fine whine

This is the first* video I've shot with my mobile phone. I think I'll stick to using my nicer digital camera to take videos, a device intended for such purposes, and not something that ultimately is meant to be a phone.

So what's in the clip below? Natalya and I were running around some hallways, and I decided to shoot a little footage, for, um, posterity or whatever.

There isn't really any sound (if you can't see anything click here) - you can hear her laugh around seven seconds, but that's about it. The main highlight is around the fourteen second mark, when she stumbles sideways, notices something on the wall, and tries to shove whatever she's carrying into it.

Yes, that's an electrical socket, and no, the footage was not followed by her falling over, crying, with her hair all sticking up. The thing in her hands that is almost completely unrecognizable (due to the bad video quality) is a wooden puzzle piece, and fortunately not a conductor. So it's possible she learned about insulators, but not likely.

I almost learned something, though. Here I was holding the camera(-phone) and just letting her do whatever she wanted, safe or not, and I didn't even think to stop her. I'd often wondered why people managed to make all of those videos that show up on youtube or America's Funniest Home Videos of something painful or stupid, without dropping the camera and stepping in to help. Well, it seems to just happen that way, I guess. I'd like to figure out why.

Maybe it's because cameras aren't exactly cheap. I know I'd be in a lot of trouble if I dropped, and broke, my phone, though not as much trouble as an electrified toddler.

*To be fair, it's actually the first two videos I've taken, edited haphazardly together with Windows Movie Maker. I think if I intend to do any real video editing, I know I'll use a better camera and better software.

I didn't post as much this year. Notable things about which I wrote nothing:

• Both of my grandfathers died in December. I still haven't figured out what I want to say about that.
• I failed once again to complete a 50,000 word novel in November. But I came up with a much better idea for next year's.
• Natalya turned 1 year old in October, meaning we could finally officially stop worrying about SIDS. Not that I ever did anyway.
• I left the fashion industry in September. I also read the complete Harry Potter series (for the first time) in under four weeks. These two events are not at all related.
• In August (I think) the guy housesitting for my neighbor across the street passed away in her house, and was not found for a week. I was one of the few people on the street who had ever even met the guy, and I didn't even know his name until he was already gone. In cleaning up her house, my neighbor gave me a nice desk ending the four years I'd used my computer with it and me both on the floor.
• I can't really remember much of anything from July. So ends the monthly portion of this wrap-up.*
• The two hundred or so photos I've posted on flickr aren't even a fraction of the over seven gigabytes of JPGs I've created this year.
• I survived watching 61 movies from India, most of which could be considered "Bollywood". Two I watched without any subtitles at all.
• The entire year passed without me attempting to access the internet with my mobile phone, despite it being capable of doing so.

More ideas may occur to me - I just didn't want to let December pass without any posts at all. Happy new year.

* The only other month-based item of note is in January, wherein I visited Chicago the weekend of B-Fest but was unable to attend it because I was in Illinois for less than a total of 24 hours. Eating dinner in the Signature Room of the John Hancock Tower was superb. Being back at my desk eighteen hours later was not.

I've been meaning to post this for several weeks now*, but I had some trouble getting back into this kind of Flash animation. Basically Natalya did something small and simple that I thought was, well, pretty cool.

It wasn't so much what she did, as the apparent thought process and (very short) time it took to do so. I think we're beginning to see the early flickers of some sort of intelligence brewing.

Enough about intelligence though. Check out my cheesy animation. There's no sound, so don't worry when you don't hear anything. Hit the big green button to play it.

* I'd like to think that now I'll get around to posting the stuff that I meant to post after this, soon. At least, I don't have this as an excuse anymore. I'm backdating this about a week just because it really shouldn't have taken me this long to make a simple animation like this.

I shot this footage yesterday. If the player below isn't working, click this link to see it. It's not long - around eleven seconds.

A couple weeks ago Natalya finally began crawling forward. I'd been looking forward to that development for some time, and she has since had more practice and can now get wherever she wants reasonably quickly, as long as it's on the floor.

Well, until yesterday. Yesterday she successfully crawled up a staircase. It's only three steps, but it was three big steps for a baby.

She breathes really heavily when she's trying hard to do something. I've also seen her stick out her tongue when concentrating on something (something I'm told I do as well) but that's probably a dangerous thing to do while climbing stairs*.

I'm of divided mind, though. While it's cool that she managed to do this, this means now her chances of hurting herself in the house just increased considerably.

* Especially in light of the two sharp teeth in her bottom jaw.

Unfortunately Natalya's got an ear infection again. Two of them. I believe. She's had them before, and we're starting to recognize the signs.

Unfortunately since we don't have an otoscope* we still need to take her to the doctor to verify the infections, and only the doctor can prescribe the antibiotics to get rid of them. So I guess we're stuck with them for now.

Unfortunately their office is clear across town, about ten miles or so, seemingly through some of the worst traffic no matter what time we need to go.

Unfortunately we were running late this morning, and things did not look good for us making our appointment on time. I'm not going to say that I was rushing, but the odds seemed stacked against us. Somewhat anxious and growing more impatient when I needed to change lanes, I ended up getting wedged in closely between an SUV and a big white van just before I turned onto the highway.

Unfortunately just after I turned I saw flashing lights in my rear-view window. I waited for the policecar to pass me, but it didn't, so I pulled over, expecting to be cited for a dead brake light (which I really should replace one of these days). Apparently, though, I had run a red light in making my turn, not noticing this because the tall van in front of me not only also ran the red light, but also was too tall for me to see the light. I'd only looked at the (lack of) oncoming traffic before turning.

Unfortunately the officer pulled me over, not the van. While that driver was making his escape, Jessica and I were frantically trying to find the proof of insurance card. Uncharacteristically for me I began freaking out, since all we could find was a long-expired one from 2002.

Fortunately the officer eventually apparently determined I was telling the truth about being insured, and returned from his car with a written warning for me. He didn't write me a ticket, which was nice, and he didn't even mention anything about my brake light.

Of course, once I was back at the house, had given Natalya her medicine and cleaned up the pink stains from it, I sifted through my stash of insurance forms. Despite receiving one every so many months, I hadn't had a current one in the car for the last five years. I guess it's a good thing I'm a good driver, when I don't have my mind on 103 degree fevers.

* You know, that pointy flashlight/magnifying glass that the doctors use for looking down ears and throats, hopefully cleaning it in between, of course. I think I want one.