Well, a lot of time has passed since Thanksgiving, now, and we have a lot of catching up to do. Most of the time has been spent with Melissa, Ian and I all being sick with symptoms that are only beginning to clear up now, almost a month later!!! So we’ll play catch-up after this one final Thanksgiving 09 moment!
So he got the costume from the former entry first, and then I ordered Ian this little set that has the “WhyWriter” as well as better fitting mask and cape. He skipped his nap but was still in his room, when it arrived, so I crawled up the steps and hit the sound button a couple times. The rest is in the video.
Click here to watch the video, which weighs in at 9MB, so is quite large.
One other quick note, that’s his “Diaper Genie” blocking the door. Had I known he had done that I probably would have waited until later to give him this. And yes, I did open it for him shortly after the end of the video.
Here are a few videos that show most of the footage from our August Fawn Island Trip… this used to be one big video, but I split it in half for slower connections. If you’re having trouble seeing these videos, you might need to download the latest Flash plug-in. You can find out what version you have by clicking here. A small box beneath with a grey outline should say “version information.” Tell me that number — again, this is only if you run into problems. (I have NOT changed anything about the way these videos play, I’m just trying to be helpful.)
Click here to see the first video.
Video 1 – He’s watched his own videos so many times that I think he remembers what a hit it was to say “turn it on” either that or he thinks he’s telling Grampa Dave to speed up.
Click here to see the second video.
Video 2 – At the beginning of the video, you can see Ian for whatever reason making a diamond with his fingers and placing it in the sky. Apparently he had Twinkle Twinkle on his mind.
Lots to tell you about the weekend and recent events… I’ll do that shortly! Wanted to share a little snippet of the videos I got this weekend right off the bat because I thought this one was pretty neat. It is 5.5MB, and features just part of a boat ride on Sunday.
I’ll call this one Change of Heart… click here to view it.
Here’s a little more information on this video: There’s a thing going around on the internet called a “me-me” or “meme.” A meme is more or less a running joke. One example would be being “rickrolled” that’s when you send somebody a link claiming that it will have important information, and instead it leads to a video of the 80’s pop tune “Never Gunna Give You Up” by Rick Astley. Another example would be the infamous keyboard cat.
Recently a slew of videos with a dramatic animal or person have begun appearing on youTube. I mention all of this because I think Ian’s video here would fall nicely in line with some of these other videos that star other dramatic scenes.
Dramatic Dog
Dramatic Prairie Dog
Dramatic Cat
Dramatic McCain
Here’s a video of Ian being a little on the dramatic side only a few days ago… This is a pretty short video, 1.5MB in size.
I think the segment of the video from Fawn Island with the cookie finally starts to shed a little light on what living with Ian has been like lately in terms of communication. There is banter. And although each sentence may not make sense, I can almost always see what he’s going for, because he’s frankly very good at expressing himself. (Sometimes maybe a little too good.)
Anyway, here’s a big ol’ video again, this one has some great bits to it, and I’ve provided subtitles.
One quick note: Hard to see because of the compression in the video, but Ian hands his mommy a flower there at the end, and his face is priceless when he turns around with a proud smile… but again, hard to make out at this size/quality.
Alright, so now that we have streaming video going on, I’ve got a 20MB video lined up for you. Please let me know if you have any problems watching it.
Click here to watch the video.
This is a sort of play-by-play of the video explaining a few funny bits:
Ian – “I’m on a boat!” “Ride.” “Good ride onna boat.”
(I’m learning to lower the volume for the boat scenes… 75% works nicely.)
During the portion of the video with the cookie, Melissa had given Ian just a bite of cookie for finishing some part of his meal… the video starts with Ian having completed the entire meal, and so he’s now asking for “the whole big cookie.” This is a lot of what he’s like lately. You can talk to him, and generally he’s got a response, and it makes sense. I love when he says “sure” and his laugh at the end — almost a little sugar-crazed.
I believe it was Saturday night when Ian talked Grampa Dave into a boat ride one step at time. It started with a walk, and then a quick trip back in for his life jacket, then a visit down near the boardwalk. And then “wanna go there” to the dock. Then get in boat. (At each of these steps, Grampa Dave would purposely not take the hint… or only advance the process one tiny step, forcing Ian to make additional “subtle” suggestions.) Then Grampa Dave sit here, Ian get in over here. And so on… finally he said “make it go” and “turn it on!”
“Grampa Dave, get my shov-el.”
And yes we fixed his hat there at the end.
We had an excellent time! Looking forward to coming back really soon! (This weekend maybe?)
Here is some video I shot at Connor’s baseball game, enjoy! Some of it is Connor playing, and about as much of Kaylee and Ian running around…
Click here to view it, it could be a little long, it weighs in at 5.9MB so dial-up beware. (This is that nicer format though, so it should work fairly quickly.)
EDIT – the quality of this video is horrible… I’m looking into making a nicer looking encoding at the moment, but it’ll probably be even bigger. 🙁
EDIT – ok so I needed to trade off some different things to make this work… you just can’t have a long-length video AND have it look good AND have it take up a generous portion of your screen. The following link will take you to a slightly smaller, but MUCH SHARPER version of the same video, above. Eventually I’ll find a happy middle ground, I swear!
Click here to view it, this one is 13.5MB in length.
Hi all, today we’re going to try another video. It also happens to be a NEW and GOOD video… a little incentive to try it out this time. 😉 You can hear Ian recite the alphabet and do his best to count to eleven. This is a long movie that has been compressed a lot… So the quality isn’t that great but the size of the video is only 2.3 MB… should be fine on almost any connection, I would think, particularly the way this player works.
What I guess I’d like to know is, how bad does it look to you guys? Would you want to see more videos like this, or would you rather see them look a bit better, but take longer to download? Life’s full of trade-offs!
Give it a shot by clicking here!
The middle part with the diamond, if you’re trying to figure out what’s going on there — he was doing itsy bitsy spider, and stopped when he realized he had made a diamond shape with his thumbs and fingers. He also manages to burp when he says “out” during the line “wash the spider out.”
Hi everybody!
If you come to the blog often and watch videos, please take a moment to help me test the following video player at this link:
Now you should be able to see that it is loading because there will be diagonal stripes animated in a bar on the screen. It is also a much better player in general. Please try it out and let me know what you think in the comments section below. (NOTE – yes, it is the “twinkle twinkle” video again, but you wanted to watch it over anyway, didn’t you? 🙂 )
