Head above Water
Didn't mean to go several days without an update but I've been a tad busy. I had to ask what day it was today as this weekend has been packed. PACKED. Good stuff, though, work and play.
Friday I managed to get a new four-level bunny condo built before picking Steve up at the airport. A stop for lunch at Geraldine's Counter and then off to drop him at his hotel, back home to fine-tune the bunny habitat (and make sure there were no bunny escapes while I was out), picked Kate up, back to the airport to fetch Rob and off to join the Flying Lab folks at Pirates of the Caribbean 3. Nested our "corporate team building" event inside Flying Lab's corporate outing, ha! I knew I was in trouble when I was checking my watch barely half an hour into the movie. It was far better than PotC2 but I was still unengaged for most of the film. The fact that I was sitting directly behind a total asshole who deserved several punches in the back of the head didn't increase my enjoyment. I don't know what it was, why I wasn't immersed and enjoying it. Can't pick out one particular thing and all things individually were fine but somehow they didn't hold together into a fully enjoyable experience. I'm happy to put that series to bed, I think. After the film we walked over to Wild Ginger for some food and drink.
Yesterday we got a lot of great work done, I think. Nailed down a bunch of things, whittled away at some pressing problems. Very good work day, capped off by a visit to Ray's for grilled pizzas. Tim couldn't join us so Ray won the Pizza Throwdown by default. Jess and Shelby brought wine and cigars. While the guys were out on the porch with the cigars, I joined Kate and Shelby downstairs for a little Guitar Hero II. Evan and I teamed up for a little duet action before he had to head out. Quite a lot of fun, that game.
This morning I picked the fellows up and had the brilliant idea of taking them out for breakfast at Crave. I called beforehand to get an idea of whether I was flat out crazy to think that I could get 5 people in for breakfast there between 9 and 9:30 and was told they really had no idea but "things usually don't get hopping until around 10:00" and they don't take reservations, so I gave it a shot. We were there by 10 minutes after 9:00. By 9:15 we were told it would be half an hour wait. 45 minutes later we were finally seated, but then we didn't actually get any FOOD until another 40 minutes after that! In between us being seated and actually getting any food, another party of six that arrived half an hour after us were seated, ordered, finished their meal, and LEFT! Holy crap. It was a full two hours from when we arrived and when we left, and food was only on the table for about 15 minutes of that time. The food was okay. Some parts were very good (the overnight French toast was pretty good, the salmon from Chris's salmon and bagel was delicious) and some parts were fairly disappointing (my dutch baby was adequate, the bagel portion of Chris's breakfast was not so good, perhaps day old). We received plenty of coffee and our waitress was quite nice once we were finally acknowledged and seated, but I would not go out of my way to go to Crave again.
Another pretty solid day of work today, though we got a little punchy in the late afternoon and so broke off to do a little R&D and playtest some game submissions. Tonight dinner at Carmelita, which I'm very excited about. My previous trips to Carmelita have tended to be in the fall when seasonal ingredients tend to be in the squash/pumpkin/apple theme. I'm excited by the prospect of a Carmelita dinner that pulls from the spring palate.
Friday I managed to get a new four-level bunny condo built before picking Steve up at the airport. A stop for lunch at Geraldine's Counter and then off to drop him at his hotel, back home to fine-tune the bunny habitat (and make sure there were no bunny escapes while I was out), picked Kate up, back to the airport to fetch Rob and off to join the Flying Lab folks at Pirates of the Caribbean 3. Nested our "corporate team building" event inside Flying Lab's corporate outing, ha! I knew I was in trouble when I was checking my watch barely half an hour into the movie. It was far better than PotC2 but I was still unengaged for most of the film. The fact that I was sitting directly behind a total asshole who deserved several punches in the back of the head didn't increase my enjoyment. I don't know what it was, why I wasn't immersed and enjoying it. Can't pick out one particular thing and all things individually were fine but somehow they didn't hold together into a fully enjoyable experience. I'm happy to put that series to bed, I think. After the film we walked over to Wild Ginger for some food and drink.
Yesterday we got a lot of great work done, I think. Nailed down a bunch of things, whittled away at some pressing problems. Very good work day, capped off by a visit to Ray's for grilled pizzas. Tim couldn't join us so Ray won the Pizza Throwdown by default. Jess and Shelby brought wine and cigars. While the guys were out on the porch with the cigars, I joined Kate and Shelby downstairs for a little Guitar Hero II. Evan and I teamed up for a little duet action before he had to head out. Quite a lot of fun, that game.
This morning I picked the fellows up and had the brilliant idea of taking them out for breakfast at Crave. I called beforehand to get an idea of whether I was flat out crazy to think that I could get 5 people in for breakfast there between 9 and 9:30 and was told they really had no idea but "things usually don't get hopping until around 10:00" and they don't take reservations, so I gave it a shot. We were there by 10 minutes after 9:00. By 9:15 we were told it would be half an hour wait. 45 minutes later we were finally seated, but then we didn't actually get any FOOD until another 40 minutes after that! In between us being seated and actually getting any food, another party of six that arrived half an hour after us were seated, ordered, finished their meal, and LEFT! Holy crap. It was a full two hours from when we arrived and when we left, and food was only on the table for about 15 minutes of that time. The food was okay. Some parts were very good (the overnight French toast was pretty good, the salmon from Chris's salmon and bagel was delicious) and some parts were fairly disappointing (my dutch baby was adequate, the bagel portion of Chris's breakfast was not so good, perhaps day old). We received plenty of coffee and our waitress was quite nice once we were finally acknowledged and seated, but I would not go out of my way to go to Crave again.
Another pretty solid day of work today, though we got a little punchy in the late afternoon and so broke off to do a little R&D and playtest some game submissions. Tonight dinner at Carmelita, which I'm very excited about. My previous trips to Carmelita have tended to be in the fall when seasonal ingredients tend to be in the squash/pumpkin/apple theme. I'm excited by the prospect of a Carmelita dinner that pulls from the spring palate.
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