Blog Access Further Details

More specific info on accessing blogspot.com blogs: If you are accessing a blog like this that has been restricted to invited readers, and you are using a email address "other" than a Gmail address, then you are merely accessing this blog on a 30 day visitor pass. Meaning that unless you get yourself a gmail acount (also known as google account) and get reinvited you will no longer be able to view the blog after 30 days.

For your information: a gmail address (also known as google account) is good for ALL google services and there are many of them including setting up blogs on blogspot.com (aka blogger.com)

I know... I sound like I work for Google but I don't. I do however believe in the trend that computing is moving to the clouds... literally, all computer services are moving up into the clouds and the "fat client" PC as we know it today will be toast in 5 yrs or less.

Blog Updates / Ideas

That irritating "pop up" that asks you with which program you want to open it, has been fixed. It was due to the widget showing the time in Novokuznetsk on the right side of the blog. Since when I put it there, I cut out a line of code that was displaying ads under the time, it must have decided to start emitting this annoying popup since it could no longer pay for itself with flashing ads there.
Since this was our first blog and we had our share of quirks with it, I have been looking into porting it to WordPress to see if it wouldn't be better the blogspot (aka Blogger) but, after messing with it for a few hours, I've decided to keep it here on blogger. Blogger seems to be the lesser of two evils so to speak.

People and Culture images Posting Question.

On our last day in Novokuznetsk we walked around the city with Debbie and Kevin (the other family we traveled with) and I took various pics of people. Just to show the people and culture of Novokuznetsk. I have not posted any images of people I noticed, so if people reading the blog are interested in seeing "people and culture" I could post a bunch of images like that, just like with the buildings and architecture post.

Nice to be home again.

Hi: We arrived back home last night at 12am. My family picked us up at the airport in Minneapolis. All our flights were on time, and went like clockwork. Except for our one damaged bag. We checked in at the desk to see if anything could be done about placing a damaged baggage claim but there was one other elderly couple ahead of us trying to figure out where their lost luggage was at. After 25minutes of waiting behind them I decided that "hey, these guys LOST their luggage, ours merely got damaged. I think we'd better feel lucky." So we left the counter without placing a damaged baggage claim. The bag has served us well in the last 4 years and was pretty cheap to begin with so at 12am we didn't feel like waiting indefinitely to file a claim for this cheap well traveled bag.

Places we visited.

This is a souvenir shop we visited today. They had these interesting 3-D paintings (not sure if you call this painting) on the wall for sale. Also, some even nicer stuff with birch wood. You could hear the artists/craftsman working on their projects in the backroom so all the stuff is made in-house.

Arriving back at the hotel after supper in the dark, the hotel is quite a local landmark. The lighted fountain makes for a festive atmosphere in front of the hotel.

JJW Family Version 2.0 Beta

This is Drew, King of the Jungle, Tarzan, master of movement and all things funny. Last time we visited Drew in October, I was somewhat embarrassed when I got him over stimulated in the first hour of our visit, horsing around. Today, I saved it for last and wasn't embarrassed because I knew its the last time we visit him before court. So they'll simply have to forgive us for being loud and boisterous... Drew needed it anyway.

This is Demitri. He's very shy, not accessible to strangers and cried bitterly when his caregiver left him with such cold and mean strangers as us. He came around today and was a much happier participant. He started some one-on-one bonding with Jen today after deciding she wasn't such bad a caretaker after all.

Our 2009 Year wish is to make a family portrait like this again with all of us wearing our Sunday's best, but that would require us all being home in Minnesota instead of at the babyhouse in Siberia.

Scenery and buildings in Sibierian Countryside

This post is a unlabeled, uncommented post featuring images from the countryside, traveling to the babyhouse. Its somewhat nostalgic for me as a Hutterite. Seeing people here dressed so much like our own culture definitely has connection to us.