Hey Dad, Happy Fathers Day!

I just wanted to wish you a Happy Father’s Day, and I hope you have a great one! I also wanted to thank you for being such a wonderful dad. I couldn’t imagine anyone else as my father. I am so grateful for your example and encouragement despite my best efforts to try your patience. Remember the time I hit that classic 1966 Ford Mustang with the family van? You didn’t even get angry with me. In fact, you kind of laughed it off and said something to the effect of; “that’s what insurance is for.” Mostly, I am grateful for your love, support, your calming influence and your positive attitude. These have helped me through my life and have made me a better person.

So I was trying to think of what I could give you for Father’s Day. I know you are still recovering from your surgery (my dad is recovering from quadruple bypass surgery which he had about 6 weeks ago for those who don’t know) so I decided to dedicate my first triathlon of this season to you. If you look closely in the picture you will see “Go Dad” written on my arm. Granted my race took less than three hours and you have at least three more months of recovery. I thought of you often during the race, especially as my legs were burning on the first climb or when I wanted to stop running. I thought how difficult your surgery and recovery have been which gave me motivation to keep going.

"Go Dad"! Post triathlon picture

Dad, the older I get the more I appreciate you and want to be like you (minus the quadruple bypass:)). Because of you I want to be a father. It is something I am looking forward to. I hope I can be the kind of father to my children that you have been to me.

Love ya’ Dad,

Mike

NYC and the In-laws

Several weeks ago, Kisti and I, along with some of our friends went to NYC. The weather was perfect and we took advantage of this by walking through Central Park. We were able to attend the Guggenheim Museum where they had a fascinating display from the work of Frank Lloyd Wright. I loved seeing his many designs and interesting take on architecture. We also walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and visited the World Trade Center Site. During the late afternoon, Kisti and I visited the Manhattan Temple while our friends went to mass. The temple was beautiful and we had a wonderful time.

Kisti with our friends Paul and Andrea, trying to figure out which subway to catch

The iconic Guggenheim.

We had to stop here! I had an awesome slice of bacon pizza.

Look closely, Mike and Kisti 4 ever!:) Brooklyn Bridge

The Manhattan Temple

I also wanted to write a quick comment about two people who have had a profound impact on my life, albeit indirectly. Ried and Gloria Pope are my in-laws and I must admit that I was a bit apprehensive to meet them. (I am sure most people feel like this) After I meet them, I realized that I had no reason to be nervous about them, they are wonderful people. More importantly, I have them to thank for raising such a wonderful daughter. I see their influence on Kisti from her drive to be the best doctor possible, to her desire to lead a healthy lifestyle, her relentless work ethic and her mental toughness. They truly are amazing, I (we) appreciate all of their unconditional love and support.

Kisti with her parents, Ried and Gloria.

W. Hartford, Philly, Boston

Last Friday I received an award from the School of Communication. It was for best research conducted by a graduate student. It was a great honor, plus they gave me $200 dollars, so much more useful than a clock or artistic piece of glass normally presented for these awards.

Dr. Jack Banks presenting the award..

Danielle Graci, Me, Leo Makowski. Each of us received a different award.

Kisti and I, post award ceremony.

The last weekend in April, I had a wonderful opportunity to attend the Eastern Communication Association conference, which was held in Philadelphia this year. I presented two papers one on text messaging and the other on computer mediated communication. It was a great experience and resume builder. Plus the university picked up most of the expenses.

Kisti joined me for the conference. It was great that she was able to come and it was nice to have a friendly face in the audience.

Kisti said this was the best ice cream she had ever had. When I pressed her for details, she claims that cold stone tastes like an ice cube when compared with this.

No stop in Philly would be complete without visiting the Liberty bell.

Waiting for my turn to present

My first presentation...

the second.

Me, Kathryn Maggorie, Sundeep Muppidi, Jack Banks, Ryan Rossignol, part of the University of Hartford contingent

For Christmas, Kisti bought me tickets to the Celtics-Heat game. It was a great game, despite arriving in the forth quarter. ( We got stuck on the Mass turnpike with all of the Easter holiday travelers. We now have a fast pass so this will not happen again)

The view from our seats.

The Heat took the lead with 1:37 left in the game, but they couldn't close it out. The Celtics won by 7.

You can't get much higher than this!

Post game, I took this picture for Jason and my dad, knowing that they appreciate all of the championship banners hanging from the rafters.

Mike and Kisti's Wedding / Honeymoon

Just wanted to write a quick blog and post a few pictures from my wedding a month ago. Things have been really busy since we were married. Consequently I apologize in advance for the large number of pictures as I decided to do one big post.

The wedding went as planned; the only hitch was a two hour flight delay in Hartford. Although our trip down was especially stressful for Kisti as she had not met any of my family. I did my best to reassure her that my family would love her. I don’t think I was very convincing. Unfortunately she met all six of my siblings, their spouses (minus Layna, and her two kids, Emmy, and Logan), their kids, and my parents at the same time. At least I was able to meet her family gradually. I knew she would like my brothers as all of us have a similar sense of humor. Kisti later expressed this to me. She also liked my sisters and had previously spoken with each of them about their pregnancies. It was so much fun to be together with all of my family, they truly are the best! Thanks for coming; it meant so much to me to have all of you there!

Kisti and I coming out of the temple just after our sealing. She looks great!

The day of our wedding, Kisti looked amazing! I must explain that it seemed like she was a rock star in that she traveled with an entourage. One of her aunts did her hair, a cousin did her makeup, another aunt handled the flowers and her mom took care of the dress. As you can see from the pictures, it was well worth it!

I told Kisti a joke

My family...

