Carissa’s was pretty funny though. the caption says: “Thanks for always thinking about me to the detriment of your own mental health.”

CeCe had to do an independent research project for her 5th grade class this year. She chose as her subject the “Golidlocks Zone”, an idea she got from reading Richard Dawkins’ book, “The Magic of Reality”, which incidentally is an excellent book for kids, especially in the app version available for the iPad.

Of course, the name “Goldilocks” refers to the story of “Goldilocks and the 3 Bears”, and Cece used this as her inspiration for the visual portion of her project. She chose to write a storybook.

CeCe, with a fair amount of support from Sandi, learned how to use clip art, Photoshop, and PowerPoint to assemble the book, and we had it printed out as a photo book at Wal-mart. It turned out pretty well and her teacher (and several of the other teachers at school) were very impressed with the result.

I’ve taken the book and created an ebook version of it, which you can download and view if you have a compatible reader. The ePub version should be directly downloadable to an iPad (and viewed in iBooks). The PDF version can be used anywhere you have access to Adobe Reader or a compatible program.

Goldilocks Zone and the 3 Scientists (EPUB)
Goldilocks Zone and the 3 Scientists (PDF)

Sadie

I found this photo in our Photo Stream last week. Photo stream has been a nice addition to the photos that make it inot our collection because the stuff the kids do automatically gets added. I’m not sure they’ve figure this out yet, but it’s been giving Sandi and I a few good laughs.

This is a frame I extracted from a video Carissa made of herself jabbering at my iPad.

I went to China last week, which has actually become a pretty common occurrence for me recently. Technicolor has a large development lab in Beijing, and about 2/3 of the people working on the projects I’m responsible for are in this lab. So I travel there several times a year — actually I spend about 1 week out of every 8.

Usually, because of the way my itinerary works out, I end up having about half a day on Saturday to sightsee in Beijing, or sometimes a bit more. I’ve been to most of the major tourist highlights over the course of the last couple of years: the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, Tianammen Square, the National Museum, the Summer Palace, the Temple of Heaven, Silk Market and Wal-mart. I hadn’t been to the 2008 Olympic park until this last trip, even though I ride by it in a taxi every time I go to Beijing.

The main reason I went this time is that I stayed in a different hotel than I usually do. The hotel was located just to the east of the park, so it was an easy walk for a Saturday morning.

What surprised me most is that the park itself seems largely abandoned. Large sections in the northern part of the park are fenced off from the public and are rapidly returning to the wild. The Olympic village in the middle, while largely converted to apartments, was eerily quiet as well. The two highlights of the southern part of the park, the Bird’s Nest (seen above) and the Water Cube seem to have fallen into disuse as well, with only a small number of Chinese tourists (and me) hanging around.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised… I had the same feeling of “well-meaning abandonment” when we visited the Olympic park in downtown Atlanta a few years ago. It’s like no one really knows what to do with all of the structures after the two weeks of glory are over. The structures are kept intact and minimally maintained, but no longer serve any regular purpose. I think that cities that considering Olympic bids would be well served to keep this in mind.

There is a below ground level mall in the center of the park, and when I went by before the mall opened at 10AM, I saw a few people waiting to get in. So maybe there’s that. The selection of stores listed on the side of the entrance didn’t seem that different from the stores available elsewhere in Beijing, though, so I don’t know why anyone would make a special trip or wait outside to get in.

The Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube are definitely impressive structures though, and it’s interesting to see them up close. I’m also a fan of the IBM Olympic Torch building on the southwest side.

The Olympic Torch statue

The Water Cube

Stereogram of the Olympic 5 rings

This is the truck that Sandi and I drove to our honeymoon in Paris.* I drove it between 1993 and 2001, when I sold it to Sandi’s dad David. He’s passing it along to Sandi’s brother Mike, but the truck has had kind of a hard life, and I suspect this is the last time we’ll see it.

