Visiting Vashon

Maple keeps Benjamin company while he naps by Corinne S.

Last weekend Benjamin and I went to Vashon to celebrate Mimi's birthday and see how the house is coming along (they're preparing it for sale). The house looks good, but the water main broke Saturday morning so it was a rough day for my dad. Before dinner, Benjamin took a nap on the couch and Maple was nice enough to keep him warm. ;-)

Babies, doggies, parks

Asha pets the doggy. by Corinne S.

The other weekend Leanne and I went for a walk at the dog park with baby Asha and Maple. I posted some pictures on Flickr. Asha is one cute little girl and I always so enjoy chatting with Leanne.

We left the house

"Show me your stupid party face, I'm shooting ambrel-style!" by Rob Gruhl

Last weekend Benjamin and I went out dancing at the Alibi Room to say a temporary farewell to Ola, our friend who is going home to Poland for three months. Rob took this funny picture of us while we were there.

Prior to going dancing, Steph and I went out to sushi without the boys and talked about work, life, and whatnot. It was nice. :-)

Great walks

Maple and me at the park by Corinne S.

Recently, my coworker Connie and I have been going for walks in the evening after work. At first, we were walking Fanny and Maple so we each had a dog. Now that Fanny went home, there's just the one adorable pug. Friday evening the weather was gorgeous so Connie and I walked at Magnuson Park. Connie took this picture of Maple and me at the edge of the lake. :)

Doggy sitting

The girls by Corinne S.

At the beginning of the month, while Benjamin was attending the Game Developer's Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, Fanny the Boston Terrier came to stay with Maple and me. Fanny was with us for a week while her parents were on vacation in Cancun.

It was a little adjustment for everyone, but by the end of the week Maple and Fanny were playing a lot and Fanny was mostly at ease with us. Still, Fanny was delighted to see Christy and Graham when they got back and Benjamin and I were glad to have Maple all to ourselves. :)

Book: Freakonomics

Entertaining and informative

This book was very interesting to listen to and had a ton of great, unexpected information. In a few cases I wanted more supporting data to convince me of the argument or I wanted an argument taken to the next logical step (for example, adding a comparison of homes sold by the owner to the real estate agent section) but overall it was a very worthwhile read.

Oh. And by the way, I'm able to blog from All Consuming again. You can check out the books from the interim at http://www.allconsuming.net/person/StarGirl/.

Begin again

A year after his move to Microsoft, Benjamin is returning to Cingular. As it turns out, the position at Microsoft Game Studios hasn't afforded him the opportunity to work on Massively Multiplayer Online games (MMOs) as he's expected. This has nothing to do with him. It's just due to changes in projects and whatnot. Now he's headed back to Cingular and he's excited to work with his former Cingular buddies and work on Unix and Macs again. As an added bonus, Cingular has moved its offices from Redmond to Bothell so in two weeks Benjamin can kiss his daily commute across the 520 bridge goodbye. For those who commute across this bridge everyday, you know that few phrases are sweeter than this one.