Terry’s Worklog

The past couple of days, I’ve been spending a few quite days in Vermont ahead of the ReadEx Digital Institute.  I’ve had the opportunity to be able to attend and speak at this little shin-dig for a number of years, and this year is no different.  I actually like this get together a lot for a couple of reasons.  First, you get a real diverse range of librarians and libraries that attend.  The audience can range from the very technical to the not so technical — but every shares an interest in digital libraries, preservation and digitization in general.  Secondly, it gives me an opportunity to spend time in New England.  What a wonderful place to visit.  I’ve fallen in love a number of times with the hiking in this area and like previous years, I took a couple of days prior to the Digital Institute to head to the back country and do a little bit of hiking. 

This year, my hiking partner and went for something a little more leisurely and hiked up something called the Roosters Coop (I think).  Not very high (the book I think said 2700 ft) but really scenic.  On the climb up, we came across a waterfall off trail and decided to take a closer look:

and then decided to go off trail a little more and climb up the side of the waterfall (because it’s quite a bit higher than the picture).  It ended up being a little bit slicker than either of us would have thought, but the view from the top was worth it.

After fooling around on the waterfall and making back down without falling, we started back up the hill.  The climb opens up into two vistas.  One over looks Keene Valley (small town), while the other looks out more towards Giant Mt.  Throughout the climb, we were rained on, hailed on and at the vistas, enjoyed lots of sun.  A great day.  And while I didn’t get it in the pictures, I got to see snow on the mountains as well.  Around 3500 ft, their was visible snow on the mountain tops — which make me wish we’d picked a little bigger mountain.  

One thing I certainly love about this area is you can so tell that it’s fall.  The leaves change color in a way that just doesn’t happen in the Pacific NW.  Anyway, here are a few more pictures.

Of course, it’s easy to relax on a trip like this, when I know that batman is at home holding down the fort.

–TR

It’s been a busy 4th of July weekend and we still have one more day of fireworks left.  Whew!  Today, we took the long drive from Independence to Hood River, Or. to spend a day with Thomas the Tank Engine.  This was something that we had done when Kenny was 2 1/2, before Nathan was born.  At the time, we made the trip to Hood River because Kenny was the one that loved Thomas, and his little imaginary world.  This time around, the trip was for Nathan.  It’s been something that we’ve been looking forward to for months, and today was the big day.

Funny thing about the trip…I forget how much stuff Kenny has gotten to do simply because he’s older and lived in Eugene.  When we lived in Eugene, Kenny use to ride the city buses all the time.  He’s flown in a plane (when I went to DC last year) and has ridden in trains and subways.  So, traveling is exciting, but has become a little old hat.  Nathan on the other hand has never ridden in a bus (that I can remember), or a plane or a train — so he was really excited to get to ride on Thomas.  But before we could get to see Thomas, we had to ride on a bus from the parking lot to the train station.  Oh, my goodness.  You would have thought that we had driven all that way just to ride the bus.  He was bouncing up and down, ooohhhing and aahhh’in throughout the bus trip.  And then, we we got to the railroad station and there was Thomas.

The whole idea of the Day out with Thomas is a chance for kids to get to ride on a train pulled by Thomas.  There’s a lot of activities that go a long with that — like meeting Sir Topham Hatt, the owner of the imaginary railway

or feeding animals in the petting zoo, riding the miniature stream engine

or getting to bounce in the fun zone,

A day out with Thomas was a chance for the boys to get to run around and just have some fun.  Of course, the main reason for coming to this was to ride on Thomas.

It’s funny, my wife and I were looking at pictures from our last trip here and I think that we sat in almost the exact same seat on the train as before.    Anyway, the boys had a good time hamming it up for the camera:

But when Nathan didn’t know anyone was watching him — that’s when I wish I could have gotten a picture.  Thomas had just pulled out of the station and he has such a smile of pure joy.  He was really enjoying his ride on Thomas.  The ride takes about a 1/2 hour, and runs you next to a river and over a bridge.  The scenery is nice but the kids aren’t really looking at that.  Thomas the Tank Engine music is playing over the speakers and the kids are running around, reveling in their train ride.  In the open air car (which we were in), there is an opportunity to go up front and stand right behind Thomas.  Last time we did this, Kenny was so young, he didn’t want to leave his seat.  This time, Kenny and I spent most of the trip in the open air car.  Nathan joined us for a little while before going back to his seat and watching the river go by in his window. 

