Timothy - Today Timothy (aka Mighty Mighty; aka Timbo; aka ...) officially turned four years old. Hurray for Timbo! I still remember being in the hospital for Michelle's appendectomy and finding out at the same time to start planning for lil' Bilik number five. Cinco de Bilik. When we put our current house under contract, we had four children. By the time we closed on the house, Timothy was on the way. As the old proverb says, "if you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans."
Snow - How long ago did I turn the snow on in the top banner? According to my records it was November 22nd. Finally overnight we got some real snow. Not just a dusting, but a few inches. Enough that Daniel and the girls could do some back yard sledding after they helped me shovel the driveway. Timothy and Michael managed to stealthily sneak back into the house as I worked my way down the driveway towards the mouth. Daniel and the girls hung in there until the job was done.
Bowling - When we got back in, cleaned off, and warmed up, we got everyone dressed for a day outside the house. We started by taking all the kids (plus one) to Leda Lanes for some candlepin bowling. It was the boys' first time there. Our local Milford candlepin alley recently closed shop. While it cost a bit more at Leda, the facilities were nicer and they had automatic scoring. That was nice as it let us focus on helping the boys and keeping the discipline.
Lunch - After a fun round (two for Claire and her friend) we head over to Chili's for lunch. The kids behaved and ate well. We got two sets of compliments from adjoining booths that they were surprised at how well behaved the kids were. Having had our share of "I hope she brings the check soon" meals out, it was a nice change to not feel that all eyes were on us for distracting them.
Shop - From there we took the kids to Target. Abby and Claire each have birthday parties to go to in the near future and wanted to pick out some gifts. We also stopped by The Shoe Box because Claire has a certain style she's been looking for but can't quite explain to us — something about a non-hightop hightop. I should show her some of the Converse line and see if that strikes a bell...
Nintendo - When we got back home Abby got the mail and I was happy to see that Nintendo finally sent us our UPS return label for our broken Wii. I'm sure they sent it the day after I requested it, but it came in regular US mail from the state of Washington. This is so not like getting repair work done with Apple. So the boys and I packed up in the car and took the Wii to a local pack and ship house where we could buy a sturdy box for it and send it on its way. Meanwhile Michelle and the girls were at a local Hallmark store (again with the birthday partys...).
Ringtones - Later in the evening I made the following ringtones for my phone:
Unlike most decent MP3's, these are low quality (mono, 8kHz, 32kbps) as seems to be the requirement for many Motorola phones ring tones (at least the Nextel variety). Actually Snowfall isn't new. Some of my Chicago relatives might have heard Snowfall when I was in town for the funeral last month. It comes from a song Claire's been playing for a couple of months on the piano. Now I use it as the ringtone for a call from Michelle. My default ring tone is now the opening of Elvis' A Little Less Conversation. I think that song is my all time favorite. If not, it's at least in the top five... But for kicks I decided to sample two songs that anyone who's played MarioKart (GameCube or DS version) would recognize. I thought it would really open the boys' eyes to hear that coming from my phone. I assigned Luigi's Circuit to phone calls from mom and dad. I used Baby Park for Alyssa and Tom because I imagine their house is as chaotic as ours, with one fast crisis after another.
The funny thing is that I rarely hear these ringtones. I often have my phone on vibrate mode when at work, a restaurant, shopping, etc. It's more of a novelty, and luckily it only costs me time tinkering with them. These aren't purchased from my provider. Feel free to use them if you know how to put them into your phone.
SuperBowl - Best wishes to Chicago for tomorrow's SuperBowl. Dad tells me that the whole town is abuzz with anticipation of the Big Game. I think we'll just be watching it here at home. Our friends' SuperBowl party was cancelled a few days ago. Perhaps once it sunk in that New England isn't represented in this game, motivation just faded?
Howdy Scott -
I know you appreciate all things geeky - here's Wolfram Tones: http://tones.wolfram.com
Cheers -
bw
Posted by: Bill White at February 4, 2007 05:53 PMHi Bill,
And I know that I can always count on you! ;-) I played with it a little last night but didn't have a lot of time to really tinker with it much. There are so many interesting things at wolfram.com . When I first started at ATI, I learned about the many mathematical brain teasers that they have there as well.
Thanks again.
Posted by: Scott at February 5, 2007 08:52 AMFor those of us that don't know how to put the ring tone on our i730, how do we? Now that Deadwood's off the air, Vegas is the only thing left.
Posted by: Uncle Butch at February 7, 2007 06:26 AMHi Uncle Butch,
Unfortunately, the ringtones I linked to would NOT work on an i730. The only ringtones the i730 can handle are the smaller MIDI style ring tones. The i730 is not MP3 capable. Nextel does offer 8 Elvis Presley song excerpts as ring tones for purchase, but I'm not sure if all of them are compatible with the i730 either. (ie. MIDI ring tones)
Michelle's Nextel phone is in the same boat since it's an old i530 with only the most basic feature (it's still black and white). I'd upgrade it, but "it works" and that's all she cares about.
Actually it's fun to think about what songs would be appropriate for when you do caller specific ring tones. I could have Aretha Franklin's "Think" for when Michelle calls. "you'd better think, THINK, think about what you're trying to do to me..." I could have RuPaul's "Supermodel (You'd Better Work)" for those times my boss is calling. Well, it's a fun diversion to think about when you're bored...
Posted by: Scott at February 7, 2007 09:36 AM