Archive for December, 2008
2008: A Look Back (Part 1)
December 31, 2008
The end of the year has arrived, and the days after Christmas and before the New Year often focus on looking back at the year that has so sneakily passed us by. First off, the following is an excerpt Natalia & I’s Christmas Letter as featured on her blog:
I mailed this letter to all of you on December 1st (because that is what good, organized people do). Didn’t you receive this in the mail? Hmmm… I swear it is on its way (just don’t hold your breath). It is with a small tear that I write this as I think about the cards that haven’t appeared in our mailbox this year (I have a slight suspicion that the mailman has stopped delivering mail to our mailbox since we haven’t picked up the mail in about 3 weeks). But I hope this letter finds you well. (Full Letter)
I decided an appropriate way to pay homage to what was 2008, was to show it to you… Through My Camcorder’s Eye. So, what I did was, quickly skimmed through all of my video files for 2008, and slapped some clips together. The funny thing is, there is footage of things I had very little to do with… like when Brent borrowed my camera to take with him and his band, The Market… Enjoy!
Part 2, which will look at the latter half of the year, will be available tomorrow.
2008 christmas letter
December 31, 2008
Happy Holidays! Apparently it is my wifely duty (yes, duty… right there behind having hot meals made from scratch ready for when my husband walks in the door every night, being president of the PTA, and running a marathon every other weekend) to send out a Christmas letter every year chronicling the happenings of our family and doing the best I can to try to make everyone jealous of me and my perfect family. I mailed this letter to all of you on December 1st (because that is what good, organized people do). Didn’t you receive this in the mail? Hmmm… I swear it is on its way (just don’t hold your breath). It is with a small tear that I write this as I think about the cards that haven’t appeared in our mailbox this year (I have a slight suspicion that the mailman has stopped delivering mail to our mailbox since we haven’t picked up the mail in about 3 weeks). But I hope this letter finds you well.
Luis started off this year by doing something good for the environment… he decided to ditch his car and only use public transportation! As if this wasn’t enough, he also chose to continue his model citizenship-ness by volunteering weekly at a soup kitchen in Provo. Luis’ perfect year included winning first place in an amateur film contest (with a $2 million cash prize), being selected as to work side-by-side with Steven Spielberg in an upcoming movie, and finding out that he had recently become an Apple majority stockholder (Luis’ father had forgotten to tell him that he had invested some money in his kids’ names back in the 80′s).
My year also went pretty well. My lawyering skills came into good use in March when I was able to convince my roommate, Robin, to not only go ring shopping with me, but to also be the floral designer of my multimillion dollar wedding. Being the work-aholic that I am, I decided that one job was simply not enough to keep me busy. So I worked 2 jobs while planning our wedding and nursing 20 sick puppies back to health. Making the transition from single law student to married law student was a piece of cake. I am proud to say that I have 443 facebook friends (which makes me pretty dang popular), and with an average of 18 people reading my blog I feel pretty well connected to all of my friends, both old and new.
Well, folks, that is about all we are going to report to you this year. In an attempt to be sophisticated and discreet, We’ve purposely opted to leave our trips to Europe, Asia and the Moon out of this letter. We wish you all the Merriest of Christmases and hope that your New Year will not top ours (otherwise we won’t have anything to write about in our 2009 Christmas letter).
With Sincerest Love,
The Mertinsos
Arrr, Matey
December 30, 2008
In my continual consumption of movies, last night I watched The Pirates of Silicon Valley.

The movie is a “docu-drama” about the early years of Microsoft and Apple back in the late 70′s and early 80′s. Anthony Michael Hall (The Breakfast Club) played Bill Gates as Noah Wylie (ER) played Steve Jobs.
The fascinating part about watching the movie was feeling like I was witnessing the unfolding of history. It was almost epic. It’s funny– when Jobs unveils the Macintosh to Gates and his cronies– here I was, 25 years later, watching it happen on a descendent of that very machine– my MacBook Pro. As a fan of computers and both Apple and Microsoft, it was quite an entertaining movie to watch.
exhaustion
December 30, 2008
Luis thinks that “catch-up sleep” is a myth… something that people believe in, but isn’t actually true. I think he is wrong. I whole-heartedly believe that when people don’t get enough sleep, they have to have at least one night to catch-up on their rest. I am one of these people. I took a 2-3 hour nap on Sunday afternoon (I don’t know exactly how long it was because I don’t know what time I fell asleep). So on Sunday night I didn’t end up going to sleep until 2:00 am… which is a problem since I needed to be at work at 8:00 am yesterday. So I ended up getting about 5 hours of sleep… no biggie right? (Oh how I wish I weren’t getting old… I remember the good old days… back in high school… when I could stay up all night and have no problems the next day).
Movie Mania
December 28, 2008
Over the break so far, I’ve had the time to be able to watch a few extra movies than I otherwise would have been able to. Here’s the list:
- Twilight
- Terminator
- Terminator 2: Judgement Day
- Cellular
- Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
- American Teen
- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
- Back to the Future
Some of these movies I’ve seen dozens of times (Harry Potter, Back to the Future), and some never before (Terminator, Twilight). Natalia had never seen BTTF before, and I’ve been meaning to get her to watch those classics (which happen to be my favorite movie series of all time).

I’d never seen Terminator, (but HAVE seen Terminator 2 and 3). Since watching Terminator, I’ve wanted to also watch the sequels and the TV series again. I’m now a (somewhat) big fan.
As far as Twilight goes, I actually kind of liked it more than what little I’ve read of the book (which is about 50-60% of it). The editing was very different from most movies I’ve seen, and some of the acting and directing was just… strange. Not bad, necessarily, but different.

American Teen is a documentary about the senior years of 5 high school students in an Indiana high school. It was very interesting and kind of fun to watch. There was the Nerd, the Princess, the Jock, the Rebel, and the Heartthrob.
I’m looking forward to watching BTTF 2 & 3 with Natalia to see how she likes it all.
targeted
December 27, 2008
Dear Target,
Thank you for ruining Christmas. I had purchased a brie en croute to serve as an appetizer on Christmas eve. Everything was going to be perfect… until I opened the packaging and discovered that the bread was MOLDY!!! Yes, moldy. This mold situation couldn’t have possibly been my fault because I made sure to pick up the brie right as I was going to the checkout stand, paid for it, drove it straight home, and put it in the fridge (and yes, I was late to a party because I couldn’t risk letting the brie go bad). Do in addition to the $800 and new furniture that you owe me for causing my day-before-Christmas-eve shopping to be so unpleasant, you also owe me $13 for the moldy brie.
Regretfully,
Frustrated Customer
Eve of Christmas
December 25, 2008
We had amazingly lovely Christmas Eve! Natalia went all out with such a great dinner! Here’s what she prepared for the big night:
- Delicious deviled eggs
- stuffed mushrooms
- salmon
- fettuccine alfredo
- zucchini
- carrots
- shrimp
We also had strawberry lemonde, and sparking cider to drink. For dessert, we had banana creme pie (my fav pie), and chocolate cake! We had such a fun time with the Rogers coming over. We played Taboo, and watched Home Alone 2.
Last night Carolina said, “You got yourself a good one!” referring to Natalia. I couldn’t agree more!



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