Dark Side Cookies

Playing a game of Horse Lovers Monopoly, that Charlotte got for Christmas (and was over-the-moon about).

Jake lands on Sigi's stable, and has to pay up big. He thinks quick, and offers instead an alliance.

"Join the dark side. We have cookies. Low-fat cookies."

How could she refuse an offer like that?

Slow Motion Raindrops

The most wonderful cinematography. The coolest scenes. Like the bubble of air surrounding Ben and Bridget in the middle of a hurricane as he reconnects with her after a crazy two days on the road with the precocious Sarah. And my favorite, the slow motion raindrops falling on tires and wheels seen from above as Ben and Sarah run over them on their way to shelter.

Forces of Nature, a romantic comedy about the choices we make in life, about love, commitment, spontaneousness, regret. The first half of the movie is depressing, Ben seeing one example after another of how marriage for so many people was a mistake. And then so many things go wrong as they race the clock on their way to Georgia, while Nature, in all its various forms, conspires against them.

What would have happened if Ben had stayed with Sarah, the wacky, unpredictable, amazing Sarah? Instead of staying with his first choice, the safe, respectable, conventional Bridget. Is the first choice always the best? I don't know, but I do know its a tough choice.

You Schussed Wonderfully!

Charlotte is going for a school field trip in a couple of weeks, up to Mohawk Mountain for an evening of skiing. But first she needs a lesson, as its been 5 years since she skied last. So she and I drive up there today, get a little lost on the way and have to ask directions from a couple of guys at a bonfire (who was the bright spark that invented a road with the middle third just plain missing?)

After a couple of hours on the easiest slope, Charlotte has her lesson while I try out a few of the other slopes. Feeling like she is so much better, she decides after the lesson that she wants a challenge, so I take her on the green circle slope (easy, not like the black diamond most difficult ones). It is twice as steep as she had imagined, and she hadn't listened in class half as well as she thought she had. So after taking off her skis and walking the down the first half of it, she puts them back on and schusses down the easier half in style.

"Yay! Didn't I do well, daddy?"

"Yes, Charlotte, you did wonderfully!"

Nasty vs. Horrible

Alien vs. Predator Requiem: not sure why we keep going to see these movies. Pretty much after Aliens (which was fantastic) it has been downhill ever since.

Predictable, lots of dying, not much suspense, and a weak storyline characterize all these sequels. Guess I'm just a sucker for alien creatures.

Gee, I seem to be seeing a lot of movies lately. I wonder why...

Treasure Hunt - Again

Got to see National Treasure - Book of Secrets. Pretty good movie, with everything from kidnapping the president to finding the secret compartment in the Queen's desk, and long forgotten hidden caves with cities of gold. Not quite as good as the first movie, but still not too shabby.

Presents Galore

Jake and Charlotte are very happy this year with their presents - amongst other things, they both get digital cameras so they can start their own photo libraries. Nikon Coolpix, Charlotte an L11 (her age), and Jake an L14 (only 3 months early).

Jake is thrilled to get a Nintendo DS, and Charlotte (the animal lover) just jumps for joy when she saw her Schleich stable :)

Will Smith and Zombies

I Am Legend, quite amazing how they make New York look empty. My god Will Smith works out, talk about muscles. Anyway, cool movie, if you like suspense and nasty looking creatures chasing you in the dark. Or chasing someone else preferably.

Terrificible

Just finishes setting up Terry. She (or he) looks good (or bad), depending on who you ask. Charlotte names him Terry the Terrible, too spiky, no color, and not as good as the one 50 feet away. Jake disagrees, and calls her Terry the Terrific, just perfect.

I am, of course, talking about the tree we just bought from Maple Row Tree Farm, after scouting all his brothers (her sisters), picking out Terry, and cutting him/her down, while Charlotte complains noisily that the one over there is just so much better. And we all freeze, especially Jake in his thin jacket that he didn't even want to wear at first, cause he thinks he doesn't feel the cold.

Road Trip

Professor Yeardon of the Rhode Island School of Design invites me to come and meet with his students in the spring, to discuss with them my little nanoDiamond project. We expect they will have lots of interesting and creative ideas on possible applications.

Never been to Rhode Island before, so should be an interesting visit. I'm excited! :)

Charlotte's Daemon

My Daemon

Charlotte's Dream World

The Golden Compass, a wonderful story of a strange world where everyone's soul is physically manifest as a creature, a bird, a lynx, or any of dozens of different types. A world where the proud ice-bears fight with terrifying power, where fantastical machines and futuristic blimps roam the skies, and where witches fly without broomsticks. A world of stunning beauty. Don't miss it.

