Jun
30
Family Sites
- Photos Our photo site, hosted on Picasa.
- That's the Way Andy’s personal site.
Pictures
- Photos Our photo site, hosted on Picasa.
Jun
26
Upon arrival last night, I walked into the bathroom and found this little guy just hanging out. Nola said that she found him in the toilet about 3 weeks ago and hadn’t been in that bathroom since. I suppose he was ready to leave, as I scooped him up and deposited him on a nearby vine growing on the outdoor shower. He looked very thankful to be out of the can.
The eyeball close-up looks like some sort of detonating planet (a la ILM) or a naked singularity formation.
Jun
25
On our last bike ride before vacation, Devin and Maya fell asleep in the Chariot, holding hands.
Jun
24
Steph and I at the cTa + Doobies show. I look like a slightly "happy emo". Steph looks like an adult.
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
Jun
24
We're at Chastain Park for CTA+Doobies and these people wanted to steal the seats next to us.
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
Jun
24
This is actually some crappy Italian version of Neil Diamond.
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
Jun
24
We drove up to meet Papa in Anderson, SC to have a bit of a picnic and send the doggies off for doggy day camp. Mimi was working 
but we’ll see her on the flip side! Thanks for lunch, Papa!
Love,
Maya & Devin
Jun
23
Well, here’s what we know so far.
- Oracle is acquiring Skywire Software in a deal that will close in 30-60 days.
- At the moment, the powers that be are performing “job mapping”, which is a process of matching up job titles, pay and responsibility from legacy Skywire Software into the Oracle hierarchy. Once that is complete, we should be receiving “offer letters”, which will either offer you a position, a temporary position, or…well, a non-offer.
- We’re told that pay will remain the same.
- As far as I’ve been able to tell, benefits are much better. Deductibles are cheaper, and presumably the premiums are cheaper as well.
- When the transaction “closes” – that is, we become assimilated into Oracle, we will convert over to Oracle Benefits immediately.
- Operationally, we will probably conduct business as done in the past after the close of the transaction.
- We will be part of Oracle’s relatively new “Insurance Global Business Unit”, headed by Rick Conner, with Randy Skinner, Wendy Gibson and Mike McCurley as upper management.
- Looks like we’re going to get 18 vacation days, 8 holidays and 7 sick days. Humph. Probably my only gripe, since I have 10 years of tenure at Skywire Software I would normally be getting 4 weeks of vacation a year :/
Jun
23
On today’s bike ride, we went down the Silver Comet Trail, and veered off to the Wildhorse Creek Park. This time, we bypassed the duck pond and continued up past the BMX track up to a playground. It was quiet and friendly, and only a few kids. Maya made friends with Robert as they identified fruits and vegetables on this thingamabob.
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
Jun
23
I just heard my company, Skywire Software, has entered into an acquisition agreement with Oracle. This is good stuff for us, near as I can tell, and great stuff for our customers.
Jun
21
Today we met up with Valan and checked out Piedmont Park with the kids. The weather was pretty decent: slightly cloudy, around 80 degrees. Nice for biking around and letting the kids get all over themselves. The Park has a fantastic playground and lots of wide open fields. You can imagine that the kids were overjoyed, and overtired and overhungry. We stopped for salsa at Willy’s — well, the kids mostly ate salsa but we had burritos and PB&J sandwiches as well. The day was lots of fun: plenty of kids, dogs and all sorts of people running about. We’ll definitely do it again.
I have a map of Points of interest (POIs) in Piedmont Park if you’re, uh, interested. Check them out here.
Jun
19
Some, er, asshole decided to decorate one the picnic tables we use on the Silver Comet. The empty packet of Clif Power gel (not pictured) was the source of this great display. Obviously, Asstisse was inspired to create the work, and leave to attract flies to share. Thanks, random douchebag!
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
Jun
19
My cousins Shelly, Ashley and their families were in Charlotte (as we were) for Sara’s wedding, and since that part of the Reed family lives in Memphis, we don’t often get to see them. We were happy to squeeze in some time for our kids to meet/play together before they had to leave. Shelly and her crew will be in Atlanta the beginning of August, so we are going to get together again when they are here. 
