Random Brain Dump

It was so hot this past weekend it seemed the only things that fell were the temperature records across the Bay Area! Not having AC, we resorted to different ways seeking relief.

We took the kids to Sandra’s place for swim & BBQ to start the weekend. Good food, cool water and great company– a great way to cool down. Unfortunately, it would be the last good idea for the weekend. 🙂 You can read a bit about evening on the Jarvinen’s & Truong’s websites.

Having much fun, we allowed the kids stay up way past their bed times and didn’t head back until 10 pm. On the way back, we heard weird thumping sounds while driving. I didn’t think much of it figuring that we were hearing because with the kids napping and radio turned off. First bad idea. A few minutes later, the rear tire blew up. After pulling the van over to the shoulder, I went out to inspect the damage & was surprised to see how little of the tire was left. The tire literally blew off the wheel. We placed a call to AAA after deciding it was too dangerous to change in the spare on I280’s narrow shoulder. We didn’t get home until midnight.

Sunday morning, I woke up early and headed to Fry’s to buy an air condition unit, thinking I’d beat the crowd, little did I know… The first bad sign was when I saw an empty floor in the appliances section which was filled to the rim with AC’s only a few weeks ago. Looking around, I saw a long line of people so I figured that’s the line for AC’s. Several other people were rushing to beat each other to the line. As I walked to the end of the line, I was a bit amused. I’d only expect a line like this when the PS3 or Wii game consoles come out later this year. Desperate times call for desperate measures I guess… When I got to the end of the line, I asked a guy in front of me whether this was the line to buy an AC. The guy goes: “Oh no, this is the line to get on the waiting list to buy the AC’s on the next shipment!” “What!!!“, I thought (and cursed). No longer feeling amused, I quickly returned the cart and left the store. Crap!

Realizing how this endeavor had suddenly become a more daunting task, I then headed to Lowe’s & Home Depot. No luck, both stores sold out. The guy at Home Depot practically laughed in my face when I ask him if he had any in stock! Lowe’s had a big red sign “All AC & Fans SOLD OUT!” Grudgingly, I went back to a home full of hot air and cranky kids (and wife) with rosy cheeks, empty-handed! Bad idea trying to buy something everybody is desperately after. 🙁

As a last ditch, I placed an online order for an AC unit when I got home, fully aware that the few days of the shipment will be painful. Bad idea. Everybody was shopping online as well. As of today, costco.com is yet to process my order, no doubt they don’t have any units in stock either. Crap, again!

Desperate to escape the heat, Suzanne & I decided to take the kids & their grandma to the theater. The only kiddie movie playing was Over The Hedge, which Katelyn & Allison already saw. But they’re more than happy to watch it the second time. I discovered later that the AC’s in the theaters were broken. Fortunately, it was still comfortable for everybody throughout the movie. Almost a bad idea…

As we left the theater, we hit the heat again. We decided to take the kids to a nearby ice cream parlor. Bad idea… The place was packed with people trying to escape the heat. Gave up, we rushed the kids into the van, cranked up the AC and headed to the mall. Another bad idea… Once entered parking lot, we quickly gave up. It was obvious, we weren’t going to find parking easily. I was glad we didn’t enter the mall though after hearing a co-worker describing how crazy Valley Fair was this past weekend.

We decided to drive to Santa Cruz beach. Okay, yet another bad idea! Highway 17 was packed, bumper to bumper. Along the way, the highway was littered with over-heated cars. I’m not exaggerating. The situation was not much different from disaster scenes on CNN where Floridians rushing out of the Keys, trying to escape a hurricane. We decided to keep going anyway since the kids were comfortably napping. The trip, usually takes 30 minutes, turned 2 hours long. At least, it was 2 air conditioned hours.

The weather was quite pleasant at this beach town when we got there, a good 20 degrees lower I’d say. By this time, the kids woke up and were hungry. We decided to head to the Boardwalk for some fun & food. Bad idea. The streets were packed with cars heading toward the Boardwalk. After some time driving around and not finding parking, we gave up and headed home, content that at least we spent the last 3 hours comfortably in a van with AC cranked up. But, I’d used up half of a gas tank in the van.

