We now have Thomas

Macy got a new toy tonight - Thomas the Train and his friend Henry. I got this on the way home from work just because. She's very excited about it, since she's been getting into Thomas lately. She's a little rough with the toys. They run on a battery and get around the track on their own. But Macy can't resist pushing them, too - helping them along.

She seems to get really nervous when both trains are on the track at the same time. They run at slightly different speeds, so if you leave them both going, eventually one will run into the back of the other one. This makes her really frazzled and anxious. She only likes to have one train going at a time. We used her blocks to build tunnels for them. Our house doesn't need more toys but like Karen said, "It's hard to resist spoiling her sometimes." She's such a good girl.

After playing with this a while, we took the dog on a walk. Macy doesn't like to ride in the stroller or wagon much anymore, so we're forced to let her walk too. As you might imagine, this makes it take a while. She spends half her time running ahead of us, and the other half stalling behind. She's especially fond of jumping up and down on manhole covers.

Blowing the dust...

...off this blog to resurrect it. Just for today? Maybe I will continue.

Here's a recent picture of the three of us. It's hard to get Macy to look at the camera, let alone smile at it. We hang on to the ones where at least one of those two things happens.

Netflix

The other day, I wondered to myself, "Why haven't I subscribed to Netflix?" Truthfully we don't watch that many movies - when I have that much free time, I'd rather play a game or read a book. But Netflix is pretty cheap. We're starting on the "3 movies at a time for $17 a month" plan. That's the price of buying one DVD! Our first batch of movies is supposed to be arriving today.

Netflix almost seems too good to be true. I used to buy a lot of DVDs until I realized one day that I had over a thousand dollars worth of DVDs on my shelf that I'd only watched once or twice, most that I'd probably never watch again. In 2006, I put a stop to this. I literally bought probably three DVDs the entire year. So far in 2007 I've bought one. So Netflix seems like an obvious choice. If we choose a movie and it ends up being bad, we'll simply turn it off, send it back, and wait for Netflix to send the next one. No buyer's remorse.

We have a nice TV and a decent sound system, but we don't watch that much TV. I feel we should watch more movies so we're getting our money's worth. Plus, if we have movies to watch we're less likely to say "Let's go shopping" or "Let's go out to eat," both of which are problems for us.

So tonight I may be watching The Prestige or The Guardian, and the third one is a movie about dancing that I picked for Karen. She likes movies about dancing - go figure.

I don't know why I'm so excited. It's just a DVD, and I've seen hundreds of them. What is the big deal? I guess it's going to their website, picking literally any movie I can think of, and then having them send it to me. Not having to drive back to Blockbuster on a Wednesday night at 10 o'clock because we forgot to return the movie will be nice, too.

Now I'll just have to see if their service is what it claims to be. We're on a two-week trial now, and their website actually has a "cancel now" button which astounds me. Usually anything you sing up for, it's never that easy to cancel. You have to call them, wait on hold, and then beg them to cancel your account. But for Netflix, it appears I can just sign in, push "cancel," and that's it.

Guitar Lessons

My birthday was almost two weeks ago. Karen got me some running clothes for cold weather, tickets to see Blue Man Group in a few weeks, and guitar lessons. The guitar lessons were a surprise; I had said, some time ago, that I wish I could play guitar. I didn't think much about it. In truth I don't have a lot of extra time to take up something new like that, but she got me six lessons so I'm going to do it at least that long and see how it goes.

My first lesson was on my actual birthday, Friday, February 16. It lasted for half an hour. Before that day, I'd touched a guitar a few times but had never tried to play one. I was the very definition of "beginner." I don't think my teacher has many 28-year-old beginners. Learning an instrument is generally something you do when you're young. But playing the guitar is cool so maybe it's never too late to start.

Of course I don't own my own guitar, but Karen does. Her parents gave it to her as a gift one Christmas, but she never used it much because she's left-handed and couldn't play it comfortably. It's an Epiphone acoustic guitar and my teacher told me it's a fairly good one, which I'll have to take his word for because I'm ignorant on guitar quality. It was used when Karen got it, I think. It could be cleaned up a bit, and my teacher told me that the strings need to be cleaned.

I refer to him as "my teacher" because even though I've had two lessons, I don't remember his name. He's a quiet, laid-back guy who knows how to play a guitar, which is the what's most important.

Anyway, during my first lesson he taught my how to play the beginning of "Sunshine of Your Love" by Cream. I thought it was awesome. The lesson only lasted 30 minutes but that was enough for one week anyway. I practiced the song all week long before my next lesson.

Playing guitar is harder than you might think. My first impression: You have to push the strings down really hard. If you don't press them down hard, it sounds like garbage. That's what takes the most concentration, as far as I'm concerned, although just two weeks later, I can already tell I'm spending less time thinking about it. I'm told the key to getting good at this is to practice every day, just for 20 or 30 minutes.

After my second lesson, I've learned a bit more of "Sunshine of Your Love," "One" by Metallica, and "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple. The latter is useful when learning power cords. I have another lesson in two days and I'm nervous about practicing enough so as not to make a fool of myself. I think I'm learning "Iron Man" this week.

One thing I know is that, if I decide to continue playing guitar, I want to get an electric guitar. The teacher shows me stuff on his, and I can tell just by watching that it's just easier to play than an acoustic. He told me this as well. Plus, songs like "Smoke on the Water" just don't sound right on an acoustic guitar. However, before buying something like an electric guitar, I'd be very sure that this is something I really want to do and I haven't decided yet.

I downloaded "Sunshine of Your Love," though, and can actually (somewhat) play along with it, which is really cool and impressed Karen. She told me I should ask to learn a children's song so I can play it to Macy. Practicing around Macy right now is impossible because she just wants to touch the guitar and make noise with it. I practice after she goes to bed.

I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Everyone's Got a Blog

I should have a blog just because everyone else does. What will make my blog special? Probably not much. I will talk about my many interests, and you can decide whether that's interesting or not. Let's get started. This is just a test so I can see how this looks.