I found a plugin that allows me to easily insert Flash movies. The key word being ‘easily’. I know enough HTML to insert Flash movies on my own, but this is so much simpler. Here is a test of the flash plugin.[kml_flashembed movie="../images/mini.swf" height="240" width="300" /]Feel free to click the flash movie to visit my MAME site.
Originally uploaded by ROMbler.
Aaron was playing around with this old yellow sweater that he’s loved for years now. When he was smaller he used to hide inside of it and I would drag him around the house. He may be too big for that now but, he is still coming up with creative things to do with it!!
You can click on the picture and it will take you to my flickr.com site where you can see more of his sweater hijinks.
Today we started by waking up late (love waking up late) and putzing around for a little while (read: playing xbox). My father had given the boys a gift card for the local movie theater so we decided to go see the Cars movie. The movie was funny and entertaining. Aaron was getting irritated by the constant noise from the younger children in the theater. It reminded me of when they were little and their mother and I took them to the movies. They would get restless and sometimes making noises like the kids that were now bothering Aaron. – Anyway
After the movie we came home and then hit the pool again. It was a great day to be outside – not very hot or humid. At first we had the pool to ourselves again, but after maybe an hour people started showing up. We were there for about two hours.
After diner we made smores again…
Tomorrow we hit the water park again!
Originally uploaded by ROMbler.
Two Christmas’ ago I bought the boys a little smores maker and they never fail to ask to use it when they are here for more than a weekend. I had promised they could make some tonight so I unpacked it and set it up. Earlier today we had gone to the grocery store to get the ingredients and Aaron has been asking to do it ever since. They each made two smores (so we could have enough left to do it again on another night).
I love gadgets. I like hearing about them, reading about them, comparing them, seeing them, and thinking about buying them. When the iPod came out I, like many other people, thought it was very cool looking. It was also very pricey. I read all of Apple’s hype about them, I saw the cool U2 comercials and imagined myself being one of those cool silouetted users. When I got into my internet research and comparision I found more downsides than upsides to this next generation mp3 player.
I do use iTunes on my pc’s as my main player. I think it’s one of the best music player around – free or otherwise. But, I never saw the need to buy an iPod. I already have a decent mp3 player in my iPAQ – though it does lack the iPod’s user friendly menu system – and I could never justify the high cost for such a feature poor toy.
Then came the video iPods and I was once again faced with trying to reconsile the even higher cost with my current portable video ability. Once again my iPAQ prevailed – mostly because it was already paid for. I also have other ways to watch videos on the move. I can code movies to play on my iPAQ or on my Gameboy Advance SP which is cool but, it takes several hours to code a normal two hour movie.
Then I saw that you can now play MAME on the iPod! I have been a fan of MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) for several years now. I have built my own arcade cabinet just for playing the games I loved as a kid but, short of putting it on a laptop I have been missing a more portable gamming solution. There is a version of MAME for my iPAQ but I didn’t have any real success using it. It was very slow and many games would not even play. So, once again I will ‘run the numbers’ and decided if I can justify purchasing an iPod (used on eBay no doubt) to play MAME and some of the other things that can now be done with a modified iPod. Why own an iPod when you can own a modified iPod. What ever I decide, it’s fun to dream about it.
This is my first post in WordPress – I’ve switched my blog from blogger.com to WordPress which is now hosted on my web site. This will give me more control over the administration of the blog, plus WordPress is a pretty feature-rich application. The setup is very easy since my service provider, Liquid Web, includes it as a feature. I did have to upgrade to the latest version as they only offered an older one. So far I like what I see. I will be adding different plug-ins and messing around with templates over the next few weeks, so you may see changes. For now I am still running my mobile blog on blogger.com. The mobile blog is where I can send pictures from my Sprint PCS Samsung A900 camera phone directly to the blog. It’s a pretty neat idea and I have been using it lately to send pictures of the boys on their summer visit. I seem to be using my camera phone to take pictures more than my regular camera – which takes much better pictures but can be a pain to lug around.
On Tuesday evening we were coming back from the pool and the boys told me that there was a frog in the back seat. At first I assumed it was a frog that gotten in while the top was down on my car and had died. It turned out to be a live frog wedged in the corner between the seat, seat back and the back panel. I grabbed some paper towel and tried to pull it out but, it retreated deeper into the seat. I tried again, this time wedging my hand farther down and grasping the frog tighter. I didn’t want to kill it, but I wanted it out. I could feel him in my hand and his body gave a lot more than I thought it would. I was afraid at any moment I’d hear a squish and have to towel up frog guts. Once I knew I had him firmly I pulled him free and tried to throw him into the grass. In my haste I didn’t quite make the grass and he landed on the driveway with a wet slap. He lay there for a few seconds and then turned – glad I didn’t kill him.
