Tag Archives: family

Nothing says Christmas like stretchy pants.

Posted on December 28, 2009 | Leave a comment

Christmas was an all-out eating fest with family members are thrown into the mix.

Christmas Eve was kept quiet with my parents, my brother, and my sister-in-law. Red meat and plenty of green veggies.

No one wants to cook Christmas day, so we rely on Chinese restaurants. Not bad at all.

I think my cousins figured out their next family Christmas card.

My aunt got Michelle a hand-painted apron. Her response was, “But I don’t know how to cook!” Looks like we have our Christmas card for next year too. My arm looks tremendous.

A family tradition of video games with proud grandpa in the background.

Christmas dinner with my dad’s side of the family. Still at the kids table.

All the women decided put together a gingerbread village after dinner.

Who said Michelle doesn’t know how to do crafts? What a mess!

Christmas spent relaxing by the fire.

The whole gingerbread village. A very merry Christmas indeed.

I know it’s a bit of a cop out to post mostly pictures for a post, but I’ve got to do something to hook the readers. It’s just like this whole new 3D trend in theaters. You can’t get my pictures elsewhere. Next up, pictures of the After Christmas Party.

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How my family does Christmas…

Posted on December 25, 2009 | Leave a comment

It’s Christmas morning. Our lights only went up less than a week ago. We have an artificial Christmas tree that never gets undecorated. It gets covered with a sheet and put away in a closet for the next year. That has only been up a couple of days, but it has never been plugged in once. There isn’t a single present in this house right now. This is how my family sees Christmas. No big deal.

It’s just enough to let you all know, we’re not Jewish. Merry Happy, everyone!

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Popularity as Measured in Bacon

Posted on December 23, 2009 | 3 Comments

If you ever look in my parents’ freezer or fridge at any given time, there is no bacon in it. There is one exception. Whenever my brother is in town there is bacon. He will be home for Christmas and there is bacon in the fridge. FOUR PACKS OF BACON! I’d say she’s playing favorites here by giving him special treatment, but I have the family company and I’ve been living at home forever.

Still I might give it all up for bacon.

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Not a Man. Think I’m Okay With It

Posted on April 27, 2009 | 1 Comment

Mom: I have a new batch of spaghetti sauce on the stove.  Do you want me to cook some spaghetti for you, or do you want to make it yourself?

Man, boiling noodles is hard, but I think this is my sign that I need to move out. The good news is that I will be auctioning off my spot. It’s a pretty good gig. Place your bids in the comments.

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Thicker Than Water…Saltier and Redder Too

Posted on September 8, 2008 | 2 Comments

My parents and I took a trip up north to visit my brother. He just turned thirty a couple weeks ago. While that may seem completely normal to you, this is almost strange to me. Our family has always been hands off, coming and going as we please as individuals, never worrying about being forced to attend family functions. I think it has something to do with my brother getting married earlier this year. We don’t want to appear weird to my sister-in-law. So we get together and almost pretend that we’ve always been super close and involved in each others’ lives. I guess we’re a real family now. I’m not opposed to this. It will just take some getting used to for sure.

Speaking of getting used to things, I did a double take every time Joy referred to my parents as Mom and Dad. I knew my parents were the only mom and dad around when we were talking, but it is so foreign for me to hear any other voice address my parents that way other than my brother.

So this trip I started talking about…fun. Saturday we took a day trip to Carmel, where we stuffed our faces.

Brunch on the patio before heading to Carmel. Delicious.

The Mission at Carmel.

There was a wedding going on at the church. That means free entrance.

Father Junípero Serra.

Is this why they call the area Pebble Beach?

There are so many golf courses in this area.

Some of the wildlife.

The first rule is don’t feed the animals. I hope these tourists get rabies and learn.

My mom kept seeing real estate sale signs and wanting to stop to look. I don’t think these homes are in our price range.

Cypress Point.

The Lone Cypress. It’s a hoax. Out of frame on the left is another one.

Pebble Beach Golf Course. It was a gorgeous day, so we had dessert on the patio.

Trio of Custards.

Apple something or other with vanilla ice cream.

Chocolate cake. This is before we poured the hot fudge over it.

