All things jedanielee

TaeHo, literally...

2013-05-05T21:24:00.000-07:00

It's very hard to get decent pictures of TaeHo. He avoids the camera like the plague!

At church, the Sabbath School teacher, intending to pick up the story from last time: "So where is Joseph now?"

TaeHo: "Joseph's dead."

Sticker fun

2013-05-01T22:15:00.001-07:00

HeeJung has a sticker book. Yes, she stuck these on herself...

Saying, Speaking; Same Thing...

2013-04-22T11:25:00.001-07:00

Our third child, HeeJung is two. She's been speaking since she was about 14 months old. As such, her vocabulary is immense for her age. Not only that, she's been "studying" world flags with her maternal grandparents. Thanks to my parents-in-law, HeeJung know a little under a dozen flags. Obviously, one of them is the Flag of the United States of America.

So every time she sees it, she proclaims, "미국기!" <American flag, pronounced "Meegook Gee">

Today, during our drive, her paternal grandmother was sitting next to her. HeeJung sees the Stars and Stripes and declares the obligatory, "미국기!"

Then, she changes things up, "말미국기!" <Horse American Flag, pronounced "Mahl Meegook Gee">

Why? I don't know. Grandmother was curious too, "희정아, 그게 무슨말이야?" HeeJung, what are you saying?

Now, in Korean, "saying" and "speaking" is the same word. So, technically, it would have been proper to translate the Korean as, "What are you speaking?"

To wit, HeeJung replies, "한국말!" <[I'm speaking] Korean!>

HeeJung, where is 미국기? Incidentally, she picked out her shirt for this particular photo! And, yes, she is two years old in this photo...

For those of you who read Korean, here's what my wife wrote:
Apr. 10, 2013
온가족이 차를 타고 있었다.
할머니 옆에 앉은 희정이가 미국 성조기를 보고 "...미국기" 조용히 얘기한다.
못들으셔서 할머니께서 물어보셨다.
"말미국기" 희정이가 얘기했다.
할머니께서는 "희정아 그게 무슨 말이야?" 물으셨다.
그러자 1초의 머뭇거림도 없이 희정이 하는말...."한국말!!"

She Said, She Said Not

2013-04-11T23:06:00.000-07:00

So, we were driving home. By way of explanation, we drive around in a Sprinter, which seats ten. It's large enough that one can easily move from the passenger seat to the last row of the vehicle.

Unbeknownst to us, our number two child, HeeSun had to go number one.

Instead of telling us this, she would whine very loudly, "엄마, 오세요!" <Mom, come here please!>

Mom responds, "기다려." <Wait.>

A little louder and with more whine, "엄마, 오세요! I said!"

To which, my wife Irene would respond, "기다려, I said."

Without hesitation, "No, you saidn't!"

Ingenuity Theater

2013-02-07T22:36:00.001-08:00

If you've been to our house, then you'll probably remember that you weren't allowed downstairs. Or maybe you came over during that rare moment where we did things downstairs. But most of the time, it has been off limits because I haven't had time to remodel it.

Well, due to circumstances, I've been forced to tackle this project along with Uncle Joe and my father-in-law. Partway through the remodel, we changed our minds about getting an 80-inch flatscreen.

Why limit oneself to merely 80-inches? On a 16:9 screen, the 80-inches diagonally works out to be about 70-inches wide. Besides, with three young children, who knows what will happen as they run around downstairs!

So, for similar costs, we opted to go with a projector solution: the Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 5020UB.

Try 140-inches on for size! Yes, this thing shoots on our wall a 12-foot-wide image!

I was testing things out when my children came into the room. As I had configured the projector for ceiling mount, the picture was upside down. TaeHo and Heesun wanted to see the picture properly so they turned their heads to their side. Obviously, they had to keep moving their heads. Eventually, this is the position they opted to use to view the screen (HeeSun left before I could take the pictures:

An older brother's devotion...

2013-02-01T22:18:00.002-08:00

I did a dreadful thing today - if you have a Microsoft account, you can read about it in my still unanswered question on TechNet. Well, suffice it to say, I started the process of recovering (hopefully, all of) the home videos - albeit, in a crude and grueling way.

