So, yesterday we enjoyed our last expected ultrasound and our little baby __ played a little with us. First __ was lying on __ front snuggling into mommy. Then __ crawled around the belly a bit before rolling onto __ back for all to see.

Everything looked to be in working order ... 5 digits (update: per hand - happy John), 2 legs, 2 arms, a head, etc ... we will get a better assessment after our appointment with the doctor next week.

Now, several of you don't want to know the sex - which is fine. We know and that is all that matters. A few rules, if you know - try not to say anything on the comments. Also, if you are looking at baby stuff ... we really prefer more uni-sex cloths and toys anyways - that is not why we found out.

So why did we ask? This has been the most common question. Really it is because we wanted to put ourselves in the right mind set. We found ourselves desiring both a boy and a girl for different reasons ... the longer it was the more we invested into those "plans" and the more disappointment is felt - don't think it matters which way the coin flips.

If you would like to know send me an email and I will be happy to inform you.

I big HAPPY 19th BIRTHDAY must go out to my brother and sister - guess this means I can actually buy them a round this holiday season. Though I suppose since we are going to be in Calgary I could have done that last year (if I was home) ... well guess I will have to buy 2.

Hope you had another wonderful year ... see you guys in less than a month.

Well, turns out it was time to burn off some of that added weight at the 1st annual Lakewood Ranch Digestive Hat tourney. It was a good tournament with several of the young high school up-and-comers and the home-from-school ringers - thus a great chance to get rid of some of the calories.

Side note:- but how can this be an 'annual' event (?) ... this is the first year. I am putting forth a new rule; don't use the word "annual" until you hold it for three consecutive years. Let the first year be the inaugural, the second be the second-consecutive, and then use the word annual for the yearly events. I hate the 1st annual x/y/z that never happens again ... good intentions but no follow through.

But ... anyways ... back to the sore muscles and scraped knees :) Thanks Paul for a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

The team: Tripods

I'm not going to fall ... not going to fall ...

Never give up ...

Thursday was thanksgiving down here in the U.S. of A. and we once again joined in on the Johnson family dinner. A night full of turkey, stuffing, potatoes, and murder. What's that? Murder ... yes ... and turns out the Melissa is the best at it too (note to self: sleep with one eye open). After a fantastic dinner we all (about 11 of us) gathered in the living room to play a role-playing game called Mafia. To some up, you are all dealt out a single card to keep things secret. One person becomes the doctor, one the sheriff and one the "mafia" or "murderer".

The whole "town" then goes to sleep and the "mafia" takes one of them out. Then the doctor gets a chance to "save" a town member followed by the sheriff getting a chance to investigate (points at a person (is he the killer?) and gets a yes/no answer). The whole sequence is controlled via a narrator who informs the town on what is happening and responds to the sheriff. Each night a new member of the town dies (unless saved by the doctor). It is the role of the town to find the murderer and hang them ... just be careful you don't hang the wrong guy!!

Through the whole night Melissa was the only one to kill everybody, while a couple managed to whittle the town down to just 3. Fun game for a large group ... but then it was off to bed ... read: all the pie was gone

... for the next day it was off to Myakka Park to enjoy the sunshine and wildlife ... enjoy the pictures of the 2 day pre-weekend.

Comma sets in

Alright ... who done it?

Melissa snagged maddy right away

I got a little practice in

Mother and daughter; sharing a moment

Dad take Maddy on her first hike

Back to the tree tops

Shot of the ferns growing up in the canopy

Birds were out on the hunt

Managed to get up nice and close to this heron

So ... its Thanksgiving week down here. Little late by my calendar, but hey ... Turkey can come at any time. It is also a much more important holiday for the Americans, focusing more on the pioneers. Where as back home, in Canada, we would celebrate the harvest and the coming of fall (man, I miss the colours) and would, for the most part, ignore the history. It is hard to explain since there is so much overlap ... pumpkin pie, turkey, and Mom's famous gravy. But there is a difference - beyond just the fact that it occurs over a month later :)

This year I am suppose to get both Thursday and Friday off work ... a full 4 day weekend ... though on the flip side are a couple looming deadlines. Black clouds just rolling in over the hills and the storm shutters are fully up yet. Month 11 through month 2 are always the big ones at work where things seems to go non-stop. So one must take these vacations as they come ... and if all goes well I might actually see some of it.

But until then ... it is movie night. The Ines, Patricia, and Octávio came over with Kai and Krishen for a nice relaxing movie. Tonight we put in October Sky, the good-feeling true story of a coal-mining town and a group of their high-schoolers during the dawning age of rocketry. If you have not seen it ... it is definitely on my recommendation list.

