
<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-30-confidentiality-notice/3150742229_3230e156b2_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image post-thumb" title="Reading This Sign Is Strictly Prohibited">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-30-confidentiality-notice/3150742229_50e73397ba_t.jpg" alt="Reading This Sign Is Strictly Prohibited"/>
</a>

When I worked for a government institution twelve years ago, I recall that there were some bigwigs that worked there that had their secretaries print out every email they received and place it on their desk as if letters had arrived. I presume they would dictate responses. I was always amazed at such a fundamental misunderstanding of what electronic mail is about. But it was 1996 and every web page still used the <center> tag, so I forgive them.  One practice that blows my mind and continues to this day is the so called "confidentiality notice". I'm sure you know what I'm talking about, but just in case, I'm going to blatantly and ironically break the law and reproduce one I got in an email today:

> CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This message and any included attachments are confidential and are intended only for the addressee(s). The information contained herein may be confidential under the attorney/client privilege the quality assurance and peer review privilege. Unauthorized review, forwarding, printing, copying or using such information is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. If you receive this message in error, or if you have reason to believe you are not authorized to receive it, please promptly notify the sender by e-mail or telephone, and delete the message.

This seems like complete and total tautological nonsense to me. It also seems to be based on the same fundamental misunderstanding that RIAA copyright nazis have; they don't understand that by its very nature [it's impossible to move or view or do _anything_ with digital information without copying it](/2008/11/25/keeping-culture-free/). I can't prohibit you from making copies of this blog post because, if you're reading this, there's already a copy of it on your computer!

I would also suspect that, unless I specifically state "Send this to all your friends!" in an email I send, that the contents of my email are "intended only for the addressee(s)". Is this not true? Can I not prosecute you for forwarding an email of mine unless I have one of these notices saying that you can't? Could I then?

Also, I would like to point out that the phrase "Unauthorized \_\_\_\_\_\_ is prohibited" is a redundant tautology [and therefore meaningless](/2006/08/23/moderation-proof/).

Lastly, I find it hard to believe that my government, through legislation and law enforcement, can prohibit me from printing _absolutely anything_ that I have on my computer. Is this really true?

I understand that, if you are one of the millions of people that have an email signature like this, chances are you are forced to have it by your employer and it's not your fault. But it sure seems to me like wasting half a [kibibyte](/2007/04/11/wtf-is-a-gibibyte/) of mail server disk space for _every single email in your organization_ is pretty ridiculous. Surely none of this is ever enforced and upheld in a court of law.

My father is somewhat of an expert at the game of Hungry Hungry [HIPPA](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_Insurance_Portability_and_Accountability_Act), so maybe he has some insight.

Annoyed and confused.


Confidentiality Notice


<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-30-crescent-moonset/3151337881_65fc82576b_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image post-thumb" title="Crescent Moon with Jupiter and Mercury">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-30-crescent-moonset/3151337881_d85b50442d_t.jpg" alt="Crescent Moon with Jupiter and Mercury"/>
</a>

Just like any of you men out there would do if you _really_ loved your wives, as a [birthday](/2008/12/30/happy-birthday-marga/) present for my wife yesterday, I [_aligned the moon and the planets_](http://www.earthsky.org/skywatching/observers-challenge-moon-jupiter-mercury). You know, just to show her I care. <a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-30-crescent-moonset/3151337881_65fc82576b_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Crescent Moon with Jupiter and Mercury">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-30-crescent-moonset/3151337881_d85b50442d.jpg" alt="Crescent Moon with Jupiter and Mercury"/>
</a>

You'll have to [click through to the large version](http://www.flickr.com/photos/erikrasmussen/3151337881/sizes/o/) to see Jupiter and Mercury.

I made a little timelapse video, but all you can see is the moon and a few stars and then a flash of Venus at the end.

It's better to watch it [in HD on YouTube](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fq4N9Tq-7q8&amp;amp;amp;amp;fmt=22)

This will be the last post of 2008. It's been a good year. But something tells me next year will be even wilder, full of new smells and emotions. Peace out, y'all!


Crescent Moonset


<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-30-happy-birthday-marga/3147837955_ce0cde9dd2_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image post-thumb" title="Marga">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-30-happy-birthday-marga/3147837955_902350796f_t.jpg" alt="Marga"/>
</a>

Marga turns 20-years-old today...in hexadecimal, anyway. To a computer geek, it's a nice round number. 100000 in binary or 25. 0x20 (hexadecimal notation) is the ASCII code for a space (" ") character. That's why you see all those %20's in web page urls sometimes. Those are spaces. The folks over at 0x20.org have [a pretty good explanation](http://0x20.org/about).

Enjoy your hexadecimal twenties, love. You've got sixteen more years before your hexthirties. Don't you agree that women's ages should always be represented in hex? <a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-30-happy-birthday-marga/3147837955_ce0cde9dd2_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Marga">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-30-happy-birthday-marga/3147837955_902350796f.jpg" alt="Marga"/>
</a>

This photo appeared on my camera over Christmas. I suspect the photographer was my sister-in-law, Belén.


Happy Birthday, Marga!


Introducing Frosty Crystals™, the newest most revitalizing breakfast cereal from Morning Guru, Inc., the international leader of New Age products for the breakfast table, makers of the widely popular and ridiculously overpriced Astral Toaster™ and Lotus Leaf Jam™. Do you feel tired in the mornings immediately after returning to your physical body and getting out of bed? If so, our experts are certain that you suffer from Droopy Aura Syndrome. Frosty Crystals™ is the _only_ proven cure for D.A.S. Proven!! _In a laboratory_! At MG Labs, we use the _strictest procedures_ to _absolutely guarantee_ the results we want. Nine out of ten of the most respected New Age gurus in Los Angeles â€“ that we paid a large sum money to agree with us â€“ agree that there is _absolutely no alternative_. Not only do Frosty Crystals™ taste great, but there is so much energy and love flowing through each Frosty Crystal™ that you will be filled with such warmth and energy1 that your aura will be beaming through all planes of existence. Remember how your horoscope said you'd have to make an important decision soon? This is it! Stop making the same energy-draining mistakes you've made in all your past lives. Give us your money and feel great! Buy Frosty Crystals™ today!

May contain shards of glass.

1Feeling of warmth may be from internal bleeding.

It was cold this Christmas. These are some frost photos I took, which resulted in the title of the post, which resulted in the introduction.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-29-frosty-crystals/3138122155_00ba93c987_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Frosty Crystals">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-29-frosty-crystals/3138122155_ed36e69bdb.jpg" alt="Frosty Crystals"/>
</a>

They all suffer from a pretty small depth of field.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-29-frosty-crystals/3138960676_bbe147990f_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Frosty Crystals">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-29-frosty-crystals/3138960676_295a4bb9c2.jpg" alt="Frosty Crystals"/>
</a>

The sunlight makes this the warmest one of the set.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-29-frosty-crystals/3138139327_617776941f_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Frosty Crystals">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-29-frosty-crystals/3138139327_0e80639a6e.jpg" alt="Frosty Crystals"/>
</a>

Brrrrr!!


Frosty Crystals


<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-28-christmas-2008/3143037895_011f14d493_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image post-thumb" title="Gildas">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-28-christmas-2008/3143037895_8c22b5e9d8_t.jpg" alt="Gildas"/>
</a>

We had a very intimate Christmas celebration this year, in which small children were saliently absent. It was just Marga, her sister, grandfather, mother and father, and me for Christmas Eve dinner (the most important meal), and then her Aunt Marga and sons joined us for Christmas lunch. As usual, there were so many appetizers that I had to turn down the main dish. <a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-28-christmas-2008/3143852778_69a8352978_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Frying Pan Santa">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-28-christmas-2008/3143852778_e816dc264b.jpg" alt="Frying Pan Santa"/>
</a>

Chez Claus at the local grocery store buying seafood. His hips undulate back and forth to monophonic Christmas carols. Delightful.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-28-christmas-2008/3143024213_082e966bf2_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Local vs. Imported Barnicles">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-28-christmas-2008/3143024213_3507a29e60.jpg" alt="Local vs. Imported Barnicles"/>
</a>

Crabs and barnacles. 120.00 €/kg for locally harvested (captured?) barnacles, and 12.99 €/kg for imported barnacles. Such is the nature of seafood in Spain.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-28-christmas-2008/3143857970_d29d34b588_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Bar Overflow">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-28-christmas-2008/3143857970_86df2a2f8b.jpg" alt="Bar Overflow"/>
</a>

We started dinner on Christmas Eve at around 21:00, a lot earlier than most people. The bars were so full that they were overflowing onto the streets.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-28-christmas-2008/3143862976_972c153fcb_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Tiko worshiping infrared gods">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-28-christmas-2008/3143862976_44b5b1c58b.jpg" alt="Tiko worshiping infrared gods"/>
</a>

Elderly Tiko partakes in his favorite pastime, staring at the space heater.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-28-christmas-2008/3143037895_011f14d493_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Gildas">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-28-christmas-2008/3143037895_8c22b5e9d8.jpg" alt="Gildas"/>
</a>

These are called _gildas_ (HEEL-das), they consist of an anchovy, a hot pepper, sometimes a cocktail onion, sometimes a small pickle, and an olive together on a toothpick or plastic cocktail sword. The flavors are very strong, but they are much more palatable when the whole thing is eaten in one bite.

For this blog entry, I did a Google search to see if I was spelling _gilda_ correctly, and all the results seemed to be about a [1946 Rita Hayworth movie](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038559/). Then I tried the Spanish Wikipedia and [found my answer](http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilda_(pincho)) (you can even have that page read to you!):

> The name Gilda was bestowed on this pincho in reference to the principal character of the 1948 movie by that name starring Rita Hayworth since the shape that it takes when placed in a vertical orientation is reminiscent of the silhouette of Gilda's dress.

I've eaten many of these at various levels of inebriation and never once was I reminded of a voluptuous female form. But whatever. They're delicious!

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-28-christmas-2008/3143872464_cc301df5bf_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Crab Salad Eggs">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-28-christmas-2008/3143872464_749173f700.jpg" alt="Crab Salad Eggs"/>
</a>

Hard boiled eggs stuffed with crab salad. Mayolicious!

