Jason has a "new job" at T. Rowe Price!

While I had been working for T. Rowe Price since last October, I was doing the work via a contracting company called Vision Technology Services. While Vision is a great company, my time at T. Rowe was limited to just the 2 year period on my contract.

Throughout my time with Accenture, I had the opportunity to do work for a wide range of companies across the financial services industry. While I had good and bad experiences at all companies, I immediately felt "at home" with T. Rowe. The working atmosphere is tremendous, and I finally felt that I have found a company that I could see myself with for a long time.

When that opportunity came up a few weeks ago, I couldn't turn it down. I'm very excited about the opportunity to stay for a long time and leave a positive impact on a company that I really believe in.

My "new job" starts April 14th!

Old and New

It has been awhile since I blogged, but as the weather starts to get warmer outside, I wanted to share what has been keeping Holly and I entertained over the past few cold months.

My Grandpa Mort had a record player that fascinated me as a kid. It sat atop of Grandma's piano in this beautiful but worn hardwood case and was crank operated. Even more impressively, it didn't play the familiar records that I was used to--flat LP discs that everyone thinks of when they talk about a "record player". Instead, it played these little blue cylinders. I loved hearing it play, growing up, knowing that the music and words spoken were from a time long forgotten.

I don't know the history of how my Grandpa came to own what I now know is an Edison Amberola Phonograph (which was manufactured in the 1910s, but gave way to the records we know today in the 1920s), but I've heard both Grandpa and other recount stories of how this record player was the only entertainment he could afford during the Great Depression.

Listening to the Amberola, you realize how much entertainment and technology has changed over the last 100 years. While the music and the technology certainly has changed, some things haven't. Some songs--mostly patriotic and folk songs--are still played today, while others have faded into history. Also, while the technology has advanced a thousand-fold, the Amberola has the distinction of participating in the first "media format war". When conflicting media formats are discussed, many people think VHS versus Beta video tapes, or the more recent HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray DVDs. However Edison and the Victor Talking Machine Company had different ideas of how audio should be captured and played (mostly to avoid paying Edison any royalties on his cylindrical recording patents). Edison had the cylinder, and Victor (of Victorola fame) had the records that we know of today.

Knowing of my fascination for this wonderful antique, my Grandpa and Grandma left me the record player. My Dad held onto it for a couple of years as we moved out to Maryland, and while he had it he restored it to the beautiful condition it's in today. He also built a gorgeous stand for it, where I can keep all of the records that my Grandpa played over 70 years ago. The stand, made of Oak, contains wood that my Dad harvested from my Grandpa's forest, and is a gorgeous piece of furniture itself. They compliment each other perfectly, and I hope that the pair stay in our family for many more generations.

You can see the pictures of the Amberola in its new home below. Also in the set of pictures is the other piece of equipment that has entertained us this year, our new Samsung 1080P 47" LCD HDTV. While the LCD TV in our family room is truly beautiful to watch television on, the Amberola still draws us to the living room almost as often... something that I don't think our Grandchildren be able to say of any LCD TV in 100 years.

Some Competition?

It appears that we have a little bit of competition out there, for some of the dear readers of the ChalkBoard...

My cousin, Kelsey (pictured above), recently put together a Blog of her very own, and I have to say it's pretty impressive, especially considering that Kelsey is now just starting to master multiplication and division in school!

I put a link to her Blog on the right column of my page, where it will be for as long as her site is up! Of course I am doing this because her Blog is really pretty good and is fun to read... however it also looks like Kelsey has VIDEO on her Blog... this is something even I have never done before. It's clear that Kelsey now knows more about computers than I do, so now you can go over to her Blog and ask her when your computer starts malfunctioning! (Just kidding, Kelsey!)

Nice job, and welcome to the Blog-o-sphere!

Pictures from Spain

I've got a selection of pictures from Spain posted online (and also to Grandma's picture frame).

