New TV and House Hunting

This is my first attempt at a blog entry, so bare with me.  Dorsa and I recently purchased a new 40" Samsung 1080P LCD HDTV.  Gotta love the acronyms.  It was a great deal and has lead to Dorsa's addiction to slickdeals.net along with many other "deal-buster" websites.

On a much grander scale of news/events, Dorsa and I decided to look for a place to live in lieu of an investment property.  Our decision came mostly from the far greater risks of renting to a stranger, than buying (in hope) of equity gains.  We are looking for places in the City of Falls Church and Arlington area - being that the former is a "reborn" area and the latter is populated with post-grads (young folks).  Discussions between us concerning whether a newly built condo or townhouse is better or worse than an older "fixer-upper" on a small scale.  Please feel free to share any insight on the matter as we do lack experience to this regard.  At this moment, the top on our list is "The Byron" in Falls Church, though it may be a bit out of range right now - the hope is that we may strike a deal.  See www.thebyron.com.

Until next post, take care and much love to everyone.

XPLANE trip to Seattle

I just got back from a lightning-fast trip to Seattle for a Microsoft session. I booked my travel, took the 4.5 hour flight there, met with the clients, and flew back in just over 48 hours. Needless to say, I saw zip of the city, mostly just fog and evergreen trees as they passed by the window of the cab, and snow-capped mountains as the plane took off. I didn't take any pictures either, which is lame. I had completely intended to, but figured that window shots and the inside of my hotel room wouldn't be that interesting. So, here's a skyline photo from flickr instead.

Flickr photo as uploaded by bonecheladas

Trip to St. Louis

Buzzie and I are visiting Diana and Sunny in St. Louis. We had an uneventful flight and have kept our host and hostess busy in the kitchen cooking fabulous meals for our gastronomic pleasure! We visited the ARCH on a brisk, blustery day after an afternoon at David's Bridal Shop picking out dresses for the wedding. We also made a trip to the St. Louis Art Museum and the Zoo as well. All in all we are having great times!!! We will be heading up to Batavia, Illinois tomorrow to visit Grandpa Frank and Granny Char. Stay tuned for more on our mini vacation!

Splory Got a MacBook!

So after almost two years of using an old 2000 dell that performed very slow and was missing an 'N' key it finally bit the dust and I thought I might just get another laptop in the price range of $600-700 or something like that. But mom finally agreed that the mac was the best choice because it doesn't have vista and it's reliable and just totally awesome! Thanks Mom! So yay for me! I'm still learning all the little things it can do and it's definitely a distraction but without it this spring break would be dull so I'm glad I have the mac to fill those nothing hours during the day. I'm glad you all could be a part of this awesome occasion because Splory has a mac wahooo!

Diana's new job (title)

This news is a somewhat old by now, but my job title at XPLANE recently changed from project manager to designer. This transition was pretty long overdue, but became official on the first of February. I'm happy about the change, and have already started a few projects as designer, one of them for a little ol' company called Nike.
Although I enjoyed my time as a project manager, I certainly feel as if a big (managerial) weight is now off my shoulders. I can focus on doing great work while someone else makes the plans, schedules, and difficult decisions.

Here I am as project manager:











and here I am as a designer:










guess the main difference is: less talking, more beer. :)

(Old) Family Pictures!