It has been over a week now since my grandfather’s funeral, and I’m getting back into the swing of things before this upcoming holiday weekend. I wanted to post a photo from the event because, as with many families, funerals are like family reunions. It’s also a really good excuse to get dressed up and take a nice picture. So here’s the family:

The Rzepkowski Family in front of the Dunkirk Kosciuszko Club
Back Row (from left): Neal Rzepkowski, Ian Vosper, Duane Mallaber, Kyle Rzepkowski, Michelle Rzepkowski, Terry Rzepkowski, Dick Rzepkowski, Marlene Rzepkowski
Middle Row (from left): Esther Rzepkowski, Taryn Rzepkowski, Wendy Vosper
Front Row (from left): Michael Short, Lindsey Short, Lilyan Short, Mason Rzepkowski, Anna Rzepkowski, Tricia Rzepkowski, Kris Rzepkowski

This same crew is getting together for the 4th of July at my parents’ lake house. It will be nice to see everyone again and continue to heal.

It’s time to play help Kris with an annoying bug in an application he uses. On today’s episode, we’ll be adding a New Link to the Quick Launch bar within a WSS 3.0 Sharepoint site. When he adds any url that starts with “p” after the “http://” such as http://pstime.hhgroup.com, Sharepoint magically changes the URL to an “https://” URL. This therefore makes adding a link to that site very difficult. A URL beginning with any other letter does not do this.

I should also mention that our Sharepoint instance is on a secure https:// server if that makes any difference at all. Would anyone in the development world care to point me to the right place to submit this bug, or can they point me to a place where it has been addressed? I don’t even know what to search on or where to get a response to this. Thanks for your help!

Add New Link to Sharepoint including “p” as first letter in URL

The URL changed from http:// to https://

I’m just returning to the real life of home, work and responsibilities after 4 days spent mourning the loss of my grandfather. While I’ll remember him forever, I need to write down all that I’m feeling now while the pain is still fresh. I know that time heals, and time helps you forget the difficult emotions that come with losing a close family member. It’s just that right now, I don’t want to forget. Not yet.

Which memories are mine?
I listened all weekend to the fond memories of the generation before me. Grandpa’s boys, his daughter, his wife, his friends, his nieces and nephews. There were so many stories, so many one-liners, so many “lefty-isms” that encapsulated his life and influence. They are stories I’ve heard so many times though, it’s almost as if I were there. As if they were my memories. I had a hard time distilling what I had really been a part of and what was just a part of family lore. I struggled to put a finger on exactly what it was about grandpa that made me cry so hard when I saw his last sickly days 2 weeks ago when he didn’t recognize me. What was it that made it so difficult to see him in that casket?

His legend is great
These are the grandiose legends that you like to tell everyone about your predecessors. When we played volleyball together at family picnics and I thought I knew everything, he showed me the way he had done it as a young man – and he was good! When we fished together and I was having no luck, he could flick his wrist and have a fish. When we went hunting – my dad, my uncle and him, I was the one who could not steady myself for a shot and he would take one shot off hand and get it done. He was known for his creativity; having the patience to carve elaborate duck decoys and Christmas angels out of wood. I know exactly where I got my perseverance in my design career.

Kris graduating from UB in 1997, with Grandma and Grandpa Rzepkowski.

His wisdom was greater
It was not his skill that was the best thing about grandpa though. I realize today that his wisdom is what I will miss most. He would always ‘teach a man to fish’ before ever taking an ounce of credit for anything that he himself had done. He was humble – much moreso than I can ever try to be. He spoke more with with his eyes than with his mouth. A wink of his eye was all you needed to know that he loved you.

Grandpa, if you are reading this blog entry from your place in heaven (which I doubt because your computer was ‘a pencil and a pad of paper’) this wink is for you.

Kris nets nice walleye for Uncle Neal

From June 9-13, 2008 I spent a week making a trek up to Canada with my uncles, my cousin, and some family friends to Cabonga Reservoir, for some great walleye and pike fishing. More importantly though, it became a great way for us to unwind and connect in a positive way after spending the previous weekend doing something very hard for our family. I always provide the entertainment for the group with my knack for idiocy. This year was no exception.

