I just spent the better part of an hour trying to print on a #10 envelope with OpenOffice.org. I don't think the rest of the world should have to suffer through the same ordeal, so here's something that might help if you need to do the same.

Yesterday, I went to Lake Tahoe, for the first time. It was a one-day trip that saw me leave Belmont around 7am and return around 10pm. On my way to the Lake, I picked up Felix, a coworker who lives about 3 hours away from me and who drove the rest of the way to the lake. What we did, in essence, was to drive around the lake once, stopping frequently to take pictures, eat, or get a coffee or a hot chocolate. We talked to some people along the way and we had a great time.

Nina's multi-day birthday bash is progressing fabulously, thanks to all of Tracy's planning. Yesterday, there was plenty of play, then bowling and pizza with all of the neighbors at the Rock 'n Bowl, then ice cream at the Creole Creamery, then more play. Today's highlights included the amusement park, a spectacular gondola ride through the waterways of City Park, swimming, opening presents, cake, a show of pictures, a movie, and a sleep over. Here are some pictures taken in the amusement park and of the gondola.

Tracy, Margo, Karen, Jeff, David, and Connie:

Today was one of the best days of my life. I'm not exactly sure why.

I worked late last night, then slept in until 10:30am or so. I spent some time with Tracy and the girls at home, later went out on some errands (all together), and then spent most of the afternoon watching kids (Della, Eli, Nina, and Lola) play in the pool and play with the fish in the pond.

I just found a beautiful interpretation of Mozart's Requiem. Click the play below to hear it.

ISBN 978-1-60489-063-1 (Trade Paper) 978-1-60489-062-4 (Library binding) Katie Wainwright just published a new book! It will be available this fall, in the usual places (Amazon, Barnes And Noble, and so on). Congratulations Aunt Katie! Links: Library Thing

I'm at the point where my body stops functioning well if I don't run 3.8 miles at least a few times a week. That seems like a lot, but I actually walk about 0.5 files of that, so the run is really more like 3.3 miles. Still a fair bit. But I'm wearing expensive earphones ($30) connected to an inexpensive MP3 player ($12) and I'm listening to female vocal trance, mostly. I'm also furiously processing random thoughts, much like when one dreams. So the time goes by quickly for me when I'm running.

When I haven't been too busy with my real job, which is actually pretty interesting and consuming, I've been spending weekends working with some other people on a project that until tonight was called Momentum. Despite how much I like the word, however, "Momentum" is a bad name for the project because it is vague (it's relevance to our project requires an explanation) and because it is taken, in common use, hard to work into a domain name, and so on.

I can't remember where I read this. But it works! If you know where this came from, please help me provide proper attribution in the comments.

To avoid jet lag, follow these steps:

1. Determine your wake-up time in the remote location (example: 7am, London)
2. Convert that time to your local time (example: 2pm, New Providence)
3. Calculate your fast-start time by subtracting 14 hours from the local time (example: midnight, New Providence)

I am made of organs, which are made of tissue, which is made of cells, which are made of molecules, which are made of atoms, which are made of neutrons and protons, which are made of hadrons, which are made of quarks held together by gluons. Atoms also have electrons, which are supposedly elementary particles that have no substructure, like quarks. But we've all heard that story before and I suspect that electrons are made up of something else. At some point, the smallest constituents of matter are always energy.