Wiipairs Follow Up

Okay, so disregard my previous praise for Nintendo customer service.

As you surely already know, my wife is much smarter than I am, and she didn't understand why we had to PAY to have the Wii Balance Board fixed since it's less than a year old.

So I looked up the Wii Balance Board user manual (click for PDF file) to read what the warranty said. On page 12, it says...

"HARDWARE WARRANTY
Nintendo of America Inc. ("Nintendo") warrants to the original purchaser that the hardware product shall be free from defects in material and workmanship for twelve (12) months from the date of purchase. If a defect covered by this warranty occurs during this warranty period, Nintendo will repair or replace the defective hardware product or component, free of charge."

I said to myself, "Self, how long have we really had the Wii Balance Board? I think your Lovely Wife is right and it has been less than a year." I checked my blog, and sure enough, LW bought it on 22 May 2008. So we were absolutely within the 12 month warranty on the hardware and should not have to pay for the repairs, right???

I called Nintendo customer service back to point out the error. The customer service representative claimed that the Wii Balance Board is an "accessory" not "hardware," and the warranty on page 12 goes on to state...

"GAME & ACCESSORY WARRANTY
Nintendo warrants to the original purchaser that the product (games and accessories) shall be free from defects in material and workmanship for a period of three (3) months from the date of purchase..."

I threw the BS flag on that.

This is the user manual for THE WII BALANCE BOARD. What other HARDWARE came with the WII BALANCE BOARD???

NONE!

The WII BALANCE BOARD IS THE HARDWARE!!!

Saying that the Wii Balance Board falls under the accessory clause of the Wii Balance Board User Manual is like saying the Will Balance Board is an accessory to itself. Where's the beef I mean, hardware?

An accessory to the Wii Balance Board would be the silicone cover or the rechargable battery pack my wife bought for it. If Nintendo didn't want to give a 12 month warranty with the balance board itself, then they shouldn't have printed that in the HARDWARE section of the manual for the BALANCE BOARD.

The customer service rep said that it is a standard warranty blurb they print in all their manuals and the intent was the 12 month "hardware" warranty was on the Wii CONSOLE. I said then they should WRITE that in the warranty because I consider the balance board to be "hardware," especially when this is the Wii Balance Board Manual I'm reading, not a a Wii Console manual.

When I spoke with the customer service rep's supervisor, the supervisor pointed out a sentence on page 1 of the user manual, "Please carefully and completely read the Wii™ Operations Manual - System Setup before using this accessory." (emphasis mine) and declared therefore it is clearly an accessory. He stood his ground based on that sentence on page 1 and insisted the Balance Board is obviously an accessory and therefore only has a 3 month warranty.

I don't think I'm totally crazy here folks. It just doesn't pass the "average Joe" / common sense test in my mind.

In fact, I challenge Nintendo to do a study of random people on the street.

I challenge Nintento to walk up to a hundred random people on the street, hand them the Wii Balance Board User Manual, and ask them, "How long is the warranty on the Wii Balance Board?" I bet MOST if not all of them will flip to the warranty on page 12, read it, and say, "It's hardware, so the warranty is for 12 months." (Oh, and no fair asking 100 "random" people on the Nintendo campus or at a law school where they nitpick stupid stuff like this.)

For a single data point, I approached one of my coworkers in the office this afternoon. I handed him a print out of the manual. Without telling him why I was asking, I asked him how long he thought the warranty was good for on the Wii Balance Board. He flipped through to the warranty section, he read it, and he said, "it says the hardware is covered for 12 months."

What do you think? Am I crazy?

Yes, yes, I said myself up above that this is nitpicky stupid stuff. That's why I stopped arguing with the guy on the phone - I wasn't getting anywhere with him. It feels good to vent though.

Wiipairs

So our Wii Balance Board died.

Normally when you power it up and step onto the board, there's a big green blob that shows up on the screen - normally somewhere in the center of the screen depending on your center of balance. Well, the green blob was showing up ALL the way on the RIGHT edge of the screen.

I called Nintendo.

First, I was impressed with how easy it was to get a human being on the phone.

Second, I was impressed that said human being spoke English and was both friendly and competent. She walked me through a simple diagnostic test on the Wii that showed one of the left side sensors in the board had gone bad.

Third, I give Nintendo a thumbs-up for turnaround time. I dropped the broken balance board off at the postal annex last Friday afternoon. Today, exactly one week later, we received a new-in-the-box replacement balance board with a note saying they confirmed my board was broken.

Overall, I give gave Nintendo Customer Service 4 1 out of 5 stars.
Pretty good, but they didn't go the extra mile, and they didn't honor the warranty on the Wii Balance Board. (Text in red updated 5/4/2009, click the link to read the follow-up.)

What do I mean by the extra mile?

The places that I would give 5 stars for going the extra mile (3Com, Garmin, Dish Network) earned it by immediately shipping me a replacement unit (not necessarily brand new - more likely a refurbished unit). It got me back in business sooner, and it made the shipping a lot easier.

Consider:

Option A: Me or my wife having to go to a Mailboxes Etc or UPS or FEDEX store to get the Wii Balance Board packaged up, send it in, wait for Nintendo to receive it, repair or replace it, and ship it back to me.

Option B: Nintendo ships me a replacement unit. I open the box, take out the replacement, put the broken one in the box, slap the prepaid return shipping label that was in the box, and hand it back to the FEDEX delivery guy.

Yyyyyeah... I much prefer Option B.

Wii Fit versus My Fitness Coach

VS

Friends of ours asked for us to compare and contrast the Wii Fit and the new My Fitness Coach that my wife just picked up. Both have good points and bad points - it'd be nice if there was a combination of the two.

