Sneak Peak at the Rose Parade Floats!

Only but an hour ago my friend and I were enjoying the garlic knots of Mama's Brick Oven Pizza when a strange sight we beheld on the unassuming streets of Fair Oaks, South Pasadena...
In the dark outside the pizzeria, it seemed that the regular pace of flashing headlights and break lights had ceased; instead, something large, looming and a little bit frilly was eeking past our restaurants front doors.
"Are those floats?" our friend Peggy said. Her soon-to-be-husband, Josh, had just been explaining that he would be walking tomorrow, New Year's Day, with the FTD float. "I think it is," said Wendy, rather nonplussed (I think this was her way of staving off hunger... we'd been waiting in a very busy Mama's for our pizza for a while). For a few seconds no one said anything - it simply was not possible! There were no crowds to greet them... no cheering onlookers to block our view... and no sunlight to confirm our bewilderment.
"Should we go outside?" asked Peggy, she stood immediately and than sat back down looking waiting for a fellow diner to give her a cue, "YES!" I cried and we all hoped out of our seats with more energy than we knew our weakening, pizza-lacking frames had left in them.
We bounded out the doors and stopped short, realizing the curb was only two feet from Mama's entry way. This is so surreal! I thought to myself, we simply couldn't have fought the throngs on Colorado for better seats! How serendipitous!
"I'm twittering this!" I told Wendy, "Dang it, you beat me. Should I get my camera?" We all nodded grasping for our own camera phones to commemorate in pixel mediocrity the moment.
For moment, we looked through time portal at coming year; we saw a glimpse of what the street-sleeping celebrants on Colorado would wake to the very first morning of 2009. It sneaked through South Pasadena while the rest of sister cities threw tortillas and shaving cream at the cars daring to travel the floats' future route. But only 3 hours before the crowds would erupt in chaos to bring in the New Year, we saw future!

I did my best with my little LG phone, but here is a sneak peak at some of the floats in the Tournament of Roses:

Tournament of Roses sneaks down Fair Oaks from Danica Northend on Vimeo.

Light Show in Witchita!

This is a completely unedited and not-previously-viewed video from the backseat of our Honda Pilot. There were eight sarcastic Northends in that car, viewing this awesome light show with the music playing over the radio. Apparently many houses around the country do this with Vixen or similar programs, and then often ask for donations to their favorite charities. I believe this is part of the Tacky Light Tour.
We spent the evening with a Google map of the places in Wichita that had these! I highly recommend making a local family trip of this.
(Here is a "How To" on the Christmas light show set up)



Christmas Light Show through the radio! from Danica Northend on Vimeo.

About the Tacky Light Tour:
Tacky lights date all the way back to 1882 and can be attributed to Edward H. Johnson, the forefather of tacky lights and an associate of Thomas Edison. On December 22 of that year Johnson placed a Christmas tree that was hand-wired with 80 walnut-sized lights in the living room of his Fifth Avenue home in New York City (pictured right). He was vice-president of Edison Electric Light Company (now known as Con Edison electric utility) and commissioned employees to patriotically wire the tree with red, white and blue lights.

His idea blazed across the United States like a flame held to the bark of a dry evergreen wrapped with strung popcorn. This ultimately led to the invention of weatherproof Christmas lights in the 1960s. Competitively tacky families across the country soon moved their indoor Christmas lights outdoors, and originally outlined their homes. The notion of outdoor Christmas lights and displays sparked a frenzy of lights that blink, twinkle, chase, resemble icycles and shape into various figures.

More recent advances in technology and environmental awareness has pushed companies to produce more efficient products including LED Christmas lights. Boasting longer lifetimes and virtually indestructable construction, LED Christmas lights are the new craze. Even though LEDs are a bit more expensive, a 90% savings in energy has made LED Christmas lights the future of the Tacky Light Tour.

