Obsessed with weather?

Did I mention Eddie was obsessed with weather lately?

Becky and I were watching the girls perform on Idol tonight, and while Eddie was supposed to be asleep in his bed, he was instead burning the midnight oil and composing a book about the weather. He really does love to write, although his writing got a little formulaic toward the end. Regardless, it is nice to see his love of writing, and his cursive is absolutely amazing. (Especially when compared with his printing, which is not so great!)

He was so excited about these "extra" stories he wrote (not for any assignment at school), that he wanted to take them in to show his teacher, Mrs. Barbara. However, he said he wanted to edit them in the morning before getting on the bus.

E.M. Harris will be my writer, I think.

Luke will remain my ninja and part-time spy.

scott's ravings -- World Update

Things are picking up... the last few weeks have seen new hits arriving from South America (Santiago, Chile, to be exact), Europe (Finland and France) and Asia (Singapore and Japan). I now have at least one hit in every continent except Antarctica. It's really kinda cool!

Eddie's Tornado Project

Eddie needed to do a project for school about the weather. Always tending toward the dramatic (as I suppose most eight-year olds are), Eddie chose to do a project on Tornado Safety. We went online and found several interesting photos and figures from the NOAA web site. They have PDF downloadable coloring books, from which we lifted several key tornado safety images. Eddie arranged them all, colored them, and posted them on his posterboard. He had also made a tornado diorama with Mom that looked really smashing. (No pun intended.) Hopefully, he will get good marks on the project.

The project has gotten him really interested in the weather. When Eddie gets interested in something, he really dives deeply into it, almost to the point of obsession. For instance, for days he's been insistent on watching the weather channel. Instead of begging to watch cartoons lately, he wants to watch the weather channel. He's even learned how to tune it to channel 214 to get it himself--the first instance, I believe, of his using the remote in this way.

Eddie's also reached an intellectual milestone. He's reached the point where he told me a joke, and I actually found it funny. Until now, Eddie and Luke's jokes have been of the Knock, Knock variety. And some of them are not so funny. But last Saturday, he told me a joke I had not heard before, and I actually laughed quite genuinely. Here it is:

There's this guy, and he's got a car full of penguins. And a policeman pulls him over and tells him, "Hey, you need to take those penguins to the zoo!"

So the next day, the guy has still got a car full of penguins, but they're all wearing sunglasses. And the same policeman sees him and pulls him over.

He says, "I thought I told you to take those penguins to the zoo."

The man replies, "I did! They loved it so much, today, we're going to the beach!"

(Ba-dum-bum)

Cub Scout Pack 39 Blue and Gold Banquet

Sunday, we celebrated the 76th birthday of scouting at our Blue and Gold banquet. Purcellville Police Chief Smith was on hand as an honored guest. We advanced several of the boys in rank and had a really great meal with fellowship and good times. Eddie received his wolf badge, and won a free movie pass to Regal Cinemas as a door prize!

Thanks to Deb Lowell who organized and pulled off most of the logistics of the night. She did a great job!

Happy Birthday, Michael

Today is my brother's birthday. The Reverend Michael Lee Harris is now thirty three years old! (Jeez, that's old!)

Happy Birthday, Mike. Hope it's a good one.

Featured Movie of the Week - Trip to the Northern Woods

Last August, Becky and the boys got to take a trip to Wisconsin and Minnesota to visit their grandparents. Even Uncle Chuck and Tio Adolfo showed up.

The boys had a great time fishing, boating, and doing tye-dye shirts. Unfortunately, Dad couldn't come, as he was busy at home redecorating the boys' bedrooms and bathroom.

But they had a great time, and I'm sure the grandparents had the time of their lives, and we got a great movie out of it.

To San Diego and Back

I had to take a little business trip last week to San Diego and back for two nights. I used to say, when I was much younger, that you couldn't pay me enough money to live in California. What with all the earthquakes, brush fires, and mudslides... forget it. Well, that was before I actually went to California. It is paradise: north and south. Both are great in their own way.

