Good Bye 2008!!

There were certainly plenty of things to be thankful for over the last year. As far as my savings and finances however I will not be sad to see the sun set on 2008. As I am sure many have we have now taken to calling our 401k a 201k since it is at approximately half of the value it was at the beginning of the year.

Additionally our house is down about 20% from it's peak (fortunately it was up a good bit more than that over where we bought it).

Now I am turning to thinking about new years resolutions. In the past these are something I had taken pretty seriously for one reason or another. Lately it has been hard to keep up with them for example last year I had made a resolution to read one book a month (doesn't sound like much I know). But alas I was not even able to keep up that pace.

So now I am trying to decide what I want to have as resolutions this year. Self improvement? Community activity? Something with my church? I don't know yet and it may have to be a "game time call" as they say.

What will your resolution be?

Gone to the dogs

We have really gotten into the grove around here in terms of dog sitting and now combine that with our new flip video camera and we are dog video ready baby!

We've had two dogs around over the last two days - Waters the lab and Buddy the Great Dane and something mut mix.

First we had Waters on Christmas Day when our friend Val brought some yummy homemade sticky buns by as a treat.




Then we dog sat buddy. He and the kids were up early so we decided to take him for a walk.



Later in the day we rough housed with buddy. He is really good at it with a soft mouth but plenty of play!!



Of course this means that he starts to get worn out and lay on the floor. This means that the kids will try take advantage of that and lay on him.



Then Buddy started looking for a more comfortable place to lay down. Of couse he found the couch.



Which was a surprise to me, but apparently Melissa had prepared the couch for him.



Pretty funny! We've gone to the dogs.

"The Road" - Wow a must read

I just finished (in under 24 hours) a Cormac McCarthy book (same author as No Country for Old Men) called "The Road" and all I can say is wow!!!

This book tells a post apocalyptic story of a father and boy moving through America in the bleak aftermath of some terrible world destroying event. It is about the mans love for the boy and their struggle for survival against all odds. It is currently being made into a movie and I cannot wait.

If you like this kind of book (for me I could NOT put it down) I highly recommend it although it is not exactly light holiday reading. Some people call this book depressing however I found it thought provoking. It made me wonder if I could do what the man did for one or all of my children. Could I find that kind of inner strength and resourcefulness. I hope so.

For more information check out this blog.

Merry Christmas 2008!!

We hope everyone is having a safe and happy Christmas!

Here at chez Kreisa we had a 5am (yes you read that right) wake up call from Julia however we able to keep everyone upstairs until 5:50 before we unleashed the kids. Everyone is now happily playing with various toys.

Here are a few short videos from the morning.

Malfunction at the pump?

After suffering through a brutal summer and fall in terms of gas prices it seems relief has finally come! Melissa and I shared a very similar story and you may have experienced this as well. We were filling up our cars and when the pump stopped we did a double take at the price. I was sure that the pump had somehow shut off prematurely. In my case it said $27 which was less than half of the peak I had seen earlier this summer. In Melissa's case it was $44 which was also way down from the peak where I had spent more than $100 filling up in July!

Happily the pumps were not malfunctioning and in fact we enjoyed an early Christmas present!!

Happy happy, merry merry!

In a full pre-Christmas froth!!

I hope everyone is ready for Christmas day at this point! (although I hear there are some fantastic deals at the stores still)

I can say that here at Chez Kreisa the kids (in the prime ages for the event) are in a full pre-Christmas froth! What is that you ask? They have been bouncing of the walls with energy and breaking out into spontaneous Christmas carols all day. I am afraid at some point they might burst into flames and take off!!

Hopefully Melissa and I can keep the lid on just a little longer!!

What happens while I am at work....

Melissa just sent this note about the goings on while I am at work. I thought it was pretty funny!

"They were too quiet. I went upstairs to check it out. Was met half way by Julia who asked me to come up and meet Sharpay (from High School Musical)... Julia and Lea had Nicolas dressed up in a red velvet dress with a purple jacket. They had put my lipstick and mascara on him. They made him sing "Fabulous". He looked lovely...

Then Julia said matter-of-fact, "Hey Mom can you come into the bathroom and help me poop. I have one stuck up there".

My life...
Gotta go to swimming..."

Wow!

Julia the volunteer

By now you probably know that Julia has a few adorable quirks. One that we have not quite figured out has been her desire to volunteer at the school cafeteria. I guess it is not completely volunteer since she gets free lunch but for the record we have not asked her to do that.

Here is some video of her and her current BFF (best friend forever for those that are not Internet savvy) named Kayla where they are working the food line. They are pretty cute with their little hair nets and gloves working along side the very much more experienced food ladies.

Pretty funny! You never know what motivates these kids!

Some overdue pictures

Here are a few somewhat overdue pictures of me and the kids.


Lea and I on the morning we went running (and riding) with Waters. We went about 3.5 miles and both Lea and Waters were troopers. I on the other hand whined constantly. (Brr it was about 38 degrees)

Julia and Lea in their Christmas play costumes from last weekend. They look so grown-up!

Here is a fun little game the kids play with Waters call "drag a kid around the house!" The way it works is the kids grab a hold of one end of a toy and Waters grabs the other. He then proceeds to drag them around while the squeal with delight, which only spurs him on even more. This game is particularly fun when Nicolas is on the other end of the toy and Waters gets up a real head of steam. Watch the breakables!!!

Lea is a snaggle tooth kid!!

Lea is right at that age where she is loosing teeth faster than I am loosing hair! (OK, actually I am not loosing hair but it sounded good)

Here is a picture from today that shows her missing her two front teeth. She has been taking pride in all of the new things she can and cannot do. For example, she cannot suck in spaghetti but she can cram two good size pencils in the gap (against our recommendation of course.) She also likes to consume Jamba Juices via a straw without opening her jaw. She also has a killer lisp at the moment.

Fiddler a little aloof

I must admit that any real musical talent that the family had (and I have real reason to believe there was some) seems to have departed with my gene combo-pack. Still I was glad when Julia voluntarily decided to pick up the violin. She has practice twice a week in which she diligently carries her rented (for now) violin up to school. She does not practice much at home (which one could see as a blessing in disguise) so I know her progress may be coming along a little slow. That said there will be a recital tomorrow evening at school (cough, cough, honey you go, I may be catching a cold and don't want to infect the children). :) It will be interesting to see where the other children are relative to Julia.

Here is a rare photo of Julia actually playing her violin.

Little Man - Not So Good at Keeping Secrets!! (REVISED)

On Sunday I thought I would take advantage of Melissa and the girls being at the Christmas play and do a little shopping with Nicolas. We braved the mall and surprisingly it wasn't that crowded (unfortunately for retailers).

We ended up in one of my favorite stores for Christmas shopping - Macy's and found our way to the jewelry section where we picked out a couple of cute pairs of earrings for Melissa. Nicolas hand-picked one of the pairs himself and he was very proud of that.

We went home and stashed the gifts safely away so that we could wrap them later.

When Melissa and the girls came home we met them in the entrance to our house. Nicolas (bless his heart) was so excited that he ran up to Melissa and to my surprise said "Mommy we got you earrings for Christmas!" I quickly tried to shush him and remind him that the gifts we to be a surprise for mommy. In the mean time Melissa had headed back out to the car to bring some stuff into the house. When she re-entered Nicolas, trying to correct his mistake, ran up to her and said "Mommy, we didn't get you earrings!" The cat was (if it wasn't already) was out of the bag. Now I started worrying that Nicolas would spill the beans on the shirts we got for the girls but he held firm.

Melissa being a good sport just gave me a little smirk and pretended not to hear him. I am sure she will be surprised just the same.

THIS JUST IN on Tuesday!

