happy new year

"save the last dance for me"

New Year's eve is like every other night; there is no pause in the march of the universe, no breathless moment of silence among created things that the passage of another twelve months may be noted; and yet no man has quite the same thoughts this evening that come with the coming of darkness on other nights. ~Hamilton Wright Mabie

technorati tags:new, year, mabie, quote, dance

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sense of accomplishment

Well, I finally did it. I grouted the kitchen backsplash tile. It's only been waiting to be done for, oh, I don't know, 6 months? :P

It feels good to look at it and know that it's finally done, but being the perfectionist I am, I see the mistakes I made and the sections that don't look that good. I think I might have to redo them. Of course, I don't have any more grout powder left, so I'll have to get more just to do that... oh well.

anyway, cross something off the list (semi-cross, I still have to caulk and seal it... and mabe redo it... hee hee)

wow, can you believe it, it's 2007 on Monday. That means it will be 10 years of wedded bliss! :) Amazing.

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vienna

i've been trying out vienna this week for aggregating my news feeds, and so far I like it. It kind of looks like iTunes for RSS. check it out, it runs on OS X, and best of all it's free. And then you can subscribe to my blog and get all instantaneously updated and stuff. cuz you know I'm the coolest. LOL

technorati tags:vienna, rss, newsreader

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kicking

T had a 101F temperature last night. At 12:30, which doesn't sound that late, but when we just went to sleep at 11:30... grrr. Not a jolly time. N goes to get her, and she comes and sleeps with us. Which, until she settles down, is a lot of head butting N and kicking me in the stomach / back... depending on which way I'm lying.

Let's just say I was a little tired today, and N even more so.

On the other hand, T slept the latest of all of us (7:20), had a 2 hour afternoon nap, and was full of energy and happy all day. Ah, kids...

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perpetuating the myth

So we survived another Christmas, and I say that in the best way possible. Because Christmas Eve was on a Sunday this year, we had a pretty busy day and evening. After evening service, we drove home the 'scenic' route, both to ensure the kids fell asleep, and also to pass by Nathan Phillips and the Bay Christmas windows. They did a Narnia theme this year for the windows, and while they were cool, they were not that interesting for little ones, nor were they particularly Christmas-y. J made it to just past the windows before passing out. T took a litlle longer, but was safely asleep by the time we got home. By that I mean she could be moved without waking her. She's a super light sleeper, so if we're not careful, we can wake her up if we take her out of the car at the wrong point during her sleep. Which kind of sucks.

Anyway J had been talking all week about putting out some milk and cookies for Santa. She wanted to do it on Monday already! When I asked her where she got the idea from, she said she saw it on TV. Good old TV. Anyway, we decided that we would perpetuate the myth this year. Previously, it hadn't really come up, because they were either too young, and we had just moved, and Christmas was still kind of a new thing in the kids' consciousness. Anyway. This year, we did it right. J made a cookie for Santa in her kids program. She had written a note to Santa last week, which read:

FROM J. H.

SANTA I WOULD LIKE A BLASTER

Hm. Ok. By "Blaster" she means one of those big water guns, that everytime she saw in Superstore her Grandpa said, "Hey look, a blaster!" to which she responded with gales of laughter. We're not big on letting them play with weapons: toys or otherwise. So how to respond? Well, I decided that Santa would leave J a note, explaining why no blaster, thanking her for the cookie (which I found to be sweet, covered in sprinkles and frosted, but lacking in the necessary chocolate to take it over the top), and wishing her a Merry Christmas and so forth.

Christmas morning we awoke, and surprisingly, the kids were not chomping at the bit to go down and open the presents. I expect that will change as they get older. Anyway, as we went down, I led J over to the table, where I had placed her note next to Santa's note, and the empty cookie plate. I read her the note, and then we opened Santa's present and looked in their stockings at what Santa brought.

According to my wife, we are reversing their family tradition, which was to have the 'big present' be from Santa. We are having the stocking stuffers be from Santa, and the bigger gifts be from us. This year they got books and scissors and a "Lucky Ducks" game from Santa. Maybe this way they won't put so much expectation on what Santa might bring... and not get too excited or disappointed, either way. We'll see.

The greater issue is what we say about Santa to our kids, and how long we keep up the myth? I'm guessing that it won't last for too too long, although I was surprised that J was so into it. I thought she would be more skeptical, since she seems to be so analytical about everything. However, she had little to ask about Santa. I thought she would ask how it was possible, or how he would get in the house, etc. She did ask N what would happen if Santa had to go downstairs to the basement to use the bathroom, which is a totally J kind of oddball question to ask...

The even greater issue is, I wonder if we give more thought to how to explain Santa, than we give to how to explain faith? Without making everything all "Christian-y", but actively engaging life with faith, living with a radical transformed perspective? Living an alternative life-style to the world's in the world, rather than creating for ourselves alternatives that are out of the world.

well, it seems that my little blog break is over, J has awoken from a very good and very rare nap. Cheers!

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merry christmas

Merry Christmas!

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me have that?

To most parents, this is a common question asked time and again by their toddlers. For us, when T asks us it's usually when we've brought something to the table to eat. As she's getting older (2.2 yrs) there's a lot more things she asks about. The other day, we set down taco shells on the dining table and she said, "Me have that?" "Yes, T, you can have that." "Yay!!" It makes us happy when she can say yay.

Increasingly, there are things that she cannot eat that we are eating, although we usually try to be really good about it, and our whole family just eats safe things. Breakfast (lots of bread/wheat and dairy containing things) and eating out are the worst.

Oh, speaking of eating out, N and I tried a ramen noodle place today that I had heard about on CBC Radio 1, of all places: Ajisen Ramen. Must say, very nice. Very nice broth, noodles were chewy, and the "ngow-lam" was tender and squishy and glutinous. (Sounds gross but you know what I mean... it was good) One of our rare days off together, so that was a nice treat. We did our last minute shopping, a few gifts, but mostly for ourselves :0 (groceries at T&T & Dominion, housewares/kitchen stuff at Cayne's). Christmas dinner is at our house this year, since it's just easier for us to make stuff that is safe for T. Not that it's all that, but we are having leg of lamb this year (yay! my favourite) and we needed a roasting rack... not to mention the leg of lamb itself.

So Christmas dinner, we don't have to say "no" to T when the food comes out. We can just relax and give her anything we're serving. And that's really nice. Being able to let your guard down a bit, it's a good thing. Especially at Christmas!

technorati tags:allergy, food, T&T, lamb, CBC, Ajisen

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how to?

When I first started this blog I felt as though each post was like an email to no one in particular. Now I feel like each post is going to real people, some I know, and some who I don't. (Hi out there!) I'm hopeful that you will each find something interesting or useful from my experiences.

I see from my blogger dashboard that this is my 70th post, which means I have equaled the number of posts on my photoblog. Cool.

I was wondering how you read blogs. Do you use the RSS subscribe feed? A feed reader? Or do you just keep bookmarks / links? Links on your own page to blogs you read?

I have been using Flock's newsreader feature to aggregate all the blogs I read into one page, that gets automatically updated whenever there's a new post. It's cool, and convenient, but I don't really discover new blogs this way. I tried the "next blog" button, but it's kind of random (ok, it's totally random LOL) and sometimes i get nasty stuff, or stuff in not-english, or pre-teen asian girls who typ lk dis and tak abt der FRENS a LOT.

SO how do you go about finding new and amazing blogs?

if you haven't seen CRASH, don't read on [spoiler]

Something's been bugging me about the movie Crash. Not the Cronenberg movie, the 2004 Paul Haggis film. In the film, there's a poignant moment when the girl saves her father with her invisible protective cape from the crazed shop owner. When I watched this scene, I was filled with emotion. Not only because I have daughters, but also because of the incredibly fortunate set of circumstances that saved this guy's life. When it is revealed that the bullets the daughter of the shop keeper bought for her father are blanks, there is a collective exhale, and everything makes sense. What I want to know is, are blanks always sold in red boxes? Because if they are, and I knew that she bought blanks when she asked for the bullets in the red box, that whole moment would be so much less potent. See, now you know why you shouldn't be reading this if you haven't already watched the movie! Is the director banking on the potential audience of his film to be made up of people who are gun illiterate, city dwelling types like me? Or are blanks sold in any kind of box, and the red colour was just something thrown in there?