I hadn't been back to San Diego in about seven years, so it was nice to visit again. Stayed at the Best Western Island Palms on Shelter Island, near Point Loma, and ate in Old Town. Great carnitas and margaritas!

It was a short trip, which is best if the family can't be there too. Here is my short photo-journal from the trip.


Guess where?


Off we go...


Sunset at 35,000 feet over southeastern California


Night landing (Please ensure all electronic devices are turned off for landing.)


San Diego from Shelter Island


Home for a day or two


San Diego from Shelter Island


Shelter Island Marina (How much money do you think is in this picture?)


Point Loma Lighthouse


Going home...

I get the funniest hits

Recently, Barry teased me for purposefully trying to get hits to my blog by using not-too-subtly disguised terms in my blog entries. Busted. He was totally right.

What's funny, though, is that I am indeed getting some interesting hits—only they're not what I would have thought they would be.

Case and point: from Google Finland, someone searching on "floss around" "loose tooth".

Featured Movie of the Week - Cancun 2006

After much waiting, Cancun 2006 is finally here. The video is about twenty minutes long.

This is the REAL Cancun! No bikini clad women and mock reality show here, just good wholesome family fun!

On this ninth annual family trip to Cancun, we stayed at the Royal Islander, and we snorkelled, swam in the pool a bunch, visited the ruins at Ek Balam, went to Isla Contoy, and ate some wonderful meals at La Distileria, Hacienda Sisal and La Habichuela.

Some things to look for:

• Luke was so inspired by Mexico, he composed his own song, which opens the movie. It's really cute, if not totally tuneful.
• Warren's amazing handstand!
• The hour long walk back from downtown in scorching heat—condensed to only 15 seconds!
• Samanta, the manta ray that visited us at Isla Contoy
• And photos of my rock hard abs!

Snake Show

Sometimes, creativity needs a catalyst. This is exactly what JamesF's Everybody Dance Now - The Remix provided me–a catalyst. I liked how he had the stutter action in the video, mixing in different clips. It was awesome.

So it inspired some new ideas in me, particularly the opening sequence of this video, which I am particularly happy with. The video itself is cute... Eddie and Gabi go on for about 8 minutes about their favorite snakes. It's worth a watch... it's fun to see the two of them (born only one day apart) interact.

This video is a parody of an Animal Planet show with our budding herpetologists, Gabi and Eddie. So, without further ado, here is Snake Show!

Adjusting saturation in photos

My friend, Barry, was telling me about how he adjusted the saturation in one of his sunset pictures. I started playing with it on my own pictures, and the result is really remarkable. It makes the colors much more vivid, but you only have to adjust it a tad. Too much, and the colors all merge into one or two primary or secondary colors.

Take a look at these before and after shots:

Before:


After:


Before:


After:

Scott's Ravings — All Over the World!

I'm taking over the world! At least the most of the English speaking parts of it... and Mexico, Catalonia and Stockholm.

Scott's Ravings are now getting viewed in every hemisphere, both east and west.

I'm particularly proud of my fans from Canada, Britain, Australia, Tasmania, and Cape Town, South Africa! And of course, the good ol' U.S. of A.

Coming Soon! Cancún 2006!

Stay tuned.... Cancún 2006 will soon be here! Google is verifying the video, and as soon as it's ready, I will post it here.

In the meantime, here's some cool pictures from this excellent adventure!

Happy St. Valentine's Day

The best Valentine's gift I ever got is pictured right here... and after over thirteen years, I'm hoping for at least 50 more.

Featured Movie of the Week - Schliersee

Well, the Noreaster definitely hit us! It was later than they predicted, but it definitely hit. Last night, at midnight, it was only about four inches deep, but this morning, it was easily ten inches–big, fluffy white stuff. Perfect for sledding. We cleared the driveway, and now I'm pooped! So, to warm you up on this cold wintery day, here's a video from last summer.

In July, we took a trip to Schliersee, Germany–tucked in the Bavarian Alps. We had a great time, and it was a bit of a homecoming for me and my family. I hadn't been back to Germany (excluding airport visits) since 1981, when I lived there as a child.

