BilikFamily.com

Photos - This is a "quick n' dirty" photo album. I simply pulled the pictures off the camera, scaled them, wrapped them in HTML, and uploaded. No time was spent Photoshopping to crop, adjust the lighting, color, etc. As I mentioned earlier, we're a bit past peek color so the photos tend to show subdued earth tones rather than more intense NH autumn colors. Blame the earlier rain and flooding conditions that kept me from capturing things at their best. There's an almost annoying number of pictures of the house from different angles. You can see the work Michelle did spreading leftover mulch, setting up mums, and other fall decorations. After I uploaded it, I also remembered that if you look closely you can tell that Michelle, in an impetuous fit of compulsive “Michelle-ness”, painted the white trim on the front porch a couple of months ago. <sarcasm> I guess the kids just aren't keeping her busy enough! </sarcasm>

TV - I'd mentioned a while back that last spring we bought a TiVo with DVD player/burner and an LCD television to cut down on power & weight, and the need for a formal "entertainment center". Here is a picture of that combination sitting atop a piece that Michelle uses to hold some of her keepsake statues. We were trying to avoid the "television is the center of the universe room" style setup for the first floor. We have a similar setup in our master bedroom, except the DVD is combined with the LCD TV which is a smaller 15 inch model. That combination just sits atop a dresser.

Movies - Speaking of the floods and extreme weather we had a couple of weeks ago, I'm going to try something new. If you have broadband and can play QuickTime movies, I have three short clips ranging from 2MB to 5MB. When you open the links, you may find that it takes a little while to see anything as your computer buffers the video.

• Our brook with water falling over a log
• Our brook near where the kids play by it
• A panorama of our property (listen to that wind in the background!)

Weather - It was a brisk morning — hovering right around the freezing point. We had our first serious frost. This morning the sprinkler lines will all get purged for the season. I even turned on the basement wood stove to help take the edge off downstairs.

Stove - From my limited exposure to using the basement stove, I'm starting to think that it may be oversized for its job. The basement is roughly 2/3's finished off with the remaining third physically isolated and left raw for storage. As per building requirements all finished walls and the ceiling are insulated. Add to that the fact that the walls are surrounded by thick concrete foundation walls and that it is completely underground. Thus little heat escapes sideways. Some goes up the stairwell. From what I can tell so far, if you add a little heat to the basement, it really stays pretty toasty for a long time. I had this mindset that basements are cold and damp, but people don't often do any significant environmental enhancement to their basements. Why bother? So, yes, over time I would expect that they get cold and damp. But I expect for much of this winter, the basement stove will need to run really low or just run a few hours in the early morning.

CCD - I met Michelle at St. Patrick's last night to take Timothy home when classes were about to start. Unfortunately the twins were in a bit of a bad mood. We swapped vehicles and I took Timothy, Michael, and Daniel home. Michael bawled the whole way. They must have been a bit tired because when I found out the triggering event, it was so minor any normal boy would have gotten over it. While I re-heated a bit of dinner for myself, I distracted them by having them watch the new Pooh's Heffalump Halloween Movie that arrived yesterday.

iBook - My first iBook got back from the Apple repair center yesterday. They replaced the logic board, the CD-ROM, and the lid proximity sensor — all under warrantee, although just barely. That laptop is just shy of its three year support limit. It will be moved onto the computer desk next to the iMac so that the twins can play at the same time, hopefully without fighting. I ordered a mouse, a stand, and a security lock for it. I'm not so much worried about it being stolen as much as I don't want the boys to take it off the desk, especially Mighty Timbo. Now the focus shifts to replacing the CD-ROM on the iMac. After Timothy shoved pennies into it, I figure just replace the drive. It was flaking out anyway. I'll probably do it this weekend when I take Claire into Nashua for a birthday party.