Category: Family Members

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Shiver Me Timbers! Talk Like a Pirate Day Is Here Again!

‘Twas A grand, glorious day when I awoke. “Wench!” demanded I, “Where be me mornin’ grog?”

But then I learned a right powerful lesson: Be not calling a fair lass a “wench,” if’n she be stronger than thee. Painfully quick the lesson was, and quickly painful.

I woke me offspring up this mornin’ by yellin’, “Avast, ye good for nothing lazy swabs! Get out of those bunks ‘fore I have ye keelhauled!”

Arrrrrrr!

We had a great time talking like pirates on the way to school, and David tried to convince me that, as it was a holiday, he had the day off. I changed the words to our usual Geek song fare, “Can’t you see I’m white and piratey?” and “That Be the Power of Love.”

See last year’s post here.

Reuters covered it with this article.

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Game Camp Nation – “Isaacing”

Isaac and David spent two weeks this year at Game Camp Nation, which has been operated for a number of years by our friends Phil Luchon and Steve Deyesso and their staff, originally under the name of “Camp Turing.”

[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”11″ gal_title=”Game Camp Nation, 2007″]

All the photos from those weeks can also be viewed here on Google Photos.

David and Isaac were among the first students to test a new curriculum designed for younger students. They developed games using the GameMaker software, which allows sprite-based games to be created using a relatively simple properties-panel-driven model. (Game Maker also features its own scripting language, and the ability to do more advanced things, even as much as a 3D FPS game.) Game Camp Nation also offers courses in game programming using C++ (which will probably be switched to Java next year), and 3D modeling and animation using AutoDesk’s Maya.

Each student gets his own computer to work and play on all day. Attendees also have some non-computer time to play board games and enjoy meals. Still, this was more of a “Geek Heaven” kind of place than one might be expecting in a summer camp. (I wonder if any of the children noticed that the conference room the hotel gave them didn’t have any windows.)


Isaac and David Outside the Conference Center used by Game Camp Nation for their Waltham, Ma., sessions.

Both weasels enjoyed camp immensely, and readily learned to create and debug games. They were up before I was every morning, and I let them stay late almost every night to participate in the network gaming tournaments that the camp runs at the end of the day. David got so tired one day that he fell asleep in the car in the morning, and then on the couch in seconds when we got home, sleeping there nearly 12 hours through the night.


Isaac and David with Game Camp Nation staff members Chris, Steve, and Joy.

We Have a Weiner Winner!

The game tournament is open to all camp attendees, whether they stay overnight or not. To keep things balanced among different types of games, they played FPS games (Halo and Call of Duty), RTS games (StarCraft and Command & Conquer 3), and Motocross Madness 2. Scores were kept all week, and the winner each week got a $50 gift certificate to Best Buy.

Of course that meant that Isaac and David were staying until 8:30 every night, but I figured it was worth the effort for two weeks.

Isaac came in first the first week, despite my dragging him out early one night. During the second week, he was leading by 100% of the second-place person’s score. Steve decided that dominating by that much for two weeks in a row would be called “Isaacing.”


Isaac with the huge Lego set he purchased, #7662 Trade Federation MTT

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Bizarre Family Re-Invades Moultonborough


Our boring, personality-less family.

Well, we’re back (again) from our now-annual trip to Moultonborough, New Hampshire.

