Christmas day in pictures

Crazy Chistmas 2005 slideshow on Flickr

Because I've not got the strength to write it up!

We made the Centrefold!!

Centrefold
Originally uploaded by toby.

Blackpool in Toronto it may be, but festive enough to be 'noticed' and put into the centre fold spot in the Beach Metro.
Can't wait for next year now.....

Forcefield Label

Forcefield Label
Originally uploaded by toby.

This was the basic concept which Rado had a hand in (Thanks!!)
I rearranged and fixed spelling and it looks great - hope it goes over well

Spine-tinglingly good

McDonalds - Large

Wow - this McDonalds ad created by Leo Burnett Australia is so good that I'm going to to have to write to the creators to commend them. Just great.

On a related note, here's the BBC "Faces" Ad that got pulled after 1300 complaints about its "Freakiness"

Why didn't I think of that!!

Ramp creates power as cars pass

Now that's a good idea, although I'm sure people who drive over these things often enough will start asking for refunds on the electricity bill.

Alex is a theatre-goer!

Alex is a theatre-goer!
Originally uploaded by toby.

That was fun - thanks Milena.

It was the Telus kids & families Christmas party tonight which was held at the Lorraine Kimsa Theatre for Young People in Toronto. They put on a great party and an excellent production of Bunnicula. I wasn't sold that it was a good idea to begin with, given Alex's current behaviour and attention span, and I got even more concerned when Ana called me as I waited for Zoran, Milena and Alex to arrive. She told me that he'd not really eaten, had an upset tummy and to top things off, the play is aimed at kids 5+. I had visions of him lasting less than 5 minutes.
Turned out I couldn't have been more wrong - apart from his (unfortunately) typical daddy clinginess, he was a delight to be with. He seemed to love the show and ended up asking to back home to see mummy and big baby just 10-15 minutes before the end of the final act. He didn't get upset at any point and joined the other older kids decorating Christmas cookies with a variety of sugary toppings.
We'll do this again!

Feeding Emma (Video)

Feeding Emma (Video)
Originally uploaded by toby.

First attempts to try and feed Emma solid food...

http://www.vimeo.com/clip=26522

Boppin (Video)

Boppin (Video)
Originally uploaded by toby.

http://www.vimeo.com/clip=26517

Funny little lad.

Bedtime stories have gone too far

Ok, so we've gone through all of Alex's books so about a week or so ago we started making stories up. He liked it a lot at first but now HE LOVES IT.
Too much I think - its at the stage where he asks for the story before we finish reading his real books and takes over the story telling after only a couple of minutes. He gets so excited by the story that he sits upright with his eyes wide open ready for the next part of the tale. I think we're going to have to switch to stories about paint drying.
Here's the drift of the story as it stands today:
Alex finds a secret door in the cleaning cupboard. Its dark inside but Alex gets a torch and then calls for Daddy to come with him. It eventually leads us to a beach (thanks, CS Lewis). We throw stones and then notice a space rocket close by. We knock on the door and the rocket man asks us to come in and tells us that he's in a good mood so he'll take us wherever we want to go. <Ok this is where Alex goes a bit O.T.T.> Alex asks the rocket man to take us to go and get:

• Mummy and Big baby (Emma)
  
• Baba and Deda
  
• Nana
  
• Deda Mike & Dee and the dogs
  
• Timon, Pumbaa and Simba from the Lion King
  
• The bear (Baloo) and Bagheera from The Jungle Book (NOT Kaa or Sheer Khan)
  
• Peep, Chirp and Quack from Peep and the Big Wide World
  

Now we take all these guys up to the moon, where we meet:

• Aitken Drum
  
• Michael Finnegan
  

Who both live on the moon (?!)
Its a crazy story and I know its just going to get longer and crazier. Help!

