The Day After

Another quite morning, though a little TV training needed for the new set. Kendall woke me up (am I the technical guy?) this morning saying the TV wasn’t working. I quizzed her to see if she’d picked the right input and she assured me she had. So I reluctacntly got up, came downstairs, stared at the TV for a minute and saw she had things set, until I realized that she needed to check the channel. The input from the TiVo comes in on Channel 3, so I think a little tape and a sharpie on the remote should help.

She also showed me she’d tried the DVD input and it wasn’t working. Since the Wii and DVD both use composite inputs and there’s only one set on the TV. Very annoying, but our old technology is the issue. I did check the DVD player for an s-video input and it has one, so I need to track down or buy a cable today to make things easier.

Yesterday was quiet, and a little boring/annoying for me as it wore on. The kids weren’t interested in doing anything with me in the afternoon, and after I set up the TV, I was left with little to do other than run. Then when the Titans-Chargers game started, Kendall wanted some time, so I hung out with her and watched some TV.

I think I was still tired from the night before, despite sleeping in after presents since I was out shortly after 10. Kendall woke me up, and so I worked a little today, trying to get some writing done while things are quiet.

We did have some sugar cookies from Kendall’s Easy Bake oven. That was a little adventure since she unpacked it and informed me she needed a 100W bulb. I gave her one, she set it on the table and it promptly rolled onto the floor and broke. Since we’ve started to move to CFLs in a few places, I didn’t think I had any more of those, but I managed to track down one in my closet and gave it to her. This time I put it down myself while getting things read.

It’s funny to think that those toys, now probably 30 or 40 years old, will be paperweights before long. With the demise of standard bulbs in the next year or two, I told Kendall and Delaney that they won’t be able to get that toy for their kids. At least not like that. I suspect that we’ll get some new technology in the future to replace it for kids cooking.

I didn’t get to Beatles Rock Band, actually I’d forgotten about it early in the day since all the presents are buried under wrapping paper in the living room. I had to search out my Star Trek DVDs in there, stepping on a few things in the process. I’ll have to get kids to clean that up today.

Kendall did get a cleaning lesson, since I had her clean the baking pans before, and after she cooked. Wonder if that mattered since she didn’t want to cook anything after the cookies. They came out alright, and the oven promptly moved over to the living room for non-plugged in play. My kids have some imaginations, wanting to play with things their way rather than the way they’re made.

Delaney does that all the time, and we had a nice incident with that yesterday. He said he was disappointed that he hadn’t gotten his night vision glasses. It was a “doh!” moment for me since I’d ordered them, but I forgot to wrap them. Tia saved things by telling Delaney we’d gotten them in case Santa didn’t and were going to send them back if he did. So Delaney asked where they were, Tia looked at me, and I shrugged my shoulders.

A trek through the house produced them and we gave them to him. However he was disappointed. These were binoculars, and much better than the original goggles. He said, after reading about them on Amazon that he really wanted hands free ones to play with, goggles that fit on his head in a monocular fashion, even though these were better. He was more interested in having them fit his play than working better. So I have to ship the other ones back today.

Kyle then came over to talk about disk space last night. He was worried about all his music on his new laptop. I told him he’d need to watch it, but if he uses iTunes and the AAC compression, he ought to be fine. I think the disk in his laptop is actually the same size as the one in the iMac from 3 years ago. Amazing how much things have changed.

Overall it seemed like a subdued Christmas, especially with Kyle/Tia gone. I wonder about next year when we’re trying to book Christmas week up in the mountains, and actually have presents up there. That will be interesting.