Shark Attack

So here I am minding my own business, splashing in the surf with my son Evan at Atlantic Beach, NC, when we notice a fire department pick-up truck come screaming down the beach right past us. Like something out of Baywatch. A minute later another "medical" type SUV goes screaming by. I figured someone might be drowning or had a heart attack or whatever. They stopped about 500 feet from where we were in the water. I mainly ignored all this... but then frantic mothers started waving their kids in to shore. I went up and quickly heard that the hub bub was about a shark attack! No way I thought. So I, and about 1000 other nosy people trotted down to see what was what. Sure enough they're bandaging up this woman who had a goodly part of her thigh missing. Her foot and one toe was also wrapped up. Not sure how bad the damage was. Cops on the scene said it looked to be a 5-6 foot shark from the bite radius.

Amazingly, they didn't close the beaches. No one went in for about an hour, but then we all started trickling back in as it was too damn hot to sit on the sand. And I'm on vacation and I'm going to swim dammit! :)

This has hit local news in Raleigh:

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/640090.html
http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=triangle&id=5481796
http://www.nbc17.com/midatlantic/ncn/news.apx.-content-articles-NCN-2007-07-17-0014.html

The news accounts don't make it sound quite as dramatic as it was being their live!

Outlook Presence Issue

Interesting Outlook Office Communicator issue. After installing Office Communicator some users reported losing the presence indication in Outlook
In Outlook's Tools, Options, Other tab is an Enable the Person Names Smart Tag feature. Below it is Display Presence Status in the From field. The latter is greyed out. When a user clears the first option and applies the dialog settings they lose the presence indicator smart tag in Outlook. We found that if you checked the first option again the smart tag would pop up when hovering over a name in Outlook, but it wouldn't display persistently.

After googling in vain for a day I finally realized that this must be a registry setting somewhere. So I stumbled around until I found it. Since there appears to be no information about the solution to this problem (though several other's have posted in Usenet wondering what the solution was), I figured I'd post what I found here. Maybe someone will find it useful.

The registry setting that controls this behavior (HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\IM\EnablePresence=1). I still don't know why this option is greyed out in Outlook (tools, options, other, display presence in from field) for me. But at least now I have a workaround. Hoping this helps others.

See how my garden grows

Left to right we have carrots, garlic, lettuce, spinach, peas, cucumbers, tomatoes, butternut squash, peppers, and some more tomatoes.

Garlic scapes

Last spring I planted garlic purchased from Gourmet Garlic Gardens. On their site they said that after the scapes shoot up it will soon to be time to harvest. Had no clue what he was talking about. Now I do. This is a "scape". This photo take a couple weeks ago. Many of these scapes have blossomed and exposed myriad tiny garlic cloves. I figure this is some sort of flower and a method of propagation in the wild. The site mentioned that some gourmets harvest these scapes and cook them up as a delicacy. I sampled one of the little cloves. My gawd that was about the hottest, garlikiest thing I've ever eaten. Not really knowing what to do with the scapes I've just been cutting them off and adding them to the compost bin. I wonder if I'll get random garlic plants growing in my compost heap now?

Spring Soccer

Both kids just finished their soccer season. Chloe and Evan both benefited a lot socially from just running around with other kids and getting some exercise. Evan especially really grew over the sprint. In Evan's league his team, Sidewinders, finished the season in first place. They then had a tournament and it was very exciting watching him go though the rounds all the way to the Finals! The final game wound up tied 1-1 through overtime and then went to penalty kicks. Sadly, we lost the shootout, 2-1. But wow, was that ever exciting and, frankly, quite nerve wracking. Evan mainly played as the goalie and a little bit of defense. In goal he made about 10 saves throughout the tournament. Most were easy scoops, but four were real shots on goal. I think I may remember each one vividly for a long time. Two he caught, one he deflected with a good kick. And one did get through, but it was a heck of a kick to the corner and there was zero defensemen helping him. And he tried so hard to get to it! I am one proud papa!

How to Recover a mailbox when User Account is Deleted

The Recovery Storage Group in Exchange is great. It allows you to recover a mail store while leaving production mailboxes online. You can then ExMerge data from the RSG to PST. Problem: If the user account is missing then a ExMerge returns an error for that mailbox and doesn't present it in the GUI.

The error is: Error! Cannot identify the user with the msExchMailboxGuid \FE\40\D1\9C\DEOEA\A2\9C\A2\2E\7FHkx. The legacyExchangeDN is /O=RHD/OU=FIRST ADMINISTRATIVE GROUP/CN=RECIPIENTS/CN=JDOE.

