I have a few family members who will definitely be interested in this item. Japan's Ministry of Environment has produced a nice PDF that details various methods of wrapping packages in cloth - an attempt to stem the outflow of yen into the coffers of the holiday wrapping paper magnates.

Ok, perhaps the latter part of that statement is crap, but seriously - wrapping paper is expensive, and wasteful, and probably toxic to the environment. Have you smelled wrapping paper lately? So, print this out on, uh, paper, and include it in your gifts this year. Your recipient will likely save and reuse the guide and the wrapping cloth for their next gift-giving delight.

If you recall from a previous post, I have changed the stuffBar on the right side of the blog. The topmost item shows things that I have starred in Google Reader. You should see, somewhere in the list, an item called "Best Buy - Pineville, N.C.", which refers to a Best Buy where yours truly was formerly employed as a repair technician. Yeah, it was a few years ago and I only did the job on weekends to get a discount and have access to cheap open box merch. My best score? A full size electronic piano, list price $800. I got it for $150.

In my quest for empirical evidence of ancestry, I've decided to spring for a 12 marker DNA test. Basically, there are several surname projects out there that are already correlating DNA test results to prove common ancestry. The two branches that apply to our particular surname are in lock-step with oral tradition as to our family's history. So we'll know for certain in a few weeks.

An interesting side note: I'm told that the testing lab gets busy between Thanksgiving and December, and it's pretty easy to see why. Families get together, tell stories, etc, and want to know more about their ancestors. Strangely I didn't really get into it because of that (I got interested before Thanksgiving). I was more interested in being able to provide my kids with some sort of history. Perhaps even stories.

For example, on Steph's side, she apparently had a great great grandfather that was the superintendent of a mine. One of his responsibilities was to deliver payroll checks to the miners. One day he was delivering the payroll, and was held up in a robbery. The thieves delivered a non-fatal bullet to his head, and he went on to deliver the payroll without a loss. I'm told he was buried many years later with the bullet still in his head.

There's another story that he was involved with his brother and other investors in a mine that had a fatal accident and subsequently closed. All of the investors, save one, took their insurance payoffs from the closure and went on to other business ventures. The one took his payoffs and gave it to the widow of the fellow that was killed in the accident. I'm sure you can imagine that it was Steph's great great grandfather who donated his cut to the widow.

On my side, there are just as many colorful stories. I've been told by a long time that we are related by marriage to one Rebecca Wolfe. If you don't know that name, you might recall her "heathen" name: Pocohontas. I don't have any empirical evidence to support this, and apparently a lot of other people don't either. Just google for "pocohontas family tree" and you'll see what I mean. There are other stories too - my grandmother even wrote a children's book regaling her mother's story of the Civil War.

Anyway, the subplots don't end there - but that's all stuff for another post, perhaps another website. We're just laying the ground work here - and by we I mean Brian and myself. He did a lot of work on the our mother's side of the family some time in the past, but the information was lost. So we're building from scratch - and sometimes starting over from the end, working your way back to the beginning is the only way to do it.

I have a lot to be thankful for, so I'll keep this post short. Needless to say, I'm thankful for healthy kids, a wonderful wife, great family, and awesome friends. What more does one need?

A few minor changes to the blog.

• No more Video List. I found out that I have had the same 3 movies out from Netflix for the past 3 months. Hmm, kids are 3 months old...coincidence? I think not.
• No more Reading List. It was something that needed to be updated manually, and dadgummit, I just don't have the time what with chronicling my adventures in parenthood and in the less-than-friendly areas of Trinidad.
• No more To-Do List. That was basically an RSS from things at instructables.com that I'd tagged as interesting. Well, really, I don't get there very much, and most of what goes up there is crap anyway. Who really needs an instructable on how to make a rubber band gun? Potato gun, yes...rubber band gun, no. Well, unless it's a Gatling rubber band gun, then I might be persuaded..no, on second thought...
• Instead, I bring you the Interesting list. Essentially it's a clipping of blog posts that I've starred in Google Reader which could, oddly enough, include things from instructables.com should they catch my eye. So that ought to make things interesting for people who surf by stream-of-consciousness like me :)

Ed. Note - Ok, so I went to Trinidad almost a month ago, and I'm just now getting around to Day Two. You do realize that I have 3 month old twins right? Yeah - I'm a little busy. Now back to the blog entry.

Though I'm sure you've already perused Day One let's recap: I'm in Trinidad for the week on business. Day One, the travel day, was uneventful if olfactorily interesting.

