Category: Diary (Page 32 of 38)

Lisa and I walked down the road to Citibank to see our account manager to get some advice on banking matters regarding the house, and other stuff. We also had time for a little breakfast at the local bagel shop, where we perused the local papers and looked at upcoming concerts and events with glee. (Somewhat prematurely, too, I might add!)

Then we spent a little time with Stan on routine computer maintenance, and also talking with him about his plans to publish a web site of poems and cartoons.

We pack our stuff up, ’cause we have a plane to catch at 6:00pm, and appointments in between, including one at the housing development flooring vendor showroom to decide on carpet and other flooring choices. We already have a good idea what we would want, so we manage to finalise our options reasonably quickly. There is quite a quality range of product, but without going crazy we are able to settle on a good combination of colours and patterns that we feel are compatible with our tastes.

Then it’s time to catch our plane back home to California. We arranged to catch a pretty late flight out of Vegas to allow us as much time as possible there, and considering we only had three days, I think we did ok!

Nothing’s final of course until it comes time to talk contracts in November or December, but right now we see no reason to not go ahead with our plan.

As I write this I have no idea where we are – it’s pitch black outside. We are probably about to start our descent into SFO sometime in the next 30 minutes.

This morning Lisa and I walked down to the supermarket and got some coffee and fresh bagels.

Then we drove out to a couple of new housing developments to look at lots and models and sample houses to check out that plan we’ve been admiring on the web. Exhausting work, but exciting too. We took our digital camera and took lots of pictures of things in the specific house plan.

Well, there’s a very good chance that a year from now we could be living on Bandits Bluff, LV. Right now it is just a dusty empty lot out in the middle of nowhere.

Tomorrow we go back to the development and continue talking about options and stuff.

After a pleasant breakfast, at around midday we drive back out to Spring Mountain Ranch to reserve our lot and figure out what the next steps are. Choosing options and comparing surfacing/flooring materials, mostly. And asking a bunch of questions. More measuring. Then we drove down the road to the pile of dirt and walked around on the site, and took a bunch of pictures. We also drove around the finished houses and compared color schemes, before settling on the one that we wanted for ours.

We’re in Las Vegas for the weekend.

It turns out that all of the “Days of Stupid” that were caused by Delta Airlines were worth something after all, because they sent us “Delta money” coupons along with a letter of apology. Cool. We can use the coupons for air travel tickets.

So, we decided to cash some of them in and fly to Vegas for the weekend, and spend some time looking at housing developments.

The flight today was uneventful, albeit because we were flying Delta we had a stopover in Salt Lake City, so in total it made for a 6 hour trip instead of a 3 hour one…

Over the weekend Brian and Beth (my Uncle and Aunt) stay with us for a few days on the last leg of an extensive overseas trip that has taken them from NZ to Europe, to London, back to Europe, and now to California. We spend some time with them taking them out to a restaurant in Sausalito; cooking them dinner, and generally suggesting interesting places for them to visit. They hired a car which meant they could be pretty independent and drive around at whim, and from the sound of it they had a great time, even though we couldn’t accompany them all the time what with working Monday and Tuesday of course.

On the evening of August 10, we took Derek and Kevin out to our favorite Italian restaurant, Frantoio’s.

We don’t have any pictures until the interim between dinner and dessert because earlier we were too busy noticing what was on the table. We were also having a good conversation about Kevin and Derek’s work on the youth magazine _Solid_, which is roughly equivalent to Derek and Kevin’s version of the World of Nerd Management.

A better way to round off my birthday? I can’t think of one.

And now, the reason for the title of this dispatch: Today I am 35.

Now I’m normally not one to remark much on the passing of years, unless the number has some particularly interesting numerological aspect (which 35 doesn’t, really. 5×7? Gotta do better than that, suggestions are welcome).

However, today does have a kind of cosmic vibe to it: I’ve known since I could count that in the year 2000 I’d be 35. When you’re 10 this seems pretty far off. (So *OLD*! I thought. In the *future* I thought.)

But 10 years ago to the day I sat outside in the sun and thought to myself, “10 years from now it’ll be the year 2000 and I’ll be 35. What is it going to be like?” I even had a crystal ball list:

– I’d feel the same at 35 as I do at 25: Check. – I’d be married: Check – but I hadn’t met her yet: Check – Walter and I would have finished our music album project: no check. Still working on it.

I didn’t even have a checklist item for where in the world I’d be living, but I wouldn’t have figured on California if I’d even thought about it.

I think I’d become a realist enough to know that if Big Brother seemed unlikely and pessimistic in 1990, that by 2000 we still wouldn’t have flying cars, and probably no prospect for a planned manned Jupiter mission next year either. No suprises there.

And so, here I am. Living in California with a wonderful woman and two step kids who seem to have adopted me into their lives with remarkable willingness. This is despite not being around for most of their lives, I feel I don’t really deserve it, but anyway I’m watching them grow up into independent people with lives of their own, and I’m grateful to be here.

Hmm. Now that I’ve arrived here, I can tear a hole in the fabric of space-time and tell the earlier version of me that it’s ok, mostly everything works out ok, and I’ll see him when he gets here.

It’s time for me to sit out in the backyard with a drink and think about what life will be like in 2010.

A special Happy Birthday goes out to my niece Elizabeth who will be 12 today (or rather, yesterday, thanks to conventions of date/time zones).

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELIZABETH!!!!

The weather here is doing its usual crazy thing. No longer stinking hot, instead we get overcast fog (and therefore, chilly) until about midday, when it all burns off and gets warm again.

Watched _Tea with Mussolini_ last night (on DVD of course). It was great, and we’re glad we finally saw it. We were intending to go see it when it was in the theatres, but somehow we didn’t get to see it.

I was browsing the usenet newsgroups this evening and noticed that Dream Theater and Spock’s Beard are scheduled to be performing in San Francisco on Aug 16. Excellent! Navigate to basstickets.com and bought a couple of tickets. We’re not missing out on them this time (I missed the last DT concert and regretted it.)

Jethro Tull are playing in this town on Sep 1, so far no online vendor has tickets available, but we could always go over to the Marin Civic Center Box Office and actually buy them in person <g>.