The Woz

This past Wednesday (Jan 27th), Steve Jobs was on stage unveiling the iPad for Apple. On that same day, Steve Wozniak was at Laxsom Auditorium giving a speech entitled "How I Invented the Personal Computer and Had Fun Doing It".

My son, a Chico State employee who does Technical Production for Laxsom Auditorium, got the chance to meet The Woz as he is affectionately known. Here is a photo of him signing an Apple IIe at Laxsom (the oldest computer in the Laxsom inventory).

If you are unsure of the significance of the Jobs/Apple/iPad/Wozniak relationship, then I hereby strip you of your Geek credentials and sentence you to reading the article at this link.

Troy At Almost 3 Months: Pics & Video

We had Troy, Lucy and David over for dinner last Sunday and I had the opportunity to take a few photos of Troy...and some video! He is able to stay awake through his whole evening with us now.

He has quite a range of facial expressions, and is always fascinated with the camera when I bring it out. Here he is mezmerized by the black object (the camera) I have in front of my eye.

Though my male voice is nowhere near has pleasant to him as the soothing female voices of Lucy and my wife, I can almost coerce a smile out of him...

But just to my left was my wife, and with just a few sentences she was able to make Troy happy enough to smile. Just a little bit at first...

..........then a little more............come on Troy, you can do it!...............

...and finally a great big smile! My wife is on to her next challenge now, and that is getting him to do a full-on laugh next time we see him. I did some silly dances for him, but he's not quite sure whether I'm just weird or whether I'm playing with him. Once he figures out I'm playing, I think I may be able to extract a laugh.

Lucy has been going to the gym, and one evening David and Troy came with her. I wasn't there, but my wife was and she said Troy was absolutely fascinated by the machinery and the people working out. I can just image how exciting those new sights and sounds would be to a 3 month old...

All right, are we ready for the videos I promised? There they are, below. They are in chronological order, with each being a little better than the previous. They are all short so watch'em all, but if you only have time for one, watch the last one...

Rain, Hail, and Wind

This has been an amazing week for San Diego county. Starting Monday, we've had 30-40 MPH wind gusts, rain so heavy that high-speed windshield wipers would not handle it so traffic on the freeway simply stopped, and at least 5 doses of hail - some pea sized. It completely covered our sidewalks one time.

We have lived in the county over 20 years now, and I have never seen 5 straight days of weather like this. But supposedly this is the last day before the storm heads out, giving us our normal sunny San Diego weekend.

All I have to say is: watch out those of you living in states east of us...it's heading straight for you! If you don't believe me, look at what happened to the tent that held the Russo Steele auto auction in Phoenix Arizona today...

Squirrel Nut Zippers

Last night, we went to see Squirrel Nut Zippers with Mike and Emily at Anthology.

I must say that was the most fun concert I've seen in a long, long time...maybe ever! Anthology is a very intimate, upscale venue and there is no other band on the planet that sounds like the Zippers...it is so refreshing to hear something so different, so retro, and so fun!

Here is a little sample for you all...

Kansas Vanity Plates

Kansas, it turns out, was allowing each county in the state to issue vanity plates with the same license plate number, the only difference being the county designation shown in small letters in the upper corner.

Wisely, law enforcement has convinced the state this should be stopped, so the state is recalling all duplicate plates, allowing only the person who has had the plate the longest to keep it.

This gives us a unique opportunity to see what plates were most popular in the state of Kansas. Interested? Here they are, followed by the number of counties that had issued that plate:

HUSKERS...........53
JAYHAWK..........43
GITRDUN...........38
CHIEFS...............37
2FAST4U............36
SPOILED............35
SOONERS..........34
BLESSED............34
MYTOY..............33
REDNECK..........32

Thanksgiving: Troy at 1 Month

 Time for a Troy update! He brought his parents over for Thanksgiving dinner and it was surprising how much he had progressed in such a short amout of time. He very clearly uses his eyes to track and watch things...we're not sure how clearly he sees, but he definitely knows he is looking at something.

 Here is Lucy with her son. She is such a loving mother that we have no doubt that Troy is going to grow up in the best possible environment. It is also fun to see how just the sound of her voice sooths him and makes him feel secure.

 Grandma (we still don't like the sound of that) is just as tickled as Lucy and holds Troy at every opportunity. It won't be long before Troy will know his grandparents by sight and voice also...we're working on it!

 All these photos are from Thanksgiving, but they also brought Troy over last night...we have re-started the tradition my folks had with us...having us over every Sunday for dinner. It works well on many levels...we get to see Troy, they get out of the house for awhile, and Lucy gets a night where she doesn't have to make dinner. Everyone wins!

 Our son Ron came down for Thanksgiving and was able to see and hold his nephew for the first time...he was so thrilled...he's very into children.

 Troy is still not sleeping through the night, getting up roughly every two hours. Lucy is trying a new strategy by keeping him up as long as possible during the evening. Last night we all chipped in...he woke up at 6 PM when they came over, and working as a team we were able to keep him awake until almost 8:30 before there was no stopping those eyes from closing. He was a very good kid even when he got tired...no crying, no fussing, just a gentle drift off into the land of harps and sheep...

Good night, Troy. See you on the other side.

Edgar Winter

I forgot to mention it, but about 3 weeks ago I opened up the paper Friday morning and there staring me in the face was a small ad..."Edgar Winter Saturday Night at the Poway Center for the Performing Arts". WHAT?

Not many people know this, but I am a big fan of Edgar's "They Only Come Out At Night" album from the 1970s. It has a couple of excellent well-known songs (Frankenstein and Free Ride) but it also has many great obscure songs.

So I rushed the paper over to my wife and said "we're going to this tomorrow night!" and she smiled. So we did. Now it was a very unusual concert in a very unusual venue. The place is designed with plays and classical music in mind, not necessary rock acts. So the feeling was very...stiff and formal. And the crowd was all 40ish and 50ish couples with a few 40ish to 50ish dads with their sons in tow.

We got seats in the first row of the balcony and had an excellent view of the whole show...there were only about 200 people there by my estimate.

There were no frills. No fog, no backdrop, no colored lights. It was a stage and a few white lights and that was it. It wasn't even that loud in there.

I was a little disappointed in that Edgar mostly played things off his new release, Rebel Road. He played very little of his older stuff, except for the obligatory aforementioned Frankenstein and Free Ride. But seeing him perform Frankenstein was worth the price of admission alone, so if I had to do it over again I surely would.

Edgar wore his traditional long black coat with large metal buttons. But I was in for a few surprises. First, he is now over 60 so his tall lanky body is very stiff...you can see it in every movement. Second, he wore sneakers instead of black boots with a tall heel as I would have expected. And third, Mr. Edgar Winter talks with a Texas accent! All these years and I did not know he lives in Texas. He talked about playing the dive bars in Texas and said he is known as the "Texas Tornado", which he said with a classic Texan drawl.

In any case, a good show. But not a great show. Worth it for Frankenstein alone.