What's New? 2005-03-01

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What's New? 2005-03-01

 Wednesday 16 March 2005
  It's t-ball time at Laurel Hill playground! First, Lila shows us how she lords over the fire-pole. A few months ago she was scared of it, now it's a favorite.

Isaac takes advantage of his sister's showtime by playing with a "katie" in the sand. Always a fun diversion.

Happy Lila is ready, armed with a baseball and shielded with a mitt.

Here's Papa and Lila tossing the ball around. We don't do this often; we should.

Then she tries to toss it out of the ballpark, but it lands at my toes. Lucky for me.

Don't ask. I have no idea what this bizarre mix of tai chi and baseball was supposed to do.

Then the kids noticed that soccer was being played on the other side of the park. So of course we had to go there. It looks as though Lila is teaching me how to place-kick.

Do I look as out-matched as I felt? The kids are full of energy, and don't mind taking the Papa down!

There's always time for cuddling; my favorite part of the day.

Everyone gets a turn at cuddling.

Lila wastes no time getting me back on the field. I'm pretty sure she won the game.

Isaac takes some swing time after all the running and hitting and kicking and catching is done.

 Sunday 13 March 2005
  Time to celebrate Rose's sister's birthdays: Mindy and Pamela are a year better :-) The family converges on Bubbie and Zadie's place in the Sunset. As everyone plays with baby Jessica and Matthew on the floor - that's friend Shirley you see in the middle of the panorama - Neil takes a nap on the sofa.

Bubbie wanted the spread photographed: bagels, lox, cream cheese, spring salad fixings, etc.

Isaac - ever the babysitter - takes care of a sipping baby Matthew.

And of course who would you expect to be cuddling baby Jessica whilst she sleeps? Of course: Isaac!

 Saturday 12 March 2005
  Today is a special day, but I won't yet tell you why. First of all must come the telling of the tale whereby I'm woken at the crack of dawn by two children who eagerly beg me to take them to Japantown for a three-meat omelette: bacon, Portugese sausage, and SPAM. They'd go every day if they could: thank goodness weekends come only every seven days :-) Here the kids stretch in front of the posters of Japan.

Hey! Look who is with Rose in front of May's Coffee Shop? It's May! She's a very gracious lady who makes all comfortable in her presence and welcome at the restaurant. May's is our local version of Ma's Family Restaurant in Lihue, Kaua'i, Hawai'i.

After a great meal we head onwards to another Saturday regular stop, the Randall Museum. In addition to the trains (Isaac) and animals (Lila), lately the kids have been wanting to sit through the outdoor animal presentation. Toad (shown here with a rock), hawk, owl, snake, tortise, and turtle.

And now the unveiling of today's special meaning: it's Dziadziu's 80th birthday! It's been a long trip from Kraków, Poland, to San Francisco, California, via the concentration camps, Manhattan, and New Jersey. And now with grandchildren from both of his children!

Because Zofia and Dziadziu had recently been to Via Veneto, we decided on an Italian place new to all of us: Ernesto's in the outer Richmond neighborhood. Here you see Isaac and Lila running the entire length of the block. Whatever it takes to have them sit at the table for a while.

Table time! Lila is focussed on her stuffed dog, Max, and Isaac is cuddling with Dziadziu. A better birthday gift I can't think of.

What a bunch of smiling mugs! Dziadziu says that in the days of the camps he couldn't imagine surviving, much less having a family and children, or even grandchildren. It's an amazing thing to see him with Lila and Isaac.

And whatever her big brother does, so does the little sister. Here she's come over for a birthday portrait.

Here's the dessert, complete with birthday candle (and song). It's great being able to celebrate, and better yet to celebrate on the day itself.

The day, however, isn't over. Oh, no! It's time for all of us to head over to Rose's Israeli folk dancing (currently held in an old church in the avenues). Here is the crowd before they dance themselves silly. (Well, actually it's mostly Lila and Isaac who do the dancing and the silly.)

