'Tis the season to watch movies. The summer blockbusters have been released and for the first time in our lives we have headed to the theater to check things out. Could be that we have a little extra money to play with ... but more likely it is that we have found deals around town. (Matinees: $5, Cheap Seats: $1-$1.75, Regular: $7.50 ... cheap seats are about 1-2 months behind on average)

Last Sunday we headed to Bradenton to see The Bourne Supremacy at the Carmike Royal Palm 20. That was a blast ... joined Amy, Erik, Ron, and Krishen. The movie was great, one of the best sequels I have seen ... if you liked the The Bourne Identity this one is a must.

Wednesday we found ourselves spending our "date night" catching the flick I, Robot. Never read the books and I understand they did not hold true to the original story ... however, this was another wonderful movie. The special effects were very well done - and at times went completely unnoticed ... which I believe should be the goal for CGI.

This afternoon we found ourselves back at the matinee showing of The Village. This was enjoyable, not the best in his series but I enjoyed it ... and worth the $5.

This was all in addition to seeing Spider-Man 2 a couple weeks ago ... another great sequel, total setup for the next chapter. We also found Ben-Hur, The Borne Identity, and Enemy at the Gates and DVD over the last couple weeks. Guess that all makes up for the The Day after Tomorrow experience ... glad that was a cheap seats showing.

We also caught Election last night after the pool party. (which was, btw, a completely enjoyable time ... much needed after these long-hour weeks). We definitely need to add more comedies to our collection, thanks for bringing this one over Krishen.

After the movie you just gotta grab a bite to eat!

With all this work lately I have not been getting many breaks - or when I do I collapse on the coach only to find myself waking up to some really bad TV around 3:30AM. And it is not only my sleep schedule that is hurting ... just because I am working longer at the office does not mean I get a maid to clean up at the house. Melissa has been doing a great job of picking up some of the slack - but quite frankly, I have duties around the house and leaving them up to her is not the answer. Thanks Melissa ... but this set of dishes is mine :)

On the plus side, got out to the beach for a little disc tossing last night. Very relaxing.

So ends (or begins) another week. This last week was work filled - though ending not as bad as I was expecting. Heavy hours in the first few days ... but it tapered off to just minor extensions on Wed-Fri. [Though some of that was due to the fact those are Date-night, Ultimate, FRIDAY respectively]

Even with the extended work hours, or maybe due to it, Melissa and I have been spending most of our free time relaxing together. Which is nice and made date night a very relaxed and enjoyable night off.

Ultimate is something else these days. I injured my left knee a while back, it seems to be minor but does make it hard to play. So ... I take it easy which is quite difficult considering my competitive nature. Hopefully more rest and some trips to the pool and gym will get me back up and running.

Friday, Friday, Friday ... what can I say other than joining Krishen in saying thanks Ron. Kai, Ron, Krishen, Melissa, and myself were to join others for some drinks following work ... don't know if we were late but we seemed to miss the party - and thus made our own. Good beer, good food and good company ... who could ask for more?

Patches enjoys her sunny bed

With all the work of late I have not been snapping pictures, or posting for that matter. But we have been doing a little re-arranging and 'settling'. Pictures are finally making their way onto the walls and we added a couple shelves to help clean up the books and movies. Figured I would share a little of our home-sweet-home on this fine Sunday morning.

Living room

Office

My work cubicle

Here I sit. Punching out code. Combining skills of an Architect, Engineer, Construction worker, Detective, and computer nut-ball. The last couple weeks have been crazy ... and I have to thank Melissa for allowing my the opportunity to spend the long hours at work. I generally enjoy working long hours, at least for stints. Otherwise I feel I am not pulling my weight ... not giving all that I can; guess that is my workaholic side coming out.

I have two major task on my hands right now. Recently I have been trying to implement some new features in some legacy code. Unfortunately, no one available really understands the actual implementation ... only high level concepts. So I am left fiddling in dark places where pulling a single board could pull down the house (good thing is I can step back in time and try something different). I have seem to gain a speciality in tackling old, undocumented, projects. While it is very annoying and frustrating, it is also quite thrilling if you figure out how it is actually working - the task then becomes modifying it without breaking previous functionality. Fun fun fun!

