Christmas 2008 In New Olreans

Photos courtesy of Logan (5 years old) and a new digital camera. I love the perspective he put on the photos.

Technorati : christmas, family, holiday, vacation

Darth Leo - Dark Lord of the Sith

There is a new dark Jedi in town

The force is strong in this one

Your Jedi mind tricks are no match for my....Oooh. Bright lights.

Check out these moves!

Bwahahahahaha! Take THAT stupid pillow!

Technorati : family, fatherhood, kids

Logan's Planet

My 5 year old son, Logan, likes to draw pictures. The other day he drew me a map of the house and the neighborhood. He made sure to include the local Walgreen's because that's his favorite store.

Last night he decided to draw me a picture of an asteroid field, some suns and a space ship. I thought he did an excellent job.

I have no artistic skills at all. My wife is the artistic one. I think it's amazing that he is so technically capable (I think he will be an engineer) and artistic.

The Plam was an oopsy. The Plane was an out of space issue.

And that's pretty much how I have been spending this weekend. ;-)

LewisC

Technorati : art, family, son

Wii

Well, I bought a Wii. I told my son it was mine but if he behaves, I'll let him play with it. That worked for a while. ;-)

I got legend of zelda: twilight princess, a spongebob action game, a cart racing game and it comes with a sports game. The sports game is my favorite. Bowling is amazing and I like tennis quite a bit. Spongebob was winning with my son until the wife went to blockbuster and rented lego star wars. My son is totally addicted now. He may have withdrawels when it goes back on tuesday.

It is a neat game. It has its hard points but over all is pretty easy. My son has become a master pod racer. I was watching him play and was getting dizzy but he didn't have any problems. He even laid down and played it prostrate.

The only downside is that now I don't have a TV. If he's not Wii'ing, the wife is DVRing.

C'est la vie. If you are able to get a Wii, go for it. It is worth the money. The wife wants Wii Fit when it becomes available. She'll probably get more exercise wresting the Wii away from my son. ;-)

LewisC

Technorati : console, games, wii

WALL-E

I took my son to see WALL-E on sunday. He had a blast. It is a very entertaining movie even for adults. Like most cartoons that I have seen lately, there are adult under currents running concurrently to the children's story.

The basic story is that Earth has been abandoned due to human pollution. The rivers are toxic, the cities are trash, nothing will grow. Technology has reached a point where humanity boards a spaceship for a five year tour. A company, Buy-N-Large, will under take a cleanup and return Earth to the humans. Unfortunately, it's so bad that the company abandons the effort and leaves humanity to spend an eternity in space.

Fast forward 600 years. WALL-E, a rolling, sentient trash compactor is relentlessly carrying on his directive, clean up. He's built towers of trash and lives in a small crate where he collects trinkets, spare parts and doodads. He watches a corny old human movie for a hobby and is really lonely. His only companion is a pet cockroach.

A spaceship lands and a new, sleek robot scans around looking for something. WALL-E falls in love and follows "her" around. This new robot posses powerful weapons and has no problem blowing things up and even comes closing to blowing WALL-E up. Eventually, the two make contact and WALL-E learns that his new love is named EVA. I would say her name is EVE but becuase of the way she pronounces her name, my son insists it is EVA.

Anyway, she continues her scanning directive and eventually finds what she is looking for, a living plant. She loads the plant into an internal compartment and goes comatose. I'll let you see the movie for the rest.

I couldn't believe how into the relationship between WALL-E and Eva my son got. He kept whispering questions to me, "Does she like him?" "Why does he love her?" "Is she mad now?" My son is 5, BTW.

The ending is what you expect from one of these, everyone lives happily ever after. This is not a complaint. That is how it should be. That's the movie we wanted to see. I think we'll probably buy this on DVD when it comes out.

Technorati : movie review, wall-e

Wife's A Blogger!

Here's a link to my wife's blog. She's very artsy where as I'm more techie. She can paint, carve stamps, make jewelry, and do many other arts and crafts. I think she is an awesome photographer. Check it out at Tyggereye Art.

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Logan Makes 5

My son Logan recently made 5 years old. He's really more like 5 going on 30 but he really enjoyed his birthday this year. It was a two day event. One day was a kid's birthday party with a jumpy castle and a pinata. The second day was spent at Disney World in Orlando, FL. Disney is about 50 minutes from my house.