Anyway, it's a really good movie... now that I've totally ruined that part of it for you... :(

a little slice of life at Christmastime

in a mellow tone

I taught my two daughters this song one day, just do-be-do-bah-baah... now when they hear the recording they go "do-be-do-bah-bah". I love it.

you know you're older when...

- you scrunch up your forehead, and the wrinkle actually stays wrinkled for an appreciable amount of time
- you think of people in their early 20's as 'still young' or 'just kids' :)
- you and the bank own a lovely home
- you start saying things like "little lady":p

christmas lights

We put up some outdoor Christmas lights this afternoon. After we got home from church, T was asleep in the car, so I stayed with her, while J went in with mom. I am happy to say I dozed as well, which was very nice, having stayed up till past 1AM to put the finishing touches on my message today. Hope it went well. I thought it went alright.

Anyway, J has been pestering me all week to put up our lights, and I had put her off until the weekend, simply because I was too busy and it was too dark to do it, usually, when she was asking to. So today was the big day.

And I have to complain about the eavestrough clips that I bought to string up lights... junk! They don't stay on the edge of the gutter, they just fell off. And they didn't screw onto the end of a broomstick like advertised either. Or maybe my broomstick wasn't skinny enough. In any case, after several failed attempts to hang the lights up from the eavestroughs, I gave up and we went with Plan B. J remarked, "This is a lot more complicated than I thought it would be." We strung them through the iron hand rail up the steps to our place, and lay them across the top of the porch wall. Simple. Fun. Nice. J was a great helper. I said that we were going to feed the lights through the rail, and she tried to understand the usage of 'feed' in that context...

There are a lot of things in the English language that are so different, or difficult, that it's a wonder we can speak at all. But if you grow up with it, you learn by exposure. You just grok it somehow. The amazing thing about J is that she's able to understand things like expressions. How something means something other than what it says. Like "going out to take the air" (found in a Madeline book) means going out for a walk, essentially. Or "raining cats and dogs". Or "feed this line through here".

And T is following hard on her sister's tail. Not that she understands expressions, but she'll repeat everything J says after her. She has the 1-2 buckle my shoe rhyme down. She has trouble saying "construction paper"... it comes out like "strunk-shun paper" or "strunken paper". Most requested car song is "tzena tzena". If she hears something she likes she'll say "I love that song!" But if she doesn't, now she says "Me love not this song".

N and I were commenting the other day that it's only fitting that we have two children that love to talk. We reminisced that we were always getting into trouble at school for talking in class, so it's only fair that our kids are the same. We were hoping that at least one of them would be a little quieter, but alas, it is not to be. :) Not that I'd change a thing.

actually

T says "Actually" a lot. As in, "What would you like for breakfast?" "Me want Rice Krispies, actually." or "That's my toothbrush, actually."

caught up

You may have noticed that I am now caught up in my Naruto watching. Am now waiting like everyone else for episode 211.

Hmm mmm umm... dum dee dum... la lah...

sour... say sour

T eats a blackberry.

"Me like that." Said while making a face, which means she doesn't like it.

"What's wrong with it, honey?"

"It's too shivery."

What a cute way to say something is sour... it makes your mouth and face 'shiver' when you eat it.

Lately, she will come up to me and say, "What are you DO-ing, Daddy?"

Yesterday she looked at something and said, "Hmmm, IN-teresting..."

When she saw a Christmas tree lit up she said, "Stars!"

music

So when I went out to get my Cars DVD (which I still haven't had time to watch yet...) I also picked up a couple of CD's that I had been meaning to give a listen to: John Mayer's Heavier Things, and Coldplay's X&Y. These are now in my "in car" rotation, along with other notables like Diana Krall's The Look Of Love and various and sundry children's CD's (Veggie Tales, Sesame Street, Sharon Lois & Bram, Pooh). There is a great ritual over who gets to choose the music for the car ride. For a while it was J in the morning, and T in the afternoon, with Saturday being a free for all, and Sunday was mommy's day. Before that it was whoever buckles up first gets to choose. Anyhow, on one of the rare occasions that I got to choose something, I played a "grown-up CD" for them, Coldplay's "Fix You". I was expecting J to complain that she didn't like it, but instead she listened intently and didn't say anything until we got home. "Did you like it?" "Yeah Dad, I liked it!" It now has become her favourite big person CD.

Another time I had John Mayer playing as I went to pick them up, and left it on as we drove home. As we get home, I turn off the car, and T pipes up, "Me like that one, Daddy! Me love that song!" She now says that whenever I turn off the car when the CD is still playing, so I'm not sure that it's just John Mayer she 'loves', but she doesn't seem to mind it. At her age, J would cry and cover her ears if we played something she didn't like! So we're making progress, I think... :)

Aaaaaaaaaaaahh...

9:23PM: the house is quiet. Bedtime is done, living room is tidied up, dishes are washed. This is a good thing. Reflecting on this day and yesterday, I definitely had moments of insanity. There were moments where I was really wound up, and there were more than enough times where I raised my voice or yelled. Too many times.

Dr. Phil talks about finding your kids' currency. That is, you need to find the things that they really care about, so that if they misbehave, and those things are withheld, they matter to them. If you don't know what it is, they you really have very little you can motivate your children with towards good behaviour. I often wonder with J whether the things I thought had currency with her, now seemingly don't. The one thing she does still treasure is stories. If around bedtime she isn't getting ready and dragging her feet, or misbehaving, losing the story is what gets her motivated right away. Last night T went to sleep early, because she had only a 30 minute nap. So I brought J up after saying goodbye to Dennis (thanks Dennis!!) and gave J her bath, and after we got dressed, wouldn't you know it, she goes running down the hall, and crashes into their bedroom. Luckily I caught the door before it made a big bang. I grabbed J, hauled her out of there, and I said in my anger and frustration... "You just lost your story, little lady!"

Now, I don't think I've ever said "little lady" before in my whole life. Who says "little lady"? Nobody talks like that. It was the strangest thing that came out of my mouth all weekend. J of course bursts into tears. I sat her down on our bed, and she's crying, and she says, "Why did you use that voice? I'm sorry... do you still love me?" And I grabbed her and gave her the biggest hug I could, and said "Yes I love you. I aways love you." We talked more about what made me so upset, and gave her a second chance to get her story back if she could show me good behaviour. So it was ok in the end. I wonder if the most important part wasn't the discipline, but the "I love you." It usually is.

one night down, two more to go

well, it's 9:12, and I'm sitting down in front of my laptop with a cup of tea, brownie cookies, and ready to write. I've got a message to finish up tonight, made all the more pressing because I'm on my own for this weekend. Yup, that's right, N is away at a conference in Calgary, and won't be back till late Sunday night. So I NEED to finish this up tonight, or I'm not going to be very happy.

a photography update: I got accepted (finally) by iStockphoto. I'm ambivalent about this, because the return on the images sold is miniscule, but I'm proud that I got accepted after numerous attempts and a stern LAST CHANCE warning. If anyone has gone through the process, you know that they are very picky about quality and technical excellence now, so you can't just submit anything. Anyway, between the time I first applied (May) and now, things have changed. I changed cameras, I inherited a strobe flash, I started paying attention to 'sharpness', I calibrated my monitor (^_^) but mostly, I've learned more. I've learned to suck it up and keep trying. I've learned that failure is a great teacher. I've learned that when things come easy to you, you don't appreciate how much there is to improve. I've learned that with hard work, I can become the greatest ninja in Konoha! (OK, too much Naruto)

ok, i'm weird. time to get to work! see ya!

I Kumbaya'ed them to sleep

J: "I'm not comfortable!"

Me: "Hush little baby..."

J: "I don't want THAT song!"

"Ok, how about a new one?"

J sits up. "What?"

"Lie down and listen."

J lies down.

"Kumbaya my Lord, Kumbaya..."

"Someone's singing, Lord, Kumbaya..."

"Someone's praying, Lord, Kum..."

J: "What does Kumbaya mean, anyway?"

"Come by here. We're asking the Lord to come near."

"Someone's sleeping Lord, Kumbaya..." (that's MY prayer right there...)

"Someone's resting, Lord, Ku..."

J sits up. "Why do we want the Lord to come near when you're resting, though?"

