Fun Friday

What a wonderful week it's been! Lots of things to do at work, lots of things to do at home, a birthday, a home-coming, and lots of new toys.

I spent a couple days working from home, not feeling quite up to par, and hoping to catch up on some work without being interrupted by a lot of questions, which is the normal routine at the office. It was nice to be home; I could get seriously addicted to it. Even managed to work with the kids on their summer projects: writing books.

James is working on some illustrations for his children's book. He is sketching the draft versions and then scanning them into the computer, where they get colored and printed. He was having trouble with the first drawing program we used, then we switched to Gimp and he quickly got the hang of it. Like this:


Field of Fireflies

(This one doesn't have anything to do with the story, but he had lots of fun coming up with it!)

Owing to his artistic bent, we decided to order a pen tablet for the PC so he can draw with a stylus type of input device instead of trying to use the mouse of the trackball. Yay! Another new toy! Can't wait til it gets here!

The girls are writing a story together. It's sort of a two-for-one deal; they each write the story from a different perspective, and generate two different books with identical dialogue. And, of course, they'll be illustrating them as well.

Adam has been working on his stories for a long time, but it's been hard to get any of them written down because he's so prolific at generating timelines and characters and situations that he doesn't have time to get into details and characterization and dialogue. We've gotta work on that.

Adam just got back from his East Coast trip, after a week of traipsing to different places like Niagara Falls, Philadelphia, New York City, Washington, D.C., Jamestown, Williamsburg, Gettysburg, and Hershey, PA. Picked him up this morning after the men's breakfast. He looked tired but quite happy. Brought home a bunch of pictures (they're in Flickr now).

Here's a couple teasers.


Adam the Explorer in Jamestown

Adam the Explorer in Jamestown (closeup)

In other news, our DVD player, which is only eight years old, bit the dust and we had to go out and buy another one. This time we got a Sony combination DVD/VCR with a digital tuner which allows copying VHS directly to DVD, so we can transfer our old tapes (like Anne of Green Gables).

More toys! Yay!

(The best part is not the new electronics, but being able to take apart the old electronics and scavenging the parts. Did you know that there are three motors in the DVD player? Cool!)

In summary, to repeat what I said a couple days ago, Happy Birthday, Mom! Your grandchildren can't wait to see you again! (And your son and daughter-in-law can't either!)