Freeloaders

MMM, DOUGHNUTS: We were out the door by 8 this morning. What was the fire under our feet? Why, the offer of free doughnuts, of course. Turns out June 3 is National Doughnut Day.

According to a Krispy Kreme press release, the "holiday" was established in 1938 by The Salvation Army to raise funds to help people in need. And the kids were happy to hear that "in honor of the 73-year-old holiday, Krispy Kreme is once again giving each guest who visits a participating U.S. Krispy Kreme shop on June 3 one FREE doughnut of any variety. No purchase is necessary to redeem the offer." Sweet!

We headed north, to a KK on Aurora Ave., right by a Lowe's we frequent. When we walked in the doors dozens and dozens of doughnuts were rolling on the conveyor belt. Clearly, they were expecting a crowd. Just past the doughnuts we spied a KOMO 4television news camerawoman and reporter. That's right - free doughnuts are Big News.

We didn't even have to wait in line. As we approached the counter, a Krispy Kreme worker held out a hot, fresh glazed doughnut to each of the kids, and as soon as they grabbed that (saying 'thank you' of course), she also gave them each a hat. They were Most Happy.

We sat down and watched the reporter and camerawoman go about their business for a few minutes, and then we were off to Lowe's for a couple of items. After that, it was across the street to K-Mart. Annabelle was hot to check out the toy aisles and see if there was anything to spend her Tooth Fairy cash on. We probably spent a full 30 minutes perusing the many aisles of toys. Dolls, action figures, puzzles, games, summertime fun products ... Annabelle coulnd't make up her mind - UNTIL she spied a Hex robotic bug. SOLD! And a good call, might I add.

Hex come in four types: Nanos, that 'behave like a real bug,' flipping themselves over; original, which reacts to touch and sound; inchworm, which comes with a remote control, six-legged spiders with remote controls, robotic crabs, which react to light and sound, and lastly, ants, which is what Annabelle got (pink, of course).It's a neat little creature with all sorts of gears and other mechanics to interest the kids. It darts about the house, changing direction when it touches or senses an obstacle (corporate demo video here).

Crafty Annabelle even conceived of and built a boxing-ring like contraption for her bug. Maybe she'll help bring back the BattleBots series (Lordy how I loved that show).WEIGHING HEAVILY: Out of the blue today, CJ told me about "a very sad story" the music teacher read to the class this week. It was about a little boy "whose father did many bad things to him, beat him locked him in the basement did so much more things than that. And the son made up his own music (his dad) called it silly trash."

I could tell CJ was very bothered by the story and had been thinking about it for awhile - no doubt off and on since Tuesday afternoon, when he heard it. CJ likes to come up with alternative, happy endings for stories he doesn't like, and this one was no exception. "I would snatch a key from (the dad) and I would say, 'No, I'm not giving it back!' unless he would treat his son better," CJ proposed. "I'd show him what it's like to get beat up then he regret doing all those things."

Way to work it out, CJ.

DEAR DIARY: While we were at K-Mart today, we also scored something CJ has been seeking for weeks and weeks - the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid Do-it-Yourself Book." CJ spent about four hours this afternoon working on the book. There are questionnaires to fill in, a few little games and jokes sprinkled here and there. CJ was happy to share every little tidbit he was writing down. For instance, one of the pages asks a series of questions about how CJ pictures himself as a 30 year old. Regarding the job he'll have he listed he'd be "an actor."

"Oh - I didn't know that. When did you decide that?" I asked.

"Right now!" he replied.

Too funny! :)

The next question asked what item he'd take to work every day. CJ told me, "I'm going to take a pen so I can write things down and remember my lines as an actor." I think that makes perfect sense. When Christian got home this evening, CJ was eager to show him the diary and said, "I'll give you a 30-page demo," and they read it together.

Annabelle wasn't as forthcoming with her diary info. In fact, this afternoon, she shut her book if anyone even approached the couch, where she was working.

