Nature Kids

So, if you have ever been over to our place, you know that our backyard is kind of a wildlife sanctuary in the city. Between the 20 or so bird feeders, the butterfly friendly plantings and the koi pond, we tend to attract everything within miles. Today when our friends the Thurman8ers were over here for a Christmas present exchange, the boy came in and told us that he had managed to get a hummingbird to land on his hand. I of course grabbed my longest lens and headed out. After patiently waiting by the feeder for 15 minutes, he got a bird to land and enjoy a tasty meal.

Of course, as soon as he was done, his little sister wanted in in this deal too. She too showed great patience and was rewarded for her effort.

Happy New Year's Honey

Family Computer Building Fun

You probably read my post a few days ago about building a new computer. Well, that leaves some pretty good parts hanging around so it was time for "tech hand-me-down" time.

The wifey offered to help, (mostly motivated by the pile of parts on the floor of the office.)

I was very proud of her. She was not afraid to jump right in and wrench on stuff. She was in charge of stripping down each case and re-mounting drives and motherboards while I wired everything up. She even pinned out the control wires for Zach's computer. Obviously, this was a big turn on for me.

Dogs are no good for building computers. They sleep the whole time that you work.

Motherboards make me happy!

Lisa's computer almost ready to go.

Yep, sleeping again. Cute but no good for technical work.

Chuck Norris Friday (late)

Sorry this one was late. The whole Weaver household got new computers this past few days so I have not been able to access anything. (That post is to follow.)

Chuck Norris ordered a Big Mac at Burger King, and got one.

New Computer Build

It has been a good Christmas season for my SermonSpice videos so I decided it was time to upgrade the ol' computer. It has been 3.5 years since my last processor upgrade so considering what I use my computer for, it is was way past time. I considered buying a Mac but they were way too expensive and didn't offer the newest Intel processor. In the end, I decided to build my own.

The parts.

Getting ready to build.

Processor & Memory mounted.

The Workbench

Just a little wiring left to clean up.

Ready to plug in and install an operating system.

Look at those cores ready to work. I spent the day doing some video stuff and this thing is really fast. I rendered 24 minutes of 1920 x 1080 progressive HD video (h.264) in about 10 minutes. My old computer probably would have taken 6 or 7 hours to do that job. I used to have to plan renders around sleep. Now I can just take a quick break.

The Computer:

Intel Core i7 920

EVGA socket 1366 Motherboard

EVGA Nvidia Geforce GTX260

6 Gigs of DDR3 1333 RAM

I reused my case, power supply and drives.

In the end, I did this for 1/3rd the price of a Mac and it benchmarks out faster.

Happy Birthday Jim!

Today is a very special day in our home because today we celebrate Jim's birthday. Happy Birthday Babe!

Happy Birthday Baby

We have been so busy with the new puppy, church events and family events; I was remiss in posting birthday wishes. If you know this young lady, give her a call to wish her a happy belated birthday.

Super Cool Christmas Gift

Last night we went to my brother's house for Christmas with his family. My sister drove over from the coast to join us. After dinner we did the present exchange. My sister had Bill and I open our gifts at the same time and we both pulled out thumb drives. My sister then started to explain what our gift was about.

My father, was an avid photographer. I am a Nikon man today because of him. My first lens, a 50mm f1.8 was a gift from him. Over the years, my dad took thousands of pictures. I still remember the hallway closet. It was filled with guns, fishing tackle and boxes and boxes of slides. When he passed away in 1998, my step mom cleaned house. She threw away a bunch of our family memories and sold my dad's tools & guns for pennies at a garage sale. (Obviously, she was not a person of high favor with the Weaver's) I managed to salvage (Still had a key to the place) his slides which were by that time just thrown in multiple photocopy paper boxes. My sister, who is the official family historian/genealogist, ended up with those slides. So, what was on those thumb drives? About 400 family pictures that encompass the past 60 years.

My sister spent countless hours with her slide to digital copier going through these pictures. She scanned, cleaned, adjusted and labeled each picture then put them on a thumb drive for my brother and I. Both Lisa and I agreed, this is one of the coolest presents that we have ever received.

