Operation booked

Dominic is now booked in for his lobectomy on the 10th of December, just after he turns 1. Debbie will be staying with him in hospital, and I will be trying to suss out whether I can stay in as well :-) When we talked to the surgeon last we asked about the typical recovery time and he thought that about three nights in hospital would be standard. Of course we thought we were only going to be in hospital overnight when the little guy was born and that didn't quite work out, so we'll just have to play it by ear. One significant difference is that Debbie will be physically fine since she's not having an operation or giving birth. We will of course let people know how the surgery goes and whether we're visitor friendly and such. It will be awesome once the operation is over and Dom's all healed up!

Off sick

*cough cough*

Couldn't go to school today. Terrible ill.

Somehow Debbie managed to take this photo whilst looking after me. Maybe I have sunbearitis?

Marking junior exams

Busy weekend :-)

This has been a full-on weekend so far! Friday started with a work bbq for the English department, which we went to the start of then pumpkined when it got to Dom's bedtime. The evening was very relaxing, although Dom was still very excited from seeing other little kids at the bbq so stayed up an hour or two later than his usual bedtime.

We both got emails on Friday from Harper Collins asking to see full manuscripts, so we headed in to school to pick up my flash drive with the most recent versions and print out my novel on Saturday morning. Debbie only finished her first draft this week, so we've spent a lot of time proofing and editing this weekend. The plan is to post them off tomorrow :-)

We managed to fit in a trip to Belmont to see family and some grocery shopping too. Hopefully the weather will be good enough for us to go for a walk this afternoon, and we have to go buy big envelopes (my manuscript is about 170 pages at 1 and half line spacing, Debbie's is about 300?).

So, a productive weekend!

Lastly, this is a poster my Y12 students made me. The whole class signed it.



The quotes are things I allegedly said in class, and the pictures are visual representations of war poetry metaphors I got the kids to copy down (the monstrous anger of the guns, the shrill demented choirs of shells, and a dust whom England bore).

Oh, and for those who are interested (if anyone is), my BMI is somewhere between 25.3 and 25.6ish. So 'healthy' on the BMI scale (as opposed to 'overweight') is within sight. Maybe by Christmas?

Cows go moo!

Birthday preparations

Dominic has already begun the most important part of preparing for any birthday - making the difficult decision of what cake you want.

Fortunately, birthday cake recipe books have many colourful pictures of delicious and tempting cakes so the time spent carefully selecting a cake is enjoyable.

 

For some time the cat cake looked like it was the favourite but now I'm not sure. He really likes monkeys but alas there is no monkey cake in either book I have. I may have to try to find a monkey cake on the internet to copy...

New Shiny

I have a new school laptop! It's all shiny and new and has a nice keyboard and hasn't yet been dropped, so it works properly :-) I was actually quite excited when I realised that this laptop is so new and flash and from the future that it can play music at the same time as I'm typing up reports or making handouts for my class (or looking at the internet). My old laptop stopped being able to do that a little over a year ago. It wasn't broken enough to need replacing and it could still handle intensive tasks like video editing (maybe at a slightly slower pace), but playing music whilst doing something else tricky like looking at a word document? No dice. Actually, sometimes just playing a long song was too much for the old lappy and it'd have choppy playback. Anyways, this laptop also came with a cool backpack so if I need/want to take it home it's way easier to do so on my bike. I say thank-you Board of Trustees for paying to lease this new toy :-)

Prizegiving Over!

All 4 senior prizegiving ceremonies are done and dusted :-) Just the two junior ones to go, and they are much, much simpler by comparison. Along the way the seniors also finished classes for the year, so my teaching load has dramatically dropped. This is the first year I've had a senior form class, so my contact hours are even lighter than the end of last year. Also, Debbie is not likely to go into labour in the next five weeks :-) All round it's looking like the next 5 weeks should be made of awesome, and the 5 weeks after that will kick all kinds of ass. Or arse. Somewhere in the new year Dominic will have his operation, all going to plan. It was either going to be December or late January/February, and given that December is only a couple of weeks away next year looks much more likely. Debbie gave the hospital a call during the week and while they were a little vague (and suggested she call back again this week) they thought February was a lot more likely than any other month. There were a couple of minor dramas with prizegiving, but on the whole it went well and people seem happy with my leadership. Next year will be smoother, now that I've had a go at being head honcho. Now to read, relax, and not have to worry about the mountain of work at school because we kicked the mountain over last week.

