Colosseum

On Monday we visited a number of the Roman empire sites. We started with the forum and palatine hill then visited the Colosseum. We ended the day by visiting a couple of churches, Saint Ignazio and San Clemente. San Clemente has been excavated below to allow you to visit an ancient christian church on the first level down and a pagan church at the lowest level. We ended the day with another nice meal on one of the side streets by the hotel and of course some gelato.

Arriving in Rome

We made it into Rome yesterday (Sunday) in the afternoon. The flight was a bit late but it was a pretty uneventful one. Both Lauren and I slept pretty well on the plane which made the trip and staying up to a "normal" bed time easier. The cab driver dropped us off on a busy street and pointed us down an allyway to the hotel which was a bit odd, but it was clearly a tourist area so we headed down the ally and found our hotel just a few feet away. Our hotel is only a couple of minutes walk to the Pantheon in one direction and Trevi Fountain in the other direction. We visited both yesterday as well as the only Gothic church in Rome, Santa Maria alla Minerva. We ended the day by eating dinner in the Piazza in front of the Pantheon and getting some Gelato on the way home. It was a great start to our Honeymoon.

21

We watched the movie 21 on Friday. The movie was good but the book was a LOT better, that's always the case though. What really surprised me was that they could even say the movie was based on the book Bringing Down the House. About the only thing from the book that was in the movie is that some kids from MIT played blackjack and had a system for counting cards, everything else was different. The entire back story of the main character, a new love interest, etc. Most of the other movies that I've seen which were based on a book I read, were still true to the book. Sure they cut out much of the detail to fit it into a 90-120 minute movie, but at least the story is the same. It makes me wonder how many movies I've seen where I haven't read the book that are totally different than the original authors version. Or even worse "based" on a true story where only one piece is the same and the rest is all made up. This is especially scary considering many of us think anything in a book, movie or on TV is true, when in reality we all need to be a bit more critical of our information sources.

New Dishwasher

Lauren has been after me to get a new dishwasher for awhile now. The old one was working but was definitely on it's last leg. So Appliance World had one of these big warehouse sales this weekend. We stopped over there late morning and it was a giant open room full of appliances and you had to wander around and pick the one that you wanted. It was pretty chaotic.

We spent a bit of time looking around and finally decided on one that we wanted, we had it tagged with our name, got the paperwork and headed over to check out. The line was 60-75 minutes long to pay and check out. We had some other errands to run and we wanted to grab lunch so we decided we would come back later.

After eating and accomplishing some other things we headed back to pick up the dishwasher. The line had died down and it was probably only 15 minutes or so to get checked out. Next we got loaded up and headed home to install this thing.

It fought us every step of the way. It was tough getting the old one out. Finally after that was done we got the new one in and almost everything connected only to realize that the copper elbow was the wrong size for our piping. So after taking the dishwasher back out and replacing the copper elbow with the one from the old dishwasher we were back in business. Finally everything was hooked up and we were ready to fire it up.

A few minutes into the initial run we realize that there is a leak. After spending a good amount of time checking all the connections finally we look at the unit itself. It looks like the leak is coming from the bottom of the dishwasher but it's hard to tell. So out the new dishwasher comes again. Once we have it out and tipped on it's back we can see that there is in fact a tiny slit in the bottom of the sump housing. Now what?

After much debate and calls to the store and GE all with no answer Lauren finally heads back over to the warehouse sale to see what they have to say. To their credit they were happy to exchange the unit. We got lucky that they had another one of the same model given how the sale worked but they were very good.

So we get back home and get dishwasher number two installed, start it running and everything looks great. No leaks but we better run the rinse cycle one more time to be sure. We had just started to celebrate victory when Lauren opened the door and realizes that the dishwasher is not draining. Now what?

Next we bail out all the water with cups and check the drain hose to make sure there are no kinks, seems like there might be one so we try again. No go; still not draining. There is no way we got two of these that are bad did we? Again checking all the connections, making sure there is no kink in the hose. Finally by some stroke of luck I notice there is a loose wire. Also there is an open blade where this wire would go that looks like it's on the solenoid that opens the sump valve. That must have been it with the wire reconnected everything runs great. The dishwasher empties and we are finally done. All in all this was probably something like 12 hours of elapsed time, so the moral of the story is: you're better off paying service people to do this work!