FREEBIES, ROUND TWO: A few minutes before three, the kids and I readied for our Starbucks run. It's week three of "We Love You Fridays" promo in Seattle, and this week's giveaway - MARINERS TICKETS - w00t! Rick came with us.
We got tickets from the Starbucks a half mile from our house, then drove to another one about a mile away and then looped back around and hit the Starbucks in Magnolia Village. By our third stop, it was clear at least a couple of other people were making the rounds, too. All totaled, the six of us should be able to go to two Mariners games for "free" (not counting food, drink, etc.) Excellent!
Oh, and at one of the Starbucks they had free bags of coffee grounds for compost, so I scored one of those, too!

Pitchmen

GONZO: Annabelle, a/k/a Snaggletooth, has been driving me CrAzY with a super loose top front tooth. She has balked about anyone (namely ME) 'helping' it out. This morning, when it was basically SIDEWAYS in her head, I told her, "That's it. It's over!" And I (gently) coaxed/cajoled/tricked her into letting me take the thing out. It took a half a second.Though she hated the idea, she was glad when it was gone. Now she's got a hole the size of Rhode Island in her smile. ;)

SIGNED ON THE DOTTED LINE: The kids are now both officially registered with Seattle Public Libraries' Summer Reading Program. If they read 10 books by August 1, they get a free book, a pass to the Burke Museum and (new this year) their names are entered into a "Breakfast of Champions" event at the Space Needle. Groovy! There's even a reading program for we big kids. All we have to do is read three books, write a review and we're entered in a drawing for a Nook. Nice!

TO MARKET, TO MARKET: We've spent the last few days talking about jingles. Today, I thought it was time for the kids to take a crack at writing one of their own. I asked them each to go find one game, toy or device that they would like to tell the world about.

Annabelle chose her "X-Ray Yoshi" sculpture. CJ chose the Rectron-3 game console we bought at the Retro Game Expo last weekend. I told them to write a jingle or combo jingle/commercial for their chosen item. Annabelle spent a bunch of time monkeying around with instruments and playing with her Yoshi. Suddenly, she announced she was ready with her jingle. She did one and only one take and proclaimed herself done.

CJ wasn't impressed. "Your ad was a FAIL," he proclaimed. Ouch.

CJ was a bit more thorough. He wrote notes. He studied the box his product came in. He practiced his lines several times. He drafted Annabelle for a part in his ad (which she was happy to overact in) and there were several takes until he came out with this:

Of course, the outtakes from his ad were the best part!

FRIENDLY: After school, we met CJ's BFF from kindergarten at a park in Magnolia. The kids played at a park for a few minutes, but soon the rains came. They chased us a couple of blocks to Magnolia Village Pub, where the kids each enjoyed a side of fries. We tuned "Phineas and Ferb" into the booth's TV. It's a great cartoon - one of those both kids and adults can enjoy. Once the fries were gone and P&F was over, the skies had cleared and we went back to the park for a bit.

Needless to say, it was a very pleasant way to spend two hours this afternoon.

SPECIAL DELIVERY: When I checked the mail late today, I found an envelope from Antioch College from Kennedy. I called him and told him about it and he told me to open it for him. Inside were some long, explicit directions about how he should register for classes. I started to text him the info but several dozen characters into it I decided it was more than I wanted to text. I offered to deliver it to him a couple blocks south of his place in Fremont. More specifically, at Fremont Brewing - a place we've been wanting to check out for awhile.

The digs are no great shakes - wobbly tables and planks atop kegs for benches - and they don't serve food BUT who cares? ;) Their beer is excellent and the price is great and it's very family friendly. We brought our Super Mario Bros. chess board, which quickly attracted the attention of another young boy there. He joined our party and we had a rollicking, hour-long match. The boy (an over-sized four year old) had never played chess before, but he was a quick study. I was impressed.In the end, CJ's team lost to Annabelle's team, but there were no hard feelings. It was plenty of fun for everyone.

