Over the last couple of months Isaac has been teaching himself to play chess.  This has been a fascinating process to watch.  It started with Isaac bringing home chess books from the school library.  Occasionally he would ask me to read them to him, but most of the time he sat in his room reading them to himself.

Soon he was talking about how he liked to play chess with the other kids at school.

At first I wondered how much he was really taking in, and how close to the rules these chess games were.

Then one day as we all driving in the car, Isaac piped up and said “Do you know what my favorite move in chess is?  When you castle the king!”  My immediate reaction was to think “Yikes! Okay, I need to pay more attention to this!”

Isaac has since been playing lots of chess, and seems to really enjoy it.  I do wonder how long this game will hold his attention.

Cheers,
Ben

It has been quite a while since I have posted here.  And the reason is quite simple – babies need a lot of attention, and we have a new baby.  Kai Alexander Armstrong arrived about 6 weeks ago (weighing in at 10.7lb) and I have been too busy to post to my blog since.

To make up for my silence – here is a video of the bubby:

(For any Americans reading this “bubby” is commonly used in Australia for “baby”).

Cheers,
Ben

Here is a video of Isaac, Lizzy and I having an impromptu game of “hall soccer” with some beach balls:

Cheers,
Ben

As a kid I used to put salt and pepper on everything I ate.  These days I have drastically cut down my usage of salt and pepper (largely due to being married to a woman who believes that adding salt or pepper to a meal without tasting it first is an insult to the cook).  There are still a couple of foods that I refuse to eat without salt and pepper.  Steamed cabbage is one of them.

Recently we started having steamed cabbage as part of our dinners on a fairly regular basis.  At first Lizzy thought this was great (exclaiming that it “tasted just like lettuce” – which she is quite fond of).  However, the other night, she declared that steamed cabbage was yucky and that she did not want to eat it.

As Lizzy seems to have tastes quite similar to mine – I told her that I did not like steamed cabbage unless I added salt and pepper – and asked her if she wanted to try this for herself.  The result was that she ate all of her cabbage with record speed.

Afterward she smiled at me and said “I love you daddy!  You made me eat all my cabbage!”

To which I had to clarify that I “helped” her to eat her cabbage, not “made” her.

At the end of all of this, Lizzy told Werona that we needed to have salt and pepper on the dinner table whenever we had steamed cabbage in the future.

Cheers,
Ben

Well, we are now within two weeks of baby’s due date and are now just waiting.  Last night Werona and I packed the bags for a trip to the hospital, and for the Kids to go and stay with a friend of ours.  We also have a printed out list of phone numbers – and have tried to think of all potential issues.

Now it is just down to waiting for the baby to arrive.

I must confess that I do not remember feeling this nervous / stressed about the arrival of Isaac or Elizabeth – but I am certainly looking forward to finally getting to see (and hold) this little kid (and to find out whether it is a boy or a girl!).

Cheers,
Ben

Yesterday I had my annual eye check-up.  As part of this process I had my pupils dilated.  In the past this has left me unable to do much afterwards as I am blinded by any lights, and unable to focus on anything – meaning that computer usage is completely out of the question.

This time – however – was quite different.  After putting the drops in my eyes to dilate my pupils – the doctor went to leave me alone to let the drops take effect.  Before she left I quickly asked if it would be okay if I played my GameBoy while waiting for my pupils to dilate.

She responded that I was free to try – but would probably get frustrated as it would soon be hard to focus on the screen.  Much to my surprise I was able – with a little effort – to play the GameBoy up until when the doctor came back to examine my eyes.

Afterwards I was able to go home and use computers straight away without any problems.  The only problem was that the world had a slight level of bloom to it – but otherwise I was good to go.

In the future I will make sure to always take my GameBoy to these appointments.

Cheers,
Ben

For a while now I have been looking for a hot breakfast cereal to have.  As a kid I always used to have Weet-Bix with hot water and sugar (and loved it).  Now that my kids are older they often have instant oatmeal – which I am very jealous of at times.  Recently I stumbled upon Cream of Rice – which fits the bill perfectly.  The way I make it is to put the following in a bowl:

• 1/3 of a cup of Cream of Rice
• 2/3 of a cup of milk
• 2/3 of a cup of water
• 1/3 of a cup of raisins
• 1 teaspoon of sugar
• 4 teaspoons of maple syrup

I then microwave it all for ~3 to 4 minutes and take it out to stir it every 30 seconds.

