Matt Faus

Welcome to our website! These pages recount our most excellent adventure... life! Currently, we are living in the San Francisco bay area, with good weather and incredible scenery. Take a look at the pictures and blogs, and let us know what you think with your comments and replies! Below is a chronological listing of all the blogs, but to find more specific content, click the tabs at the top of the page.

Matt and I spent New Year’s Eve with friends here in California! We had food, drinks, and fun with several friends from church. Matt and I are still in the process of making goals for 2009, but the general direction leans toward planning our time more effectively. Now that we’re out of school, we find that we have a lot of downtime that ends up being wasted.

We’re hoping to try to plan some activities each month, so that we have something fun to look forward too. We’re also hoping to plan a trip or two back to Dallas this year! Along with time management, Matt is working to get fit. BVC is working to start 10 new Lifegroups, so we will be involved with that push as well.

We believe 2009 will be a great year, and we can’t wait to see what’s in store!

Shortly after Matt’s family headed home, Matt and I geared up to host my family! We opened Christmas gifts when they first arrived. Matt and I had a disproportionate number of gifts to open, as my family had already done Christmas in Dallas.

We took my family to downtown San Francisco. We went to Fisherman’s Wharf, and intended to go to Ghiradelli Square. Unfortunately, there was no parking and the line was ridiculously long, so we decided to go home early. That night, Matt, my brother and my dad went to Dave and Buster’s to watch the UFC fight, so me, my mom and my sister had a girls’ night! We rented “The Devil Wears Prada”, made pie, and hung out in our pajamas all evening!

My entire family attended church with us on Sunday morning. It was really cool to introduce them to everyone, and to have them participate in our ministry. Everyone noticed that my family was there, and made a point to meet them.

We had another girls’ day on Monday. I took my mom and my sister shopping on Santana Row, and we went to Westfield Valley Fair mall as well. My sister found some cute clothes, but my mom and I didn’t have any luck. At the end of the day, we all had manicures at Lavande Nail Spa. This place is so warm and welcoming, and the prices were surprisingly reasonable. I highly recommend a trip to Santana Row and Lavande Nail Spa! Matt joined us for dinner, but went home before manicure time.

I really enjoyed seeing my family, and we took lots of pictures… check out the gallery for pictures of our Christmas fun!

Matt’s family was set to arrive Sunday afternoon, but their flight was delayed twice due to weather. However, 4 hours after their scheduled landing, we picked them up from SFO!

I was working the first few days of their visit, but they went to the Tech Museum and downtown San Francisco. We played games and had dinner each night, and it was great to be able to visit with them. Matt and his brothers went old-school with “Starcraft”… I think we had more computers than people in our house that week! I practiced my cooking skills, making my Mom’s recipe for Kentucky Derby Pie, my Grandmother’s recipe for homemade rolls and pecan pie, and my Great-Grandmother’s recipe for stuffing! I also used my Mother-in-Law’s meatball recipe for Christmas Eve.

The Faus family opens gifts on Christmas Eve, so we gather around the tree to tear into our gifts. Matt and I both received giftcards and money. I received tickets for “Wicked”, and lots of Bath and Body works. On Christmas Day, we opened our stockings to find lots of candy and chips. I bailed out of a rousing game of Monopoly at the 3-hour mark, citing the need to start cooking. The Faus men fought over property and money in the game for another hour! We finally sat down to ham, potatoes, green bean casserole, rolls and stuffing.

We had a great time hosting Matt’s family, and we took lots of pictures!

I’ve been too busy to post, but the season is in full swing! Matt and I are hosting family, decorating, shopping, cleaning and cooking in preparation for our first Christmas as husband and wife!

I was so excited to pull out all of the Christmas ornaments this year! Matt and I decided to do a real tree, as we were hosting his family on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I’ve never had a real tree, but it is an annual tradition for Matt’s family. We headed to Santa’s Tree Farm in Half Moon Bay to cut down the perfect tree. It turned out to be cold and rainy, but we braved the weather. They gave us a saw and sent us out to all the lots to choose-and-cut our own tree. We found a full, shapely tree with a nice point on top, and cut it down in record time. We tied the tree to my car and headed home to decorate. The tree left a trail of pine needles all over the living room, and it turned out to be a massive tree. Matt strung the lights, and I put up the ornaments.  I also put up my Christmas village, hung the stockings, and took lots of pictures!