Sigma Chi Balfour Leadership Training Workshop 2008

I had the opportunity again this year to take a long weekend and serve as a financial management faculty member for BLTW. It really is amazing the experiences and resources that are available to our undergraduate members. I can only hope that our undergraduates realize what a tremendous opportunity they have and recruit using some of these opportunities as selling points.

This was the best workshop that I've had since I was there as an undergraduate. The group of young men who were in my discussion group were all very passionate and committed to improving the financial state of their chapters. We spent a good amount of time talking about how to lead the chapter to create a culture of accountability as well as spent time discussing the nuts and bolts of their office including the pros and cons of the tools that are available to them.

If this group of young men represents the quality of individuals whom we are admiting to our order I have a lot of confidence in a bright future for our organization. My Sigma Chi batteries are officially recharged!!!

Breckenridge

Lauren and I were up in Breckenridge again this weekend for some final wedding preparations. It was a beautiful weekend up there and we're both really excited for folks to come out and enjoy the labor day weekend with us in the mountains. For anybody who is coming out early make sure to check out the Breckenridge summer website. It provides a lot of information about all the great activities available up there in the summer to help you plan your vacation.

Fourth of July

This year for fourth the of July, Lauren and I stayed around home. It was nice to have a few days to just relax. On the fourth itself we headed to the Highlands Ranch celebration. There was a good show but also not so many people that it was hard to get around or cramped. Also the band that was playing right before the fireworks was one that we considered for our wedding, so it was interesting to hear them play. Overall it was a good relaxing fourth of July weekend.

Dad & Sandy's Wedding

This past weekend Lauren and I were back in Minnesota for my Dad and Sandy's wedding. I was the best man, this is a role that I never thought I would fill, but I'm glad that I did. Losing my mother in 2001 was difficult but I'm very glad that my dad has Sandy, I know that he is very happy. The ceremony and reception were both a lot of fun and running around Litchfield reminded me a bit of being back in Bozeman.

2008 Baja Sportfishing Fraternity Challenge

Over Memorial Day weekend I went fishing with my Dad and Uncle in Los Barriles, Baja, Mexico. This fishing trip was part of the 2008 Baja Sportfishing Fraternity Challenge. It was a fun trip and a good couple of day getaway. The resort was fishing focused, had nice meals and worked well for getting up in the morning and heading out to the boat. Photos

Twins in Town

The Twins were in town playing at Coors Field on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We were able to go to the games on Friday and Sunday. Unfortunately the Twins lost the series. They won (4-2) on Friday and lost (6-2) on Sunday. They also lost on Saturday. I was disappointed that on Sunday neither Gomez or Mauer played. It was fun to see them come to town and I hope to be able to attend again when they make it back in 6 years.

Movies

I've been slacking off a bit updating the blog so I thought I would drop a note here on the blog about some movies that we watched over the weekend.

	This movie was pretty much what you would expect. It was a cute chick flick. If you like Runaway Bride, Wedding Planner, etc then you'll like this movie.
	The Savages was a pretty good movie, although also pretty sad. It's a dark comedy about two middle aged children dealing with their father aging. I'd recommend it but you need to be in the right mood for this one.
	I was a little disappointed by Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. It had a couple of laughs in it but John C. Reilly is no Will Ferrell. Throughout this movie it felt like he was trying really hard to be just like Will Ferrell and couldn't quite pull it off.

Photography Blog

As you might have noticed, I've struggled quite a bit with the best way to post pictures to this blog and the blog has changed many times. I've finally decided to start another blog purely for pictures and try to put other content and text into this site. With this change I'm going to try and rework this blog to make it a bit more visually appealing, but I've had enough for now just getting the photography blog to a point that it's acceptable to me. I'll probably continue to tweak that one as well but I think it's pretty close to what I want. You can check it out at http://erikbostromphotography.blogspot.com

Surreal

Recent Photos

A few photos for your enjoyment if you click on the picture above, which I'm using for photofriday.com submittal of "What is that?"

