Where's The Good Humor Man?

Catherine is down in Richmond for the weekend (went down yesterday), so Quinn gets to pick what we're doing this weekend. And since the weather was so nice today, it makes perfect sense that he picked something to do indoors (sigh). So we all headed off for a couple of games of bowling.


I was about to call the police after getting robbed of so many strikes in the first game. I blame the lanes. I buried the ball in the pocket a bunch of times and the four pin would just sit there and wobble, taunting me.




This was the first time Quinn ever played an entire game without bumpers. And in addition to that change, I also tried teach him how to roll the ball instead of doing his normal shot put throw. The first couple of tries he didn't do very well rolling it (went into the gutter pretty fast) and he didn't seem to want to stick with it. So during the second game I eventually let him start bowling for me so he could practice. And after several frames, he got a lot better. He still can't do a full approach, but now he can stand at the line and roll the ball like he's suppose to (and it'll even hit some pins sometimes).


After bowling we went home and Ginger tried to take a nap while Quinn and I played outside. We had been out for a bit when all of a sudden we started hearing a Good Humor Man ice cream truck. Quinn's never been allowed to get ice cream from the roving truck before (because of Catherine's nut allergies), but since Catherine is in Richmond we decided to go get some.


We ran all over the neighborhood listening for the truck trying to find it and it always seemed to be pulling away from us. And wouldn't you know it, when we eventually gave up and started heading back home, we found it right down the street from our house.

I Sense A Disturbance In The Force...

Much like how I acquired the DC Stamps, and how I will acquire the Marvel Stamps once they come out, I will more than likely get the newly proposed Star Wars Stamps also (they'll be released on May 25 this year). I'm not sure why I'm doing this, I don't even collect stamps. But they went ahead and included a Boba Fett stamp. So how could I not get them? And they're even having a contest so you can pick your favorite. And that's where you come in. Currently the top vote getter appears to be the one of Luke on Tattoine. I'm sorry, but as iconic as that image is, there's no way that's better than Boba Fett. So everyone go vote for Boba Fett!

Arrrr Matey!

Ginger's still not feeling too great. And I get the feeling that Quinn is trying to take advantage of that fact by doing some boundary exploring while she's not feeling well. But enough about that, moving on to something really important...

My Pirate Name!

My pirate name is:

Dirty James Bonney

You're the pirate everyone else wants to throw in the ocean -- not to get rid of you, you understand; just to get rid of the smell. You can be a little bit unpredictable, but a pirate's life is far from full of certainties, so that fits in pretty well. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

Not quite the coolest name I could have gotten. My guess is I apparently would be a pretty lame pirate.

Blow Mom, Blow!

Catherine was feeling better today. Too bad Ginger wasn't since she seems to have picked up something from somewhere. But the fact that Ginger wasn't feeling well didn't stop us from having to do a mini birthday celebration for her tonight. Catherine was adamant that we do it tonight since she didn't get to have any the cake she helped make last night. Everyone had some of the cake afterwards and it certainly seemed as if everyone enjoyed it (well, except me, I didn't have any since I'm not a big fan of chocolate cake).

I watched Assault on Precinct 13 tonight. I know this is a remake, but I never saw the original so it was all new to me. And I must say, I really liked this movie. It's basically an action - shoot'em up movie, and for the most part it is really well done. And I don't know that I've seen Laurence Fishburne in a lot of movies, but the character he played here might as well have been Morpheus from the Matrix (and no, I don't think that's a bad thing).

Dad Is Great, Makes Us The Chocolate Cake

Some things in hindsight seem pretty obvious. For example, let's say your daughter isn't feeling well, and is complaining about feeling bad. That's probably not a good time to give her scrambled eggs for dinner. Now she may not have thrown up because she was feeling bad though, since it happened right after she choked on something. I didn't even realize she was choking until Ginger got my attention. That whole episode ranked up there on the pretty scary scale. So it's possible she threw up because she just hadn't fully recovered from the choking yet and this was her body's way of trying to fix itself. Whatever the reason was, it wasn't pretty.