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-28-christmas-2008/3143047315_d772b6dfd0_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Langostinos">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-28-christmas-2008/3143047315_b85eca8b5b.jpg" alt="Langostinos"/>
</a>

Jumbo shrimp, the culinary cornerstone of Spanish Christmas.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-28-christmas-2008/3143052249_2ffe35acf9_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Mushrooms">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-28-christmas-2008/3143052249_9345d66005.jpg" alt="Mushrooms"/>
</a>

Mushrooms. This is a favorite dish of my sister-in-law.

Every Christmas Eve in Marga's family, people start singing songs around the dinner table. For years they've been threatening to write down the lyrics "so that Erik can follow along", but it never gets done. This year, I think Marga was feeling her grandfather's mortality, particularly in relation how much her daughter will get to know him. So she grabbed a pen and began an anthropological study of her family's Christmas carols right there on the shimp-stained paper table cloth. Here's an example of a song from a couple years ago.

revver(44022)<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-28-christmas-2008/3143887266_d419cc10b5_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Song Lyrics">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-28-christmas-2008/3143887266_05647af75f.jpg" alt="Song Lyrics"/>
</a>

After dinner, we ripped off this piece of the table cloth. I joked that we could frame this famous 2008 Christmas Eve table cloth and my suggestion was met with serious enthusiasm. First we'll have to get the writer to digitize the illegible scratchings she's made.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-28-christmas-2008/3143068053_32b2d8a59d_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Crumbled Cork Art">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-28-christmas-2008/3143068053_9b65ba386d.jpg" alt="Crumbled Cork Art"/>
</a>

A little masterpiece of mine from a couple hours of playing with a wine bottle cork. Hold your applause until the end of the post, please.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-28-christmas-2008/3143902664_11ef0006eb_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Tiko sleeping with eyes open and tongue out">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-28-christmas-2008/3143902664_fcd74d01d1.jpg" alt="Tiko sleeping with eyes open and tongue out"/>
</a>

You know you've had too much to drink when people are taking photos of you asleep with your eyes open and tongue out.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-28-christmas-2008/3143084421_700fd74957_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Table Cloth Song Lyrics">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-28-christmas-2008/3143084421_1b017c47b6.jpg" alt="Table Cloth Song Lyrics"/>
</a>

Marga's work of art is complete.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-28-christmas-2008/3143907970_96f67c3793_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Nochebuena (Christmas Eve)">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-28-christmas-2008/3143907970_6709f5875b.jpg" alt="Nochebuena (Christmas Eve)"/>
</a>

 by erikrasmussen, on Flickr")

Life imitating art (see painting on wall).

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-28-christmas-2008/3143095971_3c0094e732_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Frosty car roof">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-28-christmas-2008/3143095971_b021cb1901.jpg" alt="Frosty car roof"/>
</a>

When we went outside after dinner, all the cars looked like this.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-28-christmas-2008/3143100739_39f11e8c62_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Pijama">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-28-christmas-2008/3143100739_f8836940b1.jpg" alt="Pijama"/>
</a>

On Christmas day, we had the leftovers from the previous night and, for dessert, a dish called a _pijama_ (literally "pajama", as in you can't go to bed without one): pineapple, peaches, flan, ice cream, whipped cream, chocolate sauce, and sprinkles.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-28-christmas-2008/3143105779_5a9ff61691_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Pijama">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-28-christmas-2008/3143105779_a247fa7749.jpg" alt="Pijama"/>
</a>

Yummy!


Christmas 2008


I've had this idea for a Greasemonkey script for a while. It seemed to me like, using the extensive Flickr API, I should be able to write a script that shows me a thumbnail of an image that was linked to in Flickr. When someone says, "Check out [these](http://www.flickr.com/photos/ccader/2549022647/)[photos](http://www.flickr.com/photos/jagosaurus/2703823411/)[on](http://www.flickr.com/photos/erikrasmussen/2397905265/)[Flickr](http://www.flickr.com/photos/jagosaurus/2822958258/)," with text hyperlinks, I'd like to be able to see what those pictures are without going all the way to Flickr. In my research into this goal, I discovered two reasons why my goal is unattainable using pure javascript:

1. Due to very reasonable security restrictions on AJAX calls, a script running on this page, for example, cannot communicate with Flickr via an [XMLHttpRequest](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XMLHttpRequest).
2. Even if I could get around #1, I would have to include my personal Flickr API key and secret in plain text in the javascript file. This is not only a bad idea, but against Flickr's Terms of Service.

The result is that the script must use a [cross-site scripting](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-site_scripting) technique to send information to a PHP program running on a server I host, which sends the request to Flickr and returns the remaining part of the script that knows what to do with the information from Flickr.

### Video Demonstration

### How do I get it?

Well, first you'll have to install [Greasemonkey Firefox plugin](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/748). Then you can go to [http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/39390](http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/39390) and click the Install button. That's it!

Enjoy.


Flickr Link Preview - A Greasemonkey Script


<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-25-merry-christmas-from-erik-marga-and-nora/3131682610_622f6d8019_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Christmas Card 2008">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-25-merry-christmas-from-erik-marga-and-nora/3131682610_69e4b814df_b.jpg" alt="Christmas Card 2008"/>
</a>

That's right, we are officially announcing the name of our daughter on Christmas. Her name will be Nora.

Lots of love from the 2.65 of us to all of you.


Merry Christmas from Erik, Marga, and Nora


<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-24-o-tannenbaum/3129613477_f12229e619_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image post-thumb" title="Christmas Tree">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-24-o-tannenbaum/3129613477_4661237efd_t.jpg" alt="Christmas Tree"/>
</a>

Our Christmas tree looks extra lovely this year, in my opinion. I think it's because I took extra time to separate each branch as much as possible. In past years there was too much haste involved. Growing up in the carpet-dominated United States, I never knew the joy of Christmas tree floor reflections. It's like having two trees in one! <a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-24-o-tannenbaum/3129592915_2e570d3c9c_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Christmas Tree">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-24-o-tannenbaum/3129592915_d597266452.jpg" alt="Christmas Tree"/>
</a>

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-24-o-tannenbaum/3130435764_40aa25a815_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Christmas Tree Reflection">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-24-o-tannenbaum/3130435764_0aabd0f6c9.jpg" alt="Christmas Tree Reflection"/>
</a>

Yay for hardwood floor Christmas light reflection!

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-24-o-tannenbaum/3130451980_3a2b0ded77_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Golfing Santa Ornament">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-24-o-tannenbaum/3130451980_1b0fe7e241.jpg" alt="Golfing Santa Ornament"/>
</a>

Golfing Santa shortly before a beautifully executed swan dive that broke off the head of his golf club. Nothing a little glue can't fix, but his handicap might go up.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-24-o-tannenbaum/3129630151_0a6fdfbdba_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Sun Ornament">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-24-o-tannenbaum/3129630151_5fac1eedbd.jpg" alt="Sun Ornament"/>
</a>

Sun face. Not a typical representation of a star at Christmas, is it?

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-24-o-tannenbaum/3130468214_55de42d054_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Angel Ornament">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-24-o-tannenbaum/3130468214_c94f3d31e9.jpg" alt="Angel Ornament"/>
</a>

Sad angel with dramatic lighting.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-24-o-tannenbaum/3129613477_f12229e619_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Christmas Tree">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-24-o-tannenbaum/3129613477_4661237efd.jpg" alt="Christmas Tree"/>
</a>

Full tree reflection.


O Tannenbaum


<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-23-nativity/3129535505_f0a54d73de_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image post-thumb" title="Lights with Church">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-23-nativity/3129535505_72e8092dac_t.jpg" alt="Lights with Church"/>
</a>

We [spent a lot of time in Laredo](/2008/12/22/semana-del-pincho-%e2%80%93-laredo/) this past weekend. I vaguely recall Laredo's Christmas decorations being pretty disappointing in previous years, but this year they've done an excellent job. The first two photos are of one single nativity model, but there was a concrete column preventing me from making a continuous panorama. The detail was incredible. There were even goldfish swimming in the river. <a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-23-nativity/3128613866_f90403067c_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Nativity Panorama">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-23-nativity/3128613866_967e885972.jpg" alt="Nativity Panorama"/>
</a>

I love the minarets. Because Islam was already in full swing when Jesus was born.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-23-nativity/3129548044_037bcc5ace_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="nativity-pan2">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-23-nativity/3129548044_6440ddb14d.jpg" alt="nativity-pan2"/>
</a>

The three kings make their way between the palm trees to the majestic stone arched manger built into the side of a mountain. Because it happened that way.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-23-nativity/3127825887_f7721f335d_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Paper Maché Nativity Scene">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-23-nativity/3127825887_d166427239.jpg" alt="Paper Maché Nativity Scene"/>
</a>

A life-sized paper maché nativity scene with blue-eyed Jesus. Life-sized paper maché humans should be prohibited. Too creepy.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-23-nativity/3129535505_f0a54d73de_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Lights with Church">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-23-nativity/3129535505_72e8092dac.jpg" alt="Lights with Church"/>
</a>

One of many sets of lights across the road with a medieval church wishing you "Peace" in the background.


Nativity


> History suggests that, all other things being equal, a society prospers in proportion to its ability to prevent parents from influencing their children's success directly.
> 
> – [After Credentials](http://www.paulgraham.com/credentials.html), by Paul Graham

At least he mentions his bias as a startup funder. In general, I think Graham makes a lot of sense in all his essays about smaller companies being better for society in the long term.


Parental Influence


[![lottery ticket](https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-22-el-gordo-and-the-spanish-christmas-lottery/297189056_2bfd874d62_t.jpg)](http://www.flickr.com/photos/alvy/297189056/ "18, by alvy")Today is a big day in Spain. It's the drawing for the Spanish Christmas Lottery. For months, people have been buying tickets throughout the country in hopes of winning big this holiday season. The Christmas lottery is not like most lotteries. Each number, 00001 to 85000, has 180 "series", and each of the series is divided into 10 "_décimas_". Each of the tickets you can buy is a _décima_, and they are sold for 20€ each. That is a grand total, if all the tickets are sold, of 3,060,000,000 euros! The government takes their cool 30% (91.8 millon) cut, and 2.142 billion euros are left for prize money.

