Happy New Year!
Also, I got a new cell phone. This thing is so advanced, it can take pictures of itself! (Well, with the aid of a mirror.) Also, it has bluetooth!
Also, is it just me or is it nearly impossible to find a simple ringtone? I don’t want the ubiquitous Nokia tune and I don’t need a full movie soundtrack. I just want a simple riiiiinnng riiiinnnggg. I couldn’t find anything so I finally just recorded something on my flute. Feel free to use it.
AT&T is apparently going through some sort of network upgrade and sometime next year, my old cell phone will stop working. So I got a text message saying that I can stop by a store to get a new one. What I didn’t realize was that I had to give up my old one, which made me a little sad.
See, I got this cell phone when I first moved back to the Bay Area over eight years ago. Eight years! I’ve had this cell phone for half my marriage! I’ve known this cell phone longer than I’ve known most of my co-workers. It’s way older than my blog. Heck, it’s twice as old as the iPhone itself. This thing’s so old it doesn’t even have a camera!
A lot of things have changed this year so it’s somehow appropriate that I’m losing my old cell phone now. It’s like I’m saying goodbye to the things in my old life. Things like my motorcycle, my old glasses, and sleep.
I took out the trash the other morning and something seemed a little different. Like, there was suddenly a lot more space in my driveway. Eventually (I’m a little slow in the mornings), I realized that someone had stolen my motorcycle.
Normally, I lock my steering column to the left. But I had recently dropped my bike which bent the frame enough that it can’t turn left. (Hence its recent nickname, in honor of another character who couldn’t make left turns.) So they just wheeled it away.
On the one hand, it sucks to lose my motorcycle. But it’s not nearly as inconvenient as losing our car or as upsetting as someone breaking into our house. Also, although I’m not particularly religious anymore, I’m reminded of a Bible verse I learned as a kid. It’s the one where Jesus is like, “Yo, if someone steals your coat, I’m sure they could totally use your shirt so give that to them, too.” I’m paraphrasing a bit there.
I was recently involved in a motorcycle accident. Well, actually, it was more of a “I slipped and fell down on my hand and I happened to be sitting on my motorcycle at the time” kind of thing. No serious injuries, but I couldn’t use my right hand for a couple days.
On the plus side, I learned to do a number of things left handed. In the order of increasing difficulty:
The last two were a little messy, though…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eieYxDr-aU
(I was recently involved in a slight altercation with the ground. As you might guess, the ground won and I ended up with a slightly sprained wrist. Fortunately, I recorded this video before that happened.)
One of my favorite Christmas songs is Silent Night. I’m not sure why. I just think it’s pretty. So it seemed like the perfect choice to try to make a video of with the baby. And yes, I am aware of the irony of having a baby play Silent Night.
I was at a Christmas party recently that featured (what I am told) is a Dutch tradition. It went something like this:
The fun part is that all the cards say things like, “Take the largest present in the room” or “Pick two people who have to exchange all their presents” or “Give the tallest woman your chocolate”. Also, all the cards were in Dutch and only two of the guests could understand them. Come to think of it, they were both pretty tall women…
I still have a bit of a lingering cough from a cold. Not too bad, but a little inconvenient when you’re trying to keep a baby from waking up in the next room. I also recently had Thai food delivered the other day (this becomes relevant in a bit) and there were some leftover dried cayenne peppers that had been marinating in Thai curry.
I remember hearing that cayenne pepper powder was good for a cold so I tried sucking on one of the peppers. It was really spicy but sure enough, my cough went away for a while. I doubt it’d work for something like bronchitis, but it’s pretty effective for a mild cold.
Everybody looks more distinguished with a moustache!
We had a moustache-themed Holiday party at work (I work with some strange people) so I had this extra costume moustache to play with. I am genetically incapable of growing a moustache so I took a picture to remember what I might look with one.
Oddly enough, my dad had really thick facial hair that he had to shave twice a day. So I wonder how my baby will turn out in that regard. Incidentally, it is really hard to keep a fake moustache on a baby long enough to take a picture.
As part of the party, we also exchanged moustache-themed DVDs. I gave away The Professional and ended up getting Gangs of New York and A Mighty Wind. We were both pretty happy about that.
I recently saw a incredible photo of the sun that included a scale reference for 5000 kilometers. Earth’s diameter is within an order of magnitude of that so I was curious to see what the image would look like with a to-scale image of the Earth in there.
Some quick internet searching and a little photoshopping later, this is what I came up with. To me, the most amazing thing is just how darn big the sun is. Those finely detailed plumes of fire? They’re bigger than Texas.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjh6tFshdfI
Believe it or not, this really works! Well … sometimes it works. This was an experiment that seemed to work about half the time. Actually, it seems like parenting is just one long series of experiments. But when you find one thing that actually seems to work, the baby just switches to something else. It’s like they’re evolving or something.