Finally a new one or few

<br/><a href="http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?vid=e240f2b2-3d39-4698-802a-cc1bc2821cb5" target="_new" title="Me and Lainey hanging out">Video: Me and Lainey hanging out</a>It has been a looonng time for a blog post. Here are some videos of the kids from recent weeks and months. With the house move and everything else there has been little time to focus on my blog. I am sure no one looks at it any more but just in case I will put up a post and some vids. Follow the link below to get to the place where I keep them all, this is just one of several that I recenly shot up there.

Here is the link to the video site.

The Day Billy Squier Died

I am minding my own business today at work playing Billy Squier's Absolute Hits (Rock Me Tonite) on the 20 year old Nakamichi Compact1 hi-fi in my office when in walks one of my team. She yells from the door if I have seen the video for this song. I don't think I have ever seen a Squier vid. We didn't have much TV reception where I grew up and MTV was not one of the channels you could get from an attennea. She insists that I watch the video, it is a spectale, I had no idea. Here is the link to the youtube. Check out the comments, they are pretty funny. I wonder how record sales were after this was released? holla at your boy

Helvetica: A Documentary Film by ......

Since I saw this documentary last week, I have been spreading the word. When you tell someone you just watched a pretty interesting film about the Helvetica font (type face) you get a lot of astonishment, or in my case they just think I am joking. Not joking and the documentary was quite good. The first 60 minutes were very gripping and I would say worth seeing given the uniqueness of the topic and the global use of the type face being discussed.

So check it out if you can. It is on iTunes, Netflix - both on-demand and on disc,
The DVD is available at the library, and will most likely be picking up a copy.

In honor of Helvetica I used Arial font for this entry, Arial is Helvetica for all intents and purposes. To be honest I am a Gill Sans MT user, and have never really embraced Helvetica\Arial.

More funny fun time video.

This one has more of Lainie walking around and getting into trouble.

Video: May and June time fun

Maria and Her Dad

Maria and Dad
Originally uploaded by Spappy_joneS

This is my new sister in-law Maria and her pops walking down the aisle to the groom. Originally I was going to be shooting this wedding but I was replaced (thank god) by a very competent photographer that is building her portfolio. She shot over a 1000 shots. Have fun weeding those out!

I did get a few shots and this was my best. Again I had the d200 set for spot metering. The metering was off the dark suit and therefore blew out the rest of the shot. Just a lucky shot again by having my camera set up in a certain way.

Ben's first backyard pool, and making some calls

Here is a video from May. We had some really hot weather for one weekend before we plunged into one of the coldest springs in history. So I got Ben a pool at KMart. There is also some footage of the kids using eLaine's Crib as a trampoline.

Video: Ben's Backyard Pool

how to fillet salmon - with Dr Nate Mantua

The Dr of the knife in action on a Copper River Sockeye.


Video: how to fillet salmon - with Dr Nate Mantua

Lainey's first haircut

Lainey's first haircut
Originally uploaded by Spappy_joneS

This is the before shot while the hairdresser TeTe was getting prepared. Not sure where or what Ben was getting into, he was on deck for his umpteen cut.

It was a really good experience for me, I was not and still am not the biggest fan of getting my haircut unless I am doing it myself in the basement.

Back in the day (the 80's and 90's) I can remember stepping into the barber shop and being in awe of the layer of blue smoke from the ceiling to the chairs. The floor would crack and crinkle underfoot from the curling linoleum. All the trophies, and photos of the town and its teams, artifacts from the war. Seemed like barbers were always in WWII and members of the legion, he didn't have one of his legs. Then being privy to the conversations the barber was having with some of the town salt, I might as well as not existed, there was no candy, catering to children fell outside their key marketshare. Overall it is a fond memory of bygone years and people. It was a very different time than what the experience is now. It was better, less sterile. But I think I would rather have my kids go where they do, they seem pretty happy.

This is the press release released today about my program's expansion - very good news

REDMOND, Wash. – June 11, 2008 – Microsoft Corp. today announced the final approval of the expansion of The Enterprise Engineering Center, Microsoft’s premier customer facing test facility. This new expansion will:
• Double the data center capacity to accommodate growing demand from our partners to showcase their latest products and technologies, facilitate our growing charter, allow for even greater scale up / scale out scenario testing.
• Enhance data center instrumentation to support green data center testing initiatives.
• Addition of storage specific data center – “SAN Alley”, which will contain all of the EEC’s enterprise storage assets, allowing us to meet rapidly growing customer and partner demand for larger arrays.
• Create two new technology focused data centers
o Virtualization – this new Solution Lab will be a showcase facility for Microsoft and our partners, dedicated full time to virtualization and related technologies
o Unified Communications – A new technology showcase with a fully functioning, end-to-end Unified Communications installation. This will allow our customers and partners to do more extensive, real-world testing on UC as well as broaden other testing to include UC for a deeper exposure of how this new initiative can work in their environments.
• Expand existing High Performance Computing (HPC) test cluster
o The EEC, together with Hewlett Packard and Intel, is adding a second HPC cluster to meet growing demand. This 80-node, 640-core cluster will be moved into dedicated space in the expanded data center for both onsite and remote customer use.
• New conference and training center
o The EEC is doubling the size of the Conference Center enabling new events such as training, seminars, and joint or partner led activities.

Schedule – construction is scheduled to begin in September, 2008 with completion and grand re-opening events March, 2009.

For more information or questions about how you as a partner can be involved, please contact Steve Cole, EEC Partner Manager at 425-704-9291 or Steven.Cole@microsoft.com

Young Hillie Clinton

Read about this video in Time\Newsweek magazine, not sure which it was in the bathroom @ work. It is a pretty funny little sketch.

Joy Division - Zune

Now this is wicked awesome. Those Joy Division fans out there have must have noticed a big resurgence in the band lately. They are rather timeless but I think Hollywood has rediscovered the bands dead lead singer and Manchester. The special edition zune prices at 400 and there are only a 1000 or so to mark the release of a new Joy Division Documentary. It does look very cool and representative of the 1979 album cover (unknown pleasures). It comes preloaded with the DVD of the movie it is spiffing.

The Tango - Video - Zbig Rybczynski

I was watching the Classic Arts Showcase on channel 75 - Comcast - Seattle and I saw a great video called "the piano players" I searched for it online but had no luck but did find one of the artists early works that I do remember seeing before.  Keep in mind when you see this, he made it in 1982.  Here it is on a Chinese site to get around copywrite issues.