Microsoft's KB919088 gives a workaround. I found I needed to add a step.

Essentially what you do is:

1. Recover from tape to the RSG normally, then dismount the RSG.
2. Create a new Storage Group
3. Create a new store, don't mount it.
4. Copy the EDB & STM files to the new stores database folder.
5. Rename the EDB & STM files to match the filename the new store is looking for.
5.5 Here's the extra step, go into properties of the store and set it to allow database to be overwritten by a restore.
6. Mount the store.
7. Create a new account, without a mailbox.
8. Attach the mailbox to be restored to the new account
9. Move the mailbox to a production store. Not sure why this step is necessary but it seems to be. I can never get ExMerge to read this new store. It may be due to replication delay. I'm not sure. The KB says to do this.
10. ExMerge the new account's mailbox normally. Note: the original legacyExchangeDN is preserved so the you need to find the account using the original user name.

Spelling bee champion

interview on CNN with spelling bee champ. I've become oddly enamored of watching the spelling bee lately. This kid's interview with CNN in which he clearly displays autistic characteristics has sparked my interest too. I've been busy defending this unfortunately-named entry on Digg.

read more digg story

Bike Commuter

I'm officially a bike commuter now. I successfully survived riding my bike into work and home again. Admittedly, this ride is a bit long (about 14 miles). I'm taking a lot of back roads right now. Once I get more confident riding with traffic I may be able to shorten that to about 12 miles. The ride in seems to be more downhill so that's pretty easy. Takes an hour and 15 minutes. Ride back took almost 2 hours though. Best part of the ride? Ordering a peach smoothie at Ralph's Italian Ices at the end of the trip home. :-)

Ancient History

I thought about the first web page I'd ever published. Then racked my brain for several minutes trying to remember where I left it... In a city... geocities... no... something to do with wealth? Emerald city? The golden city? what the... oh, yeah... Fortunecity!

Vacation

Disney World, here we come. A week in sunny florida.

I've discovered a neat Disney resource called DISBoards.com. Over there you can read my trip report on our vacation.

Found!

I was in my email and something told me to look in my Junk Mail folder. I rarely do this. I gave a quick glace at the dozen or so spam there and then noticed one labled Congratulations, we've posted your Found message. Well over a year ago, while hiking around Falls Lake in Raleigh I found a schoolgirl note in the middle of the Mountains-to-Sea trail. All folded up like it was tucked in her pocket. So I sent it in to Found magazine. I recall they'd emailed back saying the scan they got was unreadable so I sent it again. Never heard from them. Now, more than a year later they published it as the Find of the Day. Weird.

Tearing Down Exchange

I'm having a lot of fun this week tearing down an Exchange envrionment. I just deleted some three thousand mailboxes. Poof. All gone. Bye bye. More challenging is ripping out the public folder stores. Those things just don't want to die. I knew about deleting the OWA scratchpad and Store Event system folders, but it still wouldn't die. I finally went out on a limb and deleted the Schema system folder. Then it deleted easily. Hope that folder wasn't too important. But I figure we're shutting this whole domain down shortly anyway so how much impact could I really have. Deleting is so much fun! :-)

Soccer Practice

I enjoyed watching Evan run around doing soccer drills yesterday. He's learning how to throw in the ball. He spends a lot of time doing his hair pulling thing so I know he's stressed by the new environment; but he's trying really hard and mostly listening and staying out of trouble. And he's arguably not the worst player out there so I'm very proud of him! :-)

Brrrr

Had record cold Easter weekend. I covered my vegetable garden with sheets, but the peppers seemed to take the brunt of the damage. They have almost no leaves left. Tomatoes fared somewhat better. Carrot, pea, and spinach sprouts seem OK. Cucumber leaves have some damage at the tips. There's something growing in the lettuce bed, but I'm not convinced yet it's lettuce. Looks out of place and weedy. I may plant a few more lettuce seeds in that area as I think this crop may not have worked at all.

Soccer Dad

I'm officially a soccer dad. Took Chloe to her first practice. I was the one dad among a dozen moms. Evelyn took Evan to his practice and had the opposite experience. We'll probably trade off kids each practice. Chloe got a very good coach (Kristin). She was great with all the kids. Chloe did great learning her first soccer skills.

