Since my last post, I've had the opportunity to see 2 more amazing performances at Benaroya Hall: Lang Lang and Anne-Sophie Mutter. Both were totally amazing, but I have to say, Lang Lang totally blew me away. It was my first time watching him play and he is absolutely outstanding. He plays the piano with such finesse and ease, and his command of difficult passages is mind blowing. One interesting aspect of this performance is that there were about 3 rows of audience seats on the stage -- I'd never seen that in all my years of attending the Seattle Symphony! I wonder how the sound carries sitting on the stage. He returns this Fall playing a concert mostly of Chopin---definitely getting tickets to that!

With the lack of much television lately, in addition to watching our Netflix movies more often, I've been getting into Battlestar Gallactica. Now, many would say I'm doing it a disgrace by jumping right into Season 3 and getting the briefing from Matt on the first 2 seasons....but that's a lot of hours of television!

Also been trying to work out a lot more as I've had a crazy weight gain in the last 6 months. This week was okay though I made up for it on the weekend:
Monday - 45 minutes of the Crunch Pilates-Yoga workout. Harder than I expected.
Thursday - 30 minutes of interval running
Saturday - 25 min. of strength training. 30 min of cardio
Sunday - 25 min. of strength training. 20 min of cardio
I've started clipping out workouts in magazines, stapling them together and carrying it to the gym with me. Surprisingly, it's helped a lot in disciplining me and guiding me through a good workout. Generally, I know how to use the machines but I don't really approach the workouts with any structure. I'm currently using Shape Magazine's Month 3 Bikini-Body Countdown workout--it's a pretty good one! I didn't realize they have other workouts in this category -- will have to try those out too.

my day

Went to REI today to use up my dividend (a whopping $30) and coupon---as we're going to Iceland this summer, I wanted to get some light hiking shoes and convertible pants that could turn into capris. I bought a nice pair of Keen Voyageurs.

As a last minute splurge, Matt and I decided to have a fancy steak dinner at the recently opened Capital Grille here in Seattle. We'd only been to the one in Kansas City on the Plaza and know that the steaks are awesome. Boy, our dinner here in Seattle was phenomenal -- watch out El Gaucho! The service was fabulous and the food was cooked to perfection. I started with a lobster & dungeness crab cake followed by a 10 oz. of filet mignon with a side of lobster mac & cheese. It was rather indulgent ... and immediately caused me to go into food coma, which was bad considering I was about to head to the symphony. But man, we definitely recommend dinner here. Great experience.

Symphony was rather timely considering it's Easter weekend -- a performance of Bach's Mass in B Minor featuring the Seattle Symphony Chorale. I realized mid-way through the performance that I recognized a tenor in the Chorale, a fellow Microsoft PM that I actually met many years ago through salsa dancing. It got me wondering what the time commitment is to be part of the Chorale and how difficult it is to audition and get in. I did say many years ago that I wanted to try out for the Chorale, but I always chickened out and never followed through. Hmmm...perhaps this year.

After the Symphony, we went back home to Capitol Hill and walked over to Quinn's to join in on a going away get together for Gabe, who's leaving for the next 5 months to work in Beijing. Fun times.

Now time to sleep.

weekend wrapup

I have to admit--it's quite hard remembering to keep up this blog between all the status updates on Facebook and dots on Faves so apologies for the delays between posts.

Over the weekend, we attended the Make A Wish Foundation Gala & Auction night at the Westin which was super fun. Until now, the only auction I'd ever attended was the Emerald City Swank for Seattle Works--an event I've attended for the last 4 years or so. Suffice it to say, this was far more elaborate than the Swank with tables costing $2,000 and live auction items ranging from a trip to Cabo to a Labradoodle puppy! (which was quite cute) It definitely gave me thought as to whether or not I'd want to go back to the Swank, knowing the type of causes out there where I can be charitable to instead. That said, I still stand by the Swank---why? Much of the target audience for the Swank are people in their 20's and 30's who've never been to an auction or thought about giving towards charity. Events like it break the myth that all auctions are black-tie formal with a bunch of stuffy older people. Ultimately, if what they do in the end is get people to go out and participate in the community more, then they've been successful.

In any case, here's a photo of some of the girls that attended the event -- more pictures here.

"That" client

Man, I feel bad right now. I decided to try getting my haircut at the salon around the corner since it's close by. I mainly wanted to get a trim, nothing fancy, pretty straight-forward. The shape of the haircut already predefined-just a trim. Now, I've got the infamous "Posh" haircut, or the inverted bob where the back of my hair is shorter than the front, and it's a dramatic line. Well, haircut over, in the front it looked good, I was happy. Then I went home and realized that the back of my hair really wasn't cut as short as I wanted--and my funky haircut went from being an inverted bob to being a regular bob. I called the salon and asked if I could come back and get it trimmed the way I wanted. They told me to swing back by and I did. He trimmed it a bit more but not quite with the "dramatic" angle I wanted. I became "that" client that came back after the haircut. I don't know how common that is, but I feel bad for doing that. That said, I should get the haircut I want, right?

