Mark and I decided to wait a couple months after the wedding to take our honeymoon. We ended up getting a great deal through Norwegian Cruise Line on a 7-Day Eastern Caribbean Cruise in a Mini-Suite with a balcony for about $1000/person (which was exactly the price range we were looking for). The cruise left out of Miami the Saturday after Thanksgiving and went to St. Maarten, St. Thomas and Nassau (Bahamas). Because we had off from work for the holiday, Mark and I decided to fly down to Miami early. We were able to use Mark’s credit card points (an accumulation of about 4 years) and only ended up paying $50 for 3 nights at a resort in Miami Beach!
While in Miami, we spent most of our days relaxing on the beach or by the pool. Our first Thanksgiving dinner as a married couple was spent at one of the nicer restaurants on Ocean Drive. I will say that I had no idea Miami is such an expensive city. One cheap activity we took advantage of was the bike share program – for about $5/hour you can take a bike out and return it at any one of the many stations located all around the city.
On Saturday we boarded the Norwegian Epic, Norwegian Cruise Line’s newest ship. Some of the awesome things about the ship are the 3 water slides, ice bar, rock climbing wall and repelling wall. You can also see the Blue Man Group and Cirque du Soleil! Another thing that I like about the ship is the Freestyle Cruising. Instead of being assigned a time to go to the dinning room (like most ships), you go to dinner whenever you like and wherever you like. The ship has over 20 different restaurants to choose from (some are included and some you pay a cover charge). There are a lot of activities on the ship too like the White Hot Party, Jazz/Blue’s Club and Dueling Piano Bar. My favorite activity was The Newlywed Show where yours truly got to participate as one of the couples! I think Mark and I ended up coming in last place.
St. Maarten was our first stop. We booked the America’s Cup Regatta excursion. For this excursion, you are put in teams to race head to head in a regatta on one of the America’s Cup yachts. Everyone is assigned a specific job that helps operate the boat. I was chosen to be team leader of our boat, True North (KC-87). I took my role as team leader very seriously and made sure to keep morale high on our team. We chanted and haggled the other boats in the race and so of course our boat ended up coming in first place! Seriously though, this excursion was really fun and I strongly recommend doing it if you have the chance.
After the America’s Cup Regatta, Mark and I took a cab to Maho Bay. Maho Bay is right next to St. Maarten International Airport so as your swimming in the beautiful blue water, commercial airplanes are landing right above your head. In fact, you are so close that you can wave to the pilots right before they take off. Be careful though because the wind from the jets is so hard that it can knock you over! Check out this video Mark took of a plane landing (its kinda long so scrub forward to 1:30).
Next stop was St. Thomas where we went to Magen’s Bay, one of the Top 10 Beaches in the World. It was pretty, but I guess I’ll always be a Jersey girl (yea Wildwood!).
Our last stop was Nassau. We booked the Atlantis excursion for the day. It was a tad bit on the chilly slide, but we were hardcore and did every water slide twice. Atlantis was really cool and I definitely think I would like to go back there during a warmer time of year (possible stay at the resort too).
In short, I think it was a successful honeymoon – we came home exhausted after all! Be sure to check out some of the pictures from the trip on flickr.
Posted in: Blog, Personal
Mark and I got married in Bar Harbor, Maine. Everything was perfect– except for the weather. The day started off overcast, just like the day before, but by 11:00 a.m. the storm clouds rolled in and, despite the fact that the radar showed it clearing up by 3:00 p.m., at 11:00 p.m. it was still raining. However, if it wasn’t for the weather, we wouldn’t have gotten this great picture taken by our photographer.
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Posted in: Blog, Personal
…between the East Coast and Europe is the small, remote island of the Bermuda.
Mark and I just got back from our Royal Caribbean cruise to Bermuda. It was right out of Cape Liberty, NJ (right outside NYC) so it was really easy to get there from Philly (ie no flying required).
The interesting part of the story is how we booked the cruise in the first place. We “won the cruise” by attending one of those crazy interactive (Powerpoint) presentations trying to sell us a timeshare. In the end, the cruise wasn’t completely free (of course), but we still ended up getting a pretty good deal.
