Happy Holidays

This has been the busiest holiday season ever for us. I knew that moving to the city would make us more active, but I didn't expect our social calendars to fill up so fast. There's been something to do nearly every weekend and even Tuesday and Thursday nights are starting to fill up. Here are some highlights.

Mike Patton Movie Night - Agi got to stalk her man. Then Jesse was kind enough to take us all to her house on treasure island which has a great view of downtown San Francisco.

Kanye West - After a much needed fashion intervention by Amelia (I'm all Rocaweared out now), we hopped in the limo. Lexi and I had never rode in a limo before. The ride was almost as good as the concert. Kanye was incredible. He interrupted the intro to Golddigger to demand that everyone in the VIP booths turn off their TVs. "I'm not gonna have you up there going, oh it's Kanye live, but what's the score for the game." There was hardly a song I didn't know the words to and dancing up in the stands with everybody was a blast.

Holiday Party Extravaganza Weekend - Lexi and I booked it down the peninsula for her friend's party. They have a great house. Craftsman style with a sunken livingroom. They served these great Ahi Teriyaki hors devours. Then we headed back to the city where we went to Christophe and Tessas party and discussed the future of media distribution until the wee hours of the night.

Moving Mattpaul - Matty P is finally in the city. He's got a great place with a view of the bay bridge. The livingroom at his new place is a minefield of musical instruments, as it should be. After moving him in, everyone who helped move him in came to sunday night dinner, our best turnout ever, around 20 people. I made two lasagnas and both disappeared quickly.

Sunday Dinners - We're trying to keep the Sunday dinner tradition we had with Keith alive in the city. We typically get around 6-8 people and occasionally more. Our new kitchen has motivated us to cook a lot more often. I've discovered that I cook like a mother of 2 from the flyover. I've been very caserrole-centric. But the enchiladas and lasagnas have turned out well. And Lexi's roast this last weekend was delicious, though we do need a new temperature probe. We haven't actually eaten out as much as we expected. With such a great supermarket nearby and a huge kitchen to play in, we end up staying at home more often. It's good for the pocketbook anyhow.

Hiking - I have spent most Wednesdays and Fridays out hiking. I've hit Buena Vista Park, Mt. Davidson, Twin Peaks, and the northern edge of Golden Gate. I'm starting to fill up my iMac hard drive with pics. I've been taking about 1.2 gigs of pictures each trip. Good thing I invested in a ton of DVDs. I haven't even started to run out of places to go. It's been great exercise and as long as it's not raining, I'm going again tomorrow. Probably to the shopping district to pick up some last minute gifts. And to catch some candid, slice of life holiday shots.

Portluck - We went down the peninsula again for portluck (a port wine potluck). It was a great chance to see all the techers in the area that we don't regularly see. There was an incredible 25 year old port. It had mellowed to the point that the caramel and chocolate flavors were not overpowered by the tannins and sharp fruits.

The Nut House - Jeanette was in town so we all went down to hang out with Sam and the Palo Alto crowd at the nut house. It was nice to catch up with everyone. It seems the grad student life tends to lend people an air of stoicism. The rigid meritocracy of academia seems a lot like the military when you watch people run themselves ragged under the yoke of their privileged professors all in the hopes of replacing them someday and putting a whole new batch of grad students through the same trials.

Emperor Norton - The legendary, visionary nutcase who predicted the bay bridge long before it's time has a musical now. It was hilarious. There was everything you want from a play on the mission, including , slapstick, slapping, and singing dogs. We all had a blast watching the play, after stopping for some Emperor Norton beer at the San Francisco Brewing Company. My favorite line from the play is when Emperor Norton Reprises his opening speech at the end, "People come to San Francisco to become a new person, or atleast a different version of the old person they are. Not many people succeed, but We did."

I think that covers almost all of it. I realize that I'm a binge blogger now as this is almost a month's backlog of posts. But it's a good sign when you're too busy living life to blog it right away.