Wednesday, December 19, 2007

year in review...

And yet another year winds itself to a close. OK, let’s save time and do the obligatory checklist:

Family? Doing great – check. Thanks for asking.
Healthy? Yep - check.
School? Both kiddies doing well – check.
Work? Steady as she goes – check.

This was a big year for firsts for Anna. She started kindergarten, and she joined her brother Rei in starting TaeKwonDo! I missed Anna’s debut, but I can vividly recall how collected I felt in witnessing her second tournament at UC Davis. I coolly pointed the camcorder toward the ring, and proceeded to calmly film with the cap still on. At least my hands weren’t shaking…too much anyway. Figure we can write the shaky images off to the pair of moderate earthquakes we felt this year.

Rei continues to crank along on both his schoolwork and TKD. He was placed in a 2nd/3rd grade combo class, so no more coasting for him! On the sports front, Rei continues to improve, racking up 1st place sparring at Stanford, UC Davis, and the Silicon Valley classic. He also made his debut running 5K races – that’s one thing his old man can still stomp him on, so we’ll do more of those.

The Boss got admitted to Evergreen Valley College, and is going to start classes on Jan 2nd. She’s looking forward to resuming her academic career. Should be a lot of fun; not to mention personally fulfilling as well. Drink lots of coffee, because there’s gonna be a LOT of homework!

I'm still cog #68034 at a behemoth hitech company. I rest content that I have such a critical role in the Great Machinery. In fact, were I to rust, there may be a second, nay, multiple seconds (!!) of productivity lost forever to the company. One wonders how I can shoulder such an awesome burden. But hey, someone's gotta do it!

That’s about it in a nutshell. Hope this post finds you all in great health and spirits. Have a safe and wonderful holidays!

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Preparing for the Future

At the 3 hour mark on the Kid-Crack that is the Nintendo DS, my son asked me a question. As someone who attended roughly 17 more years of education than he, I was pretty confident that I could answer his undoubtedly minor little query.

"Dad. How can I get the Green Man to move from the Rock Mountain Entrance so he can give me the Watch?"

"Go ask your mother" was my first reaction, but then I stopped. Hold on, I said, then quickly Googled Green Man and Rocky Mountain Entrance. A ha! There it was.

"Son, if you had paid attention in class, the answer should be inherently obvious. You need the Three Coupons from the clowns in town; give those to the Man in the Suit. The Suit Man will give you an Apple, which will make the Green Man move."

"ohhhhhhhh! I KNEW that!" my son says, slapping his forehead in realization.

I dunno who designs these games, but one has to be impressed at how closely this logic resembles reality.

Go fetch this PowerPoint slide and give to the Man in the Office so he'll give you the Numbers needed to Attend the Offsite.

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Happy Bday!


We're having our son's 8th birthday party this Sat. We ran into a bunch of scheduling issues last year, so we learned our lesson. This year, we booked early, August, if I remember correctly.

We got a smokin' deal, on account of the fact that the party building was still under construction. No problem, they said! So we thought nothing of it. We bit on the free T shirt offer and signed up.

4 months later, the Big Day is almost upon us. I haven't seen the facilities in a while, so I emailed the organizer to ask what activities will be available on Saturday.

The reply:
  • Knock Down Dry Wall Race
  • Asbestos Breath Holding contest
  • Pin the Tail on the Still Hardening Concrete
Phew! And here we were. All worried for nothin'.
 

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