Ginger got some flowers for her birthday. The ones above are from the kids (Quinn picked them out) while the ones below were from her parents.
We had visitors tonight. John and Jeff from out west were in town and stopped by tonight after the kids had gone to bed for a visit. It is always fun and entertaining catching up with John, and we also got to meet Jeff who we had heard so much about but never met before. The fun really began when we broke out the Wii and played some of Lego Star Wars. John helped me get a minikit bonus block that I hadn't previously gotten. But since that's just a two player game we eventually switched over and started playing Mario Sonic Olympics so that all four of us could play. I thought we would have the home court advantage, but they both seem to take to the vault event really well and ended up beating both Ginger and myself. I did manage to squeak out a new world record in the 100 meter dash though. Sadly in all the Wii excitement John never got a chance to properly show me how to use my D200. Guess I'll have to wait until the next time he's out here again.
Ginger wasn't feeling especially well today. She wasn't sick like Catherine was, but she was having chills today and we were (are) somewhat afraid it'll take a turn for the worse. Because of that and the fact that the pollen outside has been playing havoc with Quinn's allergies we all ended up not going anywhere today. Since there's not much going on I figured it might be time for another episode of QCTV. It's been a while since the first episode. Today's topic: Stair sliding.
Saturday felt a lot busier than it was. Catherine is doing much better as you can probably tell. It took what I thought felt like forever before we actually managed to get out of the house. First up was a trip by the library to drop off some videos I rented last week and pick up a book Ginger had on reserve. And from the looks of things Ginger also checked out about half the library (I kid, but she left with more books than you could carry in your hand and needed a bag to carry all of them).
After that once we got home I had to replace the low beam light in Ginger's car (see previous post). After I got that replaced finally and we had lunch Quinn and I went out to meet Pete for some tennis. I used to think I was pretty good at tennis, but after today I realize how bad I really am. Pete's just really good, as Quinn kept pointing every time I missed a shot Pete hit by me. I told Quinn if he kept practicing maybe one day he could be really good and he said "Yea, like Pete!"
Once we got home Quinn and I played some Lego Star Wars since at Outback Friday night he tried steak and some baked potatoe. He acted like he didn't like the steak, but I think it may be something he might like after another couple of tries. I suspect he may end up liking steak in the long run and then my frugle sense will start tingling since I'm not thrilled with the idea of buying the kid steak on a regular basis. On the other hand if he were to actually eat I would probably do it, at least initially.
For dinner I cooked some chicken thighs out on the grill (just for me, no one else wanted any, especially after they got crispy). So I read a recipe online that said to cook them over an open grill. As I did that let's say the flames got a little out of control (blackened chicken anyone?). It got worse than what's in the picture and since I didn't want to house to burn down I eventually just closed the lid (which still didn't extinguish the flames). So how is one suppose to grill chicken without the flames going crazy?
Today I had to replace the low beam light in Ginger's car. Last week on Thursday I had taken Ginger's car to get it inspected since it was due at the end of the month (and Ginger couldn't do it since she was home with Catherine who was sick all last week). Ginger had made an appointment at our local Volkswagon dealer to do the inspection. On the way there I remembered that one of her front low beam lights was out. But then I figured I would just pay through the nose for the light from the dealer and be done with it.
So at the dealer when they asked if I needed shuttle service I said not if they could get the inspection done in under an hour. And here's where they started to tick me off. I'm right in front of him and the guy calls back to the garage and asks if they can get it done within the next hour to hour and a half. I hear a lot of "Yea"'s and "Uh huh"'s and then he hangs up. So once he was off the phone I made a point of asking, "I couldn't help notice you mentioned an hour and a half and I said my limit was an hour, it'll be done in under an hour, right?"
"Not a problem sir, he said he could get to it right away" was the answer. You can probably already guess where this is going at this point, but an hour later I go up to the guy and ask about the status of the car and I get "One moment, let me check on that." Twenty minutes later the guy from the garage comes out and says the light needs to be replaced.
I asked how much would it be to replace it. They bandy about numbers between a couple of the desk guys and say the part will run about $20. Fine, that's way more than the light should cost but I don't care. Then the other shoe drops and the garage guy (the guy who took twenty minutes to show up) says it'll be about $70 (half an hour) labor. And I believe my response was "Are you kidding me? Half an hour just to replace a headlight? You can't be serious."
