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Posts Tagged ‘thanksgiving’

Happy December!

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009

How was your Thanksgiving? I had a great Thanksgiving dinner at Naomi’s parents’ house and we were even able to bring Little Bear! She had a good time running around and pooping and peeing where she wasn’t supposed to… Friday we went on a picnic/walk at Inspiration Point in Berkeley which was really nice until it started pouring rain, and then it was still pretty nice, just very wet. The decision to not bring rain jackets was not a wise one. Saturday morning, Domi and Larry came over for brunch, and then I joined them at the Dickens Fair which was…interesting. There were lots of crafts and stuff, but the more fascinating part were the number of people who not only came in costume, but were also in-character the entire time. For example, at one point Larry sneezed, and a woman in costume told him “Bless you.” Then she turned to her companion and remarked that he might have The Plague. All with a British accent, of course. Later we met Yar, Jan, and Cliff for dinner at Mandalay, and I ate waaaay too much, which was pretty much the theme of the weekend. Sunday I went to a Crab Party at Helen’s house where she and Walter got a ridiculous amount of food from The Boiling Crab, which was delicious. Peter and Crystal also brought Duncan/Indy and I brought Little Bear, so she had her first playdate! At first she was a little scared of Duncan, but after we let them off leash they played really well together. It was basically a cute asplosion. You can see pics here.

Other than Thanksgiving break funtimes, not too much is going on. Little Bear has basically been taking up most of my time and energy, as expected. I enrolled her in a Puppy Kindergarten class which hopefully will help her be less crazy, and we’re taking her to a Puppy Playgroup on Sunday, which I’m looking forward to. Puppies everywhere!

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Throw your hands in the air

Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008

C’mon, party people!

How was your Thanksgiving? I thoroughly enjoyed my 4 days off, especially because I hadn’t had more than 1 day off for about 2 months. Like my old calculus teacher used to say, “It’s like beating your head on the wall because it feels so good when you stop.” Hooray!

We had FriendsGiving at Yar/Jan/John’s place, and I was in charge of the turkey again. After this year, I’m pretty convinced the recipe is almost impossible to screw up, as we brined the turkey in a garbage bag, substituted some brine with soy sauce, and coated the turkey in the decidedly non-neutral olive oil, and it still turned out great. What wasn’t great, however, was when I spilled all the pumpkin pie filling all over the kitchen floor. Yay me.

The rest of my weekend was great — went on a hike, played some co-op Left 4 Dead, saw Quantum of Solace, got a lil’ tipsy on some Riesling (and no barfing!), and bought a bike! On Sunday night I rode to Yar’s house, (yes, a whole 0.9 miles away) and I thought my heart was going to explode. I’m out of shape.

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Happy Thanksgiving!

Friday, November 23rd, 2007

Happy Thanksgiving, cyberland! Amanda and I hosted a really nice Thanksgiving at her Dad’s place in Oakland (sans her Dad…it’s a long story). We had a bunch of friends over, and way too much food: three kinds of stuffing, two huge bowls of mashed potatoes, gravy, two kinds of cranberry sauce (including the log kind), spinach casserole, green bean casserole, three pies, and salad. I was in charge of the turkey, which turned out great, if I do say so myself. But just a little FYI for myself and anyone else thinking of roasting a turkey: there are giblet bags in both ends of the turkey. Also, the little bags they come in don’t melt despite being in the oven for 3 hours.

…Or so I’ve heard.

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Happy Thanksgiving!

Monday, November 27th, 2006

Hello, friends! I had a really nice vacation that involved a lot of sittin’ around. How was yours? Here are some pics.

In other news, thanks to Justin and his Black Friday madness, I will soon be getting a Mio DigiWalker C310x GPS unit. Sweet! No more gettin’ lost for me!

Finally, things are happening at work. If I haven’t already told you about them, shoot me an e-mail and I’ll give you the 4-1-1.

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Tub o’ Thanksgiving Fun

Monday, November 28th, 2005

Another Thanksgiving come and gone, and I cannot express just how much it saddens me to be back at work this morning. We should have more 4-day weekends.

Wednesday night was a real nothing day at work. Most people weren’t even in, and those that were were not doing any actual work. Thus, Buddy and I fulfilled a long-time work dream: leaving at 4pm to go see a movie. We decided on Rent, which opened that day. It pretty much looked and sounded exactly like the musical, which is good or bad, depending on your perspective. That night I made the cornbread portion of the cornbread stuffing I was in charge of for Thanksgiving dinner. More on that later. We also finished watching Firefly, which I liked a lot, despite my best efforts. You know, Hardcore Firefly Fans, other people might be more inclined to watch the show if you all weren’t so goddamn annoying.

Thursday I headed over to John’s place a little after noon to start the Turkey Day festivities. And by “Turkey Day festivities”, I mean lots and lots of Guitar Hero. There are a lot of really rockin’ songs in the game (e.g. Ziggy Stardust and Ace of Spades), and I was pleased to discover that I’m pretty good at it.

