here in South Carolina one of the nicest times of year is that short window during the springtime when the azaleas are blooming. And one of the nicest places to be when the azaleas are in full color is at one of Charleston’s beautiful plantations.

this past weekend we took the family to Middleton Place Plantation here in Charleston (actually in Summerville, just northwest of here). Middleton Place was originally built in the 1730s; one of its previous residents, Arthur Middleton, was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. As a family we walked around for a while, saw a few alligators sunning by the reflection pools, ran around in the grass, and generally enjoyed the awesome weather.

while at the plantation I took a few pictures, and here are three of them. I will put forth the caveat that we don’t have an awesome camera, and it’s times like these that I wish I did! It’s on my short list of things I’d like to purchase within the next year (that and a 17-inch MacBook Pro, though that may just be wishful thinking). Perhaps next year I’ll be back at Middleton ready to dazzle you with eye-popping colors and super-fine resolution. That being said, here they are:

and, if you’re interested in seeing a bit of Charleston on your desktop, I’ve made this last picture into a background image in two sizes:

• 1024×768
• 1280×1024

how to get the kids to do their chores in the Crawford household:

1. Issue the order something like this: “Autobots, <perform action>!!” (some viable examples: ‘roll out’, ‘clean room’, ‘eat dinner’)
2. The kids will ask you, “what Transformer are you?”
3. You answer, “I’m Optimus Prime!” (authoritative voice optional)
4. Chain of command is established. The kids will defer to your authority and complete requisite action, unless either or both of them happen to be Decepticons, in which case:
5. Chore will not be completed. Laser battle will ensue.

it’s not perfect. But it’s better than bribery.

Callum, who is 6 (now almost 7), has been taking weekly violin lessons since last fall with some music teachers who give lessons out of their home in Mt. Pleasant. He’s been practicing (nearly) every day, and seems to really enjoy playing the instrument – not only that, but he’s getting quite good at it – he’s not a pro by any means, but his practice has been paying off. His note reading has been improving, and he’s been learning a lot about music theory.

the other day Callum was completing a writing assignment in his notebook – as part of his schooling we often give him a set of words to write about, and he’ll write a story about the words, or describe them, or something similar. At any rate, on this day he was writing, and started to hum to himself, and ended up composing a little song. He wrote the song from his head on his writing paper – not by using the actual notes (A, B, C#, D, E, F# etc), but by indicating how many fingers to put down on each string of the violin – so A1 is the first finger down on the A string, A2 is the first two fingers, etc. You can see the song he wrote in this picture.

when I got home from work Callum got out his violin and played the song he’d composed for me. It wasn’t the Magic Flute, of course, but I must admit I was pretty impressed, mostly at the fact that he had the gumption to go ahead and think up a song and write it down. When he asked Yvonne if it was okay that he included that as a part of his writing assignment, she said “of course!” – and I agree, I wholeheartedly encourage this sort of experimentation. I think it is a great sign – and if he keeps it up, his skills and creativity in this area will certainly improve.

a few days ago while the 2010 Olympics were in progress I posted this tally of how many Olympic medals countries were earning per million people, to help to gauge how countries were performing compared to the number of potential athletes available to choose from. Now that the Olympics are over I’ve updated the tally, and here it is:

1. Norway: 23 medals, 4,769,274 population, 4.823 mpm (medals per million)
2. Austria: 16 medals, 8,344,319 population, 1.917 mpm
3. Sweden: 11 medals, 9,220,986 population, 1.193 mpm
4. Canada: 26 medals, 33,311,389 population, 0.781 mpm
5. Germany: 30 medals, 82,140,043 population, 0.365 mpm
6. Korea: 14 medals, 48,607,000 population, 0.288 mpm
7. France: 11 medals, 62,048,473 population, 0.177 mpm
8. United States: 37 medals, 304,059,724 population, 0.122 mpm
9. Russian Federation: 15 medals, 141,800,000 population, 0.106 mpm
10. China: 11 medals, 1,325,639,982 population, 0.008 mpm

and just for fun, here’s a quick chart that gives a graphical representation of how it turned out:

I realize that the results are skewed – some countries have a lot more snow than other countries, and therefore a lot more of an interest in winter sports – but regardless, I found this an interesting exercise. At any rate I’m pretty pleased at Canada’s performance on a per capita basis during these Olympics, though you can see from the chart that Norway totally crushed it!

