You Make Me Feel So Young

I made a short (90 sec) video of Rian and I playing catch with a football in the front yard. Hope you enjoy.

What Can I Say?

I have noticed recently that some of the common expressions that people say are really dumb and don't make any sense. Here are a few I've noticed lately:

• As of late
  I was watching a Blazers game on the Internet the other day (more on that in a future post) and the announcer said something is a certain way "as of late." I've heard this expression many, many times. I've even used it before without thinking twice. A quick Google search returns over a million hits.
  
  But when I stopped to think about it, I realized it doesn't make any sense. As of when? Late. Late? Double you tee eff? Isn't there a better way to say that? How about recently or lately? Somehow it has become acceptable to use this expression that makes no sense at all. How about saying as of early? Oh yeah, I'm really tired as of early. You know, earlier this morning. It's the same thing, and neither of them make any sense. So let's all agree to stop saying "as of late" and use one of the many other alternatives we have available. There are about a thousand different ways to say any particular thing in this language, so let's find another one.
• The Other Day
  I use this expression all the time. In fact, I've already used it in this post. But I don't like it because it doesn't make any sense. It implies there is only one other day in question in the current context, which is almost never the case. Starting today, I'm going to try to refrain myself from using this expression.
• A Whole Nother
  I occasionally catch myself saying something like, "That's a whole nother thing!" When I catch myself I feel ashamed because it sounds so stupid. A "nother"? You mean, "another," which undoubtedly comes from "an other." I think "a whole other" or simply "an entirely different" are better choices.

There are more, to be sure, but I won't bore you with any more of this stuff. I know that languages evolve and there are all sorts of social and cultural factors at work, but I think every now and then it is worthwhile to pause and think about the words we use and ask ourselves if what we are saying makes sense. And if it doesn't, then why are we saying it?

Streaming NFL Games

In my last post, I talked about how frustrating it can be when your favorite team is playing a big game, but you can't watch it on TV for any of a variety of reasons. Today I'm going to talk about a solution to this problem, which has allowed me to watch almost all of the Cowboys games this year, even when the game isn't carried in my area, or is broadcast on a channel which we do not receive.

The solution I have found is a piece of software called SopCast. It is a peer-to-peer program for broadcasting normal television broadcasting over the Internet. It works by downloading the SopCast client, logging in, and joining a channel. The channels are similar to regular TV channels, but not as convenient. For example, in my experience it takes about a minute for a channel to start showing video.

The video quality is quite poor. A few weeks ago I was watching a Cowboys game using SopCast when a play was challenged. They showed the replay over and over, but because the video quality was so poor, it was almost impossible to determine the correct outcome of the play (which I am usually an expert at, along with every single other person that has ever seen a play challenged).

Although it's not perfect, SopCast is a much better alternative to following a game than that stupid live GameCast thing that ESPN has. The video does sputter sometimes, and it occasionally freezes, but the audio is pretty resilient, so even if you can't see what's going on, the announcers usually do a pretty good job of filling in the details.

This Sunday the Cowboys play the Minnesota Vikings. Although the game will be carried in other markets, our local affiliate has decided to show the Rams vs. Seahawks game instead. I'm starting to get sleepy just thinking about that matchup, although we'll probably watch at least parts of it because Lacey likes the Rams, and we both love to root against Seattle. My prediction: Rams win their first game of the year in an upset.

So if you find yourself wishing you could watch a game that isn't broadcast on any of your channels, check out SopCast. Once you have it installed, you just need to find the right channel that is broadcasting your game. Lucky for us, there are people out there that have setup a website for finding out which channels you need to watch to see your game. Sometimes they even have regular video streams, so if you're paranoid about p2p software, you just might get lucky and find a direct video stream, although when I tried one to watch the Cowboys vs. Bills game a couple weeks ago, the video would freeze after a couple minutes and would have to be restarted. I eventually switched to the sop feed and had a much better experience.