[On a side note: Melissa is famous. Her name is now plastered in the frames of time ... or at least until they update the picture again. Check out the pictures (#5 on page 1) from Krishen's latest trip to the park]

Missing just Jack ... here was our team.

So, as some of you may know. The last season of ultimate ended several weeks ago ... then at the UPA championships I went and snagged my toe on someone's heel ... and seemingly snapped it in two. Well ... I have rested and felt it was time to get back into things. So last Thursday I was back for my first game ... and since it went well I signed up for the "Florida team tournament" - a fun tournament for Florida teams. There were 12 teams that showed with 4 games per team. What fun ... it was probably the most fun I have had in quite some time ... but I am paying for it today. I think every muscle I have is telling me to lie on the couch and relax for the next week ... Melissa is not that nice to me though. So instead we went christmas shopping. It is nice to know that the toe can be used once more ... though the knees, back, neck, arms, legs, etc don't agree :)

Krishen has a great write up on yesterday, but for those too lazy to visit his site; we went 2-2 over the day. This was our first tournament as a team and I think we did quite well. I look forward to next time.

Chris looks long

Chasing down the opposition for that big D

Alpha-Omega played a fun game to end the day

Well ... it is November ... and I am late getting MY submissions for MY challenge ... but none the less it is here. Putting this out there has created a great learning experience for me. One, you can't have this kind of thing stretch on too long ... people forget. Two, smaller is better ... one picture for each category would have been easier. Three, I really need to get a voting system together ... just adds to the fun. However, I do hope you all enjoy.

So far I have also received Krishen's submissions ... anyone else?

Action

Wildlife

Scenic

Urban

Artistic

This past weekend Krishen, Hugo, Ines, Patricia joined Melissa and I in a camping extravaganza. We headed out to the space coast on Saturday, pitched the tent, started the fire and enjoyed the roasted marshmallows. We had a minor hiccup with Hugo's plane getting delayed due to a Boston snowfall ... but everyone made it for a late dinner. And for those "first timers", they even experienced a little rainfall thrown in at the end of the night. So we all huddled in the tent to play UNO before hitting the sack (literally this time).

The next day Melissa and I headed back along the southern route and spent a little time exploring Arcadia, a little town hit hard by the hurricanes this year. Downtown was like a ghost town, but it has some great historical buildings. After we got back we called up Darren ... our adventure was not over ... nope :) It was time to strap on the skates. $6 for a 2 hr. public skating session on Sunday nights ... 6-8pm ... and we were not missing it. In the end I have a whole new respect for players that still play on broken feet, toes, etc ... cause while I was on the ice I was by no means 100%. It was, however, a great ending to a great weekend ... thanks to everyone. I have a perma-grin going today. I leave you with some shots from Saturday night.

Oops ... not much more I can say

Yummy delights on the grill

Works just like an oven ... only better

Rememberence Day Cowbridge, thanks to Ray Anderson Photography

It is that time of year again where everyone needs to stop and remember. Remember those who gave their lives to protect those rights and freedoms we have today.

On Remembrance Day take a moment to reflect on the past ... but also take a moment to dream of the future. A future where our children will walk in a world that we shape ... much as we walk in the world that our fathers and grandfathers laid before us.

Thank-you, I live today through your sacrifice yesterday.

"Scientists from the RAND Corporation have created this model to illustrate how a "home computer" could look like in the year 2004. However the needed technology will not be economically feasible for the average home. Also the scientists readily admit that the computer will require not yet invented technology to actually work, but 50 years from now scientific progress is expected to solve those problems. With teletype interface and the Fortran language, the computer will be easy to use.", 1954 Popular Mechanics (passed to me via Mark)

Melissa snagged a new ride for a couple days

This past weekend at work I have spent hours tweaking code and configurations to obtain the 'perfect match'. Essentially I was reading in a stream of data that, when plotted, forms a wave. The code needs to recognize characteristics of the wave (incline and decline) and trigger events based on those characteristics ... sounds easy right. Well, the snag is that there are segments of the wave where I did not want to trigger (a 'bounce' that needed to be ignored) ... so went the data collection - graphing- calculations - tweaking - repeat ... all weekend. Adding sampling buffers here, trend monitors there, and sprinkling in some baseline averaging calculations for good measure. And the most fun ... dealing with the annoying behaviour of Excel (can it be any more complicated to do simple charting?)

