Mike, Jill, Lucy, & Wubie!

“They are having catfood soup, carrotcakes, ice cream tea, and cheesy muffins. And they’re having vanilla cookies because a girl is coming over, and a girl can’t eat catfood!”

“And now the animals have changed up the menu to a different style. Because now they are having marshmallows and vanilla ice cream and grape sandwiches. And honey cereal. They changed the menu now, Dad!”

— Lucy explaining her dolls’ and stuffed animals’ lunch menu

Macbook Pro from Mike C on Vimeo.

When August began, we didn’t have any plans to upgrade our two main computers. However, as the month closes, that’s exactly what’s happened.

Earlier this month, we purchased a new iMac to replace one we’d sold to my sister. Well, recently we learned that a nephew about to start college was in the market for an inexpensive Macbook. So, to make a long story short, he now has Jill’s old laptop and Jill has a pretty nifty early Christmas present: a Macbook Pro.

So, here’s the second Mac unboxing video of the month. Since it’s Jill’s computer, she and the kid nudged out Wubie a bit this time (though he does make an appearance at the end.) We should now be set computer-wise for a while (I think!)

Music Used:

• Neonland from Wermland by Detektivbyrån

“I have to go pee before I go to school because the other kids don’t want their lunchboxes wet.”
— Lucy’s bathroom break reasoning (she and her mom play “schooltime” in the morning)

Some weekend mornings I like bumming around before the girls get up. Today was just such a morning, a nice lazy Sunday (emphasis on the lazy) where I got to tool around with nothing especially pressing to do.

Though I actually needed to run one semi-important errand (get cat food!), my prime directive was mainly to just bum around. Here’s where I went:

• The Sports Basement – my favorite sporting goods store, great place to kill time
• Fry’s – went in looking for an xlr to 3.5mm adapter cable; they didn’t have it
• Lee’s Comics – more time killing; flipped through a few books
• Pet Club – a bag of litter and 24 cans of food for a certain spoiled siamese cat
• Costco – they’re next door to Pet Club
• Keeble & Shuchat Photography – hallelujah, they had the xlr to 3.5mm adapter cable
• Cho’s – lunch: potstickers
• Palo Alto Farmers’ Market – same street as K&S and Cho’s; grabbed some lard for cooking (nice change of pace from coconut oil); mental note: bring the girls here

Here are a few pics of the aforementioned stuff, along with a couple of pics of the “kids” (Lucy and Wubie) enjoying their own lazy Sunday.

“There’s something brown in the town.”
— Lucy spots Wubie in the kitchen

We got a new iMac a couple of weeks ago. It’s pretty spiffy. The deal I made with myself on the actual purchase was:

You want a new computer? Fine—but only if you can pay for it with money made from selling stuff you already have. And make sure to sell the old computer while you’re at it!

Though I’d sold a few things to help pay for it, I hadn’t sold enough to cover the entire purchase—until this morning. Now, it’s been covered (and then some).

I had a pricey gadget that had been sitting in my closet for a while. I decided to post it on a few sites to gauge interest. One of the places I tried was Facebook Marketplace. Talk about a waste of time! Within a few hours of posting the item on Facebook, I received four messages. “Wow, that’s cool!” I thought as I opened the messages. All four messages were from different users with variations on the same scam:

“My (friend/cousin/sibling/etc.) would be very interested in this item. However, they are in (Nigeria/Africa). Can I pay you now? Would you take the following (goofy circuitous route) of payment?”

“Wow, that’s completely lame!” I thought as I deleted the messages.

Luckily, Craigslist came through for me. The prospective buyer and I exchanged emails during the week. Once I determined he was on the up and up, I arranged to meet him in an open public space (a mall). Rules I have on selling stuff:

• never let a prospective buyer inside your house
• cash only

If it’s an inexpensive/bulky item, I might meet them outside my garage. However, for higher priced items, I always meet them in a public space.

You never know who’s going to show up, so you’ve got to use your head and play it safe.  Anyway, the transaction went off without a hitch. Once it was completed, I had a bunch of cash and felt like a rapper for a second. However, I quickly reminded myself that this was money already spent.

Yep, the pragmatic polka singer in me usually wins out.

“Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rice“
— Lucy’s version of Sing a Song of Sixpence

Lucy wrote a shopping list and brought it to my store. This is what it said:

Bouncy Mushroom (see fig. 1)

ABC for Wubie (2)

‘Pinano’ music for Wubie to practice  (3)

Xylophone (4)

Stickers for me

Cat Toy for Wubie

Circus Cat

Merry-Go-Round

“Welcome to bundle’s
The place to be
when the cats are barfing

Welcome to bundle’s
Washing away the barf
Cleaning up the barf

Welcome to bundle’s
When the cat barfs up!

Welcome to bundle’s
Where mommy gets it on her hands!”
— Lucy improvising a song while her Mom cleans up after a sick Wubert

Kinda New Computer from Mike C on Vimeo.

We got a new (actually a refurb) computer last week, a 27″ i7 iMac, to replace the system I sold to my sister. I ordered it last Thursday afternoon and it actually arrived the very next day, so Wubie and I were psyched to bust it open and fire it up.

This was probably the 4th or 5th computer Wubie and I have opened together. We started with a G3 Blue and White back in 1999 when Wubie was a youngster. Wubie’s a teenager now, about 70 in human years, so he’s a little creakier now than he was back then (but then again, so am I.)

I’m hoping he’ll stick around for a few more system changes. It wouldn’t be the same (or nearly as fun) without him.

