Three Months Today!

Owain has reached his 1/4-year birthday which is the drool anniversary. Here are some more baby pictures.


On Sunday, he flies to Arizona to be held and cooed at by lots of women. His P.A., Heather, will be accompanying him for the week. I will be spending the time working a little later than usual, playing Team Fortress 2 on company equipment and then coming home to beers, cheese on toast and more of the sort of computer-based gratification that can only truly be satisfied while the wife's away.

Speaking of which, I got a bit of a surprise this evening. Back in the 90's while I was a student of Artificial Intelligence, I did some work for a company called Intelligent Research Ltd. which was run by a long-time computer chess boffin by the name of David Levy. The work was mostly related to NLP and lasted until I finished my studies and got a job in video games. (Yes, this is going somewhere.)

Eventually, the company disappeared off the radar and I didn't hear anything more from David... until I saw this:


!

Ahhhhhh Its BABYZILLA!!!!!

For maximum enjoyment play with volume up.

Sorry its so dark but I think you can still get the gist.

Guy Smiley

He's been able to smile for a long time but it's becoming less random now. This movie was taken a week ago...

Grandma McFarlane

My Mum arrived this evening after a 10½ flight from London Heathrow. She met (and identified) Owain and dropped by our home to see Mac and the dogs. Then we went to Aunt Chilada's so Mum could sample some Mexican food.

I'm not sure what's happening tomorrow. We'll probably practice the famous American past-time of 'hanging out'.

Here is a movie from last month. It's rather boring but if you want to know how Owain hiccups, it's pretty informative.

Owain Rockford McFarlane

Yes, the baby has a name!

We couldn't put it off any longer and decided to go with our long-term favourite suggestions. I think he looks like an Owain, don't you?

Owain is a Welsh name which means 'young warrior' or 'well born'. It is pronounced the same as Owen (which is the Anglicised version).


(Left: Jim. Right: Mac and Mary Ellen.)

Rockford is an American name meaning 'early adopter of the answer phone'. I was against Rockford for a long time - mostly on the basis that it's not a name (unless you're a town or a TV show). Then I discovered that Rockford is actually a given name. That and my Dad's incessant pleading cause me to cave in and give him Rockford as the middle name.

Actually, I argued with Heather so much over it that she took the rather underhanded approach of making me choose the first name all on my own. This is probably the reason why he's not called Rockford Owain McFarlane.

Walkies!

Very Very Frightening Me!

There was some more weather this evening! This time, I used Rob's old camera and took some movies from which I was able to grab these stills. Here's the best one:


And here's the movie:


This evening, we saw SiCKO, the fourth Michael Moore documentary film I've watched and probably his best so far. It's factually correct whilst being the most (arguably only) left-biased thing I've seen the whole time I've been here. It makes the NHS look amazing! It also reveals that Tony Benn is turning into my Dad! He has the same style of ranting, the same exaggerated mannerisms and even the failing fashion sense. I almost feel sorry for Hilary.

Americana

The Rodeo was great fun. I think I would have preferred it much more if I was about a quarter of the age. Still, now I know that I've seen real cowboys and cowgirls doing what they do best: diving onto baby cows from a horse, racing round barrels and falling under the hooves of wild, pissed off bulls.

Here's a picture of two cowboys jumping on a baby cow that's been tied up by another two cowboys riding grown-up horses. Say what you like; it's still fairer than bullfighting.


Whiplash the monkey was a bit of a let down. He's basically strapped to a sheepdog that's being directed by a shepherd. Our simian friend supposedly performs the 'Indian hideaway', leaning fully to the side of his 'steed'. It looked more like he was trying to free himself. Think 'organ grinder meets One Man And His Dog' and I'm afraid you've got Whiplash.

As for the rodeo clown, this mirth-maestro specialises in politically charged, observational comedy. For example, one of his blasts involves the observation that Osama and Obama both start with an 'O'. Oh, how I cheered as the bull went for him!

Yesterday was the 4th of July, better known State-side as July 4th. Jim's efforts to find a nice spot from which to view Prescott's fireworks were scuppered when we were moved on by a curt motorcycle officer, charged with protecting us from spent rockets. I felt like a real wild-west outlaw, holding my empty Guinness can as I folded up the chairs.

We eventually found a government sanctioned vantage point on a sports field at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University where I managed to record images of the fireworks. Might I be the first of about ten thousand people to publish a nondescript movie of some 4th July fireworks on YouTube...

And here are some blurry pictures.

Being British, I wailed and gnashed my teeth throughout the whole humiliating spectacle.

Ultrasound Baby Video

I have at long last emerged from the cutting room after wresting with a characterful video editor called Avidemux. My advice for anyone wishing to use this charming piece of software is to cut early, save often and RTFW (that's short for Read The Fascinating Wiki). All the same, I narrowly prefer it to iMovie.

