And here she is, all graduated and everything.  The ceremonies — a Baccalaureate Mass in the Cathedral gym on Saturday and then actual Graduation at Butler University on Sunday — were very nicely done and even moving at times, as I guess they’re designed to be.

Melinda’s now looking for a summer job to pass the time until she starts at Ball State in August with all her classes on the foundations of art and photography.

More photos are at: colleen-n-mark.com/photos/tags/graduation

Melinda’s graduation announcement. The photo is one that she took herself in a hotel room in Kentucky while on a band trip — not a typical senior portrait, I know, but one that I think shows her as she really is more than any portrait of her that I’ve seen.  I made the announcement itself in iPhoto, after touching up the photo a bit with Photoshop.

Two of Melinda’s photos — the one of some busy Fishers, IN firemen, above, and a closeup of a certain Marine’s eyes, below — were selected as round one winners in the 2D art category of the Indiana Project eXcel awards — a state-wide arts competition for high school students sponsored by Indiana Farm Bureau Insurance (this year’s theme: "Risk").

The day before the Super Bowl we drove through downtown Indianapolis and for some reason blue and white colors were everywhere — even at the top of the Indiana state capitol building.

Photo by Melinda Taber.

It turned out to be a pleasant and educational experience. The displays were very well presented, with some clever and elegant touches like a display showing limestone being quarried situated in front of a large picture window that looks out on the state capitol building outside (made out of limestone).

Once we got out of the prehistoric geological displays (those first million or so years just seemed to go on forever!) the history of the state moved along at a rapid but still thorough pace.

I was glad to see that some of Indiana history’s more controversial and/or darker parts weren’t glossed over or omitted. It’s all here — information and artifacts on the state that was home to Eugene Debs and Kurt Vonnegut yet that also embraced the Ku Klux Klan and gave birth to the John Birch Society; a state that was named after the dense population of native Americans living here, but that celebrated the general who won the definitive battle against Tecumseh’s confederation.

It honestly made me just a little bit more proud to be a part of this fascinating paradox of a state that I’ve adopted as my home.

A few more photos are here: 200701-indiana-state-museum

I’ve managed to post a good selection of photos from the trip to Zimbabwe that Christopher and I went on in November. I tried to whittle the set down to no more than 100 photos, but failed pretty miserably.

The best way to view the photos as a group is probably to go to my Zimbabwe set page on Flickr here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cnm/sets/72157594407278225/

…and from there either browse the set’s “detail view” or watch the nifty Flickr slideshow.

Overall, it was a good parade, with — as usual — all the drivers in the race, a few B- or C-grade TV celebrities, a lot of marching bands, and floats and balloons.

Here’s a video that’s kind of a melange of photos and a few short movie clips:

(Wasn’t Danica Patrick sweet? When her car had to wait for the parade to get going again, she just gamely signed autographs for anyone who came up to her car, for as long as they were stopped.)

The Cathedral Prom was this past weekend at Union Station in downtown Indianapolis. Melinda designed her own dress for the occasion, combining design elements from a couple different patterns and choosing her own colors and fabrics.

And then she and Colleen spent several weeks doing all the cutting and assembling and sewing that goes into making a dress (might as well be black magic to me). I thought the end result was a great reflection of Melinda’s unique personal style — and that she (of course) looked great in it!

A few photos of the dress (and Melinda and Nathan) are at:
http://www.colleen-n-mark.com/photos/tags/prom/

And here’s a short compilation video of a few scenes before and during the prom:

For Melinda, our January 13th baby, we went out to dinner at Logan’s Roadhouse (along with Nathan) and had steaks and ribs and threw peanut shells on the floor and all, and then went home and had cake and presents:

And for Colleen’s April 11 birthday it was warm enough (with the help of a fire in the fireplace) to sit outside on the patio at Claddagh’s Irish Pub. This time the adults played it safe with old standbys (fish-n-chips and bangers-n-mash….mmm, bangers…) while Melinda and Christopher were a little more adventurous (shepard’s pie and mussels respectively).

More birthday pix at:
http://www.colleen-n-mark.com/photos/tags/birthday/

Tags: birthday, Claddagh Irish Pub, Colleen, Logan’s Roadhouse, Melinda

Here’s a relatively high-quality streaming version of the movie in Flash 8 format:

Or, if you’re having any kind of difficulties with the above, a QuickTime version of the same movie is here.