"J, we want the Lord to be near us in every situation, don't we? OK, no more questions. Just lie down and listen, alright?"

"Someone's crying Lord, Kumbaya..."

"Kumbaya, my Lord..."

J: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Current Fave Bedtime Song

Now, imagine J (and T) singing this at the top of their lungs (and not completely in tune, either):

Because of who you are, I give you glory
Because of who you are, I give you praise
Because of who you are, I will lift my voice and sing
I worship you, because of who you are

Jehovah Jireh, you're my provider
Jehovah Nissi, Lord you reign in victory
Jehovah Shalom, you're my Prince of Peace
And I worship you because of who you are

must be a worship leader's kids...

how much to charge

Legend has it that Pablo Picasso was sketching in the park when a bold woman approached him.

“It’s you — Picasso, the great artist! Oh, you must sketch my portrait! I insist.”

So Picasso agreed to sketch her. After studying her for a moment, he used a single pencil stroke to create her portrait. He handed the women his work of art.

“It’s perfect!” she gushed. “You managed to capture my essence with one stroke, in one moment. Thank you! How much do I owe you?”

“Five thousand dollars,” the artist replied.

“B-b-but, what?” the woman sputtered. “How could you want so much money for this picture? It only took you a second to draw it!”

To which Picasso responded, “Madame, it took me my entire life.”

I had my fourth photography gig today. When I sat down to plan out my pricing structure, I took all my experience in the studio and applied it to a photography business. Don't undervalue yourself. It's hard to raise your price later if you start into it at a really low price. Your rate must have more than just your wage built into it, so that you can cover: rentals, assistants, post-processing time, client facilitation time, phone time, administration time. It's not likely that you will be able to separate all those things out and bill a client for each of those jobs. These must be reflected within your pricing. If they aren't you will eventually become bitter and will find that you are working for next to nothing. Don't flinch when you name your price to your prospective clients either. In your mind, you must believe your price is fair, and that is what you are worth. In no way shape or form am I comparing myself to the great Picasso, but artists need to be equally bold to stand up to the incessant forces of downward price pressure and insecurity/low self esteem.

Which brings me to the point of this post: pricing prints. As of yet, I have not sold a print to anyone. I haven't tried. I have been working on a strictly commissioned basis. A recording artist commissions me to provide photos for their publicity materials or their CD artwork. I take the commission, and produce files ready to be used in print or on the net. So when, recently, I was discussing the possibility of doing a family portrait for someone, she asked me how much a print would be, I had to admit that I hadn't gotten my pricing together for that yet. At that point I probably lost the job. But who knows, we'll see. She told me a horror story about the Sears portrait studio... anyone have a mall portrait studio horror story?

But I digress.

I guess print pricing is for the "fine art" photographer, the ones who produce gorgeous landscapes or unique macros. For me, I haven't had to come to terms with it yet. I rarely print anything. When I start, you'll know.

T and bananas... not so much

Hmmm... it seems that T is still reacting to bananas, just not in the way she used to react to foods. sigh... it feels like a setback, but I guess we got our hopes up a bit. In any event, we are navigating our way through safe food, and so far we've been relatively successful. Eating out will become increasingly difficult this year, as T is older and more aware of being left out. That's why we like Swiss Chalet so much, because she can have actual food there. At Chinese resto we can only really get rice and plain veggies. Or cucumber maki, as you saw. Everything else has a sauce, which all usually have wheat.

Oh well... eating at home is healthier anyway... (^_^)

Cars...

DVD released today! Pixar is the bomb, you must own every DVD they release... repeat after me... :p I haven't seen Cars, so I'm looking forward to what Ben Witherington called a not so thinly veiled critique of "auto eroticism in America".

I'll let you know.

I go buy now.

please test out my new website

I recently launched my photography website, please check it out and test it out for me! Thanks!

E

Oh yeah, it's the first link on the right there... eugenehuophotography.com

Hortons... H... H...

T: "Timportans! Timportans!"

N: "No honey, 'Hortons, Huh, Hortons!"

T: "Hortons?"

J: laughing "Yes, Tim Hortons, not Tim Portans!"

N: "You used to say that too, Timportans!"

J: "I did? But now I say 'Tim Hortons'"

T eating Sushi

Thanks Kow Kow for the video! Heavily compressed by me using Quicktime. Hosted on Google Video.

Powerpoint, eh?

So this weekend I tried using Powerpoint for our main projection instead of Apple's Keynote. Powerpoint has a presenter view which has a slide view down the left hand side that could allow you to jump to any slide in the presentation that you want. Useful for projecting lyrics, right? What a fiasco. I should say that it wasn't all Powerpoint's fault, but there were two key problems with the way Powerpoint works.

First, while in the presentation mode, Powerpoint allowed the computer to go to screensaver. Keynote never does this, and so I was shocked when I saw my "colour octopus" (as my kids call it) screensaver on the screen. What kind of presentation program lets the computer go into screensaver mode?! If I'm making a presentation, I'm making a presentation, and, hmmm, let's see, maybe I'll need to screen to stay, oh, I don't know, BLACK?! Like the way I left it?! Grrrr...

This wouldn't have been too big a problem, but a few other factors contributed to what was a nightmare. My laptop is set to ask for a password when it wakes from sleep, or when it comes back from screensaver. Of course the person doing the overhead didn't know my password, so I had to clandestinely pass it over to her. Secondly, for some unknown reason, my OS decided to switch from dual monitor mode to mirroring mode. So now everyone is watching what I'm doing on my computer. Think fast. Ok, no problem, I'll switch from presenter view to slideshow view. So I hit view show, and we're back at the beginning of the slideshow. What!?! This is the second major failing of Powerpoint. Keynote doesn't do this. Keynote starts the slideshow at the slide you're on at the time. So that meant I had to page through ALL MY SLIDES to get to the song we wanted. So I'm looking like an idiot up there, paging through all the songs to get to the last one... I should also mention that I was leading the singing, so I have to get back across the stage to lead the song. My blood is boiling, my palms are sweaty, but 'game face on' and into the song.

Afterwards, I took my own advice and promptly forgot about it until now. I received several kind comments about the set, about leading, and so on. Dwelling on the positive helps. I easily can get bogged down in the technical, and what I thought went badly. God still works, the Spirit still moves, Christ is proclaimed. Amen to that.

firefox 2

is out!

get it here

when you dream...

... what do you dream about?

I had a recurring nightmare when I was a teenager which, when I think about it, was very odd. It started with a general sense of foreboding. I am walking down what seems to be a subway platform, but there's no train in the station. Then the scene cuts to what can only be described as a sense of extreme claustrophobia. My face is really close to something, and I can see electricity zapping between two points on the surface of this thing. I am aware that I cannot move, and I am pressed in tightly on all sides. Have you ever stared at something so intently that your focus became so tight that the spot you were focusing on seemed to rise toward you? If you have, it kind of felt like that. Anyway, back and forth it goes, between the empty platform and the feeling of being pressed in. Ultimately the final scene is on the platform. As I walk, I look over to where the track should be, but there is no track there. In fact, there is nothing there at all. It is simply emptiness, a black void.

And at that I would wake up.

Nowadays, I think I mostly can't remember my dreams... I'm still recovering from post-kids sleep deprivation... :)

blogger beta broke my flock

If you've noticed subtle changes to my blog recently, it's because I transitioned over to the Blogger Beta. Call me crazy, I just like to test out things sometimes. Be ahead of the game. On the bleeding edge. As long as it's not for work. If it's for work, then I don't like to be the beta tester, I just want something that does the job and doesn't crash.
Anyway, I was using Flock, a new browser (also beta), to blog from. It is pretty neat, and you should check it out if you like that sort of thing. However, Flock doesn't yet support the Blogger Beta. So I can't use it to blog anymore. I'm kind of sad, 'cuz it was nice to use, instead of having to login to the Blogger page all the time (and as I'm doing right now). Sigh. This is the price you pay for being beta.
I leave you with my impossibly cute daughter:

do you use nouns as verbs?

Something I read recently talked about how Photoshop has become so ubiquitous a word, that it is now used as a verb, as in: "Can you Photoshop that out?" or "Did you Photoshop that?"

