Willie and Teddy's Excellent Adventure: September 2010

9/26/2010

I (Willie) have been working on polyhedrons a lot this week (like the stellated icosahedron you see below). And I (Teddy) have... well, have NOT so much been working on polyhedrons. I've got better things to do -- like read books!

Rain is back (and forth -- and back -- and forth again) but we've had three dinner nights in the Sukkah so far, two with guests. We'll see how much more we can, um, squeeze out of it...

Question: If curried chicken is good, and curried potatoes are good, then shouldn't curried schnitzel be good? And when are we going to find out?!?

We got our MSP scores and they were remarkably similar. So, that begs the question, WHO SPOOFED WHO?

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Mmmm, quick smores. This one has the traditional customary marshmallow, but it's been microwaved to within an inch of its life, then smothered in frosting.

Here's the top view of the sukkah from my (Willie) bedroom window. It's kind of camoflaged from above.

But you can see it plain as day from ground level. People mostly didn't invite themselves in for schnapps, but Cousin Jeanie came over for first night of sukkot and Big Willie and Trilby and Robin and Dorian came Saturday night. The weather was cooperative when we had people over, and on shabbat, but otherwise it's been crappy and only papa has been eating out there.

Night time is when it really shines. We got some super gaudy pink lights from a neighbor to go with the white, blue, multi color, chili peppers, pears, and light-up bbq's and t-bones. As you can see, the sukkah is super sparkly.

I'm pretty sparkly too.

We built this new medium sized bionicle but we think perhaps he has to go to bionicle jail after eating a whole bunch of puffs. The problem with bionicles is that they basically just have exoskeletons and everything in their digestive system is visible to the world. Yuck. That is like seeing our breakfast waffles hanging around our belly buttons all day. Bad bionicle--no donut.

I called the naughty bionicle pictured above 'medium-sized' because this other one we're working on is super gargantuan large sized. It's the monster truck of the bionicle world. I'm not sure what it is going to eat when it gets loose, but we're telling Snuff and Clubby and Nim to hide while there is still time.

Of course, it gargantuan bionicle eats any of them, we'll see them in it's midsection and still may be able to save them.

This is my first attempt at a stellated icosahedron. I'm thinking that I can make even more complicated models, but I'll probably need a license from NASA or something if they get any more facets to them.

9/19/2010

So here it is, Sunday again! Sorry you had to see our vacation pictures two weeks in a row. (But they were good pictures, and we had such a good time.) It's been busy here -- ramping up with school, holidays, extra projects... Papa and I (Willie) have been slaving over hot computers on some 3D animations. I guess I should say I'm more slaving than Papa, since this is really his job and I was just helping him out, but to be fair, I'm being paid, and there is all that nice Coca-Cola in bottles...

So like I said, it's been busy. We ONLY had twelve people here for dinner on Erev Yom Kippur. But we could handle it! We were even pleasant to the guests and didn't disappear (too quickly). We spent a lot of time in shul (not as long as Papa) and got totally drenched when we went back in the afternoon -- thanks Seattle for being your fickle best!

At the end of Yom Kippur everyone who wanted to (and had brought their shofar ahead of time) could go up on the bimah and sound the last big blast of the holiday. Teddy and Papa joined the fray, and Papa's blazz went the second-longest of anyone's! Later when we went to someone's house for food and yakking (you know -- things grownups like to do, and drag their kids along if they have to), someone joked he got the silver medal. I didn't know there were prizes....

Teddy is on Safety Patrol, and his first stint went well. I guess it's fun to have the power to stop traffic!

Taking breaks from the grueling 3D work, Papa (with Teddy's help) started putting up the sukkah. It'll look a lot more festive once the lights go in.

Spider season is in FULL blast; they are everywhere. I can accurately say, we run into them everywhere! Is there an online database anyone knows about where I can type in the looks of the spider and the database would tell me what kind it was? One we saw was pretty bright yellow, HUGE, and looked kind of hairy. We're also seeing a lot of stripey ones this year. What's up with that?

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Like this one--what the heck is it? We know it's got good vision because whenever it sees one of us coming, it scurries up into the wall.

Last night of summer vacation and the last sleep-over for a while. Boo hoo.

Can it be that I'm actually happy about the first day of school? Well, I was, except that it fell on Rosh Hashana so I missed it, but I went the next day, and then my schedule kept getting changed--sometimes midday. One day I had Spanish twice. I said to the teacher "ay yi yi, no me gusta..."

It's after Yom Kippur, and the sun is shining for a few minutes so quick...build the sukkah. Papa decided that he needed to put it in the front yard. Mommy thinks he'll end up regretting his decision because now passersby can just stop in for some Slivovitz any time they want. We'll see. We've heard of ushpizin, but we also have Super Soakers and baseball bats--you can only take this hospitality stuff so far.

Okay, I've seen the demo, gimme that drill and I'll show you how it's done.

Okay, I'll do the ladder work but I need the schach. "Bless you." Huh?

Oh, you mean Schach. I thought you were trying to pass something. You want me to pass something? C'mon, take it--it's all pine needly and stuff. Ewwww.

9/5/2010

Happy September everyone!

So we're home from our GNP adventure (don't you think it's funny that Glacier National Park is GNP?), we did the return trip in one fairly long day. Enough with the hotels! We thought the trip was pretty good (if you think that doesn't sound very enthused, remember who's talking here). Good combination of long hikes, good scenery, some wildlife, and television. And ice cream, don't forget ice cream, and a very clever and tasty form of make-em-anywhere (kosher, too) s'mores (thanks, Marcy, delicious and great idea).

Some of us saw:

A grizzly bear
A black bear
Moose (Meese?)
Big horn sheep
Mountain goats
lots of squirrels and chipmunks
a Bald Eagle

Did you know squirrels can sing?

We also stopped on the way home in Wallace, ID, to satisfy the curiosity of Mommy, who had heard that this was the place that had the last/only traffic light on all of I-90 (until they built a piece of highway that circumvented the town). What I (Teddy) will remember this town for is that it contained the first restaurant I have eaten in that provided free popcorn before the meal. Cool!

We had a good time and are happy to be home and getting back to our routines-n-stuff, and getting ready for school. Time again to say Happy New Year and also to say, we'd rather be in school than in shul!

The pictures are pretty self explanatory and it's super late at night, so the captions are limited, like this offer, so ACT NOW!

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Teddy, on our first big day hike (7.5 miles for Papa and Teddy, 5.5 miles for everybody else) to see three waterfalls.

Boys on the east side of the park.

Snowing in August, kind of like Xmas stuff at Costco. Speaking of Costco, thank goodness for Costco in Spokane, WA and Kalispell, MT.

This is David (who I, Willie, call Uncle David). He came along on the boy's 9 mile hike to the east side of the park.

Nice to know there are facilities on the way.

This is Ptarmigan lake which was not our original destination on the 9 mile hike, but there were grizzly bears on the trail we wanted to go on, so this had to do.

Mountain goat mama and baby

This trail had this hose covered cable for the first quarter mile, then they took off the training wheels and let the chips fall where they may. Heh heh heh.

No more pictures you you you so and so.

Papa mountain goat.

Mommy, Emily and Marcy went off to do other stuff while we did our manly hike. They did girly hikes and went on a boat ride and built rock statues and went to a ranger presentation. You know, girl stuff.