www.geoffmitchell.com

Today is Valentine’s Day. Now, I’ve never been one for “hallmark holidays”. In fact, I’ve actually gone so far as to refuse to participate and observe in many of them in the past, as it’s never felt sincere to express love or gratitude because it’s the day to do so, in place of doing so because it’s from the heart. But as has been the case with other beliefs I’d held for so many years, having a family casts a different light on some of these holidays, and I’m actually grateful to have time set aside to focus on reflecting on my love and appreciation for my wife. Even when it’s “the day to do so” it remains from the heart.

Something I saw last night struck me as the ideal story to post today, which captures a moment in our history, and it’s presence in our daily lives.

I saw two doves.
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I’ve lived in the Bay Area, with one or two very brief exceptions, since I was in 6th grade. Our home was less then a 1/2 mile from the current headquarters of Apple in Cupertino, when it was a vacant lot used by the Mariani dried fruit company to air dry apricots. Uh…. right next to the freeway, come to think of it. But I digress. Back then, my high school girlfriend lived off Bolinger Road, on Johnson Avenue. And that was all so many year ago. Yet I work at Apple today, and for the last 1+ years, since we moved into a home in the Saratoga area, my drive home is almost exactly the same drive I’d take several days a week when I was dating Holly, during my latter years of high school and beyond.

Recently, en route home, the random selection of music on my mp3 player started playing “Heaven Tonight” by Cheap Trick. Just the opening guitar licks and the route I was driving, directly towards Johnson Avenue, transported me back to that period where I’d make a left, drive about 1.75 blocks and pull in front of 10460.
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While I was recently scanning in some family photos, I dug out some of my own personal photos from the garage and found a number of favorite that I wanted to append to those I already have posted in my “Personal Portfolio“. These are links to some favorite places and times, and one’s just plain ‘links’.

The chains were on a rusty anchor on a pier in Monterey, the Halfdome shot was from a single prop cessena, the Karate Fire just captures the man’s foot breaking the burning boards, the NY Skyline was a black and white taken from the Empire State building, and the Ray Bans captures a time when I was thin, my hair was dyed and spiked, Ray Bans were cool, and I had lots of free time to work in the dark room to create the final ’screen’ effect… by hand… it was all done without a computer. Imagine that. :-)

Personal Photo Portfolio

As you may be aware from earlier posts, my mother-in-law passed away shortly before Christmas. Back in 2005, on her 70th birthday, my wife and I worked on a movie that captured her life from infancy to adulthood and we ’screened it’ at a party for her. It brought tears to her eyes, and to some of ours as well. With her sudden passing, we thought it would be nice to update it, and play it prior to her burial. I’ve also pressed a DVD version for all of the family, and i’ve posted a web version online.

Because this has family images, It’s on a password protected section. The user name is my son’s name, the password is my daughter’s name. If you need more help beyond that, email me.

Another year, another effort at a creative image to share with friends and family. Yes, last year, just as it was the case for their birthday video, it was missed. It’s not due to not trying… I still have the incomplete image on my computer, it just did not get done. But this year it did, and here it is for your viewing pleasure. For those with the name/password, you can find a larger version posted on our family photo album.

When our kids were first born, my mother in law stayed with us for 3 months. When it was first arranged, although it was great to anticipate the help, I feared the typical ‘Darin/Endora’ interplay and tension, and on more then one occasion I actually think I heard her mutter ‘Derwood’ under her breath. But in all honesty, it was more than a saving grace, so much so that we added her name to our daughter’s name. And when she was due to leave, having made a big deal of her callous abandonment of her grandchildren, I wanted to make sure she didn’t do so without a final pang of guilt. All in fun of course.

So with the help of a color printer and iron-on decal paper, I produced this set of ‘onesies’ for the kids to wear on her final day.
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Since year 1 of their birth, given his blonde hair and temperament, and her relative ‘pebble-ness”, I’ve longed to see our kids in Flintstones attire for Halloween. Year 1 was too soon, and year 2 was right when we were returning to the bay area and just not an option. Next year, year 4, we pretty much expect they’ll be telling us what costumes they’ll wear. So this year, year 3… this was the last chance. And my lovely and talented wife saw fit to make the costumes by hand, and spent the majority of a week working on them. But damn…. did they turn out great or what? I typically don’t opt to post family photos on this site but in this case I’ll make an exception.

