Work has been busy as of late. The huge conversion project we've been working on since November is coming to a head, with the critical decision about whether we roll or not being this Friday. We've pulling long days and working Saturday's these past few weeks to get everything buttoned up. I think we're gonna need more time though. I hate to say it, but I think it may be the truth.
Our company had it's bi-annual all-staff conference a couple of weeks ago. They're always pretty nice, being held in various ballrooms in various hotels across SLC. Usually they are catered and feature some pretty swank food. This time, however, they opted for hors d'oeurves and salad. They did this, it seems, so that they could splurge on a raffle instead.
To enter the raffle, one first had to fill out a "scavenger hunt" card. This was really more of a quiz than a scavenger hunt. It had questions ranging from clever word games for employee's names or positions to mathematical equations derived from university policies. It was... challenging. Thea and I finally finished ours, with only a little help from others (though the point was to "mingle" to find the answers...).
The raffle drawing finally came 2 hours later, after the presentation by the President had come to a conclusion. The first prize went to one of the SAS programmers, and ended up being a night's stay at a local hotel. The second prize, the GRAND prize, was a diamond necklace, allegedly worth two thousand dollars. They called off the winning name and... it was THEA OATMAN! Wow! It was pretty crazy. Poor Thea suddenly became the envy of half (or more) of the women in the room. Thea doesn't even
like diamonds. The necklace was nice, however, and Thea was happy to have won it. Someone else won 500 Delta Dollars later on though, and Thea jokes that she would have rather won that. I don't blame her - she would've received a
lot less attention had she won those instead.
Let's see, last post to present...
After the wedding, we flew back to SLC. Or at least we were supposed to.
In all the excitement, I apparently remembered what day we were to
fly out incorrectly. While our tickets were actually booked for the
Monday after the wedding, I was sure they had been for Tuesday. So,
we got dropped off at O'Hare by my kind brother (who was hurried as he
had to get to work in under an hour), showed up at the ticket desk and
were promptly unable to print out our tickets from the automated
kiosk. After quickly paying for airport wireless and finding my
mistake, we were able to change our (missed) flight to a new flight -
the next day. So we took a train into Chicago and got a hotel and
meet up with a friend in the area and ate some Sushi and saw
Transformers with him. He hadn't see Transformers yet. We had. I
fell asleep. Oh well.
Once in SLC, we packed up the car with camping equipment and took off
for our Honeymoon. The plan was to stay in Vegas for a night (because
they have a Gameworks Arcade there - you can pay 30 dollars to play
arcade games for 24 hours!) before going camping somewhere around the
Grand Canyon (yeah, we're kind of bad planners). Well, the drive to
Las Vegas was cool, as we drove right through some Utah wildfires. It
was a side of nature as yet unseen, so it was full of awe.
Once in Vegas, it turned out to be the hottest week of the summer.
The lowest temperatures we saw (at night, of course) were a balmy 95
degrees. That's right, 95 at midnight! Crazy. Day time temperatures
surged into the hundred teens! As such, I wussed out and Thea took
pity on me and let me forgo camping. So we stayed in LV for a total
of 3 days before heading back home.
While in the city that never sleeps, we caught the "Jubilee!" show,
which is a classic topless dancing ladies show. It was pretty good.
It was crazy seeing the headdresses and crazy costumes. The singing
was decent, but nothing to write home about. We also watched the
"Tournament of Kings" show at Excalibur. It was enjoyable, but I
think it's more something to take the kids too. The food was
definitely not worth the price, but I guess you pay for the
"experience". lol We also did a lot of shopping. All-in-all, it was
a fun time. OH! We also grabbed Teppei one night and got some
all-you-can-eat sushi and watched "The Last King of Scotland", which
was a very good movie. It wasn't really Teppei's style though, poor
guy.
Once the honeymoon was over, it was back to the grindstone, so to
speak. Work had survived without us (of course - we're still new :p).
In September, around Labor Day, my parents drove down to Utah to visit
us. They brought all of our wedding presents which didn't fight in
our luggage with them (which was most of the presents). They were
around for 4 days and we showed them the town, went to "Stardust"
(awesome movie) and "Hairspray" (another good one - we like movies if
you can't tell by now), played card games, and showed them some of our
favorite restaurants. Good times were had by all.