Highlights:

  • NaNi woke me up every morning by knocking on my head as one would a door, and announcing, “Dad, look out the window.” Thankfully, it was never very early, but to her, daylight meant it was time to do things.
  • Isaac and I climbed Mt. Percival, elevation 2,212 feet, near Squam Lake. (A full 1,000-feet higher than our usual hike across the street.) Nichelle, NaNi, David, my niece Jenn, and my sister Cindy made it much of the way, but didn’t get to the summit. (They were scared off by a report more seasoned hikers.) This is the first “moderate”-rated trail from our new AMC White Mountain Guide, 28th: Hiking trails in the White Mountain National Forest (Appalachian Mountain Club White Mountain Guide), and it was wonderful. While the others went slowly down the first part of the hike, Isaac and I really pushed it to get to the summit, but the view was worth it. The trail back, only 1.9 miles, seemed much longer. I couldn’t have done any of this without the 6-day-a-week weight training program my beautiful Nichelle has me on. (The hike was a great leg and cardio workout; the next two days I could feel muscles I didn’t knew I had.)
  • Neither Isaac nor David caught any pickerel this year. They didn’t spend as much time fishing, but more time swimming. We had bait left at the end of the week, even.
  • NaNi caught the biggest sunfish we have seen to date. It was actually too big for her to hold up the pole as Nichelle took a picture.
  • In an incident involving a fishing reel NaNi managed to disassemble, recovering the same reel from the bottom, getting the line tangled up in the paddleboat pedals, losing the reel permanently in the pond, getting stuck, and prayer … NaNi and David had quite an adventure. NaNi was very impressed that David “prayed to God twice,” and “knew the right thing to do.”
  • One of the few down sides to this trip was that Naomi has developed an unprecedented degree of fear of bugs and spiders, especially considering in whose family she is. She spent an hour or two one night, quite literally screaming, apparently from some nightmare about spiders which persisted into her mostly-woken state. (She was afraid of a lot of things, compared to earlier in her life, and was highly suggestible, but I expect she’ll have outgrown those issues by next year.)
  • We did our first all-family picture at Clark’s Trading Post, and Nichelle and NaNi did their traditional “Southern Belle” photos. I’ll try to get pictures up tonight.

We’ll post a Picasa Web Albums slide show after we go through the pictures.

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Dual-Core Processors and Video Performance

I’d installed Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield, a game which is a couple of years old, on my relatively new dual-core AMD Athlon machine at home. (It should run fine on both machines, and I own two copies, making it ideal for gaming multiplayer with the kids.) To my surprise, the game ran absolutely horribly—a first for this box—in fact, it was completely unplayable. The video, even in the opening movie, stuttered whenever it was trying to do a fade affect. In the mission I tried, the characters wouldn’t move, although I could pan the camera, almost like the game was trying to poll the keyboard wrongly. The video seemed far jerkier than it should have been, also.

So, I did the usual bit of updating the video driver and DirectX drivers, but that didn’t help.

After a little research, and a couple of forum posts that didn’t have the right answer, but did point to a related Microsoft Knowledge Base article, I learned the cause of the problem. With visions of having to patch my BIOS (a slightly risky operation), I wen to the AMD Web site as Microsoft recommended, and discovered a surprisingly straightforward solution:

AMD Dual-Core Optimizer – The AMD Dual-Core Optimizer can help improve some PC gaming video performance by compensating for those applications that bypass the Windows API for timing by directly using the RDTSC (Read Time Stamp Counter) instruction. Applications that rely on RDTSC do not benefit from the logic in the operating system to properly account for the affect of power management mechanisms on the rate at which a processor core’s Time Stamp Counter (TSC) is incremented. The AMD Dual-Core Optimizer helps to correct the resulting video performance effects or other incorrect timing effects that these applications may experience on dual-core processor systems, by periodically adjusting the core time-stamp-counters, so that they are synchronized.

A quick Windows install and reboot, and the game ran flawlessly—at 1280 x 1024 with all the video and sound options maxed out. Sweet!

I believe there is a similar utility available for Intel multicore processors.

For the benefit of others:

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NaNi Writes Her Name

I have to be the proud parent and brag about this one. A few days ago, NaNi—who won’t be four years old until October—grabbed an old Sunday school art project off the refrigerator, took a pencil and proceeded to write her name on the back. She didn’t copy it, she just printed the correct letters.


Naomi shows off her writing.