Wiggle Worm

This baby is moving daily and using every inch of space he's got (or so it feels)! I have been able to feel him moving around from the outside for a few weeks. I also saw my stomach move a little which was pretty cool. It's hard to believe that this little guy is only half-way done growing because of how tight and big my stomach is now! It's so exciting to be able to feel him kicking and moving.

Last Saturday was Rian's last soccer game of the season and it was a little bittersweet. I'm glad to be done being assistant coach even though it's been a fun experience. Rian has really enjoyed playing soccer and I have loved watching him play. I actually watched him on the playground yesterday at school dribbling the ball around all by himself for their entire recess. He's so cute.

What a Game!

Everything went wrong for the Cowboys last night. Romo looked awful, throwing 5 interceptions and losing a fumble. What was supposed to be an easy blowout win for Dallas quickly turned into a nightmare.

But as you probably know, they came back and scored 9 points in the final 20 seconds to win on a field goal as time expired. They improved to 5-0 and are set to play the 5-0 Patriots next Sunday in Dallas.

Looking forward to the game, many people predicted a blowout. I was listening to some pre-game blab on the radio and they were predicting scores like 37-3, or 34-10. But when Buffalo picked off Romo's first pass of the game and returned it for a touchdown, it was obvious this game was not going to be how anyone expected. The announcers on ESPN called it the best game of the season. After the game, some journalists would dub it an instant classic.

I don't know about all of that, but it was a great game -- a game I almost wasn't able to watch because it was broadcast on ESPN, which of course we don't receive on our Over The Air antenna. It was a situation I've found myself in many times over the years: a big, important sporting event which I am unable to watch because it's either broadcast on a channel I don't receive, or our local affiliate chooses to broadcast a different game or program instead of the one I want to see.

This happened a couple of weeks ago when Dallas played Miami. It was a Sunday morning, and the 10 AM game was supposed to be Cowboys vs. Dolphins. I wasn't going to church this day, so I turned on the TV around 9 AM to see all the Fox guys doing their pre-game routine. It ended at 10 AM, but instead of switching over to the Cowboys game, our local Fox affiliate switches to... That 70's Show. That's right. After spending an hour previewing all of the NFL games that day, our Fox affiliate, in all of its infinite wisdom, decides nobody wants to watch the actual football game this Sunday morning. The pre-game show plenty.

Two weeks later it was Cowboys vs. Rams. Lacey likes the Rams; I like the Cowboys. Our local Fox affiliate? They like Seafa^H^Hhawks vs. Cardinals.

So what's a guy to do? Your favorite team is being broadcast on national TV, but your local affiliate isn't interested in carrying the game. Or, it'll cost $50/month just to get a sports channel so you can watch them once a week. In my next post, I'll tell you the solution I've found to this problem that has allowed me to watch every game this year without spending a nickel.

Baby Pictures!

I am happy to present the first pictures ever taken of Number Two (NT). Although we now know the sex of the baby, I am going to try to avoid pronouns by referring to NT by name for now and let the photos speak for themselves.

We did not know going in that we would get the 3-D treatment, but apparently it is standard procedure now - where we were anyway. Number One was born back in 2003 when this kind of thing was just starting to go mainstream. The ultrasound equipment was modern enough that not only did it take regular and 3-D sonograms, it also supported annotations and CD burning. You may notice some arrows and text in some of the images that the nurse added. When she was done taking the pictures, she selected a bunch of the interesting ones, clicked a couple of buttons, and the CD started burning. It was pretty cool.

I think I can be pretty objective, so I'll give my opinion on some of these. We start off with the classic profile view. You can see NT's mouth, nose, eyes, forehead - even a fist. There's a little hint of an ear. We can see the chest. Everything looks perfect. Nice looking head. Heads are important.

Here's our first 3-D look at NT. It looks like he is shielding his face from a very bright light, but I am told that it is very dark in his world right now. He doesn't look very happy, but it gives us a good look at his left arm and hand, including all 7 fingers. Wait, sorry, no, there are only 5 there (the left thumb makes an appearance in another image). Whew!