Mountain

Another photofriday.com submittal.

Passage of Time

Another photofriday.com submittal.

Lauren's Birthday

Lauren's birthday was on 12/30 and we were in Minnesota for the holidays. We headed from Darwin, MN where my dad lives up to St. Cloud, MN for dinner at Mexican Village. As we were heading back to our car after dinner we spotted this fallout shelter sign on an appliance store next to the restaurant.

Sunrise

Another photofriday.com submittal.

Primitive

I recently found this website photofriday.com that posts a new photo project once a week. Since I've been looking for a way to shoot a few more photos and projects to improve I'm going to give it a shot and see if I can keep up. I'm sure I won't make every week, but hopefully I can make the majority of them.

Mountain Photo

I took the above photo a few weeks back when Lauren and I were looking for wedding sites. This is one of my favorite shots. I need to get back out and take a few more pictures.

Wedding Website and Engagement Photos

We recently published our wedding website which has all the details on the wedding to www.laurenanderik.org. We also got out engagement photos back and they can be found at engagement photos which is hosted on pictage. Note that this website doesn't work for me in Firefox, so you may need to use Internet Explorer.

Engaged!

Lauren and I got engaged in downtown Denver this weekend. We went out to a nice dinner at the Denver ChopHouse and then I proposed during a carriage ride through the city after dinner.

Foosball

Foosball

Friday we had another guys night of foosball hosted by Brad. We also had Guitar Hero going which was fun when you weren't busy with the foosball games. The event was won this time by Shane and Brad, although Brad was on two teams and they both ended up in the final so Shane and Dave squared off singles for the title game. More photos if you click on the picture above.

Horizon's 2007

Horizon's 2007

I was lucky enough to spend another week up at Snowbird, Utah this year with a fantastic group of undergraduate members of Sigma Chi. With all that happens in the world and what fraternities are known for I wish more people knew what these individuals were doing, I'm proud to be associated with them. As always you can click on the photo above to see the album.

Fourth of July

July 4th

We spent the fourth of July at my Dad's place in Minnesota. It was nice to get out on the lake and relax a bit.

Indoor Skydiving

We went indoor skydiving on Saturday for my birthday. It was fun and also a lot harder then I thought it would be. It's hard to tell that it's us (Erik in orange and Lauren in green), but you can see our flights on the video and then the instructor showing off at the end.

Spruce Creek Trail

I'm a bit late posting this but over Memorial Day weekend we hiked Spruce Creek Trail. There was still a LOT of snow on the trail and we only made it to the lowest lake, Mayflower lake, before we had to turn back because there was too much snow. There were also a lot of unprepared people on the trail, but I supposed you'll run into that on a busy holiday weekend. However everybody looked to be having a good time, so no harm, no foul I guess. As usual more photos if you click on the photo above.

Bathroom Remodel

We completed a bathroom remodel a couple of weeks ago. We had been working on redoing this master bathroom for about 5 months. It's nice to finally have it completed.

Moon

In the photo class I'm taking the instructor told us that you could take a picture of the moon and hand hold the camera just as if you are taking a picture on a sunny day since the moon is just reflecting the sun. Turns out he's right! Kinda cool, but I'd like a larger zoom lens to really get a larger image of the moon.

Baumgartner Farm

Baumgartner Farm

I spent some time in Missouri at my aunt & uncles farm and house. We spent a little bit of time turkey hunting and a bit of time at the house fishing but the majority of the time we spent planting grapes. It seems like it would be pretty easy to do with all the equipment but it's still an awful lot of work. I'm glad that I don't have to make a living farming! It's been awhile since I've been able to join everybody for a family gathering so I'm glad that I was able to make it this time.

Dogs!

I got a new flash for my camera tonight and I decided to try it out by taking some pictures of the dogs. I think it makes a world of difference to have a separate powered flash that I can bounce. If you click on the picture above you'll be taken to an album of their pictures.

