Happy 19th Wedding Anniversary!

Cindy, I love you...so I made this video just for us...I hope you enjoy it.

Engaged!

Skyler got engaged tonight...We are very excited...and we could not have hand picked a better future husband for her, if we had done it ourself. The Lord is very good to us & Skyler and we are so excited to make Chad "Freaking" Watson a part of our freaked out family. Congrats Skyler, your mother and I LOVE you very much...

Early AM in Rog...

And to think it was storming in Springfield...

Red Chair Strikes again...

Chris and Jenny...always a great time hangin' out with them...as long as Jenny keeps her potty mouth in check...:-)

The Hillengrands TV it up...

After installing the 32" LCD in my parents bedroom today...after seeing the picture clarity they decided they couldn't watch that old 25" in the living room anymore...so we ran to town and picked up a new 42" for the Living Room. We "lowered" the (old style) tube TV Entertainment Center down to only 24" tall...and set the new 42" on top of it. It's Money! Next week...Dish Network...and the DVR gets installed. I'm so excited for my 'rents...(even though their spending Becky and my inheritence)...I think they deserve it. Next...My mom has her eye on some Kitchen Cabinets...and a Dishwasher...I say GO FOR IT...You guys deserve it!

Well It's official...

Sunday is our last day in JV. Were retiring (once again) from the Jr. High class...We will be conducting Sunday School Class Interviews over the next several weeks...and I will let you know what we decide. If all else fails...they may just assign us in the class we would go to based on our level of maturity...But I hope not...cause I don't want to end up right back in Jr. High again...

After another successful meeting...(XT Rocks!)

1. After dropping my colleague off at La Guardia, thought I would run over to the island ...
2. Decided to pick myself up an iPhone (not really rog...)
3. Cruise Times Square...
4. No Cruising Ordinance here...
5. Merge into some traffic
6. Drop by the Village...
7. Here is where I parked my rental...don't forget this address.
8. Walked around Washington Square Park
9. Hired this guy to keep an eye on rental van.
10. ...it looked like this when I got back.
11. I just hope that Skyler doesn't look like this when I get home...
12. Decided to pass up the free kissing booth activity...
13. Did some mattress shopping...(Burch I'm bringing you back a Queen Size)
14. Decided to follow this Taxi back to my hotel...
15. He lost me...and I realized he might not be going to my hotel...
16. Thought of Ryan & Missy...and decided that a couple hours in NYC by yourself is not nearly as much fun as it is when Cindy is with me...time to head to the house...and get ready for the 0:dark-30 Shuttle to JFK and the return flight home. I can't wait to be stranded on the tarmac at O'Hare again for 4 hours...O the glamorous life...

Confirmed...

Jenny:

I like the new Blog title...Congrats on a wonderful wedding...it was a great night...
I entitled this "Love has come"....and he's in a BassBuddy...

Let the Count Down begin...

Pickens Plan is better than any other plan I have seen...

We have a winner...

Happy Sweet 16 Ashley!

Ok...Here is a contest...What should Ashley get on her Personalized Plates for her hot new sports car?

Your Love will Never Change

OK...you should totally feel like you were at the wedding now...

Ten Thousand Angels

overheard at the reception..."I can't believe they got Derek Webb to play for their wedding..."

Nuff Said...

What a Perfect Wedding...

If Not For You

Congratulations Brad and Jenny...It was wonderful!

DMP targets residential market with new panel

By Leischen Stelter, associate editor - 07.03.2008

NASHVILLE, Tenn.--Digital Monitoring Products unveiled its XT Series Burglary/Fire/Door Access Panel here at the ESX show on June 26 in an effort to expand its presence into the residential market.

"We're looking to increase our market share," Mark Hillenburg, product architect for DMP, told Security Systems News during an interview at ESX. "Traditionally we were 70 percent commercial, either large or small. A number of our dealers used our products for their commercial accounts and another product for residential--we want all their business."