Still, I'm thankful for all the prayers (thanks +ss Lee) and because I am able to salvage precious moments like the following video. It's a video of TaeHo sharing his "touch, hear and read" book with his baby sister, HeeJung. Sorry, it's unedited.

Anyhow, I'm hoping that one of these days, I'll have all the time in the world to edit and organize all my media (yeah, right!).

This was shot with my Sony HDR-XR200V, which has a story of its own. If it were to talk, it'd tell you about how it survived a 9 story fall in Peru! Maybe I'll write about that one of these days...

December Eggplant

2012-12-18T21:49:00.003-08:00

Snow. Finally. I can't remember a year where the weather has been rather temperate up until December. We even had an Indian summer.

First snow of 2012

I haven't blogged anything about our ongoing agricultural endeavors; however, we picked our final eggplant for the year. I'm no green thumb. Is it typical to still have eggplant in the middle of December in Oregon?

The eggplant was used in a vegetable dish, along with potatoes, carrots, onions and such. Yum!

Final eggplant of 2012

Finally, one of TaeHo!

2012-12-05T21:58:00.000-08:00

You'll notice that I haven't included much media with TaeHo lately. This hasn't been deliberate. Rather, it's hard to get him to agree to be filmed or photographed, as evidenced by the following picture:

Theophilus Harold TaeHo Lee reacts to what he perceives as the paparazzi!

Imagine my surprise when he agreed to sing a Scripture song - and let his sister, HeeSun sing along! The following is a rendition of Matthew 22:37-39. And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

She prefers curlier hair or bald...

2012-11-28T20:50:00.000-08:00

As I was sitting at my desk working on the computer, my youngest, HeeJung, climbed up behind me as my daughters customarily do.

Normally, she blows "zerberts" on my neck and says, "방구!" then laughs her head off. But, this time, she had her brother's battery-operated train engine. Apparently, she must think I look better with curlier hair or if I was bald. Why? Because the next thing she does is stick the train into my hair.

The wheels on the train go round and round, round and round, round and round... I think you can imagine what happened to my hair.

HeeJung re-enacting what she did with the train...

It's not everyday that this happens; but, yes, I walked around with a train stuck to my head for a few minutes today! Oh the joys of fatherhood.

Did you grow a new train on your head, Jed?

Thankfully, my wife was sympathetic to my plight and took apart the bottom of the train with a screwdriver and was able to pry the train gently off my head.

This is all the hair I lost - yeah, that's it... Thanks to my wife, who used a comb and a pick; I guess she does not want me bald! She did tell me to get a haircut though...

My even curlier hair! Any more and I would have been bald!

What is this?

2012-11-22T12:23:00.000-08:00

Okay, I decided to do something fun for Thanksgiving. I'll give one whole dollar ($1), payable via cash or PayPal, to the first person who correctly guesses what the item in the picture below via email or text ONLY (contact information below):

After the contest, I'll be posting the significance of this picture. Stay tuned and have a blessed Thanksgiving!

email: jedanielee at gmail dot com
text: 503 8 nine 8 - 0 eight 99

One rainy Sunday night...

2012-11-17T20:54:00.000-08:00

We were driving down to Eugene late one night (I had some work at a client's place in the morning). It was raining and I was very tired, which is why my wife offered to drive. The children were restless so we turned on The Piano Guys.

All three of them really enjoy Over The Rainbow - Simple Gifts. In fact, TaeHo actually wept the first time he heard it!

What follows is a completely unedited clip of them enjoying the song to the maximum. We turned on the interior lights to get what little lighting we could.

Chopsticks!

2012-10-29T23:51:00.001-07:00

An interesting conversation piece comes up when eating with Anglos, who typically use a fork as their primary instrument for stuffing their faces. The reason being is that I primarily use my spoon, I guess like an unrefined child, according to Western thought.

Sorry, I'm not used to eating with a fork. Believe or not, you've probably have had more experience with a fork than my whole family combined!

How? As you probably know, Koreans eat with spoons and chopsticks.

