...is the name of the movie I'm watching now, but also what I find myself thinking about instead of the stupid story. So LA got destroyed by giant tornados, and NY got flooded and then frozen. The star climatologist predicts that the planet will be engulfed by three giant snowstorms. As his scenario comes true, he gets into an SUV to drive from DC to NY into virtually certain death to rescue his son. Ooooh, the Empire State Building has flash frozen and is falling over--even it can't prop the story up any longer. Oy, 15 minutes left.

- mike lee - towson, md

We were all ready to take a ride on the Port Discovery HiFlyer balloon a few minutes ago when gusty winds forced the crew to halt flights for a while. We're going to wander around the harbor and see if we can get on later.

- mike lee - baltimore

I got on the Gmail bandwagon this morning thanks to my brother-in-law. A gig's a gig!

- mike lee -

Our local art store has the Flying Pig series of crank-animated paper sculpture kits from the UK. These are pre-printed, die cut paper model kits you assemble with Elmer's white glue. All the bases are open paper frames that support a crank and cam mechanism which moves a shaft up and down to animate the sculpture. I picked up Bob the Dog, Cat Walk, Ruminations (the cow), and Mexican Peck (chickens). These will be a lot fun to build soon on a rainy day.

More on paper automata. And yes, someone has already thought of this.

- mike lee - baltimore

This morning's haul from Waverly Farmers Market: fresh strawberries, blueberries, sugar snap peas, corn on the cob, wasabi peas, and roasted pistachio nuts. A good Saturday start and now we're off to find breakfast.

- mike lee - baltimore

Waaah! IT delivered a new blue Blackberry to my wife today for work e-mail after she retired her personal B&W Sidekick this week. Since I'm going to be staying in the same group a while, I waaant onnnne tooooo. Boss says I'll have to wait until the next batch is ordered.

- mike lee - washington, dc

This 10x10 foot grey box is my new office for the next many months at work. I move in today after sitting at a meeting table in my wife's office for a month. I get to pick out new office supplies this afternoon. Incandescent lighting is at the top of my list. Unfortunately, there's no T-mobile signal at all as I'm near the core of the building. I'm off the beaten path so it's quiet. And even nicer, I can close the door to the world and concentrate on some sticky thinking.

- mike lee - washington, dc

My view from the backseat of the PT Cruiser during the 45 minutes from Baltimore to my mom's house. I'm the baby's in-drive attendant and entertainment. After dropping the kid off, it's another 30 minutes to downtown DC.

After a bit of help from Danger tech support, I was able to reset Vicki Foreman's Color Sidekick so that it would read my SIM card. I'm back in business with a fully working camera port.

Next, I turned on ringtone demo on my year-old, worn out Sidekick and tossed it in my baby's lap. She loves the blinky wheel light and fancy midi. And, like most people, she is always impressed when I flip open the screen to reveal the lit-up keyboard. Anyway, thanks Ken for offering your Sidekicks and shipping them so quickly.

- mike lee - baltimore

My first Father's Day flowed through wonderful weather with happy baby and mellow mommy. We had lunch with the Aunties at Velleggia in Little Italy followed by a stroll to the Inner Harbor. Aunties went on to do some shopping while we took baby Cianna home for a long nap. Watching my 7-month-old daughter in peaceful sleep for a couple hours was really the highlight of my day. We just took a walk to the park in the golden light of sunset and last hour of spring.

- mike lee - baltimore