The Wii continues to be the main attraction at the house. Catherine woke us up at 7 this morning wanting to know if she could go play (we've created a monster). We also exchanged the remote that wasn't working, only to find out that the new one "wasn't working" either, which I then decided it probably was fine and something else was the matter. Turns out the controller had lost sync with the Wii. Resyncing them was trickery than I would have thought (I had to pull the batteries from both then resync them one at time). It didn't help that I didn't know what the sync process was (if you'll remember Ginger was the one that set up the system). So there was a lot of Wii playing today. And after Catherine went to bed when I came downstairs I found Ginger down there playing Mario Party.
So remember how Catherine's hair is really long and pretty? No?
There's a refresher photo up above. It was taken last Monday. See how long her hair is. Well, that's no longer the case (no pun intended). While she was down in Richmond Catherine got a hair cut. And it was a pretty drastic cut I think. Now her hair is really short and pretty. Check the following photos for what it looks like now.
And just for grins, I want to test out the new blogger capability that allows you to have a poll on your blog. I think it's only designed to be over on the sidebar, but I goofed around for a while to see if I could embedded it within the post. I'm just doing this to see how it works. So here's a poll. Feel free to take it or not. I'm pretty sure when I embed it I may end up having to play with it some to get the colors right (since it's not really designed to be embedded).
I went with Ben to see Live Free or Die Hard tonight. Originally the plan was that while Ginger was in Richmond I was going to go see a movie with Ben, but he couldn't make it earlier in the week (and I got busy making the Batbrick movie anyway), hence why we ended up seeing it tonight. What follows will be spoiler free info about the film. Let me just get this out the way first, I found this to be an extremely enjoyable movie. Easily the best movie I've seen in a theater all year. And yea, I know I've probably only seen a handful of movies at best in theaters in the past year, but this beats all of them hands down (it's way better than Spider-Man 3). It's hard to say what exactly is so good about the movie, but it just sort of hits all the right notes. The positives are it's all action with just the right combination of funny, witty and very fast paced scenes. While it's not a hard and fast rule, normally sequels just aren't up to the same level of quality as the original (much less a sequel to a sequel to a sequel). The movie has a few negatives which are hardly worth mentioning (but I will anyway). There's a scene near the end that's so over the top it's crazy (but it's a big budget action movie, over the top is what these things do these days). Another negative is there's a literal crap ton of previews before the movie starts (felt like 20 or more minutes worth of previews). I guess they know this is a tent pole movie and are looking to market as many other movies as they can. Can't say I cared for any of the previews except for The Simpson Movie ("release the hounds" is just always funny) and maybe the upcoming one with Ben Stiller (The Heartbreak Kid). Other than that the only down side was I ended up playing "where do I know that actor from" as the movie was going along. It took me two scenes before I realized I knew the one guy from the "Hi, I'm a Mac" commercials. The other guy that bugged me was the guy who played the lead male role in Catch And Release, which even though I just saw that recently I was never able to place where I knew him from until after the movie (that ended up bugging me throughout the movie since I *knew* I had seen him recently in something). And I can't help but mention Tuvok's scenes where I keep hearing a Vulcan talking as he was delivering his lines. Overall though I thought this was a great movie that doesn't take itself too seriously but delivers in just about every scene. And for a benchmark, I say this even though we were in the super expensive theater that cost $13.50 a seat (which I think is highway robbery for a movie ticket), but I felt like it was worth the price of admission.
So what were Ginger and Catherine doing while I went to the movie? They played the Wii some before Catherine went to bed. And then when I got home and Catherine was in bed asleep, where was Ginger? That's right, downstairs playing the Wii. The bad news is that I think one of the controllers has already broken (it no longer seems to turn on), so that's disappointing, but better that it happen now when it can be returned and replaced I suppose. Unfortunately this meant that once I got home I wasn't able to play against Ginger (so she played it by herself until bedtime). Which meant I wasn't able to break out the Zelda game I picked up for the Wii today. What can I say, evidently we love the Wii.