Kris’s 2008 Cabonga Fish Story
It was prime time fishing in the evening, ’round about 7pm. I was in a boat with Phil and Duane. We had just found out the secret to the best fishing lure from the local Indian guides. We trolled Thin Fins so fast that the boat was putting up wake and we were nailing the fish. Alas, as is typical after buying a new lure, I got it well snagged on the bottom after only about 10 minutes using it. Duane offered to use a Snag-away to release my lure from the bottom. He monkeyed with the contraption for 5 minutes unsuccessfully.

Now, I was getting frustrated. I was wasting valuable fishing time with this snag. I told my boat mates I would snap the line. What was really going through my head was “I’ve got one more shot to save my lure if I yank REALLY hard on the rod”. So that’s what I did. Suddenly I heard a twayayayanggggg….noise, and then a sploosh! It took me too long to realize that the top part of my Ugly Stik rod, that was always loose to begin with had just flung 50 yards behind me. Since I was the driver of the boat, I quickly grabbed the tiller, flung it into reverse and went after the tip of my rod. Of course they don’t float, but I wasn’t bright enough to think this through. Instead I proceeded to gun the engine and take on water into the back of the boat. At this point Phil and Duane calmly suggested that I step away from the tiller until I cool down a bit. They also stayed pretty quiet for a while as I grumbled about losing half of a good rod to the fishing gods. All I can say to everyone in attendance is, “You’re Welcome! Tip me at the bar, I’ll be here all week.”

Uncle Neal’s Rock Split Incident
My fish story only barely beat out Uncle Neal for Best in Show. His entry was more ballet than my slapstick, but still high quality nonetheless. The boats had split up for the afternoon, and my boat was 100 yards from where we saw Uncle Neal’s boat approaching some large boulders. I knew that they were stopping by these large rocks to have a snack and rest. When I looked over my shoulder to see them dock at the rock, all I saw was a splash, and what I thought was Uncle Neal going into the water. I cried “Man down!” to my boat mates, and we quickly went over to see what happened. When we arrived, there was Neal with one soaked pant leg all the way up to his butt. Apparently he had tried to prevent the boat from making too hard of a landing at the rock. He put one foot on the boat bow, and put his other out to fend off the boat from the rock. When the boat lost its forward momentum it quickly left Neal with a “Split Decision”. The boat moved away from the rock and he had to make a quick call to jump back to the boat, onto the rock, or into the water. He chose the boat, but he lost his balance and dunked his leg in the water.

It’s always those great stories that makes the trip so fun. There was plenty of great walleye fishing too. In fact, the last night the fish were hitting from 5pm all the way through 8:30. It was one of those perfect nights. Warm, calm, quiet, and the fish were in a frenzy. Our stringers were full by 7:45 and we spent the rest of the night upgrading our tonnage to only the bigger walleye.

I enjoyed the trip immensely, and the time off is always good for a recharge. Here’s some more photos from the 2008 Cabonga Fishing Trip.

The second installment of our online video series launched a few days ago. As I promised on my video #1 reflections I thought it would be useful to dive deeper into what we have learned during production.

Piggyback Your Shoots
Hudson has offices spread out all over the US. Coordinating the production of a video shoot in those offices on a monthly basis could become a full-time job. It takes a lot to schedule hotels, and flights, schedule the subjects of the videos, etc. So, at Cantaloupe’s suggestion we chose to shoot 2 locations that are in relatively close geographic proximity (New York and Philadelphia) to capture content for 2 videos at once. This has been immensely helpful as we have refined our email marketing approach and other promotion tactics instead of being in the field shooting video #3.

Get into an Editing Rhythm
We went through a lot of iterations in the editing of video #1. Having never done a series like this, we spent a lot of time trying to establish the tone and overall storyline for the series. Much of the back and forth was properly setting up the viewer to know what the series would be all about. With video #2, the editing process was FAR easier. The production team knew what to do with the second story based on learnings from the first piece. Their initial edit was 85% of what we needed, and we had only some minor tweaks from there. We knew the team was in a rhythm, which made things much more smooth.

