Socks and I took a walk to Nash park this evening (Check out the map–Kevin says it’s a Saw…so what’s dripping off the tip??). It was perfect Halloween weather–not cold, just chilly enough to wear a sweater comfortably, heavily overcast, with rain clouds threatening but not delivering, a little windy, leaves blowing all around us… Perfect for a fire too. That’ll be happening shortly, after it gets a little darker. I hope trick-or-treat this year is just like tonight. That’d be awesome. Socks is going as a pumpkin and Kevin is going to be Hawkeye from The Avengers.
Tag Archives: Kevin
The Outer Wall of Inner Child
Because my lunch walk was rained out today, I walked this evening with Socks, Kevin and Ty. We walked downtown, and when we got to Inner Child Collectibles & Comics I noticed they now have huge murals of comic and game characters on their outside wall! It was almost too dark, but I managed to snap a few photos of Captain America, his arm, Ty–waiting for the hammer to drop on his head, Spider-Man, and Mario, Luigi and Boba Fett (together at last!). This was neat to see.
Doggie down!
Ty, Kevin, Socks and I walked around the lakefront this morning. It was close to 3 miles, but I missed the first chunk of it on my map, because I didn’t realize my GPS was turned off at first. We got close to where the 2-mile marker is on my map, when socks walked up to a tree and collapsed! He just flopped over onto his side, panting heavily. Ty tried to pick him up to carry him the rest of the way, but he got angry and started snapping. So we waited for a few minutes and then he got up and was ok for the rest of the walk. Poor dog just walked himself out. He’s getting old though, we’ll have to ease up on him a bit, especially in the heat we’ve had lately. He’d never survive in Arizona!
More swimming
I wasn’t sure we’d get any swimming in at all today. The storm heading toward us was huge, and the sky looked pretty threatening, but it must have all went around us, or dissipated, because we ended up not seeing a drop of rain, and all the lawns remain brown. Kinda looks like Arizona around here now, except for a few neighbors that water their lawns daily. We even have a burning ban in effect now, and can’t even use grills in the parks “until further notice”. Even our own firepit is loaded with brush and kindling, but we can’t have a fire because it’s just too dangerous with everything so dry.
Tyler was also much later than we expected, so it was pretty late, but we managed to get a couple hours of swimming in at Woody’s after all. This time it was Kevin, Tyler and I, and the squishy ball fights were in full force! I think we all took several pretty solid smacks to the face before all was said and done. Rosemary took a few photos, and they turned out pretty funny. It took 3 takes to get a good group shot with everyone smiling, but she got it done! Take a look.
|
|
|
Sweat n swim
Over the weekend, Kevin, Socks and I walked from home to Woody’s. It was a good hike, and it was very refreshing to dive into her awesome pool after such a long walk! It was Socks’ first time there, so he was pretty nervous at first, but he calmed down eventually and relaxed, watching us swim from under the picnic table most of the time.
Big Star Manor Care
Having fathers day lunch with George, Rick, Sandy, Matt and Kevin at the nursing home.
Milwaukee Zoo
I just posted a bunch of photos from Kevin’s field trip to the Milwaukee Zoo we took last Monday. I chaperoned a group of six 8th-graders (including Kevin), along with another father. It was a good time. Lots of walking and ogling of animals. I took over 500 photos because I stayed in burst mode most of the time. It enables me to get several continuous shots of the same subject, then later when I view them I can pick out the best ones for posting on the web. Here they are, my 56 best out of over 500. I just wish more of the animals had been awake. Many of them were just sleeping and hiding. I guess it all depends on when you go. All in all it was a fun trip though.
My Birthday
Everyone wants to know if I had a nice birthday. At this point, I don’t know why you’re supposed to celebrate getting another year older… maybe you’re supposed to be glad that you’ve managed to survive this long. Believe me, I am. I’m 49–or as Mark says, “older than dirt”. Everyone says that about their grandparents. I’m not quite there yet. Not a grandparent anyway. And I FEEL better than I have in years. I’ve been losing weight with all of this walking and eating right, and it’s making a lot of things easier. Heck, I can almost see my feet again!