After Carmel we headed back towards my Union City, but despite the fact that we had eaten three meals already, we stopped for dinner. When we got back to my brother’s place, I jumped in the car and headed to San Francisco to hang out with Kyung. I got to see his new place, and I even picked up something extra when visiting him.

He gave me The Perfect Pushup. He said he wasn’t using it and gave me a deal.

Here is half of the set, being used as The Perfect Doorstop. Kyung is pretending to be The Perfect Floor Mat. In all fairness there was lots of whiskey and beer. I didn’t even remember taking any pictures that night.

Sunday was spent visiting my mom’s aunt, playing the Wii, and ended with dinner. It was a perfectly lazy day to follow the busy one in Carmel and San Francisco. Today was spent visiting a business colleague and friend of ours and driving back down home.

Good food. Good friends. Good family. Good times.

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Busy Weekend #1

Posted on June 15, 2008 | Leave a comment

Well, the busy month of June is in effect. Here is the recap. Pictures will follow.

Friday, I spent the day working at a hospital. I walked through the trauma center. It’s pretty boring, just a bunch of people standing around and holding their bleedings wounds. I did get to see the side of the hospital that a lot of people don’t get to see though.

Afterwards I went to Kyung’s place for his “House Cooling Party.” It’s pretty ingenious. You have housewarming parties to get things to furnish your place. Then when you want to throw away crap you don’t want to pack, you invite people over and force them to take something with them. We watch Star Wars, played Wii Fit, and Rock Band while drinking Mojitos and Jello shots with far too much alcohol that Kyung was trying to dispense with before his move.

Saturday was spent cleaning out the garage during the day. In the evening I went to the super party at my cousins’ place. I called it the super party, because two of them graduated from MIT, one from Harvard Westlake, and my uncle and one of my cousins had a birthday that week. They had delicious food and drink available. I headed out early to Arsenal to go to Alice’s 30th 28th birthday party celebration. That was a lot of fun. It was good to see friends let loose and get a little crazy.

Sunday I had Father’s Day brunch at The Jonathan Club. If you haven’t heard of it, it means you aren’t a classy individual like me. Actually it probably means you don’t have rich, white relatives or in my case, relatives of relatives. Brunch was delicious with home made waffles to sushi. Donald Sutherland was even there enjoying brunch before the Lakers game.

The Lakers have made the series 3-2. It matters only for saving a little bit of face. While I will cheer whole heartedly for the purple and gold, I do not believe it to be realistic for them to take home the title this year, nor do I feel like they deserve it. With the way they lost the last game and the way they almost screwed up tonight’s game, they have a lot of work to do. When the confetti started coming down tonight after their win I said, “Put it back in the ceiling. They don’t deserve it.”

While the immediate excitement and focus is on the finals, I’m interested in the Lakers’ future. They are a young team. Unlike the Celtics, they have paved a road for future success, not just immediate glory. The Celtics have a couple more years to shoot for the title. KG and Ray Allen will slow down each year, and the Celtics will be in a rebuilding mode again without a shot at the title. The Lakers, however, have some promising young talent that Phil Jackson can hopefully develop while padding the roster with new superstars in the future.

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Estate Sale

Posted on May 18, 2008 | 4 Comments

This weekend my family had an estate sale. That’s the fancy way of saying garage sale. It lets people know you are selling everything, not just the junk you don’t need. Unfortunately, my grandma owned mostly junk. Fortunately for us, people that show up to garage sales want mostly junk. They pass over the quality stuff for the cheap stuff. If any of you are looking for some junk, some of the stuff is still available. Download the pictures and circle what you want, and drop me an email. I’ll give you a good deal.

Who wants to play dress up?

Book are five bucks a box, whatever you can fit in and carry.

Kitchenware, and lot of it.

We can start a 60′s/70′s themed amusement park with this loot.

This looks like junk, but these were the best toys to play with when we stayed at grandma’s house.

Fancy electronics. Come and get them!

Kitchenware everywhere.

The exercise bike is still available. The elephant and sombrero went fast.

The point of this sale was to make some cash while having other people take away some of the items that were going to end up in the trash eventually anyway. It just sucked having to move bookshelves in the sweltering heat. Things went well, and we made a fair amount of money. I even kept a few choice items for myself and a couple special treats for the rest of you. Here is one of my finds.