The video is long, and thus, captured into four separate movies. If you click on the picture at left, it will play them all as a single movie.

Here's the summary of content from the four movies:

Part 1:

• Our arrival in Munich - without our luggage.
  
• Swimming at the hotel in Schliersee - It was a great pool, the cleanest I've ever been in, and I've been in a lot!
  
• Touring around Schliersee - A beautiful small German town–touristy, but not to Americans and Japanese. Most of the tourists were German, which I thought was great. Made me feel more like a local.
  
• Birthday party celebrations (Eddie and me) - Early birthday for me, late for Eddie. We celebrated with Darth Vader masks and an assortment of German pastries.
  
• Berchtesgaden and the Salt Mines - An excellent tour that I repeated since I was a kid. The boys really enjoyed the slide! The flooding was incredible, and I've captured it well here.
  
• Salzburg - We were soaking wet from being caught in a downpour, and had dinner in an Italian restaurant.
  
• Train ride to Munich - The next day, we took the bahn into Munich.
  
• Marienplatz in Munich - We walked through Marienplatz to the Hoffbräuhaus.
  

Part 2:

• Hoffbräuhaus in Munich - A tourist must-see. Kitschy, but required viewing. A great lunchtime stop.
  
• Horsewagon ride around Schliersee - I remembered the hard way that I am visciously allergic to horses. I patted a horse on the nose, and then proceeded to have my eyes swell nearly shut, my throat just about close up, and my sneezing start up uncontrollably. Somehow, I still managed to take the video, but I was dying for a Benadryl.
  
• Schliersbergalm - A mountaintop resort and "playground" reached via cable car.
  

Part 3:

• Neuschwannstein - We spent a long day getting to and enjoying Schloss Neuschwannstein. The boys got walking sticks and enjoyed the hike up the mountain. The castle was cool too. Afterwards, Nana, who doesn't like beer, got brave and decided to try a real German beer. Afterwards, though you can't hear it on the video, the waiter remarked to her, "Madam, it's a beer, not poison!" We laughed so hard!

Part 4:

• Car ride through Austria - Just for the heck of it. It was a beautiful day for a car ride.
• Zugspitz - We saw (but did not climb) the largest mountain in Germany.
• Garmisch - We stopped here for some walking and shopping. Saw some beautiful gardens.
• Herrenchiemsee - In addition to Neuschwannstein, we saw Ludwig's Schloss Herrenchiemsee. I had seen it as a kid, and remembered enjoying the walks through the paths around the wooded island. Though I didn't seen the multi-colored slugs this time, we did enjoy the palace (an exact duplicate of Versailles) and the boat ride to the island.
• Freising - On our last evening, we went to Freising to be closer to the airport. Luke proceeded to fall from the monkey bars from a height of about 12 feet, landing square on this chest and face. It scared us to death. I was able to get an arm on him as he fell, and that probably broke some of his fall–at least we didn't have to go to the hospital on our last night there. He had some nasty scrapes on his face for a few weeks after that!
• Credits - I spent a lot of time on these credits. I hope it shows.
• Toilet trailer - There's nothing like a clean toilet, and leave it to German cleanliness and engineering to come up with (in my mind) the perfect toilet.
  

Snowy night

Got back from dinner at Sharon and Desi's. The snow was really coming down, and the roads were really treacherous. Though it was 4" deep and growing, and I had my dress shoes on, I still had to get my tripod and snap a few shots before bed.

Saturday Morning Breakfast

Now that the stove is working again (I had to replace the control unit which broke because of a cheap plastic button... $177 later! Argh!), we made sweet rolls and eggs for breakfast. Becky had to run off to get her hair cut, so the boys and I enjoyed breakfast together, just the men. Clad in our pajamas, as the snow started to fall outside, we at our sweet rolls and eggs. We ate and chatted. Mostly chatted.

Here's some of the dialog of breakfast. Kinda let's you live the experience with us:

Eddie (to Luke): There's this girl, she has a purple dress, and blonde hair. You would love her!

Luke: Definitely NOT.

Dad: Eat your breakfast, boys.

Luke: These are the best sweet rolls that I've ever had.