We went to visit George in the hospital yesterday. He’s doing better. He’ll be going to a nursing home for rehab next, and we’re hoping for the best. Next I worked on Ty’s laptop. He somehow managed to spill Aunt Jemima over his keyboard, basically gluing down several of his keys. This took some work, carefully popping off, and removing, each glued key, cleaning it, and cleaning everything underneath it, then reassembling it. Not an easy task on a laptop. On a regular PC keyboard I would have just replaced the keyboard with a new one, but on a laptop this can get pretty pricey. It worked out ok though, and the keys are working fine again.
Next, Kevin Ty and I went swimming at Rec-Plex. I did 10 reverse laps and the current channel–this is a hot-dog-shaped channel of current where you can basically just ride the current around the loop with no effort at all. Walking in reverse, however, is just the opposite. It requires MUCH effort, and after a few laps you can really feel it. My goal is always 10 reverse laps. After 7 laps I got a cramp in my left calf, but I managed to still complete the full 10 laps. Kevin, as usual, got “carded” again a couple times when we got in the hot tub. The age requirement is “12-16 year olds allowed if accompanied by an adult, under 12 not allowed.” Apparently Kevin always looks like he’s under 12, because they always catch him and look to me. He’s 14 now, so this has been going on for almost 3 years. He just hasn’t “sprouted” yet. Ty, on the other hand, with his “hint of a moustache” is never an issue. But since Kevin and I are members, I am relieved to know that if he ever REALLY gets carded–where the want proof–all they have to do is check their own records. They have his photo on file, along with his date of birth, which proves his age, and they’ve had it since we started going there. I think we even went there right after his 12th birthday, just to celebrate him now being “hot tub-eligible”… yes, I believe we got carded that day, too.
When we got home from swimming, Sandy had an awesome supper of cheese ravioli & meatballs with marijuana sauce (yeah, it’s marinara sauce, but I pronounce it differently), then it was on to a video chat with Jay and his family.
I had planned to have a fire as well, but we quickly ran out of time and had to get to our double-feature of MIB and MIB II to get ready for MIB III, which we’re going to see today. Ty passed out halfway through MIB II, and Kevin opted out of the whole thing, since he has watched them both so many times in the past. I guess we’re about as ready as we’ll ever be for today’s matinee.
Uptown Car Show
Kevin and I (and Socks) went to the Uptown Car Show yesterday. It was ok, but kinda small compared to the others we’ve been to. There didn’t seem to be many cars there this time. The reserved block between 60th Street and Open Pantry was completely empty, though it was still blocked off from traffic, reserved for the car show.
The music was great (didn’t get the name of the band, sorry), and they had a KPD Canine training demonstration that was interesting. We walked home after that (Sandy wasn’t available for a rescue pickup) and I was pretty exhausted.
This time, Kevin took all of the photos of the event. Take a look, I think he did a great job.
Yesterday
We had a nice walk to Heim’s Toy store yesterday. Kevin loves drooling over all of the toys, and since Socks and I always enjoy a good walk, we chose it as our destination again.
Speaking of Heim’s, a few weeks ago I ordered Kevin a “Newton’s Cradle” from Amazon. He had been asking for one for a long time, and Heim’s said they had them but they were out of stock. They took our number and said they’d call us when they came in. After several weeks with no calls from them, I gave up and ordered one for him as a surprise. It came this week, and he likes it. Well, when we were at Heim’s yesterday, we window-shopped, and noticed that they have a whole shelf full of Newton’s Cradles–even two different models! So where’s our phone call?! Not that we’re interested any more, since we already bought one elsewhere, but that’s not the point. Oh well. I guess they don’t need sales as much as we thought they did.
Another thing we just have to do when we go to Heim’s is stop and see the cats. There’s a cat adoption agency right around the corner from Heim’s and they have a large bay window. The cats lounge all throughout the place, including on all their cat furniture located in the window. So we just go by and say hi, and see what antics they’re up to. Yesterday, however, another couple was there…using a laser pointer! Cats and laser pointers work well together, apparently. This was really funny to watch. Sandy, who stopped to pick us up when we were done, decided to join in on the fun, and pulled out the laser pointer she has on her keychain. Try TWO laser pointers on a dozen cats in a single room! Then hold up a chihuahua for them to see… Ah, good times.
Oh yeah, ice cream and ants. We stopped at Scoops next to Heim’s and had two scoops each. It kinda reverses the reason for the walk, but it was fun. I had a scoop of bubble gum and a scoop of chocolate chip cookie dough. Kevin had two scoops of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. Sandy had a scoop of peach and a scoop of strawberry, I think. And between Heim’s and the cat house, we ran across this. Yeek! I’m not sure what was under there, but the ants sure love it, whatever it is!
