No Regrets

I haven't posted in nearly two weeks and I have no regrets about that. Let me tell you why.

Mia and I were on vacation for the first week and I've been getting settled back into life in the second. The vacation was great, we went up to Montreal on a train out of Albany. The train ride took about 2 hours longer than expected but that gave me plenty of time to read Harry Potter. In fact, I nearly finished it on the train.
I enjoyed this book, it made up for Book 6 by finally providing the context it needed to be a complete story. And, as I've said in the past, JK Rowling is a good storyteller. Her actual writing might not be the best in Western civilization but she knows how to captivate her reader with the story. I can rarely read that much of a book in one sitting but the Harry Potter books make the hours just disappear.

Once we got to the city, Mia and I began our relaxation. That was the point of the vacation so we didn't mind taking it slow. Our first day we went to the Biodome and Botanical Gardens. We knew that we would be walking around so we took our time through the exhibits. The same in the gardens.

One of the interesting parts of the garden was the Chinese area. We saw some lotus flowers but only saw one that was open enough to see how the seedpod fit inside the flower. After walking through the main gardens, we went to the smelling garden. This was an interesting part of the garden. There were guides to show you which flowers to touch, smell, and even some that you could taste. Most of the tasting plants were of the kind that you could rub the leaves to get some of the oils on your fingers.

The next day we decided to go down to Old Montreal. Since it was so close to our hotel we also walked there. This also meant we took plenty of breaks to make sure Mia didn't get too tired. The old city was fun to explore. We went down to the water and walked through the old city houses. Mia also wanted to look at the art galleries, of which there were plenty... with prices that include 1 too many zeros for us to purchase anything.

Fortunately, we did find a man selling his photography on the street and we were very impressed by it. He takes photographs right after snowstorms so that the ground disappears. (His development method also contributes to this effect.) And that leaves striking back and white photographs of the main subjects.

So we bought some.
In fact, we bought a picture of two lotus blossom stems after the petals had fallen off the flower and all that was left were the pods. There were two stems next to each other, just like Mia and I in Montreal :) I'm very happy with the picture. We've been very pleased with our decision to look for local art each place we go on vacation. They serve as wonderful reminders of our trip and give us something unique to show people.

The train ride home also took longer than posted (but this time not longer than expected). We arrived in time for the dinner after the wedding rehearsal. Ethan saw us and then kept playing with Bryson.
I had to go over and ask him to give me a hug. After that he was ready to hang around me. I was happy to see him again though, so I didn't mind.

The wedding the next day went well. Everything happened just like it was supposed to.... almost. The pillow that Ethan was supposed to carry with the rings wasn't found in time (but fortunately he wasn't going to carry the real rings) so he just walked holding my hand as I carried the ring-bearer teddy bear. Ethan got a bit wiggly during the ceremony but he made it and did well during the reception afterwards too.

By the time we finally got home, it had been 6 full days. We were all glad to be back in our own house. Ethan had been having a hard time when he got really tired at nights and kept asking us to go home the 2 days after Mia and I returned from Montreal.

This week has meant some housework in preparation for my parents coming next week.

iPod TV

We are getting ready to go on our vacation and I wanted to bring my iPod along with some videos that we could watch at our hotel rather than paying crazy amounts for the in-room service. But, rather than watching them on the laptop, I wanted to see if I could find an accessory to connect my iPod to a TV.

I assumed it was possible because I have a cable that connects it to my stereo, so all I needed was one that had the third plug for video. However, I was also assuming that it would go on the iPod connector slot at the bottom.

Since the only think I found on BestBuy was a $90 accessory, I turned to Google. And that's where I found a site that shows you how a hack to connect your iPod to a TV.

Granted, you'll need a video iPod to make this work. But for those of you that know that joy, prepare for it to be magnified... unless you already knew about this.
In which case I ask: Why didn't you tell me!

My cousin's cousin

Just added a link to your blog Karen.

For everyone else, it's more for my own navigation since the blog is still invite-only.

Remember me?

So, I'm going to write a post about me today. I figure since I own this blog, I can do that once in a while.

But, I'm not sure what to say. My life pretty much revolves around waking up, taking care of Ethan, going to work, coming home, taking care of Ethan, making dinner, putting Ethan to bed, cleaning the dishes, writing or gaming or reading, and then going to bed.

I miss my bike. Riding to work in the morning and home in the afternoon was nice because I had some time to myself. I had some time to get outside. I had some time with no other pressures on me. There was nothing else that I could be doing except riding. Unfortunately, I managed to rip some of the spokes out of my front tire. I got them replaced this weekend, but I need a friend to help me true the wheel. I'm anxious to get back into riding.

