Rob and the California George Family

Reading Joe's posts about games got me thinking about my definition of a game. It is pretty simple. Following a set of rules is either a game or a chore. If I am having fun, then it is a game. If I am not having fun, then it is a chore.

Performing tasks that I get paid for at work is sometimes a game. Playing certain "games" is sometimes a chore.

P.S. I finally got un-lazy and added a link for Joe to the left. I check out daily Blogs through the links to the left EXCEPT for Joe's. I jump to his from other people's Blogs. I finally updated my links to get to this directly.

P.P.S. I also used this post to experiment with how to add a link to text with HTML. It's something that I have needed to learn and this was a good chance. So I followed rules and had fun with it -- today's post was a game!

Labels: Blogging, Games

We went camping this weekend with another family and had a great time. Between the two families, there were 9 of us. They had a tent trailer, we had 2 tents. We did have access to water and electricity, so some would look down on that as not "true" camping. Whatever. We did have to walk to the bathrooms and showers. However, it was definitely a very civilized event. The campground, a KOA in San Diego (http://www.koa.com/where/ca/05112/index.htm), had a pool, bike rentals, organized activities, etc. It was very kid-friendly.

On the "true" camping side of things, we took along our dutch ovens and used the grill they had there to make several treats: grilled asparagus, peach cobbler, blueberry cobbler, pineapple upside down cake, cheeseburgers, and omelettes. We used gas stoves and an electric crockpot for some of the other cooking, so it was not entirely cowboy style cooking.

While we had bikes with us, the campground had some unique bikes for rent. One that was a lot of fun was an 8 person "train" style bike. It started with a 4 person bike and then 2 trailers were attached for 2 people each. It was a unique experience and a lot of exercise. It was a good way for both families to tour the grounds together.

What was amazing was how full the Suburban was with stuff. We used nearly everything we took, so we need to re-think packing next time. We are not trying to make a statement about how little we can carry or use, but we can probably cut a few things out and add some other things in.

Labels: Camping

As I documented previously, my family took a vacation to Washington DC last month. It was a great trip, but there is one incident that I didn't document before.

One our last day in DC, we ended the day in the center of the National Mall. Most of the museums were closed and we were ready to head home. Our vehicle was parked at Union Station which is not too far, but a healthy walk. Adding to this, the family wanted to visit a rest room.

I volunteered to walk to the vehicle while the family went to the one open museum for a bio-break. The walk was pretty uneventful, although I was on the phone with my mom getting our Southwest Airlines electronic check-in taken care of while we walk.

My phone is a PDA phone that includes a camera. I rarely use the camera because it isn't really that good. However, it is ok for occasional shots.

When I arrived at Union Station, I found that I couldn't get in due to a major emergency response. I never did find out what the issue was, but there were a LOT of fire trucks, police, and other misc. emergency vehicles around. Someone mentioned seeing FBI guys there too.

I called the family and warned them that I was running late due to the situation. Since I was just standing around, I decided to take some pictures with the camera phone so that I could show the family what I was dealing with.

So here is the situation. Some guy is walking around the emergency vehicles that were probably called out for suspicious activity. This guy is quietly taking photographs with a device that is disguised as another device (i.e., not many people expect a PDA to be a camera -- I know this from experience).

After I took a number of these photos, I realized that this was probably not a good idea in Washington DC with the post 9/11 environment. I quietly put away my PDA and shortly thereafter was allowed into the building.

Here are the pictures if anyone is interested. I don't think that I am risking national security by posting these. If anything, this should serve as a deterrent by seeing the massive response that is triggered by an incident.

Labels: Family, Vacation

Bethany was studying for a test and trying to remember the formula for the circumference of a circle. She had the area formula down just fine (Pi x radius squared). However, she couldn't remember the circumference (i.e., length of the outside edge).

The formula is the 2 x Pi x radius (represented as the letter r).

She has worked well with remembering things through silly associations before. Based on this, we came up with one for this.

A good friend of hers is Rachael. I told her to think about Rachael holding two pies and nibbling around the edges of them.

Labels: Bethany, School

Last night I decided to take a little time to play my healer hero in City of Heroes. My plan was to spend about an hour online. I was invited to a popular mission that takes about an hour (Frostfire in the Hollows for those that know CoH). It went great, although I was healing like crazy (making up for bad tactics mostly). I was at the low end of levels for the team and I leveled up twice which was great.

The problem is that at the end of the mission I felt duty bound to help the person that took me as a sidekick for the mission. He did not level. Long story short, I ended up playing online with him until he leveled -- almost 3 hours later! Sure, it was fun. However, it definitely cut into my sleep time for last night.

Why did I feel duty bound to help a total stranger? I guess because I felt that (1) he had helped me quite a bit and (2) the people that I have met in game generally are nice people and I don't want to punish that behavior by taking and not giving back.

Maybe this is a little piece of my helping make the world a nicer place. Or maybe it is the start of an addiction. Or maybe a little of both. :-)

Thanks to Lee's review of a new Marvel series (see Lee's Tid Bits link to the left), I picked up my first comic book in years. Good start to the story. It was a nice lunchtime diversion.

