Game Time

Family Bowling (on the Wii)

1st - Kate - 181
2nd - Mary - 179
3rd - Tara (The Mom) - 178
4th - John (The Dad) - 142
5th - Emma - 118
6th - Ruth - 103
7th - Lily - 50


I tried a second game after the kids scattered, to see what I could do. The results? 170 - still 4th place. I suspect Kate and Mary have been practising with the babysitter on Thursday nights. Mary didn't have an open frame until the 10th, Kate only had two open frames....

Someday my children will believe me. Or maybe not...

Making potato salad for dinner. (And ribs. And asparagus.) Emma was watching me a little while ago work on it and was asking me about it. At one point I told her I was pretty sure Grandma Payne was having potato salad for dinner. Emma didn't believe me.

Emma went to the extent to call Grandma Payne to ask if she was having potato salad for dinner. Sure enough, they did.

I'm pretty sure Emma's still not going to eat any of it.

Droid Camera Autofocus problem (May 2010)

After I got the 2.1 firmware update for my Droid, I started having problems with the thing refusing to autofocus. It's kind of annoying. You may have noticed some blurry pictures here lately. It wasn't just my poor picture taking skills.


Late last year, they had a software bug with the phone. A few weeks ago, when I tried searching for the problem, I came up with all kinds of posts on the older autofocus problem, but that didn't seem to be my problem. There were a few posts about a new problem, but nothing definite.

About 10 days ago, I found that if I opened and closed the app enough times, the autofocus eventually started working again. This was a bit weird, but ok, if I planned ahead. (Sounds like another software bug to me.) This morning was the annual dance festival at the school. I'm not sure we got any pictures of the kids. For one thing, we got good seats, but there always seemed to be other kids in front of ours. And the lady next to me kept invading my personal space, until her kid was done, and she got up and left.

Anyhow, tonight I was poking around again, and there are a few more hits out there on the autofocus problem. Sounds like most people are either frustrated, or having their phones exchanged at Verizon stores. Still seems like a software bug to me. Then I found a post where some dude said he got around it my half clicking the camera button on the side 6-12 times, and the autofocus eventually engaged.

An interesting idea. For some reason, I am enamored with the virtual camera button they toss up on the screen. I don't know why, but I rarely use the camera button on the side. I tried it, and it's surprisingly effective. If I open the camera application, and it won't focus, tapping on the physical camera button eventually wakes the autofocus up. Seems to be under 12 taps or less. And now that I've done it 3 or 4 times, the phone seems to not have an autofocus problem. I even rebooted it to see if it would go back. Seems to be working.


I wish I would have know that little trick this morning, because instead of this post that you likely don't care much about, you would have one here about the dance festival. Instead, you get a night snapshot of Tara's roses from out back. It's 'festival of roses' week out there this week, the rose bush seems to have a lot more flowers on it this year than it has before, maybe it's all the rain we've gotten.

To all my Canadian friends...

Mario Kart Wii Grand Prix

2010 pAYNE fAMILY

MARIO KART WII

grAnD prIX

7 June – 14 August

Participants are invited to the Winner's Circle ceremony and BBQ

14 August 2010 5:00pm

Grand Prix Rules:

1. Winner gets a really big check! Many can enter, few will win. All scores recorded and maintained by me. See http://sparbowl.blogspot.com/p/2010-mario-kart-wii-standings.html for current course times and standings. See http://sparbowl.wikispaces.com for more detailed information.
2. The contest ends at 5pm on August 14^th. No late entries will be accepted.
3. Race times from Time Trial races only. No other Mario Kart Wii races will be accepted. Each racetrack will be opened for a single week. Times need to be posted during the course of that week, to count in the point standings.
4. Open racing nights at the Payne home – Friday evenings from 6pm-9:30pm (or so). Anyone can come and post scores during this time. Dessert will be offered to you if you attend these sessions. Other times of the week are available by contacting Tara or me. (You can come anytime really, you just need to make sure we are around...)
5. Anyone can enter, just come over and declare yourself in. There will be no drug testing, although the use of performance enhancing drugs is strongly discouraged. If you don't live nearby, take a trip, make a stop, play all the events, and leave. No problem. (Also see rule #7)
6. You are welcome to use any character you think you want for each race. You are not tied to a single one. Any available vehicle can be used to race with.
7. Time Trial ghosts will be accepted as appropriate entries in the contest. Anyone can enter. Our Mario Kart Wii online friend code is 0645-6706-0623. Feel free to contact John to sync your code with ours before preparing to create and submit a ghost.
8. Race times will be ranked, points awarded for each course. The contestant with the most points at the end of the summer is the Grand Prix champion.

