The Hols begin...

The last few weeks have been busy, and Dad is finally on "holiday".

We have blitzed the front room, removed the Guinea Pigs and transported them into a nice new hutch outside, built by Dad and J from scrap wood and chicken wire. We thought they were attracting flies inside, and managed to slay in excess of 1000 houseflies using fly paper and an electric swatter from poundland.

Though on talking to colleagues at work, it may not have been the Guinea Pigs at all, as there seems to be a housefly-festation going round. But as you can see flypaper really does work - how very 19th century of us.

Today we put up E's climbing frame in the newly arranged front room (on account of the garden being either slabs (too painful if he falls off) or - at the moment - jungle.


As a holiday project Dad is building a simple CMS system suitable for a school Intranet (inspired by Fronter but aiming to be simpler to use).

Dad gets back to his musical roots...

The Easter holiday arrived, and with my birthday on the horizon M suggested a Ukulele as a potential birthday present. I must confess I was dubious to begin with - though I have also felt a yearning for some non-computer based interest in my life. So, I borrowed M's Uke to have a go.

All I can say is, I love it. In just a couple of days I had enough Chords to play Cohen's Hallelujah off by heart, along with the usual "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" (typical beginners stuff) from music. I never thought that I would ever play tunes on a stringed instrument with any degree of skill since I traded the violin for an oboe at the end of the 80's. Any attempt at the guitar left me crestfallen as I simply couldn't get my hands round the neck for some chords without leaning on all the other strings... the Uke has changed my mind about strings. In just a week of playing I have been able to add "Dream a Little Dream of Me" by the Mamas and the Papas to my off by heart list, and can play loads of others from chord sheets. Wow.

The best thing is, M and I can play duets. It's such fun.

Just watch out at Christmas, you'll know if we are carolling you, because every carol will have a Hawaiian Ukulele lilt to it :-D

M will therefore be giving me a Uke for my birthday.

And if you are interested yourself, we recommend the Kala soprano Uke as a great beginners instrument. Has decent tuning keys (the geared kind) and made from decent wood:

http://www.nevadamusic.co.uk/Guitars/Acoustic/Ukulele/sc1414/p6730.aspx

There are other ones (e.g. Ashton) which we tried but it wasn't good. Hence recommending the above - plus, it gets good recommendations from others on the internet.

And if you do get a Uke, don't forget my Uke Tuner software:

http://myfamilynewspaper.blogspot.com/2008/07/uke-tuner.html

Tinkerings

A couple of days ago we were given a petrol lawnmower via Freecycle. Freecycle is a great organisation set up to help keep unwanted but useful items out of landfill. Anyway, the mower was working when I got it, but somehow in the transportation something must have jiggled it, because when I started it at home, it ran for about one minute, and then stopped.

It turned out that the wire from the coil to the spark plug had literally snapped off right near the sparkplug. On closer inspection the copper wire had turned green and become brittle, and broke.

I went to a lawnmower dealer in Ibstock but they did not sell mowers with this type of connection to the sparkplug, however, one of the mechanics was really helpful and gave me a hint on how to fix it. Basically, cut the wire down until it was back to being copper again, then reconnect it to the metal connector that touches the spark plug. When I got back I followed the mechanic's instructions, and found that I was not the first person to "mackle" this mower. It was not a proper connector at all, someone had screwed a screw down the core of the wire to act as the connection with the spark plug, and this had reacted with the copper and made it green. So I just cut the wire down, and put a new screw in. Easy.

The mower started and ran well.

There is something satisfying about tinkering with engines and making them work.

All I need now is a new blade, a sharp one. The mower make is more common in Australia than here, good job I have relations there... ;-)

Clone Wars, Clo-o-o-one Wars, Clo-o-o-one Wars, Clo-o-one Waaaaars

The Young Men's activity tonight was a trip to the Cinema, and, being a Young Men's activity they chose to see the new Clone Wars animation, the Star Wars spin-off. And as the group were short of a leader - lucky old me got to step in, and see it too.

Actually, before I went to see it I did check the review on Common Sense Media (an excellent review site if you really want to know about the film's content, and suitability for the audience). I have to say, the review wasn't that great, and made it sound really lame. After seeing it however, I didn't notice many of the criticisms, but do agree that some of the violence, albeit animated in a cartoon-esque style, is unsuitable for younger kids.

It started off in a rather hurried way, with none of the build-up you normally get with a Star Wars movie. I was a little disappointed by this, as I like to be warmed up into the action. As it was, it took me a few minutes to figure out what was going on. But once the movie was going and the plot became a little clearer I thought the story was fair - though a little childish. Think of this as the Monsters Inc. equivalent of Star Wars, only not so fluffy.

From a technical point of view I found the animation a little disappointing. It appeared to use a lot of Motion Capture to animate the characters, which has been used successfully in such movies as Monster House and The Polar Express. However in this case the captured movement didn't appear to be fine-tuned to a great degree, and movement looked unnatural and was much like the animation in the Bionicle movies.

Motion Capture for The Polar Express

Most importantly, J enjoyed it. And surely that is the main thing.

Return of the J

For the last 3 days J has been at Deacon's Camp, at the Church owned campground in Norfolk. Dad drove him, a friend from another ward (KB) and Nathan on Thursday and collected him today.

