Photo Hunters - Sweet

Oo la la! I was originally going to post a photo of the chocolate cake I made from scratch for Doug's birthday, but this hunky stripper from Cirque du Soleil's Zumanity show is truly sweet. This awesome shot was taken by a kind stranger, but it doesn't show the sequined G-String he was wearing - those jeans are only chaps and rip away! In order not to confuse the picture taker, I handed her the Canon S2 IS with the display on instead of the Canon Rebel XTi. Nice shot of the abs, but just a tease of the sequins below. I was in such awe that I could only muster a "You were totally awesome" when I approached him for the picture.

Thursday Thirteen #7 - Cool things I saw in Las Vegas

I have to admit that I enjoyed Las Vegas much more than I expected. With the high temperatures predicted at 106°F, I thought I would be dying in the heat, but what they say about "dry heat" is absolutely true. Yes, it was really hot, especially in the sun, but it is like standing in front of an oven. When the sweat instantly evaporates, it is much more bearable than the hazy, hot and humid 95°F days that we get on the East Coast. I toted around a large water bottle, hat and two cameras and thoroughly enjoyed the sights. I also expected that Las Vegas was going to be totally fake, cheesy, sleazy and tasteless. They have really cleaned up the strip and even the old downtown was fine. The nicer resorts turn down the volume on the slot machines and infuse the place with happy ions and scent so you don't notice the cigarette smoke. I would definitely bring the family back for vacation, during a cooler time of year.

1. Cirque du Soleil Zumanity - This was by far the best show that I have ever seen in my life. I had awesome seats in the second row on the aisle so I could touch the performers as they went by if I wanted to. Definitely another post coming up on this show.
2. Wynn Hotel - I had seen this hotel on the Travel Channel, but it is every bit as beautiful in real life. You would expect total luxurious perfection at $600/night.
3. Star Trek The Experience - This was indeed a bit cheesy, but was the one thing I wasn't going to miss. Here I am with a Klingon.
   
4. Venetian Hotel - The Better Software Conference that I attended was held here and it was really beautiful. Even the bathrooms had marble everywhere and solid wood doors on the stalls. What's fake about that?
5. Paris Hotel - I loved the view from the top of the Eiffel Tower and even watched the Bellagio's water fountain show from there.
6. Bellagio - Not only did I watch the water fountain show from the Eiffel Tower, I came down and recorded a video of it from the ground. I kept having to remind myself to stop watching it through the camera and really experience the grandeur through my own eyes. It was the only time I used the compact tripod that I expressly bought for this trip. Turns out that running the Canon Rebel XTi at 800 ISO was fine for all the night shots that I took.
7. Caesar's Palace Forum Shops - What a mall! I loved the circular escalators and the life size Trojan Horse at FAO Schwarz.
   
8. Peter Max Gallery - I happened upon this awesome gallery of one of my favorite artists in the Forum Shops.
9. Aquarium - I searched for days trying to find this in Caesar's Palace and finally found it in the Forum Shops on my last night. There was also an animatronics show on the Fall of Atlantis above it with lots of fire and water.
   
10. Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum - I was not going to see this because "fake people" don't do it for me. But after seeing Whoopi Goldberg at the entrance, I was sold. I went with a co-worker, handed him one of my cameras so we took lots of pictures of each other posing with the fake celebrities. Definitely something you should see with another person.
11. The Auto Collections at the Imperial Palace - Lots of beautiful and rare cars, plus a vintage bar on display. Now this hotel reeks of stale cigarette smoke, so beware.
12. Fremont Street Experience - I had seen this light show on the Travel Channel as well, but it was cool so witness it in person. By the time I saw it, it was 11pm PDT or 2am EDT so I was pretty tired. Near the end of the show, I had officially reached sensory overload, couldn't video record it any longer and ended up walking back out to the bus stop. Me, sensory overload? Unheard of!
13. Tiger at MGM Mirage - Roy and Siegfried are are only in Vegas in wax nowadays, but they did have a beautiful white tiger on exhibit.

Wordless Wednesday - Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas

No, it is not Paris, but the 1/2 size Vegas model. I've finally gotten around to uploading pictures from last week's trip. 382 photos from the Rebel XTi, untold number from the S2 IS.

Photo Hunters - Shiny

Heres Dova's new shiny jellyfish from the New England Aquarium. She was so excited to go while Adam went to MIT for my reunion. 

Wordless Wednesday - Forever Young

Dova loves to dip her feet into Grandma's pond.

Photo Hunters - Hair

This is the photo hunt I've been waiting for ages for!! Here is a picture of me at 16 in 1983 with my long hair. My father took this picture. 