Here we get a pretty good look at his face. You can already tell that he's going to be cute. Little button nose, scrunched eyes, little mouth. This baby is perfect. Try to ignore that big Chunk-o-Mama on the left.

As if I haven't given it away already, here's the evidence. After the ultrasound we met with the doctor and he laughed heartily over this picture. "It's definitely a boy!" he chuckled.

On a side note, I had a lot of trouble understanding the perspective in this one. Lacey got it right away, but if you're like me, here's a hint: the thing to the left of the arrow is the top of his knee. The large round thing... no the other large round thing... the one on the far right. That is his belly. He's basically sitting on his bottom, and of course, he's going commando.

I hope you enjoyed these. We are very excited about raising another man. We're up to the challenge and if NT is anything like Rian, it's going to be a blast. I'm looking forward to meeting this guy face-to-face in February and taking a lot more pictures!

20 weeks

I can't believe that we're at the half-way point in this pregnancy. The best part about that is finally being able to see our baby tomorrow morning at our ultrasound appointment! I'm so excited and can hardly wait!
I feel the baby move so much now. What started as a few fluttery feelings now seems like he (or she) is doing flips and kicking. Feeling him (or her) move is amazing and reminds me that there is a little person in there! :-) Wow, I can't wait to actually see this baby on the ultrasound screen!!
We're taking Rian with us to the appointment and I think half the fun will be seeing the look on his face. He has been telling people that "mommy's tummy is getting big, big, big". He talks to the baby almost daily now and today he sang songs for the baby. Too cute!

Soccer Week 5 - Rams vs. Geckos

The Rams faced off against Geckos on Saturday. Rian scored another goal in very similar fashion to his goal last week. Once again it happened suddenly, early in the game, and in his own goal. Also like last week, it was followed by Rian jumping up and down shouting, "I scored a goal! I scored a goal!!"

The soccer Rams, unlike their football counterpart, are still essentially undefeated. I've mentioned before that nobody keeps score at these games, but if we did, the Rams would be headed for the playoffs... again, if there were playoffs.

Cowboys

The Dallas Cowboys beat the New York Giants 45-39 on Sunday night. It was a good game and fun to watch. The linked article on espn.com notes the unusually high score:

This game produced the most points in the 90-game history of this series. Dallas also scored its most points in an opener since putting up 49 in 1971 -- the year the Cowboys won their first Super Bowl...

Go Cowboys! Last year they were a gimme field goal away from advancing to the NFC Championship before Romo's blunder. The Cowboys should be pretty good this season with Romo as the starter, since he won't be in a position to fumble the football and prevent the place kicker from even getting it up, even if their QB Coach is now having a similar problem.

In honor of the Cowboys starting their season, this weekend I took some pictures of Rian wearing a cowboy hat we recently got from Lacey's parents. He loves wearing this hat. We were watching the Cowboys game and he decided that he needed to wear his cowboy hat. So I had to go help him find it, which as it turned out was just inside his room in plain sight. I thought it was cute that he had already looked in his room for it before he asked me for help, but didn't see it even though it was kind of hard to miss... :)

Soccer Week 4 - Rams vs. Koalas

After a week off for Labor Day, the Rams were back in action on Saturday facing the fearsome Koalas. The game started off quickly, with the Koalas scoring a goal in the opening minutes. On the ensuing kickoff, the ball bounced to Rian who looked up and saw an open goal. Rian did not hesitate. His leg swung back, his eyes focused squarely on the ball at his feet. As four Koalas narrowed in around him, Rian swung his leg forward, his foot striking the ball with more force than he knew was possible.

The ball flew forward. Rian watched with anticipation as the ball flew through the air. Time seemed to stand still. The Koalas were all around him now, but it didn't matter. The ball was already on its way. It bounced a few feet in front of him and rolled through the green grass, each blade of grass bending toward the earth under the force of the ball.

