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Silver Cross’ Dazzle umbrella stroller is absolutely beautiful! As I ordered it I wondered if it would perform nearly as well as the Maclaren strollers.  It does! It was very hard for me to decide which color to choose but finally decided on the Grape.

The fashionable design of the stroller is impeccable. The covered wheels and the “hidden” storage compartment beneath make the stroller sleek and beautiful. The brushed aluminum frame is a delight.

Functionally, the wheels are larger than most umbrella strollers, which is a God-send living in NYC. The wheels roll over most cracks in the concrete and up and down brownstone stoops.  The chair fully reclines making the stroller usable from birth.  Folding the stroller is a cinch and it is extremely light weight without feeling wobbly. The stroller comes with a rain cover. An accessory kit is also available for the stroller, just not in the USA.

Which brings me to the one thing about this stroller I wish were different. The brake can not be put on the back wheels when the stroller is folded. Why does this matter? When you are on the subway or bus and you want the stroller to stand and stay put; the Dazzle will roll. This design is simply for people who do not ride public transportation. On the one hand I feel slighted but then again, it is a Silver Cross……

Lady Frieda Harris’s illustration of the Two of Cups is by far my favorite.  For me the card embodies the simplicity and beauty of the search for love; the duad.

This card shows how the monad, the androgynous soul, has divided to form the duad, feminine and masculine energies. Unstable in its brief existence, the dyad symbolizes an exchange of love between two people.  The interaction is always moving toward becoming larger than the two beings themselves. The duad always wants to become a triad. Becoming a triad happens without effort. True emotions of intense and delightful emotions create a third entity; a relationship. The relationship birthed from the mixing of male and female energies is more stable than the dyad itself.

The relationship created by bringing together masculine and feminine energies is always bigger than the participating individuals. Furthermore, each participant is in someway in service to the other. It is the transfer of energies that helps keep the relationship moving, growing and pure.

I am a huge fan of Negroponte’s uberlly successful project, the XO laptop.  I bought one last year.

Unfortunately, the initial  operating system, Sugar, was difficult for my daughter and I to navigate.  I am smart but not that smart. Alana soon found my laptop to be much easier than her own. Her XO sat for much of the year and then Sugar 8.20 was released. Without much fanfare or confusion, I updated the operating system and began navigating through the new version of the activities. I was instantly impressed. I could now use the applications/activities without getting a headache!

Together we have programed a ballerina to jump and talk (in Alana’s voice).  Alana can browse the internet and play games on PBSKids.org. She laments that her XO is the only XO inher neighborhood so she can’t use the chat activity yet. She now looks forward to using her laptop.

This year it is easier than ever to order an XO. Amazon is handling the  fulfillment of your order, which is great! I encourage everyone to get one for their child (if only to satisfy Alana’s desire for a chat buddy). I believe that the little laptop has big lessons and offers great opportunities for parent and child interactions.  Most of all, I champion the projects global impact on thousands of children. Most of whom would not have regular interactions with a computer and now have a laptop of their own.

It has been a long while since I have written an entry and even longer since I wrote an original entry.  I am back and will be with you all through the rest of 2008 and all of 2009.

A little something on why I was not here. Asherah-Dey. Born at home on September 22nd at 6:16 pm, the latest addition to my family is calm and healthy . She is quite a looker, sweet and very pleasant baby.  She and Alana have been my focus since summer.  It has been a joy to have a different perspective on life.

I have unfortunately been shy about posting pictures because of a few weird emails from folks. The truth is, I am so proud and can’t wait to blast her picture around the world.

Isn’t she sweet?

Today for the first time ever, Leonardo Davinci’s, The Last Supper is viewable for all who have access to the internet. An incredible company, HAL9000, has cunningly devised a system that will allow people everywhere to view Leonardo’s masterpiece from the comfort of their own home and closer than we could if we traveled to the refractory of the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Italy.

Using custom built hardware powered by two Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors, 16 gigabytes of memory and a 2.0 terabyte hard disk, a team of six, photographed and “stitched” photographs together to create a digital version that we can enjoy today. Mauro Gavinelli, heads the team and developed a highly specialized lighting system to avoid damaging the 509 year-old fresco.

Surprisingly, the team only spent 9 hours shooting (excluding equipment set-up) and produced 1677 frames of the painting. The more difficult portion of this project was stitching the 1677 frames into a recognizable form of the The Last Supper. The result of the team’s labors is the highest definition photograph in the world, at 16 billion pixels. Viewers can enlarge sections of the painting in one millimeter squares.