The guy then goes on to assure me that it's a very difficult and complex task and I couldn't possibly understand all the intricacies involved as he starts trying to explain how you have to remove some parts in order to access the light. First off let me say it really irritated me that he was trying to take advantage of me, and then when I call him on it he has the nerve to try and justify it? He got about five words into describing what would need to be removed and I just interrupted him and said "Fail it. I'll replace the light myself." He continues to try and explain why it's better for him to do it and I explain I replaced the light myself in my other Passat in about five minutes. And here's what I don't get, instead of taking the easy money and trying to reduce the time / cost they just say that's fine and fail it.
So that was my job today. Replace the low beam light. And I will say that in Ginger's 2003 the light is slightly more inaccessible than in my 2001. But there's only one part that needs to be removed and it is the large plastic piece around the dipstick (and it's a snap on piece, so you don't even need tools to remove it). Overall replacing the light probably did take me almost half an hour, but it took that long (and I hate to even mention this part) because I accidentally dropped the old light into the oil. I know, I know, you're asking how's that even possible. Well the part that needed to be removed was that plastic around the dipstick. But unlike what I think of as a normal dipstick, this one is like the container to a jar of glue with a cap (I mean look how big the cap is) and the dipstick going down from the middle of the cap. Anyway, I had removed that dipstick at some point before I removed the plastic piece thinking at first that I couldn't remove the plastic because of the dipstick, and when I was removing the actual light I foolishly was trying not to touch it. Why was I trying not to touch it you ask? Because the light was a halogen bulb and you're not suppose to touch it, even though since it was already burned out that hardly matters. But I was stupid and was trying not to touch even though it was burned out (I did realize my folly later after I dropped it). So as I was disconnecting the light from the base it pops off and falls into the oil open oil container. Retrieving it out of the oil probably took 20 minutes as I was scrambling looking for long thin pliers and long screwdrivers.
Still, the fact that even with that fiasco it took under 30 minutes makes me think the dealership is ripping me off by over estimating the time for how long it will take to do work (which really makes me feel good about the $1500 I just spent on repairs to my car a month ago). I just can't believe how much they're over estimating stuff like that. Who do they think they are, a bunch of software engineers or something? Ninety dollars to replace a headlight? Give me a break (for the record, the replacement light I bought at Advance Auto was about $13).
Catherine has finally started to get better I think. Of course she wouldn't actually admit this until later in the day when we told her there was no school tomorrow. But she didn't have a temperature today so I think she's well on the way to recovery. In fact she was so much improved that we were all able to go out to eat at Outback. This worked out well since I felt Ginger deserved to be taken out tonight and if we had stayed at home I was going to be cooking and to be honest I'm not sure what we would have eaten (probably jelly sandwiches). This was a big day for Ginger since I think tonight was the first time Ginger has left the house (other than to go get the mail a couple of times) since last Saturday. And everyone, including Catherine, was outside and running around when I came to pick them up for dinner so she's obviously feeling better.
And more good news, we found out today that Ginger's grandmother seems to be doing a bit better. So we're all very excited about that and hope she continues on the way to recovery. I think Ginger had been preparing the kids for the worst this morning since during the ride to school Quinn was explaining to me how Grandma was in the hospital and was really sick.
A brief rant about Outback's call ahead system. We called ahead to put our name on the list, and were told the wait was about 15 minutes. We said we would be there in about 30 minutes. And then once we showed up we were told the wait would be 15 minutes. And I'm fairly certain that everyone that was there before we showed up got seated before we did. So I have to ask what exactly is the point of their call ahead system if they don't put your name on the list and start the clock until you get there?
I forgot Quinn today. Since Catherine's sick and Ginger is staying at home with her it was my responsibility to go pick up Quinn after school. I remembered at around 2:15, but then walked down the hall to run one errand. It was just one errand. Should have taken five minutes at most. But then I got sucked into two separate coding conversations and the next thing I knew it was three thirty, a full 30 minutes past when I was suppose to pick up Quinn. Not surprising once I got there Quinn was the last one to get picked up. Luckily though one of Quinn's friends was also late getting picked up and had been there up till just before I got there, so at least he wasn't bored and had a playmate for most of the time. And this was one of those things I promised I wouldn't do as a parent since I can recall many a time waiting to get picked up when I was younger. No real harm done I suppose except for potential psychological scarring. Hopefully Quinn won't end up in therapy with abandonment issues later in life it.
