Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Christmas Prep


With Christmas just ahead I figured I would share a few photos, as usual, of Dem prepping for Christmas...the difference is now we are decorating OUR apartment. There are several key items that must be pointed out to illustrate why this is a great picture: (1) my beautiful wife, (2) our awesome green couch, (3) our Christmas tree up and ready to be decorated, and (4) the Red Wings young, good goaltender Jimmy Howard giving an interview after the game.

Me looking good in my Simpsons pants decorating the tree.

Our first Christmas as a married couple.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

2009 APS Meeting - Minneapolis

My yearly tradition of missing out on Turkey Lurkey with my friends and attending the APS-DFD meeting continues. This year I got to visit Minneapolis, which is a very nice city. Unfortunately since my schedule was pretty full I did not get to see much of the time. Basically I saw the Hilton hotel I stayed at, the Convention Center, a few bars/restaurants near the convention center, and any site that could be viewed from the Skyway that connected my hotel and the convention center. As a result I don't have much to share, but I did take a few pictures...unless anyone would like a recap of the talks I went to.

The Hilton hotel where I stayed...my room is the 5th floor corner room, which is the first visible floor in the picture.

Half of my room with the window facing where the picture above was taken from.

The other half of my room.

The Convention Center.

A Lutheran Church that I could view from the Skyway.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving, as usual, was great. Dem and I went to my parents house for Thanksgiving Day and then the following day went up to her parent's house. It was great spending time with both families. Unfortunately I only have pictures from my family, which I got from my mom and sister.

Wife, parents, sisters, grandpa, and chad.

See caption above, replace Chad with Tom.
Rey and Tom brought the dogs...only have a picture of Rhino.

Tom got a couple deer over the break.

My grandpa did not...but he was able to get spent some time in the woods with Tom.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Still Got It

For those of you, like myself, that have been wondering if I can still dunk, the answer is yes I can. I was starting to think that it might not be in me anymore, but tonight in spite of doing almost zero activity for the past few weeks I gave it a try. To my own surprise I actually managed to do it on the first try...there was no additional attempts.



FYI: My dunk tonight was not as good as this one.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Detroit Marathon

I am so behind on my blogging that I am only now finding time to write about the Detroit Marathon, which took place a month ago. I went to my first marathon because Dem ran in it as part of a fiver person relay team. She ran her leg at a great pace that she would have been very happy with last year when she was running more frequently (good job dear). Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera with me, so I'm forced to steal pictures from our friends that we went with (thanks Betsy, Ali, and the Swishers).
It started the night before when a bunch of us crammed into a car and drove to Detroit to register for the race. We also went out to eat together, which was nice since these friends are ones that we don't get to see much.


Dem and Betsy in the back-back seat.

The next morning we all drove together in the same car early in the morning. The picture below is hard to make out but I'm glad we have it. After waiting in traffic for quite awhile my friend Colleen and I let the runners start running from the highway to their start point while we drove off looking for a place we could park. Dem and Dan (Colleen's husband) had to sprint from the car to a bus that would take them to their start locations...they made it with minutes to spare.

Dropping off the runners on the highway since the traffic was backup for miles.

Colleen and I found a parking spot close to the starting line (next to Comerica Park) and then realized we had many hours ahead of us with nothing to do. After wandering around in the dark for awhile we finally decided we would try and walk to where our spouse's starting positions were...4+ miles one way.

Picture of Detroit skyline in the early morning.

We made it Dem's starting position and said hi before she started, but then we decided not to go to Dan's spot since the extra two miles seemed a bit much for us. It was actually really fun walking around with Colleen since she really loves running. Spending time with anyone that really loves something always makes you appreciate it a little more. It was so great seeing people cheer on those struggling, kids joining their parents to finish the last mile, and the joy in the faces of those having a good run.

The lead group including the winner, Nicholas Stanko, whom Colleen knows.


Sadly after we walked ~11 miles we actually screwed up the timing and ended up missing Dan finish (as well as all our friends). After some confusion we finally found everyone and pictures were taken of the runners. Then it was time to head home.


Dem, part of her team, and part of a second girls team...good job ladies.

Interestingly on our walk back to the car we spotted these tanks...apparently they are shooting some kind of military movie in Detroit.