Ginger and Catherine are back home. Quinn's staying in Richmond until Monday (when he has to be back here for the gymnastic class he and Catherine are in). What I discovered when I came downstairs tonight was that Ginger set up the Wii tonight and had created Mii characters for all of us. So we played with the Wii some, she kicked my butt in bowling (165 to 113, I'm going to go ahead and make excuses and say I was trying to learn to throw a curve ball and she was just lofting it, yea, that's the ticket) and Tennis (I was down 40-Love, but came back to deuce only to lose the next two points). I tried the boxing solo and that was pretty amusing playing the easy guys, but I think the higher levels guys are going to kick my butt (I only won the last game by decision). After we finished playing we headed up to the family room and watched the final episode of Studio 60. I was just glad they didn't end the season on a cliff hanger, so that was good.
How about another picture from last week's pool visit. There's something about this photo makes me feel a bit dizzy.
Here's a couple of photos where you can actually see what the costume looked like (sort of). The photo above is what I wanted the video to look like. No such luck though.
Wow. That didn't turn out like I wanted at all. Way too dark to see all the cool aspects. That and the 'preview' pic sort of ruins the potential surprise. Chalk this one up to being a failed attempt I suppose. Oh well, no time to redo it, especially since it's cloudy out and the moon is only out for limited amounts of time. Maybe if I can get a better light I can try it again. Don't click play unless you want to lose 80 seconds of your life that you can never get back.
Now that I've worked off all the airline flight pictures, I can get to some of the ones I took at the pool last weekend. Not sure they're all going to be keepers, but I really like this one for some reason.
Oh yea baby! Daddy's got a Wii! Well, I don't actually have it here. Ginger has it. And she's in Richmond, but I will have it soon as she gets back. What? I didn't mention that Ginger was in Richmond? Right, so Ginger took the kids to Richmond for a couple of days. That's because last week the plan was that Ginger and the kids were going to go to Richmond, but then the kids got sick and that plan fell through (which is too bad, because they would have been in Richmond at the same time I was in California and it all would have worked out fine and dandy). As it is, now they're down in Richmond and I'm stuck here at the house by myself for two days, with no idea of what I can do with Brick. Since Ginger and Catherine are coming back on Thursday, I don't think I'm going to have time to come up with something involving the Brick. Quinn will be staying in Richmond and returning home on Sunday.
So about the Wii. Ginger and the group down there found one at a store. There's some really weird story about how the store didn't know they had it, and it got delivered to another store (American Eagle) instead, and they hung around until it was delivered to the correct store or something. Quinn was pretty excited about it. He called me at work to tell me all about it. He also mentioned how he thinks we should 'share' the Wii. Amazing how the "let's share" idea kicks in when someone else has something he wants versus the other way around. This is good though since it means now we'll have the Wii when we go to the beach on vacation.
So how about some pictures in this post? I have a couple of Catherine in her ballet outfit from Sunday. One posed and one 'action' shot. I can tell I had the flash pointed straight at her though since I can see some massive reflection of the flash in her forehead. Other than that I think the shot turned out pretty good. I still can't believe she was wearing makeup. No big surprise I suppose, but the day after she was asking to wear more makeup. Ginger put the kibosh on that though by telling her it was only for the recital.
I'm not as happy with the action shot, but only because the noisy background that is our house ruins the picture I think (there's only so much you can do when that sofa is in the background). Just as bad you can really see the flash is point straight ahead (which considering I had the camera turned 90 degrees, the flash was actually off to the side a bit, but it really shows up on the wall in the background).
Ok, so it's not really a shot from Mars. Nor do I know exactly where it's from (I think it was over Nevada or Arizona, not exactly sure), but it looks like it could be a shot from Mars. This should be the last of the shots from my flight last week (I can already hear people cheering).
