My team leader is in India....

My team leader, Jeff, is currently in India for the first time. He is over there on business but is also getting a chance to do some sight seeing, and sampling of the local cuisine. One member of our team back here at the office felt Jeff didn’t have enough to do while on his trip and asked him to blog about his experience. Jeff very graciously agreed to do so, and it has turned out to be a very interesting and entertaining read. One thing I have learned from my readings is that they are very fond of their car horns over there. I think I would be a nervous wreck, not to mention car sick while being driven around over there. So if anyone is wondering what it would be like for someone on their first trip to India feel free to take a read here:
http://ljp-psugv.blogspot.com/

Another Semester has begun

Well Today marks the start of the spring semester for me. This week will be all online classes and next week we meet in class for the first time. So far I have only seen the syllabus for one class and there is a lot of reading in store for me for that class, not sure what the other class will bring. Just hope I can keep up with everything. You never know what to fully expect till you meet in class for the first time, and you meet the teachers for the first time.

Seems we dodged the snow bullet here again. Last night they were calling for snow but we only got more rain. My dad however is going to get another foot of snow to add to what they have already had this year. At least they had some warmer weather last week which let at least some of the snow melt. All the snow they have been getting is one reason I do not ever see myself living in Maine year round.

My Cousins Ryan, Jamie and her husband Jeff, along with my Aunt Lois are coming into town this weekend for my cousin Brad's wedding. I am excited to see the family. It is always fun when we are all together. I am sure I will have something to blog about after the weekend. Speaking of weddings I just found out my cousin Joel is getting married in April, in Maui. Guess I will have to miss that one.

No snow here, but I did see some while in Maine

Here in PA we might be lacking in the snow department but while in Maine there was more than one snow storm so I was able to get out and take a few pictures of the snow while I was there.

I have started a Photography Blog that I am going to try and post on from time to time and I have added a few additional snow pictures on that blog also.

The only skinny one in the family

So my very fuzzy cat Joey had a "spa day" yesterday. In other words he spent the day at the vet being poked, prodded, stuck with needles etc.. Too look at him you wouldn't know he was not much more than a bag of bones but when you pick him up you can tell he has lost a lot of weight. He is 15 so it is expected he will have some health problems. Well it turns out he has an overactive thyroid which is why we went from 17 pounds or so to roughly 11. He is still bigger than the dog but now weighs less. The good news is with some daily medicine (which should be interesting to administer to him) he should be fine for several more years. Which was good news to me. Hopefully he will get some of his weight back on. can't have one skinny family member when the rest of us are not.



Grover was very happy to see Joey come home fro the "spa day" since he missed having Joey around for the day but as soon as he arrived home Grover's sniffer went into over drive and he had to sniff Joey all over several times cause he suspiciously smelled like Dr. Dave's office. I think Grover wanted to make sure he didn't bring home anyone from the office with him. Then of course Grover wanted to play and poor Joey just wanted to be left alone.

Funny Commercial

Every now and then a commercial makes me laugh. This is one such commercial so I thought I would share. Who knew one could make a living at being a geek on national TV. I am in the wrong business. Thats somethign I could do with little to no effort.

Christmas 2007

So this year I celebrated Christmas twice. See even at 34 you still get the chance to have Christmas twice when your parents are divorced. I spent Christmas Eve with my mom and MomMom as we normally do. I also treated them to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory like I normally do. We started that tradition a few years ago and it has just stuck. Then after Dinner I opened my presents from my Mom and from MomMom and they opened theirs from me. Grover got to open his present from MomMom so that I could see it. He is in love with his new toy, literally. He has found himself a new girlfriend. Her name is Pearl and he had a little trouble unwrapping her since she is 3-4 times his size.






That night after the presents were opened I packed up my car and early Christmas morning I headed up to Maine. Now as one might imagine the roads were pretty empty at 6AM Christmas morning. They were pretty bare most of my trip up and the trip that normally can take 6-10 hours was made in a mere 6 hours and 35 minutes a personal best for me. I chalk it up to almost no traffic and a slight lead foot on my part. It also appears that in most states cops were given the memo it was Christmas day since I did not see one cop, well that is until I reached Maine then I saw at least a dozen. Someone forgot to give them the memo it was a holiday.



