Update on Snoop Dogg!!

OK friends, there's no sign of Snoop's gangsta car, Snoop's friend's porch is dark, and his illegal dirt bike is gone off the porch and most exciting -- there's garbage bags on the porch. I suspect his friend is in the process of moving out. 

Cross your fingers!!

Lessons Learned on a So-So Vacation

We've just returned from 5 days in Jamaica. It was Ok. We really should have researched the place we were staying more, instead of trusting Judy Hack from Destinationweddings.com, who told us the resort was lovely and would be great for our "honeymoon." We moved our trip to Jamaica since my (Heather) stepbrother was getting married on Valentine's Day. It was a lovely wedding, and it's always fun to hang with family. But the resort was fairly terrible, and geared to toddlers. It was fairly nightmarish for us, as we're just getting used to the concept of having a baby in the future, much less a hair-pulling, ketchup-smearing screaming mess. The food wasn't very good and overall, I think the trip was really disappointing. Oh well. Lessons learned. Pete will post pictures soon.

Dear Snoop Dogg,

I heard that your friend is in the process of getting evicted. I'm really sorry to hear it. Even though you don't live in the complex and have absolutely no right to not follow the rules of the community, I'll really miss you.

I'll miss your gold teeth, your charming ensembles of wife beater tees and pants that ride below your butt. I'll miss your beat up, gangsta car, with its positively-illegal radar detection/cop intervention device on the dash, and how low it sits to the ground.

I'll miss how you attempted to recreate the set of Sanford and Son that one day, complete with your friends working on cars and drinking beer in the parking lot. I'll miss your yelling and hollering, and how on Saturday night at 1 a.m. I could tell you were home given how loud your car stereo was playing.

I will also miss how you and your friends decided that the parking lot was a perfectly reasonable hang out spot for 7 hours on Saturday, although I wonder if it was uncomfortable sitting in the driver seat for so long. It's a good thing you kept moving back and forth between the seats!!

But really, I will most miss that day that the cops told Pete to stay inside for his own safety, as you were attempting to evade police. You can't put a price on memories like that, Snoop.

My only hope is that you'll bring the same joy to the next community you mooch off.

With affection,

Heather

Big news!

And here is the first picture of what is due on September 23:

















Looking at the ultrasound image you see a black circle, in which the little dude floats. If you look closely you can also see two crosses, one located about the shoulders, and another at the butt, the length between these are about 1 centimeter.

Suspected B+E

Back when I was a journalist, I got to cover some pretty cool stuff and learn about detectives and what to look for when making a crime report. This came in handy today when I'm working from home, and look over at our lovely balcony, to see a strange man literally 6 feet away from me (though separated by glass), scaling our back fence to get onto the balcony above ours. I had heard someone knocking for some time, and thought wow that person is really persistent. But I had no idea the lengths this guy would go to -- I jumped and yelled What the __________?? And he pointed to the balcony above, then tried the door, then scaled back down and took off. We called the police immediately -- they're on the way over -- and we also called the property manager to let them know this type of stuff is not OK and we are concerned for our safety and want them to do something. This comes a day after we sent a letter documenting everything else that's happened. Apparently there's a clause in our lease that says we can break our lease if we are concerned for our safety. Friends, we might be doing that sooner than you think. Today's activity scared me to death. Really.

Afternoon drama

So yesterday this dude knocks on the door and asks if I am interested in buying magazines, totally shady deal. I say no. A little later I notice a cop walking in the parking lot so I figured somebody else called about him, but a little later as I stand in the porch door looking at all the cops coming in, a plain-clothes police officer approaches me with a picture of one of the shady neighbors we call "Snoop Dog" and asks if I had seen this guy within the last 10 minutes, I said "no", so this was clearly not about the magazine dealer, but something bigger.

There are now probably 20 cops, 5 cars and a motorcycle hanging outside our apartment building, standing behind trees, guns ready. About 20 minutes into it, Snoop Dog comes out, is handcuffed and taken into the police cruiser.
I ask the officer that asked me about the photo what he was taken for and he says "previous crimes". Obviously.