Eating In

We ate out today because Rick started with us and you always have to take the new guy to lunch right? But generally I and most of the guys on the team are pretty good about eating in. I'm the most fanatical about it having foregone lunch out a few times now. I'm trying to limit my lunches out to just Friday. This makes lunch out an enjoyable treat instead of a daily chore. I'm very gradually losing weight because of eating healthier lunches and getting exercise every day. I've lost just about 8 lbs now. I find my weight fluctuates by as much as 4 lbs on a given day. Water weight I guess. Bouncing around 280 - 284 these days. I was a solid 290 when I started my new job.

Walking

About the time I started meditating every day I started walking every day. Twice a day if I'm lucky. I've made it part of my daily routine to take a solid 15 minute break in the morning and again in the afternoon. At this time I just head out the door and walk briskly around the office park. It's just exactly a one mile loop. This is good exercise both physically and mentally. It's so nice to take breaks during the day. Something I've never done before in my career. All part of the work-life balance thing. I try to avoid stressful 50 hour work weeks and spend more time doing things that are healthy for me.

When I die, my inbox will NOT be empty. Might as well enjoy life now.

One problem. It's getting hot. I'm not sure how I'm going to pull this lifestyle change off in the heat of NC summer.

Meditation

One of the key theme's in Spider Robinson/Robert Heinlein's book, Variable Star, is on meditation. I've done some research on the topic and have been practicing sitting meditation just about every day for about 6 weeks now. It's definitely good stuff. I don't fully understand how it all works just yet, but I enjoy it and feel generally happier and healthier on days when I do it. I've ordered up a meditation DVD from Netflix so I hope to learn more about the topic. Right now I'm just sitting zazen for 15 - 20 minutes each morning and performing a controlled breathing exercise. I concentrate very hard on thinking about nothing. This is very difficult. Hard to achieve but I do seem to have these moments of clarity when I am in a "nothingness trance". All the world's problems seem to melt away when I hit this state.

Help Arrives

Rick joined us today at work. Now I have some help. Just in time. My boss has been on extended leave of abscence to take care of family matters. This in the middle of a complex mail migration. Work has been a bit stressful. But now Rick is here. First impressions are mostly positive. He's very smart and a capable Windows admin. He seems very easy to work with so far. He's a CompSci grad. And to top it off he's an avid hiker. He mentioned there's a local MeetUp group for hikers and he's going to get me hooked up. That's cool. Only downside so far -- he's a smoker. Go figure.

Move Files Script

There's a method called .MoveFile, but you can't pass it the True on the end which means Overwrite if already exists. Why I have no idea. So this logic copies the file and then does a delete.

Note the slash at the end of the copy command. This is needed to let it know to put it into a folder. Otherwise it tries to create it as a file.

Also includes logic for creating the destination folder.


sSource = "c:\test\myfile.txt"
sDestination = "d:\folder1"
set oFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
If Not oFSO.FolderExists(sDestination) Then
Set oFolder = oFSO.CreateFolder(sDestination)
End If
set oFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
If oFSO.FileExists(sSource) Then
oFSO.CopyFile sSource, sDestination & "\", True
oFSO.DeleteFile sSource
End If

Group Membership Script

Reveals the members of a group.

Dim objArguments, strDomainGrp
Set objArguments = Wscript.Arguments
If WScript.Arguments.Count = 0 then Wscript.Quit
strDomainGrp=objArguments(0)
On Error Resume Next
Set objGroup = GetObject("LDAP://cn=" & strDomainGrp & ",ou=distribution lists,dc=company,dc=com")
objGroup.GetInfo
arrMemberOf = objGroup.GetEx("member")
For Each strMember in arrMemberOf
WScript.echo """" & strDomainGrp & """;""" & strMember & """"
Next

Clear Attribute Script

Clears an attribute (here targetAddress) from each account listed in input.txt.

