Studio711.com – Ben Martens

Childhood Christmas Gifts

As we think about what to get Elijah for Christmas, it’s interesting to think back to my own childhood and remember various gifts that I received. I thought it might be fun to list out a few of the more memorable ones:

  • Around 1992, we got a family Christmas gift which was a CD-ROM drive for the computer. *mind blown* I spent hours being amazed at how much data could fit on a single disc and watching every tiny little 160×120 resolution video that was on the encyclopedia disc that came along with it. I’m pretty sure it was The New Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia.
  • I had an enormous Lego set on my Christmas list. In retrospect, it was probably twice as expensive as our normal Christmas gifts. But low and behold, a wrapped package ended up under the tree that was about the size I expected the Lego set would be, and when I shook it, it sounded a LOT let Legos. I proceeded to comment endlessly about how I knew what that present was and I was very excited to open it. On Christmas morning I ripped open the paper and… not Legos. It ended up being Domino Rally (here’s a great 80s ad for it) which was actually pretty fun, but wow, did I feel horrible for incessantly guessing the wrong present. That gift changed my life. I will never ever again guess what is in a present before I open it. That declaration was quickly put to the test when there was a BB gun under the tree for me the next year, but I stuck to my guns and refused to guess what it was. Pun intended.
  • When I was 4, Rachel and I each got Big Wheels. We got a lot of use out of those things but that gift really sticks out because we were permitted to ride through the house! This was the first Christmas in our new house and we rode all the way down the hallway, through the living room and into the dining room. It was quite a thrill mostly because we were clearly doing an outdoor activity inside.

At this point in writing the post, I looked back through our old Christmas photos (thanks for doing all that scanning Mom!) and remembered a bunch of other great gifts like laser tag, various Lego sets, a safe, a skateboard and various models. Hopefully Elijah ends up with lots of happy Christmas memories too.

benmartens November 30, 2017 Family

Fantasy Football – Week 12

Thankfully the Seahawks won in San Francisco. I was pretty nervous going into the game and even after the first quarter, but by the end it was a comfortable win. I didn’t realize this, but the 49ers secondary is even more beat up than the Seahawks. If you haven’t seen the Bobby Wagner interception, it’s worth a look. The video is in this article and the interception happens around the 1:15 mark. The 49ers receiver caught the ball and then Bobby Wagner took possession of it on the way to the ground.

In our league, Luke, Logan and Austin all won easily and Luke secured a place in the playoffs. I assume that Logan and Austin are pretty much in barring a crazy scenario. The fourth place is the one that is up for grabs. Dad has it now but Andy has a good shot at it. I would have to win out and have Dad lose twice for me to make it in. We’ll know how it shakes out in two weeks.

Power rankings for week 13:

1. Austin (+1)
2. Luke (+2)
3. Logan
4. Dad (-3)

On to the weekly awards…

This Week This Season All-Time
Highest Team Score Austin had 149.89 Luke had 161.89 (Week 3) Tim 200.51 (2015)
Lowest Team Score Tim had 90.47 Jim had 60.95 (Week 10) Andy had 41.29 (2015)
Biggest Blowout Austin beat Dad by 50.77 Luke beat Jim by 74.22 (Week 3) Luke beat Andy by 113.02 (2010)
Closest Win Andy beat Jim by 5.19 Andy beat Jim by 2.96 (Week 6) Jim beat Ben by 0.12 (2012)
Highest Scoring Player Julio Jones had 44.80 for Andy Tom Brady had 45.72 for Luke. (Week 3) Drew Brees had 60.54 on Tim’s bench (2015)
Longest Active Winning Streak Luke has a 3 game winning streak Logan had a 5 game winning streak (Week 5) Micah (2011) and Ben (2015) had an 8 game winning streak
Longest Active Losing Streak Jim has a 4 game losing streak Tim had a 5 game losing streak. (Week 5) Kyle had a 14 game losing streak (2011)
benmartens November 29, 2017 Fantasy Sports

Washington Ski Areas Average Opening Dates

We had an early start to the ski season around here this year. Snoqualmie is the lowest elevation and is still waiting for enough snow, but everyone else is open. Years ago I made a chart of the opening dates on the Seattle PI blog. I’ve updated it this year with the help from some fellow skiers at work.

 dfdWhistlerBaker  StevensSummitCrystal
200617-Nov13-Nov17-Nov2-Dec15-Nov
200717-Nov29-Nov18-Dec15-Dec1-Dec
200826-Nov14-Dec18-Dec11-Dec27-Nov
200914-Nov12-Nov19-Nov14-Nov11-Nov
201019-Nov20-Nov1-Dec25-Nov19-Nov
201118-Nov18-Nov19-Nov19-Nov18-Nov
201217-Nov21-Nov20-Nov8-Dec21-Nov
201316-Nov21-Nov16-Nov10-Jan20-Nov
201422-Nov20-Dec20-Dec28-Dec21-Nov
201519-Nov19-Nov4-Dec11-Dec21-Nov
201623-Nov25-Nov29-Nov6-Dec25-Nov
201717-Nov16-Nov16-Nov2-Dec15-Nov
Average18-Nov24-Nov28-Nov8-Dec20-Nov
benmartens November 24, 2017 Skiing