And just for comparison, here’s the same video at Google video:

Tags: California 2005, Irvine, iMovie, slideshow, The OC

Today we got up early to drive up to Pasadena and watch the Tournament of Roses Parade live and in person — despite the expected torrential rainstorms (the first time, apparently, it’s rained on a Rose Parade in 50 years).

Cheryl and Ken met us at our hotel room and led us to one of Ken’s favorite spots to watch the parade near the end of the route. We covered as much of ourselves as we could in plastic, walked two blocks up to the parade route, and easily found front-row spaces on the sidewalk.

Everyone agreed that it was well worth braving the storms — and becoming completely soaked to the skin despite the ponchos — to see the Rose Parade and its fabulous floats and great, world-class marching bands (all of whom held up very well in the constant rain) up close and live.

More parade pix at:
http://www.colleen-n-mark.com/photos/tags/roseparade/

Tags: 2006, Pasadena, Rose Parade

This year over the Christmas/New Year holidays we travelled to California to visit my brother Steve and his wife Julie and family — as well as my parents (who came in from Michigan) and Colleen’s sister Cheryl and her family — in the Irvine/Orange County/Los Angeles/San Diego area.

So far we’ve been having a great time seeing the sites (including Universal Studios) and exploring the area. Today we hung out at Venice Beach, and it looks like we’ll be watching the Rose Parade in person on January 2 (?!?) in Pasadena if it isn’t rained out completely.

Gallery of the photos so far is at:
http://www.colleen-n-mark.com/photos/album/200512-california/

Video:

Scenes from our family trip to southern California in December 2005.

Tags: Cardiff, Irvine, travel, Universal Studios

Tags: Wabash

In late October Christopher and I went camping for the weekend at Turkey Run State Park — which we learned was Indiana’s second-ever state park. They have a lot of hiking trails, sandstone caverns, virgin forests, and covered bridges.

The park is situated in Parke County, Indiana, which apparently is like the covered bridge capital of the world. While we were there they were having their annual Covered Bridge Festival, which seemed mostly to be an excuse to have a bunch of huge flea markets in the county seat, Rockville.

It was cold but we had fun. And both of us actually appreciated the opportunity to unplug from our electronica for a bit — Christopher enjoyed himself re-reading some of his Calvin & Hobbes collections while I was finally able to focus myself and finish up Franny and Zooey, of all things.

• A photo gallery is at: 2005.10.camping
• A short, relatively pointless, and only mildly amusing video of what it’s like to hike with Christopher is here:

Tags: camping, Christopher, covered bridge, Franny and Zooey, hiking, Parke County, Turkey Run

This year’s dad-and-the-kids concert was Green Day on September 12 at Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. The concert was really fun, but the audience was also quite interesting to me — a more diverse a group, with a lot of kids with dads or moms, than any other rock concert I’ve been to recently.

When they performed “Wake Me Up When September Ends” I was reminded that I had used that song for an iMovie slideshow I put together back in February, showing photos of Melinda and Christopher taken over the course of several years on their first day of school.

It’s probably not a conventional interpretation of that song, but it works for me. Here’s a relatively high-quality version of the slideshow movie in Flash 8 format:

(If the video doesn’t work for you, you might need to upgrade your browser plugin to Flash Player 8, available for free download here.) Or a QuickTime version of the slideshow movie is also available on my Apple .Mac account here.

Tags: concerts, Green Day

This year, one of the trade shows that I regularly go to — the O’Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON) — happened to take place the same week that Melinda was scheduled to be at Band Camp practicing her flag-waving routines and that Christopher was planning to stay with his grandparents for a week (and our two recent houseguests, Katharina and Renu, had both already gone home to Germany and India respectively).

So Colleen and I decided to take advantage of this serendipitous sequence of opportunities and make use of some accumulated frequent-flyer miles so that she could come along with me to Portland — the first time since our honeymoon trip to New Orleans almost 19 years ago that we’ve travelled together on the same plane!

We had a blast. During the day, while I took care of business at the conference (manning our exhibit booth, schmoozing with authors, learning about new products and technologies, etc.), Colleen visited an old teacher friend who lived in the area and generally acquainted herself with Portland’s many charms and peculiarities.

