By Request

Mom-Mom requested a picture from Max's new camera, and here is one to tide all over until the next web page full. It's a picture he took of some white flowers next to the tree in our front yard. We don't know what kind of flower it is, but Max says the tree is a "Coocoo Tree". Please let us know the kind of flower in the comments!

Love Max, Emmett, Mommy and Daddy

Ansel Adams in the Works

Max currently likes to take lots of pictures of minutiae. Sippy cups. Chair legs. Toys. Carpet. Sometimes he really hits on something, as, I think, in this picture.

There Is A Time Limit

I don't know what to write about the birthday party. A critical period of time has already past, a period within which I could have been creative, but that time has past, I think. I'll just note that, in spite of questionable health, it was a wild scene as always and Max and Emmett had a great time, as did their parents. Also I'll leave this one anecdote: Max and Emmett slept on their new Mary-made Thomas pillows that night and when I went back up a short while after having put them to bed, Max was sound asleep, wiped out from a long day, but I found Emmett sitting up, pillow propped up against the "headboard", studying his pillow intently.

Houston, we have a 5 year old

Max woke this morning excited to open one of his birthday presents. We told him that since the party was delayed a day, he could open one. It was a "micro" Rescue Heroes set called "Houston, We Have A Problem". Max declared, "This is what I always wanted!" It also seems that this is one of the sets that Nicholas has - Nicholas, we can return your DVD now. Max and Emmett played with it pretty excitedly. Soon I had to head to the store to pick up breakfast supplies so we'd have something to eat, and as I was leaving there was a battle over who was to play with the spaceship. When I returned from the store, though, Max was in Mommy's lap crying. Max had declared that he was now bored with his present. He wanted to open another one, and the answer was "No."

I tried to diffuse the situation by making pancakes. Well, really I just wanted them too - I love pancakes. In any case it worked. Max perked up and, moreover, throughout the day the "now bored with" present received quite a bit of play.

We had a mini birthday celebration featuring taco bell and Starbucks cupcakes. Two each of chocolate and vanilla ("sunshine"). Max picked a chocolate one. He stuck a candle in it and we lit it and sang the birthday song. He blew out the candle in a few tries. Good practice for tomorrow. Alas, Max thought the shaved chocolate topping looked and tasted weird. Oh well. He ate the cake part. Emmett chose a vanilla cupcake and, of course, only ate the frosting.

Max went to bed with the spaceship and two of the micro rescue heroes on his table. Indeed, I'm writing this while sitting in the rocking chair in their room. He wanted me to sit here with him. He fell asleep a few minutes after I did. Emmett had fallen asleep before we started the songs. Sweet dreams boys.

Pinball Tournaments, Poetry Workshops, Derby Races, Oh My!

We all did different things over the weekend. I spent most of Friday and Saturday at the 3rd annual Fairfax Pinball Open, and did about as well as I did last year, which is to say, not all that very. Rebekah had a poetry workshop to go to on Saturday afternoon, so that left us with the need for babysitting. Fortunately Mary & Mom-Mom stepped up to the plate, with an offer of a scout derby race to go to with Carson and Stewart. This derby involved little (not soap box) cars rolled down a plastic ramp. From the sounds of it, Max & Emmett had a great time, and they came away with some spoils, sporting fresh temporary tatoos, jumping fish toys and some other stuff. There were matchbox cars and a ramp for visitor kids to play with and I hear that our boys jumped right into it with the others. I'm also told there was some time with leaf piles. This was a pretty long event but the boys did well. Near the end, Mom-Mom tells me that Max said, "Mom-Mom, somebody needs to take me to a home". Or something pretty like that.

Mom-Mom also told me that Max, on the way to or from (which?), explained to her that the car they were driving (our Toyota Matrix - I drove Mom-Mom's car to avoid having to move car seats) use to be my car, but now that I take the train it has become Mommy's car, with me taking the Escort. Switching cars like this does create conversational problems for us. Saying, the prefered, "Mommy's car" or "Daddy's car" leaves the situation unclear, or at least a bit akward. Eventually we'll be able to return to those phrasings without further explanation, but in the mean time we have to go with the model name or the color, but saying "the beige/black car" or "the escort/matrix" is a bit unsatisfying.

