Haircut

Buzzzzzz.....

After years of patiently awaiting for their return, my buzzers experienced the joy of dutifully cutting my hair.  May I present to you, my haircut:

Introducing...Maeby!

It has been a cherished dream of mine to own a dog. I've wanted my own pet since I left home and while I was convinced that this was perfect, Andrew wasn't so sure. So, in the fine American tradition, we made a deal. I would change my name and he would get a dog. Name change? Check. Now we just have to find the perfect dog!



We had some ideal qualities in mind. Our new dog needed to be small, Andrew would take her to work and she could ride the bus with him provided she could be on his lap. We didn't really want a puppy and it would be great if we could rescue a dog from a shelter. I spent several afternoons going to PAWS and the Seattle Animal Shelter to see what dogs might come into our world. After finding the pickings pretty slim on small dogs I was starting to be concerned we weren't going to be able to find the right dog for us without spending a lot of money at a breeder.



As I spent another evening on petfinder, I saw a dog that looked promising--his name was Freeway and he was a small poodle. When I emailed to find out if he was available I was told that he had just been adopted but there was an adoption event that weekend and they had lots of small dogs that had just come in from California. Things were starting to look up! After assuring Andrew that we were not going to come home from this event with a dog, we headed up to Lynnwood.



We walked in the door and towards a row of tables set up with crates. There were dogs in every crate and people milling around looking at them all. Many of them were going nuts with all of the stimulation but in the middle of that chaos we saw the cutest little face staring back at us. It just took a half hour with this little girl to know that we had found our puppy. Even Andrew was convinced. So we paid her adoption fee and made our first investment in her care. At the unwitting suggestion of my Dad, we gave her the name Maeby after a character from one of our favorite tv shows..."Arrested Development".

Summer Vacation/Adventure

Adrienne and I seem to excel at "Shotgun Vacations".  These are trips where we attempt to visit with as many family members, see as many friends, and go to as many places  as possible while burning the least amount of vacation time.  I'm not really sure why we do this, but I'll leave that discussion for another day.  That being said, let me explain this particular adventure:

We flew one-way to Florida to spend some time with my parents.  We took this opportunity to go to Kennedy Space Center.  Look, a "real" astronaut:



Our other reason for going to Florida was to go to my 10-year high-school reunion which was being held at Filthy McNasty's Pub (that's actually the name, I'm not being facetious).  It was fun seeing some old friends, many of whom I hadn't spoken to in 10 years.  We left while a local ska band, The Sweet Kings, was warming up; I was happy to see that Florida still has a Ska-scene.



Next up, we picked up our rental car and drove to Charlotte, NC to visit with my brother Jason and his wife Lara.  We had a nice, relaxing time exploring Charlotte and hanging out with Jason and Lara.  They took us out to a very fancy dinner downtown:



From Charlotte, we continued our adventure by heading to Washington, DC.  We had dinner with my friend Megan and her husband JD (they were also kind enough to put us up for a night).  The next day, we got up early and stood in line to sit in on the Judge Sotomayer confirmation hearings.  The hearings were open to the public; we stood in a well-organized line outside the capitol building and waited our turn to be let in.  Every 20 minutes, a group of 24 people would be let into the building, through security.  We were briefly told some rules (i.e no talking, etc) and then quietly escorted into the back of the room.   We could watch the hearings for about 20 minutes before we were escorted out and the next group would be brought in.  It was a very interesting experience.  Here's Senator Cornyn (R, Texas)  talking to the press outside the hall:



After leaving DC, we headed to New York to spend some time with Adrienne's brother Zach who lives in Brooklyn.  The last time that Adrienne and I were in New York was a few years ago in April; we were traveling from New Jersey to Connecticut and trying to avoid downtown NYC.  Unfortunately, we missed our turn, wound up going throw the Lincoln tunnel, and  landed in Manhattan just as it started to snow... but that's another story.  On this adventure, we successfully navigated bridges and tunnels; we took the subway and walked around.  We feasted like kings and really enjoyed the pulse of the big city.  Zach was kind enough to provide us with a place to stay.

