water bunny & geek dad

Last week’s bath was a bit of a shock for Avery.  Too much freedom, too much action, not enough snuggle.  This week she was winding up for a good yell, but when her bum hit the water… oh… hang on… this is kinda nice.  You may continue the bathing, sir.

She likes a good yell, but she’s ready to admit when she likes something else.  Thatta girl.

Gramma Judy says we’re now fully qualified for parenting.  She leaves us in just a couple days, and we will miss her (oh, we will miss her!) but it’s good to know we’ve got her confidence.

Right now I’m watching a sleeping Avery via iPad, courtesy of the Withings Baby Monitor, my birthday gift from Lee and Suz.  Once you’ve got it set up, and you’ve updated the firmware, software and app, it works well.  Wifi and Bluetooth.  The frame rate is abysmal – maybe a frame per second, but I guess we’re not supposed to be looking for broadcast quality in a baby monitor, right?  The audio pickup works great, as does the night vision and the varicolored nightlight.  But the on-board speaker is terrible – the idea is that you can play music (or ocean sounds or white noise) or even talk to your baby (geekneat!) but let’s just say my baby deserves better sound.  You are so surprised to hear me say this.  Anyway, despite a couple shortcomings, the monitor, once it’s running dependably, is a Very Cool Thing.

Evidently I’m becoming a bit of a repository for knowledge of geekdad necessities.  Feel free to submit your questions in the comments.

Meanwhile, work hovers around the edges.  I had time to mix a two and a half minute promo for L’Oréal Professionnel, and then time to do it again when they asked for another round of picture changes.  Avery was very cooperative today, to say nothing of Gramma’s seemingly effortless skills.  Marjorie continues to amaze with her resilience.  Here’s me whining about my bad knee and she’s barbecuing my chicken.  That’s not a euphemism.  I can’t even imagine how it would be… dammit, now I’m going to have to figure out how to use it as one.

In other news, Chaos Complex submitted two treatments to the Whistler Film Festival’s “China Canada Gateway For Film Script Competition”.  We had four in the works, but some clown decided to have a baby and drop off the face of the planet for a few weeks, and we ran out of time to finish development on the others.  So we’ve got two strong treatments on their way.  Both are warm stories ideal for festivals and indie awards, if that paints the picture.  If we are selected as finalists, we’ll have to be in Whistler at the end of November to pitch to the Chinese production companies.  I will not be with the team on this one.  It’s a bit too soon for me to comfortably be so far away from my brand new family.  I have faith in the fellas.

Now, if we win, things get crazy very quickly.  Turnaround from concept to distribution is less than a year for a typical Chinese production.  That’s like… anything you’ve seen from The Asylum.  Yes, you should click that link.  But what I’m saying is that while Fuel is exponentially expanding its website and education program, and while CB is “developing a promising relationship” with schools and chains, and while TimeSquared Software is approaching beta testing for the biggest, most powerful business app you’ve ever seen, and while Chaos is developing a tv series with “certain undisclosed A-List talents”, and while Chaos continues development of its first feature, and while Chaos continues to shop its utterly ground-breaking other tv series, and while Adrian is joyfully diving into family life… while all that is going on simultaneously, we’re also going to be making a movie.  In China.

I need to catch my breath here…

iPad baby monitor – Avery has these cutest little duckie sleepers.  Just adorable.  We had a nap today – she fidgeted until she could wiggle her head up against my arm, and then settled right down.

There.  That’s better.