All that happened later in the night, before that I had the kids helping me make Ginger's birthday cake. Once the mix was made and the cake was baking is when the incident with Catherine occurred. Unfortunately after that we decided to postpone having the cake and any celebration till Catherine was feeling better and could join us. Quinn and I finished off the icing while Ginger put Catherine to bed. Quinn's in his pajamas in the pictures because after making the cake he was covered in cocoa and cooking stuff (somehow, and I still don't quite understand how this happened, he had cocoa on his back), so we just had him change into his pjs. And as you can see below, Quinn apparently really liked the chocolate icing. Not sure this qualifies as eating a new food though.

Kid Art

So I thought I would show off some art the kids made yesterday. They were bible story related drawings. Catherine's is pretty generic and she just drew some angels. I actually thought she did a really good job fleshing them out for her age.


Next up we have Quinn who apparently took the minimalistic approach to making a picture. This is a representation of the story of the adulteress. You know, the one where the evil Pharisees were trying to trick Jesus and get him to condemn the woman who had been caught having an affair. It's the one where in the end he diffused the situation by saying "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." The thing I can't tell you though is who is who in the picture. I'm fairly certain the woman is the one with no legs. Maybe that's a dress covering up her legs. Although she seems awful happy for someone in such a dire situation. I think Jesus is the guy with no arms on the left because I'm inclined to believe the guy on the right is suppose to be a Pharisee since I think he's holding a rock and it looks as if he might have a beard (and as anyone who's watched Star Trek can tell you, evil counterparts always have facial hair).

One Giant Leap

Sunday was absolutely gorgeous. A spectacular day. Temperatures in the 70s. Of course we had to have lunch out on the deck with it being that nice.


After lunch I think the kids stayed outside for almost the entire afternoon. They played in the sandbox. They played some basketball. Then Quinn went around front and played some golf.




At some point I suggested breaking out the moon bounce. So we got that out and they played in that for a bit. But after a fair amount of time they got bored with simply jumping around inside it.







They did find something that kept them entertained though, they started getting into the moon bounce by climbing over the sides instead of just using the door like a normal person would. This game kept them occupied for a long time. Then after that they would deflate it and crawl through the collapsed pieces, then reinflate it and then start the whole process over again.


They eventually switched over to baseball briefly, but that didn't really take and then it was back to the moon bounce. They also got some bike riding in while I was putting away the moon bounce, and by then it was definitely time to head in for dinner. They should be good and tired tonight I would think (and hope).






The only bad thing about this is that all the trees seem to be starting to bud, which means that the next couple months will probably knock Quinn for a loop with his allergies. He already seems to be having a bit of trouble breathing, but at this point I don't know whether that's because of allergies or whether he has picked up a cold or something.

Electric Car

Have I mentioned recently how disappointed I am with the performance of my small hand held point and shoot Nikon camera? On Saturday one of the things we did was venture out to the toy store. The kids had built up some allowance money (a whopping $5) and it was burning holes in their pockets in their desire to spend it. We went by Toys 'R' Us which, as is usually the case, turned into "let's look and play with everything in the store" more than let me find an item in my price range I can buy.


Quinn was initially distracted big time by some plastic lightsabers. For someone that's never actually seen Star Wars, he sure seems to be fascinated with it and knows a fair amount about the movies. As we are wont to do, we eventually ended up in the electric car area. Quinn probably killed almost an hour there.




I think he tried out every single car there at least once (and a couple he came back to multiple times). Eventually Catherine showed up and did the same thing. I tried getting some pictures of them with the camera, but the flash (which is needed indoors) completely whitewashes the photos and causes horrendous red eye (although the red eye isn't actually red, and is more white with tinges of purple). All of which still wouldn't be a problem if Picasa, Photoshop Elements or Gimp were able to eliminate the red eye.


I must have spent several hours trying different techniques last night, all to no avail. They all either completely miss some spots, or worse make the eyes look like nothing else in the picture (I think the fact that it's not a true red throws off the capabilities built to specifically deal with red eye). Eventually I just gave up and decided I couldn't deal with it anymore (I think was was just after 3 AM) and decided I wouldn't have those pictures that needed fixing on the blog.


So what I've learned from all that was you shouldn't take straight on shots with that camera, but have them facing another direction (since the only way to deal with the red eye issue as far as I can tell is to simply not have it in the picture to begin with).