This makes a nice, filling, hot, gluten free, cereal for breakfast – and I have quickly become addicted to it.  I still find it a bit strange to be eating rice for breakfast.

Cheers,
Ben

This one has had me chuckling for the last couple of days:

Cheers,
Ben

Growing up in Australia and messing around with computers, I have “touched” main household power many times.  Australia uses 240v and I can tell you that it gives you a rather nasty jolt.  Since moving to America I have been surprised to find that I had never accidentally shocked myself.

For a while I had a theory that there was some cosmic alignment between me and electricity that meant I would never zap myself unless the voltage was over 200 volts.

I was wrong.

The other day I got my first blast from 110 volt.  We are renovating our basement, and I went to “wiggle” an uncovered power outlet to check that it was correctly seated before putting the cover plate on.  In the process I managed to touch the terminals on either side of the outlet.

As such I can now give you some sagely advice:

1. You really cannot tell the difference between 240v and 110v when it is running through your hand.
2. Do not do this.  Really.  It does not hurt too much when it happens – but boy does it hurt the next day.
3. If you are foolish like me and refuse to turn the power off – always work with one hand and wear rubber soled shoes.  If a charge enters and leaves the same hand – you should be okay.  If it enters one hand and goes out the other – then it just crossed your heart – which is never a good thing.

Cheers,
Ben

For a long time I have tinkered with playing a guitar.  My father always had a played a guitar and I picked up some basics off of him – but I have never been too serious about it.

However, after two years of not being able to play a guitar at all I have gotten back into it, and have made more progress in the last couple of weeks than I ever have before.  I have been playing the guitar every night for the last couple of weeks and can really feel that it is getting easier.

I also picked up a nice grip strength trainer.  Which I am really happy about – as I have lost a lot of my grip strength due to my illness and am looking forward to building it back up.  The trainer I got is a Varigrip – which allows me to train each finger separately.  It also has a callus builder on it – which is very handy as I have soft, quick healing skin which makes it hard to build up proper calluses.

On a side note I have been eyeing of copies of Guitar Hero.  This game came out at a time when I was physically struggling to use a normal game controller – so I knew there was no way I could ever play it well.  But now that my hands are better I am tempted to go out and get a copy to see how I would go at it.

Cheers,
Ben

For those of you who do not follow the world of Pokémon – Jigglypuff is a cure, round, pink Pokémon who is most renowned  for its ability to sing other Pokémon (and People) to sleep.  Recently when I was trying to put Elizabeth to bed, she decided that rather than going to sleep she would like to play pretend Pokémon – and started to state that she was a Turtwig and proceeded to caper around.

My response was to state that I was a Jigglypuff – and started to sing the Jigglypuff song.  Of course she was obliged to lay down, close her eyes and start to snore in order to go along with the game.  Since then, singing the Jigglypuff song has become a regular feature of our bedtime routine.  For your viewing pleasure I thought I would show you the full “Jigglypuff” song:

Note that if your Pokémon (or children) are lulled to sleep by this song there are only three ways to wake them up:

1. Play a Poke Flute
2. Use a Wake-Up Slap (gently – of course)
3. Let them sleep for the night and wake up naturally in the morning

Cheers,
Ben

For a while now Lizzy has been asking me to update the proxy for the kids computer so that she should go to www.mylittlepony.com.  I finally did this last night – so I was woken this morning by a little girl who exclaimed: “I love you daddy!  Do you want to know why I love you?  Because you setup my little pony dot com on my computer!”.

Later during the morning she then came back to me and added “I also love you because you fix my toys!”.

The joys of conditional love…

Cheers,
Ben

A while ago I noticed that our local game shop had a second hand copy of “Pokémon Pinball” for $9.99.  I thought this would be a good opportunity to encourage Elizabeth to save her money (as she usually spends it very quickly).  So last weekend – when she got to having $8 pocket money and was trying to figure out what to spend it on – I mentioned that I had seen this game for sale at $9.99.  She was very enthusiastic about this – so much so that rather than being motivated to save up for it, she was motivated to make a deal with her brother where they both paid half for it and agreed to share it.

Much to my surprise, it is actually a really nice game, and they have done an amazing job of integrating the world of Pokémon into a pinball game in a flowing, and addictively fun manner.  There are some nice cosmetic features, like the pinball being a Poke Ball, but there are also definite Pokémon features – like the ability to activate special modes where you can catch or evolve Pokémon depending on your pinball prowess.  It sounds whacky – but it all really works.

