New photos before a new year

Yes, folks, we're looking forward to Lil' Genghis' third calendar year here on Planet Earth, where two Children of Abraham have settled a petty land dispute in a holy land and even would-be political hacks improve their success by standing up for what's right. Well, not really. Anyway, there's more for Lil' Genghis: Future World Leader to clean up.

But she's still in her innocent childhood stage. She's had an awful amount of fun lately, including a trip Sunday to see Disney on Ice. It was fun watching her.

So, the photos:

DSCF2956 from album 081219-Genghis doing stuff some time

Fastest bottle in the West!


DSCF2929 from album 081219-Genghis doing stuff some time

Do you remember the last time you enjoyed a shower this much?


DSCF2919 from album 081219-Genghis doing stuff some time

Painting Christmas colors, and wanting to share the fun!


DSCF2891 from album 081219-Genghis doing stuff some time

Thomas the Tank Engine the Ballerina!


DSCF2909 from album 081219-Genghis doing stuff some time

Checking out the new bouncy house!


DSCF2870 from album 081219-Genghis doing stuff some time

Waving to Aunt Leeanne!


DSCF2965 from album 081220-Bel Sasha snow, Jan Linda cookiefest

SNOW! YES! IT'S HAPPY TIME!


DSCF2970 from album 081220-Bel Sasha snow, Jan Linda cookiefest

Three women! Who-hoo!



DSCF2978 from album 081220-Bel Sasha snow, Jan Linda cookiefest

Love makes the cold warmer, eh?


DSCF3010 from album 081220-Bel Sasha snow, Jan Linda cookiefest

Ooh, cuddle time ...


DSCF3021 from album 081220-Bel Sasha snow, Jan Linda cookiefest

So thoughtful.


DSCF3031 from album 081220-Bel Sasha snow, Jan Linda cookiefest



DSCF3044 from album 081220-Bel Sasha snow, Jan Linda cookiefest



DSCF3038 from album 081220-Bel Sasha snow, Jan Linda cookiefest

Daddy, the Sudetenland is that way!


DSCF3050 from album 081224-Christmas Eve with Duda Ligia Humberto

Yes, the snow, a few days before Christmas, piled up to the window of a Toyota.


DSCF3055 from album 081224-Christmas Eve with Duda Ligia Humberto

"Pssst!" said Uncle Humberto. "I think Sasha wants food!"


DSCF3056 from album 081224-Christmas Eve with Duda Ligia Humberto

Lil' Genghis shares a light-up necklace with Uncle Eddie.



DSCF3061 from album 081224-Christmas Eve with Duda Ligia Humberto

Mmmm!


DSCF3071 from album 081224-Christmas Eve with Duda Ligia Humberto

Girls LOVE a good listener.


DSCF3077 from album 081224-Christmas Eve with Duda Ligia Humberto

Cousin Oliver brought some badly needed canine masculinity to the Christmas party.


DSCF3082 from album 081224-Christmas Eve with Duda Ligia Humberto

But of course Brother Chewie is pretty darned masculine.


DSCF3086 from album 081224-Christmas Eve with Duda Ligia Humberto

Uncle Eddie is happy to share his son's first Christmas.


DSCF3088 from album 081224-Christmas Eve with Duda Ligia Humberto

...... Not happy .....


DSCF3089 from album 081224-Christmas Eve with Duda Ligia Humberto

... HAPPY! These pictures were taken back-to-back.


DSCF3096 from album 081224-Christmas Eve with Duda Ligia Humberto

Uncle Humberto and Aunt Ligia check out the Christmas Eve spread, most of which she slaved over. Good, good, good stuff, we tell ya ...


DSCF3103 from album 081224-Christmas Eve with Duda Ligia Humberto

In wine, there is truth. Here, we see Aunt Ligia is one of the nicest and happiest people ...


DSCF3105 from album 081224-Christmas Eve with Duda Ligia Humberto

Cousin Oliver checks out the presents.

Presents, you said?

Presents, we agreed.

Of course, any kid is prone to get diverted from the real toys for a box, or something else that can be entertaining ...

DSCF3106 from album 081224-Christmas Eve with Duda Ligia Humberto



DSCF3108 from album 081224-Christmas Eve with Duda Ligia Humberto


More to come!

Upgrayedd

Behind the scenes of the photo gallery, dad updated a significant amount of software. He also temporarily killed two important configuration files, so please let him know if you have any problems. =)

There are two photo galleries in there that we haven't posted much of anything from, on 12/19 and 12/20.

Merry Christmas!

Staying warm

As some of you may know, parts of the family are being attacked by ferocious cold. For example, as I write this, it's only 77 degrees Fahrenheit in Brazil, at 1 a.m. ... freezing! So for absolutely no reason at all, we'll share a soup recipe.