Const ADS_PROPERTY_CLEAR = 1
Const ADS_NAME_INITTYPE_GC = 3
Const ADS_NAME_TYPE_NT4 = 3
Const ADS_NAME_TYPE_1779 = 1 'Distinguished Name
Set oRootDSE = GetObject("LDAP://RootDSE")
sDNSDomain = oRootDSE.Get("defaultNamingContext")
Set oTrans = CreateObject("NameTranslate")
oTrans.Init ADS_NAME_INITTYPE_GC, sDNSDomain
oTrans.Set ADS_NAME_TYPE_1779, sDNSDomain
sNetBIOSDomain = oTrans.Get(ADS_NAME_TYPE_NT4)
sNetBIOSDomain=Left(sNetBIOSDomain,Len(sNetBIOSDomain)-1)
sFile = "input.txt"
set oFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
set oTextFile = oFSO.OpenTextFile (sFile)
Do
sUser = oTextFile.ReadLine
oTrans.Init ADS_NAME_TYPE_1779, sNetBIOSDomain
oTrans.Set ADS_NAME_TYPE_NT4, sNetBIOSDomain & "\" & sUser
sUserDN = oTrans.Get(ADS_NAME_TYPE_1779)
set oUser = GetObject ("LDAP://" & sUserDN)
oUser.PutEx ADS_PROPERTY_CLEAR, "targetAddress", 0
oUser.SetInfo
Loop Until oTextFile.AtEndOfLine = true
wscript.Echo "All Done"

Add Email Addresses Script

Adds an email address to accounts listed in input.txt

Const ADS_NAME_INITTYPE_GC = 3
Const ADS_NAME_TYPE_NT4 = 3
Const ADS_NAME_TYPE_1779 = 1 'Distinguished Name
Set oRootDSE = GetObject("LDAP://RootDSE")
sDNSDomain = oRootDSE.Get("defaultNamingContext")
Set oTrans = CreateObject("NameTranslate")
oTrans.Init ADS_NAME_INITTYPE_GC, sDNSDomain
oTrans.Set ADS_NAME_TYPE_1779, sDNSDomain
sNetBIOSDomain = oTrans.Get(ADS_NAME_TYPE_NT4)
sNetBIOSDomain=Left(sNetBIOSDomain,Len(sNetBIOSDomain)-1)
sFile = "input.txt"
set oFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
set oTextFile = oFSO.OpenTextFile (sFile)
Do
sUser = oTextFile.ReadLine
oTrans.Init ADS_NAME_TYPE_1779, sNetBIOSDomain
oTrans.Set ADS_NAME_TYPE_NT4, sNetBIOSDomain & "\" & sUser
sUserDN = oTrans.Get(ADS_NAME_TYPE_1779)
set oUser = GetObject ("LDAP://" & sUserDN)
sAddress = "smtp:" & oUser.givenName & "." & oUser.SN & "@tgt1.company.com"
bIsFound = False
vProxyAddresses = oUser.ProxyAddresses
nProxyAddresses = UBound(vProxyAddresses)
i = 0
Do While i <= nProxyAddresses
If vProxyAddresses(i) = sAddress Then
bIsFound = True
'wscript.echo "address already exists for " & sUser
Exit Do
End If
i = i + 1
Loop
If Not bIsFound Then
wscript.echo "Adding " & sAddress
ReDim Preserve vProxyAddresses(nProxyAddresses + 1)
vProxyAddresses(nProxyAddresses + 1) = sAddress
oUser.ProxyAddresses = vProxyAddresses
oUser.SetInfo

End If
Loop Until oTextFile.AtEndOfLine = true
wscript.Echo "All Done"

Delete Mailboxes Script

Deletes the mailboxes associated with accounts in input.txt

Const ADS_NAME_INITTYPE_GC = 3
Const ADS_NAME_TYPE_NT4 = 3
Const ADS_NAME_TYPE_1779 = 1
Set oRootDSE = GetObject("LDAP://RootDSE")
sDNSDomain = oRootDSE.Get("defaultNamingContext")
Set oTrans = CreateObject("NameTranslate")
oTrans.Init ADS_NAME_INITTYPE_GC, sDNSDomain
oTrans.Set ADS_NAME_TYPE_1779, sDNSDomain
sNetBIOSDomain = oTrans.Get(ADS_NAME_TYPE_NT4)
sNetBIOSDomain=Left(sNetBIOSDomain,Len(sNetBIOSDomain)-1)
sFile = "input.txt"
set oFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
set oInputFile = oFSO.OpenTextFile (sFile)
Do
sUser = oInputFile.ReadLine
oTrans.Init ADS_NAME_TYPE_1779, sNetBIOSDomain
oTrans.Set ADS_NAME_TYPE_NT4, sNetBIOSDomain & "\" & sUser
sUserDN = oTrans.Get(ADS_NAME_TYPE_1779)
set oUser = GetObject ("LDAP://" & sUserDN)
oUser.DeleteMailbox
oUser.SetInfo
Loop Until oInputFile.AtEndOfLine = true
wscript.Echo "All Done"

Move Mailboxes Script

Moves all the mailboxes listed in input.txt to a particular store.

