Mark, Christine, and Jared came over to the Bernard and Liz's for New Years Eve. Most if not all of us have ceased to find the club scene worth pursuing on a New Years, so we were quite content to watch the excellent Monsters, Inc. and toast in the new year from the comfort of the Lilly family room.

Best wishes to everyone for a happy and prosperous 2003!

It took some tricky scheduling, but we were able to meet with our friends Brian and Debbie and their daughter Erin for breakfast this morning. As per usual, our "breakfast" meeting stretched out to about six hours, but that qualifies as a Very Good Thing™ when you've got friends so intelligent and interesting.

One of the discussions we had was on cross country running. Brian is a long-time cross country coach, and his numerous championships speak for themselves. I always think best practices, regardless of discipline, are informative because you never can tell when an idea in one field will be cross-applied to spark a revolution in another. I know virtually nothing about cross country, but you can bet I'll be checking out the resources he gave me on the subject.

I returned to The Island, the Steeler bar I frequented some three plus years ago. Turns out they're now a Vikings bar. Losers. So I ended up this morning at Knuckles, a sports bar on El Camino where we watched the Steelers come from behind win over the Baltimore Ravens. (Details in Sports.)

Usually in the course of a game there's a certain ebb and flow, and spectators can read the energy and momentum of the game. What I found is that in a sports bar where you're surrounded by TVs showing different games (many of which had playoff implications) it was nearly impossible for me to get a good read on the Steeler game. I don't know if I'm alone in that feeling or if it's a skill that regular patrons acquire or what, but at least today I found it somewhat disorienting.

We visited our friends Maurice and Debi up in Pleasanton this evening, and, as we always do, had a really fun time. Debi's taken up belly-dancing, so we went out to El Morocco, a local restaurant, to support and cheer on two of her friends who were performing. Since my friend Julie used to belly-dance, I've seen a few gigs in my time, but I confess that I've never seen anybody bellydance with a sword balanced on her head or hip. That was a new one to me. I may be highly unqualified to judge the calibre of what dancing we saw, but I can certainly testify to being entertained and to having a very fun time.

Are rumors that I got up and danced a bit to be believed? Photographic evidence may some day shed light. Likewise stories about Erin, Maurice, and Debi doing a little shakin'. Good times.

The Lilly clan assembled today for their traditional, massive post-Christmas get-together. We started off split between men and women, as the ladies gathered at Christine's house to hold a "California" baby shower for Erin. Meanwhile us guys huddled around the TV at the Lillys to watch football. Stereotypes, ahoy!

I did get the chance to ask numerous questions of a recent father who was in attendance (thanks Mike!), and I found it helpful to get his perspective. Our experience will, of course, be necessarily different as will to some extent our preferences, but already I appreciate hearing about why new parents choose what they choose and do what they do. Unbidden or dogmatically presented of course ("let me tell you how to do this") advice of this nature can be extraordinarily off-putting. But gently delivered when requested I find it useful and interesting.

After the women returned from the baby shower, we had quite an assembly and although time constraints made it impossible to chat with everyone, I got good talks in with Kurt, Guy, Kristin, Mike, Shannon, Joe, Mark, Jennifer, and Nancy. I was also able to hang out a bit around Jacob and Ben, the two youngest members of the clan. What can I say? Babies are pretty cute.

After the party, we sat down to watch Minority Report from Steven Spielberg. Tom Cruise is not one of my favorite actors, but he's more than adequate here. That is to say that he doesn't flash his wonder-schmuck grin or say anything terribly stupid in that arrogance-tinged way of his. The story, by noted science fiction author Philip K. Dick, is excellent. Like all good science fiction there is plenty to think about during and after the movie, and although the film could perhaps have been just as effective if it had ended 30 minutes early (I kid you not—there's a false climax that would have worked fine to conclude the story), the additional twists and turns are satisfying as well. Recommended in general, highly recommended to science fiction fans.