We also had several evenings to ourselves to ride the streetcars, eat dinner in some interesting Portland restaurants, and explore the wonders of the famous Powell’s Bookstore — which is kind of what you’d get if you combined into one huge store (to put it into terms that an Ann Arborite would understand) the original Borders, a university bookstore like Ulrich’s or Follett’s, and a used bookstore like David’s.

The full photo album, complete with many pix from the booth and the convention exhibit floor, is at:
http://www.colleen-n-mark.com/photos/album/200508-oscon-portland/

Tags: OSCON, Portland, Colleen, Mark, second honeymoon, travel

After meeting Colleen’s family in Frankenmuth, we headed out east towards Canada, for a family trip to Stratford, Ontario.

While in Stratford we communed with the swans along the river, took a tour backstage at the Stratford Festival Theater, paddled kayaks and canoes on the Avon, saw a wonderful production of “As You Like It,” met and talked with Sara Topham (who played Rosalind) after the show, and then headed home.

The full gallery of photos is at: 200507-stratford-ontario

I’ve also put together an iMovie slideshow of our photos, set to music composed and performed by the Canadian group Barenaked Ladies (words by Wm. Shakespeare) for the “As You Like It” production that we saw. Here’s the movie in Flash format:

And a QuickTime version of the same slideshow movie is here.

Tags: As You Like It, Barenaked Ladies, Sara Topham, Shakespeare, Stratford

Over the Fourth of July Colleen, Melinda, Christopher and I travelled to Michigan to join the rest of Colleen’s family — her Mom and Dad, Cheryl Ann and her boys Johnny and Trevor, Eric and John, and John’s daughter Brianda — at the Bavarian Inn Lodge in Frankenmuth to celebrate her parents’ 50th Anniversary.

We had a great dinner at the Bavarian Inn (after a short delay caused by a tornado warning — during which we were forced to spend a half hour in the basement browsing the various shops they have down there), the kids had a blast cavorting with their cousins in the lodge’s various pools and game rooms, and we all had a good time exploring Frankenmuth’s unique German-like charms.

Gallery of photos is at:
http://www.colleen-n-mark.com/photos/album/200507-frankenmuth/

Tags: 50th anniversary, Frankenmuth, Bavarian Inn

Here’s a slideshow of some of my pix, set to the neo-newwave sounds of the Killers:

Tags: Novell, BrainShare, Salt Palace, SUSE

Tags: Flickr

Katharina celebrated her 18th birthday on January 17. To mark the occasion we went out to eat and then came home and enjoyed the Schwartzwalderkirschtorte (Black Forest Cake) that Colleen had made from scratch.

Tags: Katharina, Schwartzwalderkirschtorte

Tags: Christopher, snowboarding

Tags: beavers, gravel pit, Thanksgiving

I’ve posted a new photo album here of my pictures from our two-day trip to Chicago last weekend. (Melinda’s pictures from the same trip are in the November 2004 album on her weblog.)

There was a foreign language teacher’s conference at the Chicago Hilton that Colleen wanted to go to, so on the spur of the moment we decided to drive up Friday night and spend all day Saturday in Chicago before driving back late Saturday night.

Colleen spent the day at the conference while Melinda, Christopher, Katharina (a German exchange student staying with us), and I saw the sites — the Sears Tower, Marshall Field’s, stores on Michigan Avenue, Millennium Park, and the Art Institute.

Tags: Chicago, Christopher, Katharina, Melinda, travel

Hi from Katharina, Melinda, and Christopher — from the top of the Sears Tower in Chicago!

Tags: Chicago, Christopher, Katharina, Melinda, Sears Tower

Last night was Cathedral’s yearly open house for prospective students. As always, the highlight of the evening was the marching band’s rousing performance — here they are marching into the gym. Melinda is a little off to the right of center.

(Photo taken on, and posted directly from, Mark’s cellphone

It was my third trip to Utah this year, but the first time when there was snow on the mountains — all three of us poor, terrain-starved Hoosiers couldn’t help but overtly ogle the stunning views through the windows of the conference room where we had our meetings.

Tags: Novell, Novell Press, Provo, mountains

The very next day, Colleen started the school year anew, standing on our porch for pictures and then getting into the driver’s seat of her car for the first time in nine long weeks.

That’s most of us in the picture to the right (if you’re so inclined, you can click on the thumbnail to see the full-sized image).

