6 posts tagged “fun”
We spent all of Thursday, Friday and Saturday in one mammoth boxing, carrying and moving process. We genuinely felt we didn't have too much stuff but we were deceived after we had to go and buy more boxes, fill then up and carry them down our three flights of stairs in a seemingly endless process (no elevator).
We had two welcome breaks, however. First, on Thursday, Ivy got a call on her mobile phone from someone who asked if she wanted to join the army. It turned out to be a recruiter from the U.S. army named"Sergeant Hunter". After lots of careful consideration and despite positive encouragement from me, Ivy had to decline. (I suspect they got a hold of the lists of "new citizens" since Ivy became a citizen last Spring).
The second fun break came from the awesome 80's party on Fri night thrown for Todd K by his wife Grace. They rented out "The Vault" in downtown San Jose and played 80's tunes all night long. Ivy and I dressed up and I'll post some pictures. Was great seeing good friends Alex and Kristen there.
We're now at my parents near Sac and worked a full day for our companies remotely. We love working remotely and are actually more productive without the commute and all the time I spend getting ready in the morning to dress for success.
Image I want to remember: when Ivy was carrying out our vacuum cleaner to our Uhaul truck from our apartment, she looked just like Jennifer Lopez from Maid in Manhattan (at least how she looks on the movie poster since we haven't seen the movie...)
Thanks to my lovely wife for throwing a Surprise Bday Party this past Sat! I was truly surprised and it was fabulous seeing a bunch of friends show up at City Beach in the evening. A number of people drove a ways to be there--including my wonderful family from Sacramento and Yardu from Santa Cruz. The MDT award (Most Distance Travelled) definitely goes to Cameron F who came up from Fresno. The man is the epitome of commitment and dedication.
I had two weeks off for Christmas and New Year's and the "final weekend of freedom" was a lot of fun. This past Sat, we went to Alex and Kristen V's place to celebrate their son Luke's 1-year bday. They had a "doggy" theme which included a hilarious dog-bone shaped pinata which the kids enjoyed smacking around. After that--and prior to heading to Rebecca S's place for a dinner party in Dublin--we stopped by our favorite spot in Silicon Valley:Castro Street in Mountain View. In Books Inc., I came across a discounted David McCollough biography on Truman and picked that up. It should be excellent.
Rebecca had some very interesting co-workers of hers from NASA over for dinner (along with her very kind and funny parents). The couple sitting across from us were both mathematicians and were lots of fun to talk with. They were knowledgable about all kinds of topics and since I recently listened to "Science Friday" on NPR where a mathematician had talked about the opportunities to be found in doing mathematics involving the fourth and fifth dimensions and beyond... I threw that one out there to score some points.
On Sunday, Ivy and I enjoyed meeting up with old high school and youth-group friends Carmen, Mimi, Mary and Jeanne (and spouses) in San Francisco for New Year's eve. Enjoyed talking with Mimi's new husband Fabio who she met in Italy when she was teaching at an Intl school, and where they now live. We're going to visit them this Spring and they're planning to do the same while we're in Budapest. To bring in the new year, we took Bart down to the waterfront in SF and chilled out at a restaurant/bar called "Ozumos." This was fun but they absolutely need to turn down the "music" (which was unfortunately a bunch of bump & grind rap for the most part). As we were leaving, we walked by a young guy with blood splattered all over his face and then saw there were three bouncers holding another guy back against the wall. Then, as we got about 30 feet away, these guys came outside and started fighting again, but--excitingly enough--literally 15 cops on strange motorbikes (not the normal motorcycles) all pulled up and jumped on the pugilists. We also got to see some beautiful fireworks right near the bay bridge and I'll post some pictures.
Final thought: Ivy and I really enjoyed listening to a Tim Keller sermon this past weekend as well on my laptop. It was about how Jesus perfectly combines speaking the truth with empathizing with those in need. Keller had a good observation that conservatives have a tendency to simply speak the truth while lacking empathy and liberals are often the opposite. Yes, the verdict: a healthy dosage of both is is needed.
Last Saturday night, Yardu and her roommates in Santa Cruz threw another great Christmas White Elephant party. Hanging out with her roommates and all of the ultra-hip, post-college age Mountain Hermon camp leader and “emerging church” folks, it reminds me a bit of the group at that Laurel and I were a part of for a number of years. Fortunately, Ivy and I seem to fit right in.
Some funny moments for us: Ivy “stealing” (as per the White Elephant rules) the cow-themed alarm clock gift that has an authentic mooing cow noise because she wanted this to wake us up every morning. Perhaps Ivy and I both have rural, farm-based roots that we want to get back to. (I grew up with some chickens, goats and horses and Ivy loves animals, plants, trees, berries, gardening, etc. By the way, where we currently live there are about 10 squirrels outside our apartment in a little grove with two oak trees. This squirrel colony is bustling. In Hungarian, a squirrel is called a “mokus” (pronounced “moe-koosh”) and we spend time every day watching these guys jump around and nervously and quickly eat their nuts. They are hilarious.)
Back to the White Elephant party and to the other funny moment for us: We wrapped up two old thick “Labor Law” casebooks as my gift and it turns out that the only young kid at the party picked this gift. He was probably 9 years old and was crestfallen when he pulled open the wrapping paper and saw these two boring books staring back at him. This nevertheless got a lot of restrained laughs from everyone and the kid was actually a pretty good sport about it. Ivy and I later gave him the “Poopy Reindeer” gift (a plastic reindeer action-figure that drops realistic-looking pellets) that came with her Moo-Cow alarm and this got him very excited and happy.
This past week Ivy and I agreed upon a new business name for teaching various languages online: Turbo Languages. The Essay Institute www.essayinstitute.com continues to get lots of hits each day (lots for us) and we are progressively getting it optimized for search engines.
Last night was my company's Christmas party at the Bay Meadows racetrack near San Francisco. It was fun: pretty good food, some dancing, we shared a whiskey sour and talked to lots of co-workers. Ivy was, predictably, the most stunning woman at the party. I've also scanned in and posted the High School Prom-style complimentary picture, complete with cheesy background. I definitely enjoyed, however, winning $500 in cash at the raffle after dinner. Corporate largesse at its finest.
This past Sat night, Laurel, Ivy and I went over to Shanimal's place for their second annual Halloween party in San Francisco. (Shanimal is a friend of Yardu's and mine from high school and UC Davis. Shanimal is also an excellent swing and tango dancer-- partly because she married a smart Argentinian named Marcello). Last year Ivy was the Statue of Liberty (kind of ironic, since that was her last Halloween as a non-U.S. citizen--congratulations) and I was Batman (which makes perfect sense and no irony there of course). This year Ivy and Yardu were "prom queen/beauty pageant winners" (one named "Miss Fit" and the other "Miss Fortune") and I was Napolean Dynamite. Here are some pictures from both years, which you can see--and not random people checking us out--because Vox allows us to categorize you as "Family or Friends." Also, there was a special treat this year because Jesse S made an appearance in a classic and very funny costume: he is the guy wrapped as a present as God's gift to women. All the women at the party could not agree more.
