[Read the whole thing]]]> Saturday we throw what is easily the largest party we’ve ever thrown: A big open house for our new house. We each invited many of our cow-orkers, as well as friends and our new neighbors. I think we invited about 130 people, and including kids and significant others I bet we had about 80 show up (probably around a 40% return rate, since many who showed up were not direct invitees). Fortunately they didn’t show up all at once, since I don’t think we could have handled that! Rather they were spread out between 1 and 7 pm, with the last few taking off around 7:45.

We were pleased to get nice weather, especially after the heat wave we had early last week, as we planned to shunt many of the kids out to the back yard to play, which worked out well. (The only casualty was my hummingbird feeder which broke when a large ball got kicked into it at high speed. I had actually been thinking of replacing it anyway, so not a big deal.)

Before people showed up we locked the cats in the guest room (Roulette yowled vigorously when we caught her to throw her in.) I put up a “Do Not Enter – Cats Inside!” sign, along with a full-size photo of what the room looked like that morning before we threw them in, so people could get an idea of what the room looked like. Locking the cats away meant we could open the front and back doors without worrying about them escaping outside (which in turn meant no doorbells going off every few minutes to upset the cats).

Then we gave many, many tours of the house, which got the hoped-for sounds of appreciation. The seller/builder showed up with his brothers and their wives and he showed them around, and our agent showed up too to see what we’d done with the place. We had three neighbors stop in, including the fellow across the street whom we’ve gotten to know and his wife whom Debbi described as “a hoot”. We’d hoped & expected to get a few more neighbors, but perhaps many were busy on a Saturday afternoon at the end of June. (We did partly invite them just so they’d know we were having the party and wouldn’t be surprised that our guests used so much local parking, but we wanted to meet some, too!)

We used Evite for the invitations, as we usually do, but we had the odd experience this time of not only having some folks show up who hadn’t RSVPed (which always happens), but having some folks who up whom Evite claimed hadn’t even viewed the invitation, which must be some sort of an Evite glitch. The last time I used Evite I got some feedback that it was quaint that someone was still using that site, but it’s always worked for me. If it’s starting to head south, it may be time to find another invitation site for future parties.

For food we served snacks, but Debbi also made three wine bottles’ worth of sangria, which was almost completely gone by the end of the day. The hummus went over really well, too.

I was happy that my friend Rob showed up, as I hadn’t seen him since his housewarming party last year. He brought his three kids, the youngest of whom loved our stuffed animals (Sam, my giant stuffed sea turtle, went over really well with the 3-and-under kids). I think I’ve known Rob longer than anyone else other than my family, and it’s always good to see him. Even though we don’t have hordes of interests in common as we did in junior high, it always seems like we get along just as good as ever.

We let the cats out when there are only a few people left, but only Newton had the remotest interest in coming down to check things out. (Newton had spent much of the afternoon sitting in the window watching people run around in the yard.) The other two came down once everyone was gone and we were cleaning up.

It was a lot of fun, but also a long time to be standing on my feet. I switched from sandals to slippers part-way through, and then to bare feet not long after that. By 9:30 at night I was falling asleep on the couch, so we called it an early night, and a successful party. (But going to bed early meant we got up early enough to beat the Sunday brunch rush at Country Gourmet!)

Debbi’s now talking about doing this every year! Well, maybe by next June we’ll be completely unpacked.

[Read the whole thing]]]> I’m taking a week off, starting today, for my Mom to come visit. We set this visit up a couple of months ago, thereby ensuring that we’d find a house and be in the middle of the process of buying it when she got here. On the other hand, it’s a better time than when we’re actually moving, or just moved and not yet unpacked. I’m looking forward to some down time with her.

The house thing is moving along. We’ve been providing a heckuva lot of documentation to our lender – I don’t remember it being this bad when I bought my townhome, but in the wake of the housing crisis I think the government has tightened up a lot of regulations. I think we’re just about done with this step of the process, and then we wait until we go in to wear our arms out signing the title documents. Well okay, we’re going to start packing after Mom leaves, too.

Blackjack is doing well. Monday’s chemo treatment I guess is the worst he’ll get, but so far he hasn’t been nauseous or anything. The vet said he’s been doing really well, and the technician said Monday was the first day she was able to get him to purr for her. His energy level is still lower than usual, but we’re hopeful that he’s going to get through all this without too much trouble, and that the lymphoma will be sufficiently in remission so that he’ll have a good life ahead of him.

Spring has been having trouble deciding whether to arrive, as the temperature has bounced around from highs in the 50s to highs in the 70s over the last few weeks. Makes it hard to decide whether to wear jeans or shorts! But the rain has just about ended (at least in the south bay, I guess it’s still raining up the peninsula fairly often), which means I’ve been cleaning up the porch and patio. I finally figured out the easiest and most effective way to clean the porch – just in time to move out of this place! Figures.

Over the weekend we went to see five children in four days: Thursday night we visited Subrata and Susan and their son for dinner, and then an evening of gaming. Saturday we visited Chad and Camille and their kids to keep the kids occupied for a few hours. And Sunday we visited Lisa and Michel, and their daughter and newborn son, whom we hadn’t seen since he was born a month or so ago. Young children seem to love me, which always strikes me as a little strange. I was definitely kidded out at the end of the weekend, though. But it’s nice to visit them.

Anyway, time to get some things done before going to pick up Mom this afternoon!

[Read the whole thing]]]> We had a pretty lively weekend. Saturday we went over to our friends Chad & Camille’s place for their twin kids’ one-year birthday party. As I’ve been saying, one-year birthday parties are more for the parents than for the kids, though the kids seemed to enjoy it anyway. We knew everyone there (other than C&C’s nanny and her fiancé), and saw a few folks we hadn’t in a while.

We had another hot weekend – not a scorcher, but still warm – and C&C invited us back on Sunday to avail ourselves of their pool, which we were happy to take them up on. So we spent the afternoon there, and I got to entertain the kids some more. Kids love me. I like them as long as I can hand them back to their parents when I run out of steam with them.