Thank You Linda!

This is my mom and I at the docks, probably in San Pedro. My dads friend was a Merchant Marine captain. We would go check out his ship whenever he was in the country.

My sister Linda, me and my Brother Bill in 1967.

Yes, even a swimmer back in 1965.

My dad.

Chuck Norris Friday

When Chuck Norris was denied an Egg McMuffin at McDonald's because it was 10:35am, he roundhouse kicked the store so hard it became an In-N-Out.

Long day but a good day

Today two really cool things happened.

First, Lisa and I drove to UC Davis for my first follow up. The surgeon said that I am doing really well. He even said that I have so much of the movement back that he does not think I should worry about physical therapy

Secondly, I have spent the last three weeks shopping for a Christmas present for the kids. I found it last weekend and it had to come home with us tonight. Her name is Lilly.

Chuck Norris Friday

Chuck Norris grinds his coffee with his teeth and boils the water with his own rage.

Bryan Adams

Last night the little lady and I had a date. Her birthday present this year came early. She wanted to go see Bryan Adams at the Tower Theatre. We started off our evening with dinner at Sequoia Brewery. I had the fish with an I.P.A. and she had the tri-tip sandwich. Tasty.

We arrived at the concert 5 minutes before Bryan Adams came out. It was really cool. We sat in the 9th row center. It was a really small venue and since Bryan Adams played the whole concert acousticly, it had a very intimate feel. He left home his band and only brought a pianist. It was cool because he did a lot of interacting with the audience. He even took requests. Someone jokingly yelled out, "Stairway to Heaven." Without missing a beat, he played (and expertly I might add) the introduction.

Here is a movie the wifey took on her nifty underwater camera.

Chuck Norris Friday

Chuck Norris is suing Myspace for taking the name of what he calls everything around you.

Big Blog Catch Up

We have been busy having all kinds of fun. Now that we stopped for a minute, here is what we did over the last few days.

Turkey for me, turkey for you! I'm eating turkey like a good boy should. It's turkey... so good!

The annual preparation of the bird is kind of a ritual around the Weaver household. I have a notebook that I keep from year to year with past recipes. Here is this years bird.

We soaked it in brine for 36 hours.

Next it was smoker time. This is by far the finest way to prepare the bird.

8 Hours later

Mmmm, that's good bird.

On Thanksgiving we got a hand me down scooter from my brother. My niece has her learners permit and is no longer interested in riding scooters. After about 2 hours of cleaning, repair and a couple new tubes; it was roadworthy.

After all that fun, our friends the Thurman8ers came over for homemade sushi. It was tasty goodness.

Thurman8er enjoyed his sushi a lot.

Chuck Norris Friday

Chuck Norris has the greatest Poker-Face of all time. He won the 1983 World Series of Poker, despite holding only a Joker, a Get out of Jail Free Monopoloy card, a 2 of clubs, 7 of spades and a green #4 card from the game UNO.

Very Super Cool

Here is something I saw over at Greg Swan's blog. If you don't have Microsoft's Silverlight installed yet, your gonna need to do that first.

Here is what you need to do.

1. Go install Silverlight. http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/overview/default.aspx

2. Read about the project here. http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/overview/default.aspx

3. Click on the result tab or go here. http://www.xrez.com/yose_proj/yose_deepzoom/new/XRez%20Xtreme%20Pano/index.html

4. Use your mouse wheel to zoom in. I mean, really go in. Head over the Glacier point and zoom all the way in to half dome. Go to lower Cathedral Summit. Zoom in on El Capitan and find the climbers.

This is the kind of groundbreaking technology that could change everything.

Chuck Norris Friday

Nuff Said...

Disco is back

Oh Dude, that's totally gnarly

So today I got my cast off. (Woo - Hoo) When the nurse cut it off, I thought of those famous words from Jeff Spicoli when he went on a field trip to the morgue. "Oh Dude, that's totally gnarly."

