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Monday, April 28, 2008 Five Islands: New Zealand Ah, the crown jewel. I probably keep Parker looking over every square mile of these two islands - at this point, he probably knows them as well as he does the geography of Florida.    What can I say about New Zealand? Simply that I think it is the single most perfect place on Earth, at least from every image, film travelouge, and book I have read. When I think of New Zealnd, I immediately think of Gonzo's solo in The Muppet Movie: This looks familiar, vaguely familiar, Labels: Parker, Where in the World ------------------------------------------------
Five Islands: Reunion The next island Parker and I explored on line was Reunion. This little gem in the Indian Ocean is comprised mainly of three massive volcanic craters, or cirques, one of which is active. I was intrigues by the remoteness of it all - many of the villages within these maze of valleys are inaccessible save by tortuous trails across cliff faces or by helicopter.    Photos by Ptorodellas and Manu Frankness Labels: Parker, Where in the World ------------------------------------------------
Sunday, April 20, 2008 Campaigns and Strawberries I found this in the bottom of my bag the other day from the last round of political campaigns in Alachua county. It is definitely the strangest non sequiter I have ever seen in a political mailer:  I could not find a single reference to strawberries anywhere else in the mailer - mainly statements on the candidate's record. In doesn't help that semantically the phrase reminds me of Darth Vader saying "I find your lack of faith...disturbing." Now the image of Vader enjoying a bowl of chocolate-covered strawberries...that would sell me on a candidate! Labels: Graphic Design, Politics ------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, April 16, 2008 Saget Night, Part Deux  I'm going for the gold! Labels: Modern Life ------------------------------------------------
Tuesday, April 15, 2008 Albright - Saget = Awesome  What a day! In the morning, we got to hear a witty and insightful look at the past few decades of U.S. foreign Policy by Madeliene Albright. In the evening, an abortive attempt to see Bob Saget and see how far down he went to find a lowest common denominator in comedy...which instead ended in observations of friends having just a little too much to drink and saying far, far funnier things.  Labels: Politics, Sheer Awesome ------------------------------------------------
Saturday, April 12, 2008 It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's an Enigmatic Bounty Hunter!  Conversation overheard between Parker and a boy on the playground at Possum Creek:Parker: And you can be Boba Fett. Boy: (excitedly) Boba Fett can fly. Like Superman! Parker: He CANNOT fly. He has a jet pack. Twenty years on, and Boba Fett still rules. Labels: Star Wars ------------------------------------------------
Blast from the Past  Remember when cable was affordable? And pretended to cater to families? Labels: Cute Overlord, Disney, Modern Life ------------------------------------------------
When Cuddly White Whales Go Bad  Parker approached me excitedly as I came home to tell me about his trip to the library. He was especially excited about a pop-up book he found that was all about sailing. In the book, Parker explained, a bunch of sailors were going across the ocean in a sailing ship, when suddenly a giant Beluga came and wrecked their ship! The people were then caught in a whirlpool and diappeared. Finally piecing it together, I asked him "Was this book called Moby Dick?" "Yes!" he shouted excitedly! Photo by Iwana Kellie. Labels: Cute Overlord, Parker, Spot the Pop Culture Reference ------------------------------------------------
Garfield Minus Garfield  I used to read Garfield when I was younger. I even had quite a number of the collected books, and was a regular watcher of the Garfield / U.S. Acres half hour on Saturday mornings. But then I grew to find the warped humor of the Far Side and the whimsical and poignant humor of Calvin and Hobbes more to my taste, and the orange tabby went to the wayside.Garfied minus Garfield, however, has brought me back. Others have attempted to do the same, by erasing Garfield's thought bubbles or substituting a more realistic cat drawing for Garfield (Realfield), but none are quite as bizarre or sad as this version: Garfield has been removed entirely, so Jon Arbuckle talks to himself, coming off as lonely, schizophrenic, and completely miserable. It should just be sad, but it comes off as hysterical, because it pushes the normalcy (or dare I say it, the Nermal-cy) of the original and makes it extremely surreal - and yet I can still identify with Jon and his reactions to the world around him. Go Now! Garfied minus Garfield! But please come back. Labels: Fun on the Web, Hey Kids - Comics, Sheer Awesome ------------------------------------------------
Powerpuff Z  I don't know - the Powerpuff girls lose some of their charm when they are redone in anime. There's something a tad uncomfortable about taking the characters that originally around seven or eight and re-imagining them as teenage Sailor Moon type characters - especially given that I think they are still supposed to be seven or eight in this version. Mojo Jojo, however, is always awesome.Labels: Cute Overlord, Mojo Jojo, Sheer Awesome ------------------------------------------------
