You down with ELP?

I wholeheartedly approve of one of the latest competitions to arise out of hiring a bunch of Type-A overachievers here at NI. As each start group moves out of training into "real work," they throw a happy hour for the department where they announce what team they'll be joining. These have gotten more and more ridiculous since they started shortly after I joined the company. (Luckily, we were the last start group that DIDN'T have to spend a bunch of money on one!) They often feature some well-done videos, decorations, excellent food, and lots of beer.

(Yes, beer at work. I have a picture of our President and CEO waiting in line for the keg at one of our company-wide parties, but I can't find it right now.)

Here's a music video from the latest happy hour:

A Long-Overdue Update

Well, we're in our house! I know I haven't posted in a while, because it's been a hectic two weeks. We have everything here, but I can't find anything I own because it's all in stupid boxes. We also don't have any hot water or air conditioning, which is fun. But we're getting settled, slowly but surely. I'll post some pictures when I can find my camera battery charger.

2008 Austin Marathon: Way to go, Mat and Linda!

Katie and I cheered on Mat (and my cousin Linda, who I didn't even know was running!) at the 2008 Austin Marathon on Sunday.

Here's a Flickr set of my marathon pictures.

DIY Home Improvement: "Before"

Katie and I are going to make this house totally awesome, and the first steps are paint and floor. To show you exactly how awesome, here are two "before" pictures of the front and back rooms. I took a bunch of pictures and used the fantastic, free (and windows-only, unfortunately) AutoStitch to build them.

The front room:

The back room:

Stay tuned for pictures of the improvements!

Hey, we bought a house!

IT'S DONE!

We're the proud owners of a house in Round Rock! We finished closing at 1pm or so and got right to work. The place was kind of torn up by renters, so we've got some work to do. "Phase 1" is painting the downstairs and installing laminate wood floors (awesome). Here's a boatload of pictures:

Here's the front of the house. Click through for more.

It's a dog's life

I'm envious.

Good grief.

B&H Photo in New York somehow got its hands on a Canon 1200mm lens, and they're selling it for $99,000. There less than twenty of these lenses in existence. It weighs about as much as a truck and costs about as much as a house, but it can take some pretty amazing pictures. Check out the B&H page to see some sample shots.

(Via Kottke)