Sunday evening we biked into Shoreline Park for the annual Independence Day fireworks, which is always fun. Dealing with the idiots on the paths and streets on the way out of the park isn’t so much fun, but this year they had people directing traffic at the main intersection on our way out, which made it easier. And we had our first-class location on the grass as usual, too.

Monday we both had off from work, and we had a fairly quiet day mostly at home, with a few excursions for lunch and coffee. We also picked up the fixings so I could make mocha chip ice cream, which I did. This batch turned out especially good, too! And the heat broke (which I’m sure all of you sweltering on the east coast are envious of), which made the day even nicer.

But I had a terrible time sleeping last night, and woke up not only groggy but also with a sore throat, so I decided it was prudent to stay home from work. I dozed some in the morning (Newton and Blackjack snoozed with me), had some lunch, and spent the afternoon on the couch finishing a book and re-watching chunks of the films of The Lord of the Rings.

Hopefully I will be all better tomorrow. There have been some nasty illnesses going around at work and I’m hoping I haven’t caught one of them. Though each person seems to have something different, so it’s probably my own special thing.

The break has unfortunately been marred by Debbi’s illness, which she’s had for over a week, and which has progressed through the usual cold symptoms, but has taken forever to progress. After hearing her chest coughs yesterday,

[Read the whole thing]]]> We’re a little more than halfway through our holiday break, so here’s what we’ve been up to:

The break has unfortunately been marred by Debbi’s illness, which she’s had for over a week, and which has progressed through the usual cold symptoms, but has taken forever to progress. After hearing her chest coughs yesterday, we finally decided that she should go see a doctor about it today. (I even hauled out our humidifier to see if damper air would help her cough less.) The doctor diagnosed it as just a cold, so there’s not a lot she can do except take it easy and take some cough medicine – and try not to overmedicate.

On the bright side, our friend Karen came down for the Christmas weekend. She usually heads east to visit her family over the holidays, but the price of air fare persuaded her otherwise, so instead we invited her down here. She flew in on Christmas Eve, which I had off but Debbi didn’t, so I picked her up from the airport and we went to Whole Foods to pick up the fixings for Christmas dinner, and lay in food for Karen while she was here. We went to Cascal for dinner, and then drove around the area looking at Christmas lights as there are some impressive displays around.

Christmas morning we sat around the tree (our artificial tree that we bought last year, because real trees have gotten astonishingly expensive around here) and opened gifts. My big gift to Debbi and myself was to replace our aging comforter with a nice new one. It’s even larger, so it fits in the comforter cover whereas the old one was a bit small for it. I also bought her the third season of Corner Gas on DVD. I received a goodly haul of books, CDs and DVDs from various people.

Karen has been training for a long race, so she needed to get some training walks in during her visit, thus in the afternoon we went out to the Stevens Creek Trail so she could do her walk, while Debbi and I took a ore leisurely one. We went directly to have lunch downtown at a Thai restaurant, and then vegged for a while at home, before finally cooking dinner in the evening. I made meatloaf, Debbi made mashed potatoes and steamed carrots, and Karen baked a blueberry pie.

Saturday Karen headed out for a long walk, and Debbi and I went over to Bill’s for his annual Boxing Day party, where we played some Fluxx, one game of which was epically long and I won in a particularly improbable way (involving randomly switched followed by randomly chosen cards). We picked up Karen (just before the first of the week’s rains came in that evening), and went to dinner at Sundance the Steakhouse, which has to be one of our better recent restaurant finds in the area.

Sunday we drove to the coast and had the champagne brunch at the Moss Beach Distillery, then stopped off for an outing at the beach the beach near Pillar Point. Monday, Debbi’s cold was starting to get her down, so we had a quiet day mostly at home and went to dinner at Amber India, before taking Karen to the airport, where she caught her flight home only a little late.

Tuesday, as I recounted yesterday, I went to play poker at a local card room, coming home as Debbi went out for dinner with some friends. I spent the evening puttering around in the study, and afterwards we watched some Corner Gas until we went to bed.

Today I went to the comic book store for the one comic that came out this week (Blackest Night #6). Due to the holidays, shipping companies couldn’t guarantee that books would arrive on Wednesday, so most companies decided to skip this week, as it was the fifth Wednesday of the month anyway (often called a “skip week” in the industry). DC decided to ship one book last week instructing stores not to put it out until this week, on pain of whatever tortures DC has at its disposal, I suppose. You can sometimes tell how ethical a store is by whether they abode by these requirements or not. My store, of course, held the book until this week like they’re supposed to, and held a sale besides – the store, surprisingly, was quite busy when I arrived!

I also went to an Apple store to buy a new keyboard, since the wireless keyboard I’ve been using since I got a stand for my laptop has been terribly unreliable, dropping connections every 10 seconds at times. Very disappointing, but web searches suggested that the keyboard has been problematic for a lot of people (apparently 2.4 GHz devices – wireless networks, cordless phones, etc. – can interfere with the keyboard’s bluetooth connection). Oddly, I’ve never had any such troubles with wireless mice.

And that brings us up-to-date. Now, to go read that comic book – and the few others I bought at the sale!

Monday night we took my friend Joar and his wife Karin to their first baseball game since they moved here from Sweden a couple of years

[Read the whole thing]]]> These past two evenings have been taken up with two trips to Oakland to see my Boston Red Sox in their only trip to the area this year.

Monday night we took my friend Joar and his wife Karin to their first baseball game since they moved here from Sweden a couple of years ago. We’d meant to go last year, but it never happened (mainly, I think, due to my own sloth). I don’t think either of them are really sports people, but obviously they’ve heard about the game and Joar’s seen my own enthusiasm for it on display plenty.

I explained the basics of how baseball works, which is a bigger challenge than I’d expected: What innings are, what outs are, the fielders and the batting line-up, how balls and strikes work, what foul balls and home runs are, and how outs are actually made. That doesn’t even get to things like stolen bases or double plays or pitching changes or any of that. Never mind the Seventh Inning Stretch.