Nice

Nice

I know it's been awhile since I posted, but better late then never right? I've been really busy with work and traveled 6 of the 8 weeks in February and March. One of these trips I was able to go to Nice and make a presentation at a virtualization conference for our central and southern European, middle eastern and African customers. I stayed an extra day and was able to get out and see some sights. If you click on the picture above it will take you to my album from the trip.

Holiday Blizzard

As most of you have no doubt seen on the news lately there was a huge blizzard which hit Denver over the last few days. Here are a few pictures of what it looked like at my house.














A Camry that was parked in front of my neighbors house.





















A snow drift that was hanging over the edge of my roof.

















The neighborhood at the end of the day as folks finally started to dig out.

Hoobastank Concert

We went to a Hoobastank concert last night at the Bluebird Theater in Denver. This was one of the best shows that I have been to in awhile. The Bluebird theater is a pretty small venue. Additionally it was an all ages show so all the underage kids were packed into the balcony. This allowed for a lot of room on the main floor so that it was comfortable and an easy opportunity to get right up close to the band. They commented that it felt like they were playing in somebody's basement and that's the kind of cool feel that the concert had. I much prefer this type of experience to a massive concert in the Pepsi Center. If you're in town and you have an opportunity to see a good band at the Bluebird I'd definitely recommend it.

Ski Season Starts

We spent our first weekend of the ski season up in the mountains this past weekend. It was great! They hadn't gotten much snow for awhile, but there were beautiful days and there was a good base. There is supposed to be some snow in the mountains early this week so as the snow continues to come down it should be a good ski season. This year we changed from the Copper pass to the 5 mountain pass to get some variety. We skied at Vail on Saturday and Keystone on Sunday. Every time I go to Vail I'm astounded at how big Vail really is, there is an amazing amount of skiable terrain there. It was a great start and I'm really looking forward to the rest of the season.

Post Processing Photos

Before:














After:














My boss taught me a bit about using Photoshop to process digital pictures. Above are two pictures from Garden of the Gods showing the changes that can be achieved. I think this is a pretty dramatic change in the appearance of these pictures with just a little bit of work. Amazing!

Vote 2006

I spent 3 hours last night waiting in line to vote, by the time I got home they had already declared the govenors race over and I had just cast my vote minutes ago. Anyway needless to say vote centers didn't work out to well. You can read the Denver Post perspective at http://www.denverpost.com/economy/ci_4620304. My guess is that they get this fixed by the next election but there will also likely be a lot more people voting early and via absentee ballots.

Halloween

The dogs got costumes this year. Superman was a great costume, Kai didn't put up with the helmet for very long though.

Snow!

As has been reported on many national news channels Denver got a big early season snowstorm. Here is a picture of my back deck yesterday. I think that I got about 10-12" out there. Today it's about 60 degrees in town so it's melting fast here, but hopefully that snow is sticking in the mountains and will give us a good base for the ski season.

Garden of the Gods & Red Rocks

Lauren's Mom and her boyfriend Bob visited this past weekend. It was a good opportunity to spend some time with family and gave us an excuse to go see some of the sites around Colorado. A couple of the highlights for our sight seeing are captured in pictures above first from the Garden of the Gods park and second from the Red Rocks concert venue. Every time I head out to these places I'm reminded of what a beautiful place Colorado is to live and how lucky I am to be able to reside here.

Homecoming 2006

I headed back to Bozeman, MT the weekend of 10/6 for the Montana State University homecoming game. It was a great opportunity to be able to get back into town and see friends from college, although I'm definitely starting to get too old for these types of weekends. It was fun to visit the bookstore and get some Cats gear which I was able to wear it to the game they won! When I was in school hardly anybody went to these games, now the student section is packed. It's good to see that the football team is getting the support of the students. It was also great to see the fraternity house where I lived although when you go back it's never quite the same as when you lived there. I'll certainly always remember those college years as some of the best times of my life.

Daring Greatly

I came across this quote again today and have always enjoyed it so I thought I would post it.

