Bringing 2010 to a Close

2010 was one hell of a year.  It found me in five countries, several airplanes, one big ship, numerous boats, and, somehow, only five states.  There were ups and downs and each of my little victories was matched by an equal or greater defeat.  I spent most of it feeling like I was doing more and ending up with less to show for it.  Suffice it to say, I'm glad to have this one behind me.


So glad was I that I set out to celebrate the death of 2010 a full day early.  I went with my sisters and a friend to Maggie McGarrity's Pub in North Beach to see the Spazmatics, a nerdy 80's cover band that can be found there every Thursday night.  They make for a good time:





They do such a good job with their nerd motif that they actually stay in character even in between sets.  Here's a couple of pics of nerds with the girls:


 




All of the nerdery made it pretty easy for everyone to be goofy as well:


Here's a winning shot of Kendall rocking out:

(either that or she's ripping a fart, hard to say)
We stayed through both of their sets on stage and ended up leaving around 1a.m. 

On the morning of New Year's Eve I awoke on the couch at my parents' house when the niece and nephew started putting small dogs on top of me.  It's hard to sleep when a hybrid chihuahua-weiner-shivery-annoying dog sticks its tongue in your nostril.

Once I'd had time to regain calm and got out of my puppy killing mood, I went outside with the kids and helped them launch model rockets for a while.  Here's a shot of the junior rocketeers in the midst of their pre-flight checks:


There were several launches and I filmed them all, but the best part was the countdown sequence shown here:

In the aftermath, if you go to that same spot and look at the trees in the background, you can find a couple hundred dollars worth of model rockets dangling from the branches.

When they'd tired of launching things, I had them stow the remnants back in my workshop.  That's when my nephew decided he had to try on my HALO armor.  It was a tiny bit too big for him:


His older sister got in ot it too, but with less gusto:


Turns out he was so fond of the whole rig that he refused to take the helmet off until he went to bed:


That was New Year's Eve.  I'm only a bit sad to say that I decided to stay in.  I fell asleep barely half an hour into the new year while watching a movie.  It was a fitting fizzling end to the year.

Here's to hoping for a better 2011.

,

New Year's Eve 2009

I spent New Year's Eve in the Seattle area this year. Some of Ana's oldest friends were hosting their annual New Year's Eve party and, seeing as we were around, we decided to attend.

The theme was "swank," and guests were encouraged to dress accordingly. Of course, there's nothing swanker than this jacket*:


Ana wore her Hepburn jacket and a nice silk dress:


It was a fun crowd and there was no shortage of adult beverages:




And we weren't the only people there dressed in the height of fashion:


A good time was had by all:


But especially by me:


It turned out to be a nice end to 2009.

Stay tuned for 2010...

*The jacket was custom-made by my tailor in Kabul, Afghanistan. I'd say it's one-of-a-kind, but it's not. There is another. To see the other one, CLICK HERE.

Late Post: Petaluma Party Pictures

It's been weeks since the party happened, so I apologize for not posting sooner. The biggest delay has been waiting for all the folks with cameras there to email photos to me because I wasn't taking pictures for myself. There are still more pictures out there and if you have them please send them to me. I still don't have very many pictures of the Seattle party, so if you were there, send those too.

Now, on to the event...

Preparations for the Petaluma party started about four days ahead of time with the discussion of foodstuffs with my uncle Glenn. Ana and I went with him to Costco and came back with a truckload of food and a shopping list. Over the next three days it was time to set up event rental equipment and help dad line up part of his car collection so he could show off:



I also cleaned up the workshop and pulled out some of my works in progress so I could show them off too:



The morning of the party, uncle Glenn showed up with the pig in tow and got started with the cooking:


My cousin Jess helped him out:


My aunt Betty made a cake for the occasion too. I told her to have fun with it, and she definitely went all out:


Early in the afternoon, family started showing up in costume:








Then old friends started showing up:

Believe it or not, Chris made the Wolfman costume himself:














I figured as long as we were asking everyone to show up dressed ridiculous, the least I could do was give them something in return. So over the previous two days I'd made a small collection of costume trophies for presentation as the afternoon waned into evening:

Some of the winners:


About this same time, the pig had been mostly eviscerated:

Along the way, my car was filled with random gifts:

When people had mostly left and the children were out of bounce house, we decided it was the adults' turn:

Rich had a fundoshi slip:

The next day, all that was left to do was clean up:

Then put all of the chairs and tables away, return the borrowed and rented gear, and re-park all of the cars.

It took two days to make it all go away.

Now all I have to do is finish designing, writing, and mailing the thank-you cards.

There and Back and There Again. Overwhelming Busyness

I've beend doing a pretty crap job of keeping up with the bloggage lately. I haven't been too too busy, but here's the short version of what's happened since the last time I wrote a significant update on the goings-on in my life as part of this summer's four-way-cross-country trip. Here's the route we took:



Along the way we saw 5,265 miles, nineteen different states, six different hotel rooms, and countless bits of roadkill. Fun.

When last I wrote about this little adventure, we were in Petaluma for a week or so. After that week we flew back to Seattle for the second of our three wedding receptions. I tried to avoid billing it as a wedding reception for several reasons, but with the venues and the menus and the dress and the cakes and so on, it's hard to call them anything else. I'll post again about the Seattle party when all of the pictures come back, so for now, here's a picture of one of the two cakes:

Ana had it commissioned at Mike's Amazing Cakes. They make just about anything you can think of in the form of a custom cake. In this case, Ana was trying to come up with something that was uniquely me and, while plenty of people have stormtrooper armor or sailboats or snow dogs, mine is the only chrome Miata in the world.

Anyhow, once the party was over we spent the next day waiting for Ana to recover from her hangover while I loaded up the car. Somewhere along the way I spotted a little stowaway:



The following morning, after doing a dog count and making sure we were actually leaving them all behind, we were on the road again:



And finally driving into California for the first time this year:



We arrived in Petaluma and I set to work getting ready for the third of three wedding receptions:

(trust me, that picture makes sense if you were there)

A few days later my sisters arrived:


After a slow night of drinking and catching up, we all went our separate ways to prepare for the following day's festivities.


There's a lot of pictures I'm still sorting through from the Petaluma Party, so stay tuned.