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Taking the kids to and from school is when I get some of the best gems while talking to Andrew. He’s very focused and is willing to talk your ear off about just about anything.

One thing I’ve been teasing him about, because it makes him SO upset even though it’s nothing, is calling a CVS store Walgreens, and vice versa. This is a short clip of us coming home from School the other day.

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One of the best Super Bowl commercials from 2011 was the “Imported from Detroit” commercial with Eminem. The music was cool, the VO was cool and the overall look of the commercial made you want to run out and buy a new car from Detroit. This is the original spot.

Not long after that we took one our our usual trips to Detroit and we decided to make our own modified version of that, but based on the fact that I was “Exported from Dearborn” to Chicago. So, on a whim we shot a bunch of footage with our iPhones while driving, and then a lot more footage with the GoPro camera that we just happened to have on that trip with us. I have all the footage to Brenda and the audio track, and she created our own version. This is what that one looks like (if you have not seen the original, watch that one first).

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

Who is packing your parachute?

I’m not the most practiced when it comes to religion, but I do have a very deep well of faith. Listening to this podcast on a weekly basis really keeps me centered and focused on the important things in life.

Even if you’re not very religious (or don’t believe in a higher power at all) you will find this interesting. We all have people that helped us get to where we are today, and remembering that is very humbling.

Perspective can be very powerful.

I want to give a shout out to my favorite Aunt Shirley, Shirley Magdan for such a awesome time today. Thanks to her renting out a roller rink we had a great family skate this afternoon. I would have never thought to do it, but it was great fun for even the small children. Thanks Aunt Shirley, we love you!

This video was shot on my new iPhone 4s, and edited using the new FCPx. As a result, the video looks like crap because of pretty much everything being in motion and the rolling shutter problem, and I couldn’t edit in FCPx to save my life, so it’s as good as it’s going to get under the circumstances. But… it’s better than nothing I supposed. Maybe not, you can be the judge.

Room by Ikea

This time we decided not to wait until the bed was being scaled with a single leap over, and got Sydney her own bed. She’s been really good at sleeping on the floor mat at Grandma’s house so we thought she was ready. We waited for it to be assembled before we brought her into the room. I think she was a bit confused at first, not knowing what happened to her crib.

[See post to watch QuickTime movie] ]]> http://tomchak.com/blog/2011/11/12/sydneys-first-bed/feed/ 0 http://tomchak.com/blog/2011/11/03/andrew-on-becoming-a-pumpkin/ http://tomchak.com/blog/2011/11/03/andrew-on-becoming-a-pumpkin/#comments Thu, 03 Nov 2011 21:01:06 +0000 Thomas Tomchak http://tomchak.com/blog/?p=3864 Next time I’ll have to not be sitting right in front of (and below) the TV on the wall. It was hard to hold his attention.

It’s been just over a week since we returned from CA, and I finally have time to take a breath and add more details about our trip to California. As I mentioned previously, we feel it went very well.

Preamble

Skip this if you just want to know about Dr. Goldberg

It ended up being a long week for many reasons. Not bad, just LONG.

First, we’ve had a small leak in the bathroom for the last 5 years (seriously). A few days before we left I finally had a plumber come out to fix it, only to find out it was not the plumbing, but the tiles on the splash wall of the bathroom were falling off and has been running behind the tiles all this time. Not so good. So not the quick fix I was hoping for, but the bathtub needs to be re-tiled, which involves removing the shower walls and being without a shower for at least a few days.

I was able to quickly find a trusted home repair service to take the job on, and they even came in with a reasonable bid. But then the more we talked it through, I realized that our crappy bathroom floor also needed to be replaced, and it just made sense to do it all at the same time. Fine – now it’s WAY more money than what a simple leak would cost to fix, but at least it’s being done while we’re gone (in both CA and MI), and will minimize the time we have to go without a shower and toilet.

