Ah, nothing like another 55 degree December day

So far no sign of winter around here. 55 degrees again today. The kids keep asking if winter is over. I assure them that there is plenty of time but I even am beginning to wonder when it will arrive.

Gifts from our Neighbor

Our neighbor, Julius, always comes up with something interesting to give us on holidays. Yes, this is the neighbor who has decided that grass is too difficult to deal with and so killed his lawn and is converting to wood chips and cut all his trees down probably because they drop leaves. And also keep in mind this is the neighbor that says that I think he is evil because he once heard (over a year ago before telling us!) Graham say that he was a "bad man" and because he doesn't go to Church twice each Sunday. He is sure that Graham must have learned how he was an evil man from me because he has watched those shows on TV in the afternoon and knows that there is always truth in what kids say and that they learn from their parents. Of course wearing a giant sombrero in the yard and wearing black on a hot day may have lead to Graham's identifying him a bad man.

Well, this year, no Catholic books for the kids, but the gift giving was still a doozy. For Dawn we have Goodbye Prince Charming, the journey back from disenchantment subtitled Creating the marriage you've always wanted from the ashes of storybook romance. Apparently he feels that Dawn must not be involved in a storybook romance. I wonder if there is some sort of message for me here?-)

And for me we have this delicacy: The Marzipan Christmas Stollen apparently from Germany. No expiration date so who knows how old it may be. But I guess its like a fruit cake which can last forever. Maybe I'll pass it on to one of you next year.

Off to Grandma's House We Go

We had a good time at the Grand Os. We opened presents on Saturday so that we could do them with Doug and Jodie and the cousins. Elijah had a cold and just seconds before the first present he fell on the coffee table and cut his eyebrow, thus the pathetic looking picture below.

Of course the highlight for the kids was Grandpa showing them how to use an air gun in the basement.

Naturally there was the excitement and surprise of opening presents.

Good food and a good time!

Duff Update

Hi,
I'm not sure you got my last email because it seems that sometimes when I send something from the Einstein's Toolbox address it gets automatically directly to the junk mail (I guess you might consider it junk mail:-).

We will be heading out tomorrow for southern Illinois and will come back next Tuesday.

I've been playing around with a blog thing for the family and was considering it as a way to maybe keep up with each other a bit better. We don't email much but with the blog thing we can more easily share what is going on around here. Another possible use of the blog is that I can make it so that any of your could easily add updates to the blog just by sending an email to the blog address. So, for example, I'm sending this email to you but I've also included the blog email so this message will show up as the most recent blog entry with the subject line as the header. I'll delete this entry after a day or two probably.

For now you can see my ramblings and picts of recent events here in Akron at:
http://www.occasioncameras.com/weblog/duffblog.html

Have a good Christmas

Look what was in the Fall 2006 eBay Catalogue

If you look up the upper right hand corner (click on picture for larger view) that is our camera. Apparently they chose our camera design as their favorite to represent all disposable cameras.

Ohio State's Ginn

Is that really Ted Ginn's bicep? Looks like it is popping out of his arm. Maybe if he took that blood pressure band off his elbow it would deflate. Hopefully it works on January 8th against Florida

Sasha: up close

Those that have visited us may not even realize that we have a cat. Sasha (short for Natasha) has been with us almost two years now. We got her from a colleague of mine who was given the cat by a graduate student that had to move. It took her quite a while to warm up to us, but as you can see once she get to know you she like to get right up close. She really isn't as mean as she looks in this picture. She has been pretty close to perrrrfect (well, for adults anyway, she is a typical older mellow sort of cat).

Click on any pictures to get much larger versions.

Travel Plans for Christmas

The plan is to leave early Friday for Illinois.  Rather than opening presents on Monday we will be doing the present thing on Saturday because that is when Doug and Jodie will be able to get together.  We will return next Tuesday.  Dawn has been summoned for jury duty on Wednesday though I think it is likely that she won't have much to to that week. Joel

A lot of Megahertz going on in there

It got so hot in the room we had to open a window to cool off the computers. I'm surprised my circuit breakers were able to hold. That's five computers being pushed to the edge by a network game of "Tour of Duty" in our computer room. It took two hours to get all the computers on the right settings followed by many hours of combat. I had my laptop out in the living room. Fun for all but I'm not any good at this stuff anymore. I went to bed at 11:00 and they went on into the night letting themselves out at some point.

Pictures: Odds and Ends

Andrew receives his award for most practice time at the recital

Andrews Birthday: Note the loss of two teeth

Uncle Keith and Elijah relaxing on Thanksgiving

Grandpa and Elijah on Thanksgiving

Recent Pictures

Well, maybe not so recent. These are from Spring 2006.

New Duff Blog

Over two years ago I played around with some blogging software from http://www.blogger.com which has now become part of Google. The software has become considerably more user friendly since that time. The way I am producing this entry is simply writing an email message from my work address. When I send it to the blogger it will automatically be published as the next entry. From there the blog will email copies of this post to all those on a preset email list. There are many other ways to add new material including pictures which are quite simple and I can also edit material very quickly. I am considering producing a news blog for the department such that any faculty member can simply email their news item to the blog and it will keep a constant update of the newest items and inform others of their presence. I think it will be a very convenient way of keeping people in touch which things going on.

Ok, I’m gong to send this email and we will see what happens.

Joel