Words

this, wow, kaka, dig, digger, vroom, up, down, on, off, push, bish, ding, bong, woosh, mummy, daddy, nana, baba, deda, socks, ducks, what, why, yes, no, beebaa, rocks, i know, i want, what is this, see mummy now, one, six, eyes, hands, head, bye, me, now, stop, boots, boy, in, dump, go, man, oh man, no way, go, stop, big boy, d, i, e, s, we are, click, bowl, book, ball, march(march-ch), bear, peep, kick, hello, hit, big, cookie, baby, bed, book, work, wee, bus, bad, nine, you, bum, moon, box, five, three, wash, knock, more, drum, Co-co, dog, dark, today, again, away, ta, back, boing (rabbit), egg, home, tree, c(l)ock, drop, black, mix, nuts, peep, pip, paz, two, wall, door, stuck, walk, bob, move, dump, dead, bambi, balloon, new, bath, wash

Its PEEP!

Its PEEP!
Originally uploaded by toby.

Thanks Lewiscraft, thanks Jonas - Alex is going to love this.

Its amazing what you (well, Ana) can do with a few bits of cotton, some googly eyes and some pipecleaners
Check out the real Peep - its the spitting image of the real deal!!
Nice one Anchi, you should get into making kids TV!

Jonas and I stopped off at Lewiscraft (BAD site, btw) on the way to the Grey Christmas Party at Panorama last night. He didn't mind waiting around and even helped me stuff the fluffy balls into my pocket followed by some brand new pipe cleaners. Wow, now that sounds a little dodgy - no wonder they don't call them pipe cleaners in Canada.

The world is more anal thanks to US foreign policy

British High Commission, Ottawa Documents Required

...or is it just the British Government's greed..

So this is either a reaction to 9/11/2001 or its the Blair government wringing every penny out of overseas citizens. Alex was born in 2003 - I applied for and received his British passport before the end of the year and renewed mine at the same time. I provided all the usual documentation including my original Birth Certificate - hand scrawled in Littleborough in 1971 - I've never used anything else. Everything is fine - I get a passport, Alex gets a passport, we travel, its great.
Now pretty much exactly 2 years later, I apply for Emma's British Passport and provide all the same information that I did when I applied for Alex's.
A few days later I get a note back telling me that for her passport, I need to provide my Long Form Birth Certificate which shows MY parent's names etc.
What a pile of steaming shite.
I've never had one and have no idea why it would be necessary to even own one.
So I follow the instructions and see that I'll need to cough up 20 quid or so to have the honour of owning one.
I'd love to see what my money goes towards.
I also have to pay for the extra courier costs. Arrgh

The Tree is up (still)

100_0224
Originally uploaded by toby.