A special thanks goes out to my mom’s help in stripping the existing background from one of the photos, which enable me to work a little of my own photoshop magic and drop ‘em right into their hometown. (I’m particularly proud of the shadows). The second photo includes the great work on the shoes.
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I stumbled across this image recently and wanted to capture it here in the Scrapbook section. My wife shot this photo of my daughter sleeping on my chest in the first few weeks of her life. I cropped it to emphasize the size differences of our hands, and her holding my finger. Then I submitted it to Apple for use on their ‘iCards’ section of the .Mac. Shortly thereafter i was contacted, told it was being used, and as the screenshot that follows shows, it was avail as a ‘New Dad’ card.
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I stumbled across this image recently and wanted to capture it here in the Scrapbook section. My wife shot this photo of my daughter sleeping on my chest in the first few weeks of her life. I cropped it to emphasize the size differences of our hands, and her holding my finger. Then I submitted it to Apple for use on their ‘iCards’ section of the .Mac. Shortly thereafter i was contacted, told it was being used, and as the screenshot that follows shows, it was avail as a ‘New Dad’ card.
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I’ve been searching for some time for the original ‘header’ for my website, and stumbled across it tonight. This was a custom ‘cluster’ of icons and images I put together way back in 1999-2000 when i first started geoffmitchell.com. It was intended to represent the many areas I hoped to focus on, from movies, music, technology, photos, rantings and more. I played with a few updates tonight and eventually tossed them out, wanting instead to honor the original vision. Sure, it’s a bit outdated, as the video tapes and bondi-blue imac imply, let alone it’s ‘pixeled’ appearance, but it’s just what it was some 6-7 years ago. That’s ~23 in web-years.

The kids love to get my Apple badge, walk around the house, and say ‘I go to work. I go to Apple’. Then, of course, comes the battle to get the badge BACK :-). So, A quick stop at badging for a couple of clips and holders, a scan of my own badge, some photoshop work, printing and trimming… Problem Solved. And I took them to the campus today to try them out… wearing the appropriate t-shirts, of course.

Check out the photos. (Password required: contact me if you don’t already have it)

The latest chapter in the ongoing Apple vs Apple legal battles has gotten me thinking about my own experience in crossing the line between the two companies. It all began quite innocently. It was around 1994, I believe. I was working late, reading the manual and trying to master the use of a new CD burner we’d purchased for around $8-$10k. It had a 700mb internal HD and burned CDs at 1x speed. We had a need to archive software builds for shipping CPUs, as well as have a method for creating and distribution bundles to manufacturing as well. At the same time, we had access to all the latest and greatest software for internal use, and more often then not, i’d find myself away from the office and having a need for an application I’d only be able to access from within the company network. So here I was at work, access to the software I’d love to have been able to have with me at any given moment, and working out the kinks and learning curve on a new CD burner. Hmmmmmmmm….
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I’ve been working on some tools and processes at work to help with status communication and project management between departments. Yesterday, we were toying around with possible names for the system. Since it’s focus is on productivity, products and, in some aspects, prodding people about dates and deliverables…. well the name was obvious to me. After a couple of google searches and a few minutes in PhotoShop, I had the logo completed, as you can see here.

Clearly, this is all for fun. As much as i’d like to imagine the name would stick, it’ll probably fade away with little or no fanfare. And the logo…. it just ain’t gonna happen. :-)

Speaking of ‘Nipper’ (see prior post), I thought I’d toss this into the ’scrapbook’ category as well. For the first few generations of iPods, i’d create [and update] a custom icon for it. The standard one was fine but i wanted something with a little more character. So I searched Google for ‘RCA Victrola’, found plenty of images to choose from, and with a little ‘cut’ and ‘paste’ work in PhotoShop [or in this case a little 'Nipper' and 'Tuck', if you will] and my iPod icon was complete. (I stopped doing this with the 4th generation iPod and as can read about here, I’m iPodless at this time).

Years ago, when time was plentiful and blood coursed through my veins under a healthy amount of pressure, I made some fun ‘outgoing messages’ for my answering machine. Theses days my home and work OGM’s are about as banal as watching Fred Rogers and Perry Como in a heated debate over Barry Manilow’s career having peaked with ‘Mandy’ or ‘Copacabana’. But there was a time during which I’d put a little creativity and technology to work, and come up with some fun stuff. Recently, my old roommate referenced one we’d made together, and it gave me cause to search out and retrieve a few.

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