Personalized Pottery

Rained most of the day, so we decided to venture out for an activity. We went to a make your own pottery place. I'm writing up the text now, but due to Ginger insisting there be a media blackout on the events that transpired at the pottery place we won't be showing any pictures. That's because the kids made pottery for the grandmothers for Mother's day (which is still a couple of months off).


It was a decent way to pass a couple of hours. The kids enjoyed it. Quinn at first was insisting that he didn't want to paint anything, but as the time went on he ended up getting upset near the end because we wouldn't keep buying more things for him to paint. Catherine seems to be an artist at heart, she was really into it.


While we were there I helped the kids create a coffee cup for Ginger for her birthday that's coming up soon. Yes, she saw it, but since it's something the kids made themselves, I figure she doesn't need to be completely surprised by it.


Ginger also made a plate for herself that had the kids handprints on it (then added in a caterpillar and flowers made from the kid's finger prints).

Dinner Outdoors

It was a really nice day today. So nice in fact that when I got home, the kids were playing out back on the deck without needing coats. And we were able to have dinner out on the deck for the first time this year. Although we had to hurry through dinner since Ginger needed to go back to the school to attend a lecture about the school's elementary program. For the most part dinner was uneventful, although during dinner Quinn did inform us that he has two girlfriends at school (which made me think about Scott's swinging comment from yesterday).


With the weather as nice as it is now, it's hard to believe that it was just mere days ago that we were having frost covering the ground in the mornings.

The Swing Era

It's only taken almost six years now, but Quinn has finally learned how to swing on his own without needing (or more importantly, wanting) to be pushed. It's the little things (in this case, the very little things).

Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex is an anime series. After having just finished it I can say that this is without a doubt one of the best anime series I've seen. The story (as is the case with a lot of anime) is set in the future (the year is 2030 I believe). The story is about a secret government agency call Section 9, a fictional division of the real Japanese National Public Safety Commission. The show's main character is the squad leader, Major Motoko Kusanagi, or simply the Major as she's referred to throughout the show. She is a full cyborg who's typical work dress is a Flashdance ripoff. And therein lies the one nitpick I have with the show. It's that a government official would be wearing a leotard with leg warmers on a daily basis and on missions. It's obviously there intentionally so they can use her dress (and by dress, I mean lack thereof) to show gratuitous shots of the Major. I believe I first noticed this when the camera was placed directly behind the seat of a motorcycle type vehicle as the Major was disembarking.


At it's heart this is a cop show. Think Hill Street Blues, but with lots of high tech equipment. All the tech used seems feasible. All the character on the team have cybernetic implants. These are basically wireless nodes that allow them to communicate with anyone else who has an implant. There are eight members of the team, but four of the are the primary focus: The Major, Batou, Togusa and the Chief. The stories are either "done in ones" or arcs that last an episode or two (with the last cluster of episodes being one long arc). The stories are top notch and really well done, and have a lot of thought put into them. Since several characters are have undergone full cyberization there are a lot of philosophical aspects to the show as well since it causes characters to examine their definition of whether they have a ghost (or soul) after having transferred fully over to cyborg bodies. Overall the show is really well done, and easily the best anime series I've seen this side of Cowboy Beebop (and to be honest, I think it might even be better than that, which I know is considered heresy to some).


The show isn't lacking action either. There is usually at least one big action sequence per episode, and sometimes two. Since some character are full cyborgs (the Major and Batou) you can see them doing fancy Matrix type fighting (lots of jumping and acrobatics sans the slow-mo).


What I've been amazed by is how well these animated series can be done. Especially when I compare it to regular live TV that's being produced here in the States, the quality of the live shows pales in comparison. It's probably partly due to the fact that anime series have a limited existence, usually it's one season (26 episiodes) and that's it. So the story has very defined arcs and acts to them, which also imparts a feeling of closure when the credits role on the last episode of a season (unlike say, Lost, where I've found you never seem to get any closer to getting closure).

Videos!

So here's a highlight video of some stuff from Catherine's Birthday party last month. Took me long enough to get to this. I'm guessing not too many people are going to be interested in watching the whole thing (it's just under five minutes).

And I don't typically embed other people's videos here, but I saw a couple that I think are worth checking out, so I'll give you the links instead of embedding them.

First up, a human bungee sling shot. This looks totally awesome. Someone build one of these (and then convince Ginger to allow me to try it).