I got lucky and managed to catch this on video when Quinn and I were bowling over Father's Day weekend. As you'll be able to see, he got pretty excited about it. And even though the bumpers were up, I don't think he actually used them when he got the strike.
Another shot from the air on my way back from California last week. I believe that's actually Long Beach down there (or part of it anyway). In fact, I think I found the exact area on Google Maps.
The hydrangeas out front are really starting to show some color. There's one blossom that's all blue, but it's buried deep within the bush and doesn't lend itself to being photographed. As such I had to settle on this one that has a combination of blue and yellow.
Grammy, Pop pop, Mammaw, JJ and Nana all came up to see Catherine's recital tonight then left for home afterwards. That's a lot of driving in one day just to see Catherine on stage for a couple minutes so a hearty thanks to all of those folks that made the trip. The performance went a lot like the dress rehearsal video I posted earlier today. The only big difference was the girl to Catherine's left (our right) got a little stage fright and just sort of stood there. I didn't see it, but Ginger and Grammy mentioned that Catherine was telling the girl where to stand because she wasn't moving with the group. Bossing people around, now that sounds like my daughter. All in all Catherine did about as well as I was expecting. And she didn't fall down (she can really get into the spins and I always have this fear she's going to wipe out as she finishes her spins). And she did almost all the moves she was suppose to. At the end of the event they asked all the dancers to come back up on stage to take a bow, but Catherine would have none of that. That was about the worst of it, which means that all in all, things didn't go to bad.
I ran into a co-worker Brian (and his wife Jamie) at the event. Turns out his wife used to teach at the studio or something, so they were volunteering. Brian was running the lights and sound and Jamie looked like she was providing support coordinating everything. I found out more about the video situation from Brian though and I'm less upset about it. Turns out they have to pay the video production company about four thousand just to show up and record the event. So the way Brian was describing it, the dance studio is barely breaking even with the money from the DVD sales (but I bet the video production company that filmed the event and provides the DVDs is raking it in). The next logical question was why didn't the studio just film it themselves, and Brian told me that the production quality of the guys doing the video is head and shoulders above anything the studio could do themselves. Oh well, it's still cheaper than the cost of the DVD of Quinn's opera.
For all three people out there who are interested in this (and unless I miss my guess, all three of them are on the road now on their way up here), I present Catherine and her ballet recital. Let me just warn you ahead of time, the music selection is not what I would call a traditional ballet number.
Why are the pictures so bad you ask? Well on the way there I decided to start deleting some pictures off the camera so I would have plenty of room, and then noticed the "-E-" symbol on the camera. I had left the compact flash at home in my computer from where I pulled pictures off last night. Crap crap crap. So I ended up having to use the small point and shoot Nikon. So the pictures are less than ideal, but on the other hand, at least I had it with me so I could have some pictures. I would have been extremely upset with myself had I not had the other camera, not mind you that I wasn't upset with myself, but it was at least tempered by the fact I had a camera available.
Sure, this is only this week's dress rehearsal, but it was this morning in the auditorium where the actual recital will be. Turned out better than I thought it would (although we still have tonight to go, so I shouldn't speak too soon), but based on the video from last week, it seems improved. And you can tell some of the kids (Catherine being one of them) have no clue what to do next and are looking off stage for the instructor who's showing what moves to do.
I decided to go ahead and include last week's footage also, so you can see how bad it could have been. The one thing I did notice was I saw some moves here in this video that I didn't see in the other rehearsal. I think it has to do with the timing of how long it takes them to make it around that circle.
The kids made sure we all got up early this morning. None of that sleeping till 8:30 am craziness like Friday. Nope, today we were up with the sun. Ginger had a migraine most of the morning, so I was trying to entertain the kids and get them lunch today solo. Ginger did start feeling a little better later, which is good considering she had to take Catherine to a birthday party at around 3. And no, we have no pictures of said party since Ginger didn't take a camera with her (this is like a recurring theme recently or something).