Well we're certainly on top of Christmas this year.
As previously promised, we trucked on out to Taylor Christmas Tree Farm at half past eight on Sunday morning. The stress levels started to rise as we realized that we were running late and that our Passat wagon just isn't up to our demands now that there are 4 of us. There's a minivan on the way as soon as we can afford it - my goal is Sept 06 when the mortgage gets renewed but anyway, I digress. Basically, the car is too small and its just very difficult to feed and entertain the little 'uns when there's not even enough space for us in the front with the giant child seats taking up a third of the car's length.
Apart from a couple of coffee spills and my realization that the windshield washers no longer work, the journey turned out to be a little better than anticipated. It took less than an hour and we only had to stop once for Emma who had still not been fed.
When we got there it was COLD - I threw Alex in the boot and started getting him layered up and my hands froze very quickly. The poor child was also chilly until I got the fourth layer and gloves, boots and hat(s) on. Another reason a minivan is coming - it would have been so much better if I could have done it without having to have a door open.
Zoran and Milena were waiting for us there and helped us to get organized, although Alex wasn't very keen on them helping him get dressed - little monkey. By the time we were ready to set off, the car park had gone from 6 cars to 30+ - good job we didn't leave it another hour! Ana was so worried that Emma would freeze solid that she said that they were staying in the car instead of coming with us. After a short "discussion" I managed to "persuade" her that things may be better than her vision or frostbitten children. The place was quite quaint with an open bonfire burning at the centre of a few barns with the smells of hundreds of pre-cut Christmas trees, hot chocolate and burning pine filling the air. Kids of all ages were excitedly queuing for their ride on the tractor or horse-pulled cart which would take them to the field of trees where they would find the perfect specimen to fill their living room with Christmas cheer.
As we queued, we read up on the benefits of each of the trees and decided that we liked the sounds of the Fraser Fir, given that it lasts a long time and has a great scent. The ride was short but fun as we sat on bales of straw on top of an open cart behind a big blue tractor. We were dropped off at the Fraser Fir field and proceeded to wander between the rows of trees, each being between 6 and 10 feet tall. As we walked, field mice dodged under our feet through sets of tunnels they had created under the snow-covered dead grass.
I decided that I now didn't like Fraser Firs because we had a hard time finding one that was perfect. I need a reality check sometimes but my idea of the perfect tree is one that's denser with longer branches - we later decided that a Balsam Fir would probably be chosen next year.
While I ran after Alex who had decided it might be more fun to break into an adjoining field, Zoran started to saw down the tree which he had originally found and which we all agreed was the pick of the field. We managed to get a couple of pics of the tree-sawing moment and then we grabbed Alex and started dragging the tree back to the place where the trator would pick us up again.
The boys walked back to the farm and left the ladies to take the tree back on top of the tractor, thinking that they would get back before us. Well we got back to see the horse-drawn cart loading its passengers so Alex had a chat with the horses and we took the photo op as we waited for the ladies to get back.
We sat by the fire and looked at the tree baling machine at work and waited some more. Then some more. Oh dear - it was a good 5-10 minutes later that they eventually arrived back - I had feared they would be frozen with Emma screaching her head off, but she was asleep and Ana was smiling - nice.
Zoki paid for the tree (Thanks again Zoki!!) and we got it baled while Emma was put into the pre-warmed car and Alex was fed and then walked I know it sounds like a dog, but you have to tire them out before a car journey!) I went back to take a look at the pre-cut trees as I was convinced that a Balsam Fir would look better in our living room, but gave up when I again couldn't find the perfect one.
I strapped our felled tree on to the roof of the car and off we went, spilling another cup of coffee on all my papers of course.
Once we got back we put the kids to bed and trimmed and erected the tree ready for decoration when they woke up. We spent the rest of the afternoon threading baubbles (sp?), singing and dancing to Queen on Live Aid and helping Ana dress the tree. She did a great job and I totally love the tree - it looks fabulous.
But if it starts to look crappy before the big day, I'll go out and buy a Balsam Fir and we'll have fun redecorating!

Words

this, wow, kaka, dig, digger, vroom, up, down, on, off, push, bish, ding, bong, woosh, mummy, daddy, nana, baba, deda, socks, ducks, what, why, yes, no, beebaa, rocks, i know, i want, what is this, see mummy now, one, six, eyes, hands, head, bye, me, now, stop, boots, boy, in, dump, go, man, oh man, no way, go, stop, big boy, d, i, e, s, we are, click, bowl, book, ball, march(march-ch), bear, peep, kick, hello, hit, big, cookie, baby, bed, book, work, wee, bus, bad, nine, you, bum, moon, box, five, three, wash, knock, more, drum

Yahoo Map/Flash/Flickr Mashup

Yahoo Map/Flash/Flickr Mashup



Project: View Flickr photographs overlaid on a map to display where they were taken.
Why: To prototype the functionality for a couple of projects that need to involve Yahoo or Google Maps and look fancy.
Tools: Homesite 4.5 (?!), Flash MX 2005 Professional
Technologies: Flash (7+), ASP, XML, OPML, RSS, Flickr API, Yahoo Maps AS-Flash API, SlideShowPro
Timeline: 2 Days worth of spare time (with Full time job and 2 kids)

Well I'd hardly call myself good at Flash but I managed to find some tools out there that really helped to put this little app together. Thanks to all for what you have made available online to help others.