Const ADS_NAME_INITTYPE_GC = 3
Const ADS_NAME_TYPE_NT4 = 3
Const ADS_NAME_TYPE_1779 = 1
sInFile = "input.txt"
Set oRootDSE = GetObject("LDAP://RootDSE")
sDNSDomain = oRootDSE.Get("defaultNamingContext")
Set oTrans = CreateObject("NameTranslate")
oTrans.Init ADS_NAME_INITTYPE_GC, sDNSDomain
oTrans.Set ADS_NAME_TYPE_1779, sDNSDomain
sNetBIOSDomain = oTrans.Get(ADS_NAME_TYPE_NT4)
sNetBIOSDomain=Left(sNetBIOSDomain,Len(sNetBIOSDomain)-1)
set oFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
set oInputFile = oFSO.OpenTextFile (sInFile)
Do
sUser = oInputFile.ReadLine
oTrans.Init ADS_NAME_TYPE_1779, sNetBIOSDomain
oTrans.Set ADS_NAME_TYPE_NT4, sNetBIOSDomain & "\" & sUser
sUserDN = oTrans.Get(ADS_NAME_TYPE_1779)
set oUser = GetObject ("LDAP://" & sUserDN)
sExchangeServer = oUser.msExchHomeServerName
i = 1
Do
sRightPiece = Right(sExchangeServer, i)
If Left(sRightPiece, 1) = "=" Then
sExchangeServer = Right(sExchangeServer, i - 1)
Exit Do
End If
i = i + 1
Loop
sTargetMDB = "CN=Mailboxes,CN=Fourth Storage Group,CN=InformationStore,CN=" & sExchangeServer & ",CN=Servers,CN=First Administrative Group,CN=Administrative Groups,CN=RHD,CN=Microsoft Exchange,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,DC=company,DC=com"
oUser.MoveMailbox sTargetMDB
oUser.SetInfo
Loop Until oInputFile.AtEndOfLine = true
wscript.Echo "All Done"

Bulk Exmerge

Getting tired of writing scripts at one company, leaving, and having to reinvent the wheel, so I'll store some scripts here. Of course, next year we'll probably be on Exchange 2007 and all this work will be moot (see "Monad"), but just in case. And who knows, maybe somebody else will benefit from this someday, though these are well documented elsewhere (that's how I figured them out after all -- thanks google.)

This script takes an input.txt file full of samAccountNames and creates a Mailboxes.txt file ready for Exmerge to operate on in Bulk mode. Need to then call Exmerge /B /D. The exmerge.ini file needs to be setup with input servername, default destination folder, etc.

Exmerge needs the ExchangeLegacyDN in order to locate the mailbox. This code has good generic code that can be used to latch onto a user object. From there you can easily set any property on the account or extract info about the account.

Const ADS_NAME_INITTYPE_GC = 3
Const ADS_NAME_TYPE_NT4 = 3
Const ADS_NAME_TYPE_1779 = 1
sInFile = "input.txt"
sOutFile = "mailboxes.txt"
Set oRootDSE = GetObject("LDAP://RootDSE")
sDNSDomain = oRootDSE.Get("defaultNamingContext")
Set oTrans = CreateObject("NameTranslate")
oTrans.Init ADS_NAME_INITTYPE_GC, sDNSDomain
oTrans.Set ADS_NAME_TYPE_1779, sDNSDomain
sNetBIOSDomain = oTrans.Get(ADS_NAME_TYPE_NT4)
sNetBIOSDomain=Left(sNetBIOSDomain,Len(sNetBIOSDomain)-1)
set oFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
set oInTextFile = oFSO.OpenTextFile (sInFile)
set oFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
set oOutTextFile = oFSO.CreateTextFile (sOutFile)
Do
sUser = oInTextFile.ReadLine
oTrans.Init ADS_NAME_TYPE_1779, sNetBIOSDomain
oTrans.Set ADS_NAME_TYPE_NT4, sNetBIOSDomain & "\" & sUser
sUserDN = oTrans.Get(ADS_NAME_TYPE_1779)
set oUser = GetObject ("LDAP://" & sUserDN)
sLegacyExchangeDN = oUser.LegacyExchangeDN
oOutTextFile.Writeline sLegacyExchangeDN
Loop Until oInTextFile.AtEndOfLine = true
wscript.Echo "All Done"

Triple Play

Why have only two garden beds when I can have three! I now have 3 beds with 150 sq ft of gardening heaven. Still need to fill #3 with dirt.

