Safe at Sun...

At 6am this morning, I received a text message from a team-mate that I had worked with for 9 years. He had been let go. I couldn't believe it. The rif's had started.

One farewell email after another started filling my inbox. I simply wasn't prepared for Bloody Monday...I thought this was all happening on Tuesday because I had heard 'the 31st' numerous times.

I talked to my manager at 7:35am and she informed me I was safe. I almost cried but for the sake of professionalism, I kept my composure.

It wasn't until about 10:25am that I broke down. A flood of enormous and undeniable relief.

Train Ride at Schnepf Farms...finally!

I have been waiting a long time for Nathan to ride the train at Schnepf Farms. I was waiting for the 'perfect' day where Greg could be with us and this will sound corny, but I wanted us to wear 'matching' clothes for the pictures - it's ok to roll your eyes.

We had also been waiting for the stars to align so that we could have lunch at the Schnepf Farms restaurant with Josh & Lynn. We had planned this a couple of times but something would come up and it just didn't work out for whatever reason.

Last Sunday, we finally accomplished both...but it wasn't the 'perfect' day...by far. Isn't that how things usually work out? Our Sunday morning couldn't have been more opposite than what I had envisioned to lead us in our afternoon at Schnepf Farms.

The PLAN was:

1. Attend the 9:30 service with Nathan in childcare at church.
2. Take Nathan to the worship portion of the 2nd service, so he could see Dada playing drums.
3. Go home, let Nathan take a nap.
4. Change mine and Nathan's clothes to match (cue to roll your eyes).
   
5. Meet Greg, Josh & Lynn at Schnepf Farms for lunch.
   
6. Let Nathan ride the train.
7. Take a bunch of cute pictures for scrapbooking!

What happened:

1. I attended the 9:30 service wearing periwinkle blue, Nathan goes to childcare wearing army green.
   
2. Volunteered after the 9:30 service, at the last minute, to lead the 3 yr old class b/c they didn't have anyone!
3. Nathan was with me in the 3 yr olds room-hence no nap.
   
4. Straight to Schnepf Farms for lunch with our friends.
   
5. Nathan got to ride the train.
6. I took a bunch of pictures and complained the entire time about our clothes not matching. Josh stopped just short of telling me to Shut Up!

After lunch, we walked around a little before getting on the train and snapped the following pictures:


This picture is for Grandpa David who recently asked Greg how tall Nathan is right now.


When we first boarded the train, Nathan wanted off. However, once we started rolling, he seemed to enjoy the ride.




Our train ride came to a stop about halfway and we were told that if we wanted to see the deer we would have to walk a ways. We had no idea that there were deer at Schnepf Farms! We walked through a corn field and smack in the middle was a pen filled with about 40 deer!





Here is our group shot...unfortunately the 'B Team' (Josh & I) had closed eyes. In the end, it turned out to be a really nice day - even though it didn't go according to the 'Plan'!

Happy St. Patricks Day...much later!

I have no idea where the time goes. Case in point, I'm just now posting pictures of our St. Patricks Day - Night Hike, a week and a half later.

Anyway, we did this cool night hike on St. Patricks Day at San Tan Mountain Regional park, about 10 mins from where we live.

Here is a park map with our trail highlighted in yellow:


So here's the thing with the pictures. Since we were hiking at night I didn't want to take my Nikon, trip on some rock and end up bashing my nice camera to pieces so I took my little Canon point and shoot. Like most digital point and shoots, the Canon has a digital LCD screen on the back that displays the image your taking a picture of, so imagine standing in a place that is pitch black. Essentially, the LCD screen is also going to be pitch black.

For example, my 'End of Trail' picture below is off center and crooked - that's because I couldn't actually see the sign in the dark through the camera but of course I still tried to take a picture of it!


The other issue with taking pictures in the dark was that whenever the camera would flash, it would temporarily BLIND people! It's a good thing we weren't hiking deep cavernous canyons!




At the end of the trail, I held my camera above my head and took the liberty to BLIND not only my group but everyone!


