Art Vs. Science

1st anniversary!

2011-09-10T18:06:00.000-07:00

For our first anniversary, Michelle and I took a trip up to Woodstock New Hampshire to enjoy a weekend out of the city. We stayed at an amazing inn and brewpub in a cute little town. We also enjoyed an encore of our amazing wedding cake, as per the photo next to this post :)

Then we went zip lining! It was amazing!

Except for this last one... I (Chris) seem a bit concerned...

4th of July

2011-07-10T04:45:00.000-07:00

Celebrated the 4th by watching the Boston Pop's play on the Esplanade along the Charles river.

At the end of the 1812 overture they set off a bunch of fireworks from the barges where the main fireworks come off of, but they were behind trees, and we couldn't see them, so we walked over to the bridge between Boston and Cambridge to watch the show.

Apparently they are a big draw, as people on the trains wanted to watch too.. :)

Happy 4th!

Making Wunder 25 (the last one...)

2011-06-10T16:46:00.001-07:00

On last Wunder, though it has more to do with us moving to boston...

Scooper Bowl!

2011-06-10T16:23:00.000-07:00

Last night Michelle and I took part in a pretty sweet fundraiser... Wow, no pun intended, but it was an ice cream all you can eat at Government Center (ie city hall courtyard)

It was great, you pay 7$ to enter, and then eat all the ice cream you could.

Or at least it seemed great at the time... a little bit later we felt a bit ill, but that soon passed.

Definitely love a town that raises funds for cancer like that :D

Brewfest!

2011-06-05T07:32:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I went to a huge brewfest with Heather and Bill. It was amazing! :)

It cost 45$ to get in, but then you could sample all the beer you wanted. There were over 500 different ones! I don't think we made it past 40 (they are 2 oz samples...)

Michelle sadly couldn't make it, because she is at her graduation back in Oregon. Exciting times!

New House! (But not ours)

2011-04-27T17:50:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the long pause in posts, but we've been lacking in our Internet access. However, things are finally getting worked out, and I can finish things up.

Anyhow, after Chicago, we arrived in Connecticut. My sister Heather, Bill, and our niece Violet are also currently settling into a new place.

Violet was thrilled to see our kitty Roarie again, and they seemed to get along well...

But then Roarie decided she had to use the litter box...

She decided she had to use the litter box for the next 30 min...

Anyhow, from there we were off to Boston, and our new home...

Chicago

2011-04-19T04:21:00.000-07:00

For our first day in Chicago, Michelle, Stephen and I took a train ride into town to visit the Museum of Science of Industry. (We were staying with my cousin Loretta in an amazingly large house. Roarie really liked that one)...

Anyhow, the museum is amazing. We all took turns in a human hamster wheel...

And saw our veins... I should print this one out for future reference.

We played with electricity

And fire...

And saw what is likely the worlds largest train set. (complete with representations of Seattle and Chicago)...

And the Captured U-boat from WWII

Lastly, we toured the downtown area.

The next day we did all the family stuff... Church with Loretta, then Dinner at Mark and Carla's house with Mike, Aunt Darline, Allison and Charles. We had some awesome Italian beef sandwiches... thanks guys!!

Drive to Chicago

2011-04-18T20:26:00.000-07:00

Today we left on our drive to Chicago. We started out with a fantastic breakfast at a really cool diner type place...

On the way out of town, Stephen showed us the sites around both Minneapolis, and St Paul. This included a really cool Church...

... And a view of the city from one of the over 10,000 lakes in the state :)

Also, it turns out every police car has the same unoriginal license plate number: POLICE

Then we took the drive down towards Chicago. On the way we picked up some cheese, (since we were in Wisconsin)

And we also ran into someone else from Oregon... something about license plates today...

Anyhow, so we arrived in Chicago after a 7.5 hour drive!

More to come :)

North Platte

2011-04-14T20:31:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned before, we made a quick stop in Nebraska. Michelle's Great x3 Grandpa built a home in the North Platte area back in 1869. (here is a write up outside of the house).

The house is now part of the Lincoln Country Pioneer Museum.

It was really neat to be able to see something that Michelle's family built such a long time ago, still around today.

There were all sorts of neat things inside, and they were fun to photograph.

The museum is actually closed until May, but they let us in, since Michelle is family and all :)

So yeah, a good trip and a good visit. I kind of took a lot of photos...

Second Long Drive

2011-04-14T20:15:00.000-07:00

Today we had another long drive, leaving early this morning to a slight snow storm in Boulder. The snow stopped eventually and we drove on through Colorado, into Nebraska, Iowa... Roarie decided to try out a new spot. ...

