Skit Skat Skoodle Doot

That’s how far we made it.  Today was the first time we’d had a chance to try and take both girls out in the bike trailer, and they both seemed to really enjoy it at first.  But before we even made it out of the neighborhood Valentina started screaming and we had to stop and go back.  It was really hot today, so I think she was just overheating and uncomfortable.  We took the helmet off and her hair was just plastered to her head.  The same thing happened the first time I took Gia out by herself, and she loved it the very next day, so we just need to try again.

The picture above is unrelated to anything in this post, I just liked it.  The girls were eating mini waffles on the counter this morning.

Today I went to Best Buy for the first time in I don’t know how many years.  Seriously, I have zero reason to go into a big-box electronics store anymore.  In fact, I had a $20 gift card that I got from Google in an early Android Pay promo.  I probably spent 15 minutes wandering around the store trying to figure out what I should buy.  A few years ago it would’ve been easy to spend $20…probably just pick up any random movie or CD.  But I get both of those things via streaming solutions now, and have zero interest in owning the physical object.  I ended up getting another external USB battery, because it’s always nice to have another spare.  And that only used half of my gift card, so I’m going to have to repeat this process again someday.

But that’s not the reason that I went to Best Buy.  I went in because I had scheduled a demo with the Oculus Rift.  It was just a few minutes, but it was awesome.  I really wish I could justify the expense.  All I got to see was a couple minutes of some pre-canned demo material, and then one attempt at the game Climb.  The demo stuff was pretty impressive.  There were three that really stuck out in my mind:

1. Standing at the top of a skyscraper, where you could lean out over the edge and look down.  It was definitely a little vertigo-inducing.  I knew I was standing in the middle of Best Buy, but I really felt a bit of nerves leaning over the edge.
2. There was a dioramma of an animated town that looked like it was made out of folded paper.  I’m sure I looked like an idiot in real life, leaning down and around to get closer looks at everything.
3. A quick visit to the Hammond Museum, where a T-Rex stomped down the hall and roared in my face.  It was amazing.

The Climb demo was fun, but I didn’t really get to play it long enough to really get a feel for the controls.  The way it works is that you have an Xbox controller, and press buttons to simulate grabbing the rock wall with either hand.  I did fine scaling the first part, but then there was a place where you have to jump from one ledge to another, and I didn’t really have an idea how to do that.  I’m sure if I’d gotten a second attempt it would’ve been fine, but once I fell off the side of the mountain my demo ended.

If you want to schedule your own demo, here’s the link – https://live.oculus.com/bestbuy/search

I was looking for a good photo of the T-Rex, and I came across this post that does a much better job than I did of talking about each demo, and includes screenshots.  I didn’t want to just steal his images, so I’m just linking to his post instead – http://www.benfarrell.com/2016/05/10/the-oculus-rift-dream-deck/

Pictured above are my finisher medals for the Army Ten Miler, which I’ve run for the past 6 years.  I just signed up today for number 7, which means that next year I’ll officially qualify for priority registration as a long-time runner.  That’s a pretty big deal, because normally the race sells out within the first hour or so of general registration, and it’s a race just to get signed up in time.

However, today that did not appear to be the case…as of right now they’ve only sold 27,980 out of 35,000 slots, and registration has been open for ~9.5 hours.  I’m really curious about what’s different this year and why it’s not already sold out.  Maybe the running craze is finally over and people are tired of paying for the privilege to be miserable for 10 miles.

Side note, completely unrelated…the title of this post always makes me think of the movie Lucky Number Slevin.  Good movie, you should check it out.

Today was the first day in what seems like forever that it hasn’t been raining here.  The Capital Weather Gang said it’s a record-breaking May for rainfall, and it’s rained 19 out of 24 days so far.  The joke is that it’s been raining ever since Prince died.  😥

But today’s weather was gorgeous.  Sunny, with a high in the low 80s.  So I decided I needed to take advantage of it, and I rode my bike to work.  I rode ~5 miles to Peet’s for some coffee, then just next door to library, ~2 miles to Panera for lunch, and then ~3 miles home.  It’s a nice route, I hope to do it frequently this summer.

It’s a really easy ride, with just a few gentle hills, but it still makes me want an electric bike.  Then I could fly down the road without breaking a sweat.  This one looks nice, anyone want to buy it for me?

I was going to make the image for this post a screenshot of my route, but I figured posting a map to my house on a public site isn’t the smartest thing to do.  So instead you get another beautiful stock photo from https://stocksnap.io

Gia has reached an important developmental milestone.  She replies to everything with “Why? Why? Why?”  It was cute and endearing for about half a day.

Pictured above:

• “My hands are dirty!  Why?”
• “Because you were picking up dirty sticks and rocks”
• “Why?”
• “Because you wanted to throw them in the water”
• “Why?”
• “Because it’s fun”
• “Why?”
• “It just is”
• “Why?”