Pictures of Cameron

Here are some picture of Cameron Ashton Nelson. Born 12/29/2006. 7 lbs 5 ozs and 18 inches in length.

Less than 5 mintues old
Cameron and mommy
Cameron and big sisters Mackenzie & Ashley
Cameron, Mom & Dad
Cameron, 12 hours later
Cameron and Big Sister
Cameron and cousin Devin
Cameron with cousin Devin and Ken
Cameron and Aunt Jenny
Cameron and Grandpa

There are more pictures from the hospital photographer Here and Here

Pictures of Cameron (Ultrasound)

Good Karma

My wife sent me this chain letter. Instead of forwarding it on as another email, I am posting it on my blog. This will allow the entire online world to view. I am asking the universe to share this blog entry or something better (more on that later).

Good Karma
This is a nice reading, but short. Enjoy! This is what The
Dalai Lama has to say for 2006. All it takes is a few seconds
to read and think over. Do not keep this message. The mantra
must leave your hands within 96 hours. You will get a very
pleasant surprise. This is true for all – even if you are not
superstitious… or of whatever religious belief… Faith…

I N S T R U C T I O N S F O R L I F E

1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three R’s:
1. Respect for self,
2. Respect for others and
3. Responsibility for all your actions.
4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
6. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great relationship.
7. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
8. Spend some time alone every day.
9. Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.
10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
11. Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.
12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for
    your life.
13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past.
14. Share your knowledge. It is a way to achieve immortality.
15. Be gentle with the earth.
16. Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.
17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
19. Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.
    

What I did not include is how many people you have to send this to to improve my life. I believe that sharing this with everyone will improve everyone's life, mine included.

I think these pictures are great!

Went Diving on Saturday with my new camera

I purchased a new camera for my Underwater Digital Photography class. I figured I should purchase something inexpensive to practice with before taking my Canon 30D underwater. So I bought a SeaLife DC500, and yet they have already come out with the DC600. I do recommend this camera, it is very easy to use and can be used on land as well.

On to the pictures (Note: I have not touched them up yet):


Mackenzie

A Happy Thanksgiving, and other stuff

Today was a great day. Mackenzie and I woke early so that we could go for a dive with some friends. The water was warm, the fish abundant, and I was able to get one step closer to completing my DiveMaster certification.

When we got home I cooked Thanksgiving dinner for Nicole, Mackenzie, and Ashley. Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, yams, gravy, the works. We had a nice time, sitting at our formal dinning room, eating dinner and enjoying each others company.

Nicole had to go to work tonight however. She only has 7 more days until she goes out on maternity leave. We have about 6 more weeks until Cameron Ashton will join us

Ashley just finished up with Gymnastics for this season, where she placed 8th for her age group at state. We are very proud of her. She will be moving up to the next level of gymnastics, Level 5. She is AMAZING to watch.

Mackenzie will be finishing up her fall softball season in the next couple of weeks. Most of her teammates will be playing for their high schools next year and Mackenzie plans to take that time to "have a life!" I say good for her.

As for me, well I am still working - not hard of course! Finishing up my Divemaster, and getting ready to become a volunteer diver at the Aquirium of the Pacific - I'll let you know how that goes!

I am almost done doing my annual putting up of Christmas Lights in the neighborhood. If I can get some pictures, I will upload them after we are all done.

The New Laptop

My new laptop came last Friday. I purchased a MacBook Pro, 2.33Ghz, 3 Gig of RAM, and 160 gig hard-drive - argh, argh, argh, argh! Once I opened it up, moved the files from my old Mac and old PC, I installed Parallels. Parallels allows you to install other operating systems, like Windows, and run them in a Window.

The goal of the new laptop was to consolidate my two laptops - a Dell and a MacBook Pro. It looks as though my plan will work beautifully. Among the many cool features of the MacBook is that it comes with a built in camera with some awesome software. Here is a picture I took in comic bok format.



One of the reasons I love the Macintosh is that it just works. The wireless networks display in your list of networks with ease, software installs and uninstalls with ease, it is simply easy.