One that irks me to no end is the recent LCBO ad run that uses the slogan: "Do you VQA?" The ad copy reads all conspiratorial, like they're talking about something dirty and sexual. "There they were, VQA'ing right on the living room floor..." It's just freakin' wine! Get over yourselves. Irritating.

Do you use nouns as verbs? What are your trendy language creations?

Do you iPod? Do a Tom Cruise?

Let's make a list...

small victories

I almost don't want to say it in case it's not true, but it seems that T is no longer allergic to bananas. She's had it twice now, and no reaction. There's hope! (^_^)

iPod Nano for Canada...

Seen the new iPod Nano Project Red yet? It's part of Bono's whole push to eradicate AIDS, TB and Malaria in Africa.

I think it looks like a Canadian iPod... and it would match my car... :P

repeat after me

"the best lens is the lens you have"

Instead of playing "Vincent Versace says" as I did in my earlier post, I have come across another photographic mantra that may prove helpful...

"the best lens is the lens you have"

see, this one lets you feel better about what you already have, and gets you out taking pictures, which is, after all, the whole point of this exercise, isn't it! :)

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happy birthday

Blogged with Flock

sing along

T is really talking. I mean really talking. She sings along at bedtime to "Here I Am To Worship". She has about 60% of the words, all of the timing, 80% of the melody. She'll sing a little part of a kids song to you, then stop and ask, "Like that story, daddy?" Ask her to do something and she'll go, "Ok, I will..." And she, just like J did, puts the word "either" at the end of a sentence to indicate a negative, as in "Want choy choy either".

T is showing some empathy too. Today, J was upset about something as we were getting into the car. T is already buckled in, and just waiting patiently as J has a little crying fit, and reluctantly gets buckled in. (J missed her nap today) Anyway, I ask T what she'd like to choose for the CD to listen to on the way home (J gets to choose in the morning as I drop them off, T gets to choose in the afternoon when I pick them up).

T says, "J choose either? J crying? T choose either? J sad T choose?"

I was pretty touched by this display of sisterly concern on T's part.

I said, "It's ok, it's your turn to choose, J won't be upset, you choose."

"Me choose?"

"Yes, you go ahead and choose."

"Tzena Tzena! Drums!"

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Soulcraft: A Review

sorry, I'm preaching tomorrow. You'll have to make do with this book review I wrote in 2004. Warning - it's kinda long.

----------------------------

Soul food. Soul music. Soul mates, even. But ‘Soulcraft’? Surely this is God’s domain. Douglas Webster’s book of the same name inspires us, implores us that soulcraft is how God shapes us through our relationships. Webster presents a Christian world-view that blows apart any cultural or societal preconceptions about living and replaces them with Christ-centred God-perspective life.

A number of issues that Webster raises are striking and absolutely necessary. At the heart of understanding soulcraft is understanding the soul itself. Webster begins with Jesus’ assessment of the soul’s worth:
"… the value of our soul is beyond our means. It always has been and always will be. Who we are and to whom we belong is a critical issue, especially when it comes to relationships… our self-understanding shapes our expectations of self-fulfillment." (43)

If we do not have a clear understanding that we indeed have a soul, and that it is the most valuable thing about us, then we will inevitably degenerate into a self-absorption that serves to “reduce the human being from a person to a product.” (45) We will end up soul-less, left to find meaning in whatever we can apart from God. Webster suggests that our societal preoccupation with image comes from this absence of soul, because there is nothing but the self to believe in. As each generation is raised with this mindset, we are becoming more and more materialistic, self-indulgent and self-absorbed. Even the renewed interest in spirituality and religion that is occurring seems to be subsumed under a ‘what’s in it for me’ attitude. In this kind of spirituality, “realities of sorrow, pain, aging, disease and death are glossed over. Coping with stress, realizing one’s dreams and finding happiness are the modern equivalent to salvation. In our soulless culture spirituality is not God-centered but me-centered.” (48-9)

The true self is the one who is found in God. Webster’s key point here is that self-understanding is found in being fully known by God. When you are known, you are real. In the movie “The Firm”, Tom Cruise’s character discovers that the new law firm he has joined is in fact a front for the mafia, and tells his wife the terrible news that they are trapped in this situation. He admits that he has known for a while, but didn’t want to tell her because “If I tell you, then that would make it real.” Inasmuch as sharing truth with another makes it reality, sharing oneself with God in surrender makes us real. Webster parallels the relationship between parent and child and between God and person:
"I know what it means to call my daughter mine, not in a possessive, domineering sense but in a way that I pray secures her identity, strengthens her confidence and frees her to become a mature adult – a God-centered woman. How much more effective is God’s parental love because his love is untainted by selfish motives, foolish fears and ignorance." (52)

In our belonging to God, our identity is secured, our confidence is strengthened and we are free to become ourselves.

The value of self-knowledge grounded in God is immediately apparent when discussing the issue of marriage. Webster does not offer us any techniques to ‘work on’ our marriages, but rather calls us to centre our marriages in Christ, understanding that it is a shared work, a spiritual discipline that declares Jesus as Lord. The difference in understandings of marriage makes this distinction apparent. In today’s culture, marriage often seen as a big experiment, destined for success or failure, whose measure is the relationship. If the relationship is good, then the marriage is succeeding. If the relationship sours, then the marriage is failing. Another popular feeling about marriage is that it is a project, “instead of enjoying marriage as a living, organic experience of growth and maturity, they make it into an operation to be managed efficiently and productively so that they can realize the greatest amount of personal profit.” (149) Webster points to the extravagance and concern surrounding the wedding ceremony and the wedding day, and the little concern for the lifelong work of the marriage. Where the wedding is the chief concern of the couple, the marriage is the chief concern for God, the wedding being but the start of this commitment. If we likened it to the process of our conversion, it would be as if we planned out how we were going to accept Christ, where and when, whether it was to be a quick turnaround or a lengthy investigative process, whether in public with friends or in private, and so forth, without any thought as to how we would live our lives afterwards and what work the commitment would entail. While the first part usually is not the case in that we don’t often plan our conversions, we do often fail to ‘count the cost’, and live our lives unawares, as if nothing had changed other than our final state after death. So likewise in marriage, we enter into a lifelong commitment requiring change, self-sacrifice and real work.

Webster calls us to integrate the cross into our marriage in several ways. The first is the understanding that our love for God and our love for our spouse are distinct but not exclusive. They strengthen and enrich each other, and the second cannot exist without the first. Webster writes, “Devotion to God can stand alone, but devotion to the beloved cannot.... The best way to keep alive the vitality of first love between a husband and wife is to have an abiding relationship with God.” (151)

Another way the cross is to be central to the life of marriage is in the range and depth of commitment to our exclusive and permanent relationship. This commitment cannot come without humility and submission to one another out of reverence for Christ (Eph. 5:21). This understanding turns our popular concept of marriage on its head: “Marital love depends not on romantic feelings or pious feelings but on covenant and commitment. Fidelity does not depend upon feelings, but feelings depend upon fidelity. Romance does not create love; it is love that creates romance.” (161) Webster is clear to differentiate between true humility and what passes for humility these days, which is often humiliation instead. True humility “has nothing to do with subservience or passivity, but rather with obedience and faithfulness.” (161) The depth of our commitment extends to great sacrificial love, and husbands in particular are called to even lay down their lives for their wives, just as Christ sacrificed His life for the church. Another arena where self-sacrifice is required is in the raising of children, and Webster’s chapter addresses some of the issues facing parents today.

