Crib pics and Ian's new toy

Hey all,

By request from Mom here is the baby furniture that Liz and I got. Also Liz working with some of the internal curtains for that room. Man our baby is totally going to have an anti-pink rebellion at some point in her life :-P.

In other news, just about two years after selling back my Gamecube and PS2 to drop down to just my Xbox 360 I'm now back to being a total video game bigamist. Recently I've been having tons of fun with my Nintendo DS on the bus so I ended up picking up Sony's portable player as well (the PSP). Part of the motivation was the fact that my Archos AV500 (the little personal video and music player that I won from work) doesn't really work with Rhapsody, so I want something that can still do nice video on the go if I sell it off. But in addition to video the PSP has a pretty dang nice library of games that I'm starting to work through. Jeanne D'Arc, Ratchet and Clank, Daxter and Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops here I come! Compared to the DS it is a seriously nice piece of hardware and I'm looking forward to using it on trips and the bus. Plus the fact that games come out for $35 new and drop to under $20 used pretty quickly is very nice in the age of $60 games for home systems.

Check the new gallary for all the pics.

~Ian

Vampire Halloween

Last night we went to a Halloween party hosted by some of our gamer friends. They did a great job organizing a fun game event. The theme was gothic, which is why we are all dressed so scary! And yes, Jon does have a safety pin in his ear, but he had a hole already, so it's not really that gross. Really! We took a trip to the thrift store a few weeks ago to pick up some of the pieces, but Jon's goth punk pants and the distressed wound shirt I got from the Goodman costume sale. Actually, I did the distressing on the shirt Jon's wearing for a show a few seasons ago. I reused a feather collar I wore to a Halloween party in college, and just restructured it a little.

The party was a mafia-type event, but we played a long game in which each day was a 30-minute interval, and there were several vampires who had to communicate who they were going to bite, and then a silent night voting ceremony where a townsperson (hopefully - but then again, I was one of the vampires!) was bitten. In the manner of mafia, there was also a town meeting where each person argued for who they thought the vampires were, and then someone had a cross put on their neck that meant they were a suspected vampire and could no longer vote. It was well-structured, although we all had ideas to change it later, and there were other games to play where you could observe everyone's interactions, act paranoid, and compete for holy water and garlic. It was very enjoyable, and the vampires won. I was a vampire to begin with, along with 2 others, and part way through we "embraced" Jon, which means he ended on the winning side as well.

It was a very compelling evening, and we had fun dressing up all scary!

Happy Halloweeeeen!

Flyin' Miata (FM)

Eureka! I have seen our Miata's future and it is a Lotus 7 knock-off made from a Westfield kit + a cannibalized Miata. Ian may remember the Lotus 7 is the car I had him pose alongside at the Waterford race track when he was a little squirt. (Just don't tell Mom about it . . . she may not envision the same future.)

Dylan (but not Dylan)

This website lets you stream the Bob Dylan cover songs from the new Dylan movie, I'm Not There.

Dylan stream

Pictures and more pictures

http://picasaweb.google.com/matthuffster/Fabric?authkey=taiEhPOG6Yo
http://picasaweb.google.com/matthuffster/ChinaSep2007?authkey=DTRYEz6DnrY
http://picasaweb.google.com/matthuffster/MoscowAug07?authkey=qCjYrC_gHbc
http://picasaweb.google.com/matthuffster/France2007?authkey=vwZ1BO1XMzo

I decided to take Laura's advice and just post these links rather than try to post "Our Newest Photos," which appears to be beyond my blogabilities.

First is the silk fabric I bought in the Islamic market in Xian China for you girls - red for Liz, gold for Laura, and blue for Karen. Maybe you can make some clothes from these fabrics when everyone's here next summer (hint). The album also includes a butterfly from Commerce, not Xian, for no apparent reason.

Second is China -- many of the shots, like the Tai Chi and Songbirds in the morning, are in the company town of Jianling (the company is Xian Aircraft Company); most of the others are in downtown Xian, including a 13th century drum tower and the fabric store where I found the silk.

