Peter the Dance Machine

I went to my company's summer party with my family today. Before going into the party a bit, I wanted to share a video we took of Peter at the party today. Before, you watch it, I'd just like to mention three things:

1) This was completely spontaneous. Peter does this kind of thing all the time when he hears music he likes.
2) Notice the group of 4 young female fans he attracted. They were actually taking photos of him before it was over.
3) Notice that I was so transfixed by Peter's dancing, that I didn't even notice that Michael wanted me to take him to the bathroom ( I'm in the brown shirt ).



We had a great time at the party today, and we got LOTS of GREAT pictures of the boys. I'll definitely be posting these photos when I get a chance. I'd like to leave captions on the photos and get some of your comments, so I'll definitely post most of them on facebook ( I'll post a blog entry with a few photos to let you know when the facebook photos are ready ). Hopefully I'll post them soon. I told you all I'd be posting Bronx Zoo photos a while back, but aside from a few camel photos, that never happened. Sorry about that, but I ultimately decided that we really didn't get too many great photos from the Bronx Zoo trip. So, I won't post the Bronx Zoo photos, but I will post the company party photos as well as Disney photos from last year when I get a chance ( Disney photos could take a while - there are a lot that need to be organized ).

Oh, I'm still working on my Parenthood blog post ( well, I haven't touched it in almost a week, but it is still in the pipeline ), and I'd like to close this post with a few links related to my last post.

I told you in my last post that "I'll be There" is my favorite Jackson 5 recording, but I think I have a new favorite. The studio recording of "I'll be There" was fantastic, but I think the a capella version below blows the studio version out of the water.



I also happened to find this remarkable cover version of "You Are Not Alone", which I actually think is better than Michael Jackson's original version.

RIP Michael

RIP Michael.

This is how I was introduced to MJ, more than 35 years ago ...

Too bad about the pedophile stuff, but my God, he was such a talent!

Rich

P.S. I think this is my favorite MJ song.

P.P.S. Oh, and this is definitely my favorite Jackson 5 song.

Sick

I think I've got the flu.

I say this, not because I'm looking for sympathy or anything, but to let you know why I might be neglecting my online life for the next week or so. I usually do most of my online stuff in the hour of so before I go to bed ( after Ruth and the kids have already fallen asleep ). However, in order to maximize my chances of beating this flu quickly, I think I'd better start going to sleep early each night.

That's a shame, because there's a bunch of online stuff I'm just itching to do.
I'd really like too ...

1) Finish the LONG blog post on parenting that I'm working on.
2) Actually make some more YouTube vids before my channel withers and dies.
3) Work on getting my Wiggles videos converted to Mac format and loaded to YT.
4) Upload my Disney pictures from last summer to facebook ( with appropriate captions ).
5) Write a blog post on running.

Speaking of running, this flu is really going to mess up my running schedule. I can be pretty obsessive about my running, and I always get apprehensive when I have to miss workouts of any kind. I have this irrational fear that I'll get completely out of shape if a miss a few workouts. I was actually getting close to a fitness goal of mine, so this flu is probably going to be a big setback. ( A little over a year ago I had to quit running for two months due to a knee injury. When I finally started running again, I had to start at a relatively slow speed to make sure I didn't re-injure the knee. I've been spending the last year gradually increasing my speed ( The knee still doesn't feel 100% percent - I've got a feeling that nothing short of the Fountain of Youth will ever make it feel 100% again ), and I had almost gotten to the point that I could run my regular distance in the same time that I could before the injury. I really want to get back to running at my top speed by the time I turn 40 in January. I would really mean a lot to me to be in the the best cardio-vascular shape in my life at 40. ). In the past I've found skipping two weeks of running due to the flu impacts my endurance so much that it usually takes me two months to get back to where I was before the flu. So, if this flu lasts until early July, it make take until early September to get back all my endurance.

I'm really hoping I'll feel better by Saturday, but that doesn't seem likely. I first started feeling the symptoms Friday night ( runny nose ), and these types of flus usually last about two weeks. Saturday is the day of my company's summer party. The kids just love that party ( lost of rides and activities for the kiddies ), and I LOVE to see them smile and have fun, so there is NO WAY I'm missing that party. However, it would be nice if I had ordinary levels of energy for the party. It takes a lot to keep up with the kids at such a big event ( There are about 10,000 people at the party each year ( it actually gets a little bigger each year ) ). I also REALLY hope the kids don't get the flu. I've been careful not to hug and kiss them for the last few days.

