What HAS Rod Been Working on at Xbox??

(Julia & what she referred to sweetly as her baby slug!)

Many of you have asked about what Rod's working on at Xbox. For those of you who don't game, it's a division of Microsoft :D Well, this week was a big week in our house because WE finally found out what Dad's top secret project that he's been working on at work is.... It's called Project Natal.

From what I understand, it's a voice, facial and gesture recognition camera that works as a controller - and will be used to play video games on the 360. Rod's the DevKit guy for Project Natal (Development Kit) - which means a lot and then not so much. He was so excited to finally be able to tell us!!

Branden, a friend of ours, co-worker of Rod's, got to go to E3 - a big electronics conference in California - and was one of the guys in charge of putting on the live demo with all of the big names - and it appeared to come off seamlessly. I watched the demo online and it was exciting to realize that Branden was backstage putting it on!! Woot! Woot!

This week also hails the end of another quarter at Skagit Valley College for Rod. He's supposed to have one more quarter where he will be taking Adobe Flash, Adobe InDesign and Advanced Webpage Design. The webpage design might get swapped out for another class - but probably not.

I am just feeling like it's a good end of week for our family. Finally Rod can tell us what he's been up to and since it's the end of a quarter, we'll be getting our evenings back with Dad!

The two webpages that he's been working on for his MIT classes are:

Our photography: http://www.herronpoint.webs.com

Our cakes: http://www.bluevaser.webs.com (this isn't even alllll of our cakes! I didn't realize we'd done SO many until I had to dig up pictures for this site for his class!!)

If we decide to actually use these sites, we'll probably change them over to their own named sites, for class they wanted us to use a freebie host. We will also probably make quite a few changes after the class has been finalized - and then much more after he's worked on the Adobe Flash. You can do some fantastic stuff with flash. These sites are basic, supposed to show, what he's learned in his books...

What A Nice Surprise!

We have the kid's school pictures taken every year. We started when Josiah was K/1st grade & have been doing it ever since. This year, we had pictures taken in the Fall - at Friday School. First Class Skagit County has had Lifetouch come in for the last few years to do school pictures/student id cards. This year - we were just going to get the most basic plan because Rod was on unemployment. Turned out that the photographer put our info in wrong - so I said I'd order them over the phone.

Here, MONTHS later, in April I ended up ordering them. Easy enough to order them over the phone. I ordered the packages I was planning on getting last Fall. When they arrived, I realized that I ordered the package that I wanted when we were on unemployment, not the package that we could afford since Rod's working... So, I had Rod (yah, I know, I give him some of those kinds of things & he's such a good sport about it!) call them & get it fixed.

They were more than happy to help us out. We realized that if we paid $9 more than we originally paid per kid, that we could get the CDR's with reprint & viewing licences. So, we paid the extra $9.00. I was kinda frustrated in figuring out the CD's & downloading each of the photos - but each of the kid's picutres came in Color, Black & White as well as Sepia.

I went ahead and uploaded the pics to Costco - to see if they would print correctly. And they did! So, I have photos that look like they came from Lifetouch at a fraction of the cost! Woohoo! I was a very good girl and took in the licence agreement - which basically says I can use the photos for whatever I would like... within reason.

Awhile ago, when Julia was 9 months old or something, we had Sears pictures done, and they gave us 10X13 Sepias for cheap or free with package. We bought frames & put them on the wall. So when I saw that I could update the wall photos - at that size for $3.00 a kid - I ordered them from Costco. Now my beautiful 10x13 frames are updated with current photos! I never thought I'd be able to update those because of their size - so that was such a nice surprise!!! I would also not ever thought to actually order a package with reprint/display rights - but i'm thinking that I like them well enough, I could do it again next year!!!

One thing that was memorable about photos this year, was that the photographer took like 10 shots of Julia to get the right one. The last one (above) was best. Her shot was 1162 or something. Then the boys, in succession Jaden, Jedediah and Josiah each took ONE shot to get the above photos - uh, that's uheard of! And what great shots - on the first try! So their shot numbers I think were 1162, 1163, 1164 and 1165 - in order! That made reordering very easy! (Photos: 2008-2009 School Pictures by Lifetouch)

Lazy Saturday... Baseball & Sunburns

(photo: Julia today on the slip & slide...)

Today Jedediah had a baseball game from 9am-11am. Then Josiah had a game from 11am-1pm. We spent well over four hours outside in the sun. Did I mention the SUN? What? We actually have some? Yah. Jedediah's game went well. Jed's finally figuring out many different aspects of baseball. He's gotten to where he can hit and field a ball. Fun to watch.