Third is Moscow -- One photo is of Catherine the Great's summer palace which was near my hotel. You may recognize John Porwol (a missionary whose inlaws lived across the street from us in Westacres). One picture shows me signing a contract with Russia's Top Gun, Vladimir Barsuk (What a country!), and Andrei the Giant who is CEO of Siberian Airlines and probably a gangster.

Fourth is southern France near the Pyrenees (Tour de France country!). The castle-y pictures are of Carcasonne, the church-y pictures are of Lourdes where Bernadette (not that Bernadette, Saint Bernadette), started a miraculous healing jag in 1845, and the home-y pictures are of the vintage 1610 house I stayed in. Bon apetit!

Dad's Life

This is the picture Mom tried to post to the blog while I was traveling to China; 12 hours from Detroit to Tokyo, 4 more hours to Beijing, and 2 more to Xian, all in coach because it's about 1/5th the cost of business class. But I rather enjoyed it -- was able to read Anna Karenina in one go instead of spreading it out over 8 months and forgetting who all the characters are from one day to the next. What a great book; thanks to Laura for the recommendation.

We could rule the world!

And short of ruling the world, I'm sure you could do some pretty neat modern interior design with it. Although it does violate several rules of "The Not So Big House."

http://cgi.ebay.com/Titan-Missile-Base-Central-Washington_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ1607QQihZ009QQitemZ190132455924QQrdZ1

~Ian

Pregnant Liz and Paint party

Just some quick pictures of a pregnant Liz (there have been requests ;-)) and of the paint party that we did last weekend. Check out the rest of the gallery on the right.

~Ian

Out of the Frying Pan, into the Kettle

or: a cautionary tale about both driving and walking.


We went up to Wisconsin's Kettle Moraine Park to hike through the fall leaves on Friday and Saturday. There was beautiful scenery and wonderful muddy/leafy fall smells everywhere. The location was wonderful for long hikes, but we did get a little in over our heads since the only shelter available was 16 miles (at the time we thought 14) from our car. At this park you can only sleep at the shelters if you are hiking the trail, so we had to get to that destination in order to be in the park overnight. All in all it didn't take too much time - we started hiking about 10am and got to the shelter about 5:15pm, but that is a lot of walking in one day coming in coldd. The last few miles were pure torture, and we definitely had blisters and sore muscles. It was also such a nice weekend that we were wishing for it to be 10 degrees cooler.
The shelter was nice, and we used our new camp stove and cooked up some tuna helper, while commenting on the amount of salt that people considered acceptable for a standard dinner. Good thing we started hiking with about 14 pounds of water! We also made instant oatmeal for breakfast. Jon had a spreadsheet documenting all the weights of what we were carrying in the new packs we got from his recognition program - we think we started with about Jon 22 pounds and Laura 16, most of which for both of us was water.

In the morning, we did not think we could hike 16 miles back to our car. But we are smart and resourceful, so we got to a near road and after 2 miles hiking we got a crazy old coot in a pickup to drive us at least some amount in the right direction on his way to fish. We hiked another 5 or so miles up another road until a very nice lady picked us up and took us to our car. As you can imagine, we were very grateful. So we hiked about 23 miles all told in those 2 days, and left for Chicago at about 10:45am.

Unfortunately, though, there was lots of construction on the Edens, so although we zipped through the first 1 1/4 hours in Wisconsin, we took 2+ hours to go the first 28 miles in Illinios, and although we were happy to be in our car and not on our feet, it just goes to show that when you try to GET anywhere you really aren't in control of your own destiny.

We spent the rest of Saturday limping and wincing around and wearing comfy slippers, at least after we showered. 23 miles in 85 degree weather certainly felt sort of like Colorado, and we were very, very stinky by the time we got back to our house.

So, we are grateful for warm showers, our own house, packable food, the beauty of nature, parks to hike in within a few hour drive of Chicago, and people who are willing to pick up tired looking, non-serial-killer-type hikers with backpacks. We are not thankful for the Illinois transit authority.

Hope you all enjoyed the wonderful October weekend. Check out the photos I posted...