As you can see, it was a weekend of many bad ideas… 🙂

This past weekend Kyle, the Jedi-in-training (also, the birthday boy), lead the young rebels in the fight against Vader and the dark side. Katelyn & Allison relunctantly joined the rebellion. Yes, they have much fear in them. Who wouldn’t fear Vader in his full suit and sandles? The padawans valiantly fought their way to Yoda’s swamp where all young rebels eagerly took a refreshing dip in celebration. May the force be with the young rebels…

Here are the visual newsreel documenting the younglings’ efforts.

Katelyn and Allison got a hold of an old family photo album the other day. They excitedly asked their mother about some photos of an old dog they discovered. I guess they found it was cool for their own mom to have a dog (Katelyn asked for a dog a few times). Suzanne explained the photos and described how the dog was her pet and that it died some years ago.

That night, when I was readying Katelyn for bed, she went on bragging to me how her mommy used to have a dog. I told her that I do remember the white poodle. She then said to me in a sudden sad tone: “Daddy, Mommy said her doggy died.” I acknowledged it with a nod. Since I noticed a sense of curiosity in her, I explained to her that the dog died of old age and how that’s is natural process. After some thinking and debating in my head whether she was old enough for me to explain the concept of eventual death, I went on explaining that even her daddy & mommy will grow old too.

Katelyn immediately made the connection, sat up and asked me in an alarmed tone “does that mean you & Mommy will die too?” I replied “yes, we will die of old age eventually.” She started to tear up and asked “will you come back after you die?.” I answered that you cannot come back from death but that death is natural and happens to everyone.

Growing more distraught, Katelyn said “but I don’t want you to die.” I calmly tried to allay her fear and explained how that it is in a very distanced future. I explained that we’ll be taking care of her until she grows up and that it’ll take a lot of years before we even reach her grandparents’ ages.

At this point, Katelyn hugged me and in tears, she said “I will miss you!“

Suzanne & I went to attend a free jazz concert last evening. Santana Row is offering a summer long series of jazz concerts. We were talking about hitting a jazz club for some time…

Parking was pretty much a nightmare, particularly since we got there rather late. The open court was crowded with a mix people lawn chairs in the grass and those dining at outdoor tables, all enjoying the music and the nice cool weather. The band featured was “A Touch of Brass”; I thought they were okay. I lugged my camera with a long tele-lense and was happy to get the opportunity to roam around & take some pictures. I probably would’ve enjoyed the band more had we gotten better seats & I stayed put in one place.

We left early to grab dinner with the Tieu’s before calling the night. Get back just in time for the kids’ bedtime. All in all, it was a great way to spend a summer evening…

Yesterday morning, Allison & I were watching the opening scenes of the Wallace & Gromit movie. Allison was puzzled when Wallace & Gromit chased a rabbit around at the opening scenes. She expressed “concern” when Wallace finally nabbed the bunny by the neck. I explained the scene to her with the following exchange:

Allison: Why is he hurting the bunny?
Rex: Because he’s been bad; he steals other people’s vegetables.
Allison: Why?
Rex: Because he likes to eat carrots.
Allison: Oh, he’s a bad bunny!
Rex: That’s right. Do you go around & steal carrots?
Allison: No… I’m not a baby bunny.
Rex: Good…
Allison: I stay home with Mommy!

I came home from work last evening and I quickly grabbed dinner. Then, we prepare the kids to go to local park and while I was dressing the kids, Allison & I had this little exchange:

Allison: Daddy?
Rex: What is it, baby?
Allison: I miss you when you go to work!
Rex: Ohh… thank you sweetey, I miss you when I’m at work too!
Allison: I love you too much…
Rex: (heart fast melting…) 🙂
Rex: I love too much too.

