Callies Adventures

Anniversary Surprises

2008-09-26T22:00:00.000-07:00

Will you marry me again, Kiet? Always and Forever

This is what the marquis sign read at Salty's on the Columbia on Friday night, our 10th wedding anniversary. McKenzie and I rode up in a horse and carriage to Kiet awaiting our arrival. The sun was setting over Kiet's shoulder, and the sky was a beautiful hue of pink and purple. Kiet was dressed in an evening suit and looking even more handsome than 10 years ago. However, he had that same sparkle in his eyes when I first walked down the aisle many years ago. How could I be so lucky to be able to repeat that special day and feel even more love than the day we wed? I don't know, and all I care about is that we continue to fall in love with each other over and over again.

The evening ceremony was perfect. We were lucky enough to find a minister, Michael Braxton, who crafted a beautiful and spiritual ceremony for us that made us feel like he had known us for a very long time. As the sun was setting, we read our vows to each other in front of friends and family. McKenzie watched as her parents reaffirmed their lifetime commitment of love. What more could I want?

I thought it was my day to shower Kiet with surprises, but he actually got me! Michael blessed the rings for us to exchange them again. Michael gave me Kiet's ring, and I slipped it on his finger with the renewed promise of lasting love and devotion. As Michael handed Kiet my ring, my eyes never left Kiet's. Kiet slipped the ring onto my finger as he recited his promise. Then, when Michael said to him, "... as you give Jill this NEW ring ...", I scrunched my face, wondering if I heard the words correctly. I pulled my finger out from Kiet's hand and saw, through the instant tears of joy, the most beautiful NEW diamond ring upon my finger. And I was speechless for a moment.

... and so our story begins again.

McKenzie's New Hat

2008-03-29T11:54:00.001-07:00

McKenzie's New Hat, originally uploaded by Kiet Callies.

Last night I pushed myself to finish McKenzie's knitted hat, and to
tell you the truth, I am quite happy with the results. Though I have
done several "practice" pieces to learn my stitching techniques, this
is my first completed project.

McKenzie seems happy with her new hat.

Another Visit to the Apple Genius Bar

2008-03-26T17:37:00.001-07:00

Another Visit to the Apple Genius Bar, originally uploaded by Kiet Callies.

Some time ago I noticed some gray smudges on the LCD screen of my
MacBook Pro, annoying but tolerable, at least not enough to drive me
to the Genius Bar.

The straw that broke the camel's back was my MacBook Pro would
completely power down without any low battery warning or going into
sleep mode. This is a real bummer when it does this in the middle of
doing some work. I tried all the recommended resets. Nothing.

Thankfully I purchased AppleCare.

San Francisco

2008-02-26T18:34:00.001-08:00

We are just returning from San Francisco, a weekend celebration of
Sandra Fladger's 50th birthday. This was our second trip to the Bay
Area, and with each return, I am always a bit more impressed with the
culture of the area. This probably stems from the magazines I
subscribe to and regularly read: Make, Craft and Wired, all of which
are based out of the Bay Area. The area speaks to my inner technogeek,
and I am not ashamed to admit it.

While stuck in our hotel room during a fit of heavy rains, I picked up
my iPhone while lying in bed, opened up Google Maps and typed in craft
in the search bar and hit the Google button. I discovered an
interesting result, Craft Gym.

Craft Gym? What the heck was that, I asked myself as I sat up in bed.
I opened up the contact information and tapped on the included URL.
Safari opened up the website, and I navigated to the about page.

It compared itself to a health club, selling access to high-level
industrial equipment and training sessions for a variety of crafts.
One could purchase daily or monthly access passes. Very interesting,
indeed. It was something that struck a cord to my maker ethic. I
shared my find with Jill, and Jill liked the concept also.

I had discovered a similar service, but for industrial arts, called
TechShop. In fact, I was excited to also learn that a Portland-area
branch was scheduled to open this summer. I definitely will be trying
out the service.

During our visit, we also managed to visit the Exploratorium, which I
absolutely loved, and it warmed my heart to see McKenzie excited to
touch and play with the exhibits as much as I did. The Exploratorium
does such an excellent job in showing the aesthetic beauty of nature
and science and inspiring you to become more fully aware of that
beauty. The short afternoon we spent there wasn't nearly enough to
even scratch the surface.