1. Downloaded Macromedia Extensions Manager here. Installed.
   
2. Applied for a Flickr API Key here.
   
3. Applied for a Yahoo Maps Application ID here.
   
4. Downloaded the Yahoo Maps AS-Flash eXtensions package from here. Double-clicked and installed.
   
5. Downloaded the source of a cool application that mashes video into Yahoo Maps.
   
6. Purchased and downloaded a great slideshow eXtensions package called SlideshowPro. Double-clicked and installed.
   
7. Created a new Flash Movie and named it yahooMap.fla
   
8. Dragged in the com.yahoo.maps.api.flash.YahooMap and sized on the stage.
   
9. Named the instance "myMap"
   
10. Added my Address(used to center the map by default), App ID and zoom level (10) to the parameters of the component
    
11. Added the following code to the first frame of my movie:
    
    
    import com.yahoo.maps.tools.PanTool;
    import com.yahoo.maps.markers.CustomPOIMarker;
    import com.yahoo.maps.widgets.NavigatorWidget;
    import com.yahoo.maps.markers.CustomSWFMarker;
    import com.yahoo.maps.markers.CustomImageMarker;
    myMap.addEventListener(com.yahoo.maps.api.flash
    .YahooMap.EVENT_INITIALIZE, onInitMap);
    
    function onInitMap(eventData) {
    
    }
    
    
    Ok so that imports all the namespaces that I'll need to do the work, adds an event listener and an event handler function so that once the map loads, it will fire the function where the meat of the functionality resides.
    
12. Now within the event handler function (onInitMap), I add the following code:
    
    
    //Add the ability to drag the map around
    var panTool = new PanTool();
    myMap.addTool(panTool, true);
    //Add the zoom slider
    var navWidget = new NavigatorWidget("closed");
    myMap.addWidget(navWidget);
    
    
    This allows me to drag the map around and zoom in and out.
    
13. Now I decided that I'd want an easy way to start the map at various zoom levels, so I pass it in via a querystring variable (intZoomLevel) when I call the swf (eg. yahooMap.swf?intZoomLevel=10). To get the map to respond to this I add the following line within the event handler function(onInitMap):
    
    
    myMap.setZoomLevel(_root.intZoomLevel);
    
    
    
14. Now we have the basic mapping movie, we'll need to add some custom markers to it. I wanted markers that would open up to display a slideshow of my pics served from Flickr. I copied the marker.fla from the zip mentioned in step 5 and called it picMarker.fla.
    
15. I stripped out all the (cool) video components and functionality which left me with a nice custom marker that would open & close as I wanted.
    
16. I then dragged in the SlideShowPro component and positioned it on the first frame of the marker's open state. I configured the size and other parameters.
    
17. Now I needed a way to pass data into these markers so they know what pictures to load. The SlideShowPro component is capable of processing an OPML file which points to one or more 'galleries' or RSS Feeds. I decided to dynamically write the OPML file based on parameters that are passed in to each marker. So I created the following ASP page named OPMLWriter.asp:
    
    
    <%
    Response.Charset = "utf-8"
    Response.ContentType="text/xml"
    Response.write "<?xml version=""1.0""?>" & VbCrLf
    Response.write "<opml version=""1.1"">" & VbCrLf
    Response.write "<head>" & VbCrLf
    Response.write "<title>" & Request("Title") & " Pics</title>" & VbCrLf
    Response.write "</head>" & VbCrLf
    Response.write "<body>" & VbCrLf
    Response.write "<outline xmlUrl=""" & Request("URL") & """/>" & VbCrLf
    Response.write "</body>" & VbCrLf
    Response.write "</opml>" & VbCrLf
    %>
    
    
    This OPML is used by the SlideshowPro component to load in the gallery from Flickr.
    
18. I then created the following XML file named flickrLookup.xml:
    
    
    <?xml version="1.0"?>
    <root>
    <tag TITLE="Home" RSSURL="http%3A%2F%2Fflickr.com%2Fservices%2Ffeeds%2Fphotos_public.gne%3Fid%3D37996581623%40N01%26tags%3Dhome%26format%3Drss_200" ADDRESS="147 Silver Birch Ave., Toronto, Ontario M4E 3L3"/>
    <tag TITLE="Science Center" RSSURL="http%3A%2F%2Fflickr.com%2Fservices%2Ffeeds%2Fphotos_public.gne%3Fid%3D37996581623%40N01%26tags%3Dsciencecenter%26format%3Drss_200" ADDRESS="770 Don Mills Road, Toronto, Ontario"/>
    <tag TITLE="Rado" RSSURL="http%3A%2F%2Fwww.flickr.com%2Fservices%2Ffeeds%2Fphotos_public.gne%3Fid%3D37996581623%40N01%26tags%3Dkincardine%26format%3Drss_200" ADDRESS="18 Eastwood Cr Tiverton, Ontario N0G 2T0"/>
    </root>
    
    
    This basically maps my Flickr tags (such as "Home") to an actual address. This xml needs to be processed by the map movie which then needs to pass the data into the marker clips that get loaded.
    
