Modern Math

I never thought I'd use so many apps on my iPhone. Every time someone asks a question about anything, I find myself whipping out my iPhone to get the answer. There are many useful apps I use daily, but mostly I have a lot of games. I have a few games for me. Most games are for Young Man. They are mostly educational with some sheer fun times mixed in.

Growing up, my dad would have me complete math worksheets. I wasn't homeschooled. It was just extra learning at home. In true Asian fashion, there was a strong emphasis on math and science in my education all the way though high school. I'm not as fastidious as my dad, but I do have strong sense that math is important. Young Man is a quick study. He understands basic addition and subtraction.

These aren't the math worksheets I grew up with...




Just something fun we did a couple weekends ago - his first bumper car experience! He's the one wearing the grey hooded coat. I really have no idea why he didn't want to take it off and give it to me.

New Shiny Thing

I needed a new printer and a color one at that. The Canon Pixma MP620 really suits my needs. It came with a sample pack of Canon glossy photo paper. I printed out some photos from the Kauai trip to put up in my office at work. And then I printed some other things on plain paper.



This comes with a scanner that I will use to convert some super old pictures into digital format. I sense other possibilities for the scanner. My filing cabinet with its numerous file folders seems relatively obsolete now.

You can slide in your SD/CF/MS memory card into the MP620 for direct printing. I'll probably not use them since I like to do some post-production on my photos.

Best of all, it's wireless! It took my no time at all to get this working with my home network.

Beginnings

According to Pantone, the color of 2010 is turquoise. This makes me happy. Turquoise (and its close cousin teal) is fastly becoming a favorite hue for me, only second to my all-time favorite color of red. And boy, do I love me some combination of the two colors together.

I've picked up the needles again. I sorted through the mess of yarn and knitting supplies to find some Schaefer Little Lola and some metal Addi 8s. Funny how it's been awhile since there has been any sort of knitting, but I still remember Size 8 needles are my go to for worsted. The pattern I am knitting is Not Quite Straight Scarf by Nicole Hindes. Ravelers - her is the pattern page on Ravelry.



I'm going to set a goal to be more creative. I'll attempt to do something each day that engages right brain activity. Anything is actually an improvement from last year. I don't want to call this a resolution. Saying "I resolve..." seems so absolute and sets you up for failure and disappointment.

To borrow something funny I heard in the past couple of days....Happy Numbering Change, All!

Sigh

Don't. Want. To. Leave.



It's been a great week here in warm Kauai. Seriously one of my favorite places on Earth. We leave tonight on the red eye. Two hops to get home to BNA - one in LAX and one in DFW. That's Nashville, Los Angeles and Dallas-Ft. Worth in airport code speak.



It's been great to spend the holidays with family. If you stalk my Flickr photos, you've been seeing the pictures and videos.



Young Man's two cousins are pretty cute. These are my sister and brother-in-law's girls. We used to call the older one Baby Cousin, but she's already 2 years old, so she's been promoted to just Cousin. We can call the younger girl Baby Cousin now.



Young Man loves the water. We had plenty of beach time. He enjoyed it immensely.





Young Man did not believe me when I said there were waterfalls in Hawaii. I showed him!



Island eats were quite tasty. Eggbert's - great breakfast.



Shaved ice. AKA snow cone. AKA island delicacy.



Bubba's burgers - delicious!



Well, time for one last visit to the beach!



Aloha!

An A-Maze-ing New Interest

Starting about 2-3 months ago, Young Man started working on mazes in those kids activity books. It did appear as though he enjoyed figuring out what to do when his crayon would meet a dead end. I was browsing the best toy store ever Philips Toy Mart a couple weeks ago for Xmas gift ideas and came across an activity book that was just mazes. It was purchased along with several other items.



After helping me set up the tree yesterday evening, he wanted to play in his activity books. He found and worked on all of the one-off mazes interspersed among the coloring pages. No more mazes, he thought and seemed disappointed.

Mom to the rescue. I was impressed how speedily his marker worked in between the jumble of lines. Dead ends were followed with backtracking and seeking other paths to the end.



"Go past the cities." "We made it!"

This video was taken with my iPhone. Not bad.

It's Hot

We went on an outing to Nashville Shores to get cool. I felt bad for Young Man. He really wanted to go on the water slides. There are plenty, and they are all fun. Alas, he is not tall enough for most of them, except for the one called The Hippo, which is essentially a huge inflatable slide. We went down together. It was so great!







Normally, Young Man is adept at taking pictures, but I think the sun prevented him from being able to see me through the camera viewfinder.



He LOVED the mini golf. We played it twice. Most of the time, he deliberately placed his ball near the hole for a tap in.



Three hours later, sunned, tired, and hungry, we departed for pizza and gelato at Whole Foods.

Desert Debrief

I don't care that Arizona is hot without the humidity. Hot is hot. I could barely be outside for more than 10 minutes at a time without feeling completely worn out and sweaty. I'm just getting back from Scottsdale, AZ from a college friend's wedding. Having just been there for the first time ever, I would have to say certainly that most sane people would travel there during the winter and be somewhere else for the summer months. I learned this is what Frank Lloyd Wright did back in the day.



If you ever travel to the Phoenix area (Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa, etc.), I would really highly recommend visiting Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesen West. He lived in Chicago for quite some time, so there is that connection with me, having visited his home and studio in Oak Park, IL. At Taliesen West in Scottsdale, even though we spent a lot of time outside walking between buildings, it was worth it. I learned something quite interesting about Mr. Wright that I did not know before. He is known for use of geometric shapes, such as triangles and hexagons, in all of his work. That part I knew. This is drawn from what he saw in nature. This part I did not know. I instantly thought of a certain celebrated knitter Norah Gaughan is quite known for her nature inspired designs.



Trusty nikita was uber useful on my trip. The GPS in the iPhone is genius. I used it to drive all over Scottsdale and not get lost. I found my way to Whole Foods for some snacks and to a yoga studio for my practice. I tried to scope out possible areas to strike a yoga pose in front of a cactus, but decided that it wasn't worth the effort relative to the heat I have to endure. Instead, I took my yoga mat indoors to a lovely studio near my hotel At One Yoga. I wasn't supposed to get the $25 all-you-can-yoga-for-two-weeks deal for locals, but the receptionist was nice and that allowed me to avoid the $20 per class drop-in fee. $25 vs. $60 for the 3 classes I took - not bad.