“It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena: whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood: Who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotion, and spends himself in a worthy cause: Who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and, who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while Daring Greatly: So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither defeat nor victory.”

-Theodore Roosevelt

Horizons Session 3 - Lone Star 06

I was lucky enough to be able to attend Horizon's this year as a facilitator. It was easily one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. I formed an unbelievable bond with 8 outstanding men from across the country and Canada. They taught me far more about myself and leadership then I taught them. My Sigma Chi family has grown yet again. I'll continue to work with these men over then next two years as they complete their college experience. I'm excited and privileged to take this journey with them as I'm sure they will all do some amazing things. Horizon's is designed to develop the type of values based leaders that our fraternity, country and world are in desperate need of and these men will not disappoint.

Pictured above in back:
Erik Bostrom - Montana State University - Alumnus
Brett Lyon - University of Southern California
Pete Steger - University of Illinois
Jordan Quaglia - University of Richmond
Ed Beckmann - Southeast Missouri State University
Andrew Zamojc - University of Waterloo
In front:
Andrew Bianchi - University of California, Davis
Adam Gevarter - American University
Chris Pennington - University of Memphis

July 4th Weekend

We had a great 4th of July weekend. We headed up to Frisco on Friday night. On Saturday we went on an ATV tour with Continental Divide ATV Tours. This was a really cool way to see Summit County. We followed that up with a white water rafting trip with The Adventure Company on Sunday. We rafted down the Arkansas river through the Royal Gorge. It was really neat to be able to look up 2000 feet to the bridge overhead. On Sunday night we then headed back down to Denver. Monday evening we headed to the Rockie's game vs. San Francisco with some friends of Erik's from college. Unfortunately the Rockies were chasing the Giants the whole time and ended up loosing the game. However they followed up the game with a fantastic fireworks display.

Car Show

There was a free car show in Highlands Ranch this last weekend so we decided to go by and check it out. It was pretty cool to see all the cars and it was just about the right size for me. They had ~150 cars and it took us about 1.5 hours to look at all of them. They had everything from the 1920 to 2006, although I much prefer looking at the cars that are older then I am :)

Body Worlds 2

Last weekend we went to see Body Worlds 2 exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. If any of the Body Worlds exhibits are in a city near you I would highly recommend that you go and check it out. It was very interesting to see all the different systems within the human body. The plastination process results in the body's having no odor at all and all the fluids are removed from the body so the exhibit is easy to view, while still allowing the opportunity to view real humans.

Horizons Facilitator Training 2006

I attended Horizons guide training this past week. Horizon's is a leadership development program for the Sigma Chi fraternity. During this week I was able to experience much of what the undergraduates will when they attend as well as learned how to facilitate a small group at Horizons so that the undergraduates are able to gain the most possible from their time on the mountain. It was a really great time to re-examine what is important to me as well as learn more about how others perceive me. With these two pieces of information I will be able to be more successful in all facets of my life. It's astounding to me how much Sigma Chi has given me in my life. I can't wait to get back up to Snowbird next year and work with a group of undergraduates.

Rockies Game

We attended our second Rockies game of the season last weekend. During the game I was able to capture this picture of an amazing sunset behind the mountains. The Rockies beat the Blue Jays and actually swept them during the series. However they were still a 0.5 game out of first last time I checked. After the game we headed to Sing Sing, this was a fun end to the evening.

Computer Troubles

I'm an idiot. A couple of weeks ago I was poking around on the web and I ended up on a website with a video that I was trying to watch. I'm not quite sure how I ended up there or where I went from a legitimate site to this one but it was really all downhill from there. A box popped up telling me that I needed a new codec, I wasn't careful enough to determine that this was actually a window pushed by the website rather then my browser. Anyway once that button was clicked there was no stopping the horrible programs that rendered my computer unusable. This crippling spyware also was nice enough to come along with an advertisement for a spyware removal program that could solve all my problems. Interesting little trick, I'm sure had I gone further with this game and actually tried to purchase this software online all sorts of crazy things would have happened with my credit card, luckily I'm only an idiot and not a moron. Anyway after a quick format of the partition which holds the OS and a reinstall of all my software I'm off and running again. It's a good thing that I setup my computer such that this would be an easy thing to do without losing any data.

