Nathan kicking

Read my blog, please!

From the Cincinnati Enquirer, courtesy of Kevin Dugan, Tom Murphy, and Trevor Cook.

Finally, I got to see Nathan at his martial arts studio. His school does a great job motivating the students, and he really gets into it.

Seattle had wondeful eclipse-viewing weather last night (as you can see in this Seattle Times photo). Leah was particularly interested because they've been studying the moon for the past month at school.

Froogle does merchant reviews

When you do a Froogle Search, the results come back with a link to reviews of the merchant. Makes it much easier to comparison shop.

Hypo-allergenic cats

Allerca | is selling genetically-engineered cats that don't cause allergic reactions. By eliminating the gene that produces a glycoprotein, Fel d 1, secreted by the sebaceous glands, they promise to wipe out allergic reactions.

Cost is $3500 per animal.

The whole family helped get our pumpins ready for Halloween.

A scary Halloween pumpkin.

Am I at my desk?

Click here to see live video from my office.

Video of Nathan catching a fish

I posted a new video of Nathan catching a fish on a riverbank in Leavenworth, Washington.

another video here:

streamed.

Best sushi in Seattle

Shiro's in Belltown is the place.

Historical Fiction: Medieval Food

Slate reviews Medieval food and says the themed restaurants get it wrong. Europeans ate heavily-spiced dishes, with their hands, on "plates" of stale bread. From the sound of it, the royal feasts were pretty tasty -- not the bland, rugged simpleton chow served on pewter plates that the Hollywood sterotypes suggest.

Maven reviews

Kevin Kelly is a Wired editor who wrote this helpful summary of the best review sites on the Web. Look at all the geeky details for new products ranging from coffee machines, bird watching equipment, etc. etc.

Nathan found this fish at the river's edge, near our hotel in Leavenworth. He picked it up by the fin and it swam away!

Strange...Nathan has been finding "body parts" around the house: a head, an ear, and an eye. Something funny going on.

Spoilers: parental reviews of movies, with details

Here's a site that shows, in great detail, what's in popular movies so that parents can decide whether or not it's okay for their kids to watch.

For example, take a look at this review of THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN

Martha got a new purple dress today!

Leah had her first Japanese class today, with Itou-sensei (phone 206-230-5725). Two girls in the class already studied Japanese last year and annoyed everyone by showing off how much they know, but I think Leah will quickly outshine them.

Nathan attended Sunday School this morning, which began a new school year for pre-school kids like him. He learned the parable of the mustard seed, by drawing a picture of a tree.

Permitting his devout mother to enjoy some time of religious reflection (while his father snapped photos)

Catch me if you can is made up

IMDb :: Boards :: Catch Me If You Can (2002) has a summary of what was made up about the movie.

Martha and Leah had fun playing pirates today. 

NYTimes list of book reviews on the web

The NYTimes offers a list of web sites that review books. Most of the sites are for serious book lovers, like those interested in the publishing industry.

One that might be good is The Complete Review which gives a grade (A through F) to every book they review. They only have a few thousand books, though. I couldn't find Da Vinci Code or Steven Pinker, for example.

Trading Spouses and Wife Swap

There are two new reality shows about wives/mothers who swap homes with each other for two weeks: Trading Spouses and Wife Swap. Apparently both are worth watching, though Wife Swap adds interest by requiring the wives to live by their new family's rules for one week before changing anything.

The Slate review concludes that these shows demonstrate post-feminist values well, and offer stay-at-home moms a taste of what it's like to make different choices than those they are stuck repeating day in and day out.