Works of Art

I am a pack rat. The stuff I keep is a part of me. Sometimes I'm glad I haven't thrown what I was planning on throwing away yet. I make sure to keep a balance of junk I really want to keep and what should be removed. Sometimes it's just more practical to throw away than to reorganize and make new space.

My first kid's first work of art was treasure. Over the years the neat arts and crafts that they would make at day care and school just piled up. Now I have 3 little artists creating even more precious memories.

A neat solution is to digitize what you want to remember but need to throw away. You can scan their works but that can take time depending on your scanner or computer. Most of the time the thing that they make are crafts and you can't scan those. With a digital camera set at the highest resolution, you can record the artwork. You should also take pictures of your little ones holding their artwork too. If the clocks on the camera and computer are set correctly, the picture file may have a time stamp of when the picture was taken.

The software that came with my camera gives me an option to download the photos into a folder and automatically create a folder name with the date of when the photo was taken. You can later change the name of the folder to make it more descriptive. I don't even bother. The combination of the folder having the date and the pictures gives me enough information what the picture was all about like a birthday party, holiday get together, first time event, etc.


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Homily From Father Sam

Father Sam's short sermon this morning was interesting and kept me alert. Last week's homily with a different priest was rough for me. I probably didn't get enough sleep (but I usually don't get enough sleep) and kept dozing off. It's been over 12 hours and I still remember this morning's sermon.

Anyway, the point was that we Americans always buy STUFF. The only reason we have have a home is to keep our stuff. If our house is full, we use our garages for storage. If our garages are full, we rent storage space. (Seems like storage companies pop up every 3 years). If we have stuff, we just want more.

He recalled a time when stores were closed on Sundays. Sundays were used primarily for worship and football. (Got lots of laughs here). Most important was church and prayer of course. Nowadays, people can buy stuff on Sundays or 24 hours anyday.

People should stop worrying about having more stuff and instead use the time to do what matters: get together with family.

Ironic that I have ads all over this blog to defeat what the priest was preaching.

Anyway, just remember to keep in mind to spend as much time with family and less time buying and showing off your material things.

Picaboo


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The Time Investment II

With my first born, I would put a lot of attention in education development without going all out. Doing nothing is bad and trying to turn your kid into a genius wouldn't be fun. I've read many articles on child development and many of them explained that the most effective method is making learning fun. It makes a lot of sense as this way of learning applies to anybody at any age.

I tried to get my kid to at least read, write, and do basic addition before starting school. It seemed to work pretty well as I started to have more kids and less time for everyone in terms of learning time. With my first one having a good start, I would put my faith in the great public school and great teachers to take over - but not totally. My family was blessed to be in an area with a fine school system.

It feels bad that I don't put much teaching time to my second kid. My solution is to teach my kid in small chunks and be consistent. A little at a time. My second one still can't read yet but I see signs that the kid is starting to "get it".

The Time Investment

When you are a busy parent, time is elusive. If you are a typical full time worker whose hours are in the day, you get the kids from school or daycare and come home late afternoon. Before you know it, it is time for everyone to go to bed.

During the 8 months or so working on my animation project hobby, I hardly acknowledged my wife and kids. I took them for granted because I was at home and not in the office working late or not on some business trip. They were near but I was so into my hobby that they I might as well have been in the office. The only thing I had in mind was to finish the computer animated film so that I could start being a parent again.

Unless there was a software tool where I could just imagine a story so that it turn itself into a movie, I don't think I could do this again. It would be nice to just produce so that I won't have to do the grunt work but that means I would have to pay an army of animators and other staff to make the movies I want. Unfortunately, I'm not George Lucas or Steven Spielberg. By the time I retire and become able to afford to produce computer animated films I'll probably be 100 years old. Maybe I'll have nice screenplays written by then.

Even if I am not doing any animation work, there is still too much to do with my family and with work around the home. So the hobby is at the very bottom of priorities. There can never be guilt. Time not spent with the family is time that will never be regained. Invest time with you family, whoever they are.

Dutch Wonderland

Got back from a day trip from Dutch Wonderland in Pennsylvannia. This was my first time in a few years. They've added a tiny waterpark since. The previous time, I only had one toddler. This time I have a toddler and two small kids.

The kids had a great time and that's all that mattered. My toddler had been cranky at times but that was to be expected. The craziest meltdown was when my toddler saw this ice cream "shack" where the exterior walls were covered with pictures of several flavors of ice cream. My kid wanted the ice cream in the giant poster. It was the same ice cream that my wife was eating at time of the meltdown! Pepperment chocolate. My toddler wanted her own since she did not wanted to share with my wife. After 15 minutes of crying we just give her another of the same ice cream but she still wanted the giant one in the poster. So we just let her cry and waited on my wife to finish her ice cream. My toddler unexpectedly stopped crying and started eating her ice cream.

I wasn't surprised. My toddler has a very intriquing temper not unlike the ones my other two kids have.

Family Blog

This is my family blog linked from the Starship Trip (www.starshiptrip.com) blog. The Starship Trip is a journal for techniques in making animated films. That is the focus.

However, if other random thoughts come to mind, these thoughts will be posted on their own special blog.