There be good news, and there be bad news.
The good news, the kids had the day off from school and Quinn seems to be feeling a bit better. I came home early to watch the kids and work from home for a bit so that Ginger could run some errands and go by the grocery store (you'll notice this teensy weensy paragraph is it for the good news).
The bad news, once Ginger left I let them play unsupervised in the family room and wasn't paying real close attention to them (I could hear them, and they seemed to be enjoying themselves). Not too much later Quinn came running in to get me yelling "There's a spill! There's a spill!" At first I was a bit confused, because neither of them were drinking anything. But he seemed think it was urgent so I ran into the family room with him. What I saw was oil tipped over on top of the CD player above the TV. They were apparently playing with a blown up beach ball (that they had gotten at the school's fall festival) and knocked over a bottle of oil fragrance stuff. This is one of those Alora fragrance oils with sticks coming out of them. The fragrance was "Cinnamon and Bitter Orange". It was pouring onto and then into the CD player. Then dripping off the CD player and onto the TV. Running down the TV screen and pooling up in the controls before spilling over onto a chair cushion and onto the floor. No lie, it was like one of those commercial you see advocating extended warranties. Luckily the floor only got a little on it and the chair cushion took the brunt of it (although I still haven't gotten a good answer as to why the chair cushions were out and on the floor).
While I was a little irritated, I wasn't overly upset (these things are going to happen with kids). The funny thing is just before Ginger left we were talking about what we were going to do with the TV if we bought a new one how that maybe we could sell it. Guess that won't be happening now (unless someone *really* likes the smell of cinnamon). The oil is potent too. The whole ground floor now reeks of this stuff. And I think the stuff must be toxic because it seems to have eaten through some of the plastic on the television (although nothing on the bottle gives any indication that it might be some liquid solvent). To say Ginger wasn't happy when she got home would be an understatement. Not only was she upset because of the smell and the damage to the chair cushion she had just reupholstered (herself) not too long ago, but also because she claims the stuff is suppose to last for about 3 years (although the web site claims it's only going to last for 2 to 3 months, so I don't know why she thought that), and the kids spilled "a year and half of oil". I ended up taking more heat for it though than the kids did. I don't recall all of it, but there was something about 'needing to watch them' and 'being the responsible one'. Oh yea, there was the 'setting a bad example' since I had been playing with the ball that caused all the trouble with Catherine before Ginger left. That'll teach me to come home and try to help out in the future.
Quinn stayed home again today. He seemed to be doing somewhat better until tonight when he suddenly started displaying some other symptoms than just coughing (fever, another cookie tossing incident, plus some other stuff). Looks like we're in this for the long haul. On the positive side, at this point I don't think anyone else in the house has become infected (yet), although I've been making sure to take my daily vitamins hoping against hope that can stave off catching anything.
And I finally got to find out what happens on my camera when you go over 10,000 pictures taken. The format of the picture filenames are DSC_####.JPG. So you can see how that could potentially be a problem once you pass 10k. The bad news is it wraps and starts over at DSC_0001.JPG. The good news is that the directory all the pictures reside in is called 100NCD70, but now it's created a new directory called 101NCD70 and the new pictures are going in there. It's actually kind of pain that it's reusing the picture numbers, since it means I will have the same file name in multiple places on the computer, but they'll be completely different pictures taken years apart.
I got my Nikon D70 in December of 2004. The picture above is the very first one I took with it (you can even see the camera manual on the sofa in the background). So it's taken me slightly less than two years to take ten thousand pictures. I would have to say that this has been one of the better investments that I've made. I know it was a bit pricey, but I've really enjoyed it and I've obviously gotten some use out of it. Picture ten thousand was the one of Quinn lying on the couch yesterday not feeling so good (I know it was labeled as 0001, but it goes from 9999 to 0001 in the new directory, apparently it chooses not to use 0000 as a picture designation). If only I had taken a couple more pictures it could have been this one that Quinn took the other day.
Finally I think this will be the last picture from last weekend's walk through the woods. And I almost didn't post this one since it's just okay, but not really great or anything (not that I'm implying that the other ones I've posted are great, but I've at least been happy with them whereas this one is somewhat borderline in my mind).