Based on my VAST knowledge of ONE session on the My Fitness Coach, here's my totally subjective, non-scientific opinion and observations.

In a nutshell:
- My Fitness Coach is like an interactive version of an exercise video, you just follow along with what Maya tells you to do (after you've told her what your goals are and what you want to work on).
- Wii Fit actually measures your actions and your progress with the Wii Balance Board and the Wii Remote, but the personal trainer doesn't really give you a full workout. You have to choose each exercise you want to do, so you pretty much make up your own exercise program.

Detailed Comparison and Scorecard:

Monitoring performance and improvement:
- Wii Fit uses the Wii Balance Board plus the handheld Wii Remote to measure your weight and your balance, as well as your timing and rhythm in the aerobic exercises like step aerobics and boxing. During the exercise, your personal trainer will tell you good job if your timing and balance are good, or will comment on your balance being off or your leg wobbling a little and giving you pointers for focusing your exercise and how to improve your balance and strength.
- My Fitness Coach relies on the user to obtain the data such as body weight elsewhere and then manually input the data into the program. During the exercises, Maya gives you encouragement and tells you that you're doing a good job, but she has no way of knowing. You could be sitting on the couch eating a tub of Ben & Jerry's for all Maya knows.
Importance: High. I like the one-stop shop of Wii measuring you and telling you how you're doing. It provides a sort of accountability.
Score: +3 for Wii Fit

Leading you through a complete workout:
- My Fitness Coach asks you how much time you want to spend working out and what you want to focus on (upper body, lower body, core, flexibility). After telling it I want to work on flexibility for 15 minutes, then Maya leads me through 15 minutes of exercises designed to improve my flexibility - some stretching, some yoga, some calisthenics, some aerobics.
- Wii Fit leaves your fitness program entirely up to you. It's sort of like exercises a-la-carte. Each exercise lasts 2-5 minutes or so depending on the exercise, but you click on one, then click on another, then click on another... It doesn't give you a recommended program or plan of what exercises to do today. This has been my primary complaint about Wii Fit and the primary reason why I was interested in trying My Fitness Coach.
Importance: High. Like I said, this was my primary complaint about the Wii Fit.
Score: +3 for My Fitness Coach

User Interface:
- Wii Fit doesn't require you to aim the handheld Wii remote at any particular target on the screen. You can just use the cross-pad or the +/- buttons to toggle between options and click the A button to select.
- My Fitness Coach requires you to precisely aim your handheld Wii Remote at very small buttons on the screen and push the A button to click on the up or down arrow on the screen. This is tedious and frustrating when you've been exercising hard and your arms feel like jello and you can't aim the Wiimote all that accurately.
Importance: Medium. Wii fit's use of the cross-pad is a lot easier to use.
Score: +2 for Wii Fit

Choice of Trainer:
- Wii Fit lets you choose whether you want the male or the female personal trainer. It's kind of funny to see their hair get longer over time. Every once in a while the other trainer will show up on the screen and say that your trainer is "out" today but he/she will be glad to work with you today.
- My Fitness Coach gives you a choice of Maya, or Maya, or Maya. Maya's okay, but I like working with the guy on Wii Fit better.
Importance: Low, it's a minor issue
Score: +1 for Wii Fit

Graphics:
- Keep in mind, the Wii game system was NOT developed for high definition graphics. Nintendo put all their R&D money on this one into the motion-sensing equipment in the Wiimotes.
- That being said, Wii Fit didn't try to make anything super fancy graphics-wise. They made the graphics to fit what the system was capable of.
- My Fitness Coach appears the designers tried to bite off more than they could chew. They tried to make a game with better graphics than the system is capable of. The result is that Maya looks freaky on my big screen with visual artifacts (random pixels turning on and off) all around her teeth as she talks. I found it distracting and kind of annoying.
Importance: Medium, the visual artifacts were annoying me
Score: +2 for Wii Fit

Scenery:
- My Fitness Coach offers a variety of backdrops for your exercise routine. You could be in a garden or a city apartment or a cruise ship.
- Wii Fit doesn't offer any sort of backdrop for most of the exercises. If you do the jogging in place, it takes you on a tour of a Wii-cartoonish island, but that's about it.
Importance: Low, I can do without the scenery
Score: +1 for My Fitness Coach

Music:
- My Fitness Coach offers a variety of genres of music to choose from while you work out.
- Wii Fit uses the same music all the time.
Importance: Low, I can do without the music
Score: +1 for My Fitness Coach

Summary:
Monitoring Performance: +3 for Wii Fit
Leads you through workout: +3 for My Fitness Coach
User Interface: +2 for Wii Fit
Choice of Trainer: +1 for Wii Fit
Graphics: +2 for Wii Fit
Scenery: +1 for My Fitness Coach
Music: +1 for My Fitness Coach

Bottom Line

Wii Fit: 8 My Fitness Coach: 5

Now, my scoring above is weighted based on my preferences. If you put more value on different criteria than I did, then feel free to modify the scores to see how it adds up in your book according to your preferences.

I could tell you but...

Except for my poor wife being sick, I declare today a resounding success.

A) We spent over 5 HOURS OUTSIDE the house NOT playing video games or legos.

B) Although they protested before we left the house, the boys actually thought it was really cool. I was absolutely floored when YB said at lunch time, "I want to come back here TOMORROW!"

Where did we go?

Well... a really cool place with a three-letter acronym.

Sorry I don't have any personal photos to show you, but cameras weren't allowed.

