I flew to San Jose last weekend to attend a laptop crop AT Adobe HQ!

I was part of 2 small focus groups that got to meet with some product managers who work on Photoshop! We got to go in *THE* room where Photoshop is discussed! We got to talk with them about things we as digital scrapbookers would like to see in future versions of Photoshop! HOW COOL IS THAT?????

We walked in a bridge connecting 2 of the Adobe buildings and this is the view from the bridge looking down at the entrance of the building.

Basketball court for the Adobe employees

Rene, Amanda, and Meg livening up the crop with an impromptu rendition of “Dancing Queen”.

The croppers enjoying their show!

My computer and junk!

Scrappers hard at work!

Hand dryer in the bathroom. Only a scrapper would actually take a picture of this!

Crop attendees group picture

Cool picture of all of the crop attendees standing outside of the Adobe building. Lauren put this really cool picture together!

DSP team members at Adobe!

Ok…before I get *REALLY* behind on the blog I better get these pictures up!

Ryan is hitting the bottle early!

Drew was mad at me for some reason….but he didn’t stay mad long!

(I think he was saying “Hey mama, dont take my picture”)

I must have said something funny!

This is his cheesy grin face!

Drew sucking on one his “night-nights” and Ryan trying to get in the basket with him. Just seconds before Ryan pushed Drew across the tile from the laundry room!

We were outside waiting for the space station to flly overhead. Drew is wearing his new Thomas jammies!

Ok…that’s all for now.

yes…he made toast. Or something that resembles toast:

Here is a project that my mom helped me with for Drew’s room. We used her Klick-N-Kut to cut out all of the train shapes and I used a digital scrap kit for the sun and clouds. I think this turned out adorable!

There is not many but I got some pics of the kids with my niece.

Drew is wearing his jammies, swim goggles, and Peter’s socks that are rolled up. Yes- he is a dork!

Hi, Peter here again.

A couple weeks ago I travelled to Germany for work (I was teaching a class to some HP employees there). Most of the week I didn’t have a car and I was busy working anyhow, but I did take a few pictures to share, mostly from the first day I was there. As always, click on the picture to see a higher-resolution version.

Enjoy!

Here was a small town southwest of Frankfurt. I was struck by the mixture of old (architecture, church) and new (wind turbines). There were wind turbines everywhere. I believe (but am not sure) that Germany and France both get their power 100% from nuclear and wind sources. Also near the town was a vinyard (lots of those in this area) and in the distance you can see the bridge/viaduct of the Autobahn I was taking.

Speaking of the Autobahn, here is proof of about how fast I was able to sustain:

(That’s about 115 miles an hour. The BMW I was in didn’t feel like it could go much faster than that. And it was starting to get a little faster than just about all the other drivers at that point.)

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Since I had a car for the day, I drove to Baumholder “on the way” from Frankfurt to Stuttgart. (I also drove past Ramstein Air Base – literally a couple hundred feet under a C-17 Globemaster III coming in for landing.) I went to visit a “family business:”

This is the Bier Blacksmith. The translation on the plaque loosely reads:

Historical Bier (Hoof and Wagon?) Blacksmith / Built in 1840 by Carl Bier. Passed in 1870 to son Christian, then in 1902 to grandson Karl and in 1937 to great-grandson Karl. / After 133 years, the fully functional (master and?) family business was closed in 1973. / “Westrich” Homeland Society
(If someone can help me with the translation, let me know.) I don’t know if this is my great-great-great grandfather or not (I think not…my mom will know).

Carl’s house was across the street:

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Most of my trip was in and around Stuttgart, which is a nice enough city (all of Germany is pretty nice, neat and clean) but not much of a touristy town. It is the home of Mercedes, Porche, IBM and HP among others, though. Here’s a picture of the train station. (Note the Mercedes logo on the clock tower)

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Finally, a first for me – on the way home from Frankfurt we were bussed out to the plane and loaded out on the tarmac. I had walked to small commuter planes before but never something this size (comparable to a 777):

(Watch that engine intake! At least the stairs were covered – but it wasn’t raining that day anyhow.)

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Finally, on the trip home we paced another plane for a good hour over the Atlantic, very slowly overtaking it. This was a picture out my window somewhere between Ireland and Greenland:

That’s all! Thanks!