The colors on the ball flashed vividly in the bright sun as it tumbled toward the goal. The ball landed in the back of the net, and Rian jumped with excitement.

GOAAAAAAAAAAL!!!

He had done it. Rian had just scored his first goal. He was beaming. He looked around the field at his teammates as if questioning if they understood the monumental impact of what had just transpired. He began shouting, "I scored a goal! I scored a goal!!" His face said it all. Sheer excitement. Unbridled enthusiasm. He had done it.

Coach John congratulated Rian as he kneeled in front of him. He began to explain that the Rams' goal was actually on the other side of the field (see picture). But it didn't matter. Nothing could take away from this moment. Rian had just scored his first goal ever, and wouldn't be bothered by this minor detail. It made his day.

Lunar Eclipse

Early Tuesday morning the Earth passed between the Sun and the Moon causing a lunar eclipse. While not particularly rare, lunar eclipses can be very interesting to observe as the moon turns an eerie brownish-orange. Tuesday was no exception.

The event didn't start until a very inconvenient 1:51 AM PDT. That in itself wouldn't have been so bad if it happened quickly, but of course the Earth isn't known for its quickness. It takes Earth's shadow about an hour to cover the Moon, spends another 90 minutes completely covering the moon in an event known as totality, then finally meanders its way back across the moon in the other direction for the next hour. So watching the whole thing is a pretty serious commitment. On this particular Tuesday morning that would have meant you wouldn't be able to go back to bed until 5:24 AM PDT.

I'm not that hard-core. I'm used to staying up late, so staying up until 1:51 wasn't a problem. Around that time I went outside with my tripod and camera and set out to photograph the eclipse. Earlier that night we went out and picked up a remote switch for my camera. This allows me to control the shutter on my camera without physically touching the camera, which turns out to be really important when you're taking pictures at night, because just the slightest movement will blur everything in your photo. I also looked through my camera's manual and figured out how to lock the mirror up, because apparently even the movement of the mirror in an SLR camera can shake the camera enough to ruin some low-light photos.

So I felt fairly prepared and I took a bunch of pictures of the moon and finally gave up around 4 AM after nearly 2 hours just as totality was ending. I figured I had already seen the first half and the second half would probably be pretty similar. Plus I was really tired and had to work in a few hours.

I ended up with a bunch of photos and I think some even turned out alright. I took a few from the various stages of the eclipse and put together in this montage. You can clearly see the Earth's shadow creeping across the moon from left to right until it completely covers the moon. At that point, the only light reaching the moon to illuminate it is passing through the Earth's atmosphere, which filters out some of the colors, leaving us with this interesting color of the moon.

Macro Me

As I mentioned before, I recently bought a new lens for my camera. One of the reasons I wanted a new lens was because I was getting bored with my camera and its normal lens that came with it (which, if you believe people that spend all their time posting on digital photography forums, isn't the best quality). So this new lens seems pretty nice and was reviewed pretty well for its price. So far I've been very happy with it. It has motivated me in a way because now when I look through my camera, I see a completely different world than I was used to with the old lens.

So I got all excited and I started reading a bunch of stuff on photography websites. One of the things you'll find if you spend a little time reading photography forums is there are some insanely talented photographers out there with unspeakably expensive equipment producing awe-inspiring photos. I don't know whether I am more inspired or discouraged by their work. I guess I'm usually inspired at first, but then when I sit down and look at my photos I get discouraged.

So anyway, as I was reading about all these other photographers, their equipment, and looking at their incredible photos and I started noticing and paying more attention to their macro shots. I've always thought macro photography was interesting, but I've never known anything about it. So I started reading and evaluating my options on what it would take (and cost) to experiment with macro photography. As it turns out, there is a relatively inexpensive lens attachment that can turn my 70-300mm telephoto lens (that I just bought and use for Rian's soccer games) into a lens suitable for macro photography. It's called the 500D and it just screws into the front of a lens like a filter.

