Recently, my wife Mary and I visited our son at college during parent's weekend.  Painful duty, checking up on your children.  We were the only parents there.  I suppose that's not all that surprising considering that he is an Architecture major studying in Florence, Italy.  We were fortunate to be able to combine a vacation with a visit to see him.

Here are some pictures we took with Mary's new Kodak Z950 camera. 

One of the Pantheon's massive doors is illuminated by the sunlight coming through the oculus at the peak of the massive concrete dome.  Smart Capture picked a mode for this shot that allowed both the brightness of the light beam and the dark door to be visible.

The Temple of Antonius and Faustina is one of the many massive structures in the Roman Forum.  The scale of what the Romans accomplished is amazing, but there are no memorials to the slaves responsible for much of it.  We were there at the end of September, and it was still hot.  I can't imagine how oppressive the heat must be in the month of Julius (July).

Mary used the pulled the camera out of her clutch purse and used the 10X zoom to capture these Quaker Parakeets feeding in the trees above the forum.  Jim Adams identified the birds for me since my ornithological knowledge is limited to crows and turkeys.

Here is the bird cropped from the same image.  A good lens, 12 Megapixels, 10X zoom, and Image Stabilization certainly don't hurt.

One more time !

She also took this shot of the very pretty Piazza Navona right after the unscheduled drop test of the Z950.   I don't recommend you repeat the test, but the camera  took a lickin' and kept on clickin'.

Southern Tuscany is a place of amazing natural beauty.  I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:

The constant haze separates the distances.  The blazing sun and cool breezes aren't bad either.  Predecessors to the Romans, the Etruscans lived in Tuscany.  Who was smarter?

Northern Tuscany is also not shabby:

The view from Torre Grossa in San Gimignano.

Sunset in San Casciano Val Di Pesa, which is on the highest hill just south of Florence.  I'll admit that I set the camera on a ledge and used a manual setting to catch this image.  Thankfully, the sun took its time going down while I tried a few different settings.

In Florence, one of my son's friends is staying in 4th floor walkup (cough...wheeze) near the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore.  Here is some detail on Brunelleschi's Dome taken from a rooftop about 200 yards away.  Or since this was taken in Italy, about 183 meters away.  The Duomo is being cleaned, hence the scaffolding.

This picture of Giotto's Bell Tower was taken from the same rooftop.  If you knew who the people were, you could identify them in the 12 Megapixel image the camera captured.

On our way north, we stopped in Pisa.  By the way, you've been misled.  Both the Tower and I are properly oriented.  Everything else is leaning.

Our last stop was in Cinque Terre.  These "Five Lands" are situated on the Italian Riviera in a National Park.  Thriving on tourism these days, the residents once survived by fishing and farming the terraced hills that go well into the sky.

You can walk the 10km (6 miles) from Monterosso al Mare to Riomaggiore on trails that go well up into the hills.  From Riomaggiore, what begins as an easy walk becomes a strenuous hike. It took us over 4 hours, and a good deal more coughing and wheezing. 

After the hike, you can get refreshed with a dip in the Ligurian Sea.

That's our trip.  A great time in Italy.  And I almost forgot.  We saw our son, too.

What an exciting week this has been!  Kevin Streelman headed in to the finale hole - #17 at the Children's Miracle Network Classic on Disney's Magnolia Golf Course - with a 2-stroke lead over Bo Van Pelt, J.J. Henry and Nathan Green. Given that hole #17 is a 485-yard par 4, over water and large trees - that hadn't seen an eagle since 1988 - this seemed to be a lock, but Kevin Streelman was not taking anything for granted. Bo Van Pelt was in the field and he wasn't going to let the win go without a fight (Henry and Green did not play CMN).

The Kodak Challenge hole itself looked amazing!  Disney did such a wonderful job highlighting the hole, the competition and the Kodak Moments.


The excitement started almost immediately on Thursday because while both Kevin and Bo were playing Palm course that day - Charles Warren scored EAGLE on the Kodak Challenge hole for the first time in 11 years!  Surely this made both Kevin and Bo take notice!  Bo had chance at an eagle on Friday and the only way Kevin could seal the deal right away would be to birdie the hole.

As we stood there in the Kodak Challenge tent waiting for Kevin's approach shot, I was filled with excitement and anticipation that after so long we may finally have a winner - and having met Kevin and his wife Courtney earlier in the year, knew that it would go to a gracious, deserving person.

Kevin was down mid fairway, I looked away for a second and then, UGH - a ball hit the bleachers to the left of the green.  My heart sank a bit, he'd have to wait another day to try for the win... then I came to my senses - of course that WASN'T Kevin's shot!  It was Johnny Damon!  The NY Yankees superstar - who was one of the amateurs playing with Kevin in the pro-am - had hit what in baseball might have been a home run.  WHEW!  Kevin hit next and it landed very near the hole - within four feet.  The Kodak tent went wild with cheers!!  Excellent birdie opportunity here!

Kevin waited patiently for the other players to finish, then lined up his putt with the help of his caddy, Michael Collins. Breath held. Putt... going... going.. IT'S IN!!! WOO HOO!! The crowd went wild!  Kevin did some fist pumps, hi fived his caddy, then - as he heard the whoops coming from the Kodak tent (myself included) he ran over, jumped up and hi fived all of us!  It was a picture perfect Kodak Moment! 