What makes the Christmas lottery so interesting, and also so difficult for the human brain to calculate the probabilities, is that the tickets for any given number are all sold in the same establishment or set of establishments. So if number 12,345 wins a prize, all that prize money goes to the patrons of one particular bar, restaurant, or gas station. On recent news coverage, they were showing people queuing in long lines early in the morning to buy tickets from various places around the country. I'm not sure why; maybe they are thought to be lucky locations? Anyway, the newscaster mentioned that the Christmas Lottery is the biggest lottery of the year, with the most participants and the worst probabilities of winning. I have not done any follow-up calculations to confirm this.

### El Gordo and the other prizes

The principal prizes are as follows:

1. One 1st Prize - 3,000,000€ (**El Gordo!**)
2. One 2nd Prize - 1,000,000€
3. One 3rd Prize - 500,000€
4. Two 4th Prizes - 200,000€
5. Eight 5th Prizes - 50,000€
6. 1,774 6th prizes of 1,000€

These prizes are what is awarded to each _series_. So if you win first prize, that 20€_décima_ ticket you bought is worth 300,000€. There are other secondary prizes based on the adjacent numbers to and numbers sharing digits with the winning numbers as well. One thing that confuses foreigners, myself included, is that the term _El Gordo_ (literally: The Fat One) refers to the first prize, and not the Christmas Lottery itself.

### Traveling, Trading and Gifting Tickets

Because of the clustered distribution of the lottery numbers, when you travel to another town in Spain, they have completely separate numbers from the establishments in your home town. The result is that people try not to miss an opportunity to buy a ticket or two when they travel to another town, thus infinitesimally increasing their chances of winning. People also trade tickets with people they know in other towns. And when people are traveling in another town, they aren't so selfish as to buy one ticket, they often take advantage of their displacement to buy several to give to close family members back home. Personally, I'd rather be given anything worth 2€ than a 20€ lottery ticket that is most likely worthless. But that's just me.

### The Drawing

Every year, on the morning of December 22, the Spanish Christmas lottery drawing is held. The entire country turns on the television or radio and listens to junior high school students "sing" each prize and number pair as they are simultaneously drawn from huge spinning metal spheres. Since you never know when El Gordo will pop out, it's hard not to listen to _every single number_ they call out. It makes for some _really_ monotonous television. Remember, there are 1,787 5-digit numbers and quantities to be read out, 1,774 of the quantities are 1,000€. Terribly boring and riveting at the same time.

Here is a bit of the morning's television coverage I've recorded. I think you can see how horribly monotonous it is. If you can stand it until the end, you can see the cages spin. The announcer mentions how, after the drawing, the little boxes with wires pairing the balls are double-checked, and then displayed for the public to come see that they really won or lost. I remind you that there are hours and hours of this.

### The Social Aspect

What makes the Spanish Christmas Lottery so successful is the social nature of the event. Chances are very good that everyone at your job or bar where you are following the drawing has at least one ticket with the same number as you. The result is a camaraderie similar to what you get when watching a sporting match together. You share the triumph and anguish with your companions. This, I think, is the main reason why so many people play the Christmas lottery. It's all the excitement of a regular lottery, but shared with your friends and family in your community. Absolute genius on the part of the lottery creators.

Wherever "the fat one drops" (they really say that) in Spain, there are, within minutes, television crews and champagne bottles flooding the neighborhood where the winning ticket was sold. All the residents come out into the streets and spray champagne on each other and the television records and broadcasts every minute of it. Imagine if everyone on your block won a half-million dollars from the government. How would people behave? Any Las Vegas hotelier knows that the first rule of casinos is making as large a racket as possible when someone wins to induce envy in everyone else.

The Spanish Christmas Lottery has been going on in Spain since 1812 – yes, that's almost two hundred years – and they have truly mastered their game.


El Gordo and the Spanish Christmas Lottery


<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-22-semana-del-pincho-%e2%80%93-laredo/3126598284_840e067a1f_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image post-thumb" title="NIKOS1: Nikos">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-22-semana-del-pincho-%e2%80%93-laredo/3126598284_f4fe47977a_t.jpg" alt="NIKOS1: Nikos"/>
</a>

This past week saw the [First Annual Tapa Week](http://www.laredo.es/semanadelpincho/) held in the nearby town of Laredo. Ten restaurants agreed to create one or two unique tapa dishes and serve them all week long for 2€ with young wine, grape juice, or small beer, or 2.50€ for a better wine or larger beer. I am very much in favor of these organized events. It seems to me like a win-win situation for the restaurants, the citizens, and even the local government. It gets people out of their houses and spending money in the local economy. Starting on Friday, I made it our mission to visit, sample, and photograph as many of the entries as we possibly could. It took us all three days, but we ended up sampling eight of the fourteen _pinchos_ available. <a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-22-semana-del-pincho-%e2%80%93-laredo/3125682731_3803a7ae43_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Semana del Pincho">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-22-semana-del-pincho-%e2%80%93-laredo/3125682731_6f05d63b19.jpg" alt="Semana del Pincho"/>
</a>

This is a scan of the front and back of the brochure that lived through three days of partying.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-22-semana-del-pincho-%e2%80%93-laredo/3126518260_3b5cf981a6_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Semana del Pincho">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-22-semana-del-pincho-%e2%80%93-laredo/3126518260_9aea8bddfa.jpg" alt="Semana del Pincho"/>
</a>

The ten bars and the SMS codes to send to vote.

First we went to a restaurant called _El Guti_, which is run by one of our friends from salsa dancing. It's good to know the boss at one of the best restaurants in town.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-22-semana-del-pincho-%e2%80%93-laredo/3125705245_443a829ca7_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="GUTI1: Hamburguesitas de Pescado">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-22-semana-del-pincho-%e2%80%93-laredo/3125705245_1f6accaac3.jpg" alt="GUTI1: Hamburguesitas de Pescado"/>
</a>

GUTI1: _El Guti_'s _Hamburguesa de Merluza_ (Monkfish Hamburger) was very good. Strong fish flavors and a sauce that required bread mopping.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-22-semana-del-pincho-%e2%80%93-laredo/3126526216_366793ed73_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="GUTI2: Pimiento Relleno de Zancarrón napado con salsa de verduras">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-22-semana-del-pincho-%e2%80%93-laredo/3126526216_d10e4fa640.jpg" alt="GUTI2: Pimiento Relleno de Zancarrón napado con salsa de verduras"/>
</a>

GUTI2: _El Guti_'s stuffed pepper jumped strongly into the lead with an amazing sauce. Stuffed with what, you ask? With _zancarrón_, of course! That apparently translates to "[shank](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shank_(meat))". It's all beef to me.

From _El Guti_, we went to _El Emperador_, but they had just sold their last _pincho_. But we still had a drink there. From there, we went to a new bar called _El Sinfo_, where we were given the last two _pinchos_ they had prepared that day.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-22-semana-del-pincho-%e2%80%93-laredo/3125712693_67f41b62ca_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="SINFO: Pincho del Sinfo">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-22-semana-del-pincho-%e2%80%93-laredo/3125712693_cba18cf6cb.jpg" alt="SINFO: Pincho del Sinfo"/>
</a>

SINFO: A pretty weak ham + egg + mayo salad open-faced sandwich on oil-drenched fried bread. Disappointing.

On Saturday, we headed out for a night of _pinchos_, first to _El Emperador_, where we had been denied the night before. I accidentally ordered "two _pinchos_" rather than "one of each", because I hadn't noticed that they had two available. While we were getting served, we got a phone call inviting us to a friend's house for dinner, so we only got in one _pincho_ on Saturday.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-22-semana-del-pincho-%e2%80%93-laredo/3126551930_7f06804936_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="EMPERADOR1: Tartaleta Emperador">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-22-semana-del-pincho-%e2%80%93-laredo/3126551930_17198392ae.jpg" alt="EMPERADOR1: Tartaleta Emperador"/>
</a>

EMPERADOR1: A tasty, if sweet and fatty, entry from _El Emperador_: foie with an apple puree and vermouth sauce.

On Sunday, the last day of the festival, we made it to four more bars and five more _pinchos_. First, we went to a restaurant we like called _El Curro_. The name of this bar is clever because it is a slang word for "work", kind of like "salt mines" is in English. So when your wife asks you, "_¿Qué tal en el curro?_", or when you say, "_Lo siento, cariño, pero tengo que irme al curro._", you can cheekily be referring to the bar.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-22-semana-del-pincho-%e2%80%93-laredo/3126561978_2548ce75e1_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="CURRO1: Navidad">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-22-semana-del-pincho-%e2%80%93-laredo/3126561978_26d71fdf4c.jpg" alt="CURRO1: Navidad"/>
</a>

CURRO1: The entry from _El Curro_ was a layered pastry filled with foie, in a port sauce with raisins, drizzled with caramel and dusted with powdered sugar. This was by far the best _pincho_ we tried.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-22-semana-del-pincho-%e2%80%93-laredo/3126566230_89a6ba8616_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Caramel curls">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-22-semana-del-pincho-%e2%80%93-laredo/3126566230_994df3652e.jpg" alt="Caramel curls"/>
</a>

I loved the pattern of caramel drizzle on my plate.

Two doors down from _El Curro_ is _El Charles_. The former is very elegant and cleanly decorated. The latter is quite dingy and makes you wonder if they've cleaned the tables lately.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-22-semana-del-pincho-%e2%80%93-laredo/3126575956_51ca46e5be_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="CHARLES: Pimiento de Piquillo Relleno de Brandada de Bacalao">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-22-semana-del-pincho-%e2%80%93-laredo/3126575956_796d4f8a74.jpg" alt="CHARLES: Pimiento de Piquillo Relleno de Brandada de Bacalao"/>
</a>

CHARLES: The entry from _El Charles_ was a dish of peppers stuffed with cod fish with a little caviar on top. Very fishy. It was better than we expected from the environment, but still one of the lower contenders in the competition.

