Microwave Safety

For class this week, I presented a short public service announcement on microwave safety. Naturally, I wanted to capture my audience's attention, so I focused on all the bad things that can happen if you do not use a microwave properly. In my initial script, I started out with death as the worst possible consequence. Mommy thought this was a bit over the top, so the version above sets up death with other scenarios. I also try to illustrate each of the bad outcomes using my acting skills. For instance, if you burn yourself in a microwave, I jump up and down and yell

Hot, hot, hot, hot, hot!

A line I borrowed from Super Mario Galaxy. Mario says this when he falls into lava.

Check it out. It's important safety advice.

Victory

Today was the Pinewood Derby. This year, Mom pulled out all the science. She got a device to check things like the camber and width of the wheelbase. She got another device make sure the wheels were exactly circular. We hit the weight limit out to 4/100ths of an ounce. I helped too.

Well, all of that hard work paid off. My car came in second in the WHOLE PACK. I was first among the wolves, and I'm off to the Blackhawk 500---the big regional Pinewood race where Cub Scouts from as afar away as Sacramento come to compete. I can't wait.

Hooray for the Yoshi-mobile. And hooray for Mom!

Warriors

On Friday night, we went to see the Warriors take on the Bucks. It was Cub Scout day. Great game--the Warriors led through 3 quarters only to lose in the end. It was also an historic game. The Warriors only suited 8 players. One of them got injured and 3 fouled out, leaving only 4 players. By rule, each team must have 5 players on the court so Steph Curry played even though he had fouled out. Apparently, this is the first time in the history of the NBA that this has happened.

After the game, we shot free throws on the real court. I almost got it in as this video shows.

Church Choir

On Christmas Eve, we had a big singing service where the choir featured prominently. I did 3 songs as well as performing on bells. The bells are my favorite part. When there's a part of the song that calls for both my bells to be rung at the same time, I ring them and spread my arms out triumphantly. The audience got a chuckle out of my larger-than-life gesticulations. I sang well too. One problem is that, whenever I first get on stage, I have the endless urge to yawn. I ended up yawning both before and during some of the songs. I don't know why I yawn, I just do.

Above is a post-concert photo of myself and my friend Katie. This was a special moment for Katie's Mom. Normally, Katie does not like to wear "girl clothes", but somehow Mom got her to wear a fancy red dress for the concert. She's one of my best friends.

Giving is Part of Christmas Too

While I really like GETTING stuff for Christmas, it's fun to give things as well. In my class, we worked on a big project for a gift to our parents. I made the card shown in the image above as well as a yellow and green pot, which I threw myself, for Mom and Dad. I was so excited about my gifts that the very first gift I wanted Dad to open was one from me. Giving gifts is also fun.

Yay Christmas!

Jumping for joy at my favorite gift--socks!


I had a great Christmas this year. I got almost all the gifts I asked for and have been really enjoying them since opening them.

Top of the list are Wii games. I especially like Super Mario Bros. One really cool thing about this game is that it has team mode where 2 or more players work as a team to get through levels. Teamwork is quite helpful since this game is very tough, much tougher than Super Mario Galaxy. Right now, Daddy and I are stuck at the first Bowser level. (For those who don't know, the plot in all of these games is the same: Bowser, the evil dude, kidnaps Mario's friend Princess Peach. Mario must then defeat Bowser and his endless hordes. To be more precise, Mario must defeat Bowser many times since defeat on a lower level simply causes Bowser to retreat to a higher level without relinquishing the Princess.)

I also got a cool electronics circuitry kit. Last night, Mommy and I built a light and fan combo using first serial and then parallel circuitry. Electricity is interesting.

Happy Festivus!

December 23 is the traditional day for Festivus--the holiday for the rest of us. You might recall Festivus from Seinfeld, but it turns out it's much older. It was invented in 1966. Tonight, for the first time ever, we celebrated Festivus.

We started with the bringing in of the bare aluminum pole--prized for its combination of lightness and strength. Here I am bringing in the pole.

From Aidan's Weblog

Next, we had the traditional airing of the grievances. Here, we point out all the ways other family members have failed us throughout the year. It's really fun. Since Festivus is on the 23rd of December, I decided we had to make a list of 23 grievances. Here's the beginning

From Aidan's Weblog

While initially, it was hard to come up with grievances, eventually, the whole family got into the spirit of the occasion and the grievances came flowing forth.

From Aidan's Weblog

From Aidan's Weblog

Following the airing of the grievances, we had the traditional Feats of Strength. As you might know, the holiday continues until the head of household is pinned in a wrestling match. Initially, I was overmatched by Daddy...

From Aidan's Weblog

But I soon spied a weakness and pinned him!

From Aidan's Weblog

Festivus is a truly great holiday--amazing more people don't celebrate it.

Graham Crackers

From Aidan's Weblog

In addition to my artistic skills in gingerbread, I also work in another important medium--graham crackers. Here is a graham cracker house I built in school all by myself. The key to this structure is a "skeleton" made of a milk carton, which provides stability for the grahams. As you can see, my education is not confined to marshmallows. Frosting and M&Ms are also important components.

The duck is supposed to add to the visual interest of the shot since everyone likes to look at rubber ducks.

Gingerbread

 

One of the best Christmas traditions is making gingerbread houses. I made one out of graham crackers in school, but it doesn't compare to the real deal. So Mommy and I made a house on Friday afternoon. It's beautiful. I think it's our most deluxe one ever. It even includes Sun Chips as part of the decorations.




