Last post of 2007

The last weeks of 2007 have been busy ones. Scott and I flew to Des Moines Iowa the weekend before Christmas. We had good timing since they had a storm the day before we flew in. The runways were snow covered and the wind made the snow blow along the ground, either the snowflakes were very small or it was just pieces of snowflakes being blown along like dust along the ground. I tried to get a picture but it wasn't really possible.

From Christmas

Scott's mom picked us up and we decided that we'd need to stop at Walgreens since Scott's bag hadn't arrived with us despite the 3 hour layover and the fact that my bag made it there. We made the hour long drive to Toledo where Scott's Mom, Susan tried to drop off some stuff in a storage unit. Of course we realized once we pulled into the driveway that it was a solid sheet of ice and that we'd have to do some major manuvering to get back out. Scott and I got out and pushed and we managed to skate our way back out again. Later that night Scott's bag got delivered too, so everything worked out.

From Christmas

From Christmas

We opened presents at Scott's grandparent's house on Christmas eve since we'd have to head back to Des Moines on Christmas day to catch our flight to New Mexico. We had a nice time playing cards with his family and even managed to go for a walk out into the cornfields for a mini photo shoot.

From Christmas

From Christmas

We got to New Mexico with no problem and my Aunt Luella and Uncle Diego picked us up for the 3 hour drive to Farmington. We got to have another Christmas dinner and presents there.

From Christmas

From Christmas

It snowed enough to make the roads slick, but as ususal for NM snow it melted before noon.

From Christmas

My sister Erin will be graduating soon, so she wanted to try taking some senior pictures, but it was so freezing and windy that we didn't get much done. When the snow is outracing the car then you know it's windy. Hair blowing straight up in the air doesn't make for the most attractive pictures.

From Erin's Senior...

It was a short visit, but we also got to have some coffee with Chris and Tammie Billey of Largo Photography. We also got to meet their son Treston who is even more adorable in person than in pictures :) Scott got a mentos and coke rocket launcher in his stocking, but we didn't want to carry the soda so we launched it before we left.

From Christmas

From Christmas

From Christmas

Afterwards we headed back to Albuquerque so we could catch our flight the next day back to New York. I took some pictures of the NM scenery along the way.

From Christmas

From Christmas

From Christmas

Again we got lucky since we flew through Chicago and they'd just had a very large snowstorm the day before. We got home all in one piece and with lots of extra goodies. It was very nice to see everyone. It may have been a whirlwind trip, but it was definitely worth it!

From Christmas

Merry Christmas!

Happy Holidays to everyone. Scott and I are in Iowa enjoying a ton of card games and food with his mom and grandparents. It's pretty frigid here, but luckily we flew in Sunday, which was the day after their big snowstorm. I noticed that they'd had so much wind and snow that the parking garage had about an inch of snow all the way in the center of it and it's completely covered by a roof. Brrrr. We got some nice presents including yet more food and Scott got a toy transformer. I think that was his favorite :) The airline lost Scott's bag but got mine here ok, even though we had a 3 hour layover on the connection. But I was pretty impressed that they drove it out to us that same night by 11:30 even though we're over an hour away from the airport. Otherwise, Scott would have had to wear some of the "authentic western wear" we found at a local Ponida store. We're on to New Mexico early tomorrow. I hope you're all well and you'll have to comment about your favorite gift from this year!

Holiday Soiree

I'm going to make this quick, though I haven't posted in awhile. I have been doing pretty much the same thing everyone else has, which is shopping and planning for travel and holiday-ness. I went to my company Christmas party, which is nice. The only drawback is that we aren't allowed to bring a guest, so Scott didn't get to come. It's held at the St. Regis Hotel with a very nice food spread and open bar. It's funny because we all end up dancing with colleagues, and I'm probably one of the youngest employees so I don't feel intimidated on the dance floor. Every year our CEO hands out raffle prizes and everyone is wearing lovely yellow wristbands that give them entrance to the party along with their raffle number. So we're all staring at our yellow wristbands waiting for our number to be called. I did hand out the wristbands and when I handed my coworker Derek his I told him it was a winner and it was! Except he didn't get the 40" flat screen he got the CD gift set. Oh well I didn't promise him the best prize. Anyway, I decided I wouldn't take my camera but other people had theirs there, so here are some pictures. Oh yeah, I also got my hair cut. We're heading to Iowa on Sunday and New Mexico the day after Christmas. So we've got lots of travel. I'll cross my fingers that the weather holds.

From Holiday Party...

The St. Regis Ballroom, so very gilded. These are a couple of my work friends. The girl with dark hair is our volleyball team captain.

From Holiday Party...

This is the corp comm department. That's my boss in the pink jacket next to the CEO of Sony, Howard Stringer.

From Holiday Party...

