He's growing up

I am also not blogging very much, and I also have an excuse. I have a two-year-old. I haven't had him for that long, but you'd be surprised how often that excuse comes in handy. “You look tired.” “Well, I have a two-year-old.” “You want to come out to the game?” “No, I have a two-year-old.” “Noel, can you help us with a project?” “Sorry, two-year-old.” “Noel, could you pass the ketchup?” “TWO YEAR OLD.” It's a magic bullet.

We kept Tyler's actual birthday pretty low-key. We took him out to the ice rink, one of his favorite weekend diversions, met up with Natalie and Brian and grant out there, and had a great time. Brian had taken a class in ice skating when he was in college, and then hadn't been on skates in the intervening 10 years, so I was better than him for, like, two minutes, tops. Grant got accustomed to the skating pretty quickly, and between the myriad of adults, we were able to cycle through skating children enough to give our backs a periodic rest. Tyler is getting to where he can stand on his own two feet, though he doesn't cover much ground, and mommy is never more than a few inches away.

After skating, everyone came over for pizza and ice cream cake. Did you know that Tyler doesn't like pepperoni on his pizza? What kind of kid am I raising? He was also able to blow out his own candles, which, when you remember that there aren't very many of them, isn't as wild an accomplishment as it might sound. We got him some random presents, neat shirts, cool toys, a book or two. Kid stuff. He thought it was all pretty great.

Easter also happened. We hid some eggs around the house, stuffed with random small things and fig newtons. Those were a hit. We also went out to the park for the big neighborhood easter egg hunt. Got some candy there, too, and got to see a fire truck up close.

And, then, of course, there was Disney Land.

I am...not a big fan of Disney Land. For the price you pay for the tickets, it seems like there's a surfeit of fun and an overabundance of standing in line. There were some definite highlights, and Tyler is still talking about “Mr Toad Ride.” Recalling how it was “Kinda scary.” and “Flashy lights”. Dumbo, Small world, teacups, all hits, though. Also, instead of heading back to the hotel, Tyler just fell asleep on my shoulder for half an hour while I carried him around. That's the thing you can only really do if you're a dad: that critical combination of comfort, upper body strength, and willingness to put up with a lot of discomfort to get some really good cuddles out of your kid.

Nana and Grandpa were also a lot of fun for Tyler. He got lots of hugs and kisses, many nice pictures, and many many smiles. He was a wonderful model grandson for his elders. He did keep waking up really early, though. Stayed on Texas time. Made it so that we got lots done before his morning nap, though. The second day we went to the Long Beach Aquarium. Tyler got to touch a stingray and see some really pretty birds up close. After that we went to the La Brea Tar pits, which I never did see while I was in LA. But it was pretty great. We also got to see the big squad of people that we started Raytheon working with, most of whom have kids of their own. Some nice family-reunion sized pictures came out of that.

The one tragedy was when Tyler, being a toddler, tripped and smacked his forehead on the chair I was sitting in. It swelled up really spectacularly, but a quick application of ice seemed to do it a lot of good, and the bruise it turned into didn't seem nearly as bad as we thought it was going to be. It's nearly healed up, too.

And in the last bit of Tyler news, some neighbors down the street are moving out, and they asked us if we wanted an extra kid bed. Well the timing worked out great, and after buying a mattress, some spider-man sheets and a Mario Brothers blanket, Tyler is, at this very moment, sleeping in a Big Boy Bed. We also purchased a waterproof mattress cover and a guard rail. Not to keep him from escaping, to keep him from falling out. Kid likes to sleep in corners, and I've definitely found him facing the wrong way in his bed more than once. He's still small enough, for now, that he can sleep sideways in the bed.

The first night in the big boy bed actually went really well. We had been building it up for a while, he got to see us assemble it, and then night came and we put him in bed, tucked him in, and he just waved goodbye and said “goodbye mommy”. Then slept like a log all night. What a good kid.

The only thing I'm up to that is not Tyler-related is REAPERCON! As many of you know, Reaper is a company that makes Miniatures, and I supported a program last year where you preordered a whole bunch of miniatures and got hundres of them for a great price. They're in the process of shipping out now, but last year when I bought into the deal, I decided I should try to see if I actually like painting minatures. I do rather a lot.

The company, named Reaper, has a once-a-year painting convention where there are classes, paints, minatures, board games, and all sorts of fantastic things to do. I have signed up for four classes, amd going to pack up my stuff, and then wednesday evening I drive up to Denton, TX, for 4 days of paining and relaxing, all while Jess takes care of Tyler for me. She's really nice to me.

So, what, is that, 10 paragraphs about Tyler, and one about me? Yeah, that ratio seems about right.

-N

Fall in Austin

For those of you returning after the last blog entry, yes, Jess did make it back just fine. Tyler seemed quite happy to see her, though he wasn't as deliriously beside himself as Jessie would have liked. Perhaps because it was the middle of the night for him. She picked him up to rock in the chair a little bit, then Tyler got out of the chair, walked over to his crib, and pointed at it. He's a really good sleeper.

Last weekend we went camping. It was a little bit spur-of-the-moment, we got invited out by Jessie's boss to spend a camping weekend out with a bunch of people from work and a whole lot of food. Don't get me wrong. We weren't rouging it by any stretch of the imagination. We drove right up to the campsite. There was no way I was carrying Tyler's travel-crib any appreciable distance, to say nothing of all the other stuff we needed to bring.

Early in the week was pretty cold, so we packed for cold nights. We even got a couple of hand warmers to put in the bed with Tyler in case it got really cold. Of course, this turned out not to be a problem, as it was very temperate most of the time, and occasionally even a little too warm. The main downside of the whole trip was that Tyler woke up on Friday night a little after midnight and didn't get back to sleep until about 3:00 AM. He wasn't fussy or anything, just chattery, and we didn't want to wake up nearby campers. After that frustrating spell, though, the rest of the weekend was great.

We were camping with about 8 or so other families, most of whom had kids in high school, though there was a second strata of a few kids still too young for school, so Tyler had some playmates, though he mostly stayed with us and explored. They had some hammocks set up that spent time between getting napped on by grown-ups and getting swung on by pre-teen boys. There were several different full-sized grills in attendance, including a smoker, and someone brought a flat-screen TV and a portable satellite dish to watch the important College Football games on Saturday. I'm just saying we weren't wanting for much. We joined in the food fest in our own small way. I brought hobo pouches for us to eat on Friday that were delish! Saturday we tossed in our hot dogs along with a lot of hamburgers, side dishes, and other random goodies provided by everyone else. It turned into a buffet.

Tyler liked exploring, as you could imagine. He was very interested in us setting up the tent, and then trilled by being allowed to run around inside it. He ran around with some of the younger kids, but his stubby legs couldn't quite keep up. There was a little playground nearby with a see-saw that we got to ride on with Tyler, he really liked that. And we even went on a short hike on Saturday morning, though we did mostly have to carry Tyler around with us. He still liked looking around, and it was great exercise for us. He also needed some alone time, because there's a lot to take in when you're that young, so we spent some time in the tent with him just reading old familiar books before bedtime.