But I do get home (honest!) ... Last night Melissa and I hit Subway for dinner only to run into a coworker in the parking lot. As he is new to the company, we talked about Sarasota and what there is to do. Then got into some 'shop-talk', though it ended up more of a teaching session on physiology. I am still learning so much about how the body works, names, terms, etc. I try and soak up as much as I can - wherever I can.

Anyways ... think it is time to start the day - where's that coffee??

Snapped by Melissa

Art? What is it? What makes a person artistic? These are questions I have been pondering for a little while - though not in such a focused way. It was not until one sleepy drive to work talking to Krishen did the formal question take shape.

Me ... I look at it simply as 'a means of bringing pleasure to your senses'. This is maybe an over simplification that allows for too many things in the 'artistic' range. Dictionary.com reports art as: "Human effort to imitate, supplement, alter, or counteract the work of nature" and/or "High quality of conception or execution, as found in works of beauty; aesthetic value" [they have 9 definitions in total]

The thing is these can all be reduced down to just 'pleasuring the senses'. This would explain while some people find music to be artful and other find it noise. Some find paintings brilliant while others see it as a waste of paper. Thus to be artistic is 'the ability of being able to bring pleasure to others'. Implying, of-course, that it can be learned (which is my only real hope!).

You have 5 senses, visual, taste, touch, sound, and smell. And good art will appeal to these senses. Good food, gardens, music, painting, etc. There is also a '6th sense' of the "mind" that I believe can play a role too. This is the sense that enjoys learning, understanding, and challenging. Thus making the Rubiks Cube and artistic challenge. This is also the "sense" that appeals to the art that provides the stronger negative emotions ... the war photos, etc. Though - this sense may not be defined in any books ... I believe it is there.

These are my thoughts ... my ramblings ... what are you opinions ... what does "art" mean to you?

Another snapped by Melissa, guess you guys know who is the artist in the family eh?

Don't you just hate alarms? Especially when they wake you up too early (even if you set them). This morning mine went off (which I can't fault it for) ... however, it would not "stop". Some button put it on the radio and would not shut off ... very annoying. Not so much for me since I was getting up ... but other people sleeping don't find it so nice. So ... now the alarm resides unplugged and feeling lucky it is still in one piece.

Now, you may be asking, why 4:30 ... what is going on? Well, as you may know, we are looking at getting a new release out ... actually several ... in the next month and a bit. So we all have been putting in a little OT. The problem lies not in getting it done ... but getting it done right. I am trying to avoid the compromise of poor user experience for more functionality - even still some choices have to be made. So the hours are starting to stretch to avoid making some of those choices and the only question left ... how long can one keep this up?

Gun deck of the Castillo De San Marcos

Well, it is that time of year again. We have started pushing for tight release dates and that of course means back to working engineering hours. The entire team is here this fine Saturday morning. I have several major tasks on my plate at the moment and I am hoping that I will be able to clean-up one today. Simply, it is a couple of events and a transfer of a file ... but in reality it is never quite that simple is it :) Anyways, it is good to have a goal ... provides focus to the energy ... and really, who want to be spinning wheels on a Saturday when you could be down at the beach.

Verizon has been calling us recently regarding DSL service ... apparently moving the 15ft across the hall gave us the extra distance we needed to get in range of the central office. So now that we have cable hooked up we are looking at replacing the cable-modem with a DSL-modem. We could get DSL for $30/mth - which is not bad since I was paying almost $25 for dialup. Cable pushes between $40-50 (though we are 2 months into a 6 month deal for $25/mth).

Used both and had decent experiences with both. Right now I do have issues with the cable modem (it stores the MAC address of the computer so I have to reboot the modem if I switch to having the powerbook plugged in).

So, do we want to save money and go with DSL .... or stick with Cable which is already installed?

Our trip is broken into two gallaries, part 1 and part 2

Friday night just before 5PM Melissa and I headed North ... windows rolled down and the breeze in our hair. The sun was shining down with all its power as we rolled into the largest traffic jam I have seen since Seattle. It was the start of our 4 day anniversary. The plan was a whirlwind tour of our neighbourhood, north to Manatee Springs State Park then east to St. Augustine and finally south again to Kennedy Space Center before returning home. But at the moment we weren't going anywhere ... fast anyways.