Courses and open dates:

June 7 – June 12 GCN DK Mountain

June 14 – June 19 Moonview Highway

June 21 – June 26 Mushroom Gorge

June 28 – July 3 N64 Mario Raceway

July 5 – July 10 GCN Waluigi Stadium

July 12 – July 17 Wario's Gold Mine

July 19 – July 24 Koopa Cape

July 26 – July 31 GBA Bowser Castle 3

Aug 2 – Aug 7 Bowser's Castle

Aug 9 – Aug 14 N64 Bowser's Castle

Pac-Man

Today was the 30th anniversary of PAC-MAN. I saw lots of tweets about Google's playable banner today, but didn't get around to it until just now. Nicely done, Google.

When I was really little, and we were at my Grandma Oak's house, they pulled out an Atari. As far as I remember, this was my first exposure to video games. (We had a ColecoVision at our house a few years later. The games I member from that were Donkey Kong and Defender. I was good at both, but not Steve Weibe good. And then there were PC games... But I digress.) One of the games Grandma had was Pac-Man. I remember thinking how much fun it was.

A few years later, I had my first paper route. It was a short one, just went down our street. At the end of the street was a pizza place. The pizza place had two video game machines, Space Invaders and Mrs. Pac-man. The Mrs. Pac-Man machine called to me from time to time as I finish delivering papers. I played too much.

They also had that silly little Pac-Man Saturday morning cartoon. I used to think it was hilarious that the ghosts had their suits at home hanging on the clothes line, for some reason...

Later, after a move a few miles North, I had another paper route, this one with a bowling alley at the end of it. Lot of pinball machines, and Pac-Man. I wasted a lot of time in that bowling alley. (They took the paper.) The owners used to call me the pinball wizard. I think my Mom was happy when I stopped that route.

Years later, I discovered there was a sit down head-to-head Mrs. Pac-Man machine. (My mission, I think.) Good times.

When I was a freshman in college, the bowling alley was right next to a giant games center, with lots and lots of video game machines. It's long gone now, but in it's day, it was sweet. PacMan/Mrs. Pacman shared time with Tetris. Lots of Tetris.

I liked playing PacMan on the arcade machine, because you only needed to use one hand. No endless mashing of buttons. Just up/down/right/left. When your right hand got tired, you could switch to you left hand. Or alternate between levels. Additionally, nearly half your body was free while you played the game, which allowed for doing a little dance as you played.

Anyhow. Happy birthday Pac-Man.

Gone fishing

Adam and I went fishing with Drew and Anson this morning. Seemed like a better idea than working.

Adam kept himself busy, as you can see in the video. He pretty much threw rocks and dirt the entire time, until he threw a handful of dirt that got caught in the wind, and blew back into his face. He was done then. I took him back to the van, where he immediately fell asleep.

I didn't catch any fish, which was fine. We were down at the Scofield reservoir. After a while, some dude came along across the way from us, and started pulling fish out of the water like a madman. Figures. After two or three catches, Drew made his way over to the guy, to find out what the secret was. Turns out the water was deeper there than where we were, and all the big fish hung out over there. We made our way to that side, where teh wind was blowing at us. This is where Adam got the business.

Drew eventually caught a fish, you'll have to ask him how it tasted...

Ruth's birthday

Today was Ruth's birthday. We took her to Red Robin for dinner, where she could get all the fries she wanted. Ruth ordered spaghetti and a salad. (No fries.) Whatever makes her happy. I was starting to get a little upset about our waiter for not being around to get us more fries. (And avoiding eye contact) Then he brought Ruth an ice cream cake for her birthday, gratis. I think it helped that Ruth had been telling everyone it was her borthday. "Hi, my name is Ruth. Today is my birthday. I am five."

Some pictures from Ruth opening gifts:

Kate, the picture taker.

Lily and Mary doled out the presents.