We decided to head home Saturday night, reasoning that it would be better sleeping for both Tyler and us, and we were just going to pack up and head home in the morning anyway, so we wouldn't be missing a whole lot of campitude. So we put Tyler to bed in his little travel-crib like everything was perfectly normal, then picked his crib up, carried it out of the tent, and packed everything while he slept in his crib next to the car with a blanket tossed over the top. Then we said our goodbyes, woke Tyler up enough to get him in the car seat (and he was an absolute gentleman for the whole ride home) and made our escape back home. Only one night in a sleeping bag and already the bed felt more comfy than I remembered it being before.

I'm super-excited about Seattle. Jess and I have a few things we want to make sure we get to do, though we're keeping the schedule kind-of light so that we don't overwhelm the little one, though he's certain to spend at least a few days in the tender care of Nana and Great-Nana while Jess and I are off doing crazy things like...I dunno...probably learning about history or something.

Oh, and we voted. Got in on the Early voting which was great, because no lines. :) I got to hold Tyler while I made my selections and he watched. He was equally entranced by the touch screen I was using and by all the grandmothers staffing the polling place who kept giving him smiling faces. I think he liked the attention. When we were done, we gave him both of our 'I Voted' stickers and hung out for a while at the playground outside the voting area. He liked that. Yay for Democracy!

-N

He prepares for a business trip

Matt is leaving for his first real business trip tomorrow.  He's been asked to go help at the plant in Ohio as they start making a new build of truck: his job now is to interface with the manufacturing side to (among other things) make sure that all the correct parts get on the truck in the right order, which often means finding a way to make things fit, or providing insight for the design team as the guys in the plant say, "Yeah, there is no way this part can fit in that spot with all the other stuff in the way."  I like that his job is so literal.  As I said, this big plant in Ohio is going to start making a new build of truck, and they get a bit of supervision in the form of a three man team that includes Matt.  He has to pack his steel-toed boots, and I anticipate some serious stain treating of his slacks when he gets home Friday.

(For those wondering, his job is technically 5% travel, so this trip should just about do it for the year.)

So how does Matt prepare for a trip?  Well, let's contrast this to how I get ready for work trips.  I usually work like a maniac in the weeks leading up. This ensure on the day of preparation my domestic situation is in crisis so that I can either stay up all night washing the appropriate clothes, or decide to take the trip without clean socks.  I usually pick "stay up all night" because I've been an a straight coffee and chocolate diet for 2 days and I have to get my files in order/printed to maximize the time I'll "study on the plane" (ha!), which, after a late night pack-up, has never worked once yet in the history of ever.  However, I like to know that I have spent all my energy getting ready for the trip because in my world (ie, at meetings), when you are on the trip, it is hard to carve out time for actual working because you have to appear bright-eyed, bushy tailed and very, very smart.

Ok, back to Matt.  Matt mentioned a few times that things were a little busy at work last week, mostly because this trip is taking him away from other duties at work.  He had to find a way to leave them in a position for other people to help out with.  His new bike arrived Friday, which is primarily how he dealt with that stress: long rides.  There was talk of going into to work today, which I figured would be when things got really maniacal.  He rode his bike to work, set his auto reply on his email and sent some files along to coworkers.  He was there less than an hour.  He folded all his laundry into neat piles in the living room, and has been weighing the needs to the week against his carry on for a few minutes.  It's after dinner, but I wouldn't say after the witching hour.  He has no intention of working on the plane, and in fact, just flying counts as work.  He doesn't go to the site until Tuesday, and possibly they might not be building the trucks until Wednesday.  I'd like to contrast this to the type of trip- a professional meeting is basically how you develop a professional reputation, and his business trip is just to do his job in a different place- but it's probably more fair to recognize that Matt tends to have a much cooler head than I do.  At work or home, or even when the two come together, he doesn't usually get flustered.

It'll be weird without him here. I've traveled tons without him, but he rarely goes places without me.  He has been super handy helping get a new bookcase into Nana's and installing a couple lights (since we've all been sitting around the apartment a lot lately, it's time to just fix some of those things).  Fortunately, I'm sure I'll get to see a bit of both Mom and Nana this week, and Dad is coming in Thursday night (house hunting!). 

Salesmanship

Jess and I have been thinking about replacing the windows in our house...essentially since we bought the house. We loved the house itself, but the windows are all single-pane, aluminum frame and a little hard to open and close in some places. We played around with a contractor before Tyler was born, but then decided to put it on hold until, you know, the whole baby situation got more stable.

Well since then I've noticed a couple of drips sneaking in around the windows, so we hit up consumer reports again to get some window recommendations and decided to go with Anderson windows. They do pretty darn high-end windows, but you do often get what you pay for, and they convinced us of the quality of their windows...mostly.

So when you call the Anderson guys up, they send out a guy to your house who does some rough measurements, computes a quote, and then, and this is properly obnoxious, gives you an HOUR LONG explanation on how awesome their windows are in your house. It's really over the top, and a little off-putting, but they do have really nice windows.

All of this is background so I can tell you this story:

The guy was out late, and Tyler was already in bed, and the demo had reached the point where he brought in little sample windows and proceeded to explain (in stupidly excruciating detail) every neat aspect of the windows. He had reached the part where he wanted to talk about how secure the windows were. He said: “One of the main reasons people buy Anderson windows is for security...” and then he reached down and with a single punch shattered one of the windows with his bare hands.

For an instant, I was incredibly impressed. “They are so confident of the safety of their glass, that they will break it with their bare hands, and so confident that you will buy their windows that they will replace that pane of glass after each demonstration. Astounding!” Then I looked at the guys face and realized that this wasn't really part of the demo, and he had just shattered a window in our library. And his hand was bleeding.

After we had sorted out that, no, that wasn't actually supposed to happen, Jess ran off with the sales guy to the bathroom to patch his hand up. We had just gotten some really festive band-aids for Tyler, and Jess was rather keen to use them. I vacuumed very thorougly and then walked around in my bare feet. If I missed a shard, I wanted it under my toes, not Tylers.

Anyway, we went with their windows, but if anyone who reads this ever feels like doing the same, you may want to stand back when they get to that part of the presentation.

I also got to travel to Charleston last week. It all went startlingly well, except for some paperwork shenanigans that nearly got me sent back home early. We got it all sorted out, though, and the tasks that we set out to do went off without a hitch. Which meant that there wasn't a lot of drama or excitement, at least not at work, but that's a pretty good tradeoff for success.

As for the rest of the city, it was pretty nice, in places. I got to have some fried chicken and grits several times. You know, like they do in the south. Also lots of fish, because Jessie wasn't there to help us pick restaurants. Charleston is really pretty and old in the places where it has been well maintained, and a condemnable bio hazard in the places where it hasn't. Stick to the nice places and you'll have a great time. We took some walks to go get some food a couple of times, and the City really looks nice, on foot. I'm sad we left before Saturday, there was a farmers market right across from our hotel, evidently. That would have been fun to see and eat my way through.

Tyler is getting better and better at being a toddler. He can run now, and get up to a fair clip for a guy whose legs are so short. He's becoming less and less fussy every time we drop him off at school, and he always seems fully engaged whenever we come to pick him up. He's becoming a little more of a picky eater, but that was bound to happen eventually. I'm sure we weren't going to just be able to feed him broccoli for dinner until he turned 18. He's also working a lot on copying our words, and rather a lot of them, though it's rare that these early attempts at language make repeat performances. We often quiz him on “who that is”, and he's pretty good at Mama and Dada at this point, but the real comedy comes in when he confuses the two. “Who is that?” “Mama—Dada!” He even shakes his head like, 'Wait, no, that's not right. It's the other one...Dada! That's right.” Those of you that have been lucky enough to skype with us may have seen him working on the splits. We'll make a martial artist out of him yet. He has also decided that the best use of the letter and number flash cards we got him is to take them out of our hands and throw them through the air and laugh uproariously, which is more interaction that he has done with those cards before, so I consider it progress.