Day Two begins at the unnatural hour of 7am. The sun seems to rise exceptionally early here. My room at the Courtyard By Marriott faces the road and there's a damn bird outside that didn't stop chirping all night. That didn't keep me up, but I was awake until around 2am and I did notice that the feathered jukebox was active up until bedtime. By the way - the Courtyard is relatively new. The rooms are nicely appointed and the place is very clean, if somewhat spartan. I was wholly unimpressed with the sleeping apparatus - it doesn't matter how sumptious the bedding is (it wasn't), if the mattress sucks (it did) then you are not going to sleep well. Wait, I should probably revise that statement. If you like sleeping on plywood covered with a thin layer of polyester and maybe a couple of centimeters of cotton - man, you have got to stay at this place! One last thing about the Courtyard - it has a really nice little garden behind it with a small pool. But it looks really nice. The flagstone courtyard at the Courtyard is really nice. Did I mention how really nice it is? Drat - one more "last thing". I found out that one really mustn't walk around Port of Spain at night. Multiple people told me this, and after a few cab rides around, I completely agree. Not that Port of Spain is unsafe... but, it's just really unsafe. Apparently the recent rise in the price of oil and natural gas products has created somewhat of a boom in the economy here, which invariably creates more disparity between the haves and have-nots. So you can assume the natural order of things has changed. Crime seems to be on the increase - so much so in fact that we were advised to not read the local paper. I did peruse one, and it seems all the "articles" are about kidnappings, rapes, torturing etc. Basically, the local papers seem to be more like tabloids. In fact, there was not a local paper to be had at the hotel - only photocopies of New York Times condensed articles. Oh well.

So, we trundled off to work, which was an interesting ride down from Port Of Spain to Chaugaunas, which is sort of middle-of-the-island on the west side. The countryside seems to be relatively sparse, and I have it on good authority that the main drag between these two areas hasn't changed in 30 years. And considering the recently-augmented economy, there are now more vehicles than ever on the woefully undercapable road system. All this makes for a rather unenjoyable foray into traffic which, considering the tropical locale, I find altogether out of place.

The place where we planned to conduct our business for the next few days was rather interesting. It seemed to be in the middle of a warehouse district, and by that I mean 3 warehouses next to the road and nothing else. There were a few mangy dogs wandering around the parking lot. There's a hot doubles stand just on the corner. You did see my post on that, right? I heard a tale from one of our clients here that they once said, "Give me TT$100 worth of hot doubles and aloo pies!" and walked away with 5 bags of spicey fried goodness. It apparently fed almost 12 people a breakfast and lunch. So, the building appears to be under renovation. It's a nondescript business building, perhaps 4 floors, and had various holes in the plaster where wiring was being run, or an elevator was being worked on (none of them worked). But the whole place had this air of... "meatball carpentry", to quote my father.

Dad spent some time volunteering with the local theater building sets. The framing skills needed to build the various facades and set pieces were best not referred to as skills. Perhaps "ability" is better suited to describe it - no, really it's not. Basically, when you're under a tight budget of say, nothing, and you have to reuse the wood from the last set, you tend to just "make it work". Corners are not cut - they are obliterated with all manner of tools and force. So perhaps it takes a few extra nails, since you bent a few going in. Big deal. Two inch gap in the "roof" of that fake cottage facade? Eh, who cares, right? Just paint it dark. So that's what I mean by meatball carpentry. And that's what this building seemed to exude. Consider: the central staircase featured absuredly low rises with very shallow treads, and no nosing. The bathrooms featured random exposed plumbing. The internal walls seems to be placed randomly. Who ever heard of a 12-sided room? Granted, the place was still under construction, but it felt like they cut as many corners as possible. The stairs, dare I mention again, were downright lethal. I saw at least two people trip on them. As I'm writing this, I feel compelled to illustrate more completely the picture of the stairs. So take me, with a size 11 shoe. A dress shoe usually has a little extra length for the hard sole, so we'll estimate that my shoe length is 12 inches. Who knows, maybe it's more, maybe it's less...I haven't been in the habit of measuring my shoe length lately. The depth of the step (called the tread) was about half the length of my shoe. The height of each step (called the rise) varied from 1 to 5 inches, and I'm serious about the 1". There was literally a 1" step. Really. So you either had to step using the balls of your feet or turn your feet sideways. Either way, you walked s-l-o-w-l-y - doubly-so if you're wearing heels (I wasn't). The one nice thing about the building was that the roof was a terrace with a windowed patio lunch room. So we ate Arabic, Indian and other imported cuisine while gazing over the ... well, really not much besides the 3 warehouses.

We were still close enough to the northern end of Trinidad such that we could always see the mountain range. And it's pretty. At the end of the day, riding north back to Port of Spain we could always see some interesting weather activity coming over and through the mountain peaks. I wish I'd had the camera on a few occasions, which reminds me. I usually make it a point to be in command of the rental vehicle whenever I travel for business. It lends a certain amount of freedom, and that, I like. I also don't trust other people behind the wheel, and riding with our business host was certainly no exception. She drove, talked, phoned, and carried on business conversations while driving. And she's admittedly a bad driver. Thanks for telling me that, by the way - it's just the thing to calm me down. Not that I was really stressed about it, but it was somewhat laughable watching the whole thing from the back seat and having my coworkers turn, wide-eyed, and stare from the front seat.

