High speed photography

This looks like a lot of fun, I wonder if one of us might give it a go one day?

Drumming

No, none of us are drumming. Tonight after Monarchy and My Architect, I channel surfed into Session 3 : Slave to the Rhythm (about the rhythm that holds music together - be it the beats in today's urban music or percussion in orchestras) of Pop[b]session ("a series of documentaries about rock and pop's greatest instruments and instrumentalists - about passion and virtuosity, about the seduction of musician and audience alike.").

It has been fascinating, and I've noticed Cricket tuning in every now and then. I'm enjoying the journey through percussion history, culture and styles. I think I was probably able to follow along because of the frequent glimpses of the people - the percussionists and their individual stories.

I'm not sure how much I will retain - we're all suffering colds at the moment - stuffy and sneezy and coughy - I'm afraid I'll drown when I go to sleep tonight.

Mythbusters

Today I watched Mythbusters and they were putting 1500 pound (3000 horse power) rockets on a car to answer "Can a '67 Chevy turn into a 350-mile per hour road warrior "

They were also testing to see if pop rocks + cola can cause your stomach explode (it didn't explode the dead pigs stomach until they added bicarbonate of soda).

L'Alouette

Big sister rang this evening to ask for translation of the song we know as Alouette. I couldn't bring it immediately to mind, so quickly found my (now catalogued, classified and shelved) Form 1 French text book - A new french course - Part 1.

The lyrics were there, but aside from remembering that it was about plucking a bird, precise translation still eluded me. Babel Fish identified the bird as a lark but le bec as a nozzle instead of a beak. But not all the body parts were in my textbook so google helped me find the answer at Answers.com : Alouette

Slightly different lyrics on YouTube.


Naturally in the process I've been singing the song to my boys.

..you live, you learn...

Looking for uplifting or happy songs - songs that express celebration without being about romantic love (I'm finding such quite difficult to find)... this one happened along - the boys and I think it seems celebratory of our kind of learning.

My trophies 2007

My trophies 2007
Originally uploaded by dartril

These are my tenpin trophies. The middle one is for 2nd place. The others are for my highest game and series scores.

Reflecting on Late Night Learning

Sandra Dodd recently enhanced a few of her pages, including: Late Night Learning.

I've noticed the article before, and often reflected that a lot of our learning happens late at night.

Last night Fish requested a bout of Dance chasey - the night before I had tried to teach the boys the basic modern waltz steps... they weren't really interested and for some reason I began to chase them with a constant forward waltz step - the next second they began laughing and encouraging me to continue chasing them... I got a work out and we all had a laugh.

Tonight we watched At Five in the Afternoon; last night it was A Rake's Progress. I wish I'd made note of all the other movies that have caught our curiosity at different times - but who thinks about making a note when one is enjoying the movie?

water fight

Today Fish and I had a water fight.

I soaked about 75% of his body LOL.

This is my weapon.

Freelancer firefight

I am dueling someone on Freelancer:

I like colours i made a picture and i think i over saved it with this one

This is one of Fish's WoW charecters from a year ago wearing a full armor set witch I made for him.

Fish plays: Radical Aces

Radical Aces is a game about defending a mars station. Players get a choice of planes. I normally go with the Sky Bullet because it is the fastest so it is easy to get to the other side of the map because the attackers normally come from two directions.

Ramadan

Apparently Ramadan (the ninth Muslim month, featuring daily Fajr, fasting, Iftar and culminating in 'Eid-Ul-Fitr) begins today. Langwitches' links for 2007-09-10 caught Mum's bloglining curiosity and we were all reminded about a program we watched recently: 30 days as a Muslim. Cricket was interested in the program's occasional exploration of blind blaming attitudes towards *all* Muslims based upon terrorist acts by a few.

Subsequently we discussed use and misuse of the thought process: generalising.

soccer

Let me tell you my excitement of a few weeks ago. I kicked three goals for the Koalas, my indoor soccer team. We won by 7 goals.

Now, to spell "goal" I tried "goll" and "gole", but they didn't look right so I asked mum. Naturally she wanted to talk about words spelled with 'oa'. The only other 'oal' words she can think of are foal and shoal, neither of which we use at all. 'oa' is in our phonics book, but for the long 'o' sound like in boat and coat... foal was on the page but mum and I think the l makes 'oa' sound different.

Raptor

I was doing the quest The Bait for Lar'korwi on World of Warcraft and I had to place to items on a rock to summon

My pet was dead and I had to revive him and I did not have my buffs up.

Lunar eclipse 28 August 2007

IMG_0135
Originally uploaded by Niroshana Fernando

Cricket did suggest I get my camera, but I still don't have a tripod. So for colour and recollection I have to rely on others (eg thanks Niroshana Fernando). I love the photogallery at Backyard.

Graham phoned while we were watching Numbers, sending us running out the front to catch the blood moon. I think we may have missed the reddest (was that before the full eclipse? - or maybe clouds drifted over).

Still it was exciting just to watch an eclipse even if we didn't see the colour that others did.

How is capsicum spray made?

How is capsicum spray made?  Annotated

• this answered Mr14's question: how is capsicum spray made? - post by moonflowerdragon

Compass - The Fundamentalist

Tonight we caught a portion of The Fundamentalist series on Compass - ABC TV Religion. We caught up with Mark Dowd when "He travels to Gaza and meets the mother of a suicide bomber and also visits Jewish settlers committed to living on disputed land no matter the cost."

I haven't tracked many of the things we've been doing because I'd hoped we might make posts here a little more thoughtful and contemplative or reflective, but then I don't have much record at all. So, as our principal reason for blogging is actually for a fun way to record-keep; while it being a forum to communicate our thoughts and benefit readers is more of a potentiality... we just might merely post more items like this (ie this is what we watched).

When I was a Lad

How curious... I keep up with Sandra Dodd's updates to her webpages, she recently mentioned this one: When I was a Lad and I played the mp3. The boys loved it - which surprised me. Then "Cricket" recounted a Simpson's episode in which Sideshow Bob sang the whole HMS Pinafore musical to fulfil Bart's last request.

I will *not* be torturing the boys with a bunch of comprehension questions, it will be absorbed into other experiences and we'll discuss our thoughts from time to time. Like: we find it funny as I believe we're supposed to, that 'the rule of the Queen's Navee' would not have naval experience - but really how much of what type of experience would such an authority require to do the job well?

Lots to think about...

Bloglines (via Mum's RSS Subscription to) mentioned a post from Cool Cat Teacher Blog

Mum went to see what the World's Best Presentation at Slideshare was all about, and ended up with concepts very worth all of us discussing. How will these interesting snippets affect our lives in 10-20 years?



Mum is thinking it is important that we learn effective thinking, intrapersonal and interpersonal skills; adaptability, flexibility, creativity.