Intelligent Art

I have always been drawn towards educational visual aids.  In fact, I am more interested in looking at maps, periodic table of elements, and bedrock cross sections than I will ever be looking at the majority of the paintings at the MIA or the Walker.  I still enjoy these museums quite a bit, but only a few visits a year  is needed to fill up my artsy quota.  I am convinced that the geology visual aids and mineral samples lining Pillsbury Hall at the University of Minnesota were a contributing factor to declaring Geology as my undergrad major.

As a "grown-up" I find myself wanting to fill my limited wall space with framed maps and chemistry tables.  I have denied this desire and stuck to traditional home decor so as not confuse, plus my DH now has a say in this matter and I don't think he'd share this aspiration, though I have yet to ask.  As I type this I glance at my living room artwork tastefully matching the throw pillows on my couch and I yawn.  If I really want to fill my house with pics of Steve Jobs and diagrams of the local rock outcrops than now is the time to act, right?  I know I'd encourage this small pleasure in my friends and family so why not myself?

Good Things

A miniature wooden house on a post has appeared in our neighborhood. It has a glass door and is filled with books for anyone to read. This cute idea is part of the pay it forward movement. What a great idea!

Minnesota Local News - minnlocal.com Hopkins News Former Raspberry Princess and husband start app development company in Hopkins

Minnesota Local News - minnlocal.com Hopkins News Former Raspberry Princess and husband start app development company in Hopkins

Daddy's little engineer

My DS Sebastian accidentally dropped his little "Wubsy" laptop today and broke it.  I told him at the time that when daddy got home from work he would try to fix it.  Well he waited anxiously all day and was so excited to help unscrew the toy and try to fix it tonight with daddy.  Captured in this video are my two boys hard at work fixing the toy.

Extra Extra

This week Wood App Developers (meaning DH and I) have had our hands full with new client meetings, press releases to the media, and editing our youtube videos.  I have never had this much chance working with local media since my Raspberry Festival days.  It's been kind of fun talking to reporters.  I will link up the news articles with our interviews in just a few short weeks (fingers crossed).  Here is our latest press release and a short video of our gaming app, Awesome Ninja.

Tonight DH and I are pumped to be taking a break from work and spending our evening at the State Theatre.  I am somewhat excited to be taking my 2 year old son Sebastian to his first live showing of Yo Gabba Gabba (a ridiculous children's show).  We are a little obsessed with Yo Gabba Gabba and REALLY obsessed with watching our toddler's reactions to everything.  I can't imagine being 2 years old and seeing someone that you watch on TV in REAL LIFE right in front of you.  Should be grand.  :)

The Perfect Laptop Station

My DH and I purchased another Macbook last night.  That brings our home pc/mac count to an obscene amount not to mention our iPad.  I have spent a good part of my day reorganizing cords and ports.  I have decided our two macbooks (13" and 15") need a new home.  On top of my geek chic lies a domestic diva begging for sleek charging stations or a gorgeous hidden laptop shelf.  I despise cords.  I have begged my DH to purchase a variety of hidden cord covers, charging stations, media organizers and the like.  We have our pc in the studio all organized and squared away.  The laptop pc lies sadly underneath the couch with the cord obnoxiously sticking out and every so often getting stepped on.  Now I need to get these macbooks under control and I am seriously considering these Henge Book docking stations. 

 Only problem is it's a little overkill seeing as I am only interested in finding a nifty place to discreetly charge these.  I don't need another workstation or a desk.  I have a penchant for clean surfaces.  My dining room table has to be cleared off at the end of every night.  I know from experience that when stuff has a home my house looks better.  Needing serious suggestions here.

Awesome Ninja - The Game

Get ready for the upcoming release of Awesome Ninja, my husband's addicting game that is available for the iPhone/iPod/iPad.

