Today is the first day of the rest of my life. Meaning that I'm looking for work. My old company laid off several people to cut costs. Truthfully, I understand why they did it, and I'm not bitter or anything like that. I'm looking forward to doing something new. I'd just like to know what it is!
9:01:42 AM      

I was visited by a bat this evening! Yes, a real live bat. I have no idea how it got into my apartment. I was watching TV, and then I saw something dark out of the corner of my eye. Every once in a while I see a fly or a spider or something like that, but this dark shape was clearly too big for that, so I think I must be mistaken, and I go back to watching my show. Suddenly, I see this giant shape swooping over my head, and I'm like, "Yikes! What's that?!" I'm thinking that it's got to be the biggest insect ever in the whole world, because "insect! gross, gross, gross!" is all I'm thinking. Then I get a good look at it, and once I recognize what it is, it turns from a "giant dark malevolent shape" to a reasonably small flying mammal that still looks bigger than ideal being inside my room and not outside where it belongs. I feel a little better that it's just a bat, but not great. I open a window and close all the doors to the room, and then I call maintenance. When they get back to me, they suggest opening all of the upper windows in the room (I had opened just one lower window before backing far, far away from the bat--I'm not worried that the bat is going to kill me or anything, but I don't want to deal with a panicked bat flying into my face or something like that). I watch it warily for about 30 minutes while it swoops around and occasionally knocks itself senseless against a wall before it finds one of the open windows.
12:08:14 AM      

Hanju and I picked 4.61 pounds of raspberries. It didn't look like all that much sitting at the bottom of the buckets we were carrying. As soon as I started washing them at home, it became clear that it was an immense amount of raspberries. Good with vanilla ice cream.

10:37:46 PM      

Yesterday, I picked up Hanju from Skidmore College where he had just spent 3 weeks learning physics. The learning is important, and he enjoyed it, but CTY is more than just about a bunch of bright kids taking courses. (See also The Real CTY.)
8:42:16 PM      

	Here's a couple shots of Cor from my trip to Los Angeles last week. He's positively edible! He is on the brink of language. Today, I am his "ga-gang." In a couple of months, perhaps I'll be his "uncle," and then perhaps I'll be more than an unadorned noun (maybe "funny uncle"?).

11:46:32 PM      

I ran across a nice technique to "soften" photos, so I broke out Adobe Photoshop Elements and tried it on Uncle and Truly. This is the result. Look any different? I'll try it on a different photo later. I've got some nice ones of Cor.

10:21:52 AM      

Here I am holding Truly. This is from last Friday. Babies are small.

10:47:59 PM      

And I took Prince Cor to see his first movie, Finding Nemo, which was excellent and managed to entertain Cor and me. Yes, Cor sat through all 101 minutes easily. It may have helped to have popcorn, a banana, and some cheese around, but I think he would've survived anyway.

11:15:29 PM      

Happy birthday, Truly! Welcome to this world! May 30th, 2003, 4:54PM. 7 pounds, 4 ounces and 19 inches.
10:17:51 PM      

A Canon PowerShot S400 took this picture. These digital cameras are amazing. I can store over 200 high-resolution photos on a 256MB CompactFlash card. And the instant feedback is better than Polaroids. I've avoided the digital photography revolution for too long.

12:06:18 AM      

Here's my favorite boy during Christmas, 2002. He's already 14 and just about as tall as his dad.

2:14:11 AM      

This is my nephew during Christmas, 2002. Today is one week before his 2nd birthday!

9:51:25 PM      

Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

12:41:23 PM      

	Franklin Institute steps Philadelphia, PA
	Getty Museum fountain with Hanju Los Angeles, CA
	Getty Museum garden Los Angeles, CA

10:29:05 AM