In a couple weeks our little booger will be a year old! It’s gone by both fast and slow at the same time. When he’s officially a year old I’ll post some “official” father comments, but for now, just pictures. The good ones are by Andrew.

We love holding our own bottle. We’re slowly transitioning to more solid stuff, but I don’t think he’s in any hurry. We’ve got two teeth on the top and bottom in the front, and a molar in the back is popping through. I think he might get a whole mouth full at once!

Coasters are yummy! He likes to hold them in his mouth and crawl around like he’s the dog.

We played in the fridge the other day. He knew what to do with the Powerade bottle.

Today we went to the cemetery with my parents. These are some of my Great Grandparents, so they would be Luke’s Great Great Grandparents. They’ve been buried there my whole life, not even five miles away, and I’d never seen their gravestone. I’ve got some photos of them, and I think it would be really cool to put together some kind of family history book with pictures, birth certificates, gravestones, etc. I have six ancestors buried at another local cemetery, which I think is so cool. Even though I really only knew three of them, between looking at pictures and hearing about them, it’s just a lot of fun to know my “history.”

The last post didn’t really count as an update, just more of a rant, so here’s a better post.

Christmas was nice. We split time between both sets of grandparents, and then we went up north. Great-Grandma got to hold Luke, so we took pictures and videos of that. Who knows how long she’ll be around, so I wanted to make sure he’d have that to remember her. It makes me want to find some of the old photos of me with some Great-Grandparents that I never knew that well. On the way home we took a two-hour detour towards the San Jose area to visit Stacie’s Aunt and Uncle. It made the trip a little longer, but it was fun to see them.

So what am I doing with the rest of my vacation? My main goal is to finish my final edits on my book. I’ve got both manuscripts sitting on the table side by side, I’ve got my laptop, and I have a notebook where I’m listing any major changes to the plot and characters. Right now I’m 20% done, so I’m hoping it can be done before I go back to work. After that I need to format it for printing, order a proof copy, and then I’m letting Stacie read it first. Assuming she doesn’t find any major typos, then it will be all ready to go! The way it will work is it should be available to buy on Amazon, and I can also buy copies myself to sell for cheaper.

I’ll have to make some more posts about writing once it’s all done, because it really is an interesting process. It’s much like a painting that can be constantly updated. Maybe you start painting a scene, and then later on decide you’d like to change part of it. All you have to do is get some new paint and paint over it. A book is the same thing. The words you put down in the beginning don’t say set in stone, because the story is constantly evolving. What was written in the first few pages may not match the way the story has evolved after 300 pages, so you have to go back and make the story consistent throughout. It’s not really fun to edit, but if you don’t you’re doing your story a major disservice.

I know you’re not all on vacation, but I am, and it is sweet. Oh so sweet is the respite from crazy adolescents! Speaking of crazy Junior Highers, I rarely post about anything specific to work, but during this joyous time of vacation I shall choose a hilarious example of why I love my job. In one class I have a student who asks me the other day ,”Are you my friend?” Now maybe the hilarity of the situation won’t transfer over in a blog post, but my standard response to this question is “No, I’m your teacher.” You see, when you’ve been teaching a while, you develop these canned responses, sort of like a script. It’s like the words just flow out of me like they have countless times before. When the student inevitably replies “Why not?” I then say, “We don’t hang out. You didn’t invite me to your birthday party. We don’t text message each other. I don’t help you pass notes in class….” At this point the student usually gets it and leaves the subject alone, but not this particular student. He is in a state of denial and replies “No, I think you’re my friend.” Apparently despite proof of the opposite, he continues to press. I then reply “None of your teachers are your friends, they’re your teachers.” He says, “No, Mr. Smith is my friend.” I tell him to ask Mr. Smith later that day, and then let me know tomorrow what he said.

The next day he walks into my class and looks at me with sad eyes and says, “I asked Mr. Smith if he’s my friend, and he said no.” It was the most hilarious thing ever. Now the student tells me to say hi to my baby so my baby will be his friend. Gotta love it.

Anyways, my brother took me to the shooting range for the first time yesterday. We got to shoot a couple handguns and his new .22 pump-action rifle. I figure since he’s getting into it I should at least go and try it, and as a good conservative that believes strongly in gun rights, I should at least have shot one before. Overall it was really a lot of fun. I think there is a certain mystique that surrounds guns, and until you’ve actually held one, loaded it, and and shot it, you don’t realize how typical it really is. I’m not trying to demean the very dangerous power a gun can have, but it really reminded me of shooting a BB gun. Granted it’s much more powerful and you have to be more careful, but it’s a lot the same. Here’s my first target from shooting 12 rounds of my brother’s 357 Magnum (which I believe was .38 ammo?) It’s a bigger gun than his .22 handgun, and while the .22 is more economical and great for practicing your accuracy, there is definitely something cool about the bigger BOOM you get from the bigger ammo.

My first couple shots were off the mark, but once I got used to the action it wasn’t so bad! Thanks for taking me bro.

Otherwise we’re just gearing up for Christmas in a very low key way. Neither Stacie or I need much, and even the baby already has more than he needs, so I think appropriately this year the focus will be on family. We’re doing my sister’s in-laws on Christmas Eve, my parents and my in-laws on Christmas, and then my Grandmother/Aunt/Cousins on my Mom’s side up in Turlock the day after Christmas. This will be our first road trip with the boy, so it should be interesting. Hope everyone’s Christmas plans and gift buying are going well.