At the visitor's center, they issued the boys these cool visitor badges.


We got to see one of these...


We got to see this...


We got to see a section of this.

According to this open source website, we might also have gotten to see a robotic dragonfly (insecto thopter), a robotic fish ("Charlie"), and a spy pigeon with a camera strapped to its chest among MANY other really cool gadgets. SO many, in fact, that we looked at about half the museum before we stopped and took a break to eat lunch in the cafeteria. The food in the cafeteria was delicious! When asked if his chicken sandwich with honey mustard sauce was good, ES replied, "No... it's AWESOME!!!" After we ate lunch we went back and checked out the other half of the exhibits and the gift shop.

After we left there, I also took the boys by my office today so they could see where I work. Nothing terribly exciting there, but at least they can picture in their minds where Daddy is going when he goes to work.

As for the rest of our New Year's Eve festivities (if you can call them that), the boys and I played some Mario Kart on the Wii (the intro video at that website is cute). I like that we can play four people at once on Mario Kart - it devides the screen up into quarters just like XBox games do. After that, I went and picked up a pizza and some chinese food, and we had a family movie night and watched Horton Hears a Who on Blu-Ray. It was pretty darn amazing in 1080p (high definition video in case you don't speak "1080p").

Now the boys are in bed and my wife and I are watching TV in front of the fireplace. The winds are howling and rattling the house outside. We're the types who won't usually last until midnight on New Year's Eve. We would normally at least have some champagne, but my poor wife is sick today, so I don't even think we'll partake of the bottle of champagne I picked up at the Henderson Hall package store.

Looking back on 2008, I think it was a pretty darn good year for us. I had trouble picking out what picture to put on our Christmas card this year because we had so many great family pictures from all sorts of different places - snorkeling at Oahu, snorkeling at Maui, snorkeling at the Big Island, Volcano National Park and the black sand beach on the Big Island, hiking Makapu'u Ridge, hiking Diamond Head, hiking to Manoa Falls, swimming under Waimea Falls, kayaking around Chinaman's Hat, the Submarine Birthday Ball at the Turtle Bay Resort, Dave & Jess' wedding in Oregon, Crater Lake National Park, the Humbolt Redwoods State Park, Sequoia National Park, Legoland, hiking in Utah, Grand Canyon National Park, the Great Wolf Lodge in Kansas City, seeing the B-2 bomber at Wightman AFB, and our new home in Ashburn. (You can see pictures of all of the above if you just scroll back through my blog posts over the past year). We successfully finished the decommissioning of the Mighty MSP on schedule and without any major problems.

Yes, 2008 was a very good year for us. We certainly needed it to make up for the tough year we had in 2007 though.

I offer you all my warmest wishes for much joy and happiness in the coming new year.

Happy New Year!

Boxing Day

What a busy day.

We actually got some exercise today to work off all those Christmas cookies and goodies. First, we went for a jog on the trails and did some jump-roping. Then we went roller skating. Then we went white-water kayaking. Then we went for a ride in a mine-car through mountain tunnels.

What's that? Why yes, yes it is a little cold outside for those activities. No, I'm not really that much of an outdoor stud.

Did I mention we did this all in our pajamas?

We did them all from the comfort of our home theater in the basement with this new Wii Active Life Outdoor Challenge the boys got for Christmas.

The game uses a floor-mat sort of like I've seen for sale with other game systems. This provides a much more aerobic workout than the Wii Fit. Don't get me wrong, Wii Fit is great for balance and stretching and stregth. The Wii Active Life doesn't measure your weight or balance like Wii Fit. It just senses you hitting the buttons on the mat as fast as you can with your hands or feet.

Active Life Outdoor Challenge

Trail Jogging.

You have to jog in place to make your Mii run on the screen. The faster you move your feet, the faster your character moves on the screen, and there are obstacles like rolling logs you have to jump over.

Roller Skating

In roller skating, you sort of walk in place on the mat to move your feet, and you use the handheld Wii remote to steer to avoid obstacles.

Jump Rope.

Yes, that's me mii tripping over the jump rope and falling on the screen. I suck at jump-roping in video games just about as bad as I suck at it in real life. It was the only level I wasn't able to at least pass on the first try.

Kayaking.

In kayaking, you hold your Wii remote like it was your paddle and paddle with your arms and "lean" left and right with your feet on the pad.

Overall, I like the Outdoor Challenge a lot. It really got my heart and respiration rates up. I'll have to wear my heart rate monitor next time I play and see how many calories I burn.

It's really good for the kids, too. It has "kid" versus "adult" setting at the beginning. The kid settings are a lot easier. Plus, they keep the kids' attention because they rotate through the activities and don't stay on any one event for very long.

Besides playing Wii today, we did a lot of this...

Me and ES putting together a Coast Guard truck and rescue boat.

And some more of this...

LW and YB putting together a Coast Guard life raft.

Later, we put the Coast Guard helicopter together as a family. That was a cool activity to do together as a family. It just amazes me how different legos are today than they were when I was a kid. They make some really amazing stuff nowadays.

We also played a really good game of UpWords.

ES whispering to Grammy. ...Cheaters.

We ended up using all but TWO of the letter tiles!

Generally, I'm not a terribly big fan of tea, but this stuff is really good. The smell alone will put a smile on your face.


In case it wasn't already obvious, my wife and her family love me. LW, Grammy, and GG made sure I had my favorite pecan pie for Christmas - LW bought the ingredients and Grammy and GG made the pie.

Mmmmmm... pecan pie! :-9

It was only due to this pecan pie calling my name from home that I was able to turn down the chocolate creme brulee after our delicious dinner at Bonefish tonight.

