Leah had the pleasure of entertaining Corduroy the class bear for the weekend. Every year Mrs. McCrary’s kindergarten class at Cumberland Trace Elementary school is graced with a class bear. The students take turns hosting the class bear for the weekend. Sarah had Buddy the Bear and this year Leah has Corduroy.

Anna Scifres and Lexi Stewart attempt to train Tinkerbell, a miniature horse, to jump barrels. They are joined by Sarah and Leah Scifres as well as Sarah’s friend Katie Levesque.

This is a re-post from http://vimeo.com/32001208. Time lapse sequences of photographs taken with a special low-light 4K-camera by the crew of expedition 28 & 29 onboard the International Space Station from August to October, 2011.

Shooting locations in order of appearance:

1. Aurora Borealis Pass over the United States at Night
2. Aurora Borealis and eastern United States at Night
3. Aurora Australis from Madagascar to southwest of Australia
4. Aurora Australis south of Australia
5. Northwest coast of United States to Central South America at Night
6. Aurora Australis from the Southern to the Northern Pacific Ocean
7. Halfway around the World
8. Night Pass over Central Africa and the Middle East
9. Evening Pass over the Sahara Desert and the Middle East
10. Pass over Canada and Central United States at Night
11. Pass over Southern California to Hudson Bay
12. Islands in the Philippine Sea at Night
13. Pass over Eastern Asia to Philippine Sea and Guam
14. Views of the Mideast at Night
15. Night Pass over Mediterranean Sea
16. Aurora Borealis and the United States at Night
17. Aurora Australis over Indian Ocean
18. Eastern Europe to Southeastern Asia at Night

Maia Madison from David Scifres on Vimeo.

I got my 5D this Friday YEAH!!! I had been taken aback by my oldest daughters friend Maia Madison’s artistic ability on her Nintendo DS. The new camera, coupled with my desire to learn Adobe Premiere, led to this video. When Maia came over to visit, I could not resist the opportunity to try and capture the creative work she had done. Not bad for my first real video attempt.

Leah dove off the board for the first time the day before this video was shot. I used the 8mm app to give it the old school look.

Boxee Beta from boxee on Vimeo.

The Boxee Box is a $199 piece of hardware co-developed D-Link and “Powered by Boxee” that hooks to your home theater system. The hardware includes an Ethernet, HDMI out, optical audio out, composite audio out jacks and two USB ports. The Boxee application itself is a free cross-platform HTPC (Home Theater PC) application that you can download here. Boxee was originally a fork of the free and open source XBMC media center software which Boxee now uses as an application framework for its GUI and media player core platform, together with some custom and proprietary additions. Boxee’s software application is still considered to be in its early development stages but I have found it to work quite well on my PC with almost no problems. Set-up time was 10 minutes.

Because of its integration with social media sites as well as various kinds of media, it is marketed as the first ever “Social Media Center”. Boxee enables its users to view, rate and recommend content to their friends through many social network services and interactive media related features. One notable feature missing in Boxee is the ability to watch and record live TV received via over-the-air TV, cable or satellite signals.

The installation was a snap and it seamlessly integrated my local files (mp3, mp4, wav, m4v, jpg, png, gif) with all my media located on the usual sites like pandora.com, flickr.com, youtube.com, facebook.com, Netflix.com, IMDB, etc . . . . Setup was a snap, just plug in your credentials for each site and away you go. Browsing your local machine or network was also a snap; boxee gobbled up media like Pacman running a maze. The user interface is simple and effective and most importantly openly extensible (unlike the approach larger players like Apple take). This is perhaps why you can buy hacked iTV boxes on ebay that run the Boxee application. The developers of Boxee have stated that their goal is to have Boxee media center software run on as many third-party hardware platforms and operating systems as possible.

If consumers are lucky, perhaps Boxee will find its way into DVD players and TVs as the social media OS. I’ll keep my fingers crossed but won’t hold my breath too long as it would clearly be too good to be true.

This is the Clark Brothers. I love the folk. I think they may win the competition or SixWire. Really nice original, really.

This is Sixwire – I don’t really even like country but the second song (their original) on this is a pop hit. No doubt. The harmonies are amazing. They have been able to do that on every song every episode. Stunning really. I wish I could sing. That original will be the next theme on Monday Night Football almost guaranteed.

This is Franklin Bridge – out of Philly. They are AMAZING.

This is Denver and The Mile High Orchestra

This is Tre Bien – sixties rock revisited. They probably won’t last long in the competition.

This is Light of Doom – ok, I had no idea kids this age could rock so. Iron Maiden would be proud. I don’t think they will make it much longer but seriously, 13 years old. Crazy.

And The Mugs – sadly they have been removed. Chuck this band was for you. The dude rocks on guitar and is totally awesome but they really need a real singer. Kind of reminds me of Rush – Working Man. Gritty Detroit rock, I love the sound (except for the vocals).

This is Cliff Wagner and the Old #7 – I don’t know why but I really like this band and I hate country.

10 The Big Chill
09 American Graffiti
08 Saturday Night Fever
07 Trainspotting
06 Superfly
05 The Graduate
04 Pulp Fiction
03 The Harder They Come
02 A Hard Day’s Night
01 Purple Rain

As I listened to this list I cound not help but think they were missing several albums I think are critical to having a good Top 10. How about this alternative?

01 The Wall
02 A hard Day’s Night
03 O’ Brother Where Art Thou
04 Pulp Fiction
05 Grease
06 Saturday Night Fever
07 The Big Chill
08 American Graffiti
09 Grosse Pointe Blank
10 Purple Rain

Honorable Mention: This is Spinal Tap, Tenacious D (yea, I know this wasn’t really a movie but it should have been), Little Shop of Horrors and Rocky Horror Picture Show. And lets not forget the beautiful and noteworthy use of Wagner and the Doors in Apocalypse Now.