A little about hubby

This is my favorite picture of hubby. He's standing in front of the sign that says "Except Federal Police." For those that don't know, law enforcement in Belgium is integrated and encompasses both the Federal and Local levels. And because of that, he was required go through military training in order to become a national police officer.

So how did he make the transition into computers? The police department was in the process of getting "computerized" and were looking to recruit a few people with a strong background in math and logic. About 40 some odd freshly minted police officers raised their hand, to include Vince.

In order to weed out the vast majority, a one-on-one interview was conducted. Here the group of 40 dwindled to half. The remaining 20 then had to take a series of tests which were not always obvious. This is when it became apparent who really had a very strong math and logic background. And not just common logic, but reverse logic for example like figuring out days in a backwards week :o/ Vince was in the top 3 and from there was able to pursue the world of informatics that suited his personality and strengths perfectly.

So from programming to mainframes to networking to data storage, it has been a field he enjoys a lot. Currently, he works for a major data storage company as a Sr. Solutions Architect, designing solutions for major corporations that have petabytes of data.

Happy Labor Day

Yes, fall is my favorite season; however, I'm not quite ready for it this year.  Summer just flew by especially with all the rain and cooler weather that fell upon us almost daily in May and June. 

Here is a  picture of a mammoth sunflower I planted in June.  Now if I can just have a whole backyard of these sunflowers and other wildflowers.  Instead we'll probably end up having a golf course behind us...lol.  BTW, that sunflower is taller than Soph.

Soph really likes Kindergarten and likes her teacher, Mrs. Westover, a lot.  Heck, I even like Mrs. Westover.  She's a very nice, soft spoken, but stern teacher placing a lot of emphasis on reading.  Based on previous experience, she has seen great strides amongst kids reading abilities when parents read to their child every day versus the ones that didn't.  I read to Soph every night, if not several times throughout the day.  For every 10 mins of reading, Soph colors in an apple for each day during the month of September.  Once all the apples are colored in, she can hand in her "colored apples" to her teacher.  This is an on-going assignment until the end of school.

Mrs. Westover's way of discipline is something I never heard of; she uses the marble method.  She said when kids hear that marble drop in the jar...uh, oh.... it's a sound kids don't like to hear.  They know they better shape-up, wise-up, otherwise parents will be receiving a phone call.  Soph's a pretty well-behaved child and very mature for her age, so I'm not too worried about it.  

She looks forward to school every day and wishes she could go even on the weekends.  I can already see she is very interested in how everything works, including the human body.  She saw a human body model at Barnes and Noble and immediately wanted it....NOT the barbie dolls, not anything one might think a 5 year old little girl would be interested in.  From the time she was a baby, I can recall she showed definite preferences and was quite willful.  She knows what she likes and what she doesn't and is still quite willful even to this day.  However, she isn't very noisy about expressing her wants unless she wants it badly.  So I broke down and got her the model human body even though it was geared for 8+ year olds.  She absolutely luvs it!    

If I had to point out one of Soph's strengths, it would definitely have to be her knack to memorize.  She has excellent memory, memorizing all her favorite shows, commercials, books, etc.  I find it quite humorous and amazing.

Hubby is home for this long weekend laboring around the house and work as usual.  He's also enjoying his new car we got a couple of weeks ago.  It's a beautiful bluish, gray sedan that has a lot of cool features.  We had our car search narrowed down to one of three Mini JCW's and an R32.......BUT....... I received in the mail an outstanding, smokin', sweet deal for the BMW 328 iX. ....almost too good to be true....so, we thought....surprise, surprise!!  Even though the BMW is more expensive than my Tiguan, payment wise it's cheaper than my Tiguan (same terms and all).  I'm beginning to believe my.....ahh, never mind :o)

Enjoy your long Labor Day weekend!

Life's Little Tiny Surprises, Part 2

What a great start for a Monday morning.  My hubby received a very nice recognition letter and then some from the President of his company.  I guess all that mental power and discipline paid off during his last residency.

Favorite "Local" Places in Phoenix

A couple of weeks ago, Vincent's contract ended at ABC (for now). At the same time a new deal was sealed with XYZ in Arizona for the next 6 months. It isn't too bad, it's only for a few days a week.

Actually, one day I wouldn't mind returning to AZ to see a couple of my friends and Sophie's friends, visit one of my favorite health and nutrition store in N. Scottsdale, New Vision, and eat at a couple of our favorite restaurants like Zinc Bistro in Scottsdale and Trente-Cinq 35 in Phoenix.

Trente-Cinq is the only Belgian restaurant I'm aware of in the U.S. And of all places Chef Lionel wanted to have his restaurant by the time he turned 35 in Phoenix. We tried to convince him to move to Utah, but to no avail. He is truly an amazing and brilliant chef, preparing well-known Belgian cuisines that make your mouth water. We always enjoyed talking to him while he cooked our food. I never understood how he was able to juggle his visits with us and with the other patrons (more high-profile than us, like the Belgian Consulate) while preparing our food. I looked to see if he had a sous-chef or someone else helping out in the kitchen and there was no one. I guess that's a sign of great chef. To this day it still boggles my mind, especially because the food was always perfect in every way, in presentation, taste, portion size, leaving you completely sated and happy.

Spring Snow

Sheesh!  It snowed pretty much all day today and we're expected to get more of the white powdery stuff this Thursday.   As Vince would mockingly say "gotta love it."  So, as I'm shoveling the snow for the umpteenth time, I'm thinking to myself, "how is it that Vince always travels on the days it snows here?"  So not fair.  Well, the bright side, I get quite a workout and it's free.   

P.S.  If it snows when Vince is traveling in June, then I'll know something is up.

Who Believes In Ghosts

Past Monday, my husband encountered two unexplainable aberrations, both occurring within a couple of hours of one another in his office.  When he was telling me about it, I must admit it kind of freaked me out, especially if you know my husband who is extremely logical, analytical, intuitive and of course highly intelligent.......AND very technically advanced.  For some reason his iPhone did not ring, but there was a voicemail.  One might conclude, yes, he just didn't hear the phone ring.  True, but when he checked to see who called, there were no missed calls, only a voicemail.  Has this ever happened to anyone???  

The other was with his laptop.  When he stepped away from his laptop, he always locks it while away per his company's security protocol.  An hour and half later, when he went to unlock the computer, it had been totally shut down as if someone had pressed the power switch.  When he turned his laptop back on again, it started back up as if nothing happened.  Usually if something is shut down without properly closing all applications, I believe you get a message that indicates that the computer was not shut down properly.  This was not the case.  Like I said, it started as if nothing happened.  To me this is pretty eerie.  I wonder if this "ghost" was playing with Vincent's feet (a Belgian expression).  Who knows, we'll never know I suppose.  It's easier to blame it on the ghost for now.