What’s even more interesting, after months of her writing upside down capital As, is that she still hasn’t learned all her letters—she can’t even correctly name all of the ones in her name yet. She’s been able to type her name for a couple of months, and she can recognize a few letters, but we haven’t been doing anything to actively show her how to write her name.


A closer shot of NaNi’s first attempt at writing her name.


NaNi wrote these on Sunday. When she has lines, she writes her name quite neatly.

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Week of a Million Smiles

Well, we’re back from vacation and what an amazing and wonderful time we all had.

To start off the vacation was Mom’s wedding. What a lovely couple Mom and Dad make! They are truly in love and so very sweet together. (Pictures taken by our “official” Wedding photographer Mike Matheson are available here.)

We spent a few days with Mom, Dad and family before heading to Orlando, where the Hinxmans arranged for us to stay at a borrowed apartment. They also are tireless park-attenders, and took us around Disney World and Sea World on a six-day sprint.


NaNi tells Cinderella a story about a ball she plans to attend.

What an amazing time, jammed packed and loads of fun. So much to share, too late now to do it, but you can check out the pics in the Picasa album. We have loads to share so check back in a day or two.

Picasa Web Album
Disney PhotoPass Album


Isaac and David pose with Stormtroopers at the last of MGM’s “Star Wars Weekends.”

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Whose Sin? (John 9:1–7) The Necessity of Historical Context

I have several friends who love to study the history of the Bible, and who strongly believe that it’s vital to know all we can about the cultures we read about. I am inclined to agree. (One of these friends keeps stacks of Alfred Edersheim’s Sketches of Jewish Social Life to give away to interested fellow believers—and to kill mice.)

A few days ago, I was listening to a passage I’ve read scores of times in my lifetime, but this time I noticed something that I had completely overlooked:

1As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. 2And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 3Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. 4We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. 5As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

6Having said these things, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud 7and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing. (John 9:1–7, ESV)

Notice the disciples’ question: “Whose sin was it that this caused this man to be born blind? Was it his or his parents’?”

The part that made me do a double-take was the question about whether it was the man’s own sin for which he was being punished. How can anyone sin before he or she is born?

Now, this gets fascinating. Just from the context of the passage, one can infer that some people (the disciples among them) believed God would punish the sins of parents by causing problems with the children. We can also infer that people believed God would punish a person’s sins directly. In both cases, such punishment could extend to causing physical disability. Another inference—perhaps the most unusual one to us—is that one could be born into a condition of punishment for his own sins.

The text also refutes an idea or two. One false idea, sadly believed by many who claim to follow the Bible today, was that all illness or disability is caused by God as punishment for sin, or, alternatively, by the oppression of Satan. Jesus clearly refutes the former case in his answer to the disciples.

What else can we directly infer from this passage alone? Not much.

How could someone who is not yet born sin? Did he commit some sin in utero?

What light does Scripture shed on these beliefs? The Old Testament talks about divine retribution, even such being passed on to the children of those God is punishing. So, we can see in Scripture the concept of the man being punished for his parents’ sins. (I merely mention the existence of this topic; much further elaboration would be required to address its applicability to a case such as this.) However, nowhere in Scripture do we see the idea of someone being punished for personal sins committed before birth. Was God being preemptive, punishing the man with blindness for something the man would later do?

Ultimately, Scripture does not answer the question about how someone could be born into a condition of punishment for his own wrongdoings. Here we must look to the historical context of the passage.

Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible, in this case apparently referencing the work of J.B. Lightfoot, summarizes the historical context of the disciples’ questions quite nicely:

It was a universal opinion among the Jews that calamities of all kinds were the effects of sin. See the notes at Luke 13:1-4. The case, however, of this man was that of one that was blind from his birth, and it was a question which the disciples could not determine whether it was his fault or that of his parents. Many of the Jews, as it appears from their writings (see Lightfoot), believed in the doctrine of the transmigration of souls; or that the soul of a man, in consequence of sin, might be compelled to pass into other bodies, and be punished there. They also believed that an infant might sin before it was born (see Lightfoot), and that consequently this blindness might have come upon the child as a consequence of that. It was also a doctrine with many that the crime of the parent might be the cause of deformity in the child, particularly the violation of the command in Leviticus 20:18.