The result is a five minute video which I fully appreciate is only of any real interest to close friends and family.

Just be grateful that you didn't have to sit through the unedited version. It's thirty minutes long and the music track gave ME morning sickness!

The Weekend

Things have really hotted up this weekend. That isn't saying much really but I'm not complaining.

On Friday, we went to the Severn View Social Club in Caldicot to see Rob accept a prize on behalf of the Tredegar Arms pool team (RIP).

Unfortunately, the ceremony started a few hours after the start of proceedings and the beer was quite cheap (it being a social club) so it's hardly our fault we were in such a state by the end of the night.


On Saturday, The Barries came to visit. They spent most of the time tormenting the poor dog, look:

Still bored

Yesterday I learned how to make SVCDs.
Today teh interweb was down for half an hour and I nearly went mad.

Tomorrow I might go to the pub with Rob.

Bored already

When the old folks go on holiday, I'm expected to mow the field in smart stripes and top up the many bird feeders. But it's only a field and birds don't tell tales.

Some photos.

A stupid dog:

Goodbye Sunshine

I leave for the UK on Sunday. I'm here without a visa which means I'm only allowed to stay for 90 days as a tourist.

Hopefully, I'll be let back in when I return on the 30th of April. However, I don't know how to explain taking two really long vacations to Arizona in the same year and only spending 24 hours at the Grand Canyon... "Well sir, I just love sun bathing but I really can't stand heights".

I'll really miss Joe. He's sort-of the Uncle Fester of the family.


Heathrow Terminal 4 here I come!

Spring

All of a sudden, the garden has filled with birds. I had assumed that this was due to Mac turning the sprinkler on. However, Heather explains that it's the first day of spring which has some mystical connection to the fact that it's her birthday tomorrow...

Once upon a time, all was cold and barren - even in The Valley - and winter lasted forever meaning that it was only Christmas once ... ever. And everyone complained that it was a bit nippy. Then god sent the greatest gift of all - Heather - and the sun shone and joy returned to the world and everyone said that a cloud here or there might be nice because there's not enough shade and shares in flip-flops soared - especially around Christmas, which happened every year and lasted for a whole month.

... and thus it was that I ended up with 90 seconds of birdsong on my camera this afternoon. Realising that the movie featured more shake, wobble and blur than actual tweety pie, I decided that the only course of action (other than giving up drinking before breakfast) was to enter the perilous world of video editing.

I had a quick look at Kino which has a lot of appealing features but settled upon a package with the catchy title of Avidemux as it can read the AVI files produced by my camera (Fujufilm FinePix M603).

It's still a rather dry affair with little dialog and even less character development. Still, it's a start.


Please feel free to post any good recipes you have.

Creepy Crawlies

I finally decided to clear out the shed in the garden. It's full of odds and ends, all covered in leaves which are wound together with cobwebs. H was a bit concerned that I might get attacked by giant poisonous insects but I figured that they're only going to get more perky as summer draws near. Eviction time!

Sure enough, I came across a few bugs you don't normally see in the home counties. The first one to say 'hi' was Klaus, the scorpion.

He's probably an Arizona bark - or maybe a Stripe-tailed - scorpion.

In a moment of comedy genius, I managed to tip Klaus' jar upside-down, down the back of a work bench which is where I subsequently found Heather:

As you can see, she's missing a limb (hence the name). Also note the red hourglass on her belly. A few birthdays ago, I was given a book called The Red Hourglass: Lives of the Predators. I couldn't remember the predator after which the book was named but I knew enough not to tickle her under the chin. It turns out that she's a black widow.

Here's another widow from inside the shed:

Can anyone think of a good name?

Finally, I found a rather large wasp-type creature hiding in/near a web in the corner of the shed. Naturally, she's called Blackie.

After I disturbed the web, she flew away, leaving me to study the strange honey-comb structure that remained. I'm not entirely sure what she was up to but she returned later to pose for the camera. She looked a little confused, possibly because I'd rearranged all her landmarks.

Sadly, I didn't spot any leprechauns.

Photies

I turns out that my favorite operating system, Ubuntu, can make picture galleries straight out of the box (using gThumb) so at long last, here are some nicely presented snaps of Heather and I enjoying some of our last few months of freedom.

Firstly, here are a few select photos from the beginning of February including a trip to Phoenix Zoo, Beanie getting a bath and pictures of Sunset Point.


Next are Heather's rather nice photos of our trip to the Grand Canyon.


Finally, here are some piccies I took of Northern Arizona. There's a bunny called Diggity, a few shots of the Court House in Prescott (spot the deliberate mistake in that last photo) oh, and some more shots of a big hole in the ground. As you can see, the weather was somewhat variable.

And as if that wasn't enough, here's a movie of the lovely Heather modeling this year's must-have canyon.