Enjoy!

So, where to begin? I've joined Facebook, which is something I was always hesitant about. A lot of things that are awesome about it, e.g. finding out whatever happened to old friends/acquaintances, are the things that are kind of depressing about it. I'm looking forward to see where it goes. Anyway, feel free to comment on anything here.

Today's post is going to be mostly pictures, as I am not feeling that clever/interesting.



It is a little known fact that if you are born in Texas, as Henry was, you are immediately issued a cowboy hat. Furthermore, if you are not photographed in the cowboy hat by your first birthday, you have to never again claim Texas as a homeland. The greatest shame is if you lose the hat; then you have to go live in a state with income tax.

Quick side comment: In Texas, at least when I lived there, the roads were awful, arguably because the government didn't take in enough funding to fix the roads due to the lack of state-wide income tax. However, in Pennsylvania, the roads have always been terrible, because the money taken in by state-wide income tax is burned away on everything other than actually accomplishing useful tasks. Based on this, what do the you thing the odds are of the new national stimulus package actually working?



MMMMM. Psghetti.



This building is on the edge of a park near our villa in Doha, Qatar. It is really creepy and ramshackle. In fact, it is the kind of place that the non-union Arabic equivalent of the Scooby gang would pull out a guy who had been trying to scare people away from the park for the big reveal:
"Look, it's Mr. Al-Manaker-Namaan!"
"Yes, and I would have got away with it if it weren't for you meddling kids, inshallah."



Nicole has gotten into knitting in a big way. The jacket that Henry is wearing in the preceding image is from her Fall line of active wear for tots on the go. Actually, the sweater is the first thing Nicole every made that wasn't a scarf, and came out beautifully.

This sign was placed at a round-about to encourage people to obey traffic lights. Note that rather than using the standard octagonal stop sign, they used a blood splatter, perhaps for dramatic effect. One has to wonder whether, in a culture where road signs, traffic laws, and common sense are all routinely ignored on the highway, one additional sign is really going to make a greater difference than say an actual enforcement effort. That said, the Qatar government is doing the best they can; the city of Doha has gone from Butler size to Pittsburgh size in 36 months and has double digit population increase every month, so a few traffic hiccups are to be expected.



The above is a picture of my favorite sign in Doha. "My Englishing places firstly!" You know, if you have a Chinese character tattoo, this may be what your skin says to people who can actually read the language.

Last thing: this YouTube video has cracked both Nicole and I up, and almost nothing hits both our funny, so check this out.

Prediction: Steelers 27, Cardinals 10

Look how excited everyone is that I am updating my blog!!



Below is the label on a can of John Smith's Extra Smooth. It either mean's "Don't drink while you're pregnant" or "Avoid chubby girls while drinking."



Again below, there is an image of H. Stockton and me. Please note that while H. Stockton considers boosterism for hoi polloi, he makes an exception for the Steelers.



No black baby clothes are available over here, and there is no NFL apparel, so Nicole made that shirt. From scratch. She cut up an old T-shirt of mine and sewed it into a shirt for Henry, then cross-stitched a handmade Steelers logo for the chest. He is also wearing gold pants and has a gold pacifier laynard.

Quick story for you. Every once in a while you are able to say something funny at the perfect moment, and that happened for me this weekend. I was playing cards, and one girl at the table mentioned that her boyfriend had opined during the AFC and NFC championships that, "Even if the Steelers lose, Pennsylvanians can root for the Eagles, as they are a PA team," inferring a certain lability of support by Pittsburghers. I immediately though of some folks I know back home, specifically my father-in-law, and pointed out that "The average Steeler's fan wouldn't root for the Eagles if it would save a kid with cancer from getting molested."

Higher resolution.

One of my resolutions for this year is more frequent posts to the blog; specifically, I'd like to publish something every Saturday this year. Later this week I am going to be sorting our photo collection¹ so the next update will be chock-a-block with pictures, but this entry will be mostly text. So, just some quick thoughts:

The Chinese government just released an official version of the Linux operating system, called "Red Flag." I kind of understand the name, as China has a (mostly) red flag and the national flag is being raised over computing. That said, I have to wonder if they know that a red flag is colloquially an indication of a problem, as in "The fact that Helen couldn't explain where she was the previous evening raised a red flag with her husband." It is sort of like naming your software "Unaccountable Credit Card Charges."

I think I am going to buy a Netbook. Anyone have any suggestions for which one? I want max battery life and the ability to run Skype.

January is going to be a monster. I have a new post-doc coming, my first, as well as teaching a 16 person section of physical chemistry and doing a two week class for high school students thinking about going to college for a technical education. The two week class is sort of a supplemental contract, i.e. I get paid extra for doing two hours of lecture per day for 10 days. This will be a lot of work and a lot of fun.

My buddy Mike got my son the following toy, which is so awesome: The arms and legs are the perfect size for Henry to chew, and he loves him. The toy is technically a wee ninja, although I like to tell people it is Middle-East Barbie.

(1) I tried to use Picasa to do this originally. It is the single dumbest gosh-dang piece of software ever constructed, as there is no way to tell it to not index EVERY PICTURE on the hard drive upon installation. I want it to index "My Pictures" and not (for example) the figures from every saved version of every paper I've ever written.