Having fun being a father and a web geek.
Hello, my name is
Rod Bergren
Who am Who am I? I am a
geek/programmer/webmaster/Systems Analyst for a commodities trading company.
I write applications for Web Services and Windows. I also do on the side
contract programming as my time allows (which is not very much).
April 22, 2009 - Wow, I really should update this more often.
But really when life is going pretty good it is hard to update this much.
Been spending alot of time on Facebook and working on SharePoint services.
Lots of new pictures of the kids and we took a mission trip to the Navajo
nation in March for spring Break. That was pretty awesome More
pictures are here.
February 19, 2009 - yeah I know been awhile again. Ok
So I will just update. Between New Years and the month of January I really
have been busy. It seems like each night of the week we have something
going on. Also, I finally got my laptop back from Helene. She broke
down and bought herself a Mac this time. Hmmmm not so sure about the mac
but oh well. She has it. It is pretty if a laptop can be considered
pretty. Here are some new pictures I have been playing with.
December 27, 2008 - Ok ok ok, So it has been awhile
since my last update. It has been a busy few months with the kids and
everything going on. FCStone is still going great but I have been
incredibly busy there as well. Oh well. Christmas is over and I have
a bit of a break this morning. I have been working on Viv's Bible for
here. www.ilikebibles.com
She is a dear friend so I want to get this one perfect. I have had it now
for about 2 weeks. Which is ten times longer than it usually takes.
Oh well. It needs to be perfect. Christmas was in Oakland this year
and with the usual family get together and too much food. Well it seems
like I need to live at the Y for the next few months. Speaking of which. I
am sure many of you know that I am on the YMCA board in Ankeny. We
are doing are annual partner with Youth campaign. So if anyone has an
extra $20 to send to them. They can sure use it. The Partner at
Youth donations are used only for Youth and mainly after school programs.
You would be shocked at the amount of good that your local Y does in your
community. I know I was. It is amazing that the Ankeny Y touchs so
many children everyday through the school year. Anyhoo. I wanted to post a
new HDR picture or two. So here we go. Click any of them for a larger
image. <grin>
Winter parking lot at work.
September 15, 2008 - Thought I would just updated in the
middle of the month for the fun of it. Nothing much going on right now.
Selling a few Bibles, Working on taking some pictures of things.
Nothing too crazy. We are hoping to go on vacation next month.
We have no idea where. Any ideas??? Just email me. We are hoping
to use the last minute deals thing on Travelocity. But if anyone has
better ideas on last minute deals for a long 4 or 5 day weekend. Email
us. God is good and we are loved.
September 4, 2008 - Wow, So I did get third place
with my picture of the
old Shack. That was exciting and fun. The last month has
been crazy. Kids back in school. Trip to KC for work. Spending time at
Inlaws. Getting ready for the election for school board in Polk City.
www.npcitizensforprogress.com
and of course trying to spend time with God and my family. It has been
a fun and exciting month.
August 3, 2008 - Can you
believe it, Daphne is now 10 and Jessica turns 14 tomorrow. Crazy
life. fun and fast and lots of love. Last week we went up to
Ledges State Park and hung out for an evening. We had a lot of storms
roll through Iowa last weekend so when we went up to Ledges you could not
drive down to the streams. So we parked and hiked down. Helene
took pictures. It turned out well. We uploaded some of the
pictures to my picasa site. But Helene took them so I can't take any
credit other than some photoshop stuff that I did to them. They did
turn out awesome
though. Since it has been a month since my last update.
Brad and I did not do well in the Iowa Games. We had high hopes but
alas it was not to be. Job is still going awesome. FCStone has
been great. And the highlight of my month has been that one of my
pictures has been chosen for and Award from the Iowa State Fair. hmmmm
I won't know until Tuesday what the award is though. So stay turned.
Who knows what it might be.