We kept Quinn home from school. He's still coughing. Ginger called the doctor about it this morning and they basically said that sounds like something that's apparently making the rounds at the moment. They also said that he may develop cold symptoms over the next week. Lovely. To make matters worse we've had a couple of cookie tossing instances. Can't tell at this time whether that's from coughing so much or whether it's something else. Still, we're trying to have him rest, so we let him watch the new Cars DVD tonight as he laid on the sofa (the video was going to be a present, but so much for that).
What a crazy day as far as the political stuff goes. Here in VA I suspect we're going to be the talk of the nation for the next couple of weeks until the Senate race gets decided (although the AP has called the race in favor of Webb). At this point there are only about 7,000 votes separating Webb and Allen, well under the 1% that would allow for a state financed recount (although reports state that Allen won't ask for the recount unless the vote difference diminishes some). There's a huge Wiki article about the race that apparently had to be locked down to prevent unregistered people from vandalizing it. What amazes me is our state's race became this important, and still we only had 52% of registered voters turning out. What's worse, is that I've heard that 52% is actually better than average for a non presidential election year.
Then as if the Senate race wasn't enough, out of the blue Rumsfeld is gone as Secretary of Defense. While this all seems rather sudden and appears to be a response to election outcome, the Prez firmly states this has been planned for over a week now and that he intentionally misled reporters a week ago when he stated he would keep Rumsfeld until he left office. I don't know if that's true or not, but in the President's defense, it's not like he hasn't allegedly misled the public in the past, so it's not as if there might not be a precedence for it (I wonder if I can be any less committal in that sentence).
There have been a couple of items in the news recently where I've experienced deja vu. I saw an article on Yahoo a couple days ago that said a company was planning on using cell phones to track gridlock. And I thought to myself "Self: that's a pretty interesting idea." Then I thought I was experiencing deja vu or something, since I could swear I remember some company doing something similar about 10 year ago and no way did they get this much press about it.
There have been a couple of items in the news recently where I've experienced deja vu (just checking to see if you're actually reading). One reason is because Mahir is back! Just when you thought his 15 minutes of fame ended years ago, he's back! Seems he believes he's the inspiration for the recent fictional character in the Borat movie and he's decided he wants some of the payout.
And finally, yet another photo from last weekend's walk through the woods.
Today is election day, so Ginger and I went and voted this morning. There was no line at all when we arrived (just after 9:30 AM). We actually had to stall for a bit so that we could look over the sample ballots for a bit. Quinn was very interested in this whole idea of voting. He was asking why we did it, and why was it today. So I took Quinn with me when I voted and I let him do all the button pressing. Luckily he didn't press any of the wrong buttons and he didn't cause the electronic voting machine to blue screen of death, so that's good. I believe Catherine helped Ginger when she voted. As we were leaving the school, Quinn announced that he thought voting was a lot of fun and wanted to go back and do it again. I tried to explain that everyone only gets to vote once, but I'm not sure he was buying it. After that Ginger took the kids to school while I headed off to work (although we were running behind our normal schedule at that point, so they were only in school for a couple of hours today).
Quinn seems to have picked up a nasty cough. He was coughing a little this morning which is one of the reasons we were running late (we originally thought we would keep him home from school), but then the cough seemed to clear up and we decided he could go to school (and we would stop by and vote on the way). But tonight the coughing came back with a vengeance and started getting really bad. He doesn't seem to have any other cold or flu symptoms at the moment, just this wicked cough that was keeping him from going to sleep until we gave him some Pedicare.
The current projections are putting the House under control of the Democrats. The Senate still seems to be up for grabs at this point with a couple of races too close to call. More than likely a recount will occur in at least a couple of those close races so it may be a while before we know who controls the Senate. I'm still not convinced this is going to go well for the Democrats though. Now they'll have control of the House, but with Bush still the president I foresee nothing getting done in the next couple of years (although one could easily argue that Congress hasn't really done anything for a while with everything being controlled by the Republicans, so this won't be all that different). Still, I can't help but wonder if this might not hurt the Democrats in the long run. Since in two years when the next election rolls around they really won't be able to show any tangible results that have resulted from them controlling the House. On the other hand, Bush will still be the President, and that seems to be what's fueling this underlying discontent with the Republican party.
And just so this doesn't become a completely political entry, here's another shot from this past weekend's walk through the woods.
