Little Small World

Ginger and the kids returned home today. Of course I was playing the PS3 when they arrived, so they were very interested in being able to play themselves. The kids have decided they really like the Little Big Planet game (or "Little Small World" as Catherine was referring to it for a while).

Now we have to get more controllers so we can all play. The problem there is that while I managed to get the system itself for "free", the accessories are going to bankrupt me. The controllers are $55 apiece. Now I admit that a Wii controller and Nunchuk will actually run you more than that, and the Wii is well known as a money sink hole on accessories, but I didn't realize the problem was so cross platform.

The problem is that online I can get the controllers for $42, if it was only a matter of $5 or less, I would go ahead and get them at a brick and mortar store, but $12 less is significant, especially since we're going to have to buy two so the kids can play Little Big Planet co-op with me (Ginger has said she refuses to play the system because the controller is just unnatural to her).

The other somewhat interesting thing that happened to today was Catherine reasoned out the truth about Santa Claus. It was extremely odd, she was taking her shower, and then just started explaining to us how it was impossible for Santa Claus to do everything he's suppose to be able to do. Honestly I was a bit taken aback. First off, why's she already thinking about Santa Claus and Christmas? Does she just have presents on the brain? Or is does she really plan that far ahead as to what she wants and how to get it? What exactly does she want that prompted this line of thought. Second, she came to the realization all by herself. I remember Quinn questioning things before we told him, but this wasn't her questioning it so much as this was her flat out stating that can't be. From an objective point of view I can't help but be a bit impressed at her logical reasoning and deductive process (especially considering I remember being much older than her before I realized the truth), but at the same time it's kind of sad that she's already grown up past that stage now.

Off To The Races

Ginger and the kids left this morning for Richmond. They're heading down there so Quinn can attend the NASCAR race. Funny thing is this year Quinn still likes cars and racing just as much as ever, but he hasn't really been following NASCAR specifically as much as he has in the past. Mind you, that doesn't stop him from wanting to attend the race in the slightest.

It's Good To Be The King

So I mentioned to some of my co-workers that I had purchased a PS3 and now I have a ton of games for it. I've had multiple people let me borrow games now. Some of the people are people that work for me, so I'm a bit concerned that they're feeling obligated to let me borrow them, but since I didn't ask or suggest it and they volunteered, I'm hoping that's not the case. Still, I only let it bother me a bit because games for the PS3 system are crazy expensive. It feels odd having seven games to choose from already. In fact, it's almost too much. How do you pick just one. I started by playing Valve's Orange Box Half Life collection. I had never gotten Portal back when it came out and had always wanted to try it. It's a really good game, but I personally think it would be more playable (for me anyway) on a PC. I say this as someone that's played a lot of FPS games on the computer. Using a controller just feels weird, and I can't seem to get used to the movement sensitivity (which I believe is a lot easier to control with a mouse). I also briefly tried playing some of Assassin's Creed. Did I mention most of the games people let me borrow were older games back from when the PS3 first came out. Anyway, I have to admit, Assassin's Creed is stunning. I knew there was a huge difference between the graphics of the Wii and PS3 / XBox, but this is just crazy gorgeous. So far the PS3 isn't what I would call a kid friendly system. But it does have Little Big Planet, which is adorable and the kids really like it.

Got My PS3

The PS3 has arrived. I've gotten it set up on the TV, but now that it's set up I've realized there's a flaw in my plan. It's on the main TV. It doesn't make sense to hook it up to the analog TV downstairs, so it's on the HD one. But that means I can only play games on it when that TV isn't being used by others (and by others I mean Ginger and myself watching TV). The obvious solution is to buy a new HD TV and take the current one down into the basement. I wonder how much that would cost and whether Ginger would be agreeable to this plan.

School Starts

Today was the kids first day of school. They're only going for half days this week, which sort of doesn't even give them any time at all to do anything, so it's more like they're just hanging out around the school for a bit. Today was big for Catherine since this is her first year in elementary school. She had packed her book bag last night and I think she liked the book bag and packing it more than the idea of actually using it or taking it to the school. I am a tad bit concerned how things are going to go with both Quinn and Catherine in the same classroom (I'm envisioning a lot of fighting).

Shutter Up

We had African Children Choir visiting our church today, which meant no Sunday School or kid's church. The odd thing is there appears to be some weird power struggle going on within our church. The pastor sent out an email earlier in the week telling people they could stay after the service to discuss any issues, but then in the service the board gave a statement basically criticizing that action and explaining that it was against some rules or something then put together they own meeting. I don't know what it all means, but I get the feeling someone's not happy about something. I guess we're just not involved enough to know all the intricate details about what's going on.






