Yikes! I need to post something.

[david]We have a policy of 1 hour of computer or video game time per day on weekdays for the kids (they get 2 hours on weekends), but they can earn extra time, which they sometimes do, by working on educational software or activities, such as typing for Isaac, writing for David, and Web design for John). One of David’s time-earning activities is to run the Virtual Fish Tank, an online version of the full-size exhibit (once part of the Computer Museum) at the Museum of Science in Boston. Last night he was watching me work (well, play Star Trek Voyager Elite Force II) on one machine, and asked me to call up the Virtual Fish Tank for him. He then said, “I can earn game time just by leaving this running—I don’t actually have to play it, right?” For a 4-year-old, he’s getting much too good at trying to “work the angles.”

Dungeon Seiges the Wilcox Family

After hearing Phil Luchon tell as about half a million times, “You have to buy Dungeon Seige,” I finally picked up a copy of this $30 gem. It’s a role-playing game with an emphasis on action done by Microsoft and Gas Powered Games. David and Isaac beg to play it every day (and lament the fact that, unless they supplement their computer time with educational activities, they only get an hour of game time per day). A few screen shots are below.


Ultrasound (and Names)

[nichelle]Well, the technician checked twice and the result is in: We're having a girl!!!!!!!! We (Isaac, David, and I) saw her yawn several times. The boys were asking many different questions and commenting on what some of the body parts looked like, e.g. a t-rex, a skyscraper, etc. The technician thought it was pretty funny.

Doug and I have had the first name picked out for some time now (before Isaac was born), but we're not sure what the middle name is going to be. Your suggestions are welcome. [Note from Doug: I’ll get a Web form up for submissions soon.] For those that don't know yet, the first name is going to be Naomi.

Family News Update

Well, it’s about time I updated a few family items; Nichelle can add her 2¢ later.

  • Isaac’s last day of school (second grade) was yesterday. He cried because it was over. He does much better in elementary school than I did.
  • Work at Kronos has been great, and a wonderful opportunity to daily improve my Java skills. One colleague pointed out that our team seems to have “the right amount of fun.”
  • My father’s health has actually improved (this was not expected)! He was able to walk into and out of church a couple of weeks ago, and the congregation appauded when he came in. This is a big difference from how he was doing at Christmas.
  • Nichelle’s pregnancy is halfway through, and she finally has another ultrasound scheduled for June 16, which should be the gender-determining one. (If this child is a boy, I’ll post a link to the e-bay auction soon.) If it’s a girl, we still need to pick a middle name. I’ll probably create an online submission form for suggestions. (Kherna Yoyo continues to insist the middle name should be Kherna.)
  • We are still working on our move to Nashua. The cosmetics on our current house are nearly done. I have a minor plumbing problem to correct, but the greenboard for the new bathroom ceiling is up. Nichelle is (as usual) doing her masterful job of spackling, patching, and painting. We do not yet have a house picked out in Nashua or Hudson, but we find reasonable listings every day. We continue to pray for God’s guidance in this.
  • The Mexico missions trip is back on after a one-year absence. I am going alone (sniff), but am looking forward to continuing to help with the church and children’s home in Constitución, as well as reimmersing myself in the culture. (I will be keeping The Missions Trip Site updated starting in a week or two, and will be porting the BLOG software to it, so I can do live updates from the trip. I read an excellent biography on Benito Juarez, the orphan-who-became-president. His story rivals that of Lincoln in some ways. I’d like to re-read the book before we leave, and take some notes.

Nightmares About Dinosaurs—An Unusual Solution

Most children are fascinated with dinosaurs, and our boys are no exception. However, when David was three years old, he kept having recurring nightmares, from which he would awake screaming and generally require staying in bed with us, about dinosaurs.

To complicate matters, he kept begging to watch Jurassic Park, having seen the dinosaur pictured on the DVD case. Of course, given his nightmares (and having some negative leanings toward showing somewhat-violent programming to small children), we did not grant his request.

But the nightmares continued for weeks. Finally, I reasoned, he was already having nightmares about the dinosaurs, what harm could there be in letting him watch Jurassic Park? As I recall, we did skip over the scene where the T-Rex attacks the jeep with the kids in it.

After watching the film (actually, after watching all three JP films), his nightmares went away. Go figure.

24

[tv]Nichelle here: I noticed my husband has failed to mention the rather noisy incident that happened the other night. Well, I'll be nice and fill you all in. Well, Doug and I were recently introduced to a fairly new show, which is now in the second season, called 24 w/ Keiffer Sutherland. Well, the show is very addicting and extremely intense. We love it.
Well, back to the noise, which made me heave myself off the couch and bolt upstairs to find Isaac on the floor crying. He fell out of his top bunk. Well, Doug eventually made it upstairs to see what happened. I was later informed that he was trying to figure out what to do. He could only see himself needing to take a child to the hospital and missing the last half of the episode. The funny thing is we have the whole first season on DVD!!!! He only needed to pause for a moment, but I did mention that the show is really intense…LOL Well, Isaac did hurt himself, but nothing to take him to the hospital. He's fine now. Oh, we haven't yet finished the episode, but we did get another friend hooked on the show, by showing him the first two episodes.

The Fastest Computer

To quote a famous Bloom County comic strip: “Just what your four-year-old needs to compete in today’s cutthroat world of high-tech and high expectations…”

Nichelle here: We have a few people that come over to use our computers from time to time. One person, named Kherna, has used it on several different occasions. This morning David asked me, “which computer does Kherna use?” I pointed to the one on the right (we have two side-by-side), and his response was, “Why? That’s not the fastest!” I thought that was quite cute, seeing that he’s only 4 and knows the difference.

Out of the Mouth of Babes

As we reflected on the day we set aside to celebrate the Resurrection, Nichelle asked David (age 4) what he had learned in Sunday school. He talked about Jesus being buried described the tomb, and said, “Then Jesus used His ‘rise up power.’”

I don’t think I’ve ever heard an adult explain it better.

The keys for the what?

This morning Nichelle was extremely kind, and took Isaac to school so I could sleep about another hour—trust me, I needed to.

Anyway, around 8:00 am, David knocked on the door, and I told him to come in. He had a set of keys from some toy handcuffs that had come with a police role-playing kit he’d been given. Now, understand that David is quite advanced in his speech for his age, so I was ROTFL when he said, he had the keys, but couldn’t find the cheese puffs they went to.

Daaaaaaaaaaaagnabbit!

My workday ended with a whimper—demonstrating that I was missing a piece in my understanding of the data translator portion of the stuff we’re working on.

Then, I got an e-mail at home saying the CenterWatch project was not quite finished. Just a few revisions in the entire book, including two chapers that seem to have mismatched fonts.

At supper time, David’s question of the day was, “Where does the sun go at night?” His answer was quite interesting, more or less along the lines of the sun goes into space at night and comes out into the sky at daytime. There was something thrown in about gravity pulling it down. I demonstrated what really happens using a flashlight and a coffee cup, then remembered I had a globe in the basement, which would be even better for demonstration.

I got down in the basement to find 3 or more inches of water throughout, meaning that when John told me on Saturday the “thing was flooded” he meant it. (I thought we’d just had a puddle on the non-sump-pump end.)

After wrestling with the sump pump for a few minutes (thankfully it wasn’t bolted to the floor), I discovered the float on the float switch had become detached from the shaft. Now it’s back working, but life was full of surprises today.