Catherine is getting harder and harder to photograph. It used to be you were pretty much guaranteed a good shot of her because for whatever reason she just really played up the camera. Recently though she's started that fake smile stuff whenever she notices the camera. Or worse tries to hide from the camera entirely. Almost as if the camera has become the bane of her existence with it always being around.
While they were gone Quinn and I played some 'tennis' and did some gardening. The gardening was actually pretty tough considering we were digging a hole in a fence corner where I swear it feels like there were more rocks than dirt. Eventually I was able to get the hold deep and wide enough for the plant though, so that's good. And once we finished that project we rewarded ourselves with a trip to the pool.
This shot normally wouldn't have made the cut, but the fact that I got it just as his feet are touching down on the water almost makes it look like he can walk on water.
I still looking for a good shot like this. I think this one is slightly out of focus. I may not be able to get the shot I want using auto focus. I may have to set it up for manual focus and try and take the picture at the right spot. Using the auto focus when he's running and jumping means he's just out of the focus area by the time the picture takes. And it's not like I have some huge shutter delay either. It sure feels almost instantaneous once the camera locks focus.
After we had been there for a while (an hour and a half) I could tell Quinn was starting to run out of energy. That combined with the fact that there was a breeze which made it feel pretty cold when you got out of the water. So during that last adult swim Quinn was bundled up with his towel and mine trying to stay warm. I ended up just taking the hit and being cold so Quinn could use the extra towel.
I also took some non people shots while at the pool, and I think a couple of those turned out pretty good. I'll try and get some of those processed and up next week since I'm probably going to be pretty busy tomorrow with Catherine's ballet recital. Speaking of the recital, after seeing the video Ginger made of her performance last Monday (which I ended up having to miss due going to California, thanks Barry), I don't think the recital is going to go very well at all. I can tell from the video that Catherine really doesn't know the choreographed parts. It looked like she has the basic moves down, just not the when to perform them.
This is Quinn playing pool downstairs this morning. As you can see the kids toys have taken on a life of their own and are slowing encroaching into every available space. The one thing that really made me laugh about this photo is the cable modem over there on the floor on the left. I remember when we first moved in over two years ago where I promised Ginger that cable modem would only be there on the floor for a week. Maybe two at max. I also remember Ben being around about that time laughing and saying "Riiiiight" and then when he saw it about a year later I think his comment was something like "I could have told her that would happen." Maybe I can make the cable modem my next project since I finally finished the stripes in the dining room recently.
Well that happened faster than I was expecting. Apparently Catherine will be wearing makeup for her recital on Sunday. Ginger did a test run of putting some of it on Catherine today and took some pictures. Okay, it's not really makeup because evidently real makeup could have peanut byproducts in it, so it's like pigment or something. I don't know what it is, but it sure looks like eyeliner stuff to me (and I should qualify that I am not, nor have I ever been, an expert on makeup or the terms for what qualifies as makeup). I really thought I had a few more years before I had to worry about Catherine wearing makeup. I think my original plan was that 20 years from now would be perfectly fine. This seems to have significantly accelerated that milestone on the schedule.
Ginger also tried to get some pictures of both kids together, but from looking at the results it doesn't appear as if they were cooperating (Catherine isn't even looking towards the camera in any of the pictures where they're together), but I liked the shot of Quinn in one of them so I tried cropping out Catherine (the result is above).
So before I left on my trip, my Father's Day gift arrived. And I have to admit, this is probably the coolest gift I've ever gotten bar none (it even beats the big screen HD television). Ginger published a book of my first year of posts on the blog.
Evidently I tend to write a lot in these posts as the book is well over 400 pages in length. And I believe the book is available to be purchased by anyone, so if you were looking for something different for your coffee table, let me know and we can get you a copy. I fully expect my Google email account to be overloaded with all the requests.
The posts that had videos accompanying them read a bit funny since the text refers to something that's not there, but maybe that just means I need to start including preview images of videos in the future. I know all this stuff exists out there online and I can visit it at anytime, but having it in a book sure does make it feel a bit more real and makes me feel like typing all this stuff isn't just going into the bit bucket somewhere.