One other decision I made was not to install Microsoft Office for the Mac. One of the reasons was that Office for the Mac is not optimized to run on the Intel Duo processor, or the Universal code. The other reason is that the open source software that is available now is fantastic. I am running Neo office, which is a Aqua version of OpenOffice and does not require the use of X11. I am also running Thunderbird and Sunbird to replace Outlook. So far, so good.

Went to the Monterey Bay Aqurium

I took the family to the aquarium on Monterey this weekend to see the male white shark. The shark was active. I was impressed by the size, or lack there of compared to the yellow fin tuna in the million gallon tank. I took quit a few pictures, I will post some once I get them processed in photoshop.

While the shark was impressive, the highlight was the feeding of the other pelegics in the tank. The feeding frenzy created by dumping 75 lbs of frozen squid and 50 pounds of frozen sardines was amazing to say the least. 300-500 lb tuna swimming at incredible speeds darting through the center of drifting dinner plate. In the middle of this is matriarc of the tank, the large black sea turtle. She just swim in the middle of the bait ball trying to get her piece of the wet treats. Really amazing.

No trip to Monterey is complete unless we eat at Bubba Gumps, which with did Saturday afternoon. A couple of 2 minute warnings was exactly what the doctor ordered. Accompanied by some hush puppies and 1 1/2 lbs of gralic shrip with cajun dipping sauce and I was in heaven.

Mackenzie and I dove one dive on Sunday morning at the "Breakwater", it is a jetty near the wharf that is home to numerous sea lions. The dive was ok only because visibility was poor. Saw numerous sea stars, halibat (babies), rock fish, etc. Water temp was around 58 degrees, pretty warm for the area this time of the year.

The Real America

Have you seen the new Great White Shark at the Monterey Bay Aquarium?

the folks at the Monterey Bay Aquarium have a new guest! He is a 5 foot Great White Shark. You may see him swim by on the camera below. For more information on him click here

Mac is SCUBA certified

Mackenzie passed, with flying colors, her SCUBA certification. My plan has worked, now I have a home grown SCUBA partner. It took a little extra work, well money, to get the certification, but I think it will be worth it for her.

Two weekends ago, we went to the beach so she could complete her #2, #3, & #4 ocean dives. But the ocean had other plans, surf, swell, current all were at levels prohibiting send my first born into the ocean. So we resceduled for last weekend.

When I went to the dive shop the night before the dives were suppose to happen, the word was that the dives would most likely be cancelled. Since I had already signed us up for a boat dive this coming weekend, we really needed to get Mac certified. I suggested going to Catalina on the Catalina Flyer/Express to Mackenzie's dive instructor, who was all for it. One problem, we had to get the shop manager to approve ~ it took a little work and for me to pay for the boat ride, we were heading to Catalina.

Saturday morning, alarm goes off at 4:00 - AM! Got Mac up at 4:15, left the house at 4:30, picked up the instructor at 4:45, got Long Beach around 5:30, left the dock at 6:15. We were at Catalina Landing by 7:05 in the Taxi at 7:15, at the dive site by 7:30, and in the water for the first dive by 7:45.

Now when we went into the water, there were a couple of people around the casino, but not too many. When we surfaced, there had to be well over 100 divers walking ~ most dive students. The problem with most students is that they are people that are more or less not comfortable in the water. Then they are strapped with 30-50 lbs of equipment, strapped with mask and fins, and told 'Get in the water'! It took about 15 minutes to get out of the water because of the people trying to get into the water.

Off with the tanks and I take them over to portable dive shop that is permanently parked at the casino to get air refills. 15 minutes later, we are wading through the crowd to get back in the water so Mac can complete dive #3 which is dive 2 for the day.

The visibility is great at Catalina, especially for California diving. We had about 50 foot visibility and the water temp at depth was around 60 degrees, not bad. Casino point is a protected marine habitat, and I am fairly sure the fish know it. There are some of the biggest calico bass there that I have ever seen. One disturbing note was the lack of kelp. I heard that a recent storm may have ransacked the kelp forrest there, as there was much less of the tall green stuff then the last time I visited. The good news comes from looking at the rocks, plenty of young kelp begining to sprout.