After a very enjoyable Christmas part 2 morning with Mark, Christine, Jared, Joe, Helen, Bernard and Liz, Erin and I visited this Smiths this evening, and, at long last, met Jennie's beau, the elusive Jon Morton. Jon's an IT Help Desk guy for National Geographic in DC and a Mac guy. So you know he's all right.

We had a great time chatting with Jennie, Jon, Tom, Marge, and Jennie's brother Mark. The last three are certified ham radio operators, and I learned quite a bit, in a broad sense, about ham radio, "hammies," and various technological possibilities and achievements. We also talked genealogy, since Tom and Marge have done a lot of work there as well. I wasn't surprised to learn that I'm not the only one who finds the Mormon's electronic cataloging of the 1880 US Census to be an absolute godsend. Marge even ordered the entire 56 CD set. Mark, a UNIX wizard, had some very interesting things to say about Internet security. He's got me a little worried about my wireless network at home since apparently the closed network setting I'm using isn't nearly as closed as one is lead to believe. (I already knew the wireless WEP encryption used by 802.11b networks like Apple's Airport was a joke. I didn't realize it was a "we can decrypt your puny 40-bit algorithm in real time" joke. I need to look into IPSec.)

Many thanks to everyone for the wonderful evening!

Erin's as big as a house and getting bigger. Travelling in this condition means stopping every 60 to 90 minutes so she can get out, walk around, and maintain the circulation. What that means is a trip that takes 11.5 hours normally took 14.5 today. We hit a lot of snow in the Shasta area, but otherwise the difficulties where nothing more than the tedium of driving through some particularly boring stretches of I-5. Thank God for good company.

Those late night Christmas Eve Masses are typically brutal on one's sleep schedule, but last night's at Queen of Peace was easily enjoyable enough to qualify as "worth it." Lots of Christmas carols from the choir and a good and timely homily from Father George (who as a homilist rarely disappoints).

This morning's festival at Ma and Pa Davison's was the standard gala affair. If I do say so myself, us Davisons make very merry on our get-togethers, and that we achieve all this without the aid of stimulants, alcohol, or street drugs is particularly notable. Ho, ho, ho.

Bret and I snuck out for a mid-day game of basketball with some guys at Queen of Peace. As is usual, I was fine at the beginning, less good in the middle, and nearly miserable at the end by which time I had run out of energy. Nothing new there in my sporting life.

We met Bruce downtown at IHOP this morning for an extended visit. His is one of the cases where you wish he was around more often but you know that he's having such a great time doing what he's doing (in this case on the east coast) that it's hard to maintain such selfishness in the face of what's clearly a wonderful thing for him.

Our Alaska friends Dave and Sue are in Oregon for the holidays, and we were lucky enough to be included in their itinerary. We lunched at the Amadeus Cafe in South Salem, a reasonably priced and highly recommended establishment. We sat and talked for hours, and all I can say is that I wish we could see them more often.

Many thanks to Bruce, Dave, and Sue for the great day!

Our friend Bruce is back in Oregon for a Christmas time visit, and today I had the pleasure of bopping around town with him to check out various digital cameras and accessories. The man is so much fun to hang out with that me and everybody who knows him wants to beat him with a silly stick to get him to move back to the Northwest. I mean, how can you not love a person whose cell phone plays "Funkytown"? Alas, we've had to content ourselves with the occasional holiday visit. DTs and other withdrawal symptoms are a common occurrence.

As for our shopping adventure, those that know Bruce can pester him up for details on his specific purchase, but I will say that for my part I was surprised to see how rapidly digital camera technology has advanced (and dropped in price) in the last 18 months. The camera Bruce ended up selecting is smaller, has tons more features, and is $150 less than what I paid for my Canon PowerShot S300. That's not to say that the S300 is bad, because frankly it continues to absolutely rock. It's a great camera, and one of my favorites toys/tools. It's just that I was amazed to see how quickly technology has moved.

