Movies

I have always loved movies, and I primarily mean at the movie theaters. Growing up without air conditioning in a hot and humid part of the country for many years, I have fond memories of cooling off in the summer while watching a movie from a green vinyl, squeaky, and often sticky Showcase Cinema seat. I even loved coming out of the dark theater into the sun, being temporarily blinded until my eyes could adjust.

Now, I dream of custom building my own basement theater complete with stadium seating and a popcorn machine, especially needed for the nostalgic smells of a theater (and I am not going for the inner city theater smells that we have experienced in Maryland mind you). Until that time I will enjoy the occasions of going to the local multiplex.

Recently I took my oldest to see Wall-E as a treat. This was the first non-science based I-Max film that he was able to sit through (he only lasted five minutes in Spiderman 3, despite his love for Spiderman 1), of course I had to stuff his ears with pieces of napkins as it was a little loud for him. In short he loved it, and cannot wait to go see the new Clone Wars movie.

IKEA

Injured Knee, Embarrassing Accident

As I may have mentioned before, my family is a big fan of IKEA, especially my oldest son. We love getting up on a Saturday and making the long drive to make the 99 cent breakfast served before 11am. Usually my oldest has already eaten breakfast, so we get him as side of bacon, his favorite meat (I know not the healthiest food, but we don't go everyday.) Of course, I prefer the lunches with Swedish meat balls and Swedish apple cake, washed down with some sweet, sweet ligonberry juice! The dining experience helps propel IKEA to the Disney World of furniture shopping, at least to us.

This past Saturday we made our way to IKEA and had a nice breakfast. After looking around for a bit we discovered a nice buffet of free samples of Swedish cookies, chocolate, cheese, and more. I really like the Rasberry cookies and decided to go by some from the small grocery area. I noticed a bottle of Flädersaft, or elderberry flower syrup for you non-Europeans, and thought that I should try this nectar someday, but at first passed it up.

I saw some Europeans buying some Flädersaft and I asked them how it tasted. They kindly opened a bottle and let me sniff. It smelled like sweet, sweet nectar (which it is; very satisfying summer drink, like a mixture of a really good white grape with a hint of lime.) I was sold, and went back to grab a bottle. The nice European couple noticed that a different bottle of theirs had a broken seal and were going to get another, so I handed them mine since they had been so kind. And that is when it happened.

I was wearing flip-flops (aka thongs, and yes I've been warned of the dangers) and I lunged back to get a new bottle of Flädersaft, and the tip of my left flip-flop caught the mat in front of a freezer. I went flying with my arm taking out a display of coffee (thank goodness it wasn't jars of ligonberry jam) and I went crashing to the floor. Most of you know that I am not a small man, so the momentum was of course very great. I quickly got to my feet and went back to my place in line.

Everyone asked if I was alright, and I responded that I was just embarrassed, not noticing the blood until the clerk pointed it out. My fall had taken a chunk from my big toe, put two canyon sized gouges on top of my foot, and the piece of napkin stuck to my knee was actually my epidermis. The clerk persuaded me to stay until the security personnel could bring me some bandages, and my good wife had Neosporin with her. (Please let me know if you ever see a recording of my crash landing on YouTube.)

So was it worth it? Yeah, I love my sweet nectar!

WSJ Hedcut

I have always enjoyed reading the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and have always been impressed by their artists' renderings of the newsmakers. I have no illusions that I would ever be featured in my favorite newspaper, but I have always wanted my own picture done in the WSJ method. known as hedcut or stimple. Knowing too well that it would be very costly to commission an artist to do it for me, I decided to look for software alternatives. Surprising to me, despite all our advances in the computer realm there is nothing that can replace the human touch, which is why WSJ still uses artists to hand draw the hedcuts.

That said, being hard to deter, I decided that I would search for a "good enough" method, and I found the blog Alleba, where an Andrew Dela Serna came up with and described how to get a similar effect using Photoshop. I was impressed and went tor work straight away to make my own hedcut, shown here.

This is my first attempt, and given that I use Gimp, and open source alternative to Photoshop, it took me a little while to figure out how to convert Andrew's instructions. While I can't say that it is perfect, I think it was a good start.

