Just wanted to post a few of Jackie's videos.
Jackie reading to her toy Macaw and having it repeat her words. She got this toy from Santa last Christmas.
This is Chance out for a walk with Jackie and Berna.
This is Jackie baking her favorite cake - chocolate cake!
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Tech Expo in DC
Today is the opening day of FOSE in DC. Drew (a co-worker) and I originally planned on leaving the office by 10 a.m. to go to this event. While waiting for Drew this morning, I decided on unboxing the new laptop to start the system 
build. Out of the box, the system was screwed up. With my brilliant idea (at about 9:30), I decided to place a support call to Dell to report that the screen was faulty. I have called Dell tech support hundreds of times in the past -- why today did I think that this call would be any different? Dell support calls never last for only half an hour. Anyway, Drew had to bail me out and demanded that a replacement laptop be sent. Dell wanted to send a tech to come on-site to fix the problem. That solution was totally unacceptable to Drew, he wanted an exchange (a brand new system). I was gonna agree for a Dell guy to come on-site to fix the problem, but Drew had a good point - who knows what else is wrong with the system.
Okay, back to FOSE -- we took the metro from the King Street station (10 minute walk from the office) and we arrived at the Convention Center around noon. We went straight to the Express Registration counter (since we pre-registered a month earlier) to pick up our badges. When we arrived at the main exhibit hall, we were greeted by the Dice folks. They gave us some goodies and a card that could be used to redeem beverage (including beer). It was after 2 p.m. when we finally made it to the Dice booth where we could get free beverage, but they were out! What a bummer, I needed a drink (no, it was not beer that I had in mind).
We visited many booths and got lots of goodies in the process. We even got to play Guitar Hero at one of the exhibitor's booths. Half way through our adventure we have collected several blinky (led lights flashing) buttons that we pinned to our shirts. Our buttons attracted lots of attention. Many co-visitors asked for the source, and we also got some inquires from exhibitors who were curious to to know about the names of the company written on the buttons. We should have asked for fees for the extra exposure we provided.
Here is Drew playing Guitar Hero. I played the same song he did, but I did not beat his score.
There were lots of cool stuff there. I learned about the solid state drive (SSD) that is based on non-volatile memory chips like in flash drives. Mimio's interactive and whiteboard capture solution was another one that I thought was pretty cool - something we could use at the office for presentations. For those who love to take photos and travel, DiCAPac is something to check out. They sell underwater (up to 5 meters) cases for digital cameras, including SLRs, audio players, and cell phones. The cases for the audio and cell phone devices will allow you to hear and talk, while the device is inside the case. What makes them attractive is that their cases are sort of universal , and cheaper than the ones that are specially/custom made for a specific product/model. There are other cool stuff there like the video conferencing hardware and software, various rugged laptops from different companies, data destruction solutions, security solutions, etc. In the end, my feet was sore and the walk back to the office from the metro station seemed very long, and we totally skipped lunch!
I had fun.
build. Out of the box, the system was screwed up. With my brilliant idea (at about 9:30), I decided to place a support call to Dell to report that the screen was faulty. I have called Dell tech support hundreds of times in the past -- why today did I think that this call would be any different? Dell support calls never last for only half an hour. Anyway, Drew had to bail me out and demanded that a replacement laptop be sent. Dell wanted to send a tech to come on-site to fix the problem. That solution was totally unacceptable to Drew, he wanted an exchange (a brand new system). I was gonna agree for a Dell guy to come on-site to fix the problem, but Drew had a good point - who knows what else is wrong with the system.
Okay, back to FOSE -- we took the metro from the King Street station (10 minute walk from the office) and we arrived at the Convention Center around noon. We went straight to the Express Registration counter (since we pre-registered a month earlier) to pick up our badges. When we arrived at the main exhibit hall, we were greeted by the Dice folks. They gave us some goodies and a card that could be used to redeem beverage (including beer). It was after 2 p.m. when we finally made it to the Dice booth where we could get free beverage, but they were out! What a bummer, I needed a drink (no, it was not beer that I had in mind).We visited many booths and got lots of goodies in the process. We even got to play Guitar Hero at one of the exhibitor's booths. Half way through our adventure we have collected several blinky (led lights flashing) buttons that we pinned to our shirts. Our buttons attracted lots of attention. Many co-visitors asked for the source, and we also got some inquires from exhibitors who were curious to to know about the names of the company written on the buttons. We should have asked for fees for the extra exposure we provided.
Here is Drew playing Guitar Hero. I played the same song he did, but I did not beat his score.There were lots of cool stuff there. I learned about the solid state drive (SSD) that is based on non-volatile memory chips like in flash drives. Mimio's interactive and whiteboard capture solution was another one that I thought was pretty cool - something we could use at the office for presentations. For those who love to take photos and travel, DiCAPac is something to check out. They sell underwater (up to 5 meters) cases for digital cameras, including SLRs, audio players, and cell phones. The cases for the audio and cell phone devices will allow you to hear and talk, while the device is inside the case. What makes them attractive is that their cases are sort of universal , and cheaper than the ones that are specially/custom made for a specific product/model. There are other cool stuff there like the video conferencing hardware and software, various rugged laptops from different companies, data destruction solutions, security solutions, etc. In the end, my feet was sore and the walk back to the office from the metro station seemed very long, and we totally skipped lunch!
I had fun.
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