The only problem ended up being that they had to start on the bathroom the day before we left for CA if it was all going to be done by the time we returned.  So, a day before we were supposed to leave for CA we had to get a hotel room near the airport so that we had a working toilet and shower. It ended up being a very nice night/morning and it was fun to stay with Max in a hotel room. He didn’t know what to make of it, but he seemed to enjoy it. Seeing things that area old experiences to you through the eyes of a child that’s doing it for the first time is always so fascinating and enjoyable. It’s one of the most enjoyable parts of having kids.

The next morning (Tuesday August 2nd) we went to the airport for our direct flight to CA. It was very interesting watching Max. You could tell he was just taking it all in. We took a train from the long term economy parking lot, waited in a long security line, and then still had 2 hours to wait for our flight at the gate. During that entire time he was very good. Amazing actually.

When we got on the plane he sat between both me and Brenda and was clearly very nervous. First by the noise of the plane, and then by the movement as we taxied to the runway. We each had a hand on his legs and he stayed calm as we took off, and enjoyed a snack and short nap during the flight. For it being such a long day for all of us, he really did great and was in a good mood up until we got to the hotel and had to wake him up in the back seat of the rental car.

The next day (Wednesday the 3rd of August) was the big day. We took a short side-trip to Santa Monica Beech and then headed to our appointment with plenty of time to spare.

Meeting Dr. Goldberg

We were both nervous and excited about meeting Dr. Goldberg. We had already read his book and felt that we knew a lot about him, but we just didn’t want to expect too much from our first meeting.

Dr. Goldberg runs a regular pediatric practice out of his LA office, but on certain days sees only parents of autistic children, like us. Most come to him because they too have read his book and are curious. Many are from the LA area, but people travel from around the world to meet with him.

Our time with Dr. Goldberg consisted of a very relaxed, informal meeting in the lobby of his practice. This seemed a bit odd at first, but the benefits were clear pretty fast. Max had plenty of room to run around and play, and there was a separate room attached that had plenty of toys to keep him busy. While the 3 of us talked, Max played and occasionally ran up to us to get attention for one thing or another. Brenda and I took turns keeping him out of trouble and dealing with his OCD with light switches.

It was clear right away that Dr. Goldberg had personally reviewed the entire pile of information we had sent him in advance. He had made notes of things he wanted to discuss with us and had mostly wanted to clarify or expand on some of the information we had provided. This spoke volumes to me personally. I have switched doctors several times over the years, and the vast majority of the time my records were never reviewed before my first meeting. It’s always obvious by the questions they ask. One doctor didn’t even know I was Diabetic until I mentioned it to him. RED FLAG! I didn’t have him for very long before I switched again.

Over the course of 90 minutes we talked at length about how Dr. Goldberg has spent years refining his treatment protocol, and how Max may fit into his course of treatment. At almost every turn, Max fit into what Dr. Goldberg calls NIDS (Neuro Immune Distress Syndrome). This condition is based largely around the idea that after a child was born, their immune system was compromised. The causes can be anything or everything from environmental to viral. For a normal healthy child with a well developed immune system, many of these things would not be a big deal. But for a child that has a compromised immune system, it stresses out the body. At some point, the child is actually considered “sick” because the body can no longer carry the stress. When this happens, many of the symptoms that I child presents with are very similar to Autism. In part this is because in recent years something that is otherwise unexplained and has some symptoms similar to Autism, it’s just all lumped together. And as we know first hand, once your child is labeled as autistic, pretty much anything that goes wrong after that is just attributed to your child having autism, and little interest is taken in it. But if Dr. Goldberg is right, a great number of children that are labeled as autistic are not suffering from a congenital neurological problem, but are actually sick. Sick in a way that can be treated. But nobody in the medical community seems to be interested in hearing that.

The other important thing to note is that there is no definitive test to diagnosis your child as autistic. It’s very subjective and based on one or more people’s opinion after spending a hour or so with your child. When Max was diagnosed, there were about 6 people in the room with us that evaluated Max at the time, and they had to have a private meeting for 20 minutes after evaluating Max to decide as a group what to tell us about him. The point is, it’s not black and white in most cases.