Monday, November 09, 2009

Productivity

This most accurate Phd Comic strip I have seen.

Sunday, November 01, 2009

Stupid Microsoft

My brand new computer has a lot of pros, but what Microsoft did to both the operating system (i.e. Vista) and Office is absolutely horrible. I have used Microsoft products my entire computer-life and consider myself an expert user of Office products...well I'm totally lost trying to use Office 2007. Way to screw up the only things you really had going for you Microsoft.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

My Wife's Art

Dem recently made some art for our walls...she cut out the shape and framed it. I might be bias but I think its pretty awesome. Even though it is sitting on our floor in this picture it is actually on our wall now...one of the first items we put up.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Fun Times

I have several posts that I want to make but my time is extremely limited right now...plus when I do have some free time I like just relaxing with my new wife. However, I will start posting things real quickly just so that I'm keeping my blog up to date. I'll start with a picture of Matt, his cousin, and I at the Tigers game (alright its a little old...this was the rain out of the 2nd to last game with the Twins). It was super fun even though the game didn't happen.

Thursday, October 08, 2009

Dave Matthews Band & Willie Nelson

Two weekends ago Dem and I made a one day trip to Chicago (actually Tinley Park) to see Dave Matthews Band (DMB). All summer we have looked for a chance to see them (by Michigan or Memphis). We really wanted to see them because this is the first tour after the release of Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King, which is their first studio album in 4 years and first performance since the death of their saxophonist LeRoi Moore...good chance this was going to be an amazing tour. Due to schedules we missed the chance in Michigan and were pretty sure all hope was lost.

Then one day we were watching football all day and they kept playing clips from the DMB tour (we actually thought it was a weird way to advertise bands...turns out it was the perfect method). This inspired to look over the tour dates once again and then we noticed a date at Tinley Park near Chicago...next thing we knew we had purchased obstructed view tickets to see DMB, Tim Reynolds, and Willie Nelson. All I can say is that I was in amazement for 3 straight hours...at one point the awesomeness level was so high I could only stare dumbfounded at the stage. From the first note to the last it was just impressive.

Fortunately someone just in front of us took some video and posted it on YouTube so we can share just how horrible our partially obstructed seats were...and by horrible I mean so perfect that if a security guard turned his back for a second I would have been on stage singing with Dave.



Willie Nelson opened but did come out to play Gravedigger with DMB, which was awesome.



We were so close that we could actually see the hole in Willie Nelson's guitar.

Willie Nelson's guitar, Trigger.


Oh what the heck, why not one more video :)

Saturday, October 03, 2009

Big Ten Network Commercial

Dem and I just think that this is really well done and you have to love Joe Pa at the end of the commercial.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Green Thumbs

Dem and I moving into together after we got hitched also involved the combining of our plants. We each had quite a few and then with the addition of 4 tomato plants resulted in our porch being consumed with plant life. Below are just a small sample of our plants.

Aloe, yellow tomatoes, red tomatoes, Gerber daisy, etc…our plants.

The most exciting plants have been the tomatoes…the abundance of fruit has been astounding and still is continuing.
Dem with a handful of our yellow tomatoes.

We’ve really enjoyed watching them grow and every Friday when I would get back from Memphis Dem would always take me out there to show me there progress…we were proud of our little guys.
Dem, me, and a few of our red tomatoes…don’t they look healthy.


Sometimes I would just play with them and we would hang out…you know bond.

Other times they would hangout together and do silly things.

But most of all I enjoyed eating them…delicious.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Family Visit/Michigan Football

This past weekend my sister Rey and brother-in-law Tom visited. They got to be our first overnight guests and were able to go and see the Michigan football game. It was very nice to have them visit and the dogs gave even a little more excitement to the visit. Rey already posted the only picture of the four of use at the game…see it here. So I’ll just post a few more pictures from the weekend.

Rey, Dem, and Tom before the game.

Proof that I was with them at the game.

The weather was beautiful (not a cloud in the sky) and the new luxury boxes I think are going to look really cool…as evidenced from this picture.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Hail to the Victors!

Michigan still has some improving to do, but its so great to see them actually looking like a football team once again. Go Blue!!!

For Sherry: Good luck Nadal tomorrow.

