Probably The Last Sledding For A While

Ginger and Catherine attended a dance recital today (not participating, just viewing). So while they were gone Quinn and I did did some activities. Like we tried sledding down the hill out back. There's not much left to sled down, but what's there is ice, so you can actually get some speed going down the hill.


Given how patchy it is back there now though, I can't see being able to pull off sledding again until we get another batch of snow.




Once we were done outside we came inside and we watched some more of the Star Wars (the original Episode 4 theatrical version). I've obviously enhanced the movie in my mind from when I first saw it, because the theatrical version isn't all that great (special effects wise anyway). I did want Quinn to see the theatrical version though, since we all know Han shot first! We didn't get all the way through it before Ginger and Catherine returned though so we still have a bit left to watch of it (Vader and Obi Wan had just run into each other at the time we had to quit).

Friday Photo

I've been working a lot more lately so I've had less time to spend with the family and collect anecdotes for the blog. Therefore all you get is a picture for today. No post for you, come back one year. Or tomorrow. Tomorrow would probably work.

Pineapple Express

Tonight Ben came over and we watched Pineapple Express. This is the latest Judd Apatow produced comedy. This time he only wrote the story and the screenplay was written by others (including Seth Rogen, one of the stars). While in most of his previous movies the occasional drug use was thrown in as a comedy tool this time it takes center stage as the whole story has drug use undertones. It's amusing enough, but in my opinion probably one of the weaker comedy's Apatow has done (although it's possible if you've had more exposure to pot smoking in general the movie might be funnier). There are several scenes that are really funny. Near the end the whole movie just starts to go completely over the top though. I'm not convinced the funny scenes are worth going through the rest of the movie to get to though. This one falls square in the middle for me. It's not bad, but not one I would immediately recommend either.

And Now It's Ice

So a small layer of the snow melted, and then it rained a bit and that in combination with the sub freezing temperatures turned yesterday's snow into a nice thin layer of ice. So schools were closed once again. The kids never really made it outside today, but I went out and wandered around taking some pictures of the ice.


While I was wandering around outside I got to see the family of deer that sometimes go through our yard. They stayed well away from me though and were always too far away to be photographed (and strangely when I started making my way towards them the crunching ice sound startled them and they bolted).


Since I know how much Ginger hates driving when there's ice I went ahead and worked from home. Today though I did manage to get a full day's work done in spite of the kids constant interruptions.

Yay! A Snow Day!

Hang on to your hats, this one is a long one. Mother nature made up the small dusting / teasing of snow we had yesterday by dumping a fair amount last night. It wasn't a huge amount, but it was enough to close schools and provide for some dangerous road conditions. Since we're off a street that's off a main street our road never really gets plowed, so rather than fight my way in I decided to work from home. This has positives and negative. The negative (or positive depending on how you view it I suppose) is I didn't really get a full day of work in, but I did get to enjoy being outside with the kids in the snow.


It wasn't what I call packing snow. But it was good enough for sledding.


The kids really wanted to build a snowman and snow fort, but the snow just wasn't cooperating at all.


So we concentrated on sledding. Which required some finesse since the area where they sled was packed with the cut up leftover trees that fell down during last year's ice storm. There was a moment where I thought Quinn was going run into them so I planted myself and bounced his sled to the side. Unfortunately I'm not so good at planting myself and I ended up getting flipped head over heels. Somehow I managed to keep my camera in the air and kept it from taking a hit.


And sadly while Ginger filmed some of the day's events she didn't get Quinn running me over on tape (I believe her and Catherine were still in the front yard at that point).


Ginger had bought the kids some new sleds. They're basically little pieces of plastic you sit on ride. I personally don't think they work that well, but the kids insisted on continuing to try and use them.


Unfortunately most of the pictures I took ended up being worthless because once again I had changed the settings on my camera. Back in Richmond on Saturday to take a picture of the bell tower in the evening I had set the EV setting to +0.7 and never changed it back. So all my shots were trying to be slightly overexposed which was keeping the shutter open for way longer than it should have (and by way longer I means an additional 20 or 30 milliseconds, but that's all it takes to make all your shots a bit blurry).




After a mini snowball battle between Ginger and the kids Quinn decided he was done and wanted to go inside to get some hot chocolate.