So back to Mackenzie, she reminds me of well me! At least as far as being comfortable in the water, she never had a problem with any of the skills, including; removing - replacing - and clearing her mask underwater, removing her bouancy compensator (weight intgrated) underwater, or maintaining proper bounancy. Her instructor was very impressed and had no problems signing off on her.

Hopefully in a couple of years when Ashley is old enough she will want to dive into the water as well. SCUBA is like swimming in an aquarium, it is a wonderful recreational sport, and anyone that lives near the ocean should experience the fun!

My Beer Personality

You Are Guinness

You know beer well, and you'll only drink the best beers in the world. Watered down beers disgust you, as do the people who drink them. When you drink, you tend to become a bit of a know it all - especially about subjects you don't know well. But your friends tolerate your drunken ways, because you introduce them to the best beers around.

What's Your Beer Personality?

Pictures from the Monterey Bay Aqarium

As promissed, here are some pictures from the aquarium.

Ashley ready to dive in

Mac and Ash in the water. Mackenzie is getting certified as a SCUBA diver now!

Yellowtail on the hunt in the kelp forrest!

Jellies

...one more

...ok, just one more

look it's Dori!

see? sea anenome!

The End!

Where do I start?

It has been some time since my last post - been busy with

Mackenzie's Softball
Ashley's Gymnastics
Vacation
Work
School

and if that is not enough stuff going on, Nicole and I are expecting kid number 3 in January, and it has been confirmed with three different ultra sounds that we are indeed expecting a boy! I love my girls dearly, but we need some more testostorine in the house.

The end of July I found myself driving to Beaverton, Oregon with Mackenzie and Ashley. Mackenzie had a softball tournament (Western Nationals). The team played well and end the tournament in 25th place out of 95 teams. Nicole had to work, which is why I was alone for the drive. She met us in Oregon and after the tournament we did some camping in southern Oregon.

Camping was alot of fun, no TV, DVD, etc. Just us - great family time. Did a little fishing, some swimming, some driving around to see the sites, and on the last full day we had, we went on a Hellgate Boat ride - these are very low draft jet boats that can run in as low as 8 inchs of water. I highly recommend this activity - way fun.

From there we drove the 199 through Cresent City to Eureka to lay some flowers at grave sites of some of Nicole's relatives. Day not being over, we finished driving to Monterey Bay where we had dinner at one of my favorite places, Bubba Gump's. Peel and Eat Shrimp is Awesome!

The next day we went to the Aquarium and I got a bunch of pictures with my new digital camera, I will try and post some later. While at the aquarium, the girsl tried scuba diving, that ended up being snorkelling with scuba girl on. It was a neat experience for them, and they both want to do Real SCUBA. I have signed up Mackenzie for SCUBA lessons and will do the same with Ashley when she gets old enough. Hopefully I will now have a SCUBA partner - Yea!

From there we drove to Morro Bay where we meet up with the rest of Nicole's family. The weekend was dedicated to my late Mother-in-law Sharon and late brother-in-law Andrew. We all had dinner that night together, sans Sharon and Andrew. The next day we chartered a fishing boat to dump both Sharon and Andrews ashes into the ocean, we also dumped Yoggis ashes. Yoggi was my sister-in-law's cat that she had cremated and the ashes have been sitting in her house for the last 6 plus years.

To end the 2 week journey I got to drive home, on my birthday, oh yea and I was hungover from drinking a bottle of Makers Mark with Andrews brother Bruce! And not the small bottle either, the Costco size bottle!

