Weekend Activities

We did a lot for one weekend. This is the last weekend where we have nothing going on until mid-december. It was 65 degrees and sunny, so we took advantage of it with outdoor time!

Saturday

-----------------------------

Saturday I was up early and at church at 8:30 to volunteer for the "Day of Caring" where our church sends multiple groups into the community to do service work - painting, yard raking, etc. I was supposed to go with the senior high youth, but they ended up getting pulled into various other projects. So instead I helped the youth director do the work. I guess youth ministry is pretty universal - no matter how well you plan, it's still hard to get youth to commit and show up to things. Especially at 8am.

I was home around noon and watched Casino Royal while Kelly was out shopping. She bought a new digital thermostat. Our old one was terrible - very inaccurate. The new one only cost $25 and was very easy to install. We didn't get electrocuted! And now we have total control and programable temps by time and all that fun stuff. Sweet.

We took Maggie for a 2.5 mile walk around the path at the YMCA, which is across the street from our house. It's very nice now because it used to be mostly gravel, but they recently paved the entire path. Great fall scenery as the farmers were out harvesting the corn from the fields. Maggie was very happy (and tired) afterwards.

After that we began the process of couch shopping. We tried 2 stores and tested a lot of couches. We aren't sure what exactly we are looking for. Something super soft and comfortable, but firm enough that you can get up and sit to eat on it. So it could be a long process until we find the perfect fit.

We went out to dinner Saturday night and then grocery shopping. We got a movie, but by that point we were too tired to watch it, so we just watched some tv and went to bed.

Sunday

-----------------------------

It almost hit 70 today! We went to church, came home and ate lunch, then continued our couch shopping. Tried 2 different stores and sat on probably 100+ couches, but are still totally indecisive. After that, we went for a 10-mile bike ride along the river. Kelly drove out to the far end of one spur, where she has ridden before. I liked it much better than the other spots I've walked/ridden. It had a clear view of the river and the path wound was covered by trees. Very nice. I was wearing shorts in November! And since we are going to Hawaii in December, I'll be wearing shorts in Dec. too. Sweet!

After all that we came home, made dinner, cleaned our apartment, and now it's time for tv...

636 Miles

I was sitting in my car at a traffic light, listening to the radio, just before 6pm tonight. There was nothing on my band of 6 "FM2" stations, so I pressed the button to go back to "FM1" and check them. In between is AM, which I usually skip over without stopping. In fact, I haven't touched my AM dial, so it's still set to KYW 1060 from Philly. It's normally just static.

Tonight, I heard a voice talking on the station. It was a weather report. I was intrigued. Then I hear it "KWY news time...". Wow. AM radio is bizarre. It traveled over 600 miles, over mountains and all to get to my little car radio. I looked up how AM radio works - apparently at night it's something with the ionosphere bouncing the waves back to earth, which can happen multiple times if the conditions are right. Almost like a natural satellite. Weird.

Awesome

Sunset this morning when arriving at work. The photo doesn't do it justice.

Web Designer?

I may need to get my title changed from web designer to multimedia designer or something... Here's my latest work for Ash.

Testimonial Video:

This is what I shot in Arizona. It's now all edited and live on the Ash Website. I got direct compliments from the CEO, Co-president, and VP:

https://www.ashbrokerage.com/share/cm/about/testimonials.php IntraNet Tutorial:

It's all built in flash. All together I think it was about 22 hours of work. I recorded the voice over at home using the condenser mic LF used as the vocal mic. I still hate the sound of my voice. There are several sections. If you only watch one, watch "production tools". That one's the most elaborate. And "departments" is interactive. I also designed the Intranet that it is featuring, which will launch next week. You'll see pictures of the old intranet in all its ugliness during the tutorial. http://www.rpbenton.com/flash/walkthrough.html

Trip to Tucson

So it's a few weeks late, but here's the pictures from the trip to Arizona. We traveled to the Loews Ventana Canyon Hotel in Tucson. Flying there was nice because 9 Ash employees flew out together.

These are the pictures of the hotel from up a hiking path. The hotel is built into the mountain side.

The hotel is halfway up a mountain. Here's a view of the top.

Even though it's in the desert, they have some cool water features:

The desert is a nice place to visit, very scenic - but by the end I missed grass and normal trees.

The front of the hotel is pretty impressive:

And the pool is even more impressive:

Breakfast on the patio:

The inside of the hotel was very lavish. Here's the lobby:

And the biggest cactus ever:

So that's pretty much it. I don't have much to say about the event itself. There was a lot of semi-boring presentations, some good food, and long days. Overall, it was pretty cool to be a part of it.

And then a week after those pictures were taken, I was looking at this:

Yes, that is frost. We had our first frost on October 1. Quite a contrast to the 98 degree desert. This winter is going to be fun...

Apples to Arizona

Saturday:

We went to the Johnny Appleseed Festival (Johnny Appleseed is buried in Fort Wayne). It wasn't really our thing. It was really crowded (like 5,000-10,000 people?) and contained a farmers market, historic type stuff (trapers and traders), old style food, etc. We walked around and left without doing much. Then we went to out for a late lunch, came home and watched some tv and called it a day.

Sunday:

We were up at 4:30 to drive South to just above Indianapolis for Kelly's Triathlon. She totally rocked it and set 3 personal records. Read her report here.

Tomorrow:

I'm off to Tucson, Arizona for my first ever business trip! This is the hotel/resort. It's pretty much luxary, but don't be too jealous...i'll be working hard the entire time. It's our company's "Summit" to reward our top producers and establish relationships with important new ones. I'm going as the videographer to capture everything and get interviews with people for future promotions. Should be interesting...

seventeen cents

I owe a major update with pictures from the past 2 weekends. But until then, I had to comment on gas prices. Yesterday when I went to work, gas was 2.32 (pause for the jealousy of how cheap our gas is). But when I went home, it was 2.49. That's a big jump for one day! So my question is, was our gas just way too cheap and caught up a bit, or did gas go up about 15 cents for everyone??