Bed 1 has a wide block of carrots sprouting now. Garlic is tall & green & seems generally happy.

Bed 2 has 4 tomato plants (24" spacing? really?), then two rows of cucumbers, 3 half rows (block style) of peas, 3 half-rows of spinach, 3 half-rows of lettuce. Everything is well watered and fertilized. Plan to extend the half rows in a few weeks to extend the harvest.

Bed 3 has at least beets & squash planned for a bit later in spring. Do I want to tackle melons? hmmm.

A new garden

The kids planted carrots throughout the remaining space in the garlic garden. I ordered bunch of seeds from Ed Hume's Seeds. Carrots (orange, red, purple, yellow, and white), cukes, peas, lettuce, spinach, herbs, sunflowers, and mixed flowers. I figure this is enough for my first attempt. I picked up some more cedar boards and knocked together Bed #2. So now I have 100 sqft of gardening space. Ordered 8 cuyds of very rich soil from The Mulch Masters. My neighbor just sort of spontaneously showed up with a wheelbarrow and started helping me move this mini-mountain of dirt. Eventually he pointed out that moving this up my driveway hill was way too much work and he brought over his pickup (which just happened to have a dirt unloader installed. So we filled up the pickup several times. We've moved about half the dirt. More fun tonight. I definitely owe this guy a six pack.

Research indicates the garlic will be ready for harvest anywhere between May and July, depending on the variety. So I'm still waiting to see the scapes go up and the leaves to turn brown; that's supposed to be the sign.

3500 mailboxes

Been so busy at work lately. I've been using Quest's Migration Manager to migrate 3500 Exchange mailboxes from a one company to another (part of an acquisition). That tool is very powerful and cool and wonderful except for the parts that are buggy and hard-to-understand. Steep learning curve, but we eventually got everything moved. Hopefully more time for blogging now.

Solar Power

Finally, residential solar power made easy. I can't wait to have a home off the grid. Someday.

Wired Reviews

Cool things to keep track of in issue 14.09: Oddly, nothing. Kind of a music heavy issue. Not my thing really.

How about issue 14.10? The Biofuels are coming! And so is the Petabyte Age where all info is stored somewhere on in the internet cloud.

That reminds me. I just signed up with Carbonite to backup home PCs. I've been waiting for the right product in this space to mature and this looks like it. Zero-maintenance, secure PC backup.

Lessee, issue 14.11: Very interesting piece on The New Atheism. This piece more than anything else has really convinced me that it's not only all right to be an atheist but to begin to be assertive about it. Notes: atheism may indeed be the last class of folk it's ok to be bigoted against. I've made a conscious choice though to no longer fret about religion as a personal belief system and to not raise my kids with any sort of religion. Of course, when they want to experiment with different belief systems I'll be supportive and answer their questions to the best of my ability. I think the most important thing I can teach them is to think critically about religion and all things.

Pneumonia

Where did December go? I spent all of December and the first half of January fighting off pneumonia. That was a new one for me. I don't recommend the disease. Generally unpleasant.

But the garlic continues to grow well. And my new employer decided to give raises and increased bonus percentages to most employees as part of salary survey they did to make sure they were competitive. I'd already been bumped quite well from my last job so I wasn't expecting anything more, but it's quite nice to get a raise after only 1 month on the job.

Christmas was very nice. We have scaled this holiday way back. By not setting expectations too high it's a much more relaxing experience. We had a turkey dinner (deep fried of course) with Dad and Marcia. Santa came and gave a few gifts to the kids only. Evan is very happy with is new bunny and gameboy. Chloe got Evan's old gameboy and new Care Bears. They both got Razor scooters from Aunt Sue and they were a big hit.

Following the theme of "scaling down", we had a simple birthday party for Evan this past Saturday which went really well. Evan loved his ice cream Bunny cake. Actually I think Evelyn liked it best since she ate most of it. :-) I led the kid in a bug making exercise that was really quite fun. Other kids worked at the perler bead station. The weather in January has been beautiful so the kids ran around and played and played outside. The grownups enjoyed watching them from the back porch. Very nice.

Finally, on the weather. It was mid 70s yesterday, so the neighbors got together for a barbecue. I got to watch a football game with "the guys". I realize this is actually the first time I've ever watched a football game end-to-end. I felt a bit like a fish out of water, but it was good exercise for my social skills. And the rum and cokes were free-flowing so I didn't mind not understanding some parts of the game.