Sharpes-R-Us

Tori Tries the Drums

2008-04-13T21:12:00.002-04:00

Tori's grandparents and great-grandparents got her a nice drum set for her 5th birthday. Here's one of her first songs.

As an added bonus, she sings, all original, of course. For your....ummmm...enjoyment.

It's a Mario Party!

2008-04-08T08:24:00.002-04:00

Tori turned five and wanted a Mario Party.

While Nintendo games are everywhere, Nintendo birthday decorations are nowhere to be found. But with some internet searching, some craftiness, and a heap of time, you can put together your own Mario party complete with costumes, decorations, cardboard character cutouts, gold coins, and mushrooms.

Check the full picture set for descriptions on how to make some of the stuff. It turned out great and even the kids that weren't familiar with Mario (imagine that!) had a wonderful time.

Let Us Install It

2008-02-13T13:15:00.003-05:00

Best Buy's Geek Squad is (again) out of control. OK, OK, no surprise there.

While browsing the Nintendo DS cartridges last night, I noticed the "Let Us Install It" sticker in the corner.

Are you kidding me?

It's a game cartridge! You pull one out and pop another in. Any kid with fingers can do it.

I wonder what they charge for that service?

The PEZ Office

2007-12-28T09:36:00.001-05:00

Here's how the PEZ Office looks today .

I keep my entire collection (except for duplicates and non-dispenser items) at work. It adds color to an otherwise dull cube and attracts a fair amount of attention from coworkers and their visiting families.

In the fall of 2008 I'll be moving into a new building so the PEZ will have to be packed up and moved yet again.

Recently added PEZ include: Snow White, Pocahontas, Mulan, The Golden Compass series, and Vanessa from the Bee Movie.

Older pictures of my visit to the PEZ Museum and my previous PEZ office are here.

The Case of the Missing Snacks

2007-12-04T13:07:00.001-05:00

The pictures for Delaney's 7th birthday party are now posted!

These pictures include the actual clues and evidence used in "The Case of the Missing Snacks" mystery the guests had to solve. They were all great detectives and recovered the snacks before the end of the party.

Be sure to read the picture descriptions for a bit more about the clues.

Detective Delaney

2007-11-14T20:36:00.001-05:00

Delaney's birthday party is coming up and she's selected a detective theme this year.

Trick or Treat

2007-10-31T21:12:00.001-04:00

Happy Halloween!

"D" Halloween Party

2007-10-29T11:27:00.001-04:00

This weekend we went to "D" Halloween Party where all the costumes had to begin with the letter D. Tori was Dorothy, Delaney was a little devil, Melissa was a drama queen, and I was a DJ.

I got a FlashWear T-Qualiser shirt that's a working digital spectrum analyzer display on a shirt. It has batteries and a small microphone. The shirt lights up in response to the music playing or to kids yelling at you to see how high they can make the lights go.

There were lots of great costumes at the party, including the winning costume - Devo!

It's a Zoo Out There

2007-10-20T20:55:00.001-04:00

We recently visited the NC Zoo in Asheboro and had a great day.

Besides admiring the animals, they probably spent the most time in a outdoor maze they had setup. Delaney quickly found her way out on the first try, but the object was really to find six different animal stamp stations within the maze. Then you had to use the clues to determine which area of your card to stamp. This took a bit longer as she and Tori had to explore every dead end in the maze.

More Zoo Pictures

Custom Hula Hoops

2007-09-13T10:21:00.001-04:00

Delaney and Tori's classes needed some hula hoops for the playground. We looked around a bit but since it's the end of summer we couldn't find any.

So we decided to MAKE them ourselves!

It takes a little bit of money for supplies, a lot of tape, and a tremendous amount of patience, but they came out great. They're more durable than ones you'd typically buy in a store and you can size them to fit. The hoops themselves ended up being about $2 each, but the decorative tape added to that amount.

Making them was simple, but the taping took time. For the first one, I taped the entire thing white first. Then I added a red stripe for the NC State look. But the kids said it looked like a candy cane.

San Francisco

2007-09-13T10:12:00.001-04:00

I went to San Francisco on business and had one day to tour the city. It was quite a difference getting on the plane in near 100 degree heat in Raleigh and getting off at night when it was in the 50's with a brisk wind.

I packed as much as I could into that day, taking a Segway Tour (more on that later), a double-decker bus tour, cable car rides, and seeing quite a bit on foot.

Of course, I also fit in a little geocaching during the week, including a memorable one in Union Square

San Francisco Pictures

Elvis Has Entered the Building

2007-08-29T13:36:00.001-04:00

After searching around the Triangle for a couple of months I couldn't find the newly released Elvis PEZ set. Sure, I could have just ordered it off the internet but that's too easy.

