Author Archives: Kevin

family memories

  By Kevin | February 21, 2012 - 7:37 pm | family
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In 2006 my brother paid to have all of the 8mm and Super 8 movies my dad had recorded converted to a digital format. They were converted to digital video tape and then my brother converted them to .AVI files. Over the years since Christmas 2006, the family has talked about finishing the project. The videos are in some order but not completely and there needed to be some editing of heads and tails on many videos. Recently I volunteered to push this project forward. I had hoped to have it completed by last Christmas (2011) only five years after we received the files, but I didn’t quite make it.

Since around Thanksgiving I have worked on them. We started out with 76 Files (after removing blanks and titles,) totaling just over 4 Hours. I’ve split all the multiple files and eliminated all the heads and tails on the videos, loosing about 5 minutes worth of movies. But now we’re up to 160 files.  However I’m taking a little break from this project for I’m not exactly sure how to proceed.  The videos are now all on YouTube. They still need titles and more information.  (Mainly dates so that they can be put in order, but also names of people and places.)  Lately I’ve been working to make family memories/archives more readily available / share-able but in the back of my head are personal privacy issues.  I don’t think the content of these videos would make or break anyone’s life, but I’m curious how people feel. I’m not sure how many of you family members visit here but if you have an opinion let me know.  Also I’d love it if you want to make comments on the videos (with any sort of info you have. I’ve restrained from putting names on them in case people don’t want these showing up in a google search, but if you’re okay with it, feel free to let me know and I’ll add the info eventually.)  Also as personal touch, above I’ve shared what is probably my first time on camera, circa 1974, I’m the one with the red hair and the diaper.

valentine’s day

  By Kevin | February 14, 2012 - 9:42 pm | family, love, married life
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I have to admit that I believe that Valentine’s day is a holiday more for men that are courting than for people in a relationship. I prefer to celebrate other holidays (Christmas, birthdays, etc.) and celebrate our love everyday. So when Meg suggested we exchange small gifts and celebrate at home relatively simply, I agreed wholeheartedly. Meg was gone last weekend and I wanted to re-connect so we exchanged gifts early (ok I couldn’t wait – I thought my gifts for her were too awesome to wait.) We enjoyed a nice dinner at home tonight.

For the record, Meg gave me an awesome kitchen torch and vanilla beans for making creme brulee at home. and I gave her a number of fun pads from Knock, Knock. including the paper tweet.  I think we both hit home runs.

Now, if you’ll indulge me for a minute, let me gush about me wife.  Meg started a new job a few weeks ago.  She now works as the Community Manager for Hennepin County.  It’s been a lot of change (from weeks of waiting to tell people, to working both at the county and for the library, to now getting used to a new job and new coworkers, etc.) but she’s been a great trooper about it.  She always seems on top of it all, including keeping things running well at home.  (If it were me, we’d have run out of toilet paper or something else important by now.)  I’m really proud of her for taking this big step and trying something new.  The county is very excited to have her working there, and based on the large attendance at her going away party (you make a lot of friends in a 10 year tenure) they’re going to miss her tremendously at the library.  I think this is a beginning to a great new chapter in our lives.

paper

  By Kevin | January 21, 2012 - 10:16 pm | married life, wedding
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Tomorrow, Meg and I will have been married for one year.  We started to celebrate today by presenting each other with presents made of paper.

The names of some anniversaries provide guidance for appropriate or traditional gifts for the spouses to give each other; if there is a party these can be brought by the guests or influence the theme or decoration. These gifts vary in different countries, but some years have well-established connections now common to most nations: 5th Wooden, 10th Tin, 15th Crystal, 20th China, 25th Silver, 35thPearl, 40th Ruby, 50th Golden, 60th Diamond. The tradition may have originated in medieval Germany where, if a married couple lived to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their wedding, the wife was presented by her friends and neighbours with a silver wreath to congratulate them for the good fortune that had prolonged the lives of the couple for so many years. On celebration of the 50th, the wife received a wreath of gold. Over time the number of symbols expanded and the German tradition came to assign gifts that had direct connections with each stage of married life. The symbols have changed over time.(via wikipedia)

Meg and I decided to go with the traditional gifts making this year’s gift paper (and we additionally decided that we would create them ourselves) They are shown below.

 

balance

  By Kevin | December 13, 2011 - 2:50 pm | family, home, love, married life
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So I’ll admit, I’ve been having some problems with balance lately.

