Unexpected Good Toy #1: Bilibo

At nearly $30 for a hunk of plastic, the Bilibo seemed like a bad idea. I mean, come on, it’s just a big plastic bowl with a couple of holes in it.

Bilibo

But the huge number of positive comments on Amazon stuck with me. Things like this:

It’s best use is not as a single self-contained, self explainatory activity (the simple rocking, balancing, or spinning never lasts long around here), but as an accessory to any number of activities and imaginative games. In addition to being the means to some serious dizziness, ours has been a tunnel, a sled, a cave, a chariot, a stool, a mountain, a cradle, and so much more.

And this:

4 years later – these have stood the test of time. They are not only still in perfect condition, the kids still enjoy playing with them now at ages 6 and 8.

And this:

I read all the reviews and thought there was no way a child would actually play with this. Well, I was wrong. They were purchased for my 9 year old, 15 month old, and my 5 year old niece and every one of them has had a blast playing with them.

At some point, as I probably do too often, I decided “what the hell” and placed my order.

This was not one of those toys where the kids are excited and sit down to immediately play with it for 3 hours straight (subsequently never playing again). No, this is a longer-term toy. It gets consistent use in many different ways. That’s what’s great about it–it’s a toy that greatly fosters imagination.

Some examples of use at our house:

The Bilibo Spinner
The Bilibo Chair
The Bilibo Hat

Even our baby gets a lot of use out of it. We put toys in it as a bowl and she enjoys the challenge of scooping them out as it rocks around.

Recommended.

Family 8mm Films From the 1960’s

These videos were transferred from 8mm reels my mom gave me a few years ago. They’ve been digitized for a while, but I just had reason to reference them and figured somebody else out there might find them interesting. The captions are what my mom wrote for each video.

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Full-res versions

Relics In The Basement

A couple guys I went to elementary school and college with are in town for a few days. These are the guys who I spent a lot of time with in a basement playing D&D instead of being a normal kid. Today we hung out together and ended up back at the same house (his parents still live there) where we spent most of our basement time.

There have not been a lot of changes made to this basement. The same couches that were there 30 years ago when we played D&D are still there. It’s really kind of fun to look around and see all the old stuff still sitting around. I knew this to be the case as we were headed down to the basement and I jokingly asked if his old TRS-80 Color Computer was still down there.

It was.

TRS-80 Color Computer

It’s there in the exact same spot from 30 years ago. It was not actually plugged in to the ancient tube TV sitting next to it or I would have turned it on. This is from the days when you got a really terrific, thick book with the computer about how to program it to do things. Many of us learned how to program with these TRS-80 Basic books.

For kicks, I opened the drawer under the computer. Of course, there were all the floppies and tapes that went along with it.

Color Computer Paraphernalia

The more I think about it, the more I want to go back and see how much still works.

The Annibirthaversary Farewell Cake

I present the most awesome cake my wife has ever made, the Annibirthaversary Farewell Cake.

We have a lot of events that occur around the same time of year, and this just happened to coincide with one grandparent being in town for a week and a couple of other grandparents about to leave town for the winter. It sounded like a great excuse for a big family party, so that’s what we did.

We celebrated:

  • Violet turning 1 on October 11th.
  • Gillian turning 4 on October 13th.
  • Neil turning 6 on September 10th.
  • Calvin turning 16 on October 15th.
  • Terry turning 41 on October 1st.
  • Grandma Ann turning 72 on August 20th.
  • Steve & Terry’s 12th anniversary on September 30th.
  • Grandpa David and Grandma Pat leaving town for the winter on September 16th.

8 events. 8 sections of cake. 1 cake of awesomeness. Click on the picture for the gallery.

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It tasted pretty damn good too.

I hope he sounds as good as he looks.

This is a cardboard violin, which is what the kids use to learn to hold a real violin. You gradually add rice inside it until it’s the equivalent weight of the real thing. That way there is less breakage from drops when the real violin is introduced.

Neil certainly has the serious look down pat.

Violin Practice