Oh, yeah. And it snowed in the United States. A bit. Like, maybe seven inches on Friday night, probably another eight inches Saturday, and perhaps four more Sunday, followed by freezing rain. So, to this, all we can say is,
Welcome Aunt Ligia and Uncle Humberto!

At least Ligia spent some time in Buffalo. Freow.

Anyway, the recipe, again, for no apparent reason.

Recipe for Agnolini Soup
(Agnolini is probably spelled wrong; pronounced eye-o' lee-nee)
Classic Italian recipe, possibly adapted in Brazil.
It's closer to a pasta dish with a red sauce than a soup

Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 25 minutes
Feeds: Stuffs three or four people completely full

Tools:
-- vegetable peeler (*1)
-- knife
-- cutting board
-- big pot
-- fire
-- big soup spoon
-- can opener

Ingredients:
-- minced garlic
-- 14 oz/400g/1 hectactre precooked kielbasa
-- 3 large carrots/5 small carrots
-- 2 cans of beef broth, each ~14oz/400g/14.6 kiloton
-- 2 cans of good-quality non-concentrate tomato soup, such as Progresso tomato-basil; ~19 oz/540g/3 fortnight each
-- one big package of cheese tortellini (*2), 20 oz/570g/12 klingons
-- 1 beer
-- 1 loaf Italian bread (optional)

Preparation: Open the beer. Baste the chef lightly, and maintain adequate moisture levels during the cooking process.

Peel the carrots (*1). Chop the ends off. Line the carrots up facing opposite directions so you can block 'em with one hand while cutting with the other. Slice carrots about 1/3-inch thick (8 mm/14.7 potrezebies). Dump carrots into the big pot.

Cut the kielbasa to a similar thickness. Dump kielbasa into the big pot.

Grab a big soup spoon. Dumb three heaping spoonfuls of the garlic into the big pot.

Light the big pot on a high fire. Stir occasionally until the kielbasa begins to brown; the other ingredients will cook in the kielbasa juice.

When the kielbasa's browned, dump in the two cans of beef broth and the two cans of tomato soup. Slap yourself in the forehead. Retrieve the greasy cans; use the can opener to open the cans, then dump the _ingredients_ into the big pot. Discard the now-empty cans.

(If you bought the bread, this is good time to stick it in your oven at ~300 degrees, unpreheated, wrapped in foil, and it'll come out great nice and warm.)

Stir soup occasionally until warm (but not boiling, probably about 10 minutes); you can find out by sticking in your pinkie finger. If it's uncomfortable for more than a second or two, you're good.

This time, open the package of tortellinis and drop them in; try not to splash yourself with hot soup. Wait a few minutes, then pull your bread out of the oven and cut it up, maybe add a little butter. By the time you're done, the tortellini should be close to being done (total cooking time, maybe 8-10 minutes). Taste one tortellini at a time to test doneness.

Serve in a big soup bowl, with buttered bread on the side. You can drop a little dried parsely and/or parmesan cheese on top.



(1) Chuck Norris would use a chef's knife, and then not need to call for an ambulance.

(2) You can get something like pepperoni and cheese tortellini, but you're already dumping in a pound of sausage. The cheese balances things out better.


Yeah, you thought were completely serious. Check this out:


Inside a neighbor's home, where it was safe and cozy, Lil' Genghis also tried out a rocking chair:


We got some great pictures we'll try to post.They're already online, if you look, though.

Nuttin' to do with nuttin'

And, with thanks to Uncle Boboli:


Finally, since we're already way the heck off topic here, dad was trying to talk to Lil' Genghis about all sorts of stuff during her baths -- something about estimating densities greater than 1 turned into an example of using a rubber duckie to demonstrate kinetic energy penetrator impacts, for example. Somewhere in there he was reading from Chuikov's Berlin memoirs, which are phenomenally worse and more politicized than the incredible Stalingrad memoirs with the lessons on stormtrooper tactics. Witness this classical nugget of non-history:

When the hordes of Nazi invaders swept into Poland in 1939, it became clear that there was no one to defend the interests of the working people of Poland, except the masses of the people themselves, rallied around the Polish Communiists. They, the Communists, organized active struggle against the Nazis from the very first days of occupation onwards. At the same time those Polish communists who were in the Soviet Union initiated the Union of Polish Patriots. In April 1943 this body approached the Soviet government with a request for permission to form a Polish military unit to fight the Nazis. The Soviet government heeded the dcesire of Poles to fight Fascism arms in hand, and acceeded to this request. The formation of the First Polish Army started on 19 May 1943.

This entire quote only makes sense if you utterly ignore the fact that the noble Soviet Communists invaded half of Poland at the exact same time, and that the Polish Communist Party was, at that time, nothing but a puppet front worse than Vichy France became. It's a shame -- this book was apparently released well after Khruschev attacked the cult of Stalin, but it's more Stalinist than his earlier and better Stalingrad memoirs.