Now I just need to get enough material for Volume 2.
After a full day of traveling that started at 8:30 am this morning and ended at 11 pm tonight I am finally back home. The kids are sleeping and Ginger was just about to crash as I made it home. And even though I've missed her terribly, I avoided getting anywhere near her like the plague since she's probably a carrier of said plague. Speaking of the plague, Quinn was still sick this morning according to Ginger (he threw up again, but... worse, which I won't elaborate on, but suffice to say it was enough to have Ginger call the doctor). The good news though is that later in the day he didn't have a fever anymore. So hopefully he's on the mend. Which would would be great because that means tomorrow Catherine might be start the road to recovery. That would give her Friday and Saturday to fully recover and still be able to make it to her recital on Sunday. *crosses fingers*
Quinn's still sick. I heard his temperature was around 103 today. And now Catherine has come down with whatever it is. Hope they both get over it before the weekend so Catherine can perform in her recital and we can all go see her. And I really hope that Ginger doesn't catch whatever this is (not just because that will suck for me when I get home, although that is a big part of it). Meanwhile I'm still out here in California going out for Thai food with Barry and Rob in Barry's Mustang rental car which can't really seat three people.
So I watched Ghost Rider last weekend. Overall the movie was better than I was expecting, but considering the reason I didn't go see it when it was in the theaters was that I didn't think it was going to be very good, that's not exactly a ringing endorsement. The story is a little weak. Ok, it's a lot weak. Nicolas Cage does an okay job as Johnny Blaze, but I liked the actor that played the young Johnny better to be honest. It made me wish the movie had been about the Daniel Ketch Ghost Rider instead of the Johnny Blaze one. That's probably because I like the look of the Danny version (but so does Marvel since they brought back Johnny Blaze and have him look like the Danny version). The Caretaker character was also a product of the Danny version, and Sam Elliott plays the Caretaker in the movie delivering what I believe to be the best acting performance in the movie (as well as being the most natural and coolest character). They did change the Caretaker character a lot for the movie though (to the point where only the look and some of the attitude remained the same). The other actor in the movie is Eva Mendes playing the love interest of Johnny Blaze. I will say this, she has two really good assets and they get heavily used and blatantly displayed in every scene she's in. The humor lines in the movie just don't seem to work as well as I suspect they wanted. Overall the movie is barely passable which shouldn't overly surprise me since the director for the movie is the same as the director of the Daredevil movie, which was also just an okay movie.
The kids started gymnastic class today. No pictures though. And Catherine's ballet had a session where you could go and take pictures today also, but again I don't have pictures. And I've heard that Quinn is now sick. "You heard" you ask? Right, I had to miss all of that because I'm on travel out in California. For a one day meeting I'm basically going to be gone for three. Ok, so I'm less upset about missing Quinn being sick than I am the other stuff, but still I wish I could have been there. Ginger says Quinn took a turn for the worse halfway through the day and just got worse and worse. And it unfortunately culminated with him throwing up after he went to bed (although I didn't get the info of whether it was in the bed, in the 'bucket' while in bed or whether he made it to the bathroom. Since I know almost nothing, I'm guessing he probably picked up something at the bowling alley since he was snacking on stuff there while he was bowling and I didn't sanitize the ball before he started using it. I'm really hoping that whatever it is he has I don't get while I'm out here.
As for me, I spent most the later part of the day in the air at thirty four thousand feet above the ground. It's very pretty up there. Just wish the camera had taken some better pictures of scenic shots of vast expanses of land. But those turned out grainy and almost colorless because it was pretty hazy (I'm going to try and play around with one or two of those when I get home and see if I can salvage anything).