The kids are only in school half days this week since it's parent teacher conference week. Both our kids had their appointments today. So we got to go meet with their teachers and hear about how they're doing. My favorite moment was when we first got there and were told how independent Catherine was, and during the time we're being told this Catherine was hanging onto Ginger's leg for what seemed like dear life. She warmed up about halfway through the meeting and eventually went off and started doing some of the work exercises in the class. Quinn did get complimented that he seems to pick up the math stuff pretty quick and doesn't have to repeat it as much to learn it (I'm guessing he gets that from me, but Ginger's no slouch in that department either). Catherine is probably a bit behind on her number recognition and numeric ordering knowledge, but it sounds like she's doing better though. We were also told that Catherine is big into doing real life exercises (sewing, cleaning, peeling, etc). Meanwhile, Quinn is currently working on learning subtraction at the moment and his teacher mentioned he is showing some real interest and progress towards actual reading. He still has a ways to go, but at least now we can tell he's actually making an effort (it's been noticeable at home also). They're teaching reading phonetically. I'm still not sure that's the best way. I mean I had to learn reading by memorization using "Dick and Jane" crap, and I can reed and right good.
Overall both kids sounded like they're doing well. But at the same time, since you have to pay to go to this school, I find it hard to believe they're going to really tell you otherwise (and I know that's just my cynical nature showing through). Seriously though, do we really believe they would tell us our kids are idiots and their program isn't helping them? I just don't see that happening. And I have no way of comparing how Quinn is doing compared to 'normal' (if there really is such a thing as normal, I've heard it said that everyone's normal till you get to know them). About what age do kids typically start reading?
Tomorrow is the big election day. I'm still not sure what's going to happen. Everyone's predicting a change but I'm not holding my breath. I have my own views on what I would like to see happen, but I don't feel the need to get up on a soapbox about it though (maybe after the election). I do think everyone should go out and vote, even if you happen to favor a candidate I oppose. It's somewhat disgraceful that we live in a country that allows us to pick our own leaders but then only about half of the people actually care enough to show up and make their voices heard.
Tonight's parting image is another one from this past weekend's walk through the woods.
Ginger woke up with a migraine this morning. And yesterday at the Fall Festival Catherine's nose was running. So between those two things, we ended up not going to church this morning. I went and got the kids pancakes from McDonald's (only because Ginger was specifically requesting McDonald's for breakfast, otherwise I would have fixed pancakes at home myself). Once I got back, I served Ginger her breakfast in bed, and then covered all the windows with sheets so it would be extra dark in the bedroom.
After goofing around with the kids inside I decided we would go for another walk in the woods out back. The temperature today eventually got really nice. I wouldn't call it warm, but it was very pleasant and compared to yesterday it felt like summer (that's more of a commentary on how cold it was yesterday than how warm it was today). I just wish we could have had the weather we had today for the Festival yesterday. My thought was that by going on the walk it would get them out of the house and Ginger could rest in peace and quiet, but by that time her migraine medicine had kicked in a little bit and she was able to come downstairs. Nana was still visiting, so she joined us on the walk. Things got off to a rocky start pretty early. Catherine had jumped down to the creek to throw some rocks in the water, then on the way back up she fell and got her feet and pants leg wet. So we had to go change her clothes (luckily Ginger wasn't resting since she had locked all the doors and we had to get her to come let us in).
Once Catherine had changed (her pants went from pink to purple) we headed back out, it took us a while to locate Quinn and Nana. I think they must have wandered a bit in the other direction, because we certainly would have seen them since there's not much in the way of leaves or anything to hinder visibility.
The woods look a lot different. Almost all the leaves have fallen. In fact, I took a shot solely for comparison purposes. The shot immediately above is a shot I took a couple weeks ago when we went on a walk with Will when he was up. The shot below is that same location today. Not much left in the way of foliage.
We went further through the woods than we have before, but I had a plan. I knew the creek through the woods would eventually meet a bike path that goes through the area, so we followed the creek until we got to that. Then we walked along the bike path to one of the play grounds in the neighborhood. The kids insisted on going to the one along the path, even though I think that's the most boring one in the area.
Now it's time to come clean I suppose. I sort of cheated on some of these pictures. I used Picasa to touch up some of the shots. In some shots I either added a bit of saturation or I used the 'warmify' effect. I'm not going to apologize too much, because I really like the results on how some of them turned out (hence why I went a bit picture crazy today). I'm sure I'll share some of the other shots I took throughout the week.
