Checking out the Pumpkins

Hmmm. What's this for?
Teething, obviously!

Photographic Proof

that one's experience in an airport doesn't have to be all bad:

(SJ & Gwendolyn Hope in LAX, August 2009)

~emrys

Blog Book #2

I just published the summary of our 2005 blog entries. Check it out:

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/856007

~emrys

Blast from the Past, Again

Having had a disastrous run of it in my junior year, I decided to try the prom again my senior year. But this time I did it on my terms.

My girlfriend, two guy friends, and I rented Renaissance-era costumes and went together to the prom in a horse-drawn carriage. Here we are in my mom's front lawn, decked out in 17th-century splendor:

I don't remember anything of the prom itself. I think I had much more fun getting the costume together and hanging out with these three on the way to the event. I'm glad we decided to take the funky route to finish my high school career.

~emrys

Blast from the Past

(Note well: racy photos follow. Sensitive eyes may wish to seek protection.)

Occasionally the job of sifting through my dad's belongings yields memories that are not heavy with grief or the sobriety of lost eras. Sometimes what appears is just funny.

Take these photos for example, from my first year at McGill University (1994-95). At the insistence of the gal who moved in across the hall from my dorm room, I joined the rowing team (the McGill Crew) as a novice. Here's what resulted.

In this photo we're hauling kiester (or at least it felt like it, being novices; but we might have been going about three miles an hour for all I know) in an 8-man boat. I'm in 6-seat, the furthest on the left. The coxswain (almost always a tiny woman) is probably saying nasty things about our mothers to keep us motivated:

In this one we're setting a 4-man boat in the water. Behind you can see the buildings that accompany the Montreal Olympic Rowing Basin, afforded to the city of Montreal by the 1976 Olympics. We were blessed to be the only crew in eastern Canada with an actual basin, free from the normal currents and tides of rivers and lakes:

Of course if you're going to row, especially as a first-year, you've got to be able to look cool while standing on the dock:

Alas, however cool one looks in repose on the dock, there's no hiding the atrocity of one's legs on the way out to the pier:

I can't finish with that. Here's a shot of half our crew (we almost always rowed in an 8) trying out a 4.

Ahh, university life. When the world was just one big oyster waiting to be opened, and we didn't care what we looked like in spandex shorts.

~emrys

Big Girl

I thought I'd throw this out to hold everyone over until I can get my act together on the pictures we got in California :)

She's up to 4 teeth and getting around like a pro! Not technically crawling on all fours, but her toes and elbows work just great for scooting around the house :)

Providence

Between spilling tea on my laptop on Friday and my errant attempts to clean it, my laptop keyboard is totally fried. I had panicked when I realized it, for you see my laptop runs my life. (Maybe there's a lesson here.) A friend graciously lent me a keyboard and USB adapter, but as I went to plug it in, I realized that I don't need a keyboard! When Sara bought this computer for me in 2005, she invested in a special treat. It's a "tablet PC," which means I can write on the screen with my stylus. No keyboard required! Now I'm not totally lost until my new keyboard arrives. Thank God for technology, for generous friends, and for thoughtful wives. (This entry was composed entirely without the aid of a keyboard. Only one was harmed to make it.)

~ emrys

Reboot

I spilled tea on my keyboard today.

Do you have any idea the size of dust bunny that will fit under your "Shift" key?

~emrys

Book Review

Not the Way It's Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin, by Cornelius Plantinga, Jr.

The tastefully chosen deep gold of the cover has a mellow attractiveness that makes one want to reach out and snatch it out of the hands of its current reader. The high-contrast gold-on-black formatting of the spine print summons the wandering eye like a visual clarion cry.

This volume has enough heft to present ample resistance to the fingers and arms--not so flimsy that it is tossed with every jerk of the arm--yet is light enough to be maveuvered even by the most delicate frame. The flexibility of the cover presents an enjoyable challenge to one's digits, but the text has enough pages that its thickness is easily grasped.

The complex interplay of its smooth glossy cover and the firm edges of its thick matte pages provides a delight to the palms and the tongue. The binding and spine hold up to the rigors of predental mastication.

In this reviewer's estimation, an excellent book.

Side Effect

of using a piece of luan plywood to remove excess paint from a brush between coats of primer and paint for the pellet shed:

~ emrys