Catherine didn't want to go in yet, so I took her down the street to a larger hill. This particular hill is huge, but has a creek with a plethora of rocks in it at the bottom, so taking the inflatable sled wasn't an option since it would have probably ended up in the rocks. This meant we actually had a use for the new sled Ginger bought. So while I'm bashing it on the one hand, it was good we had it in this case.




The hill has a path on it (not that you can see it since it's covered in snow) and lots of kids were sliding down it. I was briefly worried she was going to crack her head on the snow covered asphalt, but she never got too much speed going so I decided it was probably safe enough. Catherine would have stayed out there and continued to sled even longer if I hadn't finally made her leave. But, and this was the kicker, she was too tired to walk back (even though I had offered multiple times to drive us there initially she insisted on us walking). So I ended up having to carry her all the way home by giving her a piggy back ride on my shoulders.

The Mystery Of The Flat Tire

We got a small snow dusting last night. Not enough to cause any problems, but enough to get the kids excited about the possibility of snow. Unfortunately my car also had a flat tire this morning. And it wasn't just low on air either either. It was really flat. So I took the kids to school in Ginger's car and then returned home and looked over the tire. I couldn't see a nail or anything, so I filled it up with air. Then I wait a bit to make sure it wasn't going to immediately deflate and drove to a local service station to try and get it plugged. And then after a lot more waiting than I would have liked they came out and told me they couldn't find any leak or any foreign object in it tire). Great, so my morning got killed for no good reason (and I got to pay the service station for the pleasure) and to top it off I still have no explanation as to how my tire got deflated. Co-workers have suggested it was the #$*&# kids from around the neighborhood. Which I suppose is a possibility, but seems highly unlikely since we don't really know any #$*&# kids nor have we had any problems like this in the past. No other explanations really seem to make sense though (unless I was subconsciously trying to get out of going to work and did it while sleep walking at night, but one would think with the sub freezing temperatures I would have woken up or something). Any one else have any ideas on what could have happened? At this point I'm thinking aliens don't sound too far fetched.

Quinn's View Of The Trip To Richmond

The reason for only being in Richmond one day was two fold. One was other people were visiting Grandmaw also, so there was no room in Ginger's parent's house. The other reason was Ginger had the toddler shift at church this morning and had been unable to reschedule it.


Figured I would post some of the pictures Quinn took when we went to Richmond. He really seems to like his new camera.


As is pretty typical of pictures Quinn takes he does a lot of abstract pictures.




I think the two pictures above are commentary on the human condition and how one sees oneself in the world at large. Or they could just be some random pictures.

To Richmond!

After yesterday's bad news today became a quick road trip down to St Francis Medical Center in Richmond to check in on Ginger's grandmother.


Neither kid seemed to mind the several hour car drive down to Richmond. Quinn saw the trip as an opportunity to test out his new camera.






The kids took down some drawings they made and those got plastered on the walls of Grandmaw's room.




The kids hung out in the lobby a fair amount of the time watching the TV they have out there. We also had a portable DVD player on hand and we had brought Tom and Jerry for them to watch.


As you might expect, I was ever vigilant in keeping watch over the kids in the lobby. I'm not sure where the photo up above came from.


After a quick trip out to eat lunch it was back to the hospital for a bit. Then after that we went to Grammy's house briefly to have a quick bite to eat and then we were heading home. About halfway back Ginger insisted on taking on the driving duties. We were in such a hurry leaving from home that morning that I forgot my wallet. That meant I didn't have my driver's license with me. I was pretty sure driving without it wasn't that big of a deal (it's not like I don't have a license, I just didn't have it on my person). Ginger didn't want to risk it, and because she had looked it up on the internet using her iPhone she was pretty sure the answer was that if someone else was available to drive with a license they should.

Not Good

Today should have been a good day, one in which during dinner we all chuckled as Quinn regaled us with a story of how he had poopy gas at school during gym and every time he did a jumping jack he had a little gas come out (it was funnier to hear him tell it with sound effects). But unfortunately we got a spot of bad news today. Turns out Ginger's grandmother after having gone through a series of tests earlier in the day fell out of her bed at home and had to be taken to the hospital. The bad news is she has a fractured neck. The only spot of good news in all this is she isn't paralyzed and can still move everything which the doctors said is nothing short of a miracle considering where the fracture occurred and even more amazing when you consider she refused to have an ambulance come get her and moved herself to the car to get to the hospital.