My Moo cards are here!

Ever since I saw these Moo mini-cards, I just had to have them. The size is so cute and the card stock is really nice and heavy. I was in the process of picking 100 photos, but it was so hard to individually crop them all (of course I need to have TOTAL control), so I ended up getting some blog promotion cards instead. All my friends will be getting some (you know who you are!).

Thursday Thirteen #6 - Kindergarten Math

Adam came home with this worksheet for number series and it was harder than I expected for Kindergarten.

Write the next number in each series:

1. 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
2. 5 10 15 20 25 30
3. 2 3 4 6 7 8 10 11
4. 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 5
5. 1 3 1 4 1 5 1 6 1
6. 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
   
7. 3 2 6 4 9 6 12 8
8. 1 5 9 13 17 21 25
   
9. 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
10. 20 18 16 14 12 10 8
    
11. 0 1 0 2 0 3 0 4
12. 6 5 4 3 2 1 6 5 4
13. 3 6 9 12 9 6 3 6
    

He only got #3 wrong, where he answered 13, trying to out trick the question. That's my boy! I think #7 (answer is 15) and #13 (answer is 9) are tough ones for kindergarteners.

Forever a slacker

I am always impressed by people's ability to work really hard and accomplish great things. I, on the other hand, am a total slacker. Sure, I do a good job at work, but I mostly ride on my "natural ability". When I was a senior in high school, I received an award for achievement in mathematics and unlike the other award recipients, had no extra work they could credit me for, so they gave it to me for "natural ability". I always did the minimum amount of work to get the A+ and not one iota more. Sometimes I call it "efficiency". I did have to bust butt to get a decent GPA at MIT as the workload there is for superhumans. I'm probably selling myself short, as I've definitely put my share of long hours and huge efforts at work, but for the most part, I do just enough to be "exceeding" and don't put in the extra effort to be "outstanding". I've got a life to live after all! And then once in a while, I hear stories such as these and feel guilty that I'm really not contributing enough to society, and that I probably could do great things with my "natural ability" other than coding pretty user interfaces and efficiently doling out tasks as a middle manager and soccer mom. Here are the NPR stories about impressive people who have real drive and aspirations.

• School bus driver wins NASA Contest: Sure the title sounds far-fetched, but this guy does have a leg up in that he was formerly an aerospace engineer who opted out of the rat race. It describes his ingenuity using very little resources and the long hours he put in to design a new space glove.
• Farmworker to Surgeon: Immigrant Lives Dream: Illegal migrant worker turned neurosurgeon and professor at Johns Hopkins University. This guy is really impressive and humble to boot.

Wordless Wednesday - More soccer pictures

I was playing with continuous shooting and captured some nice sequences, including these two goals below. I'm so proud of my boy!

Brawling on the soccer fields

This spring, I petitioned my town's soccer league to allow Adam to play in the U8 (under 8) division even though he missed the cutoff and was still six years old. His previous coach gave him a great recommendation and thankfully he really thrived in the new environment. On good days, he scored 3 goals a game against his 7- and 8-year-old opponents. I saw this interesting post by Boston Mommy about how youth sports have gotten out of hand and about mom coaches which gave me a lot of perspective. I replied in a comment here:

I’m certainly aspiring to be a soccer mom extraordinaire and really appreciate this interview. I’ve been team parent for 2 seasons now and really enjoy being part of the community soccer scene. Coaching is definitely out of my league as I have nearly no athletic skills, although I have a close mom friend who does it and really enjoys it. I also know a woman on my woman’s ice hockey team, who only started playing at the age of 46 and now is an excellent player and coaches her son’s hockey team. She got her skills by attending all the same hockey camps together with her son. Now that’s dedication.

In our town, we have both the in-town and traveling soccer teams for U10, but only traveling teams above that. Right now, my son being six was supposed to be in U6, but I lobbied to have him start U8 early, where he is flourishing. His coach starting talking to me about the travel teams for next year and was surprised when I told him that he was only 6. I hate to be labeled one of those ambitious pushy soccer moms, but I was only trying to put him with players at his level. The other kids in U6 were not getting equal play time and fun when he was regularly scoring 8 goals a game. I have the feeling that the traveling teams do receive top billing in our town and will probably have my son tryout when he is old enough (but not before this time).

