Talking to Myself Again

The Making of a Hyena Droid Bomber -- With a 5-Year-Old

Lando received a Toys R Us gift card for Christmas from his Grandma Lois, so he went on a shopping spree a few days after Christmas. One of the things he bought was a nifty Star Wars Lego set, the Hyena Droid Bomber. It's 232 pieces. Ages 7-12. Lando is 5, so guess who got to had to put it together?

A pile of Lego pieces waiting to be assembled!

While I was following the step-by-step instructions, Lando was thinking outside the box and making his own creation. (You know — like we used to do before every Lego set came with the One True Way® to assemble the pieces.)

Lando's creation is actually pretty good! (The lights in the background are our Christmas tree.)

Halfway there!

Lando makes some "special modifications" to his ship.

The hat makes all the difference!

Finished! And it only took 2 hours and 12 minutes! Admittedly that includes some assistance from Lando, some tracking down of pieces that mysteriously ended up in the other room, some breaks to respond to "Dad! Look at me!" requests, etc.

In any case, I have no illusions about how long this spaceship will look like this before it is cannibalized to create something else. Which is the whole point of Legos, of course!

Funshop Halloween!

mood: calm
music: Gypsy Guerrilla Band - Mason's Apron Reel

Today is Wednesday, which means Funshop night. Lando still has a nice bump on his forehead, but he seems to be feeling fine, so we took him to Funshop.

Funshop, for those who don't know, is a pre-preschool program offered by the Springfield Park District. Once a week, all of the kids and their parents play together in a large room filled with toys. There's a "circle time" with a snack and a song, but mainly it's just playing for an hour. This gives the kids the opportunity to get used to the idea of playing with other kids, as well as spending time with "teachers". It's just 75 minutes once a week, but I think it's good "practice", both for the kids and for the parents.

This particular Funshop night was special, because it was the Halloween party for his class. Lando was dressed in his knight costume (complete with foam sword). I saw other kids dressed as witches, princesses, Buzz Lightyear, Tow Mater, a robot, Chewbacca, etc.

Lando had fun right up until it was time to cleanup and go, at which point he had a meltdown. He wasn't able to go to Funshop last week because he was sick, and the week before everyone went on a field trip to the fire station instead of to the Funshop room, so this was the first time in 3 weeks that he had been able to play! I think he was suffering from withdrawal. He really likes Funshop!

(Don't tell him, but there's no Funshop next Wednesday because it will be Halloween night and everyone will be out trick-or-treating. Shh!)

Jack-O-Lantern Spectacular

On Saturday we went to the 2nd annual Jack-O-Lantern Spectacular in Washington Park. The weather was perfect, and we parked in front of Eric & Patty's house so that we wouldn't have to deal with traffic. They had hundreds of jack-o-lanterns on display around the carillon area, along with a toddler-friendly trick-or-treat area called the Garden of the Goblins (set up inside the greenhouse).

This was Lando's first opportunity to go trick-or-treating, wearing the knight costume that Dawn made for him. He carried a little bag and went from stop to stop getting candy, as well as looking at the ghosts, spider webs, skeletons, and other spooky stuff. (They had a light turned on at each spooky thing, to make sure that it wasn't too spooky.) Last year he was a little too young to really get much out of it, but this year he was old enough to enjoy the trick-or-treating, as well as looking at all of the jack-o-lanterns. He also particularly enjoyed the glowstick that we bought for him - in part because it was a ring that he could skewer with his sword!

Mother's Day, Satellite TV, Road Trip Tape, Tornado, ILGIC ER, Star Wars RPG, Palm Pilot, Seinfeld

I called home on Sunday to wish Mom a happy Mother's Day, but instead of waiting anxiously by the phone, she was away visiting one of her sisters. Well! The very idea of her having a life! Anyway, I talked to Dad instead and learned that they had ordered a satellite dish! They live out in the country, where getting cable isn't an option. As a result, they have their choice of maybe seven TV stations. However, after a few years of spending time in RV parks with cable hookups, they began to think that perhaps getting a mini dish sounded like a good idea. They had thought about it in the past, but they live surrounded on nearly all sides by trees. Dad finally talked to a dealer and determined that they could get a clear shot at a satellite through a break in the trees, so he's placed an order. See what happens when you give your parents your old TV?

