Carmean.net News ::

8/19/07 - Married!!! It is now official. What an unbelievable time we had with so many Family and Friends. We can't begin to express how amazing it was to share such a special moment in our lives with so many. We are so thankful for the love expressed in so many ways from everyone we feel truly blessed.

We have posted pictures of the wedding and more online. You can order hard copies of the pictures online too.

Our Honeymoon to Costa Rica was fantastic! We had a wonderful, relaxing, and exciting time with each other. We met some wonderful people and highly recommend for anyone with the opportunity to visit.

For the first part of the trip we stayed in a place called Villa Vista Mar. It had an amazing view with a private pool and all the comforts of a small apartment. We then moved down the road to the wonderful resort community called Bahia Pez Vela. This place was amazing. The houses were wonderful and the staff even better. You can see our honeymoon pictures online as well.

4/26/07 - Getting Married! What a fast 10 months! So, if the word hasn't spread to you, I apologize. I think it is pretty darn cool and I'm very excited for the one I found. I can't wait for it to be official. The date is July 14th 207. The ceremony will take place in Cle Elum at Sun Country Golf course.

While I'm at it, might as well give an update on the other things. Work is going awesome! Check out the amazing new product I'm helping bring to market getPicoP.com.

The House....is a boat. Apparently you are supposed to "sink" tons of money into it. Actually, I'm getting pretty comfortable in it now. Sure things can be done, and they will eventually get done, but finding the time seems to be most difficult challenge now. It sounds like time for a vacation to just work on the house.

Well, I hope to not have to take nearly a year before I update this site. I'm going to try and move onto a new posting platform and see how that goes. Keep an eye open.

6/21/06 - Home owner. that sounds pretty cool. Wel I'm getting closer to be settled in but not quite there. The house is still pretty close to family and friends with 3 bedrooms and 1 bath rambler on a 1/4 acre of land. It is all hard wood floors (which was just recently refinished with the help of family and friends) new paint and many other updates and fixes (unexpected electrical work). All in it has been very stressful (and expensive) but also extremely rewarding. I'm very excited to finally be living on my own and hopeful to finally feel "settled in" but that is still a little down the road. As promised here is a picture of me in front of the new home and some others 1, 2, 3.

4/3/06 - House shopping. The roller-coaster ride is in full swing. Life has been a little crazy of late. I'm doing the first time home buyer dance hoping that I'll find something good. Of course, I'm learning a lot about this process and I'm sure I'll get something good....but it is surely taking longer and a lot more stress than I was expecting.

Other than that work is going very good. We are in the process of becoming quite an amazing company and I'm very glad for the opportunity to be a part of it. Callie and I was recently down in Canon Beach, OR for an Entreprenuers Retreat with some alumni from the UWB. It was a wonderful relaxing time. I'll try to get the pictures uploaded. The family is doing great and says "Hello" to everyone reading. : )

I hope for my next post to have a picture of Callie and I in our first home. Wish us luck!

1/2/06 - Merry New Christmas Year! Wow, the holidays really flew by. At first it was like "look, the leaves are changing", then all of a sudden bam, I'm in the middle of Siberia Wisconsin and then after some fun work time out there I end up back home with just enough time to get all the Christmas day shopping done. Talk about a bummer Christmas morning, of 1100 homes without power in Washington, my parent's house just had to be one of them. It was back on by 11am so it wasn't all the terrible. I could only imagine what that would've been like if I was younger. I'd be severely scarred for the rest of my life. Well, here's the latest. I even put them in bullets so they are easy to read the latest.

• Work is going very well, I'm starting to feel as an integral member of the team and having the good ole time of "proving myself". So far I'd keep an eye on us in 2006.
• Callie and I had a wonderful holidays with the family and friends. She also received a beautiful promise ring in the early hours of 2006.
• My Parents are doing well, both still working and enjoying the kids finally being grown ups.
• My sisters are still my sisters and that means I still have to tease and pick on them. But....I think they finally like me now though.
• I am starting the house looking process. I am thrilled, excited, scared, and soon to be broke.
• Note to self: Pack warm clothes when visiting Wisconsin.

10/5/05 - Time flies. Already October!?! Well, I guess I've been a little pre-occupied with work, but wow, summer came and went in a blink of an eye. It's ok, I actually really like Fall time. I love the changing leaves and the crisper cool air. Alot of it reminds me of when soccer season would start. I enjoyed training during this time. Well, I've found a new Gallery webpackage that I'm going to be using for my pictures. It can accessed here Matthew Carmean Picture Gallery . As you can see, my sister's weddings pictures are finally up! As well some other pictures of me, I should hopefully have more coming up in the near future. Callie and I have alot of pictures from things we've done.