Update - Some People Vex Me

So here is the update on my previous post (some people vex me). In short, I win! The teacher backed off the lowering of Mackenzie's citizenship grade. However he is still lowering her scholastic grade from an A to an A-. By giving the instructor a compromise, I was able to at least continue Mac's record of outstanding citizenzhip. And an A is an A, even if it is an A-, whatever...
But wait there is more. So this dance that Mackenzie was missing had props. Mackenzie volunteered to build the Eiffel Tower from a kit, it stop 16 feet tall and was 8x8 feet at the base. This meant that Mackenzie voluntered dad to put together the eiffel tower.
So here is another example of the genius' we are dealling with. The kit came in three boxes. They told Mackenzie to take it home, assemble it in to three pieces and bring those pieces back for final assembly the day of the dance. OK, so how am I suppose to transport a 16 foot cardboard towere even if it is three pieces. Needless to say, there where issues.
One thing I noticed right off the bat was the lack of stability. This thing was going to be around a bunch of eighth grade students, last thing I want was for this thing to come crashing down on their heads.
So day of the dance, I take off work because I had to put together this monster by 1:00 so we could leave for the games by 1:30. I drop the kids off at school, and head to Lowes to get some supplies... some wood to tack to the structure to add stability -$50 later... I head back to school. Outside of the assembly room, I cut the 1 3/4 x 1/2 strips of wood into 4 foot strips and start painting them black. Once that is done, I come in and find Mr. Lewis directing kids in assembling the tower -WAIT!
So that stops and they move on to something else and Mackenzie and I continue with my plan. Part of the instructions call for using duct tape to attach pieces of card baord together. While other parts are attached by double sided adhesive tape. Obviously the rocket scientists that designed this POS were not concerned with any structural integrity. So once I stabilize the base we move on tho assembling the other sections. Before long things are looking good, except, the tower is 16 feet high, and the ceiling of the assembly room is only about 13 feet high. Time for customization. I take a foot from this section, another foot from another section, still another foot from yet another section.
We move the base into position, away from where the kids will be dancing. Start attaching the various sections, and then add the light fixtures, all 9 of them, to eluminate the tower. Powerstrips, we need power. I get some power strips from the custodian, and finally we are done. Appearently it was hit.
After all this I come to find out from the mom that organized the event, that Mackenzie was the only ASB member willing to step up and tackle the tower. There is no way a kid could have built this tower on there own, or even as a group. Parent involvement was mandatory on this one.
Anyway we finish around 1:10, once I add a strand of X-mas lights to the structure, at the request of the "mom".
Upon leaving, Mr. Lewis thanks me for the help in putting things together. He did not realize the amount of time and involvement required to put something this large together. He also said, he would be doing something nice for me for my help. I am thinking - leave my kids grade alone... instead I got a Starbucks gift card.

Some people vex me

I had to write the principal at Mackenzie's school today, because I thought a teacher was being unreasonable. Here is my note:

Mr. Sieger,

I spoke to Mr. Lewis today regarding the fact that Mackenzie will be unable to attend the 8^th grade dance as part of her requirements as a 7^th grade ASB representative. Mr. Lewis informed me that he is lowering her scholastic grade from an A to an A- and her citizenship grade from an O to an S, simply because she will be unable to attend and assist with the dance.

Mackenzie currently play’s on a travel softball team (American Athletics 14U – Ordos). This team plays year round and competes at a State and National level. Needless to say there is a significant financial and time commitment on our part for her to play on this team. This weekend is the State Championship for ASA softball, the governing body over softball. We found out on Sunday that we drew a Friday (6/9/2006) 5:00pm game, in Menifee (near Hemet). Obviously this is in conflict with the 8^th grade dance.

I asked Mackenzie to talk to Mr. Lewis regarding the situation and ask to be excused from attending dance, to which he replied that he would be lowering both of her grades. Lowering of the academic grade, I understand – I don’t agree, but I understand. I do not understand lowering her citizenship grade. Her not attending the dance has nothing to do with any of the pillars of character, by witch it was my understanding that citizenship is graded on. How is it possible that a student that has numerous Superintendent awards and citizenship awards can take a hit because she is not attending an after school event? Mackenzie has continually exhibited leadership qualities, gives whenever she can, and is by all accounts and excellent student.

Mackenzie had to weigh putting the needs of others who rely on her with putting the needs of others who do not rely on her. While she has made a commitment to ASB, she has made a bonding commitment to her team, a group of girls that she has been playing softball with since she was six and will continue to play softball with after 7^th grade. The girls on her team, a number of them 8^th graders, are missing their dance. They are not being penalized with a lower grade, but rather losing something more valuable, a memory.

