There is a new member of the family this morning. He is hiding in the green leaves in his terrarium. Oops. Now he’s up on his branch. He was green a minute ago, now he is brown.

Amy (Brandy’s daughter), with a little help from mom, got me an Anole. They were going to get me a Hermit Crab, but the pet stores all were out. But it was good. Whenever I’ve done the Pet Selector my #1 choice has always come out as an anole.

And it is so cute!!!

Cynthia suggested we name him by doing the Abulsme permutation. Anole turns into Nlaoe which when you add the extra letters for pronuncability becomes Nalaboce. (Well, it could be Nalaobe, but I did it quickly last night.) So we decided that was Nala Boce.

Amy thought some more name was in order, so started trying things out. We were working in a text file on my computer. Amy was the last one to work on the file.

This morning, I found “nala boce uboo-boo” written in the file.

So Nala Boce Uboo-boo will be the anoles name. We will probably call him Nala. Um… or her. I don’t really know if it is a him or a her and haven’t researched how to tell yet. Nala sounds like a girl’s name. So lets say she.

So welcome to Nala Boce Uboo-boo Minter. Thank you Amy!

Green Anole

The green anole is a relative common lizard, slight in build, with a narrow head and a long, slender tail that can be twice as long as the rest of the animal. Color can vary from gray-brown, to brown, to bright green; each animal can change its color to blend with surroundings. Males can have a noticeable dewlap that is pink when displayed. Commonly referred to as a “chameleon” due to its ability to change color, but not a true chameleon.

A lot of you have been bugging me about the slow progress on the report on the 2003 Q3 Random Vacation to Idaho. A bunch is still in the works, and more may be posted shortly. But at long last, another day is ready. Here is Day 2.

2003 Q3 Random Vacation – Day 2

We scrambled down that ridge, then up another ridge, then started to head down the next ridge…  and realized we would have to go down, then up again…  and we were still three quarters of a mile from the spot.

For those curious about progress, here is a current status report:

Days @, 0, 1, 2: Posted
Day 3: Waiting for Sam to insert Chad’s comments, then post.
Days 4, 5, 6: Waiting for Marilyn’s comments. (Then Chad’s)
Days 7, 8, 9: Waiting for Sam to start them.

We’ll try to pick up the pace. :-)

I have now added a section of the site for purpose of keeping track of the new 2004 Q1 Weight and Body Fat contests. Invitiations were sent to selected people at the end of November. The entry period has already ended and the contest begun. Data on the charts and graphs on the site will be updated as I get to the emails with the readings as I go through my email in order.

2004 Q1 Fitness Contest

Reviving something I did back in 2002, I invited a variety of friends to do a weight / body fat contest to try to get in shape.  A few entered.  Periodic Updates will appear here as the contest progresses.  This contest goes from Dec 1 2003 to Mar 31 2004.  Full rules and explainations of scoring are included below the score chart.

In addition, I took this opportunity to remove the Pager, Eating and Music portions of the site, which were suffering from lack of updates. The Pictures section is too, but it stays for now because it has a bunch of stuff in it. :-)

For those out there who might be interested… Since I was introduced to her back in the beginning of 2003, I’ve been spending a lot of time with Brandy. (See recent Email Top Ten results.) That is especially true since I bought my house and moved to PA. She has helped me a lot with the new place and all sorts of other things. And we’ve just been hanging out a lot and going out and doing things together and such. In any case, as of a few weeks ago we switched from “just friends” mode to “dating” mode and are doing the couple thing it seems. :-)

Brandy teased me about making a blog entry announcing it, since I do them about lots of things, and I hesitated for a couple weeks because I’ve had bad luck sharing such information in the past, and tend to prefer to keep such things mostly to myself. But it is snowing today, and I feel like it, so I thought I would go ahead.

So Brandy, here ya go, the “I Know Why The Rug Is Blue” post is real. :-) [Inside Joke] See you when the roads are passable again. :-)

I decided that since everybody else does, I’d add a “BlogRoll” sort of thing here. I was going to put it in a right hand column, but doing that looked like it would take more time, so I just went ahead and added it on the left. There are two sections:

Friends: Of the people on my annual top twenty email list (which I update monthly) those people who run their own sites get links. Right now that is Al, Rebecca and Ron. Some of the others in that top twenty currently used to have sites, but they are defunct now I gather. Oh well.

Visit Daily: This is just a list of places I seem to check daily or almost daily to see what is up. There are a bunch of other places on my bookmark list in my browser that I check fairly often, but the ones here are part of the normal routine. I’ve actually included a couple that were once part of my routine but I have sort of fallen out of, but want to go back to. I may add or remove places from here as my habits change. If anybody has some suggestions for other must read daily URLs, let me know. :-)