9/14/05 - Well the time gap between posts is getting longer, I really need to work on that. So much has happened since the last time I posted, but not sure where to begin. Well, lets just say I've been very busy. Now that school is over I have found some additional free time on the weekends to enjoy and relax time with Callie, the Family, and friends; It is quite nice. The most notable events have been my 2 week business trip to Florida, camping with Callie and friends, Oasis concert, and of course my new hobby; Transformers. Yeah, the toys I played with as a kid I am now starting to collect as an adult. It really has become something enjoyable, finding those toys I remember playing with as a young kid and now seeing how much they are worth, it's really shocking. But for me it's not about collecting for the value, but for me the fun and joy is really finding those hard to find and cool fun toys I had as a child. So, if you have any old Transformers from the 80's stored away in a box you'd like to get rid of, shoot me an email and I'd love to talk.

7/6/04 - It sure has been a while since I last posted. (This will be a long post) There has been a lot that has happened over the past 2 months. To begin, I have finally completed my adventure through college. I now have a Bachelors Degree in Business Administration with a focus in Management of Information Systems from the University of Washington. My degree is a unique blend of Computer Science and Business Management. I feel this degree strongly compliments my strengths in communication, technical analysis, and creativity. During my graduation I had a wonderful time celebrating with family and friends. I am very fortunate to have such a strong supportive group of people; I truly could not have made it without them. I am also proud of believing in myself to have finally reached the goal I thought would never come. Matthew's Graduation Pictures.

Following my graduation I took a two week relaxation vacation before starting my new job. It was very much needed. I began my fulltime position at Microvision on June 27th, 2005 as an Associate Marketing Manager. I will be working on the Marketing aspects of the Nomad Expert Technician System. Prior to joining fulltime I was a Market Research Intern within the same group since September of 2004. In my new role I will be working on initiatives to support sales and help develop and execute marketing strategies for the Nomad. I am very excited to be joining a truly exciting team and equally exciting product. Keep an eye on us. ; )

Callie and I have been doing very well and have spent the past couple weekends up at her parents cabin in Cle Elum. We both have started to pick up the game of golf and I'm looking forward to learn more. (The fact that Callie's parents also recently purchased a golf course has helped increase our interest in the game). Callie's work, awinestore.com, has been going very well and she loves her job more everyday. If you are interested in getting any Washington State Wine or even looking to hire some one to put on wine events contact her at callie@awinestore.com and she can help you out. She has also been preparing for a while to be leaving to Mexico on June 11th for a 2-week mission trip with her Church. She is a youth leader and is looking very forward to helping those less fortunate.

The following week after my graduation my younger sister Cassie graduated from Cascade high school. It was another fun time enjoying family and friends. Cassie's Graduation Pictures.

Latest Movies seen: War of the Worlds- A+, The Longest Yard- B+, Blade III: Trinity - C, and Sideways D+.

5/1/04 - Today is a beautiful day, I really should be outside enjoying it, atleast doing some yard work. However, I have a good excuse not to be; homework. So far I have been getting a lot of it done. It's nice being ahead for a change in my studies. Yesterday Callie and I went with another couple to the season opener of the Seattle Sounders soccer team. The Sounders sadly did not play nearly as well as I have seen in the past. They lost by a margin of 2-1. Clearly the Portland Timbers were the stronger and more organized team that night. Afterwards Callie and I went and watched "The hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy". What a cool and interesting movie. Very funny science fiction parody. The humor is outrageous. So, if anything I can suggest, keep thinking about the "Ultimate Question to life, the Universe, and Everything." If you come up with the number 42, you are on the right track.

Check out this really cool Montage Tool I found. It uses Google's Image search to dynamically create a montage based on a keyword search. I had a lot of fun with this. Take a look at the cool art montage of my artwork montage. I also ended up having fun with the Google Logo Montage.

Also there is a really fun Guess-the-google game based on this idea. You get to try and guess the term searched to create the image results. Very addictive.

