GoPro footage: Timelapse of drive

So just for funsies, I created a timelapse video of a family drive from our home in sweet Carver, MN to the urban jungle of a state called Illinois. OK, it wasn't a drive to the shady area of Chi-town, but rather to the area of Rockford and its surrounding communities (even through there was a shooting in a few miles from where we were at during the time; we went out to eat across from the scenes of the crime).

This was an experiment and a little fun for me to test drive the GoPro Hero 5 action cam. Enjoy!

On the way out (check out G rockin' in the background!):

On the way back (yes we drove past a crash on our way back!):

Snowboarding Rookies - February/March 2009

About a month ago, I was able to get out snowboarding for the first time this season. It was also extra special because I was able to take my 2 boys out for their first time as well! Last year as Christmas presents, my wife and I bought the kids 'new' snowboards. After much searching and bargain shopping, we were able to get a few used boards and boots off of Craigslist and Play It Again Sports as well as a few helmets and goggles that were on sale off of Amazon.com and Sports Authority. With all things considered, we got all this on the cheap.

After Christmas, weeks went by with busy family & social schedules, other commitments and of course, bad weather. But in February, we were able to get out to Mount Kato located in Mankato, MN for an experience to remember!

Being a long-time snowboarder, I was in the frame of mind to be teaching the kids for at least a few hours (I remember when I learned to board back in the mid/late 1990's and it took me almost a full day!). So I was very surprised when my 7 yr old went down the 'bunny hill' once (yes, once, without falling) and insisted he was ready to go up to the top of their 'bunny hill' via the chairlifts! I was pretty shocked and blown away, I just remember looked to my wife in awe and saying "OK, I'll go with him".  We went up the chairlift leaving my wife to teach my 5 yr old. In hindsight, I feel bad about that, considering my wife did not know how to snowboard and was left trying to teach our 5 yr old how to do something she knew nothing about...

Overall, the day progressed well. There were a few falls, wipeouts and spills throughout the remaining hours but by the end of the day the only one who didn't get the hang of it was my wife. It wasn't fair to leave her to 'fend for herself, but with two boys who were on the go, I don't know what else I could have done. She ultimately gave up after just a few times trying to go down. However, she did say she would do it again if she took lessons or went with someone else that that had never done it before.

We were able to get once once again, this time at Buck Hill. The boys picked up pretty much where they left off before. After a few times down the hill they were getting it. Buck Hill was probably a bit better as they had much smaller practice hills along with a nice conveyor belt to get up the hills.

Take a look at some of the pics below for the family in action!

http://picasaweb.google.com/benducklow/February_March2009Snowboarding?authkey=Gv1sRgCJXekPGr6tbFJw&feat=directlink

MN Swarm vs. Rochester Knighthawks - 04/19/08

The family and I went to our almost yearly trip to go see the MN Swarm lacrosse team take on the Rochester Knighthawks (whom are also from Minnesota). We scored these tickets pretty cheap as part of a ticket bundle when we went to the MN Wild game a few weeks back. If you don't know about lacrosse, it's a pretty violent and full contact sport! I'd say it combines elements of hockey, football and soccer.

We had close seats (maybe too close) in the 6th row near the corner of the Xcel Energy Center so we were able to alot of action (including some fights) up close. The Swarm lost but we had fun. The kids enjoyed the popcorn, pop, mini donuts along with the shear sight of being in that huge stadium. The next day my littlest couldn't wait to play catch with our lacrosse sticks and ball at home...maybe he'll be a future player?!

Wild Game 2008: Wild vs. Vancouver Canucks - 03/38/08

I know this is a few days old but I am finally getting some time to post. We took the boys out to their first NHL/MN Wild hockey game last Friday. The littlest one loves hockey so he was very excited to get their. My wife and I worked from home so we could head out a bit early to make the trek to the Xcel Energy Center to make the 7pm game. Well, little did we know we would encounter one of the biggest traffic jams on 494 eastbound that evening; it was all over the news.