Sandi and I borrowed the truck to do a few last errands before David drove it up to Muncie. We thought it would be funny to take one last picture with the truck after 18 years of marriage. It was kind of hard to keep an angry face long enough for David to take the picture. For example:

And one more with the girls:

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* Tennessee. What, you didn’t think the truck was seaworthy, did you?

We’ve talked about getting a machine on and on for years. In fact, we actually bought a little cheapo model at Toys R Us not too long after we got married. It worked about as well as you would expect a battery operated, hand-held cotton candy maker to work… It didn’t. Sure, it would occasionally throw a few fibers out, but mostly it threw out plain sugar.

We’ve also have had a fantasy that after we pay off the house, we are going to remodel our kitchen. The more outlandish part of the fantasy is that the kitchen will be big enough that we will be able to recreate the variety of food available at the Indiana State Fair in our own kitchen — with a fryer, a soda fountain, popcorn machine, bacon-covered what-nots, etc… The downside is that this would probably attract a non-stop flow of surly, hollow-legged, teenaged friends of our daughters, so the complete implementation of a fair-food stand in our house is probably not a good idea (nor healthy either).

The cotton candy idea has stuck, though, because even though it’s pure sugar, it’s actually only a relatively small amount of sugar blown up to a large volume. We have probably put one of the home-use mini cotton candy makers you can buy at Rural King into our shopping basket about a half-dozen times in the last couple of years. We kept putting it back because we were afraid it wouldn’t work much better than the Toys R Us version. Real cotton candy makers, such as the ones made by Gold Medal, are really designed for high volume sales and are cost-prohibitive, to say the least, but they work really well. So I found one on Amazon that splits the difference: it works like the more expensive machines, but costs more like the light-duty home units.

I did order Gold Medal sugars for the machine, though. If you buy them from a restaurant supply store, the overall cost is lower than retail and there are many different flavors to choose from. For the first batch, I bought Boo-Blue, Spooky Fruity, Leapin’ Lime, O-Jay, Pina Colada, and Tutti Fruiti. For the non-Carny fluent, that’s raspberry, grape, lime (duh), orange, pineapple/coconut, and bubble gum. The flavors are all pretty good (how could flavored sugar not be good, right?), but we are definitely starting to develop favorites. Cece likes lime, Sadie likes orange, and I’m taking a liking to bubble gum.

Here’s a short video of the maiden voyage of the S.S. Sugar Floss, as captained by Sandi:

Mmmmm…. Yummy, colorful, hand-spun cotton candy.

Celia was first up and we chose a picture of Marion Davies taken by C.S. Bull in 1927.

Here is Celia’s version:

Sadie was excited to be next. Her chosen picture came from Jean Harlow. Unfortunately, I was unable to find the original picture on the web and had to take a picture of the photo in the book. The discoloration and small size is due to this reason. The original is a beautiful, crisp, black and white.

Sadie’s version:

Carissa’s inspiration came from Veronica Lake by George Hurrell.

Carissa:

I had so much fun doing this with the girls that I just had to get a shot of me too. I went with a photo that I thought was a bit more on the artistic side and much simpler to pull off considering I would have to rely on Carissa to take the shot. I found this 1929 picture of Louise Brooks taken by E.R. Richee. When looking closely at this photo you can really see where some hand editing was done along the hair and pearls to remove the unwanted details.

moi: With my hair being a lighter shade, I had to get creative with the editing.

When we were in Chicago back at Christmastime, we visited the Navy Pier, where we found a shop that sells small cakes that you can make for your dog.  This is when Sandi got the idea to have the party.

Back in July, when Sandi and I went to New York, she found a dog necktie at the St. James General Store.

Also, it turns out you can make a party hat out of scrapbook paper.

You can see where this is going, right?

Happy Birthday/Adoptiversary, Sarge!

Yes, that is really a birthday candle on his cake.

Who doesn’t like it when someone make you a cake?

OMG! Sugar high! I can see through time!

