Family

The Austin LEGO Store

/ hsoi / 6 Comments

This past weekend we finally got to visit the Austin LEGO Store.

Oh, what geeky nirvana. 🙂

Of course, all the store sells is LEGO, and even at 10 AM (opening time) the place was jumpin’. Kits everywhere. You can see the back wall is just bins of bricks (grab a cup, fill it with random bricks). You can build your own mini-figs (3 for $10). It’s pretty cool, and all things LEGO. What I found extra amusing were the people who worked there. Very friendly, very geeky… you could tell they love LEGO themselves and enjoyed working at the store. If they didn’t have to engage a customer (e.g. they greet everyone as they walk in), they’d just strike up conversations about LEGO… one of the workers and Oldest spent some time just talking shop. The workers got to set up the various showcase models themselves and had fun when doing so. For instance, see this model of a Star Wars AT-AT?

Look for C-3Po. 🙂

Here’s some other models that I liked:

LEGO Biker - I love the trike, and the chain. Nice touch.

LEGO Horses, roaming the wild.

Martial arts, LEGO style!

LEGO Sumo!

I’m sure Oldest would be happy to rent a room in back and live there, or eventually get a job there. Boy… wouldn’t that be his dream job. 🙂

Oldest bought a few things, and I even picked up a couple of things. I bought the Kingdoms Advent Calendar and the Toy Story “Army Men on Patrol” set because hey… it’s Army Men in LEGO form, how cool is that? 🙂

Toy Story 3

/ hsoi

Toy Story 3.

Much win.

Movie itself was good. I liked how it brought closure to the series as well. Lots of subtle things they did in the writing. For example, from the get-go you felt how things were falling apart (the “staff meeting”). Or the little jokes, “You’re an accessory!”. Some of the bigger jokes too, be it Ken or the tortilla (that had me rolling with laughter).

Very happy to have seen it. I’m sure it will be out on DVD and Blu-Ray in time for Christmas, and I’m sure all 3 movies will be packaged in some sort of special collectors series. I’m sure I’ll pick it up.

Such a fine time was had

/ hsoi

I had a wonderful time last night.

Due to typing in the same programming circles so many years ago (over a decade?), I met a gentleman named Rainer Brockerhoff. We met in person some long time ago at an Apple WorldWide Developer Conference event, have seen each other at various WWDC’s over the years, and have certainly stayed in touch due to the magic of modern technology.

But the past week was a treat. You see, Rainer and his wife often travel together and so this time the plan was to come to WWDC then visit Texas. Last week they came to Austin for a bit and while my schedule was busy I made time to see them for lunch because I had no idea when another such opportunity would come — especially to finally meet his wife after all these years. Folks, she’s a charming and lovely woman and my only regret was that my Wife didn’t get a chance to meet her.

Well, life works out in fun ways sometimes. It seems the Texas heat is far too oppressive and it’s not making for an enjoyable trip, so they’re going to head home early. Due to the way things worked out, they were able to come back to Austin last night. This tells you what a great wife I have because she took it all in stride to get the house in order and prepare a nice dinner for a couple of people she’s never met before. (thank you, honey!). Rainer and his wife came over, we shared dinner and many wonderful stories. Rainer taught the children how to make some paper cutouts (he’s quite good). We all got to drool over his new iPad. Quite a wonderful time, and I’m so happy that our wives got to meet each other.

Life is full of fantastic opportunities, and sometimes it’s best when you just roll with what you’re given. 🙂

Now she’s got one too

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Wife’s mobile phone was almost dead. Battery wasn’t taking a charge, it’s been dropped so many times it’s barely holding together. I figured why not… time to get her a new phone.

So, this morning we got her an iPhone 3GS 16 GB model. Yes I know, the iPhone 4 is only a couple days away, but she doesn’t need all the fancy stuff nor the price-tag that goes with it. This is fine.