An additional use that I thought could be fun was to take a picture of myself and convert it into a currency type photo. That way if I ever decided to get one of those custom picture credit cards, I could make myself into say a $250 bill and use that. Anyway, as you can tell by now I really like graphic design and am always looking for new creative outlets.

If anyone wants to try this, first go to Alleba Blog, and if you need further instructions for using software like Gimp, I can try and help.

Online Tests

Like anyone else I like to be flattered, so I read my Chinese horoscope telling me how wonderful I am just because I was born in a certain year, and I like taking online "tests" that tell me things from how smart I am to how southern I am. Below are the results of the most recent test I took to help remind me why I am a strong confident man who does not need to smoke:

David, you exhibit an even balance between left- and right- hemisphere dominance and a slight preference for visual over auditory processing. With a score this balanced, it is likely that you would have slightly different results each time you complete this self-assessment quiz. [They know what is going on; they must double as a fortune teller. Always have a way out of what you state as fact. "Hey, if you are so bold to take our test again, don't blame us if you get different results, it's your personality's fault."]

You are a well-rounded person [enough with the fat jokes, oh wait it is ok, because I am strong confident man who does not need to smoke], distinctly individualistic and artistic, an active and multidimensional learner. At the same time, you are logical and disciplined, can operate well within an organization, and are sensitive towards others without losing objectivity. You are organized and goal-directed. Although a "thinking" individual, you "take in" entire situations readily and can act on intuition. ["You are shy yet outgoing, rich yet poor, a loser that wins, insatiable yet satisfied, ebony and ivory living in perfect harmony; you are the Yin and the Yang." They are good!]

You sometimes tend to vacillate in your learning styles. [How can I not help but vacillate. Anyway my pal Arnold Schwarzenegger says flip-flopping is great.] Learning might take you longer than someone of equal intellect, but you will tend to be more thorough and retain the material longer than those other individuals. [Oops, caught them. I was the one who would study Chinese characters 5 minutes before a test, get an A, and then forget. And they were doing so well.] You will alternate between logic and impulse [Sounds a little Star Treky to me.]. This vacillation will not normally be intentional or deliberate, so you may experience anxiety in situations where you are not certain which aspect of yourself will be called on. [Am I schizophrenic?]

With a slight preference for visual processing, you tend to be encompassing in your perceptions, process along multidimensional paths and be active in your attacking of situations or learning. [It is true, I don't care for passive attacks.]

Overall, you should feel content with your life and yourself. [Koombaya]You are, perhaps, a little too critical of yourself -- and of others -- while maintaining an "openness" which tempers that tendency. Indecisiveness is a problem and your creativity may not be in keeping with your potential. Being a pragmatist, you downplay this aspect of yourself and focus on the more immediate, obvious and the more functional. [I'm so confused I don't know if my glass is half full or half empty, but I do know it is sweet nectar so I'll be sure to empty it as soon as possible.]

Your Brain Usage Profile:

Auditory : 33%
Visual : 66%
Left : 52%
Right : 47%

http://mindmedia.com/brainworks/profiler

Mii

Ok, I don't have a Wii yet, but I enjoyed playing around with an online Mii editor. Given the choices, which I were much less than the actual Wii, below is the best rendition of myself I could come up with thus far. Any Wii owners out there that would like to take a stab at making Mii? I would love to see others impressions of me and of themselves. Don't own a Wii? You can do what I did, just use the online editor linked above. You can't save it, so just take a screen shot (CTRL+Print Screen, crop with favorite graphics editing program). Send me the results via email and say whether or not I can post your works of art and whether or not you want to remain anonymous. Hey, it is fun to waste a bit-o-time like this now and again.

Pools...

...that I have to inflate. Ok, I am being sarcastic. I don't like having to inflate the pool, but I do like making my son happy. Plus it gives me a chance to do some stationary cycling while I watch him splash around, and while his brother lounges on a bouncy seat. Why so anxious to cycle? Well beyond the fact that it makes me feel good, I am determined that I will not join the ranks of Wii owners until I reach my high school weight. Yes, you have it; if I cannot find a tennis buddy, the Wii will have to make do. Actually, I am looking into taking some tennis lessons to aid my search for a real life tennis partner. I also am looking into father-son golf classes, which could be a lot of fun.