I will say this, there's nothing like flying to make you feel alive. And by flying I mean landing. I hate turbulence. Even the mild stuff. And on this particular flight I was booked in the very last row in a middle seat. I got lucky though since whoever had the window seat didn't show up. I checked before the flight and they had told me all the aisle and window seats were taken already, so it was just good fortune that the one seat next to me opened up. So being in the back you have an excellent view where you can watch the wing on the plane as it bounces up and down when things get bumpy. Always fun stuff that.
So when I got to the hotel, I found out they had overbooked and I had been bumped to a hotel next door. It was a good bump, but it was odd since I know I had reservations from last week, and one of the guys that is here with me just made reservations today. I guess Fairfield Marriot doesn't like me. Although they bumped me next door to Courtyard Marriot, which my cohorts have told me is a nicer hotel. Very odd. Anyway, the picture here is for John since I know how much he likes hotel window shots.
Today was Father's Day, or as we like to call it around here, Sunday. We didn't do a lot different from our normal routine. The kids were eventually reminded to tell me Happy Father's Day after we got out of church. And Quinn did graciously offer to 'take me bowling' for Father's Day. He neglected the part about him not having any money and I was going to be footing the bill. So I let him 'take me' and I bowled a couple of games and I think he bowled three. He's getting a lot better in that he's not doing a shot put throw anymore, but he still needs to work on his release since he ends up putting some major spin on the ball when he throws it. And looking back I should have just stopped him after the second game, because I could tell his arm was getting tired during that last game.
While we were gone Ginger worked on Catherine's ballet costume (which I think is for her recital that's coming up soon). Ginger also styled Catherine's hair in the bun mode. I had brief flashbacks to bad Star Trek Voyager episodes when I saw the pictures of it. They had already finished and were off the to mall by the time Quinn and I got back (and we were only gone for about an hour I think).
So Quinn and I got to practice baseball outside while we waited on the girls to get back. Once they returned home we all headed out to the pool. The water was significantly colder than I was expecting with it being so warm out. I guess the past week hasn't been particularly hot or something since the water definitely felt a bit on the chilly side. Of course, that didn't seem to bother the kids in the slightest though. In fact I've never seen the water temperature affect them other than Catherine will sometimes be shivering and her teeth might be chattering, but she still won't get out of the water even then.
Ginger got me a very unique and special Father's Day present, but it hasn't arrived yet (she told me about it though), so I should be getting that within a couple of days. I wanted to have it in my hot little hands before I put up anything about it.
We ventured out again today looking for that park we didn't find last weekend. And since I had looked at Google Map's Satellite view, I knew where to go this time. The park is pretty nice. Nowhere near as nice as the Clemyjontri park mind you, but not bad for a county supported park.
The park had tennis courts, a basketball court, swings and a large playground area. Everything needed to keep the kids entertained for a while. Both kids were a bit on edge from lack of sleep, but they got their second wind once we actually got to the park. Catherine played pretty hard and looked like she was feeling the heat, although it wasn't that hot out today thankfully.
Both kids eventually were able to do the sliding pole by themselves (insert Chris Rock's joke about a father's job being "to keep your son off the pipe and your daughter off the pole" here).
The swings are a bit higher than what the kids are used to, so they required a bit of help actually getting into the swing (although to give them credit, they tried really hard before we actually decided to go over and help them).
Ginger had a stamping party thing to attend tonight. So while she was off having fun I was here with the kids. Which turned out to be pretty fun also. Although I got stuck with dinner and bed duty (heh, I said duty), which means there's not a lot of playing time in there. Anyway, she eventually came home (she just can't stay away) and above are the cards she made tonight.
And one of the Hydrangeas out front has finally started blooming. This is the only boom so far though, and I only found it by accident as it was buried within the middle of the bush (not sure why the ones that get more sun haven't bloomed and this one did though, that just seems odd to me).
Random musings of JamesF. More than likely stuff in the blog will be about what's going on with the kids (Quinn and Catherine). Let's face it, they're a lot more interesting than I am, but that's not to say it won't contain other updates pertinent to what's going on here in the household.
So I watched 
