Hernandez Life » Work

Mark Is At It Again

Rick — Tue, 06 May 2008 19:00:01 +0000

At the time these photos were taken (April 10th), Mark’s wife was expecting and we threw him a baby shower at the office. Since then, on April 16th, baby Paige Mackenzie came into the world.

Mark posted some photos at the following:

http://gallery.mac.com/runforacure#100045

Click on a photo above to go to the galery

LaPreta Family Disney Vacation

Rick — Tue, 06 May 2008 03:23:08 +0000

Sorry I haven’t been keeping up with this blog. It’s been a busy time for me. I’ve been greatly expanding my presence on the internet (click Hernandez Life Design if you’re interested), but now I want to get back to my beginning, this blog. Over the rest of the week you should see 3 or 4 more postings with what’s been going on in our lives. First up — The LaPreta Family Disney Vacation.

End of March, Eva, Anthony, and the kids drove down to Orlando for a fun filled week. They rented a house with a pool near the attractions and had a blast. The LaPreta’s came back tired, but also tanned and full of great memories. Click the photo below or here to get to the password protected photos of the whole family (don’t worry there is a hint if you forgot the password).

P.S. I only found out last week that the links to our photo site were broken. All is fixed now, easier to access. and much faster. To see all our photos go to photos.hernandezlife.com.

Until you’ve read our reviews…

Rick — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 09:32:10 +0000

My friend Dmitry and I are collaborating on a new website devoted to reviewing stuff available through the internet. it’s called DontClickIt.com. So far we only have six or seven articles, but it’s growing daily. Our most recent review is about an upscale baby furniture store called PoshTots. Other reviews cover: TurboTax (software), Busted Tees (interesting t-shirts), and PhotoStamps (it’s really cool, thanks Aunt Liz).

As we say on our ‘About Page’:

DontClickIt.com is dedicated to reviews, news, and information, about the best of what is available on the internet for your pleasure and edification. Started in January 2008 as a joint venture between ALEXUSBIZ Corps and HernandezLife, DontClickIt will be your number one stop for all the latest info on what’s worth reviewing on this crazy. mixed up, network known as the World Wide Web.

Yes, our purpose in setting up this website is to make some money, but don’t let that stop you from checking it out. Just click here.

$5 off SmugMug! (Oh, and family-only website reborn)

Rick — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 06:28:42 +0000

OK, as any of my friends can attest, I’m an Apple fanboy. I’ve worked on Apple computers before there was a Mac, and I’ve just about owned every model of Mac PC they have come out with, except the notebooks and the $10,000 Lisa (although I have used one). I’ve owned a few iPods, an iPhone, I’ve even been known to pay for their software. I love iWeb and .mac, but their web servers are as slow as ~~the Post Office~~ molasses. That was one of the reasons I originally moved this web site from Apple to HostMonster (highly recommend them). I’ve spent the last month trying to make this site faster, and now over the last few days, in a quest for speed, I’ve moved all our photos, both this site’s and our family-only site, from being hosted on Apple, to being a series of galleries on SmugMug (family site ones are still password protected).

There are some downsides. iWeb was a wonderful tool for creating web sites. The integration of iPhoto, iWeb, and .mac, made it real easy to put a sophisticated and complex gallery of photo albums up on the web. I will also miss the nifty mini-slideshow widgets iPhoto could produce (I have kept a couple cause I like them so much).

However it was really really slow. If you were using Internet Explorer as your browser (you really should get Safari or FireFox), or were connecting through DSL or (God forbid) dial-up, well then, you probably gave up on my family site. I apologize for that. That’s what, after a bit of research, led be to SmugMug. You have to pay for the service, but it is a very small yearly amount for the ‘standard’ level service. Sure there are free sites like Flickr out there, but your viewers have to put up with advertisements, and a not as nice interface. Plus SmugMug is really fast. If you are ever interested in using their service, I can get you five dollars off by using coupon code zUHZEirkZ6UDQ in the ‘Referred by’ field on the signup form.

