trip's start

Griggstown canoe

Ground Zero, Manhattan

TriBeCa playground

Times Square

Thursday 8 July 2004

We're on our way back to New Jersey.

Omi Marga is coming from Germany, we'll be heading to a cousin's Bar Mitzvah while we're there (as might Rose's parents and sister Pamela), and later on my sister Felicia and family will join us in our family home.

We've made no other plans, done little research, and hope to be surprized by things along the way. I've just started a new job, there's lots of technical books in by duffel bag, so I'll be doing a bit of time juggling during the trip.

The new job is the least of it. Here are some things I've done in the past seven days:

• debugged the operation of Dziadziu's home DSL network and Wi-Fi system,

• added RAM and migrated Dziadziu & Zofia's three computers over to "Mac OS X",

• finally got their two printers working from their PowerBooks but turned printer sharing off as it seemed to be too confusing,

• and re-installed Mac OS X, sendmail, and qpopper. Then I turned on my firewall without making a hole for sendmail, choking off my email access; luckily I can administer these machines remotely. Grrr.

So, in a frenetic last few hours, I make some backups, ask Dziadziu to print the eTickets (thanks!), pack, unload the dishwasher and the clothes dryer, pack a few clothes for a hot and humid clime, and get to the airport (another thanks to Dziadziu).

All that having been done, and getting us to the airport early enough to check in and relax a bit, I have time to check the Wi-Fi connection at SFO (San Francisco International Airport, formerly San Francisco / Oakland). It's one of those expensive for-cost connections. Ummm, I'll pass.

Aboard the plane it's not long until Lila is checking out the de luxe amenities, in this case the on-board telephones. Without a credit card she can't run up a bill, so I'm not worried about her making new friends in Kenya (where they have lions, but that's another story).

Isaac reminds me of myself at that age, absolutely delighted by everything about flying: the airport infrastructure, the planes, the flaps, the sounds and sights, the take-off (which you see here), the dances of the in-flight staff. It's all good.

Here's a panorama of San Francisco from the air. It's not terribly good, but I was leaning over Isaac every few seconds. I couldn't ask the pilot to try it again, once or twice; could I?

Not long into the flight, after a so-called dinner and some time playing with new toys (thanks, lovely wife of mine), the boy goes to sleep. It's mid-afternoon for us, but he's just used it all up.

Isaac's sleeping gives me a chance to get my own mug into my web pages. Doesn't happen too often (or often enough, IMHO :-)

Isaac awakes, Lila naps, and we're treated to an absolutely stunning sunset. You can see the last remnant of our sun as it dips below the horizon. I had to explain why we were getting a sunset so early in our day, and I think it went over well.

No flight would be complete without bathroom duty. Here I take Lila to the one working aft lavatory. We're looking especially giddy because Lila is having fun with the baby changing plank. She pretends she's a baby, and then laughs uproariously at the incongruity of it all.

But our family doesn't need a bathroom to have fun :-) Here are the kids playing with newly-made friends. (Isaac discovered them and Lila adopted them.) Here you see Lila giving her full attention to Morton, a Dane. Isaac is too, and can be seen mainly as a set of red eyes.

We land, uneventfully, at around midnight. We'll spend tomorrow, Friday, cutting dead trees in the yard, becoming re-acquainted with the wildlife (blue jays, cardinals, sparrows, squirrels, chipmunks, fireflies, and deer). In the evening we walk down Wren Way, at the end of which I introduce the kids (and Omi Marga) to the pleasures of s'mores. The kids like the marshmellows on fire.

And then, it's a new day, and time for canoeing in Griggstown.

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