Shippy

09:01 pm: Spain and Italy 2008 - Part VI: Rome and Travel Home
Here is the sixth and final part of the summary of our trip to Spain and Italy. aquafemme also has a separate log of our events and mine will probably plagiarize greatly from her summary, but add pretty pictures.

I'll always put these behind a cut because there are lots of pics. I'm not putting all of them here, though. At Flickr I have a set for Rome and a collection for the entire trip.

( Day Nineteen: 21-May-2008 )
( Day Twenty: 22-May-2008 )
( Day Twenty-One: 23-May-2008 )
( Day Twenty-Two: 24-May-2008 )
( Day Twenty-Three: 25-May-2008 )

07:10 pm: Spain and Italy 2008 - Part V: Florence, Pisa and Lucca.
Here is the fifth part of the summary of our trip to Spain and Italy. aquafemme also has a separate log of our events and mine will probably plagiarize greatly from her summary, but add pretty pictures.

I'll always put these behind a cut because there are lots of pics. I'm not putting all of them here, though. At Flickr I have a set for Florence, Pisa and Lucca and a collection for the entire trip.

( Day Fifteen: 17-May-2008 )
( Day Sixteen: 18-May-2008 )
( Day Seventeen: 19-May-2008 )
( Day Eighteen: 20-May-2008 )

11:39 am: Quick Life Update
Well, I haven't written in here in quite a while so I figured I would do a quick life summary for the past few months:

November

At the beginning of November I went to the Cartes Conference in Paris, France to learn about the industry trends in Smart Cards and Identification Systems. I was there during election day so it was interesting seeing it from another part of the world. I went to sleep when the first results were coming in from the east coast and by the time I woke up to check on things around 6am, Obama had just been projected as the winner. I was definitely in a positive mood for the whole next day. :) Unfortunately, I got a cold at the very end of the trip, but the plane ride was nice (I recommend Lufthansa for your international flights) and I got to make a lot of new connections with vendors and put some faces to names.

We also finished up taking French I at the nearby community college. I used a tad bit of my French while I was there, but not a whole ton since I was still pretty new to the language.

December

At the beginning of December I went to the INCITS B10.12 Working Group meeting in Washington, DC. This was my second time to Washington, DC, but I didn't get any time to see the sights. Fortunately, aquafemme came with and was able to check things out. She'd never been to DC before so it was great that she was able to get around and take some really great pics of the monuments and stuff. Unfortunately, I think she picked up my cold from Paris and it developed over the course of the trip. She was a real trooper, though, and didn't let it slow her down!

We got back to SEA and that night was Mark and Mat's Annual Holiday Party. Due to Bonnie's cold, she unfortunately had to bow out around 11pm, but I stayed until around 6am... a new record! They always throw such a great party and sitting in a hot tub when there's snow falling around you at 4am is always a blast. :)

The next night was the Microsoft Core Operating Systems Division Holiday Party. We didn't watch the show that was playing, but we did have fun listening to the band, having a couple drinks and catching up with friends. I wish we would have had someone take our picture because we looked HOT!

The next weekend was the Trubion Holiday Party. It was at the same place it has been for the past few years. They really can't go wrong with the same formula. The drinks are tasty, the food is to die for and it's a really relaxed environment with nice people. My only wish would be that they go back to a DJ instead of a live band. I like the ambiance the live band provides, but nobody really dances except for maybe one song. After we left the party, we headed to a nearby restaurant (can't remember the name) and saw a couple friends from the party. So, we sat, had a couple more drinks and talked with them for a while. That was a great way to end the evening.

The next week, the skies opened up and we got the worst snow I've seen here since moving here. I've heard it was the worst in many, many years. In Redmond, I would estimate we got a couple feet. Other areas, especially in the Cascade foothills, they got much more. Now, a couple feet isn't much for places used to this type of weather in the wintertime, but this is not one of those places. We will usually get a day of snow and then it goes away. We got three rounds of lots of snow. The Dept. of Transportation also has a no-salt policy (which has changed after this season) which caused even major roads to be unusable for quite some time. Sometimes it was fun, sometimes it was annoying, but it was certainly memorable.