Catherine is doing a bit better today. She was still running a mild fever today, but it wasn't in the 102 range anymore, but closer to 100. I can only hope we've turned the corner on that one.
The bad news of the day is Ginger's grandmother ended up getting admitted to the hospital. Ginger was pretty shaken up about it and we're still waiting to hear how it turns out. If you're so inclined and could keep her in your prayers it would mean a lot.
This is starting to sound like a broken record. Catherine's still sick with a fever that still gets up to 102+. I feel really bad for Catherine since she really wants to feel better and it's just not happening. Hopefully Catherine will be on the mend in another day or so. Quinn broke his monotony by returning to school. Other than that not a lot new has happened. Since we're experiencing a news lull at the moment I figure this is as good a time as any to post the video I took of Quinn last weekend playing the drums on the expensive ottoman (Ginger just loves the fact that he's using the ottoman).
Still no improvement in Catherine's condition. Ginger called the doctor today (I think just to get me to get asking) and they said there's a stomach virus going around and they suspect that's what she has. What's worse is that based on her current symptoms they think she has at least a couple more days before she's over it. They said something about the fact that it comes in waves, and people think they're getting better, then they get worse. And they said it was affecting everyone differently (which makes me wonder how they can quantify what the symptoms are, but I won't go there).
With Catherine being sick though Quinn hasn't been able to really get out of the house and do anything. So I came home early today (and this was after getting in late, so it was a short day, I could get used to this) and took him to the park for while. Because I feel like if I hadn't either he would have gone stir crazy or he would have completely gotten on Ginger's last nerves. Or it could have been both I suppose, in fact that's probably the more likely scenario.
When I first was editing the above shot on the computer the first thing I thought was "Hey, I really like his expression, it's a shame I didn't have more light in the tunnel". Then I thought "Great, the shadow of my head is in the picture". Then after looking some more I realized "Man that thing is dirty, I might as well have been letting him crawl around in dirt".
After we left the park we went to Chick-Fil-A to get Quinn some dinner and then ran by the grocery store on the way home. Sadly I couldn't convince him to get a chicken sandwich for dinner and he insisted he wanted the chicken nuggets. And here I thought the recent chicken patties we've had him eat at home were making progress on switching over to a chicken sandwich at some point, but I guess that point is still a ways off at the present.
Had a close scare today, Ginger said she thought she might be running a fever. I figure is we lose her then one by one the rest of us will fall like dominoes and we might as well nuke the house because it'll all be a contaminated zone at that point. Luckily Ginger seemed to be fine by evening though. Catherine on the other hand is still sick, and tonight she was running a temperature of about 102 right as her ibuprofen was wearing off. I figure if her fever doesn't break by tomorrow afternoon we should at least give the doc a ring. For some reason I have it in my head if you're running a fever for more than three days it's time to call the doctor. And an amazing thing happened today, Catherine decided that she's bored with watching TV. I didn't think that would ever happen, but I guess a couple days of doing nothing but sitting and watching TV eventually gets old.
Not the best Easter we've ever had. The good news is Quinn's headache last night was a false alarm and he seemed fine today. The bad news is Catherine didn't seem to be doing too much better. There was no puking today, so that was good, but she would be running a temperature of around 103+ right before her ibuprofen would wear off. That meant Catherine spent most of the day camped out on the couch watching television. That also meant that Quinn hanging out to watch TV also. So it wasn't a big surprise when Ginger suggested I go to the grocery store and take Quinn with me and maybe stop by a park or something (because had he stayed at home I'm not sure he would have done anything other than watch TV). So we spent an hour or so out at a park. Quinn decided he wanted to go to the park with the basketball goals. He had tried to get me to bring all the tennis gear, but I wasn't up for that. He's also asked me to schedule a Saturday where we ask Pete to come out and play tennis with us. Which seemed odd until I asked why and he told me it's because "Pete's a lot better at tennis than you are." Thanks Quinn.