If you saw the Amazing Race finale this evening like I did, I'm sure you'll forgive the following: God is dead. There is no way that a whiny, bipolar, loser like Flo deserves to come away with $1 million. If she had any conscience whatsoever (and she does not) she'd give all the money to Zach for not slugging her on any one of the numerous times she completely fell apart and started screeching about quitting the race and going home. I take their victory as an indictment of the TV show.

Indeed, if you examine what cost the Dandy Bros. team the victory, it was that they had to wait for a taxi. Next year they should call in The Amazing Taxi Race, because with all the equalizing the show did at airports and so on, that's what it turned out to be. Teri and her loudmouth husband Ian not winning the $1 million is small consolation. I almost don't know if I'll tune in next year. This was a travesty.

Good news from the ultrasound. Everything appears great at this stage of fetal development. No problems detected whatsoever. After the tech did the diagnostic part of the ultrasound—a roughly 30 minute process whereby she takes specific pictures and measurements—we had about 10 minutes or so to just see what we could see. Foot here, hand there. Baby rubs his/her eye, scratches his/her ear. Even in the womb ours is the cutest child ever! (Note to reader: Our child as most beautiful, intelligent, charming, etc. is likely to be a long running theme of mine. You have been warned.)

As I may have mentioned before, we specifically asked not to be told the sex of the child during the ultrasound exam. Boy or girl, we're just aiming for healthy. I hope to have some pictures posted within the next week. Unlike our Week 9 ultrasound this gray blob is more recognizable.

We met with Dr. Bernard after the ultrasound. He answered a few questions for us. He was surprised that we were able to feel the baby move this early, but he felt the kid himself during while listening to the fetal heartbeat, so it's nice to know that we were right about that. Patiently explained that any gurgling I was hearing by pressing my ear to Erin's belly was Erin, not the kid. That was disappointing but pretty darn funny.

Looks like Star Trek Nemesis did only about $18 million in box office over the opening weekend (losing to the new J. Lo movie). Since Paramount was hoping for at least $20 million, unless Nemesis has legs that no one currently anticipates, we may have seen the last of the Next Generation crew. I think that would be a shame, but with Rick Berman at the helm of the Star Trek empire I don't think you're going to see much improvement. Berman and Paramount have milked the franchise, frankly, for more than it's worth, and the current lack of interest is more over saturation than anything else if you ask me.

At 12:30 last night I finally found the folks for whom I'd spent the last 10 years searching. As a bonus, I found full info on their kids as well. That's a pretty neat trick, considering that until I found them I didn't even know their names....

My great grandfather was Frank B. Mansfield, a person about whom we know surprisingly little. Born in Iowa circa 1868; died circa 1923. Was a farmer and had three kids (Violet, Gertrude, and Roy) with his wife Helen. The 1920 US Census for Boone Co., Nebraska does some butchering to names, places, and dates, but at least it lists the family as residents.

Growing up, Frank's siblings were Milton, Alice, Sarah, John W., Laura, and Florence. Of these, only Milton married and had kids, and Milton's kids never had children. That's a lot of genealogical research dead ends, and something that's almost always surprising when a family has as many as six kids. Frank's line, of which I am a descendant, was the only Mansfield line which carried on. (UPDATE: Talked with Mom again and she says that she thinks some of the siblings did grow up, marry, and have kids. She didn't have any specific info though and it was all news to me.)

The question of who Frank's parents were has gnawed at me for, as I say, at least 10 years now in part because I couldn't figure out how to approach the problem. I'd queried living family members, of course, but to no avail. With Frank dying circa 1923 at about 55 years old, there was nobody left that I could talk to about him, let alone about his parents. Frank's father's last name was obviously "Mansfield," and I could speculate that he was probably born in the 1840s because people tended to start having kids in their early 20s back then. Other than that, I didn't have any clues.