Here’s a photo collage of Wubie and some of the computers he’s “inspected” over the last 10+ years:

A few Lucy quotes from July:

“I can dance beautifully—and that’s why I’m a cool ballerina.”
– Lucy, describing her dancing style.

“Some of the ballerinas are nighttime ballerinas and some of the ballerinas are cat-toy ballerinas and some of the ballerinas are friendly ballerinas. I’m a princess ballerina.”
– Lucy, explaining the various types of ballerinas.

“What are you doing here, Wubie? Screwdrivers are not for cats!”
– Lucy, instructing Wubie to stay away as she tries fixing the fridge handle.

Can ya believe it’s August already? Sheesh. Since July’s in the books, here’s an end-of-the-month post/collage about it. Some notable happenings from July, 2010:

• Lucy participated in her first Bon Odori. Pictures | Video
• We got to see some Fourth of July fireworks
• Lucy attended a family get-together/birthday party for her Gma Vita (post to come)
• We said goodbye to our trusty old iMac and got…another iMac (post to come)
• Lucy’s been making the most of her summer
• Movies seen: The Runaways, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Män som hatar kvinnor), both of which I liked, and Whip It (Disappointing!)
• Mike’s books: Sh*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern, The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee by Sarah Silverman, and Naked by David Sedaris.
• Jill’s books: The First Man in Rome and The Grass Crownby by Colleen McCullough

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

With June now over, I thought I’d make a post about it. In addition to the obligatory end of the month collage (above), here are a few notes from the month of June, 2010.

A few Lucy quotes from June:

“That’s Wubie, flowers, bunnies—and me, your little child.”
– when referring to my Father’s Day card.

“The bug on the windshield is crying”
– an observation while riding in the car

“Let’s walk over here Daddy, away from that obnoxious noise!”
– when coming across some city workers breaking up the sidewalk

“Let’s watch something bundley!”
– when requesting some TV time

Speaking of TV, we downgraded our Comcast cable subscription. Jill and I had actually discussed completely dumping cable a few months ago. At the time I said “Let’s wait until ‘Lost’ is finished. Well, Lost ended in May, so I finally got around to calling up Comcast last week.

When I told them we wanted to dump our cable (along with our landline phone), I was told that internet access by itself would cost about $60 a month. However, internet access plus a basic cable package would be about $52 per month. So, I took the $52 deal. So far we haven’t missed it. I’ll probably write up a more detailed post about this sometime in the near future.

Other notable happenings from the past month:

• Lucy attending her first wedding
• Lucy’s flying a kite for the first time
• Lucy no longer being the youngest kid at Christmas get-togethers
• Lucy’s first time in a bouncy house
• Mike hurt his ankle
• A new gadget
• Some quality time with Jill’s family
• Mike (finally) saw: Inglourious Basterds and The Hangover

On Father’s Day, Lucy and her mom presented me with a card they’d worked on together. Inside the card were drawings of some miscellaneous things, including Wubie and Lucy herself. Lucy dutifully pointed each one out, providing a name with each point of her little index finger.

“That’s Wubie, flowers, bunnies—and me, your little child.”

It was very sweet.

Late last week I twisted my ankle. It worsened to the point where during the weekend I was reduced to crawling from room to room. Of course, every time the kid saw me crawling by she immediately interpreted it as an open invitation to hop on my back. Once I eluded the “mad hopper”, it seemed I’d always come face to face with Wubie, who’d give me the kind of look a wounded antelope probably sees when it crosses the path of a hungry lion.

Eventually, the ankle improved enough where I was able to limp to the car and pick up some $10 crutches from a guy off Craigslist. I had him meet me in his driveway so I wouldn’t have to get out of the car. The crutches looked OK (I guess if they were hacked off tree branches I would’ve said ‘No Thanks!’) so I had the dude toss them in my backseat.

I got home and figured out (picture dim bulb with a dull barely perceptible flicker) the things were made for someone from 5′10″ to 6′6″! Man! I never even considered that crutches came in different sizes (yep, I can be dumb that way) so it seems I got stuck with Manute Bol’s (RIP) old hand me downs.

The goofy thing about all this: I picked up a pair of Vibram Five Finger shoes literally a day or two before messing up my ankle. I got ‘em partly because some say they can help strengthen feet and ankles and partly ‘cuz I think they look way cool! Added benefit: they freaked Wubie out when he first saw them.)

I guess it figures that before I could even break ‘em in I turn my ankle in regular high-tops. Oh well, I’ll eventually be able to wear the new shoes once my right foot tires of the swollen look.

By the way, now that the kid is talking so much, I get to listen in on such thought-provoking conversations as the following, overheard when we walked by some roses that had been fertilized by the gardener:

Mom: It smells like poop
Kid: Maybe Wubie pooped.
Mom: Did you poop?
Kid: Did you poop?

Yep, these are the good times.

Every once in a while we’ll rediscover Apple Photo Booth and take some goofy pics and videos. It’s actually a pretty cool app, especially since it’s part of OS X. For those that don’t know, Photo Booth uses the built-in camera of your Mac.

It’s by far the easiest way for us to take “family” pics (Jill, the kid, Wubie, and I) because we can all just pile in front of the iMac, line up the shot, and snap the pics (the 3-2-1 countdown Photo Booth does before it actually takes the pic helps a lot!)

I was pleasantly surprised when I found some forgotten Photo Booth videos and pics we’d taken with the kid when she was still shiny and new. Some of those older pics are in this post’s collage, mixed in with some new (i.e., hippie hair) pics we took today.

Thanks, Photo Booth. We hope to use ya again before the kid gets her driver’s license.