Finally we walked across town to _Cafeterí­a Nikos_ for their two _pinchos_.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-22-semana-del-pincho-%e2%80%93-laredo/3126598284_840e067a1f_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="NIKOS1: Nikos">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-22-semana-del-pincho-%e2%80%93-laredo/3126598284_f4fe47977a.jpg" alt="NIKOS1: Nikos"/>
</a>

NIKOS1: Toasted bread topped with smoked salmon, faux angula eels, a cherry tomato, and caviar. The spices (basil and oregano?) on the tomatoes were lovely, and the fishy middle was very good.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-22-semana-del-pincho-%e2%80%93-laredo/3125758257_0a80da7406_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="NIKOS2: El De Toda La Vida">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-22-semana-del-pincho-%e2%80%93-laredo/3125758257_28d7cc975f.jpg" alt="NIKOS2: El De Toda La Vida"/>
</a>

NIKOS2: A pastry cup filled with crab, tuna, onion, and pink sauce. Good, but nothing special.

Later, we went to _Cafeterí­a Berna_, but they were serving their last _pinchos_ when we arrived, so we ordered a plate of calamari to share, thus removing any need for lunch upon returning home. The calamari was excellent and the _pinchos_ we saw had an excellent presentation, so _Cafeterí­a Berna_ might have ranked highly.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-22-semana-del-pincho-%e2%80%93-laredo/3125785001_a4e31338d1_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Wine Shadows">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-22-semana-del-pincho-%e2%80%93-laredo/3125785001_666dd718fa.jpg" alt="Wine Shadows"/>
</a>

That's it. The party's over.

Our official awards are as follows:

Bronze metal: NIKOS1 Silver metal: GUTI2 Gold metal: CURRO1

You can follow the official voting on the [Semana del Pincho](http://www.laredo.es/semanadelpincho/) website. We had a great time and are looking forward to participating next year. Hopefully everyone will do a better job of estimating demand and will prepare enough to last each day. It's very disappointing to hear that you just missed the last one.


Semana del Pincho – Laredo


<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-19-three-wonderful-wonderings/3118060123_d9b2da0683_o_d.png" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Cutout Question">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-19-three-wonderful-wonderings/3118060123_d9b2da0683_o.png" alt="Cutout Question"/>
</a>

Sometimes questions pop into my head and I don't have sufficient time, bandwidth, or motivation to search for the answers. A lucky few of these questions get written down on a piece of paper, and only a subset of those ever get investigated. But today, I've taken the time to answer some of my own questions, and I will now share them with you.

### 1) Why is cinema called the "seventh art"?

When Paul Newman died a couple months ago, the Spanish newscasters kept using the phrase "seventh art". The world of the seventh art is in mourning today following news of..., He was a master of the seventh art..., etc. After about the thirtieth time they used it, my thick little noggin had enough context to understand that "cinema is the seventh art". Which leads to the obvious questions: What are the first six? Are there more?

[![art](https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-19-three-wonderful-wonderings/2351792245_fbe5ec791c_m.jpg)](http://www.flickr.com/photos/traveller2020/2351792245/ "Bust Greek Dallas Museum of Art Sculpture, by traveller2020")It [turns out](http://www.abcpedia.com/arte/bellas-artes.htm) to be a tradition left over from ancient Greece. The Greeks loved classifying things. They defined a dichotomy between "superior arts" and "inferior arts", where the former involved the "superior senses" of vision and hearing. There were six superior arts:

1. Architecture
2. Sculpture
3. Painting
4. Music
5. Literature
6. Dance and Theater

The first reference to cinema as the seventh art was in 1911 by a chap named [Ricciotto Canudo](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricciotto_Canudo), who was more or less the first "film theoretician", whatever that is. And there you have it, cinema is the seventh art!

Some additional searching has found other arts added to the list.

1. Cinema
2. Television
3. Comics
4. Videogames

I hereby decree that **blogging is the eleventh art**.

### 2) What is an air mile? And why do they use them in countries that use the metric system?

[![plane](https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-19-three-wonderful-wonderings/194965687_416535ca29_m.jpg)](http://www.flickr.com/photos/caribb/194965687/ "Lufthansa A340 D-AIGX, by caribb")On the way back from our last trip abroad, in the Frankfurt airport, a Lufthansa representative asked me if I was in the Lufthansa frequent flier program and collected "miles". I said no. As I walked to the gate, I figured out what had struck me as odd about that encounter. I wondered aloud, "We're in Europe now. With the exception of the UK, they don't measure _anything_ in miles in Europe. It seems like Lufthansa frequent fliers should be collecting 'Air Kilometers' instead!" Marga knew the answer. "This is the aeronautics industry," she said, "They measure everything in [_nautical_ miles](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nautical_mile)." Indeed! So you have to go 1.15 miles to get 1 "air mile" on your frequent flier account.

### 3) Do all birds lay unfertilized eggs like chickens do?

[![chicken](https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-19-three-wonderful-wonderings/348770232_16bafbe1c9_m.jpg)](http://www.flickr.com/photos/acousticdad/348770232/ "White Chook, by acousticdad")Recently I was eating some [_arroz a la cubana_](/2008/01/17/homer-rice/) and Marga and I were discussing what a perfect food fried chicken eggs are: full of nutrients, quick and easy to cook, no seasoning required, delicious, etc. Between shoveling pieces of yolk-soaked bread into my mouth, I wondered aloud how unique chickens were in laying such lovely, but useless (to them), unfertilized eggs. [WikiAnswers to the rescue](http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Do_Wild_birds_lay_unfertilized_eggs)!

> **Q:** Do wild birds lay unfertilized eggs? **A:** The answer is yes - all birds have the ability to lay unfertilized eggs, however in the wild this is a rare occurrence due to the drive to mate.
> 
> The laying of unfertilized eggs is simply a method of disposing of the unused egg from the body of the bird.
> 
> The domesticated chicken and duck are unusual amongst birds due to the fact that they will lay an egg almost daily. This useful feature has been selectively bred into the domesticated species for hundreds of years, and is also partially due to the fact that their eggs are removed daily.
> 
> If a chicken or duck is left with their eggs, they will start to brood, stop laying eggs and try to hatch the eggs they already have.

And there you have it. Three blog posts in one! I'm like the Paul Newman of the eleventh art.


Three Wonderful Wonderings


We have quite a few lamp posts in the small town I live in. A year ago, they all got a fresh paint job of black matte paint and official stickers that always make me chuckle reading roughly, "Affixing stickers is prohibited!" Apparently, when they were painting them, they noticed how many "flat for sale!" papers had been taped to the posts at eye level and they wanted to stop such defacing of public property. Good on 'em.

Two days ago, I noticed that one of the lamp posts had been _vandalized_! It's unclear to me what the intended goal of the vandal(s) was. Personally, I'm quite happy with the [bidirectional reflectance distribution function](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bidirectional_reflectance_distribution_function) of the town's lamp posts. This lamp post does, however, reside on the coolest teenage hangout corner in town. The youngfolk spend hours upon hours sitting sulkily on the steps of this bank. <a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-18-this-post-has-been-foiled/3115023885_6e3d9f6be1_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="This post has been foiled">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-18-this-post-has-been-foiled/3115023885_34d6386e7b.jpg" alt="This post has been foiled"/>
</a>

Drats, foiled again!


This post has been foiled


For a long time, since long before procreation was discussed seriously, Marga and I have been in agreement about one thing: our child will have a name that is easily legible and pronounceable in both English and Spanish. Rather unexpectedly, since the pregnancy, family members from both countries have expressed concern about this, "Just don't give her one of those weird foreign names that's hard to pronounce, please!" It was reassuring to see how wise our initial instincts were.

You might be surprised by how many names fail this simple test. I was. Almost every name suggested was discarded for this reason. In a way, it was nice to have a simple objective criterion in coming up with a shortlist of candidates.

### Strict Pronunciation Unambiguity

There's an even stricter form of the rule that I've personally been applying as well. Ideally the name we choose would be pronounced _exactly_ the same in both languages. There are many fewer vowel sounds in Spanish than English. The latter syllable in my name, for instance, isn't pronounced the same in English and Spanish. One of the hardest parts of good English pronunciation for Spaniards is the short 'i' sound. This fact was humorously first brought to my attention while sitting on the beach with a Brazilian girl when she asked, "Wait a minute! What's the difference between 'beach' like where we are and 'bitch' like a woman?" She pronounced both words identically, as most Spanish or Portuguese speakers do. It would be nice if these sounds could be avoided.

As we went though name trials (explained below), I realized that this strict unambiguity rule might be more important for me than for Marga or our daughter because I'm going to be speaking to her primarily in English, so the English pronunciation of her name is going to be how my brain thinks of her, but then for talking about her in the third person to Spaniards, I'd have to change my pronunciation. Probably doable, but might get confusing if I'm talking about her to a Spaniard and then talking to her directly (e.g. "\[Name\] is very well behaved. _\[Name\], stop doing that!_"). This doesn't happen so much with my own name, because Erik rarely refers to himself in the third person in conversation, and I know to respond to, and give when inquired, the Spanish pronunciation of my name.

I could accept a name that doesn't meet my strict pronunciation rule exactly, but I count failure to do so as a con. One thing we've learned in this process is that _every_ name has pros and cons.

### Name Trials

Once we had a shortlist of contenders, we decided to test each one. We assigned each name to a day in a week and she had a different name every day. It took effort to use the name and stop referring to her as _la niña_. This procedure turned out to be absolutely invaluable in deciding on a name. Aspects and subjective reactions that were previously unnoticed became clear. I highly recommend test driving names before deciding to buy.

### The Shortlist

Here is our list of possible names, with some of the pros and cons. We would value any feedback my esteemed readers could provide. The truth is that we've more or less decided, but before we carve it in stone, we'd like your reactions. You could list them in order of preference, suggest a pro or con that I haven't provided, recommend giving more or less weight to a pro or con I've listed, or even suggest a new name. Here we go, in alphabetical order:

**Elisa** – Marga has always liked this name for some reason she can't put her finger on. My initial reaction was one of ambivalence. My mother's full name is Elizabeth, so naming her granddaughter Elisa would probably please her. It does suffer from pronunciation ambiguity in English. How do you say the 'i'? Does it rhyme with "Melissa" or "Lisa"? Or is it pronounced like Eliza (Doolittle)? On the plus side, Beethoven has already written [the ringtone](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%BCr_Elise) for when she calls. elisarasmussen.com is available.

