Heather has already posted on this so rather than rehash the whole story, I’ll just link to her account:

• Don’t promise an ambulance sighting or you will get 8 hours of hospital fun
• Thanksgiving after Turkey day

The only thing I think I would disagree with was that my phone call to her was “frantic”. I actually thought it was calm especially given the fact that I had been in an urgent care for 2-3 hours waiting and then calming a toddler as they drew blood, took x-rays, forced oxygen treatments, etc. I didn’t have the luxury of freaking out as I had to be calm for Ben. Oh well, minor quibble.

He’s doing much better, but he is violently opposing any medicine we try to give him, so the next several days are going to continue to be fun

I’m just glad he’s doing so much better. Thanks for the kind thoughts!

We’ve been at the beach since Wednesday and it’s been a fun trip so far. Ben is sleeping in his “McQueen” sleeping bag on top of a twin bed. He has rolled off a couple of times, but we’ve built a very thick layer of blankets and pillows to ensure he doesn’t get hurt. Below, I’ve embedded a video of me reading “If You’re Happy and You Know It” to him. He really is at a very cute age (excluding the tantrums, demands, and general fussiness )…

I heard about this video on Buzz Out Loud and I thought it was pretty interesting…

but really, this is the one that did it for me MUCH better than the scene from ‘Risky Business’

as always, click through and watch in high quality as YouTube embedding still sucks

I just got done putting together a train table for Ben’s Christmas. One of the boards under the center of the table split when being screwed together I don’t think it is a terribly load barring board, so I’m just going to call the company (Toys ‘R Us’ Imaginarium line) to get a replacement part. On the whole, I don’t think any of the train table brands are that well made, but hopefully this one will work for him. Now, I have to see how the train track (also Imaginarium) will work and likely add some pieces from the Thomas the Tank Engine universe.

While putting everything together, I watched “The Pixar Story” documentary on the 2nd WALL-E Blu-ray disc. I’ve been wanting to see this film for a couple of years now and I must say it didn’t disappoint. It’s not a hard hitting look nor a is it a puff piece. Presented in HD where available, it’s an exciting look into Pixar’s history from before any of the principal’s joined together to when it was a division under Lucas to the eventual sale to Steve Jobs. I loved all of the behind the scenes informal video and I think if I had more mathematical or artist talent I would have loved heading down that path. Oh…to have life in front of me again as Ben does today…

I only hope that I can adequately introduce him to my love of art, technology, animation, and all things Disney/Pixar.

So, I stayed home sick today as I have some crud, but the following video made me laugh when it hit my Google Reader from Laughing Squid.

So, I just bought a Flip Video camera not too terribly long ago and guess what, they released a new Flip Mino HD version yesterday. 720p in the same tiny form factor. I hope that we can pick one up in the future, but for now, I will wait to see how the reviews hold up.

Ugh, I should have known this would happen the moment I clicked ‘Add to Shopping Cart’ at Amazon

Well, as I posted on Twitter, the Apple TV was not busted, but just experiencing an odd issue with my 26″ Sony 702p HDTV in the office. When I returned it back to our typical 40″ Samsung 720p HDTV, all worked well. Last night I received my new Hauppauge WinTV-HVR 950q USB TV Tuner. I have it hooked up in Windows Vista x64 along with a cheap antenna and all seems to be working well. I also have a tool called MCEBuddy converting the output files into h.264 MPEG4 videos to go up on the Apple TV. I’m getting to that final solution where I can finally dump the cable service for TV all together. Now, if I just had a solid local alternative to Time Warner Cable for my internet connection as their service (choice of channels/bandwidth) is fairly lousy and the pricing is even more so.

So, the following has happened today:

• Locked myself and Ben out of the house this morning
• iPhone thinks I perpetually have headphones connected so no calls without headphones really attached or speakerphone (support thinks it is a hardware issue). Now I have to go in for an appointment tomorrow night
• Oven billows smoke out due to crud on bottom which nearly sets of the smoke alarm
• Outside with dog and I open the front door into Ben thinking he is having an issue inside which hits his head and makes him cry (luckily, hugs from daddy fixed this :))
• Apple TV seems to have died immediately after 2.2 update

Highly sucky day when 2 gadgets break down and all the other suck happens at the same time!

Well, I think I will end my night of election watching. Obama has won…thus far without my state’s help, but so be it (come on NC, get those last few counties in!). I have to say that both the concession and acceptance speeches were excellent and well presented. McCain redeemed himself somewhat in my eyes by doing exactly what he should have for the good of the country and Obama showed us an even more presidential side with his Grant Park speech. I’m looking forward to the day he is sworn in and I have hope for what can be done in this country. Now in closing, here are some things I hope can be taken on:

• Properly fix the economic issues and ensure this horrid bailout achieves some good result (if possible)
• Get us out of Iraq (to the extent possible)
• Properly work to rebuild/rewin Afghanistan
• Curtail the corporate welfare that seems to know no bounds
• Fix the copyright system and return it to its roots of ensuring the public good while protecting innovation
• Fix our global reputation
• Repeal/Rewrite the DMCA
• Ensure net neutrality
• Twitter from the oval office
• I’m sure there are more…

Good night and just think, we should pretty much be done with campaign ads

I sure hope that when I wake up, the final states will be complete in the presidential election and that California’s prop 8 will have gone down in defeat!

Well, I think it is time to hit the sack for the evening as I’ve watched some news, Daily Show/Colbert Reports, played a bit of WoW (new alt ding’d 10 tonight), and of course wasted an hour or so cruising the interwebs (no, that’s not right…tubes…just for you soon to be ex-Senator Ted). Tomorrow is likely to be an interesting day, but at the very least this damn election is about to end

I hope by the end of tomorrow, we’ll be toasting Obama’s election, but I won’t assume anything at this point.

Night all and make sure to vote if you haven’t already…well, unless you support McCain and then you have my permission to stay home all day tomorrow and go nowhere near a voting booth