Departure Imminent

We are leaving town tomorrow morning. We look forward to seeing some of you soon.

Ready for Christmas

Well, school's out, grades are turned in, and I am ready for Christmas vacation. I am still managing to get some work done (book research, grant editting), but I am more antsy than normal. Poor Brian is still working overtime, trying to pull ahead so his actual vacation will be less stressful. I, on the other hand, have been baking more cookies, wrapping Christmas presents, addressing Christmas cards, and sipping hot cocoa. I made cookies a couple days ago with a recipe Anne sent me, and they turned out great. I think I am replacing my old recipe with Anne's---thanks Anne!

We will be heading north early next week. I hope it stops snowing for a few days so the roads can be nicely plowed, but that might just be wishful thinking on my part. Amanda, when will you be in West Michigan?

Unseasonably wam December

It has been quite warm lately, even for Florida. I think our AC kicked in for a short while today. On Monday, we went to an outdoor wedding. In most places, this would be quite risky in December, but here it was fine. It was a very nice wedding at Maclay Gardens. Here we are at the wedding:

Recent days in Florida

It's been some time since I posted anything substantive so here is a short update on all things Florida-Sites. I have been working extra hours at work for a while but I started the last two weeks working them consistently each day and then putting in whatever fit well on the weekends. I'll continue that trend through whenever we head north for vacation. Justice Anstead is leaving the Court in January (as was expected) and we are on an expedited track to get things out the door. We would also like to see family over Christmas without taking a pile of work home (which may be an impossible goal as to the latter part), so I have hoped that by working several extra hours consistently we can avoid that and make the holidays merrier.

In other news, the ferrets, fish, and assorted reef inhabitants are doing well. The tanks are fairly stable and almost everything is visibly growing. Even the xenia that died and disappeared completely months ago in the power outage while we were out of town has reappeared and grown significantly. Pictures of the assorted things in days to come, perhaps.

My neck and back are also feeling better than they were last month. I still feel soreness in my spine from time to time and perhaps that will never go away. But it is not interferring with life and that is nice compared to how it was in November and the months before that.

No development on the job front yet but that is not a surprise. After the AALS rounds passed in the first two weeks of November, I knew the next things I would hear back on were LLMs. I do not expect to hear from all of them until March or so. So my next focus is on sending out Fellowship applications, preparing to coach an FSU moot court team in DC in February again, and then update the 2009 edition of the handbook. I have other projects in the mix as well, including the edited video of Tom and Shiela's (Wooster friends) wedding. But that is all more than enough to keep me busy for a while.

Finally, I suppose I'll note something that has been on my mind lately. Last week, I read what was by far the most effective victim impact testimony I have ever read. In Florida, after someone has been convicted of a crime that they could be sentenced to death for, the court has a special proceeding where the jury decides whether to recommend the death penalty or not. During that proceeding, the victim's family sometimes reads a prepared statement expressing the loss they have felt from the victim's death. I can't be specific about what I read, but suffice it to say that it was very eloquent, heartfelt words expressing a great loss. I wish I was permitted to repeat the words the person used, but I obviously cannot. And yet, should any defendant with a family be executed, we immediately cause a second family to feel a similar type of loss. It is a difficult world we live in and the death penalty is a very complicated issue for me. But that is a post for another day.

Heaters in Florida even

Last week, our heater unfortunately went out. Someone came out and fixed it, but for about three days we had no heat. That forced me to put heaters in the fish tanks since at night it was dropping to 30-40 degrees outside (50-60 inside) and tropical fish perhaps obviously need 70+ degree water.

The ferrets handled it pretty well, they just slept in piles instead of spread out. We also put a small space heater near their cage that blew hot air towards a corner of one of the floors. We didn't have it on very often, but for several hours one night we did. Here is a picture showing Eve who lined up in front of it to enjoy the heat (the bottom of the picture shows the heater so you can see the ferret position relative to the heater):

The other ferrets dealt with the cold in their own ways as well. Chewbacca stayed in his tent even more than normal:

And Rex and Brussels slept under the blankets in the hammock (Rex shown below):

And of course Hanneke had to find a way to stay warm too. No one call the style police:

That is of course hot chocolate she is drinking. On the plus side, it did make our Christmas tree fit in more:

Our heater is back on though so it is back to norma Florida indoor weather. I hope all is well up north where I imagine the cold is harder to escape.

