For a while, I was doing so well with doing real updates, but now we’re back to the ol’ list of things I’ve been doing…

I survived Christmas with the two families. I think it was probably scarier for Allison’s family than for me, since a food fight cooperation broke up, due to a loophole in my mom’s attempt to stop me from shooting whipped cream across the room. She said that your partner had to be within 3 feet, which turns out to be greater than the distance a can of whipped cream can shoot horizontally. Incidentally, we did discover that holding a can of whipped cream three feet above someone’s head can get it pretty close to into their mouth. And in their hair, but that’s a small price to pay.

Allison and I rung in the new year with Rachel and her family in Minnesota, where Rachel scored us a last-minute snow storm after a couple of days of boring weather. We played Space Pirate Amazon Ninja Catgirls and Munchkin, went for a walk in the snow, ate at Al’s Breakfast (still home to the best omelet I’ve ever eaten), shopped at the Mall of America, had yummy Indian food, and had a jolly good time. Some photos from the trip. I’m counting the days until Rachel comes out again in February, which happens to be one day before Stephie to visit.

Work has been crazy busy, but still exciting. I spent a couple of days this week on Bangalore time, which was exhausting. I’m getting too old to work at midnight. So different from a few years ago when I did my best work after 10pm.

Speaking of exhausting, I’ve been going to Community Bootcamp 5 days a week, which has been kicking my ass (in a good way!). I’m also going to start running again, training for Bay To Breakers in May (although it sounds like Blake won’t be able to run with me this year) and The Relay in July, which I’ll be running as part of a Yahoo! team (and don’t think I won’t be hitting y’all up for donations for Organs R Us). I’m trying to get back to my fighting weight again, since I’ve been putting on a couple of pounds lately.

In less painful news, I bought myself a mandolin:

It just came on Friday, but I’m already getting the hang of it. Within an hour, I had a couple of chords down and could play the verse/chorus of Will Hoge’s “(Better Off) Now That You’re Gone” (first three chords in my book were C, G, and F) as well as Glen Phillips’ Duck and Cover (I suppose that having a lyric from a song tattooed on your body makes you more likely to play it each time you pick up an instrument). I’ve started learning Losing My Religion (well, what song do YOU think of when you think of a mandolin?), and that’s been going pretty well. Once I got the bridge height figured out, the hardest thing has been tuning (and retuning) it. With the pairs of strings, being even slightly out of tune really stands out. Who wants to jam?

A bunch of things, since I’ve been forgetting to post lately:

• Vance Degeneres has joined Cowboy Mouth to replace the recently-departed Paul Sanchez. It sounds like the Mouth will be in California early next year. It’s been far too long since I’ve seen them, so I’m excited.
• Exercise last week was a complete success. So far, I’m also on track for this week. I’m contemplating training for either a marathon or a half-marathon. My joints and I need to have a long talk about whether or not it’s worth it.
• Yahoo! has announced a big reorganization. I don’t know much more than what’s in the press. I’m sure Valleywag knows more than I do (or at least thinks they do).
• So far, my holiday time has been booked with spending time with Allison’s family, running to the airport to meet Ashlee during her layover on Christmas Eve, then heading to Minneapolis for New Year’s. If anyone else wants to see me, book your time now. I’ve a very busy guy.
• Recent music purchases of Brian Vander Ark, Paul Sanchez, Pete Droge, and Minibar have all been pleasing on the ears.

Starting today, I’m going to get my gym routine back on track. I will go 4 times this week. Count ‘em, four. This afternoon. Tomorrow before tutoring. Group workout on Wednesday. Friday morning. Hear that, stomach fat? It’s ON.

Today as a celebration for all the hard work we’ve put in, our engineering team went to play laser tag. We all had to pick our code names. It was a tough decision after Shrish picked “ChukNorris”. Because I was wearing my Bryan Adams t-shirt (where he is playing the bass, which amuses Daniel greatly), the laser tag guy pointed out to me that BryanAdams was still available. How could I pass that chance up? I referred to him as “Canada’s greatest export”, so I think the guy was under the impression I was a huge fan, rather than someone who got a Bryan Adams shirt thrown in when he bought a Springsteen shirt on eBay.

So when it comes to laser tag, I rock. The first game was solo and I won that. The second game was a team game and my team won by almost 700 points and I was the top scorer. In the third game, I slipped to second because Tom and I got into a sniping war. Sad.

Still, I think the real Bryan Adams would be pleased, especially when I shot Rock and asked him if it “cuts like a knife”. Sadly, Bryan Adams song reference are underappreciated.

In exercise news, I walked both there and back (about 5 miles in total), and then worked up quite a sweat in the three games, so that totally counts as exercise. Tomorrow is the 5k “Turkey Trot” at work, so we’ll see how badly I die.

This was written on the plane, but I just now got it off of my Treo, so the tense may be a bit off. Deal with it.

Another visit to Rachel and Minnesota come and gone. Too quick, as always. We did manage to pack it full of cooking, eating, concerts, a dancing toddler, furniture shopping, exercise at the gym across the street, Peru planning, and great conversation, so I have a hard time complaining too much.
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Okay, so it’s been a month since Rachel visited, and I still haven’t finished posting this stupid entry. It’s a combination of a couple of things. First, it’s been a really fast month for some reason. I don’t feel like I’ve done THAT much, but it went by in a flash. Second, I tend to overthink entries about Rachel visits. A bunch of rambling sentences does not capture the fun, silliness, excitement, or delirious joy I have whenever I see Rachel. Being able to write as well as Rachel would help, because her entry does capture some of that. Third, I just suck about updating my blog lately. So here’s the shortened version of the visit, before it never ever gets posted.

