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It's an Exciting World

The life and times of David Geisert

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Cuba

Steph and I took a few days in Cuba after the Mexico trip since we were so close.  It turned out pretty well, and I’m really glad we got to see it before a lot of the new construction completed.  The city was an interesting mix of semi-new and old things.  There was also a huge mix of well kept vs. not, and little of the kept state had to do with age.

The place where we stayed was very nice, Casa Densil.  The owner Ezio, was nice and helpful.  The rooms he had were full of what I would consider antiques, but they were the kinds of thing that people there were used to using everyday since they hadn’t been getting many imports.  The cars were somewhat as we expected, with the 50’s taxis.  There were also a number of newer cars going around from the 80’s and 90’s.  Most of those cars were European or Asian, none from the US of course.  The food was pretty good.  We went to a Swedish Cuban Fusion place for the first two nights called Casa Miglis.  The second night we tried to get into the top restaurants, but they were fully booked.  The second rated restaurant was in an interesting building.  It was an old shopping mall that had the bottom two floors completely empty.  It was clear by the nice marble everywhere that it at one point had been upscale.  The restaurant was on the third floor, but there was no signage for it.  The only thing that gave it away was a guy standing out front that said we were in the right place when we looked confused.  I don’t think he worked there, just hanging out.  Many of the streets had people and families just hanging out on the sidewalks.  There wasn’t really internet or TV so that is the primary pass time, sitting around and talking.  The communities seemed pretty strong.  We noticed one night there squares where buildings had been torn down and park benches installed on the concrete slabs.  They were full of people on tables, which we found odd since there wasn’t internet.  We didn’t ask but I’m pretty sure they were setting up local networks for file sharing.

The flight back was rough.  The flight from Cuba to Cancun was delayed by 3 hours, and then the flight from Cancun to SFO was delayed by 15 hours.  Not the longest I’ve had to wait for a flight, but still rough.  The kitties were so happy to have us home.

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Mexico 2016

Steph and I joined a Diver Dan’s trip to Mexico.  There were two locations for the trip: Xcalak, close to Belize, and Puerto Aventuras.

Xcalak was a really nice beach area, and the dive shop was pretty, but we got there at the same time as a group of new interns.  The DM’s were trying to get everything ready and teach the interns at the same time.  We had a great guide Mathias, and he was able to keep things going mostly smoothly for us.  The first day Steph got sick after the first dive and we went back in.  The second day we did a nice first dive, then tried to exit the barrier reef.  During the exit the boat was hit by a massive wave that washed over the deck.  Most people were knocked from their seats, and much of the boat gear was knocked overboard.  Steph and I were hit hard by the wave, and we kept our seats, but to our detriment.  Steph got cuts on her hand from holding hard to the bench, and I got cuts on my leg from hitting against the same bench.  We circled back to pick up the first aid kit from the waves, and got a bit patched up.  Steph went diving with a rubber glove on, filled with antiseptic.  I stayed on the boat and helped pull things out of the water.  Steph’s dive computer was gone for good, but its depth sensor had just broken anyway.  Not a huge loss.

The place we stayed, Casa Paraiso, was really nice.  I liked the view, and they had clearly put a lot of effort into making it really nice, despite not being able to get all the best materials.

We then trecked up to Puerto Aventuras and got situated.  The next day we got to start the cavern diving with Under the Jungle.  Our guide was the owner Natalie.  This was the real reason Steph and I had come, and it was amazing.  The first day we didn’t get the good light effects, since it was cloudy.  We did get nice light effects for a few days we were there.  During the cavern dives we were paired with Pej, the 6’5″ guy and his wife Lili.  They were a fun couple to talk to, and Pej might listen to more audiobooks than I do.

We had a great time on the beach, and found a swim up bar.  I love swim up bars, disproportionate to how fun they actually are.  We ended up there two nights of the time we were in Puerto Aventuras.