St. George Island

The day after Thanksgiving, I went to St. George Island (1.5 hours away) to visit with Aunt Carla and cousins Daniel and Nathan. Here is a collection of pictures from that day.


Nathan and I eating icecream:
The lighthouse (newly reconstructed and placed in the center of town):

The view from the back porch of the rental house (this is the Gulf of Mexico, with a picnic hut to the right, which is next to a not-visible pool):

This is Daniel. He and his brother were happy to play online games with their friends the whole day, but Carla and I convinced them to leave the game world for a little while:

Here is Nathan. He is pausing his game for just a second to wave for the picture:

Carla and I went to Apalachicola (the closest touristy town, 10 min drive) to look around and window shop. It was a pretty town, and we found this old boat next to the sponge shop:

Exploring the beach, finding shells, throwing shells in the water:

Sunset:

Christmas cookies!

Yes, it is that time already (at least for me it is). I picked up some cookie cutters over the weekend and spent one night making the cookies and a second night decorating them. Here are some of them for you to enjoy.

Did you see the Michigan cookie with Holland marked on it?

Q: What can make a tough day better?


A: Kisses from a ferret!

Eve used to be the only ferret who would give us kisses. (She is especially likely to do so right when she wakes up.) But I think the others have caught on that I like getting ferret kisses (and it gets them extra attention), so now they have all started doing it. It is quite sweet, although a little gross when they switch from licking the tip of my nose to licking the inside of my nose.

I have something to admit...

Since we are always gone for Christmas, Brian and I have never really made a lot of effort to decorate for the holidays (at least not inside the house). This year, we are sick of that. This year, we went out and bought an artificial tree. This year, we have our tree up and decorated already. We have already started listing to Christmas music, and we are getting into the habit of having a cup of hot cocoa with mini marshmallows as an evening snack. And you know what? It is great! It makes me feel so cheery. Yesterday and today I loaded a bunch of new Christmas music onto my ipod so we can listen to it with my ipod speakers (thanks parents).

The only thing missing is Christmas cookies. I need to get some cookie cutters so I can make some cut-out cookies and decorate them. I haven't looked around for the cookie cutters yet, but I plan on getting a set that includes a star (one of my favorite cut-out shapes). Hopefully I can find a set that also has an angel and a tree. Also, I don't want the resulting cookies to be too big. I like the medium-small size so I can eat a couple different cookies.

Happy Birthday Carla!

Today was Carla's birthday. Sadly, she had to work for most of the day (Saturday is a busy day for voice lessons). In the evening, she went out for dinner with her family. After dinner, we met them at their house for some birthday cheer and cake. Here is Carla with her husband and 2 sons.



Here is some of that birthday cheer I mentioned earlier:

Here is a picture of the lovely chocolate ganache cake. We only meant to stay for a little while (Brian had more work to do, which he is working on right now), but somehow we always end up sticking around for longer than we plan. This time, we got distracted by political talk. Tim and Carla are a fun couple to talk with.

Pig Roast

Lst weekend was the anthropology department's annual pig roast. We go to this house waaay out in the country, roast a pig, have a potluck, and generally enjoy ourselves. One of the anthropologically-oriented activities is guessing the mystery meat. This year there were 2 mystery meats. So two people got an unknown (to the rest of us) type of meat, cooked it, and everyone tried a piece and tried to guess what it was. The meats this year were beef tongue and goat. Another rather odd activity we do is an atl-atl throw. An atl-atl is a device designed to help you throw a spear faster and farther than you can throw a spear alone. It kind of extends your arm so you can put more force into your throw. At least, that is how it is supposed to work if you are good at it. While some people can use an atl-atl to throw a spear pretty well, most of us have trouble keeping our aim accurate with the atl-atl. Here is Brian watching as Geoff uses the atl-atl.




This is Tim Parsons, who goes to Hungary with me. This is the only picture Brian took, so it is the only one with me in it.