While we were there, we took the opportunity to spend some time with some of Adrienne's extended family.  Adrienne's uncle, Big Jim, treated us to The Water Club:



Lastly, important lessons learned:

1. If your rental car company tries telling you that you'll need to pay them $800 to bring their car back to them 1-day early, keep calling back until you find a representative who's willing to be reasonable
2. Your cabby might spend the entire 45 minutes from Brooklyn to JFK talking about how awesome he is.
3. Flights out of JFK regularly sit on the taxi-way for hours.  Sometimes they burn enough fuel waiting that they have to refuel before take-off.

See the photo set on Flickr: Summer Vacation 2009

Happy Independence Day!

Another beautiful 4th of July in Seattle again this year.  We started the festivities this year by enjoying a traditional lunch with Adrienne's family at her grandmother's home: hamburgers, hot dogs, baked beans, potato chips and ice cream!  As always, we had a great time with grandma:



Later that evening we watched the fireworks from Ballard at Rob and Anne Marie's house.

Doris and Bruce Experience Seattle

After they took a brief tour of the Pacific coast we were pleased to have Bruce and Doris come back to Seattle for a quick visit that celebrated two big holidays--Father's Day and the annual Fremont Solstice Parade. The Fremont Solstice Parade is one of those Seattle traditions that really must be experienced. It's a parade that does not allow any mechanical parts or any corporate advertising. It also proudly supports nude bicyclists. Despite our thinking that this would really shock Bruce and Doris, they took it all in stride and we had a great day at the parade.

Bloody Marys!:









As the last float passes the crowd is invited to join in the end and be a part of it. We enjoyed that!




After the parade we went down the Locks. These are pretty cool as they are the way boats and ships move between the freshwater Lake Union and the salt water sound. It's also a salmon ladder and the site of a beautiful botanical garden.



This trip was also an opportunity to celebrate Father's Day and Doris's birthday. For that we took them out to one of our favorite special occasion restaurants, Salty's in West Seattle, for brunch.

The View:






Oh brother.


It was a great trip and we look forward to many more memories with our family here!

Seattle Reception

Why throw one party when you can throw two?

Adrienne and I decided early on in our wedding-planning process that getting married in Florida meant that many of our friends and family here in Seattle and along the west-coast might not be able to make it.  Fresh off the excitement of getting married in Florida, we started planning another, albeit smaller, party in Seattle.

We printed invitations ourselves, bought flowers at the Pike Place Market and hired a DJ and photographer.  We drew a crowd of about 80 friends and family including my parents and Adrienne's brother Zach who flew all flew in from far away and many of Adrienne's extended family from the western US.










Check out the photo set on Flickr: Seattle Reception Photos.

Sedona, AZ

Adrienne and I share a goal of visiting all 50 states before we're 30.  It's a somewhat arbitrary goal, but it forces us to travel to new places.  I hadn't been to Arizona and it was beginning to feel somewhat hopeless that we'd have good reason to visit; we'd contemplated flying to Phoenix for a weekend just to check it off our list.

As luck would have it, my parents were planning on touring the Grand Canyon and exploring the South-Western US and would be using some of their time-share time in Sedona, AZ.  They asked if we'd like to come visit them in Arizona.  We obliged and spent a long weekend in Sedona and managed to cross Arizona off of the list of unvisited states.

My mom's sister Louise and her husband Tom spend their winters in Arizona, so they traveled into Sedona to visit.  In addition, my mom's brother Jim and his wife Kathy also used some time-share time in town... we had a mini-family reunion!

The highlight of the trip was the Pink Jeep tour throughout the greater-Sedona landscape (Adrienne might argue that the highlight was the trip to Nordstrom’s Last Chance, but that’s another story).