Logan is crazy about Bionicles right now.

He got a boatload of presents but his favorites were the bionicles. My wife got him a cowboy dressup outfit which he really likes too.

After presents was time for the jumpy castle. If you don't know what a jumpy castle is, they are also called Moonwalks. They're giant, heavy latex baloons that you climb inside and jump around.

The day started off with me climbing a tree to hang a pinata. Logan thought it was quite amusing the see the old man climb a tree. I still got it!

Day two was spent at Disney World. We all had a really good time.

Waiting to get on "It's a small world."

On the way to Tom Sawyers island.

Mom, Logan and Leo

Dad, Logan and Leo

I think this was Logan favorite birthday so far. He is so proud to be an entire handful old. That's a handul of fingers. heh

LewisC

Technorati : birthday, disney, family

I have a baby!

Hi all.

I'm back after a long break. I have a new son, Leo. I've been enjoying spending time with him (and my first son Logan and my wife). Logan is playing on the floor right now with some of his Christmas presents and Leo is being fed by my wife.

We had to postpone Christmas with the in-laws due to my father-in-law having surgery. We'll get with them next weekend. My mom is in New Orleans. I'll call her in a little while.

I plan to get back into my blogging her very shortly.

For now, here is a picture I played with to make it Christmasy. I am not very artistic but I am irrationaly proud of this picture. ;-)



Merry Christmas!

LewisC


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oracle

What does integrity mean to you?

My son is taking karate lessons now (he's 4). My wife goes to each class but the class is scheduled while I am at work. After each session, the man who gives the class talks to the students about things like honesty, integrity, honor, etc. Today after the session, the instructor asked the kids if they knew what integrity was. None of then did. The instructor said that if someone drops their glasses, and you see it happen, you should pick up the glasses and return them. At dinner tonight, my wife asked my son what integrity means. He said he didn't remember. My wife said, "What do you do if someone drops their glasses?" My son thought for a moment, "I should pick them up and then....run away?" heh. Kids are great!

family

It has boy parts!

My wife and I just left the ob/gyn after getting a sonogram. I'll upload the pictures after I get them scanned in. I'm having a boy! My second. LewisC

Katrina and missing family members

Read this story. CNN.com - Viewer call leads to missing mom's body I felt a lot like the woman in the story for a few days after Katrina. I couldn't get in touch with my mom, sisters or brother for most of a week. I tried the Red Cross after a couple of days and they said it was too soon for them to do anything. They said they would call back when they could. They called back after a month. I didn't have to wait that long, though. My mom was able to get a call out after they eventually made it to West Monroe, La. When the water started sloshing things off her kitchen table she decided it was time to hike to my sister's apartment. Her and my nephew practically swam through neck high water (at times my mom was on her tip-toes). They made it the 4 miles to my sister's 3rd floor apartment. When they were able to get out of there two days later, they made their way to a hotel in West Monroe. My nephew was able to text message my niece and everyone was able to contact each other. I finally heard from her and by that time she had heard from all three sisters. It was another couple of days before we heard from my brother. Everyone made it through although my brother died 7 weeks afterwards. I can't imagine what state my mind would have been, or would be now, if it had been months before I found out anything. I really feel for the lady in the story above. And her family. Katrina sucked. Still sucks. It's like the neverending storm. Tags: family new orleans katrina