In any case, I hope to talk to you all again soon, but if it doesn't happen, at least you'll know why.

Rich

Really Funny!

OK, this is going to be a really lazy blog post with almost no input from me. However, the video below is one of the funniest things I've seen in a while. It's also rather timely considering that Father's Day is Sunday ( BTW, I will be doing a long blog post about parenthood rather soon - probably not in time for Father's Day ( busy weekend - it's also my 13th wedding anniversary on Monday ), but soon. ).



Oh, and if you enjoyed that video, you might want to check out the two videos below from the same channel:

Anybody want to help me with a video?

I'm sure that most people who follow this blog also follow my YouTube channel, but if you don't, please check out the video below:



Basically, I'd like to do a parody of this video. However, that means I'll need a female volunteer to do the singing. If you can think of anyone who would be willing to give this a try, please let me know.

Rich

The Wiggles

Wiggles Time!!!

However, before I share my Wiggles pictures, let me give you a little flavor of Peter's 4th birthday party.

BTW, Please click on the photos to see them in full detail.

( The kids having fun on the gym equipment at the YMCA. Michael is the boy with one foot on the balance beam, and you can see half of Peter all the way on the left side of the photo. )


( Check out the jumping castle in the background! The kids had a lot of fun with that. The round thing I'm holding is a pinata ( Note: I'm not sure how to put the ~ over the "n" in "pinata" ).

( Peter's Wiggles cake )

OK, on to The Wiggles photos!

( Singing "Toot Toot, Chugga Chugga, Big Red Car" )


( Wake up Jeff! )


( Fruit Salad! Yummy Yummy! )


( "Let's make some fruit salad today ..." )


( The birthday boy had a front row seat to watch us sing "Hot Potato" )


( "Mashed Banana, Mashed Banana! ... " )


( Singing "Fly Through the Sky". Notice had all the kiddies were clamoring to get on stage with us. We B Kiddie Rock Stars!!!! )


The Wiggles:
Anthony ( Blue ): My friend Dave. I met Dave when I was 15.
Jeff ( Purple ): My friend Tom. I met Tom when I was 6.
Greg ( Yellow ): Me
Murray ( Red ): My younger brother Craig ( 3.5 years younger ).

Ruth used her photoshopping skills to turn this ...


into this ...

OK, so those are the photos. Video? Well, that could take a while. I've got the video files from the SONY camcorder on my Mac, but I haven't gotten software to convert them to Mac format yet. Does anyone know the best way to convert *.mts files to Mac-compatible video files?

Rich

Nutty

Hey there! Peter's birthday party was a big success. Wiggles photos/videos will follow when I have more time to organize them, but until then, I'll share a few photos from our trip to Sesame Place ( from May 31st ).

( Michael won the elephant above playing a carnival game. He named the elephant "Nutty". )


( This shot was taken right before Michael's winning throw. )


( Peter did some fishing ... )

( ... and caught a nice orange fish! )


( Bert and Ernie! )

And the "something" is ...

As I noted is my last post, I was due to get "something" for guessing the name of a movie right. Well, "something" arrived today. The "something" was not something material, but as a I implied in my last post, the nature of the "something" really wasn't important to me. What was important was that I get an opportunity to bask in the sweet glow of victory. The video below and the comment at the top of the newtokyoterror YouTube page certainly give me the opportunity to enjoy my victory in a public way. Yes, it is a rather small inconsequential victory, but in this life, ya gotta take all the WIN you can get.

I won ... something.

Yay, I won ... something - for guessing the movie which inspired the song below. Just click on the video below if you want to try and guess yourself. Then you can look at the comments on the video to see my answer ( My comment is the first one on the video ).



I'm not quite sure what "something" will be, but that's not really important. What's important here is the sweet taste of victory. :)

Rich

P.S. Joanna Wang is actually one of the first YouTubers I ever subscribed to and the second person I made a video response to ( Though that was back when she had her original festouverture channel - sadly all the videos from that channel were removed ).

I wanted to blog today.

I wanted to blog today. I really did. Wanted to do YouTube video too. However, my new SONY camcorder was a bit of a time-sink today. I spent several hours trying to figure out how to get video from the camcorder to my Mac. My friends and I will be performing as The Wiggles next weekend at Peter's birthday party, and I'd like to post some of the footage to YouTube ( I do all my YT stuff on the Mac ). The camcorder can record to either a memory card or a mini DVD, but ...