Josiah's team won today. It was a really good game. Third game in a row!!! Today Josiah was off for pitching (he'll be up next Wed.) but he caught two pop flies and got another kid out on a players choice at second. See, even learning the lingo. He also popped one out into centerfield that wasn't caught, letting getting a run batted in. Baseball's been good this year. Two weeks and it'll be officially over.

We did though sit out in the sun, forgetting about our good friend, mr. sunscreen - so all of us have good old fashioned sunburns. Especially Rod & I who sat in sun the whole time. Josiah spent a good portion of time in the dugout. The tagalong gang, all the little brothers & sisters of the players, ran & played and played in another field/dugout. Rod and I are both red. I have sunscreen in my coverup, so my face didn't get burnt. My legs are bright red. You should see Rod's face - he has gooood raccoon eyes :D Reminder to self: pick up sunscreen soon!

Yesterday, I thought the heater was on - come to find out it was the fan. We didn't realize that there was a venelation system with the heater (none of our other homes have had them...) and so in the 80 degree weather for the last couple of days, the house has been kept cool. All because of someone accidentally turning it on - well there's blessing that, that's fer sure. Cough, cough, we've lived here almost 5 years, before this amazing discovery!

For Rod's photography class - which is just about over - he did a series of photos about Josiah - what it is that "makes" Josiah what he is. Will have to post them sometime. Today, Rod worked on his photography final - A Day in the Life of Jedediah. Will be interested to see how those turn out. Also need to post a really cool, I mean, super awesomely cool, set of pictures that Rod learned how to turn into a panaramic (sp?) joined picture. That photoshop is a dandy tool!

This afternoon, the kids played in the slip & slide. That's always a kick to watch. You'll probably see photos on facebook. We put on a movie via netflix & let the kids sit on the couch for awhile - while Rod and I called on repairs.

Items in need of repair - all still under warranty:
Our Xbox 360 with red ring of death
Garrett's xbox 360 with red ring of death
Josiah's Zune - the backlighting isn't working anymore
Jedediah's DS has a broken prong
and our "old" camera, the Sony H7 - the shutter button broke again
(2nd time in for repair over that button!).

We got four of the five called in and shipping labels requested. Still need to call in on Garrett's 360. We've obviously been letting these pile up, it will be nice to have things in working order again.

Tonight Rod, Garrett & I went & saw Terminator. I've been watching the TV series online.. which is a bit different, but along the same lines. T1-T3 have such old graphics - it's painful to watch them. This one was better than I thought it would be!

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Pitching the Heat & Contract Extension

(Josiah pitching against the Twins)
Yesterday, Josiah almost pitched the entire game! He was so excited, his team, the Defenders, won 10-4. Josiah said that he was "pitching the heat!" Since we went to Great Wolf Lodge this weekend, & Rod needed to make up work time, he wasn't able to be at the game.

I was really so proud of him! He's come a long way in his pitching since the first of the season. Interesting as it is, the team is now beginning to "get good" and they only have four games left. It was so much fun to see him striking kids out left & right.. as well as seeing him chase down a runner for a double play. As you can tell, I was so proud! Hopefully Rod'll get to see both the boys play again before their seasons are out.

It's the oddest thing, him not having the flexibility to take a day off. When Rod was at Verizon, he could just adjust the days he worked. It's also been an adjustment to him not having a day off in the middle of the week... I'm usually warn out though, but the time Saturday comes. I really liked it when he took Wednesdays & Sundays off. Maybe someday he could do that again. Microsoft doesn't work weekends - so as long as he's there he'll have them off.

He's been so busy the last couple of weeks. Which is one reason you haven't seen me blog... I've been trying to help him do background stuff related to school so that he can get his schoolwork done or trying to keep kids quiet. Before last week, Rod's been spending about 2 hours per night & 8 hours Sat/Sun to get his schoolwork done. Apparently, this quarter, it wasn't enough. Last friday he had his first real due date in two classes & in one week, he had about 20 assignments to finish.

Funny thing, he wasn't as stressed out about it - or at least it didn't show. I guess he didn't have the time for it. I helped keep him organized & stress ate. I wish I could help him with his schoolwork. He put his nose to the grindstone, got 4 hours of sleep a night & finished. I was a proud little wife-y! He's on the end stretch of this quarter - no more sets of assignments, pretty much just finishing up his websites for class. It'll be nice when this quarter is over. He's supposed to have one more quarter - Summer quarter.

I guess it should be "big" news: Rod's contract got extended until Feb 2010!!! We found out about the time that I miscarried. We were relieved & excited about it - but preoccupied with the obvious. So he will definitely have a job through then & after that... his contract type will either have to change so that he can stay on OR he'll end up back on unemployment.

We celebrated by going to the Great Wolf Lodge for Sun/Mon. Will blog about that next :D Although, we had it planned a few weeks ago - many, many First Class'ers from all over WA got together & GWL gave us a fantastic group rate!!