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Brady & Kellie White

Archive for April, 2010

Go Jazz Go!

Apr 24

Posted by Kellie White in Weekly Life | No Comments

Because Brady and Kyle won the audience choice award at the Crexendo competition…we got tickets to the Jazz’s first playoff game at home, against the Denver Nuggets. We weren’t clear up in the nosebleed section, either.

How about the 13TH ROW?

Kyle and Whitney were there too, of course…and yes, we all wore our NoteSync shirts.

That’s the view from our seats, and I didn’t even have to use the zoom on my camera!

I’ve been to a few Jazz games before, but never a playoff game, and NEVER closer than the 7th row on the balcony. It was quite the experience.

Before the game started, we ate dinner at the Jazz Sports Club on the top floor.

Didn’t think I’d be eating Prime Rib with roasted red potatoes and phyllo-wrapped asparagus before a sporting event, but that’s what was on the menu. Wow, season ticket holders certainly get some sweet perks. It was fantastic! And even better, it was a buffet…so I could eat as much food as my heart desired (and it was a lot.)

Tipoff time: We barely scarfed down our dessert in time to get to our seats for tipoff. But I’m glad we made it. Watching the starting lineup run out as the lights go out and fireworks light up overhead…it’s really something.

The game itself was awesome. The first half was close–Jazz were trailing till probably the second quarter. By half time, Jazz lead the Nuggets, but just barely.

At half time we got more food, again compliments of our awesome tickets. And we got to rub shoulders with famous people (well, famous Utahns, anyway.)

This is my paparazzi shot…that’s Senator Orrin Hatch in the lower left. The picture is blurry, because I didn’t want to draw attention to myself by using the flash. And he was busy shaking hands and taking pictures with everyone else in the room, so I didn’t want to disturb him.

Oh, and we ran into Jeff Hornacek coming out of the elevator…literally, ALMOST collided. I didn’t get a picture of him, because by the time it hit me, he was already halfway down the hall.

Second half, the Jazz took off. It wasn’t even a close game at that point…but it was still fun to cheer. We stayed till the bitter end (11:30 p.m…WAY past my bedtime) but it was totally worth it.

Jazz lead the series 2-1. Go Jazz!

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NoteSync

Apr 23

Posted by Kellie White in Major Events, Weekly Life | No Comments

Brady and his friend Kyle won the Crexendo Online Marketing competition a couple weeks ago.

(I know, I’ve killed all the suspense. But since it happened a couple weeks ago…most of you who care to read this probably already know. Continue reading if you wish.)

It all started over Christmas break, when Brady got an idea: “Taking notes should be simpler.” (insert Windows 7 commercial here.) He found a little desktop app called Notational Velocity and loved it, but it was only available for Mac users. And since Brady is a PC, he figured, “Why don’t I just make my own?” Being a software developer has its perks, I suppose.

The result? NoteSync.

Beautiful, isn’t it?

It’s a note-taking app that syncs with your Google Docs account, so you can access your notes wherever you are.

Well, winter semester started and Brady caught wind of an online marketing competition at BYU. Top Prize: $8,000 and a whole bunch of bragging rights. Brady joined his friend and fellow ISYS student Kyle, and together they formed Team NoteSync.

For the competition, they had to build an awesome website, and get people to come to that site and download/buy their product. Check out their site, it’s pretty sweet. (Not that I’m biased or anything.)

All that development took place over the course of about three months. When the competition finals arrived at the beginning of April, NoteSync was online, available for download…even a few purchases to show for it.

All the teams in the competition were present for the finals. I went with Brady as the official NoteSync cheerleader. As we were walking to the building, Brady said, “I really don’t think we’re going to win this competition.” He’d been saying it for days, and because I wanted to be optimistic and show my support for his hard work, I shook my head and said, “I think you’ve got a pretty good chance.”

Kyle met us there, with matching T-Shirts for the team (gotta have the lucky T-shirts.) There were 17 teams at the finals. Eight were announced as finalists and told to give a 3-minute pitch on their site, and what they did to increase traffic and conversions (purchases). The audience would then vote on who gave the best presentation, and that team won the audience choice award, and tickets to the first Jazz playoff game.

NoteSync made it to the final eight.

Brady stood up and gave his 3-minute spiel. In my opinion, he was the best, but I’m his wife so I’m going to think that, regardless. Turns out, the audience agreed with me, because when the votes were taken, NoteSync came out with literally twice as many votes as the nearest contender. (I bet it was the T-shirts.) Woohoo! Free Jazz tickets! At that point, I didn’t care if NoteSync won a cash award or not. At least we got sweet seats to the Jazz game.

Then came the announcement of the winners. Winners were chosen from the top eight, though the 3-minute pitch had nothing to do with their final placement.

The announcements were painfully slow…perhaps just because we were all so anxious.

Fourth place…not NoteSync.

Third place…still not us.

Second place…no.

At this point I was sure NoteSync hadn’t won. There were so many other competitors who had launched their sites earlier, had more links and traffic, and some had already raked in thousands of dollars in revenue. There was no way we could beat them.

First place…winner of $8,000…NOTESYNC!

Shut up. I totally didn’t believe it at first. Kyle and Brady jumped out of their seats. They ran to the front and were greeted by a giant check, and lots of cheers from the audience. A flurry of photographs and congratulations ensued, and even after most people cleared out of the room, Kyle and Brady were still shaking hands, answering questions from reporters, and grinning from ear-to-ear.

Of course, no victory is complete without the celebratory ice cream. We met up with Kyle’s wife Whitney and went to Burger Supreme, where shakes just so happened to be half off between the hours of 3 and 5. Yes, life doesn’t get much better than that.

Just goes to show what a good idea, a lot of hard work…and maybe some matching T-shirts…can do.

I’m so proud of my genius husband, and his genius friend.

Congratulations.

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