Eick Family

Lion King in 3 acts

2012-02-10T17:58:00-05:00

Libby and Jasmine singing songs (kind of from the Lion King) the other night.

The video was recorded and created on my iPhone. (The software I was using was have a few problems with the audio balance!)

Libby has a hard time saying “Philosophy” which I view as a personal failure.

The George

2012-02-01T13:44:00-05:00

I remembered this pub from when I was there so much when I worked for Ford 10 years ago. The pub dates back to Shakespearian time. (Well, in actual fact it was rebuilt. A fire destroyed it in 1676, so they had to rebuild it on the site). I shouldn’t be surprised that the pub is there 10 years later, seeing as it’s been there for over 300 years!

There are many small rooms (maybe 10 tables and a fireplace) with bars in each of them, and a common courtyard in the middle of the tavern where the traveling showman used to stage plays. This is where Shakespeare would go and stage plays for the benefit of the drinkers. Shakespeare’s globe theater, in fact, is two or three blocks down the Thames. Back then, the south bank of the river was the bad section of town (Where actors and playwrights would frequent), but now it is the middle of London.

It took quite a walk to find the place from Westminster to Southbank (in that I really didn’t remember where it was), but I found it by the tower bridge tube station down an alley between two buildings.

In case I forget where it is for next time I’m in London, go to the London Bridge tube station, and …

View Larger Map Get Directions View Bird’s Eye

Andy goes to London

2012-01-31T17:45:00-05:00

I spent 5 days in London, however, my luggage spent 3 days in London.

We spoke at the DGI conference in London talking about our ultra-large scale concept for data. Because I spent so much time in London while I worked for Ford I kind of remembered my way around. I stayed down by Parliament in Central London (At Ford I always stayed at Tower Bridge – that was the only hotel on per-diem!)

Here is the blurb from the conference agenda.

All data-intensive endeavors share the same problem: Our assets, which include data, information, and knowledge, as well as analytics, tools, and applications, are fractured in physically and semantically disparate systems. In short, our data enterprise is broken. As a result, insight is obscured and operations are impeded by our inability to fully search, explore, enrich and exploit those assets. In order to understand the full picture, we must break the data barriers. In this presentation, Dr. Yoakum-Stover describes a practical, Ultra-Large Scale systems solution for unified data storage and processing - one that addresses both the scale and diversity of data and processing without imposing constraints on what data must be or how they should be used. She describes how the core innovation underlying the approach - the Artifact, Data, and Model Description Frameworks (AD&M DFs), can accommodate all data, information, and knowledge regardless of modality, structure, and semantics without data loss or distortion, and in particular how geospatial and temporal information are handled. Her talk concludes with a discussion of an instance of the complete system, the Data and Processing Syndicate, built on cloud compute and storage technology (HDFS, Map Reduce, Accumulo) that her engineering team is currently building for the US National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.

A few pictures from my iPhone. (I have more pictures that I need to upload in a few days!)

Jasmine and Libby video chatting with me at the airport.

The view from the conference window.

thing five logo

2012-01-30T10:12:00-05:00

We did a logo for the project we are working on for work – Most project logos are quasi military and pretty boring boring, but not ours. Everyone remembers it.

First time we met the PM we asked him about the rest of the team and how we fit/ He said, “I have 5 things I’m worried about, NVS, TENS, CENTAUR, FAME, and you’re thing five.”

The name stuck.

2011 Company Christmas Card

2012-01-30T10:10:00-05:00

The 2011 holiday card we sent out from Mission Focus and IMI, our two companies.

I like this one better than Last Years!

Snow in Virginia

2012-01-29T17:37:00-05:00

Blizzard conditions in Virginia let’s Jasmine get out into the snow. (20 minutes after this picture she was crying with a bloody split lip)

Jasmine looks down

2012-01-26T17:35:00-05:00

Agony visits in January

2012-01-25T17:32:00-05:00

Jasmine reading a book

2012-01-25T17:28:00-05:00

Libby reads a book

2012-01-18T17:05:00-05:00

Jasmine laying on the floor

2012-01-16T17:00:00-05:00

Libby and Minnie

2012-01-15T17:03:00-05:00

Libby draws her family

2012-01-15T16:57:00-05:00

cookie party (2011)

2012-01-15T15:43:00-05:00

Here’s the video from the Jasmine and Libby’s Annual Cookie Frosting Party. I should have posted this earlier (it was the day before Christmas) but I didn’t. The video was made on my iPhone the other day while the girls were shopping….

Libby draws a girl

2012-01-14T16:51:00-05:00

Jasmine wearing sunglasses

2012-01-04T16:15:00-05:00

Jasmine models her sunglasses.

Santa on national mall

2012-01-03T15:24:00-05:00

We took the girls downtown to see the Nutcracker the day before Christmas. Libby had so much fun she was beside herself. She wanted to tell us that she knew every dance, and which of the ‘ballet moves’ she could do. They brought a friend from school and afterward, since the theatre was right on National Mall, we went out to see the National Christmas Tree. It was much smaller than I thought it should be, Libby even said the National Candles were bigger than the tree.

Christmas at (National) Mall

2012-01-03T15:24:00-05:00

Girls salute and march down the mall. Not sure why they were saluting and marching, but they were

Libby shields her eyes from the sun.

Out of Contrul

2011-12-27T00:00:00-05:00

Jasmine draws a cartoon, “Out of Contrul”

Meoo! Can someone Play with me
Hey! does anyone want to play dressup?
Hey! do you want to my neow ball.
What!!!* Hey wen is are oner going to come back
Yea! it is getting out of contrul.

Libby makes another cartoon

2011-12-26T00:00:00-05:00

I’m not even sure she finished this….She made this on the iPad