The snow definitely interfered with our Christmas plans. We were supposed to head to Aaron and Tiff's for Christmas dinner (Heather has a Jeep which was our savior for getting around), but that morning they lost power. By the time they got power back in the late afternoon, there was not enough time to cook the bird we were having for dinner. So, we ended up pushing it to that Saturday. We ended up having tacos with Heather, Tonya and Steve on Christmas evening. It was certainly different for Christmas dinner, but it was a lot of fun and the tacos were tasty. Most of us were able to make it to Aaron and Tiff's on Saturday and we had a lovely dinner and a fun white elephant gift exchange. The snow also messed up all mail delivery so we had to push back our "Christmas" until New Year's Eve. We got together with Heather and Tonya right before our New Year's Party and opened up presents. I got some really great presents. The ones that stick out are Rock Band 2 and the Rock Pedal. It kicks ass! Our New Year's Eve party was a lot of fun. We picked up a bunch of champagne, had noisemakers and all that goodness, and partied the night away.

January

January was quite the busy month for us. We started off by beginning our French II class, which we are still in through the end of March. We took Moxie in for her annual examination and found out she had a couple of bad teeth. So, we had to take her in and have those extracted. They had to anesthetize her and she was pretty out of it for the next couple days. We had to feed her antibiotics for the next 10 days, which was not very pleasant.

The big thing that happened this month was aquafemme and I bought a house! Our offer was accepted on New Year's Day so we spent most of January getting that all locked down and we closed on the 29th. It was definitely a stressful process between getting our down payment in place, getting the appraiser to stop being stupid, and make sure we could close on time. In the end, though, we were able to get into the place when we needed to (cable hookup, fridge installation, moving, get out of old apartment, etc) and we were all moved in by the the last day of the month. Here's a picture of the place:



It's the perfect size for us and is in a great location in Redmond. We have been thoroughly enjoying living there, although now we're experiencing what "house poor" feels like since we've had to buy so many tools and doodads for the place. We're also trying to get used to spending some of our time on the weekend to do stuff like sweep the deck, sweep the roof, clean the gutters, etc. It's really satisfying to know that everything we're doing to the place and all of our mortgage payments are directly for increasing our quality of life and it's not going to pay someone else's mortgage. I'll have more pics of the place once we feel like we're all moved in and ready for the housewarming party. :)

February

We've spent most of the time in February getting unpacked and used to our new place. We are to the point now where we have our day-to-day stuff unpacked, but haven't done things like hang up paintings, etc.

That first weekend of unpacking, we took a bit of time off and went to a Super Bowl party at Keith and Abigail's. It was a great way to unwind, have a couple beers and hang out with friends. The food was so excellent; I totally ate way too much. I especially loved the chicken wings. They had this chipotle barbecue-type sauce on them that was so good I couldn't stop eating them.

Bonnie and I spent the next weekend at the Gottman Institute Weekend Workshop for Couples. While I wasn't too excited about using up the entire weekend (it was two full days 8:30am-5pm), I did enjoy the workshop overall. Bonnie and I aren't having problems or anything. For us, it was more about finding better ways to communicate with eachother and understand each other's feeling and reality in a situation and validating that for your partner so (s)he can feel assured that you understand him/her. The methods they told us are really helpful and sometimes we're able to de-escalate a tense situation and at the end, instead of getting in an argument, we're giving eachother kisses. Not a bad thing, I say! :) It was in Seattle for both days so we took a bus downtown and stayed in a hotel Saturday night. That was really fun because we were able to walk around the city a bit and have some cocktails and food downtown, which we don't do all that often.

Work has been going great for me and I've been starting to run each weekend (and sometimes once during the week). My goal is to do a half marathon this summer. This weekend will be my first 8-mile run, which is the farthest I've run at any point in my life! At the end of this month is Puzzlehunt. This year Bonnie and I started our own team since we know so many people that wanted to join in. We're sad to no longer be with our previous team (they were really great), but it's also fun to introduce new people to Puzzlehunt.

That's about it!

03:38 pm: Spain and Italy 2008 - Part IV: Venice
Here is the fourth part of the summary of our trip to Spain and Italy. aquafemme also has a separate log of our events and mine will probably plagiarize greatly from her summary, but add pretty pictures.

I'll always put these behind a cut because there are lots of pics. I'm not putting all of them here, though. At Flickr I have a set for Venice and a collection for the entire trip that will be growing as we continue going through our pictures.

( Day Twelve: 14-May-2008 )
( Day Thirteen: 15-May-2008 )
( Day Fourteen: 16-May-2008 )

06:58 pm: Spain and Italy 2008 - Part III: Barcelona and Figueres
Here is the third part of the summary of our trip to Spain and Italy. aquafemme is also keeping a separate log of our events and mine will probably plagiarize greatly from her summary, but add pretty pictures.

