Something New -- StudioBlue.com

We just launched a great new website -- StudioBlue.com

Studio Blue offers an e-commerce purchase experience of a very very professional level photographer for under $1000. So far the early reaction on our new site launch this morning looks good. I will keep you all posted. Please do share the site with your family and friends and let me know their reactions.

Zach's Comp Sci Class

My son Zachary has been taking his first "official" computer science class this year. They have been working with a number of 3D modeling tools and other graphics packages to create assets. He has also really used and mastered Apple's Garage Band Tool for creating and syncing audio tracks.


The latest programming they have been doing is in Adobe Flash (Action Script).

The other night at the local Apple Computer Store in Walnut Creek, his teacher, Mrs. MacDonald, had all of the students present their programs up on a big screen in front of all the parents. It was a really nice venue for the event and Apple gave the young programmers free T-shirts. It was really cool to geek out with the kids.



Zach authored and demonstrated several of his projects including an Animated Escalade car (like his mother's real one HA) and a game that he built called Duck Shoot.

Family Debt

Its been a while since I have posted to my blog.  I am thankful for the opportunity to do so.

Just like the Obama's after a few months of very trying times for our family it was high time to pay off that HUGE family debt...

Welcome to the family! Lily is our new dog!

We all love her!

Oh sh*t! I have a teen once again!

I was reminded again this weekend that I have a kid growing into a teen. We took Olivia to her Jonas Brothers concert in Hershey, PA.



Funny thing was that Miley Cyrus appeared on the Today Show on Friday 7/25 just outside the window where I work. Had she not wanted to get up that early on her summer break, she would have wanted to go to that as well. I had forgotten what it was like to have teens in the house.

East River ‘Waterfalls’

We took a boat ride from the Hudson River last Saturday over to the East River to view Olafur Eliasson’s “New York City Waterfalls”.

I was a little skeptical but it was actually a very interesting display for a hot summer day. I highly recommend it.

Jamaica Man!

Just got back from a great family vacation to the Caribbean on Carnival Cruise Lines (more on that later). My favorite place was in our last port of call Ocho Rios, Jamaica.

Dunn's River Falls is a famous waterfall near Ocho Rios, Jamaica and a major Caribbean tourist attraction. The falls empty into the Caribbean Sea. It is one of the very few rivers in the world that actually fall directly into the sea.
The waterfalls are staggered and span some 600 feet, several small lagoons exist interspersed between the vertical sections of the falls. Climbing up the waterfalls is a popular tourist activity and is often, but not exclusively performed with the help of tour guides from the park. The falls can be walked up with relative ease, often a human chain is used snaking up the falls behind the tour guide.

Great fun and highly recommended if you are ever there!
View Larger Map

End of another school year

Friday marked another school year in the books for my kids.  Olivia finished up 7th grade at Liberty Middle School and will attend next year as an 8th grader.  Zachary finished up as a 6th grader and will attend Liberty Middle school with his sister next year as a 7th grader.

We celebrated the passing of another year with a ritual we have done for several years now -- a bonfire party for all the kids to burn their homework.  It has become quite a tradition with a large bonfire a barbeque, fireworks and of course boxes and boxes of old homework.

Have to love nintendo wii

It's amazing that Nintendo Wii has done what they have with clearly a lesser technical platform (compared to XBOX and Playstation 3). They continue to innovate with superior interaction with the release of Mario Kart for Wii.

The kids and I bought this new game on Saturday and spent a good deal of the weekend playing it with them. We had a blast!

It uses a steering wheel that embeds the Wii remote control into it. You hold the steering wheel in mid-air turning it to play the game. It is a very immersing experience to drive the carts or motorcycles in the game. Although the graphics are clearly not as good (since they are standard definition compared to the high definition capabilities of the XBOX or PS3) I still really enjoyed the feeling of competing and playing in that way with "real" people.

My wife, Phyllis, and I are both looking very foward to the Wii Fit title that comes out on May 21.

Morgansblog New Launch on Wordpress 2.3.3

I am pleased to announce my new Blog on Wordpress 2.3.3. It was pretty easy to migrate my old posts and data over. I haven't migrated my user base over yet but I am working with a plugin to see if that can be done. Please let me know if you have any comments on the new site.