SmugMug gives me unlimited photo storage, so besides now having private backups of all my pics, the public galleries contain many more pictures than before. Also if you see a photo of mine you truly like, besides downloading it for free, you can pay to have it professionally printed ($0.19 for a 4×6), you can even have it made into a mug, an apron, a ceramic tile, keychain, or a slew of other choices. Just so you know, the prices are reasonable because I’ve chosen not to recieve any proceeds from these sales.

So in closing, there have been allot of behind the scene changes on our web sites, plus I had to notch up security in response to a hacking attempt. If you find anything broken, a link not going were it is suppose to, a missing picture symbol, an out right error message, please email me and let me know so I can fix it. Thanks for reading hernandezlife.com

P.S. For the family-only galleries, the password is the same and you no longer need a userid.

Click photos to go to gallery.

Ten Of My Very Favorite Photographs

If you don't know about it go to:
http://www.hernandezlife.com/archive/2007/12/23/visited-miami-ink/" />

What Depression Can Do For You…

Rick — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 16:12:21 +0000

On Saturday we went to visit one of Miami’s smaller tourist attractions, Coral Castle. The structure is comprised of numerous megalithic stones (mostly coral), each weighing several tons. Here’s the short story about this incredible place found just north of Homestead Florida.

Edward Leedskalnin (“Ed” seen life size next to my sister) was born in 1887 in Latvia. Jilted by his “True Love” Agnes one day before his wedding, understandably depressed, Ed left for America and set out on a lifelong quest to create a monument to his lost love. Ed’s unusual creation is called the Coral Castle. Ed without any outside assistance, or large machinery, single-handedly built the castle. He carved and sculpted over 1,100 tons of coral rock into walls, carvings, furniture and a castle tower.

What makes Ed’s work remarkable is the fact that he was just over 5 feet tall and weighed only 100 pounds. The individual pieces of coral that he worked with were sometimes 4,000 feet thick and weighed 26 tons. Incredibly, he cut and moved huge coral blocks using only hand tools. Ed refused to allow anyone to view him while he worked. A few teenagers, who claimed to have witnessed his work, said that he had caused the blocks of coral to move around like balloons.

Ed built the castle, which he originally named Rock Gate Park, in Florida City near the Everglades. The castle remained in Florida City until 1936 when Ed decided to move and take the castle with him. He spent three years moving the Coral Castle structures ten miles north from Florida City to its current location in Homestead. Ed continued to work on the castle up until his death from malnutrition in 1951. He put a sign on the door of the front gate saying “Going to the Hospital” and took the bus to a Miami hospital where he died three days later.

Many of the features of the castle are notable. Among them are a two-story castle tower that served as Ed’s living quarters, walls consisting entirely of eight foot high pieces of coral, an accurate sun dial, a Polaris telescope, an obelisk, a barbecue, a water well, a fountain, celestial stars and planets, and numerous pieces of furniture. The furniture pieces include a heart-shaped table, a table in the shape of Florida, twenty-five rocking chairs, chairs resembling quarter moons, a bathtub, beds, a cradle, a royal throne (the most comfortable seat in the place), and a chair for what would have been his mother-in-law (the most uncomfortable seat in his castle).

Click any of the 6 pictures above for larger versions

You can see the photos I took of this unusual accomplishment under trips on my photo page, or just click here.

I.S. Holiday Party

Rick — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 16:55:53 +0000

We had our yearly ‘Informations Systems Department’ Holiday Party on Tuesday. Thanks to all the managers for supplying all the food & drinks (including Champaign), also Mike brought in some great food from his wife’s Chinese restaurant. Other IS staff brought in a bevy of deserts. We also had our traditional ‘Chinese Grab Bag’ (don’t look at me, I didn’t name it). Yours truly came away with a nice bottle of Finlandia Vodka with 3 shot glasses. For those of you who don’t know the rules:

Everyone who brought a gift ($20 min – unisexual) pulls a number out of a hat
Person #1 picks a gift, unwraps it, & shows everyone
Person #2 unwraps a gift, then gets to choose to keep it or forcibly trade for Person #1′s gift
Person #3 opens a gift, then either keeps it or trades for either of the two gifts that came before
And so on…
The last person, #32 in our case, opens the last gift and gets to choose between it or any of the 31 gifts that came before.

