Crazy Cart

Santa gave Payton a Crazy Cart for Christmas, but Payton's little brother Parker has taken a real liking to the machine too. I think a second cart may be somewhere in the future.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Not quite ready

Payton sat on The Ghost Rider tonight. He's got a few years before he can take it for a spin.

Cupcake Eater...Not

Head Banging Parker

Parker has taken to dancing. Unwittingly he has adopted the always cool head bangers style. This video has had it's original soundtrack replaced by another by Google's Auto Awesome. The original was an actual head banging tune. But I liked the auto awesome results.

Google's Auto-Awesome is pretty awesome

Google. Google. Google. I'm becoming Googlized. They have some pretty cool software and for the most part they let you use it for free. They get you hooked. Once you're hooked they feed you advertisements and from that they make money; schmidt loads of it.

Google will store your photos online, in the cloud. You get a fairly generous amount of storage and of course you can always buy more. Google has this thing called Auto Awesome. I'm not a de facto expert on it, but it looks at your uploaded photos and tries to do some awesome things to them. It doesn't alter your original photo, it makes an edited copy of it. It only awesomizes certain photos. The results vary from blah to awesome.

Above is a successful auto awesome picture. It's a snowy scene. Auto Awesome added falling snow. Perfecto! In a previous post of our Christmas tree, auto awesome made the lights twinkle. Double awesome!

Polar Express 'round the tree

Kathleen did her annual great job of decorating our Christmas Tree. I did my small part laying track around the tree for the Polar Express.

My new cruiser

This past Friday I finished building my new bike. It's a stretch cruiser built with a Basman frame. Payton has dubbed it Ghost Rider.

Anyhow, I loaded it into the truck (it's too big for my bike rack) and took it to Hilton head. Today was my first real ride. I cruised 10 miles. It was a nice ride. The bike is comfortable and with 14 speeds is easy to ride.

Right at sunset I stopped and snapped a few pictures. We're in Hilton head all week, and no I won't try the veal, so I'll be putting some miles under my butt.

Payton's first award

Payton earned his first award in scouts this evening. Tonight he was presented with the Bobcat patch. He showed no humility.

Cub Scouts Cake Auction

Tonight Payton's Scout Pack is having its annual cake auction. Each scout and their dad baked and prepared their own cake. Moms were not allowed to help, not even with clean up. (Rats!) Payton named his cake Dragon Lake.

Kathleen has been perusing all the cakes. The boys want her to bid on the Minecraft cake. I prefer the pizza cookie or hamburger cake. Who knows what we'll end up with? 

Update: Payton's cake sold for $35. Well above average.

Good morning

A couple of days ago Parker was singing a song. It just tickled me hearing him sing. At bed time I asked him to sing the song again and I recorded it. I use for my alarm ringtone. It's great. Have a listen.

Annie of OZ

Here's another picture and video of Payton's acting debut in Annie of Oz. The video is made from two clips.  Unfortunately the first clip is a little out of focus, but the audio is fine. The video is 32½ minutes.  Payton's scene is around the 19:00 mark. At about the 27:00 mark the second clip kicks in and it's in focus. Just play the video in a small window and it'll look fine, but not so good full screen.

The playbill for the performance.

Payton is having fun in the Scouts

Last night was the monthly meeting for Scout Pack 3464. It was a night of fun and games. First up for Payton was bobbing for apples. Payton had never done this before, but after a few tries and some instruction he was able to do it.

Later Payton put his skills to work on eating a donut. Now on the surface this seems pretty easy; pretty easy if you can use your hands. This contest excluded your hands and the donut was hanging from a string. He had a lot of fun.

Pumpkin pickin'

Parker's school went pumpkin picking today at a local farm. Parker picked a very nice little pumpkin. He named his pumpkin Punky.

