Twas the night before christmas...

I was sitting around today thinking about where I was on this week in past years, so I figured I'd write a blog about it, starting back from as far as I can remember.

December 1999 - Over xmas/new years by friend Becca and I took a cruise for 12 days for what we thought would be the time of our lives. We had been "hired" to go with two families to babysit their kids during the millenium cruise. We were stoked. As it turned out, we had a horrible time, but great stories for years to come.

2000 - I spent my first winter break at GT going to Israel for three weeks on the Jewel program. It was a nice experience, and awesome to get to take a nearly free trip to Israel.

2001 - Let's see, sophomore year for xmas I invited over all of my jewish friends, and we threw a party for my friend (and at the time roommate) JennY. JennY couldn't go home that year, so we baked kosher christmas cookies and my mom and sister whipped out the christmas carols sheet music and played music for the party. For new years I believe I threw a party at my parents' house when they went out for a party, but I don't remember many details other than that I still have a picture or two.

2002 - I remember this year I went to Jacob's house for new years with his friends. Before that, I spent winter break in Cancun with him and his family for a week or so.

2003 - winter break this year was on a cruise with my friend Leah, and her friend Antonette. The three of us gals partied like it was 1999 and enjoyed our break at the beach. For new years I party hopped - first to Jacob's and then to the great Keg drop the the old AEPi guys used to do in the grey house off bellemeade rd.

2004- I spent winter break this year in Chile. The dates fell so that we ended up with 4 weeks of winter break, and I really wanted to get out of town since it was my last winter break while in school, but couldn't find anyone that wanted to join me. So I ventured out doing a bit of research, and ended up going to Chile for the break, and helped out at the Hillel in Santiago, and had a lovely time, and met some awesome people.

2005 - This week in 2005 I closed on my house. My family was in Spain visiting my brother while he was spending the year there, and I went on my own and closed on my house. I (of course) still live in my house, and still love it. I just can't believe it's been 2 years. That same year I threw a new years party in the newly renovated room in the back of my parents' house. The theme was speakeasy, and it was a blast if I do say so myself. Josh and Leah were in town that year, which made it awesome. I still even have pictures here:

2006 - Before christmas, I drove to Charlotte with Josh, and spent a few days visiting with his family and friends. then once I came home, I spent my couple days off for christmas laying the new flooring down at my house. My dad, brother, and Leah W all endured the two days of obstacles to see the lovely final product. It was awesome, and way better than the ugly carpet that was there before. For new years, I hosted a party at the last minute and had lots of fun and fireworks, and used the "liquor cow" for the first time.

2007 - I went to the bagel bash (for the third year in a row), and for new years I'll be attending Lindy Focus up in Asheville, NC. I am actually looking forward to it a lot.

so there you have it. The past 8 years from memory of what I did during these couple weeks of holidays. As always, they were fun, and I look back on them fondly =)

Chanukkah!

Well, it’s been a pretty exciting week in the life of me! First off, Happy Late Chanukkah! While everyone else is currently scrambling for gifts, our holiday has ended, and let me say, it was a good one!

First off, My older sister Evin, her husband Noah, and my niece Kesiah all moved to Atlanta last week from Chicago. Evin has lived up there for 10+ years, and Noah is a windy city native, but I guess the bad weather and our begging and the hopes for built-in babysitters was enough for them to move. We all got together last Friday night for Shabbat at the ‘rents’ house. Kesiah who is now 18 months old is cuter than cute. She is talking, and speaks hundreds of words. It’s going to be fun having everyone in town.

Second, I got a promotion at work! This has been something that I have been working on with my boss, and making goals and objectives to get there, and I am thrilled to have been promoted. Now I need to set my goals for my next promotion in 2009/2010! My official new title is Project Engineer. I started out here as an Engineering Aide when I was in college, and when I came on full time I was a Design Engineer. Just a few more years and I’ll be running the place ;-)

Lastly, our office moved. The old office was in Norcross, GA, and my ride to work was 5.8 miles and took me 10 minutes. 12 minutes when there was bad traffic and I hit all the lights. No such luck anymore. The new office moved from being up Peachtree Industrial to being in Duluth, GA up I-85, and so now I have to get on the highway and go farther to get to work. The truth is, the ride isn’t really all that bad. The commute takes about 10 minutes longer on a good day, but I hate being on the highway since there’s always the idiot that stalls in the center lane and halts traffic for 3 hours longer than the usual rush hour. On a positive note though, the old office was split into two buildings, so we weren’t all located together. The new building is huge, and we have a ton of extra space with everyone in a single location. In the old office, my cube was at “grand central” – the corner that everyone had to pass to get to a door, the bathroom, or the breakroom, so people were constantly congregated around my cube chatting (to either each other or to me). I don’t mind the talking, but it was quite distracting when I actually had work to do. I requested a more secluded spot in the new building, and boy did I get it! My new spot is essentially in a corner where no one will ever go unless they are specifically coming to see me. Perfect. And lastly, we have a rec room here. Complete with a pool table, ping pong table, couches and an Xbox 360 to play on the plasma TV equipped with Direct TV. Unfortunately I haven’t actually used it yet, but I’m sure I’ll get to soon. Everyone was so excited about the new office, that our annual office party usually held at a nice location was cancelled, and rescheduled to be in the new office. They maintained the formality of the party, and they “unwrapped” the gift of the breakroom during the party. I brough Scott as my date, so that was fun, and after the open bar party, we (with DZ, Trent, and Anke) went out to the Highlands for some more fun.

