So it was TV turn off week last week. I feel kind of bad in that we didn't turn off the TV. The kids normally don't watch TV though, so I kind of justify it with that. And last week was no different, not sure they really watched anything at all last week. And then to add insult to injury, Earth Day was on the 20th and I didn't even know (I learned during the day when I did a Google search and the Google image was something to do with Earth day). In fact, my reputation as the recycling police at work has even been relegated almost into obscurity. Many new hires don't even realize my feelings on the subject and will sometimes throw away soda cans right in front of me (back when we were still a relatively small company, that would never happen and I had most people trained to at least do the right thing if I was around). So we didn't turn off the TV, and we didn't do anything for Earth Day. Ginger and I did nothing last week to curb our own TV watching (we didn't watch shows if they were repeats, but we don't watch repeats normally, so that wasn't exactly anything different). I feel somewhat hypocritical about the fact that we don't really let the kids watch TV, but I grew up watching it all the time and I still watch more than a fair amount. I'm just waiting for the day when they're teenagers and have become couch potatoes and I walk in and yell "Who taught to watch TV all the time?" And they'll respond with tears in their eyes, "We learned it by watching you!" (raise your hand if you remember that drug ad).
Quinn was an eating machine tonight at dinner. It was all fast food, so none of it was really any good for him, but he ate a ton (which these days is really unusual for him). He ate chicken fries, a nugget or two, most of an order of onion rings, fries, and then he had a frosty for dessert.
We got the proofs from where the kids had a professional studio sitting today. And I have to say, I didn't see anything overly impressive with the photos. Pretty sure I've taken some shots that were just as good as some of the pics from the sitting. They do look a bit more professional than stuff I take since it's obviously a studio setting and things are neat (as opposed to pictures I take around the house which is usually in various states of disarray with the kids toys everywhere). And you can tell multiple flashes were used, but really other than all that stuff it wasn't that much better than my stuff. Which now that I've written it all out I can see why it is better than stuff I do.
I see after writing all this about the kid's pictures, I realize I didn't take any new pictures today, so I have nothing with the kids to put up. Therefore you get to see some more random shots for the past week. Neither shot is particularly impressive, but when you go to post you use the pictures you have, not the pictures you want.
What is it with kids waking up early on the weekends? Weekdays we practically have to drag them out of bed to get them ready to go to school. The weekend comes and when they should be able to sleep in and catch up on some much needed sleep they're up at 6 AM (well, Quinn is anyway). Seriously, is it simply the whole "I know I don't have to go to school" thing or what? Both yesterday and today Quinn is up before the crack of dawn. I really do think it's because he knows the days of the week now and knows which days he doesn't have to go to school, but I have no proof of that.
So today we got to sample the cake Ginger baked as a test to see if it was good for Quinn's Birthday party next week. Of course Quinn insisted we put candles on the cake to make it authentic. We drew the line at singing though. Both kids basically just ate the frosting and ignored the cake. I personally liked the cake better than the frosting. Still not a fan of chocolate cake, but it's not my birthday, so I don't get a lot of say in that decision (nor do I expect to have any).
With it being such a nice day, I had the kids outside for a bit playing on the moon bounce. And I don't know about anyone else, but we've got little pieces of white fluff that are blowing through the air around here and there are so many of them at times it looks like it's snowing. It's very odd. Ginger says they're pieces of dandilions, but I'm not so sure, I think they're seedlings from a tree or something, but I'm not the nature guy so I can't say for sure.
The kids didn't play normally on the moon bounce for long. It quickly devolved into a game of climbing over the edge again. Quinn was a boy on a mission trying to get up on top of the higher edge while it was inflated. He never quite made it with any control (although he did get up there once and was somewhat flung off when he was trying to move). And then later the game changed to turning the moon bounce off and either letting it collapse on them while they were in it, or crawling completely under it when it was deflated. Guess they've just gotten bored with using it as the manufacture "intended" I guess.