Inundated with parenting magazines and books on everything from behaviour to nutrition to sleeping strategies, the modern parent has no end of resources for guidelines and techniques for parenting. Webster, however, does not offer us a method or techniques for improving our parenting, but rather a guideline for living that will make us into true parents. The key realization, Webster writes, is that “’A parent’s main job is not to be a parent, but to be a person.’ The moment we understand this we realize that everything the Bible says about being a man or woman of God applies to being a parent.” (166) The world gives us how-to manuals, but Webster proposes a how-be approach, grounded in our relationship with Christ. Soulcraft would demand that God be a part of every relationship that we have, and what more important relationship than the one between parent and child? Quoting Edith Schaeffer, “The family is the place where loyalty, dependability, trustworthiness, compassion, sensitivity to others, thoughtfulness, and unselfishness are supposed to have their roots. Someone must take the initiative and use imagination to intentionally teach these things.” (178) When so much good can be accomplished through family relationships, is it any wonder that everyone, not just Christians, finds themselves under attack in this area? The disruption of the family and its potential for life-long, deep relationships is certainly not by accident. Webster suggests Abraham and Sarah as parents who by their actions reveal three principles of parenting soulcraft. Firstly, the family ought to be a place of refuge for children from the attitudes and cultural pressures of the world. Commenting on the vulnerability of girls to feel trapped by a shallow and appearance based value system, Webster says that “we can only conclude that our parenting has been too superficial and cosmetic. We have not gone deep enough with our children to present them with an identity in Christ that helps them resist conformity to the world’s dehumanizing, accountability resistant strategies.” (172)

The establishment of true identity in our children, encouraged by our relationship with them and our modeling of lives in Christ, will be a supreme achievement of today’s parents. Who they are will be defined by their identity in Christ, not what the world tells them.

Secondly, the principle of sacrifice is demonstrated by Abraham’s willingness to literally sacrifice his son Isaac. This principle reminds us that while we like to call them ‘our’ children, they really are gifts from God and belong to God. Furthermore, this attitude of heart prevents us from turning our children into idols, whom we value more than anything else, even God Himself. It is easy to see how this can happen; even on the purely human level, many parents adore their children to the exclusion of their marriage relationship, and find themselves suffering ‘empty-nest syndrome’, living with a stranger for a spouse when their grown children leave the home.

The third principle is that of a “legacy of love” (176) which seeks to look forward to a child’s future and prepares them for it, in prayer and encouragement. Webster cites Abraham’s approach to finding a wife for Isaac, of which there were two requirements: that she be from Abraham’s people; and that the servant must not take Isaac with him, and by so doing, leave the promised land. In faithfulness, Abraham sought a wife for Isaac. So too, we should pray and “encourage them to seek husbands and wives who are committed to Christ. In meaningful and loving ways parents and children can overcome generational segregation and individual autonomy. Home should be a place where all generations gather together to strengthen each other in their identity in Christ.” (176)

Another principle that Webster speaks about is ‘table fellowship’. More than just dinnertime, this is where the family meets for “discussion, debate, humour, prayer, and sharing of God’s Word. We probably do more arguing and more affirming around the kitchen table than we do anywhere else.... most of the time, the food is secondary to the fellowship and listening is far more important than eating. And sometimes the best part of the meal is when the food is finished and we stay at the table talking.” (179-80) This also is a counter-cultural action in today’s world, a rarity in our busy lives, where we are more prone to watch TV while eating than fellowship together.

To summarize, Webster asks that we as parents seek to love God wholeheartedly, a life long direction that leads to the following results:
1. The understanding and application of the Word of God to all of life.
2. The recognition of the ongoing changing relationship with our children that reflects the journey towards heaven in Jesus Christ.
3. The finding of our identity in Christ, not our jobs, not our performance, and not in our kids.
4. The humility that is willing to say “we don’t have all the answers. We are not the Lord.... Parents are not sovereign, God is.” (182)
5. The acceptance of responsibility for our children’s “safety, protection, guidance, discipline and provision… and to love them wholeheartedly and show them Christ.” (183)

Webster’s next to last chapter of the book deals with the issue of divorce, and it is placed there by design. Having already explored our position in Christ, sexuality, marriage, singleness, and parenting, it is Webster’s hope that we are now prepared to discuss and prevent divorce. Jesus’ stance on divorce is made clear in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt. 5:31-32) and in his response to the Pharisees’ question concerning the legality of divorce (Mt. 19:3-12): “Other than violation of the one-flesh marriage relationship, Jesus insists that there are no grounds for divorce. As far is he is concerned the bottom line remains as it was from the beginning, “Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate” (Mk 10:9 NRSV).” (188) Divorce for any other reason results in both parties becoming adulterers. Webster notes that immediately following this account in Matthew and Mark, there is an account of the people bringing their children to Jesus for His blessing. The response of the disciples to them highlights their reluctance to accept Jesus’ teaching on divorce. If there are no grounds for divorce, then they argue that it is better not to marry at all. Webster argues that this male-centreed attitude towards marriage (divorce is permissible on practically any grounds you want) is carried over to their reaction against the parents, most likely to be mothers, who brought their children to Jesus.

Webster writes, “… their bias toward the husband’s advantage in divorce and their slanted, male-conditioned indifference toward children influenced their reaction. Mark tells us that Jesus was indignant…” (189) Jesus warns against those who would hinder children from Him, and Webster suggests it is more than coming to Him that Jesus is talking about. No doubt recognizing the damage and pain that subjecting a child to divorce causes, Jesus sides with the children. In fact, Webster argues, a child’s view on divorce is the same as Jesus’ view:
"It is not surprising to find that Jesus and children share the same expectations when it comes to marriage and family. Children expect a family to remain intact; they expect family members to be committed to each other in enduring, loving relationship. Children expect their parents to sacrifice for them, even as Jesus calls parents to a life of self-denial. The principle of the cross is planted squarely at the heart of Jesus’ theology of marriage, and it should be in ours as well." (190)

Jesus allows one exception for divorce in his response to the Pharisees, adultery. To Webster, the most effective way to combat the temptation of unfaithfulness is, almost ironically, faithfulness: “Marital partners are aware of the dangers that threaten their relationship and they work to protect one another from the seduction of the soul.” (198) Partners are responsible for each other, making sure that life is shared completely and openly, with no hidden areas. Quoting Walter Wangerin, Webster writes that couples should pay attention to their feelings:
"“[Partners] sound the bell at the ‘maybe’ moments. Moderate jealousy is an alarm bell to be heeded—and only those who are self-centered in their love think all jealousy purely suspicious and evil.” Marriage partners who practice soulcraft have a fearful respect for the power of evil and cultivate a responsive moral sensitivity." (198)

This responsibility to each other comes naturally to a marriage in which soulcraft is practiced. If partners are committed to one another with the principle of the cross at the heart of their marriage, these kinds of things come naturally, and that is what Webster’s hope would be.

Jesus reinforces the strong idea of marriage in the face of divorce, and perhaps there is no better way to counter something wrong than by holding up the ideal. Webster argues that this is exactly what soulcraft is about. Knowing what the ideal is and holding our self and our relationships to this ideal is the work of every Christian.

criticism

I've been thinking about my presence on flickr, and how my behaviour reflects my personality. I joined flickr for various reasons, to share photos, to learn, to see other people's work, to be inspired. But lately I've been feeling unloved. You see, flickr has a built in ranking system, with number of views, comments, 'favourites', invites to special groups, 'interestingness', and the explore page.

It's set up so that you can't help but feel like comparing yourself to other people. Who has more views than you, who has the most favourites. You wonder why some pictures have so many views while others have none. I always thought that I didn't really care what other people think, but in fact I often do indeed care.

I alternate between thinking that I'm being silly caring about what total strangers on the 'net think about my pictures, to being down because no one cared to look at my pictures. Basically, I'm throwing myself a 'pity party', as Charles Stanley likes to say.

I have noticed that this kind of insecurity often affects those who are unsure of their craft, their instrument, their voice, their vision. You are not sure yourself whether your art is any good, and so you try to find some way of validating what you are doing. And often your art is inseperable from you, so that any attack or criticism of it is also an attack on you, and conversely any praise you receive for your work is a validation of who you are.

Sometimes you have to let go of something in order to make it better. To properly receive criticism you have to let your art be what it is, and not take negative feedback upon yourself. Learn from it. Recognize and distill out the truth in it. Grow.

technorati tags:pity, criticism, flickr, voice, vision

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it's fixed

my blog is fixed now. Hopefully you're reading this post, and not a long string of meaningless html code. :)

(I've added a few things to my sidebar, including a cool del.icio.us tag roll. Check it out. Click on a word and see where you go. Even better, sign up and get your own!)

sorry, been busy

Work has picked up this week, and it seems that I'm not so prolific when busy. And I've been fighting with my DSL modem and wireless router lately, which really frustrates me. When something has been working flawlessly for, oh, i dunno, 6 months, and then suddenly it starts getting flaky, it's annoying. So I tried replacing the router, and it's still on and off. Grrrr... I hate being my own IT department.