11 months!

Dominic is now 11 months and a bit. Where did the year go? It oddly feels like it's been a really long year, and like Dom is growing up super fast.

This size comparison photo was a day late, I think.

Overdue 11 months photos

It's been a while since I've posted some Dom pics, so here goes:

 

On Dom's 11 month birthday, he got to go to Whitcoulls and select some good pressies. (OK, his dad chose the book* but he grabbed the mushabelly monkey). He is very attached to his soft mushabelly monkey and giggles excitedly when it ooks at him.

I attempted to take several size comparison photos but Dom took off. I thought that I could at least get a sitting one if I let him pose with his monkey pal...

... but one blurry photo later, he abandoned the photo shoot and took off with the monkey.

He made a speedy getaway upstairs to the kitchen, but like a true action hero he made sure his pal went with him all the way. "No monkeys left behind."

* The book is the excellent 'the monster at the end of the book' story which is narrated by Grover and Matt says it was one of his favourite books as a kid. It is a truly awesome book and has a cool animated DVD of Grover reading the story as well. Sigh, I love Grover.

Rejected!

It took a long while, but I finally heard back from Random House. They are not keen to publish my novel. I have made a few minor changes based on excellent feedback from Jenni, and it's already been submitted to HarperCollins now anyway. (when it got to 6 months and 3 follow-up emails and I still hadn't heard back from RH I decided to send the ms off to HC) :-)

Manuscript resubmitted

Sent my manuscript off again this week. Better title this time, better synopsis. Only the first 3 chapters this time, which is a mixed bag of a chapter I really like (the first one) and two chapters of exposition that I like some of. It's only 16 pages. Next time I might look at shifting the chapter breaks around so chapters 2 and 3 are combined. Maybe not. It's Harper Collins, who appear to be speedy with responses - which should put the rejection letter some time in the school holidays.

Insanely Busy

Prizegiving next week. Working very hard. Not eating junk food this week. Making progress with work. Lost 1.5kg so far since Sunday. Bored Debbie with approximately 3* random outbursts of school-related verbiage. Goals for next week: 1. Successful senior prizegivings 2. Reach 83kgs (currently 83.5) 3. Enjoy evenings and not tell Debbie too many boring work 'stories', where story = any random crap I remember about databases, lists, spelling of kids' names etc. Looking at that list, not boring the hell out of Debbie may be the biggest challenge :-) I think I'm sitting on 50/50 with my 'anecdotes' at the moment, with half of them being actual stories, occasionally even amusing ones, and hald of them being things like "I think it's interesting that the names for prizegiving are typed up three or four times to go in different placeszzzzzz...." I will occasionaly relate a story about 'polishing the boss's bronze owl' with sufficient double entendre to make it worthwhile. *maybe it's more like 30?

Hurricane Hits

So our Evil League of Evil Application Baby Hurricane is now up to 1,071 views (vimeo and youtube combined). While we probably account for 20 of those, it's still nice to think that a decent number of people have seen our little movie. It's interesting to note that our DrivethruRPG contest entry Rolling Thunder has more than twice as many views, which is awesome but does make me look at the number for Baby Hurricane differently. Anything over 100 views is fairly staggering if I actually think about it - 100 people choosing to watch something we put on the internet? That's huge. But 2000 makes 1000 look smaller, if that makes sense :-)

Exciting Weekend

Dom had a very exciting weekend featuring:

A too-cool day at Belmont which led to being very deeply asleep by the time we got home. He stayed asleep from the car to the bed, and didn't wake up until 1.30am :-)


Vacuuming with Dad - all kinds of fun, but murder for his dad's puny arms.


Storytime with Henry and Lily, while video editing for an assignment took place in the office. Dom was very impressed with all Monday's visitors, and enjoyed many rounds of hide and seek.

Dominic's botany lesson 1: Roses

Matt brought me home a red rose today at lunchtime so naturally Dominic had to investigate this strange new plant that came into his surroundings.