Melissa just told me that when Nicolas saw her this morning wearing earings he ran up to her and said "Mommy, you are wearing your new earings!!". I guess he still doesn't quite get it! (In his defense they are similar)

My interview with Sundar

A month or so ago I was interviewed by an Indian blogger regarding my role at Mark Logic and in Product Marketing as a profession. He has just posted the interview on his blog Coffee with Sundar.

http://coffeewithsundar.com/john-kreisa-director-product-marketing-mark-logic/

I was hesitant to read it until a colleague of mine assured me that it sounded OK.

Enjoy!

Big busy weekend

We have a huge busy weekend here around the Kreisa house. This is the weekend that the girls have been working towards - the Christmas play. After 10+ weeks of rehearsals and family support the show is on! The play is called "The Silent Bells" and is based on a book by William McKeller an is about a young Swiss girl who dreams of having the bells in the town cathedral sound again after 200 years of silence.

Now Julia and Lea have relatively small parts as villagers but the production (like last year) is very high quality so they are getting great experience.

There was a full rehearsal Friday night, two shows on Saturday and one on Sunday. In addition we had my company holiday party Saturday night at Pampas in Palo Alto. It is an Argentinean restaurant that serves all kinds of grilled meat and was AWESOME.

Anyway the plays have gone really well and we are very proud of our young actresses. I'll post some pictures as soon as I have them.

Exercising my travel deamons

Well after more than 80,000 miles of travel this year I finally experienced my worst travel day of the year during my trip to Boston this week.

It all started with an early flight at 8am out of San Francisco airport. In order to get to my plane on time I had to leave our house at 6am. Things started going wrong when my flight was delayed by more than two hours taking off.

We finally got in the air and things were going along fine. We had our drink service, the movie was on and people were generally settled in at 30,000 ft.

Suddenly there was a pretty strong shudder and thump in the plane. As I looked around and out the window we were starting to turn to the left and lose altitude! Shortly after that the audio and lights went out. Now I was starting to get a little worried. Finally after a few more minutes the pilot came on to tell us that we had lost oil pressure in one of our engines and that we were diverting to Salt Lake City. When we landed all of the emergency vehicles were out and ready for us.

Thinking quickly I actually called the airline to get myself re-booked on some alternate flights. There were no direct flights available however I actually had a new flight through Denver before we even reached the gate! It was fortuitous since they only let the most elite fliers off the plane.

I caught my flight to Denver but unfortunately that flight was an hour delayed too! This was starting to look like the travel day that would never end, two delayed flights and an emergency landing. But there is more...

When I finally got to Boston around 11 (14 hours after I left) my path to the hotel was blocked because our exit off of the highway was closed due to construction. Now we had to go around a long way back to the hotel and there was surprisingly a lot of traffic. Suddenly the car in front of us hit the brakes and although my cab tried we hit the car. Now I was really starting to think this was the day that would never end.

We pulled over and they exchanged insurance info and I was finally able to get to the hotel.

What a crazy day! I hope I have exercised my travel demons for some time!

Giving Thanks

We hope that everyone has had a happy and safe holiday. As for the Kreisa's we spent our second year helping out in various ways at the Thanksgiving dinner at our church.

We started the afternoon by making center pieces for the tables. Nicolas, Lea and I went over early and gathered leaves and pine cones and mixed them with flowers. Then the kids made welcome placards for each of the 35+ tables set up for the dinner.

Melissa helped organize the driving for about 40 refugees from around the area who were excited to join us at church for their very first Thanksgiving in America.

This community event has been going on for years and is very well organized. There are pre-dinner activities of games then a whole team who cooked ahead of time and then another who serves food and drinks during the meal. More than 300 people from all over town (and all walks of life) come to enjoy the homecooked meal. It is a mix of church families & neighbors, homeless and refugee families. For some it is thier only warm meal of the weekend. The dinner itself is traditional Thanksgiving meal of turkey, stuffing, mash potatoes, vegetables, cranberry sauce and gravy. Then a big dessert table which the kids were really excited about!

We shared our table with the patriarch of a large family who just arrived here 3 weeks ago from Bhutan. He was an educated engineer / surveyor in Bhutan for most of his early life. 17 years ago he was forced to leave his country and flee across the border to a refugee camp in Nepal because of the genocide that is happening to his people in the southern part of the country. He was a very gentle soul. He spoke english very well. Here is more on the situation in Bhutan http://www.geocities.com/ben_saul/BhutaneseRefugeesOverview1.html

After dinner, I drove another Bhutanese family home to San Jose and very much enjoyed hearing their stories of how they are adjusting to life here. Two already have good jobs at Fry's and were going to go into work at 4:00 the next morning to prepare for Black Friday (a very strange idea to them!!). They asked all about the traditions of Thanksgiving in America and Julia was able to answer better than I!

All in all it was a really great day. The kids had fun, we all had great food and we were really able to think about and share our may many blessings!

How to cook a turkey

This is a classic email chain that seems to go around every few years. It still makes me chuckle!

How to Cook a Turkey
1. Go buy a turkey
2. Take a drink of whiskey (or scotch)
3. Put turkey in the oven
4. Take another 2 drinks of whiskey
5. Set the degree at 375 ovens
6. Take 3 more whiskeys of drink
7. Turn oven the on
8. Take 4 whisks of drinky
9. Turk the bastey
10. Whiskey another bottle of get
11. Stick a turkey in the thermometer
12. Glass yourself a pour of whiskey
13. Bake the whiskey for 4 hours
14. Take the oven out of the turkey
15. Take the oven out of the turkey
16. Floor the turkey up off of the pick
17. Turk the carvey
18. Get yourself another scottle of botch
19. Tet the sable and pour yourself a glass of turkey
20. Bless the saying, pass and eat out.

B-day on the road - but never alone

This past week I had a pretty grueling travel schedule which involved 21 separate meetings in 2 cities (NYC and Boston). In the midst of all of that was my birthday. Now my family was extremely disappointed that I could not be with them and could not understand why the trip was not planned around me. Needless to say I was disappointed too but able to rationalize that things sometime don't work the way we prefer. I did receive some very nice "HAPPY BIRTHDAY DADDY" voice mails seemingly screamed into the phone at the other end. Those were appreciated and nice to catch in between meetings.

I was also traveling with two colleagues though it must be said they didn't (thankfully) make too much of the affair.

What I thought was particularly nice and interesting was that this was my first "facebook" birthday. Facebook if you are not familiar is a social networking site where you can find and associate with friends, co-workers and acquaintances and amongst other things you can post personal details like family status, contact details, links to blogs and birthdays. I am a pretty open guy so my birthday information is there and Facebook is kind enough to notify people when "friends" have an approaching birthday.

What was surprising were the number of "happy birthday" wishes I got from my relatively modest number of facebook friends, which includes close and distant friends, work colleagues past and present as well as other acquaintances. It didn't matter that I was on the road in the middle of a near death march of meetings, people literally reached out to me from across the globe to give me best wishes (and in some cases medical advice for Nicolas's eczema, thanks Kate!).

It definitely warmed my heart to know folks out there actually pay attention and care enough to take the time. to send me a note.

Thanks to everyone for making my b-day on the road a little less lonesome!

I vow to return the favor as often as possible.

Itchy little man

I've blogged before about Nicolas and his fairly severe eczema. It waxes and wanes in terms of severity and just at the moment it is quite bad for one reason or another. He has been scratching some of his worst spots until they are raw and sometimes bleeding.

It is so bad right now that Melissa has taken to giving him an oatmeal bath every night and we slather him in cream morning and night and it still bothers him. He wakes up in the middle of the night itching and comes into our room where we put more cream on him. We have taken the extreme step of giving him Benedril which actually seems to make things bearable for him.