T is sensory physical girl, and it really shows in her utter and complete enjoyment of this slide at Ontario Place. I think she went down this slide about 50 times.

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personality

Our kids showed their personalities almost from day 1. You wonder, you know, whether personality is determined by environment, or if it's simply who you are. I'm more inclined to the latter, if our kids are any indication. The way they fussed as babies, the way they reacted to being touched, how cuddly they wanted to be.

J is helping me put together this IKEA toy shelf unit. Her serious side is showing here, which is her normal approach to a lot of things. She likes to analyze, to figure out a situation before jumping in. But I was impressed by how truly helpful she was at putting it together, and that she seemed to show a real sense of 'grok'ing how the pieces fit together and what piece belonged where.

It was late (9:30PM, I believe) and we were still up, putting this thing together. I always worry that she'll hurt herself on something, because I've seen her walk around and fall down, I've seen her bump into or trip over things that are in plain sight, and so on. Her hands only slipped off the bolts a couple of times while using the allen key, and she was alright. It's funny that I worry about her, because she's such a tough cookie when it comes to injuries. When she was little and in nursery, she was playing with a toy shopping cart and she did an endo. Up and over the cart, crashing onto the floor. She didn't even cry, she just got up.

Anyway, I guess I'm trying to wrestle with this whole over-protective thing. I don't think I am, but maybe I can't see it. J tries to push her limits constantly, of course, which doesn't help. Am I being overprotective if i don't want her to rush headlong into the street? Probably not. But what about if she's going down the stairs on her own? Is she going to fall (as she has already done more than once)? Sometimes as a parent you wonder where this line is, when you're being too protective, too sheltering, and then too lenient, too out of control? My personality, I guess.

I love this quote, and I share it for all you parents and parents-to-be out there:

"Making the decision to have a child - it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking outside your body." - Elizabeth Stone

In my case, I have two.

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what happened?

I noticed that my blog template doesn't look the same as usual.. the green bar of colour is missing from the top, as is all the other graphics. It just looks grey. What do you see on your computer? Is it normal, or funky?
I'm hoping it's a blogger issue, but I'm not sure.
If you have a minute, let me know what you see, ok? Thanks.

E

here we go again

Sick. Sick. Sick. Healthy.
Guess who?
T first, then J, then Daddy. Ugh.
I don't want a repeat of last Nov-Dec. please!

laughter

I love it when they laugh... laughter is infectious, and it lifts my spirits.

on camera, whenever they see me taking pictures, they say "cheese", but it always turns out looking like this:

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a J rhyme

My Dad and Mum they live with me,

My sister and my pet bumblebee,

I feed him so much,

I take care of him so,

And when he sneezes,

I scratch and "poh poh"

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did you know...

your nouns and verbs at 3.5? J amazed us by correctly identifying which words were nouns and which were verbs (with a little help) and even explained the definition of a noun... crazy...

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advice on camera tech stuff

I was listening to the American PHOTO podcast with Vincent Versace, and here are some of his thoughts. Feel free to disagree with the validity of these remarks:

1) Buy your last camera first - Versace says that when you're starting out, you should buy more camera than you think you need. Buy a camera that absolutely and totally intimidates you. Because YOU WILL exceed the capability of the camera. Go for projected need, not perceived need. Save up the cash, spend what you have to in order to get it. (Hence my recent sale of my Digital Rebel and the purchase of a D200)

2) Do not cheap out on your tripod. But if you have to, spend the money on a good ball head. This is more important for work out in the field (both figuratively and literally), less important for PJ and family snapshots... Your tripod IS AS IMPORTANT as good glass out in the field. (I didn't follow this advice... I sold off the L-Bracket that came with my camera... short term gain, not long term vision, I guess)

3) When building your computer 'system', start out with a fast laptop first. Then you will have a computer that you can take out in the field with you, and you can always plug in a monitor to it at home. Let your second computer be the desktop, and get the fastest thing you can afford, because you want to get 3 good years of use out of it. (I guess I'm limping along here with my Macs... all are > 2 years old, none were ever the fastest model at the time... I'll have to wait until next year to get a new laptop...)

4) Calibrate your monitor. (I used the money from my L-bracket to buy a monitor calibration device... oh yeah, that's why I needed the cash! LOL)

Now stop worrying about your gear and go take some pictures!!! :)

PS It's SHOWTIME tomorrow...

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all grown up

T then:

(Oct 2005)

and now:

(Sept 2006)

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it's cute BUT PLEASE STOP

You know, sometimes there are things that are really funny, and then after a while they become really annoying?

Yeah...

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bigger, faster, better?

News: Apple updates iMac with Intel Core 2 Duo, 24-inch display

Apple has updated its consumer iMac computer, adding Intel's new Core 2 Duo processor and a new 24-inch model. The updated iMacs range in price from $999 to $1,999.

News: Mac mini gets Core Duo speed boost

The
Mac mini has been updated to include Core Duo processors in both
models. Processor speeds in the mini have also been increased to
1.83GHz and 1.66GHz, respectively.

rituals

I don't know what it is, but rituals provide us with comfort, structure, stability, and often times, sanity. We have them as adults, those patterns of actions that soothe us, that help us unwind, that get us prepared for the day ahead. Kids love ritual too, probably more than us adults. For example...

J loves to have a cup of warm milk to start her day, and her dolly must accompany her downstairs. However, the dolly cannot be warm. It must be cool. Thus, she has devised a method of holding the dolly such that no warmth is transferred to the dolly while holding it. How, you ask? By holding it at the very tip of the end of the head cap. (It's a Babi Corolle, one of the soft ones, in case you're wondering) Furthermore, her parents must also carry the dolly in the exact same manner if she has forgotten the dolly upstairs, as she occasionally does.

We're generally ok with all of this, of course, recognizing that all children have their security objects. As far as it goes, we don't allow her to take her dolly out, she stays in the house, and J only really keeps the dolly with her in the morning, and for sleeping.

We're curious to see how long this ritual lasts, since the morning bottle, now the morning cup, has been with her since baby-hood... Hmmm... I think it's time for my morning cup of tea... :)

[update] this morning she dropped dolly in down behind the bed, where it got all dusty. So we said that it had to go in the wash, she can't have it back. So when we came down this morning, she said, "I'm so frustrated about not having dolly that I'm not even going to have my milk today, ok?" Her words.

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sing song

Tasha: "nooo.... tummies! noooo more... tummy!"

(after watching veggie tales silly song about Mr. Lund having no bellybutton)

It has also morphed into "nooo... piano! noooo.... piano!

She has also begun to recite the list of "no's", as in, no running, no jumping on the couch, no reaching... etc.

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can't sleep

I had really bad neck pain last night, and this morning I woke up and I felt nauseous. So I had breakfast, but I couldn't do anything, so I went back to bed (graciously enabled by my loving wife and obliging in-laws who came to pick up the kids). Woke up again at 9:45AM, and felt a lot better. Better enough to tackle my full day of editing BMO French audio in the morning and recording a wonderful lady who sings opera in the afternoon. Ahh, Mozart and Puccini in the afternoon... how lovely!

But now I can't sleep, so I decided to change my desktop. It was the Orion Nebula, but now it's this:

Pretty neat, huh? Got it from www.pixelgirlpresents.com. They have really cool desktops.

technorati tags:desktop, sleep, pain, pixelgirlpresents

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why exactly...

did we buy a house with a tree in the front?

That's right, you guessed it... roots in the drain pipe... nasty.

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excuses

My iBook's battery is recalled. Again. They were previously recalled when I first got the iBook, and now they are recalled again with the whole Sony battery fiasco.

Well, it's not a fiasco, really. Batteries and laptops have a history of violence. Namely, bursting into flames.

Apple, for their part, is usually very good at recalls, and they take responsibility for problems, even if they aren't responsible for the manufacture of the defective part. One tends to think of Apple as the manufacturer of their computers, but in reality, they are made from parts sourced from the same suppliers and manufacturers that everyone else has to deal with. In fact, the new MacBook is "made" by Asustek.

Tom's thoughts this past weekend about excuses came to mind. Apple gets to shift the blame from itself to the third party manufacturer, in this case, Sony. Some self reflection reveals that I am a hugh procrastinator (no secret) and that I often shift the blame off of myself on to, well, anything or anyone else, really.

