Finished!

Yesterday, Derek finished his final final for the semester, and Heather successfully passed her GBO (quals)! We're celebrating.

Black Friday Movies

The newest additions to the Benz DVD library, found super cheap by Derek on Amazon.com:

Little Shop of Horrors

Vincent Price Double Feature: House on Haunted Hill and Last Man on Earth

Mortal Kombat

Stargate: Ultimate Edition

20th Anniversary Collector's Edition the Princess Bride

Monty Python's Life of Brian, the Immaculate Edition

The Mosquito Coast

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Special Edition

Lolita

John Carpenter's Escape from New York

By the way, the Princess Bride has an awesome cover:

Derek's Addiction

These two website together probably account for 70% of Derek's waking hours these days:

Boggle site 1

Boggle site 2

Meanwhile, Heather wishes she could get her brain in gear and spend 99% of her waking hours studying for this.

Happy Day After Thanksgiving!

The cast of characters:

• Mom and Dad G, Phil
• David, Laura, and Daniel
• Bob, Karel, and Alex Fick
• Awesome food (including, but not limited to, Martha Stewart's turkey, Grandma Robinette's stuffing, and Jell-o's Watergate salad)

Greenwood family:

Fick family:

Turkey:

The cats:

Bonus picture! Heather demonstrates how to cut an onion with minimal eye trauma:

Derek's Birthday Roundup

• Fine dining at Buffalo Wild Wings
• Wistful gazing at Amazon.com, waiting for Black Friday to use his birthday gift card
• Dessert and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies from Heather
• Looking forward to his new coat
• New Super Mario Bros. Wii and some great cookies from the mall
• Cards, calls, and wall posts from family and friends--thanks!

Overall birthday assessment: "It was my best twenty-fifth birthday ever."

Happy Belated Halloween!

Derek stole the show. Try to guess what his costume was...

(From left to right: Doctor Girlfriend, the Monarch, [Derek], [Heather], Argus, steampunk)

Rainbow Brite jumped into the picture!

So, Derek and Heather were (drumroll please)... a Slytherin Turkish college slacker Indonesian voter drug dealing zombie (a.k.a. Halloween assortment), and Hands of Blue (a.k.a. a huge geek), respectively.

Artistic Cat Photos

Courtesy of Sarah and her iPhone:

MD Renn Fest 10/11/09

Also present: Sarah and Chris, Brad and Lisa

Derek was modern and Heather was medieval, but a great time was had by both. Food consumed included a turkey leg and cheesecake on a stick. We went to fight school, saw the two-headed turtle, and spent some time in the stocks for our crimes (sloth and foppishness).

Danger! Stupid hat area:

Daniel's Stats 10/18/09 4:15-7:30pm

Number of...

bottles fed: 1

hours held by Heather: 3+

pictures taken: 15?

toes: 10

diapers changed: 1

hours mom was able to nap: 2.5

adorable little blue mittens worn: 2

adorable little blue mittens escaped from: 2

tiny fingers wrapped around Derek's index finger: 5

grumbly faces made: many

smiles: many more

Mid-October Update

Heather's busy with:

• Recording neural data from ECoG patients
• Helping to mentor high school students
• Bugging the Treasury Department
• Cooking a mean burger

Derek's busy with:

• Call of Duty
• Fallout 3
• Cooking a mean burger topping
• Researching housespousery
• Taking pictures of the cats
• Cel collecting
• Schoolwork (sometimes)

We're both:

• Looking forward to meeting little Daniel soon!

Welcome to the Benz Blog!

The Benzes...

Live: in a small apartment (with a porch and a hammock and herbs) in Baltimore

Do: lots of schoolwork

Love: books, movies, Star Wars, our kittens, science (Heather), debate (Derek), volunteering (Heather), news (Derek), each other.