This is a weekend post, so indulge me if I go a bit "personal" on this one. There is no digital media update here -- just a great slice of life .... I returned to my roots this weekend -- back to the land of 10,000 lakes -- back to Minneapolis. Family, friends (a high school reunion of sorts) and, yes, football. Classic football at perhaps the least classic NFL stadium -- the Metrodome. I hadn't been in the Dome for a decade, but it was well worth the wait, as my Vikes clashed with the self-proclaimed "best team in football" -- the S.F. 49ers. There was most definitely something in the air today as two of my life-long friends -- Chad Hummel, left and Steve Wennblom, right -- and I strolled down the pre-game "Purple Path" and into the Dome. We knew the odds -- but we also felt some strange electricity with this purple team that had absolutely none last year. And, ultimately, we saw a come-uppance engineered by Vikes QB, as Christian Ponder and the purple pounded, pummeled and prevailed 24-13 despite the best efforts of the replacement refs to replace that score. Classic weekend ....
Sorenson Media's Vice President of Business Development & Strategy, Kirk Punches, hosts a FREE video encoding webinar tomorrow, Tuesday, at 11 am Pacific Time. Among other things, Kirk will give a test drive of new "Squeeze Premium" -- this is our latest product for server-side transcoding. 
A few weeks back, I interviewed Sorenson Media's resident in-house expert, Randon Morford, about the new H.265 HEVC (high efficiency video codec) -- what it means for businesses, and what it means for consumers. It was a highly read post (one of my most widely read ever, in fact), demonstrating the topical interest.
Check out the freckles coming up on her little nose!
She actually did paint on some paper for a few minutes...not as long as she painted on herself obviously.
And then she stripped down to wash it all off...except for that splotch on her forehead. She is now asleep and I'm pretty sure that spot is still there...
OH! And remember the pineapples I was growing? Check out the before (left) picture and the current (right). They are getting HUGE! I swear, those are the same pineapples! Maybe in a year or so I'll actually have a pineapple. I'm pretty sure this is the longest I've kept anything alive...other than my child. I'm doing pretty good with her still too :-)
Isn't she cute in her purple wetsuit??? I let her wear it to play in the backyard pool this afternoon. I just wanted to make sure it fit before we tried it in the ocean. It seems to be a tad big, but I think it may still help!
Sage still loves school. She went up to a higher age group about a month ago. At first it was a bit scary (for me!) but she's adjusted to it so well. She is learning something new every week. She can now sing the ABCs, even the "Now I know my ABCs, next time won't you sing with me..." part. The "L,M,N,O,P" messes her up and she usually just blurs it all together and sings, "H, I, J, K,bluh,bluh,bluh,bluh,bluh, Q,R,S..." 
Another thing about school is that she is in a class with a bunch of little Hawaiian kids. She's picking up on the local's dialect. Sometimes I have to ask her teachers to translate something that she said the night before. Sometimes I enlist my clients to help me. "Soo....last night my kid asked if we could eat ___. What the heck is that??" They usually help me out. One good example is that the local Hawaiians call their shoes "slippers." But they don't pronounce the 'r' so it's more like "slippahs." Mainly that just means any sort of sandal type shoe ranging from flip-flops to crocs. If I ask Sage to go get her shoes she will do so, but if she initiates talking about her shoes she calls them "slippahs." The other day we were walking to the car and she stepped out of her shoe and screamed, "MY SLIPPAH!!!!! MY SLIPPAH!!!" She's going to be sooo messed up once we move back to the mainland.
Another thing is that every day when I ask her what she had for lunch she answers with, "Rice." Now, rice is a staple at just about every single, solitary meal over here. Even the fast food places serve rice with each meal. McDonalds serves spam, eggs and rice for breakfast. Wendys services chili with a big scoop of rice in the middle. You can buy spam and rice at every single gas station. Rice, rice, rice. Sage doesn't even like rice.But everyone in her class does and her daycare serves it just about every day as a side dish. So she tells me she eats it every day.She doesn't. She just says it because everyone else does it.Now Kahlua pork...she will tear that up. 
And another thing...her school had "open house" last week. They close down for a week during the summers to do a deep cleaning of the facility, their annual staff training, and to create the next year's curriculum. Then on the last day of that week they do an open house in the evening so you can come in, check out the new classroom arrangement and talk about your child's curriculum. It was nice to go to the open house because I got a chance to really talk to her teachers. Usually they are chasing around a room full of toddlers so I just stick with the bare minimum when we talk. Her teachers asked me when I was going to start sending her to school in big girl panties. I give them a blank look. We haven't done too much about the potty training around here...Then her teachers proceed to tell me all about how she goes to the potty at school. So apparently, she's 'somewhat' potty trained at school-just not at home. She never even asks at the house. Tricky little red head....
That's her little friend beside her playing with the light board. We've known this little girl since she was born. The picture is very deceptive.This room was just about pitch dark except for this light-up board. They put colored pegs into the light board and it made them glow all pretty:
This is Sage comparing her foot size to a sumo-wrestler's foot:
There was a little room that was a similar replica to a doctor's office/hospital room. All of the things in the room were about half-sizes so they were perfect for Sage. It was complete with scales, medical equipment, x-rays, and bassinets for all the little sick baby dolls. Regardless of all of the amenities, Sage chose to see her patients on the floor:
Sage is driving her friend somewhere (I swear her friend didn't have red hair until we came to Hawaii, then it just miraculously started to change colors!):
This was an area that was supposed to look like a police station. There were a few phones to let the kids practice dialing 911. Sage obviously was having a hard time figuring the phone out...she always listened in the wrong end :)
This was at the mini post office. She drew a stamp:
And now she's a judge. Order in the court!
In the reading room on the hugest couch ever!
Rocking by a fire place:
Driving her friend around in a bus. Sage always gets to drive:
Picking veggies out of the garden:
I didn't get too many pictures on this floor but there were lots of different rooms that were to mimic a families home in multiple different countries. In each room there was a phone you could listen to and someone from that country would explain some of the customs and traditions. Those marks on her arm are tattoos.One of the countries had an area where they made fancy patterns on fabric but Sage chose to put the fancy patterns on herself:
Sage's favorite area! The grocery store. She could fill that little cart up 100 times:
And now she is forecasting the weather just like Uncle Brandon!
First carousel ride!