It’s no surprise that Molly likes climbing into small objects, and this water box is no different.

It’s official — we found a house! It’s on Cragmont Ave up in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Heights (you can see a map here). It’s got 3 bedrooms, 3 1/2 baths, and great views of Angel Island, Marin, and the Golden Gate Bridge (hence the name of the area). I took some pictures and there are some official photos and panoramas available as well.

We’re back from our trip to Europe (aka Honeymoon Part II) but I think my brain is still somewhere over the Atlantic. Therefore, I will leave detailed descriptions for another day. In the meantime, the most important thing is I’ve added a photo gallery (less than 300 pictures, but only slightly) of our time in Venice, Lake Garda, Monterosso al Mare, Nice, and Paris. You may notice similar clothes in many of the Venice pictures–that’s because Alitalia decided we’d be better off without our luggage for the first three days of our vacation (it did finally arrive at the Venice airport in time for us to pick it up on our way out of town).

Last weekend Brandon celebrated his first birthday (don’t tell him his real birthday is March 9) with play, music, and his first bite of cake. I was on hand with my new camera to capture the weekend in many megapixels. Amy and I even appear in a few pictures so we’ll have proof that his aunt and uncle were there when he looks back in 15 or 20 years.

Although my actual birthday was last Saturday, I’ve managed to squeeze quite a few events out of it. The night before we went bowling in the Presidio with friends, and Amy brought fancy cupcakes. Saturday Amy took me to dinner at Millennium. Sunday her dad took us to brunch at Absinthe. And this Friday, her mom is taking us out for dinner. Since birthdays only come once a year, I don’t see any problem in celebrating for a week or so.

Today’s the day that my first constructed crossword puzzle appears in the LA Times (and San Francisco Chronicle and other papers that syndicate the puzzle). If you get it in your local paper, solve away. Otherwise, you can download a PDF file that you can print out here or download a PUZ file that you can solve on your computer here (you’ll need to download the free Across Lite software to play) anytime.

Having solved (or at least tried to solve) crossword puzzles for many years, I decided to take the plunge and attempt to construct some. After buying the Windows software that everybody uses and installing it on my MacBook using Parallels Desktop for Mac, I created a puzzle that I submitted to the editor of the LA Times crossword. That puzzle will appear in the LA Times (and the other papers that use that its puzzle, such as the San Francisco Chronicle) on Monday, January 22, 2007. I’ll post it here for anyone who wants to give it a try.

Lately, Amy and I have been watching the TV show Scrubs on DVD (thank you Netflix). We’re currently on the final disc of season 3, and last night as we were watching an episode called “His Story II” from April 6, 2004, I noticed something that caught my eye. As Dr Turk (Donald Faison) talks to a patient, he opens a folder to reveal a pink-ish piece of paper—which happens to look exactly like an old invoice from my family’s paper products company, Acorn. I checked with my brother, and he said they haven’t used that form since 2000, and had no idea how it ended up on the show. How odd.

During my quick trip to LA over the weekend, I got a chance to see Brandon and take a few pictures for a new Web gallery now that he’s nine months old. You can even see his two teeth on the bottom.