Use a Video Timeline
In the editing process, I found it really helpful to build a full timeline of the video with minutes/seconds counters and text explanations of the scenes. It was then extremely easy for everyone involved in providing feedback to reference specific times and sequences in the video.

Track Video Effectiveness
Cantaloupe provides us with a really compelling backend tracking tool called Backlight. Within Backlight, we can see exactly how many people have viewed the video, how many viewers made it through the piece and how many dropped out at what point in the video. This helps inform us on the right length for the segments and where we may have missed the mark on content. Have a look at the graph shown below. You can see how many seconds into the video users start to trail off and stop watching.

Screen capture from Cantaloupe Backlight stats tracking.

Promote the Video via Email
Of course, once you spend time creating a video masterpiece, you’d like to attract as many viewers to it as possible. Part of it is to regularly email prospects and customers about the video. We send out nicely formatted emails to people who hopefully “follow” the series to let them know another video is out there. I thought the promise of seeing video content at one point in the web cycle would have caused astronomical open and click through rates. The first piece we sent we received a 15% open rate and 20% of the opens clicked through to watch the video. I don’t have any idea yet whether those are good or bad stats. If anyone has that information, please let me know.

The email marketing teaser to encourage you to watch the next video in the reality series

I’m excited that Video #2 is live because it shows the real story of Hudson’s people in a very real way. Now that we’ve hit our reality stride, I can’t wait to see where this takes us.

photo from Jackson Fish Market

I’ll be on vacation until Friday on a family fishing trip to Canada. We’re headed to Cabonga Reservoir, a tradtional spot for the Rzepkowski family. I’m hoping to land a few walleye and maybe a monster pike like 2 years ago. I’ll see you all next week.

This weekend was a difficult one as Mason and I joined the entire Rzepkowski family cleaning out my grandparents house in Dunkirk. Grandpa is not doing well with Alzheimer’s and grandma is going to a St. Columban’s home – an assisted living facility. Please pray for them as they make a very difficult transition. Of the many thoughts swimming through my head this morning are the many Christmases spent at grandma’s and of the many bits of wisdom my grandpa imparted on me – especially when it comes to hunting and fishing. I’ll have much more to blog about in the future, but this morning I’m off to Cabonga Reservoir Canada to fish for a week with those same family members. We’ll probably use a lot of the grandpa-isms while we are there. We all need to clear our minds and share some laughs, and probably some tears. Here’s a couple of pictures of our weekend work:

Kris and Grandma in front of the house

We filled a large dumpster with stuff and our backs know it.

Saturday was Mason’s first day of Tee-ball for 2008. He’s playing in the 5/6 league that’s run by the Webster Athletic Association. Last year, his first season, Mason played for the White Sox. In Tee-ball you bring a pre-paid registration card to the park and you wander around until you find a team you like. So, the anticipation was killing him as we arrived at Kent Park.

Picking the Team
I wore my Cubs hat that day and wouldn’t you know it, the first team we ran into was the Cubs. We asked if they had room on the team and they said they had one spot left. Surprisingly, Mason passed it up. So we walked around a bit more as Mason passed up the Mets, Dodgers, and Athletics. Then we saw THE ONE. As soon as Mason saw the “tough looking” Tigers logo on the shirts of some player, he knew that was the team he needed to play for. I knew his reasoning as I had just spent the prior 2 weeks watching him critique the mascots of all the major league clubs. He got really annoyed with dopey mascots like the Blue Jays’ ‘Ace’, and the ‘Swinging Friar’ of the Padres.

Mason Chooses the Tigers for its ‘tough logo’

Opening Ceremony and Practice
The league is very smart. They tear through a potentially grueling opening ceremony, complete with national anthem and ceremonial first pitch in about 10 minutes. This allowed plenty of time for the boys to get right out there and start practicing together. Mason started right off in throwing drills where he showed a lot more strength than last year. He was able to get the ball in the air to the coach.

Mason participates in throwing drills

Batting practice was also held to get the kids familiar with swinging the bat, and running the bases. Mason had no problem remembering what to do.