This is one of my favorites from the Jeep tour:


Check out the entire collection on Flickr: Sedona Jeep Tour

For the curious: Adrienne still needs Hawaii.  I need Hawaii and Alaska.

Easter Dinner

My geekery (or geekthusiasm) isn't limited to just computers and technology.  No Sir!  For whatever reason, I also get excited about fancy tables.  As such, Adrienne helped me craft a clever plan with the goal of showing off our new table and making use of our new china and stemware.  The cover story that we'd share with our families was that they were invited to our home for Easter Dinner.

I baked a ham (thanks Alton Brown for the recipe) and made some vegetable sides; Betty made a tasty dessert.  Of course, this was all a rouse to show off our fancy table:

Rob and Anne Marie's Engagement Party

Adrienne and I volunteered to play host to Rob and Anne Marie's Engagement Party. We wanted to get a cake made that really suited the two of them. After hunting down a cake baker who'd take our strange request, we commissioned a cake which looks just like Rob's Mini Cooper:

Here's the front/top:


And the Side:


And since Rob and Anne Marie are both fans of Battle Star Galactica, we included the text "Happy Fracking Wedding". See the entire set on Flickr: Rob and Anne Marie's Cake

The party was a blast...


You can view the entire set on Flickr: Rob and Anne Marie's Engagement Party

Or just view the cake pictures on Flickr: Rob and Anne Marie's Engagement Cake

Wedding Pictures

Pictures! Pictures! Pictures!

Our photographers, Jason and Sara from Concept Photography, were with us for 10 hours on the day of our wedding.  Adrienne and I got ready separately, so Jason was with me and Sara was with Adrienne while we were getting ready.  Adrienne and I chose to have many of our pictures taken before the ceremony.  A practice known as "the reveal".  Our families and the bridal party were with us for the reveal and so we took the opportunity to grab some semi-formals at the hotel that Adrienne stayed at before the wedding. 

Before the ceremony we had a champagne and mimosa happy hour.  We were married by Pastor Roger.  After the ceremony we had a formal receiving line for our guests.  As our guests headed to the reception venue, we took a series of formal photos in the church and a few more as the sun set on the Indian River.  


While our guests enjoying the 80 degree weather on the beach, we had a little party in the limo while we headed to the reception venue.  The reception was had most of the typical wedding stuff: formal introductions, toasts, the first dance, formal dances, the bouquet toss, cake cutting, garter removal, and plenty of dancing.  There were a few things that our DJ did to keep things light and fun: we played some introduction games to get to know the people around us, and he had all the men sing "You've lost that loving feeling" to Adrienne.  And there were a few things that Adrienne and I thought would be special: Adrienne wanted a mother/daughter dance and I wanted all the Gators to sing "We Are The Boys of Old Florida".

Alternatively, you can view work your way through my wedding collection on Flickr.

Adrienne's Surprise Party

“Surprise!!!”

“For me? Ohh yeah!!”

In spite of Adrienne asking me to throw her a surprise party for her birthday, I was still able to catch her off guard. Under the ruse of a double-date with our friends Rob and Anne-Marie, we went to Six-Arms pub. After following me upstairs, Adrienne was greeted by a collective roar of “Surprise!!” from about a dozen-and-a-half of her friends. It took her a few seconds to realize the party was for her.

Gotcha!

Go Gators!

It’s official; any progress that I made before the wedding not to bite my nails has been completely wiped out. Adrienne, Tom, Barbara and I spent Thursday night with the Seattle Gator Club watching the Gators defeat the Sooners 24-14 for the National Championship.

This marks the second National Title for the Gators in the past 3 years and the third in the history of the program. It also gave me a cheap excuse to wear a ridiculous amount of Gator apparel to work on Friday. I decided to go a little nuts wearing my Gator beads, visor, orange and blue sunglasses, and some other swag. It might be a bit much, but at least I’m not wearing jean shorts, right?

