Settling In

It’s been two weeks since we opened our office and things are looking good. We are able to draw a clearly defined line between work and home, which is a new thing. It’s a great thing. So far, we’ve taken our two weekends off to catch up on sleep, since we’ve been so busy working on getting set up. I think it will only get easier as time goes on. Sadly, we don’t visit the pool as often as we had been, but now it’s a treat to be able to go on the weekends. But I’ll trade pool time for the chance to stop the phones from ringing and to unchain Sam from his computer anytime. Our clients are adjusting (some are proving to be less adaptable, shall we say?), and I am confident that after another couple of weeks, they will realize that this is our schedule now. So, no, we will not be answering your calls at 11pm on a Sunday. Clearly. Actually, we fired the one client who did this on a regular basis and are now working with all pretty darn good people. We will be redoing the consulting website, as Sam designed a new logo for our business cards. I’m looking forward to building a brand that will become recognizable with our name.

In other news, Sam turned 26 this past Saturday. We had a great day of relaxing, good food and a great baseball game with Rachel, Austin & the kids. The Isotopes played a great game which was followed up by a spectacular fireworks show.  Oh, and I made a carrot cake for Sam–and while it’s true the frosting did sort of melt off in the heat, it still tasted pretty good. There are no pictures of that cake to post on purpose. It was nice to spend some time with family. I think it’s too easy to get wrapped up in our own little lives and we forget to make time for things like that.

We are busy trying to flesh out our trip to Rockford in the Fall. My friend, Elaine, had her first baby and I can’t wait to meet him, and see her too, of course. I’ll see my Dad & Stepmom, my grandparents and various friends, and I’m excited. We will be driving, as we learned recently that driving will only cost us roughly $150 in gas (in our Pruis) as opposed to several hundred dollars in airfare and renting a car. And don’t worry–for Sam’s birthday, I bought him extender rails for his seat in the Prius, so he can drive comfortably.

That’s all from us right now. Hope everyone who reads this is enjoying life!

Hotchkiss Consulting News!!

Hey everyone! I just wanted to write a quick note to share with everyone the exciting news! We have moved our web development company out of our guest bedroom and into an office space in downtown Albuquerque. We are on the 6th/top floor of the historic Sunshine Building, which was Albuquerque’s first “sky scraper”. In addition to the new office space, we have hired another developer to work with us. His name is Adam Hurd, and after his first week with us, it is safe to say that he has already proven himself to be a valuable addition to our team. We are very excited to build our business and believe that this was the next step in our path to taking over the world! Ok, the coding world. Ok, we’ll settle for our corner…but still!! We emailed out a newsletter to everyone, and so if you are reading this, and didn’t get the email, shoot us an email and we’ll add you. We don’t plan to send them too often, so it won’t be bothersome. See some pics below!

Love to you all!

Becky & Sam

Boston, Greenwich, NYC

We recently went on a business trip to Boston, MA, where Sam made some good contacts for Call2Test (check

Our hotel in Boston, Newbury Guesthouse

out their website: call2test.com) and I got to see some of the Boston area. It’s a great city, although it was pretty humid! Coming from the dry, arid climate of Albuquerque, and Durango before that, this midwestern girl had forgotten just what humidity is. Stepping out of Logan Airport was an immediate crash course in humidity. We learned later that it was a particularly humid week, most everyone was commenting on how extreme the humidity was. We stayed at a quaint guesthouse in the Back Bay on Newbury Street. It had a French Bistro in the bottom level where we would eat our breakfasts. There are an abundance of eclectic shops lining the street, which was bustling with businessmen & women, students and tourists. Every sidewalk cafe was packed each day of the week, save Sunday, when I assume the life of Newbury Street is cozily tucked away at home until late afternoon.

Part of the Prudential Center, on Boyleston

Sam’s conference was at the Prudential Center, which was a short 2.5 blocks away, a quick, enjoyable walk from our hotel. The Prudential Center is a huge conference building that also has 2 hotels connected, stores, restaurants, it covers what looked like to me to be a whole city block. It even had walkways to connect buildings over the busy streets. Sam was attending the National Association of Drug Court Professionals, where he and his partn

Creepy (although tasty!) lobster

er were mingling with and meeting prospective clients. I don’t want to say too much, but all went well, and all in all I would call it a very productive and worthwhile trip.

On some of Sam’s downtime, we had dinner at Legal Seafood, where I ordered my first lobster. To be clear, I’ve eaten lobster before, but have never ordered it for myself. It turns out that while I really like the taste of lobster, I don’t have the stomach for preparing it to eat, all the cracking and ripping, all the while the lobster’s beady little eyes are fixed on me in a stony gaze. It was a tasty dinner, but I will admit that Sam had to do most of the dirty work for me. A little too much eyes and antennae for me! See the picture for yourselves, you’ll see what I’m talking about!

Molly, our trusty transportation.

