Relatives

It's been a couple of busy weeks. First we went to Cape May to be with Nancy's family in a great old house that Jim and Jimmie rent each year for a couple of weeks in August. We only got to stay one night this year but had a great time with everyone that was there. The following week Blythe, Noelle, Paul, TJ, Ellie, and Tommy paid us a visit (they were really down to see Grandma but graced us with a couple of days at Creek's Edge).
Unfortunately, Eric wasn't feeling quite up to par and had to stay home.









In between time Nancy had to write her first letter to the editor (it got published) and I had to start getting to work on my fall courses. It's interesting that I'm co facilitating 'The Seven Deadly Sins' and 'Building Your Own Theology' both on the same days. I wonder if there's a message here.

The Democratic convention starts today. I think Joe Biden was a good choice for Obama's running mate. He has extensive foreign relations experience, is a good debater, and might be able to carry PA for Obama. On the downside, he's not used to being number two and he can certainly make some rather large gaffs. It will be interesting to hear what he has to say at the convention. More interesting, though, is what Obama will say and how he'll say it in his acceptance speach. The expectation is that he'll have around 75,000 in the audience. Could be another blockbuster speach like he gave, was it 8, years ago. I really wish both candidates would get off the trivia stuff. So McCain doesn't know exactly how many houses they own (some of them are rented out). Let's not blow this out of porpotion. And so what if the Obama house has 4 fireplaces. Is that even relevent? I'm waiting to see who McCain picks as his VP. I'm still thinking Romney. Any of you what to hazzard a guess?

For those of you on the Verizon network (like we are and have to be) and would like an iPhone but obviously can't get it, there are 2 new Verizon phones coming out this fall that might fit the bill. The first is the HTC Touch Pro supposidly coming to Verizon in October (no solid date as far as I know). It has iPhone like capabilities (touch screen, bluetooth, WiFi, etc) plus a keyboard. It runs Microsoft Mobile 6.1. The second is the Blackberry Thunder (that's it's code name) due out to Verizon on Oct 13. I appears to be, from leaked rumors, an iPhone knock off with Blackberry capabilities (ie faster email). We'll be following these two phones in particular to see if either is good enough to cause us to upgrade from our 5 year old single cell phone.

Trees and a Visit

Two happenings at Creeksedge this week. First, a storm blew through last Saturday night and a 80 foot, double trunk tulip tree fell across our drive. Luckily one of our neighbors owned the tree and either saw or heard it fall and called us to let us know. We both called someone to come and 'dig' us out as we couldn't get out with the tree blocking the driveway. His person came first and, at 10 PM, started to chain saw and then lift the pieces (with a front loader) out of the way. I thought it would take most of the night but he finished clearing a path before midnight. I contacted a couple of furniture makers that we know but neither wanted the wood so now we have to figure out what to do with the downed tree. Anne, another neighbor, suggested a bench and that may be what we end up with. Of course 80 feet times two will make a lot of benches. Here's what it looked like the next morning.


The other happening this week was much more positive. Jim, Tamara and Will visited us for 3 days. They got to see mom and spend some time with her (Will liked the water fountain out in the hall better than mom's room). They also got to kayak, play some tennis, swim, eat out and sail. As always we had some good conversations and solved many of the world's problems.









Does this look like synchronized paddling?




When there's no wind it's good to have a paddle.



Will loves water, even water from the faucet.










And sitting in the statue's lap.


















Again, it's been relatively quiet on the political front. The revelation about John Edwards certainly puts him out of the VP race and may do even more. I think McCain's comment about Obama being a superstar and therefore can't be qualified to be president will backfire. I don't like Obama's apparent backing off his off shore drilling stance and hope this is not an indication of his future pandering for votes. As we might expect, both candidates seem to be moving some toward the center. The most recent polls average out to Obama with a 3.5 point lead. An interesting observation is the intrade market odds (a real market in futures of the election) which show Obama ahead 59.4 to 37.2, a 22.2 point lead. As I mentioned last week, the poll numbers, and presumably the intrade numbers, don't mean a whole lot this early in the game.

On the technology front, I've noticed more and more friends (all retired people) are acquiring smart cell phones that allow them to get their email and perform PDA functions all on one device. Don't really know what this means but it's an interesting, anecdotal observation.