Most of this past Sunday was spent finishing up a first workable stab at solving a small problem in Web development that I'd been thinking about for a long time. I don't ask for much: just a simple little template system that works well for a set of HTML documents which are mostly static, as opposed to a template system that's only really appropriate for writing highly dynamic Web applications. You know, just a little something that makes it easy to factor out the common bits of information that should be the same for all pages in a Web site so you can edit the common stuff in just one place and have the change propogate to all pages on the site.

My brother Seth and his girlfriend Rachel took today off to come north to visit Tzfat. They arrived this evening between 6 and 7. Becca made us yummy dinner of pasta with fish sauce, and we had dessert on cake and on some luscious Godiva white chocolate liqueur that Rebecca had picked in the duty-free in Paris on our way home to Israel. Ashira entertained us endlessly, of course, and only continues to grow more assertive and expressive. Her newest trick is saying "uh-oh!" at events that usually involve her launching an object into space, and I must attest that it is the cutest thing in the world. Rachel had a grand little adventure getting thoroughly lost in the labyrinth that is the Tzfat roadway system while driving back to Becca and Avraham's house after going out to visit a family she knows in town, but she found her way in the end with much telephone guidance from Rebecca. It was generally an evening well filled with quality hanging out time with most of my siblings. Although I missed the last couple hours of the evening: the liquor made me so sleepy that I conked out right on the hard stone floor. It was amazingly uncomfortable when I got up, but it seems these bones are still young enough to spring back from such abuse in practically no time. Thank G-d for small favors.