...and then we made a quick turn up north. We arrived later in Minneapolis to visit our friend Stephen.

Tomorrow we will all four head down to Chicago! (Me, Michelle, Stephen and Roarie!)

(I'm going to make another post about a special stop we made in Nebraska :)

Boulder, day two

2011-04-13T19:47:00.001-07:00

Last night Michelle and I had a fantastic dinner with her past co worker, and her husband Tara and Riley. Sadly we forgot to bring the camera :(

Today, we went hiking! Up at the start of the Rocky Mountains (or the end, from our prospective). It was a lot of fun, and good to get out walking... especially since we have a 14 hour drive tomorrow! Amanda led the way ...

We also saw some animals, and the tips of the famous "Flat Irons" in Boulder.

Afterwards, we discovered that the local brew pub invented a new day of the week :D

Tea Time

2011-04-13T18:41:00.000-07:00

On our first full day in Boulder, we stopped by the Celestial Seasonings tea factory just across the street from our hosts' house (Michelle's friends Amanda and Trevor). I'm sure if you go back a year, you'd see similar photos. It was so good last time, we knew we had to do it again!

Hates...

2011-04-13T18:26:00.000-07:00

We've been saying we'd keep track of how many times Michelle says she "hates" something on our trip (i.e. "I hate stormy weather!" ). Well, she finally had the first hate moment of our trip. Here's a little background:

We've been trying to take photos/video every time we crossed a state border. After missing the first and most important one (Oregon thanks you, come again soon) we decided we would get every other one to make up for it. Unfortunately I (Chris) ended up driving across all of the borders, and would tell Michelle about the sign coming up about 5 seconds before we'd pass it by. She didn't have a chance to snap the picture for any of the crossings. After missing Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado, the dam finally burst, and she let it out... "I hate taking pictures!"

14.5 hours later..

2011-04-12T08:05:00.000-07:00

Today we had our first of three long days. We drove 988 miles from La Grande OR to Boulder CO. That may sound like a lot... and yes, it was... but it wasn't as bad as you would think. First of all, Roarie had to assume her comfort position...

She actually stayed there almost all 14.5 hours... And then we were off... Into Idaho, down through Utah, and across the Rocky Mountains...

They weren't so rocky where we crossed them :) And then up through Wyoming.

And then we crossed onto I 80, where we would stay the rest of the time, if we weren't staying in Boulder :)

We turned south, and stopped on the other side of the Rockies (just in time for the sunset) where we'll be for the next 3 days! That's good, because while it was a fun ride, we could use a rest from driving ....

Oh, and on the way we had to stop at Little America hotel and gas station for some 50 cent cones ...

Going the Distance...

2011-04-11T19:28:00.001-07:00

First day brought us through Oregon. Drove along 84... Roarie took her turn at the wheel as well... what a trooper.

4 hours after we left, we arrived with Brian in La Grande. Like a gentleman he busted out his cooking skills, and soon we all had quesadillas in front of us :)

What a good night! Tomorrow morning, we're off on our first of three big travel days!!

Empty House

2011-04-11T19:25:00.001-07:00

The condo is all empty now, and so the only place for our cat to hide is in the make shift tent I made out of my laptop case.

Excited to hit the road! We'll miss you all. Goodbyes can be hard :(

Lucky Lab

2011-04-10T08:11:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to thank everyone for coming last night! We had an awesome time, and seeing so many friends makes it hard to leave :( We will miss you, but are hoping we won't have to, since you can all visit Boston anytime!! Now we are off to church, and then hitting the road!! Roarie may never forgive us :)

(Sorry, we didn't take more photos, but I did take a lot of video, so that will all come together later :)

Packing Up

2011-04-09T11:11:00.000-07:00

Today we are cleaning up our empty house, and we are getting ready to leave on our way to Boston. We obviously know what is going on... however, our cat is a bit confused. And when she gets confused, she likes to hide until she can figure stuff out. However, with the house being empty, she could not find a spot. So while I was painting the trim, she decided that my sweatshirt (which I was still wearing) would be a good place to set up base camp.

...

I later had to climb slowly out of the sweatshirt and leave it on the ground because she wasn't moving. Party at the Lucky Lab tonight! See you there!

Making Wunder 24

2011-03-22T07:11:00.000-07:00

Last one... oh boy :)

Boston!

2011-02-13T14:34:00.000-08:00

Michelle and I spent the last week in Boston, where she interviewed for a position in a Harvard affiliated research lab. The process went really well, and by the end, they had offered her a job, which she quickly accepted. We will be moving to Boston in early spring!