E G Simmons Park Ruskin Florida

What a great day! We needed to do the paperwork for our homestead exemption and my wife needed to get a new driver's license (because we moved) and none of that is real easy with a 2 year old, so I took a day off from work and we made a day of it. First we slept in. I slept in the longest but my son worked with us on this and slept in until 8:30. That's about 2 hours later than normal. He's kind of sick so the whole day had a lot of snot wiping but I can live with that. Anyway, we finally got on the road and ran down to Ruskin, FL. It's in the same county as Riverview but is a lot less crowded. The county offices down there get you in and out a lot faster than the ones in Brandon, FL. We did the homestead and license in under an hour. While we were there, we stopped in a goodwill store in the same strip mall. We like to browse goodwills and thrift stores. I found a first edition Larry Niven hard back in Great condition for $3.00. Can't beat that. Afterwards, my wife noticed a Buddy Freddy in the same mall. We ate lunch there. Ewwww! What a mistake. Buddy Freddy sucks! At least this one did. If this is the way all of them are I am surprised they're still in business. It was dirty, we had to scrounge to find a table since the unoccupied ones had not been bussed. There were people waiting for plates. Did I say it was dirty? Floors, walls and silverware. The food was all either under or over cooked. All in all a disappointing experience. I will never go to another buddy freddy, that's for sure. After though, I remembered a park we had gone to in the summer for a seafood and arts festival. The park is the E G Simmons Park of Ruskin Florida. It has a great play area for kids as well as being a beautiful park. From the beach (just south of Apollo beach) you have a view of both the Tampa and St Pete skylines. You can see the skyway bridge and the stadium in St Pete. An awesome view on a clear day and today was very clear. My wife met a mommy and son who were also there playing. She had just moved from Colorado and didn't really know anyone. The kids hit off and played like hyper active chipmunks. We finally got home and I took a quick cat nap. Yep, A really wonderful day. Tags: ruskin florida life

Slidell Mayor is upset

WWLTV.com | Slidell mayor fumes: All we hear about is Ninth Ward I just read this on wwltv.com. Slidell is where two of my sisters live. My brother lived there a long time and I hung out there quite a bit in my teenage years. That was the first place I stopped when I went 4 months after Katrina. It was still wrecked. The houses and busineses along hwy 11 just don't exist anymore. The things that are still standing look like a bomb went off. The hotel that my wife and I and our wedding party stayed in on Gause Rd is damaged and still not open. The chapel we got married in has roof damage but is at least still there. Tags: slidell new orleans katrina

New Orleans Takeout: The MRE

In December, I took my wife and son to New Orleans for a visit with my family. That trip and the things we saw, the people we spent time with, the gifts my son wracked up are for a different story. What I want to write about today is the nouvelle Orleans cuisine. For once I was able to bring back to Florida a real new Orleans meal.

The NEW New Orleans that is. I brought back 6 packs of what my family has been eating for the last few months. Everybody says they're great. My mom has her favorite. My sister's do too. When my brother-in-law was giving them to me he asked me not to take one of the pastas; his personal favorite.

My mom told me about the red cross coming by each day with water and food. MREs. Meal Ready to Eat. I can't tell you how consistently I heard, "This is really good food!" This from people who live to eat. People who on any particular day could, before katrina, get shrimp po-boys, gumbo, boiled crawfish, etouffee, and other excellent, make me drool, food.

Let me tell you what kind of person my mom is. She lost her house in katrina (along with everyone else in my family and all of their neighbors). She was living cramped up in an tiny apartment with 4 other people: no electricity, no water, no AC. The first floor apartment was a reeking, unhealthy mold factory. No TV, cable, internet, radio or newspapers; no news of any kind. The red cross was delivering food and bottled water daily. They were bathing with bottled water in addition to drinking with it and flushing the toilet with it. She had every right to be depressed and despondent. She could have been angry and resentful.

I asked her how she was doing. She said that red cross was bringing them food and water and that the food was military style (she can't seem to remember MRE). I asked her how it was. She said it was really good and that made her glad because now she knew that our military over in Iraq at least had good food to eat. That was so out of left field that I will never forget it and it makes me proud that she's my mom. Everything she has to worry about and she was worried about the troops.

But I still had a hard time believing that the military, with it's propensity for totally destroying food (at least on M*A*S*H and in the military cafeterias I've eaten in), could create these non-refrigerated bundles of goodness. After a little online research I find that they didn't get it right the first time. These "meals ready to eat" have at times been know as "meals rejected by everyone", "meals rejected by ethiopians", "materials resembling edibles", and due to a low fiber content, "meals refusing to exit". That one had me crying I was laughing so hard.

I didn't take a full case of the goodies. Just a sampling so that when we talked about them I would have some experience with them. I got one pack each of Beef Roast with Vegetables, Sloppy Joe, Chicken with Noodles, Vegetable Manicotti, Cheese Tortellini, and Jambalaya. I HAD to try the Jambalaya.

