My updates are few and far between partly due to distractions like browsing for Aquatalia boots, especially thanks to Bing Cashback (offering 25% back on these boots in particular! – but still over my budget for winter boots in the Bay Area..)
My Pandora station is still stuck on Mariah Carey Christmas because I want Christmas to stick around just a little bit longer. I’m aiming to leave the lights up, put off the white elephant gift exchange until the new year and soak up the holidays for …

There is a lot to process after attending last week’s Streaming Media West conference in San Jose. Aside from all that takeaways relevant to digital media for the enterprise, I also wanted to test out some of the new (or at least new to me) toys for my blog.

Immediately after OpenWorld, Basil and I took off and headed to the town of Mammoth Lakes, east of the Sierra’s. I didn’t set aside any time to research this spot, so luckily Basil had the entire trip mapped out. In fact, I knew so little about where we were headed that I told my boss embarrassingly that I was going to “Lake Mammoth.”

Last week on a Wednesday, well into my daily morning ritual of hitting the snooze button and lounging a bit more in bed, I finally decide to get up and start my day. But not until after sneaking in one final morning stretch to get the sleep kinks out of my body. I reach up and out and.. out pops my shoulder from the socket! Wow, I’m out of shape. The sucker just slips out over the cartilage and there I am, trapped in bed with my arm hanging out of the socket. Hmmm… what a conundrum.

There are whole discussions about whether these lomographic cameras create art or cheap photography but I have to admit that I’m a fan. I’ve been lazy to research and finally purchase one, although I’m sure when I stop playing Farmville for 5 minutes and commit some of my “personal fund” to this venture, I can make this happen.

In the meantime, I’ve found this fun how-to article that gives a step-by-step walk-through on creating your own Lomo effects in Photoshop.

Last night Basil and I realized we had a free and quiet Friday night tonight… no plans, no obligations, no work to catch up on… *?blink?* …. What the heck should we do? The soon-to-be-found, somewhat-obvious answer of course was: what else but Endless Shrimp at Red Lobster!? Now, this may not sound that exciting to you, but whenever that commercial comes on TV announcing this fine limited-time offer, Basil yells out, “ooooh yeah!!” and I know that our next date night is going to be about filling our faces with endless rounds of 4-5 different preparations of our little shellfish friends.

I visited Christina and Rob in Reno last weekend and as usual got the royal treatment – always great fun catching up with them! I joked that they need to host their own reality TV show on child-rearing because I seriously have not seen anything quite like the routine they’ve got going with their son, Ethan (age 3 1/2). Everything (and I mean ev-er-y-thing) is a teaching moment and he is such a smart, observant, well-rounded, well-behaved, and joyful child!

The Encounter Youth Group attempted its first fundraiser of the year at the Berryessa Flea Market. We had actually cooked up this idea years ago and collected a closet full of trash-to-treasure items but never got around to actually committing to go until now.

To brighten up the room, we (and by “we” I mean mostly Anna, Stella and Christine) created pom-poms, following the very simple instructions by Martha Stewart. At the risk of breaking one of Brad Pitt’s “New Rules for Highly Evolved Humans” I’m linking to her how-to for party poms. I love these! My infatuation started after seeing 2 bright pink poms in the room of Andy & Olinda’s daughter. Great craft idea to spruce up a room and add a touch of whimsy.

One major reason for me to blog is to send something over to my parents to read while they are in China. I’m pretty sure they don’t use rss feeds and it seems the best way to get them to this site is to send them periodic reminder emails that this blog has been updated.

In response to the latest email my mom writes: