Friday, November 28, 2008

Ashton is hilarious.

Most recently he's begun loving collecting Transformers and building elaborate fight scenes with lots of sound affects. Ashton plays out these scenes by himself in the bath tub, living room and in the back seat of the car.

Here's a video of Ashton in action...

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving

Every day I'm thankful for all the blessings that God has bestowed upon me and my family. But, on Thanksgiving day I want to share a few with you.

I'm thankful for:

Love
Health
Second Chances
Faith
Laughter
Happiness
Peace

It's been a difficult year with many trials and tribulations affecting my family and job. Yet, I know God has been with me and those I love and care about. During times of deep sadness, I never gave up hope that everything would work out for the best.

I'm thankful for Marc, Ashton, Dalton and Austen. The boys in my life that keep me on my toes.
I'm thankful for my mother, Isabel, and grandmother, Nereida, who love me no matter what.
I'm thankful for my family .... who pick me up when I'm down and celebrate my successes and happiness.
I'm thankful for Larry and Peggy...their unconditional love has given me strength and kept me focused on the positives in my life.
I'm thankful for friends like Maria, Gene and Raquel... who have listened to me vent, given me their compassion and make me laugh.
I'm thankful for the Photo staff at the Sun Sentinel.


What are you thankful for this year.

Get Ready, Get Set ..... EAT!!!!!!!



May your stuffing be tasty
May your turkey plump,
May your potatoes and gravy
Have never a lump.
May your yams be delicious
And your pies take the prize,
And may your Thanksgiving dinner
Stay off your thighs!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING
Now lets eat.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Thanksgiving Facts

Thanksgiving Day Facts from History.com:

Though many competing claims exist, the most familiar story of the first Thanksgiving took place in Plymouth Colony, in present-day Massachusetts, in 1621. More than 200 years later, President Abraham Lincoln declared the final Thursday in November as a national day of thanksgiving. Congress finally made Thanksgiving Day an official national holiday in 1941.

The National Turkey Federation estimated that 46 million turkeys—one fifth of the annual total of 235 million consumed in the United States in 2007—were eaten at Thanksgiving.

Snoopy has appeared as a giant balloon in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade more times than any other character in history. As the Flying Ace, Snoopy made his sixth appearance in the 2006 parade.

Monday, November 24, 2008

Check It Out: Pandora Radio



This morning Sarah turned me on to a free online music provider called Pandora Radio. Since 9:30am I've listen and grooved to some great beats while working of course. I think I'm more productive because of the music. You got to check itout .. plus, it's FREE.

Below is a discription of what Pandora Radio is as described on their website.......

Since we started back in 2000, we have been hard at work on the Music Genome Project. It's the most comprehensive analysis of music ever undertaken. Together our team of fifty musician-analysts has been listening to music, one song at a time, studying and collecting literally hundreds of musical details on every song. It takes 20-30 minutes per song to capture all of the little details that give each recording its magical sound - melody, harmony, instrumentation, rhythm, vocals, lyrics ... and more - close to 400 attributes! We continue this work every day to keep up with the incredible flow of great new music coming from studios, stadiums and garages around the country.

With Pandora you can explore this vast trove of music to your heart's content. Just drop the name of one of your favorite songs or artists into Pandora and let the Genome Project go. It will quickly scan its entire world of analyzed music, almost a century of popular recordings - new and old, well known and completely obscure - to find songs with interesting musical similarities to your choice. Then sit back and enjoy as it creates a listening experience full of current and soon-to-be favorite songs for you.

You can create as many "stations" as you want. And you can even refine them. If it's not quite right you can tell it so and it will get better for you.

The Music Genome Project was founded by musicians and music-lovers. We believe in the value of music and have a profound respect for those who create it. We like all kinds of music, from the most obtuse bebop, to the most tripped-out drum n bass, to the simplest catchy pop tune. Our mission is to help you connect with the music YOU like.

Friday, November 21, 2008

Gardening Project

The House family this past weekend undertook a outdoor lighting, sprinkler and gardening project in preparation for the holiday... and to please the Queen Bee, a.k.a Mami ... Taimy.


Supplies were purchased and the plan was set to fix existing sprinklers, run the pipes, wires and boxes for the outdoor lights in the planters and run a new sprinkler pipe to the middle of the front yard.


Most of Saturday, Marc, Larry and the boys dug and setup the lighting and sprinkler systems. On Sunday, Taimy and Austen purchase the dirt and plants. While, Marc, Larry, Dalton and Ashton finished up what was left to do from Saturday.




