Christmas music

I posted some Christmas music on my (otherwise empty) blog to share with some friends. I know mom and dad won't have an easy time with this, but I'm planning on making them a cd sometime soon anyway! But Ian and Liz might want to listen...

http://aloradanen.blogspot.com/

Videos

These didn't seem to embed right in the last post.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8229629809344527015&hl=en

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4471109153463018958&hl=en

~E

Guess Who?

Molly Elizabeth V

More Mollybear

http://picasaweb.google.com/ian.huff/MollyElizabethIV

~Ian

The Sparrow

So I cleared my reading backlog and finally got around to reading The Sparrow (thanks Laura!). It was a good book, although the pacing was a bit odd. I do have a big beef with one thing about the book. For all the characters that I liked (Jimmy and Sofia) Anne Edwards might be my least favorite character in a book EVER! Every time she showed up to spit some pious little homily it made me roll my eyes and gag a little. She seemed like such a fake Deus Ex Machina for the author and sure enough when I got to the end of the book the author mentioned that she based Anne and George off of herself and her husband, gee who would have guessed!

Aside from that though it was a good book, if not exactly light reading. Makes me want to get started on my own recasting of the Protestant Reformation as a space opera ;-).

~Ian

Rome

http://picasaweb.google.com/matthuffster/Rome2007?authkey=OvLE-3Yj5AM
Well, here are the pictures you've all been waiting for. There's 80 of 'em, so line up some antipasta and grappa before you settle in for a slide show. Caio!

More Molly

http://picasaweb.google.com/ian.huff/MollyElizabethIII

game babies...

Hey Ian and Liz - you should check out episode 2 from this season of Scrubs (from last week). You can play the full episode here. It's about, well, it's about having a baby and playing halo 3. Just in case you didn't think TV was relevant to your lives!

Also, unrelated, I had breakfast with Aunt Melissa last week. She was in town for the SOFA show and we met at her hotel downtown. It was fun to chat with her before work, and very convenient. I had smoked salmon eggs benedict, which tasted as good as it sounds!

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...

a few unrelated (to each other) topics...

I just finished reading a vampire book that is actually really surprising and good. I would recommend it to all of you, because the writing style is great and the settings are various European countries in different eras and this gives it a great global/travel setting. Rather than actually being a traditional vampire book, it's set up and tells the story through historians and their fictional research. There are layers upon layers of narrative stories, letters, research, and actual action, so that everything in the book has a feel that you're being told a story through many sources, that you are discovering the story for yourself just like the characters in the book. It is similar to Possession (by A.S. Byatt) but not quite as inaccessible, and in this case about the historicity of Vlad Dracul the Impaler rather than a few Romantic Poets. It is most in feel and tone like The Time-Traveler's Wife, to me. I'm not sure why. It has a relatively engrossing, storytelling-based, and exploratory narrative, and it was a fun read.

Check it out at Amazon.






On other topics, we watched 2 new TV shows last week, and saw a lot of familiar faces. We enjoyed Chuck, although the only person we recognized was the main girl - Ben Stiller's wife, the reporter from Zoolander. Then we saw Bionic Woman just to see Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica, but it was a terrible show, despite them stealing most of the cast from BSG/Firefly. After they set up Katee Sackhoff as the evil nemesis, suddenly Chief Tyroll was sitting there at the bar, and that was odd. And then at the end in came the lawyer from season 3 of BSG (Badger on Firefly). Wild! Despite the fact that some of you - Ian and Liz - might like those actors, I would not recommend Bionic Woman even to my enemy.

the long and the short of it...

6 a.m.

















6 p.m.

Last Weekend's Entertainment

Hey guys,

So this week I’ve been hit pretty hard with a nasty flu, I missed work on Wednesday and worked from home on Thursday. But enough about that, I just wanted to mention some fun entertainment that Liz and I had over the weekend.

Last Friday we got to see The New Pornographers in concert at The Showbox. We’ve seen them a few times before but this might have been the best of them all. First off, they had all their members there which was a huge plus (usually Dan Bejar and Neko Case don’t tour with the band). And secondly, The Showbox was a really nice place to see a show. Tiny clubs always make for the best concerts and the sound was mixed quite well. The only downside is that while the first opener Fancey was pretty good the second band Lavender Diamond was terrible to the nth degree. Liz was quite a trooper to make it all the way to 1am while 7 and ½ months pregnant. We just staked out a nice spot about 20 feet from the stage and got a chair set up for her. Here are some pictures from the LA show of the same tour.

