happy new year

It's taken us a little while to get our act together. We returned from our visit to Canada on the 9th and, after taking a week to reintegrate ourselves, we realized the family PC was experiencing problems. Now it's back to normal, we're online once again, and wishing you tardy but no less heartfelt wishes for the new year.

off to a great start

Kassie started the year off well, by passing her piano exam with merit and last week being selected to read at the school assembly her letter from Pandora to Echo. Way to go, Kassie!

a little perspective

Last month we ended our whirlwind tour of Ontario and Quebec with a ten-day stay in Montreal. After packing up and moving on every two or three days, we were eagerly anticipating settling down in relative comfort and, best of all, unpacking our bags. Alas, it was not to be, for our hosts had a houseful of offspring, in-laws and grandchildren to accommodate. After grumbling over the crowded lodgings, we were reminded by our Hungarian-Canadian hosts of their own cramped experiences as refugees in 1956. We laughed off the remark, thinking the two situations vastly different, only to discover the next morning the tragedy and devastation wrought by the tsunami in East Asia. Suddenly we were grateful to sleep three to a room, our luggage within reach, in a warm, comfortable house surrounded by loved ones.

vertigo

Finally, with the release of their newest album, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, U2 has come close to the genius of (in our opinions) their greatest album, The Joshua Tree. It's about time, guys!

firefox

Could it be? Finally a contender? Without getting into a long, tired discussion of the browser wars, take my advice and give Mozilla's Firefox browser (formerly Firebird) a try. It's far superior to Internet Explorer, which many of us use simply because it comes if not already installed on our computers, then bundled with other Microsoft products. Firefox has a search box in the toolbar, a pop-up ad blocker, a built-in news feed facility to keep you up-to-date, and, for those of you familiar with Netscape Navigator and other Gecko-based browsers, tabbed browsing (instead of opening a separate browser window for each site you want to visit, you can open multiple sites within the same window and tab between them). Most of all, Firefox is W3C-standards compliant, which Explorer is not and some argue may never be. Web writers will know what I'm talking about and rejoice!

Go on, give it a go. Download it here for free.