Wayne and Rebecca Madsen

A hearty snack/meal from Brasil. I think it is best served with tobasco sauce. Rebecca likes cream cheese on hers. Meu Brasil tem de tudo!  read more »

Wayne's last months of work came to a close this weekend. I think there are still a few odds and ends to wrap up and exhibit openings to enjoy, but he and Red76's Sam got the exhibit set up at the San Jose Museum of Art Friday. Paela, of course, helped -- even when gallery directors indicated they prefered babies not to be in the museum where ladders might fall on them. Why do they have such dangerous ladders? Who knows? Paela stayed though...she didn't want to be lonely, after all.

Of course, this is just the conclusion of one of Wayne's projects. He still has school for a few more weeks this semester, and will help set up another project tomorrow probably.  read more »

It was too nice of a day to resist the temptation to visit the beach. Paela loved feeling the sand in her toes, and kicked wildly whenever we put her toes in the cold ocean.

the thing was good. then we checked out another thing. and we learned about the thing.

Our cell phones died. Suddenly. Maybe it was the cat who chews through our battery charging cord, or perhaps it was just time. Either way, new phones were desperately needed. And AT&T was no help, so we tried Sprint. All things being equal, we probably should have gone with sprint. In the AT&T store, they told us that the reason why we can't get free phones for resigning our contract (even though we've been with the company for years) is that there is a slew of people standing around getting paid who need to get their money from someone, so it should be us.

Solution: order phones online.  read more »

I believe we are superstitious people.

In the past, we would write in our weekly family post about any hopeful change Paela would have in her sleep patterns, only to have her change them within a few days. We began to joke with one another that her sleeping habits were contingent on us talking about them. Thus, we stopped mentioning her sleep habits in any post.

Granted, I don't really believe this is what happened. We only wised up to how inconsistent our daughter is and felt our reports were cheapened by mentioning something that would change with the wind. However, in time I have realized we haven't kept a record of what it is she does, even if it changes from time to time. So I am writing this brief entry as a document of the past month so we know what happened.  read more »

In doing some research, I came across a wonderful essay by Charlie Stone on the consumer computer trade and the miniturization of the economy in this trade. Ultimately, there are reasons we don't have the devices we want, and those reasons involve the support of what Charlie refers to as a "30-year binge" at the expense of the consumer. I have quoted the full text, but please go to his site for discussion.

(Posted by Charlie Stross on November 25, 2007 1:07 PM)

I've spouted off previously in this blog about my lamentable poor saving throw versus shiny! — not to mention my irritation at the refusal of the consumer electronics industry to render me bankrupt by actually giving me what I want. Trouble is, at long last they've turned around and done it.  read more »

Wow, it's hot here. I grew up in Texas and I still think it's been hot here. Especially for May. Especially for the bay area. Especially for the bay area in May. We were wishing we had an air conditioner all week last week. But alas, not in our car and not in our apartment, so we tried to go places with air conditioning.  read more »

We wanted to share this photo Karl and Angela took of us on the beach. This is probably one of the only images we have of the three of us together, but it's a keeper. Especially since Paela thought that her monkey should be in the photo as well.

The weather cooled down. Last week it was in the upper 90s and low 100s, this week it was in the low 70s and upper 60s. Big changes.

Because this was the first week after school, I had collaborated on a couple dinners with colleages. One, Tuesday night, went better than planned and we even had gorillas show up, dancing for us. No professor at BYU ever got in a gorilla suit to dance for me.

Paela eats tofu and plums, not to mention a bunch of other foods. She's still a fruit loving child, gobbling up applesauce like it was... well, you get the picture. She also has learned to enjoy time in the kitchen, "helping" in any way she can.  read more »