1) The Mac doesn't recognize the files on the memory card.
2) The Mac has a side-loading slot drive, so you can't put mini-DVDs into the DVD drive ( Well, I guess you could, but you'd never get it back ).
3) The camcorder doesn't have a firewire output port ( needed stream video to the Mac ). This is really odd, because the Sony camcorder I bought more than 5 years ago does have a firewire port.

( BTW, The Split Rock videos I posted a few weeks ago were shot using our Sony digital camera. The digital camera saves video in a format that the Mac can read. However, that won't help us next weekend, because the camera will be on photo duty during The Wiggles stuff. )

So after a lot of googling I've determined I'll need to get some more software and/or hardware to get these files from the camcorder to the Mac. However, I still haven't figured out exactly what I want to do, so I apologize in advance if it takes me a while to post The Wiggles videos.

We're thinking of recording next week with with both the old and new camcorder, so perhaps I'll use a firewire cable with the old camcorder to port footage from digital tape to the Mac. However, I haven't tried that before, and believe it or not ( despite the fact that I'm a computer programmer ), I'm actually rather lazy/inept when it comes to doing technical stuff with gadgets. I guess I'm more lazy that anything else. I don't like to use my brain to do techincal stuff unless I'm getting paid for it. That's why I got a Mac. It was supposed to make this kind of stuff plug-and-play easy. Oh well. Thing are never as easy as you might hope.

Anyway, hope to have a more interesting blog post in a few days.

Rich

EDIT: I just thought of another issue. We're going to be recording in HD ( we might as well get the nicest video possible for posterity ) with a 16:9 aspect ration. As far as I know, iMovieHD 6.0 ( The only movie maker I have on the Mac ) only handles a 4:3 aspect ration. Thus, I've got a bad feeling that if I try to port 16:9 video to iMovieHD, the video is going to be compressed in the horizontal direction. I'm not ready to change movie making software yet, so it might be a while before I post any of the HD footage of The Wiggles stuff. If I post anything soon, it will probably be 4:3 non-HD footage from my old camcorder.

Rod Laver

I'm a huge sports fan, and I love writing about sports so much that I once dreamed of growing up to be a sports columnists. However, I don't really talk much about sports in this blog or on my YouTube channel. I guess that's because my favorite sport is baseball, and I don't feel like boring my international audience with baseball talk ( OK, the six or seven people who follow my blog don't really constitute much of an "international audience", but my YT subscribers do cover a good deal of the non-baseball-loving world ). However, I thought I'd do a quick post on tennis today. Tennis is pretty much an international sport, and I've always been a pretty big tennis fan. I'm enough of a fan that when I hear the word "Borg", I think of this ...

... rather than this ...


This Sunday, Roger Federer will attempt to win his 14th major title. Everyone's talking about how he'll tie Pete Sampras' record if he does that, but in my mind, Sampras' major title record comes with a big asterisk attached to it

I consider Rod Laver to be the real king of major titles. Laver won "only" 11 major titles, but he would have won about 20 if he had actually played in major tournaments from 1963 to 1967. In 1962, Laver won the Grand Slam ( all four major tournaments in the same year ). Immediately after that he turned professional. The major tournaments did not given out prize money in those days, and only allowed amateurs to play. If you actually wanted to make money playing tennis in those days, you had to turn professional, and professionals were barred from playing in the four majors.

In 1968, the Open Era started in tennis. Three of the four majors allowed professions to play in 1968, and the Australian Open followed suit in 1969.

In 1969, the first year since 1962 that he was allowed to play in all 4 majors, Rod Laver won the Grand Slam again. Considering that he won the Grand Slam in both 1962 and 1969, how many major titles might he have won from 1963 to 1967 if he had been allowed to play. I don't think it's unreasonable to suppose that he might have won about half of the 20 majors ( actually 21 majors if you count the 1968 Aussie Open he was barred from playing in ) played from 1963 to 1967. If we assume he would have only won 9 of those 20 ( or 21 ) majors, that still would have given him 20 total majors for his career.

So, 14 majors is nice and all, but I' m not going to be too impressed until somebody gets close to 20.

Sprinkles

As you go through life, make sure you can tell the difference between the ice cream and the sprinkles.