We also managed to extend our caching streak to 156 straight days with
at least one geocaching find. As lame as this may sound, I hold a
great deal of pride in our streak, offering a small sense of
accomplishment and control in a world that is becoming increasingly
more daunting and chaotic. What can you say that you have done
consciously for 155 consecutive day? Outside our caching streak, I can
say nothing.

I guard and treasure our streak as I become more and more acutely
aware that, as with all streaks, it must one day end.

Sent from my iPhone

Knitting, The Next Great Adventure?

2008-02-09T09:24:00.001-08:00

Knitting, The Next Great Adventure?

, originally uploaded by

Kiet Callies

For Christmas, Jill gave me Knitting & Crocheting for Dummies, which was prompted by a recent tweet to research knitting as a recent micro trend. I had been reading Mark Penn's Microtrends at the time.

By the end of Christmas Day, after an initial struggle, I taught myself how to cast-on, knit and purl. The knitting bug had struck. Now I was in active research mode.

I discovered Knit/Purl while searching for nearby knitting shops on my iPhone, using the Google Maps application. By far, it is my favorite knitting establishment. I found their selection large and their staff extremely helpful, especially for a novice like myself.

I believe interesting things are on their way as I diverge onto another path.

User Generated Content

2007-11-15T12:26:00.000-08:00

My father sends me links to TED Talks on a regular basis, and his most recent one is one that really struck a cord in my heart. The subject of this particular talk, given by Larry Lessig, was user generated content and copyright law and how the law is strangling creativity. How do John Philip Sousa, airplanes and trespass law and the ASCAP cartel make Larry Lessig's point? Watch the video. He explains much better and more entertaining than I could ever write.

In the dawn of the mashup, I get it and understand its power and appeal. You can take divergent data sources, which you haven't created or collected, and then overlay and intertwine them into something new that shows the world in a different and invigorating way. This is what human culture has done since its very beginnings, taking the old, remixing and re-creating it for the next generation.

The difference today is that we are seeing a democratization of the tools of production. Now, more and more people are able to enter the arena once only occupied by the professional. We are seeing the rise of the amateur, which should not to be mistaken with the amateurish, people producing content for the love of what they are doing rather than for the money.

This, I feel, will extend to beyond the digital. I see this in Jill's cardmaking, and I really feel the next big push will be in the manufacturing process. I can envision the average home having a fabricator or 3D printer as a standard computer peripheral. Users will just download designs off the Internet, send them to their device and create a physical object for their use. Need a spare part for your dishwasher? Go to the manufacturer's website, download the design file of the part needed, send it to your device and after the device is done creating it, you have your spare part ready for installation.

McKenzie and her generation will understand and embrace this mashup process so much more than I ever will and have tools that I would never thought possible to own, re-creating things and concepts beyond my wildest dreams. Hopefully, we will apply common sense to existing copyright law before it's too late.

The Next Frontier

2007-10-22T17:55:00.000-07:00

Over the last couple of weeks I have been accumulating electronics hobby equipment. Actually it started last winter when I purchased a Lego Mindstorms kit. I did some interesting things with it; however, when I upgraded my computer to MacBook, the bluetooth connectivity was lost along with my interest. Lego, however, did upgrade the software as a Mac Intel native application, restoring bluetooth connectivity and probably my interest.

Recently I added a powered breadboard, a MAKE Controller Kit and, most recently, a mini Arduino. I have inserted the Arduino on the power breadboard and have been experimenting with blinking LEDs and simple DC motor control. The MAKE Controller Kit, though more powerful, is a bit more complicated. I find my programming skills now branching off into the C programming language in order to program the microprocessors. I am rather excited about this new fork in the road.

I also discovered the Processing programming language, which was developed by artist and designers to program images, animations and interactions.

This newfound interest in electronics and robotics is an extension of the virtual into the physical and how the line between the two is blurring. I am imagining projects in which data from the real world is sent to the virtual world. An example I see is connected a photocell to one of my microprocessors, connecting that data stream to our web site and having it choose from a series of images taken of our home at various times of the day the most appropriate image based upon the most current photocell data. Another example is a virtual reflecting pond hosted on our website, which an user simulates the dropping of a pebble on the pond's surface with a mouse click, and this action would be transmitted to the microprocessor at home actually dropping a real pebble onto a real reflecting pond at home.

