Some Photos

Here are some photos of me in wine country.

Napa July 2006

Here are some photos Daddy took when he was in Berlin recently.

Berlin

A Game I Invented

As you know, I love card games. Recently, Mommy got me a Thomas the Tank Engine Sodor Celebration card game, which I've now played about a gazillion times. In this game, there are five different colors of cards. Each player is dealt four cards face up and is tasked with acquiring one engine card, one letter card, one ticker card, and one present card all of the same color. The first to do this wins the game. Acquiring cards uses the same rules as rummy.

Anyway, after many plays of the traditional game, I invented a rather interesting version of the game myself. In my version, each player receives three cards, face down. Then one card is turned up as the trump suit. The eldest hand leads a card and others have to match the color of the card led or play trump. The hand is won by the highest card of the correct color played where the ranks of cards are determined by the size of the objects depicted on them. So an engine beats a present, which beats an envelope, which beats a ticket. After a hand is played, each player takes a new card from the deck so as to hold three cards at all times. The winner is the player taking the most tricks. There are some wild cards too.

Daddy was very impressed with the complexity of this game construction and enjoyed playing a couple of times.

Oakland A's Game

Yesterday was guys day. I went to work with Daddy in the morning. While Daddy took a bunch of phone calls, my work consisted of playing on the computer with the Wonder Pets and Go Diego Go. After this, we got to visit the Dean's office to get some chocolate and then went off to the baseball game. I was all dressed up in my Oakland A's outfit, which is really great since it has my two favorite colors--yellow and green. We had special seats which required us to walk through the clubhouse where the players are to get to the seats. There was a red line on the floor. We were supposed to stay to the left side of the red line so the players would have room to walk in the opposite direction.

I loved the game. We had popcorn and ice cream and lots of other goodies. I also managed to get on the big TV screen in the ballpark by holding up a couple of BART tickets and jumping up and down. Daddy pointed me to the camera man and he shot some pictures. A bunch of people recognized me on the way out of the stadium from my TV appearance.

I also initiated a chant in the section I was in. I started saying, "Let's go Oakland" and then clapping rhythmically. Soon other people in the section picked up the chant.

The game was a good one. The A's won 5-1 on the strength of "stick guy"--Frank Thomas. We called him that becuase, unlike the other players, Thomas warms up by swinging a big, heavy lead stick in the on-deck circle before grabbing a bat. The stick swining apparently works since Thomas hit two home runs yeaterday--effectively beating the Boston Red Sox all by himself.

Golden Unicorn Award

I managed a much faster completion of putting on my clothes--only 63 seconds. For this, Daddy gave me the golden unicorn award, which I wore proudly. Our housekeeper, Violeta, and her daughter, Melanie, were in the house today, so I thought I'd show them my award. They were impressed. I decided to make them some awards too. I made Violeta a golden lion award and Melanie a golden tiger. They were very surprised and happy with their awards.

Chicken to Ride

I like to sing and make up all sorts of songs. Indeed, my life somewhat resembles that of a Broadway musical in that I can break out in song at any instant. When it's not a Broadway musical, my speech is taking on more patterns of Cockney slang---I love to answer in nonsense rhymes to things. Anyway, I was singing a song the other day and remembered that Daddy had the song on his iPod. The song was "Chicken to Ride". Mommy didn't know this song until I sang her a little bit of it:

She's got a chicken to ride
She's got a chicken to ri-i-ide
She's got a chicken to ride, and she don't care.

Golden Snail Award

As you know, I'm not that fast when it comes to getting dressed. Yesterday, I competed in a getting dressed race. From the start time of removing my pajamas to the ending time of getting my last sock on, it took me 154 seconds. This was good enough for Daddy to give me the "Golden Snail Award". The award consists of a yellow piece of paper with a snail on it. It is also customized with the "winning" time of 154 seconds. I wore it proudly. Next up, the golden turtle award if I can get down below 120 seconds.