The cake wasn’t really that sugary… it was made more like a dog treat than a real birthday cake.  It was, however, quite sticky and stuck to the roof of his mouth.  It was like watching him eat a whole jar of peanut butter — the very definition of lip-smackin’ good.

Most of the homes in our neighborhood had Bradford Pear trees planted in front of them by the developer, but the years haven’t been so kind to them.  A couple of times a year we get pretty powerful straight line winds in our neighborhood, and it’s always been interesting on our evening walks to see whose trees fell over after each storm.  Well, this time was our tree’s turn.

We thought at first we were going to cut it up and remove it ourselves, but it is just too big a job without the right tools.  So we hired a tree removal company and they are outside right now sawing up the remains and throwing them into a trailer.

The tree had grown from just a little twig and it’s sad to think that it’s not going to be there anymore.

This is how the tree looked in 2001.

This picture is from a year or so later when the tree and Carissa were both still small.

In the summer of 2010, Sandi put a swing on the tree which made a nice place for the girls to play in the summer.

We noticed that at the place where the tree snapped today that there was an old crack that had rotted somewhat.  It was just a matter of time before it fell, and today was that time.  That’s too bad.  Trees are long term projects, and it’ll be a long time before we have another one of that size.

CeCe has been trying to convince Sandi to let her keep a souvenir of the tree (the place where it rotted and broke — seriously!), but I think she’s just going to have to live with the pictures.

As usual, we put more effort into our Christmas card than was probably necessary, but we think it turned out pretty well, and we enjoyed working on it.  I guess that makes it worthwhile.

The front side

The back side

If you haven’t seen our associated “marketing campaign” by scanning the QR code in the upper corner of the back, click here.  (We’ll wait.)

Now you know what to get the kid who has everything, but you don’t want to spend much money on.  :)

The card was designed by Sandi (with a bit of technical help from me), inspired by a similar project she found by Jon Arnold, who has been designing great Christmas cards for the last several years.  Be sure to check out the time lapse video of the 30 hours (!!!) he put into his card.

Carissa and CeCe made this video using an iPhone App called Silent Movie Director.

They’ve been inspired by a couple of silent films we’ve watched recently, Phantom of the Opera (which we watched after going to see the Music of the Night concert), Metropolis (which is a great example of how people overacted in silent films to compensate for the lack of speech), and A Trip to The Moon.

This is the army of the candy turkeys we made for our place settings this year, based on a recipe from Taste of Home.

Here is what we got in the mail (click on it to see the larger version):

Carissa wrote the script and enlisted the whole family and a friend to help her make the video. Sandi and I helped her film the scenes in front of a green screen. I showed her how to composite the video and then we turned it over to her.

She had a good time making and editing her own video. She’s especially proud of the work on the “Spider Repellant” sequence.

We had fun helping her create what looks like a local evening newscast, complete with authentic-sounding music. It’s amazing how many resources there are out there for school kids to tap into in order to make projects like this. (Let’s hope the US congress doesn’t mess this up.)

Anyway, here is the video. I recommend watching in fullscreen mode and switching to 720p resolution if possible.

The chapel where the concert is held is fairly small and there are only 4 shows, though, so we ended up having to go to the very last show — the only one with seats available — at 11PM on Saturday night. Of course, the advantage of this particular date is that the cemetery also hosts a tour (!!!) just after the concert ends.

So last Saturday night, we all bundled up and went to the cemetery in the dark of the night. Our girls were the only kids present, and we think many of the other attendees thought we were crazy for taking our kids out at that hour.

Regardless he concert was a lot of fun. The organist played a lot of good music arranged for organ, from Tocatta and Fugue in D Minor to Danse Macabre to a suite from Phantom of the Opera to Ghostbusters. He was joined by two vocalists on some pieces.

After the concert, we were served doughnuts and hot apple cider, then turned out into the cold dark night to tour the graveyard. It was just above freezing, but the air was completely still. So since we were dressed warmly, it was a comfortable walk at least… for being in a graveyard… In the middle of the night.