Here is a closer picture of Brian, looking at the chickens in their coop. You can see his new glasses in this photo. Earlier I mentioned that I was going to wait until after the haircut to post a picture of Brian with his glasses, but he is unsure about when the haircut will happen and how much will be cut off. Since I am impatient, I am having trouble waiting without a hard deadline.

Ferrets and boxes

Just like kids, ferrets would often prefer to box to whatever came in the box. This is especially true when the box in question contains packing materials.



Above: Brussels and Chewbacca
Below: Eve

Our New Fish Fran

For his birthday, Brian wanted to get some new fish. When we went to the store with his mom, they didn't have the fish he wanted. But they ordered the fish for him, and we went to pick them up the next week. we have 2 new fish. The first is a six-line wrasse named Blennie. For those of you who remember, we had a six-line wrasse once before, but he died. So we got a new six-line wrasse and put him in the large tank with Gloria.

We then learned that Gloria is a bossy, mean fish. She drove Blennie up into the top corner of the tank and repeatedly hit him with her tail. Blennie was pretty stressed out. In fact, he was so stressed out that he jumped out of the tank into one of the filter compartments. Since Gloria was being so territorial, we decided that she needed to go into a tank all by herself. This meant a lot of work, since we had to catch all our fish and switch them to different tanks. Brian did most of this work (which included taking out most of the live rock), and it took him several hours.

The final result is that we have a small tank with Gloria living in it. The 2 firefish that used to live in the small tank got transferred to the big tank. They live there with Blennie (who is a lot less stressed out now) and our other new fish, Fran.


This good-looking purple and yellow fish is named Fran. She is a royal gramma, which sounded so much like grandma that we decided to name her after Brian's grandma. She is a gregarious fish and she is not afraid to swim up to the glass when we are peering in so she can peer out at us.

This is one of the firefish ( we have 2). They seem to be living in relative harmony with Blennie and Fran. They have these really tall dorsal fins that they flick. They are also relatively fearless and do not dart for the rocks when we walk by. (Blennie is a little more hesitant--he will hide in the rocks and then slowly emerge.)

This last picture shows one of our newish corals. It is a soft leather. It waves around quite a bit, which is a characteristic we both enjoy in coral. It is kind of like a gel tree.

The last of the Halloween pics

On Halloween, we went to a party with people from Brian's work and FSU Law alums. Brian dressed like a pirate (note the ferret on his shoulder) and I dressed like a devil.


These last 3 pics show the gourd that Brian carved. Gourds are usually placed on tables to decorate for fall, but they are rarely carved. They are actually quite difficult to carve because they don't have a lot of guts. Brian managed to carve this ghost gourd and hang him outside for the trick-or-treaters. I think it looks pretty cool.

Glasses

Brian got new glasses this week (his first pair actually, but also new). He will not let me post a picture until after he gets a haircut though. They look quite scholarly.

Pumpkin Carving Party

Tonight we had some friends over for pumpkin carving. Kristina and Lyyli (coworkers of mine) and Timmy and Alex (costudents of Hanneke's) came over. Lyyli brought her 2 children as well. Here are a few pictures of us scooping out the goo early in the evening:

I decided I didn't want to go the pattern route this year, I was kind of tired of it from the last several pattern years. So I decided to try out this design that I'd seen in pictures before: big pumpkin eating little pumpkin:

I couldn't put a candle in the little pumpkin so I just cut off the back 1/4th of it. It turned out pretty well I think.

Hanneke is still a pattern fan so she did a group of bats, a moon, and a bigger bat. She used a pattern for the little bats but she freehanded the big bat and the moon. Pretty nice freehanding work there, Hanneke! The edges are very clean on her carvings, the picture below is just blurry:

Here are most of the pumpkins together. The pirate is Timmy and Alex's pumpkin, the circles and squares pumpkins are Kristina's and the little one in the top middle is Hanneke's (and Obama is of course Hanneke's). Lyyli and Scott carved a ghost but had to leave before we took this picture. Hanneke hadn't finished her bats yet and I hadn't finished a white gourd I carved into a ghost either (perhaps a picture of that later).

It was a fun night. We wish you could have stuck around for it, mom (and I bet you do too)!

Well that took far too long...

