Videos Archives - Page 5 of 7

Lake Videos and Giveaway Winner

September 8, 2010 TechyDad Videos

During our first trip on the lake, before it began raining, I filmed two videos. For the first, I positioned my camera so that all you saw was water, no trace of boat. Then I let it go for a minute and a half to get a nice video of us zooming over the rolling waters. (My niece, S, was afraid I was going to topple overboard.)

The next video came a couple of minutes later as I realized that JSL and S were singing “Row Row Row Your Boat” with the wind whipping through their hair. I realized photos wouldn’t do it justice so to video I went!

I would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate Owen’s Mom for winning the Hot Potatoes! The BEST of The Wiggles Giveaway.

#BlogHer10 Memories Part 1 – The #ChevyBlogHer RoadTrip To NYC

August 9, 2010 TechyDad BlogHer, Videos

BlogHer 2010 was filled with a ton of great memories. I got to meet a lot of great people, attended some informative sessions, spoke with company reps, got tons of swag, and even partied a bit. I think it’s going to take me a bit to process all that went on…. like, say, a week. So, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’m going to declare this week BlogHer 2010 Memories Week on TechyDad.com.

We’ll start with our car ride down. After dropping the boys at B’s parents’ house, meeting CutestKidEver, packing the car, dropping more stuff at B’s parents’ house that we forgot and figuring out how to set our Chevy Tahoe Hybrid’s GPS, we were on our way.

Oh, about that Tahoe Hybrid. Chevy loaned us the car for the trip down and back. It was completely tricked out: rear camera for seeing behind you when you back up, GPS, XM radio, OnStar, etc. It was an amazing vehicle.

We took turns driving the car. B drove first and then CutestKidEver. I was last as I was the designated "drives in NYC" driver. I’ll admit that the GPS directions didn’t take us on the best route in the city, it took us down quite a ways only to take us back up, but overall it was a nice feature to have. And, since it recalculates routes on the fly, you could ignore its advised route and still not get lost.

Before the trip, I had the idea of taking photos every 5 or 10 minutes from out of the front window and stringing them together into a movie. For privacy’s sake (i.e. to not make the video a "how to reach TechyDad’s house"), I started a bit in on the journey. Also, at the end, we wound up circling the block a bit trying to find the parking garage so we forgot to take a few photos. In any event, here’s our trip down in about four minutes.

[flv]2010/08/ChevyBlogHer_Trip_Down.flv|640|480[/flv]

Disclaimer: We applied for and were selected as one of the 10 groups for the Chevy BlogHer carpool. Chevrolet loaned us a Tahoe Hybrid to drive to and from BlogHer 2010. They paid for parking during our stay and provided goodies to enjoy during our trip. The opinions expressed above are my own. No other compensation was given and Chevorlet did not ask me to write this post.

Putting Kung Zhu Through Its Paces

July 29, 2010 TechyDad Photos, Videos

As B posted about on Sunday, we recieved a big, BIG box of Kung Zhus to try out/throw a party with/give away. I struggled to put the tracks together, not because it was hard to do so, but because I was trying to make a self-contained system for the Kung Zhus to run around in. Eventually, I gave up on this idea. The resulting track was too unweildy and sections would be inaccessible.

Instead, I made four sub-systems. The first was the battle track using the Giant Battle Arena, Special Forces HQ and Ninja Dojo HQ. The second was a training ground using the special forces training sets. The third was a ninja training ground using, what else, the ninja training sets. The last was a general area using the remaining tracks.

After awhile, I got the idea to place the entrance to the special forces training area at the exit of the ninja training area. Then, I placed the general area’s entrance at the special forces exit. The result was one long track, albeit one that could easily be reconfigured into 3 separate tracks without disconnecting anything.

I got the idea of filming a Kung Zu’s eye view of the track as one of the little guys powered through. That proved to be impractical, so I just did an overhead video instead. Here’s Stonewall being put through the paces.