Melissa is going to take him back to the dermatologist to see if we can get him some more permanent relief.

Help is on the way little man!

Running with doggy

We are once again dog sitting this time with Waters a 2yr old black lab owned by a friend of ours named Val. In high school I used to run with our dog and then again after college with my own dogs Havoc and Griffin.

So I thought I would give it a try with Waters even though I wasn't sure he had done any running with Val or anyone else (we are the first to dog sit Waters). After letting him "do his business" before the run (which was quite convenient) I started off at a medium pace. Waters was a bit confused and seemed to be thinking that surely I was going to stop somewhere at some point and kept hanging back at leash length waiting. I was hoping it wasn't going to stay this way because he was pulling back slowing us down and I was starting to regret bringing him with me.

We worked our way over to the levy near our house and we continued on the 3.5 mile loop I had planned for the day. Eventually either because I finally started to slow down or he figured out we weren't stopping Waters closed the gap between us and ran at my side.

Ultimately he did a great job and I know he liked it because the very next time I went out for a run he went and got his leash and dropped it at my feet when I was putting my shoes on. Of course with this kind of proactive effort I brought him out again and this time he ran by my side the entire time.

I'll have to tell Val how much he likes running, maybe she will take him out too.

Whole lotta nothing...

Today was a day where we did nothing, nothing and more nothing. Because I have been on the road as previously mentioned we just sat around today and everyone stayed in their Jammie's until 4:30 when we made a quick trip up to the video store.

Nice!

Sometimes it just works out

I've been on quite the tear of business travel lately and all of it was to the east coast and beyond, ugh. Travel is usually not glamorous with long flights, cab rides and time alone in the hotel. Every now and then it works out though as it did earlier this year when I was able to go see a Boston Red Sox no-hitter.

During this most recent trip to New York City it turns out I was equally lucky and was able to catch a Broadway play during the trip. We we having a Mark Logic event at the Westin times square in NYC and our new VP of marketing decided she would like to catch a show after the event. Since we were spending probably $60k at the hotel we asked the concierge what they could do. Well the did a lot and comp'd us 3 seats to "In the Heights" which is a 2008 Tony award winner for best musical. The show was awesome and we had fantastic 7th row seats!

You can see a little bit of what it was like by looking at a video of the performance they gave during the Tony awards this year.

The weather prediction for the country - purple

Lately our kids have become obsessed with looking at the weather page in the morning paper. They like to look at the local forecast and they like to look at the weather for wherever I happen to be traveling that week. Nicolas likes to call out the color of various areas which of course normally predict temperature.

This morning there was a happy accident when Nicolas predicted that the temperature of the country would be "purple" today which seemed fitting given the historic event of last night with a candidate who unified more of the country by capturing a solid majority of the popular vote.

Some Halloween Pictures

Just a quick post with some pictures from Halloween this year. We went out Trick or Treating with the Wilde's and so their 3 kids are included in some of these pictures.

Julia was a gypsy and Lea was Bat girl.

Nicolas did change costumes during the day - starting off as Elmo and ending the day as Darth Vadar although he did not wear the mask much.

Enjoy!!

Train(ing) Day

I just got back from a really fun train related afternoon with Nicolas. We started at the Santa Cal train station where we saw a couple of trains coming in and out of the station which he really loved. We followed that up by going to an open house in the old warehouse where they have a large and very elaborate model train exhibit. Nicolas loved looking at all of the rolling stock they had, the trains going through the model towns, towering mountains, rail yards etc. They had a really great display and we spent some time there.

After that, and complete on a whim, we decided to buy some northbound train tickets and head out for a ride. We road up for about 25 minutes looking outside and seeing the sights. We now had to get off at a station and chose a rather barren San Antonio station. It turns out there was little to walk around to and see and we had to wait 40 minutes for the next southbound train. That was the only small glitch in a rather very fun afternoon! Nicolas continually thanked me during the afternoon telling me how much fun he was having. What fun!

The future - weddings

We had a rare opportunity to go to a wedding yesterday for the daughter of the senior pastor at our church. It was a lovely ceremony with about 450 in attendance. We had a seat near the back right on the isle which meant that we had a great view as the 12 (yes 12) brides maids filed in.

As the excitement built for the arrival of the bride I found myself getting a little choked up. I think the trouble started when I looked down at my own two daughters and started to think of the day that I would be the proud father and this would be their wedding. When the very lovely bride entered I was actually having to hold back tears as I projected forward to their day.

Then, I started thinking of the cost of it all and that brought me back to reality and I was glad that this was a day that was many (many if you are reading this Julia and Lea) years a way.

When it happens I am sure it will be wonderful just like the wedding yesterday.

The short flight that wasn't

The other day I was flying from Denver to Nashville to attend a conference with our Federal sales team when things went a little wrong. After a smooth flight over from San Francisco (at 5:55 am Ugh) I made it to my gate with plenty of time. This leg of the flight was on a regional jet which is usually fine.

We boarded on time, closed the door and look ready to go when…we were told we were delayed by at least 15 minutes. 15 minutes turned into 45 and we still had no answer.

Finally the person in front of me asked and was told “someone in the back had what was described as a “deeply personal” problem”.

It turned out that someone had an "incontinence" problem and there were several seats and the bathroom in the back of the small plane that were not usable.

It took them more than 2 hours to fix the problem!

So my short 2 hour flight ended up taking more than 4 hours!!!

Happy Anniversary Mom Mom & Pop Pop

Last week my grandparents, Hugh and Mildred Falconer, celebrated their 67th wedding anniversary and I want to wish them a hearty (and slightly belated) Happy Anniversary!!!

What an amazing achievement! I wanted to let them know that even though we gave them a 59 year head start Melissa and I hope we are celebrating our 67th someday.

I Love You - John

Upgrades - harder to come by but more worth it than ever

I've been making a few work related trips lately (hence the lack of posts) but now have a little time before I am back out on the road. On one of my recent trips to NYC I was taking a red-eye in order to minimize time away from home (awwww) and put in for an upgrade. It has been quite some time since I was able to get an upgrade I think because I generally fly out of San Francisco and there are so many frequent flyer's there that I am always at the bottom of the upgrade list despite my premier executive status.

Anyway it was a grim site when I arrived as the upgrade board showed me as 6th on the list with just 40 minutes to go. As they called boarding and cleared off the final few upgrades I resigned myself to make the most out of my regular seat.

As I passed the boarding agent they called out my name and I was made the last upgrade! This was doubly sweet because of the red-eye and my need to get some sleep.

The seats themselves are better than ever, reclining further with softer leather. But one of the real nice things was that instead of a regular blanket they actually gave me a full down-filled duvet and pillow! Talk about catering to sleep! Plus you don't have to pay for any of the food or drink which is an additional bonus.

Needless to say I was able to get some sleep thankfully.

No wonder I am rarely able to get an upgrade.

Sports Fans Dream Month

October has to be considered heaven on earth for any "sports for sports sake" fan. There is a veritable smorgasbord of games available including pro-football mid-season (how bout those browns?), ice hockey, major league soccer, the NBA, college football (Hook 'Em Horns!) and of course the baseball playoffs!

It is definitely times like this when I wish I had more time because I could certainly step up to the sports buffet on a Saturday morning and not get up until, um, the following Saturday and watch, discuss, prognosticate, predict, ponder and watch more sports. Yes I am a sports for sports sake kinda guy (just ask Melissa about Australian TV options)

Alas, I get precious little time to watch and have to focus in on just the most important (to me) sports at this time of year which happens to be, you guessed it, college football.

Happy Birthday Melissa!!

Today is Melissa's birthday (she is turning 29 again if you must know) and so we wish her a very happy day!

The kids started her day off right by coming in un-prompted to wish her a happy birthday with kisses and hugs in bed. Later the gave her homemade birthday cards (made on recycled paper no less).