I'll always put these behind a cut because there are lots of pics. I'm not putting all of them here, though. At Flickr I have a set for Barcelona and Figueres and a collection for the entire trip that will be growing as we continue going through our pictures.

( Day Eight: 10-May-2008 )
( Day Nine: 11-May-2008 )
( Day Ten: 12-May-2008 )
( Day Eleven: 13-May-2008 )

04:11 pm: Spain and Italy 2008 - Part II: Granada
Here is the second part of the summary of our trip to Spain and Italy. aquafemme is also keeping a separate log of our events and mine will probably plagiarize greatly from her summary, but add pretty pictures.

I'll always put these behind a cut because there are lots of pics. I'm not putting all of them here, though. At Flickr I have a set for Granada and a collection for the entire trip that will be growing as we continue going through our pictures.

( Day Six: 08-May-2008 )
( Day Seven: 09-May-2008 )

07:50 pm: Spain and Italy 2008 - Part I: Travel, Seville, and Pueblos Blancos
Here begins the summary of our trip to Spain and Italy. aquafemme is also keeping a separate log of our events and mine will probably plagiarize greatly from her summary, but add pretty pictures. Hopefully she'll make an LJ memory entry that I can link to here so you can get to her entries eaiser. *nudge nudge* ;)

I'll always put these behind a cut because there are lots of pics. I'm not putting all of them here, though. At Flickr I have a set for Seville and Pueblos Blancos and a collection for the entire trip that will be growing as we continue going through our pictures.

( Day One: 03-May-2008 )
( Day Two: 04-May-2008 )
( Day Three: 05-May-2008 )
( Day Four: 06-May-2008 )
( Day Five: 07-May-2008 )

06:54 pm: Randomness
So, I was watching "So You Think You Can Dance" with aquafemme the other day (yeah yeah, shut up... the women are cute ;)) and I noticed that one of the songs being played had a super familar beginning. The song is called "Hov Arek Sarer Jan" by New Age Armenia (sample here). It was really bugging me for a couple hours so I started digging through my iTunes and was immediately drawn to "The Wall" by Pink Floyd. I listened to the tracks, but couldn't find the piece. Bonnie said she thinks it's from the part where Pink shaves off his nipples. So we grabbed our DVD and popped it in. Sure enough, she was right! I went back to my MP3s and found where it is. It's about 1:20 into the song "Is There Anybody Out There?" (sample 2:30 into this video).

I know this seems really random, but I was really happy to find the song and I'm posting this in case other people noticed it too and it's bugging them.

Pink Floyd is awesome.

10:43 am: 81

09:18 am: Nerdiness

11:58 am: Back from Europe!
aquafemme and I returned last night from our 3-week vacation to Spain and Italy. We are still unpacking and getting things in order, but I'm hoping by the end of this next weekend to have a travel log with pictures posted up. Stay tuned!

01:45 pm: Personality test
Got the link from tonberrygrrl. The Neuroticism is higher than I would attribute to myself.


My Personality

Neuroticism	63
Extraversion	46
Openness to Experience	6
Agreeableness	19
Conscientiousness	68

You very rarely feel depressed and are usually in a good frame of mind, however you feel enraged when things do not go your way. You are sensitive about being treated fairly and feel resentful and bitter if you think you are being cheated. You get overwhelmed by too much noise and commotion and do not like thrill-seeking activities. You tend not to express your emotions openly and are sometimes not even aware of your own feelings. There are times when you believe that a certain amount of deception in social relationships is necessary, however you are mostly candid, frank and sincere. People find it moderately easy to relate to you, however you feel superior to those around you and sometimes tend to be seen as arrogant by other people. You take your time when making decisions and will deliberate on all the possible consequences and alternatives.

Take a Personality Test now or view the full Personality Report.

11:40 am: Rock Band Craziness
aquafemme and I have officially passed the point of Rock Band craziness. We have completed the Endless Setlist on Medium!

05:30 pm: Crayon Physics Deluxe
aquafemme forwarded me a link to a demo of the game Crayon Physics Deluxe. Simply put, it is really cool.

10:37 am: Rock Band
I have recently discovered the awesomeness of Rock Band and now I'm addicted. :P

09:20 am: Life update
Not much has been going on the last couple of weeks. Bonnie and I tried going skiing again on the 2nd, but due to Snoqualmie pass being closed for most of that week, the summit was closed so we couldn't go. We ended up moving the trip to yesterday. The pass was closed on Saturday so we were afraid we wouldn't be able to go again and get our second lesson in, but we woke up early in the morning and the pass was wide open. We got there around 9:30am and noticed a big difference in the number of people that were up there. We couldn't understand why there were so few people. We got our equipment and lift tickets in 15 minutes where the first time it took an hour longer than that at least. The pub didn't open until 11am so we decided to go up the green lift and give it a shot. We then discovered why there was nobody there: the snow was pretty hard to cut into with the skis because it was kinda hard. It was nice not having to deal with the crowds, though.