I arrived in great time at my dad’s house, used the restroom and ate some lunch. Then after the girls finished watching a movie it was time to open presents. Emily and Susie were very happy I made it earlier than I had planned on making it there because it meant they didn’t have to wait till after dinner to open presents. It was my first Christmas with my almost 21 year old baby sister so that was fun to get to have a Christmas with her.


As you can see from the picture we had quite the landfill of wrapping paper after unwrapping everything. This is only about 2/3 of it since we had cleaned up a slightly smaller pile earlier. No reducing our carbon foot print this year.




As we finished unwrapping our presents Bobbi’s family started to arrive for Christmas Day dinner, and their family gift exchange. We were informed that little 4year old Nicky wanted to be called Nick going forward. He was not overly thrilled with seeing the “y” at the end of his name on his gift tags but got over it quickly. He was more than happy to still open his gifts. He also helped his baby brother open his.




All in all it was a great Christmas. I wonder what next Christmas will bring.

Another work Christmas celebration

So I am a bit behind on blogging so I will probably post a few today and tomorrow in order to work on getting caught up. The holidays are over and that is probably a good thing since I ate entirely too much the last few weeks and shopped a bit more than I should have on all those after holiday bargains.. So we had our annual technology unit luncheon here at work. This year they decided to have a Texas hold’em tournament, and it seemed to be a pretty big hit. Here is a shot of a few of the players and spectators during the e-delivery playoff. Naturally the representative from our group in E-delivery was the first one out. Thanks Ashish.



The way our desks are arranged at work we sit in a shape that some what resembles a circle. Here is a picture of all the people that work in the circle, plus our supervisor Jeff. This was on the day of the holiday luncheon towards the end of the day.



It was a good way to end the week and for many a nice start to holiday vacations.

I took a few other pictures of my coworkers that day also.Now this first picture is of the newest member of our team, Anshuman. You can tell he is the newest member because he is still smiling and it is a genuine smile.




Next we have Joydeep, he has been here for a long time, notice his smile is much more forced...




This is Ashish.. I have no idea why he is smiling since he was the first one out in the poker tournament...



This group shot is of Ashish. Dibakar, Anshuman, and Uday (Also known as Mr, South India in the circle here)



Next we have Manish. As you can see our team spends a lot of time on the phone, not really sure who they are talking to but they are on the phone a lot.



And finally we have poor Sachin getting "yelled" at by Jeff for something that he probably really didn't do wrong.. That Jeff guy can be a real tough boss.



This is just part of the larger team I work on here at SEI. We are like one big dysfunctional family here sometimes...

My version of a Christmas letter

Now is the time of the year where I actually get things in my mailbox that do not require payment or head straight to the shredder.
It is the season when you get adorable pictures of kids and the past years updates from friends and family in a Christmas letter.

Since I don't have any kids, and not much to write as an update I feel I owe my friends and apology.
So this year I decided to write my Christmas letter in a blog, don't you just love technology.

So I thought to myself “how could I make this cute and snappy?”
Especially since I am not much for the mushy and sappy.

So here it goes a Christmas letter from the ramblings of Newtie.
My friend Promise came up with that nickname and frankly she’s a bit fruity.

Now every good Christmas card should have at least a few pictures that are cute.
But I fear for me this year that might a very fruitless pursuit.
You see I have no kids, but I do have Joey, one old, grumpy cat.
He's approaching 15, sheds a lot, is very aloof, lazy and fat.



Oh then there is our bad dog Grover who is always on the move making it hard to get a good shot.
The only time he is still is when he is sleeping, eating, or outside taking a squat.
He will chew on anything he can get his teeth on, from paper towels, cat food, soap dispensers, and even dirty socks
But his favorite place to grab a snack is from what he thinks is a buffet, also known as the cat's litter box.



Now both pets lack manners and do not know the definition of polite.
You see the way they play, and say I love you is to open wide and bite.



Now is the time for the year in review,
I can’t believe how fast this last one flew.
Well I decided it was time to get a degree so I headed back to school.
I thought it can’t be all that bad, Then I remember about homework, so uncool.
I have had a few great teachers whose teaching style made it seems like less of a chore.
I also have had several classes with Hanna that helped keep things lively when the class was a snore.

There was no magnificent vacation this year but I will share what I did just the same.
I went to Joshua Tree national park, the scenery was great but the company was LAME.


There were also two short trips made to Las Vegas which were rather a waste.
It could be said that looking back they were about as fun as eating paste.


