supershippy

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!