Bryson Gets a Bath in the Sink

After dinner tonight (Saturday) I was doing dishes and Jane walked over with Bryson and he REALLY was interested in what was going on there, so we gave him a first-hand experience with a bath in the sink. He loved all the gadgets, especially the water running out of the faucet. I think he'll be a big fan of drinking fountains.

Last Night in Paris

My last night in Paris we had a "social event" at the conference that was held at a carnival museum with all kinds of antique carnival attractions that we could play with. After the event a Microsoft friend and I walked around until midnight taking night shots of Paris along the Champs-Elysees. Unfortunately my camera battery died (defective; I need a warranty replacement), but my friend loaned me his pocket camera so I got some pictures; but not as good as my camera would take.

This is the front desk of my hotel. I had to turn in the key whenever I left the building, and they would give it back when I came back. These are the cubby-holes where they keep the keys.



This video is of the cool Christmas lights along the Champs-Elysees. I really like the long streaking lights in the trees.


One of the cool concept cars in the dealerships along the Champs-Elysees

A couple of the Renault concept cars

Medieval-looking BBQ from the carnival museam dinner.

The world's biggest jar of Nutella

Outside courtyard at the carnival museum

I know some of us have been talking about the skittles game we used to have. At the carnival museum they had these turn-of-the-century games that used a brass top. Can you believe they let us play with these antiques? If you ring the bell you get to make a wish and it will come true. I rang the bell on the first spin! (I wished for a new skittles game).

Brass skittle top ready to go

This is one of the bikes on a bicycle carousel from the late 1800's

Lorne Olfman was one of my dissertation advisors. Here he is ready to give the bike carousel a try

This car was at the Peugeot Dealship

You have to see the car from all angle to appreciate it

Another Peugeot

This is a Citroen.

Random building with cool fog effect and French flag

Ferris Wheel and oblisk at the end of Champs-Elysees

Interesting poster warning tourists to be careful

Eiffle Tower, Etc.

I had another long day standing on my feet, and so I apologize for not having much to show. After the conference expo ended for the day we walked about 20 minutes to a nice restaurant that was built in Alfred Nobel's Paris home. Our invitation had the times mixed up, so we arrived early. Since we were pretty close to where we could get a good view of the Eiffle Tower, we went and took a couple of pictures. I'm hoping to get some daylight pictures tomorrow, but we'll see. You'll note that the top of the tower, which is more than 1000 high, is lost in the clouds.

Some of my Microsoft colleagues. Pictured left to right: me, Brad Jensen (cover's Texas) his daughter Amanda, and Jane Thomsen (first name pronounced "Yaineh") from Denmark.

Inside of Alfred Nobel's house

Me and Alfred's fireplace

More Arche de Triumphe

I went out this morning to see what I could see, and got some close-up pictures. What is weird is that because of no daylight savings and funny time zones, its this dark at 8:00am, although these were taken at 7am. I thought the lighting made these really interesting.

This was taken about 15 minutes from my hotel. I turned a corner and saw this really surreal view. The arch in the background is really inconguous with the street in the foreground

Same angle but from the head of the street

Front view from the Champs-Elysees. Right underneath is France's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

Closer view of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

First Night in Paris

I am in Paris from Dec 13-17 working at a conference for Information Systems professors. My flight to Paris went well. I sat in Economy for the first leg to Washington Dulles; boy I've forgotten how crowded it is back there! The flight from Washington DC to Paris was only half full, so I had no one next to me which made it nice. I read a Dan Brown book the entire 7 hours and didn't notice the time at all.

When I arrived, I was picked up by one of our local Microsoft academic reps, who took me to my hotel. Unfortunately it was too early to check in, so I left my luggage with the concierge, and then walked about a 1/2 mile to a local university where some of the conference meetings were going on. After lunch I walked back to the hotel and was able ot check in, so I took a nap and then went out to dinner with a bunch of people from the conference.

After dinner I grabbed my camera for a couple of nice shots near the conference center and my hotel.

The entrance to my hotel

This is my hotel from across the street

The street where my hotel is. My hotel is on the right down a couple of buildings. Christmas is definitely in the air.

A couple of streets away is a main boulevard, and from there you can see the Arch de Triumphe.