Guess I better go fire up the Wii again...

Wii Warning Revisited

Man, I feel bad for E and K after reading their tv casrep over at OCA. My wallet hurts just thinking about it.

For anyone who has recently started reading my blog and/or recently acquired a Wii, I'll repost this:

Sony TV Repair

So, our new Sony TV all of a sudden got these two vertical lines permanently appearing on the screen, regardless of the video input source. I called Sony and they agreed it needed to be fixed under warranty. We had to wait about a week for the "part" to arrive on island, then a repair guy came out. The "part" was a whole new screen, but it works like a champ.

Funny story though, he said most of his work these days comes from Wii damage. He said he recently had to replace FIVE screens in ONE week from throwing Wii controllers into the TV screen! Can you believe it?!?

This warning message goes on the screen for several seconds before you can start a game.

However (comma) I know how good my children are aren't about following instructions.

More random observations

Effective Advertising

O... M... G... We're sitting here watching a silly movie on TV (Deck the Halls), and Matthew Broderick tries to back his car out of the driveway and gets his car doors ripped off by the trailer hitches on the campers parked on either side of his driveway. Do you know what my 7 year old son said? "Uh-oh! Better call Geico!" Whatever ad agency handles the Geico account deserves a medal, because that was most definitely the result of an excellent advertising campaign.

Things like this really scare the crap out of me...

We went to the NEX so that ES could spend his birthday money on a new webkinz dog. (He needed another webkinz like I need a hole in my head, but I'm sure you could say the same thing about half the stuff I collect, too). They were having a buy-one-get-one-free special, and ES very generously allowed YB to pick out the second webkinz instead of taking both for himself. Off we go to the car, each son carrying their new webkinz in an NEX plastic shopping bag. We get buckled in the car and start driving away. My sensitivity threshold for plastic bag noises in the back seat was turned way down due to the rustle-rustle-rustle of them getting in the car with their bags and then taking their new webkinz out to play with them, etc, etc, etc.

My threshold was suddenly reset and alarm bells went off in the back of my head when all of a sudden ES yelled, "No YB!!! Take that off your head!!!" Almost immediately after he said that, I could hear YB's muffled voice say, "Look! I'm a snowman!" Yeah, he was pretending to be a snowman by putting a plastic bag over his head. THANK GOD ES saw him and KNEW that was BAD and told him to stop. LW and I each talked to YB subsequently about not putting things over our heads. It just really freaks me out and makes me worry what might happen to one of our kids one day when someone ISN'T watching. I pray the Lord will always watch over and protect my family from such simple dangers that are around us every day.

On a positive note, I've noticed ES maturing a lot lately and taking on more of a big-brother role, watching out for his little brother and helping him out. Sometimes it results in a hissy-fit from YB when he doesn't WANT the help, but still - it's nice that ES is genuinely trying to HELP.

Case in Point: Yesterday I took the boys to Ala Moana Center to run an errand and have some dinner at Islands. We had a birthday coupon for ES for Islands that had to be used in the month of his birthday, and yesterday was the last day of May. LW wasn't feeling well and stayed home. As we were walking through the mall on the way to our errand, YB complained of his foot itching. ES very kindly led YB to a place to sit down, asked him very nicely to sit down, took of YB's shoe, scratched his foot (resulting in much giggling from YB), and put the shoe back on. I was flabbergasted.

ES scratching YB's foot at Ala Moana Center.
(Yes, that's the new Webkinz dog.)

The other highlight of our trip to Ala Moana (besides the AWESOME dinner we had at Islands) was a trip to the family restroom in the mall. We see more and more of these "family" restrooms wherever we go, and it's nice to have a restroom large enough for the three of us to fit in and take care of business without me having to cram into a stall to help YB with his pants while ES is getting in the way of other people in the restroom by the sink.

This, however, is the first time I've seen a family restroom with a YB-sized toilet.

There were two toilets in the room, one regular size and one tiny version.

There was even a second sink that was the perfect height for YB, too.

More Wii Adventures

Before we got Wii Fit, I always thought of people who did yoga as human pretzels. I never would have even tried yoga if Wii Fit hadn't invaded our home, because I don't think of myself as one of those human pretzels.

Up until today, I have rather enjoyed the basic yoga exercises on Wii Fit for stretching and flexibility. However (comma) as I have progressed through the exercises, I have unlocked some of the more advanced positions, and today I felt like I was trying to twist my body in directions that my body wasn't designed to do.

I've been doing the tree for several days now, but today was the first time I fell over while trying to do the tree. It gave me flashbacks to another embarrassing episode of similar body-orientation and physics.

Some of the new yoga exercises I tried today were...

Triangle. It looks so simple doesn't it??? It's the turning your head and looking up at the ceiling and pointing your hand to the ceiling while keeping your balance on the balance board that really makes it challenging.

Dance. This one was the end of me today. I think I pulled a muscle in my palm and my forearm, and pulled or pinched something around my right collarbone. Human pretzel indeed!

Saturday morning odds and ends

Fish Heads

I picked up ES from school yesterday afternoon. In the car on the way home, he told me he didn't have to take a lunch to school on Tuesday. In my typical silly-daddy mode, I tried guessing why ES didn't have to take a lunch to school. After guessing he was going to starve and not eat anything, I took a guess that they would be feeding him fish heads at school. "Fish heads?!?!" he said giggling. Then I started singing the chorus of the fish heads song.