The only downer was nobody warned us that it was only part 1 - the movie ends rather abruptly right in the middle of the story. Will have to see part 2 of course.

Teensy Weensy Building Stuff

Lucky me, my site gets a mention on Nanoarchitecture.net, a site focusing on the architectural implications of nanotechnology.

Angelic Devils

Have you heard of that chinese torture where they let a drop of water hit your forehead, and then another, and then another, for hours and hours, until you just go crazy? Well, that's how I feel listening to the violins at the start of the concert. Every single "musician", if I can use that term loosely, plays a slightly different note to all the others, slowly tearing away at my sanity.

Then the wind instruments begin. At least they press a key to get a note, so they are mostly in tune, except, and there just has to be an exception, for the trombones. Timing, of course, is a completely different matter. All those blowers this time are trying to blow a hole right through my ear-drums.

They are only 6th graders you say, and I am being too harsh. They practiced very hard for this night. Maybe so, but at least I didn't have to pay money to come and hear it.

And then the choir comes on, some 150 girls and boys (mostly girls), my daughter amongst them, the dutiful father attending so his daughter doesn't grow up and say "what, you mean I have a dad?" I am tensing ready for the onslaught, but instead, what hits my ears is a melody so sweet that it sounds like a choir of angels. Well, not exactly angels, but I'm sure the tips of greyish wings were starting to poke out of the backs of those little devils, the ones that make their mother's cry and will make their fathers go broke when they get a little older.

After a few heavenly harmonies, thankfully dominated by the girls sweet voices, we are back to the final instrumental section, however by that stage my ears are not listening anymore. Lucky really, as I'm sure they sound quite awful.

Kid's Quotes 1

Jake: "Charlotte has a big mouth and a big head, but she makes up for it with a big heart and a big brain."

Charlotte: "I like pie!"

Jake: "Ok, a medium sized brain."

Enchanted

Kids drag us off to see another Disney movie. Is a bit too sugary for my taste. Lots of singing and dancing and big scenes with hundreds of people. And stereotypical fair maidens and evil witches and dashing princes.

And of course happily-ever-afters.

The kids love it naturally.

Slithering Serpents

Charlotte has been begging for a dog for months now, but so far all she has gotten has been two catfish (the irony is not lost on us). Jake decides he wants a pet too. A cat perhaps? A bird? No, he has become obsessed over the idea of getting a reticulated python.

He is quick to point out all the advantages, the ease of looking after, the low dietary requirements ("just one baby pig a month Dad"), and the wonderful show-and-tell opportunities involving hysterical girls at school.

One wonders how discriminating the snake will be when it has to choose between a piglet and a dachshund.
Update: its been changed to a Boa Constrictor, since reticulated pythons can only be looked after if you are over 21.

UBS Christmas Party

Drinks: 3 stars
Food: 2 stars
Desert: 5 stars
Atmosphere: 2 stars
Company: it isn't so much the people that are there, it is the people that aren't - none of the contractors are allowed to come, which is most of our team :(

No live band doesn't help either.

At least those raspberries and cream and Tiramisu taste delicious :)

Colorful Cocks

In India they color baby chicks, by injecting the eggs with dye. It doesn't hurt the chicks, and the kids love it. It lasts for only a couple of weeks, until the new feathers grow out.

So instead of just little cute yellow ones, you have little cute yellow, pink, green, and purple ones. "Chicks?" asks Bright facetiously, "you mean, just the female ones?".

"No, no, not at all" replies Sruthi, 'they color the, what do you call them, um, the cocks as well."

Well, I don't know, but for some reason I just can't get the image of glow-in-the-dark green condoms out of my head. As the founder of that particular company said, "We would like to give the phrase 'rise and shine' a whole new meaning." :-)

The Mist

The Mist.

Scary. Great.

And yeah, I don't like spoiling movies by giving too much away. Go watch it.

Bloody flying lip leaves

Thanksgiving leaves flying through the air
Landing and sticking in Charlotte's hair
Stuffed with turkey stuffing, heading for my hip
Roughplay with Jake, oops, a bloody lip

High School Musical

Charlotte finishes the last of three performances of High School Musical, as part of the 2007 production by Wilton Children's Theater. She has been practicing hard for many weeks, and the last week has been busier than usual. She plays Rachel Ray, one of 5 cooks.

She really puts her heart and soul into this, and it shows in her exuberance and how well she performs. Even though she doesn't have a speaking part (mostly the 8th graders got those), she sings every word of every song with feeling, and dances her feet off. Couldn't be more proud :)

And just like Aladdin 2 years ago, the female lead has a voice like that of an angel, and the male lead can't sing to save his life :p

(click on the pic for a very large version - warning, takes a while to load)

Flying Feet

Sarah holds the pads, wrapped tightly around her hand like gloves, and positions them about chin height. I am at the gym, practicing some Tae-Kwon-Do kicks and punches. I had just met Sarah a few minutes ago, and she is being very helpful assisting me for a few minutes.