While at first glance it looks like he's going to miss this shot by a wide margin, the truth is he's throwing the ball granny style. I think he still missed, by not by as much as you would think if it was a normal angle shot.
The park we were at also had some swings, so we ended up going back and forth between those and the basketball court several times.
Since I wanted to try and wear him out a bit, before we left the park I had Quinn engage in a rousing game of "How fast can you run to the other side of this field and back". He still had surplus energy though, but since we hadn't had lunch yet at that point we couldn't stay out much longer. And lunch ended up taking forever. Quinn was watching the TV from the kitchen while eating, so lunch ended up taking him literally two hours to finish. And it was stuff he likes to eat.
And while I know Catherine likes watching TV, and she did a lot of that today, her having that high of a fever really bothers me. Plus this is her spring break. The kids don't go back to school until Wednesday, and at this rate Catherine's going to be sick most of her time off.
Today was the day of the annual Easter Eggstravaganza. Every year the church we attend puts together an Easter event for kids in the community and today was the day of the event. They have things like easter egg hunts, fire trucks, police cars, ambulances, moon bounces, pony rides, face painting and various carnival type games. The day started out looking nice and warm, then appeared to be seriously threatening rain (and there were even some brief sprinkles), but eventually it cleared up again and turned out to be really nice. Sadly I had been convinced it was going to rain and ended up carrying around umbrellas for the group all day even though we ended up not needing them.
Overall it was a lot of fun and the kids seemed to have a pretty good time. The fire truck and ambulance weren't there long. They got called off to some emergency pretty quick into the event. I hope wherever they ended up having to go that everyone was okay. I ended up with more pictures of Quinn than of Catherine at the end of the day, but that's in large part because the two of them kept wanting to do different things and go off on their own, so Ginger would go with Catherine (to things like face painting) and I would go with Quinn (to the moon bounce and pony ride). I forget where Quinn won the monocle looking thing, but that ended up being one of his favorite things he brought back home.
Quinn and Catherine were in the same age category for the egg hunt. The eggs aren't so much hidden as they are strewn across a sectioned off area. I tried giving them both some advice, ignore the eggs near the entrance to the area and head to the back. Quinn heeded this advice and ended up with a ton of eggs where he was collecting all by himself for a bit (a bit being maybe a minute, but that was about half the time the egg hunt took). Catherine on the other hand spent her time looking for "hidden" eggs versus the ones out in the open. The whole thing was over pretty fast. If the egg hunt lasted a full three minutes I would be surprised (I think it was just over two minutes though). But it was a full two minutes of chaos. And the kids really seemed to enjoy it. They had egg hunts for three or four different age ranges, and they did each age range twice throughout the day (our kids only participated once and that was for the second occurrence of their age group, mainly because we got there too late for the first one). I think I heard a statistic that they had over 18,000 plastic eggs for event. And this year we helped in the weeks before the event with stuffing 500 of those eggs with candy.
The pony ride was really long earlier, but later the line shortened enough to the point where Catherine was even able to get a ride in. The rides consisted of a really short jaunt around a specified area.
Afterwards we had lunch at Pomodoro with Rob and his clan. I even got Quinn to try a healthy sized piece of pasta with little to no complaining on his part in return for the promise of playing through a chapter of Lego Star Wars. And once we got home and started playing is when things started going pear shaped. Catherine was watching us play, and after a while complained her head was hurting. Then a bit later she complained about it some more, and then she was off to the bathroom where she threw up. After that Ginger tried to get her to go upstairs, but she apparently wasn't done hurling yet and let loose once more in my office (the good news is my office downstairs is one of the few rooms in the house that has tile on the floor). So after taking her temperature it appears it's possible Catherine has managed to get the flu. The rest of the day was spent with Catherine just hanging out on the couch watching TV (which even though the kids don't like not feeling well, I think they know when they get sick hey get to veg in front of the TV and they seem to like that a lot). Quinn also ended up watching even though he wasn't sick (although tonight before bed he was complaining he had a headache, so we'll see what happens with that). So it looks like there won't be any Easter Sunday Church for us tomorrow as we have a house full of potentially contagious people.
