So I finished up my work trip.

Had creme brulee for dessert on the night I got back, before finishing up Avatar: The Last Airbender with Mary.

Spent most of one day in the office before heading home for the Thanksgiving break.

Had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner at Aunt Lisa’s.

Then some other cousins dropped by that evening.

The next evening was Cousin Movie Night! Went to see The Green Book, which was real fun.

I solicited people to come with me to the ice rink for Broom Hockey but ended up going it alone. Had a blast, until my back went out :/ Ah well, another couple weeks as an infirm person.

The next evening was the BYU vs Utah game. What a first half. And what a second half. For different reasons.

The next day I found myself wanting to go to the YSA ward but without a car to drive, so I walked myself there, passing some nice sights on the way.

That evening was a get-together at Andi’s place just before Xan’s Eagle Court of Honor.

After that we had a family movie night where we watched the new Christopher Robin movie. Fun times.

The next day I worked from home before heading to the airport. Sad day.

Thursday was an impromptu bowling night with some friends.

Friday was a White Elephant gift exchange ward activity.

On Sunday evening I had a get-together slash going-away party for my buddy who’d be in Hawaii the next day.

And now I’m just counting down the days till I can hang at home again and check out the awesome choir performance! See ya then.

Well it was time to see those two troublemakers off. Sad day.

With three pairs of hands it took far less time to transport them back home than it did to cat-nap them in the first place. I’m gonna miss snapping pics of them.

That week at work was Accessibility Week, where we focused on how to make our products more usable by people with disabilities or or who are in other ways different from the ones who design the products. My friend who works at Google – and actually owns the cats pictured above – arranged for Kacey McCallister, who’s been featured in these posts before, to pay us a visit at Google.

On Friday I had a group of friends come together at my place for a barbecue, whom I hadn’t hung out with in a good long while. It was great to bring the old band back together.

Spent the weekend cleaning up after the cats.

On Saturday afternoon Mary and I went to her folks’ place to clean up in her garden and help rake / leaf blow their yard.

That evening we went out to see a performance of Rise Up, a tribute band that performs the music of Hamilton. It was amazing. I’m just annoyed now that I didn’t plunk down the change to see the real show when it was on tour in Seattle. May have to go intercept them at one of their other shows next year.

On early Monday morning I boarded a flight for Sunnyvale. A colleague I work closely with down there is leaving the company, so I decided to spend some time down there hoovering up as much knowledge as I could and helping on-board his replacements.

I’ll be giving a presentation on my work at a generic developers luncheon on Monday. Pretty excited about it. I’d planned on putting in some time now and then throughout the week on my slide deck. Unfortunately some things blew up and I never got the chance. So I spent a good chunk of Friday evening and Saturday till 2:30pm working on it. Finally left my hotel at 3 to get some food before I passed out. Hardly any cars on the road, with the smoke in the air it felt a bit eerie. Found a nice teriyaki place and ordered a whole mess of lunch.

I’d been hearing all about these “Bird” electric scooters taking over the Bay Area like Lime bikes are taking over Seattle. Peeked out the window and saw a few laying around, figured I’d give it a whirl. Packed up my bag and headed towards what Google Maps indicated was a nice grassy area with walking trails. Figured I could relax on some grass and read a book or something.

Ehh, not so much.

I flipped the scooter right around and headed back to the teriyaki place. Figured it’d be healthier to stay indoors on a day like that. Plopped back down in a booth and got back to work on the presentation. Finally finished it up at around 8:30pm. Of course “finished” is a relative term, I’ll probably nit-pick at it right up till noon tomorrow.

Given that it was about to become the Sabbath, I figured I should go grocery shopping. Found a Whole Foods open till 10pm, and figured I’d dart in and grab something frozen I could reheat later. But good golly did they have an amazing selection of stuff.

Today I attended my old Stanford YSA ward, the one I went to five years ago when I was interning with Apple. I walked in the door at 1:15pm, fifteen minutes till Sacrament Meeting started. And it seemed that I’d missed out on a YSA luncheon that everyone was clearing away. I didn’t realize until that moment just how isolated I’d been this entire week. I was very annoyed that I’d elected to eat lunch by myself in my hotel room when I could’ve come here.

