My manager confirmed yesterday that I'd be taking on the new assignment that I'd mentioned the other day. (For those who care about such things, I'll be rearchitecting an information set on multiprotocol authentication and authorization.) I will spend the next couple of days getting my current projects to good stopping places.

We went to a nice party for Matthew last night - takeout Chinese food and an ice cream cake. Starting a couple of years ago, Mike added a second story to their house. The kids moved into their new room at the start of the school year. One of Matt's gifts was a new desk for his room.

We watched a bit of the St. Louis-Houston game, scouting our new opponents. The Red Sox and Cardinals have some history going back to 1946, so the matchup is good.

It must be confusing for the people who plan advertisements that will run during the playoffs and World Series. Because they're dealing with different age groups, we get ads for acne cream to AFLAC, video games to Viagra.

The World Series games will be played at night. Interestingly, the weekend games are scheduled to start a half hour earlier than the weekday games. The later start on weekdays gives the west coast folks a chance to get home and watch the game. The communist government in China has a way of dealing with time zones; they don't allow them. With a country wider than the US, they have one time zone, UTC+8. They don't even bother with daylight savings time.

Bleary-eyed and happy, New Englanders awaken to find that it's still true, that we really did beat the Yankees in the 7th game and that we're going to the World Series. It will be a fun winter as we analyze the decisions and performances that got us this far.

The newspapers are late this morning, no doubt delayed by the ball that finished after midnight.

Today is grandson Matthew's 13th birthday. He's a superb athlete, very funny, and not a little bit fresh. He doesn't know this yet, but we're taking him to see Blue Man Group as his birthday gift.

In the past couple of days, friends have sent me pointers to job prospects. I've followed up and have had one rejection already.

There are lots of tired, but happy folks around the office these days. The Red Sox, with their mix of superstars and Joe Bag-of-Donuts players, have captivated even the most casual fan. Even when one of the stars stumbles, someone else will find enough talent and strength to keep the team in the game.

Now if only they could do something about these late night games. When I was a boy (oh, geez), the World Series games were played in the afternoon. A friend had the first color TV of anyone we knew. The kids in the neighborhood would gather at Ron's home (a trailer on top of a small hill) to watch the games after school.

Sandra, her father, and her siblings will go to her aunt's funeral in New Hampshire. Sandra's brother's wife will stay with MRM and daughter-in-law Lynn will visit mid-day. We observed that we now have just one aunt remaining, my mother's sister.

I may be picking up an interesting, but gnarly project at work. Yesterday I reviewed the state of my work so that I could hand off my current projects in order to take on this new one. I should hear more next week.

I've been listening to news on NPR during my (much shorter) commute. Last week Sandra passed along a recorded book that she'd found to be very funny - Carl Reiner's My Anecdotal Life. Indeed, Reiner is a very funny guy. See http://tinyurl.com/674yx for more info.

This weekend is notable as much for what didn't happen as what did.

Daughter-in-law Lynn is having a baby, due in early November. On Friday the baby started to give signs that it was on its way early. Mike and Lynn went to the hospital on Friday evening, but returned home later in the night, the baby deciding that the time is not yet.

The other thing that didn't happen was that the Red Sox weren't swept by the Yankees. After Saturday night's football-score loss, the mood was grim. They may not always win, but they never seem to give up.

Over the weekend, Sandra called son Mike:

"Hello, this is Michael."

"Hi, Mike. This is Mom. How are things going?"

"Buppy, this is your grandson."

So, our teenaged grandson's voice now sounds like his father's.

The house still smells a bit of the New England boiled dinner that we made on Saturday. Some parts were over-cooked, some under-, but it was tasty overall. We brought a plate to my father yesterday. The remaining leftovers are on their way to becoming hash.

Sandra's mother continues to improve. She walks around the yard and occasionally up the street.

My father is getting better as well. We still stop by to help with the cleaning and firewood, but he's able to do lots of other things. Last week he took the plow off the Jeep so he could bring the Jeep into the garage and work on it.

The winter lockdown continues. We turned off the water at the camp yesterday. At home, the wood is ready for the cool weather. We have a rack outside the back door that holds a face cord (4x1.5x8) that we'll cover with a tarp and keep at the ready. We'll get some more wood for late winter and early spring.

It's very easy to from house to car to work and back again, barely feeling the outside world. Stacking and carrying wood brings me into the outside world.