Giant chalk

Slightly smaller giant chalk.

For you consideration...

Run, Kate, Run!

Kate raced in the annual Hershey track meet at her school on Friday. I have no idea why they call it the Hershey track, but they do. They seem to stretch the thing out all day long when they do it. (They don't run it like a track meet, they run a race, piddle around a bit, announce some winners, play some music, then think about running another race.) I think they do it to make sure the teachers don't have to teach at all that day.

Anyhow, Kate's race of choice this year was the 4x100 relay. No wardrobe malfunction this year during the race, no lack of sneakers in the morning.

The result? 3rd place in their heat, 5th place overall. Good enough for a ribbon. Nice work, Kate.

Nice day for a ballgame.

66 degrees outside, sunny, slight breeze. Perfect conditions for going out to the ballpark. This is the view we've got here in town. My house is a mile and a half closer to the mountains, for those that don't know. We are at 4500 feet elevation, the "Y" on the mountain is 6000 feet.

Tara had taken the three older kids to the library this afternoon for a book festival, I took the three smaller kids to the ball park. Before the game, we had J Dawgs and chips. Lily and Adam didn't really want their hot dogs, I ended up eating too much of it.

I got the kids freeze pops when we got there. They are "gi-normas", as Ruth says. (And only $1.25 at the stadium. A great deal for concessions stand prices, I think.)

After a few innings, after the freeze pops were gone, the kids wanted more treats. And Ruth had to go to the bathroom. Waiting for the bathroom, I noticed that Lily and Adam were starting to look a bit lobster like. Too much sun, I guess. We ended up leaving and going to Macey's for ice cream. (It only cost us $12 for the 4 J Dawg's, 4 chips, and our game tickets, so I didn't feel bad about leaving. Plus we lost our seats when we went to the bathroom, it was general admission, and the people behind us didn't save the seats for us.)

We are now at home watching the end of the game on the TV. It's 11-10 in the bottom of the 8th inning, BYU leads San Diego State. I've got the windows open in the back room, and all the blinds open, so it's sort of like being outside for the game still, just a different angle to watch the thing. It's just too bad the college baseball season doesn't last longer into the summer. By the time we start getting nice Saturdays like today, the season is almost over...

Book Review

Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu
Devin Grayson & Flint Dille

A little while back, I was at the library with Adam poking around. I looked for comic book novelizations, or whatever you call those things. A lot of them were books people wrote "Based on the hit movie..." Just about all of these were not incredibly interesting sounding. Then I found a Batman book "based on the hit video game." Now there's an interesting idea. I've never played the game, so I decided to try out the book.

This book was interesting. It's about a super villian that unleashes lots and lots of criminals on Gotham one night, including a few super villians. His plan? keep Batman busy all night, and in the end, fight him. (Boss level.)

An interesting book. But also a bit of violence. Batman wins the day, with a little help from his friends. Maybe I should have told you that. Maybe you've played the game, but never been able to finish it, and I ruined it for you. Sorry about that.

In the end, the book reads a lot just like what you'd think a book based on a video game would read like.

Anyone got 5.5 million dollars I can borrow?

The "Field of Dreams" farm is for sale. I'd be willing to move to Iowa to be the caretaker of the place if someone is willing to pony up the money for the property... (Although I haven't talked to Tara about it yet.)

It wouldn't necessarily be a bad investment. I hear that people will come.

They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won't mind if you look around, you'll say. It's only $20 per person. They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they'll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.

So anyhow, I'm sure it's just pocket change for some of you. What do you think?

Or maybe I'll just go reorganize my netflix queue...

Not a large rodent, not a small mammal

Last week I bought a new set of clippers. My old set of clippers, if you recall, fell to pieces several months ago while I was trying to cut my hair.

Last week I gave me and Adam a haircut. I think I did a better job than last time. Today Emma started pestering me about getting her haircut. She wanted me to do it.

We didn't get before and after pictures, but the four younger girls have much shorter hair now. (Kate's not home.) They seem to like it ok, their hair goes to about an inch below their ears. (Since I've got no skill, they all got the same kind of haircut.)


The result? A small rug's worth of hair. In the last two weeks, the clipper set has paid for itself already.

New Tent

I bought a tent on Monday at Costco. It was a screaming deal - $250 tent for $120...