My first time down the hill was rough. I was having trouble getting my ski legs. After one run down we went to the pub and had a couple beers and some spaghetti. It was then time for our class. They separated the people into two groups based on how well we could do turns. I ended up in the bad group. :P We did lots of practice going down the bunny hill trying out different turns and such. I improved a ton which is really awesome. We went up the green hill three more times and on my last two times I just kept remembering to lean forward no matter what. When I did this, I found that I could do lots of turning at a decent speed and I made it down the hill without wiping out! Twice in a row!! I am so stoked about this.

Each time we go up to the summit, we also learn how to improve our trip a little more. This time, we brought a better bag to keep our things in and also brought our scarves. Next time, I'm going to get some better gloves and we're going to buy some waterproof boots for us to trudge from the parking lot to the hill with. This weekend we're going tubing with some friends up at the summit and then the weekend after that we are going to head up for our final lesson.

We had some friends over for the Super Bowl. We were all rooting for the Giants and they kicked butt! I picked up a couple growlers of Mac and Jack's African Amber and a couple growlers of their Serengeti Wheat. We also had lots of goodies to munch on like 7-layer dip, fruit and veggies, barbecued pork, poppers and M&Ms. Overall a really fun time. I would've loved to party some more after, but of course it was Sunday so that wasn't gonna happen.

We went to Aaron and Tiff's new house for dinner on Saturday night. We had a really great time. We had some turkey burgers and turkey dogs along with some chips and guac, cheese and crackers and wine. We played some Donkey Konga, Taboo and this game called Dirty Minds which is pretty funny. We all discovered that aquafemme is way too good at it. ;) Their house is shaping up so nice and I'm really happy for them. We would've liked to stay later, but we knew we had to get up early the next morning for skiing so we left around 10:30pm.

And that's about it!

09:39 am: Skiing!
I went skiing for the very first time this last weekend with aquafemme. We drove up to the Summit at Snoqualmie because it's only an hour drive away and they have a really good beginners program that gives you a group lesson, full rental and a beginner (i.e. green) lift ticket for three sessions all for only $99. We woke up at 7am (ugh), got everything packed up, snagged some Starbucks and headed out around 8:30. We were trying to make the 10am lesson and figured we were in OK shape until we got there and it was a zoo. We arrived at 9:20, which is only 20 minutes after they open and it was already packed. Pretty crazy. By the time we signed up, it was already 10:05 and we hadn't even gotten our boots and skis yet. We got all of our equipment and checked our bag and we had about an hour and a half to blow until the next lesson at 12:30. It actually ended up working out pretty nice. We went to the pub and had some pizza and a couple beers. They have Mac and Jack's AND Fat Tire so that's pretty awesome.

The lesson was pretty easy. We learned how to put our skis on, good ski posture, how to stop, how to turn and how to get up when you fall on your butt. After that, we got on the "magic carpet" which takes you to the top of the super tiny bunny hill to try out our moves. We got bored of that pretty quickly so we asked to be pointed to a lift and went up the hill. Bonnie did a really good job. She actually went in an S down the hill. I went mostly straight and hauled ass, but of course I ended up falling a few times (which was kinda fun). The thing is I haven't gotten turning down all that well so I end up going super duper fast because I can't go in an S. I'm actually not too bad at stopping myself, though (and I don't mean by falling).

We went up the hill three times and by that time we were kinda beat. Mostly, it was that my shins were killing me. My rental boots weren't all that comfy, but I think it's because I had the inner part of my ski pants tucked down in my boots so I basically bruised up my shins. I'm hoping to learn from that and have a better experience this next weekend. Yes, we're going again next weekend! Also, boots are REALLY expensive so I don't want to drop several hundred dollars on boots until I know that I'm a skiing freak and I'll be able to use them for the entire season.

It started snowing pretty heavily while we were there so when we got back to the car, we noticed a good 3-4" of snow on top. We wiped all that off and heard that chains were required on the pass so we put on our chains that we bought the night before. From there on, it was very slow going since it was pretty snowy and with my chains you can't go over 30 mph. It was kinda scary because I haven't driven in weather like that in almost 10 years. We just took it slow and steady though and we were just fine. Just east of North Bend it all turned into rain so we took the chains off and headed the rest of the way home (at a much faster pace).