So, from the larger body of Scripture, the local context of this passage, and some educated guesses, one might derive a number of correct conclusions about what relatively common beliefs were for the subject at hand; but, without examining other historical writings, one could never derive all the possibilities of what was believed—especially the possibility of the transmigration of souls, which is not at all referenced in Scripture.

Despite the fact that our churches extol the study of Scripture in its literal, historical, grammatical context, few believers are taught how to do such historical research, or even have the basic resources to know where to begin. This is compounded by the pseudoscholarly works that abound, produced by both modern skeptics who are willing to ignore history and unscholarly believers who equally ignorant of history—archeology seems to be especially problematic. (One of my favorites is the conclusion that pi is exactly three because it is rounded to that in 1 Kings 7:23.) Sadder still are the many pastors and teachers who believe that no cultural illumination is needed for events that occurred two to six thousand years ago. Although we certainly might be able to derive most of our doctrine sola scriptura, historical, cultural, and even archaeological study sheds light on so much that makes the Bible real.

I’ll conclude with one thought from Pastor Erik DiVietro, from his post about the contextual meaning of “the gates of hell”:

If anything, I think pastors should study history instead of theology. They should be immersed in the worlds (notice the plural) of the Bible and not in the systematic teachings of theologians who probably never cracked a history book except to get a random source for something they already believed. Knowing the languages and cultures in which the Scriptures emerged isn’t just a nice thing—it is a necessary thing. Otherwise, we are no better than the Medieval church that twisted the Biblical narratives to their own schemes.

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Resolved: Things about Which I Will Never Complain

One of Nichelle’s and my most eye-opening trips was our first part-time missions trip to Mexico together, about 10 years ago. One of the first rules we made for the kids (and future children) upon our return was, “No whining.” (Getting the children to follow that rule has been difficult, but we never give up.)

Americans, in my opinion, tend to be really whiney ingrates. As someone who has seen life from “the other side,” here are some of the things I try very, very hard never to whine about:

  • The price of gasoline. (Go check the consumer prices worldwide for those countries not swimming in petroleum.)
  • Government corruption. (When’s the last time you had to bribe someone to get a spot you deserve in university, or paid your traffic “ticket” directly to the police officer?)
  • The food I am served, as long as it’s not spoiled. (Complaining about the food or refusing food offered is a huge insult in countries where people are not certain they will get enough food every day.)
  • The quality of television and movies. (Watch less. Be more selective. Television and movies have always had both great programming and nearly worthless programming. The great programming and films survive and are remembered, which is why we think that all the “old shows” were like “The Twilight Zone,” when most of them were more like “F Troop.”)
  • Being bored. (I honestly can’t remember the last time I was bored. Usually, I have so many things that I want to do, I can’t choose between them.)
  • The American justice system. (I know it’s not perfect, but for the most part, our criminal justice system is very fair, and we’re even finally learning about victim rights, too.)
  • The amount of money I have. (Do you have any idea how absolutely rich we Americans are?)
  • My job. (The US is still, unquestionably, the Land of Opportunity.)
  • The weather.
  • My wife. (Nichelle is awesome, in far more ways than I can count—although I did try once.)

I’m sure I’ll think of a few others.