But my favorite picture of the night is definitely this one. Greg face just cracks me up and Robert in the center has this great fun expression, then mellow Amber is on the side with that fantastic smile of hers and everyone else is just doing their own thing in the back!

Good Times!

Free Photoshop Actions? Anyone?

If your reading this and you have a good source for FREE Photoshop Actions, please let me know, I'd like to add a few more to my sad little library.

This is a cool picture I took of my sister a couple years ago (isn't it so symbolic Naomi?)
I found these 3 Actions at www.gettotallyrad.com, here's a sampling of what they look like....

Here is the Original Picture with no Photoshop editing at all:


Here's the picture with the TotallyRad-'Boutwells Magic Glasses' Action:

I think I'm seeing highlights in this compared to the original...but it's hard to distinguish for me. Maybe it's time for a vision exam?

Here's the picture with the TotallyRad-'SuperFunHappy' Action:

The colors are deeper and it has soft edges and focusing within the picture, it makes the picture 'softer', I definitely I like this one-it's a keeper!

Here's the picture with just a regular Photoshop B&W color conversion, you can almost see a 'yellowish' tinting in it:


Here's the picture with TotallyRad's "Bi****B&W' Action:

Definitely sharper with more contrast between the black/white in comparison to the original, it's the most noticeable in the trees and bushes on the sides.

This is all I've got in my library so far but I'd definitely like to collect a few more, I'm especially interested in that action that you use for almost every picture....if you have one.

The future of Sun Microsystems

I have loved Sun Microsystems from the first day I started working for them. I could literally gush about how awesome Sun is, the cool history behind the company, the amazing leadership and go on but the future of Sun is heavy on my mind right now.

I credit my friend Courtney for 'inspiring' me to start blogging but Courtney's blog was not the first blog I had followed, she just inspired me to create my own. The first blog I followed was Sun's CEO and President, Jonathan Schwartz. I started to follow Jonathan's blog in 2005 because it was easy access to the thoughts of our CEO. As the video mentioned, he was one of few Fortune 500 CEO's who 'Blogged' and true to form, it was another Sun idea that blazed a trail for others to follow. Other prominent CEO's started to blog as well after Johnathan received much media attention for it.

I write all that, to explain what's heavy on my mind right now, makes it appropriate to blog about. Early this morning, Sun stock shot up from $4.97 a share to a high $9.27. I only needed to check the headlines to find out what was going on...

Whammy #1: Well, I've been sitting white knuckled on the edge of my seat about MY future at Sun since December when Sun employees were notified of a huge upcoming RIF (Reduction In Force (layoff) ) that would occur in phases over the 3rd quarter. My organization, Global Sales Ops, will be impacted on March 31st....D-day.

Whammy #2: Sun always 'restructures' the U.S. employee workforce at the end of our fiscal year, every July. It's like a tradition...one that I'm not really fond of. This time frame always has my team sweating because we like our boss so much and the restructure could impact who we report to if our manager is moved to another organization. 'Restructuring' talk has already started and July is fast approaching.

Whammy #3: Today's headlines. While there would be great benefits to IBM buying Sun, something sentimental would instantly be stripped from the company. Sun has held a fierce underdog status in the hardware and technology sector since its inception and yet the company has remarkably held it's position in the market alongside notable names like HP, Dell, IBM & Microsoft.

All these Whammy's got me thinking about everything work related. As my team and I speculate on the future of Sun and our place in the future, it's only natural that we become sentimental and nostalgic...

[Previous Content Removed for Security Purposes]

Before I started working from home full time, I had 'assigned' workspace and this was my desk in the Dallas office. Now, I'm a 'flex' employee and if I go to a Sun office and need a desk, I login to 'SunReserve' to and reserve a desk to work at for the day.


Every flex space has a 'SunRay'. My badge has an embedded Java chip (technology Sun created) which contains and freezes my work desktop. I insert my badge into the SunRay and my desktop instantly pulls up. It works that way for every office, so if I'm in the middle of reading an email in Arizona and then I travel to the Sun office in Dublin, Ireland. I insert my badge, my desktop comes up and I pick right up where I left off reading that same email.

