My brother is having a baby! Well, actually, his wife is the one doing all the work. He's being all supportive and helpful and stuff. Anyway, in honor of the little tyke (who is probably a boy since all of my other siblings have had boys first) my brother has started a blog of his very own.

I give you... Devin Despain's blog-o-matic

Go see - he's got ultrasound pictures of the baby already - at 4.5 cm long.

What a cutie.

Pictures of Thanksgiving Vacation are up on my pictures page. The house is back to normal today and I'm trying to get back into the swing of normalcy.

This has been hindered by sliding off the icy road on my way to a business meeting today. No damage was done, it was just real exciting - practicing my steering-through-a-skid technique.

The third and fourth wave of family arrived today. There are now five people under 8 years old in the house. And most of the womenfolk are ailing in some way. It's going to be an interesting Thanksgiving.

Just as an example... my mother had surgery on her foot last Friday (less than a week ago) but she and my father have abandoned their house to their kids and for the next three nights they will be sleeping in a tipi pitched down by what we call the "Hundred Acre Woods."

This Thanksgiving it looks like the pilgrims will be inviting the Indians in for dinner.

Books: Over the next few days I'm hoping to talk my sister with a college degree in illustration to do a few ... well, illustrations for me.

The second wave of family has arrived for the holiday! My sister and her 2.5 children. (Seriously, she's got a 2 year-old, a 4 year-old and one on the way.)

We had some fun playing with my camera this evening. It went something like this. "Take one of me! Take one of her! Take one of you! Take one of us all together! Again! Now take one of me! Take one of her!..."

You get the idea.

Books: It looks like I'll be doing a website for somebody else's book. A local author with a great story but no computer literacy. Maybe one of these days I'll get around to doing a website for a book I've written.

My youngest brother has been in Hungary for the last two years. Tonight we went and picked him up from the airport. Unfortunately, not all of his luggage arrived with him. Where was it lost? Budapest? Vienna? No.... Denver. Gah!

Of course, the good part about that is that it should be arriving at our doorstep tomorrow afternoon.

Books: My laptop is back in action. Yay! But now the holidays are upon us. I don't know how much work I'll get done.

I'm alive. Just about recovered (cross your fingers) from what turned out to be the flu. Nobody likes you when you have the flu, and when you're a freelancer, nobody pays for sickdays.

On the bright side - I'm alive.

Books: I usually write on my laptop. My laptop is currently experiencing some technical difficulties which hopefully ebay will soon be helping me out with. The awkward construction of that sentence shows I've a) been ill and b) not been writing for a week.

Gah. I have a cold. Or maybe it's the flu. I can never remember the difference. Especially not when I'm feeling like this. I'm even feeling too icky to google it and find out.

Books: And yet I made it to my writing group tonight. Thanks to having a deadline I finished chapter 2. Naturally, this isn't the novel I'm working on for NaNoWriMo, but hey, it's something.

Have I mentioned that Olympus is my new favorite tech company? Seriously, they rock. I'm fairly satisfied with the actual products they make - but it's the service that's blown me away. I bought a voice recorder via the Internet. It came with everything - including transcription software - except the paperwork. No problem, I thought, as they have all their manuals online (rock on). But then I discovered that the software required an ID number that would have been on said paperwork.

I was very sad.

In desperation, I emailed the company (not really expecting an answer) and explained my problem.
To my shock and surprise they answered me - sure it took a few days, but still - they answered. So I opened the email expecting the usual unhelpful drivel that either doesn't relate to what I emailed about or essentially says "You didn't buy this product directly from us - too bad."

But surprise! They said they were glad I was using their product and they provided an ID code I could use to install the software. Love them! Adore them! Seriously, Go Olympus. Way to know what customer service really means. My opinion of them and their product is sky high and I'm trying to tell everyone I know how great they are.

See what good customer service gets you?

Books: Umm.... yeah. Maybe later tonight I'll get more work done on that.

My Diagnostic Imaging article is now available online.

It's nice to have people who will pay you for writing.

Books: Well, I'm registering domain names that show up in my NaNoWriMo novel... does that count?

I'm watching the various network election coverage and I have a few questions.

• Why does CBS use the symbol for Robin (of Batman fame) for the Republicans?


• When did Alaska get velcroed to Arizona?


• When did Hawaii get attached to Texas?


• Who decided Dems are blue and Repubs are red?


• When did Tavis Smiley become a serious person to interview on politics?


• Why do all snacks with any soy in them taste them same?


• What's the age cutoff to be a young voter?


• How much does it cost to have a commercial run tonight?


• Why does only one anchor-person (NPR) pronounce Missouri as Missoura?


• Why does George Bush have a yellow couch?


• Why didn't I realize Ohio had a border with Canada?


• How did John McCain get a gig on all three major networks?


• Just how do you pronounce Barak Obama?


• Why are these telejournalists using laptops to prop up their paper scripts?


• Why is Tom Brokaw reading email while he's on the air?


• Why does "Democracy Plaza" sound like a reality show?


• What's with all the football analogies?


• How did they call Utah for Bush with 0% of precincts reporting?


• Why does Tom Brokaw have to run his own graphics?

Books: So November is National Novel Writing Month and some people have gone way over the top on this idea - bless their hearts. They've put together an organization that encourages people - all people - to write a novel during the month of November. No talent required.

More info at their website.

So Sarah keeps talking about writing a novel, and I keep saying I'm working on one or another, so we ended up double-dog-daring each other into participating this year.

I'll try to keep you all posted here. It's November 2 and I have 50,000 words to go.