And we start them early... Check out our almost-two-year-old, then watch her five year old big brother break out his metal ones (correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Koreans are the only people that traditionally uses metal chopsticks):

Couple days shy of two...

2012-10-27T23:50:00.001-07:00

You remember our youngest, Heliya Jiselle HeeJung Lee, right? This is her after playing in the dirt outside...

Mind you, we speak Korean pretty much exclusively at home with the children. My wife will help me remember some of the details better; but HeeJung has been speaking for a long while now. So bear in mind that she has not been taught any English - deliberately.

Now, listen to her sing the Scripture song, "Ask and it shall be given you. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be open unto you - Matthew 7:7"

Puppet show

2012-10-26T00:03:00.000-07:00

I wonder where they got the inspiration to do this?

What did she do upon waking up?

2012-10-19T09:51:00.001-07:00

This morning, post wake-up routine (except for combing her hair), this is the first thing HeeSun did:

Helaine Serenity HeeSun Lee, 3.75 years old

As you can see, she's written the following:

HEESUN LEE 이희선
ㄱㄴㄷㄹㅁㅂㅅㅇㅈㅊㅋㅍㅎ
ㅏㅑㅓㅕㅗㅛㅜㅠㅡㅣ
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRS
TUVWXYZ
(picture of two girls, she's holding her friend's hand, she said)

I took the picture as she was writing out her numbers (12). She wrote them out to 20. It's been awhile since I studied child development, so I'll have to talk to Sue, my sister about HeeSun's aptitude. Whatever the case, it was noteworthy for me.

Sisters are forever!

2012-09-17T22:56:00.000-07:00

Baa Ram Eeeeew

2012-08-29T22:19:00.001-07:00

Today, we drove around Lake Tahoe (sounds similar to TaeHo, right?). We stopped at a relatively new scenic point overlooking Emerald Bay (incidentally, this is my first time experimenting with High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging).

Emerald Bay (in my first but rather weak HDR attempt)

TaeHo at Tahoe

HeeJung clinging on for dear life!

Well, it was time for a potty break but the restrooms were the outhouse style without any running water - or hand sanitizer, for that matter. Obviously, these did not cost $333,000.

HeeSun had to go, so she came in with me. After we were done with our business, her curiosity got the better of her and she peered down into the smelly abyss. Without missing a beat, she looks up at me and asks (in Korean):

"How did the dead sheep get in there?"

HeeSun

Epilogue: It seems some of you are rather baffled at HeeSun's inquiry. I think most of you are thinking a bit too crass. Time to get your mind out of the gutter! Remember, HeeSun's only three. As such, think about it at her level, her innocence. Then again, many of us have been jaded by our experiences with outdoor toilets, so let me explain:

In outdoor toilets, you have various matter in the hole. Our particular toilet had a preponderance of toilet paper in it. HeeSun was noticing all the white toilet paper. She thought it was a dead sheep. The point being, instead of noticing the crap (literally), she noticed the white "fluffy" toilet paper...

I didn't answer her initial question because I was laughing. So, as we were exiting, she did follow up with this question, "How come there is so much wool down there?"

What 3-year olds say...

2012-08-26T09:25:00.003-07:00

Yesterday, after church, we drove up to David Walley's Hot Springs Resort. We must have arrived around 20:15. Due to their naps during the drive, the children were quite amped. I lay down with the two older ones just to calm them down. After telling the obligatory story about Truck (I'll explain later), we had prayer.

After the prayer, HeeSun started a barrage of questions about God (mind you, this was all in Korean and it was late, so I'll do my best to capture the exchange verbatim).

HeeSun asks, "How is Jesus with us now?"

"What do you mean?" I respond.

"We're not home [in Oregon]..." she observes.

I don't say anything.

She continues, "How can He be here and at home with us at the same time?"

(Like I said, I'm doing my best to capture the conversation that was in Korean. Don't worry, she understood what I was saying. This is the gist of what I said,) "Well, Jesus is not really everywhere at once anymore. But He is with us everywhere through the Personhood of the Holy Spirit."

After a short pause, HeeSun quips, "The Holy Spirit must be really fat!"