**Fiona** – I have loved this name ever since my first trip abroad, to Scotland, as a teenager. [According to Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiona), it is of Celtic origin and means pale, white, or fair. It was first used in an eighteenth century poem and gained popularity from there. It's unclear to me how a made-up name from a poem could have meaning like names derived from words, but whatever. Chances are my daughter will probably actually be pale, white, and fair as baby, but, if she's lucky, she'll get her mother's darker skin as she grows up. Word association exercises quickly conjure up words like "feisty" and "fiery" and "fierce" that imply a strong personality. [Phi](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio) is one of the coolest numbers in mathematics. The name is a little rare exotic in both the US and Spain. The pronunciation is _exactly_ the same in English and Spanish. When we mention Fiona as a possible name to a Spaniard, their first reaction is, "You mean like [Shrek's girlfriend](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Fiona)?" Damn you, Dreamworks Animation! Another negative that only came out during name trials was the existence of the Spanish words _meona_, _cagona_, and _llorona_, which are the feminine noun equivalents of pisser, pooper, and crier, respectively. There's absolutely no way these words will go unused on the playground. fionarasmussen.com is available.

**Lydia** – The name of an [Iron Age kingdom in Asia Minor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lydia). It's unclear how it became a feminine personal name. It fails the strict unambiguous pronunciation test for having a short 'i' sound in English. It also fails the unambiguous spelling test because the typical Spanish spelling is "Lidia" (also the way they spell the [Iron Age kingdom](http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidia)). Take it from someone named "Erik, with a K" that ambiguous spelling sucks. lydiarasmussen.com is available.

**Nora** – Simple. Identical pronunciation in English and Spanish (and probably most other languages). There are two meanings: Nora has an Arabic origin meaning "light", and Norah has Latin origin meaning "honor". No doubt anyone named Sara or Hannah can attest to how annoying having a silent optional 'h' on the end of your name is. "Nora Rasmussen" has a doubled up "ra" sound. It sounds a little like the negation of [a deity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra). It's very close to the name of the title character in the _Dora the Explorer_ children's television show. norarasmussen.com is available.


Baby Name Shortlist – How To Decide


![thumb](https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-17-dan-gilbert-makes-me-happy/default.jpg)[![Stumbling on Happiness](https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-17-dan-gilbert-makes-me-happy/51CRTFEKP9L._SL160_.jpg)](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400042666?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;amp;amp;tag=eriksblog07-20&amp;amp;amp;amp;linkCode=as2&amp;amp;amp;amp;camp=1789&amp;amp;amp;amp;creative=390957&amp;amp;amp;amp;creativeASIN=1400042666)Almost two years ago, I blogged about Dan Gilbert's TED talk about [The Secret Of Happiness](/2006/12/22/the-secret-to-happiness/). Spoiler: the secret to happiness is not having choices. If you read [my last post](/2008/12/17/baby-name-shortlist-%e2%80%93-how-to-decide/), you'll know that I have been unable to avoid stressing over important decisions. But I do my best.

The folks over at ted.com have [just posted](http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/dan_gilbert_researches_happiness.html) a new Dan Gilbert talk, that is actually 3.5 years old now. Again, he's discussing the science of happiness. This time, it's about the human inability to properly perform benefit/risk analysis. He spends some time talking about playing the lottery and how idiotic that is. (And he gets a very intelligent counter-argument from the audience at the end.) The ludicrousness of lottery playing is of particular importance on this blog [this year](/lottery-year/). He also talks about how silly it is to be afraid of plane crashes or terrorism. Excellent stuff! 

Not at all subtle, maybe not too late for Christmas, gift idea for Erik: [Stumbling on Happiness](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400042666?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;amp;amp;tag=eriksblog07-20&amp;amp;amp;amp;linkCode=as2&amp;amp;amp;amp;camp=1789&amp;amp;amp;amp;creative=390957&amp;amp;amp;amp;creativeASIN=1400042666)![](http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=eriksblog07-20&amp;amp;amp;amp;l=as2&amp;amp;amp;amp;o=1&amp;amp;amp;amp;a=1400042666), by Dan Gilbert.


Dan Gilbert Makes Me Happy


There is [a certain video](http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=bush+shoe) making its round through every news program on the planet, and doing pretty well on the internet too, of an Iraqi journalist launching two shoes towards President Bush's face. Not only is the video pretty funny, but it's hugely symbolic for the failure of Bush's presidency. I think that everyone who has seen it has probably been impressed by old Dubya's evasive maneuvers. It's like he's been practicing dodgeball on the White House lawn or something.

It occurs to me that the internet is ripe for any parody videos involving flying shoes. If I had any video special effects skills beyond iMovie, I would make one myself. The best idea I've come up with is a parody of _The Matrix_. There are two scenes to choose from. Either President Bush bends back until his torso is parallel to the ground, arms flailing, as time slows and we see the shoes fly past in slow motion. Or we go with the scene at the end of the movie and Bush simply holds out his hand and the shoes slow down, stop in mid air, and fall to the ground.

A good viral video idea is worth thousands of dollars. All you need to make it an advertisement is for Bush to take a sip of some beverage either before or after the action, or for the shoes to have a logo on them as they fly by in slow motion.

C'mon, Internet! Get to work!


Viral Video Idea: Flying Shoes


<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-14-building-an-ark/3074017285_10d527c411_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Colindres Forecast">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-14-building-an-ark/3074017285_bb55ee7850_m.jpg" alt="Colindres Forecast"/>
</a>

The weather here lately has been absolutely ridiculous. I always thought the 40 days and 40 nights of rain in the Bible was hyperbole, but I'm starting to change my mind. It has been raining at least 18 hours every day for all of November and December. And cold. But it refuses to snow. The snow has made it down to an altitude of 400 meters, and we can see it approaching on the mountains, but down here by the sea the temperature is just too warm. And by warm, I mean a couple of degrees above freezing. Personally, I would love to see some snow. Our lifestyle would be very minimally affected by snow.

The result is that everyone is going a little stir crazy. This morning we went for a long, wet, walk around town and only returned home when the discomfort of cold and wetness became unbearable. After a change of clothes, I unboxed the old Tannenbaum. As I was setting it up, something didn't feel quite right, so I went to my computer to see if I had any Christmas music, only to discover my iTunes library devoid of holiday spirit. Within 5 minutes, I had two albums downloaded and classics like _First Noel_, _Let It Snow_, _I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus_, _Little Drummer Boy_, _Joy To The World_, _White Christmas_, and _Silent Night_ were bringing merriment to the entire living room. <a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-14-building-an-ark/3107962207_b1dc014dcf_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Colindres Lake">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-14-building-an-ark/3107962207_4db4336085.jpg" alt="Colindres Lake"/>
</a>

This construction site in the middle of town has created a rather lovely lake.

I'm thinking about writing a letter of complaint to the meteorologists on television. I've had enough of their self-fulfilling pessimism!


Building an Ark


<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-10-pigger-woods/3097036129_e570d1c158_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image post-thumb" title="Pigger Woods">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-10-pigger-woods/3097036129_50a099c41e_t.jpg" alt="Pigger Woods"/>
</a>

When it comes to bad golf puns executed in the Sculpture genre, I think we have a winner. I found this porcine oddity on the side of a golf hole where my grandmother lives. These objects always baffle me because I am unable to avoid imagining myself in the artist's position during the brainstorming process, wondering what the specifications, if any, for the piece might have been. Did someone specifically ask the artist for a statue of a sitting pig with golf clubs? Or was it a general "golfer pig" or "animal golfer"? Or did this idea spontaneously appear in someone's noggin and only upon completion was a buyer sought? Were I a feline, this dosage of curiosity might be lethal. <a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-10-pigger-woods/3097036129_e570d1c158_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Pigger Woods">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-10-pigger-woods/3097036129_50a099c41e.jpg" alt="Pigger Woods"/>
</a>

As far as clothed pig statues go, this is one of the most attractive I've seen.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-10-pigger-woods/3097877038_b9e49f1385_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Pigger Woods">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-10-pigger-woods/3097877038_62b58aca2f.jpg" alt="Pigger Woods"/>
</a>

Yes, one of the designers was named Mitchell **_Ham_**.

Hey, at least it's not Seymour Optometrist.


Pigger Woods


_Homo sapiens sapiens_ is a pretty fascinating subspecies. Due to our intelligence and linguistic skills, we like to think of ourselves as thinking and reasoning about our behaviors, and we are insulted by scientists who describe our behaviors the same way they describe those of less intelligent animals. Personally, I'm fascinated by such simple, functional explanations of complex systems. That's why I love the work of [B. F. Skinner](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner), [Richard Dawkins](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins), and [Desmond Morris](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Morris). The following is an excerpt from _[Peoplewatching](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0099429780?ie=UTF8&tag=eriksblog07-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0099429780)![](http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=eriksblog07-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0099429780)_, by Desmond Morris.