I have to admire her decision making skills and moral judgment. If Mackenzie does not display the moral character we want to promote, then I am not sure what moral character is.

Mr. Lewis has placed Mackenzie in a no win situation. Because of this event, she is seriously considering not continuing with ASB next year. I think this would detriment to her, the school, and the student body.

I am writing you in hopes that you may be able to help persuade Mr. Lewis in reassessing his stance on this subject.

Sincerely,

Ken Nelson

Pacific Queen

Went fishing this weekend with a long time friend of mine, Todd. Yellowtail season has been on for a while and Albacore and Tuna are starting to heat up. So we decide to find a boat for a day & and half trip. That is where you leave at night, start fishing in the morning, head back that night, and wake up at the dock the next morning.

The only openings we could find were on the Pacific Queen out of Fisherman's Landing. Not a bad boat, but not a great boat either.

Our journey begins on Friday at around 3:00pm. I leave my house and head to Scripps Ranch to pick up Todd. Traffic SUCKS! It takes an hour and a half to get to Todd's. Fortunately the game is on, Angels game that is.

I pick up Todd, say "Hi" to Teresa and their three kids - she gets them all weekend. All three kids are under seven years old. I digress. We load up and head out. More traffic. For some reason we had to be at the dock an hour earlier that was originally scheduled, more on this later. To find a parking spot at Fisherman's Landing, you want to get there about the time the day boats are coming back, which of course we do.

We check in at the landing an decide to get something to eat. Some italian/pizza place near the landing. Food, ok, but over priced. Good beer, crappy service. Place sucked so bad I forget the name.

Finish dinner, pay the bill, and grab our gear. Head to the boat, find our bunk and wait. And wait, and wait, and wait. We find out that we are not heading as far south as we thought we were going to be heading (50 miles south instead of 100 miles south) so we don't have to leave early now. I finish listening to my game on XM Radio - Angels win! We finally leave the dock around 9:00 pm or pretty close to that.

I read some for school, have a beer, and try and get some sleep. The bunks where designed for pygmies. 6 feet long (maybe a little more) and my shoulder with apart. The boat is way tippy so trying to sleep and keep yourself in the bunk at the same time is tricky. Todd is screwed. At at 5 feet 18 inches (as he likes to refer to himself), the bunk is far from acceptable.

5:00 AM people are up. I get some coffeee, we are stuck in fog, pea soup fog. Not good. Fog makes it difficult to find the kelp patties that the fish like to congrgate around. We head out looking for sun, trolling along the way. We catch some fish, actually we catch quit a few -Yellowtail and Bonita.

We spend the morning trolling and stopping, catching fish. Now here is the problem. On the day & half boats, you get the yahoo's that don't know how to fish. They cast over you, don't move down the drift line following their bait, they don't get out of the way when you have a fish on...

But what really pissed me off, was the deck hands that could not gaf a fish. WTF? I caught 8 fish that day, I brought home 5. Three fish lost to miss gafs.

So the afternoon comes, the fishing slows, and I decide to take a nap. Every once in a while you hear "Fish On". One of the four troller's hooked a fish, turns out they were all bonita, we were looking for Yellowtail and Albacore.

Late afternoon arrives and I wake from my slumber, the best sleep I have had. We get into a couple of more bites, have a pretty good time. We are about 40-50 miles from home as the sun sets and our fishing day concludes.

Captain informs us that we can not go back to the dock early because the landing will not let them in. OK, that is complete B.S. we could have been back at 12:00am I could have been home at 2 and in my bed. Nope another night at the Crappy Bunk Inn.

Next morning, I get up, the deck hands are cleaning fish. I ask who won the jackpot (who got the biggest fish and gets my 10 dollars?) they do not know yet. I ask well, why are they cleanning fish if they do not have the jackpot fish figured out yet? Oh, they are going to weigh the fish when they get to the dock. ??? What??? Turns out someone screwed up, big. They only fish that got weighed were the fish that were not being cleaned. I had my fish cleaned, I got screwed.

So all in all good day fishing, but the Pacfic Queen had three strike outs.

