Hello? Is this thing on?

Um, oops. Just realized that our last post was. like, a month and a half ago? Does anybody still even check here to see if we've posted anything new?

Sadly, our winning streak has come to an end

So for about the last year we've been able to avoid injuries. If you'll recall, 2006 was a bit of an injury-filled year for us. To recap a bit: Dylan lost a tooth in a playground incident; Dylan had stitches to repair the fingernail he nearly lost; Dylan had to have the glue-stitches (vice actual string stitches) on the back of his head; David probably should have had stitches, but didn't, on the top of his head where the dogs tooth impaled him; Stefanie still has the scar where her skin went necrotic from the spider bite on her leg.

You'll notice though that Sofia is nowhere mentioned in the list—thus it is only fitting that it was she who broke our winning streak. She was riding on the beach this afternoon when her horse bucked. She got launched—he ran over and passed her. While he was running his hoof came down on her jaw and chin. When I (David) rushed over from work to the riding club, I took a look and realized immediately that, albeit in my non-expert medical opinion, she would need stitches. Hooray! Sofia got to join the stitches club finally. The wound was very deep on her chin. The doctor gave her a number of internal stitches as well as external to close it up. We're not sure exactly how many though—I guess it's a cultural thing; the Tunisians aren't worried about "how many".

At first it hurt of course, but the pain went away fairly quickly. She was crying and carrying on—because she didn't want to get stitches. Actually she was upset about two things, almost more than the stitches, she was upset about losing an earring that Cubbie had given her.

After it was all over, after the doctor visit and the trip to the ice cream parlor, she told me in the car: "you know what daddy? I want to get more stitches! It didn't hurt at all!" I explained to her that no, she didn't really want more stitches, but that I thought that it was cool that she got them from a horse injury. She's very proud now that she has bloodstains on her protective riding vest.

Chocolate and Vanilla

Dylan looked in the cabinet earlier this evening and found the container of cocoa powder I had just bought. He pulled it out and made a motion like he was going to eat some of it. My initial inclination was to let him try it--he'll only do that once. I told him and his sister though the story of when I had tried baker's chocolate as a kid. Stefanie and I both suggested that they should try vanilla extract as well...as you can imagine, hilarity ensued. The culprits:

Down the hatch with about a half a teaspoon of cocoa:

Sofia only touched her tongue to the cocoa, but Dylan went for first prize. Immediate reactions:

Contemplating the vanilla immediately post-cocoa:

Vanilla reaction:

The "we're never going to do that again" pose:

New job training opportunities for impoverished youths

'Students First In Line' Program To Offer Job Training At Needy Schools

9/11

On September 11, 2001 I was in Kuwait, and had been there for about a month. I ended up coming home on time--we all thought for sure that we were going to be extended, but it didn't end up happening. I keep most e-mail, except stuff that is definitely junk, but one of the ones that I've kept--and kept track of is the following, it's actually one of the oldest I still have. The first e-mail address I ever had was back in 1995 at least, but it wasn't until about 2001 that I signed up for a yahoo! account. Things to notice: the date and time--almost exactly five minutes before the first plane hit. Stefanie told me later that she hit send and then looked up at the television where she happened to have CNN on. I've edited the original text of the e-mail quite significantly, but what I've edited out is to this day none of your business. :) What I still find interesting is the routineness--the relaxed, "yeah, this is what is going on, even though you are so far away" -ness about it. Needless to say, other e-mails I got later in the week were a bit more frantic. Oh, and the subject line was a conversation we were having about future enlistment options--this was number who-knows-many in the series of the conversation that had long since turned from the original subject.

From:	xxx@aol.com
Date:	Tue, 11 Sep 2001 08:41:26 EDT
Subject:	Re: 98GAD airborne
To:	xxx@yahoo.com

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

well it sounds like you are having a better time now. i am glad. Your emails sound mre upbeat than before. i just want you to be happy and have a good time while you are there. like i said before - it isn't often that an american boy from ct goes to kuwait. it is what you make of it. have fun but be good and be careful :) things here in texas are just the same old crap. nothing new and exciting.

karen got a job at jesters. it is that killeen style hooters. kind of cheesy but i bet the tips are good. it is going to be hard now to not have 24 hour a day help. it has been so great though the amount she has helped me. i am very lucky. so i talked to my mom the day before yesterday. she is not coming down here until the end of october. so she will be here for sofia's birthday. she is driving too.

do you get cbs over there? on satellite? this week on oprah it is a week long series with dr phil. he is doing some kind of seminar. it is pretty good so far.

let's see what else can i tell you - yesterday sofia was walking around the house with my ernie slippers yelling "elbo shoes" she calls all muppets elbo. but she does say oynie/but (ernie/bert). she is too cute.

well dylan is up now and i am typing one handed so it is no longer fun :) i have to get sofia ready for school anyway.

i miss you and love you and can't wait to hear from you.

love always,

Stefanie

Pirates are cool!

