Days Of Night

Introducing... Sparks!

Kitty in the House!

In an unexpected turn this weekend we have adopted a stray kitten. Left by its mother with another kitten near the country house looking hungry and cute we fell in love right away. The other kitten (Toby) went home with the Fishberg family and we expect to have many family reunions!

As you can imagine, Matthew is more than excited...

Undefined Result

I'll be posting here unless it's personal.

Fun With Water

Power washing... what a joy. Seven hours over the weekend doing the deck and both side of the wall.

Although my back was killing me and my hands were numb I have to say there is some sort of satisfaction going board by board removing five years of dirt. I entered into a zen-like state, one with the power washer. Not! Mostly it just sucked.

Also in case your wondering I bought this power washer. It worked great, highly recommended.

The Results Are In!

Survey Says:

14,090 Songs
658 Artists
1318 Albums
53.41 GB

Looks like the 60 GB iPod is in my future, I mean I need a backup, right?

Also, 54 CD's not imported and now that I see that number I think I might have to look at them again and see why. I'm guessing mostly because they sucked... Yard Sale fodder.

The Gates

Matthew and I went into Central Park yesterday for the opening day of The Gates. What a great day! Tons of people, so many it almost felt crowded which is strange for Central Park.

There were also lots of people working the show, fixing the panels if the wind flipped them over, giving people directions etc. But.. if you found a special helper (and we only found one) you could ask for a piece of the fabric, a little 2" x 2" square. Very cool, Matthew kissed it.

Too bad it's only around until February 27th, it's really worth seeing if you can make it.

I posted some photos here.

The Gates web site is here. The FAQ's are an interesting read.

Six Weeks Later

In case you were wondering, the Great CD RIP of 2005 is still going on. Here are the totals so far:

371 Artists

699 Albums

7231 songs

27.98 GB

I just finished importing New Order and based on its placement on the wall I'm guessing I'm a little over half way. CD drive is ejecting...

The Great CD RIP of 2005 Has Begun!

I know it seems as if I would have done this years ago but... I had only ripped what I wanted to listen to, not everything. Well the time has come! I'm ripping everything, well almost... there are few that don't deserve to live on.

The photo shows the bulk of the collection, around 1500, with another 100 or so in and around the stereo cabinet. So far after 2 days of pretty aggressive ripping I'm (only) up to Cocteau Twins

For the geek in you I'm ripping via iTunes as AAC at 128 kbps. Let the flames begin on the bit rate (and my brother will kill me) but I really am not enough of an audiophile to care. I listen mostly in the car or on the iPod where I'm not going to hear a difference. What I want is the whole collection to fit on a 60 Gig iPod (hint, hint). So there. You want better quality? Come RIP them yourself!

The Overgrown Weasels

That's what you get when you put two eight year olds and a 6 year old in front of your Mac and make some music.

Using Apple's Soundtrack software they made a 7 track CD of music, here is a sample: 01 jmt.mp3 A little work needs to be done on the ending but other than that I think we have a hit!

You heard it here first, The Overgrown Weasels, superstars in 2010.

Nose, Meet Tennis Racket

Playing in the neighborhood yesterday Matthew's friend Justin took a mighty swing of a tennis racket to shoot a tennis ball soaring over the house and in the process collided with Matthew's nose.

After a trip to the ER all seems fine. Some glue is holding the wound together instead of stiches to minimize the scarring. Overall, it could have been worse, a little bit lower and it would have broken his nose. A little to either side and it would have have hit his eye.

Doctors orders are that Matthew have low activity and no shower for a least 48 hours. Not easy to do when you're almost 8.

Catch-Up

My personal goal of posting around every week has slipped a bit this summer but with the dreary weather of late it seems like a good time to play catch-up.

It is Matthew's last week at Spring Lake Camp and he has had an amazing time at this year. This was the first year in middle camp instead of junior camp and it really has been a much different experience for him. A lot more independence and the really classic 7 year old boy stuff. Like, learning all the bad jokes and joke songs (jingle bells, Batman smells...) as well as the magic tricks that make you giggle as he attempts them.

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We also had a yard sale upstate this year, I think the first one ever! I was itching to clean out the closets and did we ever. Brought tons of stuff out, and nothing back in! Anything that was not sold the cleaning lady took. Anything she did not want went out on the street and was gone by morning. One of the highlights was that Matthew and Rachel set up a brownie and lemonade stand. It brought back memories of my own. Growing up in NH the town parade used to go right past our house. I would setup a Kool-Aid stand and would make a killing.

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A couple of weekends ago we went to the Debbie Leffe's parents house for Debbie's 40th birthday. Spent the night out there in Long Island, went to a great Belgian restaurant which was fun given my past trips to Antwerp. Also we went to the Cradle of Aviation museum which was surprisingly fun. The whole history of aviation, planes hanging from the ceiling, even a virtual reality trip to Mars. The picture shows Matthew "gasping" for air since he does not have a space suit on the surface of the moon.