“It’s glistening with happiness…with a silver blanket!”
— Lucy talking

A Borders bookstore near us is closing up shop. I dropped by to look around and found some neat bookshelves. Both were made of metal (like Iron Maiden) and had wheels, so I was sold on the feature set. When I saw the pricing, it was a basically a no-brainer, so I ended up grabbing ‘em both.

After getting my shelf fix I ended up returning with Jill and the kid. Jill grabbed a few books and Lucy got a Sally Cat doll.

If we had more room I totally would have snagged some of the 8 foot tall wooden bookshelves. However, I resisted the urge by promising myself that once we get into a bigger place I’ll be able to build my own bookstore-like shelves.

Pics taken with iPod Touch.

Verdict: Pretty easy. They do a good job in providing a few simple tools that allow the user to construct anything from a simple product link to a full-blown ‘store’. And most of this can be done by just clicking a few radio buttons.

For now the store will just feature stuff we mention or use in the blog. Example: right now it mainly features the music that we’ve used in our home movies.

Making the store literally took less than five minutes. The time-consuming part is adding products (ya gotta stock those shelves, ya know!)

You can check out the store by clicking on the image below.

View our Store

BJ Penn Book Signing from Mike C on Vimeo.

The main sport I follow these days is MMA and BJ Penn is my favorite fighter, so I thought I’d go down to a book signing he was doing in San Jose Friday night.

I thought there’d be a couple of hundred people there and that I’d be in and out in an hour or so. Boy, was I wrong! The book store was packed. I asked an employee how many people had shown up and he estimated somewhere between 800 – 1000 people. Crazy.

I ended up sticking it out, got an autograph and a handshake. Luckily, everyone in line was friendly, so the few hours we spent together in line weren’t too bad. Penn looked pretty tired and had sunglasses due to a tough loss the previous week in Abu Dhabi.

Music used:

• “Hawaii ’78″ from Facing Future by Israel “IZ” Kamakawiwo’ole

Here are a couple of quick YouTube videos showing off some of his crazy flexibilty and athleticism:

Lucy playing (large version) from Jill C on Vimeo.

Shops and Parks from Mike C on Vimeo.

Since I’ve finally admitted to myself that I’m now too lazy to capture video, I’ve been shooting a lot of stuff w/ my little Flip Ultra. The Flip’s neat in that it’s so small I can pretty much always have it on me all the time. I shoot some video, plug it into Jill’s iMac, and drag the video files over. It’s pretty simple. However, it’s also problematic in that the footage it shoots is 4:3 standard quality video.

Luckily, I found a decent alternative via a gold box sale at Amazon. I got a Creative Vado HD. Though it has its share of problems, all in all I’m pretty happy with it. The main reason why I picked it over its competition: it has the widest angle lens I could find in this form factor, a big deal for me.

One thing: it’s funny how fast we get jaded with technology that is really quite amazing. In the Vado, I have an HD video camcorder that weighs just a few ounces, fits in my pocket, can shoot a couple of hours of footage, and costs a fraction of what I paid for a Hi-8 camcorder a few years ago. Yep, amazing.

Anyway, the above video shows us doing a little shopping, doing a little exploring at the park, with the kid; all with the new camcorder.

• “Everlasting Love” from Lost and Found by Daniel Johnston.

This Saturday morning begins at one of Lucy’s favorite places, the park.	Lucy strolls the park’s winding trails for a bit, then decides she wants to go on a swing…
…but this is easier said than done. There are so many swings to choose from! (Who’d a thunk?) This one looks too big…	This one’s too round (and strange)…
This one’s just right!	Lucy enjoys the swing. She sees it as welcome relaxation before a busy weekend.
Once off the swing, Lucy goes exploring, what’ll she do next?	Lucy the train conductor. “All aboard!” she says…
“…as long as you’re a cat or squirrel!”	Her train shift complete, Lucy clocks out before deciding on something aquatic.
She makes friends with a baby dolphin and the two quickly lap the park 3 and a half times! (they would have made it four, but the dolphin’s mom said they had to go.)	Lucy gives a reluctant good bye to her flippered friend, then sets out to explore the “big kid” playground…
“One of these days,” she says to herself…	“…this will all be mine!”
Finished w/ the park, Lucy runs an errand…	..and visits the local supermarket.
“Mommy would like these cakes, I bet!”	“She’d like this ice cream too!”
“Mommy’s just like me in that respect!”	After the supermarket, Lucy treats her chauffeur/ daddy to some pommes frites (after patiently explaining to him what they are) before heading home…
What a morning.

Flickr Picture Set.

Lucy has a love/hate relationship with balloons.

She is always noticing them, and loves to point at them in the supermarket. However, when offered an actual balloon, she is slightly hesistant. And if the balloon is actually a glove, she will get really scared. Almost as scared as she gets of vacuums (and even vacuum-like things, like the one on the Teletubbies.)

Her fave balloons by far are these on this Rube Goldberg website for Hema. She could watch this all day and night!

She got to eat all the bananas, and left her mom the ice cream. On the way home Gmommy sat in the back with her, reading and chatting, they had such a good time! Lucy fell sound asleep and Gmommy didn’t want to wake her, so Lucy will have to see the 3 bengals next time.

Oh, next time is today! Go Lucy! You get to visit Gmommy again!