Asked for Christmas...

...but didn't get it:
world's largest book

Mr. Picasso Head

Too preoccupied with new baby to keep blog current, though that should change once my grades are in later this week. In the meantime, check this out, courtesy of Holly Gunn: Mr. Picasso Head

Best of Hubble

Hey, check this out (From Holly Gunn):

http://wires.news.com.au/special/mm/030811-hubble.htm

More baby pictures:

Kasia's Birthday

Kasia Alexis Gina Runté was born 16:17 November 13, 2003.

Being weighed at birth: 6lbs 4 onces.

Friday morning.

Mary is doing well.

New House: Month Three

This week is the third month anniversary in the new house, and we have discovered another drawback: the custom-made, under-floor heating intermittently sounds like a series of American attack helicopters coming through our bedroom. This is not a particularly soothing sound at 3AM. Although the noise seems continuous while we are holding the pillows over our heads in a futile attempt to dampen the noise and get back to sleep, it is sufficiently intermittent that it never performs in front of the repairman. "Now I've bleed out all the air, it should be perfectly quiet." But that night, it's another showing of Apocalypse Now…

So I am at the doctor's with complaint about pain in my feet, and his diagnosis is bone spurs. "It is a common problem for people who have to stand or walk on cement all day. Did you change your work patterns so that you are suddenly walking on cement more?" "No, no! Nothing has changed at work. It is a complete mystery to me." Then I go home and look at the 3600 square feet of tile in my house (well, my house isn't that big, but the tile is also on walls and ceiling in a lot of places) and realize, "Doh!". ? *Sigh*

But I still love this house….

The Shape of Things to Come

Got to see my new daughter again - - via the miracle of ultrasound - - this time at 34 weeks.

(Face is on the upper left, looking right.)

In some ways, this picture is less clear than the ones we got at 22 weeks, because the baby is now taking up so much room, the ultrasound equipment has less opportunity for a clear shot without shadows, etc., but the technician did a pretty good job of capturing a recognizable image here.

Mary is scheduled for a C-section in approximately three weeks, so I am pretty excited by the prospect of holding my daughter so soon; it has crept up on me pretty fast. (It has, I concede, seemed somewhat longer to Mary!)

Halloween

Dark humour at http://www.extremepumpkins.com. I like the gunshot wound and puking pumpkins best.

New House: Month Two

Today is the two month anniversary of our move into the new house. We are still not completely unpacked, and we are still discovering new things about our new home, most of them pleasant surprises.

One minor problem is that we still haven't figured out which light switches are for which lights. There are a lot of lights in this house with two and three switches each, so one can, for example, switch on or off the main stairwell light from upstairs, downstairs and the landing. Potentially quite convenient, but it makes it a bit confusing. And it is a big house with lots of lights, so I am still learning which ones are which. I actually stopped to count them today, and there are 71 light switches in our house. Is that normal? I don't think that's normal....

Death in the '50s

This last two weeks has seen a rash of deaths in the media and among our colleagues: Ritter, Palmer, a prominent CTV anchorman, the principal of a local school, the former Dean of fine arts; and three out of four of the finance professors on our campus have been sent to hospital for massive heart surgery or cancer treatments or etc. It has been a most distressing time. And most of the men have been in their mid-fifties.

The recurrent theme of men in their fifties keeling over has, naturally enough, led Mary to renewed expressions of concern for the state of my own health. The thought of me departing at age 55 and leaving Mary with a new-born and a five year old to bring up is not a happy one. So Mary has once again begun pointing out that I had promised to lose my excess weight by age 50 and I am now in considerable arrears on that target. There was even, as I dipped into the current tin of two-bite brownies, a 'look' that appeared to suggest that I ought to put said brownie back.

There is, of course an alternative view here, to which I happen to subscribe. The way I see it, if I am destined to check out at age 55, then I only have a couple of years left in which to consume my full quota of brownies. Far from going on a diet, I am going to have to redouble my efforts to live life to the fullest in the time left to me, and that necessarily includes a bin of two-bite brownies a week. Preferably with a side dish of really good vanilla ice cream.

Try this clock

http://www.lares.dti.ne.jp/~yugo/storage/monocrafts_ver3/29/bclock.html

Great Movie

Here is a movie trailer (passed on to me by Kevin Kozoriz) well worth viewing:
http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony_pictures/lost_skeleton/
Somehow, I think this might be a movie that might not make it to Lethbridge -- though in this case, because Lethbridge is too cosmopolitian....

World SF Convention

A report on the World science fiction convention, held this year in Toronto, from CBC radio (starts at minute 15) for those with RealRadio software: http://tinyurl.com/o0x8

Unsolicited Manuscripts

Interesting editorial that compares reading unsolicited manuscripts for a magazine with American Idol at http://nakedbootleg.blogspot.com/ (under "Wednesday, Sept 17").

Proofreading

Internet tidbit came across my desk today -- I can't vouch for it's authenticity, but it is of passing interest:

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy,
it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are,
the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae.
The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm.
Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by itslef but the wrod as a wlohe.
Initsereg!!

I forwarded this to a couple of colleagues who responded that it took them a minute to recognize that there was even a problem. So the question arises, is this response sufficient to verify the content, or does it indicate that my colleagues have spent too many years grading undergraduate papers?