We were pretty ravenous when we got back so we headed over to Celtic Bayou for dinner. They make this Crawfish Etoufee that is absolutely delicious. It's very spicy, but I love how they don't even warn you or pull any punches. Bonnie had Chicken Cordon Bleu that was also very, very good. I don't think we did much after that because we were pretty worn out.

As I mentioned before, we're going again this weekend. They're going to teach us how to do the S thing better. Why did I wait so long my life to start skiing?!

10:59 am: Trying to update a little more frequently
Not too much has happened over the last week. Aaron and Tiff came over last Friday and we had a really tasty Halibut dinner w/couscous, green beans, my special garlic bread and a nummy spinach salad that had macadamias and raspberries in it.

After we ate, we had some drinks and played "nouns in a bag". Unfortunately, it didn't go very well and I just ended up getting aggravated. The teams weren't big enough so if someone couldn't figure out a noun, you were just stuck. Plus, we were getting pretty tipsy so it was hard to focus. We ended up switching to Hoopla for a little more structure and plus all of us would be on the same team.

We hadn't played the game in a long time so it was nice to play it again. We were at the point where we pretty much knew all the cards, we could take away the purple wild tokens, add cards AND reduce the timer from 15 minutes and we'd still win. This time, we played just like normal and we lost! We were on the last card and I couldn't figure out a good way to convey "meter maid" before the time ran out. That just means we'll have to play more Hoopla to try and get back to being "experts" at it. :)

On Saturday we attended the Seahawks vs. Redskins game. I'm surprised I didn't lose my voice I was cheering so much. We had a really good time. We were in the nosebleeds, but we were right on the 40 yard line and the view was awesome. The weather was supposed to be horrible so we bought all this stuff to prepare and it ended up being pretty nice out. We're just gonna return that stuff and use the money for skiing clothes.

On Wednesday I met with a couple friends I knew in Wrangell and now live out here. They snagged some copies of Vista and we had a couple beers. It was cool to be able to sit and chat about stuff. Last time I saw them it was while they were performing (they're in a band called Novena Novela) so it was too loud and busy to be able to chat. Hopefully we'll be able to hang out again soon. It's hard to get much time to hang out when it's a weekday.

Tomorrow is the Seahawks vs. Packers game. I like both teams, but of course I gotta root for my Hawks!! The Packers are having a great season and so the Seahawks are the underdogs, but I'm hoping for the best! Tonya is going to come over in lots of yellow and green and root for the wrong team. ;)

After that, we have to start getting things ready for the movers on Sunday. We're going to have them move the big furniture and the cable guy will be coming over on Sunday too so by that night we'll have all of the bare necessities like a bed and TiVo in the new place.

12:41 pm: Life Update
Here's an update on what I've been up to for the last month or so.

( Beware... it's really long! )

09:11 am: Blondies
Recently, aquafemme and I were watching an episode of Throwdown! with Bobby Flay. The show follows Bobby Flay on his "secret mission" of finding the cooks that make the best dishes and then challenging them at that same dish. I like the idea of the show and we enjoy watching it. This episode was on "blondies". A blondie is simply a brownie that was made with a brown sugar and/or peanut butter base vs. a chocolate base. His mission this time took him to Ohio where he challenged the flamboyant duo from Sugardaddy's Sumptuous Sweeties.

After Bobby Flay got his ass handed to him, Bonnie and I were wondering how these blondies really taste since we'd never had one before and Bobby Flay lost so badly. So, we visited the website and ordered their package of six, with two of them being their famous Tahiti. They only ship overnight (which means the shipping was about as much as the product) and we received them on Tuesday. Wednesday morning we tried the Tahiti with a cup of coffee and I have to say it was probably the best brownie or blondie or anything like it that I've ever tasted. It had a sweetness to it, but because it wasn't chocolate based, it didn't seem too rich. The cashews on top went so well with the overall taste and I love cashews so it was just awesome. Today I tried their auburn original and even though it's a bit rich for my taste (probably because of the intense chocolate), it was still really delicious with a cup of coffee.

So, I would say that if you're looking for a super-fancy treat for you or someone else, and you can stomach the shipping costs associated with an order, I would highly recommend their Tahiti blondie. I'm excited to try the rest. I think we still have the Harvest (which I believe has pumpkin), Nutty and Dark Berry to try.