This is the hole on the top. Not very impressive. This is where the doctor took the biopsy and then later covered that hole with his thumb as concrete came squirting through.

This is the other side. Yeah, that is the gnarly side. This is where they opened the hole and put in all the cool titanium. I told the doctor that my friend Jim Healy has a titanium bike. He told me that this little piece most certainly cost more than Jim Healy's bike.

I was totally surprised to hear it but I am released to get back in the pool next week to swim. (No polo yet)

Water Polo Season

This years season ended last week without me. While I was in the hospital waking up, our team took their season ending loss in the CIF semi-final game to Monache. It was strange to not be part of that this year.

One of the things that I do every year at the conclusion of the season is to make a video recounting the season. We show this on the night of the awards ceremony and then every senior is given a copy as a parting gift. It has kind of become an institution and every year I feel pressure to improve over the past year.

For the past 6 years I have started the movie with the old THX introduction and rotoscoped out "Lucasfilms" and put in "Sunnyside Films." This year I made a new introduction. (Yeah, I had to learn to use the mouse with my left hand)

Been blog absent a while

So if you have been following our blog, you may have noticed that things have been dark lately. Well, about 3 weeks ago I went to the doctor with a sore wrist. I figured that it must be tendinitis because of all the video work I had been editing. It turns out that I had a bone tumor growing in my wrist.

The dark center part of my radius is where the tumor was. The word tumor is really scary.

In a matter of 2 weeks I had just about every possible scan and pre-op procedure done to me. At one point, I even had a local doctor tell me that I needed to be mentally prepared to have my hand amputated. My local doctor referred me to a specialist at UC Davis and that is where I went for the procedure. The plan was for the doctor at Davis to remove the top 4 inches of the bone and replace it with bone from my leg or hip. The doctor at Davis said that the way this tumor presented itself, he was very confident that it was a giant cell bone tumor which is a benign tumor. He also felt very confident that he could get it all and save my bone.

Once he got the tumor open, he took a piece and under the microscope he confirmed it to be benign. With that behind us, it was just a matter of scraping out all the tumor (he said it is like butterscotch pudding) and then scraping and lasering the bone to be sure he went deep enough to get it all.





After the scraping, there was not much bone left so he used some special cement and titanium hardware to put me back together. For the future... I will be getting to know the UC Davis campus pretty well. I need to follow up with the doctor at Davis every 4 months for 2 years and then every 6 months for another year.

Many of you were praying for me and my family through this ordeal. I thank you for this. If you know my wife, you know that she is a worrier. She truly had peace through this time and I am sure this is due to your prayers and God answering prayer.

Please continue to pray that this chapter is over. There is a chance that this could return but I hope that is not something that is to come.

This picture is from yesterday. Lisa and I are home now recovering with my family.

Chuck Norris Friday

Science Fact: Roundhouse kicks are comprised primarily of an element called Chucktanium.

Chuck Norris Friday

Newton's Third Law is wrong: Although it states that for each action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, there is no force equal in reaction to a Chuck Norris roundhouse kick.

Our Littlest Pastry Chef

It was our turn to make dessert for our Monday Night Bible Study group. Mrs. Weave made a Mocha Cheesecake, but knew the the kids would not like it. So, our littlest pastry chef made Chocolate Spider Cupcakes. It was a lot of fun for Mommy too.

Light the Night Walk

This weekend, the Weaver Family, participated in the Light The Night Walk. It is the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's nationwide walk to raise awareness and funds to cure leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma, and improve the quality of life of patients and their families. We participated in the walk, along with 45 friends, in honor our dear friend and sister-in-Christ, Paula Hall, who was diagnosed just a few months ago with lymphoma. We had a really great time spending time with Paula, Paula's family and many, many friends. This year, approximately 2, 500 people lit the night. It was amazing to see all of the balloons with lights in them move along the Fresno State Campus. We are looking forward to next year's walk and Paula's continued healing. Thank you to all of you who helped support our team by covering us (and Paula) with your prayers and donations!

Chuck Norris Friday

When taking the SAT, write "Chuck Norris" for every answer. You will score over 8000.