I only sang the chorus once and then stopped and waited for a response from the back seat. ...Silence... Snicker... Giggle... Hee-hee-hee... Haw-haw-haw... He laughed the entire way home. He kept trying to sing the fish heads song himself, but he could only get one and a half words into it (fish he...) before he would spontaneously combust in fits of little boy giggling laughter. You'd think that was the funniest thing he'd ever heard in his life.

Wii Fit Update

LW is kicking my butt. She holds the #1 spot in most of the exercises on the Wii Fit. She likes to gloat a little bit, too. I was doing the pushups exercise and I thought I did really well. It gives you a score based on your balance, and I got a really good score. I was SURE I was going to get the #1 spot. After it shows you your score, then it goes to a screen at the bottom of the rankings and scrolls up the rankings so the last thing you see is who's in the #1 slot. I watched it scroll up... and LW was in the #1 spot. I heard a snicker from the direction of LW's chair behind me.


New Restaurant: Firehouse Restaurant on Ford Island.

Right across the street from the Pacific Aviation Museum and the old air traffic control tower (you know - the one where Ben Affleck valiantly charges up it and tries to single-handedly stop the attacking Japanese planes with a shotgun).

My Eng and ex-Nav recommended this place, so we went to check it out. When we first drove up, I was like, "Ugh... THIS is a RESTAURANT?"

Looks can be deceiving. This place is pretty old, dilapidated and not fancy, but it's clean and the food and service are excellent. There are a variety of things on the dry-erase board hand-written menu, but there's a heavy Mexican food influence. I had the New Mexico Pork Burrito and it was AWESOME.

Bread from Commissary

I don't remember if I wrote about this before, but this organic garlic bread they have for sale at the commissary is REALLY good!




John Adams

LW recorded the John Adams miniseries on our DVR a while back, but we didn't get around to watching the first episode until last night. (Primarily because we missed the first episode and we had to wait a while for the DVR to catch it on a rerun). It was REALLY good. Paul Giamatti (John Adams) and Laura Linney (Abigail Adams) are excellent actors and passionately brought the story to life. Aside: I also highly recommend David McCullough's book John Adams (nonfiction) and Jeff Shaara's pair of novels about the Revolution, Rise to Rebellion and The Glorious Cause. The books and the miniseries go very well together.

Everybody's Moving

I'm having flashbacks to Monterey. As a student at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, one has a tendency to forget that you're in the military. You wear civilian clothes to school so as not to let rank interfere with the free exchange of ideas in the classroom. Once a quarter though, you would get a reminder as all the moving trucks descended upon the military housing with big wood crates to take household goods overseas to the graduating students' next duty stations.

Anyway, it's not hard to remember you're in the military here, but usually the moving trucks are a little more evenly spread out across time. Lately they've been really busy on our street. There are four houses already in the progress of moving. Come September when we leave, I think our street will be a completely different neighborhood.

It must be genetic

Friday morning I went to the end of year "graduation" ceremony at YB's preschool. It amazed me to sit and watch as his entire class of cute little pre-schoolers sang a song about "ohana" and "family" and did all the clapping and hand gestures to go along with it... and YB stood there like a stone statue not singing or doing any of the hand movements.

We're making progress though. When LW and I went to the Christmas pageant at his preschool, he didn't even stand up there with the rest of his class. He got down off the steps and hid in the first pew of the church. Periodically he would peek his little head up above the edge of the pew and look at us, then lower his head and hide again. So at least this time he didn't hide, right?

I just don't understand why ALL the OTHER kids will stand up there and do the song and dance, but OUR kids won't. ES was the same way in pre-school. He refused to participate in any of the performances, but the result was he stuck out like a sore thumb because he was the ONLY kid NOT participating. I remember one performance where he wouldn't even stand up with the rest of his classmates until I gave him my cover to wear.

ES's Preschool Thanksgiving Show
Sterling, VA 2005

Note that all the other kids in ES's class above wore their cute little pilgrim and native american hats, but ES is wearing my khaki combination cover because that's the only way we could get him to go up there with the rest of the kids.

For any of you who would like to watch YB's statuesque performance yesterday, I uploaded it to YouTube. Sorry it gets a little shaky in the middle because LW didn't have a very good angle and passed the camera off to me, so it wobbles around a little bit while I get settled in a new angle. YB is the one in the red polo shirt in the middle of the shot NOT DOING ANYTHING.

Who are you and what have you done with my son?

I think ES was possessed by aliens tonight. When I first got home, ES was being a pain in the butt about doing his homework. He did it, but with a lot of flippant attitude and drama. I said to myself, "Self, it's gonna be one of those days."

Then, it was as if someone flipped a light switch in his head and he became the most pleasant and easy to get along with child on the face of the planet. He WATCHED me play Wii Fit for like 20 minutes without once asking if he could have a turn. He came inside when it was time for dinner and ate his dinner. When he asked to be excused from dinner, I told him to get his dry erase board so we could practice his spelling.

In my mind I sorta cringed and waited for the firestorm of whining in response, but he didn't whine or complain at all. He went and got his dry erase board and sat down next to me on the family room floor. It was actually downright FUN to practice his spelling with him tonight, and he did such a good job at it that we only had to practice once. He finished so early with his spelling that he still had time to go outside and play with J & M across the street for a good 30 minutes. When LW told him to come inside because it was time for a bath, he came right in, went to the bathroom, and got undressed without ANY fuss.

While I was giving him a bath, he started asking me questions about what country is Rome in and we started talking about what continent Italy is in and what other countries are in that continent. Somehow our conversation drifted to Russia and the Cold War and the differenced between communism and capitalism and the Vietnam War and the Korean War. We finished his bath and came down to read a bedtime story.