It was great working together as a family on a house project. It's been a long time since we'd done a project like this and the house needed some attention badly. There's a lot more still to do, but this is a great start.



We all had a good time ... or, at least, it seemed like they did. I'm looking forward to more quality time with the family working our butts off to make the house a home.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Google hosts LIFE photo archive .. Very Cool!

LIFE Magazine debut in the mid 1930's bring photojournalism to the public of the day and leaving a legacy of historic pages for us to devour inside every old issue today. Now LIFE has teamed up with Google to offer millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today, for you to search online.




Most of the photographs were never published, but are now available for the first time through this joint work of LIFE and Google at http://images.google.com/hosted/life.


Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Life is Precious

Life is Precious

I was reminded of this fact on Sunday when I found out that my friend and co-worker's 16-year-old nephew was killed while riding his bike. The call on Sunday shook me up. I can hear the pain in my friend's voice and only can imagine the horror, pain, and devastation being felt by this teenager's parents and sister.

Take care of those you love.

Hug and kiss them often even when they don't want you to.

Don't hate or anger in your heart for others.

Apreciate those around you and tell them.

Tell those you love ..... I love you.

Life is unpredictible. Life can be long or short. Live every moment you have as if it's your last.

In loving memory of Robert.
The boys at Coldstone eating ice cream.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Key Largo to Key West Ride 2008







Last weekend Peggy rounded family and friends to ride their bikes from Key Largo to Key West in two days. Larry agreed to sag the ride, while Peggy, Marc, Kathy and Tommy hit the road flanked by the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. It was a beautiful weekend with lots of sun. "We ate every 10 miles," recounts Marc who had to cut his ride short after a wheel on his bike broke. But, whatever they ate was burned off by the time they hit Duval Street Sunday.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Friday, November 14, 2008

Photo Retrospect on Halloween









The History of Halloween according to www.history.com..........

The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31, they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.

To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities.

During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other's fortunes. When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.

By A.D. 43, Romans had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the course of the four hundred years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain.

The first was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain probably explains the tradition of "bobbing" for apples that is practiced today on Halloween.

By the 800s, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands. In the seventh century, Pope Boniface IV designated November 1 All Saints' Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs. It is widely believed today that the pope was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, but church-sanctioned holiday. The celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints' Day) and the night before it, the night of Samhain, began to be called All-hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween. Even later, in A.D. 1000, the church would make November 2 All Souls' Day, a day to honor the dead. It was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels, and devils. Together, the three celebrations, the eve of All Saints', All Saints', and All Souls', were called Hallowmas.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

President-elect Obama Photo Sparks Contraversy

The Sun Sentinel used this Getty Images photo on the front page a week ago.

“How could the Sun-Sentinel carried a picture of the president elect, his wife Michelle and his youngest daughter Sasha and omit the oldest daughter, Malia?” asked Gloria Glinton in an e-mail sent in to the newspaper.

Many other readers called and wrote us, saying that our choice of a victory picture for Wednesday morning's paper disappointed them.

I complete understood. I have three kids and I would have hated for one of my son's to be out of a historical front page photo. But, I'm also realistic and understand the challenges that papers face with deadlines, differences in aesthitics and pre-design pages.

Here's why we chose that shot:

-Aesthetic: The picture shows the joy in President-elect Obama’s face, while also giving a sense of a flag-waving crowd cheering for Obama’s historic win. His wife and younger daughter provide additional layers of storytelling with their expressions.

Because of the side stage shooting position of the AFP photographer, Timothy A. Clary, the oldest daughter was blocked in this shot.

-Deadlines: Deadlines are not set by the newsroom, but by the pressroom, which needs time to print the newspaper and get it to the hands of those who deliver and sell it. We had a deadline extension on Tuesday, but by the time President-elect Obama took the stage with his family around midnight and the first photographs started coming in on the wires about 15 minutes later, we had about five minutes to choose a vertical picture from the few then available, move it to the designer to put it on the page and send it to the presses for printing.

-Pre Design: We knew that election results would come in late, so we had to designed the paper in advance taking into account multiple scenarios (A clear winner, a meltdown, no clear winner). If we had a clear winner the pre-design required us to edit for a vertical photo, but most of the first photographs moved were horizontal images of the family.

During the small window of time we had, we decided on the best vertical photograph we saw on the wires at that time and went with it.

What do you think?