Then on Sunday we went out to see Stardust after Liz’s baby shower. Liz and I both like the book, so I must admit that we went in with some degree of trepidation. But our fears proved to be completely unfounded as the movie maintained a uniform level of comedy, romance, witty dialog and action throughout. I’m not saying that the movie was perfect, just that all the parts came together well to create a whole that was both entertaining, fairly wholesome and did not insult my intelligence. If I had to make a comparison I would call it a slightly darker The Princess Bride mixed with a shade of Pirates of the Caribbean and a dash of the UK charm of Gaiman’s original novel. I’d recommend it to any of the usual readers of this blog (all four of you).
~Ian

New Halo Ads

Hey all!

So the final phase of Halo 3's advertisements started this week and I happen to think that they are pretty cool. The ads are based off a series of huge diorama depicting various scenes from the up coming game created by a big Hollywood SFX company (think helm's deep in Lord of the Rings). Laura and Jon at least would find them pretty neat as the dioramas seem like they would appeal to model makers and painters.

Info on the diorama (check the gallery as well):
http://kotaku.com/gaming/gallery/halo-diorama-may-tour-country-299470.php

Ad number one (I like this one, pretentious as all get out...but still...):

http://www.gamersyde.com/stream_4475_en.html

Ad number two (Also nice, but doesn't make much sense if you don't have the context of the ad concept and ad number one):

Actually this was just pulled by youtube, so no link, but you can see it on Friday at the following site http://videogames.yahoo.com/

~Ian

paper dolls!

Make your own Gwen Stefani paper dolls!

Well, I thought it was cool ... and I bet Liz and mom will too.


http://h30393.www3.hp.com/printing/gwen.html

boo-yah!

Up for a HuffFamily Reunion next July?

Hey guys!

So when Karen was here she mentioned that one of her friends has an "at home" vacation w/ all of her kids. I guess once her kids starting having kids they started to plan more relaxed vacations at the grandparent's house. Anyways it sounded great to me & Ian. I mean we're probably not going to be taking our daughter to Colorado this spring for the annual ski trip but we still want to see you all in the near future. Also we're going to see the parents this Christmas but we won't get any Laura & Jon time this holiday season. :(

Here is the plan:
(1.) Pick a week we can all make it to the padre's house
(2.) Show up & relax by the lake ( ski, relax, swim, relax, play board games. relax ... you get the idea. ) :)

We can even try to plan a few Detroit activities if people want to. I really want to see Diego's murals at the art museum. However the whole relaxing by the lake & hanging out w/ my fam is the part of this vacation that sounds the best to me. :)

Drop a note if this sounds good to you. Also let us know what dates are good. I've always been the limiting reagent on our vacation time so now that I'm no longer working it should be much easier to plan vacations (Ian gets a decent amount of vacation time). :) Can't wait to see you all again.

~ Liz

What's cool now?

We just learned that herbs in drinks are cool. As in, popular. We've been trying to reproduce a few recipes from restaurants that we've either tried or read about, with some success. We just went out to our fav place and had a peach habanero martini, but we haven't tried that one yet. However, we altered a great recipe from Martha Stewart that you should all try (if you're not pregnant, sorry!). But it's a fun summer drink.

Watermelon Basil Margarita
1/4 watermelon - dice some and put them in the freezer to freeze for ice cubes in the drink.
Add chunks of remaining watermelon to blender with a little water and puree - pour through strainer until you have a few cups of watermelon juice. In a separate cup or measuring cup, add 2-3 oz. tequila and 1 oz. triple sec or contreau per drink. Add a handful of slightly crushy basil leaves and muddle them around with a spoon, let sit for a few minutes to infuse.
Put watermelon ice cubes in a margarita glass. Shake or chill watermelon juice and infused liquor together and pour into glasses. Top with sprig of basil.

Original recipe is here, but it's a little odd. They use a 7 # watermelon for 3 cups juice (we got that with less than 1/4 watermelon) and 6 oz. tequila for the whole mess. We like our proportions better!

