Canine or Feline?
The Stolees
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Family Drinks!
Derrick and I came across some interesting marketing technique at HyVee the other day. Budweiser is now targeting their marketing at not just men, or women, or youth, but at entire families!
New York? Nebraska? It's all the same.
This is among the many things I learned in Atlanta while attending FSE-16, a top-tier conference for software engineering research. This gem of information happen to come from our cab driver on our way to dinner one evening.
It was my first conference and I had the pleasure of meeting many brilliant people and hearing about many threads of new research in the field. It was a great experience that formed new ideas and inspirations for my research, which is always a good thing! It was great to catch up with some people and get to know others. The "thumbs up" picture on the left essentially sums up how I felt about the conference. It was taken at the Atlanta aquarium where we had the opportunity to walk around after-hours and view the marine life; it was a meditative experience, to say the least. I never would have guessed that a conference would be so exhausting, but all the research and new ideas eventually put me on academic overload. It was a good thing the conference only lasted two and a half days!
After the conference I went off to East Atlanta to visit Aunt Katherine and Dave. That was quite a fun visit! I became friends their two giant rottweilers who were as sweet as can be. We also went to a wonderful theatre production put on by women who survived Katrina. It was a very powerful event. Otherwise, it was great to catch up with family, eat thai food, drink lots of coffee, and eat delicious baked goods from an international bakery. In fact, it inspired me to make macaroons this year for Christmas. All in all it was a wonderful end to a wonderful trip.
Breakfast Cookies
These are the BEST "healthy" cookies I've ever had. :) By "healthy" it has raisins, apples, carrots, and peanut butter in addition to the cup and a half of sugar!
1 cup crisco
1 cup crunchy peanut butter
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 3/4 cups quick oats
1 1/4 cup raisins
1 granny smith (or other) apple, finely grated
1/3 cup carrot, finely grated
1/4 cup coconut
Oven 350.
Combine shortening, peanut butter, sugar, brown sugar. Beat in eggs.
In separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon. Add to above mixture.
Stir in oats and the rest of the ingredients.
Drop by generous tablespoons on baking sheet, cook for 9-11 minutes (for dark cookie sheet, use 8-9 minutes). Cook 2 minutes on the sheet, then transfer to foil for cooking (cookies are too soft for wire racks).
5-6 dozen
Puppy Park
Derrick took Cici to the puppy park for play time while I was out of town last week. He brought along his camera to catch her in action. We have one fast dog!
While we do not yet have a house with a yard, it is important for Cici to get some off-leash running time. There's an area for small dogs that we use to wear her out before taking her to the area for the big dogs - with a creek! It turns out our little hound loves to swim.
Our dog is truly a big dog in a small body. She has no problem running with the big dogs. This week, she even tried to keep up with some grey hounds! Here, she is pictured chasing a rottweiler puppy.