The following, from a late 80's Apple ad, is so me:

This has worked for me for 2 decades... why change now? :)

Well, no more. I'm a gonna change my cheatin' ways...

And it's time for the reveal. If you made it this far, you get to find out what "twopuffsofair" means. I went to Australia in 1995 with CTI for two months, and one of the songs we sang was "There's not a crown without a cross" as recorded by Michael English. One of the lines of the song is "to persevere to the end"... but his delivery is kinda mumbly, and it sounded like "two puffs of air". It was kind of our team's inside joke.

So there you have it. No more procrastination. Persevere to the end.

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language explosion

Tasha's up to 5 word sentences now... careful what you say around her, she'll say it right back! She's in that "mode"... soaking up new words and we've noticed an increased attention span for books that wasn't there before. She used to get only halfway thru a little book and then push it away, eager to explore something else. She's a physical sensory tactile type of kid. But now she'll bring you a book to read, and usually get through the whole thing. Her favourite is Hop on Pop by Dr. Seuss. Her favourite page is "FATHER MOTHER SISTER BROTHER That one is my other brother!"

Anyway, this book thing is great, because Jackie loves to recite her books to Tasha, and they keep each other occupied while we sneak off and watch a movie, um, I mean, while we clean up and get dinner ready... yeah... that's right...

technorati tags:kids, language, reading

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growing up

Today (Wed) Jackie was tall enough to go into Smaland at the Etobicoke IKEA (they only require a height of 37", whereas the other IKEA requires 39"). It was a momentous day. She's been waiting to be tall enough to go to this play area, and we checked today and she was just over the 37 mark. She was so excited.

So what I hadn't really clued in on was the fact that you DROP YOUR KIDS OFF at this thing. That meant we were down a kid, and we could shop with only one instead of two. Woo hoo!

I must admit I felt a twinge of emotion, probably what you feel when your kid goes off to school for the first time, but decreased by a factor of 10... It was strange, and I hadn't expected it. It was like, wow, she's growing up. She's going into this thing, by herself. Part of me wanted to go with her, just to, you know, be there in case she needed anything... but she was fine. She was more than fine. She was raring to go, and she had a blast. And we had an hour of free child care! :)

I've been thinking about milestones lately. How we measure our lives. In the first weeks and months of our lives, the markers come fast and furious. As they get to 2 and 3, it starts to be more spread apart. I think today was one of those milestones for Jackie. And for her dad.

technorati tags:IKEA, milestone, smaland, growing

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i must be a total geek

... because i found this article immensely enjoyable to read:

http://daringfireball.net/2006/08/curious_case

technorati tags:geek, daringfireball, shoddy, reporting

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1 Corinthians 13:1-2 for the geek

1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not my iPod, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not my Blackberry, I am nothing.

- a reprise from my thoughts on the weekend

I think the worst combination in the world has to be a love of tech gadgets and a love of comparison shopping. There's so many permutations and stats to compare between models, between configurations. Like when shopping for a digital camera, sites like www.dcresource.com just feed the fire. You can do a search on various models, and include certain features that you really want, and then it spits out a list of all the cameras that meet your criteria.

Or the MacPro... rather absurdly, Apple declares that there are 4.9 million possible combinations. I already know which one I want... :)

I can spend hours comparing things that I have no real hope of buying. At least I can be thankful I'm a J and not a P (Meyers Briggs)... I think the satisfaction of coming to a decision pushes me to make the decision rather than endlessly filtering more and more information.

Aaaahhhh! I need to get out of this idle-ness! More productive time! Are we, to borrow a phrase, amusing ourselves to death?[a] Why am I even writing this blog?! I should be doing something else more important!

For a week I would love to forgo all the tech news, all the comparison shopping, all the idle dreaming... maybe I just need to unplug... go take pictures or something... :)

I'll still write here, though... it helps me think, I think.

See ya!

[a] Neil Postman: Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1985)

technorati tags:thoughts, MacPro, MeyersBriggs, unplug, postman

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worth it

After a whole day of being loud, fighting, not sharing, getting time outs, not using your 'inside' voice, being rude, jumping on the bed, putting cherry covered hands in your hair, getting your sister to jump on her bed, choosing mommy over daddy, telling us over and over that you "hate" your blue slippers, staying up late...

we put you to bed, and we read our stories, pray, and say good night, and I get

a hug

a kiss

and an "I love you"...

and somehow the whole day is worth it.

Daddy loves you.

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Tasha, Tasha, Tasha...

As recently as last month, Tasha would cry when we dropped her off at nursery during service. She would get really upset, to the point of throwing up. But one Sunday, we asked her if she was going to cry this week.

She said, "No. No cry. Babies cry." (except she says cry with a "w" instead of an "r"... so cute)

"And you're not a baby any more?"

"No. Babies cry."

Now we just laughed and thought it was so good that she would say that, and indeed, she didn't cry that week, or thereafter. But now, she's turned it on her big sister:

(Jackie gets upset about something and starts crying.)

Tasha: "No! Babies cry!"

Jackie: (crying) "I know, but I just can't... I have to cry!"

Tasha: "No! Babies cry!"

Jackie: (crying) "No Tasha! I can cry!"

Tasha: "No! Babies cry!"

Parents: <sigh>

Oh, the drama!

technorati tags:cry, kids, drama

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home alone

what we did when I was home with the kids... (it's a plane, in case you can't tell... and yes, they're both wearing CANADA T-shirts! represent!)

technorati tags:radio, flyer, canada

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Conversations

J: How come not everybody goes to Costco?

Well, not everyone has to...

J: Maybe they already have everything...

Yes, maybe they already have...

J: I know why not everybody goes to Costco!

Why, honey?

J: Because if you are dead and gone to heaven, right?

Uh, right...

J: Because you don't need anything in heaven, 'cuz God already has everything, right?

That's right, hon...

J:Although you might still need a toothbrush, I think...

technorati tags:heaven, costco, toothbrush, kids

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Maybe for Christmas? ;-)

Note the price... $14,954 CDN... hmm, i could buy a computer, or I could buy a car... or maybe the money would be better spent here?

Probably... :-)

technorati tags:msf, macpro, christmas, wish, apple

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It's heeeeere...

In what must be one of THE worst kept secrets in the product launch department, the Nikon N80 was officially announced today. http://www.dpreview.com/articles/nikond80/

A follow up to the D70s, although I'm not sure if the D70s is going to be discontinued. It has many of the same features as my D200. I'm not jealous, really... :)

Looks like a great package and I'm sure Nikon will have a huge success with it. Ships in September.

more from the WWDC

Hmm... you'd think I was obsessed or something...

Anyway, here's a funny (to me anyway) video of PC guy talking to Mac developers.

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/wwdc2006/video/

technorati tags:WWDC, Mac, PC

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1GB : the new 256MB

I was just thinking about the new Mac Pro machines, and I was happy to see that they came standard with 1GB of RAM. For any kind of Pro work, 1 GB is kind of the minimum, so it's nice to see Apple acknowledge that.

For the longest time, Apple would only stick in the bare minimum, just enough to run the OS and one or two apps. The iMac prior to May 2005 came with only 256MB of RAM.

The previous, just replaced, Quad PowerMac G5 came with a paltry 512MB.

So what? We've come a long way from 64k, 128k machines of the 80's. But in the middle of this unstoppable march of progress, Moore's law, and incredible technological advancement, we come crashing up against this amazing thing called human adaptability. We adapt to whatever we're given, whether it's processor speed or hard drive size or memory, and we get used to it. And once we get used to it, then we want more. No matter how big your hard drive is, you always fill it. No matter how fast your processor(s), you find things to do that push it to the max.

So 1GB is the new 256MB. I can hear it now... "What? Your Mac only came with 1GB? what a rip... how can you even do anything with just 1GB?"

I guess I better get used to it.

"Redmond - start your photocopiers" - Bertrand Serlet

Apple - Apple - Mac OS X - Leopard Sneak Peek
Sorry, I couldn't help it.

We all know OSX is light years ahead of Windows XP... but with Vista finally being released this year next year (?) Microsoft is playing catch-up... again.

But anyway, on to the important stuff!