Our initial concept of the game was designed around the keywords ninjas, pirates, and chicks, and has evolved into 9 worlds of awesome-ness.  My husband has over 13 years of programming experience so the playability of this game is truly amazing.  Along with writing the code and creating the animations he also composed all of the original music for the levels and created some hilarious sound effects.  My contribution to Awesome Ninja was designing the graphics, though my favorite part of developing this app was definitely the testing process.  We spent hours playing the game over and over trying to beat the levels and high scores.  Stay tuned for the release of Awesome Ninja, should be in the App Store on iTunes shortly.

Today Raspberry Festival starts in my town and tens of thousands of people will flock to my little suburb to honor this awesome little part of the world I live in.  As a former Raspberry Princess, or more suitably known as a "moldy raspberry" I have spent the better part of the week preparing for the festival.  I spent an evening chaperoning 24 junior royalty candidates (and their parents) at the outdoor bandshell for a local fashion show.  My fellow princess Mary was the night's emcee which is always fun when you are trying to get a bunch of 6 year old's to speak coherently into a microphone.  To celebrate the first day of the Raspberry Festival I decided to "bump" this awesome video of me and my fellow raspberry family.

My Beauty Routine

Now that it is summer I am starting to see a lot more sunburn.  Tanned skin is bad enough but SUNBURN is really dangerous stuff.  I wear sunblock every single day and so should you.  Sun damage is the #1 cause of aging.  Wrinkles, "age spots", uneven skin tone, freckling in the summer, and yes even suntan are all the results of letting your skin be damaged by the sun's UV rays.
Hopefully your skin care regimen consists of daily SPF use.  If you need extra motivation to use sunscreen (besides the whole skin cancer thing) purchase a gentle moisturizer with SPF 15 or greater already in it and save a step in your routine.  This applies to men too, anyone can get skin cancer.
I have detailed skincare and makeup recommendations available in my ebook Look Hot.  For the month of July I am offering my ebook, Look Hot, at 50% off if you purchase it at Smashwords.com and use the coupon code SSW50. This ebook details skincare and makeup routines along with style guides.

Movie Filmed on my Block

My neighbors pointed out to me last week that my house was in the 1996 movie Beautiful Girls.  I have not seen it yet but I was able to find this blog posting about using the duplex across the street from me for one of the longer more notable scenes in the movie.

Apparently there is a scene where a snow plow driver played by Michael Rapaport, plows all the snow in the driveway up to the duplex garage so that the renter played by Martha Plimpton (of the Goonies) can't open her garage door.  This weird little bit of trivia makes me like this quirky working class neighborhood just a touch more than before.  I have since added this movie to my Netflix queue.

On another note, my husband and I have updated our Wood App Developers website due to the high demand for iPhone and iPad apps.  We have had back to back projects lately and are incredibly excited to be working daily on iOS projects.  Here's a screenshot of our new website.

iCloud excitement and park shenanigans

So I watched Apple's keynote address from the WWDC (World Wide Developers Conference) last night with my husband.  The keynote showed a rather frail yet compelling Steve Jobs explaining the upcoming release of Lion, iOS 5, and iCloud.  Three things which most mac users and iOS device users should be pretty excited about.  I had planned on only watching 5 minutes to find out WHAT exactly was iCloud.  Well an hour later my husband and I were so enthralled with the Apple video I had to tear myself away to get ready for bed.  What I really took away from this keynote was that Apple is actually aiming for a "pc-free" world.  Where one can do everything on their iOS devices such as iPads, iPhones, and iPod Touches without ever having to plug their darn device into their mac to sync, sync, and sync yet again.  Should be exciting when iCloud is in place come this fall.
On another note this Minnesota humidity wave has put my 2 year old son on a park strike.  He  adamantly declines each time I ask him if we should go to the park, or even onto the swing-set in our backyard.  After the last few days he has decided that everything that gets hit by the sun is "hot" and therefore he wants nothing to do with it.  After a couple of hours of him moping around I decidedly packed him up and told him we were checking out a new park my Mom's Club had told me about.  After finding the parking lot deserted (which is odd for a park on a Tuesday at 11am) I walked him around showing him all the cool stuff and even riding the plastic horse on a spring to show him that the plastic seat while warm, was not too hot and rather fun.  I even pointed out the ironic "North Mpls for life" graffiti in this yuppie Minnetonka neighborhood park.  He did not care and just wanted to go back home.  Which we did.  I guess we'll attempt a new activity when he gets up from his nap.