Of my many mistakes in life, I regret that I never took advantage of developing my math and science skills to their potential. Though not completely lost in the subject manner, it never came to me easily, and as I grow older, I am learning that I have have the propensity of doing that which comes easy to me, setting aside that which challenges me as unimportant. I never fully accepted math and science's challenges and am paying for my past laziness now. My mind is no longer as young, flexible and agile as it once was. It becomes difficult for me, pardon the clique, to think outside the box. I am now late out of the starting blocks.

However, I look at my race with time more as a marathon and really more as a marathon relay. McKenzie, and her children and their children and all the way down the track, will continue this race for me. I hope that my interest and my love and need for discovery will give McKenzie the spark as she continues to grow and develop and that she will avoid the mistakes and pitfalls of my wasted potential. I want math and science, all learning for that matter, to come to her as second nature, so that if ever questioned about her love for learning, she cocks her head that way she does and answers, "Doesn't everybody?"

I hope that together we will learn, she from me and I from her.

Staying Connected

2007-10-13T20:32:00.000-07:00

Some of you may have noticed the addition of Twitter to our website back at the end of May. It's addition to my writing toolbox was prompted by Twitter being feature in a NPR's Story of the Day podcast. Twitter is often referred to as micro-blogging, allowing people from around the world to send updates about the moments in their lives. Usually from my mobile phone with its text messaging feature, I have posted super brief posts (140 characters or less) to fill in the gaps in between my writings. In fact Twitter has filled in huge gaps recently as I haven't had the time, and sometimes the desire, to keep up on my writing.

What makes Twitter so compelling you may be asking. Who cares about what a bunch of ordinary people are doing at any moment of time, about the mundane details of their lives? The value, from my perspective, is not in the individual tweet, but in the aggregation of data. I have a tendency of looking at art and creativity as a geological process, not a Big Bang explosion of inspiration. Twitter is one of those forces that acts upon landscape, like the wind or rain, changing and honing it. Individual instances of wind or water erosion usually have small impacts; however aggregate these instances, the changes are breathtaking. Over time, I have amassed a body of work from which to draw upon.

With only 140 characters to work with, Twitter has helped hone my writing skills. With every tweet, I try to write with descriptive elegance, capturing the context of the moment, not always succeeding, but always trying.

I also believe tweeting, and writing in general, adds to the quality of your life as you try to make your life as compelling and relevant as possible to your audience, whoever you may deem that to be, or at least to state your case as to why you think it is. By doing so, you heed Socrates' warning about the unexamined life not worth living.

Most of all, I like to hope, if you find yourself off track, you are forced to making a change for the better.

Row, Row, Row Your Boat

2007-10-09T10:57:00.000-07:00

I am excited that McKenzie every morning will climb on top of me while I am lying in bed, grab my thumbs and start motioning my arms as if oars. I, of course, will wake up and sing the song Row, Row Row Your Boat, and at the end of the song, McKenzie will clap her hands with joy and restart the whole process over and over again, never tiring of it before I do. I hope she shows that same enthusiasm when taking the oars of our drift boat as we fly-fish some river or another together father and daughter.

Release of Our New Site Design Near

2007-10-05T12:30:00.000-07:00

Over the last couple weeks I have been working on a new site design, trying to consolidate my pages into a single page with a more efficient layout. I am also trying to wean myself off Rapidweaver and graduate to Dreamweaver CS3. However, I will continue to utilize Rapidweaver for my blog entries. If you're interested, I have posted the beta site here.

Because of the time-based nature of my content, I really want to make my timeline web application the foundation of my site navigation.

I also didn't want people to have to navigate too far from this one page, or at least seem to never go beyond this one page. In order to achieve this, without massive screen clutter, I used an accordion structure to hide and unhide information, giving the reader some control as to which information he wanted displayed at the moment. These are the tabs that you can click onto to display and then hide sections of content. I also used the greybox effect to bring outside content without having the user feel as if he were being pushed away from the original page. This happens when you click on one of the photos or links inside the timeline and it displays the new content in an overlay over the original page.