Halo testing

Here is a neat wired article on the testing that Bungie and Microsoft are doing with Halo 3. Pretty cool stuff.

http://www.wired.com/gaming/virtualworlds/magazine/15-09/ff_halo?currentPage=all

~Ian

GenCon - we have returned!

We realized this was our fifth GenCon, which is pretty cool! And despite being awake on Friday from about 3:30am to 2:30 am, we had a great time... There are some pics on a web album to check out. Some are just minis we thought were cool in various cases. Jon also did an Infinity tournament, so there are a few photos of that, and demoed at the Heroscape booth. We took a lot of pics of new items at the Heroscape booth and our favorite minis companies.
We did play the HaloClix game - Jon like it more than I, but it was pretty fun. They had a huge vehicle thingie (I don't know Halo) as a raffle giveaway, and some Halo guys dressed up. But other than that and a few demo tables, it was pretty low key. They did not have figs displayed other than the ones being used in the demos. I'm guessing that since the game isn't actually available for purchase yet they didn't give it quite the splash they might have. If you want to see photos of the HaloClix that were there, check here.
The pics of lined-up painted minis are from the speed painting finals. Jon and I entered a Rackham painting contest - $1.50 entry gets you a fig to keep and 45 minutes to paint it, in heats with about 16 others. I came in 4th place, and Jon came in 3rd, which he was very excited about! So he got to go to the finals, and paint an elf, which is in the picture (his has the orangish robe). Very cool...
Other than that, we demoed a bunch of games. We bought Tannhauser, a board game with minis combat in a sort of alt-WWII setting. We also bought a lot of Rackham figs at 50% off since they didn't want to cart them back to France at the end of the con.
The picture in this post was taken at a new game company who had an "angel" there, and they printed the photos for you. I can probably get a better picture later. We are both wearing our "bling" gold chains that were given to us by the guy leading one of our events. We got tons of comments, which is weird since there are people dressed up in many odd ways at GenCon. I saw a Tuskan Raider wandering around with his "head" in his hands, 2 Darth Vaders staring each other down, a sad Captain America who was overshadowed by someone's cool homemade superhero costume, and lots of Ren-Faire costumes. I am wearing a pirate bandana from the Privateer Press people, which is another minis game we're always tempted to buy. So I felt very swash buckly all day.
We enjoyed the free breakfast at the hotel, and we did 3 events to learn the new Rackham Roleplaying Game, Cadwallon. All in all, it was a very pleasing convention. We got home and crashed on Sunday night, and did a little sorting through the loot. So now we have a few new games to play, and we're even further behind on our minis painting! Sigh...

Scanner Monster

This is a picture of my "scanner monster" at work. The fabric was a paint sample we did for Mirror of the Invisible World that didn't get used. Our other assistant added the eyes (with big eyelashes - we have stuff like that lying around at work!). And our designer added the tongue.

Even better- the scanner makes loud squeaky noises when it scans, and the "mouth" really opens, so it's pretty great!

A very Harry weekend

So the new Harry Potter book and movie really snuck up on me this year, I had totally forgotten that this was the last book coming out (I seemed to have it in my head that the Half-Blood Prince was book 5 not book 6). So Liz and I did some catchup this weekend by seeing the movie and buying the book on Friday.

For the movie, I actually liked it quite a bit. Order of the Pheonix was a long book and I thought that the movie did a good job of pulling out the extra content while focusing on the core imporant characters and situations. Plus some things in the movie I acutally saw as improvements over the book, to me JKR doesn't write really compelling fight scenes so I though that the movie actually did the whole confrontation in the Ministry of Magic better then the book did (the book was just running around and yelling "stupify" at each other).

As for the final book I can't comment on it yet as Liz just finished it up and turned it over to me (I chose to go back the re-read the HBP while she read the new one first). And now that book is sitting in my bag next to me at work...taunting me....

~Ian

Decemberists in Grant Park!

Here's a clip of the encore of the Decemberists concert Jon and I went to last week. It wasn't raining by that point. They played with the Orchestra most of the night, and we were so far back on the lawn we couldn't see anything. But once the orchestra left we ran up there for a closer view, and they played 2 fun songs with lots of audience participation! We had a blast, and the crowd was pretty crazy. Most people were on their feet doing gigs around the back of the seating area. It's a long clip, but kind of fun, although it obviously sounded a lot better live! For some reason the last 30 seconds of the song are on another link - I'll put it at the bottom if you're really intrepid. BTW, it's the Mariner's Revenge Song, about a guy who gets swallowed by a whale, and that's why the crowd's really screaming at some points!

