Last night, I took two snakes to the science night at the neighborhood elementary school. One was a boa and the other a milk snake -- one of those coral snake mimics. They were a big hit with the kids. I was surrounded practically the whole evening with kids wanting to feel and hold them. Which, of course, I let them do. Charlie came after a bit and interpreted for the little snake so I could let kids hold the big snake.

It was my fascination with snakes that first got me interested in science. It's hard to explain, but there's something simple captivating about the other-ness of snakes: the unblinking stare, the sinuous motion, and the flickering tongue.

When I was a kid, girls weren't supposed to like snakes and relatively few did -- people were starting to talk about "women's lib" and there was less pressure on girls then than there probably was 20 years earlier. But last night, it was the girls who were most engaged with the snake -- I was surrounded by girls the whole night. I think one girl would have been happy to sit for the whole evening wrapped in the coils of the boa.

I've always been a morning person. Once the sun is up, I want to be up (until it's time to take a nap in the afternoon). During the fall, however, when mornings get later and later, it gets harder and harder for me to get up early until at some point when I wake up before sunrise anyway. We're close to that time, when waking up in the mornings is hard.

It used to be that our morning schedule was very simple: Dad had to go to work and the children had to go to school. Now, however, one boy has to leave to go to the middle school at 7:15 (unless it's a "late start day"), another goes at 8:15 or so, and, if its Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, Mom goes to work (unless she's rearranged her schedule). My brain hurts.

Here's a picture of Daniel wearing his new 'squirrel arm' earring. We had to just get a squirrel hand because an arm would have been too long. Daniel is very happy. We got it from Custom Creature Taxidermy Studios run by Sarina Brewer (no relation). She does great work and the service was fabulous. No squir

I've been so focused on getting ready for Brazil that I haven't been thinking much about our upcoming family vacation. I've wanted to have my presentations ready to go, so I've been completely focused on that. I'm nearly there.

I've got two presentations roughed out: one about using reasoning problems in class and another about using technology to support local group activity. I'm relatively pleased with both of them. I'm about half way done with the last one, which will be a summary about local groups in the US. I've been struggling with how to deal with the meat of it, but I think I've got it figured out.

I haven't been posting stuff here mainly because I'm posting in my blogs either at ADTC or Esperanto-USA. I'm trying to do too much stuff and it's not leaving me with enough time to maintain my usual routine. Eventually things will settle down and I'll feel like I have more time for myself again.

For the most part, I spent the long weekend quietly at home. I've felt extra busy at work this semester, so it was nice to get some extra rest and relaxation. I finally read the Patrick O'Brien book Pop had gotten me for Christmas. I played some StarCraft with Phil. I took the doggies for walks (a rather cold walk in Northampton on Saturday). On Monday, I spent a fair amount of the day cleaning house. I picked stuff up and got the floors swept at least.

On Monday evening, we had invited Tom and Kirsten for dinner. Alisa fixed Indian food: chicken tika and some kind of paneer with basmati rice, missy roti, and papadum. It was nice to catch up with Tom and Kirsten, who have moved back to the Valley after attending school in Boston for a couple of years. They've just moved into an apartment in Holyoke and are going to invite us to come see it once they have a few of the necessary amenities, like a stove and a fridge.

For the past two years, I've been mentoring a group of Charlie's friends that are interested in computer stuff. We set up Muppyville and have continued to interact about programming. A few months ago, a mother of one of them asked me if I was aware of any opportunities for learning computer programming. I had been thinking about starting a computer programming club, but hadn't quite willing to commit myself. But I decided it was time. So I checked with the department, to make sure it was OK to bring kids into the BCRC and got the parent of another child (who I was sure would be interested) to come with me (mainly so I wouldn't be alone with the whole bunch of kids). Today was our first meeting.

Yesterday I got Alisa to start blogging. She's been talking about it for more than a year and has finally taken the plunge. She's involved with so many things around town -- I'm looking forward to seeing the kinds of things she posts on. Most people blog on the stuff they find: in the media or on the web. I'm more likely to write about what I'm working on, although primarily in a self-serving way: I'm writing more for myself than for an audience. I've always thought of my writing more as a "journal" than a "blog". I'm fairly careful in terms of what I write about: I try to avoid writing things that I wouldn't want my children, students, or colleagues to read. In fact, I'd want them to be comfortable reading my blog. Well, mostly. I wrote about Randy once and, the next day another faculty member said to me, "I'm afraid to talk to you, Brewer. You might write about me on the web!" He was kidding. Mostly.

I'm enjoying my vacation. Today, for the first time, I went out and did stuff (other that walking the dogs -- I've done that most days). Lucy and I walked the dogs first thing and then went to the grocery store and laid in provisions sufficient for the rest of the week, though we may want to pick up a few more things before New Years. Upon getting home, Phil and I played a game of Starcraft. After lunch, I set up the computer in my office and started scanning the rest of Cox. I took a break to go with Lucy to the library to pick up some books and DVDs. Among other things, I picked up the Seven Samurai, which I haven't seen for 10 or 20 years.