What I have really been struggling with is Internet Explorer. As I am designing more and more web sites, I find that Internet Explorer always gives me problems. I design a site, and it works perfectly in Safari or Firefox. However, it's broken in Internet Explorer. I would love to say screw Internet Explorer; however, there is too big of an audience that doesn't know any better to stop using this piece of garbage software. So I am forced to compromise my design for compatibility. I can only hope that, if the reader hasn't done so already, he clicks on the Firefox badge below in the footer, installs Firefox and sees the World Wide Web with open eyes.

Falling Back Into the Routine

2007-10-03T12:14:00.000-07:00

I am trying to fall back into the routine of writing regularly. It seems that I am able to come up with more and more excuses as to why I have no time.

Well, today I had to take the Volvo to Portland for service and managed to schedule some of my Portland errands at the same time. I am car-less in Portland, utilizing my Xootr and the Portland Streetcar to get around. I stopped at PSU and registered for more coursework in the multimedia program. I managed to have myself talked into taking more course than I had originally planned. This fall, I will be learning about CSS, business strategies for new media and Adobe's Flash.

In between appointments, I am doing what my generation will be noted in the history annuals for, sitting in a coffee shop, wired on caffeine and to the Internet, and pounding our this dispatch. I am trying to take a moment to excise some of the random thoughts that are swimming in my head before my next appointment with a client I am doing some FileMaker database programming for.

Jill tells me that some of you readers out there miss my dispatches, and I always find it hard to believe that anyone, other than Jill, reads my drivel. Then again, I did have a recent conversation with someone who commented that I hadn't written anything recently. Perhaps Jill isn't trying to inflate my ego.

McKenzie continues to grow and develop into her own person, and that never ceases to amaze me. As I watch her grow and learn, I become more and more of an optimist for the future. She drinks in her environment. She understands the world with a simplicity that only a child could possess. She shows a fascination and curiosity that inspires me.

The other morning, I gave her a handful of pocket change for her to deposit into her bank. Jill and I bought her an elephant coin bank, which sits about two feet tall and you feed the coins into the elephant's trunk. The coins rolled down the trunk and into the transparent belly. Over the course of the months, I have watched McKenzie develop the fine motor skills to hold the coin in her fingers, position the coin over the coin slot and release the coin. She is giddy with excitement over her accomplishment. Each coin is an equal source of excitement and joy.

When I watch her do this, I think about my own development and how even now I am still developing new skills that only come with time.

I am off to my next appointment . . .

What happens when you watch too much TV news

2007-08-14T22:48:00.001-07:00

What happens when you watch too much TV news

Originally uploaded by

Kiet Callies

While watching the evening news, Jill became worried about the massive recall for toys made in China, lead paint. She pulled out each of McKenzie's toys and checked each's place of manufacture. It became overwhelming when she soon learned that nearly all of her toys were made in China.

Sent from my iPhone

Waiting for Jill's Foot Surgery

2007-07-23T10:15:00.001-07:00

Waiting for Jill's Foot Surgery

, originally uploaded by

Kiet Callies

 Jill is scheduled for foot surgery this morning. Her Achilles tendon in her right foot needs to be repaired, and we hope that this will be the beginning to the road of recovery. 
Since the beginning of her foot problems back in 2003, she has been experiencing so much discomfort in her foot that she hasn't been able to be as active as she would like. We're hoping that this surgery is the step in right direction. 
Kiet Callies Sent from my iPhone

Happy Birthday, Miranda

2007-07-10T11:28:00.000-07:00

Miranda is celebrating her 8th birthday. I will be uploading more Miranda photos taken over the years to the slideshow above. Tune in for more.