After the train ride, we did a handful of other things (including stopping at the gift shop), and then headed back.  Nathan and Kenny busied themselves with their various souvenirs (Nathan sounding like a train, choo-chooing down the tracks) until we got about 5 miles from Multnomah Falls.  That’s when it got very quiet, and Nathan finally gave in to sleep.

It had been a full day for him, and about to get fuller.  Neither Alyce or the boys had been to Multnomah Falls, and since we were in the area, we decided to stop by.  Multnomah Falls is the second highest, year-round waterfall in the United States.  At 620 ft, the Falls is an impressive site.  You can actually see the falls from I-84, but there is a nice trail (about a mile), that will let you hike from the bottom of the Falls to the top.  Since I’m the only one to have ever been to the Falls, we decided to stop and take the hike. 

First, before the pictures, let me say two things.  First, Kenny and Alyce were amazing.  Neither of them have gotten to do a lot of recent hiking, but they climbed the trail like champs.  In fact, Kenny did so well, I’d take him just about on any moderate hiking trail I do — given a distance of 3-4 miles.  He was great.  Nathan — he was trying to do his best impression of a lead weight while I carried him on my shoulders up the trail.  One of my many fatherly duties I suppose.  *grin*.  But we all made it to the top.  The hike itself was a blast and a great stretch of the legs.  The view from the top was terrific and the walk back down (which Nathan decided to do for himself), was fun as well.  Everyone did a terrific job.  And the pictures — well, I’m not a great picture taker, but I think that they came out well.  Here are a few of the highlights from the bottom and top of the falls.

After our Day with Thomas, our trip to the Falls (and subsequent trip to McDonalds for the boy’s favorite meal of cheeseburgers and fries), we made it home and spent the rest of the afternoon lighting off fireworks and playing with sparklers.  It’s been a long hard day for everyone — and while it’s late now (2 am) — everyone (but myself) has been upstairs in bed since about 10:30 (at least, that’s when I stopped hearing little feet running around in the room).  But it’s been a good day.  One of many this weekend. 

–TR

The pictures say it all right?  We decided to have a little fun before father’s day.  We’ll see how long our new hair cuts last (though, I’ll probably keep my at least for one day of work)   But it was a lot of fun cutting them. 

–TR

I always close my eyes when there is a flash.

The people at Nintendo must be geniuses, because their most recent “game”, the Wii Fit, shows off everything that is cool about their console.  I have a Wii — we got it for the boys (ha!) and I love the game play.  I love the simplified controllers, the interactive nature of the games — and I love that my boys (3 and 6) and pretty much pick up a game and start playing right way.

So, it was without reservation that we got the Wii Fit.  I’ll admit, I figured it would mostly be a novelty.  Something to play — but wouldn’t really be much of a workout.  I mean, come on.  It’s a video game and I’m pretty fit to begin with.  As most know, I cycle a lot (~50 miles daily), run (3-5 miles daily) and lift weights as part of my normal fitness routine.  So, I looked at this as something that would be just fun to play.  And, well, it is fun to play.  However, I’m also finding that it really can be used as a fitness tool as well.

So the Good:

First, it’s just plain fun.  The Wii Fit breaks down its “games” into areas of fitness.  There is Yoga (which primarily measures balance), Strength training (pushups, squats, plank, etc) which measure balance, rhythm, etc., Aerobic (these games are fun — Hula hoop, basic step, jogging, rhythm boxing, etc) and finally, Balance (with games like Slalom skiing and snowboarding).  The games are really entertaining and I love the way that the Wii Fit uses balance measurements for the Yoga and Strength training.  I’ve been finding that the Strength training exercises can be a great compliment to my normal weigh training — as the Wii is more resistance (gravity) rather than heavy weights and it’s use of balance tends to force proper positioning. 

As you play the games, you get rated on how you do.  As you do better, it unlocks more games, allows you to play at more advanced levels, etc.  It’s fun — and has kept me coming back.  I’ve only had it since Saturday and have already found that I’ve spent about 2 hours using it and really enjoying it.  Anyway, as you play, it tells you if you are doing well or not.  One thing I love about the Wii — when you lose, it tells you that you’ve lost.  If you’re form wasn’t good or your balance was off — it tells you.  Good stuff.