-N  

Getting Ready to Travel

So tomorrow I get to travel for work. Nothing as exotic as England, but Charleston, SC isn't a bad place if you gotta do some work. It's supposed to be pretty rainy there all week, so I'm glad I have a raincoat to bring. Thanks, Switzerland! Jess is going to be a dear and watch Tyler for the week, which actually means that he will have to have is first babysitter this week, as Jess has a couple of hockey games to go play. Fortunately, they're after Tyler goes to sleep, so it'll be an easy job, but it's still worth noting. First babysitting job, yowza. We got a recommendation from someone at work (a neice) and she will be coming over Monday evening to...well, essentially just make sure the house doesn't catch fire. A neighbor will be coming by for the Wednesday evening game. But in both cases, Tyler should sleep right through the event. Well, at least that's the hope. If he doesn't...well, that's what babysitters are for.

I, on the other hand, am doing important work stuff. The transition from the R&D group to the Test group has been a pretty fantastic one. I've already gotten a spot award and am sitting in on interviews and getting commended for doing good stuff. I even get to travel for test already. Neat, eh? We've been testing our software re: its interface with some other software, and are pretty confident in our ability to go out there and demonstrate our stuff working as intended. We have, in fact, been mostly finding bugs with their software. And also with the hardware we're using to test everything. I'm getting pretty good at reading debug logs and am slowly improving at Linux at the same time. People appreciate what I'm doing, and I've got interesting stuff to do. Exactly what I was looking for.

I got a new toy for myself a few weeks ago. An Ipad! I thought it was way too expensive, but most high-end tablets sell for around the same $$$, and the smooth, pretty display really sold me. So now I finally get to play a lot of those Ipad-only games that I've been reading about for so long. It's nice. I'm also going to attempt to travel without a laptop for the first time in quite a while, just bringing the new tablet with me. Considering I'm pretty much only going to be using it for goofing-off purposes, I think it will handle just fine.

Speaking of games, I've been spending less and less time playing games on the TV, and more time playing them on my laptop or on the tablet. The game that's been taking up residence in the Xbox is actually our exercise game. Good for a workout, but in addition to my usual Judo, I've actually been taking out my bike for a spin in the evenings (I wear one of those glowy vests and have lights and stuff, so I'm safe.) I definitely need to hit up Uncle Matt for biking tips.

Did you guys catch the Olympics? We watched the opening ceremony (until we got tired and went to bed) and have been having it on and off as the mood strikes us. It's probably the most TV Tyler has ever seen. I'm not sure he has any idea what it is showing, unless he's been watching Water Polo at day care.

Additions to Tyler's Dictionary:

Bapple: Apple

Wa-Wa: Water

Moo: Answer to “What does a cow say?”

Baa: Answer to “What does a a sheep say?”

Bee-Bee-Bee-Bee: This is actually the sound Daddy makes when tickling Tyler with his face.

Tuck: Stuck. For things that don't move.

He doesn't always remember the right word for any given situation: you often have to remind him what word to use, but the words are all in there. Very cute.

We also went to watch mommy play ice hockey yesterday. Tyler was very intrigued by the game, though he kept losing track of which one Mommy was. Whenever she skated over to give him a smile in between plays, though, he would get really excited. The rest of the time was spent running around the outside of the rink, watching the Zamboni and doing his other new favorite activity: spinning around in a circle until he falls over. He nearly had to sub in for their center: they were short a lot of players, but they managed to scrape together enough players to form a couple of lines and won their game. Yay!

I'll try to write updates from Charleston if I have time.

-N

Week in Pittsburgh

Quick update from the road.  Wade and Jessi had a beautiful wedding in Farmville, VI, with close friends and family coming in from all corners.  I've been in Pittsburgh for the following week, working and catching up with old friends.  It's been a little hard to keep up the pace of work that I have at home with fun distractions like meeting friends for lunch, but I'm glad I chose to make this a working trip because it means I can spend more time here.

My manuscript (the bulk of my graduate work has been unpublished so far) was submitted, and FINALLY accepted.  This is the last thing that needed to be finished out from my time in graduate school.  There is still some discussion of other brilliant ideas we might toy with later, but getting that paper published will actually make by CV look like I am a scientist again. 

But the real reason I opted to come at this time was for my labmate and classmate Karen's defense.  That happened yesterday.  She was very poised, and gave a very thoughtful, scholarly seminar.  Her defense took hours, but was very friendly.  She emerged as a doctor, and the lab swept into action to make a big departmental party.  It was perhaps not quite as amazing as the party I had, but we are all holding back since she is hosting a party this afternoon.  There is going to be inflatable jousting.  It should be fantastic.

Stuff we've been up to lately

I totally neglected to mention how awesome our Memorial Day weekend was.  Matt and I both had Monday off, so we decided to spring for one of those "We should do that sometime" activities that sounds like fun, isn't that hard to pull off and we normally never get around to.  But first, we were compelled to do something fun and relaxing because we wanted to celebrate having been together for TEN YEARS. Traditionally, I think we usually manage to pull off a picnic in a park to catch up and enjoy eachother's company a bit.

This year, to get things started, I finally gave Matt the PhT gift I've been working on.  What I gave him was the balance on an account he didn't notice I'd opened.  I've been putting all my money form contracts in there since December, and I finally got paid from a couple contracts that pushed the balance up over the mark for a new bike part.  Not just any bike part, so I wanted to make the presentation special- I used two springs (Dual suspension) to FRAME the balance. ... Oh yes, I am this cheesy in my real life.  Matt is going to pick out the frame of his dreams and bike happily ever after.  Hooray.

Our weekend was also super fun.  We picked up Nana and took a different way up to Concrete, this time through Darrington.  It's more of that rural, farm-land-by-the-river-framed-with-abrupt-mountains type scenery that does good for the soul.  We hung out with Betty, taking in the FOUR hummingbirds feeders (seating for 23!) host a deafening parade of hummers.  When you see that many birds all at once, and as close as we can get to them, there is such a moment of humbling awe, just like when you see whales breaching or first catch the glimpse of an entire mountain pass.  I had that feeling a lot this weekend.

The main event, however, was to drive over the Hwy 20 pass to Winthrop.  I didn't know what to expect, but I was told there would be ice cream on the other side.  The views on Hwy 20 were spectacular.  And it's quite obvious why this pass closes from October to April every year- there was still FEET of snow packed high along the sides of the road.  At appropriate distances, there were hiking trails and camp sites that made we wish we had different gear with us.  We did get out to look at the view at lots of places, and otherwise Matt just guided us over the winding and wild road to the East side of the state.  We got out to see Mazama and Winthrop, both of which were overrun with people enjoying the sunny weather and the start of summer.  The four of us just jumped into the fray, doing a little shopping, and eating and loving the scenery and the weather.

It’s been a horrible, horrible week.