Hence today's blog post is a lesson on botany proudly brought to you by Dominic.

Dominic's Botany Investigation: Rose

Aim: To discover what, if any, uses a rose has.

Hypothesis: Roses can be used for food or as a rudimentary toy. Why else would Dad bring anything else home for Mum?

Methodology: I shall perform a series of tests in which I attempt to play the rose in a number of increasingly destructive ways.

Results:

 

Chew test - Rose lacked sufficent firmness to be a successful chew toy. Also not particularly tasty.

Bash test: Waved rose around and performed some impressive fencing manoeuvres. Rose lacked weight to be used as an effective weapon.

Flute test: Tried blowing on the rose but no sound resulted.

Durability test: Hit rose with small yellow plastic block. Some leaves and petals became detached during process.

Conclusion: Roses are not useful as either food or toys. Obviously worthless.

Luckily I discovered for Mum that the rose was not a useful toy or a delicious snack.

Oh wait, you don't mean you wanted the rose left intact, do you?

Top 5 Youtube Evil League of Evil Applications

OK, so I definitely haven't watched all of the Evil League of Evil applications on youtube - I've really only dipped my toe in. There are hundreds of videos, so this list is really a top 5 of the ones I've personally watched. I have left out our entry (Baby Hurricane), which would have taken out my top spot for obvious reasons :-) Number 5: Grayscale http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGTPCgpZMYI A simple setup, and not the only entry from this user, I put grayscale here for two reasons. Firstly I enjoyed the deadpan performance, and secondly the list in the song made me giggle. When I looked back over all the entries I'd watched, this one stood out as having both a memorable schtick, and a fun song. Number 4: The Destroyer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWsX3cxD5uE Who doesn't love evil cats? This video uses a similar approach to ours - film a cute family member and record suitable voiceover. I particularly enjoyed the quality of the voice (acting and recording), and the sidekick Fat Cat. Number 3: The Pint Size Pirate http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQ9HJomyiqQ Cute kid pirate raids the community for booty? Mayor kidnapped and forced to work as cabin boy? This was awesome. Lovely to see what appeared to be a whole family getting involved in an entry, and a very charismatic character. Number 2: The Evil Robot http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDCDCgTOjrg Loved this costume - a brilliant look, awesome evil eyebrow attachments, and very well timed execution of gags in the cutaway shots. The Evil Robot would make a great member of the ELE. Number 1: Baby Hurricane Oh, wait, I said I wouldn't include our entry. Sorry. Real Number 1: Pocket Paradox http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnk_LGdn_7Q A very charismatic lead actor, some amusing gags with a banana, and a brilliant ending made this an early and enduring favourite. I think it was one of the first few entries I watched, and I was highly impressed. Those are my current 5 favourite youtube entries for the ELE. There are a lot of entries I haven't seen, and some of my all-time favourites are on vimeo so not listed here (The Embezzler obviously, plus Vagabond, Tur-mohel etc). But these early gems are ones I have a lot of time for. Well done and good luck to the creators

 :-)

Apparently the gym is a good place to meet ladies

So Dominic made some new friends at the gym today. From the second I let him out of the stroller for a crawl around, he sped over to a couple of girls about 3 or 4 years old who were colouring in. Before I even got over there, he was in the middle of everything and they were giving him his own felts and a picture to draw on. Having visions of a felt covered baby or Dom chomping on potentially toxic ink, I said that I'd move Dominic away because I didn't want him to ruin their drawings.

Of course Dominic was pretty determined and went straight back to them first chance he got. I chased after him and then I got the preschool equivalent of the Spanish inquistion. What was my baby's name? How old was he? How old was I? (and when they heard the answer, they gasped and exclaimed that 'that's old!') Did Dominic have any brothers and sisters? How old was he when got his teeth etc?

They then fussed over Dominic while he grinned and shouted excitedly waving his arms with all the attention.

About ten minutes later when I was about to leave, one of the girls ran over with a drawing to give to Dominic as a 'valentine'? Valentine's drawings? In November? Should I be worried about Dom getting embroiled in pre-school romances already?