All this was much easier once the game began and I could point out how the umpire indicates balls and strikes, where the foul lines are, how the runners move around the bases, etc. It really brought home how I take the play of the game for granted, having absorbed it mostly through watching a whole bunch of games as a teenager.

I think they enjoyed the game more than they’d expected, especially Karin who was watching the game quite intently as it progressed – which is saying something because it was a pretty mediocre game, as the A’s clubbed the Sox’ pitching into submission and rolled to an 8-2 victory. But we had great seats in the second deck behind home plate (and Joar nearly got his head taken off by a foul ball, but it was deflected at the last second), and it was a fairly warm night. We even saw the Red Sox pick off not one but two runners from first base in the same inning, which I don’t think I’ve ever seen before.

Next I’ll try to get them to a Giants game, hopefully for a weekend day game so they can appreciate Pac Bell Park.

Debbi and I went back last night for the second game of the series, which was considerably less fun, because the temperature was in the 40s and the wind was in the 20-30 MPH range, so it was goddamned freezing, even with the extra layers we wore. Hot cocoa and Irish coffee only staved off the chill for a few minutes.

Which is too bad because it was quite a good game: Sox starter Daisuke Matsuzaka melted down in the first inning (and went on the DL today), but Justin Masterson held the A’s scoreless for 4 innings, and the Sox came back to tie it 5-5. Finally we got too cold and left in the middle of the 8th, and the game was still going on by the time we got home and went to bed. I learned this morning that the A’s won 6-5 in 12 innings, so I’m rather glad we didn’t stay to the bitter end.

Of course, the Sox saved the best for today’s day game, which is a bummer, but at least they won one. I’m just sorry I wasn’t able to see it.

And even more sorry they won’t be back for another visit later in the summer. Darn the unbalanced schedule anyway!

Friday night Debbi took me out to dinner. We went to Sundance the Steakhouse, a local place that we’d never been to before, but which we discovered through the discount cards we get through our workplaces. (We’ve actually discovered several

[Read the whole thing]]]> I can’t complain about my birthday weekend: It’s been pack full of fun stuff.

Friday night Debbi took me out to dinner. We went to Sundance the Steakhouse, a local place that we’d never been to before, but which we discovered through the discount cards we get through our workplaces. (We’ve actually discovered several good places through them.) It was very yummy! They have an elegant decor with wood panelling and display cases of what I assume are memorabilia from Stanford, which is just down the street. We each ordered a steak dinner, with an appetizer of potato skins. Good stuff! We’ll definitely go back.

At home we watched 3 more episodes of Battlestar Galactica, and we’re now nearly caught up.

And that wrapped up my birthday proper.

Saturday we ran a variety of errands in order to host my birthday party in the evening. As always I didn’t send out the invitations until quite late – Wednesday evening. With my birthday falling so soon after Christmas it’s always hard to get myself to put it together early. I also have a hard time figuring out whom to invite. I worry about having so many people over that we won’t have space to cram them all into our house, but on the other hand I also consider inviting some people I know casually, enjoy hanging out with, but wonder if they’d feel peculiar that I invited them to my birthday party. Debbi encouraged me to invite more rather than fewer people, so that’s what I did. And then of course, there’s always some obvious person that I forget until a day or two later.

Anyway, despite my worries and despite the short notice, we had plenty of people show up. Which is itself rather flattering: I have lots of friends! Some folks I hadn’t seen in a while showed up, too, such as Lucy, Trish, and Mark & Yvette.

People were mesmerized by a frustrating puzzle that Debbi’s father sent her for Christmas: I think we managed to identify all the OCD people in the room with it. And our friends LIsa and Michael brought their daughter Isabella, who is now walking, and who loves cats. I guess she was able to pet Blackjack at one point, which left her completely delighted. She’s become quite the little flirt. Subrata and Susan brought over Ajay, who’s not yet crawling, but who seemed pretty happy to see all the people. He’s going to be quite the little charmer himself.

After consuming the USDA-mandated quantities of cake and ice cream, everyone staggered off home. But we had a great time. Even the cats had fun!

Today we headed off to Half Moon Bay for brunch and an hour walk along the seashore: It’s been quite warm here recently, so it was perfect weather for it. Then we came home and sat around watching football and putting the house back together.

I couldn’t really have asked for a much better weekend. How was yours?

Friday night we got together with our friends Chad and Camille for dinner at Cascal, the popular tapas restaurant downtown which we finally discovered a few months ago. C&C used to live in Mountain View, but moved further into the valley around the time I moved

[Read the whole thing]]]> We’re finishing up a full weekend around here.

Friday night we got together with our friends Chad and Camille for dinner at Cascal, the popular tapas restaurant downtown which we finally discovered a few months ago. C&C used to live in Mountain View, but moved further into the valley around the time I moved here, so we also walked around downtown so they could see what had changed since they were last here.

Saturday I got a much-needed haircut, and then we met up with Subrata and Susan for lunch, Magic and dominoes. Subrata and I played some more Shadowmoor-Eventide sealed deck, and our games took quite a while since we each kept drawing most of our removal and other tricky spells, so we had lots of maneuvering to do. I eventually prevailed 2 games to 1 with my white-blue deck over his black-red deck. Ironically, I put together my own black-red deck which had most of my rares in it – my blue-white deck had none – but didn’t get to play it. I’m not sure it would have been very consistent anyway.

Today we had a relatively lazy day, watching football and the James Bond film License to Kill (1989), the Dalton film I hadn’t seen before. It’s not as bad as I’d feared, but it’s lackluster at best. The acting is often atrocious, with Dalton a shining star next to anyone – indeed, everyone – else.

The painting around here is just about done, so I put the furniture back on the upstairs porch. I’ll move the plants back there over the next week or so. I’m so glad it’s nearly over. It’s been quite a haul to get it all done. (I’m sure the painter feels the same way times ten. I think it’s been a bigger job than he expected. It looks like he did a really good job, though!)