We ended up taking the alternate route and made it to the game with about 15 minutes to spare. We had nose-bleed seats but were grateful as we got 4 tickets to the game, a free hockey puck for each of use asl well as field-side tickets to the MN Swarm in a few weeks. Our first grader was funny as he was pretty hesitant on going up the 2 story high escalator ride to ge to our assigned seating and was even more scared when he got there and realized he had to walk down some stairs to get to our row. (For those of you that know sitting in the nose-bleed seats, you can practically look straight down) I think he was afraid of falling. Well we got him to come down and we all enjoyed the game. We had the usual foods consisting of soda, hot dogs and ice cream which the kids enjoyed. The game itself was awesome. The boys got to witness an all-out team brawl as as well as almost-typical Derek Boogaard (aka The boogie-man) one-on-one 2 fisted throw-down. To top it off, the Wild won 4-0! I love going to Wild games, just wish tickets weren't so darn $$!

Pinewood Derby '08

He did it! Goof won 1st place out of his Den (6 other kids) in this years Pinewood Derby for his Cub Scout pack!

It started all started out with a 4 oz. block of pinewood...but now it's a fast, purple-racing machine!

I was surprised just as much as he was; out of 6 heats, his car was 1st place in all but one. All the cars were all very close in time speed, so the time difference on these things were measured to the .0001 of a second (yep, the track is high-tech; on a computer monitored aluminum-crafted Pinewood derby track).

He was very excited about winning and had a bigger smile once he realized he was going to win a trophy. Also, seeing he won amoungst his den-mates, he qualified for the Pack Championship race which was about an hour later. During this time of waiting around, we ate candy and hot-dogs while watching all the older cub scouts racing their cars (that were even faster). I tried to elude to the fact that their cars were going after than his so he might now come in 1st place the next time around; we'd just have to wait and see.

Well the championship race began and his car was hanging in there at a tight 4th place. After a few heats his car had trouble on one of the tracks (yeah, they rotate the cars on the track and get an average score so all is fair). After the 1st 'do-over' his car went off again. At that point they give you the lowest time (10 seconds), so when the heats were over and they average the speed, he came in last place. He held his composure but broke down in tears after he got his car and came over to me. I told him he did great considering all the competition and the fact that he should be happy he got a trophy as most of the kids went home with nothing. The tears soon stopped in the car on the way home and was already talking about bringing in his car and trophy into school for show and tell!

Until next year!....Oh, click here, here, here and here for a few more pics of the days event.

NorthShore Inline Marathon - 09/15/07

The big race! I am back from up north after finishing the Northshore Inline Marathon which ran 26.2 miles from Two Harbors to Duluth, MN. I have 3 words sum up the experience: wind, wind, WIND! Everyone I talked to that participated in the race said the same thing, "The wind was brutal!"

Yes it was very windy which definitely took its toll on everyone. My wife and I finished about a half and hour slower than the pace we've been keeping all summer long; we crossed the finish line at 2h 45min. The race itself wasn't bad; not too many hills (except for 2 brutal ones near the end of the race). Along with a few water spots along the way I sucked on some Jelly Belly Sport Beans that a neighbor gave me as a good luck gift; those really came in handy.

Even though I was a bit discouraged on my finish time, I did get signed up for next year. I attained my goal for this year:

1. Don't fall (yeah I saw and heard a few people take a dive)
2. Finish the race

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Ophiophobia

Check out these pics of our our friend(s?) that we've seen hanging around the house. We've seen more snakes this summer than we ever have. This particular rat snake has been spotted twice, only this time is was at our front door! Click here to check out some the pics snapped by my panic'd wife.

Oh and if you didn't know what Ophiophobia means, it means "Fear of Snakes".

Crowds flock to gawk and wonder

First of all check out this official radio advertisment clip of the official Minnesota State Fair. I hope they were'n't gawking and wondering at us! Well this years fair was...we...like most others. Usual crowds, usual foods, usual stenches. As you can see the boys enjoyed hitting the slide; I tried to get everyone fired up but I don't think they were into it like I was.