Put to the Test

DIG IN: Not sure what you were doing 15 minutes out of bed, but Annabelle was out digging in the dirt, still wearing her pajamas. It's never to early to be doing a soil science experiment, right?
The kids had some homework to finish up before their science class this afternoon. Their task was to dig two holes in two different types of soil and compare the porosity of the two.

First, they dug into the raised flower bed. It took each of their 2-cup deep holes there 20 seconds to drain one cup of water. Next, we moved over to some dirt with a heavy clay content. Having learned about clay, they know it's denser, and both predicted the water would take longer to drain. Seemed reasonable to me.
And sure 'nuff, CJ's hole took 50 seconds to drain. Then Annabelle poured a cupful of water into her hole in the clay. It drained rapidly - in about 15 seconds. We were surprised. We'll have to dig some more holes and do some more experimenting when we have more time than we had this morning, when we had to hustle off to school for ...

PIZZA WEDNESDAY!: Today is the kids' favorite day of the month - the Wednesday where there's a pizza feed at their school.

The kids enjoyed pizza while they reviewed their science notes for the final starting at 1 p.m. After they ate, I suggested they go outside to get some fresh air and wake up their brains. TEST TIME: At 1 p.m. it was time to find out if the kids' hours of studying would pay off. They were excited they got to use handheld computerized units to record their answers. The teacher took them through a thorough tutorial about how to use the units. Each child was assigned a numbered (1-12) unit and after the question you could see on the screen who answered when, and before moving onto the next question, a bar graph would pop up and show how many people selected each answer. Pretty slick.

I don't know for certain yet, but based on how and what they studied, I think both kids probably did great on the test, and they think they did, too. Annabelle did have one technical difficulty. On one question she pushed the wrong button, so the wrong answer recorded. The end result was she said an apple is made out of rock. I assured her we know that she knows that's not true. :)

The last question of the test was a True or False one. The statement in question was something like "Rocks are amazing, interesting things." Of the 12 kids in the class, there was only one who answered "false." I, of course, knew immediately who that was.

On the way to the car CJ said to me, "I said 'false' on the last question." I laughed and said, "That's OK."

A bit later in the day when we were reflecting on the test, he said to me, "They should have an upgrade to that test, because that's an opinion question." I told him that I happened to agree with him. Granted, some people find rocks fascinating (CJ says, "Hi Uncle Jim (the geologist)!" Other people, well not so much. And I think that's OK.

SWEET 16: For whatever reason, today CJ was ruminating about what it will be like when he's 16. For example, he asked, "When I'm 16, will I get my own breakfast?" I told him yes, that would probably be the case. "But if I break a bone or something, you'll get it for me?" he quizzed. I reassured him we would help him out should he become infirm. :)

Then out of nowhere he adds, "16-year-olds probably watch Monday Night Football, because they're almost grown ups." That made me laugh. I told him he could watch that now if he wanted to.

"When I'm 16 I'm going to drive you places," he continued. "And if I see a car coming I'll put on the brakes." I shared with CJ that when his brother Kennedy was 16, he was the World's Worst Driver and that he nearly killed us more than once.

At that he said, You're lucky you weren't killed, because if you were killed, I wouldn't be born." So true!

CJ continued, "There might be someone so worse at it that it makes Ken's driving when he was 16 look great." I told him if there was someone worse than Ken, they likely didn't live to tell about it. ;)

THERE IS ANOTHER: Today at the library I spied a series of books called "Great Illustrated Classics." Titles on the shelf included greats like "Huckleberry Finn" and "Journey to the Center of the Earth." I'd love for the kids to read them all - but which one best to hook them? I decided "The Wizard of Oz" was my best bet.
Turned out to be a good call! CJ was engrossed in the book from the second he laid hands on it. He read the first 30 pages on the way home from school and was up to page 80-something by this evening. This thrills me, as I was afraid his reading kick might have started and ended with the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" series.

