Naked Time, Naked Time, Across the USA!
— Lucy singing her own lyrics to the melody of “Booty Time” from
The Adventures of Ford Fairlane

Here’s another post on some stuff I sold recently, most of it via Craigslist (except for the iMac, which went to family). Craigslist is my main way to get rid of stuff these days. The main things I like about it:

• It’s free (how can you beat that?)
• It’s easy to post items
• It’s easy to get rid of large items (the customer just picks it up.)
• No shipping hassles because your customers are local

Occasionally I’ll use eBay, but that’s usually as a last resort. eBay is just too darn expensive (they really nickel and dime you to death with miscellaneous fees over there!) Also, the one or two times where I needed their support they truly, dearly just sucked.

Anyway…

It’s nice to have some open space. It’s actually quite amazing how much room you get back once you let go of a few bulky items.

Hey, stop calling me Lucan! Call yourself Lucan!
— Lucy’s rebuttal upon being compared to a 70s TV character

Occasionally the kid lets her freak flag fly and expresses her general disagreement with the concept of clothing by running around in her underwear shouting, “I’m half-naked! Can’t catch me!”

Picture a 3′ 3″ blur of hair, undies, and attitude. She basically looks like a miniature caveman with a Pampers sponsorship running amuck. Invariably, I’ll start calling her Lucan, no doubt because the most accessible (and least cluttered) filing cabinet in my brain is labeled:

“Old TV Show/Comic Book/Movie/Music (60s-80s) Trivia—VERY IMPORTANT!”

Lucan was a short-lived TV show in the ’70s that my little sister and I watched semi-regularly. It told the story of a dude who spends his childhood out in the forest and is raised by a bunch of wolves. He eventually gets reclaimed by society as a dirty, snarling, crazy-haired wild-child (the Bundle connection). He then grows up as a guinea pig in some government-sponsored research lab until his inevitable escape. Action and stuff ensue (at least for the season it was on). I’m actually startled by how much of this I’m remembering.

  Lucan Attacks!

Anyway, like a lot of useless info, the tale of Lucan is permanently embedded in my brain, probably hunkered down in my hippocampus, shooing away frivolous thoughts regarding the placement of car keys, wallets, and PIN codes.

So this is why I call the kid Lucan. And the funny thing is: this kid, all of 42 months old, takes much umbrage with this label. “Stop calling me Lucan. YOU’RE LUCAN!” she’ll yell as she dashes away from the 30+ year TV show aspersion. I get a kick out of that.

Lucy: Tell me a pretend story about how Wubie doesn’t like Christmas lights and it’s Christmas.
Jill: Does Wubert get a present?
Lucy: Yes, a catnip mouse…but he doesn’t like it!
Jill: What would he rather have?
Lucy: A sardine sandwich!
Jill: OK. Wubert gets a sardine sandwich. Did he get a present for you?
Lucy: Yeah, a poop! Yech!
— A conversation overheard in the car

Academy of Sciences from Mike C on Vimeo.

I’ve been cranking out the videos lately in an attempt to get caught up with the mountain of footage Jill and I shoot on a continual basis. So with that said, here’s another gem from my “Getting Caught Up/Making Room on the Drobo” series.

Jill shot this video in April when she, the kid, and Auntie Laura visited the Academy of Sciences. It’s full of penguins, fish, stingrays, and seahorses, with a couple of squirrels thrown in for good measure.

It also features a little kid having a most fun and memorable day, courtesy of her mommy and auntie. Check it out and see if you can spot where Jill encounters the elephant butt.

“Nice hairdo, Daddy!”
— Lucy smiling (after I’d made an effort to look less unkempt). When I asked if she was making fun of me, she said without hesitation: “Yes!”

Last weekend we met some good friends at the San Jose Obon Festival.

Lucy’s been to a few Obons in her time (she’s 3 and a half, ya know) so she’s an old pro now. (She even has her own yukata.)

In addition to seeing the sites, playing games, having her parents chase her to and fro, and chowing down, Lucy participated in her first Bon Odori dance. She was very excited about it.

The San Jose Bon Odori was huge, with hundreds of people. Lucy had a blast attempting to duplicate the movements of all the dancers. I think she did an admirable job, though her concentration may have wavered a bit in parts.

Pics:

The kid will be busting her yukata out again this weekend for another festival. Actually, I think she also has a birthday party to attend, so her dance card will be full for the next couple of days. I’ll make sure to bring along my trusty camcorder.

Video:

SJ Obon Festival from Mike C on Vimeo.

“Let’s do it again, she said.”
— Lucy acting as her own narrator

Birthday Party from Mike C on Vimeo.

Last month we brought Lucy to a really fun birthday party. There were lots of kids, a bouncy house, balloons, toys, a piñata, and cupcakes. Needless to say, the whole experience got a hearty thumbs up from the kid. This is a video from the party.

“We’re going to make a pumpkin pie. It’s going to be very tasty. Why don’t you have some when you are done with work? It’s going to be very tasty!”
— Lucy, upon waking from a dream she had where she’d been baking

“Wubie drove me to the cupcake stand and picked out which cupcakes I wanted.”
— Lucy at the breakfast table that same morning

Wedding Video: Extras from Mike C on Vimeo.

Here’s more video from my niece’s June wedding. This one is mostly the kid just running around and acting goofy.