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Superman Trumps God: The NaNi Report and Other News

NaNi:

Here are some more anecdotes from the world’s cutest and oldest three-year-old:

  • We were “in the running” for a very nice outdoor grill that was being given away. When our friend Phil reported that it had gone to someone else, NaNi instructed, “You should have called ‘NaNi dibs’!” Quite a few people have commented on how good she is at conversing. This is something we’ve observed in her from very early on, but it does seem odd sometimes to have a three-year-old who thinks she’s on equal terms with everyone in the entire world, and can generally talk that way.
  • As parents, we all love it when our children begin to learn about God and develop a theological understanding of their own. Quite often, we forget that their grasp of things can be very different than we expect, at least underneath the common terms we hear from them. For example, Naomi and I have talked several times about “God v. Superman,” after a conversation that she had with David one morning. NaNi insists that Superman is better than God, despite her acknowledgement that God not only created everything, but saves people forever. Maybe she just thinks that Tom Welling is cuter than God.


    • To NaNi, there’s just no contest.

  • NaNi continues to learn cool things. She’s learned to stand on her head, and was really impressing us with her Spider-Man moves done while climbing on our exercycle. She can also type her name accurately and quickly, since I gave her a guest account and assigned her name as the password. (The user name is nonobvious for security purposes.) She can also run a Web browser and navigate all her favorite educational sites without difficulty.
  • The other day NaNi gave me a dollar from her purse. As I didn’t want to take her dollar, I sneaked it back in later. Last night on the way home from church, NaNi exclaimed, “Dad! You cheated. You gave me back the dollar I gave you.” Not only had the little weasel counted the bills she had, but she correctly inferred how the extra one had gotten there.

D’oh!

  • A few days ago, I left a pen in my pocket, getting spots on a whole load of laundry, not to mention marking the inside of the dryer. I was very disappointed to have made such a mistake. Nichelle got the dryer cleaned out after a few days, but I don’t know how many clothing articles were irreparably marred.

David:

  • Phil called David a slacker the other day, and he responded, “Uncle Phil, you know that everyone in my family is a slacker.”

Fighting (not Really):

  • I am attempting to do what few husbands would dare or desire. I am teaching Nichelle to argue. It seems odd to do so at this point of her life, and sometimes I wonder if this is what I really want, but her lifelong coping strategy had been to simply give in to the opinions of those around her, and she viewed all contradiction of her ideas as “being shot down.” Since I spend my days “in heated discussions” with my co-workers (it’s how software is developed, folks), she’d always believed I was shooting her ideas down—even though our discussions were virtually never heated—and even though I thought I was simply expressing a differing opinion and challenging her to defend her position, she viewed a single contradiction as “case closed.” It’s been fun, and a bit scary, requiring some adjustment from both of us, but she’s catching on quickly. (Ironically, if I had been asked to look back on the times we’ve disagreed in opinion, I would answer honestly that most of the time I see things her way in the end. However, my perspective did not and could not include the times she caved without discussion. Facinating.)

Swimming:

  • When I removed the cover (our first year with a mesh cover) from our pool this year, I made an interesting discovery: The pool was completely empty, save for a few puddles of nearly black water. NaNi, David, and Phil, and I spent much of Saturday sweeping and vacuuming out the bottom of the pool with the wet/dry vac. (There’s something really manly about operating a shopvac.) Then we scrubbed and rinsed every inch of it, repeatedly shop-vacuuming the dirt that had accumulated for the past several years. We patched the holes in the liner we found, and refilled the pool. Although the water is freezing, the results are astounding. The water is crystal-clear, and maintaining the chlorine level (so far) has been a breeze. If we ever move into a house with a swimming pool again, I’ll know to “kill and refill” it. (I should send pictures to my Mom and sister, who have always criticized my pool maintenance skills, just to prove the preexisting conditions weren’t my fault.)