After finishing his play for the day, Kevin emerged from the scoring tent to cheers, hugs from family and the awarding of the Kodak Challenge trophy and "giant check".

After the trophy was awarded, Kevin headed to the press room to talk about the win.  I had the chance to talk to Kevin, along with his caddy Michael Collins, on the win.





It's been an amazing year with a very exciting finish. As Kodak's Steve Powell said, "We very pleased with the tremendous success of the Kodak Challenge in just its first year.  I don't think we could ask for a better ambassador than Kevin Streelman as our very first champion.  We're excited for Kevin and very happy to have him associated with Kodak."

Kevin's name will always be the very first on that beautiful trophy, a well deserved win for a great champion!

For more, viisit the website, fan us on Facebook, and follow @KodakChallenge on Twitter as we head in to 2010.

• KodakChallenge.com
• Kodak Challenge Fan Page on Facebook
• @KodakChallenge Twitter
• PGATOUR.com Kodak Challenge Arena

Long gone are the times when gamers were seen as supposedly reclusive loners - on the contrary, party games nowadays are all the rage. A perfect backdrop to present the best features of the Kodak Zi8 Digital Video Camera in a lifestyle environment: thus, Kodak Germany teamed up with Activision for the launch of the party games Guitar Hero and DJ Hero.



The Guitar Hero Rock Challenge is a national competition, on the lookout for the next air guitar talent in Germany. Here's how it works: Until Mid-December a mobile stage is touring Media Markt stores across Germany (Media Markt is one of the biggest German consumer electronics store chains - similar to BestBuy), looking for fresh talent be it single artists or a boy group in waiting. Supported by a sound system, a light-show and a video screen, participants perform their favourite Guitar Hero song and act it out live on stage. Every act is filmed by Kodak promoters with the new Kodak Zi8 Digital Video Camera and the video is then uploaded to a special Media Markt website for all to see.



On this website viewers can vote their favorite performance and every week a winner is chosen. The finalists will gather in Berlin in February to compete in the Grand final. People who are not looking to become the next big Guitar Hero talent are of course also invited to experience and test the Kodak Zi8 in action.



Zi8 captures the DJ-heroes of the night in Full-HD

The second event series sponsored by Kodak Germany is the DJ Hero Club Tour. „DJ Flashdance aka Jan Delay", a well known German DJ and musician will heat up the vibe at five of the hippest clubs across Germany. The photo below shows Jan Delay at the official DJ kick-off of the DJ Hero Club Tour at the Universal After Show Party of the MTV European Music Awards 2009 in Berlin:



Again the new Zi8 video camera comes in handy for a special video contest: Guests will have the opportunity to take videos while they are playing DJ Hero at a "Video-Area" sponsored by MySpace und Kodak. The videos will be uploaded on MySpace and the best video will be established at the end of the DJ Hero Club Tour to win the grand price: a goody bag including a Kodak Zi8 Digital Video Camera, a DJ Hero-Set and a Xbox 360 Elite Console.

It's like Shakespeare said "All the world's a stage"!

Every once in a while you get asked to do something totally different.

I've been working as a graphic designer for more than 25 years and in that time, I've done a lot of different things: print, packaging, corporate identity, exhibition, video, interactive, and so on. These days, I mostly I spend my time working on the user experience and visual design of our website and other online experiences, including the KODAK Challenge website. I get asked all the time for related pieces of work: posters, ads, etc. You name it, I've done it, or so I thought.

This week, I got asked to do something I have never done before...
I got to make the million dollar check given to the winner of the Kodak Challenge.



You know these things, people proudly standing behind them at charity events, lottery press announcements  and the TV commercials with some guy knocking on the lucky winners door. My favorite, of course, is the collection of them piling up in the back of Adam Sandler's car in the movie 'Happy Gilmore'.

I'd never really thought about before. It's not a hard job, pretty basic stuff but I'd never really looked at what needed to be there. It is, of course, not a legal document, no bank name and routing numbers, etc. but there are some distinct conventions that we expect. Checks are a certain shape and certain elements: big logo in the top left, date, recipient name, signature and the all important amount. One meeeelilion dollars. $1,000,000.00. That's a whole bunch of zeroes.



I printed out a draft  and left it on my desk for a while. Lots of people wanted to take it.

We didn't know for sure who was going to win so we had to make some extra versions. I guess those ones end up in a dumpster. 

I arrived at Disney for the Children's Miracle Network Classic today in preparation for the Kodak Challenge finale this week and the buzz about Kodak Challenge is everywhere! On the shuttle ride over, the other riders were talking about the Kodak Challenge finale, very excited that Kevin Streelman is going in with a 2-stroke lead.  On twitter, Kevin's caddy Michael Collins (@funnycaddy) is tweeting about it - "The money doesn't mean anything. It's the chance to be the FIRST of something... That opportunity is what it is really all about. Money is like Doritos, you can make more. Family, friends, and history THAT'S forever."  On Facebook, Kevin's friends are cheering him on and wishing him luck.

And then I headed to the finale hole - hole #17 on the Magnolia course - WOW! Everyone knows Disney knows how to make everything look great and feel magical - and they've done just that with the Kodak Challenge hole.  Huge signs and flags everywhere...

and then the extra Disney touch - lions, giraffes and flowers, OH MY!