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American Gods

I found this somewhat derivative of Small Gods, but it had enough of a twist that it was good unto itself.  I really liked it.  The end was a good twist, and I do wonder where the world goes after the end of that book, so it could be interesting.

Audible Link

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314 G

We had an offer accepted on a house!

The house is 314 G St. in Redwood City.  It is in one of the best areas for us, and it was a really nice house.  There isn’t much we’ll need to do before moving in either.  I think we can get a pretty much move in early January assuming we get people to fix the few things we want done quickly.  It is going to save me more than 30 minutes each way on my commute, and Steph now has a 5 minute walk to work.

I decided to do a 3D VR model of the house so we could place furniture.  I’ve build in all the furniture we currently own, and I’ll be putting in a lot of the things that we want, but don’t currently own.  The big public areas are the biggest unknown as they do have a lot of doors and windows, so placing is tricky, but very manageable.  I’m really happy with our purchase.

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White Elephant and Christmas Music

Lindsay set up a white elephant gift exchange for our friendgroup, and we ended up doing it at George’s.  It was a lot of fun, and there were plenty of troll gifts.  I was glad that the gift I got was the only one to be stolen 3 times.  It was a Pusheen beanie, with the cat ears sticking up when someone was wearing it.

We then started singing Christmas songs, and it was a great time.  I was so tired, and a somewhat drunk, but it was still fun to cuddle with Stephanie on the foof and sing.  She was getting tired too, and was the one driving, so we headed out a little early.

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Atlanta for Thanksgivings

Stephanie and I went to Atlanta for Thanksgivings week.  We were only there Monday to Friday, which was just about the right amount of time.  I was able to talk with my parents, and I got lucky in getting a gift for my dad that he really liked.  My mom also appreciated it.  We played codenames, and I think they liked it.

Fred and Karin showed up on Wednesday, and we got to talk a lot about many things.  They will try to come out and visit early next year.  It is possible they will combo it with another trip they are planning to Oakland.  It will be nice to show them around, and I think they’ll enjoy it greatly.

One morning we hiked Stone Mountain.  Stephanie seemed to enjoy the activity.  I certainly liked it, and the view was a lot clearer than I was expecting.

Other than that it was mainly lots of eating and chatting.  We enjoyed Holeman and Finch.  It had really tasty food as usual.

I really appreciated how Stephanie interacted with my family nicely, despite it being overwhelming for her I’m sure.

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Poker

I’ve been playing more poker, but just for fun and wholly expecting to lose money.  I have been, more due to the skill of the other players than any bad luck or self fulfilling prophesy.  It has been a lot of fun, I must admit.  I can do about two hours of poker before I can’t concentrate and play really badly.  This can actually be a lot of fun now, because of the new table that Andrew bought.  It has RFID tags in all the cards, and the table reads what hands people have.  It then shows the action in a stream to another room.  I’ve really enjoyed watching that while the others that have busted out come to chat.

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Meatball Invitiational

Steph and I went into the city to hang out with Nick for his annual meatball invitational.  We had a lot of great food, then Steph and I played a really fun round of Innovation.  For all the times I had tried to destroy the world before in the game with the nukes card, this was the first time it actually happened.  Nick forced me to draw it, and I drew red, so the whole game was reset with just the remnants of the deck remaining.  We quickly drew out and they won on score.

We tried making more of the veggie meatballs, but drowned them in broth.  The broke up and we ended up with a veggie meatloaf.  It was still good with the tikka masala sauce.

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MTG Win!

It has been a long time since I’ve updated things here, and most of that is due to all sorts of time consuming things going on, most of them good.

Late October we did a Magic draft at Andrew’s place.  It was a Kaladesh draft, and I actually read up on things beforehand.  I read one strategy that seemed good, and found that I had the card in my hand to start.  So I ended up going with the assembly line robots.  It worked great, especially since I got a second one passed to me immediately.  I didn’t play one of the people, but ended up winning best of 3 every time.  I got lucky with Andrew, and we played a few extra matches for fun, he ended up wining 3 games straight to get the best of 5.

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