My daily posts on the propositions and the election must have worn me out. It’s been eight days since my last post! I probably could get away with blaming it on the baby, but I’ll give him a pass this time. I will list the contents of this post here, and it’s a doozy!

1) Baby Update
2) Picture Scanning
3) Little Big Planet
4) DVD Sales

Baby Update

The boy is 8 months old now! He was supposed to have his scheduled check-up this past week, but we ended up taking him a little early because of a weird cough. Turns out he has an ear infection! Overall we’re pretty happy it took this long for him to get his first real “illness.” According to my own mother, I had about an ear infection every month when I was a baby, and by 9 months I had tubes in my ears. Luke is doing much better than I did. We got some antibiotics, baby motrin, and saline drops, and we go back this coming week to see how he’s doing.

He was supposed to get his shots, but we’ll have to wait on that until he’s better (so maybe this week). They did weigh and measure him though, and he comes in at 29 1/4″ and 21lbs 13oz. He’s still in the 90th percentile for length, but he’s dropped down to the 80th percentile for weight. I had a feeling he was slowing down a little, but the length surprised me. He added 2″ in just over two months! He’s getting a lot more active, so I wonder how much that affects his weight, because he’s noticeably “leaner” than he used to be. We aren’t crawling yet, but we rollover and sit up like crazy. I think he would prefer to start walking first, but we’ll see what comes first. Right now he’s on the floor pulling the dog bed towards him.

And now what you really want…pictures!

Picture Scanning

Something I really enjoy is researching family history and preserving family memories. A few years back I put all our VHS home movies onto DVD (which I’m no longer happy with and want to redo), but another project I have is digitizing all of our family photos. I’ve scanned some negatives dating back to the 1930′s, but now I’m working on 35mm negatives from when I was a kid. To do that I use a special machine by Plustek called the OpticFilm 7500i SE. You load the negatives on a plastic tray, and then it scans them. I’ve upgraded to this model because it can take out dust and scratches on the negatives and give you a better scan. I finally had some prints done of my first test scans to see how they came out, and I was very pleased.

I went over to my parents and found the original prints to compare. Basically you have two options for digitizing family photos. Either you scan the negative, or you scan the original prints. The only major problem with scanning the negative is that over the last 30 or so years some of them can get scratched and deteriorate. The major drawback of scanning the original prints is that you lose a lot of detail, and 30 year old prints deteriorate also.

The top photo is a scan of the original print, and the bottom is a scan of the negative.

The color in the negative scan is slightly different, but the level of detail is just night and day. It feels like moving from regular TV to high-def! I’m about 6 months old in this picture, so you can compare me to Luke.

This print actually survived very well, but there are some from the day I was born that look terrible. Some of the paper that was used in the 70′s and 80′s turns yellow and gray and just ruins pictures. Thank goodness my parents kept all the negatives! Eventually when I’m done I can have all the photos preserved and easily shared between family members.

Little Big Planet

I’ve only posted about this game once or twice, but it’s my newest addiction. Little Big Planet is a really simple game. You can run side to side, jump, and grab on to certain materials. That’s all. There is a story mode where you can beat the game, and all the while you collect “prizes.” The really cool part though is that the prizes you collect are actually tools that allow you to make your own levels. You can makes ramps, creatures, scary pits, etc. with the in-game level maker. After you make a level, you can then let other people play your level! You can even play online with up to three other friends.

I already beat the game, but now I’m trying to beat every level without dying and collecting every single prize. I’ve published one level where you have to jump up a series of steps without dying, and so far almost 60 other people have played it. It’s a lot of fun!

DVD Sales Update

This weekend I finally sold my last DVD. Total I sold about 105 dvds, and grossed around $325-350. My original intent was to use that money to buy Blu-Rays of the movies I really like, but so far I haven’t bought any. I’ve come to realize that there are very few movies worth watching multiple times, so I’m not going to bother buying movies I don’t absolutely love.

In case you were wondering, the last DVD to sell was Die Hard 1. I sold 97 dvds in the first month, and then it took 3.5 months to sell the last 8.

Thanks for reading my gynormous post!

Sarah Palin’s 17 year old daughter is five months pregnant. My initial reaction is that it’s unfortunate. I’m sure that wasn’t what her parents wanted for her. As a very new parent there are definitely things I want for my son, but I know I won’t always be able to control him. Will he make mistakes? Most certainly, and hopefully Bristol Palin considers what she did a mistake.

That being said, does that make Sarah Palin a bad parent? I wouldn’t say it does. There are a lot of people in life that make mistakes, including people that read this blog. They’re not perfect, and neither are people running for office. I think it’s great how their values are guiding what comes next. Many people would have already aborted the baby, but instead they will have a chance at life. Bristol Palin is engaged to the father, and hopefully they will have a successful and loving marriage.

I know it’s been a long time since you saw cute baby, so this should make you happy.

We went swimming for the first time the other week. Basically that means we sat on the step of the pool and held him while he looked super confused. But he is super cute in his little swim trunks.

We went to see Great Grandpa the other day. His eyes light up when he sees Luke.

We’ve been meaning to take more pictures of the three of us. Usually it’s one of us behind the camera, and only one of us in the picture. Luckily Andrew was over and took this nice one of us.

And speaking of Uncle Andrew…

My parents got back from England and brought Luke a London shirt! He likes it a lot.

Here’s Luke and Nicole hanging out in the bassinet together. He thinks it’s funny.