All in all people have always strived for creativity whether that be artistically tasteful or not. Over the past 45 years we've seen the adaptation of flickering lights, lifesized lawn props, animated scenery and even low-powered radio stations. It can only be assumed that with every technological advancement, those advancements will be used by many to warm the hearts and minds of Christmas lovers throughout the world.

Some more extravagant Christmas lights!

ASIMO

Matt & I went to Disneyland to celebrate my birthday.
I always want to go to Innovations and Matt never wants to.
This time, I insisted (birthday card!) and it was so worth it!
We got to see ASIMO! And I got to be super freaked out by the super-human like qualities of this innovative and long-awaited walking, talking, stair-treading robot.
(PS did you know that "robot" wasn't even coined until 1920?)

Below are bits of video from the fifteen minute demonstration of ASIMO at Disney's Innoventions.
It ends with my reaction immediately following the demonstration- which is mostly just wonder and bewilderment. There was just something terribly daunting about the little 4'3", 120 lb humanoid robot... it was just so... graceful! Such human qualities in the fluidity of its movements. I couldn't help but imagine it silently creeping up my stairs in the middle of the night to inform me that I left the front door unlocked and all of its friends were coming in.

ASIMO stands for Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility. It took the developers of ASIMO over 20 yrs to get robotic walking right. It's something we, as upright beings, really take for granted. I remember when I was in 3rd grade I watched a video on how humans develop; and while a shot played of a toddler being walked down a beach with a parent holding each hand, the narrator said,

"Mankind is on the brink of collapse with each well-balanced step we take,"

and then proceeded to explain the delicate process of the human ability to walk.
The clips in the ASIMO Disney show exemplified the incredible difficulty of mechanically mimicking this. Original biped robots tended to weigh a lot and for a long time could only walk in straight line. Even that did not bode well as any slight disruption or misstep would send the heavy legs & torso careening over. As robotics progressed, walking features improved, but they still seemed to serve little purpose for the help or advancement of humankind.
But ASIMO is capable of moving in curves, walking forward and backwards, side-stepping, and even running; it is specifically designed as a helper with fully functioning five-digit hands and motion sensor cameras capable of maintaining "eye contact" when addressed and commanded.

(I can't help but chuckle at the expression on my face... it's of genuine shocked and rather wide-eyed)
Check out the video below:

ASIMO @ Disneyland from Danica Northend on Vimeo.

This other video, however, gives me hope that we are still superior.
I suppose we won't need John Connor for a long while yet!

This past Saturday and things.

So, I enjoyed a little premature birthday present opening tonight.
Matt got me the coolest Indiana Jones/Mummy/Steam Punk boots ever. Okay, they're not as crazy sounding as I just made them out to be, but I still think they say "Danica's out for an adventure/some minor heroine-ing!"
I used to envy Meghan's a bit, but now I have my own pretty rad version! The only thing is.... apparently they're made of emu. Is that cool? Or weird? They look cool, that's for sure!

So I promised a vlog for Saturday and it took me a while to get all the pieces together - but here they are:

Item #1 - "Pre-Christmas Party Vlog"
So, I'm a little shy because it is my first Vlog and I dunno why I decided to do it rather early in the morning. As a result, I am blinking quite a bit because I suddenly realized how puffy my eyes were...

Item #2 - "Danica's Party"
This was the video recorded my Wendy at the party. Awesome. We have sealed our friendship with physical interaction. I will say that Skype-ing is pretty dang close tho.

Item #3 - "Matt & Danica's Reception Entrance"
So... this is how deep the nerd-dom runs. Yes, it's in our blood. Apparently, the night before the wedding my mom and two uncles stayed up pretty late making this incredible presentation for Matt and I to enter the reception hall to. Needless to say, Matt married into the right family.



Pre-Christmas Party Vlog from Danica Northend on Vimeo.


Danica's Party from Wendy Bee on Vimeo.


(If this doesn't work, you'll have to click here... sorry!)

My previous embed didn't work. So I decided to show a video of Wendy when she was very small.
(not really wendy)



(Don't worry, a party follow-up with a VLOG will be posted soon!)