Edit: I’ve updated this list – see the final results for the 2010 Olympics medals per capita.

currently, the United States is leading the Olympic medals count, with 35 medals. My native Canada is in third place, with 23 medals (we also have the highest number of gold medals, with 12)! I was thinking that in comparison to the United States we’re actually doing pretty well, as we have roughly a tenth the population that the USA has… in which case, per capita, we’re earning many more medals than the United States is.

that got me thinking… of the current leaderboard, who is getting the most medals, per capita? Is it Canada, or someone else? I assumed it was someone else, and I was right… but I was pretty amazed to see by just how much that other country is getting more medals per capita than my own!

of the current top 10 medal holders (I didn’t calculate for 11+), the tally looks like this:

1. Norway – 4.403 medals per million!! (21 medals, population 4,769,274)
2. Austria – 1.914 mpm (15 medals, population 8,344,319)
3. Switzerland – 1.179 mpm (9 medals, population 7,630,605)
4. Canada – 0.690 mpm (23 medals, population 33,311,389)
5. Germany – 0.341 mpm (27 medals, population 82,140,043)
6. Korea – 0.288 mpm (14 medals, population 48,607,000)
7. France – 0.177 mpm (11 medals, population 62,048,473)
8. United States – 0.115 mpm (35 medals, population 304,059,724)
9. Russian Federation – 0.106 mpm (15 medals, population 141,800,000)
10. China – 0.008 mpm (11 medals, population 1,325,639,982)

this medals per million leaderboard is going to change as soon as I publish this, of course – perhaps I’ll make another post with the final tallies when the Olympics is over. But I have to say… way to go Norway, for cranking out four and a half Olympic medals per million people… that is simply amazing!!

Mia chats with a pretend friend on her plastic phone.

happy Super Bowl Sunday!

while mucking around in my web directories, I found this page that I made seven and a half years back, and promptly forgot about – part one (though I don’t think I ever made a part two) of a chronicle of Yvonne and my adventures in Europe. This was our last big trip before we had Callum (who is now six and a half). Kind of neat to find this… almost like finding an old scrapbook stashed away in the bottom of a dresser drawer somewhere, but of the virtual kind.

plus, I could really go for one of those big ol’ Stiegl beers right about now…

this afternoon I created this page on my personal web site, with links to my various profiles online – LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and so on. I made it for two reasons – the first, and most obvious, is so that people who are seeking to contact me can do so in whatever way they care to. But I also realized that I usually can’t remember which handle I’ve used for each social networking site, and in fact I often can’t remember which social networking sites I’ve signed up for at all (for example, I realized just now that I have two Orkut profiles, neither of which I use, and I can’t even remember how to log onto one of them). I assume this list will grow as I remember old profiles I’ve used, or create new ones into the future.

what amazed me the most about this exercise is how many profiles the average Internet user posesses. I wouldn’t even call myself a “power social networker” and yet I have a whole page full of ways to contact me or figure out what I’ve been up to online. Aggregators, created to make sense of and unify the many profiles people maintain online, turn out to be yet another profile that users then need to keep track of.

another thing I find interesting is how different social networks vary in popularity depending on which part of the globe they’re used in. Facebook is the most popular social networking site here in the United States; Orkut in Brasil; while QQ (I don’t even know what that is!) in huge in China.

“let’s go to the Aquarium,” I suggested to the two eldest kids. “Why don’t you guys go pick out some clothes, and we’ll head off!”

and these are the clothes they picked out…

at any rate, we’re off to the Aquarium so Callum and Mia can stun hapless sharks into submission with their stunning array of colorful clothes. Then, this afternoon, a dentist appointment – ’cause that’s how I roll on my vacation days.

yesterday I left work a bit early to head downtown to the Gaillard Auditorium, where the Charleston Symphony Orchestra was rehearsing for this evening’s performance. A friend of mine, and a fellow Sigma Chi, is one of the directors of the symphony and, knowing my interest in violin, invited me to check out a rehearsal. I found myself a seat in the very middle of the auditorium, somewhat in front of the balcony, sat back, and watched the whole thing. For a while I was the only person in the entire audience, watching the full Symphony play their performance, just for me! Well, mostly for David Stahl, the Music Director and Conductor, who was leading them through the rehearsal, but I was there too. At any rate, it was incredible.

one of the pieces played yesterday afternoon was the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, with the Charleston Symphony’s Concertmaster, Yuriy Bekker, on lead violin. This guy put on a heck of a performance, with such amazing speed and grace with his violin (a 19th century French instrument by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume) that any sort of sound I could make come from such an instrument would sound like chickens scratching on a tin fence in comparison. Pretty daunting!

at any rate, it was a great experience to be the only guy in the audience to hear such a masterful piece of work, and not something I’ll soon forget.