For his "bedtime story" he picked out his enormous Encyclopedia of Modern Military Aircraft that he got for sale at Borders. He said he wanted to pick out one airplane to read about. I said okay, sure.



He picked out the "flying porcupine." (Disclaimer: I cannot confirm nor deny any information on that website. To tell you the truth, I didn't even read the text, I just saw that it had pictures, so I put the link here.) I sorta winced as I thought about how to explain what the plane does in unclassified terms that were easy for a first grader to understand. He seemed to enjoy reading about it nonetheless.

We went upstairs for the usual bedtime routine of brushing his teeth and getting in bed, and as usual I asked him what his favorite parts about today were before we said prayers. Do you know what he said?!?! He said his favorite parts of today were:
- Playing with J & M across the street (no brainer, that's a given)
- Watching Daddy play Wii (who knew Daddy's lack of balance on the Wii Fit board could be so entertaining?)
- Practicing his spelling with Daddy (Cue theme song to Twilight Zone - I just about died when he said that)
- Drinking orange soda with Daddy (I let him try it, and he really liked it)

Wow... I'm speechless. (Not typeless mind you, just speechless). Why can't every night be like this? Was Father's Day moved to today and I just didn't get the memo?

BT BT (Break Break - shifting topics slightly)

Have I mentioned how cool Wii Fit is?

Tonight I tried doing the yoga moves. (Hey, don't laugh, and don't knock it 'til you try it). LW scored higher than me on all but one of the yoga poses. It gives you a score based on your ability to maintain your center of balance on the board while doing poses like the Tree.

With Wii Fit, you get this Balance Board to stand on. Don't be alarmed! I was thinking it was going to be some wobbly thing that I wouldn't be able to stand on without risking substantial injury to my ankles. No, no, no. This board sits flat on the floor like a bathroom scale, but it senses your weight and which way you're leaning.


This is the Wii Fit board. It's very solid and immobile. Notice the crosshair lines so you can tell where the center of the board is. It senses when you shift your center of gravity (lean) forward or backward or left or right.

For the yoga and strength exercises, you can choose whether you want a male personal trainer...

...or a female personal trainer. LW says the female trainer's voice is annoying. These last two images were of the demonstration of the "tree" in yoga.

When you actually DO the yoga exercise, the screen looks like this. The gray rectangle represents the Wii Fit balance board. The yellow circle is your target where it wants you to keep your center of gravity balanced. The red dot that is moving around on the screen is where your center of gravity really IS. Notice the red trail swirling around from my horrible balance... the camera in my hand may have had something to do with that. The blue circle in the background slowly grows and collapses to guide your breathing.

For the aerobic exercises and the balance exercises, it has several activities to choose from that all have more of a silly video-game appearance. This is YB playing the soccer head-butt balance game.

One of our other favorites is the ski-jump. You start out crouching down. The objective is to hold your center of gravity (the red dot) as close as possible to the blue dot on the balance board display (upper right corner).

When you get to the bottom of the ramp, you quickly stand up to launch yourself into the air.

Yeah, LW holds the top record on the ski jump, too. I need more practice...

Wednesday Night Random Observations

First, for anyone reading my blog in a aggregator like Google Reader, just an FYI /heads-up that I edited the previous post to add a photo and make a correction that LW and CC pointed out to me. Go back and check it out.

Second, I have a new addiction. I absolutely LOVE this IZZE sparkling juice stuff! It takes considerable self-restraint not to drink several bottles per night. So far, I've tried the blackberry and the clementine flavors, and they were both really good. They count as two servings of fruit and are only 2 points on WW, too.





Third, by some strange miracle, LW found Wii Fit at the Pearl Ridge Mall today and snatched it up. We've been trying to order it, but everywhere we've tried, they've been sold out of the PRE-orders. LW said Costco got a shipment in, and they sold out in 8 minutes. She checked the video game store at the mall, and low and behold they had some in stock. Will wonders never cease?

Wii Fit is actually really cool. It comes with a balance board that looks kind of like a bathroom scale without any numbers or digital readout. When you first log in, it measures your BMI and tests your balance and tells you your Wii Age. It chastised me for being overweight and said my Wii Age is 43 - yuck. Guess I've got some work to do.

Oh, and it adjusts your Mii size and shape based on your BMI measurement. So now, all of a sudden, the boys' Mii characters look like twigs, and LW and my Mii characters look like the Stay-Puff Marshmallow Man.

It has a lot of cool exercises and games you can do. YB actually really likes the Ski-Jump. I scored horribly on my first try at most of the exercises, but it'll take a little getting used to.

Kapow! Oof! Bam!

We haven't even picked up the new Lego Indiana Jones video game yet, and now I see Lego BATMAN is coming out in September! Turn my blog music off at the bottom of the page and then click play on this trailer:

Aside: Of course, before we can play Lego anything, we need to get our X-Box fixed. We got the "three blinking red lights of death" that all the X-Boxes have been experiencing. I was pleased to read that X-Box will repair this problem even if your X-Box is out of warranty. I called the repair number and they sent me a box via UPS. All I had to do was open the box, put my X-Box in, tape it shut (they even provided the tape!) and slap on the return UPS shipping label. Hopefully it comes back quick.

Getting back to video game reviews...

One of the reasons Lego Star Wars was such a big hit in our house was that it's very easy to control and it's very forgiving of mistakes. You may not get ALL the bonus features or the top score if you aren't playing it with the precision of an experienced hand, but small children can play and have fun and progress through the basic story line without dying and starting over at the beginning. If your character does "die" then you just pick up right where you left off.

