Two weekends ago, my parents brought three large garbage bags of my old toys to me from their house. The bags are filled with all my old Star Wars figures, Lincoln Logs, Rubik’s Cubes (yes, I had more than one), Legos, and a mystery shirt from some toy. I need your help in identifying it, please! Shoot me an email, tweet (@danaedwards), or leave a comment here if you have any idea. Thanks!
- Dana
In early November, Moviefone published its Top 25 Christmas Movies. Their list is down below and is touted to list in order the “best Christmas movies ever”. I wish they had listed their criteria but until they do I will assume it is just another qualitative list given by a source that should be an expert in the topic.
The movie I enjoy the most and most people can rally around is Christmas Vacation so it is #1 on my list.
I will add my own qualitative list to the mix of expert listings as I too watch a lot of movies:
Moviefone’s top 25 Christmas Movies list:
- Dana
Simple games are always the best games for me. Cartoon Wars is one of those games. It took all of about 10 minutes to figure out and I am still playing it occassionally now. So, I received about 2 – 3 months of fun for $0.99! 
The game is basically a cross between a typical defense games and an RTS where two cartoons attempt to take over each other’s castles. You create special characters each with different abilities – some move faster, some have higher attack, and some higher defense – in order to take over your foe’s castle. The units change graphics as you upgrade them and include units like ninja, warrior, gunner, wizards, and even upgrades for your primary bow and castle.
To make a long story short, this cost a whole dollar and was a blast to play. I recommend it and have included a couple of screen shots below for you to see it.
-Dana
If you’ve been around me for some period longer than 30 minutes in the last 4 or 5 years, we probably engaged in a conversation about what kind of car I should purchase. This was probably followed by or included one of my lame jokes about how cars should be black given how all except two have been black and one I didn’t really have a choice. The conversation was typically a pro / con discussion about lifestyle, job, the high cost of cars these days, how I wanted a truck and several other dimensions. Well, the other day I woke up and decided I was buying a car regardless of how long it took.
With the help of Jill, kbb.com, and last minute Twitter advice from @cp2 and @canook_65, we purchased a BMW 550i. Side note – I still have no idea how to interpret the arcane model numbers that BMW uses. Last minute, @cp2 and @canook_65 talked me out of buying a Jeep primarily due to them being generally average. After lunch, I drove to Hendrick BMW and bought the 550 from Jeff Shinn (jeff.shinn@hendrickauto.com – not yet on Twitter but hopefully soon) and Jhoda Edquist (@jhodabmwcpo) who were both absolutely awesome to work with. Jeff did a great job with the initial explanations and Jhoda did a great job putting up with my kids climbing all over the store and explained the benefits / programs really well. I highly suggest working with either of them. if you are in the market for a BMW. The end to end transaction was fast and painless.
Now comes more praise for Hendrick. While switching lanes on Graham, I ran through a pothole the size of the grand canyon. I was quite upset and worried that I had ruined my BMW forever or that it was going to cost me several thousand dollars. Immediately after hitting the hole, I dialed up customer support on the BMW hotline in the car. They set up an appointment for me the next day!
The next day I drove the car down to the service area. While there, I treated myself to a complimentary donut, some complimentary freshly brewed Starbucks coffee and a surprisingly great atmosphere in the wait area. It was quiet except for the TV. It was clean which is rare in Charlotte for a service area and the manager (Rob Moore) was super cool and explained everything to me so I knew I was getting ripped off.
About two hours later, I got my car back and it was perfect. Hendrick replaced the tire and rim without any questions based on the Road Hazard agreement, washed the car, and I was on my way. This was a perfect service experience!!!
So, I’ve decided that I like everything about Hendrick BMW and the BMW company after the purchase experience, the driving experience, and the service experience. Thanks for all of this Hendrick / BMW!!!
- Dana
It has been a few months since Brennan and I did a science project. This has been the case mostly because of his fascination with trains, specifically traction rods on trains. I am thinking that the trains fascination may run its course pretty soon but hopefully not before we take him on his birthday party which is all about trains. Enough on trains for now … I’ll post birthday pictures soon.
An upcoming fascination of Brennan’s is Tornados, which I agree are really cool to look at but not too cool in real life for those that are unfortunate to be in one. He has memorized the Fujita scale but hasnt quite latched on to the concept that the size of tornado doesnt dictate the strength of the wind. That’ll be a next step. Here is a quick video of it in action:
To make a long design / science discussion short, the box is cut so that there are slits in the sides which make the tornado funnel spin as a motor on top sucks the dry ice smoke up. Email me at dana@danaedwards.com if youwant to know more about the physics of how it works. Here are a couple of photos of it in action:
We had a blast making it and hope to show it off to the grandparents for Spaghetti Night tonight and Thanksgiving Dinner soon!
- Dana
Before NPR released their iPhone app, I used Thomson Reuters and CNN Newsreader to get news on my iPhone. Thomson was a significant upgrade over the CNN Newsreader and now, NPR is a significant upgrade over Thomson.
The first feature that strikes you when you start the app is the News. NPR has high quality news as you know and now it is right at your fingertips. The stories are updated all day long and at times have accompanying audio. The audio can be listened to immediately or added to a playlist for later. The news is broken into three main categories – Top Stories, More Stories or Newscast which is a 5 minute piece that is updated every hour.