So after answering all of the questions, Dr. Goldberg was confident that Max fit his definition for NIDS, so we are now following his treatment protocol, which we started on Monday the 8th.

There are two major components of the protocol. First, the diet is very restricted. He can have meat, most vegetables and a few fruits (no tropical fruits). The major things to avoid are gluten, dairy, sugar and grains. Color dies are a big one as well. In fact, we have to actually remove the blue diet that’s on his medicine before he takes it because many children have negative reactions to food coloring (it’s considered an allergen). All of this may sound like a pain in the butt, but the fact is we’ve been doing 95% of this for a year now (all thanks to Brenda and all the research she’s done on nutrition). So we only had a few small adjustments to make.

The second part is the medicine. Working on the theory that he has a virus in his system, he is now taking valtrex. While this on the surface seems like a radical treatment, it’s easy to find many examples of families talking about how their child was greatly improved by this part of the treatment alone. However, in many cases the child gets worse initially before they get better. I mean this in the sense that they become even more irritable than before, and we have already seen this with Max. He’s much more hot and cold with his moods, and when he’s having a melt down it’s more intense and lasts longer. But on the flip side of that, he has been showing more eye contact this last week and has been more verbal. He’s talking more, and saying new words almost daily right now. Se we are seeing some real positives.

One amazing thing about our visit with the doctor is that we were allowed to both video tape and record audio of our visit, with no restrictions at all. I wasn’t even allowed to have a camera in the delivery room when the kids were born because of hospital policy! If I had to guess as to why he’s so relaxed about this, it’s that Dr. Goldberg wants to get his message out to people. He’s interested in helping as many people as possible, and the only way to do that is to make the larger medical community and parents aware. It’s only through parents putting pressure on the medical community that things will ever change. I have since had our entire meeting transcribed into a text document so that we can review information that was discussed just by doing a word search on the document.

You may be wondering how we can be seeing a doctor and doing such a radical treatment when we’re over 1,000 miles away. There are several ways that it’s possible.

First, Brenda sends weekly reports as requested by the office. They provided a form with specific questions about all aspects of how he’s doing. After they receive the report, the doctor reviews it and the nurse calls Brenda back with any new instructions or changes for the upcoming week.

Second, every 4 weeks we will have a conference call with the doctor, just as if we were there in person and discuss all of the particulars. We also have the option of doing a video call over Skype, which we plan to do.

The next course of treatment after the Valtrex will be decided later after we see how he responds to this part of the process. It can take up to 3 weeks to see significant changes, so we have some time yet.

After our 90 minute meeting with the doctor we were taken into one of the exam rooms where they withdrew about 23 gallons of blood from Max for a variety of tests (ok, maybe only 8 gallons but it seemed like a lot for such a small kid – but he was fine).

After screaming through the entire thing, Max was pretty tired and exhausted. Think about what a pain that would be for a 3 year old. First you have to play by yourself for 90 minuets while your parents more or less ignore you, and then you’re rewarded by being held down and having your body drained of all of it’s blood.

We ended the day by getting max to bed and letting him relax. I think he really enjoyed having a big bed all to himself. He liked when we would tuck him in under the covers every night.

Time to Head Home

We all had a good night of sleep and headed out the next morning with plenty of time to get to the airport. We had about 3 extra hours (by design), so decided to head down to the Hollywood Walk of Fame for a little sight seeing and lunch. We had a great time and we were both reminded how nice it was to just have a single child to focus on and shower with attention, instead of feeling so split with our attention.

After taking in the sights and having lunch at Mel’s Diner (which was awesome) we started our leisurely trip back to the rental car place by the airport. And that’s where the low point of the trip took place.

Sorry About Your Car

I’ll get into the details in a future post (it has gotten very interesting in the last several days) but i had a accident with the rental car. Nobody was hurt and I’m very thankful for that. Especially since I caused the accident. The rental car got the worst of it but was for the most part drivable. We were only a mile and a half way from the drop off location when it happened (another good thing because the freeway would have been out of the question).