Mason takes some batting practice

Pllllaaaayyyy Ballllll!
After a drink and a snack, which is the kids’ favorite part, they got down to the business of their first game. The Tigers first opponent was the Red Sox. We were first up and Mason was 4th or 5th in the order. When he got to the plate he hit the ball past the pitcher and it actually made it beyond the infield. This was a first for Mason so he was very excited. He ran with a full head of steam to first base and had a huge smile on his face. I knew after that he was happy to be a Tiger.

Mason runs to first base after a big hit

We saw the Red Sox take batting practice. A few of them could really hit. So I guess I wasn’t too surprised when their first batter hit line drive went right toward one of our Tigers and knocked him down. Luckily they play with soft balls in tee-ball so the boy was fine. After both teams batted around the game was over. One inning is definitely enough on the first day. Next week they’ll likely get in at least 2 of the 3 innings they are supposed to play. The best part of any team sport for the kids is learning sportsmanship. So I always enjoy them chanting “2-4-6-8-who do we appreciate” and shaking the little hands of their opponents. That topped off a great opening day of Tee-Ball.

The Tigers cheer for the Red Sox after opening day

We wonder why summer goes by so fast in Western New York. Well, it’s because we only get about 13 weeks of truly summer-like weather. Memorial Day weekend kicks it off, and before you know it we’re into Labor Day. It all becomes a blur. I try to spend more time outside and far less in front of the computer blogging. So, here we are in the weekend after Memorial Day and I haven’t even talked about what fun we had.

Wii Skied on Friday
Friday night we had our friends the Krolczyk’s over to our house for a nice little barbecue. Afterward we all huddled around the Wii Fit and had some laughs learning how to ski jump. Tricia has been honing her Wii Fit skillz for her training biz, so she was the expert teacher.

Tricia shows Mia how to Ski Jump in Wii Fit

Lake House Chillaxin’
On Saturday we headed down to my parents’ lake house and got our first taste of decent weather. While the adults had some fun drinking Dirty Water (Brandy, Sprite, lime), the kids met all of their lake buddies. Anna was particularly menacing as Batgirl with her friend Olivia.

Anna is a Batgirl Bada$$

Sunday morning we started the day with one of our favorite summer pastimes; a visit to the East Avon Flea Market. It’s held at the Vintage Drive-In Theater. We always walk away with at least one bargain, and usually at least one thing we didn’t need. That day I got a fishing rod holder for my garage and a ‘crowd-pleaser’ fishing lure for my upcoming trip to Canada.

Celebrating Uncle Adam’s Entry into the World
Sunday afternoon we headed over to Nana and Poppy’s house where they were throwing a party for Adam’s 25th birthday. Uncle Matt, Aunt Ali, and a deep fried turkey all showed up for the party.

Poppy deep-fries the bird

For dessert, Adam requested brownies not chocolate cake. The kids were very happy with his decision.

The way to the kids’ heart is through brownies

Monday Memorial Parade
Mason got to stay by himself with Nana and Poppy on Sunday night and into Monday. While Mason was fishing, playing mini-golf and having a jolly good time, Tricia, Anna and I went to the Webster Memorial Day parade. I haven’t been to a parade in a long time, so it was awesome on such a beautiful day to take in Webster’s offering. It was only 20 minutes long, but we got to see everything from Boy Scouts, to marching bands, to decorated veterans. It was a great way to cap off a very relaxing Memorial Day weekend.

Troops in the Webster Memorial Day Parade

For the few of you who might be wondering why the frequency of my posts is way down, I can blame a wide variety of things. My best explanation right now is that I’ve taken on a side project for my wife to get her personal training endeavors off the ground. Every night I pound out a little copywriting, web design, blog consulting, PHP programming, HTML wizardry, photography, Photoshopping, to get this honey-do item off the list. You are welcome to follow along as I build it and contribute any 2 cents you may have. Nope. I’m not doing this in private. This thing is getting built before your eyes with Google fully indexing every piece of greek text still in there, every bad copy idea, every unfinished page. Enjoy Training With Tricia – a work in progress.

This is on top of some extremely stressful family goings-on as I pray for my parents, aunts and uncles while they search for the right answer in putting my grandfather and grandmother into permanent care.