Greg’s weblog

Christmas was very good. The kids both enjoyed themselves to the point of exhaustion, which is a sign that they’re having too much fun. Christmas morning, William was up, and leaving the bedroom rather noisily, so Erin and I tried to shush him. He was quiet, and Julia didn’t wake up. As he was leaving, I whispered “Go see if Santa has been here.”

Julia (who was sleeping on her stomach) flipped over and sat up faster than I thought was possible, and with wide awake eyes said “Sanna?” She went from asleep to full tilt in the blink of an eye.

And then she didn’t want to open her presents ;)

I got a PSP from Erin, John and Margie. It’s a slick little piece of hardware. I’ve been busily encoding tv shows to PSP format ever since – trying to find the best compromise between file size and quality. Once I found out that the PSP will play back H.264, and how to do it, it helped out immensely. Now I just have to get the MythTV box automatically cutting commercials and encoding for me overnight, and I’ll be all set.

Julia had the most “Little People” Christmas possible – she got the beach set from Santa at the kids’ Christmas party, the Airplane from Uncle Jonathan and (soon to be) Auntie Debzilla, the school bus from Grandpa and Grandma Mitchell, a stacking circus animal set from Grandma and Grandpa B, and the Garage from us. All in all, there are a lot of little people floating around the house right now.

William and Julia got me KinderBunnies, so William has played it a few times, and quite seems to enjoy it. I got a set of wrenches and pliers from my dad, and Settlers of Cattan from both my parents. William got Lego Star Wars from Uncle Dave, which he’s probably playing, or at least asking to play right now (I mean as you read this – wherever in the world you are, whatever timezone, whatever day…) We got him a camera, Santa brought him a cool remote control car, and he got a tramampoline from Grandpa John. Grandma Margie got both kids some cool books.

So we spent Monday afternoon/evening at my parents place visiting with my Uncle Brian and Auntie Marilyn. Jonathan and Deb’s big announcement was the story of the day, so congratulations are in order to those two.

That’s it from me. Tune in next time to see what else is new and exciting.

Simpson’s quote of the day:
Bart: “Hey Homer, where’s your present?”
Homer: “D’oh! I mean… D’oh-n’t worry son, I forgot to get you a present. But I swear on my father’s grave . . .”
Grandpa: “Hey!”

Today is the last day of work before Christmas. The holidays have really snuck up this year, and I’m not ready. Not ready I tell you. Sure, I’ve got all my presents purchased, but none are wrapped, and none of my Christmas projects are done. I’ll be hunkered down tomorrow working on them, to be sure.

Last night, we had a games night instead of poker. We only got to play one game, because it ran too long (we played The Traders of Genoa 5 players) but it was interesting. I finished dead last because Rob jumped on my strategy early, and took me out of the game. The final result was a little too random for my tastes – I thought that the person who’d played the best game was the one who came in third, and it’s not clear to me that the winner had any sort of strategy in mind while he was playing (in fact, he wouldn’t have won if he’d rolled only slightly worse on his last turn) but he did bargain well. I overpaid for a bunch of stuff because I was quickly falling behind.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Is there some confusion about this? Take it! Take it, you poor shmo!” – Mr. Burns

Julia loves the image of Santa. She sees Santa everywhere this time of year of course, so she’s pretty happy. She wasn’t so happy to sit on Santa’s knee when we took the kids for pictures though. Anyway, whenever she sees a Santa, she makes sure she points it out to everyone by saying “Sanna.”

Last night we finally got the tree decorated. Well, half decorated. The bottom half won’t have anything on it this year, because we have an ornament thief that likes to take anything that’s about 3 feet or lower off of the tree. (In case you’re wondering the identity of said thief – have a look at the first paragraph of this post. Now imagine that someone saw a Sanna that they could get their little hands on…) It looks pretty good despite the odd decorating scheme.

Last night saw William teaching Grandpa John how to play Jungle Beat. It really is interesting how effortless William makes it seem to play that game. I’m a self confessed sucker for specialized controllers, but I have to say that the bongos are #1 on the list of specialized controllers that I’ve ever gotten. The force feedback steering wheel probably comes in a close second, but the bongos are getting the heck played out of them. And yes, I’ve played Guitar Hero, and I don’t think it’d topple the bongos in our house – it’s too big for William, and I’m not very good at precision agility tasks with my left hand…

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Whoa, it’s Santa all right. And he is kicking ass!” – Bart

William stayed at my parents’ place overnight last night. I was amazed that he made it through the night, but apparently everything went pretty well. That’s a big step for our boy. He packed up a lot of stuff to take it over there. Sleeping bag, pillow, two flashlights (in case he lost one, he could use the other one to find it…) He was “prepared” for anything apparently. He was pretty excited about it, and even the arrival of Grandpa John last night didn’t derail his single-minded quest to spend the night over there.

I think Erin had a harder time with it than he did.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Curse you, magic beans!” – Homer

Things have been pretty busy around our house over the last few weeks, though I couldn’t point to any one thing that’s happened. Julia and William continue to grow and change on a daily basis. Julia’s favourite song has got to be “Bed bed bed” by They Might Be Giants. I see that they’ve got a kids book illustrating the song that I may have to look into getting for Julia.

William continues to amaze though. Today he was playing Donky Kong Jungle Beat with Erin, and he said to her “Mommy, don’t get hit again, or you’ll only have 16 beats left. So, he mentally subtracted 26-10 without prompting, applying math to his life. (Make no mistake, Donkey Kong Jungle Beat is his life right now)

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Your Honor, Lisa Simpson is a charming, hard-working young girl…” – Lionel Hutz

Sorry for the lack of updates here, but there hasn’t been much to write about.

Last night was the children’s Christmas party through work. William and Julia had a great time – Julia was super independent, just wandering all over the place and asking women to pick her up – which of course they did. She also really enjoyed the bouncy-slide-train thing, frequently going down the slide, then running back to the entrance to cut in line (once I found out she was cutting in line, I put a stop to it, and made her wait ;) William also had a lot of fun with the fish pond, the crazy remote controlled cars and the hockey shoot (first time for him to shoot a puck with a hockey stick – it didn’t go so great…) The balloon artist was fantastic, and William and Julia both got great gifts from Santa – William got a motorcycle exactly like the one he played with so much last year, and Julia got a Little People boat set which both kids seemed to quite like.

Meanwhile, the mac mini was frustratingly short of RAM, so I ordered some more RAM from NCIX, and it arrived yesterday. I installed it last night, and the improvement was immediate and obvious. Everything is at least twice as fast, and some things are so much faster that it’s comical how bad it was before. It’s a shame that it cost so much to render that computer into a usable state though.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “From A-Apple to Z-Zebra, Baby’s First Pop-up book is 26 pages of alphabetic adventure!” – Bart

We dropped the kids off at my parents’ place last night and did some Christmas shopping. While we only got two things, I think it was a successful expedition. We got a tree, which was the big thing, and a Fisher Price Little People garage for Julia.

Over the weekend, we picked up a digital camera for William. Zellers is/was clearing out their old cameras, clearance 3 megapixel digital cameras for $70. This way William can have his own camera, and it will take good pictures, unlike the $5 one we got from XS Cargo. Plus it’s a real digital camera, with LCD and everything. The one we wound up with is the Sony P52, which is discontinued, but looks like a decent camera.

Tonight, William and I will likely be setting up the tree. Depending on mood (he’s been cranky lately) we should have a good time.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Hey Flanders, I got us some kick-ass seats!!!” – Homer