Sometimes funny, sometimes thoughtful, always a good time
My cousin Cheryl found an old photo album and scanned some of the pictures. The results are hilarious.
For example, check out the adorable kid third from the left. Yep, that’s me with my pea green pants and matching olive socks. Oh, and the blue Keds. Everyone wore Keds in those days.
One could argue that Kathy (far left) is much more hip with her multicolored pants (what are those– flowers? Smurfs?).
Sometimes it’s a good thing that fashion changes.
On the one hand, it’s awesome to have all kinds of food stored in our basement. When we run out of peanut butter or whatever, we just go downstairs and get a new one from the mini-grocery store.
On the other hand, sometimes the food down there has been around a while before we actually use it. Today I’m making a cake with Zack for the Cub Scout banquet tonight. The cake mix was a bit older than I’d like.
We mixed it up anyway, and both Zack and I agreed it still tastes fine.
Having some fun with my camera…
The tradition continues: it’s February 2 so we watched the movie Groundhog Day. What a great film– it’s funny, entertaining, and has some great messages in it.
I think this might be the fourteenth year in a row we’ve watched it.
For our continuing dinner series at home, we’re going to work on learning new languages. We’re concentrating on basic phrases like “Hello” and “How are you?” and “My name is…” and other exciting topics.
Tonight we started on French, since that’s the language Kyra is learning in school. I think next week will be German, which is Alex’s choice (and I know fragments from years past). And Spanish will inevitably be next since Laralee knows it. Eventually we’ll get to more exotic ones like Russian, Japanese, and Farsi.
As of today we officially have a teenager in the house. Alex turned 13. Woo hoo!
Today we were teaching our science challenge class and our topic was the solar system. I was explaining how Mercury is closest to the sun so it’s really hot– around 800 degrees, in fact. And it’s tidally locked to the sun, so the same side is always facing the sun. In other words, the weather on Mercury is really hot and doesn’t ever change.
“Like Miami?” asked one of the girls.
Looking for an iPod Nano on Craigslist I came across this ad:
Including Bon Jovi! Sweet!
I just finished constructing the Wiimote glove that supplements the nifty pen to allow a sort of touchscreen interface for a big-screen computer. It’s basically a gardening glove with an infrared LED sewn into the index fingertip, a battery pack on the wrist, and a touch switch at the base of the middle finger. It looks vaguely high-tech with the wires and resistors, sort of like a poor man’s bionic hand.
By pointing to the screen and clicking the switch with my thumb, I can simulate mouse clicks and drags (the pen works the same way). It’s pretty fun, but honestly the pen is more accurate and a little easier to handle. I’d like to use both on something larger than my 50″ TV, though– I need a chance to use a projector and put up an eight-foot screen or something, and then “draw” on the wall with my pen or glove.
Laralee and I just got back from seeing Avatar in IMAX 3D. I had never seen a 3D movie before, so after laughing at the goofy glasses I settled in and found it to be pretty darn cool. I’m not sure the IMAX part was worth the extra dollar (the screen didn’t seem that much larger) but it was certainly fun to be overwhelmed with sight and sound.
All in all, I enjoyed the movie. There are a lot of people saying it’s predictable (it is), that the environmental message is a bit heavy-handed (it is), and that the characters aren’t all that inventive (they’re not). Despite that, the special effects are so breathtaking that you get lost in the magic. I admit there have been plenty of movies with weak plots where they hoped the effects would save them and they didn’t, but in this case the effects really did turn what would have been a mediocre movie into something pretty special. The soundtrack is quite good as well, and many’s the movie that’s been saved (or sunk) by the music.
I’m not sure I’m going to rush out to the theater more often so I can see new movies in 3D, but it was definitely a nice evolution in the moviegoing experience. I hear rumblings that one of these days we’ll be able to play 3D content at home, and that’ll be fun. Hopefully they’ll have glasses that are a bit more stylish.