One thing that I have learned as a parent is how, sometimes, children are so easy to satisfy.  The first time I noticed this was when a spectacular, 20 minute fireworks show drew the same response from Cameron as when I turn off the vacuum cleaner.  Yay!

A more acute and recent example of this happened on our recent trip to Florida.  We thought it would be a great idea to take Cameron to the gulfarium.  We went and watched the dolphin show.  There we were, watching these amazing creatures demonstrating uncanny human traits.  They were throwing basketballs, balancing them on their noses, kicking them and doing flips.  I was amazed.  That stuff is really cool.  All Cameron could say was wabah (Cameronish for water), a phrase he screamed over every single bridge we ever cross in the car.

So my advice to all parents out there is, save your money and get your kid a cardboard box, turn on and off the vacuum, or drive over bridges repeatedly.  It is much cheaper, but none of us will ever do it will we?  When will we learn?

Today is Cameron’s 2nd birthday.  To celebrate, I am going to post a video of us singing happy birthday to him.  We had his party at Pump It Up.  It was great fun.

I must admit I have alterior motives though.  I also wanted to post this to show off our new HD camcorder capabilities.  Vimeo is the only service I know that allows HD videos, and they look flippin’ sweet! Much better than the quality you get on YouTube. Enjoy!

BTW, you can see a larger version by clicking on the link below the video.

It’s not every day we get to brush elbows with champions.  I was (un)fortunate enough to do just that recently.

When my server went down a few days ago I was very frustrated.  It really cramped my day as I could not get past the deluge of emails screaming for me to bring my site back up flooding my inbox.  I mean I must have gotten one I think.  Anyways, little did these people know that an olympic champion was in our midst.

You see Nastia Liukin is also a happy Dreamhost customer.  When she won a gold medal earlier this week, her site received an influx of visitors.  As you know, what goes up, must trample something else down.  That something was my poor pitiful, overloaded, underpowered, dreamhost server.  It just couldn’t bear the load.  I was extremely frustrated, until I read who the culprit was.  That made me stick out my chest, and hold my head high; swelled with national pride. 

Did I just use a semi-colon?  I hope it was appropriate!

My patriotic feelings quickly subsided as my server went down yet again!   The natives are really getting restless.

Oh well, at least i can say I helped win an olympic medal.  Somehow.  According to my feeble, egotistical mind.

Robert Shadrick Renfroe, 77, passed away Thursday, July 3, 2008, at Cape Canaveral Hospital.  Bob was born March 28, 1931, in  Summerville, Ga., and was raised in Trenton, Ga.

Bob Retired early after a career in aerospace at McDonnel Douglas Corp.  His professional accomplishments included: chief engineer and design engineer for Cruise Missile guidance systems and the worldwide installation manager for F-15 air craft simulators.  He was also a veteran of the U.S. Air Force.  Bob had more than 20 years in retirement at the beach that he loved.  He was generous to his family and friends.

He was preceded in death by his parents, Grace and Tom Renfroe of Trenton.  He is survived by his sons, Robert and Timothy Renfroe, both of O’Fallon, Mo.  Other surviving family members include sisters, Myrna McMahan, Patsy McKaig, Peggy DeWine; brother, Kelly Renfroe; many nieces and nephews; six grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

Uncle Bobby was my maternal grandmother’s brother.  However, he was probably about as close to me as someone is to their grandparents whom live far away.  Every summer we loaded up the van and traveled to his place in Cocoa Beach, Florida, where we spent our days riding his bikes, swimming in the pool, and playing at the beach.  Bobby was always there to dispense his wisdom (mostly of the ‘you have to watch out for women like that’ variety) and to let us get a peek through his binoculars.  I think my favorite thing we would do there was go to the beach at night looking for sea turtles.  We would go out there and chase crabs and look for sea turtles.  I don’t think we ever saw any sea turtles.  We did see a rocket launch at night from the beach though.  If you ever get the chance you should experience that.

Bobby always had Cinemax.  To this day I am not sure if he was telling us not to watch the late night nudie shows, or, ‘I better not catch you watching those late night movies’ (wink, wink).  Needless to say, we watched them anyhow.

We had the chance to go down on the 4th of July after he passed.  It was the first time I had seen the cousins I used to see most summers down there.  It was nice to get back together again and experience some of the things that Bobby loved to do.  Bobby did not want a formal funeral so we had a gathering at his place with food and invited everyone from his retirement community.  I think he would have appreciated it.

I hope that one day I will be able to return there and catch a night launch and remember all the good times we had down there during my childhood.

Due to a death in the family, this year instead of the usual fireworks and cookouts for the 4th of July we had to take a quick trip to Cocoa Beach, Florida.  It was a last minute, spur of the moment trip with no clear plans.  We got there Friday afternoon and came back the following Monday. 

Due to my Uncle Bobby not wanting to have a funeral (or any formal service) we had plenty of time to relax and reminisce around the swimming pool, and play on the beach.  We held a gathering at Bobby’s house and invited all his friends.  It was a nice gesture and I am sure he would have appreciated the format.  In addition, it was nice to go around and enjoy some of the things he enjoyed.  We ate at a few of his favorite restaurants.  Specifically, Grill’s Tiki Bar is a great little seafood restaurant on a dock in the port.  There are signs posted all over warning you not ask them to fry any fish.  No word on what would happen if you did.  I assume you would be slapped in the face with said fish or endure some other form of public humiliation.

The trip also gave me the chance to see some cousins that I have not seen in many years.  For the first time ever, I was in the position to say ‘Do you know who I am?  I haven’t seen you since you were this tall’.  However, I try to avoid cliches and have always hated it when people say things like that to me.  So I didn’t mention it.

Though we have a vacation coming up pretty soon.  Cameron got his first taste of the beach a little early.  I have to say that he enjoyed it.  We only went out one day, but he seemed to have a good time.  He just loves water and anytime we pass it in a vehicle (go over a bridge, by a water fountain, etc..) he points and says wahbuh.  Then proceeds to cry because we didn’t stop and let him play in it.

I have posted some photos of the trip in my photo albums.  Below are a few from the album.