As you can see, the weather today was really nice. Although it was overcast for most of the day, which made getting good kid pictures challenging at best. I tried getting a couple of portrait shots of Catherine, but didn't end up with anything spectacular.
And finally, here's a couple of pics from the Japanese Maple (at least I think that's what kind of tree it is). The thing I found fascinating about these shots is how drab the tree normally looks (dark purple leaves) and how bright and colorful the leaves look in these pictures (which are untouched except for cropping). The secret (if you want to call it that) is that I took the shots from underneath the leaves with the sun above. It ended up really bringing out the colors.
Took the kids bowling today with Rob and his kids. I had forgotten how long bowling can take when you have the littler ones there. The last couple of times I've gone I've just taken Quinn. Adding in Catherine with the ramp (and then later Rob's kids with the ramp) really slows the process down. To the point where normally we can bowl a couple of games, but today we were only able to get through one game. I took my camera, but left the memory card at home in the computer (D'oh!), so I have nothing decent as far as photos of the event (I took the small handheld, but it just doesn't do well inside and I basically use it for taking movies these days). Rob took their fancy new Nikon D80 camera, so maybe I can scrounge a couple of the shots he took at some point.
The game between the kids was a nail biter there at the end. I thought for sure Catherine had clenched a win in the tenth by getting a spare and then a strike, but Quinn then managed to get a spare and the exact number of pins needed to pass Catherine by 1 point at the very end.
And I had a less than average day, but considering the poor quality of lanes at the place we were at, I thought I did okay. And if you're wondering how Rob did, not too good. Rob's normally a better bowler than I am, but today's performance can be excused since he just pulled a Steve Austin rebuilding his leg several months ago (minus the bionic stuff). Add to that the fact that he didn't remember to bring his own ball and got stuck using one of the house balls (which I swear sounded like something from the Flintstones as it would 'roll' down the lane) and it's easy to see why he was didn't do as well as he normally does.
After bowling we went by Red Robin for lunch. Our kids were exhausted at this point. Quinn was lying down in a booth at times during dinner and Catherine insisted on being held by or sitting next to Ginger. They sort of got a second wind once we got home though. We went outside for maybe ten minutes in the afternoon before it started sprinkling rain. The kids played 'taxi' while we were outside, which is a fancy way of saying the conned me into letting them play in my car.
Ginger was out bright and early this morning to get to the book fair and volunteer early this morning. Catherine's fever was gone as of midday yesterday, so she was back in school today. And since the kids went with Ginger this morning, they were both at school bright and early.
The picture above is Quinn after he's put together the leftover pieces of the old faucet. I have no idea why, but he thinks it's just the coolest thing to have the old faucet there (which he's convinced is simply there for his own personal amusement). He certainly seems to enjoy putting all the pieces back together again.
And I wish I could say I didn't call this one, but on Monday I said
Anyway, I have this sneaky feeling that Drive is going to end up going the way of previous Tim Minear shows (like Angel, Firefly, Wonderfalls, all of which is a fancy way of saying it'll probably be canceled soon).
I must be prescient because FOX has officially canceled the show already. Perhaps the network read my blog on Monday and decided that the handwriting was on the wall and canceled it. Ok, that probably wasn't it and it deals more with they felt the show wasn't bringing in viewers to 24 which came on after it. You see, 24's viewership is down, so the network has decided it's because of the lead in instead of considering that it might have something to do with the fact that 24 is crap this season (this is a statistically determined conclusion derived from my non-random sampling of two people that are actually watching it this season). All of this raises the question of will ruggedly handsome Nathan Fillion ever find regular work? And I was just starting to really get into the theme song for the show also (I still can't find the song on iTunes). Drive was pulled after airing only three times. That's gotta be close to some kind of record. Although now that I think about it I'm fairly certain that The Paula Poundstone Show topped it by only lasting one episode (sorry John, I know you liked her, but that show was a train wreck).
