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 Digital Control Quilting Machine The Springmill home of Nancy and Rich Jaeger swarmed with people dressed in black T-shirts last week. The Jaegers were kicked out as laptops transformed their kitchen table and garage into makeshift workstations, where production schedules were fine-tuned, blogs were written and the work of the My Home 2.0 staff was coordinated. My Home 2.0 is a Fox affiliate show sponsored by Verizon FiOS that makes the technological dreams of people come true by installing the latest and greatest technology to create a “fiber-optic home of the future.” It airs on Verizon FiOS On Demand and online at 2pointhome.com. Jason Chupick, My Home 2.0 publicist, said the Jaegers are the sixth makeover for the show. “In this case, you have an empty nester couple and the theme is connecting them with grandkids and helping them find richer ways to enjoy their hobbies and their community,” he said. “The whole theme of the show is they know what they like and what they want, but they would have no idea what to buy and how to make it work together. They’re showing people this stuff can be really fun and interactive.” The My Home 2.0 crew moved in on April 23 and the Jaegers moved went to the Hampton Inn. The next few days were spent transforming the Jaeger’s house before the big reveal during a block party on April 26. Nancy is a registered nurse at Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children. Rich spends his retirement coordinating the 120 members of the community’s golf club and trading stocks. Nancy and Rich didn’t have many wants when it came to the upgrades, and they had no idea what their house was going to look like when they returned home. They just wanted a more efficient way to do what they already do. Before the transition, the second-story loft in their home didn’t accommodate the couple well because they each wanted to watch separate television programs simultaneously. “He watches Bloomberg and I work out in the downstairs sunroom so I can watch FitTV and use the stability ball and weights. I sew up in the loft when I can,” Nancy said. “I have a little laptop I sit in the chair with. Rich uses a computer upstairs, but it’s not conducive to me using it. I use the computer to play games, email and download recipes. That’s about it.” “I spend eight to 10 hours a day tracking the stock market,” Rich said. “I’m coordinator for the Middletown Mens Senior Golf Club and I’m on the Springmill finance and maintenance committees, so I use the computer for that.” The couple wouldn’t mind if they had an upgrade to their television stations. Nancy said she’s into reality TV, while Rich likes to watch older movies. The couple usually spends Saturday evenings watching a movie together. She said she’d like to utilize technology to keep in touch with her son, daughter-in-law and grandson. Another area that was upgraded was the Springmill clubhouse, which didn’t have Internet access before My Home 2.0 intervened. Nancy said she found out about My Home 2.0 at the Delaware Home Show, where Verizon had a FiOS booth. She sent in an audition tape and was called for another audition. “They talked to us about 10 times and came here three or four times to get an idea of what they were going to do,” Rich said. “They have an idea of our taste.” Previous families have received things like a “drive in” movie theater with actual car seats arranged in a stadium fashion. One house even got a bookcase that swings open when a book is pulled to reveal a “bat cave,” where video games can be played. While it takes many people to complete the work, the show’s stars are three technology “gurus” – “The Techno-Fashionista” Alison Lewis, “The Computer Genius” Lloyd Emelle and “The Heavy Metal Handyman” Brian Albert. “We all have crazy ideas and incorporate our ideas into the house,” Albert said. “One of the primary things is connecting it all together,” Emelle said. “We do that with the FiOS network. Saying connected is the big thing nowadays. You expect to be able to send a picture in an instant across the country.” Lewis said this is the first “empty-nester” house they’ve done for the program, and they want to show that anyone of any age can benefit from technology. “Technology has nothing to do with age,” she said. “This family is already technologically savvy.” What was done Chupick said the upstairs loft was turned into an artistic and functional theater space complete with 10 LCD digital picture frames of varying sizes in wood frames and matted like paintings. The room now has a large, flat-screen plasma television with speakers recessed on all four walls to create a theater experience. To further their entertainment, the room is equipped with a Nintendo Wii, a surround sound system, a Blu-Ray DVD player and a computer that powers the photos, all of which is neatly tucked away in a cabinet in the closet. Rich received a sleek NYSE-style “trading floor” with four, flat screen monitors and a desk that includes a scrolling stock ticker display. The room has motorized drapes and recesses lighting and is powered by a touch-screen remote control with commands like “watch a movie” and “play a game.” The sunroom was redecorated, repainted and decked out as Nancy’s quilting space with recessed speakers and a sound system, a flat-screen TV mounted on an adjustable arm and a Blu-Ray DVD player. The highlight of the room? A Husqvarna Viking “Quilt Designer 2” state-of-the-art sewing machine. Nancy can keep up with Rich’s stock market happenings with an “ambient mood orb” that changes color with the stock market. As a special project, Rich worked with members of Nancy’s Red Hat Society to create a fiber-optic red hat for her to wear during society outings. And the My Home 2.0 crew didn’t forget the rest of the community. The clubhouse was revamped to include a large flat-screen television for community movie nights and gatherings. The clubhouse’s library received an Apple iMac with FiOS connection, and neighbors will be able to utilize global video conferencing with family and friends. Life in the FiOS lane Nancy and Rich both said they were overwhelmed when they saw the upgrades to their house. “I was shocked and excited,” Nancy said. “We’re both still very much in awe of what they did. They changed the rooms completely. They saw how the rest of the house was decorated and they hit it right on.” Nancy said she was pleased with how the gurus made sure the changes coincided with the aesthetics of the house. She said she is thrilled to have her own space for sewing in the sunroom, and she will learn all types of tricks on her new sewing machine, which replaced her previous machine that was 32-years-old. “I do quilts, but I could not get a quilting pressure foot for the sewing machine I had because none of them fit,” Nancy said. “Now I can do quilting on the sewing machine, which is a lot faster than doing it by hand. Big projects will be really good. I’ll be able to do some really cool stuff now because it embroiders.” Nancy said the other ladies in her Red Hat Society also made their own fiber optic hats. “I said, ‘If I have to wear it, you have to wear it, too.’ ” Rich said his trading is made easier with his four computer monitors compared to the two he had before. “When I work, I have six to eight screens open so I can easily transfer between pages and do research,” he said. “I always wanted to get more monitors. It’s much better. Plus my computer was 5 years old.” Rich said he’s getting accustomed to his new Nintendo Wii. “That’s great. I love it,” he said. “I play golf a lot on the computer, and right now we have Tiger Woods Golf for the Wii. You stand there and swing your arms. I’m still working on it.” Nancy said she loves the memory wall in the upstairs loft. “They scanned in a whole bunch of our family pictures and of our wedding, when Richard played in a band and from when we were little,” she said. “You name it, it’s up there. Plus we can have people send us pictures to add to it. We don’t know how to do that, yet. They’re going to come back and show us how to use everything because we know how to use some of the stuff, but some of it we don’t know how to use.” Nancy said she was exhausted after the production wrapped, but it was worth it. “It was fun. I didn’t expect so many people to be here,” she said. “The gurus were so much fun. I’m really going to miss them.” “The people were wonderful,” Rich said. “The whole Springmill community was great, too.”