Lisa is getting ready to leave

Well, Lisa is getting ready to go to London for six weeks. She has been packing her stuff for days and getting ready for this trip for months.  However, the sad thing is - it is finally time for her to leave on Tuesday morning.  I’m excited for her to experience London for the summer and get the training she will at the Michael Palin Centre and the Oxford Dysfluency Conference (Oxford virtual tour at St. Catherine’s College) but I can’t wait for her to return.

We are ready to communicate while she is away, even with a five hour time difference, we have webcams, IM, a digital camera, video camera and email.  Lisa created her own blog http://lisalondon08.blogspot.com so she can communicate with everyone – family, friends and students. 

As prepared as we are for her being away I’m already counting down the days until she returns to Tallahassee.  Good luck Lisa and come home soon.

 

A surprise for Kaitlyn

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Originally uploaded by Ned Campbell

Well Kaitlyn’s friends really came through for her. Kaitlyn told her mom and I that she didn’t want a party even though it was her 16th birthday. Her friends were about to let her birthday go by without a party. So they threw a nice gathering at Kaitlyn’s home.

Weber spent almost 7 hours hanging out with her dragging her around town while her friends decorated and got everything ready. It was great fun and in typical Kaitlyn fashion it took her a little extra time to figure out that this was a party for her. Everyone did a great job of keeping the party quiet.

Many thanks to Kaitlyn’s friends who did what she wouldn’t let her parents do – throw her a party!

Web 2.0 never ends

In our Web 2.0 world, there is so much on the Internet that is fascinating.

New applications pop up at a astounding pace.  Many of the Web 2.0 applications focus on community and connection.  Yet as I sit here pounding the keyboard entering these very words into a Web 2.0 application, I am by myself.  I wonder who I am communicating to…I know my girlfriend will read it and maybe a couple of friends and my daughter, but who is my community and who am I connecting to?

First and foremost I am my own community, albeit a small community, and I’m connecting to myself.  This application allows me to communicate what I’m thinking and feeling and get it out of my head.  I don’t particularly enjoy writing for work or even for fun, however, blogging seems to be different.  It allows me to blurt out whatever I want, whenever I feel like it.  There isn’t a class assignment requiring two pages double spaced or requiring me to keep it between 1,000 and 1,200 words.  I can say something in 160 characters or less, like a text message or Twitter.  I can continue on and on without ever ending.  Publishing, editing, re-editing, posting comments, deleting, updating, in-fact, I can change history by updating my blog.

This blog is about connecting with my own thoughts and maybe with others.  It is also about connecting Web 2.0 applications with other Web 2.0 applications.  For example, the pictures to the right come from my flickr account and I invite people to these applications from my contacts in Outlook, Google and Yahoo.  Also I can connect to others through LinkedIn.  LinkedIn is MySpace or Facebook for professionals.  Certainly not as engaging/fun/insightful or time consuming, but still fun.

I love the web and Web 2.0 features and I’m beginning to see articles on Web 3.0 functionality, so it really is a fascinating world wide web we live in.

All my girls except for Zoey

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Originally uploaded by Ned Campbell

Here are my girls all dressed up ready for the party. We threw my mom a surprise 75th birthday party yesterday. We were successful and my mom didn’t have a clue about it until her first guests arrived. This is Kaitlyn, Lisa and Lindsey sitting on the coach in my parents living room.

We all had a great time, the girls were wonderful and really helped out and Lisa made the party a success. She did so much planning and coordinating.

Surprise mom, you are 75

We succeeded in holding a surprise party for my mom for her 75th birthday.  We succeeded because we threw the party four weeks after she turned 75 and held her party when she thought we were celebrating her grandson and granddaughter’s 16th birthdays.  Yes she has two grand kids who were born on the same day 16 years ago.  One a girl, Kaitlyn and the other a boy, Tyler.

It is a almost midnight and I am tired, so off to bed.  More on her party once I get photos loaded on the computer.

Lisa & Anna

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Originally uploaded by Ned Campbell

This is Lisa with Anna at her high school graduation party. What a time for Anna!

Lisa and I are very proud of Anna!

After the show

Another show is done!  The FICPA FABexpo is finished for 2008 and none too soon…older staff (like me) were really tired, our legs and feet were shot.

The show went great; all of the speakers were there except for one and he was replaced with another fantastic speaker already on-site.  The comments were great from the participants.  A few negative comments on the new electronic manuals and the parking, but that was to be expected.  This is the first year for electronic manuals and overall the comments have been extremely positive.  The fact is, you can save the e-manual on your computer and you can search the entire text for words of interest.  Far better than the printed manual for most people.  The parking, well there isn’t much to say – it costs $7 (actually $14 per day) but the FICPA pays for 50% of the fee.

Everyone loved Lou Holtz, the keynote speaker.  Coach Holtz talked about winning and having the proper attitude to do so.  He was really great and delivered an inspired speech.  Coach was great and spent time with our volunteer leadership, asking them about the CPA profession. He was really great with the details on our group.  In addition to Coach Holtz and 60 other speakers, we held an A&A track that covered the most recent accounting topics including IFRS and XBRL.  These are two new topics for our membership and will be covered at great length in the coming months and years.