Pi Day 2014

As you know, Robyn and I celebrate pi day every year.  What's that you say?  You don't know about pi day?  That's terribly embarrassing.  Do you know what pi is?   You don't?!?!?!? Do you at least know what pie is?  Okay, good.  If you didn't know what that was, I was just going to have to ask you to leave.

Pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter.  It is approximately 3.14.  March 14th (3/14) is pi day.  How do you think we celebrate pi day?  With pie, of course.

This year was a very successful event.  We had lots of delicious pie and I ate way more than  I should.  I was rewarded this morning with the scale explaining that today is a fat day.

Here are a few highlights of our pi day extravaganza.

This is just a small portion of all the pies we had.  The bottom left was the first place winner.

Robyn put this cute mobile on our door.  She's fancy like that.

One of the most important parts of our pi day celebration is the judging of the pies.  We always bring in culinary experts to judge the taste of the pies.  These experts are people who use words like "earthy" or "nutty".  You know, words that normal people can't define in relation to food.  This year's expert judges were my friend Dave and my friend Melissa.  I didn't actually hear them use any fancy food words, but they were probably thinking them.

Robyn and I provide prizes for the winners that are selected by the judges.

Mike came in third place with a delicious sugar free apple pie and was rewarded with autographed pictures of Robyn and I.  Lest you think this is a lame prize, remember that these are pictures from a year ago when we were fatter.  We'll never be that fat again, so those are only going up in value.

Dann came in second with a bacon pie.  It was a recipe he made up that was similar to quiche.  It was pretty fantastic.  He was rewarded with a tiny pie tin for making cute little baby pies.

And the big winner was....  (drum roll)

Megan got first place with her caramel apple pie.  She got a $15 Amazon gift card.  Can you figure out why it's funny?  The picture has pie and pi because she won first pies.  (That was Robyn's doing.  She's clever.)

It was an excellent evening, eating way more than I should and catching up with old friends.  If you weren't there, don't worry, I used my fancy new GoPro to make a time lapse of all the goings on in our kitchen during the event.  So it's just like you were there.

I know you totally feel like you were there, but next year you should come, because no matter how realistic the video may seem, it can't really portray how delicious the pie tasted.

Two Weeks with a GoPro

I have a new toy.  If you haven't figured out that I like gadgets, you probably better just keep that to yourself, because it should be very obvious, and if anyone finds out you'll be really embarrassed.

So now that we're on the same page about my love for gadgets I can tell you about my new toy.

So the deal is, I wanted a camera to take diving with me.  (Since I'm now scuba certified.)  I have a waterproof camera, but it only goes to 30 feet.  Clearly, I'm going to be diving deeper than that.

I did some research and found that there are some really super fancy schmancy dive cameras out there for gobs and gobs of money.  But I also found that I could get a GoPro for $300, and it can go as deep as 100 feet.  So there are nicer cameras that are better for diving, but none of them for as cheap as the GoPro.

So I made the purchase.  But it turns out that the GoPro has lots of super fun features in addition to being able to go deep underwater.  I haven't had a chance to take it diving yet, but I've made sure to try out some of the features.

I tried out the time lapse feature.  I wanted to get a sunset, but there were too many clouds.  It turned out the clouds were pretty cool too.

I bought the chest mount so that I could wear it.  It's an awesome fashion accessory.

Since I've become a biker, I decided to wear it out biking.  However, it turns out that at first I had the mount connected incorrectly so it was kind of pointed downward.  I thought it looked like it was pointed down, but at first  I thought maybe it was supposed to because the wide angle lense would compensate for it.  FYI, if it looks like it's taping your legs, then it is taping your legs.  I got excellent video like this with my first try:

"I hope it's not taking video of the ground.  It kind of seems like it is."

Good news: I tried the bike riding again and was able to wear it correctly.  Most of the video consists of me breathing really hard, but it is fun to look back and see exactly what I saw as a biker.

Of course, another important feature of the GoPro is that it has an iPhone app that allows you to see what the camera is seeing through your phone. This clearly means that my niece and nephew take awkward extreme closeups of noses and tongues.

The remote control app also works really well while wearing it.  I wore the chest mount and had my finger on the button on the phone.  Then I pushed it when Robyn started laughing.  I was able to capture this preciousness.

The moral of the story is, the GoPro is super fantastically cool.  You should get one.  I'll let you know how good it is for diving eventually, but until then I'll be geeking out about all the other features.