Videos
Time-lapse video going through Lock 32 on the Erie Canal.
I’m so happy to have our Andrew Carson wind sculpture back up after being in storage a couple of years. It is one of my favorite pieces of art. It is the centerpiece of the raised garden beds.
Fifty Puzzle
Tammy enjoys doing puzzles. The kids and I have started a tradition of making her a custom Christmas puzzle each year. This year we decided to do one for her “big birthday” and we decided to take a completely new approach.
Here is the final version and I’ll share with you how we got here.
To make this we started with a hand drawn image that Mazie framed out and then her and Tyler filled in. This allowed them to work with pencil and paper and the clear borders for the initial idea. Puzzles are pretty close to 8.5x11 ratio, but not exactly. After scanning I do a stretch on the size to get it just right.
Now that we scanned the original pencil drawing, we needed to recreate the entire image in digital format. We loaded up Procreate and put the original scan on a layer and made it 50% transparent, and then used the iPad Pro with Apple Pencil to trace a copy of the image on a fresh layer above. This made a perfectly clean digital version, and allowed us to clean up the image a bit. There were detail areas that were too small to do with the pencil but by zooming into the canvas on the iPad Pro they were able to get it just right.
After the image was traced we created two layers for coloring. One layer was “under the lines” and is where most of the coloring was done. We had another “over the lines” layer for select sections. We also segmented off the backgrounds and the “50” numbers into their own layer.
One of the super cool features of Procreate is the ability to share a video fo the drawing being created. Here you can see the entire process unfolding, as well as the couple of versions we tried for the “50” colors before we landed on the rainbow. Our creative process took 3-4 weeks and here you get it in 9 minutes.
The project took a while but the finished product worked out great. Plus the kids got to learn how to create digital art and got really adept at working with multiple layers and understanding how to use them to create different effects. Mazie got into the various brushes as well.
The only mistake we made was mine. I forgot that I needed to create a margin on the edge for the printer. We didn’t factor that in, so the finished puzzle lost about 1/4" of the image on all sides. On the top we had sky so that was fine, but on the bottom we had this cool seascape and a lot of that got trimmed off. Next time I’ll remember to mark a “safe zone” there so nothing critical is in that area.
Mazie finished her LEGO Grand Piano build today. It is one of the most intricate LEGO I have ever seen.
You can connect it to your phone and it will respond to, or move, the piano keys.
I find wind generators mesmerizing. 🌬
I got my Peloton “Cooldown 2020” video this weekend. I think its fun that they make these and kudos to them for making them easy to download and keep. #FitByFifty
Parallel Zoom Pacing
It turns out I pace a decent amount. Last week I was on a Zoom call and also took a call on my cell. I muted my audio but left the video on and one of our team grabbed the video loop and made it into this terrific Zoom video background. So brilliant! Only topped by sharing it with several of us who then had it on at the same time. That is a lot of pacing! 😂
Upper Falls of the Temperance River.
We found another use for the leaf blower today! 🛹💨
These lanterns are very fun to watch fly. This one soared high above Pokegama Lake.
Oddball at REM5VR
A couple weeks back we got to try REM5VR’s newest arena experience, Oddball. it is a VR version of laser tag. The four of us played and got to pair up in different teams. You wear a wireless VR headset that allows you to walk around in the space. You see the other players in VR space relative to where you are. There were some glitches getting the VR headsets all talking and calibrated to start with, but we were quickly playing and having a lot of fun.
It is a little odd to be in a VR space with other people walking around, but we didn’t bump into each other. The VR world allows the arena we were playing in to feel much bigger than the actual space, and there were teleporters and power up spots that would appear in the space.
REM5 told us we were the first customers to go through it, and the person running it was kind enough to capture the video of us playing and send it to me. Here is our 3rd round where Tammy and I got beat pretty handily by the kids.
Hidden Falls by Jenny Lake in Grand Tetons National Park. This may be my favorite waterfall ever.
Short video tubing down the Madison River.
The fireworks on Cannon Lake were even more amazing than usual this year. Our neighbor launched more big fireworks than many cities do! 🤩💥🧨
30 seconds of Big Green Egg Zen Smoke for your viewing and relaxing pleasure. 🔥
We visited Minneopa State Park today and I can’t believe I haven’t seen these falls before. Impressive double falls with great viewing areas.
Extreme Sandbox Heavy Metal Drive-Thru
We joined my sister and her family for the Extreme Sandbox Heavy Metal Drive-Thru tonight. We had a fun time watching all the heavy equipment play. There were a lot of very excited little kids in attendance honking horns. 😊
Nice talk on Automate Your Context at Monitorama 2018 from Andy Domeier of #TeamSPS! 👏 Teams that ship more, win more!
DevOps Minneapolis: Changing the Enterprise Session
I had a great time talking about Changing the Enterprise at this week’s DevOps Minneapolis Meetup with Heather Mickman and Bridget Kromhout! My mic wasn’t working in the beginning but gets fixed a little later in the video.
It was a fun opportunity to talk about some of the concepts I’ve thought about with risk management, refactoring costs, how Agile and DevOps come together.