I had to smile though as when we were driving home from the shops – with two children very excited about their purchase (this is the first time that either of them has bought a game for their selves) – Isaac exclaimed “I have no idea what a pinball is…”.  Of course – he would never have played real pinball before – but was still in to getting the game for the Pokémon aspect.  Thankfully both kids were able to get their heads around pinball very quickly and have been enjoying the game a lot.

Cheers,
Ben

Woo hoo!  After years of making our own pizza – a local Pizza chain has started to make (and home deliver) gluten free pizza.  They add a $5 surcharge for gluten free pizza – but frankly I do not care :-)

When I was at church on Sunday the Pastors wife told me that she had noticed a sign on the pizza place and gave me the details.  We immediately headed down there to check them out.  Later that night I got a gluten free pizza delivered to my house (along with a non-gluten free pizza for the rest of the family – plus garlic bread).

As we were eating the pizza (and I was bouncing off the walls with excitement) Lizzy exclaimed that this was “the best dinner ever!”.  It was at this point in time that we realized that because of my allergy – my kids had never had home delivered pizza – so the entire experience was quite revelationary for them.

Anyway – if you want gluten free pizza in Redmond – go to Romios.  This is actually part of a chain that has restaurants in Washington, Oregon and California.

Cheers,
Ben

This morning Werona and I both had doctors appointments.  Hers was at 9:20 and mine was at 9:30.  I was running late.  So at 9:20 I was the only person in the house – and was a bit confused when I burst into the garage thinking “Crap! I am going to be late” only to find that there were no cars in the garage.

For a moment I stood there wondering if someone had somehow stolen my (somewhat broken) car.  Then it dawned on me.

Last night we went out dinner, and Werona picked me up directly from work.  Apparently we then both forgot about picking my car up afterwards.  So now I am sitting at home waiting for Werona to come back home so that she can take me to work.

Cheers,
Ben

Here is a short little video I grabbed of the kids down at the local Home Depot:

Werona and I were looking at flooring, and the kids were going a little but loopy while they were waiting for us to get done.

Cheers,
Ben

Yesterday I helped my (Australian) pastor perform a rendition of “Jake the Peg” at my church.  This was received with much amusement and bewilderment by the audience – most of whom had never been exposed to this song (or even to Rolf Harris) before.  So I thought I would post a link to the original “Jake the Peg” for both Aussies and foreigners alike to appreciate:

Cheers,
Ben

A while ago now my darling sister introduced me to Missy Higgins.  I love her music – and best of all she has made a big name for herself in America lately.  So here is a nice video clip:

Cheers,
Ben

As a child I always loved to play Monopoly.  Unfortunately Werona does not like to play board games like Monopoly – so it has been a long time since I have played it – but I have managed to ensure that we have a copy of it in the house.  Given this it was much to my surprise that Isaac dragged out Monopoly the other day and told me that he wanted to play a game.

We had a wonderful time playing – and Isaac won at the end of the day.  I can only hope that we will be able to play more games in the future.  It is a great game to play with kids, as you spend a lot of time doing math to figure out how much to pay and what change to give, etc…  One concept that Isaac struggled with was the idea of auctioning property, but I think he got the concept by the end of the game.

One thing that has caught Isaac’s eye is the existence of themed Monopoly games, like “Star Wars Monopoly”.  I am debating whether I should let him know about the fact that there is a Pokémon themed version of Monopoly…

Cheers,
Ben

When we bought our house (in 2005) the previous owners left a couple of items of furniture in the house.  Most (okay – all) of it was pretty ghastly, and was quickly disposed of.  One piece of furniture that did not get thrown out was the glass table in the kitchen.  We always wanted to throw it out – but it was so handy, and we did not have an appropriate table to replace it.

The problem was that it was a terrible table.  The table top was a large sheet of glass – but the supporting structure was literally held together using sticky tape (a lot of sticky tape).  Being glass it remembered the fingerprints of everyone in the family – so had to be covered most of the time with a table cloth.

Well – we finally got around to replacing the dreaded table, but then had the problem of disposal.  When it came time to take it down to the dump in our minivan – I was very worried.  I did not want to risk this large sheet of glass shattering and injuring the passengers of the car.  So eventually I proposed that we should break the glass first and then take some boxes full of broken glass.

As I stood in the garage in front of the table top with a hammer in my hand (and safety glasses on) I had mental visions of finding that the table top was surprisingly hard to break.  This was not the case.  One tap with the hammer and the glass splintered into many pieces – immediately confirming my fears of transporting it intact. 

But now it is all gone – and we are free of the awful table.

Cheers,
Ben