So we ended our trip to LA with a big BANG. Like I said, more on that later. This post is already way longer than I expected.

NO SHOWER FOR YOU!

While we were waiting for our flight I called to check in and see what the stays of our shower was. Things were moving along great, however due to a few small problems that had to be fixed along the way, it was not going to be ready when we got home. So, as much as we didn’t want to spend even more money on hotels, we decided to get one close to the house for one more night. We checked in at 2am on Friday, and were up and on the road heading to MI for the weekend by 10am the next morning.

We had a great (albeit very short) visit to MI and collected our other two children from their week long visit with Grandma and Grandpa Tomchak. They both did great in our absence and it was nice to know they had such good bonding time with their cousins as well.

On Sunday afternoon we returned to our semi-remodeled bathroom, and it was A-W-E-S-O-M-E. What we had was so bad for so long that it was hard not to really appreciate the new one. I say semi-remodeled because we didn’t do anything with the crappy walls, crappy bathroom door, or crappy fixtures. We just didn’t have the money, and after all this was a LEAK that had to be fixed. We were already way over budget.

We were so thankful to have Avalon Home Services take this job on. Not only did they make great suggestions and do things to save us money along the way, but they went above and beyond by fixing a few things in the bathroom and not charging us, bringing in the mail every day, and even taking out the trash on trash day. Seriously, they were awesome. So a big thanks to Cathy and Steve for all of their hard work while we were gone. They worked hard to make sure everything was done by the time we got home on Sunday and after the week we had it was not under appreciated! If you’re in the Chicagoland area I can not recommend them highly enough.

What’s Next?

In 2-3 more weeks we will have decided, along with Dr. Goldberg, what our next step with Max is. We are still cautiously optimistic and know that we’re doing the best we can to help Max. The funny thing is, I got the feeling during this trip that Max knew that as well. I really felt like I bonded with him on this trip and got choked up a few times while playing with him on the bed. While he’s very tough when he’s “in a mood”, he’s just so sweet, loving and funny when he’s well. We just love him so much.

More in coming weeks. Sorry this is so long, but I wanted to get it all down before too much time passed.

]]> http://tomchak.com/blog/2011/08/17/the-goldberg-visit/feed/ 0 http://tomchak.com/blog/2011/07/16/skydivechicago-edited-video-finally/ http://tomchak.com/blog/2011/07/16/skydivechicago-edited-video-finally/#comments Sun, 17 Jul 2011 01:44:12 +0000 Thomas Tomchak http://tomchak.com/blog/?p=3647 I can’t thank my assistant editor Scott Roberts enough for putting this together for me.

I just dumped a bunch of footage and photos on him and said “Hey, make me something cool when you have time”. Well, we’ve been busy but he finally finished it while I was traveling and I’m pretty excited about it. My heart still drops when I see it, but at the same time a part of me wants to do it all over again.

Even though I had to work what ended up being a very long day (9am until just after midnight), there were two things that really made my birthday a great day.
First, all of the Facebook and email well wishes from friends and family. On the surface it seems so simple and in some ways impersonal, but psychologically it was a awesome. All day my phone was “dinging” with new messages every time a new message was posted, and it was just nice to know that people took the time to write something.

Second, the crew threw me a mini-birthday party at the end of the night just as I was finishing up and all the shoots were done. My last several birthdays have been on the road, and this was a gift in itself and made me really happy. I always tell people it’s no big deal and not to do anything, but if you’ve ever actually had people do nothing for your birthday, it’s kind of depressing.

Anyway, a big thanks to everybody – especially the on-site crew. Turning a year older today wasn’t so bad after all.

BathTimex3 from the Tomchak Family. on Vimeo.

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

This is my first official blog post. Hooray for Brenda!

