2007-01-29
Baby's room
I've been working on the "baby's room" for the past few weeks. I've posted some photos of the process and end product on our gallery site.
2007-01-24
Readings - A History of the Middle Ages
I've seemingly become quite the dork in the past few years and I've been reading a lot of history, especially ancient history. I think this interested sparked because of our visits to Aachen, Rome and Paris. In any case, over the holiday I finished reading A History of the Middle Ages by Joseph Dahmus.
I picked up this book while browsing the isles at Barnes & Noble. The broad title grabbed my attention and the "Bargain Bin" price sold it for me, so I snagged it up. As one might imagine, the book is a bit of a slow read, but it was interesting enough and I learned and have forgotten more than I could've imagined about the middle ages. What I found most interesting about the book was that a significant portion was dedicated to the decline of Rome and the related rise of Byzantium, which preceded the fuzzy delineation that is the beginning of the middle ages. I now have a much better understanding and appreciation of the Byzantine art style that I never quite understood before.
The obvious bits of the book revolve around medieval society. The feudal lifestyle: serfs, lords and the whole bit. Apparently, the dark ages were quite dark, at least intellectually. This is the standard fair in most text books, but the book goes into quite a bit of detail. The list of kings, queens and emperors is quite extensive as well, but most of the names flew by. The French and the English seemed to be at each other constantly. The Germanic tribes seemed to be rather unorganized during this period. The strength and influence of the Islamic nations was something I certainly wasn't aware of, especially on the Iberian peninsula.
I picked up this book while browsing the isles at Barnes & Noble. The broad title grabbed my attention and the "Bargain Bin" price sold it for me, so I snagged it up. As one might imagine, the book is a bit of a slow read, but it was interesting enough and I learned and have forgotten more than I could've imagined about the middle ages. What I found most interesting about the book was that a significant portion was dedicated to the decline of Rome and the related rise of Byzantium, which preceded the fuzzy delineation that is the beginning of the middle ages. I now have a much better understanding and appreciation of the Byzantine art style that I never quite understood before.
The obvious bits of the book revolve around medieval society. The feudal lifestyle: serfs, lords and the whole bit. Apparently, the dark ages were quite dark, at least intellectually. This is the standard fair in most text books, but the book goes into quite a bit of detail. The list of kings, queens and emperors is quite extensive as well, but most of the names flew by. The French and the English seemed to be at each other constantly. The Germanic tribes seemed to be rather unorganized during this period. The strength and influence of the Islamic nations was something I certainly wasn't aware of, especially on the Iberian peninsula.
2007-01-04
The holidays are over ...
The year 2006 has expired and we've slipped into 2007. The activity at work tends to wind down at the end of the year, so I usually augment the days I'm given off with some vacation to allow for some continuous time off.
Family time
We spent a large part of holidays with my parents and my sister. They visited for several days over Christmas. Fortunately, the weather here in KC was extremely mild (~50 F), which is a nice break for them, as they hail from the tundra-like environs of northern Illinois. It was nice to spend time with them. My sister is mega-pregnant. I assumed her baby would be big, but wow.
Gaming
A majority of my time off (at least in my mind), was spent playing video games. When I could get Dani off of the Wii, I clocked in as much time as I could on Zelda TP. According to my quest log, I've put in about 25 hours and I think I'm only have way complete. The game is enormous.
Dani and her sister love Wii Sports. We spent the waning hours of 2006 playing each other in tennis and bowling. Dani has been bragging to everyone that she has a new high score of 235 in bowling. I think part of the appeal is the personal characters, the Miis. Dani and Tres have already had to make multiple modifications to theirs.
I also downloaded the Internet Channel trial for the Wii. Web browsing on the Wii is little more than a novelty at the moment. It isn't the killer app by itself, but there seems to be enough buzz to eventually produce one.
One of my Christmas gifts was a Wii Points card. I quickly cashed that in and downloaded a couple games for the Wii's Virtual Console. I picked Zelda (the original), Super Mario Bros and Sonic the Hedgehog. I loved these games on their original consoles and they are still great via the Virtual Console.
Another chunk of my gaming time was spent playing the re-imagined Final Fantasy III for Nintendo DS. I love the old-school NES RPGs, like Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy I, which I've been replaying in their Gameboy Advanced re-released forms. Final Fantasy III has the same playing style and I believe the exact same storyline, but the graphics and interface have been completely redesigned and they are a perfect fit for the Nintendo DS. I'm especially fond of the cutesy character styles where everyone looks like a 10-year old. It's definitely preferable to the square blobs of the originals. Hopefully the game won't take too long (12 hours already), I have two more portable games in my queue I need to get to, Final Fantasy V Advanced and Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin.
Family time
We spent a large part of holidays with my parents and my sister. They visited for several days over Christmas. Fortunately, the weather here in KC was extremely mild (~50 F), which is a nice break for them, as they hail from the tundra-like environs of northern Illinois. It was nice to spend time with them. My sister is mega-pregnant. I assumed her baby would be big, but wow.
Gaming
A majority of my time off (at least in my mind), was spent playing video games. When I could get Dani off of the Wii, I clocked in as much time as I could on Zelda TP. According to my quest log, I've put in about 25 hours and I think I'm only have way complete. The game is enormous.
Dani and her sister love Wii Sports. We spent the waning hours of 2006 playing each other in tennis and bowling. Dani has been bragging to everyone that she has a new high score of 235 in bowling. I think part of the appeal is the personal characters, the Miis. Dani and Tres have already had to make multiple modifications to theirs.
I also downloaded the Internet Channel trial for the Wii. Web browsing on the Wii is little more than a novelty at the moment. It isn't the killer app by itself, but there seems to be enough buzz to eventually produce one.
One of my Christmas gifts was a Wii Points card. I quickly cashed that in and downloaded a couple games for the Wii's Virtual Console. I picked Zelda (the original), Super Mario Bros and Sonic the Hedgehog. I loved these games on their original consoles and they are still great via the Virtual Console.
Another chunk of my gaming time was spent playing the re-imagined Final Fantasy III for Nintendo DS. I love the old-school NES RPGs, like Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy I, which I've been replaying in their Gameboy Advanced re-released forms. Final Fantasy III has the same playing style and I believe the exact same storyline, but the graphics and interface have been completely redesigned and they are a perfect fit for the Nintendo DS. I'm especially fond of the cutesy character styles where everyone looks like a 10-year old. It's definitely preferable to the square blobs of the originals. Hopefully the game won't take too long (12 hours already), I have two more portable games in my queue I need to get to, Final Fantasy V Advanced and Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin.
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