It's an Exciting World

Monday Steph and I had a date night to Austentatious – An Improvised Jane Austen Novel. The theme for the evening was “I don’t think so, sir!” They did an excellent job for the most part, and they had some interesting characters. There were a lot of crossed wires on who was supposed to love who, but in the end they pulled it together. I was impressed by the way several of the actors could really pull off the different roles without much more than adding a hat.

Tuesday evening was my company Christmas party. It was expectedly over the top. Unexpectedly, I went in the wrong entrance and got to the venue through a service elevator 15 minutes before it was supposed to start. I found my way to the entrance doors and hung out there. I have the guise of someone who knows what they are doing so nobody questioned me. I had a good time, and avoided all the drama that can come from those kinds of evenings. I heard later that the drama was quite contained, despite the other David’s best efforts.

We had some great calls Wednesday morning with friends abroad. Paul and Yutong were calling late at night, and we chatted with them about where we could go diving. We chatted with Irene after that about her trying to buy a house in Japan. I had to run to work, for a meeting, but we had good calls with both of them. Paul and Yutong seemed pretty stressed out, so I hope they get a relaxing holidays. The pub meet for the dive club was pretty tame that evening. I missed going to choir, since the term had ended.

Thursday and Friday didn’t have much going on, so I got a good number of chores and 2024 planning tasks out of the way. We also finished up the latest season of Bake Off. I also tuned in for an AI talk with the normal StartX AI Friday group.

Saturday I had a marathon performance at the 02 Mall in Greenwich. We did four full sets and I enjoyed it, but not as much as the other locations. I was in the very back, and the room was large and open. That meant that I didn’t really hear the other singers throughout the performance. I still enjoyed seeing the other performers, and since the baritone section is pretty small it has been the same baritones that have been singing together for pretty much all the performances.

After singing I met Steph at the National Maritime Museum. We saw the exhibits we cared about, and then went to a nice dinner at a nearby Columbian restaurant, Balboa. We then finished the night with an ice skate at the Queen’s House.

Sunday was my last performance with the choir for the term, this time at Covent Garden. We were under the overhang at the back of the church there, near the large tree. It was a huge crowd from the choir. Despite it being decently cold and wet, we had a great time. We did Love is an Open Door twice, which I love. That is my favorite song out of the set. After that I headed home and relaxed the rest of the day.

We got back from the US on Saturday morning, or at least I did. Steph got delayed by about 3 hours, which was awkward as I didn’t have a key. My key was with the cat sitters. I tried to just go relax at the office and drop off some stuff at my desk, but it happened to be the weekend they were doing tests of the power system. I went to the other building and was able to take a long hot shower and work in the lobby for a while. Steph eventually showed up and I had enough time to unpack and eat a little something.

Shortly after that I had dress rehearsal for the West End Musical Choir. This was the rehearsal for all the off book performances, and it was a lot of people, around 400 I would guess. I got a really good seat; right at the intersection of the four sections. It was unusual to hear all the sections at the same time, although it also made it a bit hard on songs that had the sections going at different times. I really enjoyed the rehearsal, but was pretty dead by the end of it, as I didn’t sleep much on the flight. I slept amazingly well Saturday night.

Sunday, We had a mostly chill day, doing chores and getting settled back in with the kitties. We got everything prepped for sending our passports in for renewal. We also started planning 2024 in more detail.

Monday I was back to work, but I had a double performance with the choir at St. Pancras station. It was so much fun performing. Steph came to watch the first one, and by the second round it was getting pretty cold. I went to the pub for a drink with some of the other choir members afterwards and they were talking about it being bake off week.

That made me decide to do a triple batch of blueberry scones, Steph’s recipe, on Tuesday evening. I didn’t do it quite right, but they still turned out really tasty. They just weren’t very pretty, since the blueberries had slightly melted and the color hard gotten mixed into the dough a bit more.

People really enjoyed them at rehearsal on Wednesday, where we ran through all the songs and made a nice video.

Everyone loved the scones at choir, but they didn’t get finished off. I took them to Dive Club, which wasn’t actually a club meeting. We each had a few at dive club, and I was left with four that I took to share with people at work on Thursday.

Thursday morning I tried out a cycle class at Better for the first time and it went really well. It wasn’t as hard as I was expecting, but my heart rate still got pretty high. Thursday and Friday were chill days at home, with more chores. We did get some snow on Friday, Dec 1.

Saturday we went to have grilled cheese with Nancy and Punit at their new place. We met their two week old baby, Atlas, who was tiny. They had made some amazing pickled onion, and got a nice bread and some basic bread from the store. It was fun trying the different grilled cheeses. I made a lentil soup to go with it that turned out better than I was expecting.

Saturday evening I got on BGA to play with Adam and Timtimtimtimtimtim. We played Gaia Project and then Feast for Odin. I didn’t do well in either, as I haven’t been playing as many board games for a good while. It was nice playing with them, but the remote board game playing isn’t nearly as fun as playing in person. It was hard to have meaningful conversations while playing.

