Blog hiatus

As you can see, some time has passed since the last blog post. And it looks like even more time will pass before anything substantial arrives. With my dissertation defense just around the corner (and my typing still not done), and with a big move to Salt Lake in about a month, it doesn't look good for our humble little blog. Hopefully, once we get settled in our new home and new jobs, we can get back to a more regular blogging schedule. In the meantime, if you want to see some of the photos that I was planning to post, go to Devin's blog jelloplanet. There you'll find stuff from our family reunion in Houston, including some cute pics of Tas. (That's the only reason anyone reads this thing anyway. Heck, that's the only reason we write anything here, for that matter.)

A'ight. Peace out.

Some Tasman quotes

I know, I know. It's been almost a month since my last blog post. Well, things are a little crazy right now. Kirsti just finished up her class and she's still working on a prospectus for her capstone project to finish her doctorate. I'm also finishing up my dissertation for my doctorate. I have now started teaching my summer calculus class at Miramar college. We had a family reunion last weekend in Houston and this next week we'll be in Utah looking for a house. So, it's a little chaotic here. At some point, I hope to be able to blog about the fun weekend we had last month with our friends Scott and Vanessa Jackson and Lisa Wood. (We call ourselves the Jackson 5, although with Tas, we're more like the Jackson 5 1/2.) And I want to post some photos from our family reunion. In the meantime, though, I hope to tide you over with some funny Tassie quotes.

• We had planned to wait to potty-train Tasman until we moved to Salt Lake and had a bit more stability in our schedule. But one day, Tas said she wanted to go pee-pee in the potty. So we obliged her and she picked it up pretty easily. She's not at the point where she can decide she needs to go. But if the idea to go to the bathroom occurs to her, she can usually squeeze out a few drops to ensure the awarding of the consequent M&M treat. In fact, I think she started asking to go to the potty just so she could get an M&M. Anyway, the funniest thing was what she said the first night she started going to the potty. She put her hands on her hips and triumphantly declared, "Nothing's gonna stop us now!"
• I fed Tasman some lunch the other day, and she decided she wanted to play a little game. So she told me to "say, 'Hey, Tasman.'" So I said, "Hey, Tasman." And then she responded, "What?", leaving me with no response. Very funny, Tas.
  
• We have been watching Monsters, Inc. a lot. Of all the possible quotes from the movie that she might have memorized, she decided on "I'm watching you Wazowski. Don't let it happen again." Now she says it to us all the time.
  

Popular photo

We've received several comments about the small photo we've used in the right panel called "Tasman's Blue Period". So by popular demand, here is a more full version of the photo. (I maxed out the saturation to get a nice contrast between the blues and the whites.)

California Adventure

We posted a month ago about our trip to Disneyland. The $66 entrance fee was pretty steep, but since we are Southern California residents, we qualified for the "2fer" deal that allowed up to come back to California Adventure within 30 days for free. So exactly 30 days after our Disneyland trip, we drove back to LA for a visit to Disneyland's red-headed stepchild.

Of course, I kid. California Adventure is pretty cool. It's not anywhere near as big as Disneyland, but that was good in our case. We didn't really have all day to spend there, and the six hours or so we did spend was enough to see most of the attractions we wanted to see.

We met up with my brother Nathan and his wife Jess who live in Long Beach. We entered the park around 11:00 and headed straight for the kiddie rides.

Here's the list of things we did with Tas over the course of the day:

• Flik's Flyers
• Francis' Ladybug Boogie
• Heimlich's Chew Chew Train
• Tuck and Roll's Drive 'Em Buggies
• Monster's Inc. Mike and Sulley to the Rescue!
• Turtle Talk with Crush
  
• Sun Wheel

A note about that last one. The Sun Wheel is a rather large ferris wheel, as you can see in this picture of the Paradise Pier area.
There are two kinds of gondolas: one is fixed to the frame and just goes around like normal; the other kind sits on rails and slides back and forth (somewhat jarringly) as the ferris wheel rotates. We opted for the more thrilling, swinging gondolas. Now, if you are keeping up with our adventures, you'll know that both at Disneyland and Legoland, Tasman has shown no signs of fear. Nevertheless, as soon as the gondola first started swinging, Tasman's face turned white, she grabbed a hold of my arm with a death grip, and then started to cry. We all reassured her that everything would be okay. She would calm down a little once the gondola mostly stopped swinging, but then she would cry again when it started back up. In one of the relatively calm moments, she declared, "It's making me a little nervous!"

Aside from the kiddie rides, we were able to swap Tassie among us and ride some "adult" rides:

• Soarin' Over California
• California Screamin'
• The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror

Kirsti only joined us in riding the first of the above. She's not a big fan of the thrill rides. I thought they were all great; these three attractions alone justified the trip to the park.

We left around 4:30. Nathan and Jess were very kind to take Tas for the evening while Kirsti and I went to dinner with our friends Justin and Tarra who live in Norwalk. Thanks for the yummy Mexican! (Just to clarify: we ate yummy Mexican food, not a Mexican person.) Nathan and Jess even gave Tas a bath and put her in her jammies so that she could fall asleep in the car and not be as disturbed when we got home and put her straight to bed.

As always, here are some photos for your viewing pleasure.

The first series was taken while Kirsti and Tas were waiting for me to wait in the ticket line. (It turns out I didn't need to wait in the line; the 2fer passes admitted us into the park directly.) Due to some kind of cosmic alignment, Tasman managed to take about ten spectacular pictures in a row. Here are some of them.

Jess and Tas in the bumper cars.

Nathan, Sean, and Tasman on Heimlich's Chew Chew Train. Note that the ride has not yet started moving. Tas must have loved this ride; she is still talking about it more than a week later. There's a part where the train passes through a giant piece of watermelon, and a little water sprays you. Tasman comments almost daily: "I ride the chew chew train and the watermelon sprays me."

Sportin' the shades.
(I dropped the 'g' as an homage to our trip: they seem quite fond of dropping the 'g' from the names of various rides. While Walt Disney's racist views are widely known, his fear of the letter 'g' is not common knowledge. By the way, does anyone know what the official grammatical term is for dropping a 'g' and replacing it with an apostrophe? I can't find the answer anywhere! One source called it a "clipped verb"—a fine name to be sure—but its usage was ad hoc and appears not to be in common currency.)

Sleepy girl on the way home.

Old school NES

Here are two awesome videos from YouTube. The first appeals to me as a former marching band nerd. (Unfortunately, it appears that it was filmed from the wrong side of the stadium, so everything is seen upside-down.) How many of the referenced video games can you name?

The second is a live reenactment of Super Mario Bros. Frickin' sweet!