The Poconos resort wasn't a bad place to spend a couple of days; Lamb loved it, SWHTL and I loved spending a day climbing up and down Bushkill Falls (click the link for pix). I was happy enough during the days to keep my mind off the poison ivy - which has since cropped up in all sorts of interesting places that couldn't possibly be due to the original exposue. Sleep was harder because I'd wake myself up scratching, but benadryl and cortisone kept it mostly at bay.

Even the bugs seemed happy (scroll down for pic).

Troll, Jr. was not, however. It seems the object of his affections is playing things a little haphazard, making him cranky and frustrated. (It sounds like she's a bit of the classic go-by-impulse free spirit, while he's inherited a lot of my structured approach towards life.)

I managed to cheer him up, though, by taking him to see The Dark Knight while SWHTL and Lamb were being pampered in the day spa. Damn fine movie, that. It's a crying shame Ledger didn't survive, I'm curious to know whether he was actually acting or if his Joker was just him being him. Excellent experience given that the tickets were $5 each in a tiny movie theater about the size of the conference room at my office.

I seem to be overwhelmed by nostalgia these days, which happens from time to time but I never understand why, because it's not like I was especially happy or well adjusted "back in the day".

This particular episode was brought on courtesy of Woot! which was selling these for $80 USD. Basically, I plug my ancient 8mm camcorder in one side, plug a USB HD into the other and, whammo!, out comes compressed video. The only limitation is that sometimes it will stop recording if the tape glitches badly enough, while other times it happily records an hour of static because the tape ended. Still, I managed to rip 8 tapes last night, which was a darn sight easier than using iMovie.

The output looks pretty good, although it's darker than what's showing on the display of the camcorder. I'll have to hook it up to a TV and see if it's the old NTSC vs VGA bugaboo.

It's not just the videos, though, although they clarified the issue for me. Partly it's Troll, Jr., who's trying to navigate the minefields of dating, and my daughter, Lamb, who is right on that teetering edge between being a kid and being a teenage girl. Life was much easier when "raising your child" just meant slapping the electric cord out of their hands when they tried playing with the outlets. It's also funny listening to toddler-troll-jr's voice and comparing it to his current baritone rumble.