Overall, an OK time. We didn't get to hit the Midway or any other rides besides the slide. There's always next year I guess.

Twins Game 2006: Twins vs. White Sox

It was a special day this past Sunday. Special because it was Gavin and Ethans' 1st baseball game! We took the light rail into the Metrodome. The boys liked the train. There were alot of people so we had to stand; luckily it only took about 15 minutes to get there from Hwy 62 and Hiawatha.

We were able to access the Twins main office and look at the '87 and '91 World Seried trophies. Outside we scored some free ice cream for the boys, bought some fresh popped kettle corn for Shell and some cinnamon sugar toasted almonds for myself.

We had great seats behind home plate; just 2 rows down from the press box. We didn't catch any foul balls but Ethan enjoyed watching all the balls pop way into the stands for people to catch. As you can see from the pic above Ethan took a nap which was fine; me and Gavin had a chance to walk around and get a Dome Dog and some other treats. After the Twins won the game, the boys were also able to go on the field and run around the bases! Overall the boys made it through the game and had a great time.
Thanks to Shelly's Uncle Scott for hooking us up with some great seats and the boys up with some great Twins merchandise!

T-Ball season

Gavin had his first t-ball 'game' last weekend. He is on the Orange Otters and did great his first time out. He's the only lefty on the team, so he threw off the others players! ;) The only downside to it was the fact that I lost my baseball glove! After having the same glove since junior high...of all times and places, I lft it at Gavin's first t-ball game. Oh well. Gavin has several other games throughout the summer.

Ethan is riding bike!

Yep, Ethan has passed Ethan up on learning how to bike. Ethan, the little man with no fear is on his way to becoming the next BMX superstar! Check out this movie clip made from Apple's iMovie HD:

Windows Media (10Mb) | Quicktime (9Mb)

Deck is near completion!

Started in early summer of 2005, the stairs for the lower landing pad have been complete. I do want to go and tweak them a bit; need more gap between boards but overall done! Only time will tell on how this EON decking will hold up.

Shelly's new ride.

Here's Shelly's new ride! Its a 2005 VW Jetta TDI. It gets 42mpg and uses diesel instead of regular gasoline. It's an automatic w/ leather, dual climate control, MP3 capable CD changer. We traded in the '04 Jetta TDI with a manual transmission for this one this past weekend.

While You (Shelly) Were Out!

Well, Shelly is back in the country so I can officially put this out for everybody to see. While Shelly was in Manila, I decided to do a little 'Extreme Makeover/ While You Were Out' on the office (which was pretty much 'my office'). Shelly has put her time in working at home lately so I thought it would be nice to get her a desk and a place to work as well.

About 75% of the items in this room were purchased from Ikea. I held on the the lights and one floor shelf but the rest was from Ikea. I think we can offically call it our Ikea room. The monitors were purchased through Dell (yep, they are 19" flat LCD panels!!) I re-used some leftover paint that Shell had used in our bedroom and think it worked out great. We lost a bit of storage space but most of it was junk anyways; it went off to the basement.

I did go over my budget but felt I got this far, I might as well get it done the way I wanted it. Special thanks to Shelly's sister Tami for helping me out with the shelf hanging and the placement and decor. Thanks to Shelly's parents for taking the boys off my hands for a few days!!

To see a few more pics of this makeover project, click here.

Shell takes on the March snowfall!

Here's a funny experience I had. Well, we had a day of some HUGE snowfall right? Well, seeing I was out with a bum leg, Shell was put to the task of taking care of the driveway and sidewalk with the new snowblower. Needless to say she had a heck of a time. Let's see...it ran out of gas (twice) and a tire even fell off!

I can say she got the hang of it a few days later when we got hit with some snow again. Shell has used this more than me so far!

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Final Days of Camp Snoopy...

We thought we'd head out to the MOA and take in a day of Camp Snoopy before
the name change and all. We all had fun. Gavin went on the log ride, Ethan
went into the Ghost-shooting game and Dad went into the Spongebob Squarepants
virtual ride (with Gavin of course)!

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