The Space Between

2007-07-10T09:17:00.000-07:00

It has been awhile again, and the time seems to be escaping me. I have been so busy, and yet I seem that I haven't accomplished much in these last few months. I am currently sitting at PDX with Daniel waiting to get him off onto his flight home. He stayed an extra couple days with us. I have tried to show him a good time, but there are times when an 11-year-old boy will challenge one's patience. All in all, he is a good boy.
I finished the spring semester at Portland State University. I have enrolled myself in the Multimedia Certification program in order to expand my skill set and my horizons. Lately, I have been feeling stuck in a rut, searching for a creative outlet for my energies. I am really interested in web development, hoping to use it as a springboard for some design work.
After my paper crane and baby nursery projects, I have not really produced anything really awe-inspiring, something that I step back from and say, "Cool." That has sunk me to the level of looking for external validation of my creativity and possibly my worth. I am beginning to wonder if anything I undertake is worthwhile, and this is not a good feeling. Hopefully, I will look back at this entry, shake my head and ask myself what I was thinking.
I recently finished the Ten Face of Innovation and learned an interesting insight. The premise was that while the Baby Boomer generation was more fixated with material wealth, my generation was more interested in experience wealth. It wasn't about how much money you made, but how many rich and varied life experiences you had. I thought that this struck a chord of truth and explained why I have taken up the hobbies I have. Though not necessarily inexpensive, fly fishing, geocaching, photography, mapping, blogging, web development have all been about the life experiences that they have provided. Everything in my life now seems to be driven toward making sense of the world around me and connecting to others in some meaningful way.
Have I achieved that? No. With the exception of a few, I still feel isolated, and it has come to the point where I feel extremely comfortable with that. I try to make a concerted effort to open myself up, and probably the most recent example that comes to mind is my attendance of the portfolio reviews of the Multimedia Program at the end of the spring semester, a great social and career networking opportunity. Instead, I eventually walked away feeling extremely awkward.
However, tomorrow's another day, and let's see what it brings.

McKenzie Riding the Portland Streetcar

2007-07-05T17:01:00.001-07:00

McKenzie Riding the Portland Streetcar

, originally uploaded by

Kiet Callies

McKenzie took Grandpa, Uncle Son and Cousins Dan and Ian on the MAX train and then the Porland Streetcar. Of course she let me take over when a nap was in order.

 
Kiet Callies
Sent from my iPhone

Family Visit

2007-07-03T10:03:00.001-07:00

Family Visit

, originally uploaded by

Kiet Callies

Dad, Son, Ian and Daniel are visiting. We're off to the Tillamook State Forest.  
Sent from my iPhone

First iPhone moblog entry

2007-07-02T12:26:00.001-07:00

First iPhone moblog entry

, originally uploaded by

Kiet Callies

Sent from my iPhone

The New Apple iPhone

2007-06-30T02:36:00.000-07:00

When the iPhone was first announced some months back, though impressed, I was not excited. My initial reaction was cool, but wait and see. However, in the weeks of hype, I admit that I have been suckered in by the power of the simple demonstration TV commercials, and I, too, could no longer wait and see.

I did manage to wait and not get in line hours before its 6:00 PM scheduled launch on June 29th. I impatiently waited until about 8:00 PM. First I called first the nearest AT&T Wireless Store. They only had a couple of 4GB iPhones left. No good; only the 8GB model would do. I then got onto the web and checked the online inventory status of the iPhone at the Bridgeport Village Apple Store. The indicator icon blazed a great green. Go for iPhone. I called and spoke with Kyle.

"Hello, Kyle," I answered his greeting. "I was wondering if you have had any 8GB iPhones left."

"Why yes we do," he answered.

"Great," I answered back. "I'll be down to grab one."

OK, well, maybe not the exact conversation, but something like that.

At 8:21 PM, I loaded Jill and McKenzie into the car. McKenzie in her pajamas as it was near the cusp of her bedtime; however, this is a moment to share with loved ones. I even asked Koda if he wanted to ride along, but he thought I was out of my mind. We were off to Bridgeport Village to the Apple Store to buy my iPhone.

By 9:23 PM, after only a few minutes of playing with a floor display, we were back in the car, hurrying to get home to activate the phone.

Now the activation of the phone hasn't gone as smoothly as I would have liked, mainly due to a hang-up on AT&T's end, and I am currently still waiting for my activation to be completed. Apparently I am not alone as thousands are voicing their frustration on the Apple Support Discussion Boards. I received an email, stating that AT&T is now processing my activation, and at the time of this writing, I am still waiting.

McKenzie and Daddy Sing

2007-06-23T11:46:00.001-07:00

This morning while McKenzie and Kiet were in the shower, I was making the bed while listening to the two of them with their morning chatter. Kiet began to sing a song he was just making up as he went along to McKenzie and before long McKenzie was singing along with her Daddy. They are quite a duo. McKenzie is very much her Daddy's girl. Her favorite word is still "Daddy". She spends a lot of time talking about him even when he is not in her sights. Whenever she is upset with me she howls for her "Daddy". Yipes!!!! it has already begun.....I think I am in for trouble!