He had a great time, including falling in the lake twice (one of the times being when his canoe capsized). A 2 Km run was also part of the activity (impressive I thought). But I will let J fill you in on the details tomorrow. Right now he needs to get clean.

Sunny Hunstanton - Part 2

And here it is. Photographic proof that anyone who changed their mind about coming missed a great day! (Erm, is that what this is evidence for? - the Ed.)

Using the brolly as a portable wind-break, we battled our way up the beach.

It's your classic rock pool setup. The kind you only ever come across in junior school text books. Pity it was too cold to enjoy them properly - but we did our best. (These would make lovely cooling pools on a hot day - makes note of location for future).

Sunny Hunstanton

"Oh we do like to be beside the seaside..." and in typical English style that means in all weathers. The stake trip to Hunstanton yesterday was great, even though it was cold, rained a bit, then a lot, then blew us all dry again at the end.

Determined not to miss out just because of some poxy weather, J and I, (after sheltering in Tesco and the Coach during the worst weather) decided to get some Fish & Chips, then walk along the top of the cliff.

Other family members will remember the pointy roofed cafe on the clifftop that sold Italian Ice Cream. Well it is still there, so in spite of the weather, and with a nod to tradition, we bought some.

After that we went down below the cliff and walked back to the "new end" along the beach. The best way to get blown dry after all the rain.

Some photos to follow in next post.

Building project... Projected to last a bit longer

Since we moved into our small house it has become increasingly apparent that it has insufficient storage capacity for a family. A bachelor, even a couple, could probably get by, but we have always struggled.

Buying two garden sheds really helped, but we have been using the smallest bedroom for storage as well. Now that Lije is getting more active we have decided to reclaim the small bedroom and give the boys a room each. That means we lose a storage space.

To make up for this we decided to build a walk-in-cupboard in the larger bedroom. So early in the week Dad began stock piling materials, then on Thursday Grandpa Tom and Grandma Mary came round to help. Dad and GT between them put in the frame, studs and noggins, and added the first sheet of plasterboard.

Since then Dad finished adding the boards and has been attempting to plaster between the joints and to the edges (see pictures).

Not bad for a first try but some sanding will probably be needed in places.

Once the plastering is done then it's time for lining paper and paint, then add the door.

We will probably disguise the door (like in a stately home) by continuing the skirting board and having only a keyhole for the lock but no door handle.

That way it will still look for the most part like a normal room, and the door will be invisible except when in use.

Phew. Many thanks to GT and GM for their help. We couldn't even consider it without your help. Xxx.

Uke Tuner

Dad often gets fidgety - physically as you saw in previous time lapse vid - but also creatively. It get's quite frustrating always teaching other people how to be creative and how to build interactive media, but rarely getting a chance to do it yourself anymore.

When M got a Ukulele, but found that most of the online Ukulele tuning devices were not quite what was needed, Dad finally got inspiration (and because of holidays finally had the time) to produce something interactive - Uke Tuner

You can download Uke Tuner 0.92 (Beta) here free >

If you have any feedback or suggestions, please feel free to leave comments or email me direct.

Dad says "The problem with the online tuning system M was using, was that it only gave audio samples of a Ukulele string being plucked. However it is much easier to tune an instrument to a continuous tone. In Uke Tuner I gave the option, plucked note, or continuous tone, so the user can choose their preferred method. Then of course I went overboard on graphics and interactivity."

Dad is pretty pleased with the result, and M likes it too - after all it was made with her feedback, and what we have here is not the first design option. Hopefully others will like it too.

For the more technically minded, graphics were produced in Fireworks then exported as PNG 32 to preserve alpha channels or SWF, for use in Flash. Audio was recorded from a Yamaha PSR-240 keyboard via a line-in cable from the keyboard's headphone socket. Sound was recorded and processed with Audacity then exported as WAV 32-bit for use in Flash. Interactivity was produced in Flash, with ActionScript 2. Flash Audio settings were set to export sound at 22Khz stereo and 128kbps. Playback speed is 30 fps to make it animate more smoothly. The application was compiled with MDM Flash Studio because it has a faster projector engine than the Flash Standalone Player, extends the ActionScript classes available in Flash with some additional functionality, and allows the creator to tweak the display options (such as turning off the blue bar at the top).

Enjoy.

Dad revamps website...

Dad's website (http://www.digitalarena.co.uk/) which had been left lingering in design misery for nearly a year - or was it more than a year - has now been revamped with a typographic twist. Gone is the former confusion of styles, and in is bright colours and crisp lines.

There is still some fine tuning to do, but the bulk of the process was made easy by using Dreamweaver's templates function. This allows you to protect certain areas of the page, while automatically updating the rest. In effect, you can change the design and layout around the content. Now though I need to tweak some of the content to better match the around.

Feel free to take a gander and leave comments. You never know I might even change the site in response (or leave it another year).

"Tiny tots tea-time toy time..."

It is a delightful development to discover ones child playing happily by himself, without any encouragement, and without needing your presence to keep him out of trouble. I caught Lije "engineering" no less with brio (or compatible) train track. "How very George Stephenson of him" I thought.

I decided to record the moment of blissful quiet with a few photos.


End result of photos was that I disturbed the child. A few moments later he followed me back and is now sitting under my computer desk chilling out like "his-nibbs" himself.