Showing posts with label video. Show all posts
Showing posts with label video. Show all posts

Hulu.com - TV & Movies Online...for Free
Saturday, March 15, 2008 - Posted by Derek - 1 comments
From shared torrents from BitTorrent to many of the major networks making their shows available online, online video has certainly arrived.A collaboration between NBC and Fox was released to the general public earlier this week entitled Hulu. It's interesting to see the shift to on-demand/online video and the different attempts to monetize it. It's also fun to see older content becoming available either for free or nominal charge (ala Virtual Console games on the Wii).

In addition to it being completely free (for now) a few things have impressed me so far about Hulu:
  1. They have a fairly robust selection of both TV show AND movies
  2. It's completely an online solution so no download is required
  3. They seem to have embraced bloggers in making it easy to embed all their videos into your blog if you want to share a particular show or movie (see below)
They have both clips and full episodes/movies on there. Here's a few examples of vintage TV shows I've found:
  • The A-Team
  • The Addam's Family
  • Remington Steele
  • Airwolf
  • Buck Rogers
  • Battlestar Galactica (Classic)
The selection of movies is less impressive, but they do have a few fun ones:
  • Master & Commander
  • Ice Age
  • Three Amigos
  • Dragon - The Bruce Lee Story
  • Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie
Anyway, worth checking out. And here's an example of what you can do.....



Evolution of the Stand
Saturday, January 19, 2008 - Posted by Sunny - 7 comments
Hyrum was about two months old and we were at a friends house. I was commenting to Derek that Hyrum wasn't doing the marching thing when we put his feet on the ground anymore. We both beamed with pride that our son was moving through the developmental milestones. Our friend who was holding him had him standing on the counter "This is all him" she said "I'm not holding him up" We looked at each other with mouths open. Was this normal?

From that day forward Hyrum loved to stand. He was the happiest if he was upright, examining the world. Just not in water. ( as you may recall )

Then at the end of his third month came the unexpected solo stand leaning up against the couch. I was so amazed seeing him just standing there all by himself. I had one hand on the camera and one hand ready to catch him as I snapped pictures. At that point he was JUST beginning to sit sometimes ( when he didn't straighten his body to insist on standing )

Four months brought him pulling himself to a sitting position if he was at a sufficient angle. There were times when I would come in to see him laying back on his Boppy pillow crying. "You can sit up from that angle" I would say and hold out my fingers. He would lock his body straight and pull until you stood him up. If you kept him at an angle to try to sit him down he'd just stay there his face grimacing with the effort of keeping his body straight.

Six months heralded the attempts to stand on his own. In his baby bath he'd reach for the other side until he was in an upright fetal position and push with his legs but his arms and hands weren't strong enough to hold him and he'd fall backward.

Now at eight months his hands have enough grip to hold him standing while hanging on to an edge of something if someone stood him up. It was nice that he could hold on now and could stand successfully without human help for quite a long time.

Then the yesterday we were in his room looking at something on the computer while he watched his "fishy movie" which is his Ocean wonders crib entertainer (thanks mom and dad) and I turned around to see this...

"Did you stand him up?" "No, Did you?" We asked each other. Surely someone stood him up without remembering so we sat him down and this is exactly what happened...


It's a good thing he can't sit up from a laying position (although he's working on that) so all we have to do is lay him down and he can't get far. But one thing is certain...we are in trouble (and need to move the mattress down a notch.)


He scoots...he SCORES!
Tuesday, January 15, 2008 - Posted by Sunny - 5 comments
For weeks Hyrum would try to scoot. He'd get his little toes under him and try to push but his feet would always slip with his socks on. I thought he just wasn't pushing down hard enough so I'd try to work with him to no avail. Then one morning I'd just gotten him out of the bath and had his clothes on him but not his socks yet and I put him on the floor to do something and after a few minutes looked down and he was moving FORWARD. Up until this point he'd just roll to get anywhere. I told Derek and he asked if I'd gotten a video so I got the camera and encouraged...he just rolled over. I got on the floor and enticed with a toy...he just looked at me. I decided to get the tripod to put the camera on it to help him and when I came back into the room there he was scooting on the floor. I grabbed the camera and started filming. This kid does not like to perform on demand. He's been like that from the womb. If he knew we were "watching" (ie putting our hands on my tummy) he would not kick. It's funny how kids are just made with some attributes. So you need to ignore him for him to do tricks. :) Keep that in mind when watching these videos

My first attempt



Ok so he doesn't show you his mad scooting skills on this one but he does show you his favorite new word. "THU" ( It's what he "says" right before he starts sucking his thumb. )

My second attempt



Ta Dah! Like most kids his age he loves eating paper. (please tell me it's like most kids) So even though he kinda knew he was being watched the paper could not be resisted. He looks so studious when he looks at the paper doesn't he. :) And he's even figured out how to scoot with socks on! Sometimes he gets his knees up (to the side) so he may be just instinctively figuring out crawling. We are in trouble.


Now That's Hy-larious...
Sunday, October 07, 2007 - Posted by Derek - 7 comments


The other night we were sitting on the couch after I returned from the LDS General Conference Priesthood session and we discovered one more thing Hyrum thinks is Hy-larious. He would just start laughing as Sunny would play with the Velcro on his pants Needless to say, this was too good to miss capturing and sharing. He's just so dang cute.