Be sure to celebrate Talk Like a Pirate Day! September 19th comes but once each year!

Traveling

Check out travbuddy.com. You can scroll all the way down to see the maps that Stefanie and I made. Apparently I've been to 8% of the countries of the world and Stefanie has been to 9%. And for full disclosure--we are in the "airports count" faction of figuring out what countries you've been too. For me the only one in that category (as well as a few states too, Colorado and Michigan for example) is South Korea. Oh, and I think I've been to Austria, but I can't be quite sure, but I counted it anyway. More cool trivia on that though is that Stefanie has been to countries that don't even exist anymore (East Germany, Soviet Union). And even a few countries that weren't independent countries at the time she visited them (Lithuania, for example). We counted all those too.

Hippoclub Dar Naouar

Hey! Check out hippoclubdarnaouar.com --especially the employees and photo gallery pages for some familiar faces...

Happy Labor Day!

We spent labor day weekend back down at the beach. We agreed that the food wasn't as good as the place we stayed at in June and the rooms were a bit nicer at the other place, but Magic Life beats out Aldiana in several important categories. 1) Ambiance 2) Beach chair availability 3) when Magic Life says "all inclusive" they actually mean it and most importantly 4) drop the kids off at the kids club which is located in the same building as the "family" rooms and they get to play all day while mom and dad get to relax. Phew, we needed that. As part of the kids club ("Mungo Club" -- we think that Mungo is the name of the bear mascot of the club) they made microphones out of tin foil and paper and then participated in a talent show last night. Sofia was a "Rasta Girl" --she and three other girls lip synched and danced to a Shakira song. Dylan got a fake beard, mustache and chest hairs and was part of the "Harley Boys", they did an AC/DC number. After each performance the MC asked each little kid what their names were and where they were from. The MC asked each one in German and then translated the responses into English, all but about 4 of the 30 some kids were either from Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein or Luxembourg. There were two kids from Algeria--and you can guess where the other two were from. When Sofia was asked where she is from she answered, "America" --which actually got a big round of applause and some other various cheers. But when Dylan was asked where he is from he answered, "Texas!" Which got a huge positive response from the crowd. They all thought it was hilariously funny--which was actually pretty neat to see. Anyway, Dylan and the Harley Boys ended up winning first place in the talent contest (judged by three randomly selected people from the audience--all who happened to be from Austria). He was very excited about winning--especially since he was able to put his air guitar skills on display.

Dogs and Cats, living together!

Dr. Peter Venkman would say that these pictures would herald the arrival of Gozer, but I just thought it was cute. (Bonus points if you can figure out what the title and that sentence actually mean...) This last picture is a close-up of Patchy the Pirate, the latest addition to the family. The lack of a right eye does absolutely nothing to slow him down either. You might think that he would run into things on that side, but he doesn't.

David Beckham as a measuring stick

In a study done by the University of Manchester in the UK, new LA Galaxy star David Beckham is used to compare human foot speed to that of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Why do I find it odd that: 1) Anybody would care. 2) That they would use David Beckham as the human in question. He is certainly known for his soccer abilities, and I'm not quite sure why this is bugging me so much, but why wouldn't they use someone actually known for being quick, like, say, the world record holder in the 100 meter sprint?

I have no idea what they are saying

But: 1) It is a fairly amusing clip 2) I wanted to see how posting videos from YouTube and similar places work.