In other news--well: busy at work, still doing Pilates (which I love), finished our taxes and bought tickets to check out the Swell Season at the Moore in April (of Once fame) Yay.

updates

Interesting...well, that YouTube video of our wedding from endless love productions has been taken down. I contacted my videographer and he asked them to take it down. Funny, that was fast.

And I did find a buyer for the HD DVD player! I actually had an initial buyer who backed---get this, because he already had a Blu-Ray player and didn't think it was necessary to have 2. Duh! I had a 2nd guy who was interested but didn't realize he needed an XBox in order to use it. Man, craigslist is full of idiots. Anyhow, I hope my current buyer doesn't back out--we've agreed on a price and now it's a matter of just meeting up.

On travel news, we finally bought tickets to.....ICELAND!!! This is a trip that we've been talking to our friends, Debbie & Saevar, about for awhile. Saevar himself is Icelandic so not only do we have a place to stay but also fabulous tour guides. Coincidentally, it'll be around our 1st year wedding anniversary...so happy anniversary to us!

endless productions?

In searching for "matt and audrey" on YouTube, I came across a wedding highlight montage of our wedding...but not from our videographer! It's by Jeremy Almeda and "Endless Productions" and looks slightly different from what we finally received from our videographer. WTF? I'm confused. If anything, there's a *teensy* bit of coverage here that I've never seen, so that's cool...but still....isn't there a creative rights ownership issue here?

After having it for only a couple months, I'm now trying to sell my XBox 360 HD DVD player + some movies and hoping some idiot out there is unaware of the death of HD DVD, thinking they're getting a fabulous deal on a player. (hence, the price I'm hoping to get for it---also, partly based on the fact that there are others selling it for the same, if not higher, price) We'll see what happens. I knew the format war was over, but I was hoping to squeeze more life out of my player with my Netflix account.....until I got this e-mail today:

We're Going Blu-ray Dear Audrey, You're receiving this email because you have asked to receive high-definition movies in the HD DVD format. As you may have heard, most of the major movie studios have recently decided to release their high-definition movies exclusively in the Blu-ray format. In order to provide the best selection of high-definition titles for our members, we have decided to go exclusively with Blu-ray as well. While we will continue to make our current selection of HD DVD titles available to you for the next several months, we will not be adding additional HD DVD titles or reordering replacements. Toward the end of February, HD DVDs in your Saved Queue will automatically be changed to standard definition DVDs. Then toward the end of this year, all HD DVDs in your Queue will be changed to standard definition DVDs. Don't worry, we will contact you before this happens.

Well, that about did it, screw that. Time to sell. Cross my fingers that this works. And damn, I really liked having Knocked Up and Children of Men. Oh well. I'd turn around and get a Blu-Ray player but they're too freakin' expensive right now. I guess I'll have to wait til the pricing for those go down....

Weekend was fun -- went to the symphony Saturday evening where we ran into Miss Amanda Darling, a fellow Smithie Lamonster who moved to Seattle a few months ago, and her boyfriend, Zack. We ended up getting drinks together after the symphony over at the Triple Door to catch up which was pretty fun. It's crazy to think that I first met Amanda 12 years ago--eeks!

Sunday night, we checked out DJ Shadow + Cut Chemist (who was also the random chemistry teacher in Juno) over at the Showbox which was awesome. Kid Koala opened for them and he was equally amazing.

And yes, I was one of thousands of Americans caucusing for the first time in their lives on Saturday. It was honestly quite interesting -- I felt like I was in one of those old 1950's movies where everyone gathers in town hall to discuss who should be the next mayor. My particular precinct caucused at the Seattle First Baptist Church around the corner along with 7 or 8 other precincts. It was insanely hot inside and pretty chaotic with so few people knowing what to do. After checking in and waiting around, they "officially" closed the caucus and started explaining all the rules while each precinct leader tallied up the votes from everyone. We then all broke out into our precincts. In my precinct, there were 95 people total -- 72 for Obama, 16 for Hillary, 5 for Kucinich, and 2 undecided. With 8 delegates, that translated into 6 Obama, 1 Hillary and 1 undecided. With the undecided delegate needing to go to one candidate, we then broke out into a totally unorganized discussion to sway the undecided over one way. I was lucky and happened to be standing right behind one of the undecided, listening in on how the Obama and Hillary supporters were trying to sway him. To be honest, if I were a judge at a debate tournament, I would've awarded the Hillary supporters as their arguments were more solid and persuasive...at least with this particular individual. In the end, I think he was swayed over to Hillary as the final tally was 75 Obama, 18 Hillary, 2 Kucinich --- so delegate-wise, that was 6 Obama and 2 Hillary. Next, came the volunteering of delegates which I watched for a bit but it wasn't too entirely exciting. I listened in on speeches from another, rather-large (160) precinct as the comments being made were more interesting....and then left. All in all, it was 2 hours out of my day on Saturday, but 2 good hours. I'm glad I caucused.