Monday, April 07, 2008 The True Story of Mr. Roboto  Kilroy was a 46-year old shipyard worker during the war. He worked as a checker at the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy. His job was to go around and check on the number of rivets completed. Riveters were on piecework and got paid by the rivet.Kilroy would count a block of rivets and put a check mark in semi-waxed lumber chalk, so the rivets wouldn't be counted twice. When Kilroy went off duty, the riveters would erase the mark. Later on, an off-shift inspector would come through and count the rivets a second time, resulting in double pay for the riveters. One day Kilroy's boss called him into his office. The foreman was upset about all the wages being paid to riveters, and asked him to investigate. It was then that he realized what had been going on. The tight spaces he had to crawl in to check the rivets didn't lend themselves to lugging around a paint can and brush, so Kilroy decided to stick with the waxy chalk. He continued to put his checkmark on each job he inspected, but added KILROY WAS HERE in king-sized letters next to the check, and eventually added the sketch of the chap with the long nose peering over the fence and that became part of the Kilroy message. Once he did that, the riveters stopped trying to wipe away his marks. Ordinarily the rivets and chalk marks would have been covered up with paint. With war on, however, ships were leaving the Quincy Yard so fast that there wasn't time to paint them. As a result, Kilroy's inspection "trademark" was seen by thousands of servicemen who boarded the troopships the yard produced. His message apparently rang a bell with the servicemen, because they picked it up and spread it all over Europe and the South Pacific. Before the war's end, "Kilroy" had been here, there, and everywhere on the long haul to Berlin and Tokyo. To the unfortunate troops outbound in those ships, however, he was a complete mystery; all they knew for sure was that some jerk named Kilroy had "been there first." As a joke, U.S. servicemen began placing the graffiti wherever they landed, claiming it was already there when they arrived. Kilroy became the U.S. super-GI who had always "already been" wherever GIs went. It became a challenge to place the logo in the most unlikely places imaginable (it is said to be atop Mt. Everest, the Statue of Liberty, the underside of the Arch De Triumphe, and even scrawled in the dust on the moon.) And as the war went on, the legend grew. Underwater demolition teams routinely sneaked ashore on Japanese-held islands in the Pacific to map the terrain for the coming invasions by U.S. troops (and thus, presumably, were the first GI's there). On one occasion, however, they reported seeing enemy troops painting over the Kilroy logo! In 1945, an outhouse was built for the exclusive use of Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill at the Potsdam conference. The first person inside was Stalin, who emerged and asked his aide (in Russian), "Who is Kilroy?" ... Labels: And Know You Know...The Rest of the Story, Graphic Design, History ------------------------------------------------
Friday, April 04, 2008 Ash and Xena  I gave into a ten year itch this week and purchased my first honest to goodness comic book - Army of Darkness / Xena: Why Not? The title sells itself, no? The comic book store certainly didn't do a good job of it. Ten years later and it';s still like it was the last time I was in there - it reeked of clove cigarettes, the employees were way too busy counting inventory or playing Magic the Gathering to ask me if I needed help, and the stacks were incomprehensibly laid out. On top of that, the clerk informed me I needed to make a ten dollar minimum purchase to use a credit card. I ended up waiting and going to another store. I wish I could say it was worth the wait, The comic almost hit the right tone, but just missed the mark. If anything, Ash came off as denser than in the movies, and felt rather out of character. I wanted to love it, but it did fall short. Maybe reading summaries on the web is an effective placebo. Labels: Hey Kids - Comics, Sheer Awesome ------------------------------------------------
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Saturday, September 27, 2008 Breathing on a Whole New Level Last night, I went to a Breathwork workshop at my church, the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Gainesville, led by Zen master Al Rapaport. I have been interested in Eastern philosophy/alternative practices for a while (Zen, yoga, chiropractic care, Reiki, etc.), but have never looked more into it for myself. Why, I'm not sure. Fear, probably -- I've found it difficult to take those first steps in my adult life, and I'm not sure how to be more comfortably adventurous. As I was going to the workshop, I was worried about getting there on time, if I was properly prepared, if I would get uncomfortably emotional, and more. I felt very self-conscious and nervous, and I'd even considered turning around and going home. I hadn't, after all, let anyone know I was planning to go (I