Up She Goes!

Great progress has been made on the construction of our house in Austin over the last three weeks, as illustrated by the photos below that our builder e-mailed to us:


At this rate, you'd think the house would be ready in only another month or so, but the builder is continuing to estimate a completion date in July or August.

On the Verge of a Slab

After Doris and I finished the holiday celebrations with our sons and their families in California, we headed to Austin, Texas for a quick check on the status of our house construction. When we arrived in Austin, we discovered it was in the middle of a cold snap, with high temperatures in the upper 50s causing the locals to assure us that this was truly unusual. I admit to being a little skeptical, until it warmed back up to the mid-70s a couple of days later.

Most of the progress on our house to date has been of the invisible kind, with construction moving slowly through the final design and permit approval stages. When we left Austin on Sunday, Jan. 6, though, the slab for the house was on the verge of being poured.

Here are a couple of shots of the construction site, showing the foundation forms. In the first photo, taken from our street, that's Doris peering at the camera from the left, rear corner of the soon-to-be slab. And while you're at it, find Waldo...

This second shot is taken from the area that will be the back of the house:

Here's Doris inside the neighbor's house to the left of our lot, trying to visualize how our privacy wall will block the view to the pool we're planning to build in the back of the house:

And here's Doris walking at the rear of the house, in the area where the pool will be built:

The sales rep for the company building the house (Toll Brothers) estimates that the house itself could be finished as early as June, but more likely in August. Fortunately, our good friends Jerry and Carole Ducharme live nearby and have volunteered to keep a close eye on progress for us.

A "Cold" Christmas

Christmas 2007 was a "cold" Christmas for a couple of reasons.

First, Doris and I celebrated the holiday in Sunnyvale, California, where our son Kurt and his family live. Measured against typical temperatures in Michigan, where we have spent most of our Christmases, Sunnyvale's daytime highs in the low 50s F (roughly 10 degrees C) should have seemed downright balmy. Instead, I found myself clenching my teeth against the frigid air, having become"soft" from the tropical heat of Bangkok.

Second, everyone but me (Doris, Kurt, Karen, Peter, Jeff and Katy) promptly came down with colds. For whatever reason, I was exempted from the epidemic of runny noses, sneezes and body aches — until the day Doris and I departed California for a brief visit to Texas (more about this in an upcoming blog entry).

Despite these bouts of sickness, we spent a very enjoyable time together. When it was over, I found myself reflecting on the absence of stress that often accompanies family holiday celebrations. I'd been particularly concerned that my recent decision, purely for health reasons, to take a more serious approach to vegetarianism and adopt a vegan diet (no milk, no cheese) would put a damper on our meals together. Instead, Doris and our kids kindly prepared meal after meal that was appropriate and delicious, in most cases using entirely new recipes. I came away from the holidays feeling a deep sense of gratitude for the gracious, accommodating attitudes of family members.

I'm inserting below some of my favourite photos from our celebration together:

And what would Christmas be without the occasional death-defying trick? Some of you may recall that, early on the morning of Christmas day 1991, I built a fire in our new house in Ann Arbor, Michigan, only to forget to get the air flowing up the chimney flue first. This resulted in heavy smoke pouring out of the fireplace into the house, despite my futile efforts to stop it, and an impressive, 12-inch-thick white cloud clinging to the ceiling of our family room for quite some time afterwards. Evidently destined to repeat this experience this year, I embarked on the task of building a fire in the fireplace of the two-story, lofted hotel room we had rented in Sunnyvale. Having purchased a couple of artificial logs from the hotel front desk, I opened the chimney flue and lit the fire, not really expecting a problem in getting the chimney to draw the smoke adequately. To my shock, I once again experienced the panic of smoke billowing uncontrollably into the room and threatening to gas us all. The hotel's smoke alarms went off, and amid the panic and shouting and running around, I finally managed to adjust the flue properly with the fireplace tongs. Here's a picture of Doris and Katy frantically waving pillows in front of the upstairs smoke alarm to clear the smoke and get the alarm to stop its piercing sound:

Finally, we all went to visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which is the most amazing and awe-inspiring aquarium I've ever seen, and I've been to some that are world-class. The following are just a few photos of the place, which frankly don't do it justice. If you ever get a chance to visit, don't miss it.