1) A hearing impaired man is setting up a VoIP network for other hearing imparied people. In this case, the “V” stands for “Video” not “Voice”. I was really inspired here, because I think it is an excellent example of how our hard work will make somebody’s life much better. With the global reach of broadband, and narrow-band switching technology, we now have a way to tie in this large, but not geographically dense, group of people.

2) The industrial design of the Polycom attendant phone. I am an unashamed PictureTel alumni, and seeing how slick this design was did my heart good. Design matters, and the lucky people who have this design on their desk will certainly be a little happier in their day to day lives.

Posted by Thomas Howe @ 8:38 am | Filed Under Lead Stories | Leave a Comment

Whew - I’ve been busy. I’ve been traveling, writing, speaking, working, everything but sleeping. But, most importantly… Missy and I got hitched… eloped to be precise. I was going to lean the ladder up against the wall, but I’d probably fall or something like that. Our announcment letter below :

——————————————
Dear friends and family,
Last Friday night, in the Wayside Inn in Sudbury, and with the greatest joy and happiness, we were married. Our wedding was very simple, with just the two of us, a justice of the peace and an old family friend, Marie McHugh, who served as chauffeur, photographer, witness and general go-to person. For us, it was a beautiful moment, and was everything that we could have hoped for. We are blessed with an ever-expanding family, one that is scattered all over the globe. Since we felt it would be impossible to gather all of our loved ones together in one place, and that we really wanted a simple day, we decided to elope. Frankly, in retrospect, it was an excellent decision for us. We tried hard to keep our plans secret to everybody, and didn’t even know that February 17th would be the date until three weeks before. We are so happy to have that date, as it was Missy’s grandmother’s birthday. We know that our timing might be a surprise to you, but I can’t imagine that our deep love and affection are. We are very happy.
We will be living in Missy’s house in West Barnstable, on Cape Cod. We’ve both gone from being parents of two to four children, with the final child roster being Zephan (4), William (7), Abigail (8) and Jacob (12). No new sisters for Abby, but new brothers all around. Thomas has legally changed his last name to McCarthy-Howe, and Missy has kept her last name as McCarthy-Kraus. Go team McCarthy! We haven’t planned a celebration yet, but imagine that this summer might be a good time for that.
Thanks for all of your good wishes; we are blessed in more ways than we can count. We are heading off to Florida in a few days to tell Thomas’ parents, and Jacob and Abby get the good news when we come back on Friday.

All of our love,
Thomas and Melissa

p.s. We’ve posted pictures here… http://homepage.mac.com/thomasspencerhowe/PhotoAlbum6.html

Posted by Thomas Howe @ 11:09 am | Filed Under Lead Stories | 1 Comment