So overall it's been a pretty good couple weeks. Hope the update was as exciting for you to read as it was for me to experience! =) now time to cook for 14 people. Yikes!

Traveling and California

First, I am going to go on a quick rant about traveling. I travel enough that although I am not what some call a "road warrior", I usually fly at least a couple times a month. I was in the LAX airport yesterday, and it looked really familiar, and it took me ten minutes to remember that I was actually in this airport about a year ago (though for a while had no recollection of this). Most people know exactly what airports and cities they've been to in the last year. Here are a few of my pet peeves of traveling. In the airport bathrooms, everywhere it seems, the stall doors open inward. The direction of the swing on stall doors is never really an issue, except when you're dragging a bag, and you have to walk into a tiny stall, and try to get your bag in far enough to get the door closed. What a pain in the butt! Another pet peeve is when there is a very fat person in the seat next to me. It just so happened that my flight last night was a large lady wearing a large coat. When I get to the seat first, I always lower the armrest to create a barrier of sorts, but she was already there when I arrived, so I was essentially restricted to the other half of my seat. Because taking a red eye next to a fat person wasn't bad enough, some parents brought their screaming baby on the plane, and sat directly behind me. This baby was SCREAMING for more than the first hour of the flight. I thought it would never end. Well I finally got home, and thankfully they didn't lose my luggage too.

Now that I've railed on flying, I'll talk about my trip to California. The trip was actually a business trip to Bakersfield (a bit north of LA), but I extended my trip a couple days to have a chance to visit with friends. I first saw Rina - a friend of mine I've known literally my whole life - since before I was born. Rina got married last year, and just had a little baby boy a month ago. I hadn't seen her since she'd been out there, so I was excited I'd get to see her. I met baby Noam, and although she said he was being fussy that day, I thought he was acting great. He even fell asleep in my arms!! It was nice seeing Rina too since it'd been a while!!

While in LA, I also got to see Ben D. He works for Sony Imageworks and so I met him near his office in the afternoon, and we went to get some food. After working long and night shift hours, Ben has moved up in the ranks and now has a normal daytime job, which is nice =) We went to this Argentine Cafe, and it was really yummy. It really was reminiscent of the cafes I ate at in Argentina earlier this year - Good selection Ben!

I managed to not remember to take pictures at all while still in LA, so sorry for the lack of pictures to this point.

I went to Oceanside (about 90 miles south of LA) to visit with Josh while I was down there, and Josh reserved a time and was cleared to take me in a plane on an "aerial tour of San Diego" so that I could both see him fly AND see S.D., but in the day and a half I was down there, the weather was horrible raining the first day, and really cloudy and windy for flying the second day, so we didn't get to go =( However, we did get to go to the Science museum (a bit reminiscent of SciTREK if anyone is from Atlanta), and a Natural History Museum (similar to Fernbank), but they had a traveling exhibit of the dead sea scrolls, which I'd seen in Israel years ago when I went with my family in middle school, but don't really remember, so that was a pretty interesting exhibit, although I think Josh was a bit disappointed in the actual scrolls - hoping they'd be bigger and more intact. Josh cooked up some yummy fajitas for dinner too (I even ate one or two vegetables with them just to make him happy hahaha) The second day we went to Camp Pendelton where he trains, and I got to take a tour of the base, but specifically his hanger and helicopter. The Cobra was pretty cool, and I actually got to go inside both the front and back seat and check out all the controls and stuff. pretty nifty. We also went down to Carlsbad where the Pacific Ocean beach was really pretty, though it was really windy and way too cold to actually sit out there.

I left Oceanside to go back to LA to meet back up with Ben, and I got to see his new Condo that he bought which is really close to LAX, and he is currently remodeling. It looks awesome. It's pretty big with a great view! you can see the beach from his windows! It will look really good inside when it's done. I can't wait to see the pictures. Ben and I met up in Santa Monica with Miles and his friend Dan to walk through the 3rd Street Prominade, which is a walking/shopping/movie/eating district. We walked all around the blocks surrounding there too, just enjoying the conversation and checking out the stores. We discussed and deliberated what restaurant to go to until there were no more options left, and finally settled on an Italian place Miles had been to once before. It ended up being pretty good, and we sat in there and talked and ate for probably 2.5 hours. After dinner we walked more through the promenade, mostly in the direction of the parking deck since I had a flight to catch.

all in all, it was a nice weekend, and I'm thrilled I got to see everyone!! What an awesome way to get an essentially free vacation from work. I love extending business trips when I have the opportunity!