It's a 16 foot by 10 foot tent with a screened in section. You can see it has a hinged door. Other features includes an entry for an extension cord, a little port hole for putting your hand out on one side, and a room divider thing.

I also got a screaming deal this week on sleeping bags for the kids, $9 each. They came today. It's nap time right now, all the kids are aout back in the tent, although it sounds like there isn't too much sleeping happening just yet... (That's Ruth in the foreground, she's been wearing a cheetah tail for three days straight now.)

...and one for the older kids

Mary and Kate were sad they didn't get their spot in the sun. I particularly like my Lando in this one...

It's alive!

Last week, while mowing the lawn, I got 85% done with the lawn when the mower conked out. No warning, just all of the sudden stopped. The pull starter was jammed up as well.

Turns out there was no oil in the thing. Oops. My bad.

Yesterday I banged on the blade with a mallet, and it started turning a little bit. Good sign. Today I got some WD-40, took the spark plug off, and sprayed in the engine compartment. After 30 minutes I could turn the blade by hand, although kind of slowly. Rotated the blade around four or five times, and it started moving pretty good.

I put the spark plug back on, put some oil in, and voila! The thing fired up. "This is not a bad thing", I think to myself. The only drawback was that the engine was full of WD-40 at that point, and it needed to burn off. (Smoked a bit until it burned off, but that's ok.) I decided I had to mow the front lawn, since the thing was running.

Tomorrow - The back yard! Long story short: Thank goodness for over engineering...

Summer Camp for the kids

Change please

This morning I was told that Emma needed $3 for a school field trip. I only had a five dollar bill. As I was giving Emma the money, I told her to be sure to get her change back. I was clear that the extra two dollars was not a donation to the school.

I told Emma to be sure to let her teacher know I needed my two dollars back, because I was thirsty and needed to go to the gas station for a drink.

From what I hear, Emma was very clear with her teacher. Emma told Tara that her teacher told Emma she thought she had change on her desk, and got her the two dollars.

I wish I was a fly on the wall in that room. I imagine to myself that Emma raised a stink this morning about the two dollars. "My Dad said that I need to make sure that I get the money back for him. He told me that he's thirsty and needs to get a drink from the gas station." Priceless.

Census to America - "We think you are too dumb to follow directions"

I got a call from the census today. They wanted to verify the answers I gave on my form. I suppose the US government has decided that I'm not completely qualified to decide how many people were living in my house on April first. I know I have more kids than most people, but I didn't forget one of them. Or count any of them twice.

It was a long call. The dude on the phone read dutifully from his script, and insisted on asking every single question for every single person in the house. If I'm too dumb to fill the paper survey out properly, what guarentee do they have that I'm able to answer correctly on the phone?

Anyhow, after 10 minutes of verifying that yes indeed, on April 1, 2010, there were 8 people living in my house, they guys on the phone told me there was a place I could submit concerns about the follow up survey in writing. He asked if I wanted the address to share my opinions. My response? "No, I think I'll keep my opinions to myself for now."

Is this happening to anyone else out there? Are you getting calls from the census people? Or have I been profiled in some way for stupidity? (Watch me get audited by the IRS for this post...)

The 'send a boy to camp' fund

When I was a scout, we did fundraisers all the time. Popcorn buckets, orchids, candy bars, that sort of thing. Lots of fundraisers. My dad was the scoutmaster, and must have often sunk some money into these at the front end. (At least if I am remembering right.) I remember him going around church to other parents of scouts with an envelope he called the "Send A Boy To Camp" fund. Maybe it wasn't fundraisers that did this, maybe it was him paying the camp fees and looking to collect. Anyhow, at the time it didn't sink in what he was doing or what that meant, but now I think it's pretty funny.

Last month we had a member of our High Council pass away. I headed up the collection for flowers for the funeral, and bought them based on the pledges I had gotten. There's a tent at Costco I want to get, we have a Stake fathers and sons camp out in a few weeks I plan to take Adam to. I pulled the "Send a boy to camp" card on the pledgees tonight, we'll see how it goes. The tradition lives on...

Gravestone

The grave stone was put in on Friday. We went over to take a look today. The site we got really was a nice spot in the cemetery. I think the stone looks really nice, having them polish it wouldn't have added anything to it...