On another note, Kevin also now calls squirrels by looking around whispering “tic-tac! tic-tac!” He seems to think squirrels like these things now. Thanks, Pat!
Movies & Books
As an update to my last post, now that the Oscars have come and gone, as far as the nominees go, I’ve seen Hugo, The Help, and Moneyball. I thought all three were very good. Kevin was a little disappointed in Hugo, saying it was kind of boring in parts, and I can see that for a little kid I guess, growing up with blockbuster robot movies like Terminator and Transformers. A simple automaton didn’t cut it for him. For me, however, I thought it was fascinating, especially the artful way the entire movie looked overall. It was fascinating to watch, especially in Blu-Ray. I also saw Tower Heist. I don’t think it was nominated, but I liked it.
In other media, I finished Stephen King’s “Duma Key” audiobook recently, and I just started The Hunger Games, at Kevin’s request. Kevin has the real book (yup, the old tree-killing paper type) and asked me to get the audiobook so he can read along with it. He’s reading it in school too, for one of his classes. They’re going to compare the movie to the book, once the movie comes out, which should be very interesting–and enlightening for Kevin. It’s amazing how so much gets dropped and rearranged when books become movies. I hope he goes to see the movie with his class though–I’d hate to have to take him to see it myself before finishing the audiobook. It takes me awhile to read a complete audiobook, and seeing the movie tends to deflate my interest in completing the same titled audiobook, since it kinda spoils the story and totally changes the self-imagined images you create in your head when you read a book, once you see the movie. I’d rather completely finish the audiobook, then see the movie….even if that means missing the theatrical release and waiting for the Blu-Ray release.
Snow Sculpting and Birthday Party
We had a great day today with two events. This morning Kevin, Tyler and I went to the Snow Sculpting Championship in Lake Geneva, and this afternoon we had a birthday party for Kevin, who turns the big one-four tomorrow. The snow sculptures were very nice this year, and we took a lot of photos. Instead of sorting through them and posting the best ones, I just named and uploaded (still uploading as of 6:24pm) them all. That way you can get all the angles and details we saw ourselves. 116 photos in all. I just found out the winners too, and that news was a little disappointing, in my opinion. Usually we can pick which one is going to win each year, but I guess this year several of them were excellent and it was probably a close race.
I took pictures at Kevin’s birthday party as well, so I’ll be uploading those next. Matt made an awesome giant ice-cream-filled Oreo cookie cake for his birthday! Sandy also made a Cherry Chip cake for the party to give everyone some options. We had Pizza, then the cakes, watched a Jeff Dunham video, then Kevin opened his gifts.
Oh, and US National Snow Sculpting now has a Facebook page, which is where I found out who the winners are. I have re-named and re-ordered the photos, so the first three sculptures are the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners, and the People’s Choice winner is further down the set, in alphabetical order.
Here’s the Snow Sculpting photos, here’s the Birthday photos, and here’s the Snow Sculpting Facebook page.
Downtown Walk
Yesterday, Kevin, Socks and I walked through downtown. Kevin found a new toy store he’s excited to re-visit. It’s called “Inner Child Collectables and Comics”. They have a lot of comics, toys, old video games and old magazines. It’s a nice place the geeks on Big Bang Theory would really treasure. The own says it’ll only be open on weekends though, probably through next year. He has a full-time job in addition to this store, so he can’t run it full time. I’m sure we’ll be stopping in again. It must be a new store though–I couldn’t find it anywhere on the web, and I had to add it to Foursquare. It’s on 6th Avenue A, at the red dot on this walking map. We parked right in front of it at the start of our walk.
At the other end of our walk we visited some new sculptures on the lakefront that we hadn’t seen before. We found 4 new ones – Allegra, Emergence #11, sea saw, and Water. Click on the links to check them out. They’re in my Kenosha Art section.
Halloween festivities
This morning Kevin and I carved our pumpkin for this Halloween. Sandy had to work (as usual) so we did it ourselves. We used a carving kit that Kevin won from the Boys & Girls Club, which included a metal star and bat cookie-cutter patterns. You punch them through the pumpkin with the included mallet. It made it very easy to carve! We used a nice pumpkin that our neighbor Michelle gave us, which is actually shown in the middle of my website banner this season. We used the stars in the carving kit as eyes and 3 bats as the mouth, and carved a triangle for the nose. Looks pretty neat! I like how the connections between the bats actually look like teeth for the mouth!
