Hi from Pensylvania

Look at me!! I am a blogger.

Life is slowly returning to normal here in PA. The new normal. Pat's absence leaves a huge hole. I want to thank all of you T's, D's, and B's, for being supportive this last week and a half. The phone calls, flowers and prayers have meant a lot. I can't express how hard this past week was. It has helped remind me of how fleeting time is. Don't waste it. No one knows how long they have here. Get your cholesterol checked, exercise and eat right. And don't miss an opportunity to tell someone about the Truth. Or to live it yourself. I love you all. I can't believe how far away Pennsylvania is. Way too far.

Blood Mountain

A friend and I went backpacking up to Blood Mountain on the AT this past weekend. While it was definitely a great trip, it also turned out to be a brutal reminder of just how out-of-shape I am. (Of course it didn't help that I decided to bring such "luxuries" as wine, a camp chair, a 3 lb. SLR camera and a 4 lb. tripod.) The up side is that I got two cool shots of what I can only describe as a spectacular sunset. The other one was a panorama and can be seen here. We had a small visitor in the middle of the night that could have potentially ruined our experience.

The views are spectacular and I highly recommend it as both a fun day trip and also a great overnighter. (It is only about an hour away.) There are lots of places to camp including a primitive stone shelter at the top of the mountain. It has been there forever and is really a neat place to stay.

On the way up we stumbled upon a makeshift memorial for Meredith Emerson.

MY CAMERA!!!

well, yesterday i purchased a nikon d40x!!! i'm soooo excited!!! i can't believe i finally own one myself. you guys won't have to let me play with your cameras anymore! just had to let you guys know cause i'm soo excited. i'll have to make sure i ALLOW you guys to get a glimpse of the incredible pictures that my skills and camera will make. haha. yeah, maybe that will be at a slightly later later later date. anyway, hope everyone's having a good week.

Glen and Marketa win an Academy Award!

Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova performed their Oscar nominated song "Falling Slowly" at the Academy Awards on Sunday. Suzanne and I watched the entire show waiting for them to perform and for the winner to be announced. It was really neat to see them win this and they were so gracious in their acceptance speeches. Here's a link to those as well: Glen and Marketa acceptance speech

Pictures from Chicago

I finally got around to posting some pictures from the Chicago trip. We had an amazing time but it just went by so fast. We had plenty of good food, great shopping, visiting time, and sight seeing. We are ready to go back! Those of you planning to visit soon are in for a treat. Thanks again to Jeff and Laura for being such wonderful hosts! Here are the pictures.

Chicago

We've had an amazing time here in Chicago. I've taken lots of pictures which I plan on posting in the next few days but I was really excited about this one. Jeff and I headed downtown last night and we went up to the top of the John Hancock building. I did some research before coming to town and this is supposed to be the best spot to photograph the city. I've been experimenting with High Dynamic Range photography and this proved to be a great candidate. It is a panoramic composite of 12 different images. The full resolution version is pretty cool. Click on the image above for a larger version.

The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism

Hi Everyone. I just put down Baby Tallulah. It was my first time putting down a baby all by myself - Laura has gone downtown to pick up Jason and Suzanne from their date night - and I must say, so far so good. It was pretty easy. I gave her a bottle, we watched some Transporter and then I put her in her pack-'n-play. Hopefully, she'll be sleeping quietly by the time I finish typing this entry.

I wanted to share the following link with everyone. It is Tim Keller's website for his new book The Reason for God. The website has a short clip of Keller describing the book, and under the media tab you can find several of his sermons. I haven't read the book yet, but I hope to soon.

I just checked in on Tallulah and she is sound asleep. Beginners luck.

Countdown

Went to the doctor yesterday - the heartbeat sounded great. Just wanted to let you know that we will find out the sex in less than 3 weeks!!! At that time, they will do the big ultrasound which measures everything and checks out the baby - so please continue to pray for a healthy, strong Townsend 2 to come!

Coming this Fall!