We also attended several Christmas parties. My company part was at Fleming’s Steakhouse in Palo Alto. Matt and I both had amazing steaks and good conversation with my co-workers and their significant others. The Microsoft party was at a hotel in downtown San Francisco. We met up with several of Matt’s co-workers for the evening. The theme was “Rhythms of the World”, so they had food and music from different places around the world. Check out the pictures from our pre-Christmas festivities!

I found a very help function today that will easily sort two parallel arrays where one of them contains a set of keys and the other stores another piece of data.  If you want the keys array to be sorted, and the other array to maintain it’s parallism, you can use the Array.Sort(Array, Array) function in .NET.

This is really nice if you have two primitive arrays that you are using in this fashion and do not want to implement your own sorting routine.

Matt and I just conquered our first Thanksgiving as a married couple! My friend Brittany joined us for the week, and we had a great time.

We started the week with a drive to Newman, CA, to see Brittany’s show. She tours with a children’s theatre, directing and acting in this season’s show, “The Princess and the Pea.” Brittany plays a leprochaun, narrating the show in a fun Irish accent. The show was great, and Brittany looked cute in her costume. We had mexican food at a local restaurant, and headed home.

Brittany arrived at our place on Sunday night, and we started making the grocery list for the week. Matt and I had to work on Monday and Tuesday, so Brittany entertained herself in the city. She also prepared two wonderful dinners for us I am definitely stealing her chicken picatta recipe!

On Wednesday, Brittany and I went shopping on Santana Row. It was gross and rainy, but we managed to have a great day! We also started cooking Wednesday night, but luck was NOT on our side. First, we had the ill-fated pecan pie. The recipe was flawed, so we ended up having pecan sauce over ice cream for desert that night. Several other mis-haps ensued, but what can you expect…. we’ve never prepared for Thanksgiving unsupervised!

Thursday was a great day of cooking. Brittany and I were up early to brine the turkey and make my great-grandmother’s stuffing. We ended up with garlic mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, dill carrots, sweet potato casserole, homemade stuffing and rolls, and an AMAZING turkey. I also made homemade candied pecans and olive salad, which turned out to be excellent. We hosted several of Matt’s co-workers, and they brought over hors ‘d oeuvres and deserts as well. After dinner, we played Taboo and Scattergories, and finally headed to bed around 1:00 am.

We spent Friday in San Francisco, hitting Fisherman’s Wharf, Chinatown and Ghiradelli Square. We had an AMAZING hot fudge sundae in Ghiradelli Square. We came back for their tree-lighting, which was woefully disappointing, so we left early. We finished the night with In-and-Out Burger, and sent Brittany back to work on Saturday morning. My first Thanksgiving was a success, and I am excited to continue the holiday festivities!

I know I’m late on this update, but life gets a little crazy sometimes A couple of weeks ago, my sister was out in LA looking at colleges, so Matt and I flew down to hang out for the weekend. My brother drove down from Santa Barbara to meet all of us as well.

We went out to eat at Olive Garden on Friday night. I haven’t been to Olive Garden in forever, but it was such good food! I always have a great time with my family, especially my mom and my sister. The night was poised for some much needed girl time. The rooming situation was fun… according to my sister, “Girls, guys, and old people.” Brianna and I had fun sister time, talking about her college choices, friends, married life, etc.

We spent Saturday at Universal Studios together. I’d never been to Universal Studios, but it was really cool to be behind the scenes of all the movies and TV shows. We did the Backstage Tour, and saw them blow up cars, create a flood, and move from European towns to Wisteria Lane. They are currently shooting “Desparate Housewives”, so we drove through the neighboorhood set. It all looks so real!

