Jewl Of The Lotus

the sound that strengthens compassion in all enlightened beings. om mani padme hum.

 

Saugatuck 2012

Last Fall, I had the chance to stay a few nights in the cute little Lake Michigan coastal town of Saugatuck, Michigan. There was even time for a day trip up to Holland. Not pictured here: my favorite part of the trip – sampling beers at Saugatuck Brewing, New Holland Brewing, and Bell’s Brewing....

 

New York City 2012

Finally! I’ve gotten around to posting a few of my favorites from last year’s trip to NYC. I don’t think too much explanation will be needed, so let’s just get straight to the photos…

 

My First Tattoo!

I finally did it! After 10 years of pondering and planning, I finally got my first tattoo. Surprisingly, after all that planning, I decided on it in a pretty well spur-of-the-moment move. It was the day after Thanksgiving. I went out to Ypsilanti for a late lunch and lo and behold – I found...

 

Joy & Jason’s Holiday Card Portraits

This weekend I had the awesome opportunity to try my hand for the first time at portrait photography – and you can judge for yourself, but I think it went pretty well! I read through some quick refreshers prior to heading out and browsed through some google images for pose ideas. We made our...

 

We bought a house in Ypsi / Ann Arbor!!

Wow, the last few months have been pretty intense for Adam and I. We went to New York City, Adam went to Portland, our summer weekends were packed, and WE BOUGHT A NEW HOUSE!!! That’s right, the day that we left for NYC – we also closed on our new house. We’ve left the...

 

Cuisine Theme Week No. 12: Moroccan

Cooking at the Kasbah Moroccan week is over and, overall, it was very successful! Most of the dishes I chose to cook were stews, not sure if that’s because those are the dishes I just happened to pick out, or because that is what the majority of Moroccan entries are. The only non-soup/stew that...

 

Cuisine Theme Week No. 11: Cuban

Memories of aCuban Kitchen Whew! Cuban “Week” ran a little longer than expected… it lasted a little over 2 weeks actually. A busy month slowed things down… and it turns out plantains take a long while to fully ripen. But it’s all over now, and was good for the most part. Not my favorite...

 

Cuisine Theme Week No. 10: Greek

The Complete Bookof Greek Cooking Man, this month’s cuisine week was pretty hard to keep going – more on that in my next blog post – but everything ended up really excellent. The recipes were all pretty basic, using a lot of fresh and flavorful ingredients. It was the perfect refreshing cuisine for the...

 

grandomizr – a jQuery group randomizer

Some of you might recall my last open source project – SlickQuiz. Well, I’m at it again. I’ve recently released my second open source project – grandomizr, through my company Quicken Loans. Quicken Loans launched an open source initiative just a few months ago which has been steadily picking up steam. I get bragging...

 

Drink of the Day: Juliet & Romeo

I’m going to pretend that this is the beginning of a new segment of my blog, but who knows, maybe this will be the one and only post. In any case, this cocktail is far too fabulous NOT to share with the world! The Juliet & Romeo. It’s light, refreshing, and deceptively strong. Similar...

 

Cuisine Theme Week No. 9: Ethiopian

Ethiopian CookbookA Beginner’s Guide This year’s cuisine weeks are half way over, but still going strong! This month’s theme was Ethiopian, a cuisine I’ve never even tried until now, and that turned out pretty tasty. A lot of the dishes are hearty and very stew-like. Many of these stews are supposed to be served...

 

10 Years Ago, Today: A Story From My Life

My Dad There’s something about my life that many of you do not know. Something that I’ve not been very open about. I’m not even sure how to talk about it now, because I never really have. But… it’s been 10 years, so now seems like a good time to start. My dad killed...

 

SlickQuiz WordPress Plugin is Live!

Hey all! A few months ago, you might remember that I released my SlickQuiz jQuery plugin into the wild – and so far, I’d say it’s been pretty successful! It’s had several pull requests on github, tons of great feature requests, and it even helped spur the open source movement at my company, Quicken...

 

Spring Awakening Music Festival in Chicago

Wow! What an utterly crazy fun weekend! Without even seeing any numbers, I think it’s safe to say that the first ever Spring Awakening Music Festival (SAMF) in Chicago was a HUGE success. I didn’t hear anything negative about the festival while I was there (except maybe re: the high price of water) and...

 

Future Insights Live in Vegas

Julie’s Vegas Flickr Set Vegas. What else needs to be said? It’s been a few weeks since I returned and life is finally starting to get back to normal (ish). Future Insights Live was an amazing conference – there were great talks, great people, great insight, great parties ;), and, of course, great Vegas....

 

Cuisine Theme Week No. 8: Jamaican

Lucinda’s AuthenticJamaican Kitchen Cuisine Week for the month of May officially ended last night with a stellar BBQ, certainly the highlight of Jamaican Week! Overall, I was somewhat disappointed with Jamaican Week. I was expecting much bolder flavors and vibrant dishes, but maybe the lack of those has more to do with my choice...

 

Cuisine Theme Week No. 7: Indian

My Indian Kitchen It’s that time again – another Cuisine Week in the can! This month’s cuisine was Indian – which I haven’t had too often in the past – but what I have had was really good. In practice, this week had it’s highs and lows. A few of the dishes were absolutely...

 

Cuisine Theme Week No. 6: Irish

My Irish Cookbok Of course, with March being the month of St. Patrick’s Day, I felt it only proper to dedicate this month’s Cuisine Week to the Irish. There is a rumor in my family that one of our ancestors was Irish – I haven’t found that ancestor yet – but perhaps they, whoever...

 

Cuisine Theme Week No. 5: French

Well, February’s Cuisine Week was scheduled for last week, but due to sickness I decided to push it back a week. That was a great decision because as it turns out, every main course out of Mastering the Art of French Cooking takes about three hours to make, so I needed to be at...

 

RootsTech 2012 Recap

Well once again, RootsTech was a huge success. With registrations up over 30% from last year, we had over 4000 genealogists and developers in attendance. And if I had to guess, there were probably twice as many developers as last year. Maybe it’s because I’ve been up since 5am, have a cold, and generally...

 

I Won the Ancestry.com 15 Days of Discovery Grand Prize!

Wow. So, who knew those online contests where you can win trips and meet celebrities ever paid off?!?! It turns out, the grand prize is not a lie. Because I won it!! No joke. Each day for two weeks, I submitted my basic contact information to the Ancestry.com 15 Days of Discovery sweepstakes hoping...

 

Cuisine Theme Week No. 4: Vietnamese

It’s 2012!! Wow, did 2011 go by fast!? A big part of what made it such a good and fast year for me was my journey into the world of real cooking. Prior to April, we didn’t stray too far from the norm – Foreman burgers, frozen bagged dinners, pizza, quesodillas – things that...

 

Wow, 2011 Was Pretty Awesome

I can’t believe 2011 is over… seriously… I can’t. Fastest. Year. Ever. 2011 was phenomenal. Insane. Exhilarating. Awesome. Joyful. Busy. Just all around generally incredible. Probably my favorite year in my <27 years of existence. Here’s just a few reasons why: Marriage – Best day of my life. We did it!! And it was...