In addition to standard news articles and the newscast, NPR makes all of their shows available to you. If a show is on the air at that time, there will be an “on-air” logo next to the program and you can tap into it live!
The NPR iPhone app also lets you listen to live broadcasts from any NPR member station. You can search by state, by zip code, or let the iPhone GPS app locate the nearest one for you. The stations will let you listen to the live stream or any other program from the recent past.
To download the free app, go to iphone.npr.org/recommendnprnews or search for “NPR News” in the iTunes App Store. I hope you enjoy it like I do!
-Dana
If there is one binding thought amongst us today, I would guess that we are all a little bit uncertain about the economy still. I’ve read a number of articles talking about the good and bad of Obama’s actions. The net of all of them is that there are still two sides to every issue and there is no absolute answer just different approaches to generally make life better. I don’t think any of the policymakers are trying to do a bad job or trying to make the US socialist. It’s just a flurry of different approaches. The question in my mind is whether consumer confidence is picking up or dropping off and are we moving from general uncertainty to a more positive place as a country.
Here is what I think we can all acknowledge. Unemployment has dropped from 9.5 to 9.4. Of course the question is how much of that drop is because people are self selecting out of the job search. Non-farm job loss slowed to 247,000 in June. That looks fairly promising that we are beginning to see a change. So, the labor market appears to be gettig less unhealthy than in previous months and perhaps is on the way up.
The nugget of good news that I found particularly comforting was that Freddie Mac posted positive net income and has declared it will ask for no more money from the government. That bit of good news seems to have gone unnoticed by many of the large television news broadcasts.
The next topic I will be following is the impact of countries who have beenthe recipient of many of the outsourcing efforts like China and India. Recently, I have been reading about the prosperity of China. On the surface, this sounded like very positive news and indeed it is. I think the flip side of that issue is that China’s people will become more prosperous and ultimately begin to seek more expensive goods. This will drive up labor costs and potentially erode China’s price competitiveness. Perhaps, this will bring more manufacturing jobs back tithe US and reinvigorate those part of the country that have been hit very hard by the recession.
I think that optimism will be a personal and business competitive advantage through all of this uncertainty.
- Dana
Today was practice #2 for Brennan for tee ball. This was a good day because Brennan was excited and participated! At the first practice he was a bit shy and I had to go out with him in the field to provide dad coaching.
After practice last Saturday, we went to Dick’s Sporting Goods and bought a tee, a bat and a couple of extra tee balls. This was a big a step because Brennan got to pick out his own bat! Later that day, we set up the tee inthe yard and practiced for about an hour. He enjoyed watching me hit and I have to say that it was pretty cool cranking home runs out onto the golf course. The homers were a pretty good motivation for him to want to learn and the next couple of days we practiced hitting.
Overall, I am enjoying tee ball quite a bit and I think Brennan is too. We’ve never really played or practiced so we have a long ways to go but I am pretty confident that he’ll pick it up fast. After all, he did get his first hit off a live pitch today and he’s only been playing a couple of days.
Here are a couple of photos. The one in the red shirt is from day one practicing with Coach Matt at the tee. The second in the white shirt is from tonight after practice and he is proudly showing off his UNC baseball hat.
- Dana
I think this one is pretty self explanatory. This is the first photo I have taken where both Claire and Lucy posed so it is getting posted.
- Dana
So what do tee ball and the University of Kentucky have to do with each other and why am I spending a few moments writing about it? Well, it’s actually quite simple. Today, the family out of the house to register Brennan for tee ball with the Mallard Creek Optimist Club. While driving over to MCOC registration, I whipped out the handy iPhone, pulled up the geocaching application from Groundspeak, and found that the Big Blue Stash was located with 1/4 mile walk of the registration site.
So, after a brief discussion of the logistics of how we manage the kids as we bushwacked our way along side Stony Creek, we headed into the woods. As usual Brennan repeated a number of times that he didn’t want to go his way or that and Claire eventually convinced Jill that she should be carried instead of walk through the woods. All that said we did make our way through successfully.
Brennan did great for the most part and seemed to enjoy the time in the actual woods. Jill explained to him that when she was younger, she used to call rotting trees – chicken – because they pulled apart like chicken. Brennan took a few moments to pull of a few pieces of chicken. After a little bit of time we climbed over some other trees and brush.
Brennan ran quickly over to some fallen trees to find the cache! Claire was very excited to see what was in the ammo box and Bren was too. When Jill opened it up, the kids eyes popped open wide. Claire was immediately ecstatic when she saw a McDonald’s Doc car in it. Jill convinced Brennan to take a key chain level on her behalf because she “didn’t have an iPhone level like daddy”. Brennan loved it but I bet Jill ends up with it – clearly yet anoher power struggle to occur in the Edwards house. For those wondering how Kentucky fits into the picture, the cache was apparently named for the musical University of Kentucky bottle opener which was in with the loot and yes I did test it and it does still play some music.
A couple of pictures later and we were on our way. Jill and Claire’s first caching trip was a success and I am pretty sure that they had a blast.
Oh, and yes we did get Brennan registered for tee ball!
- Dana
