Family
Heartfelt updates about family milestones and everyday moments. From taking Mazie to college and annual visits to the Renaissance Festival to Swedish‑pancake breakfasts and VR outings with the kids, this category celebrates togetherness.
- Red Glasses Make Water Taste Wrong
- I got Obsessed with Twitter, and then Abandoned Twitter.
- We took our first weekend away from Mazie in Chicago.
- I started my Apple TV obsession and got an iPhone.
- Tammy went away for a trip and I was Mr. Mom!
- I started playing with time-lapsed video: Drive to Work, Table Assembly, Christmas Tree.
- We had a great 2007 Olson Family Weekend.
- We had a great time at the Winnipeg Folk Festival.
- I went to Canada fishing with my brother-in-laws courtesy of my father-in-law.
- We got some awesome avatars!
- The keyboard was designed for children (duh!) and is really small. Wow!
So far I haven't been able to get it to join a WPA2 WiFi network.- It’s really cute.
Taking Mazie to School
One member of our family sure is happy to have Dad home this summer! Mazie has been Daddy-this and Daddy-that. It’s awesome. She keeps asking me if I’m going to stay for a long, long time. You bet. Here she is before we went to school this morning.
Cute isn’t a big enough word. :-)
Mazie's School Picture
I love this picture! Mazie had her very first school pictures at preschool this year. She seems to be communicating very well what she thinks about it.
Why is it so predictable that the one button Mazie would be most obsessed with on my MacBook Pro is the POWER button.
One of the tweets highlighted in my MarketWatch Farewell Video.
More FriendFeed Fun
I wrote earlier about FriendFeed and I’m continuing to really enjoy it. I’ve played in the past with aggregation and this is by far the best solution for “life streaming” out there yet. Here is the perfect example of why FriendFeed is cool.
Find missing image uploads/2020/18e4b47555.png.
The Twitter and Flickr actions tied together; open and mashable in a “Web 2.0” way. Very cool.
Mazie to Dad using iPhone, “Dont do that.”, pointing at the iPhone.
One of the tweets highlighted in my MarketWatch Farewell Video.
Mazie and the Mirrors
After swim class today Mazie and I had our usual bagel routine and afterwards we walked down the mall. Along our walk she found these mirrored columns and had a great time.
Get a Monopod and Improve Your Home Movies
Do you have a video camera? You need a monopod!
This Christmas I got the Bogen-Manfrotto Pro Black Monopod with Swivel Tilt Head. This item has been on my wish list for a long time and after having it for just a couple days I wish I would have pulled the trigger on it a long, long time ago.
I had thought that I would use this for photography, and it will be great for that. Particularly if you are going to put a really long telephoto lens on and take a lot of shots. The monopod will help with stabilizing and framing the shot, as well as just keeping your arms from getting tired of holding the camera rig. Great for a photo trip to the zoo or arboretum.
However, the video side is the unexpected killer application. I popped my Panasonic PV-GS400 on the monopod and started to take some footage. The difference in the shot was amazing and immediately noticeable. Even with the video cameras optical image stabilization you always get a bit of shake when shooting handheld. With the monopod I was able to just lock the frame.
A tripod just wont work in this mode. That is the brilliance of the monopod. You still have the freedom to tilt, swivel and twist the camera around under full control. Then, just lift it up and walk around. No hassle. Really, go buy one.
Another cool use I found today when shooting with Mazie was to flip the video camera screen over and turn the camera back on yourself. Mazie and I took some video together just by swiveling the camera 180 degrees and then pointing it back at ourselves. I never could have done this hand-held. Very cool!
Merry Christmas 2007
Christmas 2007 is a wrap! Great time with family. Mazie really started to grok the holiday this year and was pretty excited. She loves presents. In honor of the season and Dad traditions, here is a time lapse video of me and Grandpa Don assembling Mazie’s new doll house. She’s totally digging it.
2007 Holiday Letter
Tammy and I are both pretty shocked that we got a holiday letter out this year. It just sort of happened. Tammy started writing something and it just appeared. After a night of tweaking, adding some photos and an online printing order to Kinkos we had ourselves a letter! A bunch of these went out in the mail, but I wouldn’t dare deprive the dedicated blog reader of this great content as well. Read the 2007 Holiday Letter right here.
As a special bonus for the web I’m going to highlight a selected set of blog posts from this year as well.
2007 Highlights from thingelstad.com
Christmas Tree 2007
We’ve been a bit slow getting our Christmas tree up this year. We finally got one today and I figured it was a great time to do another time-lapsed video!
You don’t get to see much of Mazie because she’s blocked by the table most of the time.
OLPC XO-1 Arrived
My One Laptop Per Child XO-1 arrived today! I haven’t had any time to work with it so you will all have to wait to hear my thoughts on it. Some things that jumped right out though include…
To tide everyone over, here are some pictures of Mazie holding it. She’s a kid after all! :-)
CPR Training at Red Cross
Tammy and I had our first of two sessions getting CPR certified last night at the Twin Cities Red Cross. The class was a lot more than just CPR. It really went into general emergency response practices. The 3 C’s – Check, Call, Care.
The last time I took a CPR class was probably 20 years ago and a lot has changed. We’ve been planning on doing this since Mazie was born, so we’re only about two-and-a-half years behind schedule.
Sous Les Sapins
Photos from our weekend in Eastern Iowa staying at Sous Les Sapins Guesthouse with friends.
2007 Block Pumpkin Carving
The annual block gathering to carve up some Halloween pumpkins. We got a great one this year!
Having lunch with Mazie at Yum!
One of the tweets highlighted in my MarketWatch Farewell Video.
At the Dolphin Show with Mazie!
One of the tweets highlighted in my MarketWatch Farewell Video.
Mazie's Big Girl Bed
Monday was a big day in the Thingelstad household! A few weeks ago we ordered Mazie’s new toddler bed and it finally arrived. After dinner that night we opened everything and put it together. Mazie was very excited to see her new bed come together. She has been talking about it for a long time. When we put her mattress in it at the very end she immediately laid down and closed her eyes.
She went to bed that night in her new bed. We asked her if she wanted to sleep in her crib or her bed, the answer was clear. There was a brief moment right at the end where she got a little scared but it passed. She had no problems going to sleep. Yeah Mazie!
She’s been sleeping in her bed now every night and with every nap. She’s doing a really great job!
Mazie and I having a great time at Mill City Farmers Market. Great music today!
Watching Charlotte’s Web with Mazie.
One of the tweets highlighted in my MarketWatch Farewell Video.