Roblog

Our big trip of the year ended a week ago. It was a wonderful trip to the northeast to see the fall foliage ("leaf peeping" as it is known up there). The fall colors were late in coming this year, so that meant our time on the coast of Maine was devoted to coastal activities (the trees were almost all green). We saw some beautiful colors in New Hampshire, but since peak was yet to arrive, we had the treat of seeing the colors change perceptibly during our two-day stay there.

Our "scrapbook" for this trip will be almost all electronic this year, somewhat as an experiment. We did create a small (24-picture) photo album that we could show around, but that won't be the final product. I'll post some of the 500 pictures we took to my website, and I'll also probably upload the audio journal entries we recorded during the trip.

But the ultimate goal is to use the photos we took, along with the audio entries and our own narration to produce a short trip summary on a DVD. It will be the first time I'll use the "Ken Burns effect" in iMovie. It will be a challenge to make this glorified slideshow short enough to not be boring, but long enough to highlight all the great things we did on the trip.

I have recently uploaded 84 pictures:
- New set of pictures of my daughters: July - September 2005 (26 pictures)
- The best 10% of the pictures we took during our Fall Foliage Tour 2005 trip (58 pictures)

Perhaps after more than a year of riding the bus into work I have gotten more comfortable, but I almost always doze lightly on the bus ride into work. But today was the first day I ever missed my stop. I heard the *pings* that sounds when people want to be dropped off, but they didn't rouse me enough to bring me to full conciousness.

I finally opened my eyes as the bus stopped at Lamar, about 6 blocks past my stop at Bell street. It was actually a very pleasant morning for a little walk in downtown.

Our final pre-marriage car bit the dust on Monday. This was Donna's car that she purchased herself, and the 13 years we've had it were good ones. Towards the end of its life, it had several problems (air conditioner stopped working, the odometer is broken) but it ran pretty well.

Elena got sick at school last Thursday. I got a call from the school saying they couldn't get a hold of Donna (she was in meetings and has no cell phone). They got a hold of me, but I take the bus and so had no way to pick her up. As it was, Donna got there in an hour or so. Elena was asleep in the school office. They stayed there while Amanda went to dance class and then went home.

Elena's recovery has been slow but steady. She never threw up again (just once during recess at school), and her symptoms have not been severe. She has had a fever off-and-on for a few days, and at times had a cough bad enough to wake her up. Now, she has some lingering coughing and a runny nose. Otherwise, she is fully recovered.

But her illness had caused some changes in plans. We put our car shopping on-hold, after having only test-driven two cars. We also did not participate in the last soccer game and the end-of-season soccer party. That was no big loss, though. The girls never really enjoyed the soccer games (they never got the hang of not being able to take turns), although they liked the practices just fine. The soccer party is also when the trophys were handed out. We chose not to get the girls a trophy, so it's just as well we weren't there.