Last week was great. Really spot on. We went to Vegas last Thursday to hit the dual goals of attending an Ice Hockey tournament and meeting with Tyler’s new second cousin. Both went fantastically. Jessie’s team lost the games, but they played really well and Jess managed to take down a lot of offensive players. When you’re playing on defense, you tend to use metrics other than ‘goals scored’ for personal victories. Tyler even came to watch one of the games, more or less. He really seemed to like watching the hockey, and whenever he got bored I’d go out and walk around the Casino to distract him with bright lights. Oddly enough, you’re not allowed to stop at any of the gambling machines if you’re under 18, which includes if you’re under 1 and being carried by your dad. This means I was allowed to walk through the Casino, but not stop walking. Heh.

Also, Tyler’s little cousin is a big ol’ cutie-face. She isn’t as mobile as Tyler, but she’s nearly as interesting. She likes playing with toys and interacting with you, but she isn’t trying to run a baby marathon while she’s doing it. A nice change. She liked me a lot after she realized I would make raspberry sounds at her and nuzzle her neck with kisses. She was also really interested in Tyler, and spent a lot of time watching him get into messes, no doubt planning future devilish behavior of her own as soon as she could figure out the whole crawling thing.

Even Sunday morning was pretty good. Tyler did a good job sleeping through the night, except for the one time when all the smoke alarms in the house went off at 4:00 in the morning. We eventually got him back to sleep by playing gently with him on our bed. Very cute. Anyway, we took the extended family out for hamburgers and the cousin was very well behaved. The toys and the distraction of Tyler helped, and her family got to help themselves to delicious hamburgers and shakes.
Then things started to go downhill.

I got the call, then, that Dad was in the hospital getting treated for some severe stomach problems. I had to share the news but at least the prognosis was good. This does, however, mean that I’m now at risk for the same problems in the future. Less than fun.

The flight home was really rough for Tyler. He slept for a while, but then woke up at something like 10:00 his time and when he realized he wasn’t in his usual crib for sleeping he got really cranky. We kept him quiet…mostly…but we were definitely ‘that family’ on this flight. Harsh.

When we got back home, Tigger was looking haggard. So I took him to the Vet in the morning and they determined that he is in the early stages of kidney failure. There is no cure. There’s a treatment which can extend his ‘good life’, but eventually we’re looking at having to say goodbye to a family member of more than 13 years. It’s quite sad, but at least we have some warning and the treatment appears to be working pretty well. We’ll probably get a happy cat for at least a little while longer, and we can let him jump up on counters as much as he wants and eat all the bread and food he wants and generally get away with darn near anything because he’s such a great cat. But at some indeterminate point in the future, we’re going to have to put him down. Which is horrible.

Jess wasn’t immune either. She got in a little fender-scraper (even less damage than a fender-bender. I think I mostly fixed our car with a wet rag) a few days ago and then got a ticket yesterday on her way to derby. She was in a bad mood, quite understandably, but I was able to help out for a little bit.

And then I got the text that Las Vegas Grandma is in the hospital.

And there is a server down at work that means that I can’t work on anything until it gets fixed.

When this week is over, I’m crossing it out on the calendar with a SHARPIE.

-N

Making my house more home-y

Matt and I got to share the weekend with Nana in Spokane.  It's awesome to be so close that we can just drive over without much ado.  On Friday night, we took down Nana's Christmas decorations, on Saturday she showed me some basics of stitching and mending that will come in handy as I embark on my new future as the owner of a sewing machine (yeah, I feel like this is a major upgrade in my identity).  And all the while we were constantly sorting stuff.  By the end of the weekend, we'd worked out a nice little system with bags and envelopes with various relatives names on them which were stuffed with photos, Christmas ornaments and the et cetera that you tend to find on these occasions.  Matt was very helpful, adding 120 lbs of salt to the water softener, and doing other tall/strong tasks, as well as helping in the kitchen with a rendition of Noel's Monkey Bread (YUM).

Nana is very cheerfully jettisoning anything and everything that can possibly find a good home- and I will say that is probably her one big slow down.  Once she's decided "I don't need this" it's not just a quick trip to the dump.  Figuring out which relative might treasure things, or friend might still get some use out of it, or perhaps if it is only suitable for Goodwill or a pending estate sale.  I do think that as the momentum builds that she'll make quick work of all this, though.  We decided to pack the family photos to my house for safe keeping until Nana and I can sit down and digitize those of interest and possibly trim down those that aren't.  With those out of the way, there are only a couple armloads of stuff left in the basement bedroom besides the furniture.

Our car drove back across the pass loaded down with Nana's bran muffins and cookies, all the photo albums I could get my hands on, some garden pots, Dad's cool coffee table from the basement, some of Mom's weavings, a lot of Papa's baskets, Nana's sewing table and a starter kit of fabrics, threads and awesome tools.  Getting those set up at my house makes it seem instantly cozier here.  Sure, we've had most of that Ikea furniture for years, but I still don't have as much affection for it as the coffee table that now sits in the living room, or the basket that now holds my remotes.  It makes the house feel a lot more like a place I want to be- something I didn't realize was missing from the last decade of apartment living. You guys should all come and visit me so you know what I am talking about.

Other news- I am leaving tomorrow for 4 days in New York at the New York Hall of Science.  I am hoping to be able to so some editing/writing for two separate contracts while traveling, as well as meeting some of the super awesome people who will also be at this meeting.  I am way behind on my algae work, but unicorn money only gets so much priority.  I had a great day on campus meeting with old professors and making some new contacts- much to follow up on there in the coming weeks.  And once things settle down from my current contracts, I am gong to spend 2 weeks trying to learn to code in Python, as a test of whether I have the mentality for computer program.  If so, I might learn MatLab, as a highly relevant job skill for a modern biologist- and if not, I'll focus on some of the other job skills I already have.

Finally back home

Yeesh, what a mess our travel was. All successful, but between Tyler's pox, pink eye, and a mysterious third ailment that I'll discuss later along with some sort of super-cold that's kept me feeling like garbage for the past three days, flying was not fun.

Let's recap Christmas, though. Tyler was an absolute gentleman. He played with everyone, let people feed him, napped well, and adjusted pretty well to his new surroundings, despite a series of illnesses that would greatly hamper any normal baby. We even got to show him off to a few other Juneau resident friends, mostly people we ran into at the airport. Next time maybe I'll just layover in Juneau for a few hours and catch all the people I know that way. Seems more efficient.

Anyway, we packed up a lot of our stuff, and a lot of Sandlin's stuff too, and I woke up feeling like a hot mess. I took some painkillers before the flight out of Juneau and got Tyler as situated as we could. He looked pretty horrible, though, all dark circles under the eyes. Still a charming smile, though. We got some complements from a lot of our fellow travelers. The flight from Juneau to Seattle went pretty well, and we got to see Aunt Sandlin and Uncle Matt one more time. Apologizing profusely for bringing so darn many germs into their house, we enjoyed some great soup and put Tyler down for a fitful sleep. He woke up in a fussy mood several times, but we managed to get a game of dominion in nonetheless.

And side note: Raoul is terrified of me. Just me, though. He would hiss and slink away every time I came into the room. I did manage to get close enough to let him sniff me at one point in the early morning, but something about my intimidatingly manly presence seemed to irk him to no end. I'm pretty butch.

I went down to sleep pretty early and nearly set the bed on fire with my heroic fever. Jess played supermom and took care of Tyler while he woke up periodically with hurting-sounding cries. I did my best to keep myself rested, but I ended up dosing myself heavily with drugs, eating a PB and J sandwich at 1:00 AM (I was hungry!) and then sleeping in another room on the futon. Rough night.

