weekend wrap-up...

FYI: November is "National Blog Posting Month" (aka: Nablopomo), so the goal is to post 30 posts in 30 days... Obviously I'm a little behind, but I'll start off from here :) Another sidenote: I didn't take any pictures this weekend, so the post won't be as fun. Hopefully we'll all still make it through :)

On Friday night, for Halloween we went to the Rea's house to give candy to little kids (since they're the only ones with a house in our group of friends!) Kekoa grilled hamburgers, and Kristin made home-made onion rings...so good! Surprisingly, they didn't have a lot of trick-or-treaters, so we just sat around and hung out all night. The girls sat inside and chatted while the boys went outside and smoked cigars. It was a super fun night.

On Saturday, I decided to sleep in, and then lay in bed and watch Pride & Prejudice with the dog all morning and early afternoon. It was complete bliss. That's definitely one of those movies that I can only watch by myself because Ryan would probably die if he had to sit through three hours of that. But I looooove that movie! Later that afternoon, I met up with mom for some much-needed pedicures at our favorite place. Then we walked over to Jason's Deli and sat and talked for a while. Such good quality time! That night, Ryan and I went on a hot date to none other than Cheesecake Factory. We both decided to step out of our comfort zones and try new flavors of cheesecake since we always stick to the same ones every time. Ryan got a caramel turtle one, and I got the brownie sundae one... yeah... we'll be going back to our classic staples (chocolate chip cookie dough for the boy and chocolate mousse for me). At least we tried!

On Sunday, we went to church and then ate lunch with Jared and Kendra who are back from their honeymoon! We sat and chatted at McAllisters for a good while and then went back home to relax. Ryan and I started watching the Cowboys game, but I got too depressed and started cleaning the house. After the tragic game, we decided to make eggs and bacon for dinner...and it was amazing! I also made red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese icing for my coworkers since I won't be around much longer. I have to make sure they miss me!! :)

This week is pretty laid back, and I'm hoping to have time to work out some! Remember to pray for our Country with the election happening... God has a plan!

The Highs and Lows of EuMW 2008


Managing Editor, Keith Moore rides the train back to Schiphol Airport

I imagine most US attendees to EuMW 08 left on Friday unless they were going sightseeing after the show. The MWJ crew left early Friday morning, while several Horizon House staff members stayed behind to address lingering show duties. Thursday night was a last chance to take in this wonderful host city and sample some of its world cuisine. After eating Indonesian, traditional Dutch, and Thai earlier in the week, we settled on one of the many Argentenia restaurants downtown for our final supper in Amsterdam. I must admit it was quite a good steak.


Hey - look its a horsey. Hmmm - Ever wonder what kind of steaks they were serving at the El Rancho?

Some highlights from the Show:

I saw some very impressive demos from the T&M sector: Agilent with their PNA-X and multiple demos (I like the new IMD measurement system), Anritsu's medium priced fast-switching frequency synthesizer, R&S's mm-wave converter bringing their VNA up to 325 GHz, Keithley's SignalMeister and Tektronix's SignalVu. Lots of new RFIC/MMIC devices from Integrated Device Manufacturer's such as Skyworks, Analog Devices, Mimix, TriQuint, Hittite, and others. Time spent talking to HVVi Semiconductor about their new high voltage power devices, David Hall at National Instrument's always has an interesting demo (multi-protocol test system), meeting Joe Thomas, VP at M/A-Com Technology Solutions. All the major and minor EDA vendors were on hand as were all the major foundries (TriQuint, Win, Ommic, UMS).

The lows - rainy, cold weather, dinner at the "Vermont" restaurant and the rather loud public announcement system. Other than that, I can't really complain.

Where can we get a hot bowl of Cream of Mushroom soup in this town?

The Online Show will wrap-up with our final word on the exhibition and conference as well as product wrap-up and pick of the papers.