I have always appreciated Tom’s dedication to posting the updates and play by play happenings of what is going on in our household. It is very nice for me to look at old posts and see how our lives are constantly changing. I know my posts will not be as detailed because of my drive-by tendencies in writing anything however I will try to get involved in the blogging game.

Here is a video that I did on my iPhone. This really seems to be the only way I will be able to do any form of editing these days. I did one for Sydney, so now it’s Max and Andrew’s turn for a video.

It’s fun to see what things your kids become interested in as they grow up. At the age of 2, it’s pretty simple. Cars, Fire Trucks, and Trains. At least for Andrew. He is obsessed with them all, but Trains is probably in the lead right now. A few months back we took him and Max on a train ride to Chicago and he still works it into a conversation unexpectedly as the mood hits him.

More recently it’s been all about Thomas The Train. He would play with his Thomas The Train set by the bay window, while watching Thomas The Train on TV. I think for me that’s like watching a nerd show on how to build a computer while sitting on the couch on my wireless laptop or iPad. So I understand. The male species can be an easy read.

Because he loves it so much and gets so excited, Brenda and I have wanted to add to his excitement by expanding his train set with more engines, cars and maybe an expansion pack with more tracks. Those are all great, but then we noticed that they actually sell a table specifically for setting up the train. I liked this idea a lot. It would be kind of nice for him (and Max when Andrew allows it) to have the train setup it a place that didn’t get knocked on the floor multiple times a day, sending Andrew into a rage yelling “No Train Sydney, My Train… Time Out Sydney!”.

Anyway, after looking at a few tables and seeing how crappy they were made, especially for the price, I decided to make one myself. A quick google search turned up a link on some very basic plans that I thought I could handle since I’ve been home this month. So one day I had the idea, the next day I was at Home Depot with the Little Sydney picking out lumber. What’s really amazing to me is that I’ve had a top notch woodworking garage for the last 7 years, and never made a single project aside from remodeling the basement. But the first summer after I sell all of the machines, I decide to make something where the machines would have actually be useful!

My original plan was to make the table at a much higher quality, and for less money. In the end, It probably cost me twice as much when you count the glue I had to by, the name tags, clamps that I needed but didn’t already own and the fact that the materials list given on the website actually had 2 extra pieces listed that I didn’t need. But, it is personalized and much better made. My hope is (and I do know this is a long shot) that 20 years for now Andrew is able to give the table to one of his boys (or girls) and adds another name tag to it.

I had an idea to shoot a time-lapse video of building it. I have a camera that’s very easy to mount anywhere that can take a suction cup, and has a very wide angle lens, so it was pretty easy. Looking back at the video now, I’m really glad that I did it (both the table and the video). Hopefully it will be a nice memento for the boys in years to come.

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

Sunday was a great day to play outside with the kids. Having the “Tomchak Park” is turning out to be a great use of our long neglected yard.

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

This time shot and edited by Brenda, and get this…. it was done entirely on her iPhone! She would shoot footage along the way, add photos here and there, and just edit a shot or two as she had time. When she was done she exported a full 720p HD video. It’s just mind blowing what you can do these days.

So here’s the video. Enjoy.

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

Here is a video that is very typical of what I usually do on these jobs. It’s one of 6 – 8 videos that I will do before the convention is over.

Everything in the video was shot just a day, or sometimes hours before I put it together, and then it plays first thing in the morning the next day. It’s the end result of 2 cameramen, 2 producers, 1 associate producer and myself as the editor (I’m the last one in the chain).

For a quick video tour, click below.

[See post to watch QuickTime movie] ]]> http://tomchak.com/blog/2010/06/29/the-edit-suite-down-under/feed/ 0 http://tomchak.com/blog/2010/06/10/video-good-times/ http://tomchak.com/blog/2010/06/10/video-good-times/#comments Fri, 11 Jun 2010 01:14:27 +0000 Thomas Tomchak http://tomchak.com/blog/?p=2470 A little video to celebrate the start of the summer season.