So the doctors appointment today was a much needed break ... a short moment to help mend the soul ... surprising how much a pitter-pat of a heart beat can lift your spirits eh! But then he, the doc, put us on notice ... we are closing in on crunch time ... three weeks from our next ultra-sound ... and the big question ... does it or does it not "have one"????

And while the doc will know ... we have to figure out if WE should know?? So ... the question of the day is ... should we find out? Should we tell you?

... but tonight my brain is fried, though I believe the problem to be essentially solved, so I think we should go back to having some fun :)

Nathan and Sarah enjoyed a short trip down the river

My cousin (mothers side) and his fiancé came into town this week before heading off to Panama City, up on the Panhandle. They flew into Orlando on Tuesday and drove (out of their way) down here to Sarasota Friday night for a short visit. We spent the evening by the pool and this morning we headed to Myakka River park to see some of the local wildlife.

I hope they had a nice visit, we enjoyed having them ... and please don't believe them when they claim we tried to feed them to the gators ... it just isn't true ... honest!

The greeting party.

So, I heard it was going to get a little cold down here in the next couple days so I thought I would prepare ... a freezing 18 degrees Celsius as a low and 25.5 degrees Celsius as a high ... oh well :)

I have been looking to get back onto the rink this year. Have to get back into the swing of things ... I have a kid on the way and all. Sure playing disc is fun ... but we are talking hockey - completely different league ... heck its an entirely different sport!!! The hope is that we can introduce the little one to the frozen game even down here ... so it is time for me to get back into things. So ... if you are stuck on what to get me this christmas - the simple solution would be padding for me (I am just not as springy as I use to be) ... and maybe some skates, sticks, pants, shirts, etc for the little one. Hey, Kurt ... you still have your old gear hanging around ... I am sure those cooperalls could be used again ;-)

[By the way, Krishen has some great pictures up of this past weekend ... dialup conections beware]

Cover the of The Economist, thought it was a great cover

It is once again the peoples chance to vote down here in the U.S. of A. At time the everyone gets a say in how the country will spend the next four years. And it looks to be shaping up like another great election ... well, at least entertaining from the side lines. The problem is these elections effect everyone ... globally ... just ask those folks in Iraq. Thus this is something the global community is watching with a very close eye.

What frustrates me the most is that if the world actually "had" a say I don't feel it would be very favourable for the current president. Now what United States citizens should be asking themselves is why? With the world in such strong and united support of the states after September 9, 2001 ... how was it that public opinion dropped so fast. What it comes down to is respect. Respect for citizens of the world. Respect for the cultures of the world. Respect for differing opinions.

Yes, the President is concerned with internal affairs such as the taxes, education, and jobs. But being what they like to call "the leader of the free world" means that you must take the "free world" into account every time you act on the international scene. It means that organizations such at the U.N. and the World Court need to be treated with respect. They are the voice of that "free world" and if you want to be a leader in it then you have to listen to what they are saying. That does not mean that you have to agree and it sometimes means acting without their support. However, you better respect their opinions and have very good reasons for acting against their wishes.

As for the internal affairs of the country ... that I feel a little less able to speak on. Yes, I live here. Yes, I pay taxes. Yes, their decisions effect me and my friends. However, I am not a citizen and if I don't like it ... I can move.

So President Bush ... Senator Kerry, good luck to both heading into the polls. The next fews hours and days should prove to be interesting.

... and running shoes. After a day of enjoying the sun down at the Polo fields I joined a game of 'walking ultimate', something I first tried back in Savannah. The disk had to fly inverted, you could only walk, and if available ... be holding a beer. So under the setting sun (and well into the twilight) we played ... and sometime in the tense moments of covering Krishen I corked his heal with my barefoot. Ouch! But the game must go on ... by the end of the game my baby-toe was feeling no better - if not worse. By the time I got home, it had turned black 'n' blue ... and is most likely broken ... gah! Time to tape it up and let it heal. Funny how within a couple months both Melissa and I broke our first bones - both toes though hers was on the right foot and mine on the left foot.

But as for the day on the fields, it was the final three games ... and Seattle completed a sweep. A new northwest powerhouse. It was nice to see Vancouver's Prime play, they will be back next year looking for a little revenge. The men's final was once again plagued with fouls ... but the skill, the height, and the endurance was just incredible to watch. It ended with the mixed final, an OT thriller that had everyone on the edge of their seats. Then it was time to party, but you have already heard about that so I will just leave you with a couple pictures ...