Today we’re attending BooFest @ Kenosha Museum from 1pm-3pm and this evening we’re going to visit the Peterson Pumpkin Patch, which is supposed to be one of the largest carved & lit pumpkin patches in the area. Maybe a pumpkin farm in-between too, who knows. Tomorrow is trick-or-treating. Kevin, Socks and I will be going, Sandy has to work (as usual). Click here for our all of our 2011 Halloween Photos.
iOS 5
I finally got iOS5 installed on Kevin’s iPod. I must say, I’m not impressed. Very little has changed. And from what I can see, a bunch of it was lifted from Android! Clearly Steve Jobs had little, if any, input about the iOS5 updates. The feature that is most clearly lifted directly from the Android is the “window shade” status bar! You can now slide down the bar containing the clock and status icons to view your recent notifications. Is it better? Of course! It’s been working great on Android for years! Apple’s finally getting a little closer to reality. Now if they could just add something to their interface so users don’t have to stare that those worn-out “Chicklet” icons all the time… Hey, I know! GADGETS! WIDGETS! APPLETS! (hey, that last one might just be a winner–it has the word apple in it…) Whatever, just some interface customization options. I still think they’re new slogan should be “Apple: Yesterday’s Technology at Tomorrow’s Prices!“
Logo
I recently posted this image on Facebook without posting it here first. Brilliant. The story behind it is also posted with the image, but I’ll re-post it here:
A modified Apple logo has been circulating the web with Steve Jobs as the original bite out of the Apple. I thought about it, and realized Steve is a loss to Apple, and should therefore be an additional piece removed from it. So I modified the image, moving Steve to the left side. My apologies to the original artist.
Yes, I am guilty of creating this version, I confess. The original modified version–with Steve on the right side replacing the original bite mark–was on a solid black background. I cloned that piece into a hi-res version of the logo I found in Google Images and reversed it, placing it on the other side, then I cloned a bit of the background fog into the black Steve Jobs silhouette. Piece of cake. Since the original one was posted, I have noticed a lot of the tech people I follow on Twitter are using it as their icon/profile image/avatar. If I didn’t dislike Apple as much I do, I would use my version as my profile image. Let me know if you see this version anywhere else. Just curious. Or jealous.
And speaking of my dislike of Apple, I have been trying since yesterday to get Kevin’s iPod updated to iOS 5. I didn’t know it would wipe the iPod’s contents, and his backup failed, so now I’m trying to restore his last successful backup, which was in September. Nice. Hopefully he didn’t lose too much. We’ll see.
Sour Apples and other things
I was preparing a post ranting about all the shortcomings with the new iPhone 4S just released this week, then Steve Jobs died. I’ll hold off awhile. Everyone is busy posting their condolences and remembrances, so it’d probably be pretty bad of me to rant right now. Sure…I post next to nothing on my site for months, and NOW I decide to write something??
Anyway, I’m back. Never left, really. I’ve just been very busy with work (full time), work (side jobs) and family responsibilities. Like leaving in a hurry so fast (yesterday) that I left my keys on the kitchen counter as I walked out and closed the back door. A split second after it clicked shut it hit me. I was in the backyard with a locked house and locked car in the driveway, late for picking up Kevin. Luckily (on two levels) I hadn’t forgotten my phone! I was able to call Sandy so she was able to pick up Kevin, and I was able to enjoy my current audiobook while I waited in the backyard for someone to come and let me in.
Captain Hindsight reminded me later that I should have grabbed my Xoom before walking out the door–then I could have watched a MOVIE while I waited. (No, Captain Hindsight didn’t bother to remind me that I should have grabbed my KEYS either–he’s not THAT good) It wasn’t so bad though–I got the backyard cleaned up, built a pyramid of wood in the fire pit, and was even able to find a lighter to start a fire with. It was in the 50’s last night, so I sat by the fire and listened to my book (Stephen Kings “Bag of Bones”) as I waited. Sandy came home about an hour and a half later, got their chuckling and razzing of me out of the way, and then opened the back door so I could get back in.