A new game we found for the Wii that YB really likes is the Go Diego Go! Safari Rescue. Like Lego Star Wars, Safari Rescue is very forgiving. It won't let you jump off any cliffs or into any danger. When you paddle your boat on the river, you're supposed to dodge the alligators and hippos, but if you bump into them, they just say, "That's okay, Diego" and you keep moving along.

Before this, YB hasn't played much Wii because he doesn't really have the motor skills or understanding of the controls to do much besides play Wii Boxing. In addition to being a forgiving of mistakes type of game, Safari Rescue really helps YB understand the Wii motions by the little orange window in the lower left hand corner of the screen that shows him how to hold the controller and what direction to move it. YB just has to immitate the motion of the character in the orange window and it guides him through each stage of the game.

YB in his cockpit playing Safari Rescue.
(Notice the little orange character in the
lower left corner showing him how to
move the controller.)

A couple of other cool things worth checking out:

My Dad sent me a couple of pretty cool videos this week. The first one (click here) is of a local newspaper reporter riding in a Blue Angels F/A-18 and passing out multiple times. It's pretty funny to watch. The second one (click here) is a Natioanal Geographic special on USS TEXAS (SSN-775). It's pretty long (45 minutes), but it's fairly well done. I like how the oxygen generator is "revolutionary" as if it was something NEW built JUST for the TEXAS. Actually, we've been using oxygen generators on our submarines for decades, but... It's still a pretty cool show.

No Free Parking... er... Lodging?

Free Hotel Room!

Even though I think she's an snob and an idiot, I feel like I should give a shout-out of thanks to the lady in the Beemer who backed into LW in the preschool parking lot. Thanks to her, we got a hotel room for the night of the sub ball.

Okay, I still don't understand this. LW has tried to explain it to me, but I still just don't get it. I know that LW already wrote about it, but let me try to explain it as I understand it and see if it makes any sense...

This lady backs her Beemer out of her parking spot at YB's preschool parking lot the same time as LW backed out of her parking spot. Their bumpers came in contact. LW's back right corner bumper came in contact with the lady's back left corner bumper.

There's a small scrape on the paint on each of the cars.

At the time, LW and this lady agreed the damage looked superficial and said neither of them intended to submit a claim. The Beemer Lady said she was gonna talk to her hubby about it, but she'd give LW a call if she was gonna submit a claim.

Fast forward some time later when we get the phone call from our insurance agency that the Beemer Lady filed a claim against us and thinks it's all LW's fault. On a subsequent trip to the preschool, LW found the Beemer Lady pointing at the bumper and loudly exclaiming to another lady, "See how BIG the DENT is?!?!" OMG you are so lame!

I've seen the Beemer in the parking lot with my own eyes, and you can hardly see the damage because it's along an edge. Granted, my opinion is biased, but I think it's much more noticeable on LW's car because it's a scuff along a flat surface, but it's still not a big deal - that's what bumpers are for, right? It's very minor cosmetic damage.

We had to fill out all these insurance forms and send them into our insurance company. Plus we had to take LW's car in to have the damage appraised. It came out to something like $584. I was shocked - it really doesn't look like it needs any more than some touch-up paint.

Well, the insurance company called... and all of them in the office discussed it and agreed it was 50/50 blame on LW and Beemer Lady. LW and I couldn't agree more. We're totally cool with that. Apparently Beemer Lady wasn't. She protested and was not happy with the insurance company. The agent on the phone told LW that the only reason he can figure the lady doesn't think it's her fault is because she drives a Beemer. LW and the insurance agent both had a good laugh about that.

Anyway, besides not understanding weirdo Beemer Lady, here's the other part I REALLY don't understand:

Because they determined the blame was 50/50, they paid each of us (I mean LW and Beemer Lady) 50% of the damages. So they sent us a check for $267.

Um... Why??? We've got a $500 deductible. I guess I can understand the only paying us 50% of the damages since it was 50% LW's fault, but even then... if 50% of the damages was less than our $500 deductible, then I would expect them not to give us a single stinking cent. LW pointed this out to the agent on the phone, but he insisted they were sending us a check for 50% of our damages.

So to make a long story short... since the annoying Beemer Lady put this check for $267 in our pocket, we decided to splurge and now have a reservation for after the sub ball. :-)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Sony TV Repair

So, our new Sony TV all of a sudden got these two vertical lines permanently appearing on the screen, regardless of the video input source. I called Sony and they agreed it needed to be fixed under warranty. We had to wait about a week for the "part" to arrive on island, then a repair guy came out. The "part" was a whole new screen, but it works like a champ.

Funny story though, he said most of his work these days comes from Wii damage. He said he recently had to replace FIVE screens in ONE week from throwing Wii controllers into the TV screen! Can you believe it?!? Even with all those warnings on the Wii screen about fastening the wrist strap.

This warning message goes on the screen for several seconds before you can start a game. What else are these people doing with that time besides NOT fastening their wrist straps and making sure they have adequate room between them and their TV???

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

History repeats itself.

So there I was... (isn't that the way all good sea stories start?) I walked into the family room to find this pile of a gajillion little Chex Mix crumbs in the carpet where one of the boys knocked over their snack bowl. I got the vacuum and was in the process of sucking up all the little bits and pieces out of the carpet when I caught something odd out of the corner of my peripheral vision.

When I turned my head to the left, I saw ES's head and shoulders standing outside the family room window. He was standing in a very peculiar manner - very still and looking down. I said to myself, "Self, if I didn't know any better, I would think that's the position ES stands in when he goes PEE." I stopped the vacuum and walked over to the window. Sure enough, ES has his pants down and he's taking a leak into one of LW's flower pots, "watering the flowers" as it were.