Eddie: If you get a hamster, you gotta leave your hamster in there for four days, because it needs to get settled in, so it's nice and cozy. After the four days, you bring it out, but you don't put it above, you put it to the side, and you pet it.

Luke: Guess what I'm going to get? A fish.

Eddie: Then we'll both have a pet!

Luke: That's just what I want.

Eddie: So, you want a fish; I want a hamster. You can get a fish at Wal-Mart! You can use your Wal-Mart card!

Luke: That's what I will do. How much do fishes cost, Dad?

Dad: Depends on the fish.

Eddie: What kind of fish do you want?

Luke: A killer whale! I want a killer whale! I want a killer whale!

Eddie: You will have to get eaten.

Luke: I want a killer whale!

Dad: Who wants another sweet roll?

Eddie & Luke: Me!

Dad: Eat your vitamin first.

Eddie: We eat it at the end.

Luke: I decided I just want a goldfish.

Eddie: They have goldfish.

Luke: Actually, I just want a turtle.

Eddie: Actually, they have turtles!

Luke: I'm going to get a turtle.

Eddie: You'll have to get turtle food.

Luke: Turtle food?

Eddie: You'll have to ask at the school library about turtle food.

Luke: Wonder if you could give it broccoli?

Eddie: No broccoli.

Luke: You could give it water for sure.

Eddie: Water, yeah. For special treat, a peanut. Shelled peanut. And DOG BISCUITS.

Hamster Dance

Eddie and Luke are discussing the possibility of getting a hamster as a pet. Mom and Dad are still thinking about it. I saw this video on the Internet, and when I showed the boys, they loved it! They danced around the room to this silly little video! Their taste is so.... elegant.

My burgeoning artists

Eddie and Luke are turning out to be quite the artists. I'm really very impressed with both of them.

Luke has made the sudden leap from stick figures to more "fleshed out" characters, rather all at once. He's even gotten pretty realistic eyes on his characters and quite an attention to detail that wasn't there before.

In the picture at left, you can see a really awesome rendering of Kit Fisto, a Jedi from the Star Wars movies. If you're not familiar with the amazing exploits of Mr. Fisto, you can learn about him here.

Eddie, on the other hand, has shown a remarkable photographic visual memory to match his photographic memory for music and melody. He's always been able to hear a tune and sing it perfectly hours later–even complex melodies like Straussian waltzes, etc. The picture at right is a drawing he did in Sunday School last Sunday. He had been learning about China in school, and was playing with two of Becky's porcelain China doll statues, and hours later, completely from memory, he drew the picture of the doll. It is really unbelievable when you compare it against the photograph of the doll, below.

I'm not censored!

I recently read about Google deciding to self censor some web sites from their search results in China, per the requirements of the Chinese government. Curious about whether my site was censored, I did the following search, and I am proud to say, "I am available in China!" Good wholesome sausage stuffing–the world over!


What's even cooler is the translated to Chinese sausageking.org website!


Search for your own websites at http://google.cn.

Featured Movie of the Week - Train Table

Last January, I built the boys this awesome train table for their Lego trains. It is really cool, if I do say so myself. It folds completely up into the wall of the basement when not in use.

It's made out of a piece of 8 ft. x 4 ft. solid MDF with edge moldings on it to dress it up. I connected it to the wall with a 2x4 stud and two four foot piano hinges; locking clips at the top to hold it in the closed position. The three legs on it swing out on heavy duty gate hinges to hold it in the table position.

Then the boys and I painted a simple landscape on it and laid the track in an interesting pattern. The track is nailed down, so that it doesn't move when the table is closed up.

The Lego trains, by the way, are really cool too! The Amtrak one has lights that light and a cool two story dining car with sleeping bunks below. The freight train has a mock diesel engine, boxcar, flatbed and hopper car. Majorly cool.

You can see Mom in the outskirts of the movie on "Lego repair duty."

Grandpa's 80th Birthday Memory Book

For Grandpa's 80th birthday, Aunt Terry took the lead in making a Memory Book for him. She had all the kids and grandkids write their fondest memories for him, and she beautifully put this book together for him. Even some of the great-grandkids contributed their art.