even waited until the night before to see if Jeff cared if I went). Still, I went. There were, thankfully, others there for whom this was a "first time". After an explanation about chakras, full oxygenation, and the technique, we got started with the exercise and immediately, I started to feel a tingling sensation all over my face and head, and tears started to come. I at first wanted to stop, and get my emotions in check, as I normally do, but I let go of that self-consciousness and just let it be. Overall, it was an amazing experience, though my focus kept being drawn back to my own body -- my mouth wanted to close and I had to rest my hands on my cheeks to keep it open; my sinuses became so full I couldn't breathe through my nose even if I needed to; my right shoulder pain returned when I was trying to place my arms where my body wanted them to go; and my right sciatic started to hurt. These short brief interruptions brought me back to the moment and pulled my focus back to the present and my typical thoughts -- constant and overlapping. However, for the majority of the time, I was able to go beyond my mind chatter. There were several times when I felt strong waves of emotion, and in these times, I realized that the technique of breathing that we were using is one that my body chooses on its own when I am uncontrollably emotional, which only happens when I've consciously isolated myself -- it was odd for it to happen in a room of people completely unaware of what was going on. Although we were talked through the different chakra points in ascending order, my own experience was the opposite. I could feel the strongest sensations at first in my head/face area, which went down to my chest, and through the rest of the chakra points, in the opposite order of what was being directed. For me, the majority of the hour-long meditation was with a downward feeling of energy, though at the end, I felt energy moving upwards as well. I also had an experience of color -- two, actually -- initially, and almost immediately, of blue and about halfway through, when I felt this tingling energy in my midsection, of yellow/gold/orange. It was definitely a calming experience, and insightful as well. Processing it all is still unfolding, and I'm sure it will be a technique that I try again. Labels: Kristin, meditation, spirituality, stress ------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, April 02, 2008 A Kira Story As recited by Kira, age 3: Once upon a time there was a little kangaroo listening in my ears. If he saw a turtle, he climbed the bed. And if he saw the rabbit, he saw the bird after him. And if he saw the tree bird on the tree, he wanted to play in the bedroom. And he wants to play in the kitchen. And he wanted to get the muffin. A kid muffin. The end. ------------------------------------------------
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Sounds like someone's been reading "If you give a moose a muffin." LOL. We discovered a new one today: "If you take a mouse to the movies." It's a holiday story. Very cute. By Sunday, March 30, 2008 Am I a Janeite? I have been obsessed -- obsessed -- lately with period dramas. Thanks to the love that is YouTube, I've been able to fulfill by thirst pretty readily. What started with Pride & Prejudice (two versions), Sense and Sensibility(two versions), and Emma (including the baaaaaaad Kate Beckingsale version!) has expanded to Becoming Jane, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, and Mansfield Park (two versions). Since then, I've branched out to watching the 2006 BBC version of Jane Eyre (oh, is Toby Stephens perfect for this or what!!), A Room With A View, and just last night the Tenant of Wildfell Hall. But watching these hasn't been enough. I have reread Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, and have Pride & Prejudice as the next to reread. I feel like there should be a ton more of this type of book, and I want to be aware of them all ... ALL!! Why did Jane die and stop writing? Just isn't fair!! Or the Bronte sisters, for that matter!! Of course, now I have friendly people sending me information on the Jane Austen Society meetings, and hearing stories of turning about the room derived from my "obsession". And I've noticed that some of my emails and writings have taken on a delicious Regency Era turn ... though I don't seem to use enough colons and semi-colons. ------------------------------------------------
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I read P&P at least twice a year. Watch the A&E version as many times and read whichever of her novels strikes my fancy at any given time. I can't even put in order next that I love more. It would be like ranking my children in whom do I love more? Her writing makes me wish we still talked eloquently. We have lost something with losing our formal English and going with the more informal version. How is it that phrases like, "It will not do" are dead? Or words like ardently have lost meaning. *sigh* Thank goodness there are others like me. =) By Tuesday, March 25, 2008 Letting Go of Preconceived Notions It has been rather hard for me to wrap my mind around how to "do school" here at home when it seems so antethetical to being at home. The biggest issue is that I have a number