E Friday - school vs home

There is a difference between going to school and staying home. Going to school involves intense concentration on selection of the correct outfit for the day.


While staying home involves lounging around in your pajamas, playing with the cat and reading fun books.

E's eight!

We recently went up to Portland to visit our daughter and granddaughter. Usually just my wife goes there, but this time I also went along. The reason to go in May is supposedly the chance of having nice weather up there as well as it being granddaughter E’s birthday. This year she turned eight and was very excited. She originally asked for a company cheese cake like the one her mom made before, but then changed her mind and asked for a carrot cake. Dad was up late the night before grating carrots and making one from scratch, ending up with a pretty good cream cheese frosting the next morning. Somebody really liked it.


Yes, she was very excited to be turning eight. Everybody in her second grade class made her birthday cards (the teacher gives them class time and materials to do it) and several of them were of wombats – her topic for a class project and now her favorite animal.


E reads a lot, I’m impressed with her level and her understanding. We try to send her several books every month, and she is moving far past what we thought. She finished the Hobbit (and complained about what was different in the movie) and is on to the Lord of the Rings series. She finished the first Harry Potter book, we watched the first movie when I was there and she pointed out things that were different than the book, things I hadn’t noticed. So in order to skip all of those postage costs we decided to give her a Kindle, so that we could just pick out books for her remotely. The last time B was up there E kept taking her Kindle so B had to resort to paper books (oh my). Her mom is opposed to her getting a web device so we figured a Kindle that just let her go into the cloud and grab new books we purchased would work fine (though we did get complaints).

I think she liked it, especially the backlight so she can read under the covers without mom seeing her room light on. (we also did an Ikea stop while up there, and E ended up with one of their mice)


What is she reading? Well, I had on our Kindle last time The Butterfly Dress by Miranda which E read twice back then, and she wanted to read it again so that is the book she picked. What else is on there? Miranda’s new book the Blue Mermaid, Mieville’s Un Lun Dun, Pullman’s His Dark Materials (she started on the hardcover Golden Compass on her last visit), Heinlein’s Door Into Summer (one of my fav old sci fi books) and I had to include a horse story for a little girl Bryant’s Horse Crazy. We gave her paper copies of the first three Diskworld stories a few weeks ago, and will probably upload some more as she reads up what she already has.

Halloween

E was a kitty this year, in costume made by Mom and face painting by Grammy.



This just in - sorting the haul (looks a little light to me)

E with pumpkins

Getting into Fall and close to Halloween. Yesterday E went to a pumpkin patch to pick out some future Jack O' Lanterns.

Christmas 2010

We had a crowd over this Christmas. All of the kids have moved away and it is difficult to get them together from scattered locations, but fortunately our daughter from Portland (1800km) came down with the family as well as our youngest son from San Francisco (1000km). They all drove over through California during those big rainstorms but left here in sunshine.

E came down along with mom and dad. On Christmas Eve she left milk and cookies for Santa and wrote him a welcome note.


It looks like the cookies worked, as there were a lot more presents under the tree the next morning.


Mom made E a new tutu.


She also received lots of toys and things she liked. She danced with a new wand.


And played with some new dolls and doll chairs that Granddad made


She really seemed to like some hats that she got


And she performed a nice dance number several times


All in all, it was a pleasant holiday week.

Rochester

For some unknown reason I was thinking about Rochester, New York today; don’t know why. I attended college back there a long time ago before moving out to California. I first attended Rochester Institute of Technology when it was on the old campus, located right in downtown Rochester, with buildings scattered around town. The dormitory I stayed in was the old twelve story Manger Hotel with only the first ten floor used. The top two floors were just used for storage; the elevators did not go up to there, and only one stairwell provided access to the top. The buildings used for classrooms were a combination of older buildings purchased by the school and a few new ones built for that purpose. I stayed for a while and was not enjoying myself, so I dropped out, joined the Navy (to see the world) then for some strange reason returned.