An finally, here are the cards that Ginger made at her stamping party she went to last night. I like the Snowman one the best I think.
So this past week there was a crossover between Guiding Light and Marvel Comics. Yea, I know, I had the same initial reaction, but then I read a bit more about it, and became at the very least, intrigued. So I decided to Tivo the episode of Guiding Light in question. That's right, I TiVo'ed and then watched a soap opera. Go ahead and make fun, I know you want to and you'll feel better once you get it out of your system. So after watching the episode I have to admit it wasn't as bad as I was expecting it to be. It was, in fact, much much much worse than I was expecting it to be. Holy smokes was it ever bad. Now I don't normally watch Guiding Light, so I don't know if the character on the show that became imbued with powers is a regular or not. The show actually had the feel of an old 40s comic book or possibly one of the old episodes of Wonder Woman. Everything seemed like an attempt at being edgy and dark and grim and gritty, but it just came off as almost tongue in cheek. The only good part about it was the costume she made for herself had Black Canary type fishnet stockings. Click here for the publicity photo of the Guiding Light (yep, that's right, they named the super hero character appearing in the Guiding Light soap opera the "Guiding Light"). The other annoying thing was they had fake contact lenses for the character (otherwise how would any of the viewers know she had super powers), which she had all the time, even in her 'civilian' homemaker identity, but apparently no one noticed that.
Finally, this will be (I believe) the last of the photos from the kids visit to Cox Farms. So you won't have to suffer through any more of these (I'll come up with all new stuff for you to have to suffer through). The problem with these photos is they're pictures of the kids on slides, but since everything's so frozen, you have to know there's movement involved with the photos. I should have tried something to simulate some motion in the picture somehow or at least somehow give the indication of motion. The completely sharp frozen pictures seem almost unrealistic.
So Ginger's driving me crazy. She's in charge of organizing the school's Fall Festival stuff this year. And nothing seems to be going as planned and everything changes multiple times an hour. I'll be glad when this weekend is over so the chaos of stuff around here can return to the normal blue level of chaos instead of this orange alert level of chaos we currently have in place. I keep telling Ginger to just mess everything up, then next year no one will ask her to be in charge (some of Bill Cosby's best advice).
And what's that? You thought I was done with pictures from when the kids visited Cox Farms? Not quite yet. I don't think I mentioned before that Autumn and Tyler were also there (in addition to their parents Rob and Gretchen).
So I went back, not way back, but a ways back to when we went to Coxs Farm two years ago. I found a video I had taken with my camera (which at that time was a Cannon Powershot G2) of the kids on a slide. So I compared then to now. And the difference two years makes in Catherine is phenomenal. I included some video of Catherine on the same slide this past trip as well. Unfortunately I didn't get her on video tape when she was doing her daredevil routine and coming down the slide face first. Oh, the first video looks kind of bad since I had to rotate it (why I turned the camera when shooting video is something I look back on and just have to wonder what I was thinking). I've also included a picture of Catherine on the same slide from this past trip where she's heading down on her stomach (and it was intentional).
One of things the kids like the most about this place is they have this stage with music playing in the background and pretend instruments the kids can play. They love this thing every time we come. Quinn even sang a song (not the one that was playing) at one point when he was on the microphone. Did I mention there are also accessory items for dressing up over at this stage (hence Catherine's 'hat').
And here we have what I thought were just a couple of 'fun' photos. The first photo is a picture of one of the props they have in the field you drive by on the hay ride. All the kids were pointing and saying look at the guy and the mushrooms. Me? I was looking at it and thinking "That's really inappropriate for a kids ride." The second photo is a shaky camera combined with a slow shutter speed. It's a picture of some of the lights inside the barn. Believe or not, this was intentional (I manually kept the flash from popping up). But even though it's intentional it's not what I was going for (I had wanted a make a complete circle with the lights). Anyway, it's not a spectacular shot, but I kind of like it.
Soon as Barry explicitly mentions that I had some fall pictures up, almost all of them have fallen off the main page and are now scattered throughout the October archive. Since I don't have any present on the main page, I figured I should weed through some more of the shots I have and post a couple. These I like because of the shadows. The colors present are just a bonus as far as I'm concerned.
And finally for no reason that makes any sense to me at the moment, I will hereby issue an official "Yay Sean!"