Last night I took the boys to the pool after diner (pizza again). We got there pretty close to dusk because it had looked like it was going to rain any minute most of the evening but didn’t. When we got there I noticed that the lounge chairs had been moved around, probably by stupid kids screwing off – a couple were right up to the pool edge and two were on their sides. The boys jumped into the pool and I grabbed one of the unmolested lounges and stared in on a new book: Dan Brown’s “Angles and Demons”. A friend at work had given it to me and he said he thought it was better than “The DaVinci Code”, which I enjoyed. Well, that didn’t last long because the mosquitoes were starting in on me. Mosquitoes are a normal part of summer evenings in SW Florida and you learn to expect them. Maybe it was because I was sitting in one place but they began to swarm me. A few at first. Then the word must have gotten out that there was a big human just sitting around out side ‘cause the all came looking for blood. They were flying around my eyes, in my ears and I could feel them on my legs and my head. Once one of them tried to fly up my nose I decided the book would have to wait and I went to where the boys were at the other side of the pool to jump in. Before I did I noticed another lounge chair sitting at the bottom of the deep end. Geeze-us! What is the point of throwing a lounge chair into a pool? This isn’t the first time it’s happened. F’ing teenagers have screwed with this pool area many times over the years. I don’t get it. Even when I was a teenager I didn’t get the point of F’ing stuff up just because you can. I’m not saying I was an angle as a teen, but this one never made sense to me. The boys helped my get the chair out – all the while the mosquitoes had caught on to my plan and had found me at the other end of the pool. So, the chair safely returned to dry land I jumped in.
For the boys’ visit this summer I decided to take every Monday and Friday off to give us long weekends together. I thought this would be better than taking a whole week off at once. But, that means that I have to work three days each week they are here – not a bad deal from my point of view but, boring for the boys. And I understand just how boring it can be.
I can remember being home with my brother during the summer when both our parents worked. The days seemed to stretch out for ever. After a few days we had done everything there was to do at the house. Trying to find ways to pass the time became the only way to pass the time. T.V. shows became boring and we played all the games we had to play. I did enjoy reading but, you can only reread a comic book so many times. I would look forward to when we would go shopping and I could find a new comic or magazine dive into. – Anyway
I know what my boys are going thru. I have bought them books but, Scott already read both of his and Aaron has yet to begin the one I talked him into getting. Though I feel bad they are stuck at home for the nine hours plus travel time I have to work each day, it is not my biggest concern. My main worry is injury or worse. These are bright and creative kids. Mix that with vast streaches of bordom and you can have problems. So, I decided to set up a webcam to keep an eye on them. I pieced together a little 850MHz system with a wirless card and a video capture card. This way I could use one of my better cameras as a webcam and put it almost anywhere I wanted. This, along with using Windows Media Encoder, would give be a better image than my cheezy webcam. Plus, I could use my old webcam with my laptop to give me a second webcam in another room. Good in theory, but not in practice. I couldn’t get the capture card to send the video to the encoder. Bummer. I didn’t have time to mess with it very much so I resorted to using my cheezy webcam and media encoder on my Toshiba laptop. That worked no problem. So now I am streaming my webcam thru a VPN to my office where I have my iPAQ connected to the LAN.
The boys stayed up until a little past one a.m. Wednesday night! I couldn’t believe it. They were up for about 22 hours that day. That makes for a long day, especially when half of it is spent flying and a long lay over. At the end they were both looking tired and once they laid in bed it was only a few minutes before they were both asleep.
I had been given Thursday off at the last minute (nice surprise from my Director) so the late night was no big deal for me. I love nights – not a morning person. Thursday I slept in a little but was up before the boys. They were up, I think, around 9 or 9:30 and I made them pancakes for breakfast (gotta love microwave pancakes) and be bummed around for a little bit and planned our day.
First thing was the pool. They love the pool, Aaron
especially. It had been raining a lot over the past several days and I noticed that the pool looked a little cloudy. I just assumed it was due to the rain and that the filter system would clean it up so we jumped in. We were swimming and playing for a little while when the pool guy arrived. He told us that we would have to get out for about twenty minutes while he put some chemicals in the pool. He was very polite and apologetic for kicking us out. I told him it was not problem and that we would just run to CVS and come back. We hit CVS and got some drinks and looked at pool stuff (goggles, snorkel, etc) to kill time. 
