hand, there are several so-called diseases of public health significance (I’ll call them DOPHS). They are

active tuberculosis, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, infectious syphilis, chancroid, gonorrhea, granuloma inguinale, lymphogranuloma venereum, and Hansen’s disease
(leprosy).

Not what I had expected

Sun, 28 Nov 2004 15:46:00 -0500

Now, I knew that the Atacama Desert was one of the driest in the world; so why was I surprised when on the flight north from Santiago the landscape gradually became nothing but sand, sand, sand? My only excuse is that I had just spent a week in the green, wet south where plants extrude from every and any crevice and it seems to rain nearly every day. Kind of like the Pacific Northwest, but more so.

In San Pedro de Atacama

Fri, 26 Nov 2004 09:02:00 -0500

Halfway through the honeymoon and we are making it up as we go along. Came in on the overnight bus from Arica this morning. Have just had breakfast at the Café Étnico and I’m using their internet access while Susan looks for a place to stay the night. It beats dragging our luggage around.

The bus journey was quite an experience. Twice we were woken in the middle of the night in order to get out of the bus and have our bags inspected by customs.

Long Distance Phone Comparisons

Sat, 23 Oct 2004 15:47:00 -0500

The latest Chicago Consumers’ Checkbook Update has a section on long distance. Three comparison websites they mention are:

www.phonedog.com
www.calling-plans.com (very important to keep that dash)
www.telebright.com

Of course, no one website is going to give you the best rate. (They get kickbacks (a.k.a. referral fees) from the phone companies. You always need to check more than one site to get real comparisons.

I’m saving these for future reference.

Zweisprachige Menschen besitzen mehr graue Zellen

Wed, 13 Oct 2004 16:00:00 -0500

I read it in ~~Die Welt~~, so it must be true. Well, they’re quoting a study in Nature. It turns out that the real finding was that certain parts of the brain grow bigger in people who have learned another language, particularly if they learned it as children.

~~Reuters has the same story in English~~ :

“It reinforces the idea that it is better to learn early rather than late because the brain is more capable of adjusting or accommodating new languages by changing structurally,” Mechelli said.

New Toy

Sat, 09 Oct 2004 09:39:00 -0500

Christian has installed a new toy for us – DSL! Yes, it’s a techie toy, but what do you expect from a software engineer?

I will freely admit to liking it. A lot. Shoot, I’m not complaining about being able to get into my Yahoo account in 10 seconds instead 30+ with dial-up. Furthermore, it’s a luxury to have someone else – someone whom I trust – who has the skills and knowledge to research, purchase and install it; and then provide free and instantaneous tech support when it doesn’t work. :-)

Wahoo! Russell Lowe's Pictures Are Available

Fri, 01 Oct 2004 08:05:00 -0500

For anyone who doesn’t want to click through all the links from photos.evidencetech.com to get there, a ~~direct link~~. I’ve only had a chance to take a quick look but I like what I see.

Marriage Preparations

Fri, 10 Sep 2004 08:51:00 -0500

We got our marriage license yesterday. It turned out to be fairly simple. About the hardest part of it was finding the office. (For the record, it’s in the Cook County building at Clark and Randolph, but you enter at the Randolph Street entrance and go down the stairs immediately on the left.) We needed to get the license in order to get married. It’s valid from today for 60 days.

Eat More Vegetables

Thu, 12 Aug 2004 14:38:00 -0500

Product placement: we’ve been happy subscribers to the Angelic Organics CSA vegetable program. ~~They have twelve week shares available, starting next week (August 9th).~~ Update: as of yesterday, August 11th, all shares are sold out. If you’re in the Chicago and you’re interested, you can always subscribe for next year…

Registering

Mon, 02 Aug 2004 18:10:00 -0500

My mother had come to Chicago to help us address and stuff envelopes. The following day she helped me start a couple gift registries. Thank goodness, because the process is bizarre.

