Home > Everything

Lightsaber battle

A brief photo manipulation battle between us and my nephew Sam.

Drawing the news

The Atlantic has a great feature called In Focus which collects amazing photos of news events. They had some great ones after Hurricane Sandy, including this one:

Letter from camp

Eva's brief but enthusiastic letter from camp:

RIP, A10

I know it's silly, but I got sentimental when my trusty Canon PowerShot A10 finally died last month. It was the first digital camera I owned, and got me started on the hobby that now fills most of these pages. It was a Christmas gift from my parents back in 2001, when Becca was pregnant with Eva. Digital cameras were just entering the mainstream, and the A10 had proud printing on the front announcing "1.3 MEGA PIXELS".

Although it's technically far inferior to the cameras I use now, it took some of my absolute favorite photos. A small selection is below.

Eva's morning routine podcast

For us and Eva, getting ready in the morning has been a daily struggle. We are constantly cajoling and browbeating her to stay on task and do the various things she needs to do between 7:00 and 7:30 before she comes down. We tried a bunch of different things -- checklists, reminders -- but nothing seemed to work.

Bid For Brother!

A snapshot of Eva's thoughts on Noah.

Noah's invention; Eva's observation

Eva: "If the year was only three days long, you could say tomorrow's tomorrow is yesterday."

Noah: "I am going to invent a new kind of book, with eye holes. Whenever you turn a page you will see eye holes. So you can read it on the stairs."

New web server

We have a new web server! Hopefully you will notice increased snappiness.

Becca, in focus

Becca models compentency in this ad for Maine Med.

Eva's canning class in the Cape Courier

Eva's picture was in the Cape Courier this week.

Hello, I would like to renew my subscription to Bad Dad magazine

Eva lost the cap for her self-inking stamp, and got frantic trying to find it, because she didn't want it to dry out. I suggested that she check whether it had rolled under the sofa. A few moments later, I heard her exclaim, with amazing calm but with that edge to her voice that instantly tells a parent a child has been hurt:

"Dad! I think someone left some snapping gum under there!"

Window art

So, we pull up behind this minivan at a stop light, and Becca and I immediately start laughing, uncontrollably, but as quietly as we can.

Some recent quotes

After a neighbor's idling car left a puddle in the street
Dad:Lisa's car peed. [pause] No, not for real.
Becca: Cars don't have penises.
Noah: No. They only have wheels.

Google Maps: Global Warming Edition

Today, my iPod displayed the following disturbing map:

Life with Eva is a drawing room comedy

Scene 1: Upstairs, Eva and mom.

Eva: I think dad is making crepes.

Mom: Mmmm, crepes sound good!

Scene 2: Downstairs, Eva and dad.

Eva: What's for breakfast?

What does Noah do all day?

You know you've wondered.

Eva in pundit mode

Eva hardly ever sees us watch TV -- we usually only watch movies, and only after she's in bed. So she was intrigued to see us glued to the TV during the Democratic National Convention.

She would have preferred to watch Dora the Explorer, but any TV is better than no TV, so she watched a bunch of the speeches. Here are a couple of her better remarks:

• Noah, we need to turn off this convention. All it is is people saying, Barack Obama will make oil cheaper.
• [After someone in the room said that McCain was smart:] John McCain?!? He is so unsmart. All he does is copy George Bush.

Exercise-induced anaphylaxis

Meg is Eva's Kindergarten teacher. One morning, while another parent was dropping off his child, he was chatting with Meg and mentioned that he had been up all night looking after his neighbor's kids. The neighbor had been ill and had to be rushed to the hospital.

Silliness

Eva was in a super silly mood today. A couple of funny things she said:

1. Lying on the sofa, reading a Christmas catalog, with her feet on my lap: "It's good to be tall, because you can read a magazine and have a foot massage at the other end."

2. Driving to a party, talking about housesitters: "When we go away [for Christmas], we will have someone come watch our house. And they will have someone watch their house, and that person will have someone watch their house, and that person will have someone watch their house, and that person will have someone watch their house, and that person will have someone watch their house, and only the last person will have to work, and that person is a tramp."

At least we can still rewind.

For Eva's first birthday, I gave her a remote control. A classic selfish gift, it was intended to keep her from grabbing and chewing on mine.

Noah inherited it when he started showing the same interests (grabbing and chewing). Yesterday, Rebecca noticed that Noah, holding the remote, had something in his mouth. It turned out to be the Play button, one of two he had bitten off.

"Wow, Eva," I said, "you never managed to chew a button off this remote." She replied, "I'm not the chewing type."

I'm cute, now give me some pizza

The morning show on a local radio station has an ongoing feature where they ask kids to write a letter about "why I love my teacher". If they choose your letter to be read on the air, your class gets a pizza party (hosted by the three DJs themselves -- got to love local radio).

You shall have your veng-e-ance

Eva's new "thing" when she gets really mad at me is to do her patented angry face and loudly call me "Lord Cucuface". Those familiar with the Madeline books will recognize the reference.

Where have we been?

Apologies for the long gap since the last update. A lot of stuff has been happening. Not least of which, we moved to Cape Elizabeth (a suburb across the Fore River from Portland) in October. Since then, I've taken only a few pictures and haven't had time to select any for the website.

Two quick announcements

First: a new DVD is available. "Summer 2006" contains all photos from July to September. If you would like a copy, please let me know.

Second: following zero requests, I have added RSS feeds to the site. This means that if you use an RSS aggregator (Bloglines, NetNewsWire, Thunderbird, Safari RSS, etc.), you can include this site and see changes when they are posted.

Noah Hilton Abbott

Noah was born at 6:18 this morning. He weighed 8 pounds, 9 ounces.

Eva's conference report

At Eva's school, The Children's Center, teachers prepare reports on each child twice a year for parent conferences.

RBB in the Portland Press-Herald

A couple of weeks ago, Becca told me about a crazy case she had. Today, it was written up in the Maine Sunday Telegram, the Sunday edition of the Portland Press Herald.

Finally, #1 on Google

Yes, this site is the #1 match on Google. That's the good news. The bad news is that it's #1 for the search term clips of trebuchet launches.

bbott.org also shows up for videos of belly kisses, though not on the first several pages (of delightful porn links). Sadly, searching for mark abbott doesn't return anything until page 8 of the search results.

P-I-N-O-C-C-H-I-O

Becca: Eva wants to hear that chapter where Pinocchio is sick. Can you show me where that is?

Mark: That chapter is where things start to get weird; there is a fairy who tells Pinocchio that everyone in her house is D-E-A-D, so you may want to substitute S-I-C-K.

[The next morning]

Eva: I need to have a conversation about Pinocchio.

Mark: OK, what?

Eva: In Pinocchio, the fairy said, that all the people in her house, were D-O-K-T-T-R-S.

The quotable Eva

(While eating a delicious dinner)

Becca: Eva, thank you for helping to make biscuits.

Mark: And mom, thank you for making the Chicken a la Grandpa.

(Eva thinks for a moment.)

Eva: And dad, thank you for saying "Time for dinner!"

New site design updated

After much feedback, I have updated the new site design. Here are the highlights:

• The front page is much simpler, as requested. (The previous version looked "like an Excel spreadsheet".)
• No one but me seems excited about having all the different types of content (Photos, Movies, etc.) interwoven on a single page, so this view has been removed from the main page and put on the "everything" link.
• Dates are now in a human-friendly format.
• Representative thumbnails have been added to the master list of Photos.
• Added a Projects category for Mark's programming projects.

I'll mention changes to the Blog in a separate post.