Tonight we will all go out for a family dinner at one of our favorite local restaurants.

Happy Birthday Melissa!!

Welcome Rain!!!

Last night I woke up to the first rain of the fall here in Northern California. It was a nice medium downpour that lasted for several hours giving the ground a nice soaking and washing the dust off of everything.

Having lived most of my life on the east coast I still haven't gotten used to the idea that after late April or May we don't see a drop of rain here in the Bay Area all summer. None, not a sprinkle, drizzle, shower~ nothing! Where I grew up we would get awesome summer thunder storms which roll through at all hours and can have window rattling thunder and house illuminating lighting so I may never get totally used to the dry summers. It is extremely convenient for camping I must admit.

The rain issues in another winter time phenomenon here too which is the greening of the hills in the east bay. Unlike other places I have lived which turn brown in the winter the rain bring life to the grasses of the hills turning them a deep green after spending the summer golden brown.

We always welcome the arrival of rains, it is a nice change and gives the kids a chance to go out and splash in the puddles.

I am also glad that I was able to give the window sills a much needed paint job last weekend, protecting them from the winter rains.

Ryan Get's a Blog

As any self respecting 21st century new-age parent does now a days my friend Darren has created a blog to record his experiences as a new father.

In the early days of parenting it is very hard to find the time to do anything but feed, burp, change and sleep but he is already off and running with the blog including some nice pictures.

I've been reading Darren's work related blog for some time and he is very good and thoughtful so I expect this will be a great read (no pressure Darren!).

We can all follow along here: http://ryanlicunningham.blogspot.com/

Great Video (warning pro-America)

Melissa forwarded a link to me with an awesome video that everyone should watch. I think it speaks to the hope and positive feeling around the Obama candidacy.

http://www.dipdive.com/dip-politics/wato/

Nicolas Scores the First Playdate!!

Following up on my previous post Melissa and Nicolas were able to visit with Darren, Carol and Ryan at the hospital on Thursday afternoon garnering the prize for first visitors.

They had a great visit and Melissa was giddy after the visit and raving about Darren and Carol as new doting parents.

Nicolas also scored the first ever playdate with Ryan. Now arguably Nicolas did more of the playing, and was not able to give a piggy back ride, basket ball, a bike ride or any of the other things I know he wants to do. He will have to wait just a bit until Ryan comes home from the hospital to have that playdate!!

Welcome Ryan! Congratulations Darren and Carol!

Today our very good friends Darren and Carol Cunningham celebrated the arrival of their first-born child Ryan Li Cunningham! Ryan arrived at around 9am this morning about two weeks early and mom and baby (and Darren) are doing great!

So from the Kreisa clan to the growing Cunningham clan a hearty and heartfelt congratulations!!!

Julia doubles down as a band geek!

Well we have to add (at least temporarily) to Julia's list of interests as she starts two musical endeavors this week.

First she starts violin lessons at work, which are offered free at her school. It will be interesting to see how she does with that instrument and hopefully she really digs in and practices a ton (I've encourage that activity to take place during the day).

Secondly she starts chimes at church this week. I am not sure what the performance schedule is but between the two instruments she will certainly be getting her fair share of music!

This is all really good news and was instigated by Julia which shows her initiative and drive.

I guess the grand plan is that when she becomes a tree sitter she can entertain herself with music!

Wow What's Happening with Julia!!

We have always supported Julia in her earthy crunchy initiatives including her vegetarian eating habits. Recently Julia has become more strict in following a vegetarian diet which is OK.

She raised the bar when she said she only wanted eggs from free range chickens and organic milk (at $8/gallon). She took it into the outer atmosphere when she said to me recently that she thinks she wanted to become a vegan!

Of course Julia is the total package. I went into her room to say goodnight and I saw she was reading a book I asked her what she was reading and the book was of course --

"An Inconvenient Truth"

Oh my!!

Walking Beside Her: 1st edition

I have occasionally blogged about the journey Melissa has been on regarding the refugees. I wish at this point that I had blogged about more of the amazing experiences she has had and I hope to catch up on some of them.

This past weekend there was yet another milestone for Melissa along the way and I wanted to get it out there. There was a big missional fair in Monterey where Melissa had a chance to expose the leadership of all of the churches in our presbytery to the work that she and Elsa have been doing. Interestingly this was somewhat similar to a traditional trade show I do at work so I was able to lend some advice.

The idea was to let the leadership know how their organization the Refugee Outreach Partnership can help link them up with refugees, provide resources and guidance to help them with their outreach ministry. As part of the fair they also gave a 30 minute presentation which included talks from Melissa, Elsa, a video Melissa had made and several refugees. It was a heartfelt presentation and I am told a highlight of the entire day (i was watching the kids at the hotel).

Refugees were in fact the theme of the ministry fair and I think highlights just how far they have come in the last year. It was just over a year ago that we took a chance and hosted 3 refugees at our house and started accelerating all of their efforts. Now they are reaching out to the entire bay area and working to help many many people through a network of organizations.

Needless to say I am very proud to walk beside Melissa during this journey she is on.

I guess you can...

A friend sent me this article clarifying whether or not you can see Russia from Alaska (but not Sarah's house"

explainer: Answers to your questions about the news.

Can You Really See Russia From Alaska?

Yes, but only the boring parts.

By Nina Shen RastogiPosted Monday, Sept. 15, 2008, at 5:25 PM ET
Neighbors Russia and Alaska

In her Sept. 11 interview with ABC's Charlie Gibson, Sarah Palin had this to say about Russia: "They're our next-door neighbors, and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska." Is that true?

Yes. Russia and Alaska are divided by the Bering Strait, which is about 55 miles at its narrowest point. In the middle of the Bering Strait are two small, sparsely populated islands: Big Diomede, which sits in Russian territory, and Little Diomede, which is part of the United States. At their closest, these two islands are a little less than two and a half miles apart, which means that, on a clear day, you can definitely see one from the other. (To see the view of Big Diomede from Little Diomede, check out this webcam.) The Diomede Islands are often blanketed by persistent fog, which makes visibility difficult. On a clear day, though, a person standing at sea level can see a little less than three miles across the ocean. You can see farther if you go higher—at the highest altitude on Little Diomede (919 feet), you can see for about 37 miles. (Between mid-December and mid-June, when the water between the two islands freezes, an intrepid explorer can just walk from one to the other.)
The tactical importance of this proximity is debatable, however: Big Diomede has no permanent population though it does house an important weather station. Alaskans can, however, see into the future from Little Diomede since Big Diomede (or Ratmanov Island, as it's known to the Russians) is on the other side of the International Date Line.
You can also see Russia from other points in Alaska. According to a New York Times article written in the waning years of the Cold War (when the Alaska-Siberia border was known as the "Ice Curtain"), if you stand on high ground on the tip of St. Lawrence Island—a larger Alaskan island in the Bering Sea, southwest of the Diomedes—you can see the Russian mainland, about 37 miles away. The same article claims that you can see Russia from the Tin City Air Force facility at Cape Prince of Wales, which is the westernmost point of the mainland Americas. The station chief at Tin City confirms that, for roughly half the year, you can see Siberian mountain ranges from the highest part of the facility.
It's not as if Alaskans can see into the heart of the Kremlin, though. The region you'd be seeing from these vantage points is the Chukotka autonomous district, a massive, desolate expanse of about 285,000 square miles with a population of about 55,000. (That's an area roughly the size of Texas with a population the size of Pine Bluff, Ark.) Chukotka has fewer than 400 miles of road and no railroad infrastructure; the population is mostly employed in mining and subsistence hunting. The more strategic areas of the Russian coastline, militarily speaking—the Kamchatka Peninsula, home to a nuclear submarine base, or Vladivostok, headquarters of the Russian Pacific Fleet—are not visible from Gov. Palin's home state.
Palin does have Obama beat, though: The closest foreign territory to Hawaii is the Micronesian Republic of Kiribati, but at more than 1,000 miles away, it's not remotely visible with the naked eye.
Got a question about today's news? Ask the Explainer .
Explainer thanks Stephen Blank of the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College, Greg Durocher of the Alaska Science Center, Clifford Gaddy of the Brookings Institute, and Vance Spaulding of the Tin City Long Range Radar Site.