I finally found it at an overpriced candy shop at Pier 39 at Fisherman's Wharf while in San Francisco. Sure I paid more, but by the time I added in shipping fees it wouldn't have been much cheaper to order it.

All three Elvis's have already joined the rest of the PEZ collection at the office.

A Room With a View

2007-08-24T23:39:00.001-04:00

View of San Francisco from my room at the Crowne Plaza Hotel.

Delaney in Black

2007-08-24T23:38:00.003-04:00

Tori in Black and White

2007-08-24T23:38:00.001-04:00

It was about this time last year...

2007-08-09T15:17:00.001-04:00

When it was almost as hot as it is now -- 104 degrees in the shade.

I should be geocaching, just like last year.

Pink Sunglasses

2007-08-02T14:42:00.001-04:00

Delaney with her pink sunglasses, pink lips, and just a hint of hair. Don't hair salons charge big bucks to give hi-lites? I can do it for free and much, much quicker, too.

Ghost at the Beach

2007-08-02T14:40:00.001-04:00

With some simple photo manipulation, Tori becomes ghostly white and the oversaturated colors really stand out.

Tea Party

2007-08-02T14:39:00.001-04:00

Delaney and Tori on their way to a tea party at a friend's house. Felicity was invited as well.

iBlend

2007-07-20T12:06:00.000-04:00

The popular site Will It Blend? puts the iPhone to the blender test. I always loved when Letterman would drop things from the top of a five story building just to see them explode. Now you can see what happens if you drop that $600 iPhone into an industrial blender.

Never Underestimate a Paperclip

2007-07-18T12:43:00.000-04:00

Oh, the things this man could do with some duct tape and a paperclip.

MacGyver was always one of my favorite shows when growing up. Now you can own one of his favorite multitools, the paperclip.

If this comes in red, I'm going to trade mine for a house!

If you need other ideas for MacGyver-isms, check out Lifehacker's list of ideas that would make MacGyver proud.

Atlantic Beach

2007-07-13T16:03:00.000-04:00

When I was growing up, we used to vacation a lot in the Atlantic Beach/Salter Path/Emerald Isle area on the North Carolina coast. It was only a few hours away. I vaguely remember camping when I was younger and later staying at different beach houses and condos. Some years I'd go two, three, or four times, staying with grandparents, aunts and uncles, church youth groups, or other friends.

We'd always find somewhere to eat seafood and always find somewhere to play miniature golf. There was always a walk on one or more fishing piers to see what people were catching. Sometimes stopping to fish ourselves. We rode waves to shore in the ocean and played card games in the room.

And you always, always, always made at least one stop at Neuse Sport Shop in Kinston. You just had to, and it was at about the halfway point of the trip.

Sure it was typically hot, but there was always a firm breeze and water nearby. Good summer fun. Good memories.

This past week, we took a trip back to Atlantic Beach after not going for a few years. Delaney remembered the last trip, but Tori certainly did not. The drive is a bit longer from Wake Forest, there were no walks on the fishing piers, as most of them are either washed away or closed, but there was a stop at Neuse Sport Shop and it's at least three times the size it used to be. If you can't find a fishing rod in there, it doesn't exist.

Despite Melissa's sunburn induced by residual antibiotics (I bet we remember that next time), we had a great time! Lots of wave jumping in the ocean, building sandcastles, burying each other in the sand, and finding crabs and shells on the beach. A trip to local shops netted a Webkinz among other things (imagine that!), a meal out included making Smores at the table over open flame, and a chance stop on the way home resulted in a geocache find.

The Week in Pictures

Fourth Fireworks Fun

2007-07-11T15:53:00.001-04:00

I thought about trying to take some pictures of fireworks on the fourth, but then decided against it. I didn't bring a tripod and while we had a good view on the beach of fireworks at the Atlantic Beach Causeway, we really weren't close enough for great photos.

Then someone started setting off some serious fireworks in the parking lot of our complex. This was not an authorized, planned show, but these were also not your run-of-the-mill-lame-NC-legal fireworks.

Someone went to South of the Border and spent some serious cash. So we saw two fireworks shows at once!

I grabbed the camera and took this one handheld (thus the wavy lines) but I still thought it looked neat. Zoomed to 200mm for a three second exposure, that's actually a fairly steady handheld shot, I think.

Something's Fishy

2007-07-08T15:01:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, we visited the newly renovated NC Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores.

It was two hours of fun in the aquarium and then another hour of something in the gift shop.

But we got some photos!

Working From a Remote Location

2007-07-02T11:21:00.000-04:00

For the past three and a half months, I have been working from a remote location.

I'm in RTP. The rest of my team is in Sunnyvale, 2300+ miles away, and Bangalore, 8700+ miles away.

Sure, there are 700 other people at the RTP location, so I'm not alone. But I am still remote.

So today, I'm 141 miles farther away.

Big Deal. I think I can manage working like this until the July 4th holiday.