I watched Corpse Bride the other night. I've had this DVD from Netflix for almost two weeks, but just could never motivate myself enough to sit down and watch it for some reason. It's a strange movie. But it's also a Tim Burton movie, so saying it's strange is a bit redundant. The movie has a familiar feel to it if you've seen The Nightmare Before Christmas since it uses the same type of stop-motion-animation technique. The one thing I found really interesting was the use of color throughout the movie. The movie starts out and everything is gray, dark, subdued and solemn. The people, the town, everything. But later when the locale switches to the realm of the dead, it becomes this colorful, loud and fun place. Not sure if that's suppose represent some underlying message about the difference between the enjoyment of life and death, but if there's a message there I don't know what it is. It did make for an interesting juxtaposition though. Like most animated shows, the film also features several scenes where characters will spontaneously break into song. Although none of these songs are ones you would necessarily want your kids singing since they mostly deal with various darker themes. And since we're talking about the songs, the soundtrack is by Danny Elfman, so you already know it's good. Elfman is probably my favorite "Hey I recognize that style" composer behind John Williams. In fact, those two might be the only ones where I can distinguish the composer from hearing the work, often even if I've never heard the score before. There's no reason I shouldn't have loved this film. And yet I wasn't overly enthusiastic about it. Maybe it's because as the movie goes on you can see where the bride's story is going to end. Maybe it's because it's so much like The Nightmare Before Christmas that it's hard to judge this on it's own instead of thinking of it as a derivative work. Maybe the story isn't as compelling as it could be. It certainly wasn't a bad movie by any stretch, but the movie just didn't wow me. In the end (no pun intended) it was an enjoyable movie to watch and at times entertaining.
If you're looking for an entertaining or amusing update, this one isn't it. And no comments from the peanut gallery about how updates normally aren't entertaining or amusing (although since Catherine's allergic to peanuts, I might need to change the name of the gallery, maybe the lawn seats gallery). No school for Catherine today, but she's doing much better it seems, and was able to go to the book fair this afternoon while Ginger was volunteering (from 3PM on). I really need to get Ginger to stop volunteering, every time she's there she ends up buying more books. Ginger called me around four saying Catherine was bored and wanted to go home, but I didn't get the message until around five, and by the time I got there they were all getting ready to go home already. Quinn evidently had a blast all afternoon playing out back on the playground while Catherine was inside where Ginger was and playing hide and seek with the daughter of one of the other volunteers (guess she got over being bored).
The pictures are with the small handheld Nikon, what's why they're so bad.
I ended up getting to work late this morning as I predicted, but it wasn't because of the faucet. It was because Catherine's sick (I was pretty sure she was looking a bit run down on Sunday). Normally Ginger would be able to stay at home with her, but it just so happened that today was the first day of the school book fair and Ginger had volunteered to work the morning shift, so I got to stay at home with Catherine while Ginger went to the school (the other alternative was I could have taken Ginger's place, but that wasn't going to happen). Catherine wasn't that bad off this morning, just a mild temperature. But tonight she was really looking run down. I doubt she's going to school tomorrow at this rate.
Now the I've put in the new tap, I think the next project will be trying to seed the hill in our backyard. The grass has been eroding away for a while, but over the last six months it's gotten really bad in a couple of places. Just for the record, the spots where it's bad aren't even the spots were we sled in the winter. The ones that look like lines are obviously water run off, so I'm not sure how much I can do about those, but I have no clue what's causing all the erosion in the huge area that's closest to the camera. Anyone have any hints as to how to go about fixing this? How much topsoil do I need to buy?
And here's a picture where I was messing around with Gimp to try some different techniques for going to black and white. Not sure I'm thrilled with the results, but if nothing else it's something different than what I could do in Picasa.
It only took about two hours (which included on more spontaneous trip to Home Depot), but the new faucet is installed. I went ahead and replaced both the old valves since I was in there. I'm hesitant to claim victory just yet though, since last time I did that it turned out there was a leak and it ended up costing even more to repair the water damaged drywall. But this time I know what to look for, so I'm feeling a bit more confident. That and I've gone back and checked several times now and I've seen no signs of any leaking at all. The only minor problem I had was when I turned off the main water line, that connector started leaking for a bit (which in the back of my mind I saw this whole thing turning into a scene out of a movie like the Money Pit or something). But it seems to not be leaking now, so it's all good.