He loved this book. On the day he got it, after the hub-bub of the birthday party quietted down, he sat in his recliner quietly reading each page. It was pretty special.

Reading through it again several years later, I am struck by how much of our family history is captured in this book. It's an interesting story of a family (first small, then extended) through the fifties and up to present time.

The file is large, over 34 megabytes, but worth the download and read. I saved it in high resolution, so all the great artwork, handwriting, and photographs would come through crystal clear.

Just click on the photo above for the book to download. If you read it, and you like it, please leave a comment! I'd love to hear from you.

Grandpa's Funeral Brochure

Here's the brochure from Grandpa's funeral, for those who couldn't be at the service.

Olech's Eulogy

First, when I heard about Grandpa dying, I was pretty mad. Still didn’t get to say goodbye to him. And if anybody knows, me and him were like best friends.

Earliest things I can really talk about are the fun things he did with us kids. He made me all sorts of things. He made me a dresser. He made a hope chest for Deachi. He made a loft bed–if you don’t know what that is, it’s about four feet tall, and it’s a bad idea if you have a ceiling fan. [Audience laughs] ‘Cuz I found that out the hard way. Deachi talks about how she used to do back flips off the chest, cuz she figured it’d be easier to get off the ground, but don’t know if she ever crashed or not.

We always came over to Grandpa’s and always had the breakfast. And we’d stay the night and wake up in the morning and have breakfast, and Grandpa would always wake us up at seven o’clock. Merrick always wanted to sleep in, but she never got a chance to. And it was always fun, we always got to be with Grandpa.

He was at our house a lot after Grandma Guier died, and he came over pretty much every day and always acted like he would chew on my ear so he would get the dog riled up so the dog would grab his pant leg.

One thing about him, he always had gum in his car, little bottles of Coke in his fridge. He had the gum in his glove compartment, and we’d always ask, “Could we go and get a pack of gum?” And he always had them. He always had Eskimo Pies in the fridge; he always took me to the rodeo, so I could go run around with friends. He gave me a belt buckle which I still carry today, and I’ll always have it for the rest of my life.

He’d always tease me about coming over to the house–we’d go chase naked ladies. [Audience laughs] And I’d stay the night, and be a little disappointed that we didn’t get to go chase naked ladies. He’d make everything okay, because we’d go to Braum’s or Blue Moon.

And one thing I’m grateful for in my life that I never had until about 1990, was he met Viola and brought her back to Ponca City, and gave me one of the best grandmothers I’ve had. Without you, he couldn’t have lived as long as he did. And I'm so thankful for you. He’s my hero, my guardian angel, and my best friend, one I could always turn to, trust and love.

He was ornery, course we all know that. But easy to get along with, and always talked about the Navy. You could never hear enough about the Navy. So proud of all his grandchildren, all his kids, and we’re so proud of him too. He helped my Mom and Dad bring me home from the hospital, but it’s ironic that I have to take him home to God.

I guess this is finally my way, that I can finally say goodbye, in my own way.

Obituary: Kenneth R. Guier

Alma Caribeña

Eddie colored this picture of Gloria Estefan...



...taken from this album cover:

Featured movie of the week - Monster Jam

A couple of years ago, we took the boys to a demolition derby at the Montgomery County Fair. It was wickedly exciting and more than just a little bit scary. Thirty five rednecks in tricked-out junkers trying to kill each other, and all that separates us is a jersey wall and some hay bales.

The boys enjoyed that so much that we briefly experimented with the redneck genre in our lives, and I signed the family up for a trip to Monster Jam. It was pretty fun, though I have to say watching this two minute clip is much better than sitting through the two hour show breathing carbon monoxide. Two minutes of Monster Jam is juuuust riiiiight.

Happy Groundhog Day

I think these two pictures perfectly capture the Kindergarten essence of Luke. Happy Groundhog Day.

1. Little red ridinge
2. Wlef
3. You are Bustid

Name: Kit Fisto
I do not want to see my shadow.
My favorite thing to do is fiyte evil.