The tour guide told us interesting stories about a few of the people buried at Crown Hill. The most memorable was about a boiler explosion at the Indiana State Fair in 1869. This made a big impression on CeCe, who spent the rest of the evening asking questions about why people used boilers and how the explosions could kill people. This eventually led to a discussion about how boiler design and safety helped lead to the modern profession of engineering.

The tour culminated at the top of Crown Hill, where James Whitcomb Riley is buried, with a reading of his most famous poem, “Little Orphant Annie”.

It was after 2 in the morning when we got home.

Carissa lobbied hard to go as a zombie cheerleader, but Sandi vetoed this idea. The next thought was to build a “ceiling fan” costume (that is, a fan of ceilings) also using the cheerleader idea, but they couldn’t work out the details.

At the end, Carissa decided to go as a rainbow, with the sun as her crown, clouds on her shoulders, the rainbow colors in her dress, and a pot of gold bucket to use to hold her candy. As it turned out, this was a pretty easy costume to put together using the resources of Nana’s sewing room.

Carissa’s rainbow costume, looking somewhat like a very colorful version of the Statue of Liberty.

Sadie’s costume turned out to be a little harder. Sandi and her friend Cynthia spent several hours putting it together on Friday night, and Sandi still had to work for several more hours on Saturday morning. Sadie had to spend a fair amount of time wearing the costume so that adjustments could be made, and she complained about it pretty much constantly. In the end, though, it turned out really well and Sadie got to wear a really cool hot air balloon costume.

We took the girls to the Lion’s Club Halloween party in Claremont. Sadie won first prize in her age group and got $15 to add to her stash.

Up, up and away in my beautiful, my beautiful, balloooooooon!

The girls, Papaw Cotton and I gathered up a couple of their friends and we took everybody out to trick-or-treat last night. All the girls got a lot of compliments on their costumes, especially Sadie, which made her really happy. CeCe’s costume continued to impress everyone, but unfortunately, in it’s second year, it started to fall apart during the evening. When the shoulder strap broke, we had to abandon it at Cynthia’s house, and Sandi when over to recover it later.

Team 1 was the first to return, and they actually beat teams 2 and 3 by quite a bit — at least a half hour.

What did they win? Bragging rights, mostly.

The appropriately named Team 1 celebrating their victory.

This place’s product is required by ABC’s whether they are in Paducah, Nashville, or even Indianapolis.  It has become a necessity.  Their sauce is a favorite of many of our family members, too.  This hickory pit barbecue draws salivating barbecue connoisseurs from all over.  The meat & sauce are shipped all around the country to folks who don’t want to live without it.

Team 2 at the famous Starne’s Barbecue… I can almost taste the barbecue now!

Paducah has been home to some wonderful eateries and bakeries over the years.  Kirchhoff’s Bakery baked the first loaf in 1873, using old-fashioned baking techniques and fresh ingredients.  Today, Kirchhoff’s Bakery and Deli continues the tradition with delicious artisan bread, delectable pastries and fresh deli foods.  The delivery truck is a fully-restored 1929 Ford of the type used to deliver bread to customers in the early 20th century.  It was always a treat just to walk past the restaurant and smell the fresh bread aroma that was wafting from the bakery.

Team 3, visiting Kirchoff’s.

This eating place figures into our family history because Amy worked here during summers while she was in college.  When Chris would come up to visit, he said that when he picked her up from work, she smelled like fish!  He must not have been too bothered by her smell because this is the place he & his family chose to have Amy & Chris’ rehearsal dinner the evening before they were married in 1991.  The original place where these events took place was on North 13^th Street, but in early 1996, that building burned and the restaurant moved into an historic building in downtown Paducah.

Amy and her team at her old haunt.

This place of business has several connections to the Atherton family.  First, the current location is on the property where Wayne & Myra grew up.  The house stood somewhere near where the current office building is located.  There are even still some trees that were on the property when the Athertons lived there.   Dad Atherton worked for the co-op for several years securing rights of way and easements for erecting new power lines.  Wayne also worked there on right of way clearing crews for a couple of summers when he was in college.

