Category Archives: Family

The Mouse Plank

Posted by admin on August 17, 2008 None comments

We enjoyed reading about and then hearing a bit more in person of our friends the Risdons battling some purported mice at their home the past few weeks. Apparently these fiends leave droppings each morning on the porch, disrupting Ken’s morning newspaper retrieval, and largely fouling his morning. This is really Ken’s battle – Beth is just enjoying the show. Full background from Beth is available at their Blog site – What Will He Think of Next.

I’m mentioning it here, only because I took note of the photo Beth posted of the latest setup Ken has in place. Using some military-grade graphics analysis software I have access too, I have identified some new insights. I’m not sure if this is helpful or not, but wanted to post here just in case.

Mouse over the photo below to see the difference between the initial photo and what is visible to the naked eye and what you can see after processing the image with this proprietary technology. If mousing over doesn’t work (how appropriate) just click here to view the end result.

Mouse Plank Before

Dad Week

Posted by admin on August 11, 2008 None comments



Dad Week Board

Originally uploaded by gcrgcr

What is Dad Week you ask? It is basically a vacation – or maybe even a “staycation” (ugh, so pop culture – thanks for that George!)

As a family, we’ve already been on some cool trips this year. Walt Disney World in January and Las Vegas in March for the NASCAR race. For summer fun, the kids have stayed busy with friends around town, local camps and activities, camping, etc…

Sometime earlier in the summer, I suggested that I would take a week off to just be home and do a bunch of fun things with the kids.

One key was to schedule this before the kids go back to school – which is next week!

Then, we had to pick out the things we wanted to do and get them scheduled. With no shortage of ideas to fill up six or seven days, we had to have a process to whittle things down a bit. At work, our development team (and some of our other operations teams) use the Agile process. We use Rally software.

If you are not familiar with the Agile process, in a nutshell, you plan development in ‘iterations’. There is a careful planning process that includes product management or others needing development work brining their “stories”. Stories are requirements or tasks to complete or progress a project. While the Rally software allows this to all be done electronically, our teams have found that using post-it notes helps in the acceptance, scheduling and tracking with our teams. So, long story short, we did this at home.

Each of us created three “stories” – things we wanted to do during Dad Week. One thing could cost money (e.g. the Movies) and two things had to not cost money (or be very minimal in cost). We then sat down and worked together to accepts stories and schedule them throughout the Dad Week days. The kids came up with great suggestions, and we’ve been having a blast. You can see the photo of our Dad Week Board above. Here is some of the list:

  • Water World
  • Family Guitar Hero Contest
  • Out To Lunch
  • Go Hiking
  • Hit a Movie
  • Splurge Breakfast (Waffles, Bacon, Sausage and real maple syrup) [Thanks Neil!]
  • Kids Plan and Cook Dinner Night
  • Erie Go Kart Track Day
  • Reading at the Library

And so on… You get the idea. No doubt this is keeping us busy, but we are having a great time. Dad Week is over half way completed. Today we did “Out to Lunch” – Oskar Blues in Lyons, Colorado, and then “Go Hiking” – Heil Valley Ranch near Boulder. We’ve got much more to do the next few days, of course check here for updates. We should have plenty of photos to share too.

I called it Dad Week, but four days into it, it probably should just be called Family Week. Missing work is always less than ideal for me – I love my work – but family and times like these are important – no matter how simple they seem. This has been really great so far and hopefully will be a family tradition from here on out!

AJ Rock Camp

Posted by admin on July 4, 2008 None comments



AJ Rock Camp

Originally uploaded by gcrgcr

For Christmas last year AJ got a Bass guitar and lessons. As parents, we put many things in front of our kids to see what sticks – what they really like and thrive at. I wasn’t sure how this would go for AJ – would the bass end up in a corner covered in dust?

Turns out – AJ really enjoys it and has taken to it quite well. He takes lessons down at Guitars Etc… on Main street here in Longmont. His teacher, Mike has done a great job, and has complimented AJ on his work and effort throughout the past 6 months of lessons.

This summer AJ participated in an extra “Rock Camp” (not geological, which is what I thought when I first heard it, but musical). For a week kids met every day and worked on a complete set for a Saturday concert.

These photos are from the concert. They are not great – lighting at concerts suck and I’m still a rookie with the new SLR camera – but it gives an idea what the final product was like. Video would be a better demonstration, and there is something on AJ’s camera that Joie took – I’ll rustle that up and post it later.

The kids played a 5-song set of tunes from he Rolling Stones (Satisfaction), Nirvana (Smells Like Teen Spirit), and Black Sabbath (Paranoid), among others.

At least two of them took turns singing lead on the songs they weren’t playing. One of the music teachers played drums, there were 4 or 5 electric guitar players, and AJ alternated with another teenage girl at bass.