Well keep you posted! sorry for the lack of photos, but we brought our old camera, and it died... :(

Movie Trailer

2011-01-28T07:47:00.000-08:00

Here is the trailer for Franklin Wunder! We are very excited to be almost finished with the movie, and will be premeiring it at some point over the next month!

making wunder 23 (Trailer) from Chris Lang on Vimeo.

Christmas tree

2010-12-12T14:19:00.000-08:00

Picked out a good one this year! :)

In case you are wondering, we also picked it out on Civil war day :)

Dr. in the house

2010-12-09T21:53:00.000-08:00

So I know it's been awhile, and this deserves some photos (of which I have none) but Michelle is unofficially, (officially as of Monday) a doctor! So proud! and definitely chalk that one up for a win in the science column :)

Wedding video!

2010-10-26T19:00:00.000-07:00

I made a video from our wedding and honeymoon videos. It's just a shorted version of what I'll do for my real wedding video, but I wanted to share with everyone. Especially those who couldn't make it :)

My wedding from Chris Lang on Vimeo.

Thanks to Tiffany and Dan for their filming skills :)

Honeymoon photos!

2010-10-08T13:22:00.001-07:00

Here are some of the better photo's from the honeymoon. Eventually I'll have a Making Wunder up with some clips from it, and the wedding, but for now; photos :)

We got married!

2010-09-21T08:45:00.000-07:00

So Michelle and I got married a couple of weeks ago, and I've been kind of bad about posting photo's from it.... So here are a few of my favorites. It was an amazing day, and it we so awesome to see everyone there! I'll have more later, and some video, but this is just a start :)

Making Wunder part 22

2010-08-15T07:19:00.000-07:00

This will probably be the last one for some time, because now we are totally focused on the whole wedding thing :)
Chris

Making Wunder 22 from Chris Lang on Vimeo.

Tim got married!

2010-08-10T13:24:00.000-07:00

And I have the video to prove it! :)

Making Wunder 21 from Chris Lang on Vimeo.

Wunder part 20

2010-08-05T09:06:00.000-07:00

I made this a while ago, but I kept forgetting to post it. I'm also going to post one of Tim's wedding here soon!

Making Wunder 20 from Chris Lang on Vimeo.

Making wunder 19

2010-06-30T12:08:00.001-07:00

Took a day off for Michelle's birthday. It was fun!

Making Wunder 19 from Chris Lang on Vimeo.

Part 18

2010-06-24T09:37:00.000-07:00

Went to Astoria, shot a movie :)

Wunder 18 from Chris Lang on Vimeo.

part 17!

2010-06-01T08:12:00.000-07:00

Halfway done with the filming! crazy!!

Making Wunder 17 from Chris Lang on Vimeo.

Part 16

2010-05-25T09:25:00.000-07:00

Another weekend, another shoot.

Making Wunder 16 from Chris Lang on Vimeo.

Starting to shoot!

2010-05-11T10:14:00.000-07:00

Part 15. Shooting is going well so far... just 7 more days to go :)

Wunder 15 from Chris Lang on Vimeo.

Enjoy!

Mom's Day!

2010-05-10T11:50:00.000-07:00

yay! A real post! So my mom, and Michelle's mom came down to Portland for the weekend, and we went on a little frolic through the Newberg winery trail.

We actually only made it to three wineries, but they were all great for different reasons. The first was small, and had a fantastic location, with beautiful views. Perfect for a picnic.

The second was run by a pretty worldly guy, who buys grapes from all over the globe, and has dozens of bottles of his own wine for sale. It was actually luck to stumble across this tasting room, as normally he only does it by appointment, but he happened to have some friends in town, and was giving them a tasting. He let us join, and it was awesome being there. Dana even got to sample one wine twice...

And last we went to the august cellars winery, which has fantastic, reasonably priced wines.

It was a success filled weekend, and it finally gives us a reason to post!

Wunder 14

2010-05-07T13:05:00.000-07:00

Making Wunder 14 from Chris Lang on Vimeo.

More movie stuff! But mom's are coming this weekend, so maybe we can get a good mother's day post in here too :)

Part 13?

2010-04-26T15:11:00.000-07:00

Wow, Michelle and I must be boring... I have nothing but 'Making Wunder' videos to post... oh well. soon we'll do something worth sharing!!
Chris

wunder 13 from Chris Lang on Vimeo.

Wunder part 12

2010-03-23T10:15:00.000-07:00

Making Wunder 12 from Chris Lang on Vimeo.