I packed them in an empty MRE case, i.e. A card board box. The box says that no additional refrigeration is required. That's true although from my research, refrigeration can extend their life. An MRE is planned to be "good" for about 6 months at 80 degrees and for about 3 months at 100 degrees. Katrina hit just in time for the MREs to sit in 100 degree weather. Hopefully the packs I got arrived at a later date.

Just for completeness, here is the entire list of entrees: Grilled Beefsteak with mushroom gravy, BBQ Pork rib, Beef ravioli, Cheese & vegetable omelet, Chicken breast filet, Chicken fajita, Chicken with salsa, Hamburger patty, Beef stew, Chili with macaroni, Penne with vegetables and sausage in spicy tomato sauce, Veggie burger in BBQ sauce, Cheese tortellini, Vegetable Manicotti, Beef enchiladas, Chicken with noodles, Sloppy Joe filling, Cajun rice with sausage, Pot roast with vegetables, Spaghetti with meat sauce, Chicken Tetrazzini, Jambalaya, Chicken with cavatelli, Meatloaf with gravy. I believe my brother in law said his favorite was the penne. I wish I had gotten one of the cajun rice packets. That sounds delicious.

So, what is an MRE? It's a brownish-tan plastic package. Inside that package is an entree, a desert, spices, napkins, matches, etc. It also includes a chemical heater. Real cool stuff! I'll talk about the heater first.

The heater uses water and magnesium (with a few other chemicals) to produce hydrogen. This chemical change produces heat. Basically, you have a little flat heating element in a plastic bag and an entree in a plastic cover inside of a flat cardboard box. You add a few tablespoons of water to the heating element and drop your entree into the plastic bag with the heater. Fold it up, put the entire thing back in it cardboard cover and in 10-15 minutes you have hot food.

Each meal is supposed to be between 1200 and 1400 calories. These are carb heavy. They're meant to suffice as the only meal for a day if they have to and are designed for soldiers, carrying heavy packs, who are on the move.

For dinner last night, my wife and I decided to try a couple of MREs. I grabbed the Jambalaya and she grabbed the cheese tortellini.

Here are the menus:

Cheese Tortellini:

• Cheese Tortellini
• Vanilla Poundcake
• saltine crackers
• peanut butter
• spices apples
• hot apple cider
• plastic spoon, moist towelette, napkin, matches, salt, spices, gum

Jambalaya:

• Cajun Jambalaya
• Wheat Bread
• Pineapple pound cake
• Blackberry Jam
• tobasco sauce
• coffee (not CDM)
• Vanilla Dairy Shake
• plastic spoon, moist towelette, napkin, matches, sugar, coffee, gum, non-dairy creamer

I have to be honest. I didn't drink the coffee or the vanilla shake. I was stuffed from the meal. My wife skipped the hot apple cider. We ate the rest of it though.

So how was it? Well, my wife is a lot pickier than I am and she liked it. She put it on par with a microwave meal. I have to agree with that. I'd say it's a little better than almost any frozen meal I have ever had but not nearly as good as I would get in a restaurant in New Orleans. I've ordered Jambalaya in other parts of the country that I regretted putting in my mouth. I would eat this jambalaya again. The pound cake was downright delicious. The wheat bread was good, moist. It reminded me of middle eastern flatbread. I spread the jam on it. Mmmmmmm.

Because it was our first MRE, I over filled my heater some and my wife heated her spiced apples instead of the entree. Unlike the people in New Orleans who were living on this, she was able to nuke the tortellini in the microwave.

And that gets to the gist of it. These MREs are a novelty to me and my wife. I wanted to try them because my family spoke so often and so highly about them. But for a few hundred thousand people in New Orleans, a few hundred thousand more (million maybe?) in the gulf coast, these meals are what kept them alive. In the comfort of my living room, in the AC watching television, I can critique these meals. If I was sitting in my mom's house last September, November, etc, I would eat these things up. I think I would tell the world how good they were. They are good. In the right situation, they'd be great.

I am somewhat humbled by what all of my relatives have gone through, and are still going through. It's not over yet. All of them have shown a consistent strength that I hope I would have shown had I been there.

What more can I say except that at least I know they have good food to eat.

Katrina is gone but her impact remains. Everyone in the gulf coast can use your help. Check out Charity Navigator for a list of valid charities. Give what you can.

For more info about MREs, visit Wkipedia, How stuff works, or the Federation of American Scientists.