One good anecdote before I finish up: This past week I was sitting for my friend Josh’s cats. (He and his fiancée went to Hawaii, the lucky ducks.) Thursday night I went up to find his one cat who usually hangs out under the bed. Sure enough, there he was, and I went around to the other side to pet him and coax him out. While I rubbed his chin I looked to the side, and…

…well, I went downstairs and said to Debbi, “Either Josh has the most realistic cat toy ever, or there’s a dead sparrow under his bed.”

Sure enough, it was a dead sparrow – still warm, even – and I threw it outside. I suspect it came into one of the enclosed porches somehow – one with a cat door leading out to it – and one of the cats dispatched it and brought it inside to, uh, enjoy. Fortunately, it was still basically intact, rather than being a mess. I sent Josh a text message and he replied that he was sorry I had to deal with that, but that he thinks it’s happened once before.

The things we put up with for our furry friends!

I must be getting less high-strung in my old age, since putting on the monkey suit (i.e., my suit) didn’t bother me, despite having to remember how to tie a tie and doing

[Read the whole thing]]]> Yesterday Debbi and I headed out to the wedding of my friend Cliff, who was marrying a Debby of his own!

I must be getting less high-strung in my old age, since putting on the monkey suit (i.e., my suit) didn’t bother me, despite having to remember how to tie a tie and doing so at the tail end of the area’s latest heat wave. And Debbi looked great in the dress she bought last month for the event. I did learn that it’s time to buy a new suit, though, as this one is showing the initial signs of being a little too old and worn (I think I bought it in 1994 to interview for jobs following grad school, so I can’t really complain).

Cliff is Jewish, so this was a traditional Jewish wedding (well, or so he told us!), which was a new experience for me. About as new as Subrata‘s Hindu wedding a few years back; heathen that I am, all of these religious wedding ceremonies are equally fresh to me, I guess. We showed up at the temple and the guests were divided into two rooms, one for the bride and one for the groom. Cliff was about as happy as I can imagine ever seeing him; he’d been looking for the right someone for a while, and has been positively brimming over with excitement over his wedding day.

This pre-ceremony event apparently traditionally involved the groom expounding on some element of the Torah – and apparently with some heckling from the gathered guests, although I’m not sure how traditional that is. Though I noticed that it was common throughout the events leading up to the ceremony that people would be laughing and joking about everything, and Cliff was certainly among those. After this, Cliff was danced (literally) over to Debby’s pre-ceremony reception (the violinist played what I presume is a traditional tune along the way, but before then he was playing “Mahna Mahna” and the theme from the Muppet Show, to much amusement of all), and we all went over for the ceremony.

Well, not quite: Before the ceremony is the signing of the marriage contract, which is apparently the majority of the legal event (under both California and Jewish law). This was somewhat less interesting for us because there wasn’t a lot going on to see or hear, and because the room was a little too small to see what events there were. But afterwards we went into the temple for the ceremony proper. And this was joyous but in a more serious sense, as ceremony typically is. One thing that struck me was that Debby circled Cliff 7 times when she walked in, and if I recall correctly (not having journalled about it at the time) Subrata circled Susan 7 times in their ceremony (or maybe it was the other way around?). I may have the particulars wrong, but the circling in both ceremonies struck me as interesting. Anyway, Debby seemed to be just was happy and enthusiastic about it all as Cliff was, and it all went quite smoothly.

The wedding reception was a couple of towns over, and we were seated with some of Cliff’s gaming friends. There were actually only two guests I knew beforehand, although there was one woman whom I recognized from the campus at work but whom I don’t know. (I don’t think she worked in Cliff’s group, so I may ask him how he knows her.) Dinner was quite yummy, and we had a good time watching the dancing (no, I didn’t dance), and we congratulated the happy couple of course.

And now they’re off on their honeymoon. I wish them the best – certainly it seems like they got off on the right foot!

Ajay seemed surprisingly aware of things going on in the

[Read the whole thing]]]> Subrata and Susan’s son Akash (Ajay, or maybe A.J.) arrived on Thursday. We visited them in the hospital last night and got the whole scoop; it sounds like things went quite smoothly, and I expect they’ve probably gone home already as I type this.

Ajay seemed surprisingly aware of things going on in the room around him, as he locked eyes with me and with Debbi, and watched the nurse avidly when she came in. I don’t know much about kids, but that seems pretty perceptive for a 24-hour-old kid! His parents would be bouncing off the walls if they weren’t as tired as they are; give ‘em a couple of days and they probably will be!

Friday Subrata and I got together to play Friday Night Magic. Meanwhile our partners Debbi and Susan got together to do Friday night scrapbooking at a store they discovered. We each had a good time, and although Subrata and I went to Game Kastle, which started its game about an hour later

[Read the whole thing]]]> Busy weekend!

Friday Subrata and I got together to play Friday Night Magic. Meanwhile our partners Debbi and Susan got together to do Friday night scrapbooking at a store they discovered. We each had a good time, and although Subrata and I went to Game Kastle, which started its game about an hour later than where we’ve been going to play before, we didn’t finish a lot later than they did, so it all worked out well.

Friday was the release day for the new Magic expansion, Shadowmoor, which is the complementary set to the previous block, Lorwyn. Rather than having interactions among creatures in a tribe (elves, goblins, etc.), this block involves colors which work closely together. That gives it a different dynamic in draft, since the “hybrid” color mana costs mean you can play more cards that come your way than in other blocks.

I had a pretty good draft putting together a green-red deck which had a few good tricks but basically came down to putting big creatures in play before my opponents could deal with them. I won my first match handily, lost my second match by a very thin margin, and got crushed in my third. So not too bad a showing. My third opponent isn’t impressed with the set, feeling that it’s a set which plays slowly at first, but then a single card can win the game for either player if they get lucky. To some extent this is always true in Magic, but it does seem like the power curve leaps rather suddenly at a certain point. On the other hand, I enjoy creature-based decks, so the slow progress early in a game suits me okay. I’ll have to play more to see what I think about it. It does feel like the set is very light on creature removal, though, which might make red-black the color combo of choice.