Kidd’s Contract Dispute

Jason Kidd is my favorite player in the NBA and I was disappointed to read today that the Nets refuse to deal with him fairly. It is so sad to see a dispute like this force a great player to these lengths (sitting out with a fake Migraine headache reportedly).

Why can't Rod Thorn (the owner of the NETS) just sit down and deal with Jason fairly? He's a great player and all he wants to do is win. Just sit down at the bargaining table and negotiate with him to retain and hire a great supporting cast or trade him and forget about it and rebuild!

Why would Rod Thorn and the NETS organization seem to think that they can hold somebody like a slave. What makes employers like this think that this is a playable hand? One word -- "lawyers". Its bad advice but I think lawyers drive much of this kind of thinking.

My advice to Rod is to play the players hand and the fans hand (a so-called WIN WIN). Nobody is going to stay on the team without Jason. Nobody is going to watch a team without Jason. Period!

Our 2007 Oxygen Halloween Party

Steve (the scary spongebob) and Olivia (the scary pirate)

Originally uploaded by sl_morgan

Here's our photos and video clips from the 2007 Oxygen Halloween Party that Phyllis and I hosted on October 26, 2007. It was great fun!

Here's a link to the whole photo set on Flickr.com and a link to the slide show format. Please send me links to any of your photo sets from the party and I will list them here as well.
This video is on Youtube.com and is part of our traditional Karaoke contest. This one is Chiara, Jeanhee, Phyllis and Kathie.

This one is Meredith, Lissy, Zach, Olivia and Samantha

Should I Pace My Lifestyle to Games of Chance?

I really like games of chance. I enjoy playing card games like Texas Hold'em with my wife Phyllis and my good friends Ilio and Keith. On occassion, I even enjoy going to a big time casino like in Atlantic City or Las Vegas and shooting some Craps or playing a little Black Jack. I play the lottery at home and with my good friend and colleague David M.

In all these games, I would of course love to win but I don't expect to win. I don't plan my budget around winning. I don't pace my lifestyle like I am going to win. Why not?

It's because of course none of these games of chance are predictable at all. I also am not an expert at any of these games either making it even less likely that I would plan or pace my life around doing such games. That would be absolutely insane.

How do I pace and plan my life? I do it just about like everybody else. I have a plan that I think is reasonable. I follow the plan based on my skills and needs and what I think is truly attainable. Of course there are set backs and I adjust as needed in an agile way.

Nintendo really gets it…Sponsor your own hack / crack event!

Yesterday I had the pleasure to take my son Zachary and his best friend Michael to a really cool event. Nintendo and ToysRus had teamed up to do a nationwide Pokemon meet up event.

The idea was that kids come to the store armed with their Nintendo DS devices. When we arrived there were probably 200 kids in the store with their DS's and pokemon games running. You walked up to counter and each kid was quickly given two sealed character cards with a special code attached. This code talked to a local wifi server they had staged in the store and allowed the kids to download two new super charged characters -- Manaphy and Electivire.

So what was in it for both companies? For ToysRus obviously the hope is that you are in the store and buy more product (and indeed we did). For Nintendo obviously they can sell more product too but there were other beneficial behaviors that I observed.

Kids of all ages (6 to 18) were interacting not only with their new characters but several were making deals and exchanging other characters from their devices over the wifi connections in the store. Of course there were also many discussions about specific game strategy and tactics. Many of the kids were discussing how the DS system interfaced with their Wii systems at home and uploading and syncing characters on their devices to the home systems.

Overall the event felt like a bricks and mortar viral event that was truly authentic!

Our new grandson Zane

Our new grandson Zane

Originally uploaded by sl_morgan

This is a collage of our new grandson Zane (and other members of our family Allison, Emily and Emma) made with Ript. He was born on September 1, 2007 and weighed 9 and half pounds and was 22 inches long.

Zane my new grandson is born

My first and only grandson -- Zane was born this weekend on September 1. I wish I could share pictures with all of you but i haven't got any yet (come on I need my Flickr uploads).

So as a place marker I thought I'd load up my Ript page about the baby name Zane from babynamer.com. Allison and Skip (Zane's parents) had quite a time choosing my grandson's name but I am very happy with their choice. I definitely wasn't crazy about their second choice Tyson.