Well, that quickly turned into a whine. So, I'll give a glimpse into my rarely talked about work on Avlis 2. As you probably don't know, I'm the Lead Designer for the world. That means I have to make the creative decisions and try to get the systems we are going to build spec'd out. Oh, and I have to manage a team of Designers working with me. This has been a challenge, but in a good way. I've learned about how to deal with creative people (good for my field) and also learned how to re-think ideas from different angles. This position is really one of problem-solving, which is something that I feel I'm good at.

In addition to working on Avlis, I'm also still editing World Forge Magazine. I've been doing that for 1.5 years now. I can't believe we've made it so far. I'm looking forward to continuing with WFM as it gives me a chance to do some light writing. Not having the future of my company's reputation as a thought-leader in our technical industry is a huge weight off my shoulders when I'm in WFM writing mode.

Also, Mia and I are preparing for a trip to Montreal next week. I've never been to Canada. If anyone has advice for how to interact with the locals, I'd love to hear it. I'll try to refrain from just talking louder at them since I don't speak Canadian. ;)

Mr. Potter

We went. We saw. We drove home and Mia showed me a new way that is totally awesome.

Giving Dad a Raspberry. He's laughs more during these than we do. But, it's so much fun.

And, just to even the score, we got Mommy in on the action too.

Retraction Part 3

So, let this be a lesson to me. I shouldn't post things to my blog that may be controversial. I hope this will be the last retraction that I have to post.

Last night as I was getting Ethan ready for bed, I told him that we were going to take a bath. He pointed his finger at him and told me "No!"
I pointed my finger back at him and said that we were going to.

He pointed his finger, a little more emphatically, and said, "No. I'm going to fight you." I told him that I wasn't going to fight and went the table to clear some dishes. He ran over, said it again, and then hit me on the leg.

Neither Mia or I know where he picked that up. But it certainly isn't something a wimpy child would do.

Of course, I did have to pick him up at that point and tell him that we don't hit people. And then, we got ready for this bath.

Purple Car

We've been encouraging Ethan to potty train by using bribes. The specific bribes we are using are Cars cars. In other words, little toys that represent some of the figures in the movie Cars.

He got a generic race car for the first time he went on the potty. Since then, we've had a new car on the fridge, the purple car from the group that harasses Mac and makes Lightening McQueen fall out.

Here's Ethan talking about what he did to earn the second car... finally.

Retraction Part 2

The 4th of July is all about the fireworks. At least, that's how I was raised. And how I'm planning on raising my son.

That meant we had to keep Ethan up well past his bedtime but Mia convinced me that it was worth it. He had a blast during the time leading up to the fireworks. Then, when they started doing a few test shots, he would cling to Mia or me and say "I want to go home." Since we were there with some friends, we decided that we were going to stick it out.

So we let Ethan snuggle on our laps, he was getting tired. Once the fireworks started for real, Ethan snuggled into me and wanted me to cover his ears. He also kept asking to go home. I kept covering his ears but we told him that we were going to stay. After a while, I stopped blocking his ears and just kind of putting my hand loosely over top of them. Then, when my hands got tired, I put my sweatshirt over his ears for him to hold. He did that for a while, then started enjoying the fireworks and would point at them and say "Boom!"

By the end of the night, he was having a great time. So, my son has already started on the proud tradition of 4th of July fireworks.

Retraction

Well, it looks like I can point to my first case of me trying to use Ethan as a way to re-live my own childhood and make changes per my own recollections of the past.

In my last post I chided him for being a wimp. In retrospect, the park was very crowded that day and Ethan wasn't up from his name for too long when we went over. And, if you look a little closer, I always feel that some of my childhood was spent being a scrawny little kid who was afraid to do things.
Now, I know that there were plenty of things that I wasn't afraid to do (reckless things, my parents might say) but the memory is a funny thing. And the highlights often tend to be the memories that we don't want to think about.

I took Ethan to the spray park again this weekend. He was a little shy at first but this time started having fun after only a few minutes. There were almost no other kids (especially big kids that tend to run around without looking) and he started braving some of the things that seemed so scary the day before.

Maybe while he's still young it's better that I learn that he's a unique person with unique desires and fears. I can certainly do my part to provide him the opportunities to grow but I'm not going to be able to mold him into the idealized image of myself at his age. Or, at least, I can't do that without having him crack that mold wide-open at some point and rebel in ways that may be harmful to himself.

Looks like it's time for me to go back to learning how to be a parent. You'd think after 2.5 years I'd have it all figured out. Sheesh.