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These are old – over half a year old.  Janet took them with the compact camera, one of us put them in a less than intuitive folder on the computer, and they promptly languished until Janet missed them today.  They’re all from the Technorama exhibit at the Emmen Center, in particular the Batak reaction game.

Vivienne gives the Batak a go, Joseph gives the Batak a go (again), Janet gives the Batak a go, Joseph records and instructs Vivienne (again), Schoolkids try team Batak, Joseph records his own Batak action, and Daniel gets to bash the buttons.

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And we’re back on track – with the videos, at least.  I had to disable safety mode midway through the editing process because it would block playground videos.  Useless.

Joseph telling a Sixteen Story, Joseph’s numbers singing*, Joseph and Vivienne reading, Joseph pumping on the swing, Daniel walking on the toddler bike, Vivienne showing early signs of pumping, Vivienne displaying her joy of swinging, Daniel feeding himself with a spoon, Vivienne imagireading, Joseph subtracting, Family reading time, Vivienne imagireading Fox in Socks, Garunge-arunge-a, Daniel and Vivienne dancing to Mozart.

*After seeing Joseph’s reaction, I realize I need to tread softly with stealth recording.

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For a few days, we’ve reduced the backlog to under a month – mostly because a lot of the videos are vlog-type videos of Janet’s.  Here are those I can publish without spoiling her fun.

Vivienne at Grandma’s Treasure Chest, all three kids running around, Daniel jamming, Vivienne dancing to Daniel’s music, all three kids in a mall car, Joseph reading Caps for Sale, Bappe reading Life of Fred (again), Vivienne’s excitement, Daniel’s praise, Daniel recognizing a word.

The last one gets blocked in Safety Mode – but Daniel’s in a diaper all the time.  Google must have detected his nipples.

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Some should have been posted in the last post, but because the uploading process jumbled the order, I didn’t notice the missing videos.  We’re up to September 23, 2014, with this set.

All three kids playing, Daniel being pushed, Joseph reading “Caps for Sale”, Joseph doing math workbook exercises, Joseph repeating what happens when he eats too many blackberries, Daniel interacting with everyone, Joseph drawing NYC, Vivienne drawing the same, and Joseph’s illustrations compared to the original.

For whatever reason, the penultimate video sometimes triggers safety mode to block it, even though I cut out nearly all of the indecent scenes and what remains is indistinct at best.

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Videos from around Daniel’s birthday follow.

Joseph drawing, Vivienne feeding Daniel, Daniel drinking, Daniel wanting to drink more, Joseph and Vivienne playing Blokus, Happy Birthday to Daniel, Daniel eating his muffin, Vivienne imitating Bappe, Daniel walking, Daniel opening his present, Daniel hammering, Daniel and the kids playing with the new toys (again), Daniel and the easy button, Joseph frenchifying Frog and Toad.

Giant Pumpkins

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I’ve previously posted about my chemist’s brother’s giant pumpkins, for instance last year, when a tiny hole kept his pumpkin from being the first to make the metric ton.  Better luck this year: Beni Meier set a world record in Berlin, beat it in Jona, and beat it again in Ludwigsburg at the European championships, where his baby became the first official pumpkin to weigh over a metric ton.  Click through the pictures: the last two in front of the castle are quite impressive.

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Sorely neglected, we are back with a shot of summer at the Maggie P.:

Monopoly with Spencer, Kids in the pilot house, Fun in the creek, Daniel splashing, Vivienne’s swim lesson, Grandma feeding the gulls, Joseph and Vivienne feeding gulls, Tub-jumping game.

And later, back in Florida, the last days before returning to Switzerland:

Mr. Wilson’s pop rocks, Fun with the Radio Flyer, Vivienne powers the bike, Daniel practicing walking, Vivienne has another turn on the bike, Daniel on the tricycle, Joseph’s bike ride ends in tears.

And because they’re already uploaded, some Swiss videos:

Daniel threatens the workspace, Daniel cleans up, Daniel takes some steps, Daniel plays with the top.

The 5S Method

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This Thursday, I took a short two-hour in-house course on the 5S method, a Japanese methodology aimed at eliminating waste and credited with making just in time manufacturing possible.  Wikipedia already has an article on it, but I’ll try to write something slightly more practical while keeping in mind what might interest those of my readers who I know are already trying out different approaches to organization in daily life.

The method is called 5S because all five steps of the method begin with an S syllable in Japanese.  Most translations try to keep the S in the translated terms; I’ll skip that for clarity.

1. Separate: separate what you need at your workspace from what you don’t need there.  One way of streamlining this process is to run around sticking colored post-its on things you find: red for what needs to go, green for what needs to stay, and yellow for checking after e.g. a week whether the item has been used in the meantime.  The yellow stickers help overcome indecision procrastination.

2. Arrange: remove the red stuff, and arrange what’s left so that everything has its home there where it is needed.  Prime real estate goes to what gets used most often.  If necessary, rearrange the room to shorten paths and avoid collisions.  Make sure that another person can find his way around your workplace in case you’re absent.  Label or color-code your storage, make sure that putting something in the wrong spot will look odd (e.g. draw outlines on the wall of what’s hanging there), where possible store like with like.

3. Swish and Swipe: keep your workplace clean, but more importantly, use the cleaning process as an inspection process.  Are your tools still in good shape?  Are they still the tools you need?  Are your markings for maintaining order still visible and legible?

4. Maintain: maintain and improve on the advances you’ve made in the first three steps.  Document your work in the first three steps and make rules visible.  Work on making it easy (shaping the path) for everyone to follow the rules.

5. Form habits: unless the four previous steps become habits, the method will remain a creaky machine running on the fumes of willpower.  The tiny habits approach might help in this regard.  If several people share the workplace, talk about how you might be able to “rally the herd” around these principles.