The Adventures of Lorie and Brian Groth

		Busby’s First Week VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Busby has started to come out of his shell, while growing a bit too. At least he seems bigger one week after we got him! So far, some things he does that seem to be part of his personality are:

1. He likes to nap near us, preferably under the table if we’re working there
2. He sits and watches the world or sometimes just sits to wait for us
3. He is afraid of intense situations and intense people, but intense dogs don’t seem to bother him too much, unless there are a bunch of them.
4. He doesn’t play well with other dogs yet (he’s a bully), but we are attending many puppy classes to work on that.
5. He’s daddy’s boy: yes, he runs to me for protection  

		Busby’s First Days in Seattle VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Busby has been trying to play ball (see the video) and is now starting to get the hang of it (see the other video).

He didn’t seem to care for the name Oz or Ozzie so we have gone with a name we’ve accidentally used a few times: Busby, or Buzz for short.

Busby Arrives VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

We picked up our new family member today, which is a standard sized poodle. He’s the big boy of the litter, so we figure he’ll end up weighing about 60 pounds when he’s full grown. He’s only 9 weeks old now.

His demeanor is … stoned and a bit demanding. He wants to be held and played with, but is happy to just pass out on the floor and sometimes just sit down and look at you. He isn’t very hyper and doesn’t need to sit on top of us, so he’s quite a bit different than Milo.

Welcome to the family Oz!

I am now the proud owner of a new smartphone: The Nokia Lumina 900 running Windows Phone 7.5. The primary reason for the upgrade is the fact that it has a Carl Zeiss lens, which like my point & shoot camera does (a Sony Cybershot DCS-W350).

The Nokia has an 8 megapixel camera with a fixed 28mm Carl Zeiss lens.

The Sony is a 14.1 megapixel camera with a 26mm 4x optical zoom Carl Zeiss lens.

To compare the two cameras, today at 7:53am I took a photo outside, it was cloudy (as you can see), there was no flash and I had the cameras set to "auto" for everything. That’s roughly how I will take pictures most of the time, so for me, it’s a fair test. Here’s the results:

Nokia Lumina 900 running Windows Phone 7.5: Dimensions: 3264 x 2448 Resolution: 72 dpi Bit depth: 24 F-stop: f/2.2 Exposure time: 1/205 sec. ISO Speed: ? Focal length: ? Max aperture: ? Size: 1.46 MB
Sony DCS-W350 point & shoot camera: Dimensions: 4320 x 3240 Resolution: 72 dpi Bit depth: 24 F-stop: f/2.7 Exposure time: 1/200 sec. ISO Speed: ISO-80 Focal length: 5mm Max aperture: 2.875 Size: 5.05 MB
Nokia Lumina 900 after using the Windows Phone auto-fix feature: The dimensions, resolution and everything else match the original, except the size: Size: 995 KB

		San Francisco – April 2012 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

We’ve been living and working in San Francisco this past week as a way to take advantage of life before the puppy arrives. Yes, there is a new dog on the way, but you’ll have to read about that in about a week.

We rented a short-term apartment for the week in the North Beach neighborhood, right next to Chinatown. If we didn’t know we were next to Chinatown, we might have wondered about a neighbor that uses their clothesline to dry fish.

The commute to the Microsoft office was unique, since we were able to catch a cable car just up the street from the apartment and take it to the office, then back home again in the evening. The apartment is even close enough that we can hear the cable car bell ring when it comes to the nearby intersection. It was a bit odd to have our regular commute also be one of the top tourist attractions, which also made the ride a bit crowded at times, but well worth it to have such a unique public transportation opportunity.

However, our biggest touristy thing we did (other than walk a lot) was to take advantage of the fact that we were staying only 2 blocks from Club Fugazi. So, we decided to invite Dan and Neely to see Beach Blanket Babylon, which is a musical that’s been running there since 1974. It pokes fun at modern politics and life and is known for some large and crazy hats.   

Heading to San Francisco to work out of that office for a week.

		Seattle Monorail Turns 50 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Today the Seattle Monorail was celebrating its 50th birthday, so they were offering some behind-the-scene tours that the public usually doesn’t get access to. So, at noon, Lorie and I got a tour of the workshop, which is below the pedestrian platform at the Seattle Center end of the monorail line. The blue train was running as normal today, but the red train was parked with its access panels opened.

It wasn’t very exciting, but it was a unique opportunity to see the inner workings of the trains.

You can also see a video of the monorail and more information here.

		Powder Mountain – Feb 2012 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Long-time friends Keith and Jeff joined me (Brian) at Powder Mountain, UT for a few days of skiing and fun. Even broth Michael and nephew Haakon were able to join us for a day. It’s fun to see a 10-year-old keep up with us and ski exactly the same as I do, while also skiing with the same friends I was skiing with 30 years ago when we were about 10 years old.

Don’t tell anyone, but Powder Mountain is the sort of place that is perfect for us: a huge area to ski, great slopes, tons of backcountry options if we want it, old-school lodges (meaning there’s nothing pretentious about them) and parking lots that are too small to let the crowds get big. It was a great long weekend and I’m looking forward to next year!