Here is a short little video of him demonstrating his new found skills. Given he’s only 25 months old, it’s pretty amazing. As for Max, he’s doing well too but a little more shy about letting on what he knows.

As much as I like the occasional travel job as a change of pace, change of scenery… there is also a down side. Once I commit to a job I’m pretty much there for the duration, almost no matter what. That can be tough when your family needs you. This was one of those weeks that if I had the option, I would have left the job early or had somebody else take over for me, things that would have been possible had I been working here in Chicago.

We have all been trading colds for the last several weeks, but when I left it looked like the worst of it was behind us. As it turned out, the worst was yet to come. Sydney ended up getting a cold on top of a cold, which is annoying when you’re a adult but very serious when you’re 7 week old baby and unable to be treated with any type of medication. After 3 trips to the doctor throughout the week, Brenda ended up taking her to the hospital on Sunday night after she turned pale and appeared to stop breathing.

Long story short, Sydney is doing better but is still in the hospital and probably will be there until at least Wednesday. She’s improving but her oxygen levels are still dropping too much, especially when she goes to sleep. Brenda is staying with her around the clock and has only come home to pack some clothes and other daily items.

Andrew is home with me today because he’s still pretty sick and has a fever, Max is at daycare (thank god for only having one today!). I’m very sick and so is Brenda. So all in all, it’s just a little slice of “heaven” around here. It sure makes you appreciate the simplicity of just being healthy.

But I am very thankful that we live in a city that has access to great doctors and that Sydney is in great hands. I’m very confident that we’ll all be doing a lot better in the upcoming weeks.

[See post to watch QuickTime movie] ]]> http://tomchak.com/blog/2010/01/19/the-down-side-to-travel-jobs/feed/ 1 http://tomchak.com/blog/2009/12/08/sydney-moments/ http://tomchak.com/blog/2009/12/08/sydney-moments/#comments Tue, 08 Dec 2009 22:47:24 +0000 Thomas Tomchak http://tomchak.com/blog/?p=2176 [See post to watch QuickTime movie] ]]> http://tomchak.com/blog/2009/12/08/sydney-moments/feed/ 0 http://tomchak.com/blog/2009/12/04/pov-of-sydney/ http://tomchak.com/blog/2009/12/04/pov-of-sydney/#comments Fri, 04 Dec 2009 21:50:48 +0000 Thomas Tomchak http://tomchak.com/blog/?p=2164 It’s been busy around the Tomchak household. We still have not found that balance/rhythm yet but we’re getting there.

This is a short video that Brenda took on her phone one of the last days in the hospital. So far my favorite thing about Sydney is how she just stares at you, like you’re the most interesting person in the room. It’s very cute.

This is not the most interesting video, but it’s what I have at the moment.

[See post to watch QuickTime movie] ]]> http://tomchak.com/blog/2009/12/04/pov-of-sydney/feed/ 0 http://tomchak.com/blog/2009/11/27/welcome-baby-girl-weve-been-waiting-for-you/ http://tomchak.com/blog/2009/11/27/welcome-baby-girl-weve-been-waiting-for-you/#comments Fri, 27 Nov 2009 18:00:34 +0000 Thomas Tomchak http://tomchak.com/blog/?p=1988

It’s with great pleasure and joy in my heart that I introduce to you our newest special gem.

Sydney Etheena Tomchak

Sydney joined us in the outside world at 9:43am this morning (November 27th 2009), and weighs in at a healthy 7 lbs, 4 oz. and measures 20.75 inches. Mom and baby are doing fine and Brenda is now in her room resting up.

We’ve known since the beginning (even before the boys) that if we did have a girl, some part of the name would be Etheena, named after Brenda’s oldest sister Tina who passed away in 2004. Tina’s legal name was Etheena, but friends and family called her Tina for short. The first name is a name that we both really liked after many weeks of throwing names at each other like darts. It was not unusual to just walk into the room and yell out a name, and the other person automatically knew what you were “asking”.