Amazon Deals

I rarely repeat content on my blog, but I want to mention camelcamelcamel.com again. This is the perfect time of year to make good use of the site. Start at Amazon and find a product that you’re interested in. Copy the URL and head over to camelcamelcamel.com. Paste the URL into the search box on their page and voila, you’ll get a year’s worth of price history for that item. This is a fantastic way to know if the “deal” you’re seeing is actually a good price or not. Dig a little deeper into the functionality on the site and you can set up price watches too. They will email you if your Amazon product drops by X% or $Y.

benmartens November 23, 2017 Links

Fantasy Football – Week 11

See that picture? Check out the video. It’s impressive.

Challenge for the week: Name three starting players on the Seahawks defense who aren’t injured. I bet that’s a tough one for a lot of people. Most of the big names are injured. With that in mind, the Monday Night game went a lot better than I expected. Don’t buy into the “they lost because of the fake field goal” thing. You can’t say how the game would have played out if they had the extra three points there. Now the missed field goal by Walsh? Yeah, that one hurt. A lot. Again. I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets booted. (Pun intended.) I was happy to see a lot fewer penalties though, and the new running back, Mike Davis, showed a lot of promise… but then he went out with a groin injury. I wouldn’t put money on them making the playoffs, but maybe they will at least be able to keep the rest of the season interesting. Then we’ll get into the offseason where things will get really interesting. I think it’s time to start trading away some big names before they lose all their value and start some rebuilding. Otherwise the Seahawks are going to fade off into oblivion for 10 years while they keep the gang together and slowly get worse every season.

In our league, three of the top four teams won to add some distance between themselves and the bottom four teams. I somehow squeezed out a win over Logan and I can’t help gloating just a little because I did it with negative points from my QB. Yay? Dad is in fourth place and has a two game lead over me in fifth place. It’s going to be difficult for any of us in the bottom four to make it into the playoffs with only 3 games remaining, but crazier things have happened. Next week Austin and Dad play each other so one of them will lose and if Andy or I win, that will reduce the margin between fourth and fifth place to one game. Please keep those rosters full as we come down to the final stretch!

Power rankings for week 12:

1. Dad (+3) (Dad has gone from 8th in the power rankings to 1st in just two weeks!)
2. Austin
3. Logan (-2)
4. Luke (+1)

On to the weekly awards…

This Week This Season All-Time
Highest Team Score Dad had 142.20 Luke had 161.89 (Week 3) Tim 200.51 (2015)
Lowest Team Score Logan had 95.23 Jim had 60.95 (Week 10) Andy had 41.29 (2015)
Biggest Blowout Austin beat Jim by 31.94 Luke beat Jim by 74.22 (Week 3) Luke beat Andy by 113.02 (2010)
Closest Win Ben beat Logan by 18.77 Andy beat Jim by 2.96 (Week 6) Jim beat Ben by 0.12 (2012)
Highest Scoring Player Antonio Brown had 38.06 for Luke Tom Brady had 45.72 for Luke. (Week 3) Drew Brees had 60.54 on Tim’s bench (2015)
Longest Active Winning Streak Austin has a 4 game winning streak Logan had a 5 game winning streak (Week 5) Micah (2011) and Ben (2015) had an 8 game winning streak
Longest Active Losing Streak Jim has a 3 game losing streak Tim had a 5 game losing streak. (Week 5) Kyle had a 14 game losing streak (2011)
benmartens November 22, 2017 Fantasy Sports

Best Of YouTube

Mark Rober has another great video. This time it’s about the science behind carnival games. I’ve seen videos like this before but he does an especially good job. I appreciated how he broke down the games into categories based on their feasibility and collected data about win percentages, cost of the prizes, etc.

Flite Test started out as an remote control airplane channel, but they have expanded to include some full scale airplane content as well. Recently, Josh got to take a flight with aerobatic pilot Sean Tucker. When I was growing up, I had two pictures with autographs hanging on my wall. One was from all 6 Thunderbird pilots and the other was from Sean Tucker. He shares some interesting thoughts in addition to amazing flying in this video.

