A 17 year old dude named Mike Rowe is big in the news today for adding "Soft" to his name. Check out his site:

MikeRoweSoft.com

We all watched Couple's Fear Factor, while flipping back and forth to the first episode of American Idol. What a crack up. The first few episodes are always the best.

After that was Average Joe 2, another great show. There's something about that show that I'm really drawn to; I can't really pin point it. I think it's because I see myself as one of those geaky, awkward, average guys and I was able to land a hot wife. So I feel for them. But it's so embarrasing to watch some of the things they do, especially when that one guy serenaded her. Dude, come on now.

Met Tricia at home in the afternoon. She was well rested, but still really tired. She took over with the kids and gave me chance to work on the dirt bikes.

While Ethan was taking his morning nap, I took Ryann out on our dirt bikes for about an hour. She's getting a little more comfortable riding in the dirt, but I'm starting to realize that she's only good for about a half hour. Her fuse starts to go out after that and she gets frustrated and falls real easily.

Tricia took off to help Michelle pick out her wedding dress today, so I had to entertain the kids, including Jordan and Ryann's friend, Nicole. I took them all to this little carnival that's going on at Tom's Farms. There wasn't much there, so we only stayed for about an hour and a half. By the time we got back, Nicole's mom came to pick her up.

I then took everyone to Cathi's house in Victoville. Tricia stayed the night at her parents so she could try to get a full nights sleep. I got to work on Cathi's computer and program her remote controls for her new home entertainment system. I got a hair cut of the deal. That's how we usually do it.

Took the family to the San Diego Zoo. We also brought Jordan and one of Ryann's friends that she hasn't seen in a couple years. We didn't have that great of a time, I think because Ryann and her friend just wanted to play and act like 7 year-olds, instead of look at all the cool animals. At the first exhibit we saw these monkeys picking each others butts, so I thought, "hmmm, this is going to be an interesting day." But the other animals were rather tame in comparison. Seeing the panda bears was pretty cool.

Took the family to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. This was the first time for everyone and we had a great time. We got to pet sharks and sting rays and watch the bigger sharks get fed. We only had about four hours to spend, but we could've spent the entire day here.

Later on we took a drive to the Wayfarer's Chapel were we got married two years ago. We just barely caught the sunset and they were just closing. So we could only spend about 5-10 minutes there. I think that was THE perfect place to get married.

Took the family to the California Science Center in Los Angeles. I took Jordan there a long time ago when it was called the Museum of Science and Industry. It's all new and improved now and we had a great time. At least I did. I love this science stuff.

We also watched an IMAX movie about underwater volcanos, called Volcanoes of the Deep Sea. The movie itself was so so, but seeing anything in the IMAX theater is just amazing. This was the first IMAX movie for both Tricia and Ryann and we had the whole theater to ourselves... it's great to go to these types of places on a weekday. There was hardly anyone at all in the museum.

Finished the ceiling mount for the projector. I had to go up into the crawl space, which is always challenging, to fish the video cable and install the mount. Tricia was a huge help from down below.

The mount actually turned out pretty damn nice. I combined different ideas and suggestions from a few sources from people on the hometheaterforum.com. There's a lot of good ideas out there, but I'm surprised that many people didn't really fine tune them. For example, I didn't really see any attempts to hide wires and cables in the mount. I thought it was pretty simple and it made a HUGE difference on the appearance. Hopefully, I'll take pictures of it and share it with the others on the forum.

Worked on the ceiling mount for the projector a little more. I think I'll be ready to install it by tomorrow.

I also stopped at the fabric store and picked up a couple samples of different material for the big screen. I bought more blackout cloth, and some silver satin, both about 1x3 feet. I taped them onto the wall for comparison and this is when the yellow from the wall really stood out. The white blackout cloth was way too bright overall, especially in the black areas. And the silver satin cloth looked incredible. It had just enough reflection to it for the whites to look bright and the silver color really made for some dark blacks. I think this is the way to go. I'm either going to stretch this over the existing frame I built or add some thin door panel to the frame and stretch the cloth over that to ensure a perfectly flat surface.

Finally starting to feel pretty good. Today we went to the Fender Museum here in Corona. It was smaller than I thought, but still pretty cool. Ryann got to play a guitar hooked up to an amp with headphones, so she was stoked. She's been wanting to play the guitar ever since we saw Freaky Friday at the drive-in. Of all the intruments to play, guitar is definitely the coolest. I wish I would've learned that instead of the freakin' clarinet. Then I'd be able to live my life long dream of being in a folk music band.

Messed around with the THX optimizer tool on the Ice Age DVD. There's also a similar tool on the Fight Club DVD, but it's a little older. Later in the evening we watched xXx, which had some of the worst acting I've ever seen, but very cool action shots. That, with the bumpin' sound and large size actually gave me goose bumps.

Watched Reservoir Dogs, The Salton Sea and Fight Club in the GuidoPlex. Recovery couldn't be better.

I manage to muster up enough energy to put up the projector on a ladder. I'm in the process of building a ceiling mount, but I probaby won't be able to get to that until I feel better. It was hard enough getting it up on the ladder. First I managed to open the box and get the manual out. Then I slept for an hour. Then I got the ladder out. Then I slept for an hour... It pretty much took me all day, but that night we got to watch SpiderMan in full glory. It was awesome.

I'm pretty disappointed on how my DIY screen turned out. There were some ripples in it that really stood out when the movie was projected on it and the paint that I used looked horrible; way too reflective. So I took down the screen and projected it onto the wall. It looked friggen' amazing! The wall is actually kind of yellow, but it still looks great.

I got a chance to pay a visit to my doctor... Dr. Milkey (yeah, seriously, that's his name, Dr. Milkey - I can just hear it over the hospital speakers... "Dr. Milkey... Calling Dr. Milkey to the breast exam room"). He said I didn't have the flu, but just a really bad respitory cold.

Whouldn't you know it... our friggin' projector finally came in today... and I'm too damn sick to do anything about it. I ordered that thing ONE MONTH ago! I wrote nasty complaint letters, and made nasty phone calls threatening to cancel my order and write about my horrible experience on all the home theater forums and review sites. And NOW I get it... when I'm almost on my death bed.

Last night was horrible. About 2 o'clock in the morning, I woke up with the worst chills I've ever had in my entire life. No matter what, I couldn't get warm... at all! I swear, I was shivering like fag at a weeny roast.

Things are definitely going down hill now. My temperature's starting to rise, Ethan is getting worse and Tricia is still not even close to fully recovering. Ryann has been at her grandparents and she's been coughing like crazy.

I made all the calls... the trip is canceled. We'll have to go in May when Ryann has another month off of school.

Ok, so I just spent the entire weekend nursing Tricia back to health from the flu, taking care of the baby, and preparing for our trip to North Carolina and Florida tomorrow night. Now guess what? I think I'm starting to catch what Tricia had.... bummer.

I came home from work early because I'm starting to feel achy and a slight cough. Ethan was starting to cough as well. If this gets any worse, we'll have to cancel our trip. We'll see how the day goes.

I had the day off today, like most people, so I thought it was a good opportunity to take Ryann out for a dirt bike ride so she can get used to riding in the dirt. Turns out my Aunt Mary was in town from Ohio at Cathi's house in Victorville... a perfect riding area for Ryann. Also, Tricia starting showing some flu like symptoms last night.

So I basically killed 3 birds with one stone... Took Ryann (and Jordan) riding, visited my aunt, and let Tricia rest all day. The only bad part was by the time we got home, Tricia's temperature was 102.5. I felt so bad!