I often tell her “I love you so much”, but for some reason she likes to say “I love you too much.” It almost sounds like a complaint! At any rate, I’ll take what I can get from her… 😉

It’s Father’s day, so I want to blog a few quick words about my girls. As you get to my age, I find that you start to look more forward to Father’s days than your own birthdays… 🙂

I love being a father to my two beautiful girls. I completely adore them. They are my source of joys & pride– apples in my eyes. They never cease to amaze me and motivate me to strive to be the best father I can possibly can. The truth is that I sometimes can’t believe how darn fortunate I am to have them in my life. I am forever thankful for them, for it is they that make me a father. And fatherhood is a beautiful thing, man…

So, Katelyn & Allison, I thank my lucky stars for you…

Here’s a little excerpt from Katie Melua’s song named “Thank You Stars”:

Some call it faith, some call it love
Some call it guidance from above
You are the reason we found ours
So thank you stars

Some people think it’s far away
Some know it’s with them every day
You are the reason we found ours
So thank you stars
…

4 families + 2 big campsites + 7 kids + toasted marshmallows + numerous pounds of yummy BBQ + good weather = great family fun.

We kind of kick off the start of the summer with a camping trip. It was our girls’ first camping trip & first in many years for Suzanne & I. We all had a great time with the Tieus, Jarvinens & Truongs. Mt. Madonna turned out to be a great little camping destination, wooded and conveniently nestled east of Gilroy. While the kids don’t exactly make camping as care-free as I remember, I still enjoyed the relaxing time since I had a marathon work week. The highlights for the kids were a trip to feed some white fallow deers at the deer pens. The highlight for me was the BBQ. 😉

Here are some of the shots from the weekend trip.

(more…)

Suzanne had an outing with her girl-friends the other day. Sounded like their day was a day of pampering: afternoon tea, massages, spas etc. Sheessh, women. 😉 Determined not to unfairly miss out on any fun, I decided to go out as well. So, I arranged for a double-date for myself! Read it and weep, Suzanne!

The plan was to take the ladies out for a nice dinner. Since these two particular ladies do have a reputation of, shall we say: mis-behaving, wild and difficult, I had to choose one of the rowdier restaurants. Since one of them expressed craving for ribs, I loaded up the ladies and the three of us headed to the local Outback.

Been quite awhile since I dined at Outback. Not exactly best known for ribs, but the ladies were hungry and I didn’t want to venture out of Cupertino. As I walked in the place hand in hand with the two ladies, I happened to notice that the ladies were attracting quite a bit of attention. The strange thing was that the attention was coming not from the guys, but from other ladies, especially mothers. Hmmm, curious…

The waitress greeted us and asked me: “night out with the ladies?” I proudly answered “that’s right!” with a big grin. After we ordered our drinks, the bread came and was as fresh and hearty as I remember. The ladies obviously enjoyed the bread lathered with butter, as their mouths were soon smeared all over with the butter. My dates were rather messy.

After the yummy bread we all began to chow down on the baby back ribs. The ladies took a few bites then quickly gave up on the ribs. Spicy sauce wasn’t their thing, I guess. Didn’t want to be a bad date, I ordered them an additional side dish of rice which was more to their liking. I tried striking up conversation, but one lady, the younger of the two, wasn’t a great one to hold a conversation with. Half of the time, she’d simply reply “What?” She seemed to carry some kind of an ascent as well…

Around this time, the ladies began to get a bit wild. Heck I don’t remember ordering them any alcohol; perhaps somebody spiked their lemonade. One of them started climbing onto the table and start dancing. The other busy causing a commotion of her own, kept peeping at the next booth. It helped that the place was as noisy as can be, so we didn’t draw any ire from fellow patrons. I can attest to my dates’ reputation, these ladies can be a handful! Whew…

Next came a dessert of vanilla ice cream with OREOs. The ladies went straight for the ice cream, no OREOs for these ladies since they don’t take a liking to anything chocolaty. By the time we were done with the dessert, the ladies seemed tired out and were ready to head home. These ladies do turn in rather early. Hmm… guess they aren’t the party animals I heard them to be.

All in all, it was a great time out. My two dates seemed to have a good time with me too! I’m already looking forward to another double date the next time Suzanne abandons me to go out with her friends! 🙂

We celebrate this past Mother’s Day with an afternoon family picnic on the beach in Carmel. It was perfect weather: sunny, warm, bright, yet not too hot nor windy. The water was as turquoise as I’ve seen in Hawaii. The kids had loads of fun playing with the sand and surf. Their mother enjoyed her special day relaxing and playing with the kids!

Here are some of the shots from the beach…