LIHD after one year!

This January marked the 1 year anniversary of becoming a Living in HD family. A lot has happened in that year and our Panasonic gear has been there for us throughout. I will summarize the year in the following paragraphs but the ‘executive summary’ is this: It has changed how we live as family and we are extremely grateful for this unique opportunity!

As I mentioned in a previous post, the beginning of 2009 was a stressful time for us as the company I loved working at for the last 10 years was in the process of shutting it’s doors. The arrival and installation could not have come at a better time. It was a very positive situation and helped occupy my time. We chose to install the gorgeous TH 50PZ850U TV in our partially finished basement as that is our primary spot for entertaining. We rearranged furniture and painted the walls. A year later we are still working on the space but love every minute of it. I built a bar behind the couch so that more people could see the amazing display. I built a desk and wall unit to house our games. The arrangement now allows for ample play space for the girls but can be quickly tidied up when we entertain our friends. The Wii is an awesome addition that all aged visitors enjoy and the TV allows for everyone to participate. We now have family movie nights and look forward introducing the girls to mommy and daddy’s favorite childhood movies. Re-watching classics on Blu-Ray is like seeing the movie for the first time. –Simply Awesome! The Basement is now the focal point of our daily lives and that all came about since becoming an LIHD family.

The basement may be the focal point, but the cameras are what truly has changed our behavior. I would conservatively say that we have increased capturing our lives digitally by a factor of 10 since become a LIHD family. The quality is amazing and the convenience is unapproachable. We often leave the house now with 2-3 devices. I like to carry and use the FX30. Rana keeps the TZ50 with her at all times. The HDC-SD100P hangs at the ready, just in case we think we might need it. Being able to then see the results on the PlasmaTV or to post them quickly via the CFY7 Toughpad is truly game changing.

So What’s next?

Because of the great results from the cameras Rana, in fact, is now very interested in learning more about photography and videography. We both look forward to improving the composition of our daily capturing. I am working on integrating a PC into Home entertainment center –even hooking up a digital camera to chat “real time” via the Plasma’s great display. With Super bowl and March Madness parties on the calendar, and the girls activities increasing, we look forward to Living even more in HD. Thank you Panasonic for allowing us the opportunity to participate in such a positive life changing opportunity! -Mark & the girls

Living in HD is highlight of Q1

Mark here with a Bi-annual update for 2009. Whew! Where to start! The last few months have been quite a ride. In December I found out that I would be “downsized” from my employer of the last 9 years. I then got called back only to eventually leave as the company finally closed it’s doors in late February. Needless to say the uncertainty during that time was a lot to deal with. Thank goodness for our TV! I know that that sounds silly, and it is. There are A MILLION things more important than TV. However, in hindsight it really helped us. Having a project to work on, (Preparing the basement) new toys to play with (thank you Panasonic!) and more projects (finishing out the basement) kept me focused on the positive. Making the Man-Cave into a FAM-Cave was a great experience! I now have a new job and a new basement that the whole family uses 5 times as often as we used to! Here are a few before and after photos, all because of TV! Lastly, I have to mention that NFL Football.. in High Definition on our Panasonic Plasma is simply amazing! As our our family life slowly returns to normal and the our outdoor life comes back inside, look for more updates, until then - Cheers! Mark and the Kory Family, living well in HD.

Rose Getting Her Nails Done

Here is Rose getting her first manicure. I know this is a mistake because she'll now want to get one all the time but I couldn't resist when, for the past week, she's been wishing for bright pink glittery nail polish. And WHO could resist that cute little face.

Something Very Interesting About Panasonic

About 10 days ago we had lightning come through our cable box and fry two of them. It also fried an electronic board in our 50" Panasonic Plasma. So I call the Panasonic Customer Service to request a service person to come and fix our television. When the guy came out he asked me if I'd like a "loner" television while mine was in repair. He told me that Panasonic is the ONLY company that he knows of that does not want their customers to go without a television so they came up with the "loner" program. I didn't know that but I was very impressed and also felt sorry for all those other people who get their tv's taken away for a week or two to have it repaired. Needless to say, we got our HIGH DEF loner television while we wait for ours to be fixed.

I also want to add that the "repair" guy went on and on about how much he loves Panasonic televisions. Seriously...he didn't have to but you could tell that he was very sincere.

If you're in the market for a new big screen, I saw Panasonic 50" Plasma's with Vierra Cast on sale at Costco for under $1,000. You can't beat that!

Kudos to Panasonic

My brother, Ryan, was so impressed with all the pictures we've been taking that he went out and bought his own Panasonic Lumix camera. Now that's word-of-mouth at it's finest. He was "blown away with the pictures" he was able to take. He played around with the settings to get these great pictures during his recent motorcycle road trip.

Indianapolis 500 33rd Annual Mini Marathon

Today (May 2) was the 33rd annual Indianapolis Mini Marathon. It's the largest 1/2 marathon (13.1 miles) in the country with 35,000 participants, both runners and walkers. For the past couple of months I have been training to run it.

I ran with one of my friends from start to finish. From mile 6 to around mile 8-1/2, you actually get to run AROUND the Indianapolis 500 race track. As appealing as that sounds, it's brutal! LOL! It's 2-1/2 miles of the same thing so needless to say, I had a couple of times I was doubtful I could run the rest of the race. I broke through the wall though and kept going.
Once we got off the track, I felt better. We passed our time listening to our iPods or talking or sharing pointless stories to just be talking and getting our minds off the run. The funny thing is, after awhile, your brain just shuts down and you can't really think very well. We kept trying to calculate our time to see how fast we were going per mile and eventually we couldn't calculate it any longer because it got too difficult. LOL!

Finally, we hit 10 miles...11 miles...12 miles. Once we hit 12 miles, only one more mile, right? Well, let me tell you, it's probaby the hardest mile of them all. Your brain is telling you to stop. I mean, I had only ran 12 miles in training...never 13! During the whole last mile, I kept praying and thinking, "how am I going to get through this last mile?". But the last 15 feet, I took off and sprinted! I had crossed the finish line. All I could say over and over again is, "I'm just so glad it's over! I'm just so glad it's over!". I also vowed never to do it again and to only do the 5K next year. You see, this is my 3rd year doing it and every year I say I'll never do it again and here I am....doing it AGAIN! But this time, I mean it! I'm sticking to 5K's!
My race time was 2 hrs 24 min (my personal best).

- Rana

Monkey Joe's

Today was Monkey Joe's first day open. If you're not familiar, it's one of those places you go that is full of those bouncy houses and slides. This one just opened up in Castleton. The girls and I had SO much fun today! Even Grace went down the biggest slides. I went down a couple too and they really took your stomach! I really think it would be so much fun to rent the place out for an adult party!

Btw, I took these photos whith the Panasonic Lumix and thought they turned out really nice!

Grace LOVED meeting Monkey Joe. She literally followed him around.


They have several inflatables for the little ones!

This slide was a lot of fun. I even went down it a couple times, and so did Grace.


This is Grace getting ready to go down a slide.

Rose's favorite is of course....Scooby Doo!!!