The image above is a politically correct version of Hansel and Gretel, which we read in a zillion versions (including the original German) in school this week. Here "Hansel" (the African-American) and "Gretel" (the Asian) meet up with the (Caucasian) witch at the gingerbread house. Shockingly, despite her black pointy hat and black moon and stars dress, they don't recognize her as such.

Science!

 

We finished up the last week of school before vacation with a little sceince. This week's episode--the mystery of molecules. We made a whole bunch of molecules out of marshmallows and toothpicks. This was totally cool. When Daddy came home, he offered a couple of mysterious comments about the project. First, he asked me about "covalent bonds" (which I have no clue what he's talking about). Then something a bit more delicious--he observed that the hydrogen atoms never link to each other and never link to more than one other atom. I hadn't noticed this, but it's interesting.

Snow!

Well, for the first time in my life, it snowed in Walnut Creek. I woke up this morning and couldn't believe it. The yard was white with snow. We went out before school and made snowmen, had snowball fights, and generally were amazed. I went over to the Bennetts (our next door neighbors) to tell them incase they hadn't noticed. It turns out, they had. They built a snowman in their backyard too. Hooray for snow!

I hate spelling

Friday is spelling test day at school. I really don't like spelling. I'm okay at it, but it's a lot of work and very frustrating. Last night while studying, I got quite upset. Mommy got upset with me as well since I didn't want to keep on going. Here's my biggest beef with spelling--why did all these other stupid countries take over England at various times and leave their crazy spellings behind.

This week's episode: A million different ways to spell the long e sound. I had to spell between, piece, belief, believe, reason, mean, least, and so on. It makes no sense to spell the same sound so many ways!

ghost

 

Yesterday, Daddy and I had a little fun making a ghost picture. Here's how it's done. I first pose backlit in front of a window. Then, I move from the area and Daddy shoots the same picture with me absent. You have to use a tripod for this to work. Then we import both photos into Photoshop and lay the Aidan on on top. We then twiddle with the translucency on the top image until the appropriate ghostlike effect is attained.

Boo! Did I scare you?

Homework Marathon

 

Sadly, my weeklong vacation from school is over. My teacher kicked off the week with what seemed to be a "homework marathon". In addition to the usual homework, she forgot to give the spelling pretest so instead of having to correct only the spelling words I got wrong, I had to do all 22 of this week's words. Daddy, thinking that this wasn't exactly fair, administered the pretest to me at home, so I only had to do 13 of the words (I got 9 right). But even the pretest took a long time. Better was the math, which I rock at. 25 for 25 on tonight's math quiz.

Tonight's homework lasted about 1.5 hours! The photo above is taken during my 20 minutes of reading.

Daddy technical notes: The lighting on this shot is done using a remote strobe placed to Aidan's left and front and set manually at 1/2 strength. The camera is over his right shoulder thus creating the sidelighting effect.

Aidan technical notes: It's not really helpful in reading when Daddy is setting up complicated camera arrangements and shooting with flash while I'm trying to read.

Aidan in the Rain

Another dance extravaganza with props.

Cinema

Daddy and I made a new movie this weekend--my first sequel. It's railroad crossing of doom II. This time we used stop action techniques for added realism. We also did a series of vignettes rather than a single story--sort of like episodes of Cops.

Enjoy!

Geotrax

 

Nothing new to report. This is just a better shot of Geotrax. Here we see the diesel making its early morning run for various machine tools at the plant.

Monopoly

 

This weekend I graduated up from Monopoly Junior to full-blown monopoly. I love this game--the money, the properties, the little pieces, and especially the deal making. I won the first game I played thanks to a monopoly on Boardwalk and Park Place which bankrupted everyone else. The second game was a time limit one. I thought I had won, but Mommy had great luck at the end and pulled out the victory. The third game was supposed to be a time limit one too, but we played it out. Unfortunately, I lost to Daddy and his nasty hotels on New York Avenue.

I get to put my math skills to the test in this game--figuring out the right change, reading the rates on the property cards, and so on. In fact, I've become so good that I was the banker in the most recent game. Monopoly is really fun.

Putting up the Christmas Tree

 

Yesterday, we put up our Christmas tree as well as the outside lights. At first, I was a bit skeptical about how fun this would be, but once we got into the lights and ornaments, I had a great time. In fact, I worked on ornaments longer than ever before--about 2 hours. I also was the most careful person in the family. Here's the ornament destruction count: Mommy 2, Daddy 1, Aidan 0.

My least favorite ornament is one of an evil clown that Mommy's grandfather gave her. I wanted him off the tree, but Mommy put him on anyway. Fortunately, I don't know where he is.

The tree looks totally beautiful. It's the nicest tree ever I think.

Click here for a more extensive set of putting up the tree pictures.

Rediscovering Geotrax

 

As Mommy was cleaning out my very full and messy closet, I rediscovered my many Geotrax train things. Mommy and I set up a big arrangement in the living room and have been having a lot of fun with it since. Yesterday, the Geotrax were invaded by "giant stuffies." The trains were a bit frightened but the stuffies meant no harm. In the afternoon, the Bennetts came over and Patrick and Elizabeth played with the trains. They seemed to love them. A key highlight was when a Roman soldier took a ride on one of the trains. Unfortunately, there are a number of low clearance areas on the track and the Roman suffered smoe nasty blows to the head. We all thought that was very funny! (7 year olds love black humor.)

Hooray for geotrax!