Family biz

Back to school goodness and other firsts

Things have gotten started at W&L, although since I am on Sabbatical (again) I am happily out of the loop.  Arden started preschool this week. We took a picture of her before we walked her to school. Isn’t she the cutest? 


2 days a week, she loves her teacher, although her teacher says she isn’t talking to the other kids much. But I guess she just has to warm up to them.  McKelvey started first grade she’s in Ms. B’s class. She loves her teacher and seems to be coming home with a new silly a song about roadkill each day.” what went thunk, it was Sam the Skunk…” and so on.

Also this week, Liam had his first bite of food. Up until now, he has been nursing exclusively. It has treated him well, he has gained 5 inches and 13 pounds since he was born. Bu t here is a picture of his first bite of cereal.

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Geekiness

new day, new white box

So I have spent a good hunk of the last two days trying to fix computers. Namely, our iBook(old Mac laptop) that we’ve have since 2003, and our 2006 MacBook (new mac laptop-thanks Dad). The first sign when something is wrong is when a dark grey screen descends and your computer tells you to restart in 5 different languages.

So I go through the usual restart thing, try to book into safe mode, single user mode, from an emergency startup disk. Always the same evil grey screen. Even booting into target disk mode( basically making the computer into an external hard drive) so I can try to copy the info off, causes the evil grey screen to happen on whatever computer I plug it into.

So this is hosed, must go to backup, (always backup your computer) Oh look, my back up is a month old, guess the lazy person. So off to the MacBook to restore my files onto it. However it seems to have this thing where it decides to shut down randomly, with no warning. One second running a software update to bring things up to speed then click, all off.

Pull up third computer to search Apple.com/support to find the cause, Oh need to upgrade the firmware. Which would happen if I could just run the Software Update, but oh yeah it just keeps crashing and turning off.

Just in case, I pull out the department’s spare laptop(yes 4th computer) and begin to restore backed up files to it, USB hard drive, “estimated time remaining 2 hours and 23 minutes”. Great
look at support pages again find another option for iBook, doesn’t work. Look in apple support again, find solution for MacBook, download firmware restore, burn it onto a CD. However a disk recovery/repair CD is stuck in the drive of the MacBook and can’t get it out since when I try to start up the computer it just keeps shutting down again. Figure that out, put in Firmware Restore CD run that. then Upgrade Firmware( which is what was causing the random shut downs), get that back up to speed. Look at the clock it’s time to go pick up McKelvey from school, I have spent 5 hours on this(plus my 3.5 hours last night)

After picking McKelvey up, I restore the backed up files onto the MacBook and then have to tweak the settings for the Dial-up internet and email to get them working again.

So we have the MacBook up and running, files duplicated on the work laptop(mental note must erase) and the iBook which has only one trick up it’s sleeve, and that is Frustration I mean the grey of complete evil.

Time to sell things on ebay so we can buy a new Hard Drive for the iBook.

Or just beat it with a stick.

Family biz

Partaking of popular culture part 1

Now we aren’t big consumers of modern culture. We don’t have cable or broadcast television, and the kids don’t go to the movies much. In fact the first movie the kids saw in the movie theatre was Charlotte’s web last year. Although, we have seen a few movies at the drive in. However they are usually hesitant about seeing new things.

So we brought the kids to see Disney/Pixar’s Ratatouille on the fourth of July. We went to the local theatre, which was recently(last 3-4 years) renovated and changes the balcony level into two little theatres. Things were going well, we had the large popcorn, M&M’s and a soda (without caffeine, because there are some things that kids just don’t need). Things were going well, they didn’t like the shotgun blasts but were holding themselves together, however soon Arden lost it. And what put her over the edge? When Remy gets separated from his family. She kept asking where his family was, and was crying and sobbing. I asked her if she wanted to leave, she said yes. So we hung out outside the door, and would occasionally go back in and stand at the back. Sometimes, Arden would want to go sit down again, because she really wanted popcorn. So I think we saw most of the movie. Afterwards I asked Arden what she thought.

She said, “I liked the good parts but I didn’t like the scary parts.”

Bit of the ordinary

You know you’re a liberal when…

So I packed Liam up in the stroller to run an errand last Friday. I was going over to the local organic grocers to pick up our weekly share of vegetables from the CSA(Community Supported Agriculture) we are a part of. I was using the stroller to cut down on the use of gas, we walked across the lawn I mowed this morning using a manual push reel mower(used to reduce carbon emissions). I took this all in for a moment and said to my self, boy am I a liberal or what.

Bit of the ordinary, Family biz

Trip high lights, part one Ireland

Well we are back from our grand tour. It is so nice to be back at home. That being said we had the best time on our trip.

We started off with a Native American ‘Pow-wow’ in NJ, the day before we got on the plane. There was some amazing outfits and dances, McKelvey said, “Daddy, I loved indians more than princesses.” Then on Sunday, we got to visit our friend Joanna & Rob and got to meet their new baby Henry. Then we got on the plane that evening and the kids fell asleep ’til we landed at 9-am Monday.

When we first moved into the new house, the house across the street was rented out by a visiting professor and his family. We became great friends over the 4 months they were here. While in Ireland, we played at their house ands took day trips from there. Ann had the exciting opportunity of driving on the opposite side of the street.

We visited Dublin one day, hitting the hop-on hop-off bus to take a tour of the city. We went up to the open top of the double decker bus. It rained. We went to the Dublin Zoo. It rained. However the kids had a lovely time anyway.

After much computer trouble I have gotten the pictures online. Enjoy.

More to come later…

Design Stuff

Kiss Me Kate

The pictures are in! you can view a slideshow of my Kiss Me Kate production photos here. It is by far the biggest show I have done, with the most extensive settings. There were eight or nine locations in a realistic show. Word on the streets of lexington is that this is the best musical in 8-10 years. Now to get ready and strike it on Sunday…

the Blog of Owen Collins