Rockies Game

We went to the Rockies game this Sunday. They played the Giants. It was a great game. Barry Bonds didn't play but he did pinch hit in the top of the 9th and they struck him out to end the inning. He didn't receive a very warm welcome and it amazes me how passionate people are about him these days. I find the whole situation very interesting but it's pretty obvious to me that he's not the only guy in the major leagues using steroids. The Rockies scored in the bottom of the 10th inning to win the game. I'm still a Twins fan at heart but it's fun to go to the games and Coors Field is a great place to see a baseball game.

NYC

Lauren and I spent a long weekend in NYC this past weekend. We were able to visit a friend of mine from high school and we also saw the sites. The highlights were probably seeing Avenue Q and attending a comedy show at The Comic Strip Live. The best comic by far was a guy by the name of Ben Bailey. There is something about seeing live performances (both the musical and comedy shows) that made them more entertaining then they would have been had they been recorded on TV, a live audience really does enhance the experience.

Last Day At Copper

I spent my last day at Copper for the year April 8th. It was an awesome day. Powder days are great but there is something really nice about spring skiing as well. It's nice to be able to spend some time outdoors in the sun and enjoy the weather. Copper is closing down on 4/16 and I haven't yet decided what type of pass I'm going to get next year so this was a good end to the season and possibly my last time at Copper for awhile.

Where has Erik been?

It's been awhile since I've created some postings here and I apologize for the lack of updates. It seems I've just gotten busy with life and haven't made the time to update the page. After Christmas I spent a bunch of time traveling for work and educating our internal folks about a new product which we were launching that I'm working on called Global Instant Capacity (GiCAP). We were able to successfully launch GiCAP on 3/20 and we'll start shipping it on 6/1. It allows for folks to utilize there server resources more efficiently thus reducing costs without affecting the performance of the machines. In any case I really enjoyed taking the time to educate people about what we have been working on in the product development labs. There is something about being part of creating something that helps people that's really exciting for me. So in short that is where my time has gone and why you haven't heard from me.

Christmas

Here are some pictures of our Christmas decorations this year. Much of these things are new as we have a new house. It's always interesting putting up the lights especially on a new house but this house turned out to be a lot easier to put lights up on then the old house. The Christmas tree is also new and our village grew considerably this year. We've already just about run out of space on the mantle, we'll have to get creative next year. We both really enjoy the season and decorating the house.

Halloween

This year we decided to do pumpkin inside a pumpkin jack-o-lanterns. I think that they turned out pretty good. I didn't get any pictures that are too good but this is the best one that I have.

Gallinger - Helgeson Wedding

On the weekend between being at the HP Technology Forum and being in Dallas for work a good friend from the fraternity was married in Billings, MT. So rather then heading home I made the trek up to Bozeman and then drove to Billings with some friends for the event. It was a very nice ceremony and a great opportunity to see everybody again. The groom is the third from the right in front in the picture below. He and his wife have since moved to Denver so we're hoping to be able to see them frequently.

HP Technology Forum 2005

I've gotten a bit behind with posting so I'll try to get a couple done tonight and get caught up. Unfortunately I haven't done a very good job of keeping my camera near by and getting things recorded here but hopefully that will change soon. If you follow the blog you know that it goes in spurts.

I had the opportunity as part of me job with Hewlett Packard as an engineering program manager this past October to teach a hands on lab course at the HP Technology Forum 2005. It was a really a lot of fun and a rewarding experience. I really like teaching folks about all of the great products that we have been working on and how it can help them to run their IT organizations more effectively. It's really awesome that HP provides opportunities to get out of the labs and out on the front lines with our customers. This event was initially scheduled for New Orleans just weeks after hurricane Katrina, given these unfortunate circumstances it's very fortunate that they were able to pull the event together a few short weeks later in Orlando. I had a lot of fun at this conference and hope that I'll be able to participate again next year. I've included a photo of the equipment that was flown in for my lab.