"I can see Russia from my house!"

My favorite line from the Saturday Night Live opener which spoofed Palin and which pretty much sums up my feelings on her "readiness" and "experience" to lead the country.



I mean really, she may be a nice person but she appears to be fundamentally against woman's rights (control over their own body), wants religion taught in schools (creationism), at least thought about censorship (library incident) and revising history by saying she didn't support the bridge to no where when she did until it became unpopular and denies that human's are having or could have an impact on global warming. She also used lobbyist to get money for her small town. Finally she also appears to be a war monger like the current administration. She actually said war with Russia might be necessary. Are you frigging kidding me?

So how exactly is she an outsider? She and McCain are now no different then Bush. And I honestly liked McCain 4 years ago when he ran until he started pandering to ultra-conservatives.

Our economy is a mess, we are not respected globally, we have lost the moral high ground and so our country cannot take 4 more years of a republican lead administration.

I suppose my views on this are clear.

Play update

Well both Julia and Lea are in the play but neither got a primary role. They were a little disappointed but still excited to participate.

Julia and Lea Try Out for the Play

Today Julia and Lea both tried out for the play at our Church. The play is called "The Silent Bells". They didn't try out for any particular part although there are a couple of parts for young girls. The try out involved reciting a short paragraph from some of the dialog for the play. It is a musical but neither Julia or Lea sang so probably wouldn't get a main lead part.

Both felt good after they were done so we will keep our fingers crossed for them.

Nicolas Writes His Name

At the start of the school year this fall Nicolas started in his pre-K pre-school and although he knew his alphabet and is an avid colorer and always interested in books he wasn't really writing letters and such. Well what a difference a few weeks makes because today he wrote his name on a card for our friend Carol's baby shower.

Well we were all pretty shocked because we thought he might just write the same letter over and over or something but instead he methodically wrote out N I C O L A S!

Well done little man and welcome to the world of writing!

Old College Friends

Last weekend we had a rare treat of a visit to the bay area from a few of Melissa's college friends Marybeth and Beth. They were in Santa Rosa touring the wine country and we went up for Saturday afternoon wine tasting and a nice dinner out. It was a lot of fun seeing Melissa interact with these friends and she appeared to be in college again! From the first moment they saw each other they were giddy reliving old times and drawing up old memories. They reenacted old 80's style dance moves and even called some other old friends back east late in their evening to reminisce about old times. Wondering where other friends were. We had a great time and stayed up late. Fortunately the significant others got along really well so we were able to enjoy the fun and the great food and wine!

Oh and yes we are wearing sun glasses at night in the photo above! Too cool for school!

Family Camp 2008!

This year over the Labor Day holiday we again went to our favorite family camp out at Redwood Glen family camp with our church. This is always a great weekend full of fun activities for the kids and adults. We have lots of friends there and really enjoy ourselves. We stayed in our regular cabin which we share with another family. There are marshmallow roasts, water rocket launches, hikes, singing, games, great speakers, all camp ice cream Sunday's and more!

We always have a ton of fun and the weekend crescendos around a "talent show" where anyone can get up on stage and do anything (that is appropriate for all ages) on stage for 3 minutes.

Here are some pictures from the weekend including some from the talent show where Julia and Lea sang a song from High School Musical of course.

Getting my repair mojo back!

For the last couple of months we have had a minor issue with the hot water lever to the faucet in our bathroom. Basically the handle had come loose and would fall off when touched. This was an annoying situation but it was not really clear how to fix because it was not clear how to re-attach the handle.

So we lived with it for while until finally I had a weekend with enough free time that I decided to tackle the handle. After studying it for a while I decided I had better just take it a part. The faucets are the ones that came with the house, Moen, and have a number of moving parts. After some dis-assembly I went to the Moen website and I was able to see a blow up picture of the very faucet we had and this enlightened me on the problem. It turns our there was a small screw inside the faucet itself which had fallen out and needed to be attached. I could not figure out how to get inside and I could not figure out how to get inside or get it off of the sink.

During that session time ran our and we had to live without that sink for a week. Ultimately I did discover how to get top off of the remaining faucet parts and get access to the screw that was deep inside the faucet.

After re-attaching the handle and aligning the faucet we were back in business!!

So after a shaky start I am back. Now if I could just get the grass in my back yard to grow evenly!!

Video from Florida

A few weeks ago we had a wonderful trip to Florida where we combined a little work and a lot of relaxation with Mom & Bill in Ft. Myers. Fortunately we had a video camera handy. We captured some fun video of the kids and good times there.

Salute to the Dark Racer

This morning I went for a scheduled "brick" which is a combination bike and run and
unfortunately my riding partner had her bike stolen so I had to go by myself at 5:45 am!

It was very dark when I started from the neighborhood. I headed out on a normal route which takes my along a road over to a trail.

Shortly after I started along one of the neighborhood streets I spotted another rider ahead of me going in the same direction. Since I was without a partner I thought catching this unknown rider would be a good goal and since this was potentially just a commuter going to work they should be an easy catch. I started to increase my speed to catch up to the flashing red lights I saw ahead.

As we both turned onto a trail on the way the mystery rider had aabout a 200yd lead on me. The trail is the San Thomas Aquino trail and runs about 3 miles along the levy next to the creek. It is flat except for where it goes under over passes for several roads, dropping down near the creek into the wisps of fog coming from the creek.

As my friend Darren reminds me I'm not in world class shape, California shape or even Santa Clara shape but I am ok! Over the first mile I worked my way up through the gears and closed the gap to about 100 yds. At this point I think the mystery biker noticed that i had closed the gap and picked up their pace.

Now I became more determined to close the gap and worked up to the top of the 21 gears on the high end road bike I had borrowed. I bent over on the handle bars and dug in to catch my prey.

My legs were feeling the strain and I was really starting to sweat. The gap between us narrowed more as we raced along in silence except for the wind in my ears and the smell of the reeds and creek. I crept closer and got to within 50 yds or so so that as I entered an over pass they exited.

I was now moving along at nearly my top pace and very slowly catching that flasing tail light. At about two miles along in the dark my prey started to pull away!! I dug deeper trying to keep pace. In my head I was thinking all I have to do is try harder and i can catch them. I imagined them seeing my flickering tail light as i went by and how satisfying that would be.

To my dismay the gap widened. not just to the200yds i had originally had but even more! Soon I could not even see the flashing light around the twists and bends.

As I approached the final over pass along the trail I saw the mystery rider sitting atop the bridge and I detected he slightest of a wave as I passed under.

So I salute you mystery racer!! May we race in the dark again and thank you for letting me know how much work i have to do.

btw I completed my brick after racing along for that first 3 miles - 12 mile bike and 2.5 mile run!

The Kids World Now...

We had dinner with some friends the other day who have kids the same age as Julia and Lea and we were talking about the differences between being a kid now vs. when we were kids. We noted that for example:

• Kids accept that you can use a mobile phone to talk to anyone anywhere
• Expect to be able to see a picture immediately due to digital photography
• Know what a URL is and know their favorites
• From the earliest age know how to use a mouse or touch pad
• Accept the idea of using an avatar and easily move through 3D environments online

but...

• cannot tie their own shoes (thanks to Velcro!!)