One thing I did not expect however, was when some of the older kids on Adam's team got into a fistfight during practice. I only heard about it secondhand from another mom, since I was busy chasing Dova around that day. Apparently, there was a boy on Adam's team that was taller than the rest of the kids and a very good ball handler as well. He was not a good team player though and always took the ball down the field without passing so he could score. During this practice, the coach's son tried to get this boy to play fair and stole the ball and took it down the field. The other boy then jumped on the coach's son and threw three punches, right, left and an uppercut. The coach immediately pulled the boy off and yelled "That is not acceptable!" The mom who witnessed this was shocked to see something that violent. She looked around and saw that everyone else missed the incident and thought she was in a twilight zone. She did spot the boy's dad rolling his eyes saying "Not again..." Again? This has happened before? The boy sat out for the rest of practice and at the end the coach spoke to his dad. Apparently under pressure, the dad asked his son to apologize or else he wouldn't get to play on the team. The son refused. The dad started getting animated to show that he meant business but the boy kept refusing. They eventually left without an apology. After practice, the mom went to the coach to let him know that she was moving her son to a different team because she didn't want him playing with this boy. The coach said no, no, you don't have to do that, we'll figure something out. What the league figured out however, was to move this boy off the team and into U10. So this is how they deal with unacceptable behavior? By rewarding him with a promotion? I was extremely disappointed to hear about this decision. Sure, he was bigger and better, but soccer is a team sport and his behavior is only going to get worse. He should have been suspended. I hate to even think that Adam could be involved in fights of this nature at his age. But as long as there are clueless parents, there will be clueless kids.

Dova still likes to fly

Here is Dova at the height of her colic at seven weeks old. This was one of the only positions which she would calm down and fall asleep. Did I mention that she had the world's largest cheeks? Apparently she was saving some nuts for the winter. We saw this picture flash by on the computer so Doug recreated the shot to see how much she's grown. 

It won't be long before we can't hold her like this at all!

Photo Hunters - Shoes

Every since I saw my friend Jennifer's Keen sandals, I just HAD to have a pair. REI had a sale on them and I snatched them up for $79.99, still not at all affordable! Here they are on a subsequent trip to REI where I saw this cute tiny pair for tots.

And here I am on casual Friday kicking back at work - back when we still had Twitter access :(. 

Happy Birthday Doug!

Here is the first picture from my new Canon Rebel XTi to make it onto the blog. Happy Birthday to me? No, wait, that was in January. How about Happy Father's Day to me? No, that doesn't work either. How about just Happy New Camera to me! Happy Birthday Doug, you're the best! I hope you have a great day and hopefully I won't mess up your cake!

Thursday Thirteen #5: Organ Donation

I recently heard about organ donation in the news and wanted to pipe in for this cause.

1. A Dutch television network said that it would broadcast a "reality" show featuring three patients competing for a kidney to be donated by a terminally ill woman, but it turned out to be a hoax to promote awareness of organ donation and the lack of organ donors. It did encourage tens of thousands of people in the Netherlands to sign up.
2. In the United States, the waiting list for organ donation is nearly 97,000 people. Many will die without receiving one. That is one death every 90 minutes.
   
3. Organs that can be donated include: the heart, intestines, kidneys, lungs, liver, pancreas, skin, bone and bone marrow, cornea.
4. Once removed from a body, a kidney has a 72-hour window before it needs to be transplanted into a patient.
5. Organ donations from dead donors far outweigh donations by living ones. Organs that can be donated from living donors include the lung, partial liver or pancreas and the kidney.
6. A 2005 Gallup poll revealed that more than half the population of the United States was willing to donate organs after death. However, fewer than two out of 10 families opt to donate organs of relatives after death. Relatives can still dissent even in the presence of evidence of explicit consent by the potential organ donor.
7. The percentage of individuals in the United States who have granted permission to donate their organs or tissues reached 53 percent in 2005, almost double the 28 percent in 1993.
8. "Presumed consent" has been adopted in France, Spain, Australia, Belgium and Portugal, although no country mandates that organs must be donated.
9. The Spanish transplant system is one of the most successful in the world, but it still can't meet the demand, as 10% of those needing a transplant die waiting for one.
10. There has been a ban for organ trafficking in India since 1994, although the practice continues.
11. This is an excellent site that dispels myths about organ donations.
    
12. I've been an organ donor as long as I've had a driver's license and my family is well aware of my intentions.
    
13. Become an organ donor and tell you family about it! Here is information on how to register to be a donor in your state.

