More updates

It's been a bit, huh? Many months? Without further ado, here's the latest and greatest:

• We're liking the house - it's a great place to be.
• Connor got his driver's permit today, and he drove around a parking lot some, then drove Tiffany and Tyler home, and even parked in the garage without issue. Tomorrow, he starts his "behind the wheel" course. My, how the time flies.
• I started a new job this last Monday. "What?" I can almost imagine you all saying. "Why did you start a new job? Didn't you start a new job the last time there was a post on here?" Yes, yes, I did. I'm back at the place I left with a similar role, but more technical-visionary stuff and less keeping-things-going stuff.
• Tiffany is finishing up the current semester. Only one more semester like this one, then it's thesis time!
• Everyone is growing and stuff. We went skiing over at Trollhaugen in Wisconsin (the local place that has commercials that sound kinda like a monster truck commercial, but about skiing). It has been a couple years since last time, but we liked it better than Spirit (near Duluth, where we went two years ago).

That's it, I think. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them in the comments, or just get in touch the old-fashioned way. ^_^

Another update

So, some more new stuff:
--I started a new job not too long ago, consulting at Thomson Reuters. I'm working on software that the IRS will use.
--Connor started driver's ed today. I think the general procedure is different here than it was in Spokane when I did it.
--We're moving into a house towards the end of the month. Where's the house? Across the highway from our apartment complex. It'll be awesome.

That's all the news that's fit to print.

Just a little update

Things keep chugging along. Willow started GTCYS (Greater Twin Cities Youth Symphony - orchestra), Connor is in pre-calc, Tyler has been volunteering and generally building things and taking them apart, Tiffany is busy with her PHD (though not as busy as last semester), and I've been playing in the Minnesota State Band. Other than that, it's stuff as usual.

It's that time of year again

So, school is starting up again... Connor started his college writing class (online with North Hennepin Community College) yesterday, and Tiffany had the first of a few orientations today. Next week is "Welcome Week" at the U of MN, where/when she'll get tested for placement, and we'll finally find out what she's taking, the details of her teaching, and just generally what's going on. It'll be great to have her schedule figured out. Next week is also when Connor starts UMTYMP for the year, so it won't be long until school is going full bore.

So little summer left... Pretty soon, scenes like this will be replaced with scenes of snow:

At least there shouldn't be any more construction for a while.

Willow the Biker

Willow is now a biker! She biked on her own the other day for the first time, and hasn't looked back. We went on a 5 mile ride with her yesterday, and she did great, with the occasional dust-up. Here's a video from shortly after she figured it out, after I reminded her that she could turn when she gets to the edge of the parking lot instead of just stopping and picking the bike up:

This will make many aspects of summer easier. Onwards and upwards.

More news

Connor took the Ability to Benefit test the other day at North Hennepin Community College, and he passed - they placed him at the pre-calculus level for math, too. What's Ability to Benefit, you ask? It's a program that lets people who haven't passed high school take college courses. Next up is deciding what courses he's taking, and when. There's a programming class this summer that he's interested in, so that might be where he dips his toe into the water...

Acceptance

If you haven't heard the news, Tiffany made it into the University of Minnesota! We just found out about it this afternoon - the formal acceptance is on its way. Now, to find out all of the details and decide what the best way to proceed is...

Blogging Backlog: PAINT

Back in August (I think), we went to a local arts thing up at a studio in the arts district, where we painted peace-themed paintings. PAINT is a collaborative arts thing among artists in the Twin Cities and artists in the Middle east, and the goal is to promote peace and harmony through the arts. Unfortunately, I don't recall what the acronym stands for, and I can't find the site that talks about it, so that's about the best I can do at the moment.

Anyway, here are our paintings that we did:

 Tyler's

Willow's

Mine

Connor's

Tiffany's

All the news that's fit to print

Tiffany recently auditioned for a new choral group named Hymnos, and found out a couple days ago that she made it in! Congratulations are in order. :)

Happy Holidays

Here we are, at the end of the year... It was great to visit with everyone when we were in Spokane earlier this month. I have pictures to post, but have to actually get them off my phone/camera for posting, so they'll be up hopefully soon.

I hope everyone had a good Christmas, and that New Year will be good, as well. We're heading up to the company cabin for our annual New Year's short trip, and it should be a good time.

Does anybody have any particular traditions or resolutions they're planning on making?

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!

To everyone out there, I hope you had a good, safe, and happy Thanksgiving. There's lots of good stuff coming up, so stay tuned...

Salon Z

At a building downtown, once a month, they have a monthly composers' salon called Salon Z at Studio Z. Last night, Connor performed his latest composition there, entitled Minnesota Project VII. Here's the grainy and short video I shot with my camera:

Sometime soon, I'll post photos of Connor's birthday dinner and party... Until then, cheers!

