Phone call home

I'm in Washington D.C. all this week. The clocks went back but nobody told Lyra to sleep an extra hour, and then I got to go three hours in to the future the next day. Needless to say it's been a jarring experience. But the great thing about traveling now versus 5 years ago is that technology can make the distance seem a little less. I spent 10 minutes on the phone home with a wonderful view. No, not the Washington monument or the White House or anything else like that. I got to look at my little girl on her way to bed in her space pajamas. Thank you, Skype.

Variations on a theme. An orange theme

In the popular vein of vegetable-oriented holidays, we celebrated Halloween with a pumpkin carving with Darin and Johnathan. Lyra was dressed as a dragon fly and Maria and I were dressed as tired parents, and we all had a great time. Lyra turned seven months old on the 30th so Masha uploaded a big pile of recent photos, including the aforementioned legume slashing. I really like the series of her sitting on the bed because we noticed that she looks exactly like every member of our respective families within the space of about 10 seconds (fast camera). More on the way once I get 2 months of videos off of the camcorder.

ABBA

Lyra just discovered ABBA. Dancing around the bedroom to "S.O.S." and "Fernando". Next time I'll try to get a photo.

Pumpkin Sighting

Masha, Anastasia, Lyra, and James went to Half Moon Bay today in hot pursuit of Haven. That could sound bad, except that Haven is a reporter for the Associated Press. When he’s not covering big stories like typhoons in the Pacific he gets to hang out at Pumpkin Weigh-Off competitions in California. In the admirable pursuit of 15 minutes of fame for our burgeoning media star, Masha got our baby dressed as a pumpkin and on TV for approximately 2 seconds.

And I must say, with her head in the 95 percentile, she pulls off that orange skullcap-cum-pumpkin top pretty nicely. If I know Lyra and her mama, she’s thinking “I bet they injected that pumpkin with water.”

Thanks Haven for making Masha’s year. You can check out the report on Yahoo!.

Pacific Baptism

On Sunday we spent the day at Half Moon Bay south of San Francisco. It was a bit gray but being on the Pacific was great and we were with a lot of friends to celebrate Lyra's baptism in the Pacific Ocean. Polina and Darin fulfilled their roles as godparents admirably and there is more video of the actual event on the way. But for now, here is a quick tour of the group, beginning with Lyra. She is teething right now so you'll hear all kinds of variations on her name being spoken in an attempt to get her to smile. Lyrachka, Lyrusha, Lyrushnik, etc. But at least we can smile at the teddy bear jacket and the fun we had mixing mojitos and mimosas under the table out of sight of the park ranger. Thanks to everyone for celebrating with us.

Old School Music

I just downloaded the latest version of iTunes on the Mac because it told me to. Honest! The computer just say I had updates. Anyway, I installed it and fired it up and was underwhelmed by the usual tweaks to the UI. White background instead of black. Yawn. But then I noticed the new Genius Mixes section. I've been enjoying Genius since they added it; basically it figures out what you've been listening to and makes suggested playlists using your other music. It's a nice way to revisiting tracks you haven't listened to in a while.

Anyway, so the Genius Mixes section is the next logical step whereby genres of music are collected. Check out iTunes first attempt at my genre-specific mixes:

It completely nails it. I keep making and remaking my classical playlist in particular but now I can just click "Play" on the classical list. Nice. Oh, and if you've wondering what the golf thing is with Moby and The Chemical Brothers, it's actually a hindi dance track that keeps getting misclassified. You almost had me there!

But what really caught my ear was hearing an Incubus song from years ago. I fell for the Apple grand marketing plan and clicked the little link next to the artist name. I thought it would should me all of the Incubus songs I own but actually it sent me to iTunes Store to buy more stuff. Being a proponent of economic stimulation for struggling companies in this economic downturn I downloaded Make Yourself and am currently reliving my past glories as a struggling GIS programmer-cum-guitar god. The songs Clean and The Warmth are particularly memorable. That guy can really play the guitar. Even if it turns out it gave him carpel tunnel syndrome. His use of dynamics is truly sublime.

So thank you Genius Mix and marketing folks at Apple. You just made my evening more pleasurable.

Coffee shops and etiquette

I was working in a coffee shop last week just as the local middle school wrapped up for the day. I can categorically say that children and caffeine do not mix. God help me if there are puppies involved next time.