Laura



link to the end of the song!

Ninjaaaaaaaaaaa AKteeon!

Check this out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYsDsEcfG0g

Ayn Rand...Gamer?

So tell me...does anyone else feel that the genre of First Person Shooter videogames with a heavy emphasis on Art Deco architecture and Objectivist philosophy has been rather underpopulated as of late? Good thing Bioshock is here to fill that void...

http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/bioshock/805021p1.html



~Ian

My few Colorado pics are up as a web album - click on the link at the top of the photo column (the pic of the cactus) to view and download them. Sorry there's no title to this post - it won't let me click in that field today!

L

Bring it!

I win the funny cat pictures game!

20 Weeks

So 20 weeks in and we have a confirmation of a happy, healthy little 12 ounce girl. If you project that out it is a 8 and 1/4 pound baby, so just a bit above average. If you click on the image below you should get a bigger version of the image so you can actually see stuff. Here is the layout of the six pictures:

[Heart Valves] [3D Face] [3D Face]
[2D Face (arrow below the lips)] [Arm Bones] [Spine]


Very neat stuff!

~Ian

All is fair in Love and Paintball

Just stuck up some pictures from our recent work paintball event. Good times, although I fear I may be a touch too competitive for some of these work activities. In the pictures, if you see a blue bandanna it's me and if you see a black, while and gray camo bandanna it's Tim.

In all honesty, the pain in the knees from crawling around in the grass for hours is worse than any of the paintball welts.

~Ian

Ian == Punk

Yup yup, just a few pictures from costume bowling...including Ian dressed as a punk rocker with a phatty mohawk.

Chicago Spring 2007

Chicago Spring 2007 photo album is a bit of a mash-up (groovy new word for "mish-mash" which was perfectly serviceable but irretrievably dated . . . pardon all the adverbs). Some tennis shots taken on a hot April day in Chicago (I didn't crop the shots of Laura, I just must have had the camera zoomed in and didn't know it, which may be where the expression "Who's zoomin' who?" comes from). Also some golfing at Garland shots and some pictures of my truck garden and Carhartt's.

More fun than strange

We just saw Stranger Than Fiction - I know it's been out for awhile so you've probably all seen it already. We really enjoyed it. Good acting, plot, cinematography, pacing, etc. And the concept and twists were so novel that it really kept you involved in the story. Sometimes I wonder how people come up with their crazy ideas for entertainment, but hey, it worked! If you haven't seen it, we give it two thumbs up!

More baby pics

Yeah, it's me again. Just another picture from the high-res ultrasound that Liz and I went to in the 14th week. It was a pretty neat experience all in all. We got to see the baby much clearer then before and she (that is the doctor's 70% guess, at 20 weeks we should be much more sure so we're not picking up any clothes before then ;-)) was really kicking around inside there. She would be chilling at the bottom and then every 60 seconds or so she would kick really hard and launch up to the top and then float down slowly back to the bottom. Apparently Liz and I are raising an X-Games gal. They don't show up very well on the scan, but you can see some neat stuff like cartilage forming in the nose and little knee and elbow joints. Also, this ultrasound was partially to check for possible issues and by all accounts our baby appears to be developing just fine.

~Ian

More geek movies

So I knew that The Golden Compass was coming to theaters. But I had no clue that Stardust was in the works as well! It looks to be a big budget production with plenty of recognizable actors (Claire Danes, Robert De Niro, Rupert Everett, Michelle Pfeiffer) so I'm hyped. Personally this would be the best Neil Gaiman novel to adapt to the big screen and I hope that it goes over well.

I suppose we have Peter Jackson and Tolkien to thank for the fact that so many geek movies and TV shows are in vogue right now. I'm loving it!

~Ian

Alien!!!!

Alert Tom Cruise, Jeff Goldblum and Sigourney Weaver!