Geekdom:

  • I’ve submitted several (well, three) articles to Slashdot recently, but have yet to have any of them go beyond “pending.” Apparently the world of Geekdom is not ready for my paltry contributions.
  • I’ve finally started a Lego MindStorms group at work. You can read about our exploits on our MindStorms@Work BLOG. We have about 8 people participating, and it’s been great fun so far. Our first project is a robotic candy sorter, which has turned out to be surprisingly challenging, at least based on our initial research.
  • The kids are crazy about various “geek songs” that we can play on our MP3 or CD players in the car. Thanks to iTunes and such services, we’ve been able to download a very unusual mix: “The Fuhrer’s Face” (Spike Jones) is NaNi’s most requested item. (NaNi has referred to it as, “Green, green, green,” after the sound the horns make at the beginning, “The Space Song,” and “The Future of Space,”—it took me a while to figure out which one she meant. “White and Nerdy” by Weird Al is nearly always asked for, as is his “The Saga Begins.” (We have those in video as well from iTunes for the home computer.) Tom Lehrer’s “The Elements” we are all working on, and we have been listening to “Skullcrusher Mountain,” “Chiron Beta Prime,” and “The Future Soon” by Jonathan Coulton for quite a while. Also in the mix under the nongeeky category are “Sway” by the Pussycat Dolls (the only song I’ve really liked by them), several LotR tracks, some Big Band, and my two indulgences of “You Can’t Hurry Love” (the Supremes), and “The Power of Love” (Huey Lewis and the News). Nichelle has several new acapella gospel CDs which we often listen to, but I can’t get them out of her hands long enough to rip them to MP3.

Movies and Television:

  • I think my favorite movie of the summer is going to be Ratatouille, which opens at the end of June. Why? Two words: Brad Bird. So far Spiderman 3 was excellent, with beautiful moral lessons, and Pirates III was a huge disappointment, even though we got to see it in digital video at Lowell Showcase. (Very little humor and character development.) Shrek the Third wasn’t too bad, although Shrek was very un-ogre-like in parts, and TMNT was reasonable (better than I expected), especially for the kids, although a big part of the dramatic/emotional plot seemed like a rehash of the first TMNT movie. And, would anyone go see Fantastic Four II if Jessica Alba were not in it? I think not. (Okay, maybe people will go see it with the desperate hope that two FF movies in a row can’t be awful.)
  • We’ve just finished up watching the second season of “Grey’s Anatomy.” Although we love the medical drama so much that we can barely stay awake watching “House” anymore, our concern is that it’s developing too much into a “soap opera” formula. We shall have to see what season 3 has delivered when it hits DVD. I will say this much, if the writers are medically knowledegable, it’s very evident that Grey exhibits the behaviors of one who has been physically or sexually abused as a child, although it hasn’t been hinted at in the first two seasons of the show.
  • We also just finished “24.” Frankly, I’m tired of it. I don’t think this season, by the end, was anywhere near gripping, and I honestly miss the filming style and direction from the first season, including Jack Bauer’s voiceovers to introduce each hour and the constant use of split-screen. I was actually disappointed when they flashed the return of the show next January. I simply do not care any more.
  • The one unquestionably, gloriously bright spot on television has been “Lost.” Wow. If you haven’t been watching, you have all summer and fall to catch up on the first three seasons via DVD. Do it.

Humor:

  • Tom in the Box News Service has a delightful, tongue-in-cheek (but never meanspirited) perspective on neofundamentalism, among other things. (The scary thing is how credible some of these stories are.)

Church:

  • Heritage Baptist has been wonderful for us. I’ve described is as “a whole congregation full of Debi Costines,” which is clearly an exaggeration, but there is a desire to know, study, and live God’s Word in its intended context that we have found only rarely. Travel on over to their Web site and have a listen to some of the messages.

Other stuff:

  • Nichelle’s health is better-than-perfect. She still outlifts me in all but a couple of weight-training exercises.
  • My Mom is getting married June 16, at age 80. We’re very excited about that.
  • I’m not sure why, but I really don’t like Jessica Alba with light hair.

John Hannah:

  • And, although it has nothing to do with this post, here’s a wonderful quotation from Dr. John Hannah:

    “Being biblical is not having a verse for what you believe; it’s having the weight of Scripture undergirding what you believe.” Dr. John Hannah