Once I finally finished with the faucet there was only enough time for us to watch one TV show, Heroes (which finally returned to the airwaves tonight after being off for about six weeks) or Drive. Like there was really any choice. But boo to the fact that even though I set up the TiVo to record an extra minute of Heroes it still didn't get the very last bit. So now I'll have to wait till it's up online just to see what I missed in what was probably the last five seconds. Anyway, I have this sneaky feeling that Drive is going to end up going the way of previous Tim Minear shows (like Angel, Firefly, Wonderfalls, all of which is a fancy way of saying it'll probably be canceled soon).
Had a really nice day today. Almost a bit too hot to be honest (apparently we're just not going to have any weather that's comfortable, we're going to go straight from a bit too cold to it being too hot). The kids played outside some, Quinn more so than Catherine.
Catherine seemed a bit sluggish today (at least compared to her normal routine). She's either getting knocked for a loop by the high pollen counts or starting to come down with something. Could easily be the pollen, I don't have what would be called allergies, but for the past two days I've been hit pretty hard by the high pollen count myself.
We grilled out for dinner (it was too nice not to), and I had Quinn help make and cook a mini hamburger. He had promised a couple weeks ago that he would cook and at least try a hamburger (pretty sure it was his normal scam of pushing off stuff until later hoping we're going to forget it). Anyway, I had been mentioning the project to him almost daily in order for him to remember what he had promised. He seemed pretty excited about making it and cooking it, but not so much with the eating it. He did technically try a bite (although the bite was so minuscule that it's hard to really even say he tried it). Of course the end result was he claimed he liked it, but then refused to eat anymore of it (which is his typical modus operandi these days).
In fact, the day was so nice that I didn't end up starting my weekend project of replacing the kitchen faucet until late tonight (it's been leaking for almost a year, so it's about time to think about fixing it). Waiting until night ended up being a huge tactical mistake. You know how when you start a project, sometimes it requires that one last trip to the hardware store. Starting it at 9 tonight meant that the hardware store was already closed. The problem I ran into was when I turned the water off under the sink, it didn't actually turn off the water all the way. There's a constant drip that comes out. So I'm thinking the shutoff valve is who knows how old and probably needs to be replaced. Which normally wouldn't be a big deal, I would just wait until tomorrow and get a valve from Home Depot. The thing is that turning the valve 'off' caused the valve itself to start leaking under the sink (like it's probably been bad for a while, but by turning it I really loosened something). It's a slow leak, so I just have a bowl under there catching the water at the moment, but I have this fear of this turning into another disaster like when I tried to replace the bathroom faucets and initially failed. I think I have my work cut out for me tomorrow night. This would have to go down on the night Heroes is back from it's hiatus (which reminds me that I need to catch up reading the online comic before tomorrow night). I'm just going to have to find where the main water supply is now though (although it was the hot water, so maybe I can just cut it off at the water heater). If I'm not at work on Tuesday, you can probably assume it's due to this somehow.
Well, my wallet showed up in the mail today. It's too bad, I was kind of enjoying being "off the grid" with no way for the 'the man' to track me for a couple days (plus, since I didn't have my driver's license, Ginger wasn't letting me take the kids to school in the morning and she was doing it). Although since I was online a lot, I guess I wasn't but so far off the grid. Still the idea of being a man with no identity for a couple of days was kind of cool. Right up until I needed to buy something anyway.