This is most of the accounting department who also happen to be a good portion of the softball team.

Ice Ice Baby

I've been pretty busy lately with all kinds of things. I find that this time of year is just like that. We had a nice time last night with a few friends who came over for a poker night. I tried my hand at making Wassail which I have fond memories of my mother making. I love the smell of the cider, cinnamon and cloves all simmering on the stove. I didn't have a recipe just a general idea of the ingredients but it turned out pretty well. Scott and I are not so good at getting into Christmas. With no one but ourselves around the idea of putting up Christmas decorations only to take them down again just isn't fun. Especially since we won't even be around for Christmas. We put up a couple stockings and called it good. I am more interested in the smells and food that go along with the season than all the decorations. I'm sure someday we'll do all that fun stuff, but for now we're a little scrooge-y :) I did finally get the last two bunny shots done. I forget what the final captions were. Something like "Ok guys we're going green" for mine or "Trust me, green is the new pink."

From Bunny Edits

This is in reference to the fact that the person in the picture with me is in charge of Sony's environmental initiatives. The other picture is in the Sony Club, the restaurant at the top of the building reserved for people of my boss's boss's rank or higher. Since the calendar is for her we got the people to help us out with the carrots etc. I think that caption will be something about the carrot and stick method of management.

From Bunny Edits

The "big storm" we had last week was interesting.

From Ice Storm

The media sends everyone into a panic about how much snow and ice we'll have and it usually turns into a few flakes. There wasn't much besides some hail and sleet in the city, but when I got home and went to move my car there was a quarter inch thick sheet of ice coating the side windows.

From Ice Storm

It looked pretty neat. It was strange what the ice stuck to. For instance, my front steps weren't very slick, but the railing was coated all the way around in that layer of ice. The trees looked pretty and sparkly in the morning.

From Ice Storm

From Ice Storm

Bunnies!

So the latest Sony Bravia ad from Europe came out in October. The first two were "Bouncy Balls" and "Paint" the latest one is called "Play-Doh." I don't know if I've mentioned any of these before, but they're definitely worth checking out on youtube. My favorite is probably one of the first two. I think it's especially cool that they don't use any CGI. If you search around you can find the "making of" videos and those are interesting too. Anyway,this post is about the last one. Play-Doh has a bunch of bunnies jumping around NYC in one of the "most ambitious" claymations ever done. Through our connections we were able to get some of these bunnies since we do claymation workshops at Sony Wonder Technology Lab where I work. So for Christmas someone came up with the plan to give my boss's boss a calendar with picutres of all the staff with the bunnies in various poses. At some point I volunteered to be the photographer, so here are some of the shots that may end up getting used. I told my boss that I wanted a bunny for Christmas but she said it wasn't possible, I still have my fingers crossed that I'll find a way to get one, maybe e-bay has some.

Photo Project

This is the photo project Adrienne and I did the day after thanksgiving. We traded off camera responsibilities throughout the day. I am looking forward to doing another of a more typical day in the life of Oliver, but this was an excellent first try I think. I hope everyone enjoys it!

Two Armed Drifting Bandit!

Scott's big project that all his PhD work thus far has been building up to is writing a grant which he finished tonight! Hurray for Scott! He's been putting in some long hours and weekends in the office to get this done. He had me proof read it and I am learning all kinds of things. I always knew that he worked with monkeys, but I learned that he makes them very happy monkeys. Basically they give them virtual cocaine by stimulating their dopamine area. He is also running this very cool sounding task. It's a two armed drifting bandit task! It sounds exciting doesn't it? I think it's actually just a bunch of categorical words shoved together, but I'm trying to get into all this neuroscience mumbo jumbo. It also sounds like it should be included in a punch line somehow. What do you get if you stick a robber with two guns in a boat?..... A two armed drifting bandit! Ok so I shouldn't write jokes for a living, or draw things, but at least I can be easily entertained :)

Winter

It's been a busy week with Volleyball, soccer and celebrations. Friday I went out with a friend from work for his birthday and Saturday night Scott and I went out to celebrate that someone had graduated with his PHD. I can't wait until we're celebrating for Scott. That's probably another 3 years off. We woke up to a little snow this morning, very pretty. I think it's supposed to rain tonight, so hopefully it will all go away for my walk to work on Monday.

From December snow...

I think AZ's rain is our snow, so thanks for sending the weather our way! Anna got us tickets to Walmartopia tonight so we get to go with them to a show! I have no idea if it'll be any good, but at least it'll be entertaining.
For Big Brothers Big Sisters we're going to go do Karaoke in a couple weeks and I'm trying to think of a good song to humiliate myself trying to sing in front of a bunch of city teens. So far all the rap songs I've found reference things that I'm not supposed to be encouraging, but I'm still looking since I think I have a better chance of rapping than singing in key :) Any suggestions are welcome.