Tate Forcier scoring one of his three touchdowns.
(AP Photo/Bill Fundaro)

Thursday, September 10, 2009

I'm Back

I've been back in Ann Arbor for just under a week now and feel like I'm starting to get my feet under me. It won't really be normal for another week since I have a lot to do before a meeting early next week, but its so much better to be busy in Michigan rather than Memphis. I'm sorry for not updating more frequently over the summer, but I promise I have some good things planned to posted on here.

Picture from my experiment this summer.

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Visiting the LCC

This past week I was a lucky guy and got to have my wife with me while I worked down in Memphis. The last day that she was there she came with us to the LCC to finally get to see the place where I do the vast majority of my experiments...we got a picture to remember the visit.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Class Reunion

I haven't been updating due to being back in Memphis working on the Hiplate...this is Phase 7 for those that followed my previous posts recapping my experience with the project. However this past weekend I was able to attend my 10 year high school class reunion. It was a weekend full of travel but I think it was worth it. Friday night I flew from Memphis to Detroit, drove to Ann Arbor, picked up my wife, and then drove up to Pigeon. Saturday my parents and I were able to take Dem to the Farmer's Festival so she could experience some more of Pigeon...it was a lot of fun. Then that evening I went to my reunion, which was a lot of fun. It was nice getting to see and catch up with old friends. I really like my class and wish I could have talked with more people, but a little is better than none. After the reunion Dem and I went and watch the Pigeon fireworks with my parents, had a drink at the Pigeon beer tent, and got a little sleep. Sunday was church, a drive back to Ann Arbor, a little relaxing at home, few hours of sleep, and then right back on a plane to Memphis.

Friday, July 17, 2009

New Family Pictures

I promised that there would be at least one more installment of pictures from the wedding...well here it is. Dem and I have a lot of work ahead of us to organize the wedding photos (over 3,000 of them), which means that I probably won't post anymore from them so that we can sort out what we are actually going to use. (Note: family members that will want a print of these pictures will have a chance in the future to request it, comments on my blog are not counted as a placed order, and these are raw images that are not even cropped). However, I want to give a sneak peak at two of the family photos showing the new families.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Fourth of July

I'm going to take a break from the wedding photo posting, but I can guarantee at least one more post since we now have the wedding pictures back from Mike (though we really haven't looked at them much yet). Anywho, on the fourth of July Dem and I hung out with our friends Mike and Karen (you can check out their blogs for some other pictures from this evening...also of note is that every picture is from Mike's camera). Basically you combine fireworks/sparklers with a skilled photographer and bam, you've got sparkler art for everyone's enjoyment.

Joy, Dem, me, Karen, and Mike + 1 sparkler + camera flash + timer + long exposure
= AWESOME Group Photo


Dem's first work of sparkler art.

My second (and best) attempt at spelling my last night...I'm not very good at writing with a pen and paper when I can see it, so writing with fire in mid air was not a strength of mine.

With a little help from our friends...awwww.

It was then concluded with a pretty sweet firework show courtesy of Mike...well done.

Friday, July 10, 2009

Wedding - Part 18

Wedding/Honeymoon Photo of the Day

Rick teaching us what we need at the rehearsal.

Thursday, July 09, 2009

Wedding - Part 17

Wedding/Honeymoon Photo of the Day

I think this photo was taken shortly after I just beat dad at chugging a beer...I'm pretty good at doing that.
Dad and I at Art's Tavern the night before the wedding.

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Wedding - Part 16

Wedding/Honeymoon Photo of the Day

Me and my new wife with my sisters.

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Wedding - Part 15

Wedding/Honeymoon Photo of the Day

We obviously took the picture of us cousins...sadly minus Paula but that reunion for us won't be for quite awhile.

The Cousins

Monday, July 06, 2009

Wedding - Part 14

Wedding/Honeymoon Photo of the Day

The Wedding Site...pretty nice.

Sunday, July 05, 2009

Wedding - Part 13

Wedding/Honeymoon Photo of the Day

Remembering our parent's wedding days.

Saturday, July 04, 2009

Weddint - Part 12

Wedding/Honeymoon Photo of the Day

Happy Birthday United States of America...233 years and counting.

The Family