I’m going to start posting here more, I’ve decided. Facebook’s posting size is limited, and they’re constantly changing it, adding more and more advertising, games and crap, so I’ll post all my stuff right here and maybe occasionally I’ll even post an article link on my Facebook page. If no one reads my stuff, no problem. I’m used to that already. This is an outlet for my own thoughts. A more stable page that doesn’t constantly juggle its contents and format.
Oh, and I was once again forced to disable public comment posting on this site. You must be a registered user if you want to add comments. The spammers just start creeping in over time and they don’t stop until they’re fully blocked. I still have to watch my registered users list now, because eventually they’ll start creating bogus users and creeping in all over again.
More updates, rants, and daily musings coming soon…
A tiny video
Kevin and I made a short stop-motion video tonight. I wanted to show Kevin how easy it is to do a little video magic with the camcorder, so we made this short video. It took a total of about 1/2 hr of time–which was perfect for his short attention span–going from auto-recording 1 frame every 3 seconds, to transferring to his computer, adding some music, and rendering it out in H.264 video, then uploading to YouTube. It has a few bad frames where it caught me touching, but otherwise I think it turned out pretty neat for what is definitely the shortest video I’ve ever made. Take a look.
Kenosha wind storm 2011
For those not aware of it yet, we had a huge wind storm blow through Kenosha Thursday evening. It did a lot of heavy damage to the area. We have taken some photos, so I create a collection of them on my Flickr page. As for us, I think we fared pretty well compared to the damage many others (including our neighbors) suffered. We lost power at the start of the storm, around 8pm Thursday, but it was back on Friday afternoon. Kevin certainly learned a good lesson about many of the luxuries of having electricity, since he didn’t have any video games or movies (after his iPod battery died), and we had no lights or computers to use.
After all of our home repairs that Jay and I did a couple weeks ago, the porch was spared. The security lights Jay installed for us, however, are now shattered, so I’ll have to replace them, and the brand new door closer I installed on the back door was ripped right off the back screen door. The closer survived intact, but a chunk of the back door was ripped out and still attached to the closer and the wall! That was it though, no other damage to our house, luckily.
This morning Kevin, Socks and I walked down by Eichelman and Wolfenbuttel parks and the new marina and took a few more photos. When we got to the tot park I realized that the new marina slips had shifted way north, and into the duck pond! Most of the boats are still docked in them, so I bet there was quite a mess at first, with overturned and sunken boats during and after the storm.
Today more of the roads are open again and more traffic lights are working, so we’re getting back to normal. I still see a lot of tree services hard at work and We Energies trucks driving around though, so they still have a ways to go.
Miscellaneous Weekend
We finally got a new fire pit after our old one fell apart last year. Dennis had given it to us, and we gave it many good feedings until the fencing around it just crumbled and fell apart. We love to cook hot dogs and marshmallows (burnt & crunchy is best for both) and just sit around the fire and keep warm. It also allows us to quickly get rid of all of our excess cardboard boxes. Kevin and I assembled it this morning and we were very proud to see how he handled the work. He didn’t complain or whine about it, did what he was told to do, and I think he enjoyed the whole experience. I know he especially enjoyed the “breaking in”, when he got to tear up the cardboard box and packing for the fire pit itself, put it inside, and watch it go up in flames.
Kevin’s had more free time to do other things lately, now that the Playstation Network is down and he can’t play with his friends in Little Big Planet. He was pretty disappointed the first week, but now that we’re entering the third week of it, he’s been moving on to other things. So I guess it’s not a completely bad thing, at least for us. I can’t help but think there are millions of other people out there experiencing something similar with PSN down, so I have some concerns that this is going to impact Sony and the PS3 in a huge way moving forward. It was our favorite gaming platform before, but I’m not so sure any more. Kevin’s still playing other games on it now–mostly Portal 2–but we’re just not as into it with such a huge part of it disabled. No updates for anything, no communicating with anyone in any game, 
and the worst part is no video chatting. We especially enjoy the latter when Tyler comes over for a weekend… He has virtual visits with the AZ half of his family every time he comes, and we all enjoy that. I heard yesterday that hackers actually attacked PSN twice in the past two weeks, and they were planning a third attack this weekend, so who knows when it’ll be back up again. Kevin dutifully checks it once or twice a day and keeps me posted.
Kevin also tried on my glasses this morning and had to pose for pictures. Take a look.
JimTrottier.com 