Cold in Crescent

Friday night, Jamie and I went to the VonOepens and cooked patty-melts, Phil made homemade deep-fried french fries, and we shared a bottle of Woodland Trail Winery's Syrah. Kelly arrived after dinner with her Mom, we visited a bit, and then Phil showed me their new Wii videogame.
For the uninitiated, the Wii incorporates the player's physical body-motions (tennis swing, baseball pitch,...) into the action on the screen. The graphics quality is a little behind the times, but the feeling of physically acting within the virtual world on the screen is exciting.
We had a few beers, while we shot ducks and aliens, and threw curveballs and pulled doubles down the left-field line.
Shelly and Michaela showed up after the Hodag game, and we watched Escanaba in 'Da Moonlight.

Yesterday the kids and I went out to Mom & Dad's. I let my brain work on the best way to help Dad get his photos to display on his new 42" TV. I came up with:

• I got them a half-Gig USB thumb drive
• I showed him how to crop his pictures to 1920 x 1080 pixels
• Then we ran a few test runs. We were able to play mp3 songs over the TV, as a slideshow of full screen pictures rolled. Though not in sync with the music. He should be able to load a half dozen songs, and a few hundred pictures at a time; erase and reload for different occasions. And I showed him how to save and prepare a folder of pictures over time. He seems excited to share his work.

Also Mom and the kids made homemade bread, and we ate spaghetti and chocolate chip cookies. We played ping-pong, and the kids did wood-burning. (And Jamie did a little finger-burning.)