Comic prices have definitely jumped since I last bought any. This will be an expensive investment based on the checklist in the back of the book.

Talking about the family being sick reminded me of my most recent City of Heroes game time. I've been trying out the healer/defender role.

Of course it is always a blast to play with my friends I grew up with (which is most of the audience for this blog). We have a group of heroes that are exclusively used when we play together. However, I started a healer character recently for play time when the group is not around which I have really enjoyed. I get a very different view of the battle being in a support role vs. my front-line fighter in the regular group. Its even fun running around throwing random heals on people that I am not fighting with. Heroes really seem to like healers.

Labels: Games, Rob

I feel like I am surrounded. The entire family has been hit to some level with colds (achiness, sniffles, etc.). The kids have all missed all or part of a day of school. Even mom was achy through part of last week. It has not hit me yet and may not since I often skip getting sick when the rest of the family does, but the anticipation of possibly getting sick is never fun.

Labels: Health

I find it difficult to write short posts in this blog. I really admire the way the Timmer (see link to left) can throw a few short sentences out there every day and still give us all a glimpse into his life. I'll try to mix up short and long posts in the future just to prove to myself that I can do it.

Labels: Blogging

I went to two movies with the family this weekend. Both turned out to be worth watching and exceeded my expectations.

The first movie was "RV" on Saturday night. Celeste went to a "Princess House Crystal" party (think Tupperware -- a "party" where you go to buy stuff). The family where she went has 2 girls the same age as my girls. Their dad and I took the girls to the movies to get away from the party and let the moms home-shop in privacy.

The second movie was "Akeelah and the Bee" which we saw yesterday. This was the choice for our Mothers Day outing.

First, I want to be careful to not "Ferris Bueller" the movies. I remember when the movie "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" came out. I heard everyone raving about it before I saw it. I went into the movie with really high expectations and ended up disappointed. Now I enjoy the movie when I see it in re-runs. At the time, I expected more than the movie had to offer.

Anyway, I don't want to Ferris Bueller either of these movies for anyone. However, with the first one I had just the opposite effect. I was not expecting to enjoy the movie RV -- even though it stars Robin Williams. The previews just did not appeal to me. It looked like it was going to be very cartoonish in a bad way. While there were certainly cartoon-like parts of the movie (ok, a lot of them), they worked. The most important thing to me is that all of us that went enjoyed it and laughed a lot.

I did expect to enjoy Akeelah and the Bee. However, I didn't think that the kids would like it. I was wrong -- every enjoyed this one too. It was a more emotional movie and it was fairly predictable. However, it was well done and both funny and sad at various points. My favorite character was Javier. He was an unrealistic 11 year old, but a fun movie character.

I asked Hayley, my 10 year old daughter, how she liked the movies. She scored RV a 100% and Akeelah got a 101% (it got extra credit). I would not personally rate them that high, but they were worth a view.

Labels: Movies

Yesterday our family went with the Girl Scouts to Newport Harbor for a day of kayaking. There were 8 girls, 2 moms, myself, Andrew, and 2 Sea Scouts as our guides. It was a great day, although some of the girls were getting tired before the day was over. We were out there from 9am to 4pm -- so it was a long day.

Our adventure started at the BSA Newport Sea Base. We had some basic instruction to get started (including a training video designed for very young boys) and then moved on to row boats and the swim test.

The low point of rowing was the dead possum that came floating along. The girls got the willies a bit from that, but the Sea Scouts got rid of it before it was a major issue.

The water was not too cold, but it was somewhere in the low 60s. The girls were required to take the test, but the adults were not. Several girls complained due to (a) the cold water and (b) swimming in the harbor vs. a nice, clean pool. However, they all ultimately took the test.

Hayley was the youngest girl there at 10 years old (since it was Bethany's troop of 12 and 13 year olds). She was really not wanting to take the test. I volunteered to do it with her. While I was up changing, she took the test anyway. However, she also made me keep my word so I had to do the swim test too. That put her back in a happy mood. It was not as cold as I expected. I was also able to shower off and change afterwards (although the showers were cold).

After the swim test we started the kayaking part of the day. The Sea Scouts had motor boats to follow us, take those not kayaking, and carry gear. We started with lunch on a beach we boated to. Next we went to an area with a bunch of moon jellyfish. It was really neat to float among them and see them up close. We then went on to another beach and did some exploring which including another dead animal: a small stingray. The girls seemed more interested than concerned about the dead ray. They "buried" it in the sand and left. We then unburied it and sent it back to sea so that it would not get stepped on. We then paddled to the Fun Zone in Balboa and got treats. The girls were pretty tired then, so we towed the kayaks back to Sea Base.

After cleaning off the kayaks and putting them away, the scouts took the girls out motor boating for a while. When the girls got to drive, that was the big highlight of the day for many of the girls. We then headed home to get some rest from a long but fun day.