We went out for lunch, but once we were home Nana played with the kids while Ginger and I did chores. The kids played with the new remote control cars that Nana gave them yesterday. Meanwhile Ginger did some weeding outside while I worked on fixing that shutter that started falling off. The shutter is on the second floor, and I don't own a ladder that would let me get up that high (note: need to buy a ladder). A couple of the nails holding the shutter up had snapped. I was able to get one of the broken pieces out of the mortar, but not the second one. Luckily the one I was able to get out was on the top, so I took a trip to Home Depot, got some mortar in a tube and plugged up as much as I could then reset the shutter and pushed the nails back into the holes (hoping that once the mortar dries it'll hold it there for a while). The other shutter was warped from where the top nail which was suppose to be going through a piece of wood (placed there to hold the shutter slightly away from the brick) had fallen out. The piece of wood had fallen and twisted so it was pressing the shutter much further away from the wall than it should have. Since I have no ladder, I was basically hanging out the window trying to fix this stuff. The good news is I didn't fall, the bad news is I think if this works it'll just be a temporary patch job since that mortar in a can never really seemed to dry and stayed malleable no matter how long it sat.

Pottery

Went to do pottery today. Catherine is one of those that will sit there and paint pottery for as long as you let her. Quinn on the other hand starts out strong, but after doing about one piece loses interest in it, it does take him longer to get his one piece done that Catherine though, since he's fairly meticulous about his painting.




Catherine did several pieces. She would have done more if we had let her, but it was starting to get late and we had leave (plus Quinn was getting really bored, although there's a model train store next to the pottery place and he likes going in there).










The pottery piece Quinn did was a boat.


Nana did a very nicely done plate.


All the rest of the pieces are by Catherine.






After pottery we went by Target, and on the way into the store Ginger mentioned we were just going to return one item and get two things. At this Quinn piped up and said something like "Whenever we go to the store Mom always says she's only going to get one thing, then she ends up buying a ton of stuff." It was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud. In Quinn's defense when we left we did have significantly more than two items.

Family Bike Ride

All of us (including Nana who is up visiting) went bike riding tonight. It was a challenge since everyone in the group rides at a different pace. It meant Quinn would zoom ahead (which meant one of the adults had to keep up with him), and then they would have to wait on the rest of us to catch up.






For the first time I decided to take a good camera with me on the ride. But I didn't feel comfortable taking my D200 (it's pretty heavy), so I took my older D70 (which is really Ginger's camera now). Not sure I'll do that again. First off it's hard to take a picture while you're riding your bike (something about needing to look where you're going). And second it meant I only had one hand to steer with at any given time. And while I seemed competent enough one handed (no jokes) I was always paranoid I was going to fall or crash and destroy the camera.








And sadly once we got back home I noticed a small problem with one of the shutters on the house. Can't say I'm looking forward to fixing that since we don't have a ladder that tall (at least we don't have one yet anyway).

PS3

I bought a PS3 today. It was somewhat against the wishes of Ginger who didn't think we needed one. And to a large degree she's right, we don't. However, there was a deal online that I couldn't pass up. In the previous months before Sony released the PS3 Slim the price of the PS3 was higher, and there was a deal online that showed up every so often that allowed you to buy the PS3 and basically get $300 off the price. It does require you to use a Sony credit card, and it's dependent on you buying the PS3 through their Sony Style website (which gets you a credit of $100) and then charging a total of $3000 dollars on the credit card within 6 months (which results in you getting another $200 worth of credit). So that's effectively like getting $300 back on $3300, which is way better than any other credit card refund offer I've seen. So with the price of the new Slims having dropped to $300 and then offer coming back online I felt like I couldn't not buy it. I mean it's basically free at that point. Ok, minus the part about having to charge $3000 dollar in six months it's free, but really, we sometimes shop at Whole Foods, charging that much over six month isn't that difficult (the hardest part is going to be convincing Ginger not to be embarrassed about to use a Sony Playstation card to buy things).

Plus, it's a Blu-ray player, and those are expensive all by themselves, much less one that comes with a game system. So getting all that for next to nothing makes me think that particular offer going live again must have been a mistake or something, because it wasn't live for that long before they took it down. It's since been replaced with the much inferior get $100 off offer (and all you have to do is get the credit card and use it at Sony Style to get the PS3). Which I suppose isn't a terrible deal, but it's nowhere near as good as the deal I managed to snag.

Disney Buys Marvel

The big news of the day today was Marvel being bought up by Disney. It's an odd marriage. I know there had been rumors of Marvel being available to be bought for months now, but I don't think a anyone had really put forward the idea of them being bought by Disney. In retrospect I guess it makes sense. I don't think we're going to be seeing all the crossovers that everyone seems to be dreading (I suppose it's possible we'll see a Mickey Mouse meets Spider-Man comic sometime in the future, I just can't imagine it being any good).

The other weird thing about the deal is that while Disney now has access to Marvel's inventory of characters, many of those characters are currently tied up in license deals with other companies and won't be available anytime in the near future. Sony has Spider-Man for who knows how long, but I've heard rumors of a Spider-Man 6 movie, so it doesn't sound like they're ready to let go of the property. FOX owns X-Men and Wolverine. In fact it sure seems like most of the marketable characters have already been snatched up by other companies. And then there's the Marvel characters at Universal Theme Parks, I can't imagine that's going to sit well with Disney (although the thought of seeing Hulk, Spider-Man, Iron Man at Disney World walking around with Cinderella and Seven Dwarfs seems like it would be an odd pairing also).