These are but a short list but i think pretty indicative

Nosey Neighbor Take That!!

When we returned from our recent vacation to Florida (more on that in another post) we had a surprise letter waiting for us informing us that we were violating some obscure rule regarding our garage. Apparently you are supposed to keep it so that you can get the designed number of cars (2). No if you know us we doubt that we can ever effectively get both of our vehicles in there but with the two we have that is not likely.

Anyway it turns out this all started from some nosey neighbor complaining about it which of course angered us both some.

So, Melissa took it upon herself to respond by cleaning up the garage (for looks) and then send an emailed response and I think put them in their place.

"Please find attached a picture of my garage. The shelving was put up years ago in order for two cars to fit... They still do! This is how it usually looks except for two occasions this year:

1. A few weeks ago, for a couple of days, we had our camping gear spread out on the floor to organize it for vacation.

2. A few months ago our garage was filled with household goods, clothing and food from a Rivermark Mother's Club donation drive. Mom's from our neighborhood group gathered the items and then spent a few days together organizing them in our garage. We were assisting mothers and children who were fleeing war and persecution in Burma.

Please inform the nosy neighbor who has nothing better to do than snoop around outside my garage, that next time they feel the need to report our family for a HOA violation ~ they can either come help us pack for vacation, or help distribute the food to the needy families in our community. Seriously!"

Take that nosey neighbor!!!

Great New Blog For Cooks

A friend of mine named Ursula recently started a blog for busy cooks called "Jane Spice" and I know many of the people who read my blog like to cook so I thought I would pass along the link to the blog. She has a Lebanese background so many of the recipes are from the middle east.

Here is a link to a review of her blog. http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/08/prweb1167674.htm

I haven't had a chance to try any of the recipe's yet but they sure do look good!

Check it out!

http://www.janespice.com/

Walmart Virus??

Someone recently sent me a cool visualization that shows the growth of Walmart stores in the United States over the last 30 years. It looks like a virus taking over the USA!!

Check it out by clicking on this link.

http://projects.flowingdata.com/walmart/

Word up for Wordle

I found this cool little site called "wordle" which dynamically creates something called a tag cloud (a grouping of commonly used words where more common words are larget) of your own words. I've been playing with it and think it is kinda fun and created these simple samples:

Getting Dirty at Donner SP

One of the things I love about camping in California in the summer is that you are virtually assured that there will be no rain. This makes packing and planning easier however it does have one pretty major downside, especially when camping with kids. In many of the campgrounds we go to in the summer the dirt, which is bone dry from lack of water, is in a fine powder which when combined with running and feet shuffling kids means that it gets everywhere!

We just got back from 4 days camping in Donner Memorial State Park and had a slightly dirty but no less fun blast of a time. Donner is high in the Sierra Nevada range right at the pass where Interstate 80 goes over the mountain range. It has hiking, a lake for swimming and boating, a memorial and museum. We went with our friends the Wilde's and their 3 kids so there were 10 of us in total and plenty of kids running around.

The campsites we had were fairly open with just a few tall pines around but many white spruce saplings around to give privacy plus hiding places for the kids (they played many a game of hide and seek). As with other camping trips these days we gave the kids a fairly generous boundary around the two adjacent sites and let them have the run of it. This mean that they had lots of freedom and could be out of eye-site but never out of earshot. Daytime highs were in the upper 70's/low 80's and the evenings were cool in the upper 30's to low 40's. The nights were so clear we saw the milky way (one would forget it is there with the light pollution around Santa Clara), many satellites and many shooting stars. It was a great nighttime show.

For activities we did some short walks to explore the campsite and went swimming in the lake. The lake water was probably only about 65-70 degrees so it was a chilly transition but once you were in it was OK. On Saturday we rented 2 Sea Doo's which are personal watercraft. Think of them as motorcycles on the water and they are fast with top speeds of 55 MPH! On the lake there is a 35MPH speed limit but it was rather easy to creep up and over that. We took turns taking the kids out for long rides and Julia and Lea mostly liked it while the Wilde boys loved it. Nicolas even liked it for a little while but ultimately wanted to come back in which just happen to correspond to the end of our time so that was OK.

For me there was also a sad moment when we were going through the memorial museum and watching a short film which recalls the tragedy of the Donner Party which became stranded at Donner Pass in the winter of 1846-1847. Interestingly enough also the train tunnel which you can see from the campsite was built in 1868 which means that just 20 years after America was already making it possible to travel by train through that same pass.

All in all we had a great time despite the fact that the kids had a thick coating of dirt on them for a good portion of the trip, they didn't seem to mind!

Head Stands to Relax??

Melissa and I have been observing some rather strange behavior from Julia over the last couple of weeks. For some reason she has started doing head stands up against the furniture. She does this while watching tv, or while in her room or while waiting to use the computer etc. We asked her why she was doing this and she said it "relaxes her". Very strange!

Sick Bay

Well the bug that took down Lea last week while I was out of town has now taken down Nicolas, Julia and Sara !! Sara had a particularly bad case and spent the whole day in bed. Julia on the other hand seems to have my constitution and was slowed down and a bit cranky but quickly recovered. Unfortunately Melissa and I are showing the early signs of the same cold/virus but that did not stop me from going for a 14 mile bike ride this morning in less than 50 minutes! Motor on!

Shaking with the Quakes

Today we added a new chapter to our sports experiences by going to the San Jose Earthquakes game courtesy of my boss who had 6 extra tickets for the game (recall we have Sara staying with us). The "Quakes" as the are affectionately know are part of Major League Soccer (MLS) in the U.S. This is an up-and-coming league and features ever improving talent and more and more international talent as well.

The Quakes play at Santa Clara University which is not too far from our house. Today it was a glorious sunny day in the mid-80's and they were matched against the New York Red Bulls.

Andy has great seats, right near mid-field about 8 rows up. It is close enough that you can hear the coach yell instructions and the players yelling to each other. It was a great game and the Quakes were on the offensive most of the game. Unfortunately they gave up an own-goal at the 3 minute mark but really kept pressure on and eventually got an equalizer at around 16 minutes.

The kids, especially Lea, really liked it and she was paying close attention to the action. They had lemonade and hot dogs from vendors so they did not starve. There were several large groups of regulars with drums, flags and singing songs that almost gave this the feel of a game in Europe, though the quality of play wasn't quite there.

The game ended in a 1-1 draw but featured lots of quality play, break away's, near misses etc.

I don't think we will ever buy season tickets (unless one of the kids goes crazy for soccer) but I do think we will try to go to a game from time to time, especially a night game if possible.

Too much?

A friend of mine Darren (not one to withhold an opinion) recently told me that I was blogging too much about my exercise and not enough about the kids! While that is probably true for the family readers I like to "put it in print" - to write down my accomplishments so that I can go back and look at them sometime in the future to see how far I have either progressed or fallen.

So I'll take the ding and try to do some more family blogs but that said I did ride a bike 10 miles and run a 5k this morning in less than an hour!

I must say I felt pretty good about that!

The Dark Knight is Awesome!!

Yesterday evening we took one of our rare nights out and went to see the new Batman movie called "The Dark Night". This movie has been getting a huge amount of hype and has broken many box office records and I really wanted to see it on the biggest screen possible.

I have to say that despite all of the hype and build up that it exceeded my expectations by a large margin. This was an incredible movie that pulls no punches in terms of the action, in terms of the plot and the twists and the acting is great.

And, And, Heath Ledger's performance of the Joker is truly amazing! I think he has given the definitive interpretation of the Joker which will stand for a lifetime just like the Peter Sellers Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther original movies.

Melissa was originally hesitant to go and see it but after the movie she admitted that she thoroughly enjoyed it even though she had not seen the previous movie "Batman Begins".