As you can see from the photos, Dominic is pretty chuffed with his Valentine's drawing.

 

We made a top 10 list!

Twice :-) http://hidama.wordpress.com/2008/10/18/top-10-evil-league-of-evil-applications Both Embezzler and Baby Hurricane are on there (in the writer's top 10 Vimeo applications)

More on making Evil League of Evil Applications

Morgue has blogged about the process of making The Embezzler, and I thought rather than leaving any more lengthy comments on his blog I might write a little about it here. Jon had written an excellent though slightly long script for a short film, and had arranged for several people to help out with the filming. The script had several scenes - an initial interview, a song, a heist and a final interview. None of the scenes was overly long, but it looked like it might run to 6 or 7 minutes rather than 3. Debbie was going to play one of the characters, which was very exciting, but it also meant that filming would have to be very quick so we could get back home in time for Dom's bedtime routine. As Morgue has said, people arrived at Jon's at 10am, read through the script, and started looking at ways to simplify it to get it down to 3 minutes. When Debbie, Dom and I arrived just after 11am this process was still underway, along with prop making. We chatted, checked out Jon's apartment with its awesome balcony, and looked for useful things to do. Green Felt The first useful thing we found to do was help construct Jon's costume. As we'd learned from making With Mighty Power, it's possible to make pretty cool superhero logos from sticky-backed, coloured felt. We'd bought 4 different colours when we did that film and had only used two, so we threw the leftovers into our bag o'stuff to take to Jon's. He'd been meaning to spraypaing $ signs onto his suit, but the silver hairspray he wanted to use wasn't thick enough on the day to effectively $ sign up his suit. While Dom crawled all over the place, played with Debbie, Morgue, Margie, Cecile and Ming, and generally got really excited about being in a new place with new people, I started cutting out green felt $ signs. I did them freehand, and they didn't turn out too hideous :-) After showing Jon the first one and getting approval I got some help from Ming and Cecile, who'd finished making the paper shield (which ended up being cut from the script). Script Doctoring Morgue and Margie were already deep in thought when we arrived, trying to come up with a way to stay true to Jon's vision but simplify things down to 3 minutes. It's not an easy thing to do, and Debbie and I started making suggestions to further complicate matters :-) As I said on Morgue's blog we were helped by two significant factors: 1. Jon's script was cool. We were just trying to simplify it. 2. Jon really owned the project - his character, his script, his apartment :-) We all knew our job was to make Jon happy, so that was going to be our ultimate measure of success. Going through the major beats of the script, trying to hone in on what was essential, and having some back and forth on how to get where we needed to go was an interesting process. Both Margie and Morgue then went away and wrote their own cut-down versions of the script, which I thought was an excellent idea. Having two takes on the idea was great. I went and got some Subway (a LOT of subway) for Debbie and me to eat. When Jon and Jarratt got back from their props run Morgue and Margie pitched their takes on the script, I mumbled a few comments, and Jon and Jarratt gave their feedback. There was some discussion around how to move into the final section, and then someone mentioned the idea of 'speak to my lawyer' being a phone call, and it all seemed to fall into place. Costuming, learning lines, ordering pizza and tidying up the apartment ensued. It was later in the day than I'd hoped, but momentum was building up. Jarratt started unloading camera gear, and Dom enthusiastically climbed over all the bags and cases. When filming started Dom was looking pretty wired, but was more than due for a nap, so I took him down to the car and grabbed the stroller, and he was asleep within 5 minutes of starting on our walk. I didn't want to stray too far as there were ominous clouds overhead, so I prowled about the neighbourhood sending encouraging text messages and pushing my own personal script agenda (getting Jon to say 'I'm getting in on an evil technicality' and do a little dance). When it started spitting I headed back to the car, and Dom woke up as I transferred him to the car seat. We went out and did a little shopping, then returned to base. I hung out with Morgue and had crawling races with Dom in the corridor, then caught up with the crew for an ETA on finishing Debbie's shots. They were close, so I took the wee one out for a bite to eat, then returned to pick up Debbie and head home. Dominic was really excited by the whole day, new people and places and his fun afternoon with his dad. We thought he'd probably snooze on the way home, but he was far too full of smiles and energy. He did eventually get to sleep when we got home, but he still gets really excited whenever he watches the Embezzler :-) Editing Jarratt both shot and edited the film, and was a fantastic person to work with. Debbie was impressed by his speed and the confidence he instilled in the team. When it came to editing, I naggingly suggested he make an itty-bitty version of the film (a compressed wee file) that he could send through for feedback. Using a cool website (yousendit.com) he sent through at least 4 versions of the film, from the second day rough cut (3 minutes 17 without song) to increasingly polished versions of the film. Morgue, Jon, Debbie and I all made suggestions, Debbie made the Lairs logo, and it really felt like a team effort (with Jarratt doing all the work, but being very open to suggestions). So, it was a very cool experience which Dom, Debbie and I all loved. Not something we could do often, but very satisfying. And I'm very proud of our little movie!