There will probably be a bit of a pause now... but pre-production is starting so exciting videos to follow! :)

Wunder 11

2010-03-17T08:39:00.000-07:00

Making Wunder 11 from Chris Lang on Vimeo.

Another one! hmmm... I'm kind of taking over aren't I?

And part 10

2010-03-09T13:06:00.001-08:00

I kind of filmed a lot durring my trip :) enjoy!

Wunder 10 from Chris Lang on Vimeo.

Wunder 9

2010-03-08T15:59:00.000-08:00

More traveling, more thoughts on the movie :) More to come...

Making Wunder 9 from Chris Lang on Vimeo.

On Vacation!

2010-03-02T14:20:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to let everyone know how hard vacation can be... I compleatly wore the Collins' out ;)

Fox?

2010-02-21T19:57:00.000-08:00

Interesting... I think we may be getting a new pet to keep Roarie company, now that we are aware this is possible...

Colorado

2010-02-20T17:25:00.000-08:00

Michelle and I took a trip to Colorado to visit Amanda and Trevor, two friends from Michelle's days at OSU.

I've never actually been outside in Denver, seeing only the airport on previous trips. Now I know what I was missing out on. Michelle and I were both amazed at how beautiful the scenery around was. We have photos to prove it :)

We stayed with our friends in Boulder, which is nestled right against the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. It's also the home to not only Celestial Seasonings Tea, but also a really cool tea house built in Tajikistan and donated to Boulder from a sister city.

(Michelle getting free unlimited tea samples at Celestial Seasonings tea factory)

(Michelle, Trevor and I in the Tajikistan tea house)

It was a great trip, and when it finally ended, I don't think any of us were ready to go to the airport... but at least we caught a cool sunrise!

Wunder 8

2010-01-17T16:59:00.001-08:00

Seems like posts come in pairs these days...
Anyhow, my camera is fixed, which means part 8!!

This one is me testing my first draft adapter. I'm actually really happy with how it's coming along, though I still have some work to do to get all the images cleared up.

But anyways, here is part 8. My favorite so far.... probably because it stars Roarie and Michelle :)

Making Wunder 8 from Chris Lang on Vimeo.

blazer game!

2010-01-17T16:33:00.000-08:00

For the first time, since I think ever (well, maybe high school) Michelle and I were actually cheering passionately for the same team! Michelle took me to a Blazer's game for my Christmas present! It was awesome.

We had seats right in the first row of the top section:

Hence my ability to play spy.

Also, they scored 102 points, which means everyone in the crowd gets a free Chalupa! So awesome!!!

Wunder 7

2010-01-05T16:51:00.000-08:00

Part seven, now! I promised myself I'd space them out, and never put two posted back to back... but I lied.... or broke the promise... or whatever... enjoy!

Making Wunder 7 from Chris Lang on Vimeo.

My camera is broken now and in the repair shop, so it could be sometime before the next one... sorry

Wunder 6

2009-12-31T11:31:00.000-08:00

Part six. I waited a little bit to post, because I didn't want people to think the project was slowing down. Part 7 coming soon :)

Making Wunder 6 from Chris Lang on Vimeo.

Snow Day

2009-12-30T22:30:00.000-08:00

So we don't get a whole lot of snow in Portland, thus yesterday, when we had a surprise downpour of it mid afternoon, a lot of people panicked and took to the roads trying to get home. In fact, I think everyone in the Metro area was in a car trying to drive somewhere, since it took me an hour and a half to drive the 6 miles from Michelle's work to our home.

But it made for some really nice photos!!!

A Merry Christmas

2009-12-30T22:14:00.000-08:00

So it's been awhile since we've posted, and as you could guess, it has a lot to do with the busy holiday season. Michelle and I spent the last week and a half driving about 1000 miles to visit all our families up and down Oregon and Washington.

We spent some time in Medford with Michelle's Grandpa and family, and then up to Cottage Grove for some time with the other side of Michelle's family and Grandma. From there is was back to Portland, and on to Astoria to visit our mom's and dad's, and then up to Seattle area to visit my grandma, aunt, uncle, cousins and brother. All and all a busy time.

All our photo's are from the latter half of the trip, and you may notice the quality has gone up... that's because for Christmas the Bernys got us an awesome new camera, and we've been using it non-stop ever since :)

Wunder 5

2009-12-06T21:53:00.001-08:00

Longest one yet.. thanks to Tim on this one... he not only filmed a lot of it, but I basically made it based off his shorts, so thanks for showing me how it's done Tim :)

Making Wunder 5 from Chris Lang on Vimeo.

