It's an Exciting World

George hosted a holidays themed karaoke at his place.  It was a lot of good songs, and some really good singing.  George, Lindsay, and Debby had obviously prepared and practiced a few of the songs.  There were a few others who were just great singers to begin with who may or may not have practiced.  I sung ‘You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch’ and ‘Let it Snow.’

Lindsay organized a white elephant gift exchange for the evening.  I brought a travel power strip, and Steph brought a book with a cat photoshopped into famous paintings.  We had a good time.  I tried to steal a light up sweater, but it was in a woman’s size and didn’t fit my arms.  I then stole some Pusheen slippers, but Debby got those.  I ended up with a cat Jedi/Sith calendar, which we will probably be using for 2019.

I’ve been holding steady at about 180 lbs and wanted to get down to 165.  I decided that the smoothies I typically have 2 per day of would be a great diet if I had 6 a day and nothing else.  They are typically comprised of flaxseed, rice protein powder, spinach, cauliflower, broccoli, carrot, and strawberry.  For this diet I’m adding some peanut butter and whey protein powder.  I’m about 10 days in right now and it isn’t too bad.  The calorie count comes to about 1200 per day, but the volume of smoothie is enough that I can eat(drink) pretty much whenever I’m hungry(most of the time).  It is going well, and I’m not getting any adverse effects besides being hungry and craving foods.  It is going well and I’m down to 175.  I plan to stop this once I reach 170.

The ingredients work out to a bag of frozen spinach, a bag of frozen cali veggie mix, 6 spoonfuls of protein powder (3 whey, 3 rice), 2 spoonfuls of ground flaxseed, one small bag of frozen strawberries, and 3 spoonfuls of peanut butter.  I mix in some other ingredients depending on how I’m feeling that day and what is available.  Mostly the fruit changes: mango, pear, guava-stein, mixed berries.  It only takes about 15 minutes in the morning to prep it all, and I can grab more on the way home from work since the train station is right next to the grocery store.

I joined Adam, Tina, and Tim for what was planned to be Mage Knight.  We ended up playing Feast for Odin instead.  I did well both times, but didn’t win.  Amit joined us halfway through, and played the second time with Tina.

Lindsay organized a pole dancing class for her birthday.  It was a ton of fun, and we had a pretty good sized group there: George, Tina, Andrew, Debby, Lindsay, Kevin, Marily, Steph, and myself.  This was the first pole dancing class for most of us, but we still got to learn a lot of the basic moves.  We even got to inversions, and I had a lot of fun with those.  The people in better shape, and with better body awareness, were the ones who really did well.  Andrew even did some chinese style climbs, just walking up the pole with hands and feet.  Marily was able to do the climbs better than the rest, but she wasn’t the best at getting back down.  George was able to do everything first try, although he had done a pole dancing class before.  I think everyone was eventually able to get every move that the instructor showed us.  After the class we gave Lindsay an appropriately timed gag gift of some La Croix.

After pole dancing we moved on to dinner at Noelanis, a Hawaiian food place in San Carlos.  The food was amazing, but there wasn’t too much for Steph there.  We shared some great fries and of course spam masubi.  The ladies (and George) got some drinks, and Lindsay got drunk on 1/3 of her first drink.  To be fair, it was a large and strong drink.  After sharing desert we all headed home.

I was a groomsman at the wedding of Michael and Ala.  It was a great time.  The location was gorgeous, at an old chapel that was now part of the UMSL campus.  It was part of an old convent, and had since been converted to a religiously neutral chapel.  It still felt very Christian.  The service was also very neutral, but at the same time felt very Christian.  There was lots of “The Lord,” but no mention of “Jesus.”

The entire event went smoothly, and the best man and groomsmen stepped in to smooth out anything that looked like it was going off the rails.  I had a great time.

The reception was amazing.  It was held at an innovation center, that usually had free coworking space for startups.  There was a Jordanian band that played Michael and Ala’s entrance, and it was a lot of fun dancing to it.  They had drums, a loudspeaker, and bagpipes.  They had everyone join in on the dancing and chanting.  I had no idea what I was saying, but it was all fun.

The speeches were touching and Ala smearing the cake all over Michael’s face was hilarious.  I took video of the important parts at the reception:
Google Photos

Steph and I got some time together the day before thanksgiving as I was flying out of SFO and she was flight in.  We were scheduled to have it so that she landed at the exact same time as I was taking off, but my flight got delayed by almost two hours.  This let us spend a good 30 minutes together and we got to chat a bit at the airport.  I made it to my parents early Thanksgiving morning and we had a full family dinner, minus Steph.  She spent thanksgiving with her parents.

Thanksgiving was exciting, and I got to chat with my mom a lot, and spend a lot of time with my sister.  It wasn’t under the best circumstance, but it was still good to spend time with them.  I also got to see her new place, which is very nice.  I can see them have a great life there.

Friday I went over to Jeff’s house and helped him move some boxes around and break down a few more boxes.  I also really like their new house.  Both of their houses are much bigger than ours, with much bigger yards.  They are prepping for family raising so it makes a lot of sense for them to have the bigger houses.