Niceness, not Naughtiness

I was showing Max an old arcade video game running in the arcade game emulator MacMAME/MAME, which is a program that "emulates" arcade video game machines on your computer. The game was Food Fight, which is from 1983. In it you control Charlie Chuck who starts out on the right side of the screen and your goal is to get to the icecream cone on the left side of the screen. In between are piles of food such as bananas and tomatos which, and this is the key to this post, you pick up and throw at the chef's who are also running to the piles of food and throwing it at you. It's a pretty simple concept. While I was showing this game to him, Max interupted to say, "Dad, stealing isn't nice is it?"

Movie Recommendation: Solaris

Not the new one, which I haven't seen, rather the 1972 Russian original. I recommend it. Let me state up front: the opening portions of the film are draggy, especially a mind-numbing 5 minute sequence involving driving on roads that look like the early 70's, which we are suppose to believe is the city of the future. Five minutes of driving. Ouch. However, once our "hero" gets to the space station it gets a lot more interesting. Make sure you are watching the Criterion Collection DVD, and not some other form of this film. Aside from being the complete cut of the film and subtitled instead of poorly dubbed, the audio-commentary on this edition adds a lot to the experience, including giving the Communist Russian context in which the film was made and it even sheds some light on that 5 minutes of driving. Definitely worthy of a rental. Even if you don't like science fiction I think you might like this film, but don't expect a happy ending. Vodka might be appropriate. I "rented" this movie via netflix (which I love, by the way, because it gives access to what appears to be a complete DVD library - if it exists on DVD, they seem to have it, albeit not including your favorite XXX features. Damn!)

It's All Greek To Me

I thought there was a junk comment on this blog and so I deleted it - it looked like Greek, of course, but as it turns out it was a Russian spy. I didn't try Russian-To-English. Maybe the Russian spy will post it again so we can translate it with Babelfish. In the mean time, here's a message for any Portuguese spies that happen to be reading this: Eu desejo que este blog era popular bastante ter começado o Spam, mas eu me estabelecirei para um t-shirt lousy

The Perfect Launch Weather

Today we had what had to be the absolutely perfect conditions for a rocket launch. Warm, overcast and absolutely no wind. Overcast is better because then you don't have to fend off the sun while trying to follow the rockets ascent and descent. You could see the flight perfectly.

We had a big crowd with Mary, Stewart, Carson, Mom-Mom, Uncle Rob, Nicholas, Mackenzie, Olivia, Elise, Max, Emmett and me. Moreover we drew in another spectator and eventual participant, a young boy named William who's father was playing softball. He launched the final rocket of the day. So we had perfect weather and a big crowd, but the day started off rather poorly: shortly after setting foot for the launch site, Stewart and Carson's once-repaired rocket broke again! This time the launch lug assembly came right off! The rocket was sitting on the launch rod when this happened. Once again we wouldn't be able to launch it. We were down to one rocket, the "Amazon". To make matters worse, a short distance later, the launch rod snapped in two! It didn't become separated, the metal actually snapped. Unbelievable! I think we now know definitely not to carry the launch pad by the launch rod. We sent Mary and Carson off to go home and retrieve their launch pad, which they did, and from then on things went perfectly.

While Mary & Carson were getting the launch pad, I transfered the launch altitude measuring nose cone from C&S's rocket to The Amazon. This nose cone has a little gizmo that comes back to earth separately, slowed down by a streamer. The way it works is simple: it times how long it takes from separation to impact with the ground. Since it comes back separately and it has a measured length of streamer, it can calculate how high it was, more or less. I have no idea how accurate it is, but it's fun.