Last weekend I placed a big order at adorama for the 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM, the 500D, a 4 gb CF card and a UV filter protector for my lens. The total was a lot, but was actually less than what I payed at Best Buy for just the lens -- including 3-day air shipping. The lesson here is don't buy expensive stuff at your local Best Buy or Circuit City or whatever. Find a good deal online at a reputable website and buy it there. I actually planned to do this all along, but I initially bought the lens at our local Best Buy to make sure that I liked it because it's a lot harder to return things that you buy online. I returned it last week a couple days before my order arrived.

On Friday my shipment arrived and I started taking a ton of really bad macro photos. Since then, I've been taking a bunch of horrible, out-of-focus, blurry photos of really small things: a dead beetle (not to be confused with a dead Beatle), a bunch of activity at the entrance to an anthill, Rian's toys, Lacey's eyes, and anything else I can find. It's actually a lot of fun if you can handle the disappointment of every single photo looking like crap. The fun part is getting up next to something and seeing it in a way that perhaps you've never seen it before.

Fortunately out of a few hundred I actually found two that I'm not embarrassed to share. The first is of a very small dragonfly eating something (it looked like he was eating, but I know nothing about dragonflies so he could have been doing something else) on one of our huge, larger-than-life, fire hazard tumbleweeds that are growing impossibly quickly in our backyard. The second is just a leaf that was growing on a tree in our backyard. It's not actually very interesting, but the remarkable thing is that it isn't horribly out of focus or blurry, so that's why I'm posting it.

This experiment with macro photography has gotten off to a disappointing start, but I think I'm learning and I'd like to think I am, or soon will begin to, very slowly start getting better. So look for more macro shots in the future. Hopefully next time I'll have something interesting to show you.

As always, comments are enabled and I'd love to hear what you have to say.

Soccer Week 3 - Rams vs. Hamsters

Today the Rams won their third game! I'm so proud of them. It's really fun watching these kids play. Before the start of each game the parents all line up in two rows while the teams are announced over a loudspeaker. When the kids hear their names being called out they run through the "tunnel" getting high-fives from all the cheering parents. This is one of Rian's favorite parts about playing soccer. It's pretty cute.

Another one of Rian's favorite parts about playing soccer is the throw-in. He's getting pretty good!

Rian always looks like he's having fun on the field.

Team huddle at halftime!

Rian and Abby sharing a knock-knock joke during a water break.

It's a.... baby turtle!

Yes, it's true. According to Rian there is a baby turtle in mommy's tummy. He informed me while placing stickers on my stomach "for the baby". He then told daddy and even spread the good news to the cashier at Winco. I love Rian's ideas.
We had our 16 week check today. I can't believe how quickly the weeks fly by. We were able to hear the baby's heartbeat again which, according to the nurse, is "perfect". She spent a few seconds trying to get the heartbeat, had it for a split second and then lost it (of course in that split second I started to panic). The nurse moved the Doppler instrument around and found it again, this time the beating was louder and consistent. Rian sat straight up in the chair, his eyes lit up and he exclaimed, "Baby's heartbeat!" This is all so amazing what makes it even more fun is that Rian thinks so too.
We also have an ultrasound scheduled for next month!!! Eek, I can hardly wait!

Soccer Week 2 - Rams vs. Kangaroos

Rian's soccer team, The Rams, played their 2nd game on Saturday vs. the Kangaroos. Everyone had fun and fortunately this time there weren't any tears.

Nobody really keeps score at these games, but we have a couple of kids on the team that score a lot, so I think if anyone did keep track, the Rams would be 2-0. This soccer league doesn't encourage keeping score and does a pretty good job of ensuring equal playing time for all the kids. So it's all friendly like that.

At one point in the game one of our best players scored a goal after having made quite a few earlier in the game. There was a feeling of disappointment in the air like this kid was slowing the game down for some selfish reason. You could see it on the faces of the coaches and parents. It was kind of funny because this kid was trying as hard as he could, and then when he scored everyone kind of sighed and there wasn't much celebration.