~Ian

Defying Gravity in the Windy City

Jon got us surprise tickets to see Wicked last night. It was very fun, although it made for a late Wednesday night. The costumes of course are stunning - very much historically-influenced with crazy tweaks and colors - as well as expensive looking. And the music was good; the Wicked Witch (Elphaba) especially has a great voice. The story bogged down a little in the second act, but in general the music, costumes, and colorful staging and lights made it a fun show. And they had some simple and effective flying - this thumbnail was a very impressive "witch on a broom moving very fast" that they did with basically just her hanging there and some crazy spotlights. Click on the picture to see more stage photos.

Salish Trip

Hey all,

So Liz and I were pretty tired out from the move and all that so we took this weekend off for a little mini-vacation up to the Salish lodge. It was really nice to get away for a little while and to have some fantastic food (venison chili and a nice salad for dinner) at The Attic. Plus we had a really good breakfast the next day with primo hot chocolate. The only sad part was that they prepared the hot chocolate at the table, so I got to see just how it was constructed of basically just vanilla infused heavy cream and rich melted chocolate. Yikes! I'm going to have to run a bunch to work that guy off!

~Ian

The Italian

Saw a good movie at DIA last month. Directed by a documentary film maker, Andrei Kravchuk, the Russian orphans seemed so plausible (not that I've ever been a Russian orphan, nor even an American one) that you almost think you're watching a documentary . . . but with more drama and no narrator. The story jerks tears, but the acting is so good and the setting so authentic (I presume, having never been in a Russian orphanage) that you don't mind suspending disbelief now and then and allowing the movie to draw you in. See it if you can find it. We liked Illusionist, too, but can't compare it to Prestige because we haven't seen Prestige yet but we promise we will.

Ski trip 2007

I linked the pix from our ski trip, but the album starts out with three pix of Mom's self-inflicted racquetball shiner. We missed you kids on the ski trip, but we managed to get sick without you!

Japanese Vintage Economics

We get a funny newsletter at work from a company we purchased some Japanese items from for Silk last season. Here's a particularly enjoyable example from their most recent letter:


Dear Customers & Friends

Hello from Japan! This is Kimono Flea Market ICHIROYA's News Letter No.189.
Most customers must know some kinds of American(and European) vintage cloths are very popular in Japan. Paticular types of Levis jeans are very expensive, and paticular used tops and jackets are also popular. For example, an used old levis is sold at 68000yen(approx 600USD) and tops are sold at about 5000yen( 45USD).

I hear these items are not valuable in United States, and they were picked up from garbage. Secondhand clothes dealers collect all used clothes from garbages, and select them to some markets. I hear that most of them are send to Africa, but before packing them to Africa, they carefully choose paticular items, which can be sold at higher price in Japan. The second items are picked up, a trash becomes suddenly an EXPENSIVE VINTAGE CLOTHING! That situation has similar points to vintage kimono market here, especially till 10 years ago. It is interesting that these secondhand clothes dealing is family business both in United States and Japan.
Those treasures of vintage clothes are sent to Japan, and displayed at stores in Harajuku with expensive price tags.

So if an used T shirt with 'AC/DC' logo is hanged in a shop in Harajuku(Japan), we can imagine HIS personal history as below.
As you know United States is the major producing nation of cotton. HE had to be born and cultivated in cotton plantation of southwest United States, and shipped across the Pacific to China. HE became cotton threads, and woven as cotton fabric there. Factory girls from deep west China cut and sewed as T shirt shape, and printed 'AC/DC' logo on HIS chest. HE was packed and sent to United States back across the Pacific again. HE was sold at a stall of the hall during their concert tour. HE was bought and worn by a young rock fan. With time, HE became to stay longer time in the drawer. Owner might change once or twice( his son might think HIM cool and wear HIM!), but anyway at last, HE was abandoned in garbage. HE was collected and gathered with other clothes. Used clothes included HIM were streamed on the conveyor-belt, and an expert screening staff noticed HIS logo and picked up, and confirmed that HE could be a special merchandise for Japanese customers. Otherwise HE had to sent to Africa. He was bought by a Japanese vintage clothes dealer, and shipped to Japan across the Pacific again!
That's why HE is here in Harajuku shop. HE must be bought by American vintage clothes mania in future Cotton's length of life is very long, and HIS hapless life never ends yet. He may be bought by a traveler from UK, and carried to London, or may be shipped to Asian country as aid supply.

