It was a very pleasent early morning wake-up and breakfast with SWITCTBN it was very, very nice, I hope she figures out that the Bay Area doesn't count as long distance, especially with my cellular plan (*smooches* hon ;) Then I went and got my *whee*. While waiting for my retainer to be made, I managed to shop some at the Sea-Tac mall.
Watched a bit of TV which scared me with the coverage of the WTO demonstrations/riots, so I left for the Sonics game early, strange though I guess our city was all staying home, there was no traffic and easy parking so I ended up killing time at Tower Books, but still didn't find anything to buy. Had dinner with Kristy, it's so nice to eat without my braces that we were only a bit early to the game and missed out on the free t-shirts, it was just as well as the Sonics got pasted by the Lakers, so much for being undefeated at all the games *I* attend.
That afternoon I went for a vision checkup, while I'm still 20-20, he suggested that I might want corrective lenses soon for close in reading, but since he left it up to me, I'll not be wearing glasses and/or contacts for the forseeable future.
Lunch was supposed to be with Angel, but she was swamped, and her hubby was working alone at the house so I went to eat and hang out with him and Tango. That beach house is really coming along and Tango was happy to sleep on my lap in the car (I swear that dog is part feline)
Was supposed to go out with SWITCTBN that evening, however she blew me off (late scheduling and a freind in need) so I went to dinner with Barri & William instead. Its too bad, was really looking forward to spending more time with her, but now that'll have to wait for the next time I'm in town.
Tried to work from home but couldn't get a consistant connection, didn't matter much needed a server reset and that probably won't happen until Monday, so I managed a short nap.
That afternoon it was an early dinner and Sonics with Kristy (they clobbered Indiana !!) later I went to see "Princess Mononoke"
It was a food-full gathering, (4 pies, brownies and lots of snacks to go with the Lasagna) with some of the normal absences (Kevin, Sui-Mei, Joyce, lazy losers ;) The reliable attendees (Samson, John & Sue, MikeS, ScotT & I) had a good time playing dominos, as well as stuffing our faces. We're going to have to remember to make sure we sit Sue upstream from John again ("sorry honey").
And last but not least, Sue (after being totally out of the loop gossip-wise) managed to hide the fact that it was her 35th birthday until the very end -- but we got to sing "Happy Birthday" to her anyway.
Later that afternoon it was more shopping, this time at Northgate to visit Tira, surprisingly it wasn't all that busy, even at Toys R Us.
That night it was Sonics time, they were a bit sloppy, but their defense picked up and it was a good win.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention some of the "real" gifts that I got for my birthday, I got a really cool asian wind chime that will soon be hanging out by my front door (or maybe on my deck), a bugle boy watch and a really nice tie (cuz I don't want to dress for the xmas party). Not only that but I got lots of goodies from Hawaii to munch on *yum*.
Saturday was pretty amazing, lunch with Kat, Angel & Ken, followed by shopping at the Buddhist bazaar, lots of nifty things, but only the reindeer musubi really grabbed me. I needed a nap, but instead I managed to configure my sisters computer so that I can work from Seattle over Thanksgiving. Then it was time for dinner & the Supes, or so I thought. I was supposed to meet Little Smooth however she was running late, traffic was bad, and surprisingly unlike most females she refused the instructions I offered over the phone. About an hour later we managed a quick bite and then it was off to the game. The Sonics continue to be entertaining, explosive and confusing -- almost too many substitutes and new faces to keep track of.
After the game I helped move some furniture around, barter is an amazing thing, how/what to reclaim in trade is going to be interesting.
Sunday I was entered in the men's draw tourny, it was a fun time, lots of hard play, our team was a bit on the short side but we battled well and finished 2nd in pool, experience shows though as the teams we played in the tourny portion proceeded to wax us pretty good. It was fun seeing everyone again, and I even managed to watch my sister play for the first time in about 2 years.
I forgot to mention some of the more, hmm *interesting* gifts I received for my birthday:
Got my hair cut, and had another excellent (as usual) massage from Cecile, she really has a handle on working out that back stress area, and also loosened my shoulder up, should be swinging freely at the tourny on sunday.
Then it was off to see James Bond, the movie started late, but it was pretty entertaining, cool car as always, but as always it was a shame when they trashed it.
Next up was my 40th birthday dinner hosted by my parents, (yes I am *that* old) this was entertaining even to plan, guess my family didn't pick up the clues that I was going to be in town, they tried to plan a surprise, but didn't know who to invite (Kat was convieniently out of town ;). After they found out I was going to be in Seattle, I got an email Sat night (11/13) asking for a guest list, Since it was short notice (and very late at night when I wrote it up) I went with the "who knew me longest" and "some from each group" approach. It's a morbid thought but it's probably the same list I'd work up for those who I'd hope would show up at my funeral. Anyway my dad tried to handle the arrangements but neglected to tell anyone that it was for me (or that he was my father) this caused Elaine to turn down the invite, until she found out who I was ;).
