I’m 28!

I had a wonderful birthday, which is saying a lot because my birthday bar is so, so high. (it really isn’t fair to those around me.) Historically, my mom has made this day the greatest, most anticipated day and then passed the torch to Rory who quickly picked up on the importance of this day.

My co-worker, Kristin, made me this delicious cake (one day I’ll post the recipe…so, so good). And Rory took me to the French Cafe, a lovely restaurant in the Old Market. Our waiter made us banana foster tableside and it was delicious.

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The absolute best part of the day for me was when we came home and I opened presents over skype with my sister and her family in Montana. She had emailed me earlier in the day telling me the girls would come to my skype-party in their birthday suits. They came fresh from the bath, wrapped like burritos, but over time, lost their towels and wanted to show me their flips on the furniture. I laughed so hard watching their legs disappear behind their heads as they threw their birthday-suited selves over the back of the couch.

Ben Folds. wow.

He’s rocked the suburbs and last week he was rockin’ Omaha. Ben Folds is UNBELIEVABLE on the piano, he is a PHENOMENAL story teller, and FANTASTIC in concert. They guy never stopped…for two hours. He never took an intermission and would pause for a half-a-second between his songs. Literally, he never came up from the piano (he plays bent over with no bench), didn’t drink any water, and didn’t talk between the last 10 or so songs. I was tired for him.

The funny moments of the night were when the entire audience would belt out lyrics in unison and Rory and would look at each other and say, “yeah, we don’t have that album…”

Rory's Art

I often forget this, until I remember it. Rory is a true artist. He really has an eye for colors and size and shape and texture. And it always shocks me because my dad never seemed to have opinions about home decor. But Rory does...and not only does he care, but he's got really great taste.

His new software, Weather Defender is proof of his artistry. He created the entire site, and figured out every hue and saturation point for every color used for the radar in his new program. And it's gorgeous. When severe weather is shown on Weather Defender, it shouldn't be so scary because it is displayed as a rainbow of beautiful colors. :)

Check his art out at: http://www.weatherdefender.com/

Fused Glass

When Rory and I first got to Omaha we spent some time in the Old Market, a sweet part of down town with fantastic restaurants, cobblestone streets and lots of art galleries. There was one gallery in particular with an artist named Anne Nye (http://www.annenye.com/) whose trade was fused glass. It was stunning...glorious colors, super bright and beautiful.

I told my mom about her work and as it turns out, my mom and Aunt Jan have been learning how to fuse glass down at Venture Out in Mesa. So when we went for the family reunion a few weeks ago, I tried my hand at it and made this plate. The whole process is pretty cool...I'd love to take a class and learn more- the colors turn out so vivid!

WEATHER DEFENDER RELEASE!!!

This may be the biggest news of our year…and probably part of the reason life has seemed so charged and busy lately. After 18 months as a one-man-band programming the software, building the webpage, creating user forums for clients to connect with each other, writing a detailed 100 page user manual, figuring out the payment process and vendoring at his second trade show, Rory has crossed the finish line!

The program he wrote has over 63,000 lines of code that he hand typed. When I look at this code it looks like emails that my niece Mara types to me. But every backslash and abbreviated word means something. If you were to put this code in book form it would be a 1,000 page novel.

The release went as smoothly as anyone could hope for. Rory has received incredible feedback from his former subscribers, thrilled and overwhelmed at how improved and impressive this new software is.

So check it out! http://weatherdefender.com