Welcome

Hey everybody, what-a-do

Wow, 2 weeks — sorry to be away for so long. I have been swamped with activity. I can't say work because my job search has yet to prove fruitful. I am still just as busy but I'm learning to multi-task better. I should have been an expert already the way my thoughts are fragmented; always taking some bizarre siding to nowhere. They say there's a thin line between Guinness and madness — normally about three pints, ba-dum-dum, thank you I'll be here all week. (See, it's happening right before your eyes. I meant to write genius and madness. Does that make me an egotist or a hypochondriac?)

In addition to stalking the elusive job interview, I have been learning about the brave new world of social networking, developing a computer game, shoveling snow, and writing two hit songs. (More on that later.) OK, so I never shoveled snow. I did have to scrape ice off my windows for a week.

You already know about Templar. I am working on a computer version of the card game. Soon I hope to migrate it into a facebook app.

Forums, chat rooms, myspace, facebook, texting, twitter, all the new fangled stuff out in the clouds is enough to make my head swim. And I have been a geek since I was three years old when my uncle used me in a Skinner experiment to make me curse at my grandmother’s intercom.

When Netscape suggested 20 years ago that home computers were going to follow the dinosaurs, that all people needed was a terminal to access the inter-web, I said it was way too soon. People were not ready to surrender their perceived privacy and security yet. They were not ready to trust that their private “papers” be outside of their direct control. Storing that information offsite was just too foreign a concept at the time. Well the times they are a changing; and facebook, twitter, and Carbonite are leading the way in shifting how people think about information sharing, access, convenience, and security.

The songs aren’t hits yet, but these have more potential than anything I have ever written. One I wrote a few months ago, but I have been working on the arrangement and hope to have it finished by tomorrow, and the other is a secret. I have a sketch demo done, just to get the concept down, but I need to bring the production level way up.

SouthMark — late post

SouthMark is in sunny Florida this week looking for a sweetie on the rebound that will be his Valentine for the race. Well it's mostly cloudy, but sun is defiantly in the forecast for next week.

Deep Zoom Test

Sorry there hasn't been much added lately. I have been busy looking for a job and working on a few major projects. I hope to roll them out in a week or two.

In the mean time, I have added a quick and sloppy test of the Microsoft Silverlight Deep Zoom. I think it has great potential. The painting is one given to me by my Grandmother. Her sister-in-law is the artist. Click on the mountain.

I know the quality of the image is very poor, I will update this with better images as time allows. Its not quite like the preview, but I still need to learn more about the tech. Check out the Historic Documents Section; I have updated some of the images with Deep Zoom.

SouthMark — makeover

Laying a New Foundation

Carrying the Dream Forward — the 2010 State of the Union Address

First I would like to apologize to anyone who suffered through the excessive amount of misspellings, typos, and keyboard malfunctions during my live blog of the state of the union address last night. I always knew I was a poor speller, not really how much I rely on spell checkers.

I am working on a detailed analysis of his speach, but you can find my raw impressions here.

SouthMark

This week we find SouthMark in Washington.

In stunning upset, Brown tops Coakley for Senate seat

Republican Scott Brown tonight pulled off one of the biggest upsets in Massachusetts political history, defeating Democrat Martha Coakley to become the state’s next United States senator and potentially derailing President Obama’s hopes for a health care overhaul.

With 73 percent of precincts reporting, Brown had 53 percent and Coakley had 46 percent.

more...

New Hope in Florida

Send your comments to: c......@wishiwereking.com

SouthMark — debut

SouthMark has no affiliation with MTV, Comedy Central, South Park or its creators. It is intended soulfully for political and social satire. If I can think of any more, they will be collected over in Fun & Games.

Reflections on the Season

These days it’s sometimes easy to get lost driving towards your goals, to get sidetracked by your wants and ambitions, or bogged down with problems. You miss just how important common everyday connections can be.

I was reminded of this again while visiting family at Christmas. And while all my gifts were well received, some stood out as all time favorites, all of them as unexpected as they are precious to me.

The first was Christmas Eve. Now, I am by nature a solitary, back of the room, stand in the shadows kind of guy.  It’s hard for me to take the spotlight for anything. So when my nephew’s wife asked for volunteers to play Santa Claus on the phone for her young cousins, I held my tongue.

The Santa from previous years was unable to make the call. When no one else looked eager to step up I reluctantly said I would do it. I placed the call and asked to speak to the children. They were surprisingly talkative for being 5 and 7. I asked if they had been good and told them they should do what their Mom and Dad said. When it was over, I felt confident enough to call a dozen other kids.

The next morning we gathered around the tree to exchange gifts. One card affected me like no other. My nephew and his wife had made a donation in my name to provide Christmas gifts for the children of military families in need. (see side bar)

At the top of my Christmas list for the past few years has been to make a donation to your favorite charity, but no one had ever given me this before. I was all choked up and had a hard time reading the card to the rest of the family. It touched my heart.

Then my family joined me in a holiday project (see Happy Birthday Jesus below). I had written a new birthday song a few months ago, but had not had the opportunity to sing it to anyone yet. Christmas morning as I waited for the rest of the family to wake up, I thought how appropriate it would be to sing it for Jesus. I was thrilled that after I suggested it, everyone happily joined in.

My brother and his family arrived the next day and we celebrated Christmas again. My brother’s gift to my mom was totally awesome in the true sense in that it inspired awe.

One of my mother’s hobbies is tracing our family tree. She researches libraries and visits cemeteries when on vacation. This year my parents went to Ellis Island. Her grandmother (my mother’s mother’s mother) had come to this country from Denmark when she was three.

Mom and Grandma were extremely close, and Grandma passed away this year. She has been missed very much. To honor her and her family’s legacy, my brother had Grandma’s mother’s name registered with The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation to engrave her name on the American Immigrant Wall of Honor. His gift was so much more... seeing the emotion and joy on Mom’s face was a gift to everyone in the room. Thank you, I’m so proud of you brother.

This should not have surprised me at all. My brother has shown me for years how responsible, thoughtful and loving he is, but I guess sub-consciously it was hard for me not to ever see past the obnoxious little brother.

Christmas gifts have so many meanings. First as children we are overwhelmed by the shininess of new toys. Then we discover that giving can be just as fun. Small sacrifices of time and effort pay off in big dividends. We can appreciate and take part in the joy in others. (Of course putting yourself outside your comfort zone is meager comparison to being away from family and putting life and limb at stake.)

How special it would be if we could all accept His gift to us and take part in the joy He feels.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.  — John 3:16

The most important connection of all.

Send your comments to: c......@wishiwereking.com

Happy Birthday Jesus

To celebrate the birth of our Saviour my family graciously allowed me to record their singing of a song I wrote. Special thanks to my niece-in-law for lending her voice at the end.

Send your comments to: c......@wishiwereking.com

Copyright © 2009 Mark Kimmell, all rights reserved

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