I was planning on putting up another photo or two from this past weekend, but blogger seems to be having some picture issues at the moment, so I'm thinking there's probably not much point to even trying to post pictures tonight. My main page seems to displaying pictures fine (at least it is at the time I'm writing this), but all the archived posts have no pictures displaying. Makes me wish I had done what Barry did and started hosting all my pictures on some other server and using the links in my posts (although after taking a look at Barry's blog, it seems as if he got tired of the extra work and just started using blogger for photos again since on his archived pages a lot of his pictures are missing also). The odd thing is if I see all the pictures in picasaweb. So the servers that handle those requests (the ones named lh[3-6].google.com) seem to still be able to access the pictures, but for some reason the blogger picture servers (bp[0-3].blogger.com) don't see them. Maybe all the mounts older than a couple weeks got removed or something. Whatever mojo they were using to connect those servers definitely seems to be broken at the moment. What's really odd is John claims he can see some of the pictures that I can't (I'm pretty convinced he's on crack though).
Hmmm, and now right before I submit this post, it appears that the problem is that picasa is offline for maintenance, but they forgot to actually inform anyone. And the '30 minutes' is actually taking significantly longer than 30 minutes. Lovely.
Well, here we are on "the day after", and all the news stations still seem to be doing nothing but reporting on the incident at Tech. It seems to be 24 hour continuous coverage of it. I'm really ready for the media to move onto something else (anything else). Part of me is worried that by giving it all this attention they're almost asking for copycat type incidents elsewhere. But it appears we're going to suffer through coverage of this for the duration, or at least until the next bankable news story comes along.
The cable networks still seem to be completely gung ho with moving forward to start attempting to assign some type of blame to the situation. The only reason I know the cable networks are still covering this constantly is I've walked in on Ginger as she has the coverage on in the background while she works through some Sudoku puzzles. I'll stick around and watch for a bit to see if there's been any new information released, but invariably the person in front of the mic starts mouthing off on their own agenda and spinning the tragedy into something that they can use to push their viewpoint and I get disgusted and leave. I'll tell you the one thing I've really been surprised by, Geraldo Rivera. I'll admit, I used to think this guy was a joke, and sometimes (even as recent as the stuff after Katrina) he is. But on this subject, he sounds like the lone voice of reason at FOX News. And how screwed up is the situation when Geraldo is the guy that's making sense.
I've seen lots of commentators offer up their opinions. But the one thing I haven't seen that many (or any really) commentators address is the idea of gun control (and maybe I didn't see it because Ginger did have FOX news on). No one seems to want to talk about the elephant in the corner. But maybe someone needs to put forth the idea that maybe, just maybe, ordinary people don't need to own a semi automatic weapon. I've always been ambivalent on the whole gun control issue in the past. And hey, I'm from the country, and I recognize that people like to hunt. It's never been my thing, but it was pretty prevalent in the area where I grew up. So I'm not suggesting that all guns be banned. Let people own a non automatic rifle for hunting purposes, I have no problem with that. I'm just no longer convinced that semi automatic weapons need to be available to ordinary citizens.
Not sure it matters what I think though. The NRA has their headquarters here in Fairfax and because of their influence Virginia has some of the most lax gun laws in the country (a lot like how with tobacco companies having such a large presence here in Virginia I don't suspect we'll ever see a statewide smoking ban take hold either). But don't worry, I'm sure the media will turn the attention away from the gun issue. It will soon be determined that the shooter played video games, or listened to 'bad' music, or engaged in questionable activities. Or maybe they'll just blame the parents. The guns, however, probably won't be blamed.
Sorry, I went on about this longer than I wanted. It's just the media circus around this whole thing really has me frustrated. Part of it is because it's effectively killed the VA Tech I know and love and remember fondly. I think I'll choose to remember it the way John remembers it. I like that version a lot better.
And since I don't want to end on that complete downer, here's some interesting news. There's going to be a Spider-Man musical. Crazy, huh? Well, you haven't even heard the half of it. Here's the really crazy part, it will feature music and lyrics by Bono and The Edge of U2.
And finally, these photos were taken on my trip home Saturday night. I don't think I mentioned where I took the fog pictures before, but I stopped at a scenic overlook on Afton mountain. These photos are from there also.