Sources: Wikipedia, Wired, IHT, NIH, HSRA

MIT Dome goes green

I got this nice email today inviting me to a MIT Dome lighting event this Saturday evening:

Join MIT President Susan Hockfield on Saturday, June 9, when a new lighting system illuminates the iconic Great Dome of Building 10 at 10:30 pm. All local alumni, current students, and parents of current students are invited to attend this special event. For around the same amount of electricity needed to run two hair dryers, a total of 12 new fixtures will light the dome, the Roman numerals that spell out 1916 (the year the building opened), and the limestone facade of Building 10. The new lighting system incorporates energy-saving light-emitting diode (LED) fixtures and is made possible through the generosity of an anonymous donor. The donor also has provided funds to help pay for a 40-Kw solar photovoltaic array to be connected to MIT’s electrical grid. This new solar power system will ultimately provide three to four times the electrical energy consumed by the dome lighting. The free event, which comes at the conclusion of a full day of Tech Day activities that will bring 3,300 alumni and alumnae to campus, will feature light refreshments and music at the base of Killian Court. All in the MIT Community are welcome. To register, please go to...

That is brilliant (pun intended), using solar energy and energy-efficient LEDs to light the dome. I'm actually going to be at MIT that day for my 20th reunion (yes I'm that old), but in actuality I am only sending Adam to the Kid Tech activities and spending the day with Doug and Dova at museums in Boston. I couldn't get adequate babysitting coverage to attend the reunion in person so Adam will be the only one attending my reunion (brainwash early, brainwash often). He will be having a great time with Lego's and towers, two of his favorite pasttimes. Here are his program descriptions for the day:

L'eggo My Lego's

Forget that Ferrari and jump into the driver's seat of Lego Cars. Younger children build contraptions that propel their cars the furthest while older children design real motor-powered vehicles, as each group races for the gold.

Physically Possible?

Bridge the gap to the physically impossible with a bridge design and competition for all ages. Younger children also reach for the sky as they see who can build the tallest straw tower, while older children hone their design skills to create their very own Rube Goldberg machine.

Very cool! At least someone will be enjoying my reunion. Unfortunately, the kids will never make it to the dome lighting ceremony, but it should be a fun-packed day.

Peace Globe

Since Massachusetts didn't have a representative yet, I decided to put up my peace globe early. Please visit the official Blogblast for Peace site to see all the globes.

Happy 3rd Blogiversary

Whew, I need a break! For some reason, I set up a goal of post a day for the month of May and extended it right up to my blogiversary/blogoversary, whatever the official name is. It was a blast cranking out posts and cleaning up lots of old drafts (I still average 10-15 drafts), but blogging is definitely an addiction, and this experience only added fuel to the fire.

A lot has happened in the past year, especially in the past month. I've joined lots of memes, listings, and managed to even to become A-list blogger (albeit temporarily simply due to the number of blogrolls I've joined). I've also taken real cash in sponsorships, which is a help for our single income family. Now, that I've obtained my goal plus more, I need to step back and actually catch up on some real life activities such as:

1. Wife - Doug has definitely become a blogging widow.
2. House - Let's just say that it needs a bit more cleaning and decluttering.
3. Knitting - Too many projects. Just finished knitting a square for Rebuilding Greensburg, and need to get back to making mini-mittens. Dova is also expecting me to knit a purple stegosaurus with this pattern.
4. Cross-stitch - Adam's was done when he was 18 months old, but Dova's is hopelessly behind. Maybe when she is 4?
5. Pictures - I haven't printed any photos since last summer, including a book I was planning to put together for our Disney trip. Plus, I've got to learn to use my new DSLR camera!

So back to the regular blogging schedule!

Rejected Wii Play games

This is a bit politically incorrect, but hilarious nonetheless. Originally found on Engadget, referencing LoadingReadyRun. After I bought the Wii, I had a hard time finding extra remotes so when I saw that the Wii Play game was bundled together with a remote, I pre-ordered three copies and patiently waited a month to receive them. I sold off the two extra copies piecemeal on eBay and ended up making enough money to cover my own copy. I had originally pre-ordered 10 copies, but stress of having this extra inventory which I had to sell at a profit was too much for me (I'm a SW engineer, not an eBay entrepreneur!). The Wii Play games are pretty lame, but Adam and I still love to face off on the cow-riding scarecrow-crashing game called Charge!.