Patchy the Pirate

About a month ago now Stefanie was coming home from work. When she went to open the garage door there was a small kitten right in front of the door. He (as we found out a few days later) was so lethargic that he didn't move at all when the door started to open--in fact it was the door itself that pushed him out of the way. Stefanie, being the animal lover that she is, took pity on the poor kitty and went to get him a dish of water. She let him stay in the garage until she left later to go to the embassy. As she was in a hurry to get there she didn't have time to help him out more, instead she told him, "if you are still here when I get back later, we'll see what else you need." She noticed that his one eye (the left one) was crusted shut. Her heart went out to him, but she knows that she can't save every broken animal in the world. So anyway, the cat is now part of the family of course, I mean that goes without saying really. When Stefanie had left the house earlier she had seen him trundle up towards the neighbor's house. I arrived at the house before she and the kids at about 9:30 PM--when I pulled up he was sitting right in the middle of the driveway, making it impossible to pull into the garage without running him over. I moved him up on to the curb and pulled in. Stefanie arrived moments later and pulled in. I dealt with kids while she brought the cat inside to the basement. I brought her a warm washcloth so she could wipe the crust from his face--he was so thirsty that he was lapping up the warm water. She got all the crusty nastiness off his face and found that his left eye had a puncture wound. Not to be too gross, but it wouldn't have been surprising if his eye would have fallen out on its own. As it was though it was hanging on, well, by a thread I suppose. We called the after-hours vet who said, "meh...give him some food and water and bring him to me in the morning and we'll take a look." Stefanie knows the guy--he's come out to the riding club in the past. I brought him to the vet the next morning and Stefanie and the kids picked him up that afternoon after he had his emergency surgery. The vet had removed his left eye and sewed the lid shut. Of course there was no way we could leave the poor cat on the street--we had to bring him back to the vet 10-12 days later to have the stitches removed. The dog gets so excited whenever she is around other animals, so we warned Sofia and Dylan that unless the cat and dog got along we'd have to move the cat out to the barn after he healed. So of course the dog and the cat get along fine now. There was some remedial manners training for Fabienne for about the first week or two, but they are getting along fine now. At first the dog thought that she was the mommy-figure, trying to pick up the cat and move him around, but I think we have her convinced that they are just playmates. The dog is 130 some pounds and the cat can't be more than a pound, so it makes for an interesting dynamic between the two. I'll update this post later with some pictures--but in the meantime you should know that the latest addition to our family is "Patchy the Pirate". Sofia and Dylan name him after this guy, by the way.

"Sofia has a surprise for you..."

Dylan was at a friend's house yesterday, when I went to pick him up I mentioned to him that "Sofia has a surprise for you!" He immediately said, "is it Lego's?" I said, "no, not Lego's buddy. It's not a thing for you, she has a surprise, something that she has to show you." "Oh," he said a bit disappointed. When we got home he raced upstairs, still not convinced that it wasn't going to be Lego's, but oh well. Anyway, the "surprise" speaks for itself: Her mom cut about 10 inches to donate to a charity to make wigs for cancer patients. And yes, that is a cat on her lap--more on him later. Update: should have included originally that the charity is Pantene's Beautiful Lengths.

You know your daughter is crazy about horses when she...

1. Tries to longe the dog 2. Takes the dog's collar off and tries to run it through the dog's mouth like a bit 3. Straddles every swing that she sits on so she can "work on [her] position" 4. Claims often to be too sick to go to school but never too sick to ride 5. Clucks at her brother to come to her or to scoot him over

Islam and science

Found this fascinating article on Islam and science. Fascinating for several reasons: 1) Arrogance knows no national or religious boundaries. 2) Most of us know what the relationship between religion and science in our culture is (there isn't one, usually). But what about a culture that doesn't separate religion from anything? 3) The article gives a good overview of Tunisia in terms of its relationship with the rest of the muslim world--this is a good example of why we call Tunisia "muslim-lite". 4) The quoted exchange that follows blew my mind: [The article author was interviewing an Egyptian scientist who claimed to be both a scientist and a devout believer. The Egyptian scientist is apparently not as fundamentalist as the other guy interviewed for the article--his own self-assesment is that he can separate the two, science and religion. Yet...] [The Egyptian scientist said,] “Nobody can just write what he thinks without proof. But we have real proof that the story of Adam as the first man is true.” [To which the article author replied,] “What proof?” He looks at me with disbelief: “It’s written in the Koran.”

Whatever will we do with all the money?

People experience it all the time, but not having a car payment is very liberating. It's like a $450 per month payraise! Yay for us!

One of the sweetest sentences ever seen on a webpage, "This account has been closed."