“The trains are not racing. They’re crumbling—and it’s very frustrating!”
— Lucy, when her toy trains were being uncooperative yesterday morning

When the Amazon Kindle E-Reader was first released in late 2007, I thought it looked interesting. However, at $400 it was never a serious consideration for me. Over the next few years, its price dropped substantilly, but at a price just north of $200 I still wasn’t sufficiently enticed enough to pry open my wallet.

Earlier this year, the Apple iPad was released. This was another gadget with promise, though again at a prohibitive pricepoint. However, the release of the iPad was great in that it coaxed products like the Kindle (and the Barnes & Noble Nook) to reduce their prices. So on June 21, the Kindle dropped to $189—less than half its 2007 price. And it was still too rich for my blood.

Well, last week Amazon bought Woot, an online retailer that has gained notoriety by basically selling one item each day. Woot’s a site I try to visit every day, usually at 10 PM PST, the time their one product for the day goes on sale. And wouldn’t you know it, the day Amazon buys Woot, Woot offers a Kindle 2 for $149.

Well, though it wasn’t a “no-brainer” purchase (I guess $99 would have met this criterion) this was enough to get me to spend about an hour researching the product. And after completing my research I pulled the trigger and finally bought a Kindle. It arrived this past Wednesday, and so far it has been pretty cool. A few pics, observations:

Product box seemed sturdy enough.

The Kindle itself looked compact, sleek and stylish. At a little over 10 ounces, it’s a very appealing package for what’s basically a mobile library.

Selling points for me:

• Holds over 1500 books
• Battery lasts up to two weeks (with wireless off).
• In addition to the Kindle format, supports unprotected epub, pdf, and html via conversion with free Calibre software (this was a big selling point for me)
• Adjustable text-size (my deteriorating eyesight very much appreciates this)
• Built-in dictionary

When I finally decided to get the Kindle, I tried to justify the purchase by thinking, “Now I have a convenient way to access all those free public domain classics I’ve either forgotten about or never read in the first place.”

And I followed through with that pledge by dutifully downloading a bunch of classics at places like Google Books and Project Gutenberg. Yep—and those classics are currently sitting on my Kindle, unread.

Oh, I’m using my Kindle alright. And I am more than pleased with it. However, though I had aspirations of reading more substantial fare, the books I’ve read thus far are truer gauges of my maturity level:

• Sh*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern (really funny stuff, especially the younger years)
• The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee by Sarah Silverman (more serious than I thought it’d be)

I suppose one of these days I’ll get to those neglected classics. Who knows, maybe the kid will end up reading them to me. But for now—at least I’m reading, right?

Here’s a pic taken in an actual photo booth (remember those?) we happened upon while goofing off at the mall a few weeks ago.

Jill and I couldn’t remember the last time we’d used such a booth, and of course it was an entirely new experience to the kid, so we decided to pile in for an impromptu family portrait.

As you can see from the pics, I’ve got a “deer in the headlights” look going on for the majority of the pics. Luckily, the kid saves the shoot by hamming it up a bit. (No doubt a skill she has honed during the multiple photo shoots she’s endured in her 42 month life.)

She got a real kick out of her first “photo session in a box”, especially when the actual strip was spat out by the machine.

The booth was a bit more high tech than I remembered, with options for “themes” and such. It also was a lot faster in actually delivering the photo strip; no waiting 5-10 minutes like in the old days.

Alas, this convenience came at a price. The picture quality was reminiscent of a mediocre inkjet printer, subpar compared to the glossy black and white strips I remember from my youth.

Year 4 (Part 1) from Mike C on Vimeo.

Here’s the latest episode of our “Life with Lucy” series, where I post a video collage of pics and video snippets from the last six months. (A picture collage can be found here.) Previous “Life with Lucy” installments:

1. Year One: 2007 Part 1 (Jan – Jun) | Part 2 (Jul – Dec)
2. Year Two: 2008 Part 1 (Jan – Jun) | Part 2 (Jul – Dec)
3. Year Three: 2009 Part 1 (Jan – Jun) | Part 2 (Jul – Dec)

All pics and short videos used in this collage were taken between January 1 and June 30, 2010. Noteworthy happenings from the last half year:

• January: Lucy’s third birthday
• February: Valentine’s Day, My big garage clean-up project
• March: Grass Valley visit in the snow
• April: Meeting BJ Penn, Easter
• May: Lucy’s first ballet, last Lost episode
• June: Father’s Day, Michelle’s wedding, a new nephew

Music used:

• “Maggie May” from Every Picture Tells a Story by Rod Stewart
• “Life’s Lonesome Road” from A-Town Blues by Wayne Hancock
• “Let’s Stay Together” from Let’s Stay Together by Al Green

We had an interesting fourth of July weekend, though not in the best of ways. Wubert had been under the weather lately, so we ended up taking him to the vet a couple of times over the weekend. Fortunately, the old guy is doing better now and is getting back to his normal vocal self.

We managed to catch a fireworks show in Milpitas. Though Lucy enjoyed it, I think she had more fun dancing on top of my car trunk during the show!

Actually, that’s another benefit about having a beater as a car; a 3.5 year old can form her own mosh pit on it and I don’t even care (though I did make sure she didn’t break the rear windshield—I don’t want my car to look too Sanford and Son-ish!) She also got a kick out of trying to name the colors she saw in each aerial explosion.

Once we got back home, Lucy immediately checked on Wubie to make sure he was OK. He was. It’s about 2 am right now and it sounds like the three of them (Jill, Lucy, and Wubie) are engaged in a snoring and wheezing contest in the next room. Everyone’s OK for now and tomorrow is a day off. These are the good times.