I have no musical talent whatsoever, but like many who don’t, I enjoy music and do my share of jamming in my car when I’m alone (when I do it with the kids in the car I’m quickly asked to knock it off…). That said, I really enjoy watching AJ and all of these kids develop their talent. It is very impressive and even more fun to watch.

Happy Chicken Day

Posted by admin on June 2, 2008 None comments



Chicken Shed

Originally uploaded by gcrgcr

I’m not sure exactly how it happened, but for Mother’s Day, or during Mother’s Day weekend that is, we built a chicken coop. Joie and the kids had decided several weeks ago that they would get some chickens to raise this spring. This requires somewhere for the chickens to live. Joie and I looked at a number of options, that included everything from buying a pre-built, small, TuffShed, to contracting a larger, storage shed/barn type facility.

As these discussions and research stretched over a week or two – something happened that really got things moving. The chicks arrived in the mail from the hatchery. So, they were setup comfortably, but temporarily, in our garage. In a large metal feed trough, with water, feed, straw and a heat lamp – they were well taken care of, but with 13 chicks in there, this was only a temporary solution. We needed a chicken coop. So, this became the mission and for Mothers Day, Joie requested chicken housing.

An ideal solution came with help from a neighborhood friend, Thomas Kucharski. Thomas is a great person, and among other things, a skilled carpenter. I had researched many plans for sheds online, but after speaking with him about what to build and how to build it, it was clear we could do this easily together. And we did! I made some sketches (I’m visual and have to do this for pretty much anything) and Thomas coached me through materials we needed and the process overall. I got everything we needed on site and then in one Saturday, we accomplished what you see in this Flickr set.

This was a really fun project – especially for me since I sit in an office day after day, week after week – as a business professional, I don’t often get to build such tangible things. It is very satisfying. But, there was a downside too. While we got all this done with great effort on Saturday, Mother’s Day on Sunday ended up being kind of a dud. My fault completely – just ended up not very well planned or executed. Sure, we had flowers, cards, and some gifts the kids made, but the dynamics of the day were odd and uncontrolled and things just didn’t flow well. While the chicken house was a success – mission accomplished on build schedule – I’m taking a Mother’s Day mulligan and am working on a make-good for all of us. We’ll make sure the kids really get a chance to celebrate their Mom – the worlds best!

Meanwhile, work on the chicken shed has continued. We’ve trimmed it out completely, painted it, added a 12 foot by 6 foot chicken run, created a “chicken access” from the shed to the chicken run, shingled, built hen boxes, and added roosting planks, among other things. I’ll post the most up to date photos when I get a chance. One thing you’ll notice is that it is a pretty nice shed. Nicer than one might expect for chickens, but part of the idea here was that once we are out of the chicken ranching business, we can clean it out and it remains as a useful gardening shed.

The great thing now is, the intent of the chicken shed is in motion – the chicks have moved in – the kids are charged with daily opening and closing and other chicken maintenance, and as a family we’re all learning how to be chicken ranchers together. Well, Joie had chickens as a child, so she has less to learn that the rest of us. She’s the head chicken rancher.

I think chickens have to be fairly mature to start laying eggs, so whenever that happens – if you are lucky enough to live close by or to see us from time to time, expect your share once the eggs start flying.

Stay tuned for updates!

Hoover Dam

Posted by admin on April 30, 2008 None comments



P3031156

Originally uploaded by gcrgcr

Yep, the title and photo pretty much say it all.

When we were in Las Vegas in March for the NASCAR race, we (like many other tourists) found a morning to head south and over to Hoover Dam.

There are a lot of pictures here, some interesting, some not. Here are a few things you should know:

AJ was sick and spent most of the time in the car with Joie, so mostly Jesse and Max in photos. And when you see AJ, well, he doesn’t look great. BTW, he spent 6+ hours in our hotel room thereafter until he felt better – it was a bummer for all, but mostly for him.

Zoom lens. This trip was my first outing with this new camera – my Olympus E-410. I’ve accidentally left the standard lens in a different backpack, so all I had was this higher-powered lens. Close photos were hard to take, if not impossible. Note that Max and Jesse standing in two states at once had to be two photos. (I’ll stitch those together in photoshop, I think to myself. Yeah, right.)

The highway they are building overhead just freaks me out. Those are the tallest concrete support columns I’ve ever seen and although high places don’t freak me out that much, this kind of does. I can’t imagine driving on that highway. They should call it sky highway, at least the way it looks from the current highway down at Hoover dam. Can’t wait to see when they finish it.

So, that’s it – consider this your being trapped at my house and I roll out the slide projector except you don’t have to watch all 88 slides if you don’t want to. If you really want this particular experience, try the slideshow! :)

Enjoy!