On the beach

We spent the past weekend out on the beach. We went to Aldiana down in Hammamet--even though it was all included, room, food, all drinks, etc.--we were kicking ourselves when the bill came. A bit more than we thought. Especially when we had to drive an hour to get there when the beach on the same body of water (the Mediterranean) is a 10 minute walk away. Oh well. It was nice not to have to worry about anything at any rate. Plus if you click on the link you'll see it is in German...good for me, not so good for Stefanie. It was like little Germany all weekend. They thought I was a German guy on holiday with my Tunisian wife--they would start in German with me and in Tunisian Arabic with her. Which worked out actually since she speaks Tunisian Arabic pretty well.

How much do I not miss Cambodia? Let me count the ways...

“According to the PMT Air Web site, the airline also flies within Cambodia to the remote northeastern province of Rattanakiri from the capital, Phnom Penh. Its fleet includes two AN-24s.” Um, yeah, not anymore. Oh, and they confirmed that all aboard died. Tourists missing as plane crashes

If You Can't Stand the Heat....

Recently here in Tunis we have had some REALLY hot days. Yesterday it was 47C and today it was 49C. That equates to 116 F and 120 F. Yes it's a dry heat but when it's that hot who really cares :) Going outside literally felt like someone was blowing a hair dryer in my face. Wow, and to think, I can't wait for the sirocco. Since it has been so hot we haven't been having lessons at the riding club. We just take the kids right to the beach and they swim with the horses in the Mediterranean. It's a cool site to see fifteen kids and horses swimming up and over the waves. Sofia and I went on Saturday afternoon, just the two of us. Unfortunately, I don't have any photos :(

Computer Geek Memory Lane

Found this: an ad from 1983 for a TRS-80 that admonishes that the TV is not included--correct me if I'm wrong dad, but I think this is the first home computer we had...I'm trying to remember all the "thrilling outer space and sports games" we used to play. Ooh, and how cool is that, you could use a modem to access tomorrow's news and stocks--it was a time travel machine too! I wonder if it could get over 2400 bps for the trip... Anyway, lots of very cool stuff on this site, a trip down a computer geeks memory lane. Funny article from PC World about the worst 10 computers of all time. Lots of links to other stories about bad products as well.

Hippoclub Dar Naouar

We wanted to send out some photos of the kids riding at the club where we are members.

I can't believe I don't have more. I always seem to forget my camera but managed to snap these about a week ago.

These are of Sofia with my mare Farhouda. I was a little nervous at first letting Sofia ride her but in the end they worked well together. But we will stick to arena work for now just since Farhouda likes to get her kicks out on the beach.

Sofia's instructor wants to them to work together toward showing come fall. I prefer dressage while everyone else at the club jumps. They tease me about my horse "dancing" rather than jumping. But at least they all admit that she is beautiful :)

Here is Dylan with Caramel. She is one of the club ponies. Dylan prefers just riding the ponies on the beach with his friends. The passion Sofia has for horses is about equal to the passion Dylan has for guitars. Hopefully I will get some video of him playing and send that out soon.

I've caught a bug...

Called building computers. A friend here brought a Compaq computer with her to her previous country (Niger). It was one of those computer in a box deals. She took it out of the box and it wouldn't work. The IT staff looked at it for twelve hours and couldn't figure it out. Fast forward two years and she's now leaving Tunisia. She advertised this computer for sale, I asked her how much. She said, well, it doesn't work, but I'll sell it for $100 (she paid well over $1000). She also said, come over, take a look and see if you want it. Sure enough, it took me less than five minutes to diagnose and fix the (first) problem. The harddrive power connector wasn't fully seated. The IT guys in Niger should be shot for not first "checking to make sure its plugged in." As annoying as it is to get that as a first question when you call a tech support line, sometimes that is actually what's wrong. She was astounded that I got it working and said "just take it." So I did. Turns out that the harddrive was bad anyway--maybe from all the "troubleshooting" the Nigerans did. Plus there were some other things going on. So, I decided to get a new motherboard, (mudderboard--as Dylan says, and as I would have said when I was his age--mudder dear!) and some other new things to "pimp my computer." All the stuff arrived in the mail and the kids and I put it together Monday and yesterday and it works just fine. I'm trying to hook it up with wi-fi, but my stupid Tunisian ADSL modem doesn't seem to want me to be able to do it--but for under $350 I have a pretty decent new computer. It's not real high-end or anything, but with the mods I've already made (overclocked it to 115%--added a graphics card and added memory) it's as good as the machine I already had. Anyway, I'm itching to build more computers now. It was a lot of fun--in fact I priced all the pieces and found that I can build a decent machine, word processor, email, web browers, limited games, for about $320 (that includes the monitor and everything). I think that Sofia needs one with a pink case and Dylan needs one that has a bright green alien on it. :)

So I had a breakthrough last night...

