NOVEMBER 2007

11/03/07 - Cold Feet – The Halloween party of choice this year actually came a few days after the end of October.  In theory everyone was going to buy a costume, on sale, at one of the many possibilities available; however, Susan and I quickly found out that many others had the same idea ;).  As such, since the pickings were slim at the few stores we tried we opted for recycling some older costumers and making a new one.   I used my Hooter's outfit from several years ago and Susan pieced together a skimpy little belly dance outfit. 

Kris (one of Susan's coworkers) and Coy graciously offered up their home for the event - and it was really fun to attend a Halloween gig where everyone took that extra effort to wear an interesting costume.  Here are some pictures of the various partygoers in attendance (names omitted unless someone tells me who they are):

Be sure to check out the additional Halloween costume pictures from last month if you didn't see those.

- Nathan

11/04/07 - Holmes Comet – Sunday night was movie night at the Brunette's.  We watched The Illusionist and it turned out to be a really intriguing moving - I recommend it; however, it was not the highlight of the evening (Comet = "High Light"...bad pun, so sue me).  I had read in the paper about a comet becoming suddenly visible to the naked eye - Holmes Comet.  It used to be very dim, racing towards our Sun, but is increased in luminosity by a factor of millions in recent weeks (you may read a technical explanation of why in this article).  It is currently very easy to look at with a simple pair of binoculars.  Since the comet is traveling almost directly toward us (don't worry, it isn't that directly) you cannot really see the tail; nevertheless, it is still very interesting.  The below picture was not taken by us, but is a close approximation of what we could see through our binoculars.

- Nathan

11/07/07 - TCU Percussion – One of the things I used to do as a student at Oklahoma State was visit the occasional student concert.  They were usually free and frequently a good performance.  I just recently noticed a segment in the Fort Worth paper that advertises similar concerts at TCU and decided to give it a shot.  Neither Susan nor I was disappointed - the percussion ensemble was very entertaining.  The music was mostly centered around marimba and xylophones and it was all extremely technical.  There was also an interesting drum routine and the group followed up with several fun steel drum pieces at the end.  I was glad we decided to give it a try and I hope there are some other intriguing performances in the future.  If you are local, and interested, check out the TCU music page for event times.

- Nathan

11/10/07 - RSS Feed 2.0 – Previously I was using an external website, Twitter, to send out updates for this blog.  I added some new code over the past week that will allow you to receive updates without registering at Twitter.  Now when you click the RSS Feed link on the bottom navigation bar it will send you directly to a news service that is run off of this website.  When you subscribe (and presuming you utilize a news reader - if you don't I suggest trying one out since they are quite handy) then you will receive emails when the diary is updated. 

- Nathan

11/13/07 - So You Think You Can Dance – Nina introduced Susan and me to our first reality show while in Sonoma Valley.  We were all getting ready for bed and it just happened to be on TV - So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD).  It is sort of like Dancing with the Stars, except there aren't any stars and the dancers are all professional - the quality of dancing is extremely high and quite entertaining.

When I found out the SYTYCD tour (the top 10 finalists visit various cities and show off their talent) was going to be in Grand Prairie I decided to take a shot at getting tickets.  At first I didn't have much luck - the first show, on Monday night, sold all of the good seats in a matter of seconds (I really hate Ticketmaster, it seems to cater to people who purchase tickets in large quantities and then scalp them).  Just when I had decided that I probably wouldn't be able to find any good seats a second show on Tuesday was announced.  I lucked out on this show and snagged a quartet of fairly decent seats - woohoo!  Nina and Rick were very excited to come and see the show with us (well, at least Nina was ;).

Susan had to work the morning of the show so the family took a mini tour of White Settlement and visited a few of the nearby museums I personally hadn't had the opportunity to see.  The first was the White Settlement Historical Museum.  This museum features a collection of antiques and artifacts; mostly from the first half and middle of the 20th century.  This included antique irons, a hand-cranked record player, and one of the first televisions.  Our second stop was the Texas Civil War Museum.  Half of this museum is dedicated to displaying pieces from both the Confederate and Union armies.  The exhibit includes a variety of uniforms, medical kits, and weapons used during the 1860's.  There is also a collection of Victorian age dresses - which I found to be disturbing (among the dresses were radiographs showing how the women of that time collapsed their rib cages and caused organ damage by wearing tight corsets).

For dinner Susan and I took Rick and Nina to Simply Fondue in Arlington.  It is a very unusual dining experience and something we wanted to share with them; however, I don't think they were as intrigued at cooking your own food as we were ;).  After dinner we continued East towards Nokia Theatre where we would get to see all our favorite dancers from the 3rd season of SYTYCD.  Here are some dances they performed:

Samba - Lacey and Danny

West Coast Swing - Pasha and Sara

Jazz - Sabra and Neil

Jazz - Hok and Jamie

Hip Hop - Lauren and Pasha

- Nathan