Around Christmas time, work started to get really busy. We were
working (and still are) on upgrading one of our off-the-shelf products
to a new version. While not normally a huge deal, our predecessors
had built their own one-off systems on top of, and intermingled with
the retail solution. In doing so, they had used a lot of the
underlying data tables incorrectly. So, in order to upgrade, we would
now have to move all the data to the correct tables AND rewrite all
the code that used that data. So I worked 10-12 hour days most of
December and some weekend days too. yuck. Of course, I'm salaried as
well, so not OT for me. *sigh*
Thea and I WERE able to get 2 days off around New Year's, so we had a
whirlwind trip back to Michigan to visit the family. Arrived in
Chicago on 12/28 at 2 am (stinkin' delayed flights), drove to
Charlotte for 12/28 and 12/29, then onto Fountain (tiny tiny hamlet up
by Ludington) for 12/30 and 12/31. On the first of the new year, we
awoke at 6 am and drove to Kalamazoo, where we hung out at B&N for
about an hour before meeting my parents who dropped us back off at the
Midway airport in Chicago for our 5 o'clock flight. Which was, of
course, delayed by 2 hours. We finally arrived back in SLC around
11:30pm (local time) where we were met by our housemate Randall
and.... GENO!
That's right, Gene moved out here on 12/30 (or mebbe 12/31) because he
had get a teaching/tutoring job that started on Jan. 2. So, that's
awesome - Thea and I got our Geno back. Since he's arrived, we've
seen a lot more movies (our housemates are renters whereas we are
theater-goers). We also found a nice Gelato store by our house that
just opened, and we've been diligently giving them business. ^_^d
That about brings us to present day, with nothing super major
happening but the aforementioned migration project at work, lots of
FFXI at nights, some Voltron watching, and visits to the Doctors for
Thea while they try to root out the cause of her many headaches. It
appears she may have to quit the caffeine, which she's not happy
about. While no coffee drinker, she does enjoy her tea. I figure it
can be some bonding time, since I've been off the caffeine for nigh on
3 years now, due to my G.E.R.D (acid reflux disease).
I missed last week. It was a holiday, however, so I am excusing myself.
I've been working on a web service project at work. A web service is a public interface to a private party's (web) application, such as the google web service. The google web service allows any application one might build to use google's search engine. All in all, web services can be very handy.
The project I'm working on involves scheduling online exams at a third party provider's site (thus the web service conversation). It's a pretty straightforward thing - especially since we already have something quite similar in place for pre-exams, which is fortunate.
Unfortunately for me, however, the web service is completely undocumented and "not supported" by the company. So... it does make the project a little more challenging. It's also making it (a little) overdue...
At the same time, I've had a different project come due on Thursday. So I'm really bustin' my butt now! Two projects at once, and both due, like, YESTERDAY!
Oh yeah, and loads of wedding planning coming to a head. It's not quite summer yet, but boy, the heat is ON!
Wow! What a weekend.
We celebrated Mother's Day with Ariel this past weekend (yes, a weekend late, but you'll see why...).
To start, we went out to eat at
Tuscany, a gorgeous Italian eatery with just amazing ambiance. We ate outside, amongst lush greenery, trees (nice ones, too - there aren't a whole lot of nice trees in Utah), birds, and positively delightful patio umbrellas. Unfortunately for us, however, we we not actually under one of those aforementioned patio umbrellas. And those birds? Yeah, one of 'em pooped on our table - don't worry, it was before we got our food (which was quite good). The oddest thing is, we told the bus person about it and she asked if we needed a new tablecloth. We told her she could just get a napkin. So... she got us a napkin.... and left. lol
After the victuals, we headed on over to the E-Center (where the local Hockey team, the Utah Grizzlies, play). Since this whole thing was a surprise for Ariel, we, naturally, maintained that we were heading to the E-Center for some sweet, sweet Hockey action. In actuality, we were going there to see
Delirium, by Cirque Du Soleil. It was awesome. And, AND, I had roasted almonds (mmmm).
Well, my birthday has come and gone and I'm still feelin' the same. I suppose 28 really isn't much compared to 27, though. I mean, it's not like 24 vs 25 was or like what people say 29 vs 30 is, ya know? Anyway, thanks to all the well-wishers out there and a special thanks to the present givers.
I have a new pair of yellow shoes on the way, courtesy of Thea, so I'll be sure to get a picture of those when they arrive. I also got some dvds, some money, some gift cards, and some close. Oh yeah, and dinner and a movie. 'Twas a very nice birthday indeed.
Thea and I had our pre-pre-marital counseling on Tuesday and are just waiting for the books to arrive. Once we get them, we'll have, like, wedding homework! How crazy is that!? lol I mean, planning seems like homework enough, but now we gotta read and answer questions (in complete sentences, I'm sure) and everything. :p
In other news, tonight is nacho night and that's quite exciting. Go nachos!