Inbetween the face-melting guitar wailing, we did find some time to cook. Since we were expecting more guests than the eventual 4 of us, Yar recommended that I multiply the stuffing recipe by 1.5. It turns out that John didn’t have a container big enough to hold all that stuffing, which led to the legendary Tub o’ Stuffing. It’s a good thing the stuffing was tasty, cuz we’ll be eating it for days. Yar was in charge of the turkey, John made his “Awesome Mashed Potatoes” (recipe: 10 Yukon Gold potatoes, whole milk, and 1 John), and Rahul made a couple fancy desserts, including a pumpkin custard. Previous to Thanksgiving, Rahul and a friend of his from work decided that they would each try making the custard, take pictures of the results, and decide whose was better in a winner-takes-all essence-of-pumpkin competition. Here is our entry, and it looks pretty awesome, if I do say so myself. Gourmet Magazine, here I come. Rest of the pics are here.

Friday I ran some errands, then went with Domi to her cousin’s house for yummy Vietnamese food. Then it was home to play a few hours of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which is un-terrible, despite what the reviews say.

Saturday was some more errand running, then Yar came over to watch In Good Company, which I liked.

Sunday morning I ran the Run to the Far Side 10k and came in 1629th out of 2578. My gun time was 1:04:21, but my real time was 1:02:36, (10:04 mins/mile), which is fast for me, so I was happy. Afterwards Dave and I met Yar for breakfast at this awesome place down the street from Yar’s apartment that has a $4.75 breakfast special with 2 eggs, corn beef hash, potatoes, 2 pancakes, and tea. Afterwards it was back to Yar’s place for some Geometry Wars (best game on the Xbox 360, hands down, and a bargain at $5.) Since the weather was ridiculously nice, Yar and I headed back to Golden Gate Park to play some tennis, and I wasn’t as completely sucky at it as I thought I was. That night after dinner and some Mario War, I watched The Good Girl, which was good, but not at all what I expected, and pretty depressing to boot.

Now for something completely different. A few weeks ago, Buddy, Marc and I somehow got on the subject of how dog pee can kill your lawn. I mentioned that it is worse with female dogs because of their acidic pee. It was then that was borne the idea for the latest rap hit single: Bitches Killed My Lawn. It makes sense if you think about it — all these rap moguls are living in huge mansions now and can’t really rap about how hard life is on the streets, so they just gotta rap about what they know. Yo.

Edit: Yar sent this to me, and it’s awesome: The Speech Accent Archive.

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Gobble Gobble!

Friday, November 26th, 2004

Happy Thanksgiving! Yesterday we had 6 guests over for Thanksgiving dinner. This was our second Thanksgiving we’ve hosted, and this year went a bit smoother. Besides turkey, we made a rib-eye roast, mashed potatoes, green been casserole, sausage stuffing, greens, and cranberry sauce. Diane brought sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie. The turkey and the roast took a bit longer than expected, which we would like to attribute either to a weird oven or a busted meat thermometer. Diane’s cousin also brought over a puppy (not to eat) that they were sitting. He was really cute and had a little bit of turkey too. We had to keep Enzo in my room, seeing as he has anti-social tendencies. I gave him some rib-eye roast, though, so I don’t think he was too unhappy.

Overall, I thought it was a really successful dinner. Despite any hardships, setbacks, or disappointments this year, I was surrounded by good company, plentiful food, and am in good health as another year comes to an end. And if I’ve learned anything this year, it’s that I have the most wonderful friends in the world. And that is indeed something to be thankful for.

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Days o’ Christmas

Monday, December 1st, 2003

It is now December 1st. Oh how time flies! Thanksgiving was very successful, with much turkey and various side dishes being consumed. Props to Yar and his good friend Wolfgang Puck (or “W.P” as Yar likes to call him) for the turkey recipe.

Last night while at Wal-Mart, I thought of a fun project to do during the 25 days leading up to Christmas. This is for those of you who live in dorms or apartments: Buy one of those creepy plastic Santas that people like to put out on their lawns. Place it outside of your door. Each day, move it 2 inches closer to your neighbor’s door. If they ask about it, give him a thumbs-up, grin, and say, “Someone’s been good this year!”

Hilarity ensues!

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Thanksgiving in Carmel

Monday, December 2nd, 2002

I’m back! Did you miss me? Didn’t think so. I actually got back Saturday afternoon, but I’ve been oddly busy since then, so I didn’t get a chance to post until now. We all had a great time in Carmel, as usual, with a lot of eating, sleeping, but mostly eating. As always, the food was fantastic: mashed potatos, sweet potatos, creamed onions, mashed parsnips and carrots, two kinds of stuffing, green beans, and a 20+ pound turkey. I think I was perpetually full from Thursday evening until Saturday afternoon. We spent most of our time at Bill and Lillian’s house, meeting their friends and relatives. Uncle Bill’s family is probably the nicest group of people I’ve ever met; his parents must have really done something right.

On Friday, Julie and Mariel and I walked from Fisherman’s Wharf in Carmel to Pacific Grove, which is the next city over. We pretended that we were “working off Thanksgiving dinner,” but really we were just trying to make room for dinner that night.

On Saturday, we had breakfast at Em Le’s (which I discovered used to be owned by John Madden) and then walked a bit around Carmel before heading back to campus. Since then, it’s been EE282 problem sets, work for Marc, and other not-as-fun things.

Seeing as the number of posts I do usually increases proportionally to the amount of work I should be doing, I project that in the next two weeks, I’ll be posting about 18,000 times. Look forward to it.

Oh, and here are pictures of the weekend in Carmel.

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