This year’s event was held in St. John’s, Michigan, where my Aunt Margie and Uncle Gordon live and work. St. John’s is also my official birthplace, though I don’t believe I’ve ever been back to the place in the 40-something years since that event. Until now…

After we were done eating, Melinda had fun climbing on the playground fort with Benjamin and Jeremy (and then sitting and reading a comic book/graphic novel while snacking on the traditional no-bake oatmeal cookies made from Great-Grandma Taber’s recipe):

Christopher spent a lot of time spinning on the merry-go-round and playing Magic with his y-chromosoned second cousins:

While throughout the festivities Colleen sat comfortably in one place on the picnic table bench, resting her leg and cheerily talking with whomever happened to stop by:

This year, Melinda started 10th Grade at Cathedral on August 16, while Christopher started 6th Grade at Clay Middle School on August 17.

Here we are just before we left the house (while Mommy waited patiently at home, all alone, clad in her Darth Vader boot and wheeling herself around silently in her iron carriage):

The bill consisted of Linkin Park, Korn, Snoop Dog, and an opening act we didn’t get there in time to see and have therefore already forgotten. And here are some pix from the show (taken on Mark’s crummy cellphone camera):

That last one is Linkin Park. I think. I am certain, though, that a really good time was had by all (though the kids found it somewhat tedious to have to try and plug their ears every single time some of the acts uttered a somewhat objectionable word or two). It was Christopher’s third concert at “Verizon” — the first and second being Incubus and then the Who last summer, while it was Melinda’s first concert at this particular venue.

I’ve posted a new photo album here from our trip to the Wisconsin Dells in honor of my parents’ 50th Anniversary (that’s the happy couple above). 

We all gathered at the Kalahari Resort for a long weekend exploring all the waterpark rides and attractions (my favorite was an indoor surfboarding wave machine — click here for a short Quicktime movie of Christopher giving it a spin), stuffing ourselves at the restaurants, and, of course, enjoying the company of each other.

The only damper on the festivities came on the second day when Colleen injured her ankle while rollerblading with Christopher — an injury that kept her off her feet and out of the water for the rest of the trip. When we got back to Indianapolis it turned out the injury was quite a bit more serious than anyone had thought, requiring the installation of a plate to hold her bones together and a healing period of over nine long, non-walking, non-driving weeks.

One of the highlights of the summer for Colleen undoubtedly was one day running into Kurt Vonnegut (if not exactly one of Indiana’s most favorite sons then certainly one of its most famous) at the Indianapolis Art Center.

Colleen was picking Melinda up after her painting class at the Center, and Vonnegut was chatting (and smoking) with a few members of the art center staff outside the building just before the premiere of an art exhibit featuring works by various members of the Vonnegut family. 

Colleen joined the group outside, shook Vonnegut’s hand, exchanged some small talk about speaking German, and (of course) took some pictures before excitedly going back inside to fetch Melinda from her class.

Tags: Kurt Vonnegut, Indianapolis Art Center, German Americans

I’ve posted a photo album and a slide show movie (in QuickTime format for a DSL or cable connection) from Pearson’s presence at this year’s MySQL User Conference in Orlando.

We were able to show off our very first book from MySQL Press — a new imprint we set up at the beginning of the year to publish the official books on the very popular MySQL open-source database system, as well as on other products and technologies from Swedish software company MySQL AB.

We’ve posted a new photo album with a few pictures of this year’s costumes, pumpkins and the like.

We’ve posted a new photo album depicting the first few days of school this year — Melinda is now in 9th grade at Cathedral, Christopher is in 5th grade at Woodbrook, and Colleen is in her 14th year teaching at Cathedral.

The album is at:

http://www.colleen-n-mark.com/photos/album/2003-school-days/

]]> http://www.colleen-n-mark.com/2003/08/24/new-photo-album-school-days/feed/ 0 http://www.colleen-n-mark.com/2003/08/14/new-photo-album-cheryl-ann-and-ken-visit/ http://www.colleen-n-mark.com/2003/08/14/new-photo-album-cheryl-ann-and-ken-visit/#comments Thu, 14 Aug 2003 09:24:29 +0000 Mark Taber http://cnm.typepad.com/weblog/2003/08/new_photo_album_2.html

We’ve posted a photo album of pictures taken when Colleen’s sister, Cheryl Ann, and her husband Ken and family visited us. They were were driving back to California from Michigan and stopped in on their way for an evening and a day.