Success?!

Juri and I were just complaining about how Sean hasn't been able to tell us when he needed to pee. He would only pee in the potty when prodded to sit preemptively. Any time he was asked if he needed to go, Sean would always tell us no. Shortly after out complaining, we went downstairs and Sean runs right up to us and tells us he needs to, "Pee-Pee Potty!" Good job, Sean!

Arcade Cabinet Progress

I've been building an arcade cabinet for almost two years now, doing a little here and there, avoiding work during the cold winters. As you can see from the pictures, I've finally gone from pieces of wood to a fully constructed cabinet. The control panel is separable from the cabinet, so it isn't pictured, but that is also fully assembled.

Last night, I came up with a ToDo list of what I have left to do to officially complete construction:

• Purchase some speakers, a marquee retainer, a monitor bezel, trackball mounting plate, a putty knife, some wood putty, a 1/16" slot cutter bit, foam rollers, a roller handle, some primer, and some black paint.
• Cut out holes for the speakers in the speaker panel.
• Cut out a hole for the middle mouse button.
• Cut out the rest of the trackball mounting hole.
• Cut slots into the sides and control panel top with the slot cutter for the t-molding.
  
• Fix some of the screws that need better countersinking.
• Fill in the screw holes and blemishes with wood putty.
• Sand the entire cabinet, inside and out, then clean up all of the dust.
• Prime the entire cabinet, inside and out, then sand lightly and clean. I will do this step twice!
• Paint the entire cabinet, inside and out, then sand the rough spots until it is smooth and clean. I will accomplish this step many times until I get a smooth finish.
  

Once the cabinet is all painted and pretty like, I will need to get my marquee, control panel overlay, and side art printed out and affixed, place some Plexiglas on top of the control panel, and install all of the buttons and joysticks and trackball. This is mostly cosmetic stuff at this point. I'm still working out what my artwork will look like. The cabinet will be ready for playing games once I have a TV and a working computer installed inside.

More Potty Training, beatmania, and... an alternate reality?

With the end of Sean's spring break, and after some tense moments, I think we've made some definite progress in Sean's potty training. He is still not able to tell us that he needs to use it on his own, but he can hold it, and if we see the signs that he needs to use it, he'll fully perform the potty routine on his own, with some prompting. It isn't quite where he was last summer where he used the potty completely independant of us, but only when he was completely naked, but at least he now wears the underwear. His routine is pretty important, especially since he has Pervasive Development Disorder, and I believe it is the key to his success. As he gets more familiar with it, and if Juri and I can maintain consistancy and insist on continual potty use, Sean will be fully independant within a couple of weeks! I'm so proud of what he has accomplished!

Last night, I played some beatmania IIDX and realized that I was doing better. For a while, I'd been stuck at a wall where I just couldn't progress beyond my abilities. I was having issues with chords (multiple keys at the same time). In particular, chords consisting of one or two keys keeping the beat (playing the drum sounds) on one side of the note chart, while playing the melody on the other side of the chart. The issue was that I was having problems getting my hands to operate independantly of one another. I'd find that my hand playing the melody would end up synching with the beat hand, missing notes inbetween beats on the melody. I found that if I speed up how fast the notes drop even more than I already do, I can read them better and I can manage to get both hands to work seperately! I've also been practicing on songs that specifically challenge that aspect of gameplay. So, I've found last night that I can pass some of the six star songs now, I've improved my scores on lower star songs, and hopefully I can start working on Hyper difficulty. Yay!

Alternate reality, you say? Yes, there is a new game genre out there called Alternate Reality Game (ARG) and it is a really interesting concept. I recently found a small blurb about one of them in my latest issue of OPM, and I think it describes the genre just perfectly. To quote: "Perplex City - Turns out the rabbit hole for this puzzle-game/collectable-card-game/alternate-reality-game is very deep. Solve puzzles on collectable cards to fill in pieces of an epic story that extends into the real world. The ultimate goal: Find the stolen 'Receda Cube"--hidden somewhere in the real, physical world--and earn $200,000 in real-world cash." Apparently, each card in Perplex City's game has a puzzle (difficulties range from easy to ridiculously difficult) that you answer on the game's website. Taking a closer look at some cards reveals more clues to the grand puzzle. Things like ultraviolet and heat appearing inks, small words hidden in the puzzle's picture, maps of the city on the back of the cards, and huge partial letters make up some of the more intricate underlying puzzling that has to be done to find the Receda Cube. There is a huge background story that occured for almost a year before the game cards were even released, as well. It is really interesting and it has me totally sucked in! At first, I liked the puzzle cards. Then, when I realized that there was so much more involved in it, I had to dig deeper. Now I am knee deep in the story and will be getting my first four packs of cards in the mail soon. I'll keep my progress updated on my blog.