Sunday Steph and I decided to go to Harrods. We got there before they openned so we went to the nearby nut shop. We had ramen in the dining hall, then went around the food halls and picked up some traditional holiday fare. We got a Christmas cake and some mince pies. We also had to stop by the Cheese station and chocolate room. We took a look through their stationary, but none of the cards really struck our fancy.

We headed back home before I headed to the V&A for another choir performance. The room we performed in was the Rafael Cartoons Gallery, and it was a huge vaulted ceiling surrounded by massive gorgeous paintings. It was a perfect space to perform in. We hung out in the green room for two hours and tried out the new songs there. Silent Night and Joy to the World went well, and I dropped both a full octave from the other men. The one that was difficult was All I Want for Christmas is You. That song was hard to get the tune right and the words are harder than I would have expected. I never fully got it right. The first performance didn’t have many people there yet, but there was a nice couple in the back swing dancing. The second performance was packed, and they filled up half of that massive room. At the end some of the choir members went out into the audience and got everyone dancing. It was a great time. The third was fewer people and slightly more tired and subdued than the second, but still a great time.

We did very little on this short week before heading to San Carlos. Monday I went to the choir rehearsal at Liverpool Street, which got me to the required 6 sessions to be allowed to perform. I’ll catch a seventh when I’m back, but the performances have already started at that point.

Tuesday was a lot of prep for the flight on Wednesday. The flight itself was fine, as I used my voucher from the Seattle work trip for premium economy. Steph and I took different flights, but got in at about the same time. I waited for her in SFO for about 15 minutes.

It was a busy week at work, and lots of other activities came up as well. The one thing missing from this week was choir, as it is the mid-term break.

Monday Steph and I played some more Endless Dungeon.

Tuesday I messed up and double booked the evening. I had promised to do some volunteer work for a group online, so I missed out. Steph and Lynne went to a live orchestral performance of Amadeus. Steph said it was amazing.

Wednesday I did a lot of chores before heading to the BSAC club meeting. I won the bottle of wine, and we got a nice California rose.

Thursday we went to the Old Friends show, which was a Sondheim themed production with some of his original cast from many performances past. The songs were great, but since it was all the highlights there were no stories.

Friday was a lot of work, but I did get to play some endless dungeon.

Saturday I ran a 10K with a coworker, Baha. We got almost exactly 1 hour time on the 10K. I was doing pretty well throughout, but started hurting towards the end of the race. I surprisingly never had issues breathing, and could talk the whole time. As expected, my legs started to give out towards the end.

On Sunday, Steph and I went to the Museum of the Home in Shoreditch. It was pretty neat, with lots of different period based living room setups. They had maybe 20 different living rooms laid out based on the era. We also went on a tour of the gardens, but it happened to be in the pouring rain.

We then checked another food off our list of things to try in the UK. This time it was a Sunday roast at the Own and Pussycat. Nancy and Punit joined us, and it was pretty relaxed. We then went through some of the markets and ran across a stall selling lots of old stamps, and we got a few.

That evening we also experimented with some red lentil tofu. I had soaked red lentils for a few hours, and them blended and cooked them. It set into a nicely firm block that felt like tofu and tasted great with a ginger, garlic, and green onion mix flavored with soy sauce, rice wine, and sesame oil. So tasty, and we have a ton of the red lentil tofu left over for different dishes this week.

We had a pretty chill week. Tuesday we got back to the kitties and cuddle them a lot.

Wednesday was a bit busy with Andrew, Debby, and Alexander in town to visit some of Andrew’s family. They were nice enough to stop by and have a nice afternoon tea with us at the Thames Foyer, Savoy. I then went to the choir rehearsal, and finally to dive club. We talked about our trip to Turkey and I was exhausted by the end of it. Steph was talking cave diving, so I waited until 11 before calling it.

Steph and I watched our shows and played games together. We’ve started getting into Endless Dungeon, which is a great game that is a more real time upgrade on Dungeon of the Endless. The multiplayer also doesn’t break constantly.

On Saturday we went to the British Museum to see some of the originals of the statues we saw replicas of in the underwater museum in Turkey. It was interesting to see them, and we went to a few of the rooms that had been closed previously as well. We were lucky to get tables at an Okonomiyaki place right by the museum that was delicious. Steph made a 3D scan of one of the statues.

Steph and I went to Nancy and Punit’s new place this past weekend. It is a great location and a nice place. It has some quirky parts, but overall is very nice. Before visiting we did some climbing with Punit. Then we did a lunch at the Jamaican place across the street from there. We walked around the neighborhood a bit, and it was very nice.

With Steph gone I mainly worked then went to Choir. I did three choir rehearsals in one week, and I enjoyed the whole time. I went to a new location for me, Oxford Circus. They had a much smaller venue, but it was still a gorgeous church. Liverpool St. and King’s Cross choirs have pretty similar venues, and I like them a bit more. I will probably stick with the Monday, Wednesday choir tempo. I went out for a drink with the choirs afterwards on Monday and Tuesday, but went to the BSAC club meeting for Wednesday after choir. I talked with Gohkan, our trip leader for the Turkey scuba trip. Not much else going on, just getting ready for an early morning flight on Friday.

