Leo's leave taking behavior
You can't say goodbye to Leo without going through this routine: Hug Kiss Bunny nose High five Low five Tickle fiveIt's a little inconvenient at pre-school drop off, but I love it.
View ArticleThe worst thing about vacation...
Is of course, coming back. We just got back from a short trip down to Stone Mountain, Georgia for a family re-union centered about my grandmother's 90th birthday celebrations. It was great spending...
View ArticleFirst flight
My boys Alex(8) and Linus(6) didn't know until this morning, but today they're about to take their first airplane ride. Their mom's taking them down to Orlando to see uncle Chris compete in the...
View ArticleUnder contract!
To continue my little string of personal entries, I've got great news. The house that we bought when I worked for Rogue Wave in Charlotte, couldn't sell when we moved to Raleigh to work for HAHT in...
View ArticleKids online
Today, I set up a new computer for the kids. I took the new 2.8Ghz Celeron box that had been serving as my Linux file-server and swapped it with the old 450Mhz P3 box that the kids were using. I was a...
View ArticleStar Wars weekend
I convinced Andi that Alex(8) and Linus(7) are old enough for the Star Wars films. So, this past weekend we watched episides I, II and III. We started with Episode 1.1: The Phantom Edit, a fan-edited...
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North Ridge fireworks
(Raleigh, NC) Fireworks over the North Ridge Country Club, as seen from my driveway and taken with my Treo 650. Not the greatest picture, but it shows how close they are to my house.
View ArticleBack to work
I'm back to work after a week of JavaOne and week of summer-shutdown imposed vacation. What did I do on my vacation? After returning from JavaOne, I joined the rest of the family at the grandparent's...
View ArticleMostly off-line today
Andi and I went out to celebrate our 14th wedding anniversary last night (thank you very much) and as we left, a Time Warner truck parked right next to our cable box. When we returned from our...
View ArticleThe underwear experiment
Since this is a "professional" blog, I would never tell you the story of the underwear experiment, in which a little boy decides to test the limits of parental odor detection, fabric strength, and...
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Weekend project
Last weekend, I helped Alex finish his first model: a 1/48th scale replica of a Republic P-47D Thunderbolt fighter. Alex did everything except for the putty/sanding work and some of the finer painting....
View ArticleWalk the Line and a night out
For the first time since three-year-old Leo was born, Andi and I dumped *all* of the kids off with my parents (thanks Mom and Dad) in Chapel Hill and headed out to movie, dinner and a show. We saw...
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Day 1
After wrapping up writing last night, I took a break from the book for most of the day with some shopping and some time with our neighbors. Our neighbors across the street, invited us over for some...
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Today is...
...the birthday of a truly great man and a wonderful father. Happy 70th birthday DAD!!!(c) Charles S. Johnson, Jr.
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Spring weekend
Since the book was supposed to be finished by Friday (more on that later), Andi and her friends left town for a girls beach weekend at Topsail Island. So the boys and I have been fending for ourselves...
View ArticleBack to the grind
We just returned from a most excellent spring-break trip down to Georgia for some sight-seeing in Atlanta and a family re-union in Callaway Gardens. I had hoped to get some serious work done on my ROME...
View ArticleFour years blogging
I'm a week late with this post. My first post was April 11, 2002 (also here) but the 17th is the date I remember because that's the day that the Roller article was published at OnJava.com. I started...
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The Awful Green Things from Outer Space
With the book out of my hands again, I'm trying to return to normal life by doing things like leaving the house, watching movies and playing games with the kids. Tonight's fun was The Awful Green...
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Panzer Blitz
Alex and I made the jump from Steve Jackson mini-games to our first full-blown wargame tonight with my old copy of Panzer Blitz.
View ArticleStatesville balloon-fest
Over the weekend, we drove about three hours west towards the mountains to Statesville, NC for the annual Carolina balloon-fest. We saw a tank, an assortment of military helicopters and we even saw...
View ArticleHappy Thanksgiving
Happy Thanksgiving to those that celebrate this fine American holiday and happy Thursday to those that don't. As always, I'm thankful for my happy and healthy family and happy that we'll be able to...
View ArticleFilm Babble
Here's a little something else I'm thankful for. My brother Dan has been low-frequency blogging for a while and he's getting better and better. His blog is called Film Babble and it's definitely...
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10
We celebrated a milestone tonight, Alex's 10th birthday. He's grown into a great kid, smart, healthy, eager to learn (math) and questioning everything. We're very lucky. It's hard to believe 10 years...
View ArticleJingle bells
Here's a little video gem I found while working on our annual video review DVD; a little spontaneous singing and cuteness from the kids on Christmas eve last year. It's my first YouTube upload:
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Christmas loot and NoVa
We opened presents in Chapel Hill on Xmas eve, at home in Raleigh on Xmas day and then drove up to Northern Virginia for one last round of paper ripping, twisty-tie unfastening and worship of the one...