Labels: Day Trip, Family, Scouts

In 4th grade, our school has the students do a "California Landmark Report". When Bethany did this, she chose Catalina Island. It was a decision made with family input. One of the options for the report is to visit the landmark and write about the visit. This made a nice family day trip to Catalina which coincided with Mothers Day. We took a couple of tours, did some shopping, visited the Catalina Island museum, and walked around the city of Avalon.

Anyway, Hayley got input from the family and chose Hollywood. I have lived in California all my life and never visited the tourist sites of Hollywood. It had to happen sometime.

Not too many years ago, I understand that Hollywood was not a great place to visit. However, they have done a lot of revitalization of the area and it was a fun family day.

Highlights:
* Movie at Disney's El Capitan Theater
This is designed to be a movie experience like in the "old days" of movie going. The movie we went to see was The Wild. It started with an awesome organist playing a medley of Disney tunes while we were settling in. We chose to sit in the balcony since the family has never done that before. The curtains opened (multiple curtains of various sorts -- cool effect) and they showed previews of upcoming movies. The curtains then closed and the Los Angeles Zoo had representatives there to give a "wild" bird show. The theater is large and has lots of room for the birds to fly around and show off.

* Hollywood Visitors Center
There is a large shopping/entertainment complex at Hollywood and Highland. This includes the Kodak Theater where the Academy Awards are held. The Hollywood Visitors center is buried in this complex (they are building a new place for them at the front, but they are pretty hard to find right now). A lady at the Hollywood Visitors Center, who grew up in Hollywood, gave Hayley a lot of good info for her report and also gave us brochures with discounts for various tours, museums, etc.

* Hollywood Blvd.
The "Walk of Fame" with stars names on the sidewalk runs along Hollywood Blvd and along Vine. We were not close to Vine, but saw many recognizable stars where we were as we walked around the area.

Another interesting part of this street is lots of people come out in costume to let tourists pay them for photos (seems like $1 per photo was typical). Some were kind of cheesy, but some were really good. The guys dressed as Batman and Superman stand out. Also, there was a good Darth Vader and Storm Trooper (and one really cheesy Darth Vader further down the street). The crowd was well behaved, but it was a crowd to deal with when walking anywhere.

* Graumans Chinese Theater (owned by Manns Theaters now)
Saw the famous walkway with stars hand prints, foot prints, etc. That was pretty cool, but a smaller area than I expected. We had Hayley make a handprint souvenir that she can use as part of her report.

* Hollywood Landmark Tour
We took a 1 hour driving tour to see the Hollywood highlights. Celeste didn't like it much and Hayley was kind of bored. I enjoyed the information. Bethany was about 50% happy with it. Andrew liked how the driver used many voices and impersonations to tell corny jokes and give information along the way. However, it did take us to a great location for a photo of the Hollywood Sign behind Hayley (it is pretty distant for photos while down in Hollywood itself).

I also learned that the original Hollywoodland Realty that built the original sign still exists. We drove through the area a little bit.

* Disney Soda Fountain / Studio Store
We returned to the area next to the Disney El Capitan Theater to visit the Soda Fountain. The store was basically like any other Disney retail store. However, on one side they had a soda fountain with some food and lots of old fashioned ice cream treats. The family sat at a counter and enjoyed a nice mid-afternoon treat.

* Hollywood Entertainment Museum
We had a choice of two main museums with Hollywood history and memorabilia. The one we chose sounded more interactive. I'm not sure that we made the right choice since a lot of the "interactive" exhibits were not turned on. They had a lot of costumes and props that were mildly interesting. The highlight was when we got to visit 3 sets that they have on site: Cheers Bar, X-Files / Mulder's Office, Bridge and Transporter Room of USS Enterprise-D (Star Trek TNG). That part was really cool. We were able to sit and interact with the Cheers and Star Trek sets for photos (no video though). We were only able to look at Mulder's Office and take photos from the edge.

Labels: Day Trip, Family, School

My 12 year old daughter, Bethany, is quite the little schemer. She comes across as a sweet, shy, somewhat quiet young lady. What a great cover! Yesterday she got me. Here is the story.

I had a busy morning at work yesterday. It started with someone asking me to interview two potential employees. One of the candidates was from Holland and one was from Mexico. In each case, I escorted them to my office and led them in. They came in behind me (this is important). They also followed me after the interview as I returned them to our recruiter.

I walked around the office several times meeting with people and discussing various topics.

At 10:00am, I was leaving the restroom. One of my co-workers told me that I had a sticker on my back. He removed it and gave it to me. It was a sticker from my family's visit to the Hollywood Entertainment Museum on Sunday.

When he gave it to me, I remembered a nice little hug that my sweet daughter gave me on Monday morning.

Imagine that! I wonder how many people noticed it and didn't say anything to me? I wonder what our candidates from other countries have learned about the US culture from this?

Anyway, she got me. Good job. My co-workers have enjoyed the story.

Labels: Bethany, Rob, Work