Team 3

Each spring, during the Dogwood season, quilt enthusiasts from all over the world flock to Paducah for the National Quilt Society’s annual event. The Quilt Show is one of Paducah’s largest events of the year and draws large revenue in tourism. Hotels for miles around the city fill up months in advance of the show. The Museum currently averages more than 40,000 visitors per year from across the country and at least 25 foreign countries.

Make a photo of your group in front of the large circular sign bearing the name of the museum.

Make another photo of your group in front of the historical marker that proclaims Paducah as Quilt City, USA.

Team 2 in front of the museum, which incidentally, and unbeknownst to Myra, no longer has the big circular sign.

Team 3

Team 1 by the historical marker.

The next stops on the ABC Scavenger Hunt:

Amy worked here while she was in high school. She earned a college scholarship for working a certain number of hours there while she was in high school. The store is not open on Sundays because the owner of the chain is devoutly religious and believes that Sunday is a day of rest. There are two locations now, but there was only one in Paducah at that time.
Your whole team is to go into the place where Amy worked – not the free-standing one. One person should get a take-out menu or some other article to prove you were there in addition to a picture of your group at the entrance to the store.

The Chick-Fil-A in Kentucky Oaks Mall. Amy returns to her old haunt, and looks like she’s ready to go back to work. Or not.

“Ice Cream of the Future” is made in Paducah.
Now find Dippin’ Dots close by where Amy worked and use the enclosed money to get a small treat for everyone in your group.
Make 2 pics: one of your group with the person who fills your order and
the other showing a close-up of a dish of Dippin’ Dots. (And as Mom Atherton would say, bring back the change!”)

Team 2 and their yummy treats.

This is the house where Mom & Dad Atherton lived. They moved to this location when Wayne was attending PJC, and Myra was a junior at PTHS in the early 1960′s. The house was built around 1905 by a prominent Jewish family in Paducah’s history. During the 1937 flood when Paducah was devastated, as many as 15-20 people lived in the upstairs of the house until the flood waters receded. It was only possible to reach the house by boat. Next door to this house used to stand a large church where Dad Atherton pastored. The building is gone now, but steps leading up to the building are still there.

Make a picture of your group standing on those steps with Mom & Dad Atherton’s house in the background.

Go next door and make a pic of your group in front of the antique road grader.

Team 1, with the Atherton’s house in the background

Team 3

Team 2, on the old road grader with the Jackson House in the background.

Wayne & Myra are both alumni of Paducah Junior College (PJC). Wayne attended both years at the old location. Myra attended one year at the old location and the second year at the new location where it was moved just before her sophomore year. It eventually became Paducah Community College (PCC) after becoming a part of the University of Kentucky community college system. Today is is know as West Kentucky Community and Technical College (WKCTC). The buildings which housed the original PJC have long since been razed.

Your mission is to find the old location and make a photo of your group in front of the church sign that now sits on that old PJC site.

Now find the new location and make a group picture on the steps of the administration building.

First the new site:

Team 3 planking into a regular wood pile.

Team 2

Team 1 at the original site, now part of the Broadway United Methodist Church.

Part of the time Susan lived in Paducah, she & her family lived in this house on the corner. Before that, her family lived one street over in what was known as the Clayshire neighborhood. Her parents were still living in this house when Wayne & Susan married.

Make a picture of your team standing by the street sign that shows the location of the house. Watch out for traffic!!!

Extra Bonus Points: Extra bonus points will be awarded if you know the name of Susan’s dad’s big ole dog. Use the enclosed paper & marker to write the name & have one of your team hold it so it is visible in another photograph of your group at this location.

Team 2

Team 1

Team 3

BTW, The dog’s name is Henry… I’m going to see if I can find a picture of Henry. He has to have been among the top ten of all-time ugly dogs.

