It wasn’t. Last month, Thomas noticed a new item in my YouTube inbox:

I was skeptical that this was a typical online get-rich-quick scam, but I called her and found out that her offer was legitimate. They were looking for the kind of great holiday moments that you just can’t get from child actors. If I wanted our video to be considered for final selection, I had only to provide a copy of the video and sign a couple of legal releases. I gave her my email address and she sent the following:

Today I sent three signed Consent & Release forms (Tina, Graham and Thomas), a signed Footage Release form and the video in original AVI format burned on to a CD. There is no guarantee that we will be selected for a commercial, but the boys already have plans for spending their residual checks!

Thomas saved money from Christmas, his birthday and allowance. At first, his goal was to buy a Wii, but that became unnecessary when we got one for Christmas. After weighing his options, he decided he wanted a new iPod. Especially after his friend, Andrew Barton, got an iPod Video. On Monday I ordered a 30 Gb iPod Video via the Apple Developer Hardware Purchase Program, where we get a slight discount. We weren’t expecting to receive it until next week, but it came on Thursday. Thomas has been ecstaticly exploring its many options since it arrived. I helped him download some shows from our Tivo and he’s learned all about the various video formats out there.

Meanwhile, Tina has been furiously working on a ten minute movie for the Cub Scout Blue and Gold Banquet tomorrow. She gathered a slew of pictures and a few videos and has set them to music in iMovie. She’s enjoyed it immensely, I think, and has been spending alot of her free time working on it. I think it will be well-received tomorrow night. I borrowed a projector from work to enhance the experience, so we’re all excited to see it.

I’ve been enduring the Oregon winter weather in the morning and evening. The rain seems never-ending at this time of the year, but I’ve been taking the shortest possible routes in order to minimize my exposure to the elements. I took Tina’s advice and bought a balaclava which helps keep my head and neck toasty-warm. Last weekend I accidentally broke my crappy front fender and have been riding fenderless all week. I repaired the crappy fender once before so this time I’m going to get something that will last longer. I need to get it soon, though, because I’m getting tired of the mud that’s flying all over.

Thomas has been engrossed with finishing The Legend of Zelda on Wii. They’re not allowed to play Wii during the week, so he’s been playing Runescape, a massively-multiplayer online role-playing (MMOR) game, after finishing his homework every day. He listens to cello music in bed at night while he’s reading. Sometimes he listens to science podcasts while he’s trying to get to sleep.

When Jan and Tom were here over the holidays, Tom mounted our dishwasher to the counter to keep it from tipping forward when the door is open. While working on it, he found what he described as mouse droppings under the dishwasher. Since we had never seen mice or any sign of mice in our house, we didn’t really believe it. Then last week came into the family room asking who had been eating his two pound Hershey Bar. We took a look and it had a very small tear in it and a perfect semi-circle eaten out of one corner. With tiny little teeth marks.

That night we bought a bunch of cheap mouse traps (Does Victor have a patent on that design? They look exactly the same as the ones we used 30 years ago.) and one “live” trap because Thomas asked. One went off the first night but had no mouse. Today as I was making eggs for myself I glanced over at the one on the counter and found that it had a tiny little mouse in it. Graham initially volunteered to be “in charge” of emptying the traps but when faced with an actual dead mouse, he begged off. Our success led us to check the four other traps and found a larger mouse under the dishwasher.

When I was a kid, I was “in charge” of emptying the traps in our house. I was the only boy in the house at the time, so I suppose that’s why I drew the duty. I really disliked it especially when the trap on the heat register caught one. By the time I would find it in the morning, it was half-cooked and pretty disgusting. I don’t know where I was supposed to put the mice, but I always dropped them into the two-foot space between the house and back porch. I remember always trying to open the traps without touching the mice.

The first step was to be the purchase of said filters at the Home Depot which is about a mile away from the 102nd Avenue Blue Line station. Biking there would be relatively easy, I thought, and then I’d just bike back and get back on the Max. It didn’t quite work out that way.

The ride to the Home Depot was relatively short but it was wicked cold – 28 degrees with a strong east wind blowing out of the Gorge. The furnace filter section had been recently devastated and there were no 14 x 21 x 1′s left. I searched for about 15 minutes before finally summoning help, which was slow to arrive and could only confirm that they were out. I picked up a nifty vent plate with a built-in filter (I had previously jury-rigged our bedroom vent with a cutout furnace filter). After the quick self-checkout, I left having spent an hour on my “quick” errand and I still wasn’t done.

I mapped out the remaining business landscape between Home Depot and home and decided my next best bet would be the True Value on 122nd. Although it was 7:00 by then, I had a little hope that it might still be open. If not, there was a Staples right next to it that would be open and might have filters. I rode to the 102nd Avenue station and, seeing no Max in sight, decided to continue by bike to 122nd.

Those 20 blocks proved more difficult that I had imagined, especially since much of the bike lane still contained frozen slush, crunchy snow and the occasional scary patch of ice. Because the Max tracks run right down the middle of the street, Burnside is a single lane one-way on each side of the Max. That means that swerving out of the bike lane to avoid hazardous biking conditions is mostly out of the question. Because of that, I detoured north to Glisan where there is no bike lane, but there are four lanes of traffic.

As I approached 122nd and Glisan, I was delighted to see a heretofore unconsidered Target store come into view. Gleefully, I pulled into the parking lot fully expecting to find the filters. Unfortunately, I was met by 20-odd feet of broken car glass. With a car on my left, I was unable to swerve out of it and my tires took the full brunt. There was no immediate hissing so I put it out of my mind for the time being.

Target did, in fact, have the filters in the size I needed. They even had the fancy pleated kind. I stopped by the electronics section to check for Wii’s and Wii remotes (they had neither) before checking out, bundling up and riding off to face the chill from the east. I headed north on 122nd until I took up my normal route heading east on Halsey. That particular stretch of road is probably the worst part of my commute during the winter because of the east winds from the Gorge. This night it was even more difficult because of the aforementioned ice, snow and frozen slush that clogged about a mile of the bike lane. Finally, I headed down the hill on 162nd which marks the “home stretch” to my nightly commute. That stretch culminates in an especially critical section of road where the bike lane narrows absurdly under the railroad underpass. During that section, I “take the lane” and get in front of any traffic so I can be plainly seen.

Right as I made my move, I noticed that the balance of my bike felt a little funny. I thought it felt a little like a flat front tire, but the steering still seemed to be working perfectly. I slowed down drastically to avoid crashing directly in front of the car which was now tailgating me as we careened down the hill. I slowed to nearly stopped for my left turn onto Stanton and powered my way up the hill. I jumped off at the top of the hill and check my rear tire. Sure enough it was going flat. Over the objections of my already numb feet, I hoofed it the remaining four blocks home.

The new vent plate was too small for our vent, but the new furnace filters worked well. Neither Tina or I had any problems with the dry cough last night and I slept extraordinarily well.

As I watched them cavort in the snow, I remembered the first time my hands got really, really cold. It was probably the first winter on my paper route and my gloves (or mittens) were horribly inadequate. I came home with very cold fingers and my mom had me put them under running water to thaw them out. I remember screaming that the water was too hot and my mom telling me that it was cold water. After that I always wore a pair of snowmobile mittens over another pair of gloves.

Much to our surprise the snow was still on the ground this morning and school as first delayed and then cancelled altogether. Thomas and Graham were outside for quite awhile before their play devolved into a fight. Graham had to come in and stay in his room and Thomas wasn’t far behind.

I decided to stay home, too. I’m going to try to divert attention away from the Wii this afternoon and toward Pinewood Derby cars. The race is on the 21st and we have not even started!