[flv]2010/07/P1300776.flv|424|240[/flv]

My Dancing Fools

June 14, 2010 TechyDad JSL, NHL, Videos

Over the weekend, we went to a family wedding. First of all, my kids do not have good track records with weddings. The last one we were at, B’s brother’s wedding, saw NHL scream out “I GOTTA GO POTTY” twice. Not because he had to go, mind you, but because he was bored and wanted out of the room. I wasn’t too shocked when, as the wedding party entered to ceremonial music, JSL started getting fussy and announced loudly “ME HUNGRY!!!” We had already gotten him some food (thanks to the catering staff), but he wasn’t satisfied and got more and more vocal.

I picked him up and carried him outside as quickly as I could, but he got even more vocal as we left. I was able to calm him down outside and entertain him with watching some ants and rocking in some rocking chairs. Eventually, I heard different music that indicated to me that the ceremony had ended and soon afterwards, B came out to see how we were doing.

A short while later, my boys were happily eating – crackers and cheese. The appetizers were being served and they were loving it. At one point, NHL informed me that he was almost completely full but had just enough room for cake. I told him that the main course still had to be served and he gave me a “You’re kidding right” look. Of course, they both almost completely shunned the main course. Not because the food was bad, mind you. It was quite good. They shunned it because it was “adult food” and not chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese or pizza. *sigh* I really need to work on that.

After the cake was sliced, the music started blaring and people starting dancing. Here is where my boys really enjoyed the wedding. NHL and JSL proved that they were both dancing fools, even if video was being taken of them. Please excuse some of the dark videos, the lighting wasn’t the greatest. The room was darkened so rotating colored lights could be seen. If anyone knows of any free or low cost video editing tools to lighten dark videos, I’d love to hear of it.

Do The Twist
[flv]2010/06/P1270974.flv|424|240[/flv]

Dance Around (very dark, you can see JSL running in circles but can’t see NHL attempting to break dance)
[flv]2010/06/P1270982.flv|240|424[/flv]

Music (And Trying To Snap Fingers) Trumps Cake… Who Knew?
[flv]2010/06/P1280023.flv|424|240[/flv]

Shout!
[flv]2010/06/P1280035.flv|424|240[/flv]

By the end of the night, both kids were exhausted and passed out quite easily. We’re going to have to have dance-offs for them more often!

(Not So) Wordless Wednesday: Vines and TechyDad Tarzan

June 2, 2010 TechyDad Photos, Videos, Wordless Wednesday

On Monday, we decided to clear some grape vines that had been growing behind our garage for a long time. These vines were quite big and we were worried that they would soon begin damaging the garage. First, I cleared a weed-jungle from the side of the garage and then I was able to tackle the vines. The problem was that these vines were thick. I mean between 2 and 4 inches thick. I had to use a saw to steadily rip them apart.

After they were detached from the source, I had the fun task of pulling as much as I could down. Some were tangled on lines (not power, possibly cable or phone) so those weren’t touched. However, the ones that were tangled up in our tree were fair game. While the kids looked on, I pulled and pulled and pulled. The vine didn’t budge. Finally, I put all my weight on the vine and it still didn’t move. But I did. I swung a short distance and suddenly felt like Tarzan. Yes, I’ll admit that I considered leaving it up for a fun backyard activity, but thought better of the idea. Our neighbor came over and pulled with me. The vine was tolerating both of us for a bit but slowly gave way. Eventually, the whole thing came down. I didn’t measure it but I’d estimate it was about 30 feet long. Impressive. Most impressive.

Here I am being swallowed by the vine.

Then I went to work on its cousin. This time, B videoed my not-so-successful Tarzan attempts. It wasn’t that the vine couldn’t support my weight, but rather that I found it tricky to get a good grip. Otherwise, I could have easily swung around the yard doing Tarzan yells. (Now *that* would have made for a good video!)

[flv]2010/06/MVI_0095.flv|320|240[/flv]

Now I just need to call someone to remove the vines from the cable/phone/whatever lines.

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