The Hilarious

While some people might not find this as funny, I got a kick out of the way it determines fitness.  The Wii Fit makes an attempt to measure fitness level, and does so by using the BMI (Body Mass Indicator).  For about 85-90% of the population over the age of 12, this is a pretty good measurement for giving you general fitness.  Basically, the BMI is a simplified formula that measures Weight and Height.  For kids under 12 and people that are generally muscular, the BMI is notoriously inaccurate.  And for some, this has been the one consistent complain that I’ve heard about the Wii Fit so far — that is that kids are being many times improperly classified as overweight or obese by the game.  Fortunately, that hasn’t been the experience that we’ve had with our kids.  Both Nathan and Kenny’s scores were realistic.  The only person whose results were skewed were mine.  On the Wii Fit, my little character is a dough boy (and I’ve got to tell you, Kenny thinks that this is just the funniest thing he’s ever seen) probably because I have a more muscular rather than skinny frame.  It’s actually too bad that the folks at Nintendo didn’t include a way to utilize the U.S. Navy’s BMI settings.  Essentially, the Navy uses Height, Weight, and then measurements around the Neck and waist to calculate BMI.  It might have blunted some of this early criticism about it’s use of the BMI — but I don’t think that it should stop anyone from using the game.  You can actually just not use the body tests if you find that this calculation is inaccurate.

The bad

From my perspective, I’ve yet to find any downsides.  I really like the thing, warts and all.

–TR

Wow — it’s been unseasonably hot the past couple of days.  It’s funny how quickly things have gone from winter and snowing (last snow day was around April 23rd) to nearly 100 degree heat (yesterday and today).  Of course, with the thawing from winter to summer (I guess we are skipping spring this year), comes many more activities that get the family out of the house and onto the road. 

Today we combined two of those activities.  The first was the Community Bands Festival at George Fox University in Newberg, Oregon.  I personally have no musical talent, but my wife happens to be a very good flutist.  The band that she plays in (Willamette Valley Concert Band) is one of many community bands that participates in this event.  The format is simple — each groups gets about 45 minutes to play (what works out to about 6 arrangements) before letting the next band play.  For my wife’s band — this is kindof like a rehearsal for their Memorial Day event.

So with that in mind, we packed up the kids and headed up to Newberg and George Fox.  Now, we have active little boys so when they come, I rarely get to see an entire concert and today was no exception.  I got to watch about a 1/2 hour and decided to try recording some of the pieces and uploading them to Youtube for a few family that missed the even.  Now, the video might make you see sick (I had Nathan wrestling with me on my lap) and there’s a pretty good chance you’ll here us whispering a few times — but other than that — I thought that the short clips turned out ok.  Maybe next time — I’ll bring a video recorder (rather than just using my digital camera).  Anyway — here are the pieces:

1. FanFare for Freedom; Morton Gould
2. William Tell Overture; Gioacchino Rossini/Erik Ledzen
   • Pt 1 (first 5 1/2 minutes to transition)
   • Pt 2 (last 6 1/2 minutes)
3. Folk Suite for Band: Deep River and Get on Board Little Children; William Grant Still

The band played 3 other arrangements:

1. Sandpaper Ballet; Leroy Anderson
2. Big Band Bash; Bob Lowden
3. Pathfinder of Panama; John Philip Sousa/Frank Byrne

I thought that the band played well — so hopefully that comes across on the recording from my little digital camera.

After the band concert — we decided to drive into Portland and take the boys to the zoo.  This year, Portland area attractions are doing kindof a year of the dinosaurs theme.  Earlier this year, we’d went to OMSI when they displayed about 40 full dinosaur skeletons from China.  Well, Saturday was the first day for the Portland Zoo’s Dinosaur exhibit.  Basically, it’s a dinosaur walk where you see robotic dinosaurs and get to hear and read a little bit about the dinosaur.  I’m pretty sure the boys loved it because we got to hear all about the dinosaurs on the way home.  And while I was there, I snapped a few pictures of the dinos as we made our way around.  Don’t ask me to spell or tell you what they are.  I have no idea.

There are actually quite a few more dinosaurs (something like 48 or 50 I think) — so these are the highlights.  Let me tell you, Nathan didn’t want to take his eyes of the T-Rex (above).  When we went to OMSI, they had a robotic T-Rex and it scared him — made him cry (though, I might have had something to do with that too).  So, as we rounded the corner and seen the T-Rex at the zoo — he kindof froze.  He recognized it immediately as his nemesis, the dinosaur from OMSI — only bigger.  We told him it was a robot — that it wouldn’t eat him — and that made him feel better — but you’d better believe that he never had his eye off that dinosaur for very long.  I don’t think he completely believed that it was going to come out of the trees and start chasing us.