Next we have guy exiting a parking garage. The dude apparently decides to leave his car in drive while he opens the garage door. Hilarity ensues.

Build elaborate sand castles, film blowing them up with some high speed film then play it backwards. Do another set because it's cool.

And finally one for the kids. Human slinkies!

And here's a Miss Manners question that was generated by an actual event that occurred as I was about to leave work the other day. In this day and age of ever increasing availability and access, what are the limits? I hit the head before leaving work and another guy in the restroom gets a cell phone call and then proceeds to answer it. Is the call really that important? Now maybe it's just me, but couldn't the call wait the two or three minutes till he's out of the bathroom. A men's bathroom just seems like it could generate all kinds of unwanted extraneous noise that a caller probably has no interest in hearing.

It's Cold Outside

Even though it looked nice and warm outside today, it wasn't that warm. Well, it may have been earlier, and one point the thermometer on the deck was reading low 60s, but that might have been because it was in the sun. By the time I eventually took the kids out for a bit, it felt much colder than that.


Quinn initially acted as catcher for Catherine while I was the pitcher. Why was he wearing the football helmet? Because he knows catchers need a mask. And it's a good thing he was wearing it since Catherine hit him in the head four times in a row when swinging her bat.


Catherine still hasn't gotten the coordination down just yet to hit a pitched ball. So to keep her from getting frustrated and just giving up, we broke out a tee for her to use for hitting. She still had trouble hitting just the ball and not taking out the tee also, but she had a lot more fun using the tee.


Then they switched it up. Here's Quinn pulling a Babe Ruth and calling his shot. Pretty sure he picked that up from me doing it to him once a long time ago, I was a bit surprised he remembered it to be honest.

Going Once! Going Twice! Sold!

Tonight was the silent (and some live) auction that was put together to help the kid's school raise money. Ginger was one of the coordinators and has been super busy throughout this past week helping organize the event. She's basically had no free time for past three nights, which initially I took advantage of to catch on some TV, but then I got sucked into helping the last night.




Part of the reason things were so hectic towards the end was that going into the week they only had around forty items to auction, whereas last year they had seventy some. So as the week went on, a ton of last minute items to add showed up and since Ginger was the one putting together the flyer descriptions and sign up sheets, that meant a lot of extra last minute work. In case you're wondering, they did eventually end up with over seventy items.


The Auction mentality is kind of strange. There were a couple of items that were duplicates (i.e. there were two piano lessons, both the same and from the same person, as well as the same of a couple other duplicate items). We initially were the only bid on either piano lesson, then someone came in out outbid us, but still no one had bid on the second lesson yet, so I moved our initial bid from the one we were now losing over to the other one, and we won that one.


For most part the auction was simply walk around and write down your bid. I got outbid on a couple of things (I thought I was going to be able to pick up a Nintendo DS for under $100, but eventually it ended up at $170), but I did win a set of ceramic figurines from Disney's Fantasia (Ginger asked which kid they were for, but I couldn't bring myself to explain that they were for me). We also got into a bidding war on some American Girl children's books that we eventually won (I think we paid close to twice what they're actually worth). I think whoever put together that set might have pulled one of the wrong books, because five of the books are about Molly and one is about Emily. Ginger also signed up for some Girl's Night Out event and we won two hours of piano lessons that I mentioned above. I'm guessing we will probably give the lesson to Quinn. I fully expect him to be playing the Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto #3 flawlessly after the lesson.

The biggest surprise of the night came during the live auction, when a friendship quilt that was made by all the elementary kids ended up fetching $1100. Apparently two of the kid's Moms got into a bidding war for it.




And no one had told me we were going to have to get dressed up for this event. I feel like I got hoodwinked on that since at the last minute before we left Ginger tells me it's time to go put on my suit. In addition to it being an auction, there was also wine and beer tasting. I think some of the people there might have been there more for that than for the actual auction. Guess it was appropriate though since it was Saint Patrick's Day.




Once the bid sheets were collected and live auction was over, things got a little slow (mainly because Ginger had to be there till the very end). So I wandered around the house and took some pictures of the flowers they had out on display. Just something to pass the time really. I didn't notice that white strip of paper in the one set of flowers until I got home and looked at the pictures. Which is shame because it wasn't a bad shot other than that.