Apple - Mac Pro

The new heavy iron from Apple... it's Woodcrest (Xeon)! Yay! Two chips, four cores total, comes in three flavours, 2 GHz, 2.66GHz, and 3GHz. They can access a maximum of 16GB of RAM... 16GB!!! that's a lot of plug-ins, baby! It looks like Apple has finally hit the ball out of the park... no compromises, really. And $1000 less than the same config from Dell... which is scary for Dell, because guess what... these Macs will boot Windows too!

We live in interesting times, for sure...

In-N-Out: love that place

Matriarch of In-N-Out Burger dies at 86 (AP)

AP - Esther L. Snyder, who with her husband founded the iconic West Coast restaurant chain In-N-Out Burger, died Friday. She was 86.

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We always eat at In-N-Out at least once every time we go to SF. It's a tradition of Nancy's family that we've continued. French Fries that are cut from real potatoes right in the kitchen.... mmm... yummmy....

---------------------

Anyway, my post today was not to highlight In-N-Out, exactly, but to try out Flock. Flock is a new web browser that integrates blogging, RSS, and image sharing all in one place. I thought I'd start using it to blog instead of going into blogger.com. Blogging about the news article above was pretty easy. Let's see how easy it is to put a picture in?

oh... pretty easy, I guess. :)

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WWDC on Monday...

For those of you who don't know, I'm a big Mac geek. I love keeping up to date on all the latest Mac happenings, Mac news, anything to do with Apple. On the day of Macworld Keynote, I used to try to not look at any of the announcements until I had watched the stream of the keynote via Quicktime. Kinda like when we didn't have cable and we got people to tape the Raptors games for us, we'd have to create our own media blackout so we didn't hear the score before we watched the tape.

Anyhow, it is with great anticipation that I await the start of WWDC, the World Wide Developers Conference. Not really a general public event like MacWorld, and I have no interest nor skill in doing any program developing (think typing in programs from BYTE into a Vic20) ... but Steve Jobs is giving a keynote Monday morning, and he might introduce something new, besides OSX 10.5 Leopard, and besides iTunes movies... which in itself would be kind of cool, but I'm _really_ much more interested in what the specs of the Pro Towers are going to be... *salivating*

As you may or may not have heard, Apple is transitioning to Intel chips. The last remaining segment of their lineup is the towers, having already switched the consumer mini and iMac to Intel, and the whole laptop line (MacBook and MacBook Pro). So what will it be, Steve? Core 2 Duo? *meh* dual-processor Woodcrest with 4 cores each? *woohoo*

And of course, the most important question: how will it look? :)

Oh, and Nikon is introducing a new camera in 7 days... will the excitement never end?!?

no one's guessed it yet

Well, as I expected. My obscure blog title has not been figured out by anyone yet...

I'm going to start giving hints, ok? Depending on how many hints you used, I will downgrade the prize, at my discretion. :)

Hint #1 : in kind

Hint #2 : then

Hint #3 : link to

Hint #4 : practically a spoiler

If you want to give your guesses by way of the comments, then we can see who guesses it first.

120°, baby

Do you have a meat thermometer? Take it and stick it under the tap, and run just your hot water. Let it get really hot (2 minutes), and then see what temperature your hot water is.

While you're doing that, here are some interesting statistics to keep in mind.

Temperature of Water // Time to Cause a Bad Burn
-------------------------------------
150°F (66°C) 2 seconds
140°F (60°C) 6 seconds
125°F (52°C) 2 minutes
120°F (49°C) 10 minutes
-------------------------------------
*** time listed is for adults, for children it will be less time

Right after Tasha got scalded (reached up for a cup of hot water), I checked out the hot water temp at home. It was something that I had been meaning to get around to, but hadn't done yet. I was pretty surprised to find that the hot water temperature, which I didn't think was that hot, was 144°F. So less than 6 seconds to cause a bad burn... not good.

So if you can control your hot water temperature, take some time to set it to 120°F. It will be worth it, somewhere down the line.


Links:

http://www.med.umich.edu/1libr/pa/pa_hotwatr_hhg.htm

http://www.sickkids.ca/journal/vol2issue4/hotwater.asp

http://www.thedoctorwillseeyounow.com/articles/other/burns_23/

allergy test

So Jackie had her allergy test yesterday, and as we suspected she's got nut allergies. She's also positive for cats, so it seems like between her and Tasha we won't be getting either a cat or a dog as pets...

She was so brave for her test too, which they did on her arm. She thought it was ok when the marked the spots on her arm with a pen. She got a little concerned when they put the droplets of the various allergens on. And then when the lancet came out to prick each spot, she squirmed and cried, but she made it. The nurse told her to close her eyes and not look, but it didn't seem to help. I'm not sure whether it's better to see it coming or to not see it coming. I'm of the disposition that I like to see it coming, and I steel myself for the pain. Like when I have blood drawn, I have to look. And then take slow breaths and try to relax as I see the blood spurting into the little vial... nice blood... pretty vial... shiny needle... *falls over*

What the nuts thing means, most painfully, besides the peanut butter issue (we found an excellent soy nut butter substitute... it's amazing) is that we can't go out for Thai with them, because there's usually peanuts in all of their dishes. Maybe it will be something that Nance and I go out for by ourselves... oh well. It's definitely easier to have both kids nut free than to have one and not the other. I have to say, living with allergies has become sort of second nature to us now. We were a bit sad when Tasha came up with all these allergies, but discovering a number of our friends who also have similar allergies has helped us a lot. It's nice to have someone who understands, and with whom you can share the latest discovery of a wheat/dairy/egg/nut free treat!!

< ! digression -- Jackie has adopted this annoying trend to talk like a baby, deliberately slurring her pronunciation and tawking wike dis... IT'S SO ANNOYING!!!! I suppose I should be glad that she's able to do voices/impersonations, but it really drives me nuts. I threatened to speak to her only in Chinese if she keeps it up, so that if she really wants to experience what it's like to be a baby (another thing she says she wants to be: "I want to go back to a baby") then she can learn a whole new language like a baby would... I'm not sure if that's the smartest threat to make, because I'll be forced to speak Chinese to her... hmmm... maybe not such a good plan /digression !>

good guess

I made a little contest to see who could guess what "twopuffsofair" refers to... so far I've received the following responses... all of which are incorrect:

1) "2 puffs so far represents 2 children so far"
2) "2 beautiful fair little girls"
3) "asthma, puffer"
4) "does it refer to pokemon?"
5) "puffs of air...i couldn't resist...is it in reference to the fleetingness of our lives?"
6) "method for cleaning your camera lens/sensor, etc."
7) "how to give air when doing CPR on an infant (5 compressions to 2 puffs of air)"
8) "when you go get your eyes checked at the optometrist they use a machine that puffs your eyes with air?"
9) "the two breaths that God breathed into you & Nancy and Jackie & Tasha to give you life (Gen2:7)?"

I particularly like number 7 (Jon Chant gets honourable mention), but it has absolutely nothing to do with that...

:)

today I got to Naruto 157 or something like that. My friend Ed said that there was a whole season or so of just filler episodes, and I think I know what he means now. For example, they just did a 3 or 4 part series where the thing that saved everybody was "The Curry of Life". Now, I don't know if it's just the subtitles, but "The Curry of Life"? c'mon, I never thought that curry would feature so prominently in a ninja anime...

When is the real action going to come back? Where is Sasuke? Jiraiya? when is Naruto going to learn to do Rasengan without a clone helping him? I guess I'll have to catch up to the current episode (19x) to find out...

Do You Naruto?

dragging your feet

I don't know if it was just Nancy going back to work after being off last week, but Jackie just was so difficult to get moving this morning. At every stage of getting ready, from getting dressed to brushing her teeth, or putting on her shoes, she was fooling around, doing other stuff, talking to herself... it was really annoying because I was trying to get them out of the house. Some days it's good, some days it's bad. I guess I should have expected this today, being the first "work day" for Nancy in almost 2 weeks.

Last week was great, we went down to St. Louis for Jeff's wedding. I was leading worship and Nancy was playing piano, so we didn't bring the kids with us. It was a nice break. Also very nice was the chance to spend some time with Ben & Melody and Isabelle in Grand Rapids, if only for a night.

(and of course, I picked up my Nikon D200... woo hoo... I couldn't believe it came without a charger tho... oh well...)