my random ramblingsan infrequent (and these days, mostly Mira related…) blog

late start, then finished watching the movie that put us both to sleep the night before. visit to Ukrainian Village then swung by the Haymarket Brewery to watch the game. glad to see the Pats lose.

day spent bouncing between numerous furniture stores. didn’t end up bringing anything home, will wait until after we close on the 10th.

reasonable day at work, followed by ice skating down the street with Лена. first time in 20 years or so, but was skating around wall-free after my first lap. felt pretty comfortable after 15 minutes, but need to raise my game for skating in Millenium Park next winter.

long day at work then over to the nearby mall with Лена to finally get her xmas chain squared away with a decently small jump ring. dinner at some Todai knockoff in the mall then dropped by to see Rajesh and Jyoti. fun visit, and first time sampling Alizé.

nice breakfast in the hotel, then watched a little bit of the Ravens’ heartbreaker to the Pats. picked up another car then drove out to Crissy Field to take some photos of the bridge. was raining and not the best photo opportunity, but also probably made it a pretty typical San Francisco image. headed back to the Wharf for a bit then returned to the same hotel out in Cupertino. caught the end of the second game then grabbed dinner at the Elephant Bar down the street.

up late then visited the stores surrounding Union Square. made our way into Chinatown, then tried to go to the top of Coit Tower – but no cash, so no views… walked up to the Wharf then eventually taxied back to the hotel. met Ian, Jessica, and the 2 kids for a drink and spent some nice time catching up. grabbed a quick dinner on our walk back to the Hilton. intended to meet Chad and Brooke, but instead called it an early night in the room.

wrapped up work early and started the drive into the city in the late afternoon through a light rain. dropped our car off and walked a couple of blocks to the Hilton Union Square. nice corner suite with views of the city and the bay. Chad and Brooke came by and sat for a while before we all went around the corner for sushi. good times, been too long since the last visit.

crazy travel changes on Sunday, didn’t get into SFO until midnight and into our hotel until after 1 am. nice to have Лена out here with me for the next 2 weeks, and looking forward to spending the weekend in San Francisco. another endless day in the office…

only an hour of sleep before early flights to the west coast. very long day working at my customer’s Cupertino campus – no doubt will be repeated daily until the project wraps up.

small breakfast then drove Mike out to the bridge. light snow overnight, but more importantly was very windy. was hoping to jump with Tom too, but instead joined him for a great breakfast at his house. nice time, good to see his 2 cute girls and Cheri too. and the breakfast she cooked was fantastic! went to Tom’s office and packed, and overall was great to spend some time catching up. he asked about yesterday as we left but Mike didn’t want to discuss – and not my place to say anything, although it wasn’t cool not being straight with Tom. picked up Derrick and said our goodbyes – they drove toward Jackson and i was off to Salt Lake. made fast work of the drive and got to Seth and Brittany’s house in time to get a nice Indian take out. spent the night talking, then stayed the night before tomorrow’s early am yoga class and my flight back to Chicago.