Did I say all went perfectly from then on? I was forgetting... our first launch was a complete and utter failure. I forgot to remove the end-cap from the end of the launch rod. Doh! The end result was that the rocket went a few inches up the launch rod and then got stuck. It stayed there as the engine fired. The launch pad tipped over on its side, then there was the delay, and then the backfire shot the recovery wadding, parachute and nose cone out. Oops! From *then* on it went fine....

More or less. I kept forgetting to turn on the special altitude measuring nose cone, so in the end only two of our flights were measured. Every launch was pretty beautiful, with a slow-ish, easy to follow assent. The large size of the rocket and clear, but overcast sky allowed you to see it all the way up to ejection of the parachute even when flying high. Our initial flights were with a B6-4 engine, and the one we successfully measured with that engine ended up something like 230 feet - I can't remember exactly now. With two successful and easily-recovered flights with that engine, we upped the ante with a more powerful engine, a C6-5. A "C" engine is more powerful than a "B" engine. The first number in the engine type is how long the engine burns and the second number is how long it coasts unpowered after the burn, before backfiring and ejecting the parachute. The one C6-5 flight we successfully measured came up as something like 370 feet. This is a pretty big rocket, but it still looked like it went quite high up in the sky. That's the highest rated engine recommended for this rocket, so we aren't going to get much higher than that with it. In case you are wondering, "normal" rocket engines come in A, B, C, D and E flavors. E engine rockets require a thicker/stronger launch rod.

Max and Emmett also have another smaller rocket that can fly quite a bit higher, but it wasn't ready. It's rated for up to 1400 feet on the same C6-5 engine! We'll start with a "A" engine. It's still being painted, but will be ready for our next launch, whenever the weather cooperates again. I'll also once again have Stewart and Carson's rocket repaired and hopefully we'll finally give it its inaugural flight. I think everybody had a good time. Hopefully we'll have an even bigger crowd next time, and more rockets to fly!

Give Them A Microphone

Yesterday I picked up something I've been meaning to get for a while: a microphone. The kind of microphone you see news people pointing at themselves and others. It's a pretty cheap one at 20 bucks, but it will do at least for now. I want to be able to add high-quality (sound-recording-wise - I can't vouch for content) narration to my videos/slideshows, and I believe I should be able to plug it into my video camera as well, though I haven't tried that yet.

Last night Bek went with Granny to a Tom Paxton concert so I had the boys to myself for the night. I figured the microphone would make for some entertainment. Boy was I right! That's all Max wanted to do the whole evening. Emmett did take a break after a while by going to Cameron's house for a bit, but not Max. We spent the whole night recording ourselves saying nonsense, making funny sounds, singing songs and, eventually, interviewing each other, asking what each other's favorite things were. Alas, I'm not sure any of it is worthy of distribution.

I had the microphone plugged into my computer and used the program Garageband to do the recording. What fun! But Max wanted nothing to do with any of the effects that are possible such as making it sound like you are talking in an amphitheater or changing a male voice into a female voice (pretty impressively too - I'll try to have an example of that sometime this weekend.) Max really doesn't like any modification of reality. Not so much a purist, as frightened by it.

Have I unleashed a pandoras box? Soon Max will be interviewing anyone who dares enter our house!

So Soon The Romance Is Over?

Emmett's Thomas shoes might have looked snazzy, but last night we found they'd left him with a couple blisters including a large one on the back of his foot. That's Target-brand shoes for you, I guess. We ended up having to buy him new shoes, this time splurging on LL Bean like he use to have. He seems to be happy with them and hasn't requested his Thomas shoes. They definitely feel much softer.

The Real Simpsons

Who doesn't want to see what the opening to the Simpsons would look like if it was done with real humans? Good luck viewing the Matt Groening-approved video, though - it seems the entire world is trying to view it. I've only managed to see about 30 seconds of it so far.