I'd looked at the 1880 US Census before, but my results were zippo, nada, zilch. Pouring over minute text on microfiche isn't much fun, but it's even less fun when you don't find who you're looking for. I mean, there were dozens of Frank Mansfields in the 1880 US Census. How come none of them were mine?

Like many genealogy problems, I found what I was looking for with an assist from the Mormons. As many of you may know, the 1880 US Census was recently made available online by the LDS Church who spent 17 years and 11.5 million hours of work to bring the project to fruition. That's 50 million names and enough records to fill 56 CD-ROMs (which you can order for $49 if you're so inclined). Since the 1890 US Census records were destroyed by fire, this is the last solid glimpse that genealogists and researchers have at this type of material in the 1800s.

So last night I was at the computer with Leister Production's excellent Reunion 8.02 genealogy software on one screen and the 1880 US Census search forms on the other screen. Despite ability to search by all manner of criteria, I did not initially encounter success. I still couldn't find my "Frank Mansfield" amongst the dozens who appeared. Could it be that he was somehow excluded from the 1880 Census?

It is not uncommon to get stumped in genealogy searches, and the key is almost always to search "around" what you're trying to learn about. You can focus on a city or state, a point in time, or, in my case, siblings. Since I couldn't get squat on Frank and even less about his parents—who I really wanted to learn about—I did a search for the next best thing: Frank's younger brother Milton Mansfield. And do you know how many "Milton Mansfield" entries there are in the 1880 Census? One. One very important entry.

Turns out that Milton Mansfield was 10 years old in 1880 and that he was born in Iowa. More importantly his father was Wesley Mansfield, and—thank you LDS—a simple click of the Household link instantly gave me the full entry on the Mansfield household which included one "Franklin" (doh!) as the eldest son. Everything in the entry aligned perfectly with the family information I had, and in short order I was able to see that my great great grandfather Wesley Mansfield was born circa 1846 in Ohio, that on December 23 1866 in Appanoose, Iowa he married my great great grandmother Elizabeth Phillips who was born circa 1840 in Ohio.

Those you not into genealogy are probably bored stiff at this point, but perhaps everyone can appreciate just how good it feels to achieve something you've wanted for so long. Anyway, that's why I almost called my mom at 12:30 last night and why I didn't get to bed until 4 this morning.

Bret came down today and we popped over to the local cinema for the first showing of Star Trek Nemesis. It's not a home run, but it's a solid double. Lots of good philosophical ideas about identity, duality, and humanity. It's a pretty good action flick as well, and easily recommended to Star Trek fans. I have some issues with the direction, and one scene that's supposed to come off terrifying instead almost comes off as comedy. Speaking of which, there are some great intentionally comedic lines in Nemesis, which helps lighten things a good deal without violating character. Are you listening, George Lucas?

The Zoolander Twins got eliminated on tonight's Amazing Race 3 episode, missing the route marker before the pitstop while all the other times bicycled their way to the finish line. Virtually all the race was held within Vietnam, and since the flight in was one of those equalizer jobs where no team could gain an advantage, everything hinged on getting around Vietnam successfully. This made for a surprisingly boring episode, as no landmines or Viet Cong made appearances. One wishes that this close to the finale, things would be a little more exciting.

Ian, an utter jerk exhibiting boorish behavior (especially toward his wife Teri) at every opportunity in previous weeks, was painted with a very kind editorial brush this time around. There could be several reasons for this. First and most optimistically, as an ex-Vietnam vet he was able to put the race into its proper context by being reminded of his war experience, and it—relatively—shut him up and put him on best behavior. Another less generous but perhaps more plausible theory is that the show's editors didn't want to paint an ex-military guy in Vietnam as a lout (as, again, he's been every week). I'm not sure why that would be, but maybe they thought it somehow taboo.