McKenzie at the Rose Festival Parade

2007-06-09T10:41:00.001-07:00

McKenzie at the Rose Festival Parade

, originally uploaded by

Kiet Callies

Notes from the Field:  We attended the Rose Festival Parade today, catching the MAX train from the airport into downtown. It was McKenzie's first ride on the MAX.

Mother and Daughter Bored with Father

2007-05-06T11:01:00.001-07:00

Mother and Daughter Bored with Father

, originally uploaded by

Kiet Callies

Notes from the field:  Daughter like mother, I am learning as both Jill and McKenzie prefer the happenings at other tables. We are enjoying Sunday morning breakfast at Westside Cafe and Bakery in Bend. It seems to have been such a long time since we were last in Bend, or perhaps it's because we don't come as frequently as we did before McKenzie's arrival.  McKenzie, Koda and I went caching while Jill got ready this morning. We found two, raising our total to 243. I am debating on what to do for the rest of the day, geocache as a family or fish by myself. I think the family thing is going to win.  There is plenty here around Bend that I have missed out on in pursuit of trout. Caching with Jill, McKenzie and Koda will open up some new windows.

It's Been Awhile

2007-05-02T22:17:00.000-07:00

While reading one of my many news feeds, I learned that today is geocaching is seven years old, and that reminded me that it's been awhile since my last post.

We have been busy. Work is picking up as Jill and I ready the Amphitheater for the upcoming season. Our first event is the WSU-Vancouver graduation on May 12th. My continuing education and our raising a sweet but rambunctious sixteen-month-old toddler doesn't leave us much time, and some things suffer. Before, in my youth, my greatest and most abundant resource was time; however, these last few months have opened my eyes to the fact that time has become a precious commodity.

School is going well. For the first time, I feel that I am learning something new, not just honing on my skills until there is nothing more to sharpen. The program isn't as technical as I had hoped. My courses, for now, seem to have more of a marketing and project management focus, which isn't bad for me. Jill has been broadcasting my school to others, and already she has strummed up two strong job possibilities for me. She is my marketing department.

The other thing I enjoy about school is the opportunity to step out of my shell and develop my collaboration skills. As I grow older, I have come to recognize my many faults. One of these has been my stubborn independence, which I once held up as a badge of great achievement. I have now come to realize just how much I have missed and hope to turn that around before it's too late.

These last few months I have been reflecting upon relevance and its importance. I want my life to be relevant: what I have learned, what I believe and what I have experienced, and the thing is, I am beginning to realize, that relevance is sharing.

Despite the fact that the news isn't updated as often as I would like, I do update other portions of this site on a pretty regular basis. Life Snippets has new photos, fed by Flickr, and timeline entries. Our Geocaching shows our latest finds and where our travel bugs have been. I know two little girls who may be interested in knowing where their former toys have traveled. Explore our website.

In the Blink of an Eye

2007-04-07T09:20:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, I went to pick up McKenzie from daycare, and she was in the toddler room. She is beginning to make the transition from the infant room to the toddler room. When I arrived, I paused for a moment and watched her through the door window without her knowing. I watched her sitting on a small chair at a small table, eating an afternoon snack with her classmates. I realized that our baby was now a little girl.

First, she just decided to walk. It wasn't the slow transition I had expected. She just decided that today was the day that she would walk, and the strange thing was that she no longer desires to crawl. If she falls on her butt, she just pulls herself up back onto her feet and goes on her way by foot.

Another milestone has been the start of her napping on a cot at daycare. Soon we will have to convert her crib into a bed.

One evening, while at the other end of the room, McKenzie came toddling toward me and stopped at my feet, pulling at my pants and wanting to be picked up. I looked down at her with a smile and forward to her growing up before my eyes.

McKenzie Walks

2007-03-18T21:23:00.000-07:00

McKenzie is growing leaps and bounds. Every day she amazes us with her budding personality and the obstacles and challenges that she overcomes to learn about and explore her world and her place in it. She began to walk on March 15th. That was the first day she really seemed to master more than a step at a time. She sometimes thinks that she can run and her little legs quickly put her back in her place. We know that it won't be long and she will be sprinting around and the chase will be on.