I spend most of my free time on the computer doing homework (free time defined as not at work, not spending quality time with family).

Anyway, this will be less than interesting to you, but I got so excited I had to share. I had a breakthrough last night--I'm not going to get nominated for a Nobel prize anytime soon because of it, but I was excited since this has been vexing me for days.

I'm writing a program that simulates a barber shop. Why a barber shop? Because it demonstrates some basic computer operating system concepts (Windows, Mac OS, Linux, and all the others all have to deal with this particular issue). The problem is that there is only one barber and he can only serve one person at a time. If the barber has several people come in at roughly the same time there has to be a mechanism to control who gets to sit down in the chair.

In a computer system the barber is a shared resource, usually thought of as a piece of data that resides on the system, but could be any other system resource. The customers are programs that need to use the piece of data--the task is to write an underlying operating system (like Windows) in order to match the needs of the customers to the availability of the barber. It’s both complicated and simple at the same time.

Basically what you have to do is have the customer look to see if the barber is already busy--if he is the customer sits in the waiting room and waits until the barber is free. If he's free the customer sits down and gets a haircut. Oversimplified of course, but that's the general concept.

Where my breakthrough came in though was in the timing of it all. Forcing pauses (each haircut is supposed to take a random time between 1 and 3 seconds and customers come in at random intervals, between 1 and 3 seconds), keeping the barber busy, and making sure the waiting room doesn't get overcrowded, are all very manageable actually. But how to continuously generate customers over a two minute period? Ah, that's what has been plaguing me for days. Now that I've solved it, the solution looks obvious.

I was trying to figure out how to make my program to run for two minutes and then stop, while continuously generating new "customers" every 1 to 3 seconds. I was using a for-loop, nested inside either a do- or while-loop, but I couldn't figure out why it was ignoring the do and while loops and only exiting when the for-loop completed. It also wasn't very elegant since I had to predefine an upper limit for the for-loop.

My first solution looked like the following. One other note is that the method call to System.currentTimeMillis() gives the time since January 1, 1970 in milliseconds (a very, very huge number)--120,000 milliseconds is two minutes. So basically, it is supposed to finish when the start time equals the current time minus two minutes (clever, actually--well, I think so anyway). Anyway, here's the code I tried first:

long startTime = System.currentTimeMillis();

while (startTime >= (System.currentTimeMillis() – 120000) ) {

for (int customerID = 1; customerID < 100 ; customerID++) {

threadWait();

customerID++;

}

}

It seemed like it would work, but runtime would take over three minutes and it wouldn't stop until customerID equaled 100! I know, right? Annoying.

Finally, late last night, around 12:30 AM, I realized that there is a much easier (and like I said, obvious) solution. Junk the for-loop since I don't really want to have a limit on the number of customers in the two minutes anyway. Reality is that I wouldn't approach one hundred in two minutes, but once the JVM enters a for-loop I guess it ignores whatever other instructions there might be. And voila! It becomes a simple do-loop that increases the customerID each time it generates a new customer.

long startTime = System.currentTimeMillis();

int customerID= 1;

do {

new customer(customerID);

threadWait();

customerID++;

} while (startTime >= (System.currentTimeMillis() -120000));

Like I said, this will be less than interesting for most folks, so if you've read this far then you have my congratulations. But, if you've read this far AND you've understood everything then we need to talk because I might have some questions for you... :)

Card-carrying member of the "Greatest Generation" says, "time for a draft?"

I found Andy Rooney's commentary this past weekend to be especially thought provoking. The title: "Bring Back The Draft? If America Fights A War, Should The Government Draft Soldiers?" Some tidbits: 'Recruiters are granting thousands of what they call "moral waivers". A "moral waiver" it turns out means they'll take someone who has committed a crime or even someone who has been in prison. Last year, a total of 8,129 "moral waivers" were given to men who volunteered for the Army. Are these the people we want representing us?' and 'Now comes the part of this I never thought I'd hear myself say: Whenever we, as a nation, decide to fight a war – in Iraq or anywhere else – it should be fought by average Americans who are drafted.' Here's a counter-argument of course: Did we, as a nation, decide to fight this war? My answer is no, we didn't choose to fight (who would?) but rather the fight has chosen us. The bottom line is that we are fighting this war, and will continue to fight for our survival for the forseeable future. There is great evil in this world (I know, I've seen it) and the only thing it knows is strength of will and the conviction that they are fighting for their "god given rights." The only thing that will counter this is a professional military made up of non-losers. I think that a draft would be hard—Rooney admits as much: 'I hated everything about Army life. I hated the Field Artillery regiment I was assigned to. Most of the guys in it were high school dropouts and the Army wasn't using the term "moral waiver," yet but a lot of them would have needed it.' But 60 years later we realize that it was the right thing to do. And so it is again.

