This past Saturday I headed over to my alma mater to attend the Imagine RIT Innovation and Creativity Festival. This is a day for Rochester Institute of Technology to feature exhibits with different themes such as being green, science & technology and artistic visions. The exhibits were put on by RIT people from "both sides of the brain". Artists and designers along with scientists and engineers.

Kodak had a trailer there with some of our products that folks could try out. ( I think the trailer is from The Celebrity Apprentice!)

Dave Kassnoff was on hand to welcome visitors to the trailer.

I posed with Shruti, Tina and her daughter Lauren for a picture...

... which Dave printed out for us on a Kodak ESP 5 Inket Printer.

Cool! Something to take home with us. After visiting the Kodak trailer I went to check out some of the other displays.

Vishal, Shruti and I had peripheral photographs taken by standing on a rotating turntable while a stationary camera captured our image.

The results were these "all the way around" portraits.

This is a Rube Goldberg machine that will take your picture after you drop a marble in at the other end.

Joel and his family were there to try it out.

Oh hey, look! They're using a Kodak camera!

There was a big crowd around this robot. It made hot dogs! Even put ketchup and mustard on them for you. Yum.

If the hot dog the robot made you got you thirsty you could send this robot down the hall to a networked vending machine to get you a soda and bring it to you.

There was so much to see and do I only got through two buildings. And every building on campus had stuff in it! I am looking forward to next year.

To top the day off I got to try something I have always wanted to do. Ride a Segway! It was harder than it looks... but I did manage not to run any of the orange cones over.

Many of you 1,000 Words readers also hop over and read the 1,000 Nerds posts, but today there is a transition going on over there.

Lately we have noticed a need for more product information on our blogs. Because we have heard the feedback and want to change to meet the demand, we are transforming 1,000 Nerds into the Plugged In blog.

1,000 Nerds isn't going away. The 1,000 Nerds posts will be available in the archives of Plugged In and the Nerds bloggers will continue to post to Plugged In. In fact, take a look at this latest post about an exciting announcement for Linux users! Those Nerds posts will be joined by posts about our newest products and their features, tradeshows and events we participate in, product reviews, support tips, announcements and more.

As always we love to hear from you. Check out Plugged In over the coming weeks and let us know what you think!

Yesterday was Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day and there were scads of kids around the office. It's a day for kids to see what their parents do at the office and learn what it might be like working here. I caught of a few of the kids that were in our area and checked in to see what they were doing.

Joel had his daughter Hannah with him. Looks like he put her to work.

They packed matching lunches.

Rick Myles took his sons Joshua and David to get their pictures taken wearing Kodak Racing helmets. There were several photo opportunities set up for kids to see how to have fun with pictures.

Mary Hadley's son, Dan is interested in computer graphic design so he sat with Shruti for a bit and learned about her job.

Cathy and Jack stopped over at Tom's office for a bit.

Jack had some constructive criticism for Tom.

Kids are so helpful.

I really enjoyed Joel's post about taking panoramic portraits of his kids. I thought the results had a really cool 3D effect and were interesting to look at.

Here is another way I like to use the panoramic feature on our digital cameras... "Around the Table" pictures.

I often find myself sitting at a table with friends or family at a celebration, event or gathering and I want to capture the moment. I could just get up and try and get a picture of the whole table... making people turn their chairs around or go and stand on the other side to fit in the shot. But this is more fun.

I stay in my seat and using the panoramic feature on my camera I start by taking a picture of the table's occupants on my left and work my way around the table to my right. Sometimes I try and stick my own head into the last shot.

The pictures come out with a warped, fisheye effect but it feels as though you are sitting right there at the table.

All dressed up at Aprille's wedding reception (click image to enlarge)

Dinner out with friends (click image to enlarge)

On a dinner cruise with my family (click image to enlarge)

Here are some tips if you would like to try it yourself.