I went to the W that evening to meet up with Steph.  She got in and we just relaxed that evening.  We walked over to Poor Calvin’s, one of the places we were going to cater from for the event on Sunday.  The food was really good, and the place was cute.

Saturday we didn’t do very much.  I walked around Georgia Tech campus and saw all the things that had changed.  I was hoping a few of the brothers would be at the house watching the game, but when I went by it was quiet.  I also was hoping that I could go have lunch at the student center, but everything there was also closed for the holiday weekend.  I ended up just having lunch in Tech Square and heading back to the room.

Steph and I joined our parents for dinner at the country club, and it was a nice affair.  Not many people were there because of the holiday weekend and the football games.  The dinner went by without drama, which is nice.

Sunday came around and I went to pick up a zip car, Steph and I then drove out to Sweetwater Creek state park.  We checked in and the car didn’t start after that.  We were able to catch a Lyft to and back from the grocery store in time for the first people to start arriving.  Uncle Russel helped us to set up the tables and chairs.

My parent showed up with the platters of deviled eggs, and Jeff showed up with the BBQ.  It was all very tasty food.  The family then showed up in the van, and I was able to have a good conversation with most of them.  Brian and Brittany came, as did Nick.  The other fraternity brothers weren’t able to make it, but I still enjoyed being able to chat with the three of them.  The Lee’s came by around 2, and I was able to introduce them to the family.

Everything slowed down around 5pm and we packed up and headed out.  The whole event was nice and chill, just the way Steph and I wanted.

That evening we just relaxed at the hotel.  We went across the street for dinner, and got to sleep early.

All in all it was a good Thanksgiving.

We took a Saturday in SF to watch Jurassic Park with the SF Symphony doing the music.  It was mostly amazing, just the random kid behind us that talked most of the time got really annoying.

I took a day trip to St. Louis for Michael’s bachelor party.  My flight to Chicago took off at 11pm and I got to St. Louis around 9am.  I had breakfast at the airport and had a nice long phone conversation with Jeff.  I went to the neighborhood where the party was going to start and walked around a bit in a park.  Then I called Steph before it was time to show up.

I got to the party right on time, and brought some steak, apples, and peanut butter.  The steak was really tasty and the apples and peanut butter got completely eaten.  I talked to Michael’s family, including some cousins, his brother, and his father.  They were all great to talk to, especially his brother, Marty.  After a bit we headed to the Airbnb where people were going to crash that night.  One of his friends, Ricardo, offered to drive me to the airport at the end of the night, and I accepted.  We went out bar hopping and hit four or so bars.  We met up with Ala and the bachelorette crew at the last one and did a bit of dancing.  To end the night we went for some midnight tacos.  Ricardo dropped me off at the airport between 1am and 2am, and I took a nap outside security until they opened around 5am.  I got on the flight at 6am and made it back to SF a little before 9am.  I was drunk when I got on the plane, and that quickly changed to a hangover by the time I’d landed.  I decided to have a nice big breakfast at the airport in SFO and then got a Lyft back home.

Steph and I joined a group from Diver Dan’s on a Bali and Komodo diving live-aboard.  We never actually dove around Bali, with most of the diving being done around Komodo National Park.  We had a pretty good flight, with the longer legs being in economy plus.  It was really nice to have enough room to lean over and sleep.  We also got to hang out in the lounges given Steph’s status, which made the layover in Taipei pretty nice.

 

We got to Bali in the mid-afternoon and went to a resort for the evening.  We just hung out around the resort and tried to get over our jet lag.  The next day we got on the boat and started the long leg of the boat ride out to Moyo Island.  It took about 16 hours to get to the first dive site, which was about 2/3 the way to Komodo.  We dove there and everyone checked out as far as the dive crew were concerned.

The crew on the Mermaid II was amazing, and the diver coordinator, Liane, was great.  We had so much food and it was all delicious.  They were also great about providing vegetarian food for Steph.  Doing 4 dives a day was a lot of energy expenditure, so we didn’t end up putting on weight, despite the amount of food we were eating.

I backed out of a second dive in Manta Alley to go kayaking, and saw some dolphins, which swam underneath the kayak.  I had a good time, but the water washed the sunscreen from my feat and I got a decently bad sunburn.

We also went on Komodo Island and saw the dragons.  They are big, but mostly move around really slowly.  I’m sure they could move fast if they really wanted to, but none did around us, thankfully.

One dive on the way back was on an active volcano, with bubbles coming out of the sand, and rocks giving off heat.  It was pretty amazing to see that much activity.

We got back to Bali and got a hotel in a more typical tourist area.  We took a day trip to jump off some waterfalls, and it was lovely.  The drive there and back was long, but worth it, as we got to see much of the country and some more of the wildlife on the journey.

 

We also did a Balinese cooking class that was very interesting.  There was a huge similarity to Thai food, but with a bit more Indian and Chinese influence.  The best part was probably the peanut sauce, which is simpler to make than I had thought.

We ended up getting multiple events to ourselves that normally would have been with larger groups.  This included the cooking class, the canyoning, and the sunset tea service.