The Ede kids looking cute:

The Ede Family Photo:

The Barnard Family Photo:

Last but not least, ThatEdeGuy and me, with Lightning and Sparky:

So all in all – we had a fun Christmas!

Hope everyone else did too   Have a fun and save New Years tonight.

Post from: Jake's Corner

Christmas Pics

Safe travels to all of those moving about the country.

Post from: Jake's Corner

Merry Christmas

Though we do hope to make it down after the storm passes to make the rounds and try to visit everyone then.

I might get some posts up on here and Epic Plains over the weekend, but not sure if I will manage to get any set up or not.  Either way, I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas!

Post from: Jake's Corner

Home for the holidays or not

Check out my deviantArt Portfolio here: Jake Barnard – Digital Works

Here are a couple of my favorite pieces that are on there:

On the merry-go-round by =olorinpc on deviantART

Ready for the ride by =olorinpc on deviantART

Firetrucks on Parade BW by =olorinpc on deviantART

The portfolio is separate from the deviantArt galleries, but all images displayed on there can be found in my dA gallery.  Prints can also be purchased from the dA gallery if you see something you really like.  I have discovered the downside to taking tons of pictures with the new camera is developing a huge backlog of images to process and post, but that is part of the fun!

Oh and if anyone has a better idea for a tagline, let me know.  I think it needs some work.

Technorati Tags: Jake Barnard, deviantArt, dA, Nikon, D60, Olorinpc

Post from: Jake's Corner

deviantArt Gallery

It has been a pretty busy last couple of months for me.  I have been digging out literally (snow drifts) and figuratively (workload).  Though there have been some exciting developments along with some sad ones as well.

A couple of weeks ago I went out with my mom to Seattle (well Vashon Island which is in the Puget Sound by Seattle) to say goodbye to my Opa.  (Opa being Grandpa in German.) Our timing was good as he passed away a week later.  It was nice to get out there and spend some time with him and some of our relatives.  I was out there briefly for a work conference 2 years ago, but had only been able to visit for a day.  I did take pictures while I was out there and uploaded them to flickr.

On a more exciting note though, ThatEdeGuy saw the birth of his 2nd child, a little baby girl.  (My wife and I were asked to be Godparents – though it was exciting enough already without that additional part.) I will be posting some of the pictures I uploaded to flickr later. She had a little lung infection that has prevented them from bringing her home, though things have been going very well and sounds promising for getting to come home tomorrow.  (My wife will probably be sneaking to the hospital today to get more time holding her when I am not looking. )

Dart League is just about over for the year.  I am having trouble being sad about that as it has been a longer than normal season and even going every other week seemed like a larger time commitment than I thought it was going to be.  Even so, we finished out a lot better than we thought we were going to.  There were 13 Monday Night teams.  After riding 10-12 all season, we fought our way up to the #7 slot after this past Monday’s performance.  This weekend we have the end-of-season tournaments.  Starts Friday night at 7:30pm, then continues Saturday morning at 11am.

Locks away half of the weekend, but should be a good last hurrah with the team.  (Since we have gotten a whole lot better during the last half of the season, should go pretty well too. Though may get done with that and be needed for the Jamestown Sandbagging effort!)

Last but not least today, while I have been posting here a lot less than I would like, my frequency of updating my Twitter account has stayed pretty high.  So make sure to check it out.

Technorati Tags: Jake Barnard, ThatEdeGuy, Baby, Jamestown, Twitter, Darts, Sandbagging

Post from: Jake's Corner

Someone said it is Spring now

Since it is raining, and I managed to mow the lawn on Monday evening, probably going to start prepping the upstairs room for painting.  Once that is done, I should be able to start unpacking and organizing the office stuff.

"Is it time to go in yet?"

Other than that – nothing too exciting here at the moment.  Sparky is doing well and a very happy puppy   We are having a blast with him – and nothing has been destroyed yet in the house!

Still working on the whole getting used to the kennel when we aren’t home thing, but that is going pretty well too.  I think we aren’t going to show him the upstairs till after it is painted – don’t need puppy assistance for that!

Technorati Tags: Sparky, olorinpc, Logan Adams, Jamestown, North Dakota, puppy

Post from: Jake's Corner

Hump Day

All in all, we are still very excited.  Shane is going to try to help me finish moving the upstairs stuff over to the new place.  (Pretty much just office stuff.)  If we managed that, then it will be the main floor stuff, which all goes onto the main floor of the new place.  I think our biggest dissapointment this weekend was we weren’t going to just keep moving stuff and try to get everything moved.  (Duh it never would have worked, but we have been excited enough to think abouit it!)  Oh and that we can’t pick up Sparky (our new golden puppy) till after moving weekend.  Though that does give us more time to get puppy stuff and the place ready.

Technorati Tags: Jamestown, new house, homeowner, north dakota, olorinpc

Post from: Jake's Corner

Exciting weekend!

We have been quite busy on the fire department, and it is getting close to closing time on the house. So between the two – its going to be a busy busy next month.

Hopefully the fishing part of the weekend will go well. We had limited time to fish last year and they just weren’t biting… so hoping to make a better shot at it this year!

Technorati Tags: olorinpc, jake barnard, fishing, weekend, fire department, Jamestown

Post from: Jake's Corner

Ready for the weekend

Schools Push and Get Results

A couple of teachers at a high school in the suburbs of Minneapolis, MN decided that they’d seen enough of their students fail and not go on to college. Instead of letting their students get by with low test scores, they decided to do something about it.

What’s most important here, isn’t that the teachers gave a darn. (Although that is important in and of itself) The truly important part is that the students are being held to a high standard and are excelling where once they weren’t. Over the years, we’ve let our standards lapse so that none of the students feel left out or “stupid” and so that they all get that ever important diploma. All that’s accomplished is a decrease in the level of education that our students receive. Our students test grades, when compared to other countries, have been steadily declining. Why? Because we’ve let our standards go. No child left behind right?

Push.

Cunningham said some of her [classmates] don’t realize the importance of those high expectations, because “once you get put into that category, you just live up to it.”

Push.

“Sometimes you need someone to push you,” Davis said.

And it’s popular.

Originally, the course was scheduled for three days a week, but [Susan] Barnard works with up to 20 students every school day.

I wonder why 20 students a day would volunteer for a “hard” class like that?

My congratulations go out to the teachers in charge of this program. Assistant Principal Gerald Sakala and English/Special Education teacher Susan Barnard have taken the future of their students into their own hands and directed it to a much brighter place.

Post from: Jake's Corner

Congrats Mom!

Then Ann, Shane, Trav, and Jess helped us start getting the various projects ready for the reception. We got a lot more done than we expected, so there is that much less to do tomorrow during the day. Dad is doing the tux run to Fargo, I am staying to help coordinate things at the house… and things are going from there.

It is all coming together though… so we are actually starting to relax about the planning stuff. It will be a lot of fun tomorrow to greet people as I see them.

I will try to get another post up sometime tomorrow!

~Jake

Technorati Tags: Jake Barnard, Cha Cha, Jamestown, Wedding, Olorinpc

Post from: Jake's Corner

Almost ready…