Homeschool catchup post
The day before we [flew out to Christmas Island]({< relref “massive-christmas-island-photopost-2014-15” >}), we went on an excursion to the Art Gallery of Western Australia. They accommodate homeschool groups easily and the programs the kids did were great and seem to have been enjoyed by all. To make running things easier for the staff, the kids had been divided into pre-primary to Year 3 (5-8yos) and year 4+ (9 and older). The older group went for their activity first while the younger one went on the tour. The younger group got split into two and 8yo, then 5yo and I ended up in a tiny little group consisting of ourselves and 8yo’s then-6yo friend. The tour guide got peppered with a billion questions as both girls are very interested in art and did a great job fielding them and the additional and often random questions from then-5yo.
One decade!
“He’s f***in’ TEN!” JJ announced, stabbing an accusatory finger at our still sleeping birthday boy when he walked into my room on Christmas Island and noticed that I was awake.
I did not star the word because I’m prudish (I generally try to tone down a bit in the blog just to be polite), JJ did actually mute the middle part as he spoke. He had expressed an unsurprising surprise, a thing that just happens but is somehow astonishing when it does. Our oldest is 10, which means we’ve been parents for ten years, together for twelve, which means we’re OLD :) (okay maybe not that old)
Cleaning kids
quadrapop: As you don’t have a dish washer I’d be bleaching or boiling the kids at least once a week
fyn: why would i want to bleach and boil the kids? :)
quadrapop: Our kids go through dishwasher several times a week
quadrapop: Lids ffs automangle
fyn: XD
This work by ryivhnn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License
Square toes
I was working on 3d-fyn’s feet when 5yo came in and observed what was on my screen.
He stared for a little bit, then leaned on my desk so he could pick up and scrutinise his own cute little foot carefully before pointing out that toes weren’t square, but at least I got one right. I told him that my base model was very square and I was fixing it up as I made my characters, and that’s what I was doing right now. He wished me luck fixing it up and trotted on his merry way. Cutely.
Massive Christmas Island Photopost 2014-15
Minimal text, many photos, some videos. Mishmash of scenic, happysnaps and homeschooling stuff coz that’s how we roll. Grab a drink and a snack before commencing.
First couple of weeks…
The airport wait wasn’t terribly exciting but at least there were planes to watch being loaded, taking off and landing.
Why you need both hands
Sprat: I want your hand for my sandwich. 8yo: No. Sprat: Why not? 8yo: I need my right hand for writing and drawing and I need my left hand to help my right hand carry stuff! Sprat: Yes that’s a good reason.
This work by ryivhnn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License
Base rig test
This is another one of those rare instances where I post to an external site before the blog.
I haven’t had a chance to set up a video thingi yet and am not willing to do it from Christmas Island (internet is tooooooooo slooooooowwwwwwww) so I am attempting to finally try to start getting over the grudge I have against Google over their mind numbingly idiotic real names policy that resulted in the nymwars (to their credit they have seemed to realise how stupid the policy was and how stupid it made them look and are now letting people call themselves whatever, and are now no longer forcing Youtube channels to be attached to G+ pages if you decide you don’t actually want to use your own name, I have decided I seriously can’t be bothered trying to recreate my old ryivhnn channel.
The Gold Box
My mum and my sister are the kinds of people that like buying presents. They like it when we come up as they go a bit nuts spoiling the grandkids rotten which makes for a nice full tree. Every year they ask me what I want for Christmas and every year I’ve told them the same thing: get something from Oxfam Unwrapped or contribute some money to the fyn’s New Cintiq fund (my Old Faithful 12WX is getting a bit jittery in its old age, but I need a replacement sometime in the not-too-distant future). So whenever I come home for Christmas I usually end up with a little pile of stuff.
Homeschooling stuff
We’re reaching the end of the year so it’s been a bit slack on the socially accepted learning front as everyone is a bit tired and over it. There’s been a lot of playing going on and in our usual fashion the 2015 program has already been modified before we could even think about starting it. Instead of doing bookwork every day, we’re alternating with cooking where the kids will choose a recipe, check we have all of the ingredients before commencing (and write out shopping list to be able to do something next session if they really want a thing we don’t have all the ingredients for) and do it themselves from start to finish. I will help with/supervise dangerous things (such as putting things in and out of ovens and anything that requires cooking on stove top) but they are otherwise on their own.
Setting up Wacom Cintiq 12WX on Ubuntu Studio 14.04
And on goes the love/hate relationship with Linux. Setting up my Cintiq is one of the things that makes me really loathe it and want to go jumping back onto my iMac and ignore the possibility of art on Linux forever. My first attempt was an abysmal fail (I blew up Unity and had to spend a bit of time fixing it and it never completely recovered, and due to the nature of the child who owned that particular machine it ended up with Win7 on it). If I didn’t need a Linux server for web dev (which is why I got the laptop) I would have just bought a MacBook.