What a week!

This week has probably been one of the craziest we have had in a long time in Boston. What's going on you ask? Well, for starters both Jessica and I are going to Florida this weekend for Labor Day to go see Anja. We are both really looking forward to it! I have never been around a baby that small, I think, and babies are like crack to Jessica so you could just imagine.

Other things are happening too! This past Monday Rich was in his first car accident while traveling with Ernst and Young. No, it was not his fault, before you ask. Some kid, around 19, smacked into him while he was sitting in traffic on Interstate 90, on his way home. No one was hurt and the car only has scratches on the bumper (that we can tell) but since it's leased and since it's not his fault, why not get it fixed by the other guys insurance? After all, he'll only have to pay for it when he returns if it isn't fixed.

Yes! There's more! We took Jax to a new park this weekend (we found it on our way to the driving range last weekend). Jamaica Pond is a park around 20 minutes drive from our house that has, as you can tell by the name, a pond in the middle of it (picture below).


Everyone who knows Jax by now knows that this dog was a born swimmer. That being said, Jessica didn't think we needed his doggy life-vest since she didn't think he would go swimming around. WELL!! Take a look at these pictures. Boy oh Boy did he swim (best part was that he didn't even try to drink the water).


We couldn't keep him our of the water! There were two labs there that he was swimming along with and I think he was doing better than them. We kept throwing his stick into the pond and he'd run in and swim after it. You might be able to see that he has it in his mouth in the picture above (quality stinks but we only had our camera phones).

Anyway, after a long, long, long time swimming we had to drag him from the water to dry off. He was so cute doing it, we had to take this picture of him.


That's not all that happened this week either, can you believe it? Jessica and I took another trip, this time with her cousin, to our favorite weekend place, the beach. Yup, that's right, we went back up to Ipswich to visit Crane Beach. The day couldn't have been better, 80-85F with the perfect breeze. We spent a very relaxing day there reading and listening to other peoples conversations ;).

Can't wait to see you all in Florida soon!

It's only Tuesday and it's already a busy week!

So, Last night Jessica and I went to the Second Annual Grilling Social at Tremont 647 with Kiki and Ted. Not ones to pass up grilled food and beer, we reluctantly attended.

This restaurant has a pretty robust event calendar seen here. Last year we attended the South African Wine Tasting with Addie and Ryan, we enjoyed it so much that we plan on attending again this year, though it is a Pinot Noir night rather than a region night. In addition, it just happens to fall on Jessica's birthday this year!

What else could possibly be new you ask? Well, Jessica's work was broken into last night! Can you believe it? Yeah, just received a quick phone call from her so I don't have details but apparently people broke in and stole computers, etc. They even broke into the filing cabinets, what burglar does that!?!?! More importantly the quests that need to be answered are, was there video tape of it? Who left the door open? Don't worry, as far as I know, no one was there or hurt.

There's more?!?! Yes there is. The Promotions email went out today to all of the New England Area today. You can see it below...

Promotions People in the New England Area

Today we celebrate the achievements of many of our colleagues as we announce their promotions. This milestone in their careers signifies how much our leaders and the firm value their contributions. Each one of these individuals has special talents, knowledge, and experience that they share with all of us when we work together. They remind us that Ernst & Young is a great place to work where we can all learn and grow and move forward with our careers. They should be very proud of their accomplishments.

Congratulations to the following Area and National individuals residing in our New England Area locations being promoted effective October 1, 2005.

Senior
Richard Christenson Boston AABS-BRS


Yes, I took off everything that didn't pertain to me, just so it would fit on the blog.

Anyway, I'll try to update you all today on the status of Jessica's robbery.

Busy Day in Beantown...

Jess and I have been pretty busy today. We decided to take a road trip to a different beach than usual this weekend to check out Plum Island. This is yet another natural reserve which happens to be across the bay from one of our favorite beaches in MA, Crane Beach. While the beach was nice, it just wasn't the same as Crane. Perhaps it was the seaweed in the water or the windstorm that nearly sandblasted our legs to the bone. I'll tell you though, we were one of maybe 50 people on the beach which made for a very nice relaxing morning.

Apparently, Plum Island is a very large nature reserve dedicated to birds such as the black-throated green warbler. While we didn't see this bird, we did happen to stumble upon one of it's famous nests, a very rare find.

Jess and I even thought about giving the birds an offer on their place. To our dismay they were only interested in people without pets, damn birds.