It was a fun time, it was mentioned that I rarely let my group of friends mingle, however I contend it's more of a schedule issue amongst them. We had about 17 of the invitees attend, and I'm sure in my tired state I should have invited more, but I guess it was just as well otherwise I wouldn't have had time to eat. As it was, I may be suffering from the cross-fertilzation of Steve stories for awhile.
Those who dared celebrate with me were:
And of course my parents and sisters were both there, thanks for a fun time. (and the cake was yummy too ;)
Later that night Scot and I caught up with Angel & Ken, and we went to watch "Never Been Kissed" on DVD with Lisa (Angel's neighbor and Tango's nanny) and of course played with Tango ( "my pillow!")
Finally got an email back from Lora's friend Robin, sounds like I've finally found a gym to play basketball at, though it may be coed at least I get to run some.
Work has been pretty exciting, not only has our stock hit all time highs, we beat estimates handily and announced a 2-1 split in December, now if we can just keep following the Cisco growth pattern !!.
That evening I went with Cheryl & Kent to the "Fifth Floor" in the Palomar hotel -- the food was excellent, and the desserts were even better especially after the owner/chef (George) stopped by to give his personal recommendation. On the suggestion of the Lush One I tried a cosmopolitan, that might have been a mistake as I was pretty buzzed on one, after having not eaten the whole day. Then we went to the Metreon to check it out -- it looks pretty fun, could have spent hours there but most of the shops closed early, will have to go back and try some of the multiplayer games some time.
Sunday it was our turn to play, Daryl managed to make it into town to play and Daren was around to play for most of the day until his back started to act up, and he had to go to work. It was a 7 team tourny, pool play was 2 games to 25 (rally score) for a total of 12 games -- lots of play, only the top 4 played in a playoff at the end -- we played spotty (lots of strangers) but managed to take 4th and even took a game from the eventual #1 seed. Unfortunatly we lost in the first round -- but since the other loser's bracket team didn't want to play, technically we finished third. I think I found my hands again, but I might have lost some location -- would've been better if I'd worked it out playing a 5-1 but some of the other players had brought another setter so we played a 6-2 most of the day I even managed to get a few kills.
So we noticed that one of the teams was playing with 2 women, then we noticed that one of them looked really familiar -- finally I recognized one of the guys, it was Rock from Dave's advanced class and the woman was Jenny who played with alot of the folks in Seattle. In fact, if not for a work conflict we'd have seen Destry down here too -- maybe next year.
On another note, yesterday was Scot's 40th birthday, I wonder if he managed to escape all of the hoopla.
I've got some ideas for logos for my new domain name/website now I'll just have to bounce them off of Kristy, Angel and my sister to see what should be done about it. I also scored another NIC card and bought a used hub for my SPARC, now all I need is Linux to show up so I can build my firewall and then I can start serving pages from my home machine (no more storage limits !!) the only down side is that access may be slightly slower than from my (old) ISP, however it'll still be faster than most dialups.
It's 10:30pm and the fire alarm has gone off in the next building, I walked around to check and found the woman who had pulled the alarm, I guess her baby had stopped breathing and they didn't have a phone, and the neighbor wasn't around -- by the time I got there the baby was breathing again, but the alarm's still going -- finally the firemen arrived to take care of them. Who'd think that people wouldn't have a phone in Silicon Valley? At least the baby was ok.
Have been playing around with my new fast link and it's a blast, as soon as I can get my SPARC station up and running Linux, I'll be able to serve web pages out of my home. Till then everyone will have to tolerate this old format. I had a hard time finding some type of appropriate domain name (there are so many taken already) but I think notanerd will do for a while ;) maybe I'll see if Alissa or Kristy can design me a spiffy web logo.
Thursday made the plane, it left 30min late but only arrived about 10min or so back. So it's off to the Sonics home opener. After dining elegantly at Dick's (no, it's *not* McDonalds ;) I'm waiting around for Ro. Unfortunately her baby sitter didn't appear, so we missed the tip-off but saw most of the first quarter. I have to say that these new sonics are very entertaining, and fairly explosive, it'll be a fun season for sure.