Here's a scene from early in the evening. Third from right is Rose, and the woman with the black top and polka-dotted dress is her friend, Shoshanna, who drives in from Santa Rosa for the dancing.

 Friday 11 March 2005
  At 9:00pm GMT it will be exactly 5 years since the NASDAQ reached its highest level, 5048.62. The dot-com bubble collapsed, and from then until now it's been an unfunny time for many of us in the computer industry.

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But speaking of the industry, here's Ted, the father of a fellow pre-schooler of Lila. He and I have just begun setting up a document preparation system that converts DITA XML to HTML and PDF with the saxon engine running from within Eclipse. (I set up CVS and rsync to protect and backup the code.) It's a three-month contract, but a good start. Ted is sitting in our "SF office", from which we do our work. (I also set up the three-machine testbed with its own router, so it's DHCP can function without torpedoing the office's network. The router also gives us an easy way to get to the testbed from home and office, and a proxy on port 80 lets us do any web-based administration from far away as well.)

 Thursday 10 March 2005
  Here's my Lila proudly showing off an outfit of a purse and "fancies" (patent leather shoes).

This is Isaac's snail terrarium. He took a snail that he found in our garden to his school for his "share time." Isaac was very, very proud of his creature. More details to come.

This evening Dziadziu and Zofia took us to Tully's Coffee Shop (and ice cream bar) in West Portal for dessert. Dziadziu finished his rum-raisin, while Lila (M&Ms) and Zofia (vanilla) are still working on their snacks.

The next morning Isaac proudly shows us where he let his snail go. (This wasn't actually his idea; he was quite happy to try to feed and water the snail forever in the little box. In the interests of preventing animal cruelty I instituted a 'catch and release by end-of-day' rule.) He has permission to put another snail in a terrarium sometime, but I wanted to make sure he understands that the right place for the snail is in our garden. (NOTE: we've worked hard to have a garden that's in harmony with our area. Snails are a happy and healthy part of our garden. We eschew any plants which will be destroyed by the snails natural to the area. We favor any plants which work well in our eco-system.)

 Sunday 6 March 2005
  The kids decided that today should be a BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) day. That's not a bad idea. So we start by having the kids dress themselves (a new rule for the weekends) and head out on MUNI (Municipal Railway; the subway) down Market Street to the Ferry Building (seen here shrouded in fog).

We take the historic F-line trolley cars to The Fiddler's Green, at the end of Columbus Street (near Ghirardelli Square). Here are the kids sitting at the table nearest the fireplace, waiting for our bangers and mash to arrive. Mmmmm.

On the way to BART we meet a family with children, make friends, and find out they're also exploring the area. They're from Sacramento. So we invite them to feast in Berkeley. Here are our kids and their kids interspersed on the BART train. Isaac in the foreground, Lila at far left. This is, for the kids, pretty much the best of all all things!

Here's the whole crowd at Mondo Gelato in Berkeley, on Shattuck near University. It's not eating in Roma but it's certainly worthwhile.

That evening both kids decide to "nest" in Papa's office. So I drop a small mattress on the floor, encircle it with body pillows, and here they are! (That's my lounge chair and ottoman at left, and my PowerBook on my desk at the far left.)

And before they go to sleep, a moment of sharing of sweetness. I'm so proud of my kids.

 Saturday 5 March 2005
  The kids beg me to take them to Krispy Kreme (in nearby Daly City). Here Lila poses by the current holiday diorama. She's been inseperable from her new toy baby bottles.

 Wednesday 2 March 2005
  Lila: I want my pizza with pepper-ino.
 Wednesday 2 March 2005
  Lila: When I say "titty" it means "I want to eat."

It's just a nonsense word, but it is funny.

 Tuesday 1 March 2005
  I'm still in the process of experimenting with UserLand Radio and CSS. Sadly, though, I've found a few vexing bugs and so I've made notes on fixing Radio 8.1.

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As we came home this evening Lila announced that she was "tay and shea-luh." Later on she explains that some things are "es-pew-me."

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