I highly recommend you see this movie in the theater to soak in the complete experience.

Little Man and Big Heat

Last night we were sleeping somewhat restlessly when Nicolas woke up screaming "daddy where are you?, daddy where are you?" Both Melissa and I ran into his room and he was burning up! It appears that he has the same thing Lea did earlier this week where she had a high fever, aches and chills. Fortunately with Lea (and hopefully with Nicolas) it only appears to last 24 hours.

Starting the day with a 10k

Well my workouts have been going reasonably well and I've finally started to feel like I was back to the level prior to all of my travel in May/June. As proof, our (regular exercise group) got an extra early start at 5:45 and went for a long run. I ended up going for 6.5 miles which is just slightly longer than the 10K I ran a couple of months ago.

I think it is pretty good when your training run is now the length of races you were doing just a few months ago!

Hopefully my joints can hold out for that kind of pounding!

$100 fill up and it is not full!!!

The other day I took our SUV to the local Shell station to fill it up. It had gotten un-naturally empty so I knew it was going to be a big bill with the current prices.

What I wasn't ready for was my credit card cutting me off at $100 and my tank still 4 gallons from being full!! Oh my!! I'm old enough to remember filling a car for < $1 a gallon and although that was probably not a natural low price it was still nice.

Wow!!

Our dog "Buddy" is back...

A few weeks ago we had two dogs at the Kreisa dog kennel and it was actually a lot of fun. Yesterday we got one of those dogs back (boy the owners sure take a lot of vacation!).

Buddy the Great Dane mix is back for another week long stay. We love having Buddy in the house because he is such a cool dog and makes Melissa feel more secure (me too). He is great with the kids, letting them lay their head on him, chase him around the yard etc. He is also a good walking dog, never pulling on the leash too hard and basically pretty good with other dogs.

If/when we ever get a dog I think I would like one just like Buddy.

Still at it

It has been a few weeks since my last post, a longer gap than I like. During the last couple of weeks we have had visitors but I have been able to keep up with the exercise routine. One funny thing is that in the same two week period I had one person give me a hard time about my running pace (9-10m miles generally) and one person express concern that I don't over do it (see previous post). So if this were an election I guess I would be about right!

It's not though and yesterday we went and pushed it even harder with our routine. We rode bikes for 7 miles, stopped, ran for 32 minutes, then got back on the bikes and rode for another 8 miles.

So I figure my total workout was a 15 mile ride and 3-3.5 miles of running all before 7:30am. Not a bad way to start a Saturday!

Pain Given Out in 3 Minute Intervals

Today the folks I have been running with introduced me to one of their more masochistic routines which really wore me out.

It is pretty hard to find hills in Santa Clara (it is pretty flat) but they found an area along a trail that we run which goes up and down from trial level to river level and back. Basically in a 1/4 mile stretch you go up, down, up, down where the hills are about 60yds long up and down with a very short flat stretch in between. It does not sound like much but believe me it is.

The plan today was to run 12 intervals on these little hills. The interval times started off at 3:20, 3:00, 2:40. Basically we started slower and built up doing each interval twice totalling 6 runs, and then repeated the whole thing.

You can pretty easily finish the first couple of intervals faster than 3:20, so you get about 30+s of rest in between. But... then the intervals get shorter and you get more tired, meaning you have less time to rest. The other folks are in better shape than me so they always had at least 10-15S rest in between. Me on the other hand got pretty tired after the first 5 intervals and found myself needing to start right away after finishing. Whew!

In the end I was so tired that I only lasted for 10 intervals. So I ended up with basically 30 minutes of straight hill running (oh by the way we ran to and from the hills, about 3/4 of a mile each way). Supposedly this will make out flat runs faster. I am not sure if I was working old muscles in a new way or new muscles in an old way but either way it was painful doled out in 3 minute intervals. I'll have to try it again just to see if I have improved.

Big Dog - Little Dog

I've already blogged on my dog policy earlier this year and we continue to follow that. This week due to a slight scheduling snafu we happen to have two dogs at the Kreisa kennel. The first is a regular - Skittles our lovable and slightly wall-eyed Shih Tzu who is very spunky and pretty sweet. Now Skittle probably weighs 10-15lbs (the amount of weight I still want to lose) and stands 8 inches at the shoulder. He is very much a lap dog and can often be found there if you sit down.

Our second visitor is a part Labrador part Great Dane mix named Buddy. Unlike Skittles, Buddy stands about 3 ft at the shoulder and looks Nicolas straight in the eye. He has what I would call a typical Great Dane temperament and prefers to take it easy. (although Skittles has gotten him in a playful mood of late). Buddy could for example easily grab something off of the counter where as Skittles can only wonder at the treats that lie above his domain.

The other day we took the two for a walk which by itself was somewhat comical just because of the difference in size. It was made all the more funny when we let the kids have the leash and Nicolas was at one point walking Buddy. It looked like he should be riding him!

So far the two dogs seem to be getting along well, neither taking too much notice of the other.

Pool Pandemonium (in the good way)

I love the summer time because I love to take the kids to the neighborhood pool. This year is no exception and in fact the pandemonium we create when there now is greater than ever.

Here is how it works. We go into the deep end (which is only 5ft) and the kids climb all over me (including Nicolas). I then select one at random (actually usually Lea because she is pinching me) and throw them as far away as possible. Then I select another and throw. By the time I've thrown all three the first is back and ready to be tossed again. They are of course screaming with delight each time the fly through the air.

Well this tires me out after a little while (not them) and I have to dive under to try to swim away. They are also relentless swimmers now (thanks to a winter of swimming lessons) so as soon as I come up for air someone is almost always close to me.

I've had to start grabbing one of their legs when I am under the water and giving it a yank which results in a quick dunking. So now they know that as soon as I go under they need to keep a watch out. Imagine me going under to the bottom of the 5tf side and looking up and there are 3 pairs of eyes staring down at me waiting to see what my next move will be.

I noticed about halfway through that we were making such a racket that some parents were staring at the pandemonium. Since they were not in the pool with their kids I'd like to think they were jealous.

I can generally keep it up for about an hour before I need a break! I am not sure I am going to be able to keep up with them by the end of summer.

Little Man a Little Rocker?

Earlier today Nicolas and I were on our way home from our good friends Darren & Carol's summer party having hung out for a couple of hours and eating some great food when Nicolas gave me a sign of things to come (potentially). It was a pretty hot afternoon, nearing 98 degrees.

I was playing the radio fairly loud when Stevie Ray Vaughn's Voodoo Chile came on. Nicolas started saying something from the back seat and I couldn't quite hear him so I turned it down in case he was uncomfortable. Instead he said "daddy, guitar is the best intrument ever!! Turn it back up daddy!" I said "well this is one of the best ever" and happily did.



We drove on a little bit further and another good rocking song. I looked back to see if Nicloas like this one and he was completely zonked!!

So maybe he will be a little rocker but not on an afternoon of playing outside all afternoon.

Old friends, new connectsions

I was in Chicago traveling earlier this week at the Web Content 2008 conference which is focused on something called web content management. Basically that is the software that companies use to manage their websites. The Mark Logic software is also used manage content to the web and I was there checking it out and presenting our solution to the attendees.

While in Chicago I had the opportunity to see an old rugby player friend from college named John Jones. Not only did we have computer science classes together but we also played many a rugby game together. John now works in energy development creating wind farms and developing natural gas fields as well as other alternative energies.

One of our customer case studies I was going to present was McGraw-Hill Platts who produce energy information for traders and energy professionals. They produce daily news letters distributed as PDFs with information on various aspect of the energy market. Platts are planning to take their news letters and make them available through a new electronic portal created with MarkLogic Server as the platform. My friend John subscribes to a couple of the news letters that Platts produces. I had screen shots from the prototype of their application so I showed them to him and he was super excited to see the future of the news letters and all of the things it will enable him to do.

