My New Presentation Tool

Prezi - The zooming presentation editor, looks promising. Basically you create a single huge canvas, and put whatever you want there. Prezi has tools for adding images, pdfs, text, etc. And you can scale theese objects to whatever size you want.

Then, and this is the neat part, you orchestrate a tour of your canvas. As the presentation runs, it visits different parts of your canvas, zooming in on details, zooming out for a big picture, all as you specify.

It looks really easy, and really cool. A great alternative to sequential slide tools like Powerpoint, in which the context is easily lost.

Credit Crisis Visualation

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Return from Camp

Precious moments...

I picked up Schuyler at 11:30 last night. He had just returned from a 4-week trip to Morocco. I could tell from his conversation with Molly (she called 2 minutes after we got has bag and walked out) that it had been a life changing experience for him. Big things happened to Schuyler in Morocco.

At 1:30 AM I once again hopped in the car, this time on my way South. I knew that I had a 7 hour trip ahead of me, and if I got past Portland before the morning rush hour, I could steal a couple of hours of sleep and still make it to Camp Tamarack by the 10:30 deadline.

I poured myself a double cappuccino, and packed 4 cool cans of EMV for the trip, and headed out. By 5:30 I was way past Portland and one exit away from my turn off, so I got off at the rest area and set my alarm for 7:30. I curled up in the back seat, and slept as the brilliant rising sun warmed my skin.

I got out of there at about 8am, and headed east on Highway 20. I grabbed an egg mcmuffin to go from McDonalds (funny how those places are so popular for breakfast in the country) and a coffee in the town of "Lebanon." There was road work and some slow pokes, so I did not make as good time as I had counted on. At 10:29 I pulled up at Suttel Lake campsite, threw on my swimsuit, and jumped in the lake. By 10:50 I was at Camp Tamarack, and by 11:00 I walked up to the horse corral. Across the field I saw a hand waving vigorously at me, and knew that it was Lila though I could not make out her face with all that gear on (and her hair up to boot).

The camp staff came out and made their presentations to the parents. I learned that many of them (perhaps half, if not more) were college age and coming from overseas. South Africa, England, Scotland, Australia. It was a good crew.

After the intros, the beginner horse class performed a demonstration. One by one they guided their horses around the course, in which there were barrels which they had to circle. I could see that there is some subtlety to the art of guiding a beast 10 times your weight and with a will besides. Lila did well.

As I watched the next class come up, I noticed a figure approaching out of the corner of my eye. It was Lila, and she was making a beeline for her Daddy before she burst into tears. All that fun, all that great camp stuff, and still when a Mom and Dad show up she realizes how much she missed them. I burst into tears myself!

I got the quick camp summary - she was friends with everyone - every single person in the camp. The food was great, she loved her horse Roxie, and this was so-and-so from Portland and that was so-and-so from Seattle and so on. A girl named "Lyric" had helped her to transpose "Let It Be" into a better key, and Lila had performed it for the camp to thunderous applause.

"I might not go to camp Nakanawa next year" she said, with gravity. That means she really liked camp Tamarack!

For the next hour or two I tried to extricate my little girl from her 11-day sleepover camp, but there were lots of goodbyes, hugs, and stories to share. It was a great, healthy, wholesome experience, and though she was still my little girl, she had grown.

We packed up the jeep, and set off back to Seattle at about 1 in the afternoon. It was hot outside, in the 80s at least, and the only air conditioning was the wind. Lila told me more details. The meals. The skits. The rafting trip. The "tadger" who mysteriously rearranged furniture in the middle of the night. The girl no one liked but whom Lila and a friend had made efforts to include. The girl who was mean. The crazy counsellor with multiple pairs of outrageously colored spandex tights. Oh, and by the way, most of them have facebooks.

She fell asleep. I drove. We stopped and swam in "Lake Detroit", a welcome cooler. She slept some more. Molly called and we talked almost all the way to Portland. I drank another EMV - I don't think I would have had such an easy time without that WunderGetränk.

The heat was getting to us, especially after the traffic in Portland. We decided to stop at the next town - it was Longview, an old logging town which has seen better days. We ate at a fish & chips place, and Lila regaled me with more stories. We got gas, and I was struck by the skinny Asian lady in the business suit, stilettos, and a Russian accent. What was she doing here? I imagined that she was part of the casino scene.

More driving. How much longer, daddy? Two hours. She laid down to sleep, and I said that she should try to stay up so she can sleep at home. How about reading. Its too windy. Its true, driving at 75 with all the windows open makes it hard to read.

I remembered what we used to do on long trips when we were kids, when Papa (my Dad's father) joined us. The rosary. That was it. Nothing made miles go by like the rosary did.

So, I quickly refreshed Lila on the Lords Prayer, and then taught her the second part of the "Hail Mary". Then I dedicated the rosary to Papa, and commenced to praying. Our father... give us this day. Hail Mary... Holy Mary... Hail Mary... Holy Mary... and so on. I could not remember the important bits, about the five glorious mysteries, but I improvised. It was marvellous.

When we used to say the rosaries with Papa as kids, we said it so fast that Papa started the hail marys before we had finished the holy marys. I pondered - was that just mechanical, or was there some inner rhythm to the whole thing that made it real at that pace. Lila and I were much slower. She had to think about the words, and I'm afraid that some of them are not the ones you find in catechism.

That got us as far as Tacoma. By the time we hit Seattle the sun was setting. It had been a beautiful day all throughout the northwest, and the end was superb. We pulled into the house. I expected Xander and Schuyler to have left a mess, but it was all pretty fine. Tula and Sweety were overjoyed to see Lila again.

Unpack the car. Lila looking at her room, taking it all in. I'm Back. Ahhhhh.

Time for bed. I read a story. A Jewish folk tale from the land of Chelm, about the first Schlemiel. Excellent. Lights out. Cuddle.

A few minutes later, and I try to get up but Lila pulls me back. "Sweetheart, I need to go downstairs. Welcome back home. Time to go night night."

"I enjoyed the car ride, Daddy. That was fun."

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