Our New Family addition!

Ruby is a 8 week old cockapoo (or for those in Aus, spoodle) puppy. Which means she's a cocker spaniel/ poodle mix. She's tiny right now and we've only had her for two days so far. The first day was really wet and rainy out, the second day was a postcard perfect day!

Below, find a video of her little (extremely cute) hop!

Waka Waka Waka

 

So, this year has been one heck of a year. With the new house purchase, looking for jobs, etc, Jess and I decided that we were not going to put up lights outside (plus, on a 2 story house... man, I'd kill myself on that ladder!).

Well, we both are still feeling the Christmas cheer and this week, when Jess was out of town (back in S.F. for a few days). I decided to use some scrap plywood that the previous owners had left behind and turn it into a "Chris & Jess Xmas Display."

1 night of cutting the wood (with a dremel... yeah, don't have a lot of tools yet...) + painting. Then tonight was assembling and putting out the flood light. I think it turned out pretty sweet!


So, as Pacman would say. "Waka Waka Waka" which I'm sure means, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

 

Here's another shot, Check out the shadow and the bush... it looks like pacman is going after a power pellet!


Chris & Jess

Darth Lego: Maker Faire Day 1....Wow!!!!

Darth Lego: Maker Faire Day 1....Wow!!!!

Wow, Jess and I went to Maker Faire today here in Austin, TX. We had a crazy time! We presented the Darth Vader Lego Mosaic I did last year to a non-stop stream of people. Anyway, click the link above to read more about it :)

Welcome Home To Us!

Friends and family,

We wanted to let you know that today we start a new chapter in our lives! At 3pm today we will have our first home!

We will say goodbye to vacations for a while and gladly concentrate on making our house a home we love. We can paint where we want, put things on the wall, wash off our gear in the backyard, store our car and play with tools in a garage, plant trees and have 1/4 acre to do whatever we want. Our first challenge is stripping off wallpaper tonight (cringe), re-painting on the weekend, getting the flooring ripped up on Monday and getting beautiful hardwoods installed on Tuesday. By next week we will be living in the new Hotel Huybregts.

San Francisco to Austin, the REALLY LONG WAY!

We arrived safe, sound and happy in Austin last weekend.

The road trip out here via Wyoming and South Dakota got off to a rapid start. We made it to Salt Lake City, Utah, on the first night even though we departed SF at 11.30am!! It makes such a difference when you can use cruise control, the roads are straight and there are no other cars on the road so you can easily travel at 80 mph without any concern. We spent the night in Utah and left as soon as we could. We are not religious folk and don’t care for industrial looking cities. I’ve heard southern Utah has some pretty places. That’s enough said about Utah!

We then made our way through eastern Idaho across to Wyoming and Grand Tetons National Park. It’s at the southern side of Yellowstone, very beautiful and not as well known. The Teton Mountains in the backdrop are majestic. Bison (buffalo) herds roamed freely (and get very close to the cars!). We also saw plenty of elk and came across a magnificent fully grown male moose on a hike around Jenny Lake. It was not more than 5 meters/15 feet from us. I was a little (a lot) uptight at that moment as we had just heard from a passing group of hikers that a grizzly bear had passed the trail just ahead of us. Alas, in my annoying phase of bear phobia I didn’t allow us to stick around too long and watch the moose or take any pictures. He was watching us though, and he in fact looked a little puzzled at my crazy-woman expression. If it’s at all possible for moose to look puzzled. Anyway, Chris quickly made me a bear rattle out of my water bottle and we continued on through the thick forest.

We camped overnight as Grand Tetons and the next morning drove around a little more to spot wildlife before continuing north to Yellowstone. After spending much of the day in Yellowstone I think our nose hairs were completely burned off from the toxic gases in the air. We knew that smelling hydrogen sulfide gas all day was not going to be pleasant, but I did not know that it can cause me to gag continuously! Fun stuff. Actually, it was a very different place, with lots of volcanic processes occurring in front of us. I think we enjoyed the scenery of Grand Tetons more than Yellowstone but Yellowstone was interesting geologically and being different to “normal” national parks or forests was refreshing.

After getting the third last campsite in the entire National Park that night, we completed the figure-eight around the park the next morning and headed east towards Devil’s Tower National Monument. Some of you Aussies might not have heard of the name but believe me you would have seen it in pictures. Think Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Yep, it was the mash potato tower. It is something special, difficult to describe. The columnar formations look like they could fall to the side easily but are in fact so well defined and thick; perhaps 20ft in diameter. The most spectacular thing about it was the height and how it juts out in the middle of a pretty flat and boring landscape.

After Devil’s Tower we drove across the border to South Dakota and stayed in a motel to clean off the few days of sweat and stank in one of those fandangled shower things we hadn’t seen for a while. We left the next morning for Mount Rushmore National Monument in the Black Hills expecting to only spend an hour or so. We actually spent all morning there. It was fascinating and Jess learned LOTS about American history and came to understand why Americans are the way they are. I didn’t mean that in a negative sense. I achieved an understanding of the philosophies they hold and why.

