Dara and Kate's dog, Molly, at Randy and Cyndi's house in Tennessee. Molly is widely reported to be a terror, but she became a pussycat in the hands of Dara. 

Dara and Kyla before the performance. 

Megan, Alpana, and Kyla after Alpana's performance with her a capella group, Red, Hot, and Blue. 

A little bit blurry, but you can blame this on Gino, the photographer.  

Parents Weekend and UVa

So you already heard the report from Dad in Parent's Weekend so I won't detail what we did, but I will add that it was a lot of fun for me too. And yes, the unofficial goal for every upperclassmen during Parent's Weekend is to avoid the dining hall like the plague and get the parents to take you out to eat good food. We're all a little sick of dining hall food by now.
UVa was so much fun! It was so great to get to see Keith and Kirsty and Paige and Sarah, even if just for a bit. The game went really well for us despite the loss and a fainting spell by our best player. Last year we were just absolutely run away with by these girls, but really managed to hold our own this year. It's a very different arena to play in for us - it's larger, has better footing, play moves much faster, and we had to play under floodlights outside. Our strongest women's player, Sarah, has had problems with fainting while playing in the past which is usually cured by sleeping well and eating before the game, but due to 8.5 hours driving before the game she nearly toppled off her horse. Fortunately her ever watchful teammate (myself), screamed some awareness into the coach's head and play was stopped before anything happened. This of course left me to jump into the last chukker of the game with 1:10 minutes left and a few hits for warmup. I can happily report that UVa did not score anymore on my watch, short as it was, but then neither did we. Anyways, all in all, the game went very well and our hopes for a trip to Nationals are still alive. We may return to UVa for Regionals in the spring, but no decisions have been made on that yet (our other option is to go to UConn which is about 45 minutes away). It's all very complicated. On a side note, our men's team got massacred 20-something to 2. A big thank you to Keith and Kirsty for making to drive down to watch, it was great to see you guys (though I did miss Dan), and perhaps I will see you guys again in the spring for Regionals. Oh- we did drive right by North East, Md which brought back lots of fun memories of Thanksgiving 2 years ago.

UVA-11 Yale-4

The Yale ladies fought valiantly but in the end they were delt a loss. A great display of ability by horse and rider. I can see why Kyla has become an enthusiast,it really looks challenging as well as great fun. We were able to learn quite a bit about the game from Kyla, who was available for commentary when she wasn't playing or attending to fainting teamates. It was a short visit but it was fun getting to see Ky and we enjoyed meeting her cousins, teamates and coach. I was hoping to show Dan a bit of UVA but he had a school function so 5th grade won out over college, though he did express regrets at having missed a rare visit with his cousin. Next on our busy weekend sched. is the Midget all-star game then the neighborhood holloween hayride followed by Sunday at fed-ex field for the skins v greenbay, an action packed weekend to say the least. Credit to Steve for introducing the blog, I have really enjoyed the family conversation and feel a little closer to everyone involved. I have also enjoyed displaying my spelling skills to world class scrabble players, nobody has contacted me yet to join the league but I expect a call anyday now.

Back and Recovering

We're back from Parents' Weekend. It was great to see Kyla. No more trips to the dining hall with the parents. When you're a junior, the name of the game is not having to eat at the dining hall. Besides a polo scrimmage and eating out, we went to see a great student show of Stephen Sondheim's "Company!" and we saw Kyla's roommate Alpana sing in her a capella group. We had a very nice dinner out with Kyla, Alpana, and Megan and their parents. While we were gone, poor Garrett ended up with the creeping crud that left him with a 102 degree fever and kept him on the big white telephone for three days. So much for the hot bachelor pad plans.

Kyla called to say the UVa game was over, Keith and Kirsti were there along with cousins Paige and Sarah. It seems Kyla actually got to play a little! Anyway, I'm sure we'll get the full report from those present -- hint, hint.

A few pics from the trip coming up this weekend.

Yale v Va.

Kirsti Dan and I have blocked out fri nite for a few chuckars at UVA We will all be rooting for Yale. That could be dangerous @ UVA football but we are hoping for a more mellow crowd. As something of a local my instincts tell me the history of fine horseflesh and riders may make this something of a challenge for Yale, however I know nothing of the Yale polo season and the latest line doesn't seem to be available to me. We look forward to seeing Kyla and introducing Dan to a nice State School. Tally Ho and good luck Ky

The Governator has been denied

http://tinyurl.com/6wtlq

>_> It had to be done

The Governator

In Hawaii, some of you were warily interested in my take on how Ahnold was doing as governor. Mixed is the best summary, I suppose. This one is interesting, though. The same godawful initiative process here in CA that brought Arnold into office is being used to propose state-sponsored funding for stem cell research. Arnold just endorsed it, breaking ranks with his party. Our auto-immune besieged family should send him a thank you note.

Yale Parents' Weekend

Dara and I are hopping on a plane to the East Coast on Thurs for yet another Yale Parents' Weekend, also known as "what the heck am I supposed to do with my parents!?!?" for most students. Kyla does a good job of keeping us entertained, though, and we can't wait to see her. After that, it's a quick visit to Tennessee to see Dick Beatty. Garrett and the vicious dogs will be holding down the fort.

Dad...