We seen lots of animals too — but I think that the dinosaurs won the day today.  And the boys — yeesh.  They have a lot more energy than I do.  After spending all day in the heat — I was ready to take a nap, while the boys played and wrestled all the way home.  A nice way to start the weekend, for sure.

–TR

So, its official (as of last week I believe), but Oregon State University’s football team will be traveling to Happy Valley to play the Lions — and I’ll be there.  My wife has given me the ok so I’ve got the plane tickets, a hotel room in altoona, pa and a rental car.  Now all I need are tickets to the game. .  But how hard can it be to get tickets to a stadium that holds over a 100,000 people, right?  No, I’m asking.   

–TR

I’ll only have one more post about this (when I actually have books in hand), but Kyle Banerjee and I spent the last year writing a book about building digital libraries.  While I yet to have the proof in hand, I did get a call from our publisher letting us know that the book is finished, returned from the printers and available for shipping.  A quick check of Amazon shows that to be true. 

For those interested, here’s a link to amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Building-Digital-Libraries-How-do/dp/1555706177/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1199662294&sr=8-1. 

–TR

Christmas has come and in 10 minutes, will go for another year, and it was fun.  Nathan came up with two of my favorite memories of this year’s Christmas.  One happened two days ago when we opened presents at my parents house.  Nathan and Kenny got a little foam shooter and he was hot to give it a try.  I wasn’t  paying attention, and I kid you not, I hear the following next to me.

Click (Nathan shoots off a foam disk)…Ouch!.  I looked over at him and he was squinting looking at me and said: I shot my eye out.  Of course, he didn’t shoot his eye out, but in classic Christmas Story fashion, he’d shot one of the disk near his eye.  Then, not 10 minutes later, Kenny does the same thing.  We had to put that one away.

I’ll have to admit, I love the Christmas Story, so I had a hard time not laughing while I was making sure Nathan was ok.  Then today, Santa had delivered Kenny and Nathan their presents.  See, we open presents from Mom and Dad Christmas eve and then the boys get to see if Santa brings them anything on Christmas.  I’m not sure how many more years we have where Kenny will still get into this, but this is Nathan’s first year of really knowing who Santa is and why he should care.  We’d spent the day tracking Santa on the Norad Tracks Santa site (a wonderful site for kids on Christmas), and the kids were bouncing off the roof when we finally put them to bed.  Of course, they got up early (or I stayed up too late, not sure which), and ran downstairs.  Kenny started passing out the presents and to his delight, he found that Santa had brought him some presents, Nathan some presents and he found a present for Alyce under the tree as well.  I’d put one down last night to save for Christmas.  Well, Nathan thought this was hilarious.  He was looking over the presents and seen that I didn’t get anything and asked, Dad, did you get any presents?  I said no, and he got a mischievous little smile on his face and said, Dad, were you naughty.  And I said, maybe.  At which point, he happily started dancing around the house, reveling in my naughtiness.  I guess Alyce told him later that I had given her the present and that Santa only brings presents for little boys and girls, but it made me laugh a bit.

Anyway, Christmas was great.  We had a good time with family, helped my in-laws lay some tile in their kitchen and even had some snow (for the first time on Christmas that I can remember).  None of the snow stuck, but snow is snow. 

I hope everyone was able to take some time, relax with family and friends and had a merry Christmas. 

–TR

So I finished my second Jack-o-lantern this evening.  I needed the boy’s help because we had to clean 3 pumpkins to make it work.  Our project for this year — a snow man.  Since we don’t get a whole lot of snow in the Willamette Valley, we decided to improves.

–TR

Halloween is just a few days away and this year, I’m getting the pumpkin in right under the wire.  The first jack-o-lantern done tonight was for my boys.  Here’s a picture:

For those that don’t have a 6 year old (or a person that acts like a 6 year old), the picture is of the Pokemon character, Pikachu (ピカチュウ, Pikachū?).  Both Kenny and by extension, Nathan, are really into Pokemon right now, so I took a shot at immortalizing their favorite on a pumpkin.  I think that it actually turned out pretty good.  Much better than my info pumpkin (MARC record Jack-o-lantern) from last year I think. 

We have one more pumpkin sculpture to finish — but this is my project so its taking a little bit longer.  Not because it’s more detailed (its not), but there are props that need to be finished.  I’ll post a picture when its finished.

–TR