Etymology

2012-08-26T08:13:00.003-07:00

Those of you who know me may know that I have a keen interest in etymology. The other day, Wifey made some vegan brownies (from a mix this time, not from scratch). For the children, this was their first exposure to brownies. To wit, my son, Theophilus, inquires:

"I know what 'brown' is - but what is 'nies'?"

I had to tell him I did not know...

Here's a recent picture of him:

Rainbows

2012-06-28T10:18:00.002-07:00

HeeSun helps HeeJung sing. Enjoy!

Something

2012-06-11T20:55:00.002-07:00

Here is HeeJung "singing" along with Something:

Our little helper

2012-05-25T17:11:00.000-07:00

Here's something to bide the time while I work on processing the many pictures I've taken recently...

What to do with all my pictures?

2012-05-17T23:36:00.001-07:00

For the past year or so, I've had a permanent "Network At Risk" notification on my Windows Home Server (WHS). It states that I have a "File Conflict" in a certain directory. I've tried to fix it to no avail.

Additionally, the 2TB Western Digital hard drive becomes "Unhealthy" for some unknown reason. Thankfully, it's been intermittent. I have not had time to address the issue seriously. Instead, I've just been repairing it whenever it happens. So far, it gets fixed each time without a hitch. But I'm a teeny tiny bit worried. I invariably will have to deal with it; however, the question is when...

Screenshot of my Windows Home Server

The problem for me is that all of my digital possession is found on my WHS. Everything! Most of my digital possession consists of audio and video files. But a large portion of it is comprised of pictures. So what should I do? Store them on the cloud?

So I logged into my Photobucket account. I haven't been on it for over a year. It seems as if Photobucket has been allowing for unlimited storage of pictures for free. The catch is that all pictures uploaded will be automatically resized to "web-size," which translates to 2048 x 1536.

If you pay for Pro, they will store your original file (provided it is under 20 MB each) and make a web-sized copy, albeit at a more generous 4000 x 3000. Pro costs $39.95 for 2 years, $24.95 for 1 year or $2.99 per month. The $39.95 for 2 years makes it $1.66 a month.

The beauty of this service is that you can store all your pictures (and some videos) in their original size (assuming you do not have anything that's larger than 20 MBs) for less than 6 cents a day. Plus, Photobucket makes it very easy to direct link your pictures into blogs, forums posts, emails, etc.

Another alternative is Google's Picasa. As long as you are a part of Google Plus, then you can upload an unlimited number of pictures, provided that they are 2048 x 2048 or smaller. If the pictures are larger than 2048 x 2048, then you have 1 GB to use for free. Obviously, we all have more than 1 GBs of pictures.

Once you reach your 1 GB capacity, Google will then automatically just resize anything else you upload to 2048 x 2048. However, you could purchase 25 GB ($2.49/month) or 100 GB ($4.99/month). Granted, these prices are more than Photobucket's; however, these storage amounts are not restricted to pictures and videos only. You can use them to store anything because the storage is all part of your Google Drive.

Sadly, neither of these solutions seem to solve my situation. For me, I happen to shoot in RAW and so all my files are way too big and/or the wrong format to upload onto Photobucket. If I wanted to use Google Drive, I'd probably need at least 8 TB, which means I'd have to pay $400 per month.

This is why I spend my time fixing my WHS - instead of blogging!

Glasses make you look older?

2012-05-04T23:48:00.001-07:00

I've been getting rid of (my) junk in our house lately. HeeJung, my youngest at 18 months, found a pair of glasses that I used to wear back in law school. Don't worry; the lens are clear without any prescription.

Anyhow, here are some moments of her posing in front of the hallway closet door, which are mirrored.

Ugh! Baby Slug

2012-05-04T13:28:00.000-07:00

Waiter! Waiter! There's a baby slug in my cilantro!

If you haven't read from my profile, I've decided to become a farmer. We have some cilantro that just "happened" to grow. I'll explain that one later. But I've found that people seem to either absolutely love cilantro or absolutely hate it. I've yet to find someone who is just "meh" about it.

Anyhow, Mother had picked a whole bunch of cilantro late afternoon and brought it in. During our evening family council, she was going through the cilantro and this is what she found!