Last Saturday evening, after we got home from the concert trip, I took Abby to the Bowling Palace for the Girl Scout Father-Daughter bowling event. There were so many scouts there. Most of them were Daisies. Abby is still a Brownie, but if I remember correctly she might bridge into being a Girl Scout proper this year.

As is typical, Abby forgot to wear her vest with all the patches on it. It's strange when I think about it. My scout uniform had lots of badges that I felt proud of earning. Brownie badges are called "Try-Its" and there doesn't seem to be much to earning them. Maybe the actual scouts have more requirements. Nonetheless, I think this low barrier to entry may be what generates a lack of pride in Abby's presentation of her vest. Anyway...

We signed in, got shoes, and found some bowling balls to use. Abby got a 7 pound ball to roll and we headed to our assigned lane.

We met with a couple of her scoutmates. Why they put so many of us in a single lane, I can't say. Cailin and her dad, Eric, were there with her sister. Also, Roshni and her dad, Dharmesh, bowled in our lane. All told, there were seven of us bowling.

Even though we didn't get to bowl two rounds, we still got a decent amount of bowling in. There was also some technical trouble with our lane, where it wouldn't return balls. Once while Abby was bowling, the pin machine went completely haywire, and they had to go fix it. Pretty crazy.

Abby did pretty well. All the girls used bumpers and the dads didn't, which made for a more-or-less more fair game. I did break 100, which is pretty good for me, and Abby bowled a 99 or something. I don't even remember, we were having too much fun.

There was pizza and soda provided by the Girl Scouts for each lane. And there was a door prize - three baskets that were given away to winners who put their bowling entry tickets into boxes. We didn't win anything, but it was still a fun drawing.

After the bowling, we went to the movie theater and saw Clash of the Titans in 3D. (Yes, yes, I know about the 3D, and I knew before we went, but it was a special treat.) Abby has been reading The Lightning Thief, which she says is nothing at all like the movie, and so I thought I'd take her to see another movie based (presumably) on mythology. She enjoyed it, I think, as I explained how the story she's reading relates to the movie we watched and the actual mythology.

In all, it was a good time. I like doing events like these with Abby when I get the chance. Even if she runs all over the place and is generally pretty flighty, even for a 9-year-old. Hopefully she's having fun and eventually grows into settling down and concentrating on what she's doing.

We got Abby a new computer for her birthday last week, and she's now starting to use it fairly regularly. She has a current school assignment to do a research project on an endangered species. She had to look up a list of species and choose three interesting ones, from which the teacher would determine on what topic her report would be written. We looked at a few sites and found the island fox, which has since been learning more about online.

Of course, one of the concerns you have when you let kids browse the internet is that they would encounter inappropriate content. I've installed Microsoft's Live Family Safety on her computer, which does a handy job of blocking everything on the web until Beta or I approve it. It also manages her contact list, so I can add approved family members to her instant messenger (Live).

One of the things Abby anticipates most while using her computer is being able to talk to me on mine via messenger. Yes, it's the simple pleasures.

Family Safety is also pretty cool in that it lets you manage the list of approved sites remotely, and without installing an application on my own system. So when Abby tries to visit a site that's not approved, I get an email asking if I want to approve it. I can log into my Live account (which I use already for my own IM, Xbox, and Zune accounts) and see what pending requests she has. Even Berta can do this, since we're both associated to her account as parents.

When I'm sitting near her computer, I can approve sites there directly by entering my Live password into a popup tool. That's convenient. What would be more convenient is if I could approve sites via IM, then I could do it easier via my phone or desktop IM client. Live should be smart enough to figure out where to send the request.

In all, I think Live Safety is a useful tool. Since we started using this, we've looked at more of the Live online features, and Berta has been adding our shared family calendar information into Live. We had previously thought to use Google, but by pairing it with other services we already use (I'm the only one of the three of us with an actual Google account) it's more useful. The featureset of the calendar isn't too far from what Google offers. It actually fixes some of my complaints about Google's calendar - like how it always pops up the bubble when you click on a blank calendar cell. The subscription by iCal feature needs work, but then, so does Google's.