The Attack of Robot X

Daddy came home from New York yesterday. Today, we spent a lot of time together playing with Legos. In the course of this, we played "The Attack of Robot X -- The Scourge of Alpha Centauri." In these stories, Robot X (pictured above next to me) attacks a poor unsuspecting Lego city like Sunnyvale and destroys it. Sometimes Robot X faces severe opposition. For instance, when Robot X attacked Lego-Orlando, a robot Mickey Mouse and a robot Goofy fought him (unsuccessfully) in the defense of Orlando. In the course of the adventures, Daddy taught me about "plot twists", which are part of what make the stories exciting. For instance, Robot X has occasionally faced a really powerful robot who could defeat him. Instead, Robot X turns the rival robot to the side of the machines and away from the "humanoids" and thereby seals the fate of the city. We also did some the other way around where Robot X is reprogrammed by the people who live in the city to protect the city rather than destroy it.

This is the most fun with Legos ever!

In other news, Daddy put up a couple of photos from the 4th of July parade in Danville. This year's parade featured the Budweiser Clydesdales and the beer guys delivering beer. Unfortunately, they were not handing out free samples to the people watching the parade. See the pictures here.

Fireworks

It was an exciting fourth of July for us. In the morning, we went to the 4th of July parade in Danville. It had all the usual goodies--free ice cream, frisbees, and so on. It also featured Mr. Funnelhead, a person dressed up as a giant funnel promoting clean water. I am now the proud owner of Mr. Funnelhead stickers. There were, however, some things I didn't like. The loud sirens of an old-fashioned ambulance were not appreciated nor was the parade of shotgun carrying guys that always come at the end of the parade.

After that, we went home and watched a bit of the World Cup. Naturally, I was rooting for the Italians since they were wearing red as opposed to the Germans who were in the home whites. Italy prevailed 2-0. Even better was popping a whole bunch of what I call "streamers", but which go by the official name of party poppers. They don't make a really loud bang and the streamers that come out are really exciting. I collected a massive streamer pile from these.

We had a cookout that evening (featuring tofu dogs for me) and then went off to see fireworks. I loved seeing these. There were ones shaped like smiley faces, some that looked like the quills of an upside-down porcupine, shimmery ones, and lots of others. I brought earplugs to muffle the loud booms, but fortunately we were far enough away that the booms weren't that loud.

Throughout the day, I kept asking why there were all these American flags waving. Mommy and Daddy explained to me that we were celebrating our becoming a nation. Daddy helpfully added that we were previously part of England. Still not sure why we split up with the land of Kipper and Thomas, but we do have a very nice flag.

Aidanninho!

This weekend was a great weekend for soccer. For one thing, we saw two world cup matched in TV. In the first, Portugal defeated England on penalty kicks while in the second Brazil lost to France 1-0. Back to the first match---my loyalties were very torn in this match. England, being the home of Thomas the Tank Engine and Kipper the Dog, holds a special place in my heart, but their boring white uniforms held no aesthetic appeal. Portugal, smartly dressed in crimson, offered sartorial splendor, but nothing else in terms of literary achievements. I rooted for both teams, but by then end sartorial splendor won out. I was rooting for Portugal on the penalties as Daddy writhed on the floor with the never-ending futility of rooting for England. Meanwhile, in the second match, Daddy and I both rooted for Brazil. He because of some dislike of France, me because Brazil wears yellow uniforms with green letters and numbers---what could be better. Sadly, Brazil was not up to the challenge and lost.

After that, we played a bunch of soccer games outside over the weekend. I invented a game called soccer tag. The "it" person has to kick the ball to strike the non-"it" person. Of course, no hands are allowed in soccer tag. We also replayed the Brazil-France match a zillion times. I was Brazil's yougest star striker---Aidanninho---while Daddy played for France. Usually, he was Zidane, but at times he was Henry and Ribery. Unlike in the real World Cup, Brazil won decisively in our pretend games. Aindanninho set many world records in terms of goals scored.

Gooooooaalllllll!!!!!