It's Alive

After many months, my computer is finally back up and running!

As long-time readers may recall, there was an incident with Jessica and my "big computer" back during the summertime. Due to a number of conflicts (work, Christmas, trips), I was not able to diagnose the problem, order parts, and troubleshoot all the issues with the computer. Only this month have I been able to really look at it. And it was a doozy.

So after replacing 1) the power supply (didn't fix it), 2) motherboard (half-way fixed), 3) the hard drive (better, but needed optical drive to load OS), 4) the DVD drive, I finally have a working computer.

Since I was ordering parts anyway, I upgraded a little. There were some really great deals after Christmas, so I now have a hot new video card and upped my RAM to 2 Gb. Now, my machine smokes, but in a good way.

Europe: Not for Religious Fundamentalists

I forgot to put this picture in the last post. Around Neptune's Fountain are four bronze statues of women, representing the four known continents, lactating water. Is that even still called lactating??

Which reminded me of something we saw in London. In this case, it's what is not there that is indecent:

We haven't even been to Florence to see David yet. I have a feeling updates will follow...

Hey, we've been busy!

Well, thank god Joel and I both got posts up tonight. I hate to go longer than a month without posting- not that exactly a month is doing awesome. Anyway, thought you'd like to see what's been keeping us away.

First of all, we went to Bologna. At least, three of us went to Bologna; Aidan got to stay with a friend for the day, which I'm sure he MUCH preferred. It was really fun- it is the gastronomical center of Italy, home of tortellini, and also the site of the first university in the WORLD. Crazy. We went to the anatomy room, marble slab and all, where the medical students did human disections hundreds of years ago. Here I am at a Neptune fountain in the city center:

I also broke my toe, so I was a little laid up. I stress "little," because with my two kids, there is no way to relax. Here I am at the Italian hospital, waiting to get an x-ray to make sure it wasn't anything serious. Check out my hot slippers!

Thanks to Uncle Justin and the Build-A-Bear store, Max has a new purpose in life:

Even Aidan has been busy; here he is running his "toy store." He talked me into buying some of those cool knights on his "desk" for my son. Wonder how he knew he'd like them??

Ava's just been busy looking cute. I have been trying to take her picture in her Christmas gifts, but it is a full time job.

Anyway, we will try to make up for lost time. Hope you enjoy!

Grappa Tasting

It's been awhile since I last posted... blah blah blah.

Last weekend Jessica and I went to the Nardini Grappa factory and took le grande tour. For you non-alcoholics, grappa is a fragrant grape-based pomace brandy of between 38% and 80% alcohol by volume (75 to 160 proof), of Italian origin. Think of a whisky, but made of grape skins and seeds instead of grain. It's hella popular over here.

So this Nardini company is one of the oldest producers of the stuff. How old? Try from the late 1700s. For the tour, we went through their facilities (which deserve their own post. More later) and got to taste some of their wares.

Now, I'll preface this video by saying this: their grappa is actually very good. It's smooth and goes well after a big dinner. But they had other varieties for tasting beside the regular grappa. I can't remember the exact name of the liquor that Jessica is sampling below, but the host there said it's made from star anise and some other Italian mountain herb and is the bitterest digestive available in Italy. As you can tell for her reaction, they just won over another convert.