For those of you who are interested in hearing my point of view and who won’t be offended for how I interpreted things, this is how Australians see Americans: Americans are seen as cocky, have to be the best at everything or think they are, think they know everything, are not happy until they are victorious and get too uptight about things to easily. After our time at Mt Rushmore, I realized that (in most cases) it’s not actually cockiness, it’s a confidence they have in themselves and their country. They feel like they can do anything and will pursue their goals until they succeed. Their country has fought the British and themselves (American civil war, for the freedom of slaves) for the greater good of their people. These are indeed admirable beliefs and endeavors. They are not happy with settling for a divided country, for second best, for “that’s good enough”; they strive to always do better. And they are proud of this. I would be too. Sure, I think that a lot of that is lost in today’s society, maybe over the last 20 years as the consumerism/selfish phase takes over, but I believe that part of these historic philosophies still rests within Americans and that’s why Aussies misinterpret them as cocky. I hope that when some Aussies read this they maybe try to think of Americans as confident individuals and not just “bloody yanks.” On the other hand, Aussies also see Americans as cocky because of who THEY are and from where their spirit and roots originated. The Australian spirit was born with the ANZACs (the fact that we landed at the wrong place in World War 1 and were going to get obliterated anyway, yet they kept going and just did the best they could) and from having such a desolate land to try to make the best of. We barrack for the underdogs because we are the underdogs. We probably won’t ever be the best at something (ok, except sport!) but we’ll give it a fair go. We’ll do our best and shake hands at the end because we’re good sports and are not uptight so will let things go easily. Again, very admirable things and I could not be more proud of my country (1980s corruption and the 1996-2007 government leader excluded ofcourse). I think the combination of the two things (the history behind why Aussies are who they are and why Americans are who they are) is very interesting and different. I now know that one is not a better way of thinking than the other. But for 2 English-speaking first world countries that are so similar in how they are on a day to day basis, it is wonderful how they are so different at their roots. That’s my interpretation, feel free to disregard. I’m an Aussie remember, I won’t take it to heart!! Hehe :)

Anyway, back to the trip. So after spending quite a while at Mount Rushmore we drove down to Wind Cave National Park and took the tour. Following that we fit in a visit and tour at the Mammoth Archaeological Site where they have been unearthing prehistoric mammoth bones that were found when a bulldozer was about to level the land off for a new housing development. At the risk of sounding 10 again, it was pretty cool!

Our last touristy stop was the Badlands National Park in South Dakota. It reminded me of Purnululu National Park in OZ (the Bungle Bungles). We fit a lot in this trip but still took things at a reasonable pace so that we didn’t feel rushed. By this point I think we were ready to get to our new home in Austin so we drove through the Badlands without stopping too much and called it a day…. until Chris found out about the Minuteman Missile Silos in the area. The next few hours were spent in the underground control room and inspecting one of the missile launch areas that could have been the reason why we’re all around today and why the earth is not completely destroyed. The Minuteman Missiles that the US had were a large part of the Cold War (Russia vs USA). Knowing that the US had these incredible weapons meant that Russia did not fire upon the US because they knew they’d just get walloped back!! Chris enjoyed this immensely and I was glad that we took the time for it. Jess again learned a lot about the countries history.

After seeing some beautiful landmarks and landscapes over the week we then found out that there is A WHOLE LOT OF EMPTINESS IN THIS COUNTRY!!! So flat and unpopulated. The drive from South Dakota to Austin took us through Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and north Texas. It was pretty much 1.5 days of driving, driving, and a caffeinated drink or 2 to keep us from not falling asleep watching the flat horizon ahead!! I’m glad we saw it. We don’t have to drive through it again though!! Austin is like the Rocky Mountains compared to that!! Hehe :)

We’ll post some pictures of our trip up soon. As soon as we set up the main computer and download the million bison pictures.

We hope you’re all well.

Austin Move Plans

For those who are interested, here’s an update on our Austin move…. :)

Chris is interviewing with companies in Austin for part of this week. Chris’ dad Gerry will fly in Friday night. We’ll pick up and pack the truck on Saturday and Chris and Gerry will drive to Austin to drop off our belongings Sunday through Tuesday next week. Chris will have another 2 interviews in Austin after that then fly back to San Francisco to meet Jess on Friday. Saturday Chris, Jess and Nemo (our car) will drive to Austin, via National Parks in Wyoming (Grand Teton and Yellowstone) and South Dakota (Badlands and Mt Rushmore). Yes, yes, it’s the VERY long route! But it’ll be a great adventure. As long as the bison/bears don’t stalk us it should be quite a trip! We'll get to go through lots of States (let's see, California, obviously, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, again obviously) and it'll be the first really long road trip together.

So we’ll be in Austin on August 5^th. Jess starts back at work (home office until K/Js Austin office moves to larger quarters) on Monday August 6^th and Chris will be choosing which company he wants to be with around then or soon thereafter. We’re staying with good friends for the first few weeks until we find something we’d like to buy or fall back to renting for the short-term. Thanks Krissy and John (you’re so amazing/generous to us!).

We’re super busy right now but it’s exciting. Only good things will come of this, I have no doubt :)

Darth Lego: An Update

Darth Lego: An Update

Well, I finally finished a general overview of how I made my Lego mosaic last year. Why did I wait so long? Well, yesterday I was in my office waiting for one of my co-workers to come on by and pick up a laptop case that I didn't want. Upon entering the office he immediately commented on all the Lego that is scattered around. Eventually his eyes made it to my back wall where the Mosaic is hanging and he asked if that was a custom job. I stated it was and he proceeded to explain that he helps run StarWars.com and said that it would be a perfect piece to write up about on the blog.

So, sometime soon, my little creation will be on StarWars.com! I'm sure it's just going to be a little post about it, but still, that made me quite excited. So, that is what prompted me to write about it on darthlego.blogspot.com, here's hoping it inspires some more people to explore the joys of Lego :)