tom’s blog

One year later, my next blog entry

Thu, 5 Jul 2012 17:07:41 -0400

It’s been nearly a year (a week shy) since my last “official” blog entry -- for “The Diederich Journal,” anyhow. It’s been a busy year but perhaps the most notable development has been the addition of four lambs to our little farm. Here’s a fun (at least to me) little video of the four lambs.

Noriko and I knew we wanted some sort of animal to live in our barn -- a couple of horses, we first thought. But horses, we decided, were just too much trouble (and money). Besides we concluded, after visiting several horse ranches, that we were pretty much afraid of them (afraid of getting kicked in the head, mainly.

Goats? We looked into that, too. They like to climb and will eat anything -- including things you do not want eaten, like your fence.

Sheep? Yes, sheep seemed like the perfect animal. But to make sure, we enrolled in “Sheep School” courtesy of the OSU Sheep Team. We attended all four classes, each two hours long, this past February and learned more than we ever thought possible about raising (and caring for) sheep.

Because we both wanted “cute” sheep, I had to do some research. Eventually I discovered a relatively new breed called “Harlequin” sheep. They are a miniature breed, are very smart and extremely cute. We decided to get two of them: a ram lamb and an ewe. (ewe = girl). Both were three months old when we got them, and we named the boy “Koh” and the girl “Ten.”

Because sheep do better in herds (the more the merrier, apparently), we added two more lambs, but since Harlequins are rather expensive (and they have to be shipped from out of state), we opted to get another miniature breed called Baby Doll.

We got all of the lambs in mid May and now, nearly two months later, are really enjoying being shepherds. Since I have to work during the day, Nori is doing most of the work. But I do my part early in the morning and in the evening.

In other news, Apple decided to pull the plug on its hosted web service called MobileMe -- which has hosted this site for the past 10+ years. I moved everything over to GoDaddy.com and am generally happy with them. The site is faster than its ever been and GoDaddy has excellent technical assistance at no extra cost.

The only thing I’m wrestling with now is the content publishing tool. I’d like to move to WordPress. I’m typing this on Apple’s now-retired iWeb application. It’s what this entire site was made with -- and it’s basically impossible to hook in another app. But I was able to point the FTP part to my new GoDaddy site and it works the same as ever.

I’ll probably move to WordPress at some point and then link to this part of The Diederich Journal as an archive -- much like I did with the years 1996-2004. But not today.

Green Acres

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 17:44:05 -0400

Well, it’s more of a “gentleman’s farm” than an actual working farm. But we love it. Here’s a short video inspired by that classic 1960s show, Green Acres. Home sweet home here in Granville, Ohio. :-)

From Granville with love

Thu, 2 Jun 2011 15:39:43 -0400

As usual I’ve neglected my own blog as I must manage my company’s blog on a daily basis and I guess I’m all blogged out by the end of most days.

Quite a bit since the last entry. Mainly, that we moved to Ohio! Yea!  
We have a house in a little town called Granville, about 25 miles east of downtown Columbus.

We are still settling in but loving it. Here are a few photos of the outside. Will post more when we are all settled in -- moved in about three weeks ago.

A great start to the holiday season

Fri, 3 Dec 2010 21:55:01 -0500

I am updating my blog less and less -- and I blame Facebook. In a since most people use that famous social network as their diary or journal -- only difference they are sharing and interacting with a others.

I actually use Facebook for work, as my company has its own page there, along with on LinkedIn and Twitter. In fact, a combined 30 percent of all our website traffic comes from those three sites.

In other news... since my last update... let me see....

Well, quite a lot happened... so there is no excuse for having lack of content. The bigger events were:

* Noriko and I visited Columbus on a house hunting trip in September (but since we were unable to sell our home here, we had to give up).
* A couple weeks later I flew to Philadelphia for a few days for work. Made a brief visit with mom and family in Ohio -- and even managed to catch an Ohio State game with my old college buddies Dave and Chris.
* Nothing really jumps out at me for October and November... though we did have a nice Thanksgiving with friends.

Well, I guess the best thing that happened was Noriko and I took advantage of a great Black Friday (that’s the day after Thanksgiving) sale at Best Buy and finally got a 1080p HD television. We were the last holdouts in this state, I think.

The next day was the Ohio State vs. Michigan game. And it looked amazing on that 46” television. It was a great way to usher in the holidays (yes, OSU stomped Michigan.)

And now it’s Christmastime again and 2010 is winding down. I’m looking forward to a bright and happy 2011! And I hope you all are, too.

I’m famous! (Or is that ‘infamous’)?

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 15:09:24 -0400

It’s always fun to get some good publicity -- especially when you have something new to promote.

Last week I was interviewed by prominent blogger Chris Butler, vice president of a company called "Newfangled." I last appeared on his blog a couple of years ago, just after launching the online community for Cadence Design Systems.

This time around I’m promoting “5 Online,” the online community I manage at Ninety Five 5.  
Read the interview here!

Paul McCartney concert, July 10, 2010

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 19:13:38 -0400

Noriko managed to score a couple of tickets to the Paul McCartney concert last Saturday in San Francisco (held at AT&T Park).

She got them on eBay of all places -- and for UNDER face value! We were on the field, but even so Paul was weee-sized from our perspective. All the same, it was an AMAZING show.

Paul played for three solid hours with no breaks! He was running and jumping about like a 20-something performer. And he sounded as good as he did on his Beatles records.

He played a several classic Beatles tunes, along with a spectacular rendition of “Live and Let Die” with dazzling fireworks, shooting jets of fire -- all at high volume. I loved it!

The photo above was shot with my iPhone, and didn’t turn out very well. Sort of purplish.

And other updates since my last post

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 19:54:08 -0400

Hello! Well I must say it’s been too long since my last post. It’s not that anything fun and cool hasn’t happened, it’s just that I’ve been focused on those things -- and not on this silly (but self-indulgent and therefore cool) blog.

Let me see... where should I begin? Noriko and I haven’t traveled anywhere, so that’s out. No one has visited...so nothing to cover there. I haven’t seen any good movies...

Well, I did meet “THE” Ohio State University’s president, Gordon Gee (I bought him a $7 orange juice -- yes, just juice) at a recent OSU Bay Area Alumni Association event. I also met OSU Amumni Association president and CEO Archie Griffin. Both are extremely cool in person.

That’s about it. The highlights of my exciting life since the last post. I do need to get out more I think! :-)