JOHN'S SURGERY A SUCCESS

John (Koke) Korynasz's hernia operation went well this past week. A 1.5 hour procedure and a three-day stay in the hospital was successfully endured. John got to go home yesterday (22nd) and he's much happier, of course. The doctors found no signs of a return of his colon cancer, so he's a happy fellow.

The Demerol he was taking did cause some odd side-effects (mild hallucinations), but nothing harmful to him by any stretch. Welcome Home!

ANITA BUTCH GETS HITCHED

Anita's wedding was in Tempe this past weekend, where she tied the knot with Mr. Sam Means. Sam's daytime (and nighttime) job is with the duo rock group The Format. Here's a link to MTV's website with a bit more information. Apparently, attendance at the wedding was considerable.. many family members made it, though Gabriel, Jill and I were unable to attend.

Congratulations, you two. Here's to many happy years of royalty checks!

HAPPY TO BE WHEAT-FREE

Gabriel (and Jill, of course) is wheat-free for a couple of weeks now and it appears to be helping with his acid reflux. Jill's naturopath recommended the change in diet given that wheat can be a huge allergy problem for some people. Well, it seems both Jill and Gabriel have enjoyed improvements. It can be a bit inconvenient planning for meals sometimes, but it is definitely worth it given Gabriel's general improvement in demeanor and disposition in the evenings.

NEWPORT TRIP A SUCCESS

I was holed up in Newport, Oregon for the second half of last week. I'm working on the City's economic development strategy. Regular readers will recall a photo and newspaper article link a couple of months ago.

Well, now I'm nearly done with the project and I gave a presentation of findings to date last Wednesday. This link goes to the article itself.. I'm quoted quite a bit in the second half of it. Tom thought I actually sounded professional after he read it

The photo is of Al Benkendorf of The Benkendorf Associates, a frequent collaborator on projects like these. We're about to kick off another similar, though smaller, study in LaGrande, Oregon.

TOM AND KATE TO VISIT FOR CHRISTMAS

Tom and Kate are arranging for a Christmas morning arrival to the Portland area for a roughly three-day stay. Should be fun. This is Gabriel's first Christmas, so he'll be happy to see his only uncle and aunt!

UPDATE: GMAIL SUCCESS WITH FIREFOX

Wow.. I can do all three now in a consolidated manner and I don't have to use Microsoft Explorer ever again! Amen!

UPDATE: SUCCESS WITH FIREFOX

There, I reported. It worked like a charm. Now on to see if Gmail works with it as well...

ANOTHER EXTREMELY QUICK UPDATE

I'm creating this post with Mozilla's new Firefox 1.0 web browser. It seems a lot like Opera, except I can edit this blog with it (or so it seems) while Opera won't let me.

I'll report soon enough on its success...

EXTREMELY QUICK UPDATE

The website World66.com allows you to map the countries of the world you've visited as well as map out all the U.S. states and Canadian provinces you've visited.

Here's my world map:



Here's my U.S. map:



Here's my Canadian province map:



Here's Gabriel's U.S. map.. he's off to a good start:

BUSH EASILY WINS NASCAR NATION

Websites are tracking actual votes and called races now, so exit poll results are winnowing. I'm finished with reporting poll results as a result. It's not looking good for Bush at this point. But then again, it didn't look good for him last time, either.

More news in the morning. Good night!

ELECTION SPOILER SPOILER **5:25pm Pacific UPDATE**

I'm updating the following list of States all day, so check for the time stamp above for the latest updates. Anything in italics denotes the change or new information since the last post.

As of 5:25pm Pacific Standard Time, Exit Poll results...
Bush - 108 Votes Kerry - 77 Votes
Bush States: West Virginia (5), Georgia (15), Kentucky (8), Indiana (11), Oklahoma (7), Alabama (9), Tennessee (11), Mississippi (6), South Carolina (8), North Carolina (15), Virginia (13)
Kerry States: Vermont (3), Illinois (21), Maine (3), Massachusetts (12), Connecticut (7), New Jersey (15), Delaware (3), Maryland (10), DC (3)

Arizona: Bush 55%, Kerry 45%
Colorado: Bush 50%, Kerry 49%
Louisiana: Bush 56%, Kerry 43%
Michigan: Bush 46%, Kerry 52%
Pennsylvania: Bush 46%, Kerry 53%
Ohio: Bush 46%, Kerry 48% Bush Up 2%
Florida: Bush 49%, Kerry 51%
New Mexico: Bush 48%, Kerry 50%
Minnesota: Bush 46%, Kerry 52%
Wisconsin: Bush 47%, Kerry 52%
Iowa: Bush 49%, Kerry 50%
New Hampshire: Bush 44%, Kerry 53%
Nevada: Bush 48%, Kerry 49%
North Carolina: Bush 52%, Kerry 48%
Missouri: Bush 52%, Kerry 47%
Arkansas: Bush 54%, Kerry 45%
New York: Bush 36%, Kerry 62%

GABRIEL'S FIRST HALLOWEEN

Gabriel looked smart in his Tigger costume for Halloween Sunday night. However, due to a bad bout with reflux, we got a late start and only made it over to Grandma and Grampa Korynasz's house. His photo is posted in the left margin of the page.

Grandma and Grampa Reid visited last night (Monday) and Gabriel donned his orange and black costume just for them to everyone's delight. We went to the Helvetia Tavern for dinner and had cheeseburgers and onion rings. Yum!

His lazy father didn't carve his pumpkins, so we'll just have to have Mexican pumpkin soup or something like that.

ELECTION SPOILER SPOILER

To the extent that I can, I'll post Associated Press exit poll results for different states and territories today BEFORE the networks report the results tonight. But I won't use the invisible font type, so you're just going to have to avert your eyes if you don't want to see the results.

First Up: GUAM
George W. Bush - 64%
John F. Kerry - 36%