Happy Halloween

Below are some pictures I took on my walk through the picturesque Lone Fir Cemetery this morning. After seeing all the old growth trees full of fall colors, I've sort of fallen in love with this place...

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A perfect tree

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Love these shadows

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A smattering of color underfoot

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On fire

Fall Rock Climbing

Saturday was a beautiful, crisp fall day here in Portland. It was also amazingly without rain. As such, my friends and I took this opportunity to get in what may be the last outdoor climbing day of the year.

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Heather taking a timeout to smile

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Chilling out on a ledge & planning out my next moves before climbing the rest of the way up

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Elliot's impressive finger move as he gives it his all trying to get up his challenging 5.11 route

Team Event in Denmark

A few weeks ago, I found myself back in DK for the second time this year. This time I was there to join in on a weeklong team event with my awesome colleagues from around the world. With 2 Americans, 1 German, 2 Chinese, 1 Spaniard, 1 Ghanaian and about 20 Danes (only 2 women in total), we spent the week in a town called Vejle attending meetings and working on our IT issues together. However, it wasn't "all work and no play". Our manager had quite the surprise for us. On Thursday, a bus picked us up and took us to an old military base where all in 1 day, we drove ATV's, rode in and steered a helicopter and sat shotgun in a corvette with a professional driver going speeds of 220 km/hour and doing 360's! It was a grand day of adrenaline and some of the Danes were even equating it to the best day of their whole lives. Adrenaline aside, it truly was an amazing week. We covered a lot of topics but more importantly, we bonded allowing for better teamwork and the ability to put faces with names we typically only see over email or IM.

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Beautiful Copenhagen
I spent a night here on my way to and from the team event

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View of the fjord from my room in Vejle

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Lined up and ready to go on our ATV's

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Kofi, with his easy manner and ever present laugh, after flipping his ATV

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Being taken for a ride more fun than a roller coaster

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A Systems Administrator? Or Denmark's top spy?

The Death of an Uncle

He taught me to play backgammon
he taught me to read maps
and
he taught me how to use a laptop.

We hiked
we kayaked
we danced
we fished
we ate crab
and
we theorized.

He was fun
he was a listener
and
he was patient.

He was my Uncle Stan.