It was 9PM before we reached the park ... lucky for us the gates were still open - all we had to do was pitch the tent and light the fire, all after the sun had fallen past the horizon. The tent went up quick, but the damp wood failed to start ... it took almost an hour, all our paper, and some of my thumb before the fire finally raged - hint, use Spanish moss. The fire turned out perfect ... we cooked roasted hot dogs and marshmallows and reminisced on 3 years of adventures.

Day 2 started with a canoe trip on the crystal clear waters of the park and the shores of the Suwannee River and a short hike on the lush forest trails. Just after noon we were back in the car heading to the oldest city in the US (founded 1565) - oldest "european" city in North America goes to St. Johns, Newfoundland (founded 1528), now I say "european" city since the Mayan culture dates much farther back (Chichén Itzá dates back to 2600 B.C. - but that was another adventure).

We toured the Castillo de San Marcos and its outpost of Ft. Matanzas. Wondered the streets of old, toured the lighthouse, viewed the 4th of July fireworks, and strolled through a afternoon shower. Ahh ... the memories.

300 years for an additional 3000 miles

By the time the 5th rolled around we were already tired ... yet were treated to a 6:30AM wake-up call and a 2+ hour drive south to Cape Canaveral. Within hours we went for touching the past to dreaming of the future. We spent the day soaking in the exhibits, from the Mercury to Gemini to Apollo to the Shuttle - even a touch of the Atlas 5 and Delta 4 (tomorrow's rocket workhorses). I finally got to take the "Then and Now" tour which passed through the old launch pads, a rocket/missile museum, and the Apollo 1 and 7 launch site - now dedicated to "Gus" Grisson, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee who lost their lives in the tragic fire. It was a experience being there, especially as the Boeing pad for the Delta 4 was just off to the left ... from the yesterday to tomorrow.

Today, our actually anniversary, was spent in almost complete relaxation. I rose to the sun shining through our tent and wondered down to the shore. I sat staring out to the Vehicle Assembly building across the way and the birds chirped in the background ... what a wonderful 3 years it has been ... what a ride ... what an adventure. We have seen some good times and some bad. We have struggled at times and been rewarded at others. However, this past year has found things really starting to come together. We managed to free some debt, purchase some toys, and now enjoy our first real vacation since our honeymoon.

I have posted a few (62) of our favorite pictures - we took around 500 and kept about 250. Since there were so many we broke them into two parts:

Part 1: Manatee Springs, St. Augustine, and Ft. Matanzas

Part 2: KSC, Astronaught Hall of Fame, and Cocoa Beach

Hope you enjoy the trip as much as we did.

In other news:
Scott and Etsuko announced the birth of their new little girl, Amer (ah-mare), born July 4th (7lbs, 2oz). Both Melissa and I wish all three of you the best in health and happiness. Congratulations!!

The other day Jeff proposed an idea, and Krishen challenged ... create a personal "essence of you" CD. Restrictions were only that it had to be a single audio CD. So, I pondered what I could do ... such things are not easy. But I think I have come up with something that fits.

First, what does the "essence of me" mean? Is it a bunch of songs that describe my personality lyrically, is it a set of music that I represents my interests and musical tastes, or is it a group of tunes that people would say "Cam music". I choose to take a little bit from each. For one, I have a hard time describing my personality so finding songs that do was proving to be a challenge (at least in the music that I own). So ... here is what I got.

Beginnings - 6:27
Chicago
This is just a great way to start a CD. At the moment life is going pretty good, I have a good job, strong friendships, good relationship, and stepping into an improved financial position ... and it is only the start of where I want to be.

Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness - 2:52
Smashing Pumpkins
Ending on a peaceful and calm note. The soothing sounds. I love the relaxation.

Now I challenge you, produce your own CD and share the playlist.

With the elections over life can finally get back to normal. Ok ... so life never really changed for me since the whole election was mostly ignored down here. But I am sure that everyone is going to miss the constants news, speeches, town hall meetings, and flyers in the mail box. So ... make sure you take time out - go watch the parade, head down to the lake/ocean/nearest body of water and enjoy a cold drink at the shore.

It has been a good year for Canada. We were awarded the Olympics in 2010, we had a good year in hockey, and I think that as a country we grew through the controversy surrounding Iraq - started defining a little more of what Canada is.

We miss home ... miss the nippy mornings ... miss the rocky shores ... miss the mountains. Hope everyone has a fun and safe 137 birthday party.

Full View - Refresh to update the image, Live shot from "The Hill Cam"