Mike DeSimone & Shay Tressa DeSimone: Our Latest News

Latest News

Have you heard the latest...?

We plan to keep this page regularly updated with the latest news on our personal lives, jobs, travels, and other happenings. Check back often!

Personal:

Happy New Year...! It's hard to believe 2008 is already upon us; where did 2007 go? Thanks to all of you who made the past year such a great one for us; we feel so fortunate to have such wonderful family and friends in our lives. And we're looking forward to an exciting 2008...from closing on our Austin condo this spring to a trip to NYC this summer for the wedding of Shay's cousin Mike and his fiancée Heather, there are a lot of fun times and get-togethers ahead. We enjoyed numerous visits from family and friends over the past year - including Shay's parents and brother Dave; Shay's friend Andie (all the way from Vienna!); the Crawford family (Shay's cousin Holly, Holly's husband Doug, and their son Nate); and Shay's grad school friend Yasuharu and his wife Yumi - and we had fun hanging out with our friends Scott and Marcia during the Kronos conference in Las Vegas. We hope to get together with even more of you over the coming year! Until we see you again, we wish you all a fabulous New Year...may it bring everything you wish for, and then some!

Book Lovers, Unite... Anyone who knows Shay knows that she loves her books (almost as much as she enjoys traveling). A few months ago, she signed up for a free virtual book club called Booked for Breakfast. Each week, they feature a new mystery or thriller and send out daily emails offering a sneak preview. Each email is about a five-minute read, and by the end of the week, you've read the first couple of chapters of the book -- enough to determine whether you want to buy it or reserve it at the library. Shay already has a list of four of five novels she's planning to pick up on her next trip to the bookstore. So if you like mysteries and/or thrillers, you can sign up via the web site above or send an email to Suzanne@bookedforbreakfast.com. Enjoy!

DJ Mike... We've been trying to talk many of you into joining us in Second Life, a virtual world where you create avatars to interact with others. Mike now has a regular DJ gig on Second Life, and you can tune in even if you're not a member of the virtual community...just click on over to http://shoutcast.catalistpro.com:8055/ on Fridays from 7-9pm Eastern. Hope you can join us! If you're already "in world," look us up: Mike's avatar is known as Doctor Epsilon, while Shay's avatar is named Sebastienne Sholokhov.

Work:

Mike: Mike is still working for Kronos Incorporated, where he is actually coming up on his 5-year anniversary! He was hired as a training support specialist, but his role has evolved during his tenure with Kronos and he now also serves as a trainer and course developer. His manager finally agreed to give him a transfer to Florida in 2004, and he's now based out of the company's Maitland office. While his office is about a 1.5-hour commute each way, he only has to be there when he's scheduled to teach a class; the rest of the time, he's either working from home or off on a business trip. The upside of his business travel is that Shay sometimes gets to join him on his trips, such as a trip to Australia in February 2006, Disney World in fall 2006, and Las Vegas this fall. Gotta love those travel perks!

Shay: After 2+ years as a jewelry writer at HSN, Shay's 80-mile roundtrip commute finally got the better of her, so she left the company in July 2007 with the intention of pursuing freelance work. She even created a web site for her e-portfolio of writing samples, which is accessible via shayportfolio.com, WriteWhenYouNeedIt.com, or WordSpa.net. But while she was moving forward with these plans, she got a call about a copywriter position with Bisk Education. The lure of a steady income and 20-minute commute proved too strong to resist, so her freelance ambitions are on hold once again. Shay started at Bisk on September 4, and things seem to be going well so far.

Travels:

2007 Travels: We'll keep you posted on any interesting travels...and as always, we're happy to play host to our family and friends!