Conference is always such an uplifiting time. It's always a pleasure to have a chance to sustain the brethren, especially when events in the last 6 months require a change in either the First Presidency or the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. I have always enjoyed Elder Eyring's discourses and am sure he will be bring strength and insight to his new position in the First Presidency. Likewise, I'm sure Elder Cook will equally meet the responsibility of his apostolic calling.


My one experience with Elder Eyring came shortly after I had returned from my mission. I was having a mission reunion in Bountiful, Utah when some mission friends and I stopped at a local grocery store to pick up some goodies. We were walking down an aisle when we saw him. We weren't too sure at first if it was him, so we proceeded to go down the next aisle and peek our heads out from around to corner to get a better look. We could tell that he was on the phone with his wife, apparently walking through exactly which brand he should be picking up (I know that I've had that conversation with my wife). I distinctly remember that he looked over at us, smiled wryly, and then went back to talking to his wife. None of us had the nerve to say anything to him, so we just walked past, and went on our way to the reunion. I'm not sure what he must of thought of us, but I'm sure he gets that kind of thing quite a bit.

As requested, I'm going to try to start recommending one website every week that I've come across that I think is cool. Given this was Conference weekend, I'm going to do two, one that is Church related and one that isn't.

First, check out video.lds.org. I just happened upon it this weekend as I was perusing the Church's website. They have started to add Church videos to the website that you can download or watch online. They have the April 2007 Conference, videos from the Book of Mormon Gospel Doctrine video, CES firesides as well as several other videos. It's well worth checking out.

The more nerdy recommendation is Google Reader. First, you need a Google Account. If you don't have one, I HIGHLY recommend you get one. Gmail is the best free email account out there (I use all my other email address from MSN/Hotmail and Yahoo largely as junk email accounts) and use iGoogle all the time. With iGoogle, you can add different widgets with news, weather, quotes, stock updates, time, "Today in History", news feeds, etc.

What I like about Google Reader is you can "subscribe" to all the different blogs that you read. When there is a change, it lets you know. I used to spent lots of time going through my lists of friends/family blogs to see if there was anything up to date. Saves me time and you can add a widget to your iGoogle page so you can have it handy.


Hyrum's favorite pastime
Saturday, October 06, 2007 - Posted by Sunny - 3 comments
Hyrum has always loved to see what was going on around him. It's one of the major reasons he hated being on his tummy. I tried to help him get gain neck strength by doing tummy time in new locations so that he'd be curious to look around, thus getting his head up. It was warm in the apartment one day so we decided to go out side and I put him on his belly and all of a sudden he was keeping his head up for long periods of time. For a while I didn't understand what was drawing his attention. Then I realized he was watching the cars on the busy street we live on. Since that time we've tried to take some time every week if not every day out in the courtyard watching cars (depending if I can get myself together or if there were big boys playing in the courtyard) Lately it's been getting cold and our outings in the courtyard are getting shorter and shorter. Now he prefers to be seated while watching cars. He's still a bit tipsy but he can stay upright for a second or two from time to time. I wanted to document his favorite pastime before the snow flies so I finally brought a camera out with us. By the time I got him stable and behind him I couldn't catch cars in the picture but we'll always remember what he was doing.





Unfortunately he's acquired another pastime that isn't as acceptable. Watching television. We really try to not let him. We do everything we can to avoid him seeing it but this little boy finds away to catch a glimpse. Every time we catch him watching we also find him with a HUGE smile on his face. We put his bouncy chair facing away and he'll crane his neck as far as it can go to try to see it. He can be screaming bloody murder, completely inconsolable and all we have to do is turn on the T.V. and he stops screaming and starts to smile. I worry about what it's doing to his little forming brain. Worry that it's creating an attention span the length of an ant. For that reason I'm really trying to push reading time where he needs to focus on something that is not constantly changing. But despite my best efforts he finds the T.V. So exactly how bad is it?

And now you also know how messy my apartment is. I hang my head in shame.

Hyrum has always been a natural flirt. He just gets these faces when he smiles that just crack me up. His eyebrows raise and his eyes get wider. The boy's just got it. I was taking pictures of him in these cute pajamas and after I took this picture and saw it I just couldn't stop laughing. You tell me if he's not flirting.



Fun Online Slideshow Tool - Animoto
Monday, October 01, 2007 - Posted by Derek - 4 comments


I just found a fun new online slideshow tool (Animoto) that you can use to create little slideshows like this. You put in the pictures and the music music (or they have music you can select from) and it analyzes and puts pictures together with transitions into a slideshow. You can do as many as you want that are 30 seconds for free.


Happy Happy, Joy Joy
Thursday, August 23, 2007 - Posted by Derek - 2 comments
Hyrum just started laughing outloud when he's awake. He's been chuckling in his sleep for a while now, but every once in a while we can get him to chuckle. Here's a video of his newest little trick.



Tummy Time With Hyrum - Episode 1
Monday, June 04, 2007 - Posted by Derek - 3 comments


Here is a short video clip that we put together of Hyrum having tummy time. He still doesn't do too much, but he's cute!