Where parents fear to tread...

I had promised to take Xan to the playground after a nap on our last day in Ann Arbor, fully aware that it was supposed to storm that day. Luckily, there's a cool indoor playground/coffee shop called Jungle Java that has a giant structure to climb around. Xan saw it, went in and didn't touch the floor again until they closed.

At some point, I decided that this was a good moment for me to take my trusty new pocket video camera and venture inside this structure. Clearly, a Steadicam would have been more useful here, if even more impossible to go around various corners; clearly, this was also not made for a thirty-six-year-old man. (That said, you may note I'm not the only one in there.) Please note how appreciative my son is of my travails in maneuvering said obstacle.

36 for 36

For my birthday, I got a fabulous little portable digital camcorder. The best part about it, however, was that it wasn't blank. My sweet and wonderful beloved had actually gone out to make 36 videos of people wishing me happy birthday.

She had agreed that I wouldn't post everyone's videos onto YouTube, so alas you can't see how hilarious most of these are; luckily, some stills will give you an idea of the whole group. It's also a very sweet testament that so many cool and wonderful people -- students, administrators, librarians, professors, friends, neighbors -- were willing to do this. And even with this motley crew, Angela apologized that she couldn't get some others. Personally, I'm touched.




















Naturally, I can show one of the videos, perhaps the only one who I don't have to worry about getting permission for, because I'm the person responsible for giving him the permission. Plus, it's probably the cutest of the bunch.



Thanks, everyone! (And don't be surprised if now some videos start popping up on here, once I finally get back to blogging more regularly, heh heh.)