If it seems things have slowed down

it isn't that we're upset nearly no one else wanted to play the question game with us. We had a loss in the family Friday evening.
Our computer monitor gave up the ghost during a rather bad thunderstorm. I'm trying not to blame myself-I didn't turn off the electrical appliances when the storm got bad- but it was plugged into a UPS. Since everything else seems fine around here and the lights didn't even flicker I think it was just a coincident that it died at that time.
It was a nice monitor. 19 inches, flat screen, triniton tube.... We're trying to remember the good times.

So for now we're posting from a well worn laptop until we pick out a replacement. From here we can't upload pictures and it tends to be shall we say more of a challenge to post (I'm far from being a speed typist but I have to frequently wait while the computer catches up to me).

I'll give you the highlights from the past few day meanwhile:

• Lisa starts her new job as lab supervisor Monday
• Megan snuck a new tooth in on us.
• Helena had another play date with her friends Al, Sophie and Logan
• I've got a suprise too but I'm not sure if I'm at liberty to discuss it. I'll just say it's a first for me and it involves the state of North Carolina, two people and a bunch of others watching.

More later.

Happy Birthday Lois!

Our friend Lois celebrates another birthday and all I can think is "gee should I make her regret lettting me post on her blog?"

No. I'd never do that. She'd really be pissed if I posted the really goofy pictures we have of her.









Happy Birthday Lois!

"Always the beautiful answer

who asks a more beautiful question."

Monday night and the kids are in bed, I thought I'd start a game to draw out you folks visiting us but not joining in and commenting.

Don't worry. You don't have to sign up for anything and it isn't a difficult game.

Just the good ol' question game.

I'll start in the comments section and everyone can join in.

Ready?

More Pictures

More Pictures

It's Monday and it is going to be a hot week here (like 100 tomorrow) so we thought we'd relax and enjoy the AC in here and share some recent photos with you all.


Megan makes an attempt to walk in shoes. She wasn't that into it.

Enjoying Dad & Carol's pool. Helena has just started to feel comfortable getting off the steps.


The tomato harvest continues.

He's dead Jim.

Somehow fitting that on the anniversary of the first landing on the moon that we reflect on the passing of a man who made space, technology and science cool. James Doohan known even to non-trekkies as Scotty. We all know the lines "The engines can't take anymore" and "I'm givin' you all shes got, Capt'n" with that over the top Scottish accent that Doohan brought to life. As is too often the case it's only after they pass that you learn how intriguing some folks are.

As part of the D-day invasion of Normandy with the Canadian army Doohand took six hits from German machine guns, include the shot that took his middle finger. He devised the Vulcan and Klingon language used in the first Star Trek movie and incredibly fathered his ninth child when he was 80 years old.

Unlike some other actors who get type cast after playing a successful character Doohan wasn't apparently bitter about being known as Scotty. He continued speaking at colleges and SF conventions until last year after he announced he'd been diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease.

Family dinner

According to Helena this evening we enjoyed a lovely meal of black rice, Lima beans and Pork Tendergroin.


Kinda makes your mouth water doesn't it?







Following the lead of the Whitehouse and Scott McClellan we have no comments here in the Schutte House. We'll be glad to bring them back once the criminal investigation comes to a conclusion or I can figure out how I broke them while trying to spruce up the stuff on the left side of the page.


EDIT: Ha! Blogger's spell check wants to replace the word Whitehouse with Whitewash!

More wildlife Pictures

If anyone out there has Batrachophobia don't go any further.
(That's fear of amphibians by the way, we learned something today isn't that special?)

Last night Helena and I were exploring the vast stretches of wilderness in our front yard. We glanced down a hole in a flower bed to see how deep it was.
Helena and I were both startled when a pair of eyes lurched upward from the hole. Yes I did in fact jump but I was much calmer than Helena who truly freaked out- she did you can ask her, those are the words she used to describe it. We screwed up our courage and peeked back down the hole to find this(that's Helena's hand with the purple nail polish of course)

With a stick we gently persuaded our toad neighbor to exit his abode so we might admire him.



Helena brought her friend Conner over to share in the discovery and they dutifully point out the toad for the camera.


We found another toad come hopping by a short while later. Helena believe that one of the toads may be female and that they will be twiterpated soon, in which case will keep you up to date up to date with the tadpolehouse blog.