Saturday was a day of running around doing errands, followed by going to an engagement party for our friends Josh and Lisa. Some friends of theirs put together a very nice party at their house, and many friends of each showed up. Josh has been one of the more avid boardgamers at Subrata’s weekly session since he started coming a couple of years ago, so there were several people Debbi and I knew there. It was a fun time, at least until my cold meds started wearing off around 8 and I started wearing down.

(I can’t wait to shake this cold. I’m slowly getting better, and not really wiped out by it by the end of every day, but it’s sill a drag, sniffling and coughing.)

And last but by no means least, today it’s Debbi’s birthday!

I’d been teasing her all week about the presents I’d bought for her, all the while hoping that I’d actually get them in time, since I’m becoming the world’s worst procrastinator when it comes to buying presents. However, I’d come up with a couple of neat gift ideas, and hoped to pull it off.

Fortunately, I was able to make time to go by Lisa’s Tea Treasures on Thursday morning and picked up a nice English-style tea pot for her, since she’d talked about getting one so she could make larger pots of tea. (Lisa’s Tea came at Susan’s recommendation, for which I thank her since otherwise I had little idea of where to go!) And my order for Corner Gas seasons one and two on DVD arrived from Amazon Canada on Friday afternoon, somewhat to my surprise since they’d just shipped earlier in the week. Corner Gas is Debbi’s favorite show these days, and we watch it most nights on TV. A lot of its humor is based on wordplay, which means I enjoy it a lot more than most sitcoms.

Anyway, somehow I’d managed to not give her any hints about it all about them and she was completely surprised! And loved them all! Yay!

In the afternoon we had a small group of people over for grillables and cake to celebrate, keeping it small to not drive ourselves nuts with preparation. (I still drove myself nuts by insisting on mopping the tile floors this morning, but that’s my problem.) We had a fun time, and our friends Lisa and Michel brought their infant daughter over, which especially amused the cats, since Newton had no idea what to make of this not-a-lot-larger-than-he-is human sitting in the carrier on the floor. Isabella also was fascinated when I brought out the radio-controlled helicopter later on.

It all went smoothly, and after people left we had a quiet dinner, and of course some cake and tea and watched tonight’s Corner Gas.

Happy birthday, Deb! I’m glad you had a good one.

[Read the whole thing]]]> Went to dinner tonight with my friend Trish. Trish is another one of the “olden days” journallers, having started her journal, Rant and Rave, back around the same time I started Gazing Into The Abyss. We became friends when I moved to the area, and I introduced her to her “evil twin” Lucy, and they became fast friends. Trish moved away a few years ago to be with her boyfriend, then moved back here last year, and this is the first time I’ve seen her.

We went to Cascal, a local tapas restaurant I haven’t yet tried! Very yummy! Expensive, though!

Trish was her usual cheerful-yet-smartassed self. I think she’s happy to have a job in the tech sector and not to have the godawful long commute she had the last time she lived here. Plus she has two cats, which makes her happy. She’s more in touch with many of the “old time” journallers than I am, so I got the scoop on some people I haven’t heard from or about in years. And mostly we just caught up on what we’ve each been doing for the last few years.

We should do this again sometime.

[Read the whole thing]]]> Yesterday was my friend J.’s 40th birthday. J. is on a pretty close-knit team in my department, but they also have this comically adversarial relationship with each other, playing practical jokes on each other and so forth. J. had made the mistake of letting slip when his birthday was, so yesterday at 2 pm his cow-orkers D. and L. gathered a bunch of people together and we all surprised him by walking up to his office singing Happy Birthday. L. even bought a cake and got it inscribed “Happy Birthday Old Man!”

J. is someone who appreciates some good verbal abuse jousting, so we made sure not to let him down on that front. It’s almost too easy since D. and L. are both recent college grads. At one point D. and J. were sitting in adjoining chairs and I said, “It’s like you two are the ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures.”

Tonight hopefully I can further celebrate J.’s birthday by taking some of his money at poker!

But seriously, J. is a good guy, a fellow science fiction geek, and I wish him the best. Especially if doing so means he won’t pull the same thing on me on my 40th!

Friday night we finished watching season three of Doctor Who, as I posted a few days back, but that was just the warm-up.

Saturday afternoon we went to a baby shower for Susan and Subrata, who are expecting their

[Read the whole thing]]]> I can’t believe how fast this weekend went by. How fast? Well, it’s already Tuesday!

Friday night we finished watching season three of Doctor Who, as I posted a few days back, but that was just the warm-up.

Saturday afternoon we went to a baby shower for Susan and Subrata, who are expecting their first in a couple of months. It was a lot of fun, with about 30 people there and lots of good food. Our friends Chad and Camille hosted at their house, and everyone ooh’ed and aah’ed over their remodeled kitchen (we’d seen it before, but it was new to a lot of people).

Of course, we also ooh’ed and aah’ed over Susan and Subrata, who had a blast receiving gifts and seeing friends. Subrata’s parents also attended, having flown in for the weekend. They’re very excited about having their first child and have been getting their house ready for the new arrival. So everyone had a great time.

Then Sunday we got together with S&S and Subrata’s parents to go to the double feature at the Stanford Theatre: North by Northwest and The Trouble with Harry. NxNW as I’ve said before is one of my very favorite films, maybe my favorite. I’ve seen it so often that I’m well past the point of getting something new out of it on each viewing. This time around I think I enjoyed the scenes with Martin Landau in them the most, although the airplane scene is always terrific.

I thought I’d never seen The Trouble with Harry, but it soon started to seem very familiar. In fact I saw it back in 2000. It’s what passes for a comedy in Alfred Hitchcock’s oeuvre, and it’s certainly one of his lesser films. Pretty to look at and with snappy dialogue, but it moves too slowly and the ending is just too unbelievable. Shirley Maclaine does a perfectly quirky turn as the female lead, and John Forsythe reminded me strongly of George Peppard for some reason. Not exactly essential viewing, but a nice try.