So here's a close up of the Bricks. In retrospect I should have exaggerated the goatee a bit and made it significantly bigger. Or done a close up shot of him. Another point the video obscured is the different symbols on the uniform, which now I'm really showing my Star Trek geekiness. I guess and I should quit now before I sound like even more of an über nerd. Since I did have someone ask why it took five hours, I will say from concept to script to final product there were significant changes made along the way. At first I was going to do actual voice overs, but I couldn't locate the wav files I needed and searching for those took a long time. Once I realized I wasn't going to be able to locate the files I needed I had to rewrite the script a bit. Then finding the Star Trek intro scene took a while. I never was able to find that in an importable video format, so eventually I ended up playing the intro on youtube and filming the computer while it played. The ultimate low budget movie.
Ginger and the kids came back home today. They got back this afternoon. Ginger said traffic was pretty bad on the interstate, which completely proved what I thought wrong since I had figured people would be fleeing this area for the weekend versus coming to it and the reverse commute wouldn't be so bad.
As some of you might be expecting (or at least KennyG since he even mentioned it in the comments the other day), with Ginger and the kids away in Richmond that means I'm practically obligated to do a post with the Brick in it. I can't believe how long this took to make. It literally took about five hours (in large part due to Movie Maker choking and dying a couple times). Next time I'm just going do something with pictures. I'm expecting comments on whether this was entertaining or not (because if it's not there's no way I'll be spending five hours next time).
Ginger headed down to Richmond with Quinn today. Before they left we all went to breakfast at IHOP and then went and picked up my car from the dealer. Apparently everyone down in Richmond decided to celebrate Ginger's upcoming birthday a bit early. Catherine had helped make the cake before Ginger showed up today, and Catherine was the one that wrote the words on the cake. I've been told that the cake also "has a lady (on left) and a house with snakes next to it (on right) in the bottom left corner". I can only assume those are referring to the picture with the cake that's being held by Ginger and is upside down, because otherwise I'm at a loss to explain what's what.
It's somewhat nice having the two cameras now, because I can give the D70 to Ginger to take and I can still have the D200 here for myself. The pictures themselves were sent by Ginger to me using Picasa, which unfortunately shrank them down way smaller than I would have liked. I'll eventually get the originals once Ginger gets back. I think I forgot to tell her that the D70 was having memory card issues where it wouldn't connect well unless you really pressed the card into the camera, so hopefully she'll read this before she needs to use the camera again.
I played around a bit with the D200 tonight trying some various modes. I tried using the exposure bracketing mode, but I think I did something wrong since it never took more than one picture. And the D70 that Ginger has in Richmond has the tripod connector on it, so that meant I couldn't use the tripod with the D200 tonight. Which in turn made it difficult setting up time delay shots (like the one above).
And I've decided I should never go to the grocery store when I'm hungry. I just stopped in tonight to grab something for lunch and left with several frozen meals, a gallon of ice cream and 7 lbs of chicken thighs. What was I thinking?!?
Finally took my car in to get it fixed from where it failed inspection last month. And as I was expecting when taking it to the dealer they managed to find numerous things wrong with it. Apparently not only were the rear brake pads low but the dealer decided the rotors also needed to be replaced. And then they found a split axle and the it was drained of grease. And the brake fluid as well as the power steering fluid apparently needed to be replaced. All told it's going to be about fifteen hundred dollars. And here we were just a month or so away from not having a car payment on either car anymore. But hey, it's not all bad news. They washed the car for free. I mean, think of all the money that saved me.
Ginger and Quinn on the other hand have been having a fun filled day apparently. Eating out at Whole Foods for breakfast, then they went shopping and eventually ended up going to see a matinée of Horton hears a Who. Not sure how much he really liked it though since when they picked me up from work and we went to dinner he didn't really talk about. Ginger thought the matinee price of $8 for each of them was over the top (she had thought the price for Quinn should be a little less), but I've ranted enough about movie prices in the past to know that's just par for the course these days (and as bad as it here it's still nothing apparently to what Curt has to pay up in New York). Dinner tonight was a California Pizza Kitchen and Quinn tried some spinach artichoke dip on his chips multiple times. To be fair the multiple times required us prompting him, but he didn't seem to mind it too much and used it as bargaining chip for later getting to play Lego Star Wars. I have to say I think Lego Star Wars is my birthday gift I received since at this point I think Quinn will at least try just about anything (within reason) to get to play it.