When I got back to RIT the second time they had moved to a brand new campus outside of the city, in a suburb named Henrietta. But the name was not changed to Henrietta Institute of Technology; I guess RIT sounded better than HIT. The new campus was out by itself in the middle of farm fields, all new buildings built of the same red brick surrounded by empty fields and trees, with big parking lots out front. RIT had a lot of full time students, most living in the dorms, but there were about three times as many part time students living around the area that would drive out for night classes. My major was Photographic Illustration, but that eventually changed to Computer Science when I realized that I was better with hard technical subjects rather than artistic stuff.

There were several large companies that had headquarters in Rochester. The most well known was Eastman Kodak, but DuPont and Xerox also had large facilities. RIT was one of the first schools to offer internships as a standard part of their curriculum. Classes were on the quarter system, your first two years were spent doing three quarters of classes, with summer off. The next three years you alternated quarters between classes and working at a related industry. So it took five years to get a BS degree, where other schools offered four year terms, but you left with work experience, and usually a job offer from the place you interned. Back then RIT was the only college on the east coast that had a school of photography; my alternative would have been a tech school in Los Angeles. Growing up in New Jersey made Rochester a stretch, much less convincing the parents that I needed to go to LA for school.

RIT also housed the NTID (National Technical Institute for the Deaf), with about a thousand deaf students living in the dorms and attending classes. The school of photography was part of the art department, which also had a school of craftsmanship where you could specialize in glass blowing or wood working or metal craft in addition to the ‘standards’ of painting and drawing. Most of my classes were based on how to take pictures, composition and color and framing, in addition to darkroom time learning techniques to print pictures. Now that probably has changed to digital stuff with classes in Photoshop techniques rather than darkroom techniques. The Photo Illustration program was more art oriented, with lots of basic art classes included. Other photography majors were more technical, with investigations into high speed photography, the chemical composition of film, and that type of stuff.

While in the Navy I purchased a lot of 35mm camera equipment, several camera bodies and lots of lenses. When overseas we could order things on ship that were about a quarter of the price in the states so I took advantage of the shipboard stores. I had classes on studio photography, learning how to use 4x5 view cameras and large film, which required a lot of setup time and precise lighting and angles. I learned how difficult it was to create some of those print advertisements, and how many hours it took setting up even simple studio shots. But I liked the candid stuff more, carrying around my 35mm camera and shooting things on the fly. In high school I took sports photographs for the area newspaper, shooting football games was my favorite, and I might have kept on in that direction if computers didn’t catch my interest. Sometimes I think of getting a 4x5 or 8x10 view camera and doing some outdoor photography, but it’s easier with a digital camera, the good ones providing images of very good quality without all the work.

But back to Rochester: the things I remember most about living there were the grey skies and the cold. It seemed like the cloud cover moved over the city sometime in October, and we didn’t see the sun again until April. Buffalo, 100km to the west, got lots of snow because of its location in relation to the Great Lakes, but Rochester received considerably less of the white stuff. If Buffalo had a three foot snowfall we would only get six inches, but it never got warm enough to melt so by springtime we ended up with significant piles of snow around the parking lots and walkways. There were also periods of cold; I remember one week where the temperature never got above -28 (-20f). You would walk outside and almost immediately lose all feeling in your face, with your toes going not long afterwards. The dorms were located a bit away from the classroom buildings, with one long exposed pathway between the complexes. It was a very cold walk in the morning, with the low temps and strong winds blowing, by the time you got to class you were frozen, and took a while to thaw out before you could work the equipment.

I was out cleaning our pool in the 42c (108f) sunshine Saturday when cold Rochester came to mind. A lot of people ask how we can live with such temperatures, but if 22c (72f) is the ideal comfortable temperature, then we are only 20c (35f) away from that, while Rochester has a swing of 50c (90f) away from comfortable. I would much rather be here, sweating a little in the sunshine than spend a winter there, wondering if I would ever feel my nose or toes again. It was a beautiful weekend, with the same weather forecast for every day this week. Daughter and E are coming in on Wednesday for a week’s stay, so I have to be sure the pool is clean and toys all set up. We redid her room; I built a bed (finger photos from that posted a while back, medical bill summary to come) and B painted and fixed things, so it is a lot different. All pink: for some reason that has become her color. On Saturday we will be having the annual E end of summer pool party, which should be lots of fun with a pool full of kids and relatives we only see once a year. Those trips plus one from across the street will be over, they are quite noisy just hearing them from far away, should be quite a bundle all piled in the pool together.
Missed posting Friday: here she is with an Ikea heart Grammy got her

Horses?

