Wednesday, December 02, 2009
Roger's journal entry: Don't wake me up until the dream is over
Ever been in the middle of a wonderful dream, only to have it interrupted by the alarm clock? From the I-didn't-know-that-has-been-invented department, today I learned about a device that will wait until you finish your virtual sex romp before sounding the alarm. How cool is that?!!?
One of the bloggers I regularly read just bought one and posted his review. This thing straps to your head while you are sleeping and it continuously monitors the quality of your sleep. It knows when you're awake, in a light sleep, deep sleep, or REM sleep (dreaming). And you can tell it not to wake you when your dreaming, up to a half hour delay (you can't be late for work, you know).
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Roger's journal entry: Happy Holidays
Season's Greetings from Wisconsin
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to our friends and relatives! I haven't done much blogging lately, so I'll try to recap the year and bring you up to speed.
One of the highlights of the year was Skyler taking his first solo steps a few days before his first birthday in February. He has been practicing ever since, and just last week we had to start reminding him that we walk at the pool, not run.
He is fascinated by anything with wheels and spends the majority of his time pushing cars and trains - in all their forms - all over the house. He also loves water, whether it's in the bathtub, the pool, or the sink. Twice last week he stood at the sink and spent over half an hour filling and emptying cups from the slowly-running faucet.
His favorite words are "Mama", "more" and "no". He communicates more with sign language than verbally at this point and has a signing vocabulary of about twenty words. We posted a video of him showing off his signs.
Margaret started a new part-time job at Fort HealthCare as their first ever Sustainability Coordinator. She will help the hospital find ways to lessen its impact on the environment and ultimately engage in practices that are sustainable over the long haul. This is a position that she helped the hospital to create, then she found a grant that would pay for it, and finally she convinced them to hire her for the position! This is kind of a dream job for Margaret, and I am really proud of her.
Margaret's sister Michaela stayed with us for several weeks in April and joined me on the fire burning crew for Midwest Prairies. We had a lot of fun and she put together an awesome prairie burning video.
My brother John and his wife Trisha had a daughter named Rosalyn, and we are very happy for them. Shantae enjoys being an older sister.
Margaret's mother Pamela took the very rare step of moving from California to Wisconsin to join us in our home. She had lived in northern California her entire life and was ready to try a new adventure. She is quite the brave lady. Some of you know that Pamela also went back to school a few years ago to receive a degree in music. She hopes to teach or play music professionally here in Wisconsin, so you if you have any leads, let us know.
I spent the first half of the year like much of the last few years - happily working every day on Gallery Server Pro, my web gallery software application. This has been the most successful year yet - GSP is now the #1 .NET web gallery. In July I signed an agreement with Microsoft to distribute GSP through their website, which nearly doubled my traffic overnight!
My business model has been to give it away for free but strongly encourage donations. That is bringing in several hundred dollars per month, which is great but not quite enough to pay the bills. In the coming months I will be releasing my first commercial product - Gallery Server Pro for DotNetNuke. This will be a plug-in to the popular DotNetNuke CMS software.
Unfortunately, life has not been all beer and skittles. Since GSP was not paying the bills, in August I put on my consulting hat and started as a software consultant for CUNA Mutual Group in Madison. To avoid the daily one-hour commute, I rented an apartment one block from CUNA. I stay there during the week and Margaret and Skyler either join me on the weekends or I go back to Fort. It has been hard on us but should only last a few more months, after which the savings will be stocked and I can again get back to blissfully plugging away on GSP for at least another couple of years.
We wish everyone a happy holiday season and a safe and healthy 2010.