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November 11, 2008
Happy Birthday, Josh
Tonight as I’m writing this I’m staring at the edge
of the front door and down the center of a baby-
blue colored lamp. As we were getting ready for my
son’s sixth birthday today, I decided to dismantle my
cool computer center, where I normally do all of my
writing and surfing, so there would be more room for
our relatives to hang out and eat.
The narrow desk that I usually use for my laptop
has been moved to my side of the bedroom, where
I’m guaranteed to bump into it as I am getting up in
the morning. My laptop has a temporary home on top
of our entertainment center. Tomorrow it will deliver
several layers of eye candy starting with the official
Pokémon website, and later I’ll be using it to stream
a series of photo slideshows from the Internet.
DigitalMe
The photos wouldn’t be very easy to see on my
laptop’s screen, so I’m going to connect it to our TV
via its video out port. This will make my slideshows
far more visible.
I’ve had limited success with the slideshows I’ve
offered during our kids’ birthday parties. During the
first few years of our daughter’s life, I always tried to
put together some kind of video presentation in time
for her birthday. The only problem was that I would
be so busy with so many other things—not least of
all, taking care of Kayla—that I would run out of time,
or end up slapping together at the last minute and
staying up late at night until the dang video compiled.
It was pretty stressful.
These days, I’m a little more relaxed about
 DigitalMe
things. First of all, I’ve steered away from video and
focused more on photos. Secondly, now that I own a
laptop and a few other devices I’m better equipped
to give a presentation. Nothing to compile, no DVDs
to burn, and less chance of running into problem just
two hours before the birthday party begins.
Nowadays, we’ve amassed so many photos
of Kayla, 8, and Josh, 6, that it’s tough to narrow
down the photos that I want to show. I usually try to
create a good blend of photos from big moments in
their lives. I’ve also backed off from trying to build
slideshows that are “Kayla only” or “Josh only.”
When I consider my audience, I can better guess
what kind of photos they are interested in seeing.
Kayla and Josh are obviously a given, but then I
know they’d also enjoy my photos of the nieces and
nephew.
Family Birthday Party
Our family birthday parties routinely involve
pizza, a cake, opening gifts, and a chance for all of
the cousins to play together. I won’t claim that we’ve
gotten things down to a science, but by the sixth
birthday we’ve done enough to work out a routine
with Kayla’s eighth birthday party being the rare
exception. We happened to be in Marlette a few
days after Kayla’s actual birthday, so we just delayed
her party until then to save our family the long drive.
themselves so that I am guaranteed to step on one.
I’m mystified by the whole cake baking process.
I know from observation and a certain childhood
rhyme that it require eggs, flour, mixing, and
period of time spent cooking inside an oven set at
something like 500 degrees.
Kayla and I baked cookies once when she
was two years old. I let her stay up way past her
bedtime and, since she needed a bath anyhow,
made sure to splash copious amounts of flour on
her face so it looked like the cookies had been a
lot of work. In truth, they were “easy bake” cookies.
The instructions called for eggs but also stated that
they were optional, so I left them out. As a result,
my chocolate chip cookies turned out looking more
like oatmeal cookies. But, Theresa appreciated them
anyways when we surprised her with them on her
birthday (the very next day).
That was my first attempt at cookies, and I
haven’t baked since. This is probably a good thing.

Although it might sound like our parties are all

the same, they really don’t turn out that way. We can
never know for sure which of our family members
will make it for the party, or what the kids will do.
Even Josh can be unpredictable while he is opening
up his gifts.

Cake Maker at Work

As I am writing this, my wife is waiting for the
cake to cool so that she can add frosting. I don’t
know much more about that, except that it is shaped
like Pikachu, Josh’s favorite Pokémon of all time.
I base this assumption on the number of Pikachus
that I typically find laying around on Josh’s bedroom
floor. They wait until its dark before scattering