The area that we live in here in Vegas is zoned Rural Residential, with the houses on a minimum lot size of a half acre, with about every third house on a full acre. There are no sidewalks or streetlights, though new residents sometimes try to talk the rest of us into paying big bucks to upgrade the area and we always vote it down. One of the reasons we live here is the quieter nature of the place, you can go a half mile over and get sidewalks if you want that. New construction now puts ten homes per acre (plus streets and sidewalks), which gives you six feet between houses and a back yard about ten feet deep. The RR designation is one up from Farm, which means that we can keep a limited number of animals if we wanted to. On a half acre we could have a half dozen chickens, two horses, two sheep, or other farm animals. We don’t have anything beyond our vicious dog; the birds just fly in for free food and water. But some people keep horses, and they frequently wander past. I was out the other day and caught some out front, but by the time I ran in and grabbed the camera they had continued to mosey on


Back at the BHRCND from where I used to work I caught another bride


Yesterday B went up to the top of the Stratosphere for lunch and she found a wedding in progress up there out 1,200 feet above the strip (no pictures though). So far I’ve seen Vegas weddings on a pirate ship, in a gondola, in the lobby, on the Strip sidewalk, even caught my own son getting married, but they did one of the wedding chapels.

A few days ago somebody showed up here; let’s see if you can figure out who it was from the contents of their carry on luggage.


If you can’t tell, that blue fuzzy thing with the dog on it in the upper left is the carry on, it’s a backpack but has a handle and wheels so you can pull it too. Inside were: a watermelon slice potholder, a bananagrams banana full of letters, a jump rope, a blue ball, a container of bugs (but there were only two bugs in it), a black ladybug and a sunhat.

Well, if you guessed my granddaughter E down from Portland you’re correct (and did you also guess that she packed her bag herself?).


Here for a week or so to spend every day swimming in our warm pool (water temp is 89, but we’re trying to warm it up because that’s too cold for our daughter, should have it up to 93 by Friday).

Monday videos - Mike J

First Monday of the year - hope exciting things are ahead for all of you. Here at work they are setting up for the freaks and geeks groups - the adult expo and the electronics show, two groups that don’t really seem to go together, but we are half rented out to each. Maybe more for the electronics, as they also have most of the ballrooms and meeting rooms in the tower next door. I was busy at home this weekend with around the house work. Our swimming pool pump died a few weeks ago and I ordered a new one, spend this weekend cutting out the old and installing the new, in our cold January weather. But I would much rather put up with a few months of cold weather in exchange for the rest of the year’s warm. It comes with such beautiful sunshine and blue skies and far vistas and dry.

I was reading Loraloo this morning, in which she was pointing to a Michael Jackson video. I remember Mike fondly, he made such marvelous videos, but unfortunately YouTube does not permit embedding for most of them, so I’ll just give you a few links and let you click on those. But first, here is his long one, Thriller:


One of my favorites is Billy Jean. And another good one is Beat It. Keeping with the B’s, full of M dancing was Black and White, with McKauly Culkin, I really like the way it switches faces at the end, with the redhead’s hair popping out . All three having Michael dancing around, and pretty good visuals. Besides, he lives here in Vegas now, so we always see little tidbits about his appearances around town.

That last one reminds me of the opening to Twisted Sister (what do you want to do with your life?)

VH1 TV Shows | Music Videos | Celebrity Photos | News & Gossip

And because I never got back to it on Friday, here’s an E shot, just because:

On the canal

Just a few random pictures from around my work today. I’ve got some longer posts, but need the time
to pull them together.
A few months ago one of the major car manufacturers had a big meeting for their west coast dealers,
and unveiled a few new cars. This is what one of our halls was set up like for that offering:


I haven’t seen too many theater type setups like this. It takes a lot of work to put all of those risers in.
Udge asked about our canals, in a recent post I had a photo at the lagoon out front. Here is what the
canal extension into the new area looked like.

And the old portion, by the turn around



That’s up on the second floor, above the casino and restaurant area. Nice sky.
When B flew up to Portland a while back she snapped a picture from the plane window. For those of
you that haven’t flown into Las Vegas in a while, this is what the strip and downtown now look like.