So wow, old friend and a new connection!

Attending Web Content 2008

This week I am attending a conference called Web Content 2008 in Chicago. Conferences now are much different from the ones that I have attended in the past. For one thing there is always free web access during the entire conference so that there are many people online blogging (as I am now). For another thing they encourage the use of something called "tags" to use when blogging or posting pictures etc. These tags help people searching on the Internet and using aggregation tools to find all of the relevant content. For example last week during the Mark Logic user conference we had the tag MLUC08. The tag for the conference I am attending now is WC08.

Another thing that happens is that as soon as a presenter mentions a website then most audience members who are online surf to that site, creating a mini rush of traffic.

Well the next keynote is starting (which is on something called social media) so I'll return to watching and taking notes.

Happy Fathers Day!!

Happy Fathers Day to all of the fathers out there! I for one had a great day, starting of with a great breakfast omelet (which honestly I cooked myself) follow by a nice long family bike ride (with a stop off for milk shakes at Carl;s Jr.) followed by 2 1/2 hours at the pool with the kids!

Now we are all just hanging out relaxing, Awesome!

Paying it Forward: Thanks Daren & Carol!

Last weekend our good friends Darren and Carol gave us a great gift, a night away from the kids! Now much to their apparent disappointment we did not have a huge night out in San Francisco or Monterrey planned rather we wanted a good ole dinner out and quite night in because that does not happen too often around here.

We really enjoyed ourselves, strolling around in downtown Palo Alto hitting the book stores, eating appetizers, having a drink or two.

From the pictures Darren recently shared with us it looks like the kids had a great time too!
See the pictures by clicking here and then hitting the "view slideshow" button.

Actually they told us as much over and over!

Considering Darren and Carol are expecting their first this fall this is an extra special treat and I know they are banking it up so that we can pay them back in the future, which we will of course gladly do as soon as they are ready for a night out.

Taking the time for the little things

With things being so busy with life in the valley (or anywhere) sometimes little important events can easily slip by without one noticing. Today fortunately I was able to stop the "madness" for a little while and enjoy some very special time with Nicolas. His pre-school put on a fathers day event (yes an entire week early) and I was able to attend (which given my recent travel schedule is always in question).

Now I admit that when it was first proposed I was not entirely enthusiastic because we are really busy at work getting ready for our user conference. But fortunately I was able (with some encouragement from Melissa) to see how important it would be to Nicolas and important in general. I took Nicolas over to school and we shared a nice breakfast of grapes, watermelon and coffee cake (they had coffee too!). Then all of the pre-schoolers sang a couple of songs and gave us gifts of hand pained coffee mugs.

It was really awesome and I am really glad I went, Nicolas gave me a huge hug and sweetest "I love you". It was a good reminder to me to take time for the little things amongst the chaos of daily life in the valley. I am also have a new mug at work as a constant reminder to stop and take time.

Volunteering with the kiddies

Last weekend I had the opportunity to take the girls to do some somewhat self serving volunteering at Redwood Glenn family camp up in Loma Mar CA. It is on the map here.

Each year over labor day our church has a 3-day long family camp which is a ton of fun. In order to help get the camp ready for the season (and our visit) Redwood Glenn has a work day where volunteers come to fix up the camp after winter as well as do some much needed upgrades.

Last Saturday was the work day and Julia and Lea enthusiastically wanted to go with me to help out. The day started early as we had to meet at the church at 7am. The girls were excited and actually more helpful than even some of the adults who were there. In the morning we created 5 new campsites by cleared some space in the woods with shovels and rakes. It was quite a bit of work and they stayed interested and engaged until lunch.

After lunch we cleared and cleaned another 4 sites but by then they had had enough. I was really happy with them for volunteering to help and going to the camp. We were there for most of the day so they like me gave up some valuable weekend time to help out. I know the folks at the camp really appreciate it and I know our family camp will be the better for it.

Curious social observation

As I may have stated in an earlier post I grew a beard for my snow camping adventure. Now I already had a goatee and mustache but many many people commented on my beard. In fact I had enough compliments that I decided to roll with it for a while.

Well this past weekend I decided to cut off the beard and go back to the original look of goatee and mustache.

The curious thing was to me that no one including Melissa noticed! I went out with friends, went to a kids birthday party where I knew many people including work folks and not a single person noticed. This included the two folks I now carpool with nearly everyday.

Curious!

Priceless

So if you read my previous post you'll think that road trips are pretty much a grind, and they are for the most part. But every now and again one gets a chance to something different. And on this most recent trip we were able to slip in a little personal time to go see a Red Sox game while in Boston. It actually worked out quite well as summarized in this Mastercard style note crafted by one of the guys I was traveling with.

Driving back to the hotel after 5th briefing of the day...see the lights at Fenway from the mass pike...what the heck, the games already started so maybe we can pick up some cheap tickets....

Finding parking spot 500 yds from the park -- Free.

Getting 2 8th row, 3rd baseline seats (face $125 each) -- $100.

Pick up 3rd ticket in upper deck -- $20.

Grab beers, show usher 2 good tickets and bump squatters from the row of 4 -- would have been priceless, except...

Watch Lester throw no-hitter -- Priceless.

Road Warrior!!

It has been a few days since I had a chance to post primarily because I've been on a road warrior like trip at work. I've compiled a few stats about the trip I was on last week:

5340 - miles flown
320 - miles by train
180 - miles driven
18 - meals eaten out
15 - number of times we gave the same presentation
5 - days
3 - cities (Boston, New York, Washington D.C.)
2 - rental cars
1 - very tired John

Whew, no wonder I didn't have time to post!

Lea competitive? Puh-lease!!

Lea has a sweet side, and then she has her competitive side. Yesterday at the pool the competitive side came out in spades, double spades maybe.

We invited some friends over to the pool who also have a competitive middle child and that drove Lea to a whole new level, and I might say a good one. We instigated a couple of competitions for the children in order to provide some structured things to do (besides climb on and maul daddy).

The first competition was a contest to jump off the side into the deep end and get judged on two different aspects, style and splash. The other middle child Mateo immediately set a high bar by doing a running forward flip (not bad for a 6 year old!) He got high marks! Lea did a couple of cannon balls and then decided to step up her game. Having never before tried it she did a backwards dive, and executed it nearly perfectly. After some strong jumps by Mateo she came back and did her own forward flip! Mateo gave us a running flying cannon ball which created a huge splash. Again high marks. Lea, not giving up on this one did a back flip off the side, nailed it on the first try! High marks! This was all positive IMO. I am sure that Melissa having left with Nicolas (ear infection) allowed the competition to go to another level as she probably would not have been comfortable watching these first time moves.

The second competition was a swimming relay. I didn't want it to be girl vs. boy so I split Diego and Mateo with Julia and Lea. Julia and Diego started off and the swim lessons over at the Santa Clara swim center clearly showed through as Julia's good free-style stroke put her out in front and gave Mateo a body length or so lead entering the water. Again Leas was not to be denied however. She got in there and executed a nearly flawless stroke (in my un-biased opinion) and erased the lead in the first length (about 10M) and extended the lead to win by a body length!

It was quite a performance by our little Lea, I wish I had video to share.

Fashionista?

Nicolas really like clothes, he thinks about them a lot, insist on changing if there is anything dirty on them, and he likes to pick out his "handsome man" clothes.

The other day when we were getting ready for church he was quite insistent that he pick out my clothes and that we wear the same thing. He ran into my closet and picked out the exact shirt and pants which were the same as his (black pants and a blue and white striped shirt). It was pretty funny and we snapped a quick picture before church.