The flight from Seattle to Austin started off well enough. Tyler had a bottle and took a nap during most of the ascent. After that it got a little spotty. There were times when he was fine and dandy, making cute faces at the girls in the seats behind us, and other times when he was a bundle of nerves and complaints. He liked walking around as much as he could, though that isn't something you can do a lot of on a plane. We did our best, but were quite relieved to land, finally.

Last night Tyler went to sleep at an almost-normal time to the sound of neighborhood fireworks, though decidedly later than normal, and only needed his parents to come in once. He sounded like he was having a rough time of something, again, but we weren't sure what. Eventually I beat-boxed and danced him to sleep. I slept soundly, in between bouts of not sleeping soundly, and woke up at nearly noon. Thanks for the resting time, Jess!

Well Jess convinced me that we needed to go shopping this morning, so we went out and got some food, and while we were out, I spied what, among his other illnesses, has been making Tyler so fussy lately. New tooth! Finally! It's a top one on his right side, and it's just barely visible under the gums. We'll put up pictures of his new smile when it comes in more fully. I'm starting to get over my cold, or maybe the dayquil is just working better now. Rough travel for all involved.

-N

These are a few of my favorite things

I got to spend the last couple days in Austin Texas indulging in some of my favorite things- squishy baby cheeks, dorky science, great friends, fun with the family and so much yummy food I'm not eating again until Christmas.  I came down for an algae workshop and met a friend from Pittsburgh who got me interested in algae for biodiesel in the first place.  It was at the University of Texas, so we BOTH got to stay with my favorite Texans, Noel, Jessie and uh... oh yeah, my nephew THE BEST BABY IN THE WORLD.  How fun! 

The workshop was fantastic!  We learned SO much, and I've got some big ambitions for when I get back.  I also got to meet some great people, and hope to be able to keep those contacts.  And frankly I've been fighting the urge all day to stop playing with Tyler to check my email, make some calls to some people, look up some things online... my excitement over this workshop will still be available after Tuesday- Tyler's lovely little cheeks will be thousands of miles away by then.  Prioritize.  My former coworker/classmate Karen is one of my favorite people to indulge in this type of dorkitude with, she is even more excited and motivated and forward thinking about turning a PhD in yeast into a career in green energy, so it's really great to have someone I trust and enjoy so much to take a class with, to share these contacts with and continue to rehash our experience with.  And I got a dose of Pittsburgh news, which made me feel like I'm not so far away yet.

And I did get to see lots of Tyler.  I was a little sad that he didn't recognize me when I first arrived (I was here just a couple months ago), but he warmed up to both me and Karen within a couple days.  The real test will be to see if he likes me again at Christmas. Oo, AND Karen and I got to Babysit for Tyler while his parents went out just to have fun.  They enjoyed the company holiday party, and we invited some other former Pittsburghers over to catch up and watch the baby monitor (the baby was 100% asleep on my watch).  It was great all around.

Once the workshop was over, we were free to play.  We managed to eat almost all the food in Austin: BBQ, Tex-Mex, more BBQ, truck food, giant donuts, Giant onion rings, most of Whole Foods... like I said, I may never be hungry again.  In between eating, we did a little shopping in South Congress, and took a nice walk in the Zilker Botanical Gardens.  This helped us work up an appetite for even more eating- including Noel's rendition of Mom's beautiful stuffed pumpkin, and Noel's famous Egg Nog French Toast.  Yes.  Noel loves me very much.  He even braided my hair every day.  I'm not sure what I did to endear him to me so much, but if he keeps treating me so nice, I'll probably come back next weekend. 

Weekend in Virginia

Matt and I took advantage of the long weekend to go and visit our favorite people in all of Virginia. They've been living there for a year, so it's really about time we stopped by for a visit. I can't say I've thought much about Virginia before, but it was so green and beautiful down there. We had a nice drive down on Friday, stopping only once to feel deeply lost, and got in some hiking, some eating, some chatting, some touring and some more eating over the weekend. It was a really nice trip, and of course always fantastic to see old friends, and see them doing really well. New jobs, new house- it was like hanging out with grown-ups.

Of course, getting to travel is one of the perks of being "between work." I finished my last day of real work at Pitt on Wednesday, and I've started volunteering at the science center- how fun! I'm going back tomorrow for my first non-orientation day. The time in between, is of course, to find a real job. And make dinner and stuff. I had a good lead today, and hope to work on a system for getting more soon. Being unemployed could be fun for maybe as much as a month, but I'll get bored of it pretty quick, I am sure.

Of course, no sooner am I out of a job but my main manuscript was rejected. Bummer. Not sure how Dr. Boss plans to deal with this yet, so I'm going to go visit on Thursday and see what he is thinking. I'm sure he'll get it out somewhere, but he doesn't have the incentive to get published that I do. I expected this though, so I am optimistic that we can move on it quickly.

Detroit Autoshow

Fact: I need better hobbies.

Remember a few posts ago when I said I tend to get restless if I have too much free time? And that I'm gonna graduate, and hopefully move back West? It makes a person think about the things we'd been meaning to do, and a bit irrational about pulling them off.

We decided we may as well just nip off to Detroit to the autoshow, since it might not be so easy in the future. Ah, my glamorous lifestyle...

Here are pictures of some of the highlights- editing for ones that actually include us. There are lots of cars behind velvet ropes or with strangers sitting in them.

This is beyond the biggest autoshow I've ever been to, all the major manufacturers and some minor ones were there, showing their current models and some concept cars for the future. The majority of the concepts are electric vehicles- usually the brand's smallest car with an EV sticker on the back. That's what the future holds.

There were also displays of engine components and other gearhead stuff that Matt totally loved. There were also tons of people lapping it up- sitting in expensive luxery cars and collecting swag bags from vendors.

We walked around downtown a little, and enjoyed a brewpub while watching the Steelers game. And then we went to see the Green Hornet- we saw the car at the autoshow. Fun!

The next day we decided to take in the Henry Ford Museum, which is a beautiful old building, full of cars. It's and interesting way to tell the story of America. Antique bicycles developed into motorcycles which when hybridized with the old fashioned carriage gave us automobiles. The National park system is demarcated in history by the development of the RV. The industrial revolution brought us more powerful generators, that powered the factories we used to build the cars. They have presidential limousines (and a presidential carriage!), Rosa Parks' bus and an Oscar Meyer Wiener mobile. It was a really interesting museum, and there is a lot more to do on their campus. I would have liked to spend more time there, but we had a 5 hour drive ahead of us...

More great animals in Belize

First up, a video of a coatimundi, the sort of raccoon thing native to Belize.


Next is a jaguarundi- a small cat that doesn't stalk but strikes it's prey. Many does it look fast.



Next up is a puma, just pacing his enclosure.



And a couple bonus pictures from our River Trip to Lamanai.


In the first, a Morelet's croc, in the second, we think a Hickatee river turtle.




So, yeah. Belize is awesome.

Close encounters with Belize's wildlife

One of the (many) things that made our time in Belize outrageously spectacular, was how close we could get to the wildlife. You'll see, this is partly because there is so much of it in this relatively undeveloped country, and partly because, unlike America, things are much less regulated.