Thank you for reading to the end. We are very happy if you feel above story is fun to know how the world economic works.

Small Group pics

One of the girls was taking pics at the last small group. Check out the Small Group photo album to the right if y'all wanna see our group.

~Ian

The Green Coat

After only thirty years, the zipper on my green coat started acting up, so even though the coat was still like new otherwise, I have replaced it with a Carhart coat that I love because it is longer so I don't get a cold crack like the Norge gardener. To illustrate how durable fashion can be, I am attaching dashing photos of me in the green coat in 1977 and 2007. To illustrate that what goes around, comes around, I am attaching a photo of Ian remodeling in 1983. And to illustrate that Jon can ham, I am attaching a photo of Jon as a disembodied Samurai. Hiiiiiyaaaaah!

Our new condo Frango...

So painting the main living spaces is close to finishing up as Tim and I have been working like gangbusters over the weekend and after work the last night or two. Turns out the green tones that we have been using are quite a bit more vibrant when they are on all the walls as opposed to just a sample! With the chocolate trim and the green paint I'm calling it the Frango condo. I'm digging the style though, it's very Mod and Liz and I going to find it fun to decorate with stuff like this and putting fun art on the walls. I didn't have the camera during the initial work, but I'll see about getting it charged up and taking some picture tonight.

~Ian

Ft. Lauderdale pics

This is Johannah and I looking lovely at 4:30 am at the Ft. Lauderdale airport the day after Laura McClain's wedding. Ugh - it was early, but we wanted to show off our really long hair! Looks like we've both forgotten how to get our hair cut since college.

This photo was taken right when we got to the airport; it was actually pretty amazing that we made it there. Our scheduled shuttle was late and we had to call them at 4:05 am and the dispatcher told us to wait 20 minutes. I said, "Can you at least confirm that he's on his way?" I was on hold awhile, and then she said he'd get to us in 20 minutes, but that we were the last people he had to pick up so we'd go directly to the airport. When he got there 18 1/2 minutes later, the shuttle was empty! So I guess it took him 20 minutes to get out of bed and get to us. So other than driving the wrong way on a divided road for a few minutes - glad it was so early there were no other cars - we did eventually make our flight. And Johannah and I were on the same flight, same row! I made it back to Chicago, and she made it back to Vancouver (via Seattle!).

If I get any other pics from the wedding I'll post them too. The rest are mostly on other cameras.

Bonus Author Recommendation: Lois McMaster Bujold

So after my comic roundup I figured that I’d also tack on an author or two that I’ve picked up in my time here at Microsoft that I was not familiar with before. I guess I’ve had too much computer time with Liz zonked out with the flu :-P.

First off is Lois McMaster Bujold. It seems crazy that I’d never heard of her, given the number of Hugo (4) and Nebula (3) awards that she’s won. Perhaps my missing out on her has something to do with the covers of most of her novels. Uniformly ugly and encompassing all of the worst traits of Sci-Fi novel covers it’s enough to want to put them in a brown bag before you take them on the bus. But don’t let that deter you from the novels contained within those hideous covers she has written both an excellent Sci-Fi series and an even better fantasy series.

First off is Bujold’s “The Vorkosigan Saga.” This is her Sci-Fi series that she is most famous for. This is a great series, but due to some small issues it requires an investment to get started in. The first issue is that this series contains a large number of fairly short books, which can be read in either order of chronology or in order of publishing. Also (since the stories were so short) there have been several omnibus editions that combine earlier entries in the series which basically follow chronological order. I personally read them in chronological order (starting with the omnibus editions), but you do have to be aware that the first book in the series (Shards of Honor) was written quite earlier and is very much subpar for the series and really does not reflect on the tone or characters of the other novels. So my recommendation is to read chronologically but be aware that the books pick up quite quickly after the first and just keep improving from there. This would mean starting with the following omnibus editions (Cordelia’s Honor, Young Miles, Miles Mystery and Mayhem, Miles Errant) then move on to single books after that.