> Altruism is the performance of an unselfish act. As a pattern of behavior this act must have two properties: it must benefit someone else, and it must do so to the disadvantage of the benefactor. It is not merely a matter of being helpful, it is helpfulness at a cost to yourself.
> 
> This simple definition conceals a difficult biological problem. If I harm myself to help you, then I am increasing your chances of success relative to mine. In broad evolutionary terms, if I do this, your offspring (or potential offspring) will have better prospects than mine. Because I have been altruistic, your genetic line will stand a better chance of survival than mine. Over a period of time, my unselfish line will die out and your selfish line will survive. So altruism will not be a viable proposition in evolutionary terms.
> 
> Since human beings are animals whose ancestors have won the long struggle for survival during their evolutionary history, they cannot be genetically programmed to display true altruism. Evolution theory suggests that they must, like all other animals, be entirely selfish in their actions, even when they appear to be at their most self-sacrificing and philanthropic.
> 
> This is the biological, evolutionary argument and it is completely convincing as far as it goes, but it does not seem to explain many of mankind's "finer moments". If a man sees a burning house and inside it his small daughter, an old friend, a complete stranger, or even a screaming kitten, he may, without pausing to think, rush headlong into the building and be badly burned in a desperate attempt to save a life. How can actions of this sort be described as selfish? The fact is that they can, but it requires special definition of the term "self".
> 
> When you think of your "self", you probably think of your living body, complete, as it is at this moment. But biologically it is more correct to think of yourself as merely a temporary housing, a disposable container, for your genes. Your genes – the genetic material that you inherited from your parents and which you will pass on to your children – are in a sense immortal. Our bodies are merely the carriers which they use to transport themselves from one generation to the next. It is they, not we, who are the basic units of evolution. We are only their guardians, protecting them from destruction as best we can, for the brief span of our lives.
> 
> Religion pictures man as having an immortal soul which leaves his body at death and floats off to heaven (or hell, as the case may be), but the more useful image is to visualize a man's immortal soul as sperm-shaped and a woman's as egg-shaped and to think of them as leaving the body during the breeding process rather than at death. Following this line of thought, though, there is, of course, an afterlife, but it is not in some mysterious "other world", it is right here in the heaven (or hell) of the nursery and the playground, where our genes continue their immortal journey down the tunnel of time, rehoused now in the brand-new flesh-containers we call children.
> 
> So, genetically speaking, our children are us – or, rather, half of us, since our mate has a half share of the genes of each child. This makes our devoted and apparently selfless parental care nothing more than _genetic self-care_. The man who risks death to save his small daughter from a fire is in reality saving his own genes in their new body-package. And, in saving his genes, his act becomes biologically selfish, rather than altruistic.
> 
> But supposing the man leaping into the fire is trying to save, not his daughter, but an old friend? How can this be selfish? The answer here lies in the ancient history of mankind. For more than a million years, man was a simple tribal being, living in small groups where everyone knew everyone else and everyone was closely genetically related to everyone else. Despite a certain amount of out-breeding, the chances were that every member of your own tribe was a relative of some kind, even if a rather remote one. A certain degree of altruism was therefore appropriate where all the other members of your tribe were concerned. You would be helping copies of your own genes, and although you might not respond so intensely to their calls for help as you would do with your own children, you would nevertheless give them a degree of help, again on a basis of genetic selfishness.
> 
> This is not, of course, a calculated process. It operates unconsciously and is based on an emotion we call "love". Our love for our children is what we say we are obeying when we act "selflessly" for them, and our love of our fellow-men is what we feel when we come to the aid of our friends. These are inborn tendencies and when we are faced with calls for help we feel ourselves obeying these deep-seated urges unquestioningly and unanalytically. It is only because we see ourselves as "persons" rather than "gene machines" that we think of these acts of love as unselfish rather than selfish.
> 
> So far, so good, but what about the man who rushes headlong into the fire to save a complete stranger? The stranger is probably not genetically related to the man who helps him, so this act must surely be truly unselfish and altruistic? The answer is Yes, but only by accident. The accident is caused by the rapid growth of human populations in the last few thousand years. Previously, for millions of years, man was tribal and any inborn urge to help his fellow-men would have meant automatically that he was helping his gene-sharing relatives, even if only remote ones. There was no need for this urge to be selective, because there were no strangers around to create problems. But with the urban explosion, man rapidly found himself in huge communities, surrounded by strangers and with no time for his genetic constitution to alter to fit the startlingly new circumstances. So his altruism inevitably spread to include all his fellow-citizens, even though many of them may have been genetically quite unrelated to him.
> 
> Politicians, exploiting this ancient urge, were easily able to spread the aid-system even further, to a national level called patriotism, so that men would go and die for their country as if it were their ancient tribe or their family.
> 
> The man who leaps into the fire to save a small kitten is a special case. To many people, animals are child substitutes and receive the same care and love as real children. The kitten-saver is explicable as a man who is going to the aid of his symbolic child. This process of symbolizing, of seeing one thing as a metaphorical equivalent of another, is a powerful tendency of the human animal and it accounts for a great deal of the spread of helpfulness across the human environment.

Isn't that absolutely fascinating? Sorry it was so long, but he mentioned the burning kitty and I had to continue until he explained that part. To be fair, the amazing "altruism is really our genes being selfish" was really the breakthrough of Richard Dawkins (in his book, _[The Selfish Gene](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0192860925?ie=UTF8&tag=eriksblog07-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0192860925)![](http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=eriksblog07-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0192860925)_), and arguably the greatest contribution to evolution theory since Darwin himself.

Personally, I look forward to selfishly guarding my immortal genes in their brand new flesh bag once they get out of the gene packaging facility.


Why Altruism is Selfish


<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-06-thanksgiving-2008/3087143966_7b1d85e76c_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image post-thumb" title="Grandma with Turkey (crop)">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-06-thanksgiving-2008/3087143966_e8d8461d26_t.jpg" alt="Grandma with Turkey (crop)"/>
</a>

 by erikrasmussen, on Flickr")This year, I finally got to show Marga one of my favorite American traditions: Thanksgiving dinner. As long as I live, "a proper Thanksgiving" in my mind will be those of my childhood at my grandparents' house, my grandmother's turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, peas, cranberry jello, and pumpkin pie with _real_ whipped cream. This was my first Thanksgiving with my family since 2001. Rose-colored memories of The Good Old Days are hard to live up to, but my amazing grandmother did it. The only thing missing from the dinner table was my grandfather, who died three years ago. His absence was felt. <a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-06-thanksgiving-2008/3084682924_f2e76e4452_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Thanksgiving Dinner Table">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-06-thanksgiving-2008/3084682924_0cfe4daa69.jpg" alt="Thanksgiving Dinner Table"/>
</a>

The table is set.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-06-thanksgiving-2008/3084687664_44cb4ccdac_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Pumpkin Pie">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-06-thanksgiving-2008/3084687664_c78d7c9005.jpg" alt="Pumpkin Pie"/>
</a>

I sneak a peak at the pie that awaits us after dinner.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-06-thanksgiving-2008/3084691770_8ca0e5cecd_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Grandma with scarf">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-06-thanksgiving-2008/3084691770_e955ce0464.jpg" alt="Grandma with scarf"/>
</a>

My grandmother receives a scarf as a present from Marga's parents. She loves it.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-06-thanksgiving-2008/3084699670_066e1de4e0_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Grandma with Turkey">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-06-thanksgiving-2008/3084699670_0bec50aa0a.jpg" alt="Grandma with Turkey"/>
</a>

Grandma and her poultry masterpiece.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-06-thanksgiving-2008/3084703866_3b07594286_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Where the stuffing was cooked">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-06-thanksgiving-2008/3084703866_b995401b4d.jpg" alt="Where the stuffing was cooked"/>
</a>

Where stuffing comes from.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-06-thanksgiving-2008/3083868329_00a9b605bf_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Cranberry Jello Salad">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-06-thanksgiving-2008/3083868329_e721b65d39.jpg" alt="Cranberry Jello Salad"/>
</a>

My grandmother's cranberry jello salad.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-06-thanksgiving-2008/3083872197_9a49f98f53_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Paul ready for dinner to commence">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-06-thanksgiving-2008/3083872197_cb222128ea.jpg" alt="Paul ready for dinner to commence"/>
</a>

Paul is ready for dinner to commence.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-06-thanksgiving-2008/3084715670_359a6f05c1_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Cannabalism?">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-06-thanksgiving-2008/3084715670_a6d9a29a69.jpg" alt="Cannabalism?"/>
</a>

No caption.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-06-thanksgiving-2008/3084720190_6f43c86f11_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Erik and Marga on Thanksgiving Day">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-06-thanksgiving-2008/3084720190_4cf53fbbde.jpg" alt="Erik and Marga on Thanksgiving Day"/>
</a>

Erik and Marga are hungry.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-06-thanksgiving-2008/3083884755_c748ba5665_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Marga and Erik">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-06-thanksgiving-2008/3083884755_d784ae7cbf.jpg" alt="Marga and Erik"/>
</a>

Looking good.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-06-thanksgiving-2008/3084728136_6d0999c919_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Paul with his pumpkin pie">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-06-thanksgiving-2008/3084728136_144e26a5e6.jpg" alt="Paul with his pumpkin pie"/>
</a>

My father loves this time of year, too, I think.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-06-thanksgiving-2008/3083892783_c13b1b3b90_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Pumpkin Pie with Whipped Cream">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-06-thanksgiving-2008/3083892783_968829a8bd.jpg" alt="Pumpkin Pie with Whipped Cream"/>
</a>

Delicious!

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-06-thanksgiving-2008/3084736004_ba628cf77a_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Marga happy with her slice of pumpkin pie">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-06-thanksgiving-2008/3084736004_308719621a.jpg" alt="Marga happy with her slice of pumpkin pie"/>
</a>

Marga could get used to this holiday, I think.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-06-thanksgiving-2008/3083901501_acec7b4d9b_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Pictionary">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-06-thanksgiving-2008/3083901501_6d3fa6ab79.jpg" alt="Pictionary"/>
</a>

After dinner, we played some Pictionary. On a previous visit, we discovered that Marga has some amazing Pictionary skills as a drawer. Being a good Pictionary drawer is not only about being able to sketch figures and shapes, but figuring out how to graphically represent words and concepts. For example, drawing a stick man and a stick woman together won't elicit the word "marriage" or "wedding" until you draw the crucifix above them.

We had a wonderful visit. Thank you very much, Grandma. You're amazing.


Thanksgiving 2008


<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-04-pico-de-las-nieves-literally/3082639812_e08fa8e450_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image post-thumb" title="Pico de las Nieves (literally)">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-04-pico-de-las-nieves-literally/3082639812_d51721f7d9_t.jpg" alt="Pico de las Nieves (literally)"/>
</a>

 by erikrasmussen, on Flickr")It's been cold and rainy all week. The snow line has tried to creep down from the mountains, but we remain snowless (just wet) down here at sea level. This is the mountain peak that I've visited with [my in-laws](/2008/04/15/el-pico-de-las-nieves/), [my parents](/2008/10/14/parents-go-to-pico-de-las-nieves/), and [some friends](/2008/10/27/pico-de-las-nieves-with-robert-and-ania/). Grrr... Winter sucks. <a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-04-pico-de-las-nieves-literally/3082639812_e08fa8e450_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Pico de las Nieves (literally)">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-04-pico-de-las-nieves-literally/3082639812_d51721f7d9.jpg" alt="Pico de las Nieves (literally)"/>
</a>

 by erikrasmussen, on Flickr")

The name of the mountain is _Pico de las Nieves_, literally "peak of the snows". Indeed.