Go to the main entrance and send at least 2 of your team members into the lobby to get a hospital directory or ask one of the ladies at desks to the right inside the front doors for either a hospital directory or an Advanced Directive brochure. (It might be polite to tell them that you are on a family scavenger hunt, learning about Paducah.)

Western Kentucky’s rich heritage comes alive on Floodwall Murals painted by Muralist, Robert Dafford.
Look at the murals and have your team decide which mural to stand in front of for a group photo.

Team 1, next to the mural entitled “Boat Repair”.

Team 2, by the mural “Paducah, 1873″

Team 3, by the mural “Welcome to the Atomic City”. Team 3 chose this one because Susan’s father, Charles Green, worked at the Union Carbide plant that was the source of this nickname for Paducah.

To be fair, almost all of the participants have either never lived in Kentucky or haven’t lived there in 40 years, so it’s not surprising that we only sort of knew the tune to a song written in 1852.

Without further ado, here is team 1:

Team 2:

Team 3:

WELCOME TO KENTUCKY!!!  This is hardly your average rest stop. This magnificent landmark home along I-24 serves as a Tourist Welcome Center. This lovely mansion is by far the most exquisite visitors’ center and rest stop in the nation. It is a must stop rest stop.

Your mission here is two-fold. 1.  All team members need to go into the mansion to have a quick look.  While inside, get either a map of Kentucky or some kind of written information about the Welcome Center and its history.  2.  Next assemble your team on the front steps and video your group singing the chorus of “My Old Kentucky Home”.  Just in case the group is not familiar with the words, they are included in your folder (surely at least one of your team will at least know the tune!!!).

Extra Bonus Points: If anyone knows the name of the Bluegrass State Song of Kentucky, write it in big letters on the paper provided and photograph your team holding the sign by the front door of the mansion.

Mortal enemies Team 2 and Team 3 take a short break from hostilities and pose together at the welcome center.  The truce was only temporary though, as the battle for second place was in full swing (Team 1 having already arrived back at Myra’s house at least 30 minutes before this picture was taken).

Team 1, in a picture taken much earlier.

BTW, the Kentucky State Bluegrass Song is “Blue Moon of Kentucky.”

Also, Elvis.

Next up, to everyone’s chagrin: each team singing “My Old Kentucky Home”.

Myra & Bill volunteered for several years at this 44 million dollar state of the art performance facility and saw many, many shows – some good, some not so good.

Since the Box Office is closed on Saturdays, photograph your group in front of the sign on the corner with the Center in the background.

Team 2 brings you the picture that tells the story of the day:  It was hot!!!

When we started on the scanner hunt, we didn’t know that we would be scavenging in desert heat.  The temperature got up to 103 degrees during the day, and that made it more than a little difficult for everyone to keep getting out of their air-conditioned cars to go take more pictures.  But hey, if there wasn’t at least a little bit of struggle, the stories wouldn’t be as good afterwards, right?

The Carnegie Library where Wayne, Susan & Myra first learned about libraries burned in 1964, but your mission is to go to the location where the old library stood.

Photograph all of your team by the church sign that has been erected there.

NOW your next assignment is to find the Floodwall picture that shows the original Carnegie Library in Paducah.  Make a photo of your team in front of that picture.

Team 1 at the library site.  Planking continues to be a favorite option.

Team 2′s turn.

Sadie and the disembodied heads of Team 3.

Mural of the Carnegie Library on the Paducah flood wall, brought to you by team 1.

The University of Louisville has a photographic plate of the library from sometime around 1900.

Wayne and Susan have a piece of marble from the old library at their house.  It was bought by Susan’s parents when the library was torn down.

Immanuel Baptist Church – Amy & Chris were married here about 20 years ago.  Myra, Jim & Julie were members here when Jim & Julie died.  Myra & Bill were also married here.

This is one of the few times that all of team 3 was in the same picture.  That’s Kevin’s finger up in the top left!

Team 2