I received an e-mail broadcast from CZ recently, who said that she, Dayna, Rob, and Lou were going to be driving down to Texas to visit my brother and were in need of road trip tapes. As a result, I spent about three hours Tuesday night putting together an hour-long tape that I call:

The One With the Smothers Brothers

Side A

• Smothers Brothers - Pretoria
• Art of Noise - Peter Gunn
• Elastica - Connection
• Celastial Navigations - The Janitor
• Veruca Salt - Shutterbug
• Trio - Ja Ja Ja
• Trio - Da Da Da...
• Tim Lyons - Humours of Whiskey
• Yello - Oh Yeah

Side B

• Smothers Brothers - Laredo
• Luscious Jackson - Naked Eye
• New Order - True Faith
• Melanie - Animal Crackers
• Björk - Hyperballad
• Breeders - Divine Hammer
• Aimee Mann - Just What You Are
• 2001 - Transfiguration
• A Clockwork Orange - William Tell Overture

Frankly, I think you have to hear it to get the full effect. Actually, I would like to re-do it, with a few of the tracks in a different order, but I think three hours is plenty of time to spend on a joke. :-)

While I was working to making the tape, the storm warning sirens went off (or would that be "came on"?). I turned on the radio and learned there was a tornado warning. So what else is new? It looked mighty ominous outside, but nothing showed up in my area.

Last month I said that very few people showed up at the ILGIC Emergency Response Subcommittee meeting, because it was held the day after a bunch of tornadoes came through. Remember that? Well, guess what. Yep, Wednesday was the ER Subcommittee meeting. I'm beginning to suspect a cause-and-effect relationship exists here.

Wednesday night was gaming night. We finally had everyone in town at the same time, so we played a session of the Star Wars RPG that Adam is running. It was a bit of an odd night, consisting primarily of all of us convinced that there was nothing we could do and then escaping because Bob decided to try something that had virtually no chance of working. We're not sure what the moral of the story is. I prefer to think that there isn't one.

At the LAN Administrators meeting today, I took notes on my PalmPilot, which attracted plenty of attention from people wanting to learn about it. Fifteen seconds of minor fame.

Tonight, of course, was the final episode of "Seinfeld." I think it kinda sucked. I think the main problem was that they stuffed 30 minutes of material into a 75-minute show.

My Life by the Numbers

Tuesday: 238 pounds. Walked 2 miles in 29:45.

Wednesday: 237 pounds. Didn't walk, 'cuz I was up late Tuesday night.

Today: 236 pounds. (I'm not taking that weight too seriously. I just put a new battery in the scale and I suspect that's the primary cause for the change.) Didn't walk, 'cuz I was up late Wednesday night. (See a pattern here?)

I called home on Sunday to wish Mom a happy Mother's Day, but instead of waiting anxiously by the phone, she was away visiting one of her sisters. Well! The very idea of her having a life! Anyway, I talked to Dad instead and learned that they had ordered a satellite dish! They live out in the country, where getting cable isn't an option. As a result, they have their choice of maybe seven TV stations. However, after a few years of spending time in RV parks with cable hookups, they began to think that perhaps getting a mini dish sounded like a good idea. They had thought about it in the past, but they live surrounded on nearly all sides by trees. Dad finally talked to a dealer and determined that they could get a clear shot at a satellite through a break in the trees, so he's placed an order. See what happens when you give your parents your old TV?

I received an e-mail broadcast from CZ recently, who said that she, Dayna, Rob, and Lou were going to be driving down to Texas to visit my brother and were in need of road trip tapes. As a result, I spent about three hours Tuesday night putting together an hour-long tape that I call:

The One With the Smothers Brothers

Side A

• Smothers Brothers - Pretoria
• Art of Noise - Peter Gunn
• Elastica - Connection
• Celastial Navigations - The Janitor
• Veruca Salt - Shutterbug
• Trio - Ja Ja Ja
• Trio - Da Da Da...
• Tim Lyons - Humours of Whiskey
• Yello - Oh Yeah

Side B

• Smothers Brothers - Laredo
• Luscious Jackson - Naked Eye
• New Order - True Faith
• Melanie - Animal Crackers
• Björk - Hyperballad
• Breeders - Divine Hammer
• Aimee Mann - Just What You Are
• 2001 - Transfiguration
• A Clockwork Orange - William Tell Overture

Frankly, I think you have to hear it to get the full effect. Actually, I would like to re-do it, with a few of the tracks in a different order, but I think three hours is plenty of time to spend on a joke. :-)

While I was working to making the tape, the storm warning sirens went off (or would that be "came on"?). I turned on the radio and learned there was a tornado warning. So what else is new? It looked mighty ominous outside, but nothing showed up in my area.

Last month I said that very few people showed up at the ILGIC Emergency Response Subcommittee meeting, because it was held the day after a bunch of tornadoes came through. Remember that? Well, guess what. Yep, Wednesday was the ER Subcommittee meeting. I'm beginning to suspect a cause-and-effect relationship exists here.