At the Community Baboon Sanctuary (CBS), we took a brief tour of the sanctuary to meet the Howler Monkeys. Our guide, Robert, told us about the medicinal uses of the plants, pointed out the many birds, and then showed us the monkeys. This particular group of monkeys lives close to the visitor center, and our guide plied them down from the trees with a banana, and had them sit on my shoulders while we took pictures. Crazy! We were so close to the village at this point, you could still hear the Baptists singing Hark the Herald Angels Sing. Howler monkeys are really fluffy, not nearly as big as their scary noise would lead you to believe, and they have the cutest featheriest hands and faces.

I mentioned also the croc tour we took from the Lodge we were staying at. Our guide used lights to highlight the eyes of animals on shore, we saw many cool birds, lots of crocs (a creepy amount of spiders- their eyes glow blue), iguanas, and a porcupine. One of the agreements of the CBS is to leave vegetation on the riverbanks, so although we moved quite near villages, it felt like we drifted off to the middle of nowhere. Just before our tour was over, our guide, Russel, pulled the canoe to shore and pulled out a baby croc, barely over a foot long. It makes a kinda of dog toy squeaky noise. Amazing!

One of the reasons we went to Caye Caulker was to see the manatees. We took at little fishing boat to the sanctuary at Caye Chapel. Our captain turned off the boat, and asked us all (14 all told, including a couple families with kids) to take our shoes off. We were trying to make as little noise as possible, so we could catch a glimpse of the manatees. He asked us to be patient, but shouldn't have bothered. By the time we sculled through the entrance, there were half a dozen feeding on the weeds.

The water is shallow, and manatees aren't... well, shapely. But they are easy to see when they surface to breathe. And they are giant! After this, we went to the site of a major Britain vs Spain battle for control of Belize, and then snorkeling. Fantastic.

Another place with MAJOR encounters was the the Belize Zoo. Even though they had some damage to habitats as a result of Hurricane Richard, the animals were still healthy and out and about. We saw the national animal, a Tapir (a sort of pig/anteater), all kinds of wild cats (puma, jaguarundi, jaguar...), the coatimundi (a kind of raccoon) and some beautiful birds. The cats were beautiful, so I am sharing all those videos with you in the next post. While we were there, as I said, we ran into one of the families that was with us on the manatee tour. We were also approached by the zoo staff to participate in a "Jaguar Encounter." I was getting overheated, but Matt convinced me that this would be awesome, and I am SO glad we did it. The staff removed the reasonably domesticated Junior Buddy, and we entered his enclosure, and locked ourselves in a cage in the center. Then Junior Buddy came by to interact with us... and well, you just have to see this... watch both these videos.



The jaguar is soft like a cat, but has giant scary paws and feet.

Junior Buddy's mom was brought to the Zoo because she was a problem jaguar. 3 days later, she gave birth to Junior, and in the stress of captivity abandoned him. He was raised by caretakers, so he learned to like attention (which is why there is so much clapping and talking in the video), and hasn't ever attacked anyone (but the zookeeper did say by the time he was 3 months old he "played too rough" for the zoo keepers to just go into his enclosure to play with him).

Mayans of Belize

Belize has a fascinatingly diverse population. 10% of the country are Low German speaking Mennonites, there is a prominant Chinese population, many East Indians, on top of the expected mix of Kriol, Garifuna and Mayan people. Mayans have a particularly interesting history in Belize, until 1985 they were allowed to live by their traditional lifestyle, cultivating the jungle and living in a subsistence manner. In 1985, to support the creation of a National Wildlife preserve, the government told the Mayans they were no long allowed to live in the jungle, but was unable to provide them much support beyond that. Imagine coming out of the jungle with your entire community, and trying to incorporate into a modern society.

When we stayed at Tutzil Nah Cottages, our host, Gregorio told us about his experience making this transition. He had only 4 years of primary schooling before he turned 16 and was no longer eligible to go to school. It is a combination of his tenacity and naivete that has allowed him to accomplish all that he has. By the time he was 22, he was working as a tour guide, living at a resort, away from his family for the first time. He was a popular guide, but he worked every day of the week, wasn't allowed to have guests- he was lonely. He told us he went home for a couple days one time, and looked at all of his family sitting around sharing dinner and he realized he wanted to be a part of that again. He ran away from his job in Dangriga and decided he should start his own business is Mayacenter. He wanted to be a guide in the Cockscomb Basin Reserve, where he grew up and knew his way around. So he wrote up a business plan (with a pen) and took it to the bank. They said they couldn't loan him any money- he had no experience, no education and no collateral. Fortunately, he found a Development fund that was willing to take a chance with him. They gave him US$6000, which was more money than he could have imagined. He bought a used car, and almost immediately his contacts from the old resort starting sending him people to take on tours. It was working! He even recruited one of his brother's to help him with the business. People would come to Mayacenter for the day to take his tours, and they starting asking him about a place to eat or stay over night.

That's when he decided to open the cottages. He went back to the Development fun and borrowed US$16000 to build a restaurant and places to stay. He and his brothers built the place in something like 6 months. At the same time, he had heard many of his clients talk about the emails, and websites, so he found a business that would make one of those for him, too. Not that he knew what they were for. He said, "People drive down this highway and we just hope that they pullover here." The cottages were due to open in late December. In mid-December he got a call that his website was ready to go up, and he should be ready to start getting emails. He falters a bit here, and the woman asks "Is there a problem?" "Well, no, I don't think it is a problem. But what is this email?"

The website was delayed until Gregorio could buy and learn to use a computer. His brothers wanted nothing to do with this- they were scared and intimidated by it. So Gregorio had to learn. Imagine trying to use a computer when you've never seen one before. A friend came out and helped him get it plugged in, and then told him to play around with it. "I don't want to play with it." He explained to him about the mouse, that you could wiggle it and interface with it. He HATED the mouse. It was always zipping away from him or he couldn't find it. He spend several hours every night on the machine before they got back to the issue of email. Things would go wrong. Almost everyday it would freeze, or crash or not do what he wanted it to do, and he would take the entire thing, still plugged together, to a shop in Dangriga. He was frustrated and embarrassed, but slowly it started to get better. Finally, he decided he is ready to get these emails.

When the first email comes in, both his brothers are there. Neither one knows what to say or do. His friend comes back to help them write an email. Gregorio had some sense that there should be some form to this kind of communication, but no idea what it should look like. The next email, he wrote a response with a pen where he is more comfortable, and then typed that up. It went slowly. He tried his first hunt-and-peck typing. He looked on his keyboard for one letter, and then hits it. He looks for the next letter, can't find it, maybe he doesn't have that one? keeps looking, finds it, hits it... he said it took him 6 hours to write a 10 line email. But by now, you know Gregorio will just keep working at it until he gets much better.

The business is up and running well, until someone sets fire to the cottages. They were unable to save anything. He was devastated, emotionally and financially. He had loans amounting to more money that he could fathom, and no way to every make that much money back. But he decided the best revenge would be to have a successful business to pass on to his kids. He makes some fliers about his situation, and goes to beg at the hotels and resorts in Dangriga. After a full day of rejection, he makes his final stop at the upscale resort, where the manager told him he had seen and liked those cottages, and if he would go to his brother's hardware store in Belmopan, he would give him some cement to start the project. The hardware store fills his van with as much cement as it will carry. And other people are donating things too, money and lumber. This is how nice people are in Belize. The new cottages were up in only 3 months. To all the emails he got during this period, he would say "we don't have any vacancies." The first people he accepted a reservation for was in December. When the Swiss couple arrived, they were putting the door on the outdoor bathroom.

