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.