Impossible toys

For Adam's birthday last year, he kept asking for this XPV Fly Wheels toy that he saw advertised on TV. Since it had just come out for the holiday season, we paid a premium for it at Target ($70) and then also had to buy a $30 battery (thankfully funded by a gift certificate he also received). It looked like a cool toy, which could run on land, fly in the air, do loops, etc. The first time Adam tried it with dad, they flew it in our yard, which is fairly large. Doug wanted to get a handle on the controls as it is basically two joysticks controlling two fan motors independently. If you don't control it carefully, the aircraft immediately goes into a spin. Within a few minutes, Doug flew it into a small tree. He ended up cutting down the tree to retrieve it. The next time they tried it, they went to the high school field where there is plenty of open space. Again, Doug fly it into a tree. This time he couldn't cut it down, so they left it up there and checked every few days to see whether it fell down. About two weeks later it had come down and despite weathering a few rainstorms, held up fine. Now the toy sits on Adam's shelf gathering dust because it is simply too hard to play with. I asked Dr. Toy about another toy that I was obsessed with as a child but haven't heard back yet:

In the mid 1970's there was a handheld hoop about 12 inches in diameter and 4 inches wide which you could roll a ball inside of. You could pass the ball to person with another hoop. I remember the commercials being cool and begging to get one, but when I got it, it was nearly impossible to do and I could only roll the ball a couple of times. What is this toy?

They made it look so easy in the TV commercial, but when I got it home, it was really hard to do and no fun at all. I think I imagined that it had a clear track inside of it so you could roll it forever, but didn't think through how you could throw it off the track and pass it to another person. I hate impossible toys and how they make them look so easy on television! Things never change.

CheapoAir.com - Great travel deals for families

I'm a huge bargain hunter so when I was approached to review the CheapoAir.com site, I was glad to find place where I could find great travel deals. Our last family trip to Disney World cost an arm and a leg but thankfully I got to keep my first born.

I just recently booked a trip for a geek conference in Las Vegas, I mean the Better Software Conference, so I figured I'd put these guys to the test. I had company-obtained tickets for $535 from Manchester NH to Las Vegas NV midweek. For the same dates and destinations, CheapoAir.com found flights for $387, quite a bit cheaper. The return flight was a red-eye, but well worth it if you were paying on your own dime or wanting to take your family with you. I actually have an ulterior motive for going to Las Vegas, besides never being before, I want to see Star Trek: The Experience. Between the software conference and trekkie heaven, it will be a totally immersing geeky 3 days for me!

Then I decided to window shop for a family vacation. I have heard wonderful things about the Disney Cruise Lines, so I clicked on their Cruises link. I found the usual Caribbean cruises (boring), but then the 10 night Mediterranean Cruise Disney caught my eye. Their cruises packages started at $1299 and went from Barcelona to Palermo, Naples, Sardinia, Rome, Florence/Pisa, Marseilles, and Villefranche. How cool would that be to bring the kids to Europe in a safe non-threatening Disney way. Unfortunately the dates in June didn't mesh with plans that have already been made, with Adam attending my MIT reunion and swim lessons starting. Besides, I was just window shopping! Of course the downer is that you also have to book flights to Europe. At the bottom of the cruise description, I clicked on the "Book Now on CheapoAir.com" banner and it immediately brought me to a flight booking form with the cruise dates already pre-filled. I typed in Boston to Barcelona, and amazingly, they came up with tickets for only $389! Quite affordable indeed.

So for due diligence, I tried this out on my usual personal travel site, Expedia.com. They did have a the same cruise for the same price, but when I went to check the airfares, it was a completely different story. First of all, there was no nice pre-filled form with the dates, so I had to switch back and forth to fill in the information. Then the best flight fare was $1225! Hardly affordable for a family of four. I don't know how CheapoAir does it, but they sure are doing something right.

I had the opportunity to ask them a few questions as well:

How is CheapoAir.com different from other travel sites?

We are dedicated to providing quality travel products to today's budget traveler. With the advent of the Internet, the world is a much smaller place. Cities that we've only dreamed of visiting are now a click away and so is planning that dream vacation. People also work very hard for their money. Weekend getaways, last minute travel, it can all seem overwhelmingly expensive and impossible. We make it affordable! Our core product is airfare, namely cheap airfare! We also offer cheap car rentals, affordable hotel reservations, and inexpensive cruise and vacation bookings. We're launching comprehensive destination guides throughout the month of May and over the summer. We offer a bi-weekly Fare Alerts Newsletter and ongoing travel deals to top destinations throughout each month.

We listen to our customers. We welcome and appreciate constructive criticism. We want to hear from our customers and do. We're also always upgrading our technology to maximize the consumer experience and save customers time.

How does CheapoAir.com get lower rates?

We have over 18 million negotiated and exclusive fares. Each executive team member brings 20+ years of travel industry experience and expertise to the table.

Photo Hunters - Art

I've been meaning to join Photo Hunters for ages, so I'm finally plunging in (plus I have photos lined up for the next few weeks). This week's theme is art, and I choose several photos from when I travelled to Seattle for the ASMS show last year.