Goddard Rocket Launch & Visitors Center

We went with Mom-Mom to Goddard today in an attempt to launch one of our rockets at the monthly rocket launch. Unfortunately it was a bit cold and blustery and Max, Emmett and I decided not to chance losing our new rocket in the trees. We did see a lot of other smaller and parachute-less rockets (using streamers instead of parachutes) launched and we went to the museum. Max, Mom-Mom and I saw the talk by Dr. Tom Jones, a former NASA astronaut with 4 space shuttle flights and several space walks under his belt. Max watched and listened to the entire talk! I took some video and photos from the day. Here is a preview snapshot. Max and Emmett really loved this rocket capsule.

Our Turn

Tonight our neighbors went out while we watched their kids, Cameron and (baby) Aiden (spelling?) We'll get to go out next weekend. Aiden (I really need help with the spelling) is as easy as can be. Super cute and just seems a super happy baby. A little fussing was heard from him, but hardly any at all. Cameron could not be happier than when he is with Max and Emmett. Max & Emmett seem to be part of his life essence/precious bodily fluids. Apparently every morning when he wakes up, Cameron asks about Max and Emmett. Every morning. Max and Emmett had a bit more trouble - they were very needy much of the night. Bek thinks maybe Max was jealous of how much attention Aiden was getting, and she's probably right, though he was also pretty tired. It got to me after a while and I snapped at Max a few times. I felt quite guilty afterward. It's not a good feeling at all to be angry, even for an instant, with your own child.

The French Like Me

One of the scripts I wrote for the Mac, Laserlight, seems to be relatively popular. I've gotten a few donations for it, but still the feedback I get for it is, let's just say, rather underwhelming. However, it was a boost to learn from a guy in France that it was cited in the french revue "Univers Mac" three month ago. I've also heard from an Arnold in the Netherlands who got "great pleasure" from downloading and using my script and I got a request from a guy, albeit I think in the US, who's writing a book titled, "Designer's Guide to Mac OS X Tiger" (ISBN 032141246X), who wanted to include a mention of the script in his book. Still, what I really want are donations, and lots of them - I've got a long list of cool stuff I want to buy and no money to buy them with. Money doesn't bring happiness, no, but it sure can bring you cool stuff.

Red Jr.

The Great Red Spot on Jupiter has had a baby

Kids... in... Spaaaace!

Last night Liz and the kids came for a visit. Puzzles, playdoh and 'puters were all in heavy use. Nicholas got a brief viewing of our rocket-in-progress, blue paint still drying. The fins are Thomas blue, the body will be Percy green. Our other no-painting-needed rocket has long been finished. I would like to take the boys to the rocket launch this Sunday at Goddard. Not only does the weather look to be good as of now, but in addition to there being a rocket launch there will be a real live astronaut there to give a talk afterward. Max, as you may know, wants to be an astronaut and drive Thomas at Day Out With Thomas. Recently a woman came to his school to talk about space and, apparently, about the Hubble Space Telescope (Bek said she wrote about Hubble, as opposed to working on it). Max made sure to read the space book he got out from the library before school so he'd be read up on the subject. Among other things, he wanted to be sure he remembered which was bigger, a meteorite or an asteroid.

NASA ASTRONAUT BOOK SIGNING: Four-time space shuttle astronaut Dr. Tom Jones will visit the Goddard Visitor Center on Sunday, March 5. Following the monthly Model Rocket Launch at 1 p.m., Dr. Jones will discuss his experience as an astronaut and take questions from the audience at 2:30 p.m. This event is in conjunction with the monthly Model Rocket Launch. Admission is free. For additional information, call 301-286-9041 or visit the Goddard Visitor Center site.

What is the difference between a blog and a web page?

A blog is just a special kind of web page in journal format. A blog makes it easy to make entries in your web journal (aka "weblog" or "blog" for short). You just type in your entry on a form and click a button to have it published to your weblog. You get the nice formatting, date/time stamping of the entries, a comment system, and "trackbacks" (which are links in your weblog that link to entries on other weblogs that reference yours - was that clear?) automatically. There is also a thing called an RSS feed, that you also get for free, but I won't go into what that is now.