BilikFamily.com

Wow! Over ten days since creating an entry! I suspect that's a personal low. I guess it's just that lull between Halloween and Thanksgiving when nothing seems to be happening. I just put new webnotes up and occasionally update the "Webpages I've found interesting" sidebar.

Daniel - Saturday evening into Sunday morning was rough. Daniel had one of his vomiting episodes again. It started around 11PM and finished around 3AM. Michelle and I were pretty worn out on Sunday because of it. She let me nap for a while just before noon and I let her rest in the mid afternoon. He hadn't had a bout of this in quite some time and this was the first time it occurred overnight. We wish we could figure out what triggers it.

Weekend - In other weekend news the girls sang with the children's choir on Sunday morning. While they both enjoy it, they both had minor complaints about how much standing you do in the choir. Claire also had her good friend Madison sleep over on Saturday night.

Piano - Saturday I took Claire to her piano lesson. She's been enjoying recent weeks because she's had the opportunity to practice some Christmas songs. I've have been using the piano's capabilities to record the duet portion as a background track for Claire to practice with. Some of the duet portions have been more than I can play fluently so it's given me a chance to learn about what Yamaha calls 'step record'. It basically lets you record the notes and chords of the songs one at a time even if you can't play them to tempo.

Teacher conferences - This morning I have to get out of the house early to go to Claire's parent-teacher conference. This evening Michelle and I will go to Abby's. We have a sitter arranged for tonight so that we both can go and then have some dinner afterwards. Today is the last day of school before the girls enjoy a five day Thanksgiving Day weekend. Yes, they get Wednesday off. Lucky kids! I only get Thursday and Friday. *pout*

Cabinet - One of the boys broke one of the hinges on our corner cabinet doors. Because it's a pair of doors forming a 90° angle, they use an exotic "European hinge" which is set into the backside of the doors. We're not having much luck finding the exact replacement so we may have to settle on using something close and boring new holes.

iPod - Now and then I've had the odd moment to play with my new iPod photo. I must admit that the screen is a bit on the small when it comes to displaying pictures. A modern full-fledged PDA would probably do a better job if photos were your prime objective. It does a sweet job of displaying the pictures in slideshow format on a television -- using nice transitions and audio soundtrack. With a little effort it could be used in presentations ala PowerPoint instead of lugging around a big laptop. Seeing the album art when playing music is a nice touch. And overall the color interface looks nicer than the flat black and white.

Ever since I've been following the iPod's evolution, I've been interested in the growth of ideas and products that make it do things Apple hadn't foreseen. It was that interest that led me to buy the brand new book, "iPod and iTunes Hacks". It has 100 ideas and tips for using an iPod and iTunes in novel ways. The first thing I want to do focus on is patching it into the line inputs of my car stereo.

Television - Congrats to Alyssa and Tom (well, technically Tom) on winning a new 30-something inch television at St. Cyprians. It couldn't happen to a nicer family. With five kids it's not like you won't use it.