Mama & Pro

First things first. If you are reading this entry the day it was posted; March 9, 2014 then be sure you have moved your clocks forward 1 hour if you are in an area that recognizes daylight savings adjustments twice per year.

If you are not in one of those areas or have no clue what I am talking about then just ignore all of the preceding paragraph and continue reading on.

Good Morning

So first thing this morning once I was finished checking my email and playing a couple rounds of Words With Friends with my dad and Gabe I decided it was time to finish something up that I have been putting off for quite a while and for no good reason.

And before you start guessing I will tell you upfront that, no, unfortunately this will not be "the post" about me finally finishing my 3D printer build and doing my first print.

Hopefully that will be in a post in the not so distant future. I would love to have it built already and running but life gets in the way and I am tired on the weekends and after a long days work. No excuses though, I will get it done eventually so get off my back about it people!

Cizzle

I am worried about Cicely today and was yesterday as well. She still is swelling up a lot and it only goes away a little bit before it comes back. Today her hands are swelling a little as well and have not done so in the past. I am thankful that she did the blood work last week along with the 24 hour urine test. The combination of those results will help us to better understand what is going on and more importantly verify that both her and baby are doing fine.

In reality it should be less than a week before this is all behind us and we are thrown into the mix of parenthood. As I keep mentioning our lives will be forever changed, but in a good way!

Bahama Relocation

So last night we found out that there is a decent chance that Cicely's dad and step-mom could be moving to the Bahamas in the coming year or so. Cicely's dad works in the casino industry and has for a really long time. He knows a guy that opens and runs casinos all over and this guy is always offering him work at his newly opened or soon to open properties. Unfortunately they are usually in Vegas and they don't want to move there - can't blame them.

Well this time with the opportunity being in the Bahamas there is a pretty good chance that he would take it if the money, job, moving costs and so on where on-par with something worth moving so far away from family and friends.

No telling at the moment where this will eventually go. It could very well never pan out or may be right around the corner. I know we would be sad to see them go and be so far away but it would be a co place for us to have to visit and more importantly it would be a great opportunity for her dad - one that he has worked his ass off for and deserves.

So best of luck and I hope it works out for you. We will miss having you so close by but will look forward to visiting and hearing about your success and happiness in the new location. Our fingers are crossed for luck for you!

....Aaaaand ACTION!

I boiled a pot of water and brewed myself a nice bug cup of pour-over coffee and FINALLY started messing around with my GoPro Hero 3+ Black Edition. Yes the same one that I received months ago for Christmas from my awesome wife.

I jumped right in immediately set-up everything from the built-in Wi-Fi and getting it connected to my iPhone GoPro app, to doing things like setting up the resolution(s), lens settings such-as wide-angle or standard, low light and everything in between. I went in and set-up things like the burst rate for doing multiple photos and still shots and a laundry list of other options that are available.

It's crazy cool because there are so many settings it's an almost endless amount of combinations you can do to get the video or photos you want or want to eventually compile into something else.

Once all of the important-to-me settings were configured I had to run a quick update on the cameras internal software. This only took about 5 minutes or so, but it did hose a few of the settings I had just finished doing. No sweat, it's actually a good thing to practice and figure out where everything is located in the menu's.

Next it was time for a test video and what better of a test subject than the fuzzy kid, Oggy. Unfortunately he was not as excited about this test as I was. Oggy was mid-stretch when he noticed me with the camera headed his way and immediately cowered down, pulled his ears back tight and took off running to head out his doggy door for his "great escape", lol!

I honestly don't know how he knew what I had in my hand or why he would be scared of it? The GoPro is so small that to him, it should not look like much more than me carrying my iPhone. Maybe it was because it was pointed in his direction and I was heading towards him with it?

The only other thing I can think of is that he saw the LED indicator lights on the front blinking blue and red and it freaked him out a little, and making him wonder what the hell it was that papa was rushing toward him with. For future testing though, I have turned those LED indicators off. Who knows, when I am doing testing on baby it may freak her out a little bit too.

Anyway, Oggy's plan did not work as well as he had probably hoped because I cut him off just before his doggy door and managed to coheres him into doing a little video test for me. Don't worry, I provided treats. Acting is not easy and requires energy and proper nutrition.