Sitting in the foyer for a few minutes before church began was cathartic. Just hearing all the conversations going by, who’s majoring in what, weekend plans, etcetera, it all felt like oxygen to me. I’m reminded of the idea that everyone needs a Third Place. There’s home, and there’s work, and there needs to be somewhere else. For some it’s bars or clubs; we have church.

By the end of Sacrament Meeting I’d fallen in love with the ward all over again. One of the speakers gave a profound talk focused on the philosophy of suffering, citing – among other more scriptural sources – the Terryl Givens book The God Who Weeps. The Sunday School teachers were motivating and articulate. I overheard someone before Elder’s Quorum enthusiastically describing his side-project of building a way for people to easily order customized lego figurines. Fun times. Didn’t end up recognizing anyone from the old days, though I did meet up with someone I used to home teach back at BYU, so that was fun to run into her.

I’d packed a change of clothes as my original plan was to change after church and go exploring, but I decided to stick around and enjoy the last few stragglers chatting around. Then decided that it was a fine time to get this installment going.

Eventually got kicked out of the building, when it was getting locked up, but I drove on over to a neighboring stake center where a free dinner was being put on just before a fireside by a pair of authors who put together a book on early Saints in California.

Sat with some YSAs; it was one of those tables where not many people knew each other, so a good amount of “Hi, I’m       , what’s your name? Oh nice, well what do you do?” going around. Haven’t done that in a while, so that was a nice change of pace.

And now I’ll wrap this up before they get started with the actual fireside. Less than a week before I’m back home!

So the fuzzballs are as cuddly as ever. They will again appear in every context imaginable in this post. A week or two back I took some time to introduce them to the back yard.

I ended up going on a work trip for a day down to Sunnyvale, California. It was too darn sunny down there.

Foggy day at work. (Click for full effect)

Halloween was a blast!

So the day of the celebration arrives. I actually woke up feeling kinda crummy, but after I read a card from the folks I was all chipper.

The day started with a bike ride on the Burke-Gilman trail, which I’d last ridden on over a year prior.

While I’d been on my work trip, Mary texted saying she wanted to go over and play with the cats. I got her a garage door code so that all worked out. But it turns out that her real nefarious plan was to hide clues all throughout the house so she could lead me on a scavenger hunt.

Once we got back and cleaned up, Mary led me to the first clue and off we went. But the true depths of her scheming were only manifest towards the end, where she arranged to have me in the guest room finding the last clue, while some friends surreptitiously shuffled through the front door into the dining room. I went down the stairs, and, surprise! Mary’s gift was a copy of Captain Sonar, which I’d been itching for, and she’d arranged some friends to come over so we could play.

Then it was off for some dinner at a burger joint.

The burger place didn’t have much room for saved seats, and so I arranged for Part 2 to be the next day, Sunday evening, as a generic gaming get-together. Played a round of Conspiracy, first one in a good while, which was awesome.

At some point in the week we went over to Mary’s folks’ place to watch them carve up a giant pumpkin.

On Halloween Mary and I went to a friend’s party as Lumberjack and Lumberjane.

On Friday I went to work and saw the walk-out that was happening all over Google.

Sunday I went on a walk with Mary on a trail I’d last been on a year previously. Unfortunately I was wearing my glasses and didn’t quite get the full color effect, but the pictures turned out great.

The next evening was Spa Day. Met up with Mary to go shopping for some odds and ends. When I met her she was clutching a stuffed elephant and a stuffed fox, her two favorite animals. Ended up putting them back because they were a bit pricey and she didn’t need them. Well I knew what I had to do then, as soon as she was out of sight and headed to Costco.

She felt very funny walking around Costco with him, but I gave her official permission to be into stuffed animals so it was all good.

I beat her home from Costco with enough time to plant the other half.

Then it was dinner time and face mask time.

Got home and had some fun with the cats.

They have to say goodbye tomorrow, when their owner takes them back home. It’ll be a sad day.

Can’t wait to come on home!