Visiting Pete

This year's plan for traveling to Montana to visit Kate and Ruth looked like this:
1. Fly from Syracuse to Philadelphia to Denver to Missoula.
2. Commence visiting and snowboarding.

The year's reality looked like this:
1. Fly from Syracuse to Philadelphia.
2. Have flight to Denver canceled due to big snow.
3. Have US Airways tell me that I've been rebooked on Lufthansa.
4. Discover that Lufthansa has only one flight out of Philly (destination Frankfurt).
5. Re-rebook, this time to Minneapolis, with a flight to Missoula the next morning.
6. Call Pete in Minneapolis to tell him I'll be spending the night.

So I got to visit my brother Pete, and he even took me out to dinner at his favorite Thai restaurant. This is what Pete looks like when seated at a Thai restaurant:

In his own words, "looking a little Lyle Lovett."

Unbeknownst to me, Pete has been working on his own blog, Peter Unzipped. He's very prolific--lots of book reviews and snarky commentary.

Happy New Year Everyone!

As a token of friendship, and as an apology for making zero posts over the past month, I would like to present to you the following picture of a squirrel eating a donut:

Amazing, no? I caught him with the camera phone on my way back from lunch.

Bovine-Canine Friendship

Rae and I spent a lovely Thanksgiving in Rochester with my Granddad and Aunt Susie. Susie cooked up a feast!

We picked up our Christmas wreath just south of Rochester at Pittsford Dairy, home of Ginger the cow. Here's a shot of Ginger with her dog friend. Amazing, no? They hang out.

Aunt Susie has a dog, Roxanne, but no cow that I'm aware of.

Cavalry called in!

By cavalry, I mean the dean's office, where Phylis works. The dean's office is kind of a big deal (smells of rich mahogany). They write important memos, as you can see below.

For real, man, those seats need to be usable by future users.

Poo Bandit Raises Professor's Ire

The last note came from our custodian; the newest author apparently has access to a color printer...

You'll probably need to click on the picture to be able to read the text. The sketch at the top is absolutely priceless.

Judging by the last sentence, "Stop using the toilets on our floor until you have learned how to properly do so!", I'm guessing that this really was left by a professor. The author's English is solid (somewhat rare on the 7th floor), and it has a certain parental tone, don't you think?

Halloween Costumes 2006

Here we are! Rae and I went as Babette and Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast. Note the sweet candle on my head.

For those not in the know, Lumiere is a candle and Babette is a feather duster. They come to life and sing and make dinner. Here's Babette and party hostesses Dawn and Debbie.

Happy Halloween!

Dusty Whittlesea

On Tuesday there was a NPR story about the online world Second Life. I went and checked it out, and by Wednesday I was totally sucked in.

Here is my alter ego, Dusty Whittlesea, at the coffee shop.

At any given time, there are something like ten thousand people logged in to Second Life that you can interact with. Tomorrow I might check out a concert--as far as I can tell it's an actual concert that is webcast through Second Life.

The time-sucking black hole of Sims is nothing compared to Second Life! If you'd like to join me, the software is free. Look me up and I'll show you where the coffee is. I'll do my best to remain available in the actual world as well.

Wildlife

Behold, the Great Blue Heron!

I snapped this fuzzy picture with my camera phone near the 10th tee at Arrowhead golf course. Arrowhead is right next to Cicero swamp, so there are tons of frogs and birds and such.

Rae's Birthday!

Today is Rae's birthday! One of my lovely nerd-wife's favorite presents is the Cadillac of label makers, the Dymo LabelWriter 400 Turbo. For the record, I did not get her this. I was much more romantic (external hard drive).

It apparently can make some mad crazy labels, but for now we've only made this little tester.