I do a few practice kicks, and then on my last one, Sarah's pad slips completely off and flies through the air! It lands way up high on the ledge near the lights, where it is stuck, until Brent gets the ladder and brings it down.

You should see the look of surprise on Sarah's face :-)

Norma

Not all moments can be highlights - today is one of the crappy ones.

3 of the people in our team are let go today, as part of across-the-board layoffs throughout the company. One especially makes us sad, as everyone got on so well with her. She is sorely missed :-(<

One moment she is there, the next, gone. Each of us wonders who will be next. Our desks become a little cleaner today as we scramble to box up what we need to take, and throw away the last few years of accumulated junk.

Rachel Nichols

P2.

Tense. Great.

You ktupid jackakk!

Warning: this makes no sense unless you were there.

Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood (from Whose Line Is It Anyway) leave us laughing our insides off at the Palace Theater tonight. From unicycle riding elephants juggling and writing poetry, to hippopotamuses getting strangled with spaghetti, from alligator wrestlers peeing their pants to double entendres, we are never left with a straight face for more than a few seconds.

The series of piano skits in styles from western (John Wayne) to roman (Clyamydia), and sci-fi (Yoda) to chick flick (chocolate), has something to tickle everyone's funny bone. Brad's sound effect of an elephant falling down the stairs covered in tambourines is outdone by the letter substitution snowboarding limousines, where every s had to be said as a k (and the image of socks hanging out of windows is forever impinged on our minds). And we will never forget how to pronounce Chickahominee.

And to finish off the night of improvisation, Brad and Colin sing a moped mechanic opera with sentences starting with letters ranging backward through the alphabet from X, and navigate across the floor shoe and sockless, and blindfolded, while 100, ok, 95 mousetraps viciously attack their toes and fingers. And other parts of their anatomy. Ouch. And double ouch.

Ooey Gooey

On our way to P F Changs for lunch (which is quite tasty, even though it arrives somewhat late, much to Leo's annoyance) one of our party steps in a huge blob of chewing gum. Guess who. Yep, Leo. He is having one of those days.

He then takes off his shoe and spends the next 5 minutes hopping around and trying to scrape it all off his heel, with Albert giving him advice, and everyone else having a good laugh. :)

The Great Wall of Chocolate makes us forget all about it of course. D-licious!

Oh, and my fortune cookie says "Be careful! Straight trees often have crooked roots." Have no idea what that means.

Novelty Factor

The exercise bike we ordered online arrives in a big box today, all 124 lbs of it. Struggle to get it downstairs, then spend the next 3 hours assembling it. Everyone has a ride on it the first day, and the kids are very enthusiastic (think "shiny new toy").

Will be interesting to see how much use it gets after a month or a year.



Update: the kids hardly ever use it now, six months later, but Sigrid is still going strong, more miles on it every month!

"Did I roll over Flat Ted?"

Looking through some drawers we hadn't checked out in ages, we find Flat Ted, a pure wool teddy bear, designed to be flat so babies could easily sleep with it. Very cuddly and warm. On Jake's zeroth birthday I had bought it for him from the hospital gift shop, to put in the crib. He's 13 now, and of course had grown out of it years ago.

Upon seeing it, he thinks for a moment, and has only one sincere question. "Dad, did Flat Ted come like this, or did I roll over and squash him one day?"

Bee Movie

Charlotte gets a phone call from a boy at school. "Would you like to go and see a movie?"
"Yes, I would love to."

She gets dressed up and is all excited. "Dad, I think this my first date!"

"Not really Charlotte. Just relax and have fun. You're only 11."

"Who are you and what have you done with my son?"

I drive Charlotte to her friend Jenny's place, all dressed up in her witches outfit, and they go off together tricking and treating (probably all of the latter of course, watch out for that sugar rush).

Get back and ask Jake if he wants to go out as well, and he says "No dad, you deserve to have a break too, go and play your badminton tonight. I'll go out for Halloween next year."

He is getting so considerate lately, its like he's a new person.

That cat has claws

Friday night I installed Leopard, the new version of Mac OS X. Today my son gets on the machine and plays World of Warcraft for a couple of hours. He's just about to start another quest, when a disembodied voice suddenly says, in a pleasant voice, "You will be logged off in 15 minutes."

Jake nearly fell off his chair.

Parental controls - at last!