Central Library

I'm not sure if I've posted about this before, but there's a really nice library here in Saint Paul called the Central Library. It's big, has four floors (three of which are usable to the public), two intra-floor mezzanines, an underground tie-in to the skybridge (yes, it's called a skybridge here, not a skywalk) system, and it's made of marble and granite throughout, with some wrought iron thrown in for good measure. It was made in the early 1900s by J. J. Hill (of Great Northern Railway and Hillyard fame).

Without further ado, here are some pictures (sorry about the quality - they were mostly low-light cell phone pictures):

Quick Post about New Stuff

Hey everyone... Just a quick post to say that we made it to and from Texas just fine, and it was a great. It was really good to visit everyone and take some time off from work and everything else. We might even go next year, if everything works out.

Oh, one more thing - Tiffany found out today that she won a grant to work on a piece, and she's very excited. Her piece will be debuting May 18th, 2011. I'll post more details as they're available.

Texas

Today, we're getting ready to go down to Texas... Dallas, that is. There's an OFLAG 64 reunion happening, and it'll also be a family reunion, so that's the reason. We'll drive down in a day, then take a couple days to get back.

So, if you're in Texas, and want to say howdy, let me know - we'll see what we can do.

Minneapolis Sculpture Garden (from end of July)

So, this is a primarily picture post about the outdoor garden at the Walker Art Center, more specifically the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. What is it, exactly? Pretty much what it sounds like - an outdoor garden at the Walker dedicated to sculpture, and including a lot of good ones. It's quite an interesting place, and includes such works as the Spoonbridge and Cherry. Here's Willow at that sculpture:

There isn't a whole lot else to say - if you visit the area, the sculpture garden is a great place to check out. Some more pictures:

Flooding and whatnot

We were walking tonight down on the "frog path," and the path going the other way, and noticed that something was up - the river seemed quite a bit higher than normal. "A couple more feet, and the path would be flooded," I brightly pointed out. After going a couple hundred more feet, we found out that the path was, indeed, flooded out, and in a major way. Check it out:

So, we headed back the other way, and found that there was a barricade blocking the path. We would have seen it, had we gone the normal way and not taken a shortcut because it was starting to get dark. After passing the barricade, we came across another one on the other arm of the trail, the actual "frog path." Wanting to see what that part looked like, we went past that barricade, as well, and went to where the trail should be. No trail - just more river.

Just another one of the many differences between here and Spokane. It makes things more interesting. We don't have to worry about flooding where we are, so no problem there, but we've at least seen evidence to go along with all of the flood warnings the National Weather Service has been putting out over the last few days. It's a different place...

Lions, Tigers, and Unschooling, oh my…

So, this last week, we decided to change our approach to homeschooling and go in more of an unschooling direction. We figure that even if it doesn’t go to plan, and they end up a bit behind at the end of the year, they’ll still be at least where the publicly-schooled kids their age are, if not ahead. So far, they enjoy being able to decide what they’ll work on, they’re still learning quite a bit, and there’s less stress overall. Plus, school isn’t dragging on past dinner, trying to get everything on the schedule in. We’ll see how it all goes, but for now, it seems good.

In other news, I’m withdrawing from Facebook, for the most part. Why’s that, you didn’t ask? It’s not as much of a time sink as it used to be, now that I don’t really do any of the apps or games, but it more has to do with taking a step back and trying to reorganize myself and my thinking. Now that we’re in St Paul, we are more isolated, and social pressures are different. I find myself with more free time, and not so much to fill it with, and looking to Facebook to be that filler is just not a good strategy. At some point, I’m hoping that I feel creative again, and get back on the (ha ha) composition horse, but until then… Oh, along with this, Tensionitis (if any of you have heard of it) is officially done – I’ll be going in different directions, if I do anything.

Thanks for reading, and welcome to anyone who’s never been here before.

Happy Haps

So, it’s been a bit… We have lots of pictures to share, but today is not that day. Hopefully, though, that day will be soon.

Over just the last few days, we started school, like everyone else. Willow started ballet this last Saturday, and Tyler and I started the Twin Cities Harmonica Society tonight. Other than that, there was the Minnesota State Fair last Monday. We’ve been trying to get as much time outside before the weather turns (though they drained the pool today).

Oh, and then there are the toads that Tyler has been catching. He’s been very happy. Just one picture, just for fun, though this was a frog, not a toad:

Good times, indeed.

Quick Song Idea Renderer

Catchy name, right? As I’ve been “on the bench” at work, one of the things that I’ve been doing to further develop my development skills is to write an application that takes text files and turns them into music. For years, whenever I get a song idea at work, I’ll pop open a text editor and write down just what the chords are, or the melody, or whatever, and usually email it to myself, as well. Now, I can take those files, and run them through this application, and hear what I put down. In the last couple days, I also added MIDI file export, so in addition to hearing the song, I can also export it as something that can be imported into any music notation software or sequencing software, and go from there. Lots of good fun…

If you want to take a look at it, it’s out there at http://morchiba.elementfx.com. I wrote it in Silverlight, so anyone with an internet connection can use it. Here’s a screenshot:

Sometime soon, I’ll post another more characteristic post about other goings on. Until then, feel free to leave comments.