We also had time to take a Duck tour, which was cool because we got to hit a lot of the highlights of the city, with a guided tour, and I’ll have to say, our “conDUCKtor” was classy with a capital C! Our steed, in all her shiny brown glory was named ‘Molly Molasses’. Molly took us through the

Our tour guide, Disco Dave---favorite quote "Good times!"

Back Bay, to Boston Common, past the Boston Public Library and Bunker Hill Monument. We passed Copley Square and Faneuil Hall also known as “The Cradle of Liberty”. We saw TD Garden, where the Celtics play (Go Celts!) and then we rolled right into Charles River to view the city from the waterway. It was an informative and interesting tour. We even got to see where our forefathers first read the Constitution. We saw the apartment that President Kennedy grew up in, and even saw a 250 gallon steaming teapot. Needless to say, Boston is a city rich with history and I really enjoyed learning more about it. I’d like to go back soon and spend more time walking around the city, and taking the T, the public transportation system that is surprisingly easy to understand. Almost as easy as the London Tube.

Me, Sam & Aunt Anne at Centro in Greenwich

After our time in Boston was over, we took the train to Greenwich, CT, to visit Granny, Grandfather,  Aunt Anne & we even had the pleasant surprise of briefly seeing Aunt Polly, too. We stayed at the Stanton House again, and had a lovely room overlooking the patio and pool. Again, we laughed at the silly rules in the ‘Stanton House Handbook’ , one of which is “Red wine is unforgiving, and so are we.” I can understand why they have such strict rules, though, because the rooms are in very good condition, and I enjoy the cleanliness and quality of it, and want to keep it that way for future visits. I imagine, though, that they keep a file on every person who

Our room at the Stanton House in Greenwich

boards there, something similar to a report card and you have to keep your grade above a B+ in order to stay there again. Or maybe they use the 3 strikes system. Whatever it may be, it had me double checking the room before checkout to ensure our ability to stay there again! It’s quiet and lovely and to spend a week in Greenwich with family would be heaven. I hope we’ll be able to make a longer trip there someday very soon, I always feel like the short times we spend there just blast past in a blur. We were also able to take a trip to Darien to see Jody, Kris, Leah, Graham and I had the chance to meet Sophie for the first time, which was a pleasure. Thank you to everyone who invited us over and made us feel so welcome. It’s always so nice to see everyone, it really makes me wish we lived closer to them. Before we left town, we had lunch at Centro with Anne, Grandfather’s favorite restaurant. It was rather tasty and had a great atmosphere. I finally know what Centro is all about!

Me & Sam at Back Bay Station on the way to Greenwich

The last leg of our trip was a less than 24 hour jaunt in NYC. By the time we got there, we were exhausted. We had dinner in our hotel room, went to bed early and got some much needed rest. Our flight was in the afternoon, so we took a walk around Times Square, then headed to La Guardia to come home.

We’re happy to be home now, getting back to normal life, dogs, work, etc. Our next trip will be to Rockford, IL to visit my side of the family. We don’t have exact dates yet, but it will be in the Fall, and I’m really looking forward to seeing everyone. We’ll be spending a week in one place and that will be a treat as well.

Lots of love to everyone!!!

Albuquerque

I just wanted to let everyone know we are now living in Albuquerque, NM. It’s great.

Newest addition to our family…

And yes, I know…we can’t get our Christmas lights down because there’s still too much snow!

An Admission.

So… Becky and I bought each other a PlayStation 3 for Valentines day, and I have been, well, distressed (to say the least) to discover that my wife is better at video games than I am!

Good going, Beck!

Let it snow?

For those of you who joined us in Durango for our wedding this past Summer, and were sad to leave the beautiful area once all of the festivities were over, take comfort in this:

The best part is: The forecast says we’ll have more on Tuesday.

Goosemark!

http://goosemark.com/

Yesterday

Yesterday was Cassandra’s funeral in Gallup, NM. It was an uplifting remembrance of Cassandra, with a traditional Navajo burial on her Uncle Edison’s ranch, in a stunningly beautiful clearing amongst the sage and oak alongside her brother, Cyrus. The ceremony, to me, was about Cassandra’s spirit being alive forever in each and every person with whom she ever made acquaintance. I know that all of her hard work and dedication to multiple passions and causes will be carried on by many who knew and loved her or were inspired by her very determination to simply make this world a better place. I can’t wait to see all of the good yet to come. We may no longer see Cassandra’s smiling face, but will recognize her lovely spirit in all of the world’s goodness and beautiful wonders.

As Sam and I headed to Phoenix after Cassandra’s service, we were heading into one of the most mesmerizing sunsets I have seen in a long while. Thanks, Cassandra.

Sam and I send all of our love to family and friends.

Only in Durango.

Apologies for the crap-tastic picture, but it was getting dark and the cow was moving at a clip because as you can see there was a lot of prime grazing in that area…I took this from our front porch. In case you can’t tell, it’s a cow, grazing, basically in front of our house.

Keep in mind, we live in a residential neighborhood.