It has been a while since my last post. Since then, L. has gone back to Japan, and I’ve been working. On the weekends, I take a quick trip out to visit some family, and then get back to my hotel late Sunday night, and back to work on Monday. It has been really hectic.
The second weekend of my stay here, I went back to Dallas to visit my mother and father. The trip was about $400 cheaper if I took a stop on the way, so on Friday afternoon I took an early flight with a half hour stop in Phoenix, Arizona with a late 11pm arrival in Dallas. I had two days in Dallas which were kept busy catching up with mom and dad, and my aunt, uncle, and a cousin. I also helped my dad out with a lot of computer stuff, but every time I visit I never seem to knock everything off of the list. Still, progress is progress. Since the last time I had visited, my sisters had come by and cleaned up the upstairs part of the house, which looks great compared to what it used to be like, but is still a complete mess. I also got some books from my room (which I had mostly cleaned out when I moved to Japan) and added a whole bunch more books to the pile that I picked up at Half Priced books. The main treasure I’m bringing back is a copy of the Feynman Physics Lectures.
The trip back to San Francisco was tough because I had a suitcase full of books, but I made it. I also had an hour stopover in Las Vegas, but I didn’t play any slots because I don’t think the reward function makes it worth while.
The next weekend, I took a trip out to San Diego to see my twin sister and her husband. That trip was a bit tougher, even though it was closer. The reason is that after the hour flight to Los Angelos, you have to board a really small turbo-prop plane for a short thirty minute flight. I don’t like these small planes because they are too choppy. Luckily on this flight out it was all smooth and I didn’t have any trouble. I landed at the ridiculously small Carlsbad airport at about 11pm, and Alana and Dave showed up to pick me up in their newish Prius. I was excited to see the Prius because I’ve never ridden in one before. It was a really nice ride, I think they are great cars. I’m really excited about the prospect of fully electric plug-in cars, or even plug-in hybrids.
Also, the day before I played Soccer with the A9 guys and totally got a sunburn. Ouch! The sun is strong in Palo Alto. Also, I’m balding, and even though I brought sunscreen, I completely forgot to actually use it.
We stayed up late into the night catching up. The next morning Dave had gone out diving for work (he’s a marine biologist) so Alana and I went out for brunch. I had a great stack of pancakes, which I almost never see (or have) in Japan. It was great, but as with every meal in America so far, I ate too much.
Also, I had some chocolate from the white house that Alana pocketed after her dinner there (it would probably be worth writing a post about, but my sister and dad had dinner at the white house and met the POTUS and the FLOTUS.)
After brunch, we headed out to the outlet mall, where I scored some great Cole-Haan nike air shoes and some great Banana Republic stuff at good prices. A quick trip back home, we picked up Dave and headed to the beach. One really interesting thing about Dave and Alana is that up until two weeks or so ago, they had six cars. One of them was Dave’s old Honda Civic, which got hit while it was parked and was totaled. So that one went away. Another was the Infiniti J30, which they gave away to a friend of the family who had just moved his family to California last week. Now they are down to four cars: Alana’s Prius (about 2 years old), Dave’s work pickup (which I haven’t yet seen), the 1976 Mercedes D600 Alana got from Dad (I used to drive that car a lot, and it is really a nice car), and the 19xx International Scout II that Dave gave to Alana in place of an engagement ring. It’s a really fun car: four on the floor manual transmission, and a really nice look to it. We all piled into the front seat, and Dave threw his surfboard in the back and we headed down to the beach.
They are only about five minutes away from the beach by car, so they get to use the special VIP parking and special VIP beach entrance. VIP parking is a back road off the highway that you can park on. Then you walk a bit to the special VIP beach entrance. The special VIP beach entrance is a tree stump next to the fence which has had a bit of the top pulled down, so if you are nimble you can climb over the fence. Then there is a nice stairway down to the ocean which normally is available only to the people that are camping in the state park, whose entrance is a mile or two up the coast. So it is pretty convenient, if slightly ghetto.
Dave surfed and Alana and I walked up and down the beach. Then we all went out to a movie – I haven’t seen a movie in about a year, the tickets are too expensive in Japan – and got a movie dinner (popcorn and a hot dog.)
The next morning I worked while Dave and Alana were out at their swimming class and doing other errands, then in the afternoon we went to pick up Dave’s little brother (he volunteers as a Big Brother) and took him to an Oktoberfest street fair. We didn’t get any beer – what kind of example would that set!? – but really enjoyed walking around to all the shops, got dinner, and just hung out. We dropped off Dave’s little brother, then I packed up and headed home – again on the small turbo-prop, but this flight went well again, so no problems. I had a layover in LA, and didn’t get back to SF until midnight.
On Wednesday of my last week in Palo Alto, I met up with my friend Michel and met his beautiful son and girlfriend. I’m really jealous of their son because Michel speaks to him in French, his mother speaks to him in Japanese, and depending on how long they stay in the US, he will probably pick up English at an early age. Tri-lingual from a young age! That’s the way to do it. It is difficult to pick up a language in your teens and twenties, but certainly possible. Still, starting out with an advantage would be really nice.
Their son was super cute. Everyone at the restaurant was saying that he was just a super cute kid, and he totally is. He’s 6 months old about, and was really great, didn’t cry at all, and seemed to be having a great time. It was fun talking with Michel’s girlfriend because since L. went home, I haven’t been speaking any Japanese, so that was nice. I think Michel might have had a bit of trouble following us, but I’m sure his Japanese will improve!
In the evening I went back to San Francisco and met up with my friend Andy. He managed to get some tickets for the Giants-Rockies game. We went to a Sumo match together when he came to Tokyo, so he wanted to return the sporting-events favor, and we had a blast (and some beer!) in some totally excellent seats. I don’t know how he did it – well, I do, he used StubHub.com – but our seats were great. They were in the first row in the clubhouse section, so we had a great view from a bit to the right of the plate. Unfortunately, and this is probably why we were able to get the tickets, the Giants just totally sucked. They were losing 17-3 at the top of the 7th inning. It was amazing. Lots of fun to watch though because there were lots of home runs and scores. Not for “our” team, but still.
We hung out some more after the game, and I made the last train home, the midnight train, which got me back to Palo Alto at 1am. Wow! Late!
Thursday evening I went back down to SF to meet up with my friend Kurt, who I hadn’t seen in three years. It was great catching up with Kurt again. I wish I had gotten in touch with him earlier on, but I’ve just been swamped with work, but it was great that I was able to see him before going back home. We had a great dinner at a nearby Thai place, and the walk there from the SF Medical Center was amusing: it was uphill all the way. I’m clearly out of shape as I broke into a sweat (although it wasn’t nearly as cold as it had been previously, so I was over-dressed.)
On the walk back there were unexpected fireworks, I think over the baseball stadium. On the walk back to the train station I stopped into the Stone Slab Creamery and got a small cup of chocolate ice cream with strawberries. I haven’t had very much ice cream at all since I arrived here, so that was really great. I caught the 9:30pm train home, so should have a bit more time to catch up on email and maybe even upload this blog post. 🙂 I head back to Tokyo on Saturday (two days from now as of this writing) so I’m really excited.
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