2008 in Review

With 2008 recently wrapped up, I’d like to spend a few moments looking back at the year:

Adrienne and I started 2008 on opposite sides of the country (our first New Years apart, awww). Adrienne was in Florida for Christmas Day with my family, but flew back to Seattle to spend Christmas with her family. I stayed in Florida to go to my friend Megan’s wedding on Jan. 4th.

Being religious fans of the TV show Arrested Development, we attended our friend Molly’s AD-themed costume party. I dressed as “The Surrogate” and Adrienne went as “MRF”. Costume parties are apparently a load of fun when they’re in the middle of January.

Later in January, my work flew me to the Bay Area to talk to a group of students from Stanford University about Utility Computing. This was my first work-related presentation out “in the real world” and it went really well; we had fantastic turn out the following week at our booth at the career fair.

In February, my parents threw Adrienne and I an engagement party at their house. The weather in Florida is fantastic in February, by the way. The party was highlighted by a Tom’s hysterical poem/rap/roast/blessing which he recited from memory.

February is also the Adrienne's Family's Month of Birthday Celebration with Tom, Barbara, and Adrienne all having birthdays in the month.

I flew to Chicago in April to meet my brother and his friends for a weekend to celebrate one last hoo-rah before his wedding. We went to a Cubs game at Wrigley Field and explored seemingly all of Chicago’s drinking establishments. April also marks the month when I started biking to work for 2008.

Jason had a fantastic wedding on May 2nd in Stuart, FL, his wife Lara’s home town. The ceremony was a short and sweet outdoor service; the weather was perfect and the party that followed was a blast!

In June, Adrienne and I had a series of photos taken here in Seattle. I haven’t yet put them all online, but as we get more wedding pictures I’ll put them up in that batch.

In July, Adrienne and I took the long route to Ashley, ND to visit my grandmother. The long route started with a flight to Florida for some wedding planning (hair styling, table linens, an engagement photo shoot). In an effort to visit a few states that Adrienne and I hadn’t been to before, we flew to Detroit, MI and then drove through OH, IN, IL (where we stopped to visit our friends Chris, Xiaoqi, and Debbie), WI (where we had lunch with my friend Haley), IA, MN (where we picked up Jason and Lara) and eventually made our way to Ashley, ND (we also took a side trip to SD for Adrienne). In our goal to get to all 50 states before we’re 30, I need AZ and AK; Adrienne and I both need HI (she’s been to the other 49 already).

At the end of July, Adrienne and I threw a “Andrew’s Birthday / Adrienne’s Housewarming” party at the condo. We grilled burgers and dogs, served a bunch of fantastic beer and had a bunch of folks over. It was the first “big” party we’ve thrown and I think it went really well.

In October, Adrienne, her parents, and I flew to Florida for Gator Homecoming. My parents, Jason and Lara, and Lois (Lara’s mother) were together for a weekend of Gator festivities including a classic Dickinson tailgate (breakfast before the game, dinner afterwards).

In November, my work flew me to New York to talk to students from Columbia University about how awesome my job is (which is a dangerous subject to have me present about, because I can talk/ramble for days on this topic). My friend Joe was presenting at Microsoft’s “Future of Web Design” conference in Midtown at the same time; it was cool to see each other outside of our home towns (and on somebody else’s dollar).

The year wrapped up nicely with a two week trip to Florida for our wedding!

In all, it was a long year with a lot of travel. For those of you who were counting, we flew to Florida 6 times over the year. I’m hoping that 2009 is just as much fun (and maybe involves a litte less cross-country flying).

We're Married!

Holy Cow! We did it!
To everybody who was able to make it, thank you so much for sharing our special day with us. We had a blast! For those of you that weren’t able to attend, we look forward to seeing you soon! Our fantastic photographers from Concept Photography have been kind enough to give us a sneak peak of a few of the pictures that they took: