New Pictures In The Fall Gallery
It's been so busy that we've hardly taken any pictures lately, much less uploaded them to the site. But I've just added what we had ... inlcuding a few from an apple picking trip with Andrew and Leah before we left New Hampshire and a visit from James. There are also a few of the new house and the yard and the surrounding land, but not many. More to come.

Here's one of David and Sofia in the new house. He's clearly a lot more confident about holding her than she is:

National Novel Writing Month
Fifty thousand words in a month? Hmmm... Not a problem under ordinary circumstances, but with the move and so much to do at work and so much more to do at home, it seems like it would be a brutal endeavor... ah, what the heck. It's worth a try!

No Sign of Peace During Flu Season
The bishop of the Diocese of Burlington (all of Vermont), Kenneth Angell, has said no more sharing the chalice during Eucharist and no more shaking hands during the sign of peace. But no, it's not liturgical reform ... it's just flu season.

WiFi On Cassie Street
After three nights (and two different brands of hardware/software) during which I should have been finishing mudding and sanding the upstairs hallway, I have finally got a working WiFi network in our little house on Cassie Street. I ended up, after trying and giving up on the competition as being horrendously incompatible with Windows XP, with a Linksys wireless router and PC adapter. The card in my laptop doesn't match, but they do all work together, and with the Verizon DSL, the network is actually faster than our cable and Ethernet-wired network back in Concord. Sweet.

Local Humor
Dave Barry included this tidbit in a recent column: "Katrina Wing Clark sent in a correction published by the Rutland (Vt.) Herald stating: 'A story in Friday's Herald incorrectly quoted a biologist as saying salmon were among Vermont's roadkill. The quote should have been 'salamanders.''"

Settling In...
We're finally getting settled in -- have moved, closed on the new house (in that nervewracking order!) and started the new job. The family loves Barre Town, Vt.; David really gets a kick out of having a yard and will occasionally stop what he's doing, take my hand and say a cute toddler thing such as "I like this place. I like the Jermont house." Sofia makes these sorts of statements less often, but her eyes speak volumes.

And Signing Up
The only fly in the ointment has been the unbelievable number of things you either have to sign up for or cancel when you move -- all of which seem to take a long time and cost extra money. Late yesterday afternoon I cancelled the old cell phone service (doesn't work out here) and then we registered to vote, registered the car, and traded in our New Hampshire driver's licenses for Vermont ones. On the way home we stopped for groceries and I had to sign up for the grocery store advantage card. It was then I realized that I was nearing the end of my tether. When I stopped at the video store next door and filled out yet another application I thought my smile was going to break. Even though the clerk was very nice, I wanted to run gibbering and capering from the store. On top of all that Kristen is making fun of me because I still can't remember our new home phone number or zip code. But I point out that I also have all my new work numbers and cell numbers and passwords and logins and the like. When I close my eyes numbers circle round in the darkness like Winnie the Pooh's Hephalumps and Woozles.

Of course, taking even a moderately broad view of things ... these are quite nice problems to have!

VROOOOM!
Leaving hotel in Concord this a.m. for Barre. All is a sort of planned chaos, kids are holding up remarkably well. Will be moving furniture north today; should living in the new house by Sunday.

Cue The Waterworks
It seems like it just takes one well placed wedge to break through the armor of stress and industry that insulates one during a major move like the one we're in the midst of. Thursday was my last day at McLean/The Telegraph (so many great people said such wonderful things!) and we've been getting together with friends, saying good-byes and gearing up for the closing on the Vermont house, etc. Today we went to our last Mass as parishioners at St. John's and after stopped to say good-bye to Father Steve. Beyond being one of the warmest and funniest people you could ever meet, Father Steve simply shines with love for God and for the people he's pastoring. And so when he decided to send us off with a blessing, his generous, extemporaneous words left me struggling to hold back tears. For me, his words brought all of our family's future and past together for us in a moment and I was struck to the core with immensity of a life on Earth and its deep connection to so many other lives. For some reason I thought it was just me brushing covertly at my eyes, but as we walked away I saw Kristen's eyes were bright and wet too. I think it will be a while before I even understand how grateful I am for that blessing -- and how much it did to help me begin to unravel -- and reconcile with the base logistic aspects of the move -- the complex web of excitement, curiosity, enthusiasm, joy, sadness, nostalgia, fear, and most of all hope that accompanies a transition like this one.

New Old Hemingway Story Found
This 1924 bullfight story has surfaced, but likely will never be published since the Hemingway Estate opposes it. The story is a comic sketch Hemingway wrote about his friend Donald Ogden Stewart's bullfighting experience during a drunken time the friends spent in Pamplona. After, Hemingway sent the story to Stewart, a satirist, to pass along Vanity Fair. Stewart was not impressed by it, decided Hemingway should not write humor, and filed the story away.

The Drake Equation: How Many Other Communicating Civilizations Are In Our Galaxy?
Watching Nova's "Origins" tonight and saw this referenced -- The Drake equation takes a variety of variables into account and attempts to determine a probable number of communicating civilizations in the galaxy by plugging likely numbers into these variables. Drake came up with 10,000, but the interactive equation on the Nova Web site lets you adjust any one of the variables to see how it affects the overall equation. I thought one of the most interesting factors was the percentage of planets with life-supporting conditions that actually develop life. Drake gives this one 100%, but scientists are divided on this one. If you move the slider to 95% on this factor alone, you lop off about 500 civilizations... The factor that seems least plausible is the "average length of time a civilization that uses sophisticated communication technology exists." So far, the only reference we have is ourselves, and we've only been meeting the criteria for this since 1950; it would seem tough to make a good estimate based on one 54-year-old example ... but then, I'm certainly no scientist or mathematician. It's fun to think on, anyway...

Newspapers And Online Polls
Does the fact that online polls do not produce the same sort of statistical results as formally conducted polls mean newspapers shouldn't use them? Not necessarily, but it is worth considering what makes them different and finding ways to help readers understand what those factors are.