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.