The test videos ended up looking pretty good but I almost immediately realized that I didn't care much for the ultra-wide lens option. It gives the video too much of a fish-eye shape to the video and a more distorted effect on the edges. So I changed that setting for my next test videos over to the standard wide-lens, non-ultra-wide.

The next tests looked much better and the setting will most likely be what I will always use unless I am doing something like driving a race kart, para sailing, etc. More outdoors stuff where I would want to see more of the entire area outside of my immediate point-of-view.

So back to the next test. It looked really good with the standard wide-angle lens and I am happy with the video it captured. Although my test subject this time was Cicely and she did not care much for being woken-up from sleeping with me pointing a camera in her face and telling her to "get up, smile, etc". I see her point, I would not care much for that first thing in the morning either.

Well I say "first thing in the morning" when in reality it was already 11:00 AM! No matter, it's now nearly 1:00 PM as I write this and she is still in bed! No worries though, I want her to get as much rest as she can, she not only needs it but deserves it. She has been doing so amazing the entire pregnancy and I am super proud of her! I sure hope that she knows that.

Zoey, if you could do just one thing for me? If you would promise that you will always show love and respect for mama you will make me very proud of you. Momma took such good care of you while you were in the womb developing, growing, kicking and fidgeting around. We both have felt an overwhelming love for you since the day we found out we were gonna have a little one on the way and that will never change.

OK, enough of the mushy stuff and back to the camera rabble rabble. All in all everything works really good and I am 100% satisfied with the GoPro for my purposes. I did notice that you have to be fairly close to the camera to get a good recording of any sound, especially voice. Maybe it was because I had the waterproof case on it at the time?

I recorded a quick video of babies room and had to do it a second time because it did not pick up my voice hardly at all. So the second time I just made sure the camera was close to my mouth when doing the voice over narration of the items and setup of babies room.

I think that will have to do it for the overview of my initial setup of my GoPro camera. I could talk about it for another hour and continue describing likes and dislikes but I think you get the idea as this was by no means meant to be a review of it. Although based on my basic use so far, I would highly recommend one for general recording as well as extreme sports - it's a great camera and nice and compact with a massive selection of mounting options and accessories to go along with it.

Honestly I can't wait to use it when flying RC once I have my newest Stingray quadcopter built and setup. Eventually leading up to doing some FPV (first person view) flying with it. That-is if I have the time and cash to invest in a good setup, they are not cheap!

MamaRoo

Last but not least I am happy to announce that I was able to setup the babies new high end swing. It's the one I have been wanting since the first day that I saw it at the baby store. It's called the MamaRoo. The swing can do 5 motions and at varying speeds. Everything from car ride and ocean waves to swing set and a kangaroo ride.

It has several types of sounds to go along with it for example if you are using the car ride motion you can select the matching sound so it makes noises as though you are on the highway or driving down the road. Just the same, if you are using the ocean ride movement you can chose the ocean sounds and baby gets to listen to waves coming onto the beach and back out to sea again. Same goes for the other rides, there is a sound to go with it. And before you assume or ask, no the kangaroo sound is not a kangaroo or jumping sounds, it's more jungle type sound if I had to describe it.

Last but not least you also have the ability to plug in an iPod, iPhone or related device and play music of your choice along with the rides. For example I chose to have some Dubstep play while it was doubt the car ride motion, on high speed of course. But then slowed it down and had the rocking motion of the ocean waves while I played some Reggae music for her.

So yea it's going to be a lot of fun I think. Heck I am already having a blast with it, lol! On the flip-side though, if she cries every time she is in it and just plain hates it then so be it. I will sell it on Craigslist or eBay and another kiddo can enjoy it and get some good use out of it for a while.

We plan to sell it in the end once baby is done with it whether she likes it or not. It takes up a decent amount of space and we have to keep swapping this-for-that as she gets older and needs new toys, mobility and so-on.

....Aaaaand Cut

OK this post has manage to grow exponentially and without intention. I simply started rambling about the GoPro and then the MamaRoo and wham! out comes a wall of text. I guess it makes up for the days that I have only a short paragraph and a photo of the day.

Photo: Awesome MamaRoo baby swing that we finally picked up for Zoey about a week ago. I assembled it yesterday. I sincerely hope she likes it, I know I am having fun with it!