We received official confirmation on the impending arrival of little baby B 2.0 this past Friday. It is finally starting to sink in (for me at least). We were able to see a heartbeat! The doctor told us that the fetus is the size of a grain of rice. Wow! The miracle of life. Suzanne has been more nauseated this time around but thankfully the snoring has not yet begun. I now begin my search for "2 for 1 kids kayak" deals. We are really looking forward to visiting Jeff and Laura in Chicago. Somehow we "planned" our flight tomorrow for 9:50 A.M...

Tomorrow will come early for us.

The Swell Season - Live at the 9:30 Club

This is for those of you who enjoyed the movie "Once"
The Swell Season - Live at the 9:30 Club

michael's interview

mikes...how'd it go????

it never got above 3 degrees today!

AND I LOVE IT! THIS IS THE TIME TO VISIT GUYS!!! SUZ AND JASON...SEE YOU SOON!!!!

Ode to Colorectal Surgeons

Thought you might enjoy a jab ( an ode sung at their annual conference in Chicago) at the colorectal surgeons...for those of you who don't know who these guys are, you might want to pass this and never know personally. Don

Here is the link for the show: Ode to the Colorectal surgeon

Photography stuff...

I've been inspired recently by a photographer named Dave Hill. You can see some of his work here: http://www.davehillphoto.com/ His signature style has a very artistic almost painting like quality. It's kind of hard to describe. It is really quite unique though. His technique seems to involve really good lighting (wrap around to be specific) and post processing (aka Photoshop). I've been playing around with it and the above photo of Tallulah is what I came up with. I want to try it with a larger scene though. Maybe I'll be able to do something this weekend...

Super Tuesday

Having trouble deciding between the candidates? Answer some questions on www.electoralcompass.com and they will tell you how each candidate compares to you on different issues. I found it really useful.

Thanks!

Because I am a fellow blogger, I am graciously accepting this invitation to "blog" with the men of the Townsend family. Jason, I'm not going to assume that we were asked just because 95% of the posts are yours. I will assume it' because you would love our womenly insight. Jeff, see my comment on the tax question, and let me know if you need any other tax advice! Well, I must go pretend that I am interested in the Super Bowl! Our blog is www.thetclan.blogspot.com if you want to check it out.

Discontented women

um, so yeah, i recently recieved an invitation to be a part of this blog. and while it's sweet of you guys and all, i must admit that i feel a sense of discontent shall we say? us women who live along the edge of augusta's ghetto feel that we have been placed second in this whole affair. and yes, that means that i'm saying we should have been placed first. uhhuh. so anyway, while i will continue to gladly take part in this, i felt i just needed to put that out there. hehe. so there it is.
anyway, we seem to have computer difficulties unfortunately, so i feel i need to go and help jules try to figure this out.

Fire!

Suzanne and I were inspired by the wood burning (gas starting) fire place at the Big Canoe cabin. We visited a few weekends ago when Jeff and Laura were there. It was the first time we had seen a gas/wood hybrid fireplace. We had one installed and it is amazing. We love it!

Open!

I've opened the blog and invited the girls to read and post.

1$ Image Stabilization

I saw this video posted on the Digital Photography School site and thought some of you might find it interesting. It looks like it might actually work. :-)

LOST!

We are hosting a "LOST" season premiere party tonight. I wanted to do something theme related so I searched for Dharma Initiative labels to put on things for the party. I found this site that had PDF's of all different types of food but alas, they had been taken down due to copyright infringement. Anyway, I searched the interwebs near and far and found one of the PDF's hidden on some long forgotten web server. Dharma Beer Labels

Hello Scientology, We Are Anonymous...

I don't know why I am so amused by Scientology. I think it is a combination of the story of Xenu and the crazy Tom Cruise interviews but anyway... A group calling themselves Anonymous posted a video this week promising to dismantle the cult church. Apparently they have already brought down the website repeatedly as well as spam faxing the main office.

