Mom and baby continue to do well. These pictures were taken today, with Luke still less than 24 hours old.

Earlier this evening (August 28th at 10:23 P.M. Mountain to be exact), Rachel delivered an 8 lbs 2 oz boy we have named Luke Laurin Westhoff. Laurin after Rachel's father and Luke in honor of my Dad who on many occasions has let it be known that if he ever had another boy, he was going to name him Luke. I don't know if you can appreciate it from the pictures, but Luke looks very much like Chase, who will no doubt be pleased to learn of the resemblance. Special thanks to our neighbor Liz for watching the kids all day (and night) while we were in the hospital.

Last Friday Dunn, Zach and I took the bus from Tacoma to Seattle’s downtown area on a field trip of sorts. I hadn’t realized it but this was the first time they remember ever being downtown in a big city (they had heretofore been left at home for obvious reasons).

Guerir quelquefois, soulager souvent, consoler toujours. [to cure sometimes, to relieve often, to comfort always]

As many of you know I am planning to take Dunn to Japan this spring to visit my friend Warren. In the spirit of preparation for the trip, Dunn and I have started reading books on Japan and Japanese culture. Warren also suggested that Dunn might enjoy a back-to-back viewing of the 1954 Japanese film Seven Samurai (Shichinin no samurai) and the 1960 cowboy-western remake of it, The Magnificent Seven. We watched both this past week and surprisingly, Dunn and I both liked the Seven Samurai better, even though it was a full hour longer, black & white and in Japanese with English sub-titles. It was interesting to see the cultural differences between the two, particlarly concerning the love-interest in either film. Check them out sometime--a great study in applied cinematic anthropology.

Check out the individual entry pages--now everyone has their own color-coded "newer" and "older" arrows.

I have put Chase into the action! This is the new banner for his page (he's been asking me to make a picture of him fighting droids ever since he saw Zach taking on the orc).

Any given website will look a little different depending on what operating system you are running and what browser you are using. This is what Westhoff.net looks like to me, the webmaster (i.e., what it is "supposed" to look like). Please leave a comment to this message and tell me what operating system and what browser you are using (hint, if you're using Internet Explorer click the help button on your menu bar and select "About Internet Explorer" to see what version you have), and if the site looks much different to you than in the picture. I'm not interested in making the site compliant for everyone in the universe, but at least the family ought to be able to see it as it's intended.

Today I took the bus to Seattle for my Orthopedics rotation. "Ortho" is a favorite "EM2" (Second year Emergency Medicine Resident) rotation because you can basically be a huge slacker, um...I mean, it is a great opportunity for independent learning. I set my own hours and pretty much show up whenever I want to; it's pretty much an anomally, almost unprecidented in my medical education with the possible exception of something called the "fourth year of medical school," but I digress.