Numb

Ginger and I watched Numb on Netflix instant view last night. It was another movie starring Matthew Perry. After Birds Of America (another Matthew Perry vehicle on Netflix's Instant View which was terrible) we really should have learned. Probably the fact that the movie was on Instant View should have been a clue (although we've had at least one movie that was decent that we've watched via the Instant View). The movie deals with the main character Hudson (Perry) who suffers from Depersonalization (which apparently is a real thing). The fact that this disorder isn't well known means they have to spend a lot of time explaining it. And even when they do since it isn't well known it's hard to really understand the implications of the disorder. The disorder is describe as not feeling connected and as if you're watching your life played out in a movie. Which then I start thinking, I'm watching a movie about a guy who feels like he's watching his life through a movie, so is he feeling what I'm feeling watching the movie? And if so, no wonder he's so depressed. After all is said and done it just ends up being another unfunny dark drama starring former Friends funny man Matthew Perry (emphasis on unfunny). The movie is labeled as being a romantic comedy, but there aren't a lot of laughs to be had, but there are a couple chuckles with one Hudson's psychiatrists. Overall not that great a movie and another one to avoid.

How To Save The Economy

Apparently Obama can save the economy and get people buying stuff single handedly. He doesn't even need to do anything. Apparently anything with Obama on it at this point is as good as printing money. Marvel Comics even got in on the action with a completely gratuitous appearance by Obama in a five page backup story in Amazing Spider-Man 583.


Frankly this was nothing more than a publicity stunt and a money grab as far as I can see. The worst part about it? It worked. Amazing Spider-Man 583 has been out for just over a week or so and it's already on it's fourth printing. Evidently the nation is just clamoring to see an artistic depiction of the new President in a comic book. And get this, the cover up above, the one with Obama actually on it isn't even the normal cover. That's one the comic dealer had to order a specific number of the regular issue before they could order that one. So this means if the demand is for the Obama cover then comic shop dealers have to order a ton of the regular issue which isn't going to have nearly the demand as the variant cover with Obama on it. And ignoring the blatantly inappropriate terrorist first bump Obama gives Spider-Man there at the end, what's up with Spider-Man's head in that last frame? It looks like the Spider-Man mask over top of a fleshless skull.

Cautiously Optimistic

I've gotten really behind on the blog. Part of the reason is this post. I wasn't sure what to say. It's a big day. We got a new Prez sworn in. It feels like a truly monumentally big deal. I realize 43% of the country thinks we've made a horrible mistake, but I would say 57% felt like the country was on path that wasn't consistent with the values we as a nation purport to extol.


I had to work today. Even if I hadn't been working I can't imagine myself heading down to view the event in person. It's something I might think about doing, but just can't see myself actually doing. However, I did head down to our lobby at work which has a TV in it just before noon to watch the festivities. Imagine my surprise when the lobby was filled with others who had the same idea. Apparently I'm not the only one that feels like this is a big event.


The speech was filled with lofty rhetoric. And it focused a bit more on race than I would have thought it would, but I can see why it did since the whole issue of race at this point is the elephant in the room. I was also surprised at how some lines in the speech seemed to echo those of the previous administration, but they seemed to be balanced with a promise of of a change of direction at the same time. I also thought it was a bit rude of CBS to cut to a shot of Bush when Obama uttered the line about how as a nation "we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." It's a great line. And I think it would have stood really well on it's own. So was it really necessary to cut to Bush? Was there anyone that didn't know what he was saying without shoving it in our face?


Overall it's the first time I can ever recall where I went out of my way to watch the inauguration. I've become a bit jaded with the idea of any politician holding to their ideals. But this time... Well, this time let's just say I am currently filled with cautious optimism about the future. Do I agree with Obama on everything? No, but I agree with a lot of what of what seem to be his ideas for what he thinks the country should be doing. Here's hoping we get to see that Change we were promised.


The kids had the day off from school. And Ginger let them watch some of the festivities on TV. Above you can see the event as rendered by Catherine. And no, I don't know why exactly that she wrote her name backwards. I asked her about it, but she didn't tell me why.