Not to be outdone, when CJ wasn't reading it, Annnabelle was. She's in the 180s and should have it finished before 9 a.m. Most excellent!

Jingle Jangle

MORNING GLORY: CJ started his day at 6:30 with about an hour of reading on the couch. I love seeing that, and not having to tell him to stop reading so we can rush off to school. ;)
MUSIC MATTERS: It's Tuesday, which means music class day in our household. The kids finished up their music homework, which consisted of transcribing the music for "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star."

Naturally, Annabelle's headline had artwork, as usual.

Christian had today off since Monday is his usual day off and that was Memorial Day. Since he was home on a Tuesday, Christian had the pleasure of attending the parental participation part of the class. He reports they learned and performed a Bavarian polka. Wish I'd been there to see that!

Here's a picture of the polka pair on their way up the alley after music.

NEW ON THE "TO DO" LIST: Via a homeschool resources email, I learned about the International Center for the History of Electronic Games in Rochester, New York. Based on its Web site, it pretty much looks like a place CJ would design. In fact, he's got a smaller version going in his bedroom!. :) How is it that we'd never heard of this place before?

ICHEG displays video games, other electronic games, and related materials. The center has over a half a million visitors a year. in a variety of ways in The Strong’s National Museum of Play, which hosts nearly 600,000 guests each year and guests can see and play video games, past and present. You can take a mini virtual tour on their Web site. The center even has a 26,000+ item research library. Its collections constitute the largest and most comprehensive public assemblage of electronic games and game-related historical materials in the United States.

We simply must visit some day.

JINGLE BELLS: For the past few days, the kids and I have been talking about jingles - what they are and why they're used. I told them that while I have no stats/science to back it up, I think that jingles used to be used a LOT more in advertisement. Seemingly everything had a jingle back in the day! I speculated that perhaps because now ads are able to pull off so many visual special effects, they don't rely on a musical hook to get your attention. Kind of sad, IMHO. Thirty years from now, people won't be singing a visual effect from 2011 under their breath and/or teaching it to their kids.

CeeJ and Bee seem to delight in the jingles from my childhood and have memorized many of them, including the Freakies Cereal commercial ...

They're still working on mastering the speedy "two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun." It is, of course, from the Big Mac jingle circa 1974-76. The kids were super impressed to learn that Christian won a coupon for a free Big Mac as a kid by calling a toll free number and singing that jingle flawlessly in under 5 seconds. I remember my sister Renee and I doing that as well - but I sure don't remember getting a coupon. Bummer for us.

Today, as I served (Nathan's) hot dogs for lunch, I found myself singing "Hot dogs. Armour hot dogs. What kind of kids eat Armour hot dogs? Fat kids, skinny kids, kids who climb on rocks. Tough kids, sissy kids, even kids with chicken pox love hot dogs. Armour hot dogs. The dogs kids love to bite. " YIKES. Those lyrics wouldn't fly on a commercial today, would they? :0

I searched YouTube for the original version of the commercial and couldn't find it. I did find a BUNCH of remakes and knock offs, including a version from The Simpsons (the show is dubbed in Spanish, but oddly the hot dog song is in English). How's that for a successful jingle?

Tomorrow, I'm going to ask the kids to each write their own jingle. Stay tuned.

LAST ONE STANDING: Tonight, the mighty, majestic space shuttle Atlantis slowly made its way from the Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Pad 39A. I've watched several roll outs past and let me tell you, this is by FAR the largest crowd they've ever had for a roll out. Looks like thousands of space program employees and their friends and family are on hand for this bittersweet moment.

Meanwhile, Endeavour is making her way home, set to land just after 11:30 p.m. our time tonight. Today, NASA released this fantastic shot taken on May 28, before Endeavour left its dock at the International Space Station for the final time. Image Credit: NASA

SAYS WHO?: Late this afternoon we went to Lowe's on a lumber run. By now, all four of us basically despise going there. We've just spent so much of our lives in home improvement stores, we dread going.

