Family
- 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.
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.
Iconize Me Avatars
I’m giddy! It’s like Christmas around the Thingelstad house. Why? We have new avatars!
Several weeks ago a friend of mine clued me in on this service at Iconize Me! Iconize Me is the brain-child of Paul Sahner who decided to start creating caricature based avatars for people online. Iconize Me! is a great service, but it’s completely overloaded. They’ve stopped taking pre-orders again. Huge plus, you get vector images back. Can’t wait to make my 10 foot poster!
I think this is brilliant. I’ve always just used a head shot photo but using a real photo is, well, a real photo. A drawing is a little less personal but still gives you that individual identity. Enough of the words, here is my new avatar. (These images are all much bigger than would be typically used.)
Of course I didn’t want to be the only one around the house with a cool avatar, so we got them for the whole family!
Here is Tammy’s
Mazie got one too of course. She does have an account on the iMac after all.
And lastly I as trying to find a good option for an image for this website and to use as “cover art” in iTunes for home movies. Voila!
Mazie's First RenFest
This weekend we were adventurous and decided to take Mazie to her first Renaissance Festival! And just to keep things really interesting, we brought Izzy along as well. It was awesome. Everyone had a great time. Mazie really enjoyed it and had fun with just everything going on. Izzy did well, and was very interested when she realized there were bones laying around.
Went to the Minnesota Renaissance Festival with Mazie and Izzy. Was a total success! Yeah Family Thingelstad! 🙌
Last week I called home while on my way to a meeting in New York. To my surprise when the phone was answered Mazie was on the other end saying “Hello Daddy!”. Immediately beaming, I responded with “Hello Mazie! How are you doing?” Mazie isn’t much of a talker on the phone but I coaxed out of her that her babies were up already and that she had slept well.
Then I heard Tammy’s voice. I figured Tammy had answered the phone and had given it to Mazie. Nope! Turns out she picked it up and answered it herself. Tammy had stepped outside for a moment. How cool. Mazie’s first phone call. 🙂
Got a Message
While I was in Canada fishing I was without any means of communication. The only thing that would have worked was a satellite phone, and while I considered it I figured I was being ridiculous. I did know that the camp had a radio, and I figured that with enough work you could get through via the radio if there was an emergency. I had visions in my head of Radar in MAS*H patching calls through for Hawkeye to talk to his Dad. It all seemed very do-able.
On only the second day of fishing, after we came back in from the afternoon session there was a message. Everyone was pretty confused since it was so unexpected. George, the Native American that ran the camp had left a scrap of paper for us. The message, exactly as it was delivered is below.
Nobody knew what to do with it, until someone figured out whose phone number that was. It was mine! Obviously there is no message there, so I went to find George a bit anxious about what my message was. George spoke very little English. It turned out, that was the whole message. That was all he had for me, my phone number.
Now, imagine yourself in the middle of the wilderness the recipient of an envelope with no letter in it. It drove me nuts, and of course my mind started going crazy. Was something wrong with Mazie? Tammy? Was there an accident? What’s going on? Argh!
We put the radio to work and it turned out that Radar O’Reilly was nowhere near. The radio couldn’t even reach the nearest village without relaying through another person in another camp. All radio communication was in Ojibwe/Cree so I had no idea what was being said. Theoretically they were going to relay a message and try to call my house to find out what the message was. According to caller ID nobody ever called the house. After a day nobody had flown in to get me, so I figured that it must not be an emergency. It was 4 days before we would leave.
I never did get the message until we flew out of camp on the float plane and got to the nearest airport. I immediately called home to find out what was going on. The message was that my Grandpa had been in the hospital and that they did not think he was going to make it. His health was very poor, and cancer was getting him. But he had recuperated a bit and had returned home. Unfortunately, time was against me and my grandpa passed away less than 24 hours after I got home.
Going on a bike ride to get Mazie!