"That's what she said..."

In honor of one of my favorite shows coming back tomorrow evening (The Office), I would like to share the quote of the day from my Office Calendar:

Wednesday, September 24th:

"Negotiations are all about controlling things, being in the driver's seat. You make one tiny mistake, and you're dead. And I made one tiny mistake. I wore women's clothes."
- Michael

Oldies, but goodies...

So I was looking through some of my old pictures this evening and thought I would show a few of my favorites from the last few years. (That's right, we're reaching back a little bit.)

Enjoy!

My good friend Noel and I on the Buzz Lightyear ride at Disneyland, Christmas 2006. Please note the intensity.... this is not some fun little kid ride. Also please note that Kayla, aka "Space Ranger 2" was behind when the photo was taken, but that does not necessarily mean that she lost in the end. She might have hit several targets after that to beat Noel. However this "Space Ranger 2" doesn't remember the final outcome.
Also from my good friend Noel, a birthday dinosaur cake. Everyone should get a dinosaur birthday cake at some point in their life. For me, it happened at 22 years of age....

Me, my dad and Brooke - I think this was right before we headed off to school - Brooke for her Freshman year and me for my Junior year? We went miniature golfing - I really love this picture!


Some of my favorite college friends..... Katie, Jen, Kelly and I in the group hug at Katie's graduation. Sorry, I know you can't see faces - but I love this picture because it's such a good reflection of our friendship!

And reaching WAY far back - a picture of me and one of my favorite people, Christina. We were freshman year roommates and I love her to pieces. She was a great first roommate and I will always cherish her!

Hope you enjoyed this little flashback to see some older pictures. I'm working on organizing lots of my pictures so I'll be sure to post some more if I find ones of interest. Plus, I know it's more interesting to look at pictures anyway.

The definition of a good weekend

You know those weekends that are just really good, not for any special reason, but where there's the perfect mix of rest, relaxation, fun and accomplishment? Yeah, those are the best weekends and I was blessed with one of them.

Friday night I slept, A LOT, 12 hours a lot. It was great - apparently I really needed it. Then I took it easy most of the day Saturday, taking care of some things around the apartment. Later Saturday I met some friends and went to the Maroon 5/Counting Crows concert at an outdoors amphitheater. While these bands aren't my absolute favorite, we had a nice time just enjoying being there. It was a good concert. Kinda a flashback to early in college. Sunday I went to church, had lunch with my home community, spent an hour walking around Target (one of my favorite alone time activities), and sorted through some things I'd been putting off for a long time.

All in all, a good weekend. Plus, this is a week I've been waiting for a long time.....The Office is back this Thursday!

Death of the Bamboo

For the last four years or so I have owned and cared for three bamboo stalks. These three bamboo stalks have become special to me over the last few years because they were my first plant purchase that I could actually keep alive for longer than a couple weeks. I purchased the three stalks at one of my favorite stores, the Ikea in Costa Mesa, at the beginning of my Junior year of college (as best I can remember). They lived peacefully in my college apartment, then came with me home for the summer, then back to the college apartment, then made the drive AGAIN to Medford after graduation, then traveled with me to Vancouver when I lived with my grandparents, then moved to the Studio, then stayed with me through the vagabond period this summer, and most recently moved to the new place with me a month and a half ago. Phew - if you are still with me.... congratulations.

Mind you, the entire time the bamboo has been with me I have just made sure the water was full and everything looked okay.

Well, during my recent vagabond period (the month between the Studio and my new place) a friend of mine, whose parent is a botanist (or something similar to that), informed me that their botanist parent said the best thing to do for bamboo is cut the end off and be sure to change the water weekly. So I followed the advice.....

AND MY BAMBOO.....

changed from it's lovely green.....

TO AN UGLY BROWN.

The stalks shriveled up and died. Needless to say, I'm disappointed and probably never going to listen to a botanist again. Well, I might listen to a botanist again, it just might be a while.

I should have taken a picture of my shriveled, brown bamboo, but in all honesty, I was on another cleaning spree and just decided to throw them out before I convinced myself that I could somehow nurse them back to health. So today marks the end of an era, the end of my bamboo's life, and I am glad to have had my bamboo for the last four years. =)

In the news....

No, I'm not in the news, but the company I work for had a lot of press come out today so I thought I'd share a few of the stories in case you are curious about where I work and what we are currently working on.

So if you're interested in what goes on at an animation studio on a day to day basis -- or at least what's going on at the studio I work at, check out these articles:

The Oregonian Article

Another online article

Don't worry there will not be a quiz later on the information contained within the articles - they are quite long. However if you're interested in stop-motion animation at all, or just interested in what the company I work for is doing, you have the chance to check it out at the websites above...

Before and After

So I thought I'd give a little "Before and After" look at the old place (the before) and the new place (the after)... although a little disclaimer - some of my after pictures already need to be updated because we've gotten a few more things put together. At some point (soon hopefully) I'll do a full tour of the whole thing completely put together. But until then, the following will have to do!

The Studio kitchen / dining room - BEFORE...

The kitchen / dining room - AFTER....

(Got the table on sale at Fred Meyer, the black chairs from Craigslist, and the red chairs were my original dining room chairs.... I have to admit, I really like the table/chairs combination....)

The Living Room - BEFORE (*please note you can kinda see my "bedroom" in the background)...

And the living room - AFTER (*please note there is NO "bedroom" in the background)...

That should give you a good visual idea of the two most recent places I've lived. I'm very glad to almost be done with the moving process for a while. This weekend we got a lot of the pictures and shelves up on the wall so the place is almost fully put together. Hopefully there will be some time to get some slightly updated pictures up soon....

Finally

I'm finally.... going to be able to keep my promise of getting pictures up! That's right, I found the cd I needed to install the software so that I can actually download the pictures from my camera. I may wait until after tomorrow afternoon to put up pictures of the new place because we have someone coming over to help put up pictures and some shelves on the wall. I figure if you've waited this long, you can wait just a little bit longer for the complete picture. Check back soon for pictures!

Chicken Spinach Pizza

Trader Joe's is my favorite grocery store hands down. One of my absolute favorite things to get and make from there is pizza. They have pre-made pizza dough for a dollar and a little change, you can buy the pizza sauce there, and then you get to choose whatever toppings you like. Last night it was Spinach chicken...... so good. If you live somewhere near a Trader Joe's, and you haven't tried their pizza, get yourself the ingredients soon and be creative. (And if you find another winner combination, let me know...)

In other "not-really-that-exciting" news, my roommate has now moved in and it is great to have someone around. We've been sharing the dinner thing which is especially nice and I'm getting re-acquainted with having a roommate. The weather has been great lately and I'm doing all I can to enjoy the weather. That has included walking or biking to work everyday. It's great to have the ability to just hop on my bike or walk to work. This morning I saw families walking to the elementary school a couple of blocks away for the first day of school. Its always interesting how much more I take in when my method of transportation is self-powered.