Kantara—media coverage in Morocco

Dylan's hero got back from his tour. Check out the videos from YouTube, they are both in Arabic (and one partially in French) but don't turn down the sound if you check them out since the music is the point. Brennan is the guy with the beard speaking English in the one video. Riadh (the owner of the conservatory) is the other guy interviewed. Most of you can't read Arabic, but in the first video they have Brennan as "Bernard Dilmore" and in the second it's "Breenan Kilmorgh". But we do the same thing translating names from their alphabet to ours...but that's for another post. 2M Morocco Moroccan Channel 1

More from Star Wars Land

We saw the Tatooine cloaks all over the place--I think that maybe we'll start to stockpile and sell them.

Kantara

Tomorrow evening (24 February 2007), Stefanie, her mother and I are going to go to a concert here in the Tunisian suburbs. The name of the group is Kantara—it means "bridge". I was at the press conference announcing the tour—Brennan is Dylan's hero. While a student at UVA, Brennan had a band called Walker's Run—their only CD is available on Amazon, I was able to download it on iTunes. Walker's Run is (was) a bluegrass group, Brennan played mandolin and was the lead for most of the vocals. I've also seen him play banjo and guitar—he says he can also play fiddle. Riadh (also mentioned in the press release) plays the Oud and is the owner of the conservatory where Sofia and Dylan take music lessons. They've created their own genre, Arab-Appalachian music. It is a very unique fusion of the two styles—they really work together. Here's their website: www.kantaramusic.com. If you click on the music link you can download several mp3's. My favorites are Wayfaring Stranger (that's Brennan singing) and Hobbi (=my love). The lead singer on Hobbi is Amel—who speaks perfect English and couldn't stop laughing at me the day I backed my car into a lady out front of the mosque in Sidi Bou Said. We are very excited for the concert—check out the music, it's very unique, I think you'd like it.

The Lars Homestead

Here are several pictures from Luke Skywalker's boyhood home. I don't know who was more excited, Dylan or me.

Our Weekend in Southern Tunisia

We just got back from a trip to Southern Tunisia--we had a great time and wanted to share some pictures. We knew we were entering desert country when we saw this sign: This was from a few days later, but I thought the baby camel was very cute: Here's the four of us sitting on a sand dune in the Sahara:

And Stefanie and her mom:

After having ridden for days and days on our camels:

Just kidding, it was less than an hour. We were surprised later that this wasn't the first time that any of the five us had ridden a camel. We hung out with Berbers:

And Bartholomew Cubbins' brother:

And then we ended up in a very cool place. I'm not going to tell you where this is, you have to guess. I have other pictures that give it away, but post a guess if you have an idea. I'll post more pictures related to this last one in a few days or when someone gets it right, whichever comes first.

So I am trying out Office 2007…

And I found out that I can use Word on my desktop to write blog entries and then have word communicate with blogger to post the blog entry for me. I like Office 07 so far, there doesn't seem to be any added features, but the features that are there are much easier to get at—no more digging through drop down menus. If you need something, it's right in front of you. I need to find a host for pictures now. Flikr is free, I think—does Yahoo! Have anything?

The biggest change though is that MS changed the default file format. They've gone to Office OpenXML (OOXML)—if someone sends you a document created in Word using the default setting, it'll come across as a .docx – you can change it to .zip and see the XML files directly. Versions prior to 2007 will have to have a compatibility update.

I also downloaded Vista, but I haven't been able to get the downloader to validate the file, and I don't feel like downloading the 2.5 gigabytes again.

Oh—probably the coolest thing though is OneNote, I use it to keep track of my schoolwork, it works like a notebook, creates tables automatically, an automatic calculator function. I bet though that it's at its best on a tablet though.