Jun
19
I know about a father’s love, and I know that my dad would do this for me too, just as I would do for my own kids. Here’s the story…A son asked his father, ‘Dad, will you take part in a marathon with me?’ The father who, despite having a heart condition, says ‘Yes’. They went on to complete the marathon together. Father and son went on to join other marathons, the father always saying ‘Yes’ to his son’s request of going through the race together. One day, the son asked his father, ‘Dad, let’s join the Ironman together.’ To which, his father said ‘Yes’. For those who don’t know, Ironman is the toughest triathlon ever. The race encompasses three endurance events of a 2.4 mile (3.86 kilometer) ocean swim, followed by a 112 mile (180 .2 kilometer) bike ride, and ending with a 26.2 mile (42.195 kilometer) marathon along the coast of the Big Island.
Father and son went on to complete the race together. Watch the video for details, it puts a different spin on the story. It is only 4 minutes long.
Jun
18
Apparently word of our little trip to Nashville is getting around! How very cool. We’re happy to be linked around. Hope y’all enjoy the pictures and story.
Jun
18
This morning the weather was fantastic, so we ate breakfast out on the deck with Papa, Dad, Maya and Devin. It was a rather nice morning, so nice in fact I had to break out the D50 for some pictures! Watch the slideshow below, or just click on it to go to the album and browse the pictures.
Jun
17
Jun
17
The day began as we woke up toddler-less to a wake up call in our Embassy Suites hotel room in Nashville. We were pretty tired since we had arrived pretty late the night before (around 2 am our time), but we didn’t even notice. We hopped up, took our showers, and threw everything but the cultish “all white attire” we were instructed to bring, into our suitcase and headed to Nashville’s famed Music Row for our 10:00am call time at Ben Folds’s private music studio.
We wandered in a modest unmarked door and into a small, dark, cozy and cluttered entry room with personal belongings strewn about on sofas and side tables. A parted curtain at the far side of the room beckoned us. It opened up to a huge space with seven grand pianos laid out in a row against a huge open stairway lined with torches leading to a loft. There was a track set up for a dolly camera and people scurrying around doing important things quickly. We looked at each other and smiled. We were in the right place, and we were EXCITED!
The assistant director, Andrew, got us chairs and we hung out with the other fourteen people, exchanging names, hometowns, and stories of how we all came to be in that room together for this amazing experience. We began wandering around the space, appreciating the many instruments and pictures on the wall (most of which were either photos of Ben’s friends and family or crayon artwork by his boy/girl twins—cool coincidence, huh?) It felt as though we had been invited into Ben’s home, and we definitely had been welcomed into a very personal space. It was a great privilege to have been in a place were such an amazing catalog of music has been composed, recorded and performed.
Then we got down to the business at hand and we were divided into two groups. The people who could play piano were going to be assigned to one of the seven grand pianos in Ben’s “Piano Orchestra” and the rest of us were going to be in the choir. Andy got assigned to a pretty Steinway in the number two spot. He was assigned the base piano part. He was really happy to not only have secured a place of such prominence, but to have a great, animated musical arrangement to perform, taught to him personally by Ben Folds himself.
I got the perfect part for me too! My group was whisked off into the sound booth with Jared (Ben Fold’s bass player and assistant vocal arranger) to learn a very elaborate vocal part. We learned all the words, timing and nuance, but we didn’t actually have to sing, in theory, as long as we looked like we were singing. But, not only were we all actually singing our parts, but, by the end of the day we had each chosen really cool complimentary harmonies. It was such a blast! They had us lined up on the steps of the stairway, so we weren’t in typical “choir formation” which meant better individual visibility. I was right in the middle too.
-Stephanie
Jun
16
Ok, we’ve been to the real Parthenon, but how often do you get to see an full-size replica, with no signs of wear, complete with the largest indoor statue in the Western Hemisphere?
Not very often, of course… as luck would have it the interior was closed, so we didn’t get to see the statue, but we did get to enjoy some late afternoon sun in Nashville.
Jun
16
UPDATE
Interesting responses this far. JB thinks it is a black tupelo, Dad thinks it is some sort of wild cherry. Dad gave me some good advice – call the local County Extension office. I spoke to Laurie in the Horticulture department, and she advised me to send some pictures to them via email (uge1067 at uga dawt edu). I have to go back and grab xTreME cLoseup!* pictures of the leaves, bark and and then a wide angle of the tree in its surroundings.
*Her words, not mine.
UPDATE II
I stopped by the playground this morning on the way to work and snagged a few more photos, including some macro shots. Here they are – I’m getting ready to send these off to my UGA contact as well.
UPDATE III: Just got my rather terse reply from the UGA contact:
“The tree appears to be a black cherry.”