At lunch we visited one of the many towns that dot the coast. This day we happened into Newburyport. This is a big contender of a town when we leave the city. It reminded us of Annapolis with it's brick oneway main street and botique shops. Jax was even lucky enough to get a toy from the trip!

Well, that's life in Boston, hope you all are enjoying the weekend.

Rich has some good news!

Hey all, just thought I would share the love with the family. Now I am supposed to keep a tight lid on this till tomorrow, so I hope the Partners and Managers don't look at this page....but, I'll be promoted to Senior in October, the announcements go out to the company tomorrow.

Here is a conversation I had with the Lead Partner of BRS:

Robert Fournier hi u there?
Richard Christen... Hey Bob.
Robert Fournier memo going out tomorrow to annouce promotions and I wanted to congratulate you on making senior!!!!!!!!!!!!but keep quite till announcement tomorrow!!
Richard Christen... Thank you very much, I'll be sure to keep a lid on it
Robert Fournier thx- -you deserve it- - so enjoy
Richard Christen... thanks

Florida Bound

Well, we booked plane tickets today to come down to FL for Labor Day weekend. We can't wait to see the baby and check out the progress on Steve and Zoe's house. Still debating on what to do with Jax, but we will definately be down. We are both getting in Friday at 6:45pm and I leave Monday night and Rich leaves Tuesday night. Looking forward to seeing the Floridians. Carrie, how did your appointment go today? Any new news?

A few places to visit

So, during my time surfing the web and looking at some sites, I have found some that I find to be invaluable. I'll put together a small listing now for you and add to it when I have more time.


Virtual Earth - What is this place? Well, it's Citysearch, Google, everything, all in one. In the left header, just type in the type of place you are looking for (lunch, food, etc.), in the right field, type in the city or your exact address. The program will then return all surrounding locations that match that search and plot them on the map for you. I used this program yesterday to find a subway sandwich shop near Smith and Wesson. Thanks Steve for showing us all.

AOL Web IM - Yes folks that’s right, you no longer need to install AOL IM on your computer. This is an applet that will run off IE or Foxfire that will load your buddy list and looks exactly like the downloaded version of AOL IM. This is an awesome program for those that travel and even those that might use multiple computers.

Classic 80's Arcade - This nifty site allows you to play many of the classic 80's arcade and Atari games from that decade, all with nothing loaded on your machine. As long as you have Java or Shockwave, you're good to go.

Wine Searcher - Ever have that great bottle of wine at a restaurant and couldn't find it in a store? Well this site can help locate any stores in your area that might have that bottle. It isn't 100% but this little buddy can help you from traveling to all the stores in your area.

Smack the Penguin - Yes folks, it is what it sounds like. Enjoy. Upload your best screenshot for the family to see.

Pig Latin - Everway antway otay earnlay owhay otay eakspay igpay atinlay
utbay ereway ootay afraidway otay askway? Isthay isway ethay
ogrampray orfay ouyay.

Asian Curser Farmer -Let's see what your high score is. The point of the game is to keep your curser from being nabbed by the farmer. BTW - You must keep your curser in the blue range in order to keep the score going.

Let's play a game...

Where is Rich today?

Well, pretty much everyone knows already however I figured I'd post about it so that the world knows. Today, and for the next 2 months, I'll be working at Smith and Wesson. Yes, the gun manufacturer.

Have I fired one yet? Nope not yet, however, the team will be visiting the range shortly. Infact, S&W would like all of their consultants/contractors to visit the range and test fire their weapons. Pretty amazing stuff I think. It's not like Wellman asked their people to try out a polyester shirt before working there? Did they Dad?

I was also able to get a tour of the factory. Amazingly their only production plant for handguns is right here in Springfield MA. We later found out that this was for security reasons, since they are producing handguns. That’s another thing. They make handguns and handguns only, no shotguns or rifles. Granted, the bullets that some of these 'handguns' fire are larger than many rifle bullets but I found it amazing that a company can focus on such a niche market.

Well, that’s about all for right now since I need to work, just thought you all might like to know alittle bit about what where I was and what I was doing. Oh and by-the-way, I need to go through metal detectors whenever I go into the office or leave the office. Every morning I'm taking my keys out, my watch off, my belt off, etc just to get into work.

Oh, PS, if you haven't heard yet, Mom and Dad got a boat. Hopefully they will post about it themselves, however, if you haven't seen it, here is a link. Atleast I think they got the 31 and not the 32, Carrie confused me last night when she said they got a 32 footer. in addition, I think the interior is alittle differen't than pictured, I thought Mom and Dad said the color was alittle less blue.