One of the gifts was a nice collection of spices from Texas.

It's a sweater!

Lisa and Lotta are so sweet!

Last night's party was a lot of fun. Daniel, Kevin, Åsa, and P.O. seem to be enjoying themselves here.

Alex on the move.

Free salsa lessons!

Daniel, Åsa, Myki, and Lisa also say hello!

Kevin and Lotta say hi too.

Inger and Tobbe say Hello!

Some of the folks at the party.

Hello from my 32nd birthday party!

One good thing about working from home is that I can let the cats outside for a couple of hours during the day. Alex says "Meow," which can be loosely translated as "Unless you have tuna, get out of my way."

I finally installed an electrical outlet in the walk-in closet that I'm using as my study. I have several computers and other electronic devices in there, so I need power. But there was no outlet in there because the room was intended to be used as a closet. Prior to installing the outlet, I had a long extension cord running from the kitchen.

I think this is an improvement!

This morning, the leaves on the ground were covered not with dew, but with frost. Winter has arrived.

The frost seems to accumulate along the veins and edges of the leaves. I'm sure there's a reasonable physical explanation for this; whatever the reason, it is quite beautiful.

More frost.

Frost melting in the morning sunshine.

Frost in sunlight.

Konfabulator

Konfabulator is one those programs that makes using a Mac so enjoyable. Well now Windows users can get in on the fun too. Starting today, Konfabulator is also available for Microsoft Windows.

If you've never tried Konfabulator, you should really take a look. It's hard to describe what it is because the program is so versatile. Since Konfabulator's release a few years ago, the user community has responded by writing hundreds of widgets for Konfabulator. These widgets are add-on programs that expand the capabilities of Konfabulator. Here are some examples of what widgets can do:

• controll playback of MP3s in iTunes
  
• display current weather conditions and a forecase for your city
• scroll news headlines across the screen
  

Back in the summer of 2004, Apple announced next version of Mac OS X, 10.3 (a.k.a. "Tiger"). One of the new features hilighted at the WWDC was Dashboard, which has features nearly identical to Konfabulator's. Apple even went so far as to dub the little programs incorporated into Dashboard "widgets." The authors of Konfabulator were not so pleased by this, or by the fact that Apple didn't even acknowledge inspiration from Konfabulator. The web is full of discussion about this.

Some even go so far as to suggest that the decision to release Konfabulator for Windows was a response to Apple's snub. Whatever the reason, it's nice to have such a nice program on my ThinkPad as well as my Mac!

Hello.

This week, I purchased a new dishwasher. It's a Bosch SGU 46A92SK. It was easy to install because the necessary connections were already there under the sink.

The first load of dishes cleaned by the new washer. It seems to work.

The trees continue to shed their leaves. Most of the trees are almost compeletly bare now and the ground in many places is covered with a carpet of fallen leaves of all colors.

Here is the path I walk every morning on the way to the bus stop. The building in the background is where I lived the first two years after I moved to Sweden.

I quite like this photo. It's simple and has a real feeling of depth to it.

The carpet of leaves.

Another oak leaf sprinkled with morning dew.

The view out my livingroom window.

Here's another quick photo.

I'm working from home today. It's a lovely day outside. I'm also keeping my eye on the U.S. election results, which are now down to looking at the results in the state of Ohio.