July 1, 2008 - Well David July 1, 2008 - Well David is now 7. Scary. My youngest is now in 1st grade. I
am not old enough for this. Other than that just very busy at work and at home
having fun. Take care all Enjoy your summer. Oh Changed the top. If
you actually read this email me.
June 14, 2008 - Wow an update 2 times in one month. Wow. Anyway. I was playing
on m">www.stumbleupon.comsp;
If you want to waste about forever and really actually do enjoy it. I
can't think of a better way. Anyhoo. The site put me onto this site.
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/show_tag?name=inspiration and I
came away with these two quotes so I thought I would share.
"Reach for the moon; the worst you can do is land among stars" - Anon and
"When all is said and done, more is said than done." - Lou Holtz
I thought these were great!!!
June 12, 2008 - Well we have the flood of 2008 going on. It has been
interesting to live this close to the lake. 
The other day we went
for a bike ride with the kids the water was almost on the trail. But by the
time we went home it was completely covering the trail. It made for an
interesting ride home. Pics of the Flood or at least some of what I took can be
found
here.
May 21, 2008 - Hmmm well this time it was a month. <grin> in the past month I
think I have been to Chicago, Nashville and
KC. It has been an extremely busy
month for pour ol Rod. It has been interesting.
Nashville
had some very interesting sites.
KC was fun as well.
Chicago
was busy but fun. This weekend we are heading to the Farm
to do some camping, fishing and clay pidgeon shooting. Might have to run down
to Missouri and get some fireworks as well. That might make for an interesting
weekend. We are really looking forward to hanging out with the families and
just enjoying some downtime for awhile.
April 28, 2008 - Well at least I didn't wait a month until I updated my site
this time. You know when you work all day on other peoples stuff you really do
not want to update your own stuff. No one really reads this anyway. I
seriously think this is only for my kids. They will probably read it. Anyhoo.
I have some new pictures. Here is my favorite. You will notice it is the same
as the winter one lower on the page. Anyone else glad winter is over. icasaweb.google.com/rnbergren/CoolPics">
Links to
one and
two others.
April 16, 2008 - wow, quick month. I was just thinking that I had just updated
this site last week and it has been a month. Time flys when you are having
fun. FCStone has been a blast. Just got back from Chicago. Picks are here
March 21, 2008 - First Day of spring! Yeah - First day off from new job. We
get off when the markets are closed. I also thought it might be time to update
my bio at the top with what I am currently doing. It had been saying something
about a community college. <grin> I hope all of you are having a blessed day.
I have had an awesome week at work this week and really have enjoyed the new
opportunities and the chance to just sit down and write code or work on stuff
all day long. It has been awesome.
March 12, 2008 - So I have been at the job at FCStone a week and a half now.
Things are going well. It has been exciting to just sit and code pretty
much all day. The first day they setup my computer for me. <Grin>
it was an etch a sketch with an old keyboard attached, and a few other weird
items. It was funny. Honestly though they are treating me very well
and there are some cool applications they are working on. It has been a
good week.
February 23, 2008 - Ok Ok Ok, So I did it. I wrote the
software to create a Bible on the fly for anyone who is crazy enough to want to
have a Bible like the one I printed for my Father In-Law. I even decided
to make a website and host the darn thing. If you want to see it. Go
here
February 11, 2008 - Well this year is going to be interesting.
I just took a new job at
FCstone, It has been a really hard decision to leave
DMACC. DMACC has been an awesome place to
work for the last 11 years and I have made some great friends and enjoyed my
work very much. FCStone is offering more potential for growth for me as a
programmer and as a person, however I need to explore and discover the new
things there are out there to learn. I pray and hope that everyone will
wish me well in my new endeavor. One last note. DMACC is a great
place to go to college. Students if you are reading this I can whole
heartedly recommend that DMACC is the place to begin. It is so much less
expensive and the quality is just as good as any of the first two years at the
four-year institutions.
