Bungee Jumping in New Zealand

My friend Galen is traveling in New Zealand right now and posted a video on YouTube (see below) of him bungee jumping off the Kawarau Bridge in Queenstown, New Zealand. I wanted to spread the video for Galen because it's a cool video, but it also brings back memories of nearly 6 years ago when I was studying in New Zealand for a semester and jumped off the very same bridge. Proof of this feat is below. For those of my college friends who consistently remind me that in spending a semester abroad I missed "the greatest semester ever," here is yet more proof that maybe they missed out too.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince trailer

The teaser trailer for Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince hit the Internet today. I'm very excited... If you want to view full HD versions, go here.

Adobe Education Leaders

Last week was the Adobe Education Leaders summer institute. We hosted about 75 educators from all over the United States, plus the UK, Germany, Austria, New Zealand, and Australia. These educators are a mix of K-12 teachers, administrators, technology coordinators, and e-learning specialists. But, they all love Adobe products and work to both spread the word about our products within the education community and help us better understand what the K-12 community needs in terms of educational technology solutions.

The AELs spent three full days hearing our plans for the coming year, learning about new products coming out, getting some professional development on how to use our products, and sharing what they have been doing in their classrooms and school districts. It was really neat to hear how these educators are using our products and it gave us lots of ideas of how to help them better and provided some overarching motivation for me. It's always nice to know that what you're doing is actually helpful to some people. 

During the week, we had a bunch of social events, including dinner at Medjool and a night on a dinner cruise around the San Francisco Bay (see the picture above).  

Apartment pictures

I have yet to share pictures of my new apartment, even though I have now been living there for 3 months. So, here are pictures of the living room, bedroom, and kitchen. There is also a square shaped entryway between these three rooms, three ginormous closets, and of course, a bathroom.

Flight of the Conchords

Many of you may have already seen the HBO show Flight of the Conchords, which I find to be kind of weird and not terribly funny. 

But, my brother showed me the video below on YouTube, which is from a Flight of the Conchords concert. Check it out - it's hilarious!

Vacation and July 4th Fireworks

I'm not going to apologize for being a silent blogger as of late, since I was on vacation for the last 10 days and while I don't consider blogging to be work, it's nice to disconnect for a while and not feel the pull of the computer. 

I traveled back East to Pennsylvania for a week for an annual family reunion at my family's lake house in Northeastern PA, near Scranton. Many of you may only know of Scranton as the setting for The Office and I assure you that, as the show clearly displays, there is very little reason to visit. But, my family's lake house is up in the mountains, about 45 minutes from Scranton, and happens to be one of my favorite places on earth - it always offers deep relaxation and good times.

     

July 4th at Crystal Lake is always an especially good time, because the whole lake is abuzz with excitement over the holiday - extended families visit, parties are thrown, kids are running around everywhere, and fireworks are set off. For our family, this weekend means gathering parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins for the weekend. We always eat well (perhaps too well), play lots of yard games (bocce, bocce golf, cornhole, croquet, etc), usually get out for a round of golf or two, and enjoy sitting on the dock by the water and just relaxing. This year was a bit different, because we are in the midst of building a new boathouse and dock, so we spent a lot of time watching the construction progress and less time sitting on the dock. But, the new boathouse deck overlooking the water was completed in time for the weekend and we enjoyed taking advantage of it. 

    

The fireworks display on Friday night was pretty amazing. My neighbor Scott and my brother Ben had bought a ton of fireworks in Maryland and South Carolina, respectively. The pictures in this post are all from the fireworks display - it was impressive.