Wednesday night was gaming night. We finally had everyone in town at the same time, so we played a session of the Star Wars RPG that Adam is running. It was a bit of an odd night, consisting primarily of all of us convinced that there was nothing we could do and then escaping because Bob decided to try something that had virtually no chance of working. We're not sure what the moral of the story is. I prefer to think that there isn't one.

At the LAN Administrators meeting today, I took notes on my PalmPilot, which attracted plenty of attention from people wanting to learn about it. Fifteen seconds of minor fame.

Tonight, of course, was the final episode of "Seinfeld." I think it kinda sucked. I think the main problem was that they stuffed 30 minutes of material into a 75-minute show.

My Life by the Numbers

Tuesday: 238 pounds. Walked 2 miles in 29:45.

Wednesday: 237 pounds. Didn't walk, 'cuz I was up late Tuesday night.

Today: 236 pounds. (I'm not taking that weight too seriously. I just put a new battery in the scale and I suspect that's the primary cause for the change.) Didn't walk, 'cuz I was up late Wednesday night. (See a pattern here?)

Mother's Day Gift, MtG, SCA, Moving Computers

"So," I hear you asking, "why haven't updated this page since Tuesday?" I might say that it's because Wednesday night was gaming night and Thursday night was SCA meeting night and last night I just didn't get around to it. However, since I just today finally bought a Mother's Day gift for my mom, I suspect the real reason is that I'm simply an evil, evil person.

So on with the spiel.

Tuesday night, I called Ross and reminded him that Sunday was Mother's Day. One would think that I would also do something about that myself, but one would be naïve.

Wednesday night, as I said, was our traditional weekly "get together and lose at Magic" night. Actually, it was a little different this time. After playing one multi-player game (in which I basically did nothing but play lands and ask Adam and David how much damage they were doing to me), we played a little mini tournament. With six players, there wasn't really a good way to do it. We didn't really have enough time to play round robin (each player plays against each other player), so we did some bizarre double elimination bracket format. I wound up on top of the winners bracket, and Mary wound up on top of the losers bracket, so then she and I played against each other and she wound up winning. At that point it was late, it was pouring down rain, and Bob needed a ride home, so off we went. After I got to thinking about it, however, I realized that Mary and I probably should have played again, since we had both lost the same number of duels at that point. (Did you follow all of that? Neither did I, and I was there!) Oh well. When all was said and done, I think it would have taken the same amount of time just to play round robin!

Also on Wednesday night, I failed to get anything for Mom for Mother's Day.

Thursday night was the local SCA meeting. For those of you who don't know, the SCA is the Society for Creative Anachronism, a non-profit group that dresses up in medieval clothing to hold tournaments and feasts. If you ever see some people out in the park whacking each other over the head with sticks, it's probably us. (If it isn't, call 911.) Anyway, due to constantly being out of town on business trips, this was the first meeting I had been able to attend since February. That isn't a good thing, considering that I'm the editor of the group's newsletter. Anyway, we're busily planning an event that we'll be holding in September -- coronation. The new "king" and "queen" of the Middle Kingdom will be crowned there, so we're expecting something on the order of a thousand people to be showing up.

Also on Thursday night, I failed to get a Mother's Day gift for Mom.

Friday I spent pretty much the entire workday in the Bureau of Water GIS room moving computers around. They're bringing in an instructor to teach a class in a couple of weeks and they wanted to rearrange everything. This meant shutting down all of the hardware, disconnecting everything, moving it out of the way so that the maintenance people could move the partition walls, desks, and tables, then reconnecting everything and getting it all talking to the network again. Not my idea of fun, and certainly more physical activity than I get in a typical workday. I went home quite beat on Friday night -- which explains in part why I didn't quite get around to posting a new entry here that night!

Oh, and I failed to get anything for Mom. (But you knew that, because at the start of this bit, I said that I finally got it done today. Weren't you paying attention?)

My Life by the Numbers

Wednesday: 238 pounds; 2 miles in 29:35.

Actually, it could have been faster, except that I had stopped briefly to talk to a man who was walking his dog. On the other hand, after that conversation, I walked faster to make up lost time, so perhaps it was an advantage!

Thursday: 237.5 pounds; didn't walk. I didn't get home until after midnight on Wednesday, and it was promising to rain, so I figured there wasn't any point in even pretending that I was going to get up at 6:00 AM to go walking.

Friday: 238 pounds; 2 miles in 29:19.

Today: 238 pounds; didn't walk. Hey, it's the weekend! Besides, I'm sore from Friday. Well, that's my excuse and I'm sticking with it.