First items on the list?  Load Zoe up with sunblock, get the camera ready and head out.  Once there it was obvious we weren’t the only people taking advantage of such perfect weather.  Parking sucked, bad.  It was like trying to get a spot at the mall on Black Friday.  After that, we jumped in line for tickets.  Was it long?  Yes.  Did it go quick?  Ehhh.  We had some help (thanks Janelle!).  It wasn’t too much longer before we were in.

Just inside the gate it seems almost carnival-like.  Live music on stage playing to maybe 50 or so people (don’t get excited – they won’t be up for any awards).  I swear I smelled some food but I never saw any.  Beyond the music stage were the flower fields.  The official website stated the flowers are 50% in bloom but how do you gauge that?  It looked pretty loaded to us!

The fields are on a gentle slope facing the Pacific Ocean.  There’s a bit of an uphill effort needed but it’s good exercise.  Semi-maintained dirt roads surround the perimeter of the fields.  The facility has tractor rides which share these roads with the pedestrians (us).  They seem to have quite a few of the tractor-trailer setups as there was one passing us every few minutes.  It sounded like they have an automated spiel playing as the driver navigates around the fields.

As it turns out, it was genius of us to put sunscreen on Zoe – we got torched!  The breeze coming off the ocean is so misleading.  It was only 72 (according to the car) when we arrived, and that felt about right.  You’d think we would know better by this age.

We strolled around for a few hours, up, over and back down, repeatedly.  Along the roads there are small inlets where you can walk “into” the flowers.  These are purely for photo opportunities and we took some at each point along the way.  There are benches at the top which are worth the time to take a break on.  You end up overlooking the fields, the shops below, some buildings and then to the ocean.  It’s a unique vantage point we liked.  TIP – Bring something to drink.  By this point you’ll wish you had some water.  When the tractors aren’t passing behind you it’s rather tranquil, just the sound of the freeway (we’re city folk – we’re used to it) and a little ocean air.

Just before the exit is a little exhibit probably geared toward kids where you can pan for stuff like a prospector.  I say ‘stuff’ because it costs $3 and I doubt there’s any gold in the muck.  Just to the left is the way out/trap.  How clever of the Armstrong Nursery Center.  Well, thousands of people just poured over the flowers, and aren’t you just clawing at the idea of buying some plants now? You almost feel obligated to buy something as if the $10 you just paid to look at the flower fields is inspiring you to take a shot at keeping plants alive yourself.  It’s like exiting the Penguin Encounter at Sea World where they dump you right in to the gift shop.  We bought some seeds – $4 – I’m cheap.

In the end it was a great way to blow a few hours, get outside (of the house and the car), watch Zoe run around smelling the flowers and take some pictures.

Thank you to all of our family and friends that helped make Zoe’s special day so great.  Zoe may not have said so, but we’re positive you helped make her birthday real special.  Just look at her face — the smiles say it all.  Special thanks to my Dad for saving us $$$ and Corrie for spending her vacation helping Jennifer setup for a two-year-olds birthday party.

I suppose this explains why my Salton Sea and Kenya Tree coral posts get so many hits.  I’ve seen those two pages frequently get hits multiple times per day, and I couldn’t understand why the general Googling public would be interested with either of those articles.  Question answered.  The images are turning up in Google searches, which then leads viewers to those pages.

The really bizarro part was when I Googled one of those photo filenames and found somebody on a reef aquarium forum had linked to it - one of MY photos! - to help somebody identify a coral in their tank!

I realize this isn’t that interesting to anybody else, and I probably won’t even mention it to Jennifer because she’ll just say “huh, cool”, which is immediately followed by devastatingly uncontrollable memory loss of the whole conversation.  Happens all the time…

Zoe had a blast helping Daddy with the labor, offering bolts and screws every five seconds whether he needed them or not.  Such a little helper.  Once the front railing was swapped out she promptly crawled right in!

1st Test: Nap time.  Passed.  She slept like a rock and crawled out when she woke up.

2nd Test: Bed time.  Passed.  She slept all night and in the morning sat right up in the middle calling for Mommy.

Success — so far.  It’s likely we’ll regret this in the coming days as she gets accustomed to her new freedom but for now we’re celebrating the conversion from baby’s crib to big girls bed.