So, yeah, we're also talking to Lil' Genghis about the nature of evaluating historical sources in terms of self-interest, access to information, ideology and the like.

By the way, if you get a magnet this year, a hint: The quote on the Lil' Genghis, Future World Leader magnets was repeated by Iosef Stalin and can be found on his Wikiquote page, even though it was originally from Molotov.

Yeah yeah yeah we'll post some pictures of Bel sometime. Geesh.

Making connections

mom and dad have been adding people like crazy to Facebook, but Lil' Genghis has been making lots of connections of her own.

Now, the human brain develops in some strange ways. Babies like peek-a-boo because it's so fun -- they have to learn that objects are permanent even when they're out of sight, and peek-a-boo kinda plays with that.

Still, a huge chunk of brain development occurs by age 4, so her brain's making all sorts of internal connections. Lil' Genghis is also learning to make all sorts of logical connections that seem obvious to us, but is pretty darned cool when a baby does it. Let's let dad babble on:

I had her on the floor, trying to convince her to stay still for a diaper change. So we were just sorta hanging out near the changing table, which has a cabinet underneath.

And she starts playing with the doors, opening and closing them, pulling out baby perfume and baby wipes and disposable changing pads and all the other sorts of detritus that a healthy toddler needs at some point or another, and then she's helpfully putting 'em back.

At one point, she opens up the right door and points at a 1-inch/3cm tall picture on a package of these swimming diapers -- "Dora!" she says, pointing at one of her favorite cartoon characters. Mind you, she hasn't been swimming in a good while -- and these things are for babies up to 15 pounds/7 kilos, which hasn't happened in a while. Then Lil' Genghis closes the door and plays with stuff on the left side of the cabinet for a while.

Minutes later, she gets excited, shouts "Dora!" and rips open the right cabinet door again, points at Dora, makes a little paddling motion with her left arm, then pulls both arms together as in a hug and says, "Coowd."

So let's think about what she was thinking about:

• She remembered Dora on the package
  
• She remembered the package held swimming diapers she hasn't worn in many months
  
• She remembers swimming diapers are for swimming
  
• She remembers how to swim, sorta
  
• She knows how to communicate swimming and temperature
  
• She remembers it's cold outside
  
• She remembers most swimming pools are outdoors
  
• And she realizes, though she's never tried it, it would be bad to swim in the cold

Sometimes I'm not sure how to balance my deep feelings of pride with my strident feelings of terror. Pretty smart little cookie we got here.

Quick update

We never had a chance to post here about Uncle Clóvis, who passed away last week after struggling with cancer.

His hometown newspaper has a story on him; an English translation is here.

Most of the time, such stories focus on what a person's job was, and how it related to other people. There's a lot that here -- Uncle Clóvis helped launch careers, but at its most basic levels, he was working to bring music to people -- one of the simplest, most generous things a person can do.

That's just part of the story. It's fitting enough that before the story talks about what he did in business, it focuses on what he did as a person -- including being the loving stepfather of Aunt Amanda and the doting husband of Aunt Wanderly, one of Lil' Genghis' bestest friends in the whole world.

Our hearts go out to that side of the family. We're so sorry.

Other parts of the family have been having health problems as well, but not to the same degree.

Uncle Joao turned 50 last night, celebrating with a strong dose of food poisoning -- yikes! Very unfun.

A continent away, Aunt Piu and Uncle Robinho also got hit with food poisoning. dad is still struggling with a bad back, and in a major change, mom just got knee surgery that has her in strong discomfort and suffering through dad's household skills. She seems to be feeling better already, thankfully.

For those of you keeping track, Uncle Rodrigo knows about all this -- knows that his sisters and their husbands are sick -- and is still just hanging out at his apartment playing on a computer instead of lifting a finger to help his nieces. Figures.

Pictures, weeee got pictures

Yeah, we haven't posted pictures in a month. But that's OK -- we've got lotsa pictures for you today. We were dabbling around with this Microsoft AutoCollage program, and got a cute little 8x10 photo out of some of the Halloween pictures:

081031-Halloween bumblebee abelinha_AutoCollage_16_Images from album 081206-Big photos-collage-mosaic


But wait! There's more! For just $0 and shipping and handling, we'll give you 2,500 photos in one spot.

"How," you say, "can you give me so much for so little money?" Because we're just going to give it to you all in one big photo. dad is of the philosophy that art should be measured in square feet, but for Brazilian's sake, we got a single picture comprised of thousands of little pictures printed up so it's about one meter wide. Rock n roll! =)

Let's see if the technology works here ...
Lightning bolt receiver over there ...
Zener diodes here
Thermocouple with paste here
Heat exchangers there and there
Aluminum to convert neutron radiation to gamma radiation .. whoops, not a good idea ...

YES!

No. We'll keep trying.

Wait! Hydroelectric power coming online ...

YES!