Frank Howarth is a wizard with the lathe and recently he learned how to carve perfect circles. He immediately took it to the extreme and created a wooden eyeball.

benmartens November 21, 2017 Links

Auburn Veteran’s Day Parade

We headed down to Auburn (about 45 minutes south) for a Veteran’s Day parade. It was supposed to be “huge” but we didn’t really know what to expect. We kind of hung out towards the end of the parade route but supposedly there were 30,000 spectators.

There were a couple cool flyovers and lots of interesting military stuff in the parade (mixed in with way too many “random” people in cars donated by local dealerships.) It was also a marching band competition with over 30 bands from around the Pacific Northwest. There were around 200 entries and it took about 2.5 hours to get through them all. I think we all agreed it was too long, but it was fun for the most part. The rain held off and we weren’t too cold so we’ll call it a win.

benmartens November 20, 2017 Family

Fantasy Football – Week 10

The Seahawks tried to penalty their way to another loss but still won with another safety and scrambling QB prowess. Maybe instead of penalties they could just spot the other team a touchdown or two? I could be wrong but I think they had 7 penalties that resulted in first downs including four in one drive. What’s the point of even playing defense if you’re just going to give away freebies? They did get the win but there were 12 injuries including a season ending injury for Sherman and Kam Chancellor also carted off the field. Earl Thomas was already on the bench. So now we have a decimated defense, still no offensive line, and more penalties and penalty yardage than any other NFL team. Remember when I said the Seahawks were heading into an easier section of their schedule? That was probably wrong.

In our league, wins for Logan and Luke made them feel pretty good about their playoff chances. Austin and Dad have 3rd and 4th place to themselves. The league is starting to spread out a bit and it’s getting harder for the 4 of us on the bottom to figure out a scenario that might land us in the playoffs. Thank you to everyone for keeping your rosters full!

Power rankings for week 11:

1. Logan
2. Austin (+1)
3. Andy (+2)
4. Dad (+4)

On to the weekly awards…

This Week This Season All-Time
Highest Team Score Dad had 143.79 Luke had 161.89 (Week 3) Tim 200.51 (2015)
Lowest Team Score Jim had 60.95 Dad had 61.50 (Week 1) Andy had 41.29 (2015)
Biggest Blowout Luke beat Jim by 52.30 Luke beat Jim by 74.22 (Week 3) Luke beat Andy by 113.02 (2010)
Closest Win Austin beat Tim by 29.16 Andy beat Jim by 2.96 (Week 6) Jim beat Ben by 0.12 (2012)
Highest Scoring Player Cam Newton had 43.66 on Andy’s bench. Tom Brady had 45.72 for Luke. (Week 3) Drew Brees had 60.54 on Tim’s bench (2015)
Longest Active Winning Streak Austin has a 3 game winning streak Logan had a 5 game winning streak (Week 5) Micah (2011) and Ben (2015) had an 8 game winning streak
Longest Active Losing Streak Ben and Jim have 2 game losing streaks. Tim had a 5 game losing streak. (Week 5) Kyle had a 14 game losing streak (2011)
benmartens November 15, 2017 Fantasy Sports

IsoTunes Pro Review

I enjoy using my shop time to catch up on podcasts, YouTube and Netflix. But obviously when I’m running loud equipment, I have hearing protection in and I can’t hear the show. I finally splurged and got the IsoTunes Pro bluetooth earplug headphones. They connect wireless to either my phone or a bluetooth transmitter hooked to my TV.

They do a good job of canceling out shop noise and I can easily hear whatever audio source I have selected. The downside is that I’ve been spoiled with the custom ear plugs I got back when Tyla worked at the hearing clinic. They just slide right into my ear and I don’t have to mess with squishing foam and getting it fit into my ears. That’s not a huge drawback though and I still use the IsoTunes a lot.

benmartens November 13, 2017 Gadgets

Ice Skating

We have a year-round indoor ice rink less than a mile from our house. Elijah and Tyla have killed quite a few hours during the day sitting in the stands and watching random hockey games and watching the Zamboni do laps.

This year, we figured he was finally big enough to fit into some skates and give it a shot. I was pretty sure he could do it, but this trip also meant that I had to dig ice skates out of a box for Tyla and me.

I’ll cut to the chase… we were able to come straight home without stopping at the hospital on the way. So that means it was a victory!

Kidding aside, Elijah did great. I figured we’d get about 5 minutes in and he’d be done, but he stuck with it for about 1.5 hours, never taking a break. I think he probably did about seven total laps, but by the end he was getting more bold. He did have a walker to push around, but he also liked to skate holding my hand.

Tyla and I would take turns doing laps by ourselves. I hadn’t skated for probably about 6 years and before that it was college, but I was surprised at how well it came back. I’m not at the same level I was way back when, but I was a lot closer than I thought I’d be.

Elijah was all smiles the whole time, and he’s already asking when we can go back and try it again.

benmartens November 9, 2017 Family