19. To do so, I added the following lines to the top of the first frame in the map movie (yahooMap.fla):
    
    
    var objXML = new XML();
    objXML.ignoreWhite = true;
    objXML.onLoad = function(success){
    if (success){
    addMarkers(this);
    }else{
    trace("Error loading XML file");
    }
    }
    
    
    This declares the XML object and adds an event handler so that when it loads, we can do something (call addMarkers)
    
20. I then added a call to load the XML within the onInitMap function:
    
    
    //Load the xml that translates flickr tag-based feeds with titles and Addresses
    objXML.load("http://tobypilling.com/flickrLookup.xml");
    
    
21. I then added the event handler function which is responsible for processing the XML and adding the markers in the correct position, passing the marker swfs whatever data they need to display the appropriate slideshow:
    
    
    function addMarkers(objXML)
    {
    var objNode = objXML.firstChild;
    for(var intCounter = 0; intCounter < objNode.childNodes.length; intCounter++){
    var strTitle = { text:objNode.childNodes[intCounter].attributes.TITLE };
    var tmpURL = "http://tobypilling.com/OPMLWriter.asp?Title=" + objNode.childNodes[intCounter].attributes.TITLE + "&URL=" + objNode.childNodes[intCounter].attributes.RSSURL;
    var strOPMLURL = { text:tmpURL };
    var markerHome = { url:"picMarker.swf", strTitle:strTitle, strOPMLURL:strOPMLURL };
    myMap.addMarkerByAddress(CustomSWFMarker, objNode.childNodes[intCounter].attributes.ADDRESS, markerHome);
    }
    }
    
    
    
    Now I need to tweak the marker fla (picMarker.fla) so that it can use this data that gets passed to it.
    
22. As you can see from that, I pass 2 data objects into the picMarker.swf when I load them.
    strTitle: Used to display the Marker text
    strOPMLURL: Where the pics need to be loaded from
    
    To consume this information, I add the following lines to the ShowUpState function in the picMarker fla:
    
    
    var strTitle = _parent.strTitle;
    labelText.text = strTitle.text;
    
    
23. Then I add the following lines to the first frame of the marker's open state:
    
    
    var strOPMLURL = _parent.strOPMLURL;
    my_ssp.xmlFilePath = strOPMLURL.text;
    my_ssp.xmlFileType = "OPML";
    
    
    This grabs the OPML path from the parent movie and uses OPMLWriter.asp to grab the RSS feed from Flickr.
    

The magic of the APIs and SlideshowPro do the rest.

Here's the source if required but you'll need the components to get it working.

Jaden's Forcefield

So Jaden called this morning at 7:10am(?!?):

Jaden: "Toby, Toby"

Me: "Hey Jaden. What's going on?"

Jaden: "Guess what! I have a Forcefield in my room even better than Alex's"

(I had previously explained to Jaden that I had installed a very powerful forcefield in Alex's room when we did the renovations so that no monsters could ever get in)

Me: "Oh wow - did you get it at that big forcefield shop close by?"

Jaden: "Yeah. Yeah - its even more powerful than Alex's one"

Me: "Oh wow. You lucky thing. Hey is it ok if I come over and sleep in your room?"

Jaden: "Yeah........Ok bye"

I'm thinking of photoshopping up a label and sticking it on a can of compressed air - the ones used for cleaning keyboards. Think it would make a great Christmas present.

"Super Powerful Forcefield. Stops ALL Monsters, Skeletons and Trolls. GUARANTEED!!"