Zane originates from the great heritage of the name John which means God's grace.

The other vitals. Zane is huge -- nine and a half pounds and 22 inches long. Mother and grandson are doing great. Pictures to come soon.

Our First Mets Game

We went to our first Mets game on Friday 8/24/07. I have to say that it was a fantastic game as the played the Los Angeles Dodgers (orginally from Brooklyn). It was a win! Carlos, I know you are loving this!

We sat in the Bear Stearns box seats right next to third base and had a great view. My daughter is a huge fan of David Wright while my son is a fan of Jose Reyes. Both kids got what they wanted which was a very close up view of their favorite player. It was such a great family experience compared to Yankee Stadium which we visited last year. I have to admit it.

Even though most of my family are still Seattle Mariner fans, I have to admit I am still a tried and true fan of Yankee baseball. I hope my team can make the playoffs this year. I will keep my fingers crossed.

judykat hits Lake Couer D’Alene

Our good friends from New York (and Seattle) Ken, Kathie and Mia visited us at Lake Couer D'Alene on their way to Montana.

It was great to see all them. We had a great dinner with all of them (including Ken's mom and my mom and dad).

Phyllis and Kathie got some time on the wet bike while the kids, Ken and his mom got some serious dock time. We even enjoyed a few refreshing ice cold Moose Drool's.

Ken updated me on all the happenings at work as the following Sunday I had to fly back to New York City. It sounds like there are many changes in the wind at Oxygen. It should be interesting to see what happens there.


After a great evening, Ken and his family drove back into the city of Spokane for a nice stay at the Davenport Hotel. Maybe next year we can visit them in the great northwest for a longer period of time.

It’s Hot on the Lake

Wow temperatures hit 100 degrees at least three days in a row here on Lake Couer D'Alene. As they say "beautiful dry hot" but at 100 degrees it's just plain hot.

We are loving the lake. The lake water has warmed up to at least 70 degrees I would bet. The water is fantastic. If you are out of it for even 30 minutes on the dock its time to jump right back in.

Zachary has been catching a ton of fish this week and not just suckers and bottom feeders. Some of them our Rainbow Trout and Fresh Water Bass.

I love these long days on the lake with nothing that has to be planned, executed or completed (can if you want but its totally optional:). This is my kind of vacation!

Vashon Island reminded me once again that “big” is relative

On our way back from Portland to Lake Couer D'Alene, we were invited to visit some of our dear friends on Vashon Island.

 

It was a beautiful day as we drove from Portland up Interstate 5 toward Seattle. Peter had provided us with directions to his home on Vashon Island from the Point Defiance Ferry in Tacoma. As we were waiting for the ferry I took a few candid photos of the kids. From the dock there was a tremendous view of Mount Rainier.

When I lived in Seattle for many years Mount Rainier was a back drop that was so ordinary that one almost just forgot it (not to mention Mt. Baker, Mt. St. Helens, etc.). Since moving to the east coast I have seen many of the great mountains and ranges -- Catskills, Poconos, Appalachians -- but there is truly no comparison.

"Big" is really relative to what your used to whether it be mountains, money or ideas (really anything at all).

We had a great time at Peter's estate on Vashon, walking, swimming, playing bocce ball, volleyball and a myriad of other activities. The compound is really beautiful and is great for entertaining. Peter as usual was an unbelievable host! Thanks.

He invited us back for another visit in the fall which we will consider. It would be great to see the whole family since Jill and kids were away on summer activities this time.

Nyssa’s Basketball Tournament in Portland

My niece Nyssa had a basketball tournament in Portland Oregon. So we all made our way down to the tournament which was held near the Clackamus Community College in Oregon City.

  

It was a great tournament to see. My sister Tami was telling us that in order to get into the NCAA and play first string at the high school level these days independent summer league action is actually required. I believe it for an amateur women's basketball game the skill level was amazing. Nyssa (yellow jersey -- look at that beautiful "D" ) and her team won! They took a commanding lead in the 2nd half and locked it away from the local Oregon team they were playing.

As you can see our official team mascot Ruthie accompanied us to the tournament. At our celebration dinner afterward with my family, my grand daughter Emma Jo tried to imitate Ruthie's Perfect Victory Cheer.