Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Side note...


Heather tried to relate to how excited Josh was to be at the Star Trek Experience. Especially, when the tour guide started to read really hard trivia questions about the show and multiple people in line would shout the answer. So, Heather started to imagine the creation of "The Friends Experience". That would be amazing. As Josh was talking about the history of the show, I kept thinking how fun it would be to have a timeline with 1986-high school Monica getting ready for prom, followed by 1987-watching Ross and Chandler come back from college with their flock of seagulls haircuts, and the week that Russ came into our lives. Just imagine this....a museum complete with Ross's keyboard, Phoebe's guitar, and Joey's costume from Vegas. The ride would be a trip in Phoebe's grandmother's car with Phoebe driving. Yep, that would be a good day!


This is how Heather understood how much Josh could like an entire amusement park dedicated to his favorite show.

Part 2 of Josh's Awesome Weekend

So, Part 1 was Friday's skydiving adventure with Dustin. Little did Josh know that there would be a Part 2.

There has been this totally awesome attraction at the Las Vegas Hilton for the last 11 years called "The Star Trek Experience." I actually remember being 16-ish and seeing a commercial for it, and thinking "I really want to go see that!" Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago when I found out that it will be closing on September 1st. I apparently talked a lot about it, because my wife decided that as an early birthday present (it's closing before my birthday) she would take me to see it.

Sunday morning started out like a normal Sunday, except that fact that I woke up and Heather was already dressed, which was a little weird. I made breakfast and then we decided to go to the Farmer's Market (our normal Sunday morning activity for the last couple of weeks). We went out to the garage and a number of weird things happened. Heather suggested we take her car (we normally drive my car on the weekends, since Heather's gets driven a lot more during the week) and Heather got in the drivers seat (I normally drive, since she drives a lot more during the week). Then, Heather asked me to hand her her sunglasses, and I noticed that mine were in the car as well. I finally asked her if she was up to something, and she just said "Maybe," with a little smile on her face. Then I asked, "are we driving to Vegas?" "Yep."

Thus began Part 2.

Let me say this; The Star Trek Experience was awesome. After three short hours in the car, we were greeted by this:

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And shortly after entering the Las Vegas Hilton, we were at the entrance:

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It was pretty much the best day ever. The Star Trek Experience offers three attractions, Quarks' Bar (recreate from the set of Deep Space Nine), Borg Invasion 4D, and Klingon Encounter. While you wait in line for Borg Invasion and the Klingon Encounter, there is an entire museum line up of set pieces, and a timeline of Star Trek history. Heather got more history than I think she ever wanted to know while we waited in line.

I think my favorite part of the entire day was at one point during the Klingon Encounter (equal parts live-action show and motion simulator ride, a la Star Tours at Disneyland), you are actual standing on the bridge of the Enterprise D! It brought back all kinds of memories of me wishing I was Wesley Crusher, the dashing young ensign on the Enterprise.

All in all, it was an awesome day reliving my childhood watching Star Trek, and remembering again all of the reasons that I love Star Trek. Thanks to my wifey, (who loves me enough to spend a super-nerdy day with me) for an amazing day, and an incredible early birthday surprise.

There are a few more pictures from our little day trip here.

Monday, August 25, 2008

Photosynth!

Microsoft labs just released a really cool concept called Photosynth, which basically stitches a bunch of photos together into a 3D type image. You can check out the reference ones they've done at their site (here). I went ahead and stitched together some of my Macchu Picchu pictures (which you can see below, or click here to see it on the Photosynth site). The synth wasn't great (apparently only 24% synthy, or 24% matchability), but it's pretty cool none-the-less. Now that I know how Photosynth works (they have a video guide here if you want to try your own), I can take pictures of the cool places we go that will be "synthable."


tear....


Now that the Bejing Olympics are over, let's begin the countdown to London 2012! Woot! (yes--I know that I'm a bit obsessed, but obsession about world uniting (well...almost uniting) is a good thing right?! :)

Friday, August 22, 2008

Josh's Really Fun Day

Josh had a really fun day today. It started out in Perris, CA, at the Perris Valley Skydiving School. They have a shark plane there. It looks like this:

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Josh went with his friend Dustin.

They rode in the plane up to 12,500 feet, and then, they jumped out! They had a whole lot of fun!

 

 

 

Once they were back on the ground, they realized they had taken the whole day off, and Dustin had a brand new (from Craig's List) road bike, so they came home and went for a ride. It was a really fun day! There are a few more pictures here, if you want to see them.

Monday, August 11, 2008

Morro Bay!


We decided that we are camping in Morro Bay for our Anniversary weekend! It should be fun! We get to try out all of our camping gear! YAY!!

Saturday, August 9, 2008

Now with two bloggers!

Of course, I should have figured this out sooner, but you can actually configure multiple authors on a Blogger blog, so now you'll know whether posts are from Heather or Josh.

Friday, August 8, 2008

OLYMPICS!!!

THE OLYMPICS ARE HERE! THE OLYMPICS ARE HERE!! THE OLYMPICS ARE HERE!!
YAY!!!!

Monday, August 4, 2008

Making Jam....

So, about a month ago, Heather was talking with her friend Annette at work. Annette was talking about how she cans fruit for the winter making jams, jellies, and canned fruit etc. Heather thought that this sounded fun.

With our new love for the Loma Linda Farmer's Market, we were stocked full of fruit today, when Heather ran into Annette again and remembered that she was supposed to practice canning.

So, here's the first attempt using Farmer's Market Strawberries.

Friday, August 1, 2008

Support GRACO!


If you are buying baby gifts or have one yourself, we highly recommend GRACO!
GRACO recently made a very generous donation to a family at Heather's hospital! It was absolutely amazing and unexpected! We are so incredibly thankful! So, we will sing GRACO's praises for years to come!