Two cops talking in the parking lot. I took these pictures inside through the blinds and the fence around the patio so they could have been a lot better.

The officer that asked me about the picture.


More officers in front of Snoop Dogs apartment, on the left.


A couple more officers hanging by their cars.


Snoop Dog taken out. (I'm really bummed about the quality here, but I had no way to know the speed/aperture settings when the LCD screen on the back is busted.)

One Year Ago Today

Just one year ago, poor Pete was in the hospital for that awful, wacky kidney thing. I'll let him tell you the story, in case you haven't heard it. It was absolutely terrifying and when I think about it in retrospect, it almost makes me sick. He was so, so sick and it was right before we got married, and it was so nerve wracking and terrible. Trying to update his parents in Norway was tricky given that we hadn't met except on webchat. I'm so happy he's healthy now, and off the blood-thinners, and back to his old self. Here's to our health Pete!

Detroit - final word

Okey, so here are some of the pictures I mentioned. I would like to round off the trip to Detroit by saying I am really glad to be back in California, but it was very nice to visit my friend Ty and his family, and I am looking forward to see them again. Above all it was great publicity and a good networking opportunity for me.

Update from Detroit

Heather left Detroit on Monday, so I had to go to a lot of parties by myself. The first party was held by Michelin in a restauarant at GM head quarters.
GM is located next to the auto show and is a huge buliding. The scale inside is absolutely amazing, you have a feeling of being inside the Death Star from StarWars, huge concrete pillars, glass walk ways, you get the idea.
Held at a swanky restaurant the Michelin reception gave us (the contestants) the opportunity to mingle with design chiefs, and people from the press, mostly auto-press, while trying to eat some expensive food.

Through my friend Ty, I heard of another party going on, called the Designers Party. I had no invitation there but I gave it a go.
All I knew it was going down at a private art studio hosted by some super rich car designer, and that every car designer would be there. And they were. All 3000 sq feet were packed with automotive designers and some spouses, Amazingly, on every wall I saw big paintings of fast cars, there was free food, chefs, bars, and models walking around in skimpy dresses the host designed. The host was apparently quite a hotshot.
Beyond the main room there was several big back rooms stacked with more paintings and parked Ferraris and Ford GT40. Again a great opportunity to meet and mingle, which I did of course.

Tuesday started too early after such a late party.
It turns out apparently that Michelin and Center for Creative Studies, a design school in Detroit (CCS), cooperate on this competition, as the graduating class competes for the three top places in the competition.
My day started at the Michelin area with a press conference so I spent quite some time taking with reporters from various outlets. My last camera interview went on for more than 30 minutes, so I was pretty toast after that.
As the Michelin press conference winded down I noticed "Eye On Design Detroit" was about to begin, which is a best-in-show awards ceremony. I stood watching as the judges walked on stage, these were design chiefs from GM, Chrysler, Honda, Mazda, Harley Davidson CEO, Kia, BMW, head of designs etc, about 20 people in all. They gave awards to the best production car, truck, and best concept car and truck 4 in all. To my amazement, my friend Ty's car won best concept truck! Quite an achievement!

A few hours later I went on a private tour of the design school in Detroit called Center for Creative Studies, CCS. Which turned out to be a pretty nice place, and the level of work is quite high too, I'm glad to have seen it.
Tonight I had dinner with a group of people (alumni) from the school in San Francisco who now work in the auto industry in Detroit. The director there, Tom, invites them to dinner when he is in town for the auto show every year.
So it has been a pretty good week so far, I have been busy and my feet hurt, but well worth it!

I have also taken a few pictures, but I have no cable to hook up the camera, check out these links instead:

http://jalopnik.com/photogallery/mdesignchal/1000497851
http://www.autoblog.com/photos/2008-detroit-michelin-challenge-design/586626/full/

Pictures from Sunday!

Here's pictures from Sunday. Enjoy!