Although it seemed kind of crazy grabbing this suede jacket in 100 degree weather, I just had to grab it. You can bet when winter comes along I’ll be rocking this bad boy. My mom said, “I think Dad used to wear that when we first started dating.” My thought was, “And yet you still married him.”

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Up North Wedding Weekend

Posted on February 17, 2008 | 4 Comments

This weekend was my brother’s wedding. We went up to northern California for the wedding.

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Nothing says a trip up north like Top Dog.

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That, and bums digging through the trash by the BART station.

After wedding rehearsal dinner, Harrison met up with me. Michelle and Annie were flying in to Oakland at the same time. We picked them up from the airport and headed into Berkeley to get some Naan N Curry. It’s always a risky move, eating Indian food before a big day, but it turned out alright. The city of Berkeley has cleaned up quite a bit since I last visited. The bums are still there, but the students that walk the streets look like they could be from UCLA, dressed to impress.

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Getting ready in the morning.

My brother’s was the first wedding I got to be in, not counting being a ring bearer, like Frodo Baggins but with fewer adventures. If you are ever asked to be in a wedding, you should politely decline, and I’ll tell you why. Unless you are the best man or the maid of honor, the only thing you will be able to see the whole time is someone else’s back. Your invitation to the wedding should note “obstructed view” when you get it, like those discounted stadium tickets. I don’t know what happened during the wedding other than what I got to do myself. So here’s my recap.

First, my parents’ friends were laughing as I made my way down the aisle with my mom on my arm. I’m pretty sure they were laughing more at my dad, who was following behind us, but way to make me lose concentration! I read a letter that my brother wrote to my parents, but after stumbling a couple of times during my reading, I realized too late that I probably should have read the letter through once before I did it live. After the whole ceremony, people told me I did a great job. I told them, “Thanks. Walking, standing still, and reading are skills I mastered in the first grade. Maybe next time they’ll let me juggle or something.” All in all, the ceremony went pretty well with little to no hiccups.

After the wedding we headed over to The Claremont to take pictures and for the reception.

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Michelle and me at The Claremont.

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A good look for me. I should wear a tuxedo to work, perhaps with top hat and monocle.

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Phil Jackson during the All-Star break. He declined to take a picture with the bride and groom.

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Instead of a guest book, they guests signed notes and put them on this tree.

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Carter entertained the kids and the adults with his magic. He’s quite talented.

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My family.

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The center pieces after the reception.

It was a good weekend, and it was definitely good seeing friends and family from all over the place come together to celebrate.

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Everybody is Smarter Than Me

Posted on December 17, 2007 | 2 Comments

I guess I didn’t need a blog post to make this point. I’m not trying to disprove the fact that pretty much everyone in my family is more accomplished than I am and a lot of them at a younger age, nor make excuses about how being street smart makes up for it.

I have two cousins that are seniors in high school. Both have early acceptance, one to Stanford and one to MIT. The rest of the schools’ replies are still coming in, but it looks bright for them. The one that got into Stanford is top ranked in club soccer, but she chose not to use soccer to get into school. Her grades and SAT scores are good enough to get her into a lot of schools. My cousin that has early acceptance to MIT fences. It sounds kind of nerdy. It gets nerdier, but that’s the way I like it. He is also a Junior Magician at The Magic Castle. That is a pretty impressive accomplishment.

So while I have impressive, talented cousins on both sides of my family and even in my immediate family, I’ve been skipped. Darwin must be in his grave, laughing at me right now.

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Always Good to Be Wanted

Posted on December 13, 2007 | 1 Comment

I was lying in bed and overheard this conversation while my mom was on the phone with my brother, apparently discussing his upcoming wedding guest list.

Mom: “No, they’re on your list. You take them.”
*Mike Responds*
Mom: “You told me they were on your list. They’re not on my list. I’m not inviting them.”
*Mike Responds*
Mom: “You told me that Matt and Michelle were going to be on your list. If you don’t invite them, they’re not coming.”

What the hell?! I wasn’t invited? I’m in the wedding, or at least I thought I was asked to be in the wedding. Perhaps this is some cruel joke they’re playing on me. It’s quite elaborate if it is, as I have a tuxedo to get fitted and everything. I don’t even care. Worst case scenario, I get to get all dressed up, take the wedding limo for a spin, and hit up Berkeley for some Top Dog and Naan-N-Curry.

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