First, there’s the cloyingly sentimental images and language used in the registry materials. Ugh. Second, once I had the scanner, I found it very hard not to get sucked into zapping the bar code of anything that looked even vaguely attractive and/or useful. Questions of “would we really use it?” or “do we have space to store it?” faded away when I had that capitalist ray gun clenched in my fist. Third, there was so much stuff that the number of decisions to be made became overwhelming.

Arbitrage (n.)

Sun, 01 Aug 2004 16:45:00 -0500

Okay, so Amazon has given me what it calls a “plog”, where it tries to market things to me based on what I’ve bought before. One thing does catch my eye.

One Plus One Is One

I liked Badly Drawn Boy’s first album, so it’s not a bad idea to suggest it to me, but $37.99? Eh, no.

However, over at amazon.de:

One Plus One Is One

Badly Drawn Boy;CD; EUR 14,99

Second Post

Sun, 01 Aug 2004 16:10:00 -0500

Finally, this afternoon Christian showed me the basics of how to post articles to our website. Not that I’ve been champing at the bit; it’s much easier to let him, the computer whiz, do it all, while I sit in a chair next to him and backseat drive, as it were.

But I’ve been anxious to get wedding information up, and it’ll go more quickly if both of us work at it. (The section on “Gifts” was my first post.) Furthermore, I need to be able to post too, if this is to be our website! It’ll also impress my dad all to pieces if I start blogging. :)

Rings Bought

Sun, 04 Jul 2004 05:49:00 -0500

… or at least we have paid the deposit. Susan had already done some research, so yesterday we chose rings at Peggie Robinson, a jeweler in Evanston.

That was the easy part. The hard part was looking at invitations at different shops. Not only are the choices only numerous, any once choice entails chains of dependencies that need to be unknotted. It’s evident we’re somewhat outside the mainstream in wanting invitations that are simple, legible and smart but not pretentious.

Planning the Wedding

Fri, 02 Jul 2004 05:14:00 -0500

Susan and I are slogging through the arrangements. The date is set: September 17th. That’s 44 days from today, according to my calculations. The venues for the ceremony and reception afterwards are set. I’m looking at arranging catering; Susan is looking at invitations.

So far I’ve contacted J and L Catering and Food for Thought. Still need to get in touch with Va Pensiero and the charmingly named Froggy’s Catering.

Surprise, surprise, it’s all looking expensive. It is easy to blow money on a wedding. We’re aiming to do something that is nice but not extravagant. There’s a budget that’s creeping upwards. Nevertheless I think the time pressure is harder than the money pressure.

Twilight at Easter (Island)

Sun, 13 Jun 2004 10:11:00 -0500

I’m way behind on my NYRB but I caught an article on Easter Island. Many years ago I read Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon Tiki; now we have a much better idea of what must have happened: an ecological catastrophe.

Jared Diamond knows a thing or two about resources and how they affect human civilizations: he wrote Guns, Germs and Steel .

His conclusion:

Of the two new accounts of Easter Island’s message that Flenley and Bahn and Van Tilburg have now given us, which would I recommend to readers? Both books are so interesting but so dissimilar that those of us attracted to history, exploration, and exotic societies will enjoy reading both. Those interested in none of those things but looking for a florid Gothic novel can read Van Tilburg’s book and try to forget that it happens to be a true story.

First Post

Sat, 05 Jun 2004 06:15:00 -0500

Well, that wasn’t too hard…

I’m delighted to be one of the lucky VC 200 who underwrote Dean’s new hosting venture.

More to come on this site, but it’s a beautful June day and I have other things to attend to.

About

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

This is Christian’s and Susan’s personal web space, where we hope to present our virtual faces to the world.

Bolted Together

Why “Bolted Together”? Because both of us (especially me) are new to Textpattern and are cobbling the site together bit by bit; we’re getting hitched in September; and the site name is made of parts of our names, smushed together. We hope you enjoy your visit.

Susan