The ship was huge! It had 3 large pools, 6 hot tubs, a basketball court, rock climbing wall, miniature golf, and even an ice skating rink!
Despite the bad weather on the way to and from Bermuda, we had a really great time. While we were on the ship, we participated in all the activities like dance classes, jewelry making, scrap booking, Bingo (funny story, we actually won a game of Bingo, but didn’t realize it until it was too late – yea, we could have won $500 our first night…). They had parades and shows on the ship that were absolutely amazing – there was even an ice capades show! One of my favorite shows was the Cooking Demonstration where yours truly volunteered. I got to stand up on stage and make my own chocolate cherry cake and drink cherry brandy while doing so! And of course we ate a ton of delicious food and were treated like royalty – one of the waitresses cut my french toast for me one morning 
The weather in Bermuda was much better then the weather at sea. The days would start off overcast, but by 11am, the skies would be clear and it would be a beautiful, sunny day. We certainly made the most of our two days on the island. We rented a two person scooter to get around the island. This was definitely the highlight of our trip. It made having to travel from place to place on the island our own little excursion. We booked a cave tour excursion through Royal Caribbean where we explored one of Bermuda’s many caves. At the end of the tour there was a lagoon that we could swim in. After the excursion, we explored the city of St. George, which is more of the historic section of the island. Bermuda has a lot of old military forts, so we saw one of the more famous ones, Fort Hamilton, which is located in the bustling city of Hamilton. And of course we went to the beach. The sand was not as pink as I thought it would be, but the water was absolutely beautiful (a little cold, but beautiful). Bermuda was formed by three volcanos, which are now inactive. Because of this, the island is very rocky so there were rocks to climb and play on while we were at the beach.
My rambling doesn’t do the trip justice, so head on over to flickr to see some shots from the trip.
Posted in: Blog, Personal
Sorry I haven’t posted anything all summer – I can’t believe its just about over! It seems like we were just in Maine for the 4th of July. This year our friends came up with us to experience a true Maine vacation! We ate lobster (twice) and Gifford’s Ice Cream (every night). Activities included waterskiing everyday, white water rafting, kayaking, hiking, as well as cliff jumping =)
This summer I was also a Teaching Artist at Montgomery Theater for the Young Actor’s Workshop Mixed Media Week. The students had a week to write a play, perform in their play, and create multimedia content to be projected during their play. This is the first year that Montgomery Theater has ever done a Mixed Media Week; fortunately, the students plays were so successful that there is plans to continue the class in the Fall, Spring and even next Summer! If you are interested in seeing the kids’ performances, head on over to youtube!
I also was involved with the 2009 Siggraph Conference as an XSV (Ex Student Volunteer). I worked as a project manager on the Encounter Siggraph SCVNGR Hunt, an interactive SMS game developed by SCVNGR. I was excited that the conference was held in (the very hot) New Orleans because I had never been there before. During my free time I went to Bourbon Street, listen to a lot of awesome live music and even went on a Paddle Wheeler dinner/jazz cruise!
This summer I have also been doing some freelance work for an awesome projection company in Philadelphia. Klip Collective is a video installation company that can transform any space into an immersive visual experience. Here are two projects I edited for Klip this summer that showcase what they do: W Fort Lauderdale & Infiniti
I don’t have too much in the works for Fall, but I’m hoping some opportunities will come around. I will be sure to keep you posted 
Posted in: Blog, Personal, Work
This weekend we took Buckley to the Italian Market with us. On the walk home he decided he was too tired so we put him in a shopping bag and carried him home the rest of the way! As you can see, he doesn’t seem to be struggling to get out and is pretty content to be carried around in a grocery bag.
Posted in: Blog, Personal
We had a fabulous time in Paris! We were there for 8 days so we were able to see a lot!! I can sum up the trip like this: I ate at least one French baguette and one Nutella crepe a day, we climbed up every tower in the city (Notre Dam, Arc De Triumph, Pantheon, Eiffel Tower, Sac Le Carre), and saw a ton of art (Palace of Versailles, Pompidou, Orsay Museum, Orangerie Museum, Rodin Museum, Louve).