The theme of the cooking weekend was Japanese, so we made a ton of yummy dishes. Somen noodles over ice with a dipping sauce. Ginger-stewed eggplant. Green beans with a miso dressing. Glazed carrots and gobo. The Soup of Ancient Mystery (so named because I lost the bookmark for where I found it, thus leaving it nameless). Sweet simmered vegetables. Broccoli with salted lemon wedges. Mochi, which is considered by some historians to be one of the tastiest kitchen disasters of the 21st century. And, of course, sushi.

In addition to the eating we did at my apartment, we also did some eating out. We had breakfast at Country Gourmet the first morning, then the next morning we went to Hobee’s. The original plan was to alternate between the two, but after Rachel proposed marriage to the tea, we ended up eating at Hobee’s two more times. We also ate at Spice Islands Cafe, which is always yummy. Though it does not rival Hobee’s tea. Ask Rachel, she’ll tell you.

Oh yeah, and we did that “skydiving” thing. We went to Skydive Monterey Bay, so the view was gooooooooooooorgeous. Not that it wasn’t totally fun when we jumped in Wisconsin, but to have the view of the ocean made it that much more fantastic. I think Allison is going with us next time we jump. Unless you’re a member of Allison’s family, in which case: Of course she would never think about doing something so dangerous as to skydive. What kind of fool do you take her for?!

Other random things we did:

• Walking all over Mountain View to shop for food and supplies.
• Watching Veronica Mars on my laptop while lying in my hammock, then looking for flying motorcycles (you can tell them from planes if you look carefully).
• Discussing the workings of the Time Police, in their Chinese food containers controlled by chopsticks, wearing their little mushroom helmets.
• Sleeping through movies that we intended to watch.
• Giggling through sleep we intended to get.
• Visiting our friends at the Scientology Center.

Again, this doesn’t come close to capturing the high level of awesomeitude of the visit (and I’m sure there are dozens of things I’m forgetting), but at least this gets it posted on my blog before I leave for North Carolina.

Pictures!!

I’m moving this weekend. Well, I’m moving this weekend if I remember to find a truck to move the furniture in. (Yes, kids, this is what maturity and planning looks like!) Last week, it seemed so far away, but this week I realize how freakin’ much I have left to do.

Done so far:

• Bought dishes
• Ordered cookware
• Ordered knives

Still to do:

• Finish packing
• Buy silverware & glasses
• Reserve a truck
• Find a kitchen table
• …too many things to list without feeling stressed

Despite flipping out at the to do list, it’s good. I’ll have all the time Allison in out of time is out of town (note to self: don’t write updates when you’re so tired that you can’t see straight) to get settled without her tricking me into spending time with her instead of getting things done. She’s sneaky like that.

In other news, Rachel is coming to visit for the 4th of July weekend! We’re planning to do another cooking weekend, which is going to rock. Sushi is a definite, and the rest is TBD. Probably an Asian theme though. I’m sure you’ll read allllll about it. In order to counter the weight I’ll gain from eating, Blake and I are going to run to the Wharf to Wharf race in July. Which I suppose means I should consider exercising between now and then. Yeah, right! This race is shorter than Bay to Breakers, and I obviously didn’t need to train for THAT. …this is a bad precedent.

I officially survived Bay to Breakers on Sunday. Despite inconsistent training for the last few weeks and some unhealthy eating, I managed to finish the race with a start line to finish line time of 1:19:43. Blake and I got a late start, so my gun time was higher, but that’s not the point. The point is that I ran 7.48 miles in less than 80 minutes (including the time it took to dodge the walking costumed people we were stuck behind, which slowed down our pace). Thats 2 miles further than I’ve ever run before (see, I told you I wasn’t training hard enough). Blake was also nice enough to offer me a water bottle from his trunk, though we noticed it had expired in 1998, thus making the water about 10 years old. Despite this, I am still looking at running a 6 mile race with him this summer, and possible entering another 5k. I’m not sure that I want to be on an intense exercise routine, but I do want to lose this last bit of weight and planning races will keep me motivated to run.

Some general event photos and the photos of me that I am too cheap to purchase.

Today, we had an off-site at City Beach for our engineering organization. We did some team-building exercises that I wasn’t too thrilled with, but afterward, we got to do whatever we wanted. I ended up playing basketball for 2 1/2 hours, which has made my feet incredibly angry with me. Actually, I was really surprised how well I held up, considering that I expected to be pretty sore today because it’s two days after that crazy run.

Now I’m going to collapse on the couch.

Looks like I’ve lost that daily posting momentum I had, and it’s back down to a more reasonable level of a couple posts per week.

We did another body comp yesterday at the gym. I’m now 10.04% fat. If I had just lost one more mm on any of the 7 measurements, I would have made it to single digits. So close! I also had another coworker comment on my weight loss today, which is always nice.

I’m going to the gym twice a week, I’m up to running 4.5 miles in 40 mins, and I’m eating well. My body is happy.

Well, my body was happier this morning before I decided to run while it wasn’t raining. Turns out that window of “not raining” lasted only until I reached the point where I am the farthest away from home, then the pouring rain resumed. Not so fun, but a great incentive to run faster.