Obviously the higher the number the better. I got #16. To be real fun, it must be played cutthroat; doesn’t matter if the person who has what you want is your boss or not, a friend or not. We all had a great time.

To see all the photos from our party, click Photos above, click on Work, then click on IS Holiday Party ’07. Or just click here. There are 2 pages worth.

Wrong way on Broadway

Rick — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 22:19:19 +0000

I know this has nothing to do with family, photos, or even computers but, I was walking up Broadway near my job, when I happened to notice this granite inlay on the ground. Now I’ve seen these black strips before, embedded in the sidewalk; they list everyone who’s ever had a ticket-tape parade down the Canyon of Heroes. What caught my eye was “Wrong Way”.

I know the text in the above photo is difficult to read. I’ll help, it says:

AUGUST 5, 1938 DOUGLAS “WRONG WAY” CORRIGAN FOR HIS FLIGHT FROM NEW YORK TO IRELAND INSTEAD OF HIS “INTENDED” DESTINATION OF CALIFORNIA

Happy Birthday to Me!

Rick — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 04:36:44 +0000

I hate getting older. These iPhone pictures are actually from the office yesterday showing my present from the Welfare Fund. Unfortunately I had to skip our celebration plans for today because I have a very bad cold (Phaedra has been a tender Nurse Nightingale). Hopefully I’ll be better tomorrow so I can celebrate with my brother-in-law Anthony as Nov 11th is his birthday. So… Happy Birthday to Us. I’ll post another entry tomorrow night with those pictures.

Click either of the pictures for larger versions

Diwali at the Office

Rick — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 01:01:24 +0000

Today my Indian coworkers brought in homemade delicacies to celebrate Diwali. We had various starters, Puri (fried, puffed, unleavened whole grain bread), 2 different biryanis (basmati rice dishes), vegetable curry, stuffed chili peppers, and lots of homemade deserts. It was a great success, everyone wanted it to become a tradition. Unfortunately I did not have regular camera with me but you can see a bunch of poorly taken photos here.

Diwali is perhaps the best known of the Indian festivals; it is celebrated throughout India, and in Indian communities throughout the world. It is also known as the “festival of lights”, for the common practice is to light small oil lamps (called diyas) and place them around the home, courtyards, verandahs, and gardens, as well as on roof-tops and outer walls. In urban areas, candles are substituted for diya. The celebration of the festival is invariably accompanied by the exchange of sweets and the explosion of fireworks. As with other Indian festivals, Diwali signifies many different things to the people across the country. In north India, Diwali celebrates Rama’s homecoming, after the defeat of Ravana and his coronation as king; in Gujarat, the festival honors Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth; and in Bengal, it is associated with the goddess Kali. Everywhere, it signifies the renewal of life, and accordingly it is common to wear new clothes on the day of the festival; similarly, it heralds the approach of winter and the beginning of the sowing season.

iPod Turns Five Six Today

Rick — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 01:34:54 +0000

The iPod was first introduced on October 23, 2001. Now ~~five~~ six years later, over 100 million iPods have been sold and the technology has redefined entertainment, restructured the sale of recorded music, unleashed programming from a broadcast schedule, and redefined cool. Not bad for a little white box that is just six years old. Now Apple controls over 70% of the digital music player market.

This quarter alone Apple shipped over 10.5 million iPods, along with 1.5 million Macs and 1.1 million iPhones. When I first heard of the iPod I thought, who needs to carry 1,000 songs with them, now my iTunes library holds well over 5000 songs, not to mention a bunch of movies, TV shows, music videos and podcasts. The iPod has truly changed my personal daily entertainment. In the morning I listen to environmental sounds on the bus ride in to work so I can drown out other noises and sleep. All day long I’m perusing my music library, and on the ride home from work I usually either listen to an audio book, or watch a video podcast or 2.

Happy Birthday iPod. Here’s to another 10 glorious years. Hopefully by then you will have reached three quarters of a billion sales.

Click picture to enlarge

UPDATE: Sorry, seems I can’t count. The iPod is 6 years old today, not 5. To make it up, here’s a video of that day, six years ago.