Third culture kids

Stefanie found an interesting article from the Christian Science Monitor today. It's an article about a phenomenon called Third culture kids. We had heard about this before doing what amounts to joining the foreign service--but I thought the article was interesting enough to pass along to you all. In that same vein, here's what Sofia and Dylan are up to: Sofia: She's riding at least three times per week—when she gets on it looks like she is an appendage of the horse or vice versa, quite amazing to see. Her teachers and all the other French folks we know tell us that there is not a trace of an American accent in her French—she stumbles on words occasionally, but very rarely. She can read just fine in both French and English. Also, she can read Arabic, but doesn't usually know what she is saying—since she's getting Arabic from Tunisian/French people they transliterate (for pronunciation purposes) using French diphthongs—the end result is that she speaks it with a slight French accent. Violin is going very well, she's really getting a feel for moving the bow across the strings, it's not nearly as scratchy as it was in the beginning. Dylan: He's started riding again--mostly because his buddy Elyes (pronounced El-ee-yes) and his girl-friend (not his girlfriend--don't make that mistake) Cecilia have started riding. Cecilia is Italian, I think Elyes is French/Tunisian. His French is the same as his sisters. He's just about ready to start reading, although we'll wait to work with him in English until after he gets French down (this worked fine for his sister). He is also learning Arabic—can't have a conversation, but he can yell at you to "be quiet". He can play "twinkle-twinkle, little star" —and by extension "the Alphabet song"...on the guitar. His favorite thing though is air guitar with all kinds of grimaces. He has a memory like a steel trap, he remembers lyrics to songs like you wouldn't believe—adult songs I listen to while he's around mind you. Oh, and he lost a tooth last night (24 January), this is the first one he's lost legitimately. I know parents like to brag about their kids—but good grief. It sounds almost unrealistic sometimes when I stop to think about it but I don't want people to think that I think that our kids are somehow morally or otherwise better than any other kids. Believe me, if you saw us at the dinner table with the two of them trying to compete as to who can make the best fake burp (yeah, I know, at the dinner table) or see Dylan making rude noises with his armpits, or see the two of them fight about not wanting to brush their teeth—you would realize that we know perfectly well that kids are kids. But the article made me think about how the perception of having tens of thousands of frequent flier miles before the age of whatever might look to some folks. Anyway, take a look at the article. And by the way, yes, I do think that Stefanie and I have the most wonderful kids in the world. (But yours are too, whoever you might be—and that's the point. :) )

War Letters

My friend, author/editor Andrew Carroll just sent me an e-mail. I hadn't heard from him in a while, but wanted to pass along some links to his books and website. His first book was called Letters of a Nation--it's a collection of letters from all sectors of American society since the birth of the nation. One of the chapters featured letters from conflicts in which U.S. troops were involved. This then evolved into a second book called War Letters, a collection of letters that soldiers had written to their families, friends and loved ones during war time. He's had two other books come out, most recently a book called Operation Homecoming --a collection of correspondence from the Iraq and Afghan wars. He has a website that he set up after War Letters came out in order to solicit more letters from folks, go check it out, it's very interesting stuff.

An Evening In Roma (and a few days too :)

After decompressing this past summer in Pittsburgh after 3 years in Cambodia, Stefanie, Dylan and Sofia were excited to head to Tunisia to see David after being away from him for 6 weeks. But....... before we did so we had to take a small detour; to Rome, Italy. Cubbie came with us and we all had a blast.

We stayed in a convent that was located just off St. Peter's Square. It was on Borgo Santo Spirito. We could see the Pope's apartment window from our room. The only negative was that there was an 11pm curfew. Not bad when you have kids but a little difficult when dinner isn't normally even served until after 9:00pm.

This photo (right) is the view from our room. It is an awful photo and you can't see us but you can get an idea of how great the location was. I could hit the Apostolic Palace with a rock from our window :) The church bells from Saint Peters woke us each morning. The nuns in the convent were great. They loved the kids. And Cubbie got to practice her Italian with them each morning at breakfast.

Saint Peters Square was one of Dylan's favorite places. He loved chasing the pigeons there. Sofia liked the square too but mostly because that is where a lot of the horse drawn carriages parked. We wanted to do a carriage ride but it was 100 Euros per person for about a 2 hour tour. That was WAY out of our price range so we opted for our own "walking tour".