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Smithsonian Air & Space Udvar-Hazy Center
The Smithsonian Air & Space Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles airport is simply amazing. The center "provides enough space for the Smithsonian to display the thousands of aviation and sapce artifacts...
View ArticleFarewell to 2006
I've been too busy with year-end projects to blog over the past couple of days and now suddenly, it's time to say farewell to 2006. So I'll do that with a quick summary of the year. 2006 was a pretty...
View ArticleScience blogger without a blog
Speaking of science writing and making more science accessible to lay people, check out my Dad's article at Luminous Landscape where he explains Why Is My 50mm Lens Equivalent to 80mm on a 35mm Camera...
View ArticleSo Dad wants a blog...
Over the weekend I convinced my Dad to start a blog and I offered to host it on my site with Roller (of course). We've already started to set the site up. Dad picked up a nice short domain name, I...
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Heart of Gold
And before I leave the topic of movies I'll mention this; recently I've been enjoying Neil Young's Heart of Gold, an absolutely wonderful concert film of and documentary about the debut of Neil's...
View ArticlePhotography: Appreciation through Understanding
I mentioned before that I convinced my Dad to start a blog. Well, now after a week or so of back-and-forth with Kattare.com getting the domain handling setup properly and modifying Roller to support...
View ArticlePhotophys.com updates
Dad has posted Chapter 8: How To Make Lenses That Are Good Enough for Photography on his blog. At his request, I added an about page for him with a mug-shot and links to his other books.
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Bone head
Linus really digs the Bone comics. He's proud to be a Bone-head and recently expressed his great desire for a Bone t-shirt. So this weekend we did a little craft project and made one. We started by...
View ArticleQOTD
"Hey Dad, guess what? I killed Linus in the wilderness."Not exactly what a Dad wants to hear first thing in the morning. Don't worry, Linus is still alive here in the real world and in the virtual...
View ArticleFilm Babble Blog 80th post
Celebrating with Movie and TV mind teasers1. What was in the briefcase in Pulp Fiction?2. What was in the package left in the care of Barton Fink?3. What state in Springfield in on The Simpsons?...and...
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Home again
It's been a fun four weeks of travel with the APP interop event, vacation, ApacheCon EU and JavaOne but damn it's nice to be home with Andi and the boys.By the way, my talk went very smoothly...
View ArticleFilm Babble Blog on the IMDb Hit List
My brother Dan's blog, Film Babble is listed on the front page of IMDb today. Well, OK, you have to scroll-down a little but it's there. Dan's recent post on 20 Great Modern Movie Cameos caught the...
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Five years ago today
This little guy, Leo Michael Johnson, was born: http://rollerweblogger.org/roller/date/20020621And this is what the little guy looks like today:What's he like? He's an absolute joy to be around, happy,...
View Article10 definitive films within films
My bro Dan, who clearly understands the secret to blog success, has done it again with another lengthy and well-researched blog post. Thanks to his most recent post 10 definitive films within films,...
View ArticleBergman and Allen
Another great in-depth post from Film Babble Dan: Ingmar Bergman - The Woody Allen Angle. Dan made the IMDB front page again.
View ArticleFilm Babble scores mention in NY Mag
My brother Dan is a great writer with an encyclopedic knowledge of films, rock and pop music in general, and he's blogging, so it's only natural that folks start to notice. This weekend he got another...
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Fuzzy war birds
I just happened to be looking for air show opportunities this morning and found out about the Pope AFB Airshow and Open House, which is happening today and tomorrow. What luck! So I packed up the kids...
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NC State Fair 2007
We spent most of the day today at the state fair. Kids loved it. Parents endured it. We saw the bunnies, roosters, cows and pigs. We avoided the fried-thing of the year. We used up a fist-full of...
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No Bee of the Bird of the Moth
That was the only complaint the kids had about the They Might Be Giants show last night, their first "real rock concert" as they called it. Otherwise they loved it. My brother and I took Alex (10) and...
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Filmbabble's 2007 films
Dan says 2007 was an exceptional year for films and he's posted his top ten films of 2007 list, with links to his original reviews for each film. Based on the four I've seen (Simpsons, No Country, I'm...
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Snow and other distractions
That's the view from my desk this morning. We woke up to snow in Raleigh for the first time in years. Here, even the threat of snow is enough to cancel school across the whole state, so the kids are...
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Science for the Curious Photographer
You may remember that my dad, Charles Johnson, was working on a book that explains the science behind photography, from "quantum mechanics to physiology and art appreciation." He's finished now and...
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re: Science for the Curious Photographer
To follow-up on my previous post on the topic: my father is starting to publish excerpts from his book Science for the Curious Photographer on Luminous Landscape. His first piece is titled The Quest...
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