I'm not surprised that Microsoft offers these effective tools. I think it's odd that people in the circles I travel choose to eschew tools only because their Microsoft's, and perhaps as a result, they don't get as much exposure in my circles as other solutions. Still, I find the features of Live quite viable and useful, and I wonder if there's more in there that I should try to discover. But getting back to the main topic...

I have not yet figured out a way to effectively filter Abby's email. I set up an account for her, which is required for many sites that need signup including Live. Berta sent her email just this morning (I was cc'ed), and I'm sure that relatives from Berta's side would send Abby email if they knew she could receive it. But I don't want to expose Abby to spam or predators by not setting a filter. Based on stories of other parents, it also seems prudent to set the expectation now that I will read all of her email and IMs and texts (when she eventually gets a cell phone) so that she's accountable for how she (and the people that talk to her) behaves online.

On the other hand, I can't keep her safe from the invading hordes of spammers forever. I'm sure she's still too young now to need to know whether to delete Viagra email, but I wonder what I will do in the future, and how I will decide what's appropriate. I'm a fairly liberal parent -- I'm in the camp of letting the kids learn lighter lessons for themselves rather than keeping them safe from everything. But I think I need to form a strategy now, both for when Abby starts asking questions and for when I simply can't hold back the tide any more. Hopefully these early steps are in the right direction.

On Tuesday it was pretty nice outside, although I hadn't realized it until Abby came in my office to ask me to take the training wheels off of her bike.

The question was phrased something like, "We need the things to take the wheels off my bike." "A wrench?" I asked. We went for the toolbox.

Outside, Nana was looking over Abby's bike, which was laying in the yard. I figured I could take a little time and do a little dad work, so I got down with the wrench and pliers and removed the bolts that held on the training wheels. I took the removed wheels into the garage and set them near the pair from her old bike. She was never ready to ride the last bike without training wheels, even though I followed her around, holding on to the seat.

Abby was sitting on the bike at the top of the driveway and was kicking off to coast down toward the road. I wasn't too surprised to see her coast, feet off the pedals, all the way to the end. She put her feet down to stop, then walked the bike back to the top of the driveway.

On her second trip, she put her feet on the pedals, and when she got to the end of the driveway, she made a big loop, turned around and came back. She even navigated the narrow space between the two cars. With no help.

Shortly afterward, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself riding Abby's scooter, chasing Riley in one of the electric Jeeps, chasing Abby on her bike headed toward the cul de sac. We spent a couple of hours just riding around, and every time she drove by, she would say, "Daddy this is so. Much. Fun."

Today was Abby's 8th birthday, which we helped her celebrate by bringing soft pretzels in for her 2nd grade class, and holding an ice cream buffet party for the kids in our neighborhood. It seems like Abby had a really great day, and although today's date stands out on the calendar, I'm looking forward to every milestone we can share, both little and big.

Abby and Riley were trying to do handstands on the gymnastics mat in the family room. I guess maybe Riley got tired or forgot what to do at a later point, and had an amusing little faceplant.

Video was taken with the Flip, uploaded to Flickr, and inserted into the post with Habari's new Flickr video support.

On a whim and a wish to watch something with the kids that was not yet another animated film (not that I dislike them, but they seem all that the kids will tolerate in entirely) I threw in a copy of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. I'm not sure I expected them to really watch the whole thing, but being that Indiana Jones was a favorite of mine over the years, I had hoped they would enjoy it as much as I do. As it turns out, my hopes have come true.

Tonight when we were out to dinner, I suggested to Abby that we pop some corn and watch another Indiana Jones movie. Her eyes flew wide open in shock, as she was surprised to learn that there was another movie!

I was only too happy to put Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade into the player to watch. We've been nibbling popcorn and watching Indy chase down the holy grail now for a little while, and I'm happy to report that the movie has her rapt attention.

I'm so glad I've been able to pass on some of my favorite things and that they're sticking. I'm a big fan of pulp, especially in my roleplaying genres, and knowing that Abby likes treasure-hunting and pulp adventures makes me feel like there's a little of my influence on her after all.

Next up: Science fiction. For now, Venice, and the grail!