January 2008, Hmmm a new year. Resolutions?? I don't
believe in Resolutions. <grin>
Ok January is almost gone. I have some interesting at least
I think so pics of the snow storm the other day. That really wasn't a
snow storm. -5 30mph wind
Been working on
Otto's site and Brett's new site
lately. I think Otto's is
looking pretty complete. Brett's
is a good start but still needs some more rounding out to be complete.
Some new cool pics
Christmas was good. I made a Bible for my father in law.
Bob. I downloaded a copy of the
WEB (World English Bible) and then
formated it in a font and size that he can read. Then I included a ton of
pictures of his grand children and others that he would want in there.
then I bound the thing using a
perfect binding method and wrapped the whole Bible in a Leather case and
gave it to him.
I think it would be interesting to do this as a project for
another person. Sort of as a Family Heirloom Bible or specialized study
Bible for a very specific person. It was interesting to do.
Here is a copy of the final pdf of the Bible (keep in
mind it is huge 1200 pages).
My Friend Larry Walker showed me some stuff from Lucis Art's
Filters for Photoshop. Apparently this is a new way of doing HDR or faking
HDR.
http://www.lucisart.com/pWhyeth2.htm Some of Larry's pictures are very
cool. I think though that I will stick with Photomatix.
http://www.hdrsoft.com/ Either way there is
some interesting stuff you can do with these software packages. Here is a
picture of Stevie.
December 2007 - Wow fun fun.
Christmas is almost here. hmmm what shall I get the kids.
Played with some new Pics today. It was fun. One is
a
Moonset in the morning The other was a creek running through town
after the snow. Looks cold
November 2007 - Really am enjoying
doing HDR photography. Here are a couple pictures on my picasa site that
you can click on and enjoy.
Of course the
big pond at the Farm. One of my favorite places in the whole world
And
clouds over the Mile long bridge the other day. Awesome
October 2007 - I am at the Heartland Developers Conference.
Here is a quick icky mashup using popfly
popfly.com
Labor Day 2007 -
Great weekend. Had fun just hanging out with the family in
Southwest Iowa. Fishing and camping. It was a great weekend.
Open letter to Polk City - August 22, 2007
PS Thank you for installing the Stop signs. The Parents
appreciate it!!!!! Updated October 2007
To City of Polk City;
I would like you to put in a 4 way stop at the intersections of
Lyndale and Crestmoor, and an all way stop at WestSide Dr and Crestmoor.
These streets are now through streets out to Parker Boulevard with cars not
being required to stop.
In the past Cars could not go through to Parker from these streets
and had to take a different route out of town.
Crestmoor was primarily used by a lot of children to walk on to get to
school. With both of these areas
essentially being dead end streets the kids became used to there being no cars
in these intersections.
On August 22, 2007, when walking my son to school for the first
time I witnessed 5 children cross each of these intersections without looking
for cars. I also witness at least
one vehicle come to the corner and proceed thru without slowing down as well.
It is only a matter of time before these two things happen at the same time.
Please I beg you to put up complete intersection stop signs in
these areas before one of our children is involved in an accident.
Thank you
Sincerely
Rod Bergren
Polk City Father
August 11, 2007 - I have been playing with
some HDR techniques. HDR is amazing. Here is one of my favorites.
August 2, 2007 - Can you believe it Jessica turns 13 in two days.
Wow. I can't believe I have a 13 year old. This should be a fun
weekend. Taking the weekend off. Friday and Monday. Should be
a blast.
July 18, 2007 - Took 2nd place in the iowa games this weekend.
In
Racquetball!!!!
May 27, 2007 - Yeppers another month has flown by. We had
awesome party this wMay 27, 2007 - Yeppers another month has flown by. We had
awesome party this weekend with a ton of friends came over hung out in the back
yard, watched a movie on the garage. it was fun. About 70+ people.
maybe I will have something to post here later.
Other stuff of interest to people
possibly.>
Trip to Tahiti.
Belize
is nice as well