Phew! I think that is enough for this entry! You can keep track of my current progress in beatmania and Perplex City on my blog's sidebar. The graphic for beatmania has my DJ name and how many AAA, AA, and A grades I've receieved, how many Full and Perfect Combos I've done, and how many DJ Points I have. Below that is how many Perplex City cards I've solved.

Potty Training

I've gone on leave for two weeks from work in order to work at getting our children potty trained (and to take a break from work). So far, things have gone quite well for Sean! Yesterday, he managed to wear a "big boy" underwear all day without soiling it. I've been using the Nintendo DS as an incentive to sitting on the potty, and so far that has been successful. Now we just need him to tell us that he needs to use it on his own!
On the other hand, Maia has shown little progress at all. She has little Cinderella panties, and I've tried to tell her that peeing on Cinderella isn't a good idea. Unfortunately, she still can't tell me when she needs to go and ends up wetting herself. Yesterday, I asked her if she needed to use the potty because I saw her grabbing at herself, and she said, "No." Like a fool, I said "Okay, tell me when you need to go," instead of forcing her to sit on the potty anyway. Not a minute later, she pees in the kitchen. So, it seems that she is not ready yet. She may be able to communicate to us better than Sean, but she isn't ready to use the potty.

Extend my file

My wife made a post about another quiz that she took called, "Which file extension are you?" Though I'm not one to do Interweb quizzes, I decided to give this one a shot, since I'm a big computer nerd and all!

Result:


Sounds about right, huh? OggVorbis it is then.

Are you ready for some... Softball?

Recently, a bunch of us a worked started working out who was going to play softball for our work section. The two prototypes have a team for each section plus the daystaffers, and the Air National Guard and NSU have one too, for a total of 14 teams. I decided that I would play this year, despite the fact that I haven't played an organized sport in a very, very long time. Sure, I played tackle football with friends on the Enterprise off and on, but it wasn't official, and definitely not very organized.

My friend , Jesse, and I have been practicing playing catch for a little while so that we could get a head start prior to official practices. Well, we've only been able to do it once. Today is our first practice and I will be there with family in tow. It should be interesting. I'm going to be really sore tomorrow!!

Catch Up!!!

Ouch! So it's been a while since I wrote on my blog. Go figure. I can never seem to keep up with things like this. Maybe it's because I really don't want people to know about what I am doing with my life, or maybe I'm just lazy to type about it. I do want to keep this going however. I am trying to use this as a way to keep my extended family updated on the events in my life. So, I'll keep at it.

So, a lot has occurred over the last couple of months. I had an issue with my car. Apparently, my spark plugs had fouled up during the winter and would no longer start my car. It was an effort to get the car out of my work's parking lot (a lot of security to deal with), but at least everything was covered by the warranty.
Spring finally came to New York, kind of. The weather has warmed up, and then it cools off every so often. We've even had snow a couple of times since the beginning of Spring. But, Juri and I managed to clean out our garage and she also cleaned out the toy room. I'm going to put the arcade cabinet in there once I'm finished with the construction. We even managed to get rid of a lot of old junk during a garage sale by making it free.
Maia got a new "big girl" bed. We gave away her toddler bed and bought her a twin sized bed. She sleeps much better at night now! We even got her Disney Princess bedding. So now, she sleeps with Belle, Aurora, and Cinderella every night.
My family has made friends with my friend Jesse's family. My kids love their kids and their house, their kids get along with mine really well, and Juri and Melissa have hit it off! It's great having new friends around. I'm just ashamed at how long it took for us to get together. It took one year and that nasty power outage!
I joined my work's section's softball team this year. We went out to get a softball and glove. I've been breaking my glove in, and Jesse and I are planning on doing some practice. Juri is really excited because she loves the whole family sports thing, and I'm excited that I get to spend time with both my friends and family at the same time, plus get some much needed exercise.
I got strep throat recently. I've been on penicillin and now I'm pretty sure that the infection has subsided, but I have to finish the medication until it is all gone. Ten days worth of pills, with two pills at four times a day. That's a lot of meds!
Kingdom Hearts II has descended upon our household! The kids appreciate it for all of the Disney characters, Juri and I appreciate it for the Final Fantasy tie in and the story, and Sean and I love the action and gameplay. It's been a nonstop event for the past week in this house. In fact, the kids are bothering me about it right now!!

Well, I think that catches us up. Coming up is Juri's and Maia's birthdays. I hope Juri is happy with the presents that I bought her. There are some unexpected surprises in there! Maia will, of course, love her princess party. Juri has done such a great job planning this out.