Unfortunately, my theory is that Ian and Teri won the Amazing Race and editors are now, in the final weeks, attempting to soften the image of their victor who, heretofore, would be a toss-up with Attilla the Hun as "worst luncheon guest" if you had to choose between the two. Since next week is the two-hour season finale, we'll know if I'm right soon enough. But I hope to God I'm wrong (even though Teri should be up for sainthood after the abuse she's endured).

You think I'm exaggerating about Ian's behavior? Here's how another reviewer, at AmazingRaceSucks.com, put it:

Ian is a complete a$$hole, a screamer, a bossy horrible cantankerous little man with a propensity for completely inappropriate displays of rah-rah energy, usually achieved at the expense of a large fraction of the tiny reserve of good will that his wife maintains for him. He is a vile, awful human being, and it would sure be cool if this opening shot, of a castle, included him being thrown screaming from one of the ramparts. Alas. Not.

So don't tell me that I've got him pegged wrong. In fact, at this point every decent Amazing Race viewer has got to be cheering the Oh Brother team of Ken and Gerard. They're reasonably affable and intelligent fellows and seem to be folks with whom you wouldn't mind doing dinner or going bowling. Now that the Zoolanders are out, there's really nobody else you can say that about.

Well, OK, Zach might fall into that same category. He's quite slackerish for my tastes, but he seems a decent enough fellow, and God knows he deserves major props for putting up with Flo, who seems to be now weekly discovering new ways to be incredibly defeatist, negative, weepy, annoying, accusatory, self-absorbed, and condescending. But perhaps I understate. Zach carries this team all by himself, and you almost wish he'd win for the self-restraint he's shown in not getting himself jailed for felonious assault. Sadly, a win for Zach would also be a win for Flo, and at this point I'd have to say that just the very idea of Flo in the winner's circle is a crime against God.

We'll have our answers next Wednesday.

A hearty "all right!" to the University of Portland's Women's Soccer team for this 2-1 OT victory over Santa Clara in the NCAA Division I championship game today. Back in the day, I used to watch virtually all their home games and though I saw a lot of great soccer, neither the Men's nor the Women's team could ever get over the hump and win the national championship. Finally, they've done it.

If you like my Quotes section, you may really enjoy Things People Said (the link to which was forwarded to me by Dave).

Baby rather painfully poked Erin last night. Erin shook her stomach a bit like she was laughing, and Baby, undoubtedly getting the clue, moved his foot or whatever it was somewhere less painful to Mom. As you might expect I was thrilled by the whole thing, but who wouldn't be? It's a special moment when your kid whacks Mom in the kidneys for the first time. Up 'til now, all we've had to go on are flutters and gurgling noises. Now we know there's a little human being in there waiting to get out. BTW, until I'm told otherwise, I'm taking every kick of Mom's internal organs as a clear sign of soccer-playing talent. We're starting Week 19 today, with the big ultrasound 10 days away.

You'll recall that I did an early morning collapse in the bathroom a few weeks ago. As part of the follow-up, we wanted to make sure that everything was kosher, so I went in, got a medical checkup, and had some blood drawn for analysis. Today I received my lab results back from the doctor, and I'm as fit as a 33 year-old fiddle has any right to be. Blood sugar, kidney function, liver enzymes, cholesterol, and thyroid all normal. True, we continue to be unable to detect any brain wave activity, but that was expected.

I got a two hour dose of my favorite guilty pleasure this week. The West Wing was a repeat, and with no special episode Victoria's Secret Fashion Show to trim its run-time, The Amazing Race had a spectacular 120 minutes to thrill, awe, and stupefy its viewing audience. At the best of times, the show highlights various cultures, traditions, and locales from around the world. Its best times are few and far between. Normally, it's a frantic race of ugly Americans who, while berating or cajoling natives into helping them win, are using the world as their playground.