I was beside myself. I yelled, "[ES's name]]!!!!!" loud enough that even with the window closed it startled him and pee flew in seven different directions while he cut it off mid stream and quickly pulled his pants back up.

I CANNOT believe he would do such a HORRIBLE thing!!! I mean, I don't know anyone ELSE in this family who has committed such a terrible crime! If there WAS someone ELSE in this family who had done such a horrible thing before when he was six years old, I'm sure it was because we had a HUGE back yard and I he was WAY up in the treehouse and it would have taken a LONG time for me him to climb down the tree and go all the way into the house to use the toilet. I'm sure my his father didn't understand my his reasoning either and I he got a spanking for it, too. Although it was certainly a MUCH shorter distance from the scene of this crime to our toilet (about 25 feet), not to mention the fact he had JUST walked through the house like 30 seconds before this, I didn't give ES a spanking. My booming voice pretty well scared the crap out of him... or rather, maybe it scared the pee out of him.

Up All Night

Tomorrow night (Friday night) I get to start the night shift. In order to get ready for it, I'm trying to stay up all night tonight (Thursday night). My goal is to stay up until 5 a.m., but I'm not sure I'll make it that far. I don't even know if I'll post this to my blog. I just thought it would be interesting to keep sort of a running post through the course of the night of what I am doing to stay awake. Since LW went to bed, here's what I've been up to:

- Put away the clean dishes in the dish washer.

- Put the dirty dishes from dinner in the dish washer.

- I ate the cream cheese rangoon that LW didn't eat from her dinner. I don't think she realized it was in the bag from PE.

- Took the trash out from the garage, kitchen, and upstairs (thank you, Sweetie, for bringing the upstairs trash to the stairs for me).

- Took the trash can out to the curb.

- I brewed a pot of coffee.

- Shopped for some Under Armour running shorts. My friend Loping Squid recommended them. I've been browsing around here and there trying to find the website that (a) charges the least to ship to Hawaii, and (b) has a good return policy. I think I'm going to order from Sports Authority because I can have like six pairs of shorts sent to me in different sizes and colors for like $20 in shipping, and it comes with a return shipping label in the box. All I have to do is put the shorts that I don't like or don't want back in the box and drop it back in the mail to them, and they will charge me $6.50 for the return shipping (subtract it from the amount of the refund). So far, that's the best offer I've found in my online shopping. Then I realized that they have a store right over here in Waipahu, so I figure I should at least drive by the store and see if they have any of the shorts in stock and not pay ANY shipping first. IF they don't have them in the store, then I'll go back to the website.

- I've had American Beauty playing in the background on the TV, but I haven't been playing close attention to it.

- The JO who's going to be on the midwatch with me tomorrow night just emailed and said he's getting ready to play some Wii, so I'm going to turn my Wii on and see if I can figure out what you can do online with it.

- Hooked up the new component video cable for our Wii, now the Wii is doing some O/S update off the internet. OMG - the Component Video cable for the Wii? HUGE waste of money. I think the graphics actually got WORSE. I went into the Wii video settings and changed it from the standard 480i to the ED 480p, but it looks even MORE like an old Atari video game now than it did before. Shoulda just stuck with the standard definition on the Wii.

- Man... I was thinking SURELY it's past midnight by now, but NOPE. It's only 11:10. Thinking ahead - I think I should go for a run about 3 a.m. or so since I'll miss our Friday Command PT.

- Played a game of Wii Bowling. First time I've played in a while and was pretty rusty in the beginning. I pulled off three strikes and three spares in my last five frames though and ended up with a 165.

- Second game of Wii Bowling didn't go as well. Only bowled a 147. It seemed like I couldn't get a strike to save my life. Got a whole bunch of "Nice Spare!" comments though.

0000 Watch and logs continued from those dated 2/28/2008. Plant conditions and equipment status... Oh wait.... Sorry, flashback.

- Put in Vanilla Sky just after midnight. I wanted to see this movie a long time ago and never got around to it. It finally worked its way up on our Blockbuster.com queue and just happened to arrive yesterday.

- As I type this, I keep getting that song, "Up all night, oooooooooh dancin', oooooh, baby, up all night," stuck in my head. I tried searching for it to add to my blog music for the occasion, but there are a LOT of songs with "Up All Night" in the title. I didn't find it yet. Maybe later.

- Vanilla Sky was a pretty good flick. Now I'm folding some laundry. Poor LW has a fever and has been up coughing and blowing her nose most of the night.

- Reconsidering the idea of going for a run. I want to go, but I don't want to wake up LW or the boys with a shower before I go to bed.

- LW was kind enough to do like four loads of laundry for me to fold. It's giving me something to actually do with my hands, so I have been folding laundry and watching TV.

- It's been interesting watching sunrise creep around the globe and seeing each of our friends log onto their computers in the morning. First I got to chat with my friend Loping Squid and his LW when they woke up on their side of the world. Then I got to chat with Corey when she woke up on the east coast. Then I got to chat with Sam when she woke up in Michigan. Now I'm only 15 minutes from my goal of 5 a.m. Thanks to those of you who chatted with me and helped me stay awake! I'm actually not feeling that tired now - it's like I caught my second wind. ...or maybe it's that pot of coffee that kicked in. Hopefully it won't take me long to fall asleep.

Okay, goodnight all. Hope you all have a good weekend! Not sure if I'll be able to write much before we finish shiftwork in a couple of weeks.