Pencil rolling

Black & Blue Bacon Cheeseburgers

Tonight we're having BBBCs. I first weaved some bacon together. I've seen many postings with this. It looks good and ensures bacon in every bite. I baked them in the oven to crispy perfection. I put crumbled blue cheese between two thin black peppered hamburger patties. After the bacon was done I poured the grease onto my grill top griddle. I fried the burgers in the bacon grease. I placed the burgers, topped with a bacon weave onto grilled thin buns. I think they turned out very good.

Friday night fireworks on the Delaware River

One great thing about New Hope, PA / Lambertville, NJ? Friday night fireworks all summer long.

People gather along both banks of the Delaware River as well as on the bridge to revel in the fireworks launched from mid-river. The experience is up close and personal. You can feel the show in your chest.

Sorry about the vertical video. Vertical video sucks - you shouldn't do it - but it was the best way to frame the shot. I wish YouTube would incorporate and vertical video format for mobile viewing. Wouldn't that be great?

Annie of Oz

Payton took a summer camp class at Lights, Camera, Acting! The group worked all week to put on their production of mixed story lines called Annie of Oz. Payton played the Tin Man. Payton had a great time. He did a great job in his acting debut. All the kids put on a great show.

The cast of Annie of Oz.

The Tin Man, the Scarecrow and the Lion.

Thank ya, thank ya very much. I'm here all week. Be sure to try the veal! 

Weekend camping trip

This weekend we went on our first family camping trip. We had gathered equipment over time and were ready to put ourselves to the test....on a really hot weekend. Man, I love air conditioning.

We went to Blue Rocks Family Campground.The place isn't too far from home, but far enough to make it a trip. We hiked on the Appalachian Trail, did a little swimming, and spent the weekend pretty much device free. It was hot. We think our next trip will be when evening temperatures are lower for more comfortable sleeping.

Woohoo! We're camping and having fun.

Camp is set up and everyone is relaxing.

The old man is just trying to cool down.

Kathleen fed us really well the whole weekend. This morning we had hash browns, sausage and eggs. This is camping.

Number 1 hardly ate much all weekend. I finished off that sausage patty.

A couple of cuties.

The boys are hanging out waiting to leave on our Saturday hike.

Oh wait....pit stop.

We headed north to the Pinnacle overlook and then down the Appalachian Trail to Pulpit Rock. I myself had never been on the AT before.

The first leg was up hill. At the top of the hill was more hill to go up.

Water break. We took plenty of them.

Parker checked out some wild life along the way.

The Pinnacle. A hot hazy day for us, but the view was still great.

A cairn at the Pinnacle. I don't know what it is all about. It's a big pile of big rocks. Those aren't just stones tossed to the top. Somebody did some heavy hauling for each rock.

On our way to Pulpit Rock. The trails were pretty rocky. Several times we traversed boulder fields of varying size.

Pulpit Rock. I thought this was the better overlook between the two.

From Pulpit Rock it was downhill. Downhill is sometimes harder than uphill. Payton and Meghan take a break waiting for the rest of us to catch up.

Kathleen is looking fine at the Blue Rocks glacier boulder field. We had made it back to camp.

Whew! Let's go swimming and cool down.

Our hike finished at the pool. Kathleen had packed the boy's suits. Parker cooled off and had had enough.

Saturday night at camp. Everybody was rested and settling down around the campfire.

It's hot enough to get me to the pool

Styling poolside at Village II.

It's hotter than hell and I'm at the pool. I probably won't get in since swimming is one of my least favorite things to do. Still, I'm here.

Up a tree on Memorial Day

This picture is from Memorial Day. The boys climbed a low tree. They weren't much higher than eye level to me, but to them they were soaring. We were downtown Doylestown to watch the parade.

Tablet reading

Relaxing at House of Coffee.

Ahh the Tablet. Such a nice thing to have in the coffee shop. Enjoy some Joe while reading your favorite magazines, shop online and otherwise make a big impression in a couch. My next phone will be a phablet.