Hillenburg said the XT Series panel is both an economical and practical choice for dealers: "It's most realistically the least expensive control panel in its class" and includes a network, cellular and dialer communication path along with a two-way wireless receiver, all built into the panel. Hillenburg said DMP developed the "all on-board" concept to alleviate the need for installers to have to add features later. "We rolled all that into one product line using new technology to better address the market," he said. The all-on-board concept also allows easier installation and "any time you lower the installation time, you're doing a huge favor to installers," he said.

The XT series is available in two models. The XT30 supports 10 on-board zones and 20 additional zones including a dialer. The XT50 is available with or without a dialer and also supports 10 on-board zones.

While the panel was unveiled at the ESX show, it will not be available to dealers until July 11. Hillenburg said DMP spent about nine months developing the XT Series panel behind closed doors, even giving it the code name "wildfire."

"It was all done in secret," he said. "Certain customers signed on to do the field testing and we installed it at some employees residences," but the majority of DMP employees and dealers did not know about the product's existence until recently.

But are we ready for this much Creative Change?

The Berkun Blog : Management and creative thinking

I can identify with this concept...so I have reposted it here. Think about this as it relates to your company...your church...your family...Enjoy...Hillenblog!

The irony of creative change

June 24th, 2008

Making a good part of my living as a public speaker means many conversations with potential clients about their events. Recently I had the following phone conversation about giving a keynote talk at a large manufacturing company:

Potential client: “So how much do you know about our industry?”

Me: “Honestly, not much. But the way innovation works, its often better to hear ideas from outside your industry, as it will give you new ways to think about how you do your work.”

Potential Client: Silence.

Me: (Brain scrambles to fill the silence) “…well think about this. Ford got the idea for assembly line cars by watching his butcher take cows apart. Anti-virus software uses the language, and tactics, of biology, not computer science. Leonardo da Vinci got most of his engineering ideas from watching birds and rivers. It’s by seeking out different ways, systems, perspectives, even vocabularies that many creative people find their great ideas. If you let me talk to your organization I can help them get ideas from places they’d never expect to find them.”

Potential Client: (The sound of crickets, over a phone line)

Me: (Brain in scramble overdrive) “If Innovation is something new, how can you expect to find it looking where you’ve always looked?”

Potential Client: “We’ll think about it. Thanks.”

A few days later they decided to go with someone in their own industry, primarily because… (drumroll)… they were in their own industry. So much for my skills of persuasion, eh?

The irony of creativity is this: people want to be creative without change. They want innovation with no risk. They want a new result with the same exact behavior. They can talk for hours about how passionate they are about creativity, but when it comes to actually changing anything, they’ll find a way to repeat the same thing again and again. That’s why books, seminars, courses and lectures on creativity rarely translate into much actual creation. No one can make change happen except the person who must accept the fears, and consequences, of change.

Situations like the above always make me wonder: if an organization isn’t open to taking a creative risk with a public speaker for an event, an entirely non-critical kind of business decision (whats the worst that can happen? A room full of bored people?) what hope is there for taking any real creative risks on the big decisions that matter? Not much.

A useful indicator of a company’s openness to change might just be the small things. How creative are they about the small decisions that govern the details of a company? While it is true many HR groups that govern the little decisions (like event speakers) can be more conservative than the rest of the company, looking at small decisions can reveal tons about the creative culture in an organization, especially regarding the ironies of pursuing creative thinking.

Whenever I visit a company and I’m shown around, I wonder: where are people allowed to take risks and be creative with little or no approval? In their dress? Their language? Their hours? Their processes? Their office setup? Where in all the daily decisions is change allowed, or encouraged? I’d bet that most places that are successful with making big changes are better with accepting small changes too. And the small examples of creativity, since they happen so often, can be easier to spot as an outsider (or perhaps, as an interview candidate) than the big ones.

A few people have asked me for this over the past couple years....

So...I thought I would just make it available here.

It is a Driving Contract that I wrote and we made Skyler sign, before she could drive the car. I think it worked pretty good.

Barrett...you better get your attorney to look this over...