Then there was not one but two 500 mile drives up to to Maine.
The traffic was bad in spots but at least there was no rain.
I am convinced Maine is stuck in a time warp and the whole state feels like a small country town.
At least they have general store where you can buy cold beer, guns and your wedding gown.

There will be one more drive to Maine this time it will be much colder and there will be lots of snow.
I will head up on Christmas Day to spend some time with that side of the family minus my little bro.


So you know I am a bit off center so you might wonder about my family group.
As you might expect just like me they are slightly nuttier than squirrel poop.




So this past summer my mom turned the big six zero
Anyone who can wear that hat and shirt is my hero.





For the big day we had visits from Lois, Jamie, Jeff, Ryan and their dog Willie
This was Jeff’s first trip to the area so I got to play tour guide around Philly.






We of course had to go to Geno’s for a famous Philly cheesesteak.
Then off to the Rocky statue and a run up the Art Museum steps to make your legs ache.



Now SEI is where I still work and collect my paycheck
Although a finance company I still work in the area of tech.
However in my limited free time I am still busy with my photography.
Maybe one day I will be famous and someone can write my biography.


There really isn’t much else to report
This year has not been the overly exciting sort.
Perhaps next year I will have more entertaining news.
Maybe I will get a couple of piercings and a few bizarre tattoos.


For now I will leave you with just one final thought
This holiday season should be about more than presents to be bought.
Remember it should be about the Savior’s birth this time of year,
Not all about that chubby dude and his flock of flying reindeer.

Love to you all and Happy Holidays

The Santa Cause

So every year at work their is the opportunity to "adopt" a person or family for the holidays. It is called the Santa cause. The team I work on "adopts a family each year. This is the second year I have been the one to collect the money and do the shopping for the family. I had some help from a fellow co-worker, Tom, which was good when it came to collecting the money oh and heading into the scary part of town to pick up the gift certificate from Pathmark.

Yesterday was the day I drag everything in and get some help wrapping the gifts. Now you don't think the team on all guy I work on would wrap gifts willingly and without Bribes do you? Naturally we get them to help wrapping by feeding them. we order pizza every year on the day we wrap.

It is a great thing to be able to help give a family Christmas each year, even if it is a lot of work to collect the money and do the shopping and try to keep things as even as possible for each member of the family. next up in the holiday season is the SEI holiday party down in Philly tomorrow night which i have decided not to go to. next week on Wednesday we have our First annual holiday Beer exchange. (Yes Beer not cookies, again what happens when you work with all men) and on Friday we have our annual technology luncheon which usually consists of pizza, sandwiches, soda, beer and wine. there will also be a holiday Texas hold em tournament on Friday too.

More holiday season news to be reported later...

Another reason to celebrate

Its the holiday season and there is lots to celebrating, for a myriad of reasons. Near the top of my list this year is completing yet another semster of school. 7 Classes(22credits) in total have been completed since staring over the summer. I am 1/3 of the way done with the classes I need to take for graduation. Just have to make it through without completly buring out.

So yes I am happy another semester has come to a close. My last class for the year was on a Monday night and I am ready for the break. For some reason this last class was a struggle for me to get through. Of course I have registered for spring classes and i have another monday night class... Oh well hopefully this one will be easier to get through.

Christmas Party Season

It's December so that means it is time for the holiday parties to hit in a big way. I have decided to once again skip the big SEI holiday party but we will have several smaller ones at work which I will be part of, it is all part of that mandatory fun we do at work.
However the first party to hit this holiday season was the ward Christmas party. Being on the activities committee it was a given I would be there. So aside from helping out in the kitchen and beign in charge of decorations, and set up I also brought my camera along so I could get a few shots for a bigger project I will be working on over the next year for the Activities committee.
The night was a good one and the program was fun since it got people involved singing hymns, even if one of the wisemen had further to travel than the others and was a little late to shower his gifts on the Christ child.

So here are a few of the pictures I took during the night.

A blast from the past

So this weekend there was an 80's themed 30th Birthday party for Cody Skinner and Dave Arthur. I was asked if I would like to do the music for the party and of course I accepted cause waht could be more fun than some playing some 80'music. everyone got in to the spirit dressing up for the evening as shown in the pictures. I wish our ward did fuun activities like this one. The dental students really know how to make things fun. It is great.


I can't believe it is December already. This year has flown by...