of friends with kids in public school, and I always am comparing Parker's progress to theirs in my head. Fears of him "falling behind", especially when I know how bright he is, often haunt me, and I feel like I am constantly researching to see what to do that feels right. The most recent concern of mine is that Parker doesn't write much at all, and it doesn't look at all like his public school counterparts' writing. We don't write daily, and he claims to not know how to spell. He has been reading since he was 4-1/2 and is able to navigate online, including doing Google searches for things like Star Wars, Age of Kings, and how to fly an airplane just today. So, I've been trying to think of how to get him to write more, though making us sit down for a set amount of time each day just seems so unlike the free flow of learning that we've been doing. Talk about a cross-roads! What I think will work seems wrong and what feels right is wrought with fears. So then, thanks to a friend sharing the Brave Writer site, I read a really interesting article about the homeschooling equivalent of "Keeping Up with the Joneses", in which the author discusses this mindset of comparing a homeschooled child to a regimented-schooled child. It was very refreshing and actually confidence-building to know that this is not a struggle that I'm having alone. The author suggests developing your own personal family philosophy about homeschooling, and I think that will be next on our list of things to focus on. I believe having it written out in a form that we can reference will be very helpful -- or at least consoling! Labels: homeschooling ------------------------------------------------
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Hey Kristin, Monday, March 17, 2008 Childrens' Magazines and Censorship So, we signed Parker and Kira up for National Geographic Kids (for Parker) and National Geographic Little Kids (for Kira) because we love NG and thought these would be kid versions and awesome. Well, we got Kira's first, and it is pretty good. Obviously very watered down, but we appreciated it for a young toddler age. Then we received Parker's first issue. WOW. It was so totally the opposite of what we were expecting! Not classy at all, and filled with all sorts of "crap" for lack of a better word that didn't seem in the vein of National Geographic at all. You open it and see the table of contents, and the next page is a huge full page advertisement for "The Water Horse" movie. Move on and see a full page on video game tips opposite silly pictures of athletes and stupid captions for each of them. The back cover and inside back cover are advertisements for Goosebumps of some such and some food product, both just BLARING at you visually. And one of the two-page articles is about "Stupid Criminal Tricks" or similar. There was one VERY awesome article about lions in the whole things with NG-like photography, but all in all it was just shocking and disappointing to both me and Jeff. So, what were we going to do? Luckily, we saw it before Parker, and were debating on whether or not to even give it to him. We both really liked a few things in it, and were torn on what to do. So -- here comes the censorship -- we opted to glue pages together and cut the back cover off completely. Isn't that terrible???? But, if we are not having cable in this house because of the commercialism, does it make sense to subject him to it in a magazine? I am still not sure we did the right thing, and when the next issue comes, I'm just not sure what we'll do. I am just rather appalled at how anti-NG this magazine seemed!! Labels: homeschooling, parenting, Parker, Pop Culture ------------------------------------------------
Thursday, January 24, 2008 "I wanted the green knight to win" Parker was in the newspaper: Parker Stevens, 6, was among a few children dressed in medieval costumes at the event. "I wanted the green knight to win," Parker said after the last battle. We had an awesome time at the Medieval Knights display, and Parker was able to learn more about medieval weaponry (not that he needed to at this point!!), and the actual weight of it all. Labels: cute phrases, homeschooling, Parker ------------------------------------------------
Monday, January 14, 2008 My Kingdom for Teeth! Parker finally lost his second tooth today. He's had three loose teeth (bottom right incisor and top two middle incisors) since forever, and even back when he saw the dentist he was predicted to have them all gone by Christmas. That didn't happen and today was finally the day to lose the bottom one. The top two are so loose that they've moved together and outward to be kinda buck-toothed. Now, Parker has always been a sensitive child, and I am a-okay with that. But it is heartbreaking when he cries because he's lost the tooth. He wants it back, even though he's amazed that this same little tooth was able to help him chew all of that food! He is currently going to sleep very sad, and crying intermittently, and I don't know how to help him through this loss. Hopefully, the tooth fairy will be extra sweet to him, and he'll have that to look forward to!! Labels: milestones, Parker ------------------------------------------------
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