We went to P.F. Chang’s China Bistro for dinner, which we’d never been to. I guess I’d always suspected it was overpriced mediocre Chinese food, but it’s actually tasty, Maybe slightly expensive (though in the Bay Area who knows what that really means?), but it has just a hint of fusion flavor while still being essentially a Chinese restaurant. We consumed everything in sight and had a good time. And celebrated Subrata’s mother’s birthday, to boot.

All of that explains how the weekend could fly by so quickly. Since then it’s been work, bill-paying, ultimate and preparing for our fantasy baseball draft which has occupied my time. No doubt it will be Sunday before I know it!

[Read the whole thing]]]> I decided not to throw myself a full birthday party this year. With everything I’ve been doing, I just felt like chilling this weekend and watching the football playoffs rather than putting in the effort to host a party. (Maybe when it gets warmer I’ll throw a “just for the heck of it” party.)

However, since my birthday fell on Wednesday this year, last night a bunch of us gathered at Subrata and Susan’s house for gaming night, and Debbi went by the Prolific Oven and picked up a couple of my favorite cakes, as well as ice cream. Chad’s wife Camille brought some homemade ice cream as well. Ten people showed up and we polished off most of the cake.

I bought a copy of Blokus a week ago, having enjoyed playing it on New Year’s, and I brought that along and we played a round before cake. Despite having not played it before, Chad ended up running away with the game, making some excellent blocking moves. (I came in third, not being helped by the fact that the other three players all seemed to make blocking me out a priority. I do well at seeing available moves, but I don’t have the blocking part of the game down.)

After cake we played a game of Union Pacific, which I often term “The best game I own that Subrata doesn’t also own.” I somehow managed to pick up the majority stake in the Union Pacific “super-railroad”, which ended up being enough to claim overall victory despite Chad making a late run and nearly catching me. The final scoring-round card ended up being on the very bottom of the deck, probably making this the longest UP game we’ve played. Nonetheless it’s still a nifty game in that it only took 2 hours for us to finish (maybe less).

Susan also gave me a birthday present: A print of a painting in a series by Sarah Clemens, who is doing a series (and writing a book) about a couple raising a cat and a dragon together. (Specifically, they gave me a copy of Shaking Hands. They have a copy of Joyride themselves.) I’ll have to frame it and put it up.

This was just the sort of birthday party I wanted this year, something low-key and simple with my friends. I’ve thanked Debbi repeatedly for putting it together. I really appreciated it.

[Read the whole thing]]]> So on the one hand, I’ve been astoundingly busy as usual. I came back to work on Monday from my two weeks of vacation and have been hip-deep in everything, so much so that I spent the morning thinking, “Wow, it’s Friday already? How’d that happen?” It hasn’t been a bad busy, just a “no time to concentrate on other stuff while at work” busy. Which some people might argue is how work is supposed to be anyway.

There was no frisbee on Monday due to the rain drenching the fields. But I did go to gaming on Wednesday, and tonight I’m hosting a poker game, which looks like it’s going to be a full house. So that should be fun. Hopefully I won’t come home and developing a splitting headache like I did last night, which Debbi thinks was because I didn’t have any caffeine (at all) until dinnertime yesterday.

So I’ve been running around and getting frazzled with all of that. Meanwhile I learned that a good friend of mine was diagnosed with leukemia (specifically chronic lymphocytic leukemia).

And boy does that put things in perspective.

Jim and I have been friends for about 15 years now (we met through an APA when I was in grad school, and he was instrumental in my attending science fiction conventions), though I think we’ve only seen each other once since I moved to California, at Worldcon Boston. Which is, you know, not often enough. So now I’m thinking I should make time this year to go visit him and his family (especially since his daughter apparently doubts my existence), or at least, y’know, call more often.

It’s thinks like that which make you put the other things in your life into perspective. Not in the “at least I don’t have that problem” way, but in the “some things are more important than figuring out which bugs I need to fix today, like my friend, he’s more important” way.

[Read the whole thing]]]> Yesterday we went to the hospital to visit our friends Lisa and Michel, since Lisa gave birth to a baby girl named Isabella! Isabella couldn’t wait, since she arrived about two weeks early – on the day that was supposed to be Lisa’s last day at work. (A friend of mine – who’s a mom herself – says that the last few days of waiting for the baby are the worst, so maybe this is all for the best.) Lisa’s tired (Isabella showed up not long after midnight), but she’s in good spirits.

That I can recall, this is the first time I’ve had the opportunity to see a baby this tiny, less than a day old. (Well, I can always just walk into a maternity ward and look at the newborns, but that’s not what I mean.) She was pink and purple, she had a head of black hair, and her eyes were just barely open (she was sleepy and had just eaten), but her eyes tracked me as I moved side-to-side in front of her. She was perfectly happy just being held by her daddy.

I said to Isabella “Today really is the first day of the rest of your life!” And she didn’t start crying, so I guess she’s go a good sense of humor!

Friday night I had people over to play poker. So there were six of us, and Debbi came down to say hi occasionally, but otherwise

[Read the whole thing]]]> I think we spent nearly the whole weekend at parties, and the rest of the weekend (well, maybe not that long) taking care of a friend’s cats. Busy weekend!

Friday night I had people over to play poker. So there were six of us, and Debbi came down to say hi occasionally, but otherwise spent the evening up in the study. Poker went well, although I played fairly poorly. People joked that our table had a tendency to make the chips rolls when they tossed them – probably just dumb luck. And everyone enjoyed having the cats around when they finally came down to check everyone out. Ironically, Andrew’s girlfriend Lindsay was suffering from allergies to the cats, but ended up cleaning up when it came to the chips!