As Christian loaded up 2x6s, 2x4s and 4x4s (for railings for exterior staircases), I kept the kids busy playing Simon Says. CJ was pretty bad at it at first, but he caught on and couldn't be fooled after awhile.
TWO THINGS: I forgot to report that yesterday while we were at the Mariners game, the kids were shown on the big screen, dancing to "Shake Your Grove Thing." They were pretty jazzed about that!

And tonight we found out that Kennedy has been accepted into a Masters in Education with Teacher Certification program. He'll start this summer. Yay, Kend!

Wonderful Weekend

ON LIKE DONKEY KONG: On Saturday and Sunday mornings we were at the Seattle Retro Gaming Expo at 9 a.m., getting our video game geek on.

It was held at the Deca motel in the University District. For us, the big draw to the show was the fact they'd advertised that EVERY SINGLE Nintendo Entertainment System game ever made would be available in the free play zone. Cool! CJ and Annabelle (getting some mileage out of their Mario and Princess Peach Halloween costumes) made a bee-line for the Virtual Boy. Released in 1995, it was "the first video game console capable of displaying 'true 3D graphics' out of the box" per Wikipedia.

CJ said the Virtual Boy made his eyes hurt. I think he was happy to make that sacrifice, though.

They both also availed themselves to access to the rarest and most valuable NES cartridge ever released"World Championships" game. With only 116 copies made, it goes for upwards of $15,000 at auction. It's a track and field game and really no great shakes as far as graphics or content. Its rarity is what makes it so noteworthy.

CONVERT: The game play area was great, but CJ was even more interested in the vendor zone. For a long time now, one of our goals has been to find a very old, rather rare, import Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) game that has a converter inside it that makes it possible for you to play any Japanese Famicom game on US NES systems. There are a few games that were originally for the Japanese market that were rush marketed to the US which have converters inside the case so that the games will work on U.S. machines.

CJ has shown us videos about which games might have the converter embedded and Christian and I have committed this list to our hard drives. ;) There are several games which *might* have the converter inside, but if you can believe what you read on the Internet ALL copies of Stack Up have the converter. Christian found a copy of Stack Up at the show and we bought it.

Once home, we could all hardly wait to crack that case open ...

Once he opened the cartridge, we saw that we'd hit the motherlode (insert sound of a choir of angels singing here). See that black rectangle in the middle? That's the coveted converter!

Once he had that, CJ (with some help from Christian) was able to take that part and use it to make an accessory that allows CJ to play any Japanese Famicom game in a regular Nintendo Entertainment System console.

I am happy to report ...It worked!!!!! (You see it being played above in a nifty new console we picked up at the show that plays NES, SNES and Sega Genesis games). CJ was thrilled his converter worked and we were all very proud of him. :)

In other news, we also picked up another old school console at the show. CJ begged us to buy a Mattel Intellivison system. From 1979. Nearly a quarter century before he was born.
It's an interesting unit. Per Wikipedi, "A series of advertisements featuring George Plimpton was produced that mercilessly attacked the Atari 2600's lesser capabilities with side-by-side game comparisons." I actually remember those ads!

MEMORIAL MONDAY: Naturally, we talked about Memorial Day - its genesis and what it means to our country. We had tickets for the Mariners game and as luck would have it, as we entered Safeco Field, the Star Spangled Banner was being sung. We paused to listen and to think about those who made the supreme sacrifice for our freedoms.

Of course, I thought of the longtime voice of the Mariners today - Dave Niehaus, who got his broadcasting start with Armed Forces Radio.

It was a wonderful afternoon at the ballpark. The Mariners won (first time they've done that when we've been at the game in a couple of years) and as we were walking out of the stadium CJ turned to me and said, "Thanks for taking me to the Mariners game!"
I told him he was more than welcome. :)