I guess it'll be interesting to see what happens. Disney is nothing if not a branding machine though. I mean look how firmly they've entrenched all the Princesses into the culture for little girls. And they don't only target little girls either as the plethora of High School Musical crap that's out there can attest. I think the only place where one might say Disney has a hole is with boys, and now that I think about it, that's a place where Marvel can actually help.

The worst part of all this was I had actually considered buying Marvel stock years ago when it was in the teens, but then it went into to twenties and I figured I had missed my chance. And now for the sale it's being valued at around forty-four. All of which tells me I have no business playing the stock market.

Back Home

Left Richmond today to return home. We'll have to wait until tomorrow to get the cats though since the vet they're being boarded at isn't open on Sunday.

Boring Day

Spent the day in Richmond. I did nothing really but managed to get some work done and catch up on a lot of stuff that went on while I was off on vacation. While I was working Ginger and the kids went out for lunch. Oh, and they went to Rita's for ice. In fact the kids got to go to Rita's twice today since they went after dinner also.

Last Day At The Beach

With today being our last day here we wanted to make sure we got as much in as we could, so we hit the community beach access this morning. The waves were pretty rough and there were still a fair number of jellyfish visible as you waded out, so we packed up and headed back to the community pool. We hung out there for a bit, but then Quinn started talking back and being generally rude and ended up having to leave early. So I escorted him back to the house via the shuttle (in retrospect making him miss out on swimming wasn't as much of a punishment as I would have liked since he had really wanted to take the shuttle at some point).








After lunch we headed back out, but this time we went to the sound side. The kids had new water shoes we had bought earlier in the week. That's because neither Ginger nor myself relished the idea of them walking around in the sound in bare feet. I was too afraid of broken glass or something. The water level was pretty low, so they were able to walk a good way out into the sound. I suspect they could have gone out even further had they wanted, but eventually I think they got tired of just walking around (as it wasn't really deep enough to swim in).












After that we decided to head back to the beach to get in one last beach visit before we had to leave. The jellyfish weren't as prevalent now, so Quinn got to out on the boogie board a bit. I also managed to convince Catherine to go out one last time and try the boogie board. She managed to catch a wave and ride it in, but after that she was done with wanting to be in the water. She much more enjoyed walking along the beach and chopping up any jellyfish she found (revenge is sweet apparently).




We eventually had to leave the beach though as it looked like Danny was approaching from the south. It's the first time I've ever seen storm clouds with noticeable bands like that. It looked pretty ominous.




Once we were back at the house the "fun" part of day began as we had to pack everything up. Then we said goodbye to the house and were on our way back to Richmond.

Just Another Day At The Beach

In an attempt to avoid the jellyfish that were in the area yesterday we revisited Coquina beach today. The water was a bit on the rough side (the swimming flags were orange / yellow), but I assume that's because of tropical storm / potential hurricane Danny that's coming up the coast. The beach still had tons of shells at the break point, so coupling that with the fact that the waves were a bit rougher than normal it meant Quinn wasn't able to go out on the boogie board.






The kids played in the sand. Catherine built sand structures while Quinn used the boogie board as a ferry moving his plastic trucks around the sand. At one point Catherine found a beached fish that looked dead, but we got some water and tossed it in and after a bit it seemed to recover. We eventually released it back into the ocean.


Catherine big idea of fun was basically digging a hole right where the water comes up and then standing in it and letting it fill up. I can't even begin to count the number of holes she had me digging while we were there.


For the evening we headed back to the go-karts since that's all Quinn has really wanted to do. Remember the other night when Quinn didn't do the junior race because he would have been the only one. Well, he was the only one again today, and since we weren't sure what tomorrow was going to be like we went ahead and let him do it since he really wanted to even if it was just him out there (because once again Catherine showed no interest in wanting to do it this time, despite Quinn's best efforts to try and convince her otherwise). I have some video of him driving, but since it's just him driving around the track by himself I'll spare everyone and not show it.






After the go-karts Catherine decided what she really wanted to do was the bumper cars again. Once again it was just us doing the bumper cars. I decided to forgo participating this time. Catherine's vehicle seemed a bit broken in that it didn't really seem to respond the controls unless she used a ton of force, so she was at a disadvantage and got bumped a fair amount (although I think Quinn realized she wasn't able to move as well and instead focused on bumping Ginger).






After that we went next door and did the prehistoric mini golf course. It was just Catherine and Quinn playing again. And once again it was a total time sink in that we were behind several groups that were all playing at a snail's pace.



And there was nothing but overcast tonight, so no sunset pictures. Instead I'll just toss in some random shots I took throughout the day.