Bday blowout!

We had a kick ass party from 11-2 pm on Saturday to celebrate Emmet's first year.
Lots of veggie lasagna and bagels were consumed (less Cherry Coke was consumed), as well as chocolate cupcakes for the masses, and allergen free cupcakes (for Roni and Emmet, but they are good). Many notable younger and their parents filled our rowhouse, including: Rafa, Alex and Amina; Aimee, Karl and Caleb; Jane, Andy and Clare; Jen, Derek and Clara; Doug, Kerry, Anya and Benjamin; Kate, Simon and Liam.

I promise photos soon - thanks to all of the guests for making it a hit!

In other notes, the weather in Bmore has been nice: we were all able to adjourn to the playground as part of the party action on Saturday, and I went for a nice long walk with Emmet yesterday.

And BTW Wegmans sucks...more on that someday.

Happy Birthday Emmet!

Emmet Asher is officially 1 year old as of around 2 pm today.
Wow! He's a little man - stubborn, loving, funny, mobile, into everything, and able to operate the DVD player, TV and various remotes. Now if he would only start sleeping like a 1 year old, Roni and I and Micah would be in better shape.
But whatever - Emmet, like Micah is a total joy and we are quite blessed to have him in our lives!

Some pictures (finally!!)

Here is Micah with one of his holiday gifts (he celebrates both Hannukah and Christmas - this guitar was for the 5th night of Hannukah):

Here is Emmet giving lovely smiles from his crib:



Here is Micah modeling a Hopkins sweatshirt, a gift from my very generous group of Stat Reasoning students:






And finally - a holdover from Halloween, but a fave of mine. Micah and Emmet both dressed up as ducks - here is a picture of both ducks sitting in a duck shaped blow up bath tub!

I'm probably the last person to know about this..

but this video from Saturday Night Live really cracks me up...

New Music

I've picked up a ton of CDs (well about 10, but I'm weak) recently..
so far so good. But I have to plug the most recent Blackalicious CD, The Craft -
funky, fun, tight rhymes etc.. the ironly is that I would never have heard of this if not for a piece on NPR..now when NPR usually talks up new music its stuff that would ave been radical about 30 years ago - the Strokes, the White Stripes etc..
but I gotta give 'em props for turning me on to this.
More recent pickups:
Super Furry Animals- seriously catchy power pop
Ludicra- intelligent black metal (for real yo'): on Alternative Tentacles, no less, we love Jello B!

M.I.A. - yeah, the most hyped CD of last year, but I'm a late bloomer - but I love it~

Sightings- serious noise compositions ala Black Dice's Beaches and Canyons, my favorite noise album ever!!

Bossman- a Baltimore MC who holds his own.

Rod Lee presents.. a Baltimore club music compilation: short on lyrical content, long on ass shakin' beats, ya heard?

And some stuff by the Flaming Lips and Nick Cave that I still need to listen to: more info to come.

Happy 2k6

aka the year of McGs blog - one resolution is not to let a whole month slip by without blogging, or at least blogging something substantial - my attempts to show that I was on top of things in December were kinda wack, sorta like emailing your boss on Sunday so he thinks you are a hard worker (used to be more credible it was still difficult to access and send emails from a work account via anywhere with a net hookup)..

So anyhow, first a quick recap of Thanksgiving until now
a) Thanksgiving - although it took us 4.5 hours to make the trek from Bmore to Philly, the rest of the holiday was off the chain. We saw many relatives including my folks, Roni's folks, Roni's sister Sally, uncle John and aunt Sandy, cousins Andy and Lora, Corrine, Robin and Shelly, Nori and Kenna, and Amy. A lot of grubbing, some zzzzzing (though the boys are not good sleepers when traveling), and a smooth ride back to Charm City.
b) Early December included the departmental holiday party, which was fun but folks didn't booze enough.
c) Early December also included another trip to Philly for the American Public Health Association's annual meetings. The meetings were originally supposed to occur in early November in New Orleans, but obviously had to be cancelled or re-scheduled. I give mad props to the meeting organizers - they put together a really well organized meeting on very short notice. I gave a presentation on the last session of the last day - which generally means no audience except for presenters and those who couldn't get an earlier flight, but had been kicked out of their hotel rooms. Nevertheless, the session was rather well attended and my presentation seemed to go over well.
d) Mid-Late December included 2 daycare holiday shebangs, and the end of the two quarter class I teach, Statistical Reasoning in Public Health. I teach both a live, on campus version, and a "virtual" internet based version. Enrollment is about 200 between the 2 sections. The students in both sections were beyond awesome and this has been a great 4 months of teaching! Thank you students!
e) Christmas and (C)Hannukah..
great times in Philly and Queens...the boyz were great travellers, unfrotunately I was not - got a stomach bug in Christmas and wasn't at the top of my game. Micah is old enough to understand presents, but too young to be greatful - after opening each of his multitude of booty, he proclaims "Daddy, I need another present".. its time to turn him into a Socialist!
f) New Years - had a great time with friends Doug, Kerry, Anya and Benjamin. Low key, but fun - Micah was up until 10! Roni and I made it to midnight, but barely so - here's to an incredible 2k6!

So more blogging to come, and pictures- here's wishing you all a happy and healthy 2006!