Estudiando Espanol

We had a bit of a glitch continuing on with Rosetta Stone at the start of the school year, and it fell by the wayside for a bit with Michael and Nathan. We finally just started the whole system over again (can't hurt). Matthew, meanwhile, decided he REALLY likes taking Spanish lessons on the computer. The interface is pretty easy for him, and he likes it enough he's asked Mom for permission to work on it more than once in a day. Quite a few new words en Espanol added to the vocabulary this week...

There's worse things he could be doing!

Happy (belated) New Year!

OK, the new computer is up and running, and MAN is it easier to work video on this thing. Six gigs of RAM will do that, I suppose.

At any rate, now you can see and hear for yourselves what we did on New Year's Eve. The video's about 10 minutes... if you don't want to watch the whole thing, at least skip about halfway through. The fireworks started early that evening, and were pretty constant -- this clip is from around midnight when they reached a rapid crescendo all across the island. Oh... and they continued until about 1 am or later. These people like their explosions!

Changing horses

I tried. I really did. I shot over 15 minutes of video of the spectacular New Years Eve fireworks here on Oahu (see previous post). But all of the sudden, our computer refused to talk to our camera anymore, and I couldn't get it posted to share (you really have to see it to believe it).

I guess computers have "dog years," too. After five and a half years of being a reliable workhorse, I suppose I can forgive the VAIO for starting to act goofy at the most inconvenient times. I spent New Year's Day trying to nurse it back to health, but it doesn't want to run in the fast lane anymore.

Just as a cranky old racehorse can get put out to pasture, so can a computer. We brought home a new one tonight -- 6 times the RAM, 10 times the hard disk space. (Insert geeky victory dance here.) This is the last blog post to be written on the old machine--as I type, I'm already pulling data off it to a portable drive. The mantle is passing hands...

Since there's still life left in the VAIO, just not for high-end apps like photo and video work, it's going to a not-so-quiet retirement as a gaming machine for the kids. THAT'LL teach it!

Happy New Year!

Tonight I think we've seen more fireworks than the last 10 years combined. Little known tidbit about Hawaiians: they LOVE things that go 'boom.' So much so, that two days ago coworkers were warning me about the heavy blanket of cordite smoke that would be hanging over the island tonight. They said every New Years and 4th of July local authorities are concerned about people with asthma and other respiratory problems. I figured they were exaggerating for the new guy.

I was wrong.

From our back deck, we can see a 3/4 view of the southern coast of Oahu. From horizon to horizon, there were shells going off. It was was the closest thing to a city under heavy bombardment I ever hope to experience. Right after sunset, the sky was clear and the moon and Jupiter were very bright in the sky. We had some friends over, and by the time we'd let our kids light their itty-bitty firecrackers and sparklers, you couldn't see a single star for the haze that drifted over southern Oahu. Never seen anything like it, and I can't IMAGINE how much was spent on all the explosives that are still going off as I type this. I tried my best to get some photos, but none do it justice. So just enjoy this one I found posted on a Hawaiian website.

No snow, but lotsa water...

Yes, Virginia, there IS a rainy season in Hawaii... and we're in it! We've had several deluge days, although the locals say it still doesn't compare to last year, when a multi-year drought ended with 41 straight days of rain (averaging an inch or more a day). Apparently some folks were starting to look for gopher wood before that streak ended. (Although, given Hawaii's abundance of these, you'd think people would remember a certain promise...)

We lost power (again) last night for several hours. Naturally the rest of the world took note... but only because the Chosen One is vacationing here. It's nice to know he wasn't inconvenienced much.

Not that we're complaining. Even soggy--and infested with politicians--Hawaii is still, well, Hawaii.

Let'r rip(stik)

Nathan's pretty happy with what he got for Christmas. He oughta be... he picked it out in November, then spent a month allegedly trying to forget he was getting it! ;)











We ended up combining a couple of his favorite things... next thing I know, he's dribbling a soccer ball from the Ripstik... making tight turns and even slapping it with his back foot a couple times. I think we'll be doing that drill some more...

Have yourself a techy little Christmas...

Now that we're spending holidays a few thousand miles from everybody else the next few years, an investment in some modern gadgetry appeared in order. We should have spent the money for this a long time ago!