Kistis family

The best siblings.....EVER! Thanks for coming

I also wanted to post a few pictures from our honeymoon. Kisti’s parents hooked us up with a week at their time share in Cancun. Cancun has such beautiful beaches and warm weather; in fact I am still peeling from the sunburn I received. Of course Kisti still has a nice tan. We spent most of our time on the beach, at the pool, or at one of the four restaurants in the resort. We did manage to visit the Telum ruins and do a bit of snorkeling.

View from our room

Bocce Ball

Kisti among the ruins at Telum

More ruins, they were really cool, great location by the beach. I see why the indigenous people built a city there.

This was for our Honeymoon dinner, Kisti looked amazing! We had a private five course candelit dinner by the pool.

Kisti 2, Mike 0.

Look at that game face. Too bad she still lost:)

Relaxing in the pool

Last Day of Class

Tonights class was the last for this semester. As we wrapped up everything we learned, I reflected on the various discussions that took place throughout the course. I must say, I really enjoyed Castells book. I liked his multidisciplined approach, the way he brought ideas from physics, computer science, economics, communication and network theory. It was difficult to follow but I felt a greater sense of accomplishment once I (sometimes I had to read a passage several, uh more like a 8 or 9 times to fully grasp the meaning) understood the material.

I enjoyed the different perspectives that each member of our class shared, it was a diverse group, spread across several generations. Some of us like technology, others tolerated it, nevertheless providing wonderful insight. I learned much in this course and hope to gain greater knowledge in new media.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I know Thanksgiving was last week and this blog is supposed to be about new media, however, I had an experience I wanted to share. Saturday, two weeks ago, after returning home from running some errands I saw what appeared to be a homeless man rummaging through my apartments recycling bin looking for some soda cans and other bottles he could return for money. I’d seen this fellow before and always wanted to help him, remembering that I had some soda cans of my own in my apartment I quickly ran up to get them in hopes that I could give him the cans. However when I returned 2 minutes later he was gone so I walked out to the street to see if I could find him. I quickly located him at the next apartment building over where he had continued his search for recyclable goods. I approached him with all of the empty soda cans there were in my apartment, a total of nine. I held the cans in front of me as I approached, and once he recognized my intentions he held open a black plastic bag which used to hold as bottles and cans. I poured the cans into his bag and as I did so, he smiled at me and I realized that he did not have any teeth. He then made some unintelligible noise and I realized that he could not speak. Yet, his gratitude was genuine, and I was so touched by it. I mean, I gave him less than a dollar. This experience got me thinking about the things that I am thankful for. I know its cliché but here is a partial list (non prioritized);
1. My family
2. A place to live
3. A place to live that is heated
4. Water
5. My job
6. Food
7. My car
8. My bikes
9. My clothes (this guy had very little and it was so cold outside)
10. The educational opportunities I have
11. Cell phone
12. Freedom
13. My religious beliefs
So, what are you thankful for?

Voice Recognition Software

This week I decided to write about my experiences setting up voice recognition software on my laptop. The idea for this week’s blog came from a discussion we had in class last week. Someone said (I’m not sure who, it may have been our professor), keyboards will soon be obsolete on computers. Furthermore I do not type very fast and I thought it might be useful to have this type of software on my computer so that I would be more efficient writing papers.

When I purchased my computer last year I noticed that there was voice recognition software installed. However, I was unsure of the quality of the program; voice recognition software for Windows Vista. So I searched on the Internet for potential voice recognition programs and found that the windows software was rated fairly high. The other software applications and I found cost about 60 to 150 dollars. So I decided to set up the software on my computer instead of paying additional money.

After purchasing a headset with a microphone I went through the setup process for the software. During this process I learned how to use the software and the various commands which cover everything from placing a, or opening Microsoft word. It took me about 90 minutes to go through the process during which time the computer learned how I pronounce words. It was a relatively pain free process.

For my first attempt at using the software I “wrote” this blog entry. The first part of a blog is the corrected version and the second part is a version that came out as I spoke it to the computer. If I caught mistakes while reading I made the necessary corrections. If I did not catch them or if the mistake was a word like it and or misuse of a word I let those errors remain. Overall I enjoyed the experience of setting up the software and am excited about not having to type. Has anyone else had experience with the software? If so what has it been like to use this type of a program? There a lot more things I have to learn and I look forward to experimenting more with the software so that I can become even more efficient “writing” papers.

Results: 15 mistakes out of 380 words = 96% accuracy rating. See uncorrected version below.

This week I decided to write about my experiences setting up voice recognition software on my laptop. The idea for this week’s blog came from a discussion we had in class last week. Someone said (I’m not sure who im and then our professor), keyboards will soon be obsolete on computers. Furthermore I do not type very fast and I thought it might be useful to have this type of software on my computer so that I would be more efficient writing papers.

When I purchased my computer last year I notice that there was voice recognition software installed. However I was unsure of the quality of the program; voice recognition software four windows best to. So I searched on the Internet for potential voice recognition programs and found that the windows software was rated fairly high. The other software applications and I found cost about 60 to 150 dollars. So I decided to set up the software are EMI Computer instead of paying additional money.

After purchasing a headset with a microphone I went through the setup process for the software. During this process I learned how to use the software and the various commands which cover everything from placing a, or opening Microsoft word. It took me about 90 minutes to go through the process during which time the computer learned how I pronounce words. It was a relatively pain free process.

For my first attempt at using the software I “wrote” this blog entry. The first part of a blog is the corrected version and the second part is a version that came out as I spoke it to the computer. If I caught mistakes while reading I made the necessary corrections. If I did not catch them or if the mistake was words like it and or misuse of a word I let those errors remain. Overall enjoyed the experience of setting up the software and an excited about not having to type. Has anyone else had experience with the software? If so what has it been like to use this type of a program? There a lot more things I have to learn I look forward to experimenting more with the software so they can become even more efficient “writing” papers.