This the conference center where I'll be working for the next few days

Head Start on Ski Season

We heard that Copper Mountain had gotten 22 inches of snow over the last week so this past Saturday Seth, Jarom and I went and checked it out. They still only have about 20% of the runs open, but it wasn't crowded and we had a great day out. The nice thing about season passes is that you don't feel like to have to stay the entire day to get your money's worth. So we arrived about 10am and left at 2pm before we got too tired. Thought we'd share some cell phone pics just to get you in the holiday mood.

Seth getting on his gear in the parking lot.

Jarom LOVES his new boots

Lunch break means shoes off

Nothing beats an egg salad sandwich on a ski day

Awesome Christmas Card

Given that my nerdy colleagues and I all have professional tech-community blogs, in addition to our personal/family blogs, this Christmas card from http://store.wondermark.com/products/greeting-cards is really funny. I'm half-way tempted to get some, but unfortunately most of our family/friends wouldn't think it is nearly as funny as I do.

Snow Day!!

I had to give a talk in Sacrament Meeting today. I spent a good bit of Friday and Saturday collecting source material and outlining my talk. As I got into bed last night about midnight, Jane asked "do you have to teach Sunday School tomorrow?". I thought about it and realized that it was my week to teach, and since I had only really outlined bits of my talk, I was counting on a couple of hours this morning before church to get everything organized, so I had no time to prepare a lesson. I woke up about 4am, and noticed it had started snowing again, and by the time church started at 10:30am it showed no sign of stopping. I finished my talk notes about 9:45am, so I took a brief look at the lesson and got ready for church. When I arrived at church about 15 minutes early, ran through the choir number once with the choir, and then settled into my chair to hopefully get some inspiration for Sunday School. Just then one of the Bishopric members confided in me that the boilers were out in the church heating system, and the chapel which felt a little on the cool side, was by far the warmest room in the building. He went on to inform me that the Bishop was going to cancel the rest of the meetings once Sacrament Meeting was over. Yay! So I didn't have to give my poorly-prepared lesson after all. So we came home after Sacrament Meeting, had some more Thanksgiving left-overs, lit the fireplace, and will spend the rest of the day enjoying quality family time.

What a Great Thanksgiving Holiday!

With all the family that has moved to Colorado this year, Thanksgiving was a big event with the focus mostly on FOOD. There was lots of laying around and visiting, plus Grandma Jane took all of the Thornbrue kids to the rec center pool for about five hours, giving Allie and James time to go to the movies and do some relaxing. Thursday and Friday, Jarom and Randy put up Christmas lights, including cutting a juniper tree in the back yard and putting up a "Christmas" tree in the front (which the trash company will obligingly take after the holidays). Friday night, it started snowing and by 8pm it was really coming down. We ended up with four or five inches on the ground, creating lots of fun play opportunities Saturday morning in the back yard.

Bryson gets a ride on Daddy

A Thanksgiving necessity; the cauldron of mashed potatoes expertly prepared by Jarom

Deviled eggs by Molly was the center piece of pre-feast snacking, along with the warm spinach & artichoke dip made by Melissa.

Allie made some amazing apple pastries (that Jarom insisted looked like a sand worm to you "Dune" fans).

Jane hit a double home-run with the main event; apricot-stuffed roast pork and whipped yams.

Our first Christmas light feature was the crab apple tree by the garage. Flocking provided by Mother Nature Friday night

Jarom's juniper Christmas Tree also got a heavy helping of snow

Mini-video of the snow looking at our house

Video pan of our lighted trees and street

Lots of snow! We finished putting the lights up about 45 minutes before it started

Saturday morning snow play in the back yard; Tessa didn't like getting hit with a snowball in the face.

Marie lays down because its soft

The Thornbrues get a taste of Colorado winter (only four more months to go!)

Ben has his own snowball (and runny nose)

Grandma Jane, Marie and Tessa have a snowball fight

Action video of the Thornbrue Family snow fight

Grace didn't like to see Daddy and Mommy "fighting"

Allie lost this round

James wasn't unscathed either

Daytime view of the house

Too much food; we had to keep some in the "walk-in refridgerator" (garage)

Allie and James' van in the morning after the snow. James' comment "I don't think I have a scraper!"