The cluster of tall buildings to the left around the white shaft is the north end of the Strip, the tall
white thing is the Stratosphere. A little to the right is the grouping of buildings downtown on Fremont
Street. This is above the airport looking northwest. We have about 1,600,000 people now, growing at
around 10,000 new arrivals per year.

OK, ok, since I have been remiss in posting these, here is a shot of our little angel asleep in the car.


And she is always willing to share.

Happy Grammie's Day

Showed up in our email today.

Portland!

Well, B has just returned from a week in Portland visiting daughter and E. She returned with some photos, not as many as I hoped. But the first one in the camera was a surprise – something she saw in downtown Portland:


Imagine that, flying up from Vegas to find that Elvis had already arrived. I thought all of the Elvi were living here.
She did get to see that she was not in Vegas anymore, most obvious in January is that in Vegas it hits 55f or so during the day, while in Portland it sometimes does not get above freezing. Clothes are appropriate.

Video Monday

One of my favorite songs from the Muppet Show is Mahna Mahna.


Don’t know why, perhaps because I can remember all of the words, and it’s fun to sing along to. And it’s got Kermit in it, so it has to be good. Recently I came across a version of this with Sandra Bullock, and yes, Kermie again. But this time it sounds like she’s saying phenomena. Oh well, she dances along like I do.


What’s that you say, I missed E Friday? Well, looks like you are correct. Sorry. But with not being able to post from work, and running around doing other things, I have been a bit remiss. Did almost make all of November though. OK, here you go.


Yes, that is 2 1/2.

Presents away

Well, finally finished up the woodworking, boxed it up, and shipped off E’s Christmas present.


I did the cutting and gluing, B did the nice sanding and finishing. Yes, the top lifts off so all the animals can ride inside. The boat is about 24" long. Unfortunately, I wanted to use a nice hard wood and picked up some red oak at our local HD to make it from. I say unfortunately, because it was hard, and a real chore to cut and sand. And it probably weighs so much that it will be years before she can pick it up. But it probably means the animals will last just as long. We’ll hear how the basement floor works out after she launches it down the stairs a few times.

Potential balet dancer

Practicing her moves with a ball.


I know, not wearing a TKW made tutu, she left those at home.

E Monday

Sorry I missed Friday, but this is the way we are seeing E these days. B is flying up tomorrow, and gets to see young blue eyes herself.

Almost July

Well, it's almost July again.


It should be getting nice and warm by the end of the month.
E was playing with these rubber ducks out on the patio today. Those of you with kids should recognize the one on the right - it's designed to be put in a bath before inserting the kid to tell you if the water is too hot. If the word HOT shows up then you should not put the kid in. As you can see, this is our patio in the shade.


But it had cooled down a little by 5, and we all jumped in the pool. The air temp was down to about 108 (43C). Unfortunately I had left the pool cover on, and the water was a little warm - 95 (35C), about what most people want their bath water to be. But E still liked it.

E's back

Sorry, I'm going through my photo list and just could not wait for Friday.

E's back, and she still knows how to 'smile for the camera', and she still likes granddad's spagetti.

Three two year old things

Yesterday our daughter and granddaughter flew down from Portland to visit for a week. They moved up there from Vegas three months ago. So here are three things for Clare:
1. A two year old (well, two years and two months: it makes a difference)
2. A two year old that talks – and talks, and talks, and talks, and talks, and talks (if you’ve been around one, you know)
3. Every once in a while being able to understand what a two year old is saying. Especially critical if you are being asked a question, such as ‘can we go to the park right now?’ or ‘I’m hungry, is it OK if I pull things out of the refrigerator until I find something that I like?’ or 'can I stick the cat in the microwave and push the buttons?'

Random E

OK, I know I should include this in my three things, but for Clare I try to just put short words to match her.

E in the sunshine

OK, since we are getting into warm weather (supposed to be 96f tomorrow) I might as well put up some Spring photos. These were taken in early March, which is nice weather here. In the 90’s is Vegas Spring weather.


At her favorite park, near our house. And for Lisa, even some stripes:




And when she gets thirsty, not always a sippy cup anymore.