Take into account how many shots your camera has you take to complete the panorama. Mine does it in three. So I divide the number of people at the table into groups of three. If there are six people at the table I get the first two in the first shot and so on. That way the edge of a shot doesn't fall down the middle of a person. If you get a seam of the panorama falling over someone, weird things can happen when the program stitches the two shots together. Check out my sister's head in the last panorama. She didn't just part her hair funny that day.

Also try to get everyone to sit still. If they move around too much their arm might get photographed twice. Or an arm could get cut off. My husband Aaron leaned over toward me in the middle panoramic and so his elbow was missing from the picture. I added it back in using a photo editing program so it didn't look like our food came late and he nibbled off his own arm.

I was told to be at Eastman Theatre in downtown Rochester this morning, but I had no idea what for. Members of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and Eastman School of Music tuned their instruments on stage as people filed into the theatre and took their seats. No one really knew what to expect but the excitement was visible.

Kodak CEO Antonio Perez joined by Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra Music Director Christopher Seaman, listens intently to the music on stage.

A quiet moment off stage before the announcement.

 Eastman Theatre was built by George Eastman 85 years ago and has seen such musicians as Igor Stravinsky, Leonard Bernstein, Louis Armstrong, George Gershwin and Yo Yo Ma on it's stage.

Before the presentation began Tom shuffled me upstairs to point out two lights that hang from the theatre ceiling. He told me legend says as the theatre's opening night drew near, they didn't have the light fixtures yet, so the workers painted two tubs gold, added some decoration and up they went. Supposedly, they hang there still today. I quickly took pictures of the "tubs" and we hurried away.

Back downstairs, I didn't know what we were about to hear, but I knew it had something to do with Kodak, Eastman Theatre, Eastman School of Music and the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra... all founded by George Eastman. Also present was the University of Rochester, which has a long history with Kodak and George Eastman.

Antonio Perez addresses the crowd.

It all became clear when Kodak CEO, Antonio Perez, took the podium and announced that Kodak will continue the vision of George Eastman by providing $10 million to the University of Rochester for renovation and expansion of the Eastman Theatre.

Now the theatre can add a building for teaching and performance spaces. George Eastman had that in his original plans but the ground was unavailable at the time. When renovations are completed, the performance hall will be called "Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre".

University of Rochester President Joel Seligman presents Antonio Perez with a momento.

I, for one am excited and thrilled for Rochester and the enhancements to come. I attend performances at Eastman Theatre several times a year. It's amazing that even years later, George Eastman continues to enrich the lives of this community.

I also wonder if they will keep the "tub lights" after the renovation?

Photos by Steve Kelly

Last week after the finale of The Celebrity Apprentice, I had the good fortune to attend the afterparty. All the stars were there dressed to the nines and posing for pictures every two steps.

One of the first Celebrity contestents I got to meet was Nely Galán.

Nely uploads her pictures to the Kodak Gallery and makes amazing Photo Books with them. She told me that there is a new term for her... a Galleryaholic. "Because I am a producer, I know how to take pictures and make them into a story. Sometimes there are pictures you wouldn't print, but in the context of a story they help tell it." she explained. "I only do books about things that I think are a story. It makes your life very powerful, because you remember not just a moment but the whole story."

If you haven't seen it yet, check out Nely's video about how she uses Kodak Gallery Photo Books on YouTube.

I also got to meet Marilu Henner. Just the week before, I watched the taping of her video.

"Taping that was a blast" she told me. I asked her how she kept a straight face singing her lines and she said "It was very hard. I barely did!"

Marilu had to make up the tunes for each of her lines on the spot. She did a pretty good job because I still have "Baby in a hat, baby in a hat" stuck in my head.

I tracked Vinny Pastore down during the party. Believe it or not, when I found him he was chatting about the Kodak camera a fan was using to take his picture. When he spotted my Kodak camera he had us take pictures of each other with our cameras pointed at one another.

Vinny shot a really cool video about Kodak too. You can find it on YouTube also.

I asked Vinny how it felt to smash the printer to pieces at the end and he said "Oh yeah, that felt real good."

I then tried to persuade Vinny to mention me on his radio show. We'll see.