What's doubly awful is that it's really fun TV. It's quick, it's mindless, and it's easy to become attached. There are occasional heros and frequent villains, and the race lends itself to cheering on your favs. We're down to four teams now, with most viewers hoping, I'm sure, to see Ian and Teri eaten by sharks, Flo and Zach thrown off the Cliffs of Insanity (a journey which I dare say Flo has already made), and either the Zoolander twins or the Dandy Bros. win big.

I hope The West Wing is a repeat next week too.

In the last week I've borrowed three Clint Eastwood DVDs from Bret and given a go to the Sergio Leone trilogy: A Fistful of Dollars; For a Few Dollars More; and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. I found the movies long, but Leone's style revolutionized the Western genre and catapulted Eastwood into stardom. You've got to give the films some props in that regard. I think you'd have to partial to westerns, Eastwood's minimalist style, or academic cinema study to really appreciate these films. Otherwise, they're long and frequently dull, punctuated by moments of high tension. For what it's worth, my favorite of these was The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, which has the additional benefit of some of the most memorable music of any Western ever.

I also watched an all-star cast perform David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross, and I have to say that despite winning performances from every actor (Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Kevin Spacey, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin), I found the film both vulgar and tedious. The sales aspects were moderately interesting, and, as I say, the performances were outstanding. For me at least, it was still inadequate compensation for the 91 minutes of my life that I'll never get back.

Dave sent me a note telling me to check out Ali Davis' True Porn Clerk Stories that were featured on National Public Radio last summer, and I've got to say they're the most compelling reading I've had in months. Here's the setup: Some 30 year-old female anthropology geek takes a $6.50 an hour job as a video rental clerk in a porn palace. She rather academically and humorously catalogues her experiences, and through her prose drags the rest of us into the world of porn.

I've always found pornography fascinating in the same way that I find the people in the stands at a horse race more interesting than the race itself. It's not that the race is uninteresting, mind you, it's that I'm just a heckuva lot more curious about everybody who's getting exciting about the horses. So I found Davis' journals captivating.

I wrote my senior honors thesis in college on the topic of art versus obscenity, so for those who scoff when I say I'm more interested in the porn readers or the pornographers than the porn itself, at least I've something of an academic fig leaf to hide behind. What's your excuse for watching the Playboy channel?

We got Erin's labs back from the doctor today, and I'm pleased to report that everything about baby appears to be A-OK after the AFP. The alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) test measures the protein secreted by the fetal liver. The test helps determine the odds of various neral tube defects and Downs Syndrome. Even a positive test result, apparently, isn't necessarily cause for alarm because the AFP has a high incidence of false positives. Happily, Erin's tests were negative (which is good), so everything continues to look good internally.

Erin's beginning to feel the baby move a bit. Either that, or for no reason there's a lot of bubbling going on below her stomach. Quickening usually comes in the 18 to 24 week range, so we're within the target. Undoubtedly she'll have a more definitive experience in the coming weeks, but for now I'm enjoying pressing my ear to her belly and listening to the little gurgling sounds. Who knows? I might try that in a few more weeks and get kicked.

I'd be lying if I said I was back to 100 percent. I've still got this headcold thing rattling the marbles in my brain, and, as usual, it's taking a good long time to get rid of it. I'm downing the 20-proof Nyquil to get through the nights, but the day times seem to be just one Kleenex tissue after another. It's pretty annoying, frankly.

That souring of my mood may have colored my view of K-PAX, the DVD Erin and I rented the other night. Starring Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges, one can hardly complain about the acting. In fact, I don't have a lot to complain about except that I just didn't get into the show like I hoped. K-PAX takes a while to get where you know it's going, and I'm not sure the journey is worth the reward if you take my meaning. There are a few cute bits, but they're few and far between, and I guess I didn't find the central mystery of the film to be all that interesting. It's well-made, and I'm willing to admit that this may be a much better film than I'm giving it credit for. If you're a fan of Spacey or Bridges, I say don't get your hopes too high and give it a rental. Otherwise, well, I dunno. I think I'm just in no shape to review movies right now. Sorry. Back to the Nyquil.