  • Work – Home Balance
  • Regular Work – Freelance Work Balance
  • Social Time – Contemplative Time Balance
  • Project Time – Relaxation Time Balance

Luckily for me my work schedule is based on an academic calendar so I get some time here in Dec-Jan to reset the scales again and get things back closer to unity.  Look forward to some posts then (including a 2011 wrap-up)  In the meantime watch this video of one of Meg’s Calm Jars.

consumption?

  By Kevin | November 18, 2011 - 9:29 am | home, married life
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Contrary to popular belief, I had a really annoying cold combined with strep throat, not Tuberculosis recently. (I say “had” even though I still have to clear my throat more times and than I can count in a day and cough more than I’d like, I’m getting over it I swear.)  This illness and my incredibly overbooked work and social calendar have caused me to be absent both here and pretty much everywhere else online.  Perhaps I’ll recap in a future post, but for now I can show you the last project finished and the next event planned

Gianni

Gianni Schicchi - Performed by the CSB/SJU Music Department

Packers Tickets

Packers Tickets for Sunday November 20th

I’ll catch up soon. . . Well actually probably in December.   Take care everyone.

Kevin

 

finally

  By Kevin | August 14, 2011 - 8:36 am | wedding
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Ok so I’m not sure what excuse I have to just be getting the wedding photos up online, but if you think of a good one, please let me know.

The photos in the slideshow (click HERE for the FULLSCREEN version) below were taken by our good friend Louisa (and her assistant Jess) – Louisa works for Rivets and Roses Photography.

Please contact Meg or myself if you see a photo you’d like to have (we have the ability to do that and we don’t need to bother Louisa – or we may already have plans to send you one soon anyway)

pot rack

  By Kevin | July 25, 2011 - 7:01 pm | home
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We received an incredibly generous gift card for Kitchen Window as a wedding present.  We purchased an ice cream scoop, some syrup to make soda (with our soda stream,) a shaker (for sesame seeds), ghirardelli chocolate for home made-mochas with the Nespresso, and a pot rack.

The pot rack is designed to go on the wall, which we thought would be better since we’re just renting.  The instructions say you’re supposed to attach each mounting point to a stud.  However, I don’t know any walls with studs only 7 1/2″ apart.  So to reinforce the rack, I purchased a piece of stainless steel.  I had to cut/drill/countersink/ and sand(polish) it. Check out the pictures below, I think it turned out pretty well.

facebook with family

  By Kevin | July 17, 2011 - 7:44 pm | family, married life
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Meg and I have always had different opinions about asking people (we already know) to be connected on Facebook and other social media networking sites. There isn’t any wrong with either of our approaches to this situation but I feel like I’m beginning to move toward her method (which as I understand, consists of asking anyone she knows to be connected on Facebook.)

We attended a lovely party today with all the family and friends (on my side of the family) who came to wish us congratulations and good luck with our new wedded bliss. During one of the many conversations we had today, someone mentioned facebook and “who really wants to know if my son lost a tooth?” Well the truth is I guess we do.  As I introduced Meg to various family and friends she hadn’t met before I sometimes recalled that I hadn’t seen them in years. They have children I haven’t met, and we all regret that we haven’t seen each other more often.  This desire to keep in touch seems more difficult in this age where we all live where the work is and we try to live lives of happy existence, but we start to loose touch with those out of sight.

So I’m going to get over my un-substantiated fear of sticking my nose in where it doesn’t belong (or isn’t wanted) and start connecting to more family and friends on Facebook.  However I’m still not promising this will make me more active on Facebook, but one step at a time.

thank you’s (whew)

  By Kevin | June 19, 2011 - 9:33 pm | married life
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If you remember a few posts ago, I mentioned that Meg and I were working on wedding thank you’s. Technically we’ve been working on them for quite some time. I am happy to announce that as of tomorrow, we will be finished with formal thank you notes for the wedding. We finished writing them last week, but I hadn’t had time to get to the post office until Monday.

We’re both sorry that it has taken us so long to get them all out, but we hope you all know that our tardiness wasn’t caused by a lack of sincerity or thankfulness, but more by a number of life complications beyond our control. We were both truly humbled by all the things we were helped with and/or given around the wedding. It made our wedding that much more special.

ps. just in case your curious why it might have taken this long for us to finish: we wanted to make sure we took our time and wrote personal notes of thanks that conveyed how thankful we really were for each gift, we wanted to make sure they all mailed at the same time so that no one talked to someone who got one while they hadn’t, and then we picked bigger cards and I needed to make sure that we didn’t get them returned due to insufficient postage. (oh and omg, if you don’t get yours, please let us know, we want to make sure we thank everyone properly.)