Just before we reach the pool parking lot we pass the pool guy in his van and I give him a wave. I figure we timed it perfectly. As we pull up to the pool I can see he has left the lid for the pool pump up – something isn’t working right. Assuming the pool is closed I ask Aaron to run up to the pool and grab the stuff we left on a lounge chair. As Aaron is doing that the pool guy pulls up next to me to let me know the pool is closed and that he is running back to his office to get a closed sign and pick up a replacement motor. I told him I figured it was closed and was just getting our stuff. He was a nice guy and was appologetic about having to close the pool. I thought it was nice of him to turn around to tell us.
So, with our pool outing cut short we decided to see Superman Returns. It’s a great movie, as I’ve talked about in a previous post. The rest of the day was spent just hanging around.
Friday morning was another slow start but, that is what vacations are for. After breakfast I took a look out the window and saw rain clouds coming but not too close so we headed to the pool. Twenty minutes in it started raining. A good steady rain so we packed up and drove the one block home. We get home and the boys change into dry closes and we talk about what to do next. Aaron wants to go back into the pool and Scott wants to play the xbox. Then we notice that it has stopped raining so, we headed back to the pool and had it all to ourselves for several hours.
Saturday it rained or sprinkled all day. But, since there was no lightning we spent several hours at the pool – once again having it all to ourselves. We had a great time.
The big fun for Sunday was going to Toys R Us so the boys could spend some of the money they got from Papa for all the A’s they got on their report cards. Scott bought another Bionical – he really digs those things – and Aaron bought a cool nerf dart gun. He has a few nerf guns already but, this one is like a Tommy gun and requires batteries. Here is video of him trying out the gun.
Later that evening I took the boys with Nana to borders bookstore. I told them I would buy them each a book. Scott loves to read so, it’s easy to get a book for him. Aaron, on the other hand, takes a bit more coaxing. I finally got him to pick out a star wars short novel (as of Tuesday evening he still hasn’t touched it). I also picked up a book of optical illusions for all of us to look at. After Scott and Nana had picked out their books the decided to get a drink and sit outside at one of the tables. Aaron and I were still looking for his star wars book. Once we got the book we went to get our drinks and meet Nana and Scott outside. As we were sitting outside and talking my mother told me that Scott had bought her tea for her. She was very impressed that he would think to do that and more so that he would want to do that. He is a very sweet and thoughtfull kid.
Monday – my last day off for the long weekend -we hit the new water park that opened in town. We got there just after opening so we would get a good spot. The place filled up quick, but dispite the crowd we had a blast. The boys hit the water slides several times and I spent much of my time floating along the ‘lazy river’.
We would have stayed longer but, I was getting fried. We will be back, though. It’s a great place and we had a blast together.
I picked up the boys around 3:30 this afternoon from the Fort Myers Airport. They had been up since 3a.m. this morning and dealing with a two leg flight to get here. Still, they were in good spirits when they came thru the gate. It was so great to see them. They were both noticably taller and ‘older’ looking. It is amazing the changes they indure over a couple of months.
We picked up their bag from bagage claim and headed for the car. Once outside I could see the huge, black storm cloud coming up from the south – exactly the direction I will be heading. By the time I hit the on ramp for the highway it was pouring. By the next exit it was pouring worse and traffic was moving along at 40 MPH – which was find by me, I could hardly see the car in front of me.
Once home and settled we ordered pizza for diner. 
Later I played a game of Chess with Aaron – well, not a full game. He got bored about 15 minutes into the game so he quit. Scott and I played a full game – which he won. 
To relax we watched a few episodes of “Who’s Line is it Anyway” I had Tivoed. One of the things we try to do routienly is to watch “Who’s Line…” whenever we get the chance.
Even though the boys had been up since 3a.m. they are too jazzed up to go to bed yet. I, on the other hand am getting a little sleepy. We’ll see how long they will stay up. I can already see Aaron is getting tired, but he doesn’t want to give up yet. We’ve just finished playing Star Wars Battlefront 2 three player.
On occation my job requires me to travel to our branch office in Everglades City. It’s a long and boring drive (especially if you’ve made it several times). This time I decided to take my digital camers with me and try to get some nice pictures of the Everglades. 
Last Hurricane season Everglades City was hit pretty hard. Here is the city hall building still undergoing repairs from the Hurricane. 