Cubbie and I were pleasantly surprised that the kids were so willing to walk all over Rome. There were only a few times that we had to bribe them. When they got sluggish we promised that the next stop would be a gelateria :)

This is my favorite photo from the entire trip. Sofia, Dylan and Cubbie are throwing their coins into the Trevi Fountain and making wishes. Shortly after this was taken, we had lunch (fresh mozzarella with basil and tomato panini). And then Dylan's wish was granted. We had even more GELATO. Dylan's favorite was straciatella and Sofia's favorite was pistachio

Rome was GREAT! We had a lot of fun there.

Next time though we will all go together; David, Stefanie, Sofia and Dylan.

Our Hairy Kids

I thought I would do a post to include a little about our four legged kids to introduce them to those of you who have never met them. This is just so you have an idea who/what in the world we are talking about when we refer to Pancho, Sasha, Fabienne and now Farhouda. Plus, I like to brag about them as well as my human kids :)

This is me and "the other man in my life". Pancho and I got to spend some quality time together this summer while I was home in Pennsylvania. He is older and much quieter now than when I first got him. He takes good care of any kid that rides him. But he still likes to take adults for a quick spin.

Thanks to all the folks at Paradise and of course to Aunt Laura for keeping him in good shape and making him mind his manners.

Sofia couldn't get enough of Pancho this summer and he couldn't get enough of the attention she gave him. He was patient enough to deal with her mistakes and quick enough to keep her attention. He helped boost her confidence and got her interested in jumping. Too bad they are so far apart now because they make a perfect pair.

Sasha (for some reason looking rather small in this photo) also known at the barn as "The Tank" with her "Mommy". Although she isn't mine anymore, I know that she is in good hands and that I will always know how she is doing. Laura loves her as much as I do and so my difficult decision to part with her was made easier by my sister. I didn't have to really part with her after all. And more importantly, Pancho didn't have to part with her either.

The kids (Fabienne, Sofia and Dylan) "watching" television the night Fabienne arrived to Cambodia from Germany. At 10 weeks old she was 9.8 kilos. Poor thing had a bit of jet lag.

Fabienne and her Lab cross puppy friend Leila in our yard in Tunisia. Fabienne thinks for some reason that she is the same size as other dogs (now she is over 60 kg) and just doesn't understand when they run away and don't want to play with her.

Fabienne with her "Aw do I have to sit for another photo" face on.

Our/my newest baby is a 6 year old Tunisian Barb named El-Farhouda. It was inevitable that I would buy a horse in Tunisia. It is affordable, the horses are great and the barn is right near my house :) I would spend alot paying to ride regularly on the beach anyway so I figured why not? I asked my riding instructor to find me a suitable horse. I told him that I trusted his judgement since he knew my riding capabilities. I was a bit surprised when I realized he had chosen her for me. She was a desert horse used for Fantasia and celebrations. She didn't know much more than stop, go, and go really fast and only in a staight line! I was flattered that he thought I could train such a horse. Well, she is coming along nicely. She is a joy to ride, eager to learn and is unbelievably smart. She has really muscled out since the photo and in the two months I have had her I have really grown to love her. Unfortunately, the deal with David was "only animals that came with us to Tunisia will leave Tunisia with us." :(

Out and About in Tunis

Since arriving in Tunisia we have had the chance to see quite a bit. It is really an interesting place to live. There are some really nice beaches here on the Mediterranean. We are fortunate enough to have a house in Gammarth (a beach community suburb north of Tunis). The ruins are unbelievable. We are enjoying life here. The upcoming long weekends will give us a chance to see even more of this beautiful country.

We have witnessed quite a bit here on the beaches (camels, horses, para sailing, topless women sunbathing while other women swim in full hijab). The kids were excited to see their first real live camels on the beach. But the novelty of that has worn off now; kind of like the elephants in Southeast Asia.

One of their favorite things to do at the ruins is to look for "treasure". They easily find old pieces of pottery, mosaic tiles and sometimes even bone fragments in the mortar at the Roman aqueducts in Carthage.

Left-Dylan, Sofia and Cubbie at the cisterns in Carthage.

Right-Sofia shows off the removable head statue. These statues were made with removable heads so that when new Roman governors came in to power only the head would have to be changed rather than the entire statue.

Of course it HAD to happen. We had to witness real belly dancing while living here. We managed to get that one out of the way pretty quickly. We still have a long list of "To Do While in Tunisia" but we will keep you posted as we tick those off the list. I just have to get David to go camel trekking in the Sahara :)

Dylan is in his glory here (at least when it comes to food). He LOVES the local chicken Shawarmas and the never ending supply of orange Fanta. And what wouldn't taste good with a coastal view like that?!