Gregorio tells us that he is lucky to have all these things work for him. He knows how to live the traditional lifestyle, but now he can't be an hour away from his cell phone. But the Mayans further south are much more traditional. They have the slat and thatch houses, they grow their own livestock and crops. We see a lot of this when we travel down south- and you can kinda see that in this picture.

The Itinerary of Belize

I wanted to give you all a picture of the kinds of places and things we did in Belize, the awesomeness of which is self evident when you look at our Itinerary. I sent this out before we left, but I wanted to annotate this a bit more, the flush out the awesomeness and add some pictures.

We spent our first couple days in the Community Baboon Sanctuary, which is an agreement between several villages to leave habitat in place for the Howler Monkeys along the Belize River. We stayed at a guest house in Bermudian Landing, where we had a hammock and meals prepared for us and could hear Howler Monkeys all night long. Among its great features, I instantly fell in love with the place names in Belize. There is a major highway junction at Burrel Boom, and we launched our croc tour from Double Head Cabbage- how could you not love that?


From there, we took at water taxi out to Caye Caulker, which is one of many Cayes of the coast of Belize on the Barrier Reef. This community is uber laid back, there are a lot of Rastafarians and a couple dive shops. People generally don't wear shoes. The roads, such as they are are made of dirt and driven on by golf carts. From here, we took a boat tour to see the manatee sanctuary.

On our way to our next point south, we stopped at the Belize Zoo, where we saw a family from our manatee tour. Yes, the country is that small. The zoo is practically a post on it's own, thoguh, so I'll get back to that later. We headed to the community of Maya Center, a village at the mouth of the Cockscomb Basin (Jaguar) Preserve. The village had a major boom in 1985 when the government told the Mayans they were no longer allowed to live in the jungle. Our host told us about his experiences transitioning from living the traditional lifestyle in the jungle and being a modern bussiness owner. The next day we went into the Preserve, and while we didn't see jaguar, we did take a dip at the waterfall. The picture is of a Blue Morpho butterfly, which is such a brilliant blue color it overexposed in the picture. Beautiful!


It took a few hours to drive to the south to Punta Gorda, which has unencombered views of the Bay of Honduras, and hosted the market that brought people from all the Mayan villages in the south and a few Mennonite farms to share their produce and wares. From here we were able to tour a cocoa farm, and visited the ruins of Lubantuum. We stayed in this kitchy quirky hotel, with over grown vegetation, carved woods and no other guests.


On Christmas Day, we moved to the Garifuna community of Hopkins, and stayed in a classic beachside bungalow owned by a couple from Canada. Once you leave the highway, you drive 3 miles down a red clay road to the community. The beach was fantastic. It was pretty clear if we would have stayed up past about 8, the entire village was going to turn into one rockin' block party. It's here we tried the cakes and Cassava bread.

On Boxing Day, we headed a couple hours north to Orange Walk Town, to a St. Christopher's Hotel on the New River. Very modern. The community was pretty well shut down for the holiday, but there were some bilingual taco vendors out and a lot of Chinese restaurants for us to choose from. Lobster Fried Rice? Sweet and Sour Conch? The next day, we took a boat tour to the ruins of Lamanai, which our tour guide told us was so powerful it caused the Great Hiatus in Mayan History. The site is giant, and only barely explored. The picture at the bottom is me on top of the main pyramid, you can see the river we came in on.

From there we moved to the Crooked Tree Preserve. We took a bird tour, and spent a lot of time walking around looking at birds. This is actually an inland island, surround by lake and lagoon. The preserve includes all the land in the village- the directions for the 'self guided tour' takes you down the main roads and then has you turn and walk up the beach. It makes you feel like you've come to gaze at someone's yard, but it is someone's yard with 4 snowy egrits and a tricolored heron in it. It seems to work.

We flew home from there, and although for most of the time it seemed like we were some of the few travelers in the country, there were at least a couple planes full of Americans heading home. I half expected to see someone we knew there, we'd been getting so familiar with the place.

Bird's of Belize

Although I should give you a general run-down of our itinerary, I'm going to skip straight to the birds because I am so excited about them. In the many kinds of places we went, there were always amazing birds, but we specificaly stayed at 3 nature preserves (Community Baboon Sanctuary, Cockscomb Basin and Crooked Tree Preserve) that had an abundance of amazing birds.

The first morning at the "Baboon" (actually, Howler Monkey) Sanctuary, I woke up at sunrise to the sounds of wild bird calls. We snuck down to the river (the Belize River set one boundary of the Lodge) to look at the birds. We repeated this routine all over the place- for some reason we were always waking up at dawn (which is 6:30 in December), and you may as well go look at the birds.

Belize is positively lousy with colorful birds. I finally broke down and bought Jones' "The Birds of Belize" because I knew I would never remember them all. On our first day, we were seeing Snowy Egrits, 3 kinds of Herons, bright yellow fly catchers and little yellow warblers. We saw, I think, rufus tailed hummingbirds in several places- probably because there are so many flowers and flowering trees. The red spot (top wire of the fence- this is why we don't have many bird pictures) in this photo is a Vermillion Fly catcher- he's dashing!

While not birds, I'll include them because they fly, we also encountered lots of bats. There were some living in the Community Baboon Visitor center, there were some swooping through the night blooming flowers on Caye Caulker and there were some living along the river to the ruins of Lamanai. Good thing I'm not afraid of bats. In the picture, you should be able to see 4 brown spots on the burnt underside of the tree that are 4 sleeping proboscis bats.

Betty arranged for us to take several tours, and one of my favorites was the early morning bird tour at Crooked Tree. We rose at 5:30 to get (coffee and papaya, then) to a little motorboat at 6 to peer at the Early Birds. And there were tons! Spotted Sandpipers ran along the shoreline, and Northern Janaca's walked on the lily pads that scops were dabbling from. Herons and Egrits waded along the shoreline, and when out boat picked up speed we were positively blitzed by 3 kinds of swallows (mangrove, barn and northern roughwing). Overhead, Snail catcher kites drifted idly. Oh! And we saw WILD parrots! How ridiculous is that??

The video shows a bit of the terrain, but watch for the swallows to dart along the edge of the boat- Ruben, our guide, said the boat scares of bugs that they were eating. The second video is of the Northern Jacana, also known at the Jesus Christ Bird for its ability to walk on water. It's one of my favorite birds, and so Matt staked this one out so you could see it's fantastic colors.

And as fantastic as this was, we were approached by several people- especially at Crooked Tree, who seemed worried that we weren't seeing the best birds. They were sorry we hadn't come in March to see the Jabiru stork and the Roseate Spoonbill. I tried to explain to the park ranger that the dozen or so kinds of birds we saw by the hundreds that morning were all birds we'd never seen before- so really, we felt we were having a sufficiently splendid time. Really, it's the kind of place that could inspire you to start a Life List.

Delicious Belize!

