Recently, Aidan collaborated with his friend Naoki to build the ultimate Kindergarten kid science fair project. These budding scientists set out to determine which slide at the Chattanooga Valley Elementary playground was the fastest. In the end, Slide C was the quickest and so were the boys, crossing their category’s finish line in first place. Later this week they get to attend Walker County School’s district science fair!
Aidan with his science project, 1st place ribbon and district marching orders. Missing: two front teeth.
We will certainly continue to bring you coverage of these momentous events. In the meantime, click on the above image to view more photos and details on the project.
Izzy (short for Isabel) has been taking ballet lessons for the last few months. A couple weeks ago she had her first recital at The Fairyland Club. We are not sure how much longer she will attend ballet classes–she seems to enjoy gymnastics better (and has more of that body type)–but our little Bell (another nickname) sure did have fun dressing up, getting her hair done and dancing around (if you can call it that).
Teacher Pettway and class (l). Miss Twinkle Toes (r) showing off her award. Click to view more.
Below is a low-quality video I took with our digicam.
This time of the year a couple key things converge in the Kennedy household: warm weather and annual bonus money. With the government promising us a stimulus package in mid-summer, we are focusing for now on home improvement projects (the big TV will have to wait). The first project is one that we have needed to do since we moved into our house almost four years ago. Given the time I could dig up a ‘before’ photo, but trust me when I say that a drunk man built our original front steps.
While he is at it our brick mason is going to build a small planter box around our mailbox (see my mock layout below). We have the only house in the neighborhood where they surrounded the mailbox with concrete. The kids like to walk around it when getting the mail (calling it ‘the shortcut’), but Pam and I consider it to be aesthetically displeasing. By the way, if you ever need a good brick layer, I highly recommend Ibach Brick. Paul does great work and is a comedian, too. When showing him the newspaper-slot-turned-birdhouse below the mailbox, he said I should “start chargin’ that bird rent.”
We are also considering building stairs off of our back deck, which is as much of a safety/secondary egress issue as it is a convenience consideration. Currently we have to go down the stairs, which are positioned by the front door, in order to go out back through the garage. Then there is the floor I need to lay in the attic, organizing the garage, etc. Maybe, just maybe, when all is done there will be some funds left over to put in the HDTV piggy bank!
Update 1: Steps are done (they look great!). Mailbox work set for Monday. Getting an HD set after all (albeit a smaller 32″).
Update 2: Below are thumbnails (linked to full size on Flickr) of the completed steps and mailbox surround. Flowers (pansies and salvia) have been planted at the mailbox since these were taken, but I still have to build a new handrail for the steps (probably using one of those PVC railing kits).
As a parent of small children I sometimes wonder how we did without DVD’s back when I was a kid growing up in the 70’s and 80’s. The one eyed monster would have been so much cooler if you could have controlled what he spit out. But alas, our household never even had a VCR. They were way too expensive. In fact, I still remember paying $300 for a Sony Hi-Fi VCR in the mid-to-late nineties. How far we have come! These days the far superior DVD player can be had for about 10% of that cost. Unfortunately, the price of most movies on DVD is still around $20. That is way too expensive when you have little hands in the house who smudge, scratch and otherwise abuse one of the most fragile forms of media known to man. I would estimate that 1 in 4 of our children’s movie collection are damaged in such a manner that their playback is compromised (either skipping in parts or completely unplayable). To make matters worse, copyright protections have made it extremely difficult to do back-ups of your own movies for personal use, even though that was standard practice for music before the rise of the internet. That is, it used to be difficult.
This evening I used a free program called DVD Shrink to decode and re-author a few of the kid’s movies. DVD Shrink allows you to compress a large movie into a format that can later be burned onto a 4.7 GB recordable DVD. You can use any DVD burning software (Roxio, Nero, etc.) to make the disc, but DVD Shrink recognized that my PC already had DVD Decrypter (also free) installed and allowed for a near-seamless transition (simply had to remove the movie, insert a DVD-R and hit the ‘record’ button). After making a few copies with all of the bells and whistles (menus, bonus features, etc.), I then decided to try the ‘re-author’ feature and burn a DVD with just the core movie file itself. Later, I tested it in our minivan’s rear entertainment system and immediately recognized the beauty of backing up your DVD’s without any extras.
Picture yourself driving down the highway at 65 mph. You are in the front passenger seat. Your kids are in the middle and third rows, securely strapped into their child car seats. The DVD screen is also behind you where you cannot see it without unbuckling your seatbelt and reclining your seat. With a stripped down movie copy all you have to do is insert the DVD-R into the dash and it immediately starts playing — no previews, special features or menus to wade through. Safe. Easy. Disposable. How cool is that? I know what I will be doing between now and our next car trip (keeping an eye out for a spindle pack of DVD-R’s and setting aside some time in the evenings).
I have left Pam alone with the kids for the last couple Saturdays, which is one of the reasons I am taking Aidan, Isabel and Ethan to tomorrow morning’s Ron Paul rally. As a learning experience, I figure that the children should come appropriately attired. I found sweatshirts on sale at Wal-Mart for $3 each. All it took was Photoshop and some Avery Ink Jet T-shirt Transfers (3271).
I think they look great (click images to enlarge). Also, Aidan has already been yelling, “Ron Paul rocks,” so look and listen for him at the rally!
