Silly and Sillier

Arthur!? Did you actually just brush your teeth with gum in your mouth?

Mmhmm.

But even sillier than that, is the fact that our Trinitron HD-TV, despite having a DVI connection in the back is, in the words of the user's manual, "...not intended for use with personal computers"

Why!!??

This is not to say that I'm ungrateful for the TV; it is perfectly nice and I appreciate having it. What I mean to remark on is only the ghastly missed opportunity of Sony to tie-in to the rapidly growing media-PC market by simply making their DVI compatible with PCs.

I suppose there are perfectly good technical reasons for this. Maybe someone will enlighten me.

Creating Things

Jamey and Arthur and I have been creating things this morning.

Arthur created a nutritional drink. Here is the recipe:

How to make SuperSwords
by Arthur

Nickname is Frud
It's a nutritional drink that makes you healthy
It is a mix between swords and something else
It's like your hands are as tough as swords

How to make
A lot of greens (any green you can find, as long as it's healthy for you)
Add a splash of milk and a splash of water

Jamey created a Banana Smoothie:

Banana Smoothie
by Jamey

First you have any type of milk you want
Pour it in a glass
Then take a banana and peel off the skin and cut it into the glass
And then you take something to squish and stir it until the banana is not there

Then you can drink it.

And I got my Bingo program revived from my dead hard drive. Luckily I had been e-mailing updates of the code to my dad, so I only had to search my mail and I found a fairly recent version of the code.

Specifically what I created today was a Reporting Services report that creates a new, random, printable bingo-playing card every time you refresh the report. Since installing reporting services might be too elaborate for many of the people I plan to give my bingo software to, I plan to include 100 or so pre-made cards, as .PDF files, on the CD I distribute.

I know, I know....you can hardly contain your excitement, but you are just going to have to wait until Christmas. :D

Now Jamey has another invention:

How to make snowballs in summer

First you have a round balloon. If it has air in it, you pop it. And if it doesn't you just pour water in it.
And then you put it together and put it in a freezer and freeze it.
And then you take off the plastic.
And then you have your snowball in summer!

Somethings Very Bright

1. Something in the sky, due east, 45 degrees above the horizon at around 6 AM yesterday. It's too bright to be anything but Venus.
2. Arthur, who has been grouped with the top readers in his Kindergarten class and already knows what N, E, S and W stand for on a weathervane, which came as a shock to me. (tip: The Magic School Bus rocks!)
3. Jamey who is now reading with the 2nd grade class because they can't keep up with him in his 1st grade class.

Both kids were eager to show us around at their school at last nights open house. Both were characterized by their teachers with words like: awesome, well-adjusted and polite, in addition to the academic accolades.

Nothing Much

I went to buy some more New Morning Honey Grahams and found none on the shelf, except the cinnamon flavor, which I settled for. I guess the power of this blog is stronger than I suspected. There is some small chance that my blog had nothing to do with it, but that doesn't seem likely to me.

Ever notice how you can come home from work and want to write something meaningful and find that your brain is as blank and dark as a newly made blackboard? So, this post is about nothing much, but is posted in an effort to prove I have some neurons that haven't been completely blighted by fatigue.

We donated Mr. P to our neighbors. Another way to say it would be that we bargained their labor for our chicken.
Jamey was fairly broken up about it for a few moments. And he'll probably remind us of the trauma in coming weeks and months.
The chicken was big and hungry and mean; he attacked Arthur more than once. But we've found that our friend Kendra and George Orwell are right, and the other rooster, Roadrunner, has stepped up his nastiness to fill the void now that Mr. P is gone. Yesterday he nipped Heidi behind the knee, drawing blood, through her jeans! So, if logic is to follow, we should get rid of him too. However, everyone is beginning to think they will be able to keep the inner trapdoor shut while feeding the little beasts henceforth.

Road Trip to Pendleton

We took a road-trip to Pendleton, OR. It is far.
For some reason I thought that just because it's closer (compared to when we lived in Renton) that meant it was close. Not the same thing.

We got there in time to see the barrel racing finals and the bull riding finals. Oh, and the wild cow milking, which is a real kick.

I am equal parts shocked and amazed that we paid to watch humans attempt to survive for 8 seconds on top of 2000 pounds of angry elastic with hoofs and horns. Merely amazed that they all survived.

If you are ever hankering for lunch while traveling highway 14 through Bingen, WA allow me to recommend the Solstice Cafe. They have a wood fired oven there where they bake artisan bread and pizza among many delicious looking things. Everything is artisanal, organic, fresh and heirloom where possible. Their caprese salad (fresh mozzarella with heirloom tomatoes, basil and special vinaigrette) was the best I've had since Naples.

On the way back we determined that a short hike to stretch the legs would be a fine thing. So we stopped at Horsethief Butte to "see a view". The documentary evidence is here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/ZimFam/HorsethiefButte

Graham Crackers

As a child one of my favorite meals was graham crackers dipped in milk.
And the best graham crackers I knew of were Honey Maid.

As an adult I discovered Honey Maid contains the evil, nasty, dreaded and dangerous hydrogenated oils. Oh my!!

How is a boy to replace his favorite snack?

It didn't seem possible; all the other brands either had hydrogenated oils too, or were just nasty tasting.

However today is a new morning, and I have discovered a graham cracker worthy of the mantle that once was laid over Honey Maid's square shoulders. And, fittingly, the crackers are made by New Morning. I found them in Wild Oats grocery store. Hopefully you can find them somewhere because these crackers have all the delicious, light crispy goodness of Honey Maid (maybe even better flavor) without hydrogenated oils!! Oh, and they use organic grain too.

Previously I had planned a blog to rant about the idiocy of Nabisco or whoever it is that makes Honey Maid for not seeing the anti-hydrogenated-oil train coming and hopping onboard. But now I can just smile as I munch down my New Morning Honey Grahams.

Swinging a Bat

Over the weekend Jamey and Arthur and I played around with a whiffle-ball and bat. I made them a tee-ball stick out of a cascara branch and gave them tips on stance and such.

We all had fun and decided to play baseball more. The last hit of the day was Jamey clobbering a home-run such that we couldn't find the ball.

Monday night Jamey was at his friend Logan's house so I thought it a good chance to let Arthur have more swings. We started off with the tee, but before long Arthur was consistently hitting my pitches and we abandoned the tee as unnecessary. Arthur was positively giddy, uncontrollably giggling, with excitement over his ability to hit the ball so well and often.

Arthur Goes to Kindergarten

Arthur poses for first-day-of-school portrait, just before leaving for Kindergarten.

Jamey Goes to First Grade

Jamey about to board the bus to his first day of first grade.