Matt and I are back from our most awesomest vacation to Belize. It was such an amazing time, we had great adventures, saw fantastic things, met interesting people and it was all thanks to my most talented mother-in-law, who managed to find some of the most interesting and unique things to do in Belize, and fit them into a 12 day span that didn't seem hurried, but punctuated regularly with splendid-ness. I'll get to more of that later though, at her suggestion, I am going to break down the follow-up posts by theme, and I'll start with food. I'm also planning to do Birds, Animals, Maya (past and present), People and a general post of our itinerary, and more might occur to me too. But loading the photos is slow, and food seems to require the fewest.

Another reason that I wanted to start with Food is that it highlights the Language. The national Language of Belize is English, but locally people speak Kriol. The effect is like using a volume knob on the accent, they would speak to us in the gently accented (think generally Caribbean island), then turn to eachother and the accent would become impenetrable. When you see it written (as here), you can usually get the phonetics, but the spoken word flies by so fast!

Belizean (Bileezan- yeah, I was saying that wrong) Kriol has no past tense, which is why menus are always peppered with such charming dishes as Stew Chicken, and Fry Beans. These were some of the foods we ate the most of, so it made quite an impression. Stew chicken was always served, fall-off-the-bone soft, in a broth with annato and lime. It usually came next to a giant pile of rice and beans, although occasionally we would get beans and rice. I'm not trying to be funny- Rice and Beans is a Vigo-like dish with coconut milk to season it, while Stew Beans and white rice usually came in two separate vessels. I LOVED the Rice and Beans- one of my favorite souvenirs is the cook book I bought from the Woman's Group in Crooked Tree, that has recipes for all these things. When we were very lucky, there would be a couple fried plantains as well, and often a tiny salad or coleslaw. And every table always had a bottle of Maria Sharps Hot Sauce, a habanero sauce with a bit of carrot for color.


We also got to over-indulge in a lot of fresh fruit. Papaya was just coming into season, we polished off a 3 lb one for breakfast on Christmas morning. Citrus and bananas are also grown all through the country. We got to drive the Hummingbird Highway a couple times, where long stretches are lined with citrus groves and banana plantations- and let me tell you, a seriously fresh banana puts our fruits to shame. The picture is a banana plantation- the banana's hide blue pesticide bags. Another highlight, both fruit-wise and Belize-is-awesome-wise, was having our host at the Cocoa Farm knock some end of season starfruit off his tree so we could eat truly fresh starfruit, which is citrusy sweet and tart but not ascorbic.

While at the Cocoa farm, we also tried the fruits of the cocoa tree, which has a creamy mango-banana-pineapple flavor. Not sure why anyone ever decided to process the seeds, but I sure am glad they did. Our host, Juan Cho, of Cyrila's Chocolates, showed us how cocoa is grown on his organic farm, how it is processed, and even walked us through grinding it into a chocolate paste (by hand! See picture!). We tried Cocoa fruit wine he makes, and the chocolate- which is so amazing. It is more coarsely ground, and unendingly rich. These are the same beans that go into Green&Black's Maya Gold bar (one of my favorites), but when his wife makes it... let's just say I didn't bring back nearly enough, and all my luggage smells like chocolate. This was one of the best things we did in Belize, not just for the deliciousness, Juan and his wife Abelina were really charming and it was a delight to meet them.


We also sampled some other wines- not that anyone grows grapes. Cashews are fairly common, and the cashew fruit wine is considered a holiday beverage. This is raiseny and sweet, like a port almost. Although, I felt the black berry wine was very similar. Belize also has an affection for bitters, and we tried the most popular one- Kid B's Bittaz. This wasn't as bitter as Campari, and had a warm almost anise flavor, which is surprising since it is brewed from a mixture of jungle herbs. The other fairly common possibly holiday drink we had was a Rumpunch, or as it was called on Caye Caulker, a Pante Rippa. This is pineapple juice and rum, and out on the island, several places included this free with the meal, all you can drink.

And cake! One morning over a breakfast of Egg Bean and Fry Jacks (~Indian Fry Bread), our Garifuna hostess came in to cut a piece of cake for another customer, and when she caught us looking, insisted we try some (Choo, have some cayke, Eets da holidays!). She gave us Black Cake (a moist molassas cake with citron fruits) and Lite Cake (lite because it isn't black- it's actually a buttery pound cake). She also insisted we try the garifuna standby- Cassava bread. This is made by grate and straining cassava ("You get your fattest friends to sit on the strainer"), then sieved and baked into a flat, crispy tortilla shape. She said it keeps for years- Matt thinks it must be like dwarf bread- not really for eating. I think it is more like hard tack, not glamorous, but staple.

I am planning on hosting a New Year's Even party for my friends who are in town. I think I'll make a pot of Rice and Beans, and some Stew Chicken, and bowl of Rumpunch. That should commemorate the trip pretty well. I'll try and get some posts with pictures up soon- but we had a great trip and a great holiday!

The orgy of unwrapping has finished

Aaaah...

Merry Christmas, everyone. Over on the east coast, we have finished opening our presents and are enjoying the post-gift-giving afterglow. All is well here in Florida. The flight went uneventfully and we’ve been enjoying time with our Florida-family ever since we landed. Jess even ran into one of her TXRD buddies who was going to Florida: also for christmas, also for family, also with her husband, and also while pregnant. The parallels are *eerie*.

Oh, and if I may aside for just a minute: if flying to your location involves going through a full-body scanner, I’m not flying there anymore. And that means that if Austin gets body scanners, I’m not flying anywhere anymore. Think about it this way: make a list of the activities that you would do that would offerer even a *chance* of your wife or *child* to be seen naked by strangers or actually, properly molested. If your list has more than zero entries, you should reconsider. It’s a downer, I know, but I’m just not having it. Until our country get it’s head out of the rear end of the TSA, I’m done.

On to better news: presents! All the gifts given by us were quite well received. In fact, William is playing Sonic Colors as we speak! We got an air hockey table (mini-sized) for Johnny, and as soon as Jessie wakes up from her nap, I look forward to her wiping the floor with me. Lots of presents for the boys: lots of Harry Potter stuff, and random clothing. The big ones: William got a Bike, and Johnny got a laptop, and they botch got to go to see NC State (dad’s Alma mater) at a bowl game and then go to disney world afterwards. Yay! Jess really liked her presents from me, some more Venture Brothers, card games she wanted, and some certificates to let her be lazy and have her husband take over all responsibilities for after the baby shows up and she needs a break.

Oh, and she’s getting us a *baby*, so that’s nice of her also.

I suppose the rest of the week will be some baby shower and a lot of relaxing. I’ll probably get plenty of video game time with the boys as they challenge me to various games or show off how good they are at their favorites. Also, I got a new Wii game for Christmas, and so I’ll probably shanghai their system for a while to check it out.

In other ‘being adult’ news, Jess and I are putting together a list of things to do, hopefully before the baby shows up. We want to paint the room and get a few more things, but also stuff like visit a financial planner or consolidate our bank accounts. We’ve already done some of that: I’ve officially closed by bank of america account, which means one less thing to keep track of...and also that I don’t have my credit card number memorized anymore, which was always convenient. Also starting up a college fund for Tyler. Time is the best lever for stuff like that.

Oh, and when visiting the mom/grammie house yesterday, we went across the street to visit ‘J’ and ‘J’ and their little baby ‘J’. I got to hold him and we waited until Santa came down the street with a police escort. Good practice in holding up a heavy baby, I need to do some more bicep curls. But he didn’t fuss or anything. I felt pretty sharp.

Responsibility, ahoy!

-N