I didn't really get a report on what Catherine did down in Richmond today, so I can't really speak to that. Ginger and Quinn head down to Richmond tomorrow to join them for a couple days though, so I'm gonna be living large and in charge solo here while they're gone. Which is a fancy way of saying I'll be able to watch TV almost as soon as I get home rather than waiting for the kids to go to bed and for Ginger to be done with the TV.
Up above is another image from our visit to Frying Pan Park last Saturday. I liked the shot until I got home and zoomed in and noticed the airplane above the building.
Catherine left us today to go spend a couple days at Grammy's. This week is spring break from school for the kids so this seemed like a good time. This means we have Quinn by himself, so we can go out to eat at places like Joe's Crabshack for dinner since that's normally a place we wouldn't be able to go with Catherine. Quinn's already requested we schedule in a trip to IHOP at some point before Catherine gets back.
So moving on to my Barack theory about why it is Barack Obama is so popular. I realize I'm coming to the party late and he may already be over this popular phase, but I think it's worth looking back and seeing how he may have gotten to where he is. This is another one of those cases where I've come up with an idea that I believed to be original only to find out after googling it that it's been at least considered and explored elsewhere. But essentially I believe that Barack Obama has a David Palmer vibe going for him. And not the morally ambiguous David Palmer from Season 3 of 24 that did some questionable stuff, but rather the upstanding righteous man of principle that was in Seasons 1 and 2 (and to a lesser extent Seasons 4 and 5). The TV show 24 pretty much made David Palmer out to the ideal President. Someone morally grounded and with strong principles, but also willing to make the tough choices when called upon. Essentially they portrayed him as a modern day version of Abraham Lincoln. I think Obama's initial campaign message of change and needing to do what's right resonated with people as David Palmerish. And really, who could argue against David Palmer as President? You can't. Plus he's got Jack Bauer on speed dial. Who needs a surge in Iraq to protect America when you have Jack Bauer at your disposal.
And let me say while I think Obama might have been reminiscent of David Palmer back when the election was more about each candidate's vision and ideal of where the country needed to be, I don't think that's the case anymore. Since in the past month or so the election has turned away from the vision and has turned more towards some mudslinging (which is disappointing, but not really unsurprising as it was bound to happen at some point). I still don't know who will eventually end up with the Democratic candidacy, but it certainly seems like both candidates are in it for the long haul and I suspect it's all going to come down to the convention and some legal wrangling over what to do with Florida and Michigan's delegates. I also believe that in the process of dragging out the decision this long into the process that both candidates will end up burning one another so badly that I suspect that fact coupled with the addition of Nader in the race means that McCain will have will be the eventual winner. Already the media is having a field day with which candidate will be able to win over that elusive demographic, the white male voter.
Nana left for home today, but not before setting up the kids with one of those Chia Head craft projects (much like the ones Barry's kids did). Ginger was particularly fond of this project since it got dirt all around the kitchen.
My new camera is taking some getting used to. The fact that it can rattle off about 5 pictures a second is causing me to use up a ton of pictures. Like when trying to take a picture of the kids I'll just start pressing and next thing I know it's like I'm taking a mini movie and I've got ten to fifteen pictures (which almost all look exactly the same). At the rate I'm going I'll soon be needing a new storage device before too much longer. Either that or I'm going to have to no longer save every single photo (up until now since I've had the space I've just saved every shot, even the terrible ones and mistakes).
Today we decided it was such a nice day out that we simply had to take the kids to the park. This meant deciding to go, then getting ready to go, and then deciding we would eat lunch out at Whole Foods, then having to wait on the kids to actually eat their lunch. So after all that we didn't even get to the park until almost three.
We decided to go to Frying Pan Park, which I must say is significantly more crowded on weekends than the other times I've been there. I suspect that part of the reason it was so crowded was there was a horse auction going on. Ginger wouldn't let us buy a horse (something about not having anywhere to keep it and the whole not knowing a single thing about raising horses).
The kids did get to see some baby lambs, calves and piglets though. And we even took the tractor ride around the farm (which I have to say wasn't that exciting, but the kids seemed to enjoy it). Plus I used today as a test run for switching over to using the new D200. Part of the reason I hadn't switched over earlier was some of the settings were really odd and I didn't know how to get it back to a setting I was comfortable with. But after reading the manual for most of this morning I was at least able to locate how to fix some of the settings that were bothering me the most. Having the setting be all messed up isn't that unexpected though since I did buy the camera used. But it was a learning experience and I feel like I know a bit more about the camera now.