I’m slowly getting her set up with it, getting her familiar with how to use it, customize it, and generally get around.

What is she most excited about?

She can now get on Facebook wherever she may be in the world. 🙂

Lobster joy

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Took the family to Red Lobster last night.

Yeah, it was expensive… seafood generally is.

But watching Oldest having the time of his life as he ate his first whole lobster (shell-cracking and all)? Worth every penny. He even wore the bib. 🙂

Woke up in a fright

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You know what you don’t want to hear in the middle of the night?

Your children letting out panicked, blood-curdling screams.

*sigh*

Kiddos were “camping out”, sleeping in sleeping bags in the living room (it’s just something they like to do, and it’s harmless). Daughter reports that Oldest started to fidget and itch. He was groggy and not sure what was going on, but something was bugging him. He wanders into our room, wakes up Wife, and asks if she could look at his neck, if she might see anything.

She sure did.

A scorpion.

It was a striped bark scorpion, very common in Texas. We get them inside the house on occasion. Seems the scorpion was taking a midnight stroll across Oldest’s body. Once everyone noticed what it was, the screams and cries went out. Sure freaked me out to be woken up in that manner.

There’s a small welt on Oldest’s neck, another on his chest, and one on his hand. He’s doing OK, it’s just annoying him at this point. His siblings both got bad sunburns last weekend, he just got some light scorpion stings. Everyone’s happy. 😉

Shooting Skeet

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I have now shot skeet twice in my life. 🙂

The first time I shot skeet was also the first time I shot a real firearm (i.e. something powered by gunpowder, not CO2 or spring-air). It was a family vacation and my Dad took me skeet shooting. I forget how old I was, maybe 10? 13? Shot a 20 gauge shotgun. I don’t even remember how well I did, but I just remember that yeah… I got to shoot a real gun, and it was fun!

This past weekend was one of Wife’s side of the family’s reunions. One of Wife’s aunt’s shoots skeet competitively. I don’t recall how it all works, but she was showing us a pin she earned because she’s in the top 20 in the US in her class. She’s good. Since I’m not a shotgun guy at all, I asked if while we were out there for the reunion if she could take me and anyone else interested and go shoot some skeet. Have her teach me how to do it, since I just don’t know. She agreed, and off we went.

Aunt-in-law, shooting skeet and showing me how it's done.

At the range was her trainer and shooting buddy. A couple other family members came along as well. We shot 3 games, and I received good instruction on every shot: where to hold, where to look, how this clay is going to fly. For a true first time shooting skeet? I did better than I thought. Of course, the goal I set for myself was 1. have fun, 2. break one clay. So, I didn’t set the bar too high. 😉  But I actually broke a decent number of clays (truly, more than I expected I would), and certainly had a blast. And getting to see Wife’s aunt shoot? Yeah, she’s good and so is her trainer/shooting buddy.

A few things I learned:

  • I cannot shoot that Mossberg 500 bantam. I mean, I can shoot it, but it’s not ideal for me. It’s a youth-sized gun. I brought it because I thought Daughter might want to come out and shoot too, but she was more interested in the swimming pool at the hotel. 🙂  The stock is shorter, the curvature of the grip is more acute, it’s just meant for a smaller person. Then with my big shooting glasses on, I succeeded in slamming my right thumb knuckle into the glasses a few times and now I have a nice shiner under my right eye. 🙂  I’ve shot this shotgun in the past without problem, but didn’t have those big glasses on. After the first round, I was able to borrow an adult-sized 12 gauge (a gorgeous Beretta over-under), and now I just have a sore shoulder.
  • When you shoot skeet, of course you must lead the clay. A lot of it is just shooting more, learning the timing, the rhythm, and how much lead each clay out of each house at each position. Well, when I thought about leading, I would lead and I would break the clay. When I tried to just have a “zen mind” and not think about anything, I would revert to all my handgun and rifle shooting, where you generally want to shoot at the target, no leading. So, that’s something to work on.
  • I did get the hang of the basics, so really it’d just be a matter of shooting more to ingrain it all. I’m certainly open to more! I also wouldn’t mind trying out trap.
  • It’s a lot more pleasant to pick up a couple big plastic shotgun shell hulls off the ground than hundreds of little brass 9mm cases. 🙂

Had a blast. In fact, I liked it a lot more than I thought I would. I knew I’d have fun, but gosh… it makes me want to do more shotgun shooting. In fact, I have recently had some changing thoughts on shotguns, but I’ll write on that later.

