Sunset Party

Today we went into the city for a fun day in the sun listening to beats and playing. We brought hoola hoops, juggling clubs and our bodies to dance and play with. It was a good time, albeit very windy. The fun part is that I got to see a new part of the city.

And What a Week it's Been

Wow, what a crazy week it's been. I felt like I was constantly running just to keep up with everything that came my way.
There were so many extra errands and so many more social events than normal for me. It was extremely fun, and also draining.
Last week I went to get the visa for my India trip and that took hours of standing in line.
There was this fantastic Girlz Night that I attended on Tuesday night. That was such a blast. It was a new group of friends and we hit it off really well. I hope I get to hang out with them again. An intriguing sounding movie called "The business of being born" came out of our discussions there.
Then on Wed morning we had an apt with our friend, who happens to be the real estate agent that sold us our Oakland house. There's a recently fixed up 4 unit place a couple doors down from us that we were interested in looking at. Slightly for investment purposes, and more for a couple friends that are looking to buy. This place was perfect. It's a reasonably priced spacious 2bd, has a huge yard and the entire building was recently overhauled. New foundation, new roof, new everything. It had been a rental previously. (If you're reading this Yar - what are you waiting for? We would be the perfect neighbors.)
I had two friends from out of town visiting this weekend. My Chicago friend arrived while I was at work on Friday and I didn't get to see him until Sat morning! I had dinner plans after work and a pretty large group of us went to Happy Shabu Shabu. The experience was interesting - the service not so great. Basically each person had a hot pot of boiling water in front of them and then you get served veggies and you make your own food! Sorta like Korean BBQ, except with boiling water instead of a grill. We had a 20 person group which might explain the bad service. The rest of the gang went on to the Cornelius show, and I went home. Before that my co-workers and I went out for drinks at 5pm to celebrate our success. we have about 1/3 of the staff, but we recently beat Zillow in unique visitors per week. It's a huge milestone and really demonstrates our growth, and our potential. Woo Hoo!
Saturday my Chicago friend, my honeypot, and I walked up to Rockridge for a lovely breakfast. Then we all went our own way and I bought supplies for the party we threw that night. It was a lot of fun with hours of gaming. The games went on until 5am! (I thought I was too old to stay up that late. he he he)
Sunday I finally got to see my other friend in town from DC. She was at the shabu dinner on Friday, but she was so far away I didn't really get to talk to her much. We had plans to hike but were both so worn out from our previous nights (she wasn't able to attend the party due to another show she went to) that we chose to walk around 4th ave and browse. It was a lot of fun. I don't really browse anymore. I probably didn't much before either, but I never do it now. Except yesterday. There's quite a bit of unique/weird stuff down there so it was good times. After our shopping experience, we went to Jupiter and had pizza to fulfill my friend's craving and some other friends met up with us. Then we went home, hung out and played some more games. It was fun.
Today I got up and went out to breakfast with my friend from Chicago and finally got some more time to hang out with him. Then I went to work and he prepared for his travels back.
Tonight I had dinner plans, but everybody was just too tired, so it pretty much fell apart. But that's ok. I'm tired. I'm really happy to be home and just relax a bit because I'm leaving for another adventure on Wed afternoon.

Our company has an off site planning week at the start of every year to figure out which projects are most importnat and make a tentative schedule for the year. This year we're all (60 people plus significant others and families) are going up to Tahoe on Wed through Sunday. My honeypot is coming up Thurs night and it sounds like it might get a little crazy. I expect good times!

The trip to India is official - I leave on the 31st and arrive back on the 17th and I'll get 5 days at the end when I'm not working. Also, I have a plane ticket into New Delhi and out of Mumbai.

0 Days and No More Counting

In a few short hours I leave for New Zealand. I'm really looking forward to the adventure, differences in culture and general way of live.

Lucky for me, I'm already packed and I'm basically blowing time until I need to leave for the airport.

My trip will begin in Wellington where I'll be for a couple days and then I head across Cook Straight via ferry to the Picton and Nelson areas. I'll be here on my own until the 16th at which point I fly to Queenstown to catch up with the crew (Erika, Lance, Davey). We're going out to Milford Sound and then back to Queenstown to catch up with Jeff. With the group of five, we'll make our way up the west side of the southern island and take the ferry back to Wellington. Here we'll catch up with more friends who are arriving (Cindy and Joe) on the 21st and 23rd.

From this point we'll be heading through the north island arriving in Auckland by the 29th, at which point most of us come back to the states.

I'm going to miss my honeypot.

This past weekend was fun! The third annual Berkeley Juggling & Unicycle Festival happened here in Berkeley. There were tons of people around and lots of activities. We also had a bunch of people staying with us. I think all in all everything went pretty smoothly and was a lot of fun.

Four Post Cage

After work on Friday I met my honey pot at the ramp with another friend and had a drink.
Afterwards I spent the rest of my evening hanging around the house. I can't even think of what I did exactly.
Saturday we went out to breakfast and then ran some Burning Man errands. We only have this next weekend to prepare. Tick tock.
Later on we went to our friends going away BBQ at her parents house. I'm pretty sure that they purchased the house brand new and it was very large. They mentioned how the birds were less frequently around there as the developments were being built further down the canyon. My honey pot mentioned how it was so similar to Southern California. There was a hill brown with dryness and the sun was hot and bright.
Today we had a burning man meeting and organized ourselves. I really like that our camp this year doesn't include any new burners, and that there aren't any crazy projects. I say this because it means our camp is so simple. Everybody knows what needs to be done to get there easily and be well prepared, and there aren't any crazy projects consuming tons of time.
After the meeting we went juggling, and I passed with a group of 7 people together! I didn't last very long, but it was pretty fun. I burned out playing pretty quickly because the throws I was receiving were so much harder to catch than the great ones my honey pot throws. I think when I get more comfortable with clubs, I'll try passing with the group again.
Afterwards, yar came over and we hung out. We played some games and brainstormed bm projects. There's a lot of creativity flowing right now. Tis the season.
I'm having a hard time imagining getting done the amount of work that needs to happen in this next week. It's downright scary. It'll be really good to have this vacation after this coming week and a couple days. Our project demos on the 30th. Yikes!

It's been a while and we have to keep up the post in order to keep people thinking our lives are fascinating. Well, I've got the day off and I'm enjoying it. I took the rings out to Applied Lasers LLC in Concord to have them laser welded. I'm looking forward to seeing their work and really hoping that the rings work, ie. spin and the balls don't fall out because I was asking the machine shop for some very tight tolerances and small features. Looks like I'll be juggling at Willard in the afternoon...