Into The Wild

I finished reading "Into The Wild" last night. What a tragic story... I'm not sure what to make of it though. I'm torn between the similarities between he and myself and the selfishness that he demonstrated on so many levels. I definitely recommend reading it though. Has anyone seen the movie? I really like the soundtrack by Eddie Vedder. Here's one of the songs: Guaranteed.mp3

My New Role Model

Well Dad, aren't you glad none of us turned out like this! Check out this youtube link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2EDtxEumFI

Snow!

While this probably isn't newsworthy to the northerners in the group, we found it pretty exciting. We got about an inch or so of snow on Wednesday evening. Tallulah seemed quite amused with the little white cold thingies. I would tilt her head back and let the snow hit her face and she would close her eyes and open her mouth. It was like some sort of weird reflex. It was very cute. Our neighbors were outside playing and taking pictures. They snapped this shot of us.

www.myrecipes.com

Suzanne and I have recently been having fun cooking and trying new recipes. We've found some really good recipes on this site. They have a huge catalog of recipes from publications like Southern Living, Cooking Light, Real Simple, Food & Wine, etc... You can search for recipes, view ratings and reviews, and save your favorites. Check it out and let us know if you find something yummy. :-)

http://www.myrecipes.com/recipes/

Happy Birthday Chris!

Chris celebrated a birthday on Saturday. I won't say "how many" he is because we stop counting after 30, right? Anyway, I hope you had a great day and it involved cake of some sort.

Tax The Doctors

I had an interesting hypothetical today in Tax Class that made me think of the doctors in the family.

Here’s the scenario: Doctor saves a woman’s life. Out of appreciation, she gives him and his family an all expensed paid vacation to Vail Ski Resort.

Background Law: Generally, gifts are excluded from your Gross Income, and therefore not taxed. There is an important exception: Gifts given to an employee by his employer are not excluded from your Gross Income, and so they are taxed.

The Question: Should the Doctor have to pay income tax on the value of the trip? Should this fall under the employer-employee exception? If not, why should gifts to me from my firm be taxable, but not CHOCOLATE CAKES given to Jacob by his patients?

Given my bitterness over Jacob's chocolate cakes, I think you all probably know how I'd answer the question. Any thoughts?

Chicago!

Suzanne and I purchased flights to Chicago last night. We are very excited about spending almost 6 days there (Feb. 14th-19th). Hopefully we can get some babysitting time out of Laura and Jeff (hint, hint...) since we will be there for both Valentine's Day and our 2 year anniversary.

Christmas Pictures

I have some pictures posted from Christmas on my Picassa Web Album. They are marked as private so you have to use this URL to get to them. Enjoy!

Happy Anniversary!

Congratulations Chris and Erin! Ever notice how the number eight sort of looks like the symbol for infinity? :-) I hope you guys have a wonderful evening.

iRoomba

I've been wanting one of these things for a while now and recently Buy.com had an offer I couldn't refuse so we made the purchase. We set it up Sunday evening and scheduled it to clean at 1:00 AM. It is pretty loud so it woke me up and I listened to it do its thing for about an hour until it finally finished. It did a pretty good job of cleaning but it seemed to have a problem finding the base. It ended up stranded by the front door. I think it was trying to escape... I guess I'll reprogram it to clean early in the morning so it doesn't wake me. I'll let you guys know more after we have a few more days with it. I can't wait to see what Tallulah thinks of it.

Happy 30th!!!

You don't look 30 at all... :-)

Once

A few months ago I ran across an article about this little independent film called "Once". It is about a struggling street musician in Dublin who meets a girl who inspires him to face his fears and chase his dreams. It was recently released to DVD and Suzanne and I watched it last night. Wow... It was really powerful. It is very different (think low budget, musicians - not actors) but the music and story are fantastic. Let me know what you think!

Here it is on IMDB

Launch!

I was sitting at the computer getting really frustrated about all of the fun blog names being taken when Suzanne suggested "The Ruby Tuesday Club". We laughed uncontrollably for a few minutes and I decided to go with it for now.