Anway, on to the pictures. I had trouble narrowing the field down, so there are quite a few this time...

Rian jumps and calls for the ball as a teammate looks to inbound.

Lacey was working the sidelines.

Looks like someone is about to get hurt.

Oh, thanks for blinking and ruining the picture, buddy! Be warned, Rian does not take botched photos lightly.

Moments later, whatdya know. Rian gives him a REAL reason to blink.

Corner Kick!

Rian Loves the Piano

We got a piano a little over a year ago, but until recently Rian didn't seem very interested in it. At some point in the last month or two, he saw me playing and wanted to come sit next to me on the bench. In the past he had been content to just hit random keys and make some noise, but recently he started noticing that I wasn't just hitting random keys and there was a pattern to what I was doing.

His interest grew, and he began watching my fingers more closely. He expressed interest in learning some actual tunes, so I showed him how to play what I believe was the first song that I learned on the piano. If I recall correctly, my mom showed me how to play this song at a school or church we were cleaning that happened to have a piano in one of the rooms.

I don't even know the name of the song. In fact, I don't even know if it's a real song. But I know how to play it, and so I showed Rian how he could use his knuckles to play the 3 black keys from top to bottom, then Eb twice, repeat, then the 3 black keys from bottom to top, then C#, repeat, etc. It took a little while to get the pattern right in his head and to train those little hands how to hit the keys so they go in the right order, but after a few tries he had it. Instantly, he was hooked.

Since then, he has mastered that first song I showed him and has requested that I teach him how to play the ABC's, Fur Elise, and of course, a Car's song (he's still waiting for me to teach him one of those). Sometimes when he is thinking about it, usually right after we get done playing, he'll sing that first tune he learned and play it on an imaginary piano in front of him. He gets pretty serious when he plays, and if I spend too much time showing him how to play, he'll insist, "ok, Rian's turn." This usually means I need to back off and just let him play (I'm usually barking at him like a drill sergeant - I think it's the best way to teach).

I took some video of him playing a couple weeks ago, but I don't think my computer is capable of editing the video right now, so that's going to have to wait until I get a new computer. This one has lasted me quite a while. I initially bought the parts about 4 years ago, so I think I'm about due for a new one. :)

Rian's First Soccer Game

Rian played his first organized soccer game on Saturday. I think he had a lot of fun. We had one awkward moment when he was getting a little frustrated out on the field and then noticed me on the sidelines and decided he'd had enough. He came running to me with tears in his eyes and I had to push him back out onto the field. Coach John pulled him out and talked to him on the sidelines, and after that everything went smoothly.

All of these pictures were taken using my new 70-300mm telephoto lens that I bought myself for my birthday. I've never really tried to photograph a sporting event before, but it was a little harder than I expected. I missed some really great moments by being just a second too slow, and some shots were ruined by accidentally focusing on the wrong subject. Soccer at this age has some unique challenges due to the fact that the kids tend to bunch together, making it quite difficult to get a good isolated shot. Anyway, it turns out the kids are pretty cute.

Rian looks for a teammate to inbound to as Abby takes cover.

Rian strolls across the field.

Rian surveys the field with Coach Mommy.


Rian, Noah, and Clay size up the competition


Rian perfecting his kick.

Week 14 Photos

I took some pictures of Lacey and Rian this weekend with my new camera lens. I intend to take more photos every couple weeks so we can look back and see her belly grow as we close in on the due date.

I took a set of photos in front of our living room curtains, but I really wasn't happy with them. We don't really have any studio-like places in our house where I can put up a background (even if I had one) and control the lighting, so it was hard to find a place where Lacey and Rian could stand without having a messy house behind them. I ended up throwing a bed sheet up over a couple doors in our bedroom, and it seemed to work out alright.

These photos are low-quality web versions of the originals. If you'd like to have one printed so you can hold it in your hand or put it on the fridge, let me know and I can either print it out myself or send you a print-quality version so you can get it printed.