It's an Exciting World

We had people over to our place for the fourth, since we miraculously got the pool house.  I was surprised since the cost of renting the pool house is only $25 for the day, and I checked on July 1 if July 4 was available.  The complex was pretty empty so I guess everyone must have been going to visit people elsewhere.

We had a ton of food, and people started arriving with more food.  Jeremy brought some amazing paneer kebabs over, and a great tasting asparagus to grill.  Amit and Tina brought over some of the best steak I’ve ever had, and Adam brought over some sausages.  Lindsay and Kevin brought a few salads, and Riley and Rong got some drinks.  We lounged by the pool, and eventually got in.  We also got a good bit of soak time in the hot tub.  I managed to core a pineapple without breaking through the bottom, and used that as a cup for the second half of the day.  It made me really happy that I was able to do that.

We played a few rounds of Hanabi, which is appropriate since the original theme of Hanabi is fireworks.  We happened to be playing with a drink themed version.

We split up to clean up, then met up at Amit’s place to head in for the Shoreline fireworks show.  We played Hanabi a few more times while waiting for the show to start.  Once it did we got a really great view through a window in the trees we were sitting under.  Stephanie had picked out just the right spot for the view.  We all headed back to the car and went our separate ways after that.

Stephanie and I took a long vacation, and the first week of that we went scuba diving in Chuuk, Micronesia.  This was an amazing trip, and we had a wonderful time.  The island was tiny, and there wasn’t much anything to do on land but the diving was amazing.  Chuuk lagoon was the site of Operation Hailstone where the US bombed many Japanese ships in WWII.  The diving there was amazing, and we penetrated many wrecks, as well as going as deep as 165 ft.  Below is a video that is cut and sped up from the original 9 hours of video.  You can see all the video at normal speed on my youtube, but this is the highlights.

We got some tasty waffles at beachhead, and it was a great time.  I liked talking with everyone, and we played a game of Dungeon Lords while Steph was at the ballet.  I got some bacon, and we had some veggies, but mostly had waffles.  Tina made some amazingly well spiced ones.

I had a nice long bike ride over to Andrew’s place for a brunch, which was delicious.  The ride over was about an hour and a half.  The whole way there and back was sunny and the perfect temp.  I wore my new helmet and got a compliment on it from another cyclist.  It was interesting meeting Andrew and Haru’s mother, and I could see how a bit of their personality developed.  The food was amazing, with some delicious pastries as the part I liked the most.  Debby brought some she got from Alexander’s and Andrew’s mother made some herb biscuits that were phenomenal.  I left when they started the fist episode of the new Naked and Afraid season.

Andrew got a new house, and we went over to see it last night and have Pizza on the Floor.  He did end up having a table there, and we ate on that.  The pizza was Patxi’s and delicious.  His yard is gorgeous with a few pomelo trees, and a lot of other garden areas.  There isn’t any lawn, which is nice.  The house is pretty big (3/2), and really nice on the inside with a very well thought out plan.  There are two fireplaces as well, one in the living room, and one in the master bedroom.  We played a few rounds of Mafia, which I really enjoyed, despite only getting a special role when I was the one to die the first night.  We hung out and talked with Lindsay, Kevin, Debby, Andrew, Haru, Alana, Jeremy, and Adam.

We’ve been hanging out with Nima and Caryn every now and then.  We’ve had them over twice now and gone to their place once.  They are in the same complex as us until they move into their new place.  I was also able to play squash with Nima once, and it was a lot of fun.  I’ll have to try to do it more, but it will be hard to get home regularly.  I should just set a schedule and stick to it.  As long as I’m not a blocker at work I should be able to keep whatever hours I want.

I finally got around to taking a video of the new place.  You can see the dragon head door knocker, the new big red couch, and the nice dining room table.

I have moved to a new place in Mountain View with the lovely Stephanie.  We decided to get a place together, and it went pretty quickly after that.  We went to several places and decided on the current one because of the location, the people we knew there, and that it is just really nice.

We did two rounds of interviews for roommates that turned up two really cool guys, Ray and Mohsin.  There were a good number of other people that would have been fun to live with, but we got our top two picks.

I moved all of my stuff in the day the lease started, and got some help from Steph for it.  I’m still organizing things, but that is nearly done.

We’ve been using the hot tub some, even though it isn’t really all that hot.  We’ve met some of the neighbors and they are nice.  Steph still needs to get her stuff moved in, which is planned for the 28th.

We went to lunch with Steph’s parents and went to Habitat for Humanity Restore, where Steph’s dad volunteers.  They had all sorts of furniture and appliances.  We ended up getting a sofa and a dining room table.  Both items were very high quality and we spent about $500 total for them.  I helped Steph’s dad pick up a large Christmas tree, and he helped us move in the furniture.  I was worn out by the end of moving everything, so I can only imagine how tired he must have been.

The cats are getting used to the space, and have found a couple places to hide that we have had trouble figuring out.  The best one was under the yoga mat in my closet.  They also really love the new cat tree I got for them, and the much better views out the windows.

I’ll put some pictures up once I take them.

Eliot hosted another documentary night, this time about a crazy guy who wanted to paint a vermeer.  He painstakingly rebuilt the study and used an optical device to paint a very accurate painting.  It wasn’t that good, and I had already seen it before.  I still really enjoyed the company and food.  The spinach and artichoke dip we made was amazing.