Just Another Manic Monday

My head is full of images this morning.  Spent a couple of hours walking through VERY recent F2 tornado damage in North Minneapolis with my husband.
We happened upon the site only a couple of hours after the tornado struck and the neighborhood was literally in shock.  People sitting on their front steps of their damaged homes with trees uprooted and a shell-shocked look to them.  Everyone that we encountered was physically ok, but unfortunately there was no help for these people at first.

After nearly 90 minutes climbing around the damage and checking in with folks we finally saw our first police car and the beginnings of the city clean up crew.  Power lines were down all around us and people finally started clearing brush and trees mostly by themselves.  So sad, I have been thinking about it a lot today.

This did NOT happen in my neighborhood, but we were only a few miles away and all we got was the tornado siren and a large storm.

Thankfully the city is in clean up mode and it sounds like everyone is getting help at this point.

I have also completed drawing two more illustrations for my husband's iPad game he has been developing for months.  This is really his baby as he has a bit of a gamer geek past and has been coming up with ideas for as long as I have known him.  I just helped a bit with the creation of the sprite sheets, which were actually rather challenging!  I don't dare post them here as my husband is very hush hush about his game until we actually get approved by Apple.  I can say it is very similar to a casual game like Angry Birds but minus the design assistance of a large scale Finnish team.

Google IO and Hello Kitty

Can someone help me settle a nightly debate that I have been having with my husband regarding the realistic uses of the recently launched Android Open Accessory.  So what is this thing?  Well Google IO had it's fancy-pants annual conference a week ago in which it launched a whole bunch of awesome stuff that developers and techie geeks go nuts for.  At this conference Android folks announced the ability to create your own accessories using the Android Open Accessory Kit (ADK) which includes an Accessory Board.  This means you can use your Android device to control any electronic you may have, once you develop the app of course.  I have been developing iOS apps for Apple devices since last year with my husband, and we have been considering developing on Android platforms and the like.  My husband is really excited about this new launch but my question is what electronic device do I need to operate with my smartphone that I can't already operate by some other means.  Oh and did I mention that at this point it is not wireless?  I mean TVs already come with remotes.  HVAC systems have thermostats.  The example given by Google shows a Hello Kitty device of some sort hooked up to an Android device.  Gee thanks for the example Google.  I have been racking my brain trying to think of REAL uses for this and I am drawing a blank.....

Beauty blogger?

I wrote and published an ebook called Look Hot available now at the Kindle Store on Amazon.

The year I spent as a Raspberry Festival Princess appears to be paying off by the loads of beauty advice I received.  Who knew that learning how to stay in pristine condition for 10 hours on a hot July day while wearing a full length ball gown (and bodice) could come in handy!  Ok maybe not everyone needs to learn how to wave properly from a parade float but my book is full of really useful beauty and style information that actually works!
I am not sponsored or endorsed by any beauty products so my unbiased information comes straight from the mouths of real women and what really works. 

I have decided to re-open my blog to a broader range of topics, including beauty blogging, iphone app development, ebook publishing, being a princess, and my favorite title of all SAHM!

Although my love/hate relationship with the hoarders in my neighborhood continues to exist I have found myself friends with a lot of my neighbors and have some good ones finally hence the decline in neighborhood watch posts.

Please feel free to sample my ebook as well from Amazon, and soon to be available for Nook and the iPad iBookstore.  I know you will be pleased. :)