Pico de las Nieves, literally


<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-03-my-daughters-face/3079221453_6bf05bcf19_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image post-thumb" title="3D Fetus Face">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-03-my-daughters-face/3079221453_d8e1bf82a4_t.jpg" alt="3D Fetus Face"/>
</a>

Several friends highly recommended that we go to a special private ultrasound clinic. For 100€, we were told, you get much clearer pictures of your unborn child. We considered not doing it and saving the c-note, but in the end our curiosity got the better of us. Not to mention [our bad experience](/2008/11/07/dos-equis/) with the public obstetrician. When our friends told us to be sure to bring a blank DVD with us, any doubts I had evaporated. Any doctor tech savvy enough to burn an optical disc must be good.  The office was in the center of Santander, a 40-minute rainy drive away. We seemed to be the first appointment of the day at 10:00. A receptionist came out and asked for Marga's national id card and the date of her last period (that's how the whole pregnancy timeline is calculated for you uninitiated). After a couple minutes of appreciating the art in the waiting room, we were summoned into a dimly lit examination room and Marga was instructed to disrobe her abdomen. After a minute, a gentle softspoken doctor entered the room and the first words out of his mouth were Marga's full name. Already he was off to a better start than the cold robot women we'd had before. He asked how she had been feeling, if she had been feeling the baby kick, what her concerns were, etc. The examination room was set up with the ultrasound machine to the left of the bed and (get this!) a monitor directly in front of the bed so that Marga could see everything that was being displayed on the monitor! The doctor explained everything he did in a soft calming voice, "Now I'm going to measure the cranium; perfectly normal. Now I'm going to examine the heart; very good, everything is developing just as it should." We could see why this guy came so highly recommended.

And the technology.... and the technology. I was almost in too much nerdy computer user interface programmer awe to take in the proper awe of seeing my child's face for the first time. Somehow with a single ultrasound paddle, the machine is able to construct a perfect three-dimensional model of the fetus inside the womb. The screen looks like a normal ultrasound display, but then the doctor selects a portion of the image to view in 3D and everything goes magical. The computer gives a shaded rendering of the contents of the womb that can then be, without moving the paddle (software only), rotated on all three axes until the best angle to see the fetus has been attained. And then you can watch it _in real time_! This technology is misnamed by the marketing goofballs as [4D Ultrasound](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_ultrasound). Un. be. lievable.

Without further ado, I present to you, the face of my daughter...<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-03-my-daughters-face/3079221013_b5c0fe3f19_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="3D Fetus Profile">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-03-my-daughters-face/3079221013_70cdce4618.jpg" alt="3D Fetus Profile"/>
</a>

Is it just me, or does that ear look a little low to you? I know, I know, she's still in beta and hasn't officially been released yet, but...

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-03-my-daughters-face/3079221453_6bf05bcf19_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="3D Fetus Face">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-03-my-daughters-face/3079221453_d8e1bf82a4.jpg" alt="3D Fetus Face"/>
</a>

The nose and mouth seem quite wide (almost African?), but other than that, she's a pretty good looking fetus.

I must admit to having a few of those ridiculous "_Oh my god! My daughter is the most beautiful creature ever to exist in the entire universe!_" thoughts. Apparently I have some parental neurons that are firing for the first time.

Going into this exam, we had a few doubts about the nonchalant Declaration of Gender given to us by the previous obstetrician, so when the doctor started examining below the waist and asked if we knew, we said that we had been told, but that we wanted him to give his analysis. He adeptly positioned things perfectly to leave little doubt that my child is the proud owner of a vagina. That's good, because we've been picturing a little girl for weeks now and have been given quite a lot of pink clothing.

Despite the amazing 3D nature of the video, there are still parts that are hard to make out on first viewing. The legs don't look like much until the end of that segment when they become clearly recognizable human legs. She weighs 640 grams (1 lb, 6.5 oz), which he seemed to determine somehow from the size of the cranium. Everything (heart, brain, kidneys, lungs, spinal cord, noggin, eyes, hands, limbs, etc.) is perfectly normal (nothing superhuman yet, I'm afraid) and she's a little bit towards the large size of the bell curve at this juncture. (To which Marga responded, "See? I _told_ you I was enormous!")

This video is also available on [Flickr](http://www.flickr.com/photos/erikrasmussen/3079248667/), [YouTube](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1c9E-6EioKQ), [Metacafe](http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2114092/), [Google](http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8635631869526259767), [Break](http://my.break.com/content/view.aspx?contentid=614177), [Blip.tv](http://www.blip.tv/file/1533250), [Veoh](http://www.veoh.com/videos/v16806641cNYxgKGA), [Imeem](http://www.imeem.com/people/EuThHTC/video/IehdANyX/no_title/), [Stupid Videos](http://www.stupidvideos.com/video/just_plain_stupid/3D_Ultrasound/), [Sclipo](http://sclipo.com/video/3d-ultrasound), [Viddler](http://www.viddler.com/explore/rasman1978/videos/40/) and [5min](http://www.5min.com/Video/3D-Ultrasound-74923878).

No doubt you will all want to carry this amazing video around on your iPhones like I do, so here's [an iPod-compatible version for you to download](http://blip.tv/file/get/Rasman1978-3DUltrasound416.mp4) (6.1 MB).

O si prefieres verlo en español, hay [una versión en español](http://www.blip.tv/file/1533375) también.


My Daughter's Face


<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-03-quenched-desires/3077675055_1f7f6872f2_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image post-thumb" title="Marga and her hushpuppies">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-03-quenched-desires/3077675055_c116e34aa9_t.jpg" alt="Marga and her hushpuppies"/>
</a>

There's something about only visiting a foreign country occasionally that makes one crave certain products available only in that country, resulting in strong necessities desires to consume said products on each visit. Exactly what products reach this pedestal depend on your mood and environment when you first consume them. It's very hard to predict. My cravings were pretty much everything my grandmother makes for her traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Marga's were [Papa John's](http://www.papajohns.com/) pizza and [hushpuppies](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hushpuppy).  Last Wednesday we had hushpuppies, pulled-pork barbeque, and chicken fingers for lunch. Marga was beside herself.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-03-quenched-desires/3078478660_6700dc5ce2_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Chicken Fingers and Hushpuppies">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-03-quenched-desires/3078478660_770e1cf8f4.jpg" alt="Chicken Fingers and Hushpuppies"/>
</a>

Chicken fingers, sour dough bun, hushpuppies, and the best honey mustard sauce ever.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-03-quenched-desires/3077675055_1f7f6872f2_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Marga and her hushpuppies">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-03-quenched-desires/3077675055_c116e34aa9.jpg" alt="Marga and her hushpuppies"/>
</a>

That's one happy puppy! (you may recognize the face she's making from [a previous post](/2008/11/26/elfing-around/))

Later that night, we had a pizza party to see a few more friends at Godfather Tom's house.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-03-quenched-desires/3077698957_61c7a0785d_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Pizza Party at Tom's">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-03-quenched-desires/3077698957_03038b6a68.jpg" alt="Pizza Party at Tom's"/>
</a>

Wendi, Marga, Tom, Jeff, and Paul.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-03-quenched-desires/3078566406_0d23ee0e1a_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Cheese and Crackers">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-03-quenched-desires/3078566406_891b92390a.jpg" alt="Cheese and Crackers"/>
</a>

There was some yummy Spanish anchovies, cheese, and wine here, but it didn't last long enough for a photo.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-03-quenched-desires/3078583444_eea5a904b9_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Debbi and Marga looking fabulous">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-03-quenched-desires/3078583444_9165118a2e.jpg" alt="Debbi and Marga looking fabulous"/>
</a>

My step-godmother, Debbi and Marga, both looking fabulous.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-03-quenched-desires/3077763453_5c8088db4c_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Papa John's Pizza">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-03-quenched-desires/3077763453_6888119a81.jpg" alt="Papa John's Pizza"/>
</a>

The pizza has arrived! Yum!

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-03-quenched-desires/3078621026_0197e1b76e_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Pizza Party Pan">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-03-quenched-desires/3078621026_eceb1b62a2.jpg" alt="Pizza Party Pan"/>
</a>

A panorama of pizza consumption. I apologize to Jane. My photo stitching program gave her four legs.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-03-quenched-desires/3078630024_b6f9dfc1c7_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Debbi in new scarf">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-03-quenched-desires/3078630024_f68c024cc1.jpg" alt="Debbi in new scarf"/>
</a>

Debbi shows off her new scarf that Marga's parents sent her.

Do you have any special foods that you crave when you visit a certain country? Share in the comments.


Quenched Desires


<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-a-night-on-burkemont-mountain/3074363107_a798febac8_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image post-thumb" title="Phil's Cabin">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-a-night-on-burkemont-mountain/3074363107_44814f2dcc_t.jpg" alt="Phil's Cabin"/>
</a>

Marga and I spent the night of Sunday, November 23rd, 2008, in a cabin on the top of Burkemont Mountain. The wind whipped, whistled and rattled. When we woke up at dawn, it was cold and drizzly outside. After a couple hours of coffee and sitting by the fire, I suggested we go for a walk, but I was unable to pull Marga from the toasty hearth, so I ventured out alone with my camera. Below are the photos I took. <a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-a-night-on-burkemont-mountain/3075036170_2b901296e2_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Ladybug Visitor">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-a-night-on-burkemont-mountain/3075036170_3e9de3c252.jpg" alt="Ladybug Visitor"/>
</a>

There were 5 or 6 ladybugs buzzing around the cabin before I left. This is the best photo I got of one.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-a-night-on-burkemont-mountain/3074214761_15d1a00f57_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Walker Top Cemetery">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-a-night-on-burkemont-mountain/3074214761_271592a306.jpg" alt="Walker Top Cemetery"/>
</a>

Walker Top Cemetery and Walker Top Church are the first stop on any walk from Phil's Cabin. According to [this report](http://files.usgwarchives.net/nc/burke/cemeteries/walktop.txt) submitted to a genealogy website, there are 25â€“50 gravestones in the cemetery, mostly from the Walker family.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-a-night-on-burkemont-mountain/3074223449_f5dea25c7a_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Black Fence">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-a-night-on-burkemont-mountain/3074223449_f6764047a1.jpg" alt="Black Fence"/>
</a>