4/25/05 - Stretched! Ever have that feeling you are forgetting something and it's really something big? I'm right near that point with school, internship, consulting, my business, family, and girlfriend. School is surely having its fun with me this quarter. So far I'm holding my own. It is bittersweet to report my business MobileQUE did not advance into the 3rd round of the CTE business competition, I'm not really sure how I could have swung preparing and delivering that with all my other things going on anyways. So after a week of reflection I think we did very well and the reaction was extremely positive. We are planning to continue forward with the business and keep surging to begin a pilot.

On a side note, I went and saw U2 in concert at the Key Arena on sunday. Wow, that was a concert. Before that Callie and I had dinner at a wonderful fondue place, the MeltingPot. I highly recommend anyone to go there. Of course, I must warn plan for a spendy dinner, but its all worth it.

4/10/05 - Round Two! It has been an exciting weekend. Saturday I was informed of the successful progression in the University of Washington CTE Business Plan Competition. My business MobileQue was one of 30 selected Business Plans to advance to an Investment round on April 19th, 2005. This event is similar to a Tradeshow were each team pitches their business idea to around 100 judges in attendance, each of which is given $1000 (fake) investment dollars. They are instructed to invest in a portfolio of at least 5 companies that they feel are the "most viable". These aren't just "any" judges either, they happen to all be prominent members of the local entrepreneurial community. The top invested 16 teams advance to the Long Presentation round, whereby each team is allowed the stage alone to presents their plan, fielding questions from a much larger audience too. I am currently working on round two plans to make this an exciting and truly memorable learning experience. Pictures will surely follow.

3/28/05 - The count down begins. Today is the first day of my last quarter. Exciting it is. I will be taking 4 classes, 1 more then the usual so that I may achieve the focus of Management of Information Systems. I am rather excited for these final four courses. Again, I may just be happy I’m almost done, or perhaps I have begun enjoying the more difficult courses.

Today I received some great news from a friend and former professor about his voiced concerns against the quality of Microsoft’s Word Spelling and Grammar checker. The article was written in today’s SeattlePI, A Word to the unwise -- program's grammar check isn't so smart. Professor Sandeep Krishnamurthy, associate professor at the University of Washington Bothell claims Word’s inability to correctly catch obvious Grammar problems is a disservice to their customers. Microsoft defends the mediocre product because of a customer service issue. Granted having a product to catch and fix ALL problems is not quite possible. The complexities of the English language, the evolution of words and meanings, and lastly the ability to be transparent to the user are all enormous hurdles. However, Krishnamurthy proposes, why not allow the user to select the level of Spelling and Grammar check. This would allow Microsoft to incorporate a greater level of service while still allowing for customers to select the level they want for them. I think that is a wonderful idea. I can set the levels of privacy on the internet. I can set the levels on my system performance. Why can’t I set the level of Spelling and Grammar on my Word application? Trust me; mine would be set to a maximum level.

“Google it.” One small example of how the English language has evolved to consider new verbs and meanings. My Microsoft Word suggests this is a Fragment. Perhaps it is, I’m not good at Grammar. But I know for a fact if I were to state this in any conversation referring to some bit of information. 99% of people would know I’m talking about Search and the World Wide Web. Additionally they would know exactly what to do next. Go to Google and search. Check out an interesting article about the same idea. "Google it" -- word of mouth makes household words

3/24/05 - Back from the Spring Break Trip to Cannon Beach Oregon. The trip started out as an Entrepreneurs Retreat. The goal was to educate, network, and celebrate being "different". Most Entrepreneurs are often confused for being crazy. I think I fall in that category fairly easily. Normally the words associated with Cannon Beach are "sunny", "warm", "beautiful", and always "relaxing". However, the trip started out nothing like that. It was very windy, rainy, and cold. I still relaxed, I wasn't in school : ) The speakers and networking was unbelievably great. The socializing was also quite fun. I also must admit, I had a great time playing poker and of winning money. Callie and I extended the trip a few extra days and with some luck the sun finally made an appearance, but only for few brief moments splitting the clouds. We still made the most of the short-lived moments. We visited the beach to walk around the rocks near Haystack Rock, flicked the Frisbee back and forth, watched the fresh water river plow out to see, and of course visited the numerous Art Galleries and candy shops throughout town. Overall, it was a wonderful time. We ate great food at some wonderful restaurants and socialized with some brilliant minds, but mostly......we got inspired to continue working on MobileQue. Pictures will come soon. Don't forget to check back. School also begins back up Monday with this being my one and final quarter to go, June 12th is my graduation date. Mark your Calendars!