The next day I returned the favor to aunt-in-law. She’s a shotgun person, I’m a handgun person. She’s been looking at getting a handgun (personal protection and all that), so I let her shoot my carry gun and gave her some basic instruction.

It was a good weekend.

Flew the coop

/ hsoi

Was out of town for the weekend. Came back last night and saw this in our Carolina Wren nest box:

Looks like the babies are all grown up. 🙂

The thing is, we only saw 2 in there. We’re not sure what the deal was. Are these perhaps the younger 2 and the others already fledged and left? Just don’t know, as we were gone all weekend. The other thing is, you can see they are atop all the nesting materials… that’s not how it was before, so they obviously moved and tramped things down.

As of last night and still this morning, the box is empty and we don’t hear any of the wren chirping. Are they gone for good? Not sure. Going to wait a few days and keep watch on things. If they don’t come back, we’re going to crack open the box and take a look at things. We’re all very curious to learn about how they nest.

A Good Day

/ hsoi / 5 Comments

Watching the local morning news, weather report comes on. I see stuff about Fredericksburg, TX and say to Wife “Want to go there today?” Just on a whim. And off we went. I’ve been wanting to take the family out there for some time, just because. It’ll be good to go in a month or two when peach season kicks in. But hey… we had time today, so seize the day!

Drove out. Stopped at Whittington’s for some of their awesome jerky. Wanted to stop in Luckenbach but opted to save that for next time (we were getting hungry). I figured if we’re going to Fredericksburg, we need to eat German food. Yelp seemed to have mostly favorable reviews of Der Lindenbaum, so we gave it a try. I’ve had some German food in my life, but despite my ethnic heritage (look at my last name!) not a whole lot of it — when Mom is in charge of cooking well, that’s why I ate a lot of Korean food while growing up. 😉  So really, this was a “first experience” for the whole family.

Everyone was pleasantly surprised, even Oldest got adventurous. I had a beef sauerbraten (made with raisins), Wife had a jager schnitzel, Oldest had some bratwurst, Daughter a cheese-potato soup (can’t remember the German for it), Youngest had a wiener schnitzel. Very good stuff all around. I loved the cheese in the soup, very hearty flavor but not overpowering. I really liked how the raisins in the sauerbraten and this red kraut (which was both clove-sweet and sour) mixed together. But for my money, it the jager schnitzel was the winner — I’m having that next time. But of course, I think next time we ought to try one of the other German restaurants in town.

We perused the shops. Wife found some nice clothing. Kids all found some cute toys in a toy shop. Me? I was just happy to be with my family.

On the way home, stopped into a vineyard. Which? We just picked “the next one” along the road (and one that I hadn’t been into before). This one was Grape Creek Vineyards. Did a tasting, 6 wines apiece. Wife and I overlapped on a few wines, but for the most part we tasted different things because we have varying tastes: she likes lighter, sweeter stuff, whites more than reds; I like more robust, drier, reds more than whites but I also like a good port. Now, I’m no wine snob or even all that wine educated… I just know what my taste buds and my nose like and don’t like. So with that….