End of the holidays

 The holidays were much fun but alas have come to an end again. Dominic did get to bask in the sunshine in the backyard yesterday. Hopefully there will be more good weather days coming. It feels like it should be summer already.

Crawling around on the grass is fun.

But then he spots the paparazzi...

...and tries to grab the camera. (At least he doesn't smash cameras or assault the photographers like other celebrities).

10 Months Already?

Debbie is famooser!

Debbie, Jon and Morgue all rock in this awesome ELoE application video we helped make - The Embezzler!
Evil League of Evil Application: The Embezzler from Jarratt Gray on Vimeo.

Hurricane Dominic on the loose

Dominic's application to join the Evil League of Evil is now up on Youtube. We will probably post it on vimeo soon as well, so interested parties (ie grandmothers) can download the file, should they wish to:

EDIT: http://www.vimeo.com/1909232 - downloadable version



We had to cut a bit of backstory which didn't really fit in, about a fight between The Hurricane and Father Time, accompanied by his sidekick Baby New Year. Baby New Year, without a nappy on, unleashed his 'fountain of youth', which turned The Hurricane into the baby seen in the video. It was a cute joke, but too slow to set up/explain. The pictures I drew for it are kind of neat though:




And the revenge plan:

Hurricane Dominic Strikes!

 Dominic's appliation to join the Evil League of Evil is now online :-)

The Hurricane

 Dominic has now had his first starring role in his short film 'The Hurricane' - an Evil League of Evil application. Here are a few pictures of him in his costume:

Who knows what terrible things will happen when one of most sinister super-villains is sprayed with the Fountain of Youth and transformed into a seemingly cute and innocent baby?

Will he still manage to carry out his plans for world domination over the internet?

Watch out! The Hurricane may be a baby, but he's still ready for action. Evil action, that is.

Hey, even evil super-villains need to snack, OK?

Fixing a window latch

Over the past year and a half I've been making small steps towards replacing a missing window latch. It's a long time to take, but now that it's fixed I am a very, very happy camper.

It's a latch on an aluminium frame, and what was there when I started was:

- two holes in the outer frame where a spacer thing used to be.
- the bottom bit of the handle, rivetted in place. The handle itself was nowhere to be seen, just the housing.

How I fixed it:

- bought the wrong kind of latch. Swapped it for another wrong kind.
- Let 6 months pass
- Let a year pass
- Looked up how to remove rivets on the internet. Found out that you get a drill, and drill the head off the rivet. The remainder can then be pushed back through the hole to fall out the non-head side
- Drilled the head off one rivet. Success! Drilled the head off the other rivet
- Used a flat-headscrewdriver to prise the old latch-housing off the frame. This required more force than I expected
- Used a voucher to get the right kind of latch
- Realised that the aliminium frame is a closed frame with two parts screwed together, so you can't see the backs of the rivets
- Discovered that the rivets were wedged in like crazy anyway and not about to be pushed anywhere
- Unscrewed the bottom of the frame only to find that it's not just screwed together. There's something else holding the two parts together (something I didn't want to break and then be unable to put back together)
- grabbed pliers and twisted one rivet vigorously, trying not to break the window or bend the frame. It loosened up
- snipped most of the shaft of the rivet off with brute force and some cutters, then poked it back through the hole. This means there's a little rattly bit of metal inside the window frame, but window frames don't move around too much so it's no big deal.
- Repeated for the second rivet
- Discovered that the screws that came with the latch were the wrong size for the rivet holes, and that none of the screws I had lying around the house would do the job
- Bought an assorted pack of screws from the $1, $2, $3 shop - and was pleasantly surprised to find some that fit really well!
- Screwed on the new latch
- Put a new spacer on the outside frame (with a self-adhesive backing strip, so really easy)

Voila!

