Hung out with some babies (and their parents):

Donned a Wrestling Mask (Fun Fact: I was voted most likely to be a American Gladiator in High school):

Was lucky enough to meet up with some of the extended family:

And the Grand Project, capturing, digitizing and editing about 30 hours of old Hoffman Home  Movies:

Kate went as Juno, from the movie Juno.  I must say she did a pretty good job, proof:

For those that want to know how to fake your own full term pregnancy, please consult these photos:

Note the stitched on button, simulating an outtie belly button.

I of course sat in the office all day doing end of the month reports and working.  Spoooooooky.

Here is a reminder of a costume I had has a kid, which was later stolen by for a movie picture film.

Shark Costume

PS. Hey Science Guys!  How about figuring out what gene makes drunk girls yell “Whooooo!” until 4 AM for no reason and surpressing it….or something.

PPS. Micheal Phelps costumes? Really?  C’mon.

Behold! Photos Paula’s birthday party:

Sidenote: Kate is getting really great with her new camera.

This is pretty much what my weekend looked like:

PS If you go walking at night with 6 guys on Highway 20, passing cars will yell at you as drive by.  I blame Jeff’s provocative dress.

This week I did in fact need to go and was lucky enough to get to spend some time with my grand-parents Joe and Doe.

Before dinner I checked out Joe’s amazing wooden model of an Ercoupe Airplane.  Each little part made by hand, without instructions, all from wood.  The steering wheels turn the flaps (or whatever those things are called), the landing gears have little wooden shock absorbs that move, it is an amazing model.

Generally speaking, my family is chocked full of creative folks, my grandpa does this (and used to rebuild the real thing), I have an uncles who either designing adverting or building a plane in garage, cousins who dance and draw.  This could be biggest indicator I was switched a birth.  Somewhere this is an engineer in a family full of really attractive people trying to figure how he fits in.

As part of the trip I went to Richland, Washington. Not much to say…except this little riddle. What is a SMORGY?

Good times indeed.

Slideshow:

Also, blocks are probably the coolest toys ever.

Remember last year’s video, well here it is

Here are some photos:

Anyways, about an hour later I get an email that I need to update my credit card.  Turns out, it can’t be done.

After bouncing around to about 10 reps and a lot of yelling my order number into automated systems, I ended up canceling my order. If you can’t even collect my billing information…how can you make a decent monitor?  Seriously.

Chances are I will eventually order this thing again when my patience shield has regenerated.

Ever call Apple?  One number, phone rings a few times a rep answers that knows their stuff.  That and their website allows to update items, cancel them or add to them.  Don’t all commerce site support this now?
Update: Looked on eBay, 20% less, free shipping and much faster delivery (in theory). Hurray.

General Update:
Work=Great
Kate>Great
House is out of the equation until we find one that doesn’t come with “Surprising Structural Issues” in the description.

Dropped the fancy, image oriented format and rolled the site back to the tried and true Black and White

Thinking of dropping some more videos with specifics, on account of me being much more of talker than a writer. Stay tuned, friends.

Lesson One:

Lesson Two:

Hey! I named myself!

What is it:

Amazon Kindle.  An eBook reader that comes with wireless connectivity (”Whispernet”) and a huge catalogue of books.  With built in storage to hold about 200 books (expandable to thousands of books) and form factor that feels good in the hand.

Thoughts:

On a recent trip to Virginia, K8 surprised me with an Amazon Kindle, which she had secretly shipped to our destination.  What a treat!  Although it eroded my trust in her and has since left me suspecting her every move, I really appreciate the thought and the gift.

After playing around with this for a few weeks and reading 6 or 7 books on it, I think I can now pass judgment.

In short, this is a keeper. 

After the initial honeymoon period wore off, with Kindle and I getting down to the day-to-day grind of my reading habit, my appreciation of the device increased.  The text looks great, it fits in my hand perfectly, and it opens  the flood gates to my ADD reading style.

After some soul searching, I realized I could pretty much dump most of my paper books.  Which I started to do, first taking the books I could get for free, then the books I mostly likely won’t read again to the Half Price Books. Guess who got $12.50 and about 34 inches of shelf space back.  The next step is seeing about reducing cookbook head count.

Readability: No eye strain after a whole day of reading on the plane. Boss.  Resizable text is great, though I only use when I am sharing it (ie: Kate and are sharing it reading a passage).

Fit and Finish:  Solidly built and well thought out  For me, it seems to read best in my left hand.  My meaty, manly right hand can sometimes bump the BACK button taking me to homepage.  How about a Forward button or something, Amazon?

Spastic Reader:  The first thing I loaded on Kindle was a copy of Manybooks.org’s downloadable catalogue.  If a book is public domain, there is a good chance you can grab it right from this directory and pull it down using the Whispernet to read right away.  For me, this means that I am reading a stack of books at once, never losing my spot (since it remembers were I left off), and finally being able to fulfill my desire to change books instantly without all that messy moving around and what not.  Glory.

Buying Advice:

If you find yourself doing any of the following, it might fill a need:

·      Traveling often and bringing multiple books

·      Book Hoarding

·      Reading multiple books

·      Needing to fill time on long transit commutes (buses, metro, rickshaw) and wanting easy access to material

Sure there are a bunch more reasons why you should get one. For example, there is a slim chance that having this device at the right place and time will endear you to a book loving, gadget responsive member of the opposite sex (if that’s what you are looking for.  Not me.  Ladies, please! I’m taken) or something like that.

Having said that, it costs about $350.  New books bought through Amazon seem to be about $9.99 to $5.49 with some quite a bit less pricey (but perhaps infinitely more sucky?).

Update:

This thing has no replaced a large portion of my bookshelves and actually improved my already better than average life. Go figure.

Where to start?  When a Man and Woman love each other very much…..

So, our good friend Colin and Shiho Johnson are with child.  We decide to celebrate this with cupcakes and Baby Bottles as our traditions require of us.

For an exhaustive Photo Series of nearly two Gaffilion photos, feel free to check out:

Colin and Shiho Baby Shower: Flickr Set

Now, if you are totally nuts for these photos…you can download them by Clicking here (456MB)

Find a few photos below, which aren’t really the best or most memorable…just the ones that helped me build a funny non-related narrative in my head.  A narrative I will not be sharing.  Enjoy!

What do you notice?  If you said “Hey! I wanted to know about a certain super-genius!  Not some half-baked very talented Nation Rugby Player from down under?  What gives!?! Is the internet broken?”

To answer your question.  No, the internet is not broken.  It’s just not perfect.  You see, while Search has come a long way, the tiny imps that make it work still can’t always show you what you really want to see (In this case: Me).

Also, I have taken pains to maintain a certain level of invisibility online. Least certain videos and such get out.

You can find me on Linkedin.com, which I mostly use for connecting professional with people.  Apparently, I only professional linked with 18 people, but none-the-less, it is where I go to do so.  Should you do so as well? Maybe.

Sometimes, I want to run down on the sidewalk and follow people to get the rest of their conversations.  Normally, I don’t do this…on account of a) my laziness b) the fact that the rest of the conversation probably blows.

Here are some I took note of while wrapping up some work:

• “We don’t need Central Distribution, they need us.”
• “I am the sword of Christ!” - Yelled, crazily.
• “Nice bike, man.  You doing anything tonight?”

Nope.  These aren’t significant or even interesting (maybe I should have said that at first and saved you the trouble of reading?).  But most of the time aren’t particularly those things most of the time either, except for me.

“Milk was a bad idea”