Mike’s Family Blog

I’m posting a link below to a site where the guy did a frame capture of Lord of the Rings.  He used a DVD source and then a HD source and compared the still shots.  The results, if you have an eye for detail when it comes to movies, is amazing.  Um, HD anyone?

http://www.cornbread.org/FOTRCompare/

Now, you want to talk some wicked, smokin technology, check out this HD video camera from Oakley called Red.
http://red.com
I’ll fix that later.  Meantime, cut and paste.

Like the snowflakes?  A neat little script I came across.

FYI for the regulars.  The server will be down from the 26th - 28th.  If email bounces, you’ll know why.

We’ve been busy since the last post, let me tell ya.

At the new house, we’ve got the carpet ripped out in 4 rooms so far.  One room, the stairs and hall left to do there.  That’ll come after we’re done painting the first 4 rooms.  Painting we’ve started as well.  The first coat of primer is on the walls in the rec room and the edges and trim in three rooms upstairs have been done.  All the holes have been puttied and just need a light sanding before we can primer them.  It’s starting to come together a bit at a time.  Only 10 days to go and we’ll be moved in.  Wow, hard to believe it’s so close already.

So what else is going on? Survivor 13 just ended tonight with Yul Kwon picking up the million bucks in a close vote. For the first time, it was a final 3 and not final 2. The 3rd person, Becky, was a non-factor as it was. The votes were split 5-4 in favour of the ‘godfather’ over the ‘dominator’. An entertaining season, nonetheless.

Today, I was again pulling focus for my man Dave the Steadicam operator. He came in as a 4th camera operator for this morning’s special Christmas finale at church. (I got the spelling right this time Dave! Also corrected the previous misspelling. ) If you want to see some of Dave’s professional work, have a look to the side under my links and visit his site. He’s got a new promo video of his work which shows of his talents.

That’s all I’ve got at the moment. Time for bed since 5:30am comes really early these days.

So today Lisa’s at work and I get to spend the day with Jonathan. Awesome! Except, today’s the day he decides to start scaling things.

The first of several incidents happens when I’m making some breakfast. I hear the sound of a toy we had put into a (formerly) inaccessible corner. We had put some barricades, including the couch, around that corner, primarily due to the china cabinet that is back there. So I come out to check on him and where is he? He’s in the corner, happily playing with his toy. Two pictures of that are posted below.

So then we get around to lunch time. He’s climbed up on one of the kitchen chairs at the table, so I figure he’s ready for lunch. I give him some goldfish to munch on and off to the kitchen to heat up some lunch I go. I come back and where is he? No longer in the chair, he’s up ON THE TABLE trying to empty the contents of the salt and pepper shakers. No time for pictures of that one, though I should have taken one, because it really was quite funny.

The last one wasn’t as bad as the second one, but it shows that he’s really solving problems. For a couple of weeks now, he’s figured out how to move the chair around in the kitchen so that he can climb up and get stuff from the counter. Today, after lunch, I come into the kitchen and he’s done just that. Again, I catch him in the act of grabbing a spoon from the counter.

So, needless to say, the rest of the day was spent with all the doors to other rooms closed as we don’t have enough baby gates to go around. But I know what’s coming next… he’ll figure out how to climb over those gates, not to mention out of his crib. That’s okay, I expect the crib thing. I just hope he waits until after we move. His bed will get set up at the new house. It’s there already. I don’t want to have to move it here just for a few weeks and then move it back.

So, does anyone know if they make rock climbing guide ropes for 18 month olds?

I was commenting in an earlier post about how lost I was when I sat in on a chemistry class. Well, it happened again! This time, it was trigonometry. 20 years since I took it the last time, I’m handed a binder and asked to review trigonometry with two students since their regular para was away that day. Well, I gave it a college try… and ended up with a junior high result. LOL

Sine? Cosine? Tangent? I was left scratching my head trying to remember just what the heck they were and what to do with them. Unfortunately, the notes in the Para’s binder weren’t that helpful, nor were the teacher handouts. It was definitely one of those times where ‘you had to be there’. There being in class learning it, or in my case, relearning it.

Needless to say, I had to admit to my guys that I was just plain lost. They had a good laugh over that and we carried on. I’ll gladly stick to English, Geography, Social Studies and Information Technology for now.

In other news or thoughts… or both… less than one month until we’re officially moved. However, a lot of work to do yet. Painting, electrical, some maintenance, oh and moving too. We’ve got access to the house, so we’ve already started moving stuff a bit at a time. Now that it’s winter, here’s what I’m looking forward to.

–
“Mike, it snowed last night.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. You going to shovel?”

“Nope, do it later. Going to sleep another half hour.”
–

Yeah, much better than what goes on right now. As a caretaker, I’ve got no choice. Get up and shovel or snowblow before I go to work. That usually explains the bags under my eyes half way through a winter where it snows a lot.

Of course, that conversation could be replaced by… “Mike, the hot water heater sprung a leak…” ah well, at least that doesn’t happen daily during the course of a winter. At least, I hope not.