	Orlando, FL - We decided to book a weekend getaway to nearby Orlando this past spring, as we had a couple of free passes to Universal Studios (courtesy of Shay's friend Angela, who is an event planner extraordinaire for the theme park). We got a great deal at the beautiful Omni Orlando Resort at Champions Gate via Priceline. Shay signed up for the hotel's Select Guest program online, and we were treated to a beautiful room with a view of the pool and lazy-river tubing area below. Other perks included free newspapers of our choice and a choice of free drinks each morning. If you've never stayed at this hotel before, we highly recommend it! It's a bit further out than the "Maingate" area hotels, but it's definitely worth the drive. We drove out on a Saturday afternoon, checked in at the hotel, and then headed to Downtown Disney to have dinner at the Wolfgang Puck Café. There was a wait for the café, but they offered us a table at the upscale Wolfgang Puck Dining Room upstairs. We had never tried it before, so we gave it a go. While the service and atmosphere were very good, we actually preferred the food at downstairs café. (The restaurant didn't even have any vegetarian options; they offered to whip up some pasta with vegetables, but Shay requested her favorite pumpkin ravioli from the café menu.) We spent Sunday at Universal; we tried out the rides at Islands of Adventure (Shay loved the roller coasters, while Mike found the Seuss Trolley Train Ride to be more his speed), grabbed a late lunch at Emeril's (great atmosphere/décor, okay food), and then went on a few rides at Universal Studios (including Mike's fave, Men in Black Alien Attack). Afterward, we headed over to Universal CityWalk to wait for Angela to meet up with us. We settled into the bar at Pat O'Brien's, where we proceeded to try a wide variety of their specialty drinks -- all of which came with souvenir glasses. We left there with a huge assortment of barware: hurricane glasses, mint julep glasses, wine glasses, and more. We must have looked like a bunch of lushes -- although in our defense, many of the glasses came from fellow bar patrons who opted not to keep their glasses. All in all, it was a really fun evening. It was especially great to catch up with Angela, who showed us around, introduced us to some of the dueling piano players, and gave us a peek at Bob Marley's club, which is apparently a replica of his actual house in Jamaica. On Monday, Mike headed home (it was a work day for him) while Shay opted to take advantage of her Disney annual passport and spent the day at Disney-MGM Studios. It was a fun day, although not quite as fun when you're on your own. But hopefully we'll get back to Orlando again soon, either together or with friends!
	Austin, TX - We ended up booking a weekend trip to Austin in mid-March; it just happened to coincide with SXSW, the city's world-famous music, film, and interactive festivals. Sadly, we didn't get to catch any of the live music acts (we missed the music festival by one day), but we did have a great time. We had some difficulty finding a hotel; Priceline didn't deliver any good deals, as everything was pretty well booked up for SXSW. We wanted a central location, so after doing several searches, we were eventually able to land a room at the Omni Austin Hotel Downtown at a fairly decent AAA rate. Shay had received some vouchers after joining the Select Guest program, so we were able to use an upgrade certificate to get a room on the concierge floor, which included free continental breakfast as well as free happy hour drinks each evening. Not bad! The rooms were kind of small and the hotel could definitely do with some renovations, but overall, we really enjoyed our stay there. We did a lot of sightseeing when we were in Texas in November, so we didn't do many attractions this time around...we caught an IMAX movie at the Texas State History Museum and spent some time walking around the Zilker Botanical Gardens (nice, but we were a bit early in the season -- the roses weren't even in bloom yet). Austin has lots of fabulous restaurants, so needless to say we spent a lot of time eating (and drinking) out: Shady Grove, Baby Acapulco's, Veggie Heaven, Clay Pit, Crown & Anchor, Kerbey Lane, and Schlotzsky's. Sadly, we missed out on Shay's favorite vegetarian restaurant, Mother's Cafe and Garden, as the garden and part of the dining area had recently been destroyed by a fire. Happily, they're rebuilding it, so we look forward to stopping by the next time we're in town! As for what we were doing in Austin this time, we'll fill you in at a later date... ;-)
	Andie's Visit and Florida Travels - We were happy to play host to Shay's dear friend Andrea, who was visiting from Austria. Shay and Andie started off as pen pals and later traveled through the UK and Europe together in 1991/1992...but hadn't seen one another since! So when Andie came out to visit in August, we had a great time catching up. We also did a lot of traveling and sightseeing to make the most of Andie's two-week visit. In addition to seeing some of the local sights in Sarasota (Ringling Museum) and Tampa Bay (Ellenton Outlets, Dalí Museum, The Pier), we tagged along with Mike on a trip to the Orlando area, where we visited Epcot, and took a couple of trips to Florida's "Space Coast," where we visited the Kennedy Space Center and Jungle Adventures. But one of the highlights of our travels was Shay and Andie's visit to Key West. We flew out on SeaCoast Airlines and stayed for three nights at the Southernmost Hotel. We made the most of our brief visit, catching many of the major sights: Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum, Lighthouse Museum and Keeper's Quarters, Sunsets at Mallory Square, Conch Republic Monument, Truman Little White House, Audubon House, Butterfly and Nature Conservatory, Key West Museum of Art and History, and Fort East Martello Museum. We also spent an afternoon sailing and snorkeling off the coast of Key West. Of course, we visited lots of great restaurants (Shay's favorite was a great little vegetarian place called The Cafe on 509 Southard Street) and many of the Duval Street bars. Our favorite was one of Hemingway's old haunts, Sloppy Joe's, where we enjoyed performances by a Pennsylvania-based band called Spitshine and imbibed in the bar's signature drinks (Shay recommends the "Papa Dobles" - YUM!). We took lots of photos during our travels; you can access them via the Photo Album page of this site.
	Discovery Cove and Sea World, FL - We weren't able to schedule a big vacation to celebrate our 5th anniversary this year, as Shay was in between jobs. We didn't have the money while Shay was looking for work, and she couldn't get the vacation time once she landed a new job. So we decided to celebrate with a weekend getaway to Orlando, where we had the most amazing dolphin swim experience at Discovery Cove. We would highly recommend it to anyone. It's quite expensive, but the package is all-inclusive (apart from the photos, which are quite pricey - especially if you want a photo CD). In addition to our dolphin swim, we relaxed in the lazy river, snorkeled amidst rays and tropical fish in the simulated coral reef, and enjoyed breakfast, lunch, snacks and unlimited Busch products. We stayed at the Polynesian-themed Royal Pacific Resort near Universal, and enjoyed an evening at CityWalk as well as some excellent drinks, tea, and dessert at Emeril's Tchoup Chop restaurant bar in our hotel. We wrapped up our trip with a visit to SeaWorld before heading home. We've posted photos from our incredible day at Discovery Cove as well as our visit to Sea World.

Las Vegas - Once again, we'll be heading to Las Vegas for Mike's KronosWorks user conference. It's being held at the Venetian this year; so of course, Shay couldn't pass up the opportunity to tag along. We'll fill you in on all the details afterward.