One of my favorite sights was walking through the catacombs, which are underground passageways that go all throughout the city. As you walk through, you enter a section of the catacombs were bones were kept because France ran out of places to bury people during the Black Plague. I have some great photos of us standing next to human skulls and femurs =)
Another sight I really enjoyed was going up the Eiffel Tower one night (something I’ve always wanted to do). We stayed up there long enough to see the lights on the tower flicker at midnight. It was amazing, the trip was amazing!
Head on over to Becky Huot’s flickr to see photos from the trip.
Posted in: Blog, Personal
Its been awhile since I posted anything so this post will be an update on my work as well as life…
The start of 2009 has been busy, but its a good busy. January I was the video designer for Impressions of Pelleas, an opera performed by The Curtis Institute of Music. Right after finishing Pelleas, I did a project for Aaron Levy, one of the Board of Directors for Slought Foundation. I designed an interactive presentation and map for one of their exhibitions, Into the Open, Positioning Practice. The Interactive Map is on the Exhibition’s website. Right after finishing the project for Slought, I worked in NYC for 2 weeks as a projection assistant for Columbia University’s Young Company’s rendition of Romeo & Juliet. We designed imagery as well as incorporated 3 live cameras. Recently, I was in NYC filling in for the associate projection designer for the new Broadway show Rock of Ages. The show is really fun and features hit music from the 80s.
As for life, I feel really good about all the work I’ve been doing so far this year. Next month Mark and I will be going to Paris for nine days! We are both really excited especially because neither of us have ever been there. I will be sure to post about that trip when we get back.
P.S. Buckley and turtle say hi!
Posted in: Blog, Personal, Work
After years of begging Mark for a dog we FINALLY got one this weekend. We had started seriously looking last month. We decided we wanted to get a dachshund (aka wiener dog) and wanted to rescue a dog rather then go through a breeder. I had come across the Dachshund Rescue of North America’s website and decided to apply.
The application process was pretty lengthy. First we had to fill out an application, which asked for 3 references as well as different types of scenario questions. Once the application was approved a home visit was conducted. After all that we were approved to adopt Smokey, a one year old healthy, energetic boy who came from a great family but was surrendered to the DRNA because his human mom was allergic to him.
We’ve renamed him Buckley (after Buckley Field – the first place Mark and I met). He is the most perfect dog (and of course adorable). He is already potty trained, hardly ever barks, loves to play as well as snuggle!
Going through the DRNA was the best decision we could have made. Everyone is so nice and more then willing to answer any questions we had. It is obvious that they have the dogs’ best interest in mind. They are a great resource and I would highly recommend going through their organization if you are considering adopting a doxie.
Posted in: Blog, Personal
This weekend, Mark and I ventured to Vancouver, Canada. My thesis was accepted as a paper presentation in the one day SAME Workshop (Semantic Ambient Media Experience) a part of the ACM Multimedia Conference. The workshop was set up a little differently as the focus wasn’t on presentations of the papers, but more so discussion of ambient media – I found it to be a pretty interesting day. Once the workshop was over, Mark and I spent the rest of the weekend exploring Vancouver. Check out the pics on flickr!
Posted in: Blog, Personal, Thesis
This past weekend we adopted a baby turtle we named Puddles from “The Turtle Man” outside Wendy’s on 15th and Chestnut. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into- I thought raising a turtle was as simple as raising a fish. Boy was I wrong…
Puddles cost 10 bucks and came in a little plastic container with a plastic palm tree (which I learned later through this site is illegal). We decided to go to Petco to get him a bigger tank (you know like a 10 gallon or something). When we got to the store the employee showed us the tank we would need- It was a 20L tank (about 3 feet long x 1 foot deep)! On top of the tank, we also had to buy a special light! When everything was said and done, we ended up spending $200 for a turtle that only cost $10.
We were a little overwhelmed by everything- where the hell were we going to put this giant tank we just bought in our tiny apartment? We drove home, set everything up, and introduced Puddles to his new home. He seemed to be a lot happier (probably because we were raising him correctly now).
Despite the initial shock of it all, we’ve really taken to Puddles. I know I’m his mom and all, but I most say, he’s the cutest thing on four legs! Mark even set up a webcam for us to watch his every move!!
Posted in: Blog, Personal