So I’ve now told you how to start reading her Sci-Fi series, but I have not told you why to start reading it. Basically Bujold just takes every aspect of a space opera series and does it perfectly. It’s not breaking new ground like China Meiville or Neal Stephenson; it is just does what everyone else has done, better than anyone else does. At no point did I ever say “wow, this is the best Sci-Fi I’ve ever read” but I ripped though the series in about a month and totally loved it. Her best quality is how she avoids the whole “endless series” vibe that both bad (Robert Jordan) and good (George R.R. Martin) series writers seem to get. She avoids this with a couple of neat tricks. First she always keeps the focus on just one or two characters and doesn’t let the series get muddied up with tons of minor characters (Jordan). Second, she keeps the books short and focused and keeps each book as a self contained story (R.R. Martin), think like the Horatio Hornblower books in that aspect. Also, she keeps things fresh by changing the tone of the series as she moves along. The first books are swashbuckling space operas, then as the main character ages they move more into detective novel in space territory and finally the most recent book was basically a historical romantic comedy mashed up with Star Wars (A Civil Campaign: A Comedy of Biology and Errors).

Now after all that, I have to say that I like her Fantasy series better than her Sci-Fi stuff. It is more recent, shorter and unlike the Sci-Fi series it doesn’t have as slow a start as she is already a much more polished writer from the beginning. The novels in this are The Curse of Chalion, Paladin of Souls and The Hallowed Hunt. All of them are exceptional (Guy Guvarial Kay springs to mind as a comparison) but Paladin of Souls really stands out in particular as a fantastic novel (which picked up both the Hugo and Nebula awards in 2003). But they are fairly different in tone from her Sci-Fi series (much more serious and romantic) so I would say start with whatever series strikes your current fancy.

~Ian

Comic recommendations from Ian

So in my review for 300 I saw in the comments that Mom and Dad were both reading the Frank Miller comics although it sounds like comics are not Mom’s style. Working at a geek place like Microsoft has exposed me to some really quality comics in the last year or so (my co-worker Steve is the maven of all that is good in pop culture). So I thought that I would give a recommendation or two. I really love that the Kirkland library carries comic collections, I don’t think that I would ever buy these on my own (too pricy) but by checking them out, I’m having a lot of fun.

Ex Machina

This series by Brian K. Vaughan is basically the story of the one man in the world who has superpowers and how he fairs after getting elected mayor of New York. Despite that opening sentence, it’s entirely serious in tone as it covers his first one hundred days in office while flashing back to his previous career as a superhero.

Invincible

To use the format of the SATs: Movies::Comics as “The Incredibles”::Invincible. Invincible is aimed more at kids (or at least has no adult content, unlike many other trendy comics) but like “The Incredibles” it contains a lot of humor that adults would appreciate as well. It drops much of the angst that drips over modern comics and focuses on why comics were fun in the first place. That being watching teenagers learn how to control their superpowers while still living normal lives (think the Spiderman movie as well).

Fables

This one is my personally favorite; it has a great story and the best artwork of any of these comics (the “Homelands” collection from Fables is sublime). This book covers a self-regulated community of fairy tale creatures that are forced out of their home country (and into New York) by an invading force. The characters are compelling, the plots are original and the action is well paced. Really, there should be no reason for anyone who likes fairy tales to not read this series.

Bone

A combination of Pogo and The Lord of the Rings. Falls into the same category as Invincible in that you don’t need adult content to tell an adult story. Sometimes the blend of humorous sections with dramatic fantasy storytelling can be a little odd. But if you reach the end of this series and you don’t care for the characters then you are mean and heartless and I don’t like you at all. If anyone ever needs an idea for a gift for Ian just pick up the massive one volume collection of this comic.

Y: The last man

Another Brian K. Vaughan comic series which I enjoy, but might stop reading soon. It’s gotten a little too heavy into the violence and sex for me recently. Wikipedia has a great summary, so I’ll just steal it.

“Y: The Last Man is Vaughan's attempt to subvert the classic male fantasy of being the last man on earth. In the series, something (speculated to be a plague) simultaneously kills every mammal possessing a Y chromosome - including embryos, fertilized eggs, and even sperm - with the exception of Yorick Brown, a young amateur escape artist, and his Capuchin monkey, Ampersand.