The plans for the evening are to patronize a local establishment called Solimar. The cuisine is a mixture of Trinidadian and international fare, and the menu is quite extensive. I opted for the Green Curry Shrimp, and man-o-man, was that ever good. My boss decided it was time to sample some rum, so we had, uh, a few. Let's just say that the following morning was not the easiest I've ever had. We cabbed it back to the hotel and had a few at the hotel bar. There are a few local brews: Caribe and Stag: A Man's Beer. Apparently women are not allowed to have this libation due to its...well...probably because of its decidedly masculine advertising tactics. I'll just leave it at that. And that's Day Two.

This sounds like fun to me. Take an old hardcover book and hollow out a space for your MP3 player. Route out a space to hold some headphones and wire paths, and voila! Instant retroswank!

So, it's been a year and half since my last trip out here. Not much has changed. I'm out visiting my "favorite" client. I'm not entirely looking forward to the trip, but it's something to do. We drove down to Sanibel for Thanksgiving, and I flew out to Orange County tonight. The flight was uneventful - the highlight was the leg from Atlanta to Orange County. The equipment was a 757 that was updated to have the new TV system that featured a bunch of movies, games, and satellite TV. I watched "Superman Returns" all in all, a good flick. The fellow who plays Superman must've studied Chris Reeve, because he had the mannerisms down pat, right down to the "Goodnight, Lois". Highlights: story line, cinematography. Low points: Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor didn't get enough space in the movie to flex the character. I also tried to watch "Talledaga Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby". I had to turn it off about 20 minutes in - it was crap.

So now I'm in the hotel, watching "Clerks II". It's not nearly as clever as the first. In fact, I'm writing this while watching the movie.

Oh, I should mention that my latest hobby has been genealogy. I'm busily tracing roots for my family and Steph's family. It's kinda fun.

I know that there is more than one reader of this blog that is interested in energy conservation, and being that said readers are spread across various states, this should prove interesting. You've probably purchased Energy Star appliances just because they save money, and not necessarily due to some tax credit you may or may not get. But have you considered converting your home to wood-burning heat? If you live in Alabama, they'll pay for your conversion. That said, meet DSIRE: the Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency.

For instance, here in Georgia, we have the option to purchase green energy. It costs a bit more, but it (supposedly) comes from renewable resources (e.g. hydoelectric, solar, geothermal, etc). Of course, here in Cobb County we aren't treated to such, but hey, it takes time to get green out here. There's also another incentive that earns you money. The TVA will buy solar- or wind-power from you. Neato!

So check it out, and get greener, both in the wallet and in the mind.

After another trip down to Sanibel (I dropped Steph, Nugget and Honeybee off with Steph's mom), we visited with Uncle Joey & Aunt Mary. They are train fanatics (it sorta runs in that side of the family with all sorts of relatives working in some form or fashion for the railroad industry). They offered to unload some of their LGB cars onto us, since we run LGB too. Here's what we got:

A reefer boxcar, and some sort of flatbed + caboose car, which Uncle Joey says is a European flatbed with caboose.

And finally, a newer Euro passenger car that is really neat:

Yeah, I knew it wouldn't come out, but that bumper sticker reads "Dogs Love Eggs". Dogs also love garbage, so what does that tell you?

It has happened. We have achieved it.

It's that one thing that new parents wish for, more than anything else (except perhaps a healthy baby). No, it's not that elite Italian stroller/car-seat combo. It's not the Eddie Bauer edition play gym. It's not even the matching nursery furniture set from the Babies R Us store, that cost you an arm and a leg, and maybe even part of a foot.

Nope. It's none of these. What it is, is kids that sleep through the night. I'm knocking on wood here, but as of this morning, my little Nugget and Honeybee have slept 3 consecutive nights from 9:30pm until around 6. Sure, there's the occasional 5am whine, but they will either self-soothe or we'll pop in to put the pacifiers in.

The secret? Well, honestly I don't know. It's been a combination of things really. Here's our bedtime ritual:

1) Last feeding ends around 9:30(ish). We feed 6 ounces, currently just use formula and no rice cereal.
2) We use a white-noise generator, although we left that in Florida so the last two nights have been sans-audio for the babies.
3) We have room-darkening vinyl roller-type shades on the windows.
4) We keep the room a toasty 72°F, using a ceramic safety heater with a digital temperature setting.
5) We swaddle them (as much as they allow anyway, they're almost too big).
6) We try to give them the pacifiers, if they want them. Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
7) The door is closed, ish. Their room is right across from ours, and our door is wide open.

All that, and they are sleeping through the night thus far. Life is pretty good.

Led Zeppelin II, Led Zeppelin Physical Graffiti, Allman Brother Eat A Peach, Allman Brothers Live at Fillmore East, and Derek and the Dominoes Layla.

New! Benign Girl toy cell phone!

if you bang your tai, and need a bandqge, use these!

The numero uno Trini breakfast: the hot double. Eat it with your hands, right by the stand, then get another.

This is the view from my 2nd floor room in Trinidad.

Devin is dressed up in a duck costume, but we're saying it's a chicken. (That's because Dev's nickname is Nugget. Get it? Maya is in a honeybee costume. Perhaps you can deduce her nickname?