Broken Camera

2009-12-06T21:52:00.001-08:00

Hello... so sorry for the lack of posts, but our camera broke, so we missed out on all sorts of visuals which may have made our posts interesting... but Michelle fixed it like a pro, and so we should have more up soon :)

Wunder 4

2009-11-29T10:16:00.000-08:00

They just keep coming :) Hope you enjoy!

Making Wunder 4 from Chris Lang on Vimeo.

Thanksgiving

2009-11-28T12:57:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving!
Michelle and I decided that we would mix it up a little bit this year, and so while the menu was fairly familiar, we added some different flare to the dishes.

This was our selection:
Roasted Turkey
Brandy cranberry and sweet potato stuffing
Garlic and herb mashed potatoes
greenbeans with garlic, tomatoes and spices
Rolls from scratch
Sangria fruit and jello mold
cranberry, pear and orange relish

and for dessert, both home-made:

Mayan chocolate pecan pie
Pumpkin cheese cake

It was yummy :)
here are the photos...

In this first set, Michelle was lifting up the pecan pie for the photo, but then, dropped it. lucky for us there wasn't much damage :)

Then, just some other photos from the day...

Announcement!

2009-11-28T10:46:00.000-08:00

Hello! So I was looking at the Astorian online last night, and it turns out that Michelle and I are getting married!!

Check it out here:

Wunder part 3

2009-11-20T17:47:00.000-08:00

Third part. It's a short one, but there will be more :)

Making Wunder 3 from Chris Lang on Vimeo.

Ducks vs. Beavers

2009-11-15T20:33:00.000-08:00

So Michelle and I have our different areas of study... hence the art vs. science theme. Be we also have a much greater battle between us... the fact that I went to the UofO and Michelle when to OSU. So each year there are always a few days where we draw a line in the sand and take our sides. This will happen again on December 3rd at 6PM. However, this weekend, I went to a much less tense match-up of Oregon Vs. ASU. It was fun, and they won by a lot :)

Wunder part 2

2009-11-14T09:30:00.000-08:00

Just put up part two as well. I hope you enjoy.
Chris

Making Wunder 2 from Chris Lang on Vimeo.

Tickets

2009-11-13T21:17:00.000-08:00

So, just a brief note... to anyone who is going to be in the Tempe AZ area next weekend, and wants to buy tickets to the ducks game there... I inadvertantly ended up with 3... see I thought it was a home game... blast.... but if you know anyone who needs some, send them my way, I'll give them a steal ;)

Web series!

2009-11-09T09:07:00.000-08:00

So Tim and I have been writing a movie together for sometime. I haven't had much chance to film anything myself for awhile, and since Tim moved to New York, he started a collection of videos about his experience there. That got me thinking that maybe I should start a web series about trying to make a movie. It's a little abstract in its beginning stages, but I hope it will help capture the whole process of filming from writing, to actual premier... so as with all experiments, we'll see how it goes. Here is part one. I hope you enjoy.
Chris

Making Wunder pt1 from Chris Lang on Vimeo.

More to come

Parenting is rough...

2009-11-06T21:38:00.000-08:00

Haha, ok, so Michelle and I aren't parents, but we do have a kitty, and as we discovered, she has a sensitivity to her Advantage flee medicine. If we put it on too high up on her head, then she loses her hair (temporarlly...)

So in order to keep her comfortable, while she is balding, we have a special cat ointment that we put on the irritated skin... unfortunately she doesn't like this ointment, and tried to paw it off. So tonight we had to put on a make-shift cone device in order to keep her from pawing at it. needless to say, she wasn't thrilled... here are some photos.. :(

Halloween

2009-11-04T11:14:00.000-08:00

So it's strange, but it seems that we always start these blogs up sometime around Halloween... maybe it's just the changing seasons, or the fact that it's the start of a Holiday/excitement packed time of the year, but either way, here are some photo's from out Halloween this year. I was a Mariachi player, and Michelle was a butterfly. Roarie (our cat) was lame, and didn't go out this year or dress up, but she did like Michelle's wings...

New Blog

2009-11-02T16:47:00.000-08:00

Since we are no longer in the Netherlands, I thought we could still use a blog to keep track of things... between the wedding, michelle's school/conferences, and my movie stuff, it's hard to keep everyone informed, so this will be easier!

We'll post information about the wedding, photos of our trips, info on what we are up to, and even a webseries about Tim and I trying to make a movie. Should be ten types of fun! Hope you enjoy :) You can find links to the Maastricht blog on the right, as well as to tim's blog, because it's awsome and inspiring to me. I'll also include a link to our official wedding page!
Chris