Brian has been sxtra busy with work lately, so he asked me to carve his pumpkin for him. I wanted to try the carving method where you carve away only some of the pumpkin in some areas (so you have 3 color options instead of just 2). Here is the result of that attempt. I think it looks pretty cool, but it took me far to long. The next pumpkin I carve will be a lot simpler. My carving fingers are sore.

Election day is coming!

Huge Announcement

Brian and I have decided to participate in the Red Hills Triathlon. It seems like a daunting task to me right now, but I am starting to train for the events. The triathlon involves a swimming portion, followed by a long bike ride, and ends with a run.

We are participating in this triathlon to raise money for ALS research. Professor Gey is still struggling with this disease, but it is quite impressive that he is still with us, since his doctors predicted that he would be gone by now. So Team Gey (Tri-for-Gey III) continues to raise money so researchers can continue to search for a cure. Soon, we will be hitting you all up for some donations. We will provide further details on how to donate then.

Until then, feel free to ask how the training is going. It is going to take a lot of work to get into triathlon shape, so we are going to need to train train train from now on.

To learn more, go to: http://www.redhillstriathlon.org/

Halloween Horror Nights (Brian)

Well, this post is a good bit overdue. So, I'll make it longer to compensate. I apologize in advance, many of the pictures below are poor in quality due to the night-time taking and/or moving while taking them.

We went to Halloween Horror Nights a few weeks back. It was a great time. Hanneke and I along with my friend Adam from college and my brother Dave all went. Here's the Universal Studios Globe at the front:

When we first got there it wasn't very dark but they still had the fog machines on full blast in some areas to set the mood.

When we first got there, it was pretty rainy. As you can see, that rain was terrifying and caused strange things to happen to all of our faces.

They had areas in the park set-up as Haunted Houses that you had to walk into intentionally but they also had Scare Zones set-up that you could just wonder into by accident. Here's the sign from one of the Scare Zones:

And here's Hanneke sharing a special moment with the rabbit from a Scare Zone (based on Alice in Wonderland in this case):

And here's a quick video, just 13 seconds long, of walking under the entry light for a scare zone. It will give you a quick sense of the mood. For those really curious, I've put a 26 second one of a different zone that is a totally-dark area lit only by jack-o-lanterns. You can't see much in it, but it'll give you an idea of what a Scare Zone is like thematically.

Aside from the Scare Zones, there were also haunted houses. They were the main attraction. There were 8 haunted houses in total and we went into each one. The houses lasted about 5 minutes each, maybe a little more for some and a little less for others. Here are some pictures from the different houses (from the outside, no photography on the inside - and unfortunately, since I had to take these while walking in line, they are exceptionally poor photos). The scarecrow/pumpkin-crow one is from a Scare Zone entry:

They also had a lot of special effects set-up all over the place. I tried to take a picture of Hanneke (on the left) and Dave (right) in front of a jet of flame but you can see how that turned out (and thereby guess how big the jet of flame was---pretty sizable):

My favorite Haunted House was either Fractured Tales or The Hallow (if I'm remembering the names right). There was a moment in one of them where you walked through a short tunnel and saw the shadow of a large werewolf creature moving against the wall. Then you hear a loud wet chomping and biting sound that filled the room completely and came from all directions, like an animal biting into something, and at the same moment the tunnel was misted with water as if you were being soaked in the saliva of the beast. Another favorite of mine was a room in Dead Exposure. Dead Exposure was based around the theme of a totally-dark haunted house lit only by the occassional flicker of a camera flash. That flash was a sort of ultra-bright blacklight that caused strategically-placed paint to light up in the room. In one of the rooms of Dead Exposure, there were several bodies hanging from the ceiling that you had to walk through. Except the bodies were not all fake and were not all attached to the ceiling; some of them were actors that would move and scare you as you got close. But because of the flickering lighting, you couldn't tell which was which until it was too late.

We had a good time after Halloween Horror Nights too. We did mini-golf the next day before Dave flew out, as Hanneke talked about before. The course had lots of water features and whimsical obstacles. It was a lot of fun. Han already put up pictures of it, but here are a few more:

Finally, we also played a few board games while Adam and Dave were in town. We were up really late on the night we went to Halloween Horror Nights playing Powergrid.

All in all it was a very fun trip and I look forward to going in the future. If you're a haunted house person then you should check out Halloween Horror Nights.