We saw “Water World”, and had a backstage pass after the show to see how it all works! We rode several moveie-themed rides, including The Mummy and Jurassic Park. A friendly and emphatic warning about Jurassic Park…. DON’T SIT ON THE FRONT, LEFT SEAT!!!! The first time around, we sat on the second or third row of the car. We received a few splashes, but nothing worth crying over. The second time around, I was seated on the front row of the front car, in the far left seat. Half-way through the ride, I got SOAKED. And we are not talking about one sleeve or one pant leg here…. we’re talking DRENCHED, undergarments and all. When we exited the ride, I was wringing out my shirt and my hair. My pants were a lost cause! My family thought the whole thing was hilarious, and we took a few pictures. Unfortunately, my pants and shoes were still a little damp on the flight home!

It was a great weekend with my family, and I highly recommend Universal Studios.

Due to some unfortunate and extenuating circumstances for my co-worker, he was unable to attend the International Solar Show 2008 in San Diego last week. Since I’m the only other person heavily involved in multiple aspects of the day-to-day operations, my boss decided that it would be beneficial for me to attend the trade show. So, at 4 am, I woke up to catch my 6:30 am flight for a day at the show in San Diego. Matt was a good sport, being my chauffeur from the airport.

The show had several hundred booths and several thousand attendees. The high-level goal was to set-up some relationships with manufacturers of panels, inverters, and mounting hardware. The owners of the company had several meetings on the floor, and we had a meeting with our current supplier as well. My goal was to find some installers to partner with. Unfortunately, most of the booths were not staffed with installers. It was a good day for manufacturer relationships though Although, I received a nice compliment from our current supplier. The person that I work with on a regular basis told his boss that he was very impressed with my work, so that was really cool.

There is some pretty interesting technology on the market. Thin film is the latest development, boasting increased efficiency, aesthetic qualities, and durability. Further, due to the nature of the material, it is easier to install than traditional panels. Several companies have come out with better flush-mount and roof-integrated technology, which means that the solar panels can be built directly into the roof. Most of the large companies had really elaborate booths, with life-size panel displays. One or two booths were 2-story, with seating areas above the display area. Several automation companies had booths with robots and working machines for demonstration. We’re all kids at heart… fascinated by the shining, moving objects:) I picked up a lot of material to help increase my knowledge of the industry, and we have already started to utilize some of the contacts from the show. I have found that I really enjoy tradeshows, and I would love to put together a booth for Solar Designs next year. We’ll see how things go in 2009, but I think the International Solar Show 2008 was a great experience for me and the company.

I found some better roads yesterday. I found some roads that were very twisty, yet not hairpin after hairpin of parking lot drills. I was cautious on my way, out, but then I came back on the same twisties so I was more confident and opened it up a little bit. It was an awesome ride and made me really appreciate owning a motorcycle again.

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After nearly 2 months of my motorcycle sitting broken in my garage, I have finally gotten it back up and running!  I decided to tackle the task of replacing the oil pan myself. I decided long ago that I wanted to do all of the maintenance on my bike as another way to enjoy it. After the parts came in, I set aside a Saturday to do all of the work. It was pretty tough because I had to remove the exhaust pipe to get at the oil pan, and then I had to mate the oil pan to the engine block with liquid gasket. Thankfully, Ashley helped out in the delicate mating process and it took a mere 6 hours to get everything completed. After that I did a full wash and wax and my bike is in the best shape of its life! I uploaded some pictures of my work, so if you’re interested they are in the Pics section.

As a victory ride I decided to travel east and see what kind of road I could find. I found CA-130 with Google Maps and it looked pretty interesting. Once I got out there, however, it was TOUGH! The first part of the road was crazy hairpin 180 degree turns with elevation changes… all on the side of a cliff. There was one really cool moment where ahead of me there was literally nothing between the road and the sky. It was a little scary, but I just took it slow. The view at the top of the mountain was incredible. I know, because I stopped several times to take a breather. The combination of not riding in a long time, being really sore from the previous day’s labor, and my unfamiliarity with the roads made it really difficult to get through the entire ride. Towards the end of 130 the roads opened up a bit and made it much more enjoyable. The first half of the road was just like parking lot drills, but on the side of a cliff! Anyway, once I got on the other side of the mountain, I decided to “slab” it back home to get there in time for dinner.

Besides this, I’ve been riding my bike to work every day, which is a lot of fun!

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