vacations, babies and all in between

Its been a long time since our last post. To be honest, social networks like twitter, flickr, and facebook have pretty much taken over our external communication. They allow us to stay way more up to date with less buy-in. I can post a tweet in a few seconds and facebook pretty much runs itself. If you like the whole social network things, go "friend" us on facebook (Jonathan Duty and "Kerry Jo Kraushaar Duty"). You can also follow my twitter feed at http://twitter.com/jonathandut . I update it at least once a day. For our life in pictures go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonandkerry



That being said I think its import to try and maintain some sort of presence on this blog. So here is an update:

1) Yes, we are having a second baby! We found out a few weeks ago that it will be a girl and she is due in September. Haven't completely settled on names yet, as we are still coming to terms with the fact that we are actually going to do this again. Coming from a family of all boys, I should be even more useless than I was the first time around ;)

2) We just got back from our first non-Dallas vacation with Joshua. If you were following my twitter feeds you probably saw a few negative posts. We had a great time but there were definitely some challenges we hadn't anticipated including a surprise visit from the stomach flu fairy, me backing the van into the house a few hours before we needed to drive it 8 hours, and shaving around 3 hours off of Joshua's sleep schedule every day until he completely broke down. Aside from that it was great seeing Kerry's sister and Nashville and every second with Joshua was well worth it.

3) I'm still at Zattoo working hard to bring TV in languages I still can't understand to greater Europe. I love working at Zattoo, as after working at so many different types of companies I've decided I'm a startup/small company man. Even with all the turbulence in the economy right now, Zattoo is a perfect fit for me right now as it allows me to help build a small company while maintain some presence of financial stability to my family.

4) Joshua is surprising us at every turn. He can now count to 100 and can write numbers from 1-10. He can also spell most of our names using letter magnets, which I sometimes still can't do.

So thats about it from my end. Things are going well up here in the Arctic. As I said above if you want to keep a closer eye on us check us out on our respective social hangouts. And of course if you every happen to be in Ann Arbor you can always drop by ;)

Joshua's message

From our typing session in the previous post, here is what Joshua typed on my computer (and yes, those are real names below). I'm pretty impressed.

n 123345uufrwq a fydi8r7r6890,,,,,nnbtt5kji5557778p;l.


selfukgfkhk8j


joshuajoshua

alff
alex
katie
kyle
erin

Unix was created by 2 year olds

photo.jpg
Originally uploaded by jduty.

This is joshua making the next big thing at Zattoo. Believe it or not he actually got some unix commands correct (ls, df). Of course he also typed the entire alphabet, which the terminal didn't like too much. What took me a 4 year degree and 10 years experience my 2 year old was doing after 2 cookies. He got my hair but mom's smarts :)

tickling the ivories

tickling the ivories
Originally uploaded by jduty

Definitely doesn't get his musical ability from Dad, must be Mom.

A2Geeks.org

Being a geek and technology professional in the Ann Arbor area, it benefits me in multiple ways to have lots of people like me in the area. In an effort to try and create a society for geeks and people who want to employ geeks in this area a bunch of us have started A2Geeks.org. Please go check it out. If you are part of a professional group please register it and if you want to help we absolutely welcome it! We are currently planning 2 events I'm pretty excited about, both of which should be free. For both of them we are looking for speakers, organizers, sponsors, you name it.


The first is the annual ArbCamp 2008 on December 18.
http://www.a2geeks.org/display/geek/ArbCamp+08

ArbCamp is a spin off the famous "Bar Camp" idea, which is an "unconference". Its less about formal speakers and sessions and more about getting people interested in talking about various topics together. It will be at the fantiastic Spark Central, which should lend it self well to a nightly overflow to various bars in the area. Please go register yourself and your ideas.

The second is the first ever A2geek spring conference hopefully sometime in March of 2009.

http://www.a2geeks.org/display/geek/a2geeks+conference

This event is still very much in the planning phases so if you have ideas please help! We are hoping to secure big sponsors with big name speakers and some very well thoughtout sessions spanning many topics. Should be a great way to see what Ann Arbor has to offer professionally and geek wise.

Also, if your creative side is just itching to get out, partipicate in our logo design contest:

http://www.a2geeks.org/display/geek/a2geeks+logo+design+challenge

Rembering the warmer times

Sunday evening it started snowing and its been in the 30's ever sense. Not that its a bad thing, but as we start our 6 month winter, remember the good times ;)

Leader and his army

IMG_2439.JPG
Originally uploaded by jduty.

Halloween was great. Joshua got all dressed up and even let us put face paint on him. One of the many things we absolutely love about our neighborhood is the family involvement. All the families were outside and one of our neighbors even had a party, which was a lot of fun. Here is Joshua with two of his best friends, Katie and Alex (they are goth and rocker girls).