Zach Copley

Wyatt sang his oatmeal song for me.

Rainy Day, originally uploaded by zcopley.

Wyatt finally got a chance to try out his new rain boots today. We found the biggest puddle around.

Bean Dirt, originally uploaded by zcopley.

I took a stereo shot of one of Wyatt’s “Bean Dirt” construction projects…

Ritual Aprons, originally uploaded by zcopley.

Wendy recently got this neato apron for joining her secret scrapbooking society. Compare to George Washington’s Masonic apron.

Wish I could get in on this whole apron business… maybe I’ll have to bake some cookies.

Last night in New York City, a big monster cop raced into a crowd of demonstrators during an early street action for the 9/11 anniversary, specifically singling out documentary filmmaker and popular talk show host, Alex Jones, and handcuffed him with extreme prejudice and excessive grunting, nearly chopping the media activist’s hands off. The entire incident was broadcast on the Times Square “Jumbotron,” which happened to be displaying a Fox News segment covering the arrest hosted by mustachioed anchor man and consummate slimeball, Heraldo Rivera, who chortled and mocked the protesters, while the NYPD flagrantly violated their First Amendment rights to free speech and peaceable assembly.

read more | digg story

Update 10/05/2007

The new “official” trailer is out, much slicker…

One of my pet peeves: receipt and bag checks upon leaving big-box retail stores. Here’s yet another story of a guy unlawfully detained for refusing to kowtow to a rent-a-cop. Worse, when he called the real police for help he was unlawfully arrested for refusing to show his drivers license to the responding officer (something he was not legally required to do). Definitely a guy trying to make a point. He should sue the responding officer personally for violating his civil rights. I’m glad there are people out there willing to do this, while most of the rest of us meekly obey “the authorities.”

read more | digg story

Update 9/21/07

Yay! All charges were dropped against this guy!

Well, it’s been crappy month for my blog — not a single post since last month. It’s been a hectic July with lots of family activity, and I’ve been offline more than is the norm. Luckily, I finally have something cool enough to get me out of this slump behavior…

Today my friends Evan and Maj Prodromou are celebrating the fourth anniversary of Wikitravel, the free online worldwide travel guide they founded and shepherded into one of the premier travel resources on the Internet. It recently won the Webby Award for Best Travel Site. Beaujolais to them!

Evan, along with Nicolas Ritoux (a real Frenchman), is also today launching his latest undertaking, Vinismo, an equally ambitious Open Content wiki project, aiming to be a complete guide to the world of wine for oenophiles of all levels of wine expertise and experience. Beaujolais to that!

I never could participate as much as I would have liked to in Wikitravel, considering I just don’t travel much (not for lack of want). However, I do make it out to the wine store pretty often, so I’m looking forward to belonging to this new community of wineaus.

I would have to be a nutter cretin to ask for a better father’s day. I got to sleep in until nearly noon. When I woke up, we went Codornices Park in Berkeley and had a picnic. We stopped at Semifreddi’s bakery to pick up sandwiches and coffee on the way. Cordonices is my favorite park right now. It’s connected to the Berkeley Rose Garden via a tunnel. Tots have a special love for tunnels. Cordonices has a stream and a bridge and huge sandboxes and all the requisite play-structure stuff. But what makes Cordonices really special is its slolum-like concrete slide built into the hillside. Kids use cardboard to fly down at dangerous-seeming high speeds. Nothing like it would ever be built today, so it must be a relic from the olden days of the ’70s or something.

The first time we went there, Wyatt was apprehensive but fascinated by the slide. We went down together a few times, and he really liked it. After awhile it was time to go home for naptime. Wyatt was having too much fun I guess because he grabbed some cardboard, ran up the hill before I could catch him, and started going down all by himself… Eventually, he learned to wait in line, and sometimes fight his way through the other kids when they wouldn’t give him his turn. He’s a tough kid. He’s gotten quite good at sliding on that thing… Today was the first time Wendy got to see it. I knew she would freak out; it looks really dangerous for a two-year-old. Maybe it is… But I’m proud of my boy. I’ll dress his road rash wounds.

The next big treat for the day was to go to Pixar and see an early screening of their new movie Ratatouille. Wyatt’s “Uncle Bonbon” got us in. Being in a theater for 110 minutes tested Wyatt’s patience a bit and there were a couple scary parts, but I think overall he loved it — all the Pixar movies are his favorites — and he was talking about Ratatouille all the way up until bedtime.

Before going home to put Wyatt to bed, we all stopped for dinner (Wendy, Wyatt, Uncle Bryan, Aunt Erin, Uncle Charlie and I), and finished off the evening with a couple pitchers of powerful Herradura Gold-loaded margaritas and a feast of Mexican foodstuffs at Picante.

Topper: then I got a watch! A Wenger Swiss Army diver’s model, a “Seaforce.” It’s extra manly.

Best Fathers Day this year by far!

IMG_3756.png, originally uploaded by ebird.

My sister has the most awesome hairdo ever! It’s got rats!