Once I find a suitable place to host video files I'll share video of Helena's account of the night on the telephone with Mary/Grammy.


as a side note, I've made an effort to refer to the amphibian subject as a toad rather than a frog because some people think it matters. Those folks should read this.

Megan News

For those who can't do Windows Media in the title link just sing along to this little tune.

You keep saying you've got something for me.
something you call love, but confess.
You've been messin' where you shouldn't have been a messin'
and now someone else is gettin' all your best.

I'll post some photos of the newly aquired skill as soon as I recover the accidently deleted photos from the camera. D'oh!

okay that didn't take too long
here's a couple of quick pics. Mind you while in the first photo we are holding Megan's hands. She has taken a number of steps unaided. We just don't have pictures of that. Or video. Hmmm there's a thought....

Ed - Do Not Look At This

Just last night (Monday 11Jul05) our wonderful felines were making a ruckus outside around 10 PM. Like good owners, Tom and I went to check out the showdown. We turned on the front porch light (one of those yellow lights that is supposed to reduce the number of bugs hanging around the front door) and stepped out to find our cats. They were not in the front yard and so Tom (who had shoes on at the time) stepped around to the back yard. I have to tell you, it can be difficult to find black cats at night in the dark yard. Consequently, Tom called for me to get him a flashlight. I started back up the steps to the front door and got a little side-tracked by this rather large, fuzzy spider sitting in the middle of the front porch. I kid you not, the spider's body was about 2 inches long and the abdomen was fuzzy. I had never seen anything like it before.

Well, the cats were still yowling in the back yard, so Tom called for the flashlight again. Come to find out that Bug (a.k.a. Psycho Cat) was yelling at Obsidian (a.k.a. Dog in Cat's Clothing) - not all that unusual unfortunately.

When the fight was over, I decided to take a closer look at the fuzzy spider on my porch. It was sooo cool. Much to my surprise - look below at what I saw.




The back of the spider was literally writhing with hundreds baby spiders about the size of a pin-head. The babies were crawling all over the mother's abdomen in a large tangled mass. I tried to put my wallet down next to the spider to give some perspective, but that made her nervous. She jumped forward and fell down the first step, dislodging at 20 - 30 babies. These small ones quickly scattered. The mother spider now looked a little lopsided where the babies had been sheared off of her back. She then jumped down to the sidewalk, waited until the newly dislodged younglings had time to crawl back on, and then left the area.



Wow - Mother Nature is so incredibly neat!

So, this is posting...

I'm told that this is going to be easy, so here goes...

We have had some exciting times here in the Schutte household. Now that Megan is 1 year old (Tom will post some pictures of the party later Below you'll see pictures!) we got to do what every parent loves to do...torture our child. I mean, take our little bundle of love to the doctor for a check-up and some shots. Megan actually performed for the Dr. This amazes me as I think the docs believe our chatterbox Helena is some sort of mute since she never utters a word while she is under examination. Anyway, Megan weighed in at a whopping 18 lb 14 oz (this is the 25%, which is the curve she has been on since the start). She is a very healthy youngster, but on the smaller side. Here in NC a child must be 20 pounds before they can be turned around to face the front, so this means she still only gets to see where we have been. She also was on the receiving end of 5...count them...5 shots - 2 in the left leg, 1 in the right leg, and 1 in each arm. Yikes!

Our other exciting news is my New Job. You are talking to (at least, if we were talking and not just communicating via blog) the newest Lab Supervisor at AAIpharma. That's right, I am the new tyrant of the GC (gas chromatography for those not in the know) laboratory. There will be 5 people reporting to me for routine GC work (as opposed to method development and validation which I have been doing for the last 11 years at AAI) and any other work I can get for my folks. I should be starting in the next 2 - 4 weeks; the details for my transfer have to be handled through my supervisor and her supervisor and his supervisor.

Well, this hasn't been too bad - I guess I can get used to doing this posting thing. Maybe there won't be any other major draughts of information...maybe.


First taste of cake

Loves the new book

Helena 'helping' open the gifts

Doll baby

I'd hate to see the one that got away

Now that is one big fish, one really BIG FISH. Helena has had a minor interest in fishing for a while, but after seeing this photo I fear once we do get out and try drowning a few worms, she'll be disappointed if we do catch something. If you're interested in reading more about this 290+ kilo catfish and don't mind feeling inferior about any fish you've every caught, click the title above. Otherwise you can just sleep soundly knowing the behemoth above is out of the water and fed a village in Thailand.