While it’s true that we would have been happy with a boy or girl, we’re extra happy that we have a girl to round out our family. I’ve said right from the beginning that I really wanted to have a “Mini-Brenda”.  And I know how happy Brenda is that she now has a little girl to go shopping with and do all of the girl things that she misses out on with the boys.

Speaking of shopping, we have a little confession to make. We’ve known from the 20 week mark that we were having a girl, but decided to keep it a surprise for everybody else. We just couldn’t wait to find out this time – we were both pretty confident that it was going to be a girl. The day that we found out, we actually went shopping at the mall and Brenda bought her the first outfit. See the video below for our documented trip.

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

We have been in love with her for awhile now, so it’s nice to finally meet her!

More updates and plenty of photos in the days to come.

If you didn’t catch it, this is the open to the 24th season of Oprah. They shut down one of the busiest parts of Michigan Avenue to do the show and it was quite the party.

Every time I see this opening number I can’t help but smile, and it sure makes you want to dance!

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

Behind the scenes of how they actually did it.

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

As with the library clip, this is unedited footage so it’s a bit longer then the 2 minute clips I normally put up. But you might find if you start watching it you can’t stop! TRT is 10 minutes.

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

This is a short video that shows them being goofy right after their bath. It’s in low light and was shot by my new iPhone, so the quality is a bit worse then usual. Still fun to watch though.

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

She was kind of upset about it since it is an automatic $100 ticket and argued that we should contest the ticket and see if they would let her off on account of her good driving record.

I started thinking and remembered that most of the time now, you can actually go on-line and see a small movie of what happened.

So I said “You know what, you’re right. Let’s go on-line and watch the video of what happened and then we’ll have what we need to fight it”. She turned around and said “What video?”. I explained, and slowly a sly smile appeared on her face.

So we both went over to the computer and I typed in the website listed on the notice and entered her license plate and violation number. Up came the following video. Her car is the black one all the way on the right.

You make the call. Did she make a proper and complete stop?

Needless to say, we paid the ticket.

Download QT File

This past weekend we took the boys to the Wheaton Library to visit their children’s area. We found out recently that they had a nice play area and decided to check it out.

Normally I cut down the video to just the highlights, but honestly if I waited for that to happen I wouldn’t have put anything up. So I decided to just put up the raw video that we shot as is, no editing.

We didn’t even realize it, but the boys had outgrown their original car seats, by both weight and body length. So this past weekend we upgraded their travel accommodations to 2 brand new plush seats. They honestly look more comfortable then the seats in the front that we sit in.

Brenda did a lot of research and came up with a seat from Graco called the Nautilus 3-in-1. Although it was more expensive then some of the other options, it had the best reviews on Amazon.com by people who had purchased it.  

The only down side to the new chairs is that we can’t just lift the chairs from the base and carry them in. For example, whenever we would go out to eat we would just carry the chairs in and request a large booth so that we would each sit with one of the boys. Now, not only do we have to carry them in but they have to sit in a high chair. In theory it sounds OK, but they are just too excited and too unrestrained for us to really relax at all. But, like everything else, we’ll adjust. 

Here is a short video of their trip to Chili’s, and their first treat to sitting at the table while being out. 

This week we took the boys in for their first eye exam. We really wouldn’t have thought to do so, but we did for two reasons. On and off we’ve seen Max with one eye slightly out of line with the other. And second, when I went to get my eye exam in October, my doctor (Dr. Dennis Francisco) recommended that even if we suspected no problems at all, that we take both boys in before they are one year old to have their vision tested. 

While children used to get their first vision test when they started grade school, the newer thinking is that the sooner problems are detected in a child’s vision, the better the chances of correcting them. In fact, there is a program called InfantSEE that was started just for this reason. Its purpose is to help make people aware of the risks of waiting too long to get an exam. 