Society is plunged into chaos as infrastructures collapse and the surviving women everywhere try to cope with the loss of the men, their survivors' guilt, and the knowledge that humanity is doomed to extinction. Vaughan meticulously crafts the new society that emerges out of this chaos, from the conversion of the phallic Washington Monument to a monument to the dead men, to the genesis of the fanatical ultra-feminist Daughters of the Amazon, who believe that Mother Earth cleansed itself of the "aberration" of the Y chromosome, to male impersonators becoming valued romantically and professionally.

Over the course of their journey, Yorick and his friends discover how society has coped in the aftermath of the plague. However, many of the women they encounter have ulterior motives in regard to Yorick. Though the subject matter of the series is entirely serious, Y: The Last Man is also noted for its humor. Yorick in particular is a source of one-liners, although the other characters have their moments as well.”


~Ian

Goodman's 2007-08 Season

Click here to download the press release for our next season at the Goodman. Or you can view it on the web.

300 Review

So my team went out to see 300 the other night so I figured that I would drop a quick review. Overall, it was a solid movie to see, especially in the theater, but I ended up not quite as impressed as I thought I would be.

On the plus side, the cinematography, staging, costumes and action were all superb. I especially enjoyed the costumes and design on the Persian side. So maybe King Xerxes was not really a nine foot tall, pierced, androgenous Yul Brynner but he sure did look cool as one. The action was also well planned and fun to watch and the gore level didn't seem to bother me like Sin City did. Although have no doubts, it is very gory, it's just that gore in a historical battle context does not bug me as much as other types of violence.

On the down side, I was actually not too impressed by the script of the movie. It seemed to be trying to let the cinematography speak for itself, but the acting and lines still fell flat to my ears at several points. Most of the dialog just seemed like filler between one sassy Spartan one-liner and the next and none if it had the emotional impact of other histo-gory-dramas (Gladiator for example). Perhaps this has to do with the Spartan stoic nature, but it still was a minus to me.

Also the nudity in this movie was constantly bizzare and borderline exploitive. That may have been the point, but both Xerxes' tent and visiting the Oracle were sexually creepy enough for me to lose enjoyment in the movie and to break the narrative.

~Ian

My new webpage

Hey - check out my new webpage sometime. Mostly all I have on there now are pics of my painted minis and a reading history list I just got into the computer, but I've been having fun playing around with it this week!

Jon and I went to our local game store's auction this weekend, and we got a lot of great new figs for a really good deal! And Jon sold some old stuff he didn't want, too, so that made it even better. Now we've just got to keep up with the painting....

Anyone for a little NCAA action?

Hey all. If anyone is intersted, I made a little Huff family NCAA pool group at ESPN.com that we can use. It's an extra username to remember, but it can be pretty fun even if you don't follow basketball. Just watch what you are clicking when you sign up to make sure that you don't add any spam (or use an old e-mail address like I do). The walkthrough for signing up and creating a bracket is pretty easy. After creating a braket you just need to join our group:

Group name: Huff Family
Password: Our first family cat, no spaces and no caps

I'll also use the official invite function to send out an invite to all, y'all.

http://games.espn.go.com/tcmen/frontpage

Starbuck identified

Dad confessed to not know BSG or Starbuck, and mom, I thought you should know who Ian was comparing you to (in the comments section of the Cancun post). Here are some pics:

Things we're unhappy about today

Bears sports news that Jon and I don't like: click here.

Cancun pictures

These are our pix from Cancun. You can also link to them by clicking the iguana photo in the right column or clicking another link on the right column called "Links to Web Album photos."

Icy Morning

It hailed last night. At least, I said it was hail; Jon said it was sleet. We decided to table it as a semantic discussion, but this morning the world looked like it was covered in partially-soaked tapioca. Each little ball was translucent on the outside and white on the inside, and walking through them was like walking along a pebbly beach. But it was getting warm by the time I left for work, and they were melting in great big tapioca lakes that you could barely jump over. I think the puddles were so huge because the balls of ice had piled up high in certain areas.

Weird.

Posting pics via picasa

I am testing posting a picture using the Google service Picasa. If I like how this works I'll try to get you padres set up. I'm sure the Seattleites (? Seattlites ?) in our family can figure it out on their own...

Yee Haw!

Or somesuch--don't really know how that would be spelled.

Well--just wishing everyone "south of the border", peace, love, and suntan lotion!! BTW, Ian--I DID catch Chrysotic Plague (toxic smilie)----> XP

Wow! got it bad. . . .