A black chain link fence around the cemetery.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-a-night-on-burkemont-mountain/3075070854_193c18c3df_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Lichen Grave">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-a-night-on-burkemont-mountain/3075070854_867ea14189.jpg" alt="Lichen Grave"/>
</a>

Gravestone lichen.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-a-night-on-burkemont-mountain/3075082446_415f2c456b_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Moss and Lichen and a gravestone">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-a-night-on-burkemont-mountain/3075082446_0995311337.jpg" alt="Moss and Lichen and a gravestone"/>
</a>

Lichen rocks, moss rules, and death is forever.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-a-night-on-burkemont-mountain/3075094372_16c06edf98_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="US Geological Survey Benchmark â€“ Burkemont Mountain">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-a-night-on-burkemont-mountain/3075094372_c9eb4cb060.jpg" alt="US Geological Survey Benchmark â€“ Burkemont Mountain"/>
</a>

I love these US Geological Survey Benchmarks. Oddly, the last digit of the elevation measurement has been destroyed somehow. It claims an elevation of 2,35? feet. It was more or less on the very top of Burkemont Mountain, which [is listed](http://www.mountainzone.com/mountains/detail.asp?fid=6176556) as a peak elevation of 2,559 feet (780 meters), but I sure didn't see a place 200 feet higher anywhere.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-a-night-on-burkemont-mountain/3075103812_177c97971c_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Walker Top Church">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-a-night-on-burkemont-mountain/3075103812_0b35b12600.jpg" alt="Walker Top Church"/>
</a>

The church is leveled by piled stones.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-a-night-on-burkemont-mountain/3074275769_3ec36e93a5_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Propery Boundary">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-a-night-on-burkemont-mountain/3074275769_c5540caa6f.jpg" alt="Propery Boundary"/>
</a>

Property Boundary: State Park land behind this sign.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-a-night-on-burkemont-mountain/3074284597_f5cc560d8d_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Burkemont Fire Tower">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-a-night-on-burkemont-mountain/3074284597_5ebc6e514b.jpg" alt="Burkemont Fire Tower"/>
</a>

The Burkemont mountain fire tower. We climbed up there when we visited a few years ago, but with the wind whipping as it was and being alone, I didn't chance it.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-a-night-on-burkemont-mountain/3074294897_84352ff75d_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Burkemont Fire Tower">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-a-night-on-burkemont-mountain/3074294897_1d137a5592.jpg" alt="Burkemont Fire Tower"/>
</a>

Looking up from inside the base of the tower.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-a-night-on-burkemont-mountain/3075141016_e80fd51672_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Corona on Fire Tower">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-a-night-on-burkemont-mountain/3075141016_de283c1728.jpg" alt="Corona on Fire Tower"/>
</a>

Someone had left a bottle of beer on the bottom rung.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-a-night-on-burkemont-mountain/3075155178_d72dd2115d_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Overrun old house">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-a-night-on-burkemont-mountain/3075155178_5fe4114f15.jpg" alt="Overrun old house"/>
</a>

This house is a little overrun by Nature.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-a-night-on-burkemont-mountain/3074334117_7fce732afb_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Outhouse">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-a-night-on-burkemont-mountain/3074334117_b11aa4bec9.jpg" alt="Outhouse"/>
</a>

A very stereotypical outhouse.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-a-night-on-burkemont-mountain/3074347031_0f283b1d8f_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Phil's Cabin">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-a-night-on-burkemont-mountain/3074347031_159cd93e9a.jpg" alt="Phil's Cabin"/>
</a>

Phil's cabin. It started out as a small shack, and Phil has built the rest on his own. The entire top floor is a single large bedroom. Very nice.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-a-night-on-burkemont-mountain/3074363107_a798febac8_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Phil's Cabin">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-a-night-on-burkemont-mountain/3074363107_44814f2dcc.jpg" alt="Phil's Cabin"/>
</a>

From another angle.

All of these photos are accurately geotagged to within a couple meters, so feel free to click on them and view them on a map on Flickr.

Thanks again to Phil for letting us hang out in his cabin. Late Monday morning, we realized that we hadn't brought any food, so we had to abandon our mountain perch and head into town for some sustenance.


A Night on Burkemont Mountain


<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3073521013_64bf2a7e34_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image post-thumb" title="The sunset begins">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3073521013_0b77f8c81c_t.jpg" alt="The sunset begins"/>
</a>

On Sunday, November 23rd, Marga and I "hosted" a cabin party at my good friend, Phil's, mountain cabin on top of Burkemont Mountain, a well-known mountain in the southern part of my home county. Phil inherited the land and has built a wonderful little weekend cabin more-or-less singlehandedly. Between Phil's handiwork and his wife, Donna's, eye for interior decorating, they have created the most adorable, cozy spot perched atop a mountain with the most stunning sunset views. It was wonderful to see and keep in touch with old friends. We had a fabulous time. <a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3074250546_9404956ed8_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Phil's Cabin">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3074250546_9fd6a843e5.jpg" alt="Phil's Cabin"/>
</a>

The cabin's living room.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3074252984_8b3934e6a3_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Phil's Cabin">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3074252984_6cce13097f.jpg" alt="Phil's Cabin"/>
</a>

The cabin's dining room.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3074266868_0398556fe4_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Party Food">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3074266868_e0fe9630b7.jpg" alt="Party Food"/>
</a>

Party food: tuna sushi in wasabi sauce, fried vegetables, crackers, tomatoes, mozzarella, fresh basil, and a trifle cake.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3073439383_558bf1b22e_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Linda's Trifle">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3073439383_75334b388c.jpg" alt="Linda's Trifle"/>
</a>

Linda's trifle: cake, strawberries, grapes, blueberries, nuts, whipped cream.... Drooling yet?

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3074288480_a42ceedca7_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Linda crowned with her own dessert">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3074288480_3777e31a39.jpg" alt="Linda crowned with her own dessert"/>
</a>

Linda is crowned with her own dessert.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3074294814_9c4ae06088_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Linda poses with her trifle">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3074294814_e836bee40c.jpg" alt="Linda poses with her trifle"/>
</a>

Creator and the creation.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3073446689_4acdb4199f_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Mozzarella and Basil">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3073446689_bd7c948a45.jpg" alt="Mozzarella and Basil"/>
</a>

Basil and mozzarella. Mmmm...Mediterranean.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3073468701_6fb2f64593_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Enjoying the view from the deck">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3073468701_dc7310d36e.jpg" alt="Enjoying the view from the deck"/>
</a>

Out on the deck, ready for the sunset.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3074311942_8c90297b74_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Phil tells a story">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3074311942_948de92180.jpg" alt="Phil tells a story"/>
</a>

Phil tells a story.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3073484163_56c7690160_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Red and White">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3073484163_104fded8b3.jpg" alt="Red and White"/>
</a>

Red and white wine in plastic cups. Party on.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3074331150_5dd9d9fb7f_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Blurry Party Panorama">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3074331150_a956691320.jpg" alt="Blurry Party Panorama"/>
</a>

A slightly blurry party panorama.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3074338630_4e04584381_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="John and Paul discuss the important issues of the day">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3074338630_625f7b393e.jpg" alt="John and Paul discuss the important issues of the day"/>
</a>

John and Paul discuss the issues of the day.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3074346510_57ea7c22f3_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Cabin Party in Full Swing">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3074346510_835fd74206.jpg" alt="Cabin Party in Full Swing"/>
</a>

Candid partying shot.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3073521013_64bf2a7e34_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="The sunset begins">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3073521013_0b77f8c81c.jpg" alt="The sunset begins"/>
</a>

The sunset begins...

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3073553347_387af82799_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="John and Marga">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3073553347_946620d86f.jpg" alt="John and Marga"/>
</a>

John and Marga are ready to watch the sunset.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3074393538_454c3d4180_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Sunset Keg">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3074393538_a28522ddfc.jpg" alt="Sunset Keg"/>
</a>

Sunset keg. From the [Olde Hickory Brewery](http://www.oldehickorybrewery.com/). It was some kind of "Hefeweisse" German white beer. Delicious.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3073570417_dc08864ebf_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Leighton Make Fire!">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3073570417_f2ee3c47e1.jpg" alt="Leighton Make Fire!"/>
</a>

Leighton, Phil's son, starts a bonfire.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3074417760_456c4f180a_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Paul, Betsy, and Robin">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3074417760_1e929f997c.jpg" alt="Paul, Betsy, and Robin"/>
</a>

Paul greets Robin, the mother of a good friend of mine. It was great to see her again.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3073598765_f25e0707a6_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Cabin Sunset">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3073598765_a6e6ecafc1.jpg" alt="Cabin Sunset"/>
</a>

Pretty fantastic sunset.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3073607071_0fa98a3704_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Erik and Marga at Sunset">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3073607071_bd0f06ae67.jpg" alt="Erik and Marga at Sunset"/>
</a>

"Quick! Take the photo before the sun goes away!"

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3074459606_75223f1c20_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="John, Linda, David, Amy, Donna, Leighton, Joshua, and Seth warm themselves by the fire">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3074459606_654eb53f29.jpg" alt="John, Linda, David, Amy, Donna, Leighton, Joshua, and Seth warm themselves by the fire"/>
</a>

John, Linda, David, Amy, Donna, Leighton, Joshua, and Seth warm themselves by the fire.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3074480280_99758f73ec_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Sparkler in the Fire">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3074480280_06c7986782.jpg" alt="Sparkler in the Fire"/>
</a>

Leighton throws some sparklers on the fire.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3074510246_e9b68dacd1_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="John Empties the Keg">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3074510246_074178f007.jpg" alt="John Empties the Keg"/>
</a>

John puts the keg out of its misery.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3073685677_3eb1839675_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Games in the Cabin">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2008-12-01-pre-thanksgiving-cabin-party-2008/3073685677_28a6630d4e.jpg" alt="Games in the Cabin"/>
</a>

A blurry shot of a board game being played while the party winds down.

We had a great time and it was wonderful to see everyone again. Marga and I spent that night in the cabin as the wind whistled and the cabin creaked.

A huge thanks to Phil for letting us hold a party and spend a night in his place. We enjoyed it a lot.


26 posts from December, 2008