So, we found a doctor in our area that was certified by the InfantSEE program and took them both in on Friday. Andrew checked out to have roughly 20/20 vision and no known problems. As expected, Max did have some issues. For one, the doctor did verify that his right eye occasionally turns inward. With more examination he was able to determine that his left eye was about 20/20, but his right eye was about a +5, give or take a little. This was the cause of the right eye turning in, because of the extra strain it was under when he tried to focus on objects too close to his face.

So Max is farsighted, and almost exactly to the extent that I am. And I know how bad that is because if I take my glasses off, I can see anything. 

The bigger issue is that because one eye is so much better then the other, if he is not treated with vision correction there’s a high likelihood that his one eye will eventually be ignored by the brain, and thus he would have what’s called Amblyopia, also known as a “lazy eye“. Once this happens it’s very difficult to re-train the brain to use both eyes. Not impossible, but a lot harder then just fixing early. 

So Max will need to wear glasses very soon. We have an appointment for him on December 8th to get a more accurate assessment of his actual vision, and then fit him with glasses. 

We suspect he’ll look something like this…

Max?

And on the lighter side…

Before the doctor had entered the room, I captured Max on video being very slap happy with Brenda. It’s hard not to laugh when he’s laughing too. 

Download this video in QT format

In case you missed it, here is the election night speech that Barac Obama made from Chicago’s Grant Park. It gave me goose bumps and more hope for this country then I’ve had in years (let’s say, at least the last 8 years). I can’t wait to see what the future brings.

Normally the videos I post are only a few minutes long, but this is the full speech plus all of the fanfare after, so it’s just over 30 minutes long.

This video pretty much sums up what the week was like, for those who got out of their hotel room. It was the final video that played tonight just before the band started playing. 

We head to the airport at 10am tomorrow, and I should be home no later then 7pm if all goes as scheduled. This is my last trip for the year, and that’s just fine with me. It’s been a great year for travel jobs but a little break for the rest of the year sounds good.

Club Officers of the Wind City Lions Club

Since 1993 I have worked on video projects for the Lions Clubs International Foundation, based here in Oakbrook IL. Projects include convention videos, on-site editing and news magazine shows, always highlighting the good that Lions members do around the world and for their community. Brenda has worked on the same projects since the late 1990′s (it’s good to be young).

While becoming a Lion myself wasn’t anything I had thought much of in the beginning, it’s hard to deny that over the years it just kind of gets into your blood stream and before you know it you’re compelled to help others. For the last several years, many of us that work on the Lions projects have talked about not just joining a club, but starting our own. It took a lot longer then we had expected, but we finally did it. 

One of the main reasons we did it now after all of this time is that the current President of Lions, Al Brandel, offered to sponsored our group and really pushed to get it done during his time in office. He was even kind enough to make a special trip to Chicago to be there for our Charter Night Dinner.

So now Brenda and I are members of the Chicago Windy City Lions Club, along with 40 other friends and colleagues. Below is a video that we created for the charter night dinner to introducer our group to the people that were there. You may see a few people that you recognize. 

For more information on the group, visit our new website at www.windycitylions.org.

The most fun thing is watching them play together. It’s not really demonstrated in this video, but there are times when they chase each other around and then when one of them corners the other they look at each other and laugh!

They’re exhausting, but fun! And we love them both.

Andrew had his long scheduled MRI today. This time I was in town and was able to go with Brenda to help out, and Brenda’s sister Toni came over to watch Max while we were there.

Although we won’t have the results for a few days yet, Andrew did great. Even though he was tired and hungry (because we couldn’t feed him or let him sleep) he was in a really good mood and playful most of the time. And after it was over he woke up and was back to his normal self. So as far as these things go, it went very well. The whole process from leaving the house to getting back home took about 4 hours.

This clip is on the longer side, so I split it into two parts. Part 1 is for today, Part 2 tomorrow. 

Does Jim actually do it?  You’ll have to find out for yourself.  

I actually was not part of this little excursion, but Brian went along and recorded it with his little digital camera. The quality is a bit low, but it’s still good enough to make your stomach turn.