Friday and it's the early morning wake up call from Little Smooth, nice (*not*) it's already going to be a long day and it starting out 1 1/2 hours early -- I'm sure she's happy about reading this, but not to worry, I'll be getting even soon. It's ortho time again, sounds like he's still sticking to the "we'll take them off on the next visit" story so that should be fun. It's lunch with Carey & Linda to visit Cell Theraputics Inc, and to celebrate his 40th birthday (yes he is the older, grayer, management shmoozing version of me, needless to say I'm new and improved ;). Linda says she has someone who I should meet .. "why and how does she know about me?" it gets better, I guess goes something like "well we told her about you and she said He's 40, single, eligible and never been married? what's wrong with him?" needless to say, Carey wanted to write a book about what we could tell her (more on this later ;). That afternoon it's an afternoon/evening out with the Li'l Missy got to see The House on Haunted Hill (ok for a halloween flick) dinner at The Keg (prime rib yum) and hanging out at her place watching Nash Bridges -- it's always an entertainingly fun time with her no matter how things turn out ("seriously, I'm not kidding" ;) Later it's midnight snacks at Denny's with the overworked Laura. Somewhere in there Linda called and said "hey George (her honey) is taking that woman to the gun show tomorrow, wanna go?" which means I'm now getting up at 8am to meet them all, gee this should be fun ..
Saturday morning and it's off to meet George (Linda is staying home) I think it was a surprise to Lisa that there was another 'guest' along for the ride. She looks really, really familiar, and even her voice is familiar ... It's a good thing Linda isn't the jealous type, I guess George and Lisa go out alot together, they banter like an old married couple. The gun show was fun, still didn't find a pick set, passed on paintballs for my blow gun too (don't think work would appreciate it) maybe next time, besides I'm not sure if they'd let that stuff on the plane. So we're sitting around and chatting and Lisa mentions that she plays basketball in an asian league .. "oh is that so? I probably know the people you play with" ... "maybe, do you know a Debbie ...?" I just had to start laughing right then -- "I knew I'd seen you before" "why?" "Debbie's my sister" (after a stunned second or so) "So you must know Alissa too?" "yeah, she's also my sister and lives in my house" *duh* .. yes the world is too small, Lisa said she was going to see Debbie that night and ask her about me -- I wonder if she laughed as hard as Alissa and DebyT did when I told them. That afternoon it was lunch with Jo (Dim Sum *yum* at East Ocean) followed by TV shopping with she and Carey -- you know they make way too much money, trying to decided between at 55" and 65" HDTV space/image was the driver not the cost. That night it's another Sonics game (come from behind win over Utah!!) proving that it's going to be extremely entertaining, an possibly very frustrating too.
Sunday it's rev-coed with the gang, Scot, MiyoW, Duane, Marc, Chuck/Marisa, Laura, Susan, Sui-Mei & Joyce -- pretty fun, got very sore early and kinda petered out -- did find out about a charity draw tourny that is going on when I'll be in Seattle, so will be trying to enter that. Lunch was more Dim Sum *yum* this time at the Hong Kong Seafood Resturant with Angel & Ken -- Tango was his hyper self, and Ken has done quite a job on the deck & painting on the house by the lake. That afternoon was shopping with Angel, pretty fun, but I couldn't talk her into the lingerie that she wanted, she got all the way to the checkstand before bailing out -- too bad I think Ken would've liked them we did manage to try the new Frango White Chocolate Mints they were yummy -- and we couldn't believe that there was already Christmas decarations and music out at the mall (!!) The flight home was late, and it was raining when I arrived, but it wasn't as cold Seattle.
Tomorrow the DSL installer should be showing up, but I don't know when, (they gave me an 8hr appointment !!) After that is up I'll start thinking about a redesign -- at the very least I'll be adding a Bio section since so many people keep asking me "who's that?" of course I get to write the bio's so I may be dodging flying objects for a while.
On a more humorous note, some of Candice's teammates asked if Daryl was gay !! (and no, there was no prompting on the issue by moi) I'm sure that eventually word will get out.
This morning it was very foggy and the San Jose Airport was delayed, hopefully my flight will be on time, would hate to miss the Sonics home opener.
I've had also decided to drop off my Tues team (rec level) since I'm a 'bad egg' but then was asked to play in a league on Thursdays in Schoeber (??) somewhere by the SF airport -- should be fun, especially since it's a bunch of the Lush One's friends.
Speaking of which, I've been asked to consider including some type of Guest book, so that readers can chat with each other -- somehow I think that would be a bit on the dangerous side -- especially since Lush One is now online, and contemplating some form of revenge for her new nickname. Maybe after my DSL connection is up and I can 'moderate' the guest book ;)
As for those of you curious about her nickname, it (purposely) has multiple meanings, and I'm pretty sure she fits all of them ;)