This picture goes back to May 2005. I was at Sun's Santa Clara campus and our manager had given us tiara's for a project we just completed. You can see my badge sticking out of the right side of the SunRay. I have one of these at home now, so the technology works the same. Whatever I'm working on at home, I can open it up and work on from any Sun office.


This is some of my team in Florida where we run a lab for Sun's U.S. Sales meeting every August. Our team was shocked when our Latin America counterpart, Claudio, who is sitting down on the far left, was laid off a couple of weeks ago. He was a good guy, hard worker.


Here we are with the 'boss' in D.C. for the same meeting in August of last year. Colleen, my boss, is standing behind me in the white shirt.


This is my least favorite part of the job, standing up in front of these people and presenting material for a meeting we host in Dallas every year.


But I get them back...I make them take pictures...and I actually get them to do 'Hey' pictures - it's crazy that I have this kind of authority!


Last but not least. Here's my picture with Scott McNealy, Sun's founder and Chairman of the Board. I just wish I could tell you a few stories about this man, ask me if your curious cause I'd love to tell you about the time Scott testified against Microsoft, sitting shoulder to shoulder next to Bill Gates in court!


Sigh. I don't know what the future of Sun looks like. I don't know what MY future with Sun looks like. I just know that I love the company, I hope it stays intact and I hope I get to continue to be part of it. And Sun's stock closed at $8.89 today..........................................................................

Canon PowerShot SD200

Hey Courtney - This is for you! All taken with my point and shoot....mind you mine is older and pretty beat up (it's been dropped more than a few times so it takes a beating well) .










(This is the Arizona DMV, just in case you were curious)

Project 365 for February

Here are some of the February Project 365 Highlights!

2/1/Sunday - I still can't decide which of these two next pictures I'm going to include in the scrapbook, I like them both so much.





2/3/Tuesday - Once Nathan goes to bed, I'm either on the couch with the laptop or I'm in this position and it's typically just after 7pm.


2/4/Wednesday - Its still too chilly for a morning walk after breakfast so instead we have some cheerios and watch cartoons before we head to Amber's house.


2/6/Friday - Birthday party preparations for Saturday.


I still can't believe I made this cake!


2/8/Sunday - This morning, I was taken by complete surprise. I never thought I would find Nathan at just 2 yrs old doing something I remember doing myself as a kid! I looked down from the 2nd floor and there was Nathan laying on the floor smack in front of the t.v.


2/11/Wednesday - Another work day in front of the computer except this day I was waiting for Greg to see my Happy Birthday post on the blog.


Nathan watches while Greg works on assembling a toy for him.


2/12/Thursday - I finish designing a 3 month menu/grocery list system created to simplify my life. Which it has!!!


2/14/Saturday - I caught a picture of Nathan in an ALL OUT FIT! Yep, that is my child who has thrown himself screaming on the floor.


2/16/Monday - I took Nathan to the Park and loved how this picture turned out. It captures the chaos of kids at play. Note the kid with a batman mask on, the boy wiping his nose with his shirt and Nathan enjoying his snack from his sandwich bag.


2/24/Tuesday - This happened to be the best day of my life, seriously. This is a picture of Greg cleaning the bathroom, a part of what made this day so fantastic. It was just one of those days where everything went smoothly, I wasn't running late anywhere, I got things done, Nathan was easygoing and the bathrooms were clean with no effort on my part! Best day evah!


2/18/Wednesday - I stumbled upon a Mom's group w/ lots of kids that meets on Wednesday's at our neighborhood park. This is a picture of Nathan observing these boys as they play baseball.


2/19/Thursday - This was the day that I became that mom who finds her kid playing with a marker and a marked up face and instead of grabbing the marker from the kids hands, I grabbed the camera to take pictures!


2/28/Saturday -Our fun excursion with my brother to Canyon Lake.



That's it for February!