Have you even tried clicking my name? It gives you a choice of viewing 1 of 4 blogs, 1 would be Samurai, MY current blog, empty of a lot of posts because I recently redid the hmtl coding and made it all new and spiffy, but the posts got deleted, the next, "Canada" was originally made to post on while I was in canada, but it fell through, so it's empty, the other 2 are the harris blog, and beatty, also, all those articles, makes me feel really unsafe, thanks a lot >_>

Get Your Flu Shot, Or Else

Seems the alternative can prove fatal, at least here in California.

Family Military History

Thought Kyla might be interested in a couple of military men in her family tree. First is Nathan Blood, died 1775 at the battle of Bunker Hill. He's from Grandpa's (Harris) side of the family. I can send further info on him. The other is "Grandpa Hunnicutt," (from my mother's side), who was raised in Virginia but became a spy for Union general Hooker in the Civil War. Missy has actual manuscripts written by him about some of those exploits. Also a lot on him in the National Archives. Since you're interested in military history, someday you might want to check up on these guys.

UVa Details

So the game is Friday, Oct. 29th at 7pm. Directions can be found at: http://www.student.virginia.edu/%7Epolo/directions.html I actually have no clue about the set-up there or where things are, this is my first time to UVa. Anyways, I'd love it if anyone could make it, but no worries if you can't, I just wanted to leave you guys the option.

Re scorching pace

Adding momentum to the scorching pace missy refered to I have entered the blog. Once I cleared the mess from my stone tablet and chisel I noticed this computer thing is really catching on. Kyla please send me the details of your match at UVA Kirsti Dan and I will be going to NC that weekend and may be able to take in the action while in route. I love competion and a change of pace from football would be great. As some of you know our lives have been consumed by football this year. the current standings are ------------Midget Football 1st place. All those reports you see on tv about over zelous parents and coaches are true and most happened in front royal though none have rivaled the sausage king yet.------------------Keith's Fantasy team 2nd place After starting in the basement I am begining to climb the ladder I'm still on the lower rung of that ladder but I'm off the ground and enjoying it ------------------------Redskins season tickets 3rd place When Dan's midget team generated more offense in one game then the skins have all season I knew I wasn't going to have to worry about playoff tickets

Tawdry Suburban Lives

Shortly after we moved into our house here on Upland Road, a neighbor came by and left us a housewarming gift -- of sausages. It seems her husband was known as the Sausage King. Today I read this in the paper:

Three government meat inspectors were "ambushed'' and "executed'' by Stuart Charles Alexander, the self-anointed "Sausage King'' of San Leandro's Santos Linguisa Factory, because he was tired of getting cited for cooking his sausages at sub-standard temperatures, an Alameda County prosector said Tuesday.

Scary, eh. Now I wonder what was in that sausage. Oh well, they moved quite a while back. And I'm sure it's all out of my system by now.

You know dad.... if you're going to decide to try and make a blog, YOU COULD HAVE MADE IT COOLER, geez >_> you know html coding, make it all uber and awesome

Keeping up with the Beattys...

I knew Dad couldn't let the Harris family lag behind the Beattys on the blogger front here... so I guess I'll post the latest going ons from my life here for all the Harrises to enjoy as well.
I'm back at school, have been for a long time, in fact I'm heavily into midterms now (as in I've already had 4 and have 3 more to go, not to mention a huge lab report). But the classes I'm taking right now range from really painfully bad (physics) and just plain boring (primate intelligence) to very exciting (U.S. military history, 1775-1865) and quite cool (lab in nucleic acids). I'm also taking biochemistry which I'm kind of neutral on - not very exciting, but not a bad class either. Any way you look at it, it amounts to quite a bit of work right now, especially since I'm also in the process of applying for an internship with the FBI for next summer and trying to figure stuff out for my senior research. So much to do...
And then there's polo, which hasn't quite consumed my life yet, but is about to start to. Our first real home game is this Saturday against UConn. We've already been creamed by them once on their turf, hopefully this will not be such a painful loss. We'll be putting on a demo game for the parents next weekend just against ourselves, so hopefully that will be fun for everyone. The team is also making a trip down to UVa at the end of the month (Fri. Oct. 29th), if anyone is interested in attending that game I can post more details.
What else is going on in my life... not much, my life is pretty much polo and schoolwork. Lauren, my roommate that stayed with me in Hawaii, is in Ireland this semester so my other roommates and I are missing her. I promise there will be pics from Parents' Weekend posted. I have my own digital camera now (a gift from the lab I worked in the summer), so there'll be plenty of pictures.
Anyways, I hope everyone is doing well and I look forward to reading about how everyone is doing.

We're in the new millennium now...

First we had Mike getting a cellphone. Then it was an internet connection, email, and downloading. Now it's 10g & blogging. Where will it all end??? We're setting a scorching pace here as we enter the new millennium.

We'll be looking for pictures from the parents' weekend at Yale in addition to Thomas.

Let's Give This a Try

Recently, Paige started the Beatty blog, and it seems like a roaring success for a far-flung family to keep in touch. With Mom, Missy, Ursula (and by proxy A.J.), Keith (and maybe we can drag Kirsti in, too) online, I thought maybe the time had come to give it a shot. You don't need to post anything profound or long, but any news or thoughts or things you saw that were interesting. The trick is to keep it going, let everyone know what's going on in your lives. Picture posting is a bit of a pain, but it's doable -- so I expect to see some Thomas pics here!