Today was the Dad's breakfast day today at school. I ended up having to switch rooms after 20 minutes so that I could spend an equal amount of time in both kid's rooms.
I got a couple pictures with the kids, but since I was in the picture I had to have the kids take the pictures. Each of them took one picture of me with the other kid. To be honest I didn't think the odds of either picture turning out even remotely decent were any good, but they turned out pretty good. The kids look better in both shots than I do. I look like crap and like the ancient one (which I guess I am now). The one above was taken by Quinn.
And I realize I look bad in the this shot, but I think Catherine did a really good job of framing the shot. She even turned the camera so that she would get all of Quinn's head in the shot. You can tell from the shelves in the back that she turned the camera quite a bit. She's got natural talent.
So it's a normal day for the most part. I get home late (again, unfortunately this is starting to become a recurring theme), I'm putting Quinn to bed and what the heck, let's take a photo or two. And yea, I know, he's got a bit of chocolate on his face from eating an Oreo cookie after dinner. But then all of a sudden...
Aaaaahhhh! Holy crap what happened to his teeth? Turns out his other front tooth fell out today. Apparently he was eating pizza in the car and it just popped out. And I may get in trouble for saying this, but I have to be honest, it looks a bit creepy.
So completely off topic. I was looking up how one writes a scream (for the record, I never really found anything so I made up the thing above) and as I was searching I came across a couple videos that have collections of the same scream. Click here and here for the videos. I can't tell whether this is a joke or they just didn't think people could do a good scream. I'm guessing a little from column A and a little from column B. Eventually I found this that explained it all. I had never noticed. And the sad thing is I've seen lots of those movies and still, I've never noticed it. Now I'm wondering if I'll be able to pick it out in future movies.
A while back I mentioned the new Spectacular Spider-Man animated series would be debuting last Saturday. And now after watching a couple episodes I feel I can pass some judgment. It's definitely a reinterpretation of the Spider-Man mythos updated to today's world. Peter Parker is in high school. He lives at home with Aunt May. At this point Mary Jane isn't even in the show (I've seen character sketches of her for the show, but I don't know if she'll actually be in it).
They do give him a supporting cast. His best buddy is Harry Osborn (whose Dad Norman Osborn will eventually become the Green Goblin). Gwen Stacy is his platonic female friend who they've obviously set up as having a crush on Peter to which he's oblivious. There's also Flash Thompson the bully at high school that picks on Peter, but is Spider-Man's biggest fan and Liz Allen, who Peter is crushing on, but is dating Flash Thompson and looks down and Peter and his friends because they're geeks. They've also made Eddie Brock (the guy destined to become Venom) a former friend that graduated from high school last year and is now at college where Peter and Gwen are interns working for Curt Conners (the guy who will eventually be the Lizard). And let's not forget Jonah Jameson from the Daily Bugle.
It's lot of character to introduce in one half hour episode, but somehow they manage to get all the supporting cast in there and have Spider-Man go up against the Vulture and the Enforcers all within the first 30 minute episode (which is really only 20 if you subtract out time for commercials). To be honest, it's an impressive amount of exposition for the pilot, but they pull it off. Storywise they have enough characters already set up and plotlines in motion for the whole season. In fact, while this is a reinterpretation I would say the writing is pretty good for the most part. There's one recurring bit where Peter constantly needs to call home to Aunt May before 10 PM every night if he's going to be late that always seems to happen during a big super-villain brawl that's getting tedious, but other than they do a good job. The only thing I've really taken issue with is the art isn't as polished as the Spider-Man animated series from back in the 90s and that they've made Peter Parker have this anime type of facial appearance (those are some freakishly huge eyeballs) and for some reason they seemed to think Peter Parker needed a beauty mark on his face. Other than that I have to say the series looks like it has promise (admittedly though there have only been two aired episodes so far).
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.
Ginger and Quinn on the other hand have been having a fun filled day apparently. Eating out at Whole Foods for breakfast, then they went shopping and eventually ended up going to see a matinée of 