MacBook Pro vs MacBook

So I want a new computer! Go figure.

It is time, I have had my latest computer (Dell 600M) for over 2 years, that is a long time for me. I also have one of the original MacBook Pro Titanium's. Both nice computers, but a real pain if you need to carry both operating systems.

The only reason I keep the Dell around is for development purposes. Macromedia Flex only runs (currently) on Windows.

Since the new MacBook Pro is Intell based, and with the announcement from Apple of BootCamp, I now have the ability to run one computer. So now the deliema, MacBook or MacBook Pro? When looking at the website, I noticed a few minor issues.

1. MacBook has a smaller screen, not a big deal since I usually hook up to an external monitor
2. MacBook is less expensive (that would be a plus)
3. Same Processors available
4. Same Hard-disks
5. Same Memory

But with a $500 price difference for a similarly configured machine, I had to ask the experts at the local Apple Store what the real differences where. The answer, the video card. The MacBook is lacking one, see MacBook Specs here. The MacBook Pro comes with an ATI Mobility Radeon X1600, see MacBook Pro specs here.

So why would one care? The answer is, you won't, unless you are playing video games that are video instensive or more complex gaphics manipulation. Most people will be fine with a MacBook, I on the other hand will not. I want to be able to edit video's and digital pictures and play video games like WarCraft.

But note this, most applications built for Mac will run slower until they are rewritten for the new processor, such as Adobe products. However, you can run most of those products under Windows running on the Mac ~ which is what I plan on doing until the tools I need are written to take advantage of the Intel on the Mac.

Mackenzie

So this is kinda cool. I took a picture of my daugther Mackenzie when we were at Dana Point.

I uploaded the picture to www.costcophotocenter.com. From there you can edit the pictures, I put this nice border and coloring effect on it. I then ordered a print from my local Costco, and the picture was ready in about an hour.

They do enlargements as well. Pretty cool.

Going back to school

So, I have decided to got school - college. Hopefully this time I will actually stick with it, should be much easier now that I am not travelling as much as I used to. Major you ask? Marine Biology - after looking into what it takes to get a marine biology degree, I must have bumped my head. Don't get me wrong I LOVE the ocean. The last time I went to Spain I studied dolphins with Ana Canadas and crew aboard the Toftevaag, I had a great experience. One might say life changing experience.

So now I am going to get a degree in Marine Biology. Should only take me about 10 years to complete, seems as though every class is 5 units and requires a lab. I have to take a ton of Math as well, I thought I could get away with college statistics - nope, calculus.


What am I going to do with this degree I am pursuing? Probably nothing, but I figure if I am going to go through the process of getting a degree I may as well get it in a subject I enjoy. I have been a computer programmer for the last ... almost 20 years! Holy Crap! Good money! But I am soooo over it.

Flex 2.0 is way cool

So I really like Flex 2.0, I mean I REALLY LIKE Flex 2.0. Even though the product is in beta, the new features are awesome. The ability to develop applications that use Hibernate as a data source is key for Java developers. Flex also supports JMS integration, allowing true push capabilities of your applications. So from a Java Deveopers perspective, this is really cool. We now have a real competitor for AJAX.

Flex can do many things that AJAX can not do, check out this sample application from Adobe. I admit, I am no AJAX expert, I am not even a novice. But from the samples that I have seen of AJAX applications, I really do not see AJAX doing the transitions and true Rich Internet Application features that you find with Flex.

The major PRO AJAX statements are interactivity and portablity. However one of the major CONS to AJAX is the fact that Javascript must be enabled, there by defeating the the whole portablity discussion.

Flex 2.0on the other hand does not require Javascript to run in the browser. The oxymoron to this is that the scripting language of Flex 2.0 is ActionScript which is now fully ECMAScript Compliant. Flex 2.0 applications run in the Flash Player. The Flash Player is supported on all major Operating Systems with all the major browsers on those OS's, including IE, Mozilla, FireFox, Safari, Opera, and AOL. Flash is no longer a tool for creating splash screens or building movie or game information sites. With Flex 2.0,

...more to come on this topic, I am sure.