This was a tremendous vacation, and hopefully you can see how busy we were, and how much we were able to do in just 4 short days! We took 492 pictures, but we chose the top 100 to share with ChalkBoard Nation. Spain is truly a beautiful place, and the places that we visited (in order--Madrid, Toledo, Escorial, then back in Madrid) were all tremendous. Further, the people there were all very friendly and accommodating of our less-than-fluent Spanish... let's just say that Holly can't make fun of me anymore for not being able to communicate in France.

Below, the pictures should automatically scroll, but if you want the "full size" pictures, click on them and it will bring up the Picasa web site, where you can see them at "full" size.

Home Safe and Sound

All,

Just wanted to let everyone know that we have made it home safely from our trip to Madrid, Spain. It was a crazy weekend, but a lot of fun. We got in late last night, but both made it into work this morning!

Pictures will be coming probably this weekend when we have time to catch our breath!

Happy Holidays!

We've finally got all of our Christmas presents purchased and wrapped, so we are able to share our beautiful Christmas tree with ChalkBoard Nation! If we are attending a Christmas celebration near you, your present is sitting under the tree, waiting. Which one is yours??? Only time will tell!




We're trying a new way of displaying pictures to the Chalkboard. Hopefully the above works, and it looks like a slideshow. If you click on the pictures above, you should still be able to go to Picasa Web Albums (like you were able to before).

Cabinet Project Complete!

Finally, after several weekends of work and phone calls to Dad (the visionary of the project), our garage now has cabinets to store all of our stuff. We are starting to get storage back, and these shelves allowed us to officially empty the very last of our moving boxes before the end of the new year.

Dad was able to scribble out the design for these shelves on a sheet of paper, and every measurement was dead-on... I cut (wishing my measurements were dead-on), and put everything together. In the end they look pretty good, even if I do say so myself. I have the doors cut and ready to go, but that will come when we have a little bit more time.

Holly is freezing, but is now happy that both cars fit into the garage again!

All done! The flecks in the picture that you see is all the sawdust swirling around the garage that reflected the flash off the camera. It was dusty, but we survived.

WELCOME HOME GRANDMA!

It was a long and hard road, but Grandma has finally made it back home! After routine outpatient surgery in September that very quickly became not so routine and very much inpatient, Grandma has recovered to the point that she is back home and looking great! In 12 weeks, Grandma spent time in just about every wing of Parkview Hospital, but she made a recovery that one surgeon key in her recovery (and whose timely surgery ultimately saved her life) termed "a miracle". Despite a very somber early prognosis, everyone knew that if Grandma had a chance that she would do everything she possibly could to pull through. She was able to fight off the infection--something that her infectious disease specialist confided to me that the odds "were not good". Once out of the ICU and in firm control of her recovery (after 4 rough weeks in Intensive Care), she met or exceeded every milestone set ahead of her to arrive home 4 days earlier than expected. Her determination to fight and push herself in recovery is truly a testament to her character, and has been so inspirational to all of us.

Of course, you are all wondering how this impacts The ChalkBoard. The staff at The ChalkBoard were very concerned, you see... because we were at risk of losing somewhere between 20-25% of our readership! This would have had huge implications to our shout-outs to our readers (Moms and Grandma!). Grandma, we definitely cite you as one very significant reason for making these updates!

So, Grandma, make sure you sit back, relax, enjoy Grandpa's fine cooking (uh-oh! -- Maybe Parkview's cafeteria wasn't so bad after all???), and enjoy The ChalkBoard for many years to come! (The future of The ChalkBoard depends on it!)

Happy Birthday Uncle Greg

This past weekend we made a trip up to New York City to celebrate Holly's Uncle Greg's 70th Birthday. The party was as much fun as the view of the city was beautiful. I have pictures of both below. We celebrated at The Chart House, which is right on the Hudson and across from Manhattan.

Uncle Gregs 70th

New Sunny Pictures

Sunny is doing well in his new home. He is set up in the middle of our family room so he is certainly still the center of attention!

Here he is as he stretches his legs in our living room and dining room.

Sunny