  • 2008 Cuvee Blanc — Nice, crisp. I could see having that with say a light pork cooked with fruit, or a light fish.
  • 2008 Pinot Grigio — Sorry, but neither Wife nor I are fans of Pinot Grigio. We try, but we just can’t get into it.
  • 2009 Viognier — Surprisingly good. Wife liked it, but not enough to want to buy it (given we could only buy so many bottles and we preferred some other things).
  • 2009 Riesling — This surprised me. I usually don’t like Reislings but enjoy trying them. This was very peach/apricot on the nose, and went down very nice. Stupid me forgot to buy a bottle, because I could see enjoying a glass of this on a hot summer night after dinner.
  • 2008 Grand Rouge — Wife liked this a lot, we bought a couple of bottles. I didn’t care much for it, but it could be because by the time I tried a sip I had so many strong reds on my tongue (even after crackers).
  • Port — I didn’t like it. I mean, it wasn’t bad, but it’s just not my style of port. I forgot all the details the guy told me as he was pouring it, but for instance it didn’t use sherry to fortify it and didn’t have as much sugars as other ports. It wasn’t bad for what it was, but just not my preference. Wife isn’t a port drinker.
  • 2007 Bellissimo — Wow. This was fantastic. Complex but not overly so. Robust, full. Just great overall. Picked up a couple of bottles of this.
  • 2007 Mosaic — Very strong, their strongest, fullest, “biggest” red. It was too much for my palette. It’s not bad, just a lot for my tongue. I could see maybe having a small glass of this with a fine cigar.
  • 2007 Merlot — Picked up a bottle of this. A “light” red, but a very good flavor and still “full” and “strong”, just lighter than ones like the Bellissimo and the Mosaic.

Not a bad place really. Certainly one of the better Texas wineries I’ve been to in recent years.

Anyway, just a damn good day with my family. Life can’t be all work. And I got to spend it with the people I love most. 🙂

From open children to open carry

/ hsoi / 7 Comments

It’s raining.

For whatever reason, that’s caused more ducks than usual to congregate around our house. More ducks means more distractions for the kids. 😉  Plus, one mother mallard has 6 chicks (hatched probably just a few days ago), so the cute is irresistible.

The kids were outside tending to the ducks. I was in my office working. Wife was in the kitchen. Kids come back in the house to tell us that an Austin Police Officer drove up, rolled down his window, asked them if they were where they were supposed to be, “We’re homeschooled.”, “Alright.” and off he drove. Will it amount to anything? I don’t know, but I doubt it. We did have another talk with the kids about how to handle such situations. But what got me was what I found myself saying.

You see, Wife was saying how one of our homeschooling mentors always avoided such issues by running her errands after normal school hours. I can understand. We’re doing nothing wrong, we’re doing nothing illegal, but we are doing something that most people aren’t familiar with and “breaks the norm” of what’s expected… thus it has potential to cause trouble and bring headaches and hassles into our lives. So mentor’s approach was to just avoid it because she didn’t want to hassle. Wife doesn’t do that, we don’t lock the kids away and only bring them out when children are supposed to be brought out, but certainly Wife prefers to avoid the hassle.

I found myself saying that no, we can’t do that; we can’t avoid the hassle. Not saying we should flaunt it and invite it, but that if the hassle comes, it comes. What we’re doing is fine, legal, normal; it may not be mainstream, but how are people ever going to get used to it, acknowledge it, accept it, and not flinch or find it strange if we always keep it hidden away? If we always work to avoid the hassle, no one will ever see or know. How does that help or improve the situation? If anything, it could serve to make the situation seem worse because it’s being hidden away and not just openly done.

And I found myself thinking about Open Carry.

It may not be mainstream today, but how else are you going to get it to be mainstream unless you make it so? To hide it away isn’t going to help. Look at any sort of “civil rights” be it homeschooling or gay rights or women’s rights or various ethnic groups. You don’t get to sit at the front of the bus by always hiding at the back of it (by force or by choice).

Still trying to figure out how I stand on open carry, but this little experience certainly has influenced me a bit.

I was inspired to write this due to a comment made by Linoge on Uncle’s website. Thanx, Linoge.