Saturday my friend Lee hosted a birthday party, with a gaming theme. We went out beforehand and I picked up a copy of The Great Dalmuti as a gift. We headed over and hung out for most of the rest of the day. I did a little gaming, and we chatted with some friends we hadn’t seen in quite a while. Pizza was ordered from Patxi’s, which was pretty good even though I’m not a big fan of deep dish (give me thin crust pizza any day), as well as cake from the king of local cake bakeries, The Prolific Oven. Mmm-mmm!

In the evening as people headed out, we convened another poker game. I took Debbi home first and then came back to play. I had another mediocre session (weak cards/bad luck/not aggressive enough; I still need to work on that last point), and ran out of energy around midnight and headed home. James told me today that the game lasted until 4 am! Yow! I definitely wouldn’t have been making good poker decisions that late into the night.

Sunday we went over to my friend Ray‘s apartment for a birthday/housewarming party for him and his wife Sarah, as they have the same birthday. I haven’t seen Ray in a while (since he no longer works with me) and had a lot of fun nattering with him. I should invite him to dinner sometime for more of the same. I didn’t know the other guests who came, but it was generally a lively and fun bunch. I think Debbi was experiencing some geek overload after a whole weekend with many of my programmer friends, so we headed out after a couple of hours, and eventually came home to collapse on the couch for the rest of the day.

I’m not generally a really social creature, but I had a lot of fun hanging out with everyone, even though I was pretty exhausted by the end of the whole weekend! I think I’ll need a nice lazy weekend soon. But it was worth it.

Now I just have to plow through the books for the book discussion group next weekend…

First, I have a cow-orker from Sweden, Joar, who just moved to America last weekend, so I invited him and his wife out to dinner with me and Debbi Tuesday night. They met us at our house and we drove downtown

[Read the whole thing]]]> I’ve had a week of seeing several friends. Which is a good thing!

First, I have a cow-orker from Sweden, Joar, who just moved to America last weekend, so I invited him and his wife out to dinner with me and Debbi Tuesday night. They met us at our house and we drove downtown to have dinner at Amici’s and then walk down and back through downtown Mountain View. I can’t remember the last time I met someone who had just moved to America, so it’s been very interesting learning about the immigration process and all the things they’ve had to adjust to. For instance, living in a suburban environment where cars are a necessity, rather than in a city where you can just use public transit. So I’ve been giving them some advice about traffic patterns and distances and weather and so forth (and was up-front about the fact that I’m something of a snob about living on the peninsula, as I didn’t care much for living in the valley proper).

Even though Joar’s come out to visit several times since he started working on our team, I figured they might enjoy a night out and away from all the tasks they have to tackle this week.

Wednesday evening I felt like I had the beginnings of a cold, and it got worse as the night wore on, so I called in sick on Thursday – a rare day when I felt like I didn’t have anything pressing so I could stay home without any worries! So it was a nice quiet day of watching DVDs and reading – and blowing my nose a lot.

Friday I felt better and headed back into work. In the evening Subrata and I headed over to Superstars for their Friday Night Magic draft. I drafted a somewhat unremarkable white-black deck, although that’s a big step up from my last two drafts, which were awful! I felt like I was competitive in most of my games, even though I lost more than I won, and at least two of my games were lost more due to bad luck than bad play. So that’s a step forward, right?

Saturday we drove down to Los Gatos for our friends Lisa and Michel’s baby shower. It was in a nice little park off a main park, and although it was a little chilly, it was otherwise a very nice day (perfectly clear and sunny – our party’s campsite just happened to be in the shade) and everyone had a very nice time. I was able to reacquaint myself with many of Lisa & Michel’s friends and family, whom I only see every couple of years, it seems like.

Unfortunately, Debbi ended up catching a cold of her own (or maybe she caught my cold, except mine didn’t come with a sore throat like hers did), so today we had a fairly quiet day, other than a run to the supermarket and to get my hair cut. I cooked Indian food for dinner (Debbi says it helped clean out her sinuses! And I got to use our new food processor to make cashew nut butter) and I did some work in the yard.

Only a little to report on the cat front since Tuesday’s trip to the vet: Jefferson has been taking antibiotics for a few days (which he hates) but he’s still having his bathroom issues. Newton apparently has a hyperactive thyroid, which is not unusual for an older cat, so he’ll get some medicine of his own soon. But otherwise they’re both in pretty good health.

My goal for October is to feel like I’m not stretched as thin. August and September just flew by with everything I’ve been doing! (Or do I say that every month?)

We saved a lot of our fun for Labor Day itself, yesterday. We got up early(ish) and went for a bike ride, stopping for breakfast along the way. The awful heat we’ve had for the past week broke yesterday and we had a nice cool

[Read the whole thing]]]> We had a good weekend, thank you very much.

We saved a lot of our fun for Labor Day itself, yesterday. We got up early(ish) and went for a bike ride, stopping for breakfast along the way. The awful heat we’ve had for the past week broke yesterday and we had a nice cool breeze for the ride, along with sun.

After we got home and read the paper, we prepared for Subrata and Susan to come over and hang out. We went a little overboard: I replaced the cats’ litter, swept the back patio, prepared cucumber sandwiches, and added herbs (parsley, onion, rosemary and thyme – the “slightly twisted Simon and Garfunkel herbs”) to hamburger meat and made patties out of them. Debbi prepared corn to grill, checked the potato salad she’d made the night before, vacuumed, and did dishes.

S&S came by around 3 – and Subrata promptly turned around again because they’d thought we had a copy of Clue which Susan and Debbi wanted to play. Which is to say, Debbi thought she had a copy in the house, but it must be in storage – I’ve never seen it in the house. Once he got back we got down to some not-at-all-serious gaming: Two games of Clue (I won one), and two rounds (of 7 games each) of dominoes. Subrata and I both prefer “skill” games, while I think Susan and Debbi like much more casual games. Clue and dominoes are kind of in-between, with a lot of luck but some skill, too. I hadn’t played Clue in probably decades; it was pretty fun, as a change of pace. Dominoes actually is fun, but it works best with 3 or more people; 4 is a good number, because there’s lots you can do. Oddly, Subrata turns out not to be very good a dominoes, something he knew ahead of time. I don’t know why that is, as I felt like I picked up the nuances of it fairly quickly when I learned on our trip to visit Debbi’s family last spring. I won both rounds of dominoes, but certainly not every game (and I had one game where I committed a real boner play).