Bathtime!

Dom usually has showers with me or baths with Debbie, but with grandma helping he had a solo bath last week, with a photographer on hand to document the occasion with tastefully composed shots :-)

When writing goes bad...

 “So here we are at the mall. Again. I have been having a lot of feelings lately,” the main character remarked in an artlessly unsubtle way to make her appear sympathetic so the target readers would be compelled to relate to her. She strolled through the thick glass sliding doors of the mall with her friends as they embarked on what seemed to be yet another shopping excursion that was probably slowing down the dramatic tension and should have been omitted or dealt with far more quickly this late on in the book. “Gee, I have feelings too. It’s so tough to be a teenage girl. We have a lot of feelings and the adults in our lives don’t seem to understand us,” her good-looking and athletic friend agreed as good-looking and athletic people have problems too. “But feelings are an essential part of life. It would be worse if we didn’t have feelings at all, even if that did mean we wouldn’t have just spent over three chapters angsting about a boy,” said the quirky third friend who only showed up in scenes to say amusing things or to uncharacteristically speak words of wisdom and comfort. “AAAAARRRGGGHHHHHH,” screamed the author unable to take anymore of her depraved creations’ drivel. “Shut up or I’ll send in a psychopath with a machine gun to spray bullets throughout the whole stupid mall so that you finally stop your ceaseless whinging!” “You can’t do that,” the main character pointed out placing one hand on her hip in a cocky show of defiance. “This is meant to be a light teen romantic comedy aimed at young adults. A random act of violence like that would be completely unbelievable in the sugary world we live in.” “Besides, you still have to get us to the ball,” her best friend piped up. “That’s the climax of the book, right? Without that, there can be no resolution and then ultimately the book would be unsatisfying and without any developed themes.” “But I’m just so sick of your constant blabbing,” the author lamented wondering if this novel was just turning against her as a punishment for reading too many Sweet Valley High books in her youth. “Why don’t you ever just stop talking. I mean I only expected this scene to go for about six hundred words or so but it’s already over that and you haven’t even bought any of your stupid ball dresses yet. Arrgh, and I bet I’m going to have to describe what they look like. That will bloat this chapter out even further!” “Hey, it’s not our fault you can’t control your own dialogue,” the quirky third friend observed. “I mean, we just wanted to go shopping. No one said you had to come along and describe everything we do and say.” “Yeah,” agreed the main character. “I have had a pretty hard week thanks to the constant melodramatic and hackneyed action sequences you’ve put me through. Why can’t I just have some fun with my friends without it having to show some insight into my feelings? Why does everything I do have to lead to further character development? Just because you want to write a crummy coming-of-age story?” “All right, all right,” the author gave in. “You can all totter around being vapid and having fun for a while. I’m off to eat lunch any way. Just don’t leave the mall or realise anything too significant while I’m gone.” “Excellent!” the main character yelled and smiled at her friends. “Now we can swear and talk about non age-appropriate stuff like real teenagers rather than the goody-two-shoes imagining of a dried up English teacher.” Im not even going to bother punctuating my speech anymore and you cant stop me you lame literary hack said her best friend “Yeah, enjoy it while it lasts,” retorted the author. “Tomorrow morning it’s back to correct punctuation, proper speech and no expletives. I’ll have you all speaking concisely and showing insight beyond your years, and I’ll move the plot forward as well, just you wait.” “Who kares wot she finks anywayz?” said the quirky friend deliberately misspelling her speech out of spite. “2day we is goin 2 hav fun.” “OK, that’s it. I’m out of here,” the author sighed realising that for today the repugnant teenagers that had spawned from her lazy imagination had won the battle. “Yay!” chorused the three friends as they pulled out their cell phones and began texting each other so they didn’t have to contribute to any further dialogue.