Zoe at 7 months

Zoe at 22 months

We took the field at 9:00 and it was pretty much like you expect… pure chaos. Kids running all over the field (which is like an indoor field, only outside), Soccer balls going every direction and lots of screaming and laughs. We were corralled into one section by our coach who had the kids begin by stretching and running back and forth across the field a few times. Then everybody sat (except Zoe, who decided to assert her independence by standing) in a circle and we all went around introducing ourselves. We had a water break and then were back to activities. They had us build towers from safety cones and have the kids kick the ball into it, crashing the tower down. Zoe liked that. Then we lined the cones in a slalom layout and at the end placed a small goal/net with another ball placed just in front of it. The kids ran through the slalom and then kicked the ball scoring a goal. That was so much fun Zoe went through the course two more times!

The end was a multi-colored parachute-like thing that all of the kids piled into the center of. Then the parents and coach grabbed the edge and began to spin it around in circles. Two or three kids bailed off screaming but not Zoe, she was all over this, grinning from ear to ear.

All in all it was a success. It got all of us up early on a Saturday morning, got Zoe out interacting with other kids and on some level she just might learn some Soccer skills. Probably not.

What is a patchstick?
A patchstick is a bootable USB flash drive loaded with code to install additional functionality like XBMC and Boxee.  These are just the beginning.  By loading OpenSSH you’re able to SCP into the ATV and manipulate the filesystem.

What I’ve learned.
There are multiple flavors to choose from.  A Google search returned 14,000+ hits.  Ok, looks like I’m not alone here.  ATVFlash is a commercial version which offers support and has good documentation.  Patchstick.ca is a combination free/paid version.  Both of these are around $50 bucks – not what I was looking for.  I was looking for free and full-featured.  The only one I could find that was worth my time was ATVUSB-Creator.  This little gem did exactly what it claimed, installed without issue the first time and now I’m watching all of the content the propeller heads at Apple tried to release before Steve Jobs said no.  What a jerk.

Sounds cool.  Where do I start?
Download the builder, run it, pull the current DMG from Apple and write the “massaged” code to the USB drive.  That’s it!  Literally took 15 minutes to install the builder and pull the DMG.  There is a great step-by-step tutorial on their website here for those of you running a real OS.  The Mac flavor is there, too.

TIP - if you want to SSH into the ATV make sure you select the SSH checkbox in addition to Launcher

Let’s blow this thing up!
Power off the ATV (just pull the cord).  Plug in the freshly cooked USB drive and reapply power.  The ATV boots into Linux and runs the install routines.  When it says it’s done – guess what?  It lied to you.  Pull the USB drive out and power cycle the ATV.

Once booted you will notice a new menu item titled “Launcher”.  Select Launcher->Settings and set ATV OS Update enabled to No.  Omitting this step will erase the patchstick modifications when ATV updates are installed.  Select Launcher->Downloads.  Choose Launcher first, then the other two (XBMC & Boxee) afterward.  Head on over to the Boxee website and create an account (free).  On ATV enter your Boxee account credentials just created and you’re off and running.

NOTE: I did these exact steps and my ATV works 100% as it did before plus the additions.  If you toast your ATV it’s not on me.  The developer had simple steps which I linked you to above.  Failure to follow those is not my fault.  The purpose of this write-up was to document just how simple it is to enrich the ATV experience.

Although we don’t really celebrate Easter, we did go on an Easter egg hunt.  I placed eggs all over the backyard, gave her a basket and said “go find the eggs”.  She took her basket and started searching.  Her interest in finding the eggs was great but then, like always, she got easily distracted.  I can’t blame her though because I found a ladybug in the grass and had to show her (I mean her room is all about ladybugs).  I tried to tell her to be careful but she wanted to pinch it, so instead I put the ladybug on her hand and she let it crawl around.  It was really cool to see… until it fell back into the grass.

Oh but wait, we can’t forget the bunny ears…Grandma Sherry bought these for her and she absolutely loves wearing them.  I put them on her this morning and started taking pictures.   They were a little big so the ears fell off and then she was over it (after all she’s only 15 months).

Other than that, Zoe says hi and she hopes to see you all soon.

Happy Easter!!!!

Love,

Jason, Jenny & Zoe

We went to the mall tonight and had pictures taken for the first time with Zoe.  It was all fun and games while we waited in line, but once she was propped up on his jolly fat lap the waterworks began.  As much as we tried she never warmed up to him.  Jingling bells, fuzzy stuffed animals and funny faces didn’t work.

Oh well, maybe next year!