We grilled hamburgers, sausages and corn around 7 pm, and it all turned out quite well. The potato salad was excellent! I managed to get almost everything off the grill at the same time, and certainly close enough for our purposes. We topped it off with Computer Chip ice cream from Rick’s and another round of dominoes before calling it a night.

So a fun time was had by all. Even the cats had a good time, with Blackjack and Newton hanging around with us all day, and Roulette perking up her ears when Susan pulled out the treats. It was a little work to put it all together, but it was worth it.

[Read the whole thing]]]> At the end of the work-week I was feeling decidedly glum. I was getting frustrated with my current project at work (which isn’t my favorite sort of project even when it’s going well), and I’d tried and failed – twice – to organize a Magic draft, but not enough people were interested. So Saturday morning I was feeling lethargic and not enthusiastic about anything we might do that day. (This despite an impromptu trip to the coast to see the sun set Friday night.)

After going out for lunch, though, I motivated myself to go down to Bay 101 to play some low-limit poker. And although it took more than an hour to get seated, I ended up having my best session in many months, and coming away feeling considerably cheered up!

Not only was it a fun and profitable session, but it was also memorable. Some notes:

• I came in on the big blind when I sat down, and then got dealt crappy hands for the whole first orbit of the table (oddly, I got dealt Q-5 four times in those nine hands). At one point, worried that people would see me as an extremely tight player (and thus not want to play with me), I idly said, “Someday I’ll get some high cards…” The guy on my left commiserated with me and said that he’d learned that Hold ‘Em is a game that requires patience.
  
  My big blind came back around and he said, “Okay, here’s your high cards. Now you gotta play ‘em!” I said, “I will, if no one raises me!” He laughed, and the woman on his left said, “Well I’m going to raise you!” So she raised and four people called. And I looked at my cards… and had two Aces! So I said, “Well I’m going to re-raise you!” Everyone called, and five opponents isn’t a great situation for pocket pairs unless you hit a set (three of a kind), but the board was an innocuous collection of low cards. I bet the flop, and everyone called. I bet the turn, and got two callers. And I bet the river, and only the original raiser called, and then mucked when I showed my Aces. So I won a huge pot!
• About 15 minutes later I got Aces again in my big blind – the two red Aces, this time. I raised, and got 5 callers again. And the flop, the flop was… A-A-9. Yes, I flopped four Aces. Everyone checked the flop, everyone checked the turn, so on the river I hoped someone had hit something, so I bet, and everyone folded. “You guys are No Fun At All,” I said as I showed my Aces. Everyone groaned, and one person said, “Well at least you got your preflop raise in!” Not a huge pot, but not bad at all.
  
  Afterwards I said, “I do actually raise with cards other than Aces,” just in case anyone was wondering.
• An hour into the game our table got broken up. The casino wanted to reclaim one of the low-limit games for a high-stakes game, so they waited until there were enough open seats at other tables and then we got dispersed. I learned that – at Bay 101 at least – if you get moved, then you come in after the dealer button has passed and effectively get to play a round without posting the blind. So that was nice. The new table was a little tougher than the first table, but I also got a little luckier, so it worked out.
• At the new table, I got dealt Kings twice, and won once and lost once. I lost most of my winnings to the player on my right, who was both playing well and catching a lot of cards, but then I managed to chip up again over the course of several pots.
• The most memorable hand at this table involved playing a trick on another player. I played Q-Jo from the big blind, and the betting went like this:
  • Five players, including the woman who played the whole hand, limped in. I checked my blind (Q-Jo isn’t a hand I’m thrilled to play for a raise against 6 players, although maybe I should have).
  • The flop was Q-8-3 rainbow. I bet, and the woman calls. Everyone else folds.
  • The turn is another Q. Now I have trip Queens, and I’m thinking, “Hmm, if I bet, she’s going to assume I have a Queen and fold. So maybe I can be sneaky to get one more bet out of her. Better yet, she might bet into me!” I check, and she checks.
  • The river is an 6. No flush possibilities. I bet, and the woman thinks for a bit and calls. I win with my trip Queens (she didn’t show her hand).

  I was a little surprised this trick worked, and actually felt a little bad about it (but only a little). I assume she had middle pair or maybe Jacks, Tens or Nines, or maybe even two pair (she might have been playing 8-6, for instance, though that’s not very likely as she was a moderately tight player). I’m not sure what she put me on, but it’s not she might have thought I had the same sorts of hands.

  Several other players declared they were suspicious of my check on the turn, but who knows what they might have done in her place!

So I left feeling considerably cheered up, and better about my poker playing than I have in a long time. Okay, I know I had a bit of a lucky streak, but it seems like it’s been a long time since I’ve had a lucky streak. It made me happy.

The rest of the weekend was also fun, although not something conducive to deconstruction: Saturday night we joined some friends for bowing at Strike, an upscale bowling alley in a nearby mall. The food and drinks were good (if a bit slow to arrive), and bowling was fun – always kind of entertaining to play a game that I’m not much good at, and don’t have much interest to get better at. My friend Josh cleaned up, but then, I think he’s bowled more than the rest of us.

Sunday morning some other friends came over and we went to the farmer’s market, and then for a bike ride, stopping at the Shoreline Cafe for lunch. It was just about a perfect day for a ride, and we had a good time. Afterwards, Debbi and I went out for coffee, and when we got back I spent some time working on some Magic decks for a constructed game another friend hosts each week.

So all-in-all it was a good weekend with friends and relaxation and some good luck. And maybe it’s recharged me enough to tackle the new week head-on.