Month: September 2008

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Here’s Our Anniversary Present from the Kids

Veronica and Eric secretly purchased the two tickets to the Cubs game for our 20th anniversary a few weeks bag.  It ends up it looks like today is going to be the day the Cubbies clinch.  Even though I’m a Sox fan (can you tell which one of us gets more respect), I’m really looking forward to it.  We’re leaving in just a little bit. 

Hopefully, it’ll be as exciting as we anticipate.  We’ll keep you updated.

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We Now Own Lake-front Property!

We always wanted lake-front property! We’ve had record breaking rain this weekend. Note the 2 white boxes in the middle of the 1st, 3rd & 4th pictures. They are the tops of our neighbors’ mailboxes. The water was basically 3 1/2 to 4 feet deep at that point. It receded during the night about a foot, but we’re getting more rain today due to Ike. So far nothing in our house. Hopefully we’ll make it through another day and not have lake-front property with an indoor pool!
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Here’s a surprise

I found this site that will map out the prevalence of your surname in countries around the world.

Here’s the map for Fall and the legend that goes with it (a real Legend of the Falls – pun intended).


This came as a real surprise to me. I have seen lots of references to Falls from Somalia, so I expected something to pop up there. I also thought Fall was of German ancestry so I would have expected an appearance there. But not Canada and Sweden. Food for thought.

NOTE: I did a little digging and discovered Africa hasn’t been indexed yet so no Somalians is understandable. Also, the name is of Celtic (Irish) origin so the United Kingdom over Germany is now understandable.

Now, for an even bigger surprise, it turns out that Larry is the most popular Fall forename (with Lisa and Christopher 2nd and 3rd). Now that I never would have guessed. I am reasonably sure that Abdou and Papa belong to the branch of the Falls who have emigrated out of Somalia.


If you go to the site, you can actual drill down to the country and state level.

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The Last Month Part 1: Charlotte’s Room

August has been a maelstrom of sorts, Lex at Yankee Stadium, 2 vacations for the kids (more on that in the next post), and most satisfying for me, Charlotte’s new bedroom. I (er, we…) painted (and varnished & stripped varnish & plastered & spackled & scrubbed & sanded & so on….) the 3rd floor attic guest bedroom, and Charlotte moved in (little by little) a couple weeks ago. She’s thrilled… and so is Lex.