This week I went to two Choir rehearsals: Monday at Liverpool St. and Wednesday at Kings Cross. I also went to the two club meets: Tuesday for Westminster Speliological Group (WSG) and Wednesday for the British Sub-Aquatic Club (BSAC). Thursday we met with one of Steph’s Cave Diving buddies from Mexico and had dinner in Vauxhall at an Ethiopian place. Friday I joined in on the StartX discussion group. All of that made it a tame, but full, week.

On Saturday I went out paddle boarding in Reagent’s Canal near Reagent’s Park, while Steph was with Lynne at the National Portrait Gallery. Sunday was all chores, a new video game, and relaxing with the kitties. Steph headed out to Zurich for another work trip. A slow but nice week in the middle of lots going on.

I got home from Seattle Saturday around 11am. Steph and I caught up on the shows we are watching and had a lazy day. I also played some Steam games from my list and drank lots of smoothies. The kitties were glued to me pretty much the entire day, which was really nice.

Sunday we met up with Punit at the climbing gym. It was the same climbing gym that Tina and Amit picked out for us. I had a good time and got one of the problems that I was too tired for last time. After that we took a walk along Southwark Bridge where they had several groups of sheep and some guilds. The sheep are there to cross the bridge as part of a tradition, and they had some stalls with lots of wool products. The guilds were set up on the other side of the intersection and I grabbed a donut from the Worshipful Company of Bakers, aka baker’s guild. After that Nancy joined us and we went to an afternoon tea at Lyaness, a Sri Lankan restaurant. The food was pretty good, besides the eggplant.

Monday after work I went to my first West End Musical Choir practice. It was great, and I enjoyed the singing and the chat afterwards. The song was pretty tough, as the words were fast and the harmonies difficult. There were probably 70 people there, and it was especially nice when everyone was singing all together.

Tuesday I took it kind of easy after work, because it was a crazy busy day, and Wednesday was Archer kitty’s dental appointment. Tuesday night he was so amazingly cuddly and needy. He wanted attention all night.

Wednesday I checked out the Choir at King’s Cross. It was at the furthest place from our house that could still be vaguely considered King’s Cross, but it wasn’t too bad. I enjoyed it, and there was still plenty of time for me to make it to the Dive Club meeting.

Thursday we met up with Lynne and saw a really interesting play, “Anthropology” about a woman who makes an AI clone of her sister. The AI then helps to find the sister who was missing and presumed dead. It was really well done. The tech they talk about with the AI clone is pretty surface level, and the only stretch is when they fed browser history, social media likes, and other meta data into an LLM.

Saturday, Steph and I played a lot of games. We started Frosthaven in the morning, then had Ethiopian, then played Don’t Starve in the evening.

Sunday we went to the Japanese festival in Trafalgar Square in the morning with Nancy and Punit. We walked down to the river and hopped on a ferry to go to Greenwich. There we saw the Cutty Sark, walked through the park, then crossed the Thames via a pedestrian tunnel underneath it. We went to one of the farms that is strangely inside London, before heading home for book club.

This was a packed week.

On Monday I set up some new shelves that I had ordered in the kitchen. It filled in a spot that was strangely vacant, and made me think that we needed some more color in the kitchen as well. The color part will have to come later.

On Tuesday I went back to The Burnt City and had a fantastic time. I’m really glad I went three times, as there was just so much to see. I hadn’t been able to get it out of my head since the first time, and I would love to make a VR experience that had that same feel.

Wednesday I went to Shit-Faced Shakespeare and it was hilarious. They were doing the production Much Ado About Nothing, and Duke Leonata was the drunk one. She was hilarious and immediately took it off the rails by killing a main character. The antics were fantastic, and I would love to see it again to see how much is staged vs. the drunk person doing their thing.

Thursday I had a MTG draft of the new set Wilds of Eldraine. It was a fun set, but I lost all my games.

Friday, Steph got home from her Mexico trip. She chilled during the day while I finished work, and had some non-work meetings as well.

Saturday Steph and I went to Finsbury Park station, but not to the park itself. We had some decent Indian food, then set off on a short hike along the Parkland Walk. It was really nice, and even though it is just a narrow strip of trees on either side gave a great feeling of being in a forest.

That evening we jumped on and played some Grounded with Michael and Michelle, but we are all getting really tired of dying so much and having to go get our backpacks afterwards.

Sunday we had a relaxing morning, and then met Amit and Tina at Shakespeare’s Globe to see a production of “As you like it.” The cast was pretty good. They had most of the roles gender reversed, and some did amazing jobs selling the characters they were portraying. I especially liked the costuming, as it was a strange for some of the characters. We then went to afternoon tea at The Swan right there. We walked down to the Golden Hind and around The Boroughs Market.