Babel

My friends Stephanie and Jason invited me over for an early Thanksgiving dinner, which was a feast. Chicken, sweet potatoes, corn, stuffing... all the good stuff. :)

Afterwards we watched Babel, which was a weird movie I can't really recommend. The plot followed different groups that were somehow connected to a couple on vacation in Morocco (Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett).

The movie starts off with two boys getting a rifle. They are shepherds and use the weapon to scare off predators, except in shooting wildly off a hill, they hit a tour bus and one passenger - Cate Blanchett. That delays their return, so their nanny takes their kids into Mexico to attend her son's wedding. Finally, the story also follows a Japanese girl whose father was the original owner of the rifle. He went on a hunting trip in the previous year and gave the rifle to his guide, who then sold it to the father of the shepherds.

None of us really liked the movie, we all thought it was a little weird. On the other hand, it looked really good. My friends have quite the home theater: 60" HDTV, and we watched the HD-DVD version of the movie, in 1080p!

Pressure Washer

A few months ago I bought a small pressure washer, 1300 PSI, and have used it for odd jobs around the exterior of my house. Today I decided to tackle a bigger job: washing away algae from my walkway, driveway, and sidewalk, that tint the concrete dark.

It was... very very slow. I think a 1300 PSI unit isn't quite up to that task, because I spent nearly two hours washing half of the driveway. Ugh! It was a very slow process because to wash anything off I had to use a pinpoint stream, and that meant a huge amount of repetitive back-and-forth. But what little I did clearly shows improvement.

The pressure washer is great for other things. My next project, to be tackled over a weekend or two, is to wash the patio and pool area. I've been lazy and haven't done anything in the two years I've been in my house. As a result, the deck and screen support beams have some algae and dirt accumulation. It isn't too bad but I know it'll look better when it is gleaming white and clean again.

I think I'll just punt the front area and hire a company to do it. One estimated the fee would be around $65, and for that I'll definitely just have someone else do it!

Running Club and Trivia Night

I met with some others in the Orlando Running Club, for the Winter Park short loop. Turnout was huge, by club standards: 15 people!

After the run we had dinner at O-Boys, a local barbecue place, that also runs a Trivia night. We had enough for several teams, so my end of the table formed up a team. We did pretty well, but finished in 4th place and out of the prizes (top prizes were basically $25, $15, or $10 towards drinks). Out of 80 points, my team scored 68, and third place came in at 71. So close!

The trivia contest was three rounds: 10 questions each, worth 1 point in round one, 2 points in round two, and 5 points in round 5. We missed 2 round 1 questions and 2 round 3 questions... due to the scoring differential, had we gotten either one of the 2 round 3 questions we missed, we would have placed.

The two we missed were:

1) Who played Doc Ock in Spiderman 2?
2) What is the common word for the term "sternutation"?

We thought for a while but just came up empty for #1. The answer is... Alfred Molina. Same thing with #2... we guessed hiccup but the correct answer is sneeze.

Japanese Class

A found out my coworker Matt took Japanese classes, by accident. We were having lunch and he made a remark in Japanese, which I answered, to his surprise. It turns out that Seminole Community College has a weekly course, and it is held at the Heathrow campus which is across the street from work! Now that's convenient. Matt and his wife are visiting Japan next April, so they are in the class doing a little preparation. Meanwhile I am traveling even sooner, so I figured what the heck, I'll take it as well.

I missed the first quarter, six weeks long, but he was sure I wouldn't have any problem starting out in the second quarter. The class is one of those adult education style classes, not a real language class for a degree program, so it doesn't cover as much material. I found out they were using the same textbook I had from classes back in Houston, Japanese for Busy People, so I looked around online and bought the latest version, the 3rd edition.

The second quarter started tonight, and lasts until mid December. Class meets once a week, on Thursdays, for 2.5 hours. Overall, it is a lot of review for me - I've already covered the entire textbook... but years ago so I am a little rusty! The class did the first 6 chapters in the first quarter, which means I am set because I do remember that pretty well. Class is also small, about 8 students total, and the teacher is a native speaker, so it looks like it will be a good one.

Halloween Party

A few weeks ago Diana called up and said she had this great idea - a Halloween party. However, the condo she and Travis had wouldn't fit many people, while my house was bigger... thus, I was talked into hosting the event. Diana didn't abandon me though - she offered to decorate and eventually drafted a few others into assisting. My task was to clean up beforehand, and buy some food and drinks. And get a costume.

For whatever reason, I've always thought Halloween was a strange/goofy/bizarre event, mostly because of macabre themes and costumes that are otherwise avoided the rest of the year. As a result I never really did much of anything on Halloween, other than buy candy in case a few trick-or-treaters stopped by.





It wound up kinda fun, and not too much work - but again Diana and some other did a lot of the work. After searching for a while, I decided to get a Guy Fawkes costume - basically the guy from V for Vendetta, except I didn't wear the mask around all the time.





Diana said the key was having a lot of drinks available, so I bought beer, wine, rum, etc. It was fun and I'm glad I let Diana twist my arm into having it. Although I'm not sure about next year. ;)

Wedding Reception

The Apisukh's invited me to a wedding reception at their restaurant, Thai Delight, for their daughter Lanna's recent marriage. Of course I attended - it would be fun to meet the happy couple, and then there was the food which I couldn't miss under any circumstances.

Lanna spent years as a gymnast, and the restaurant has pictures and newspaper articles up covering her career. For the reception, Vic played some videos of her at practices and competitions, and it was interesting to watch. I talked to her a little bit and she said she can remember all that, and has the muscle memory for it, but she added there is no way she could do any of those moves anymore without injury! I can believe it, since I know gymnasts have to work out like 4+ hours a day. What was funny was when she said she had a "bad back", and gave the example of "a few weeks ago I couldn't walk very far on my hands". Oh yeah, well I'd topple right over and crash in 2 seconds!

Lanna went off to the University of Washington (hm... sounds familiar... I think I've been there) and competed as a Husky. Out of curiosity I looked her up and they have an athlete profile still up: Lanna Apisukh.

Anyway, the reception was great and I got to meet a bunch of the other regular customers. Lots of pics are here. My favorite of me is one where I'm busy filling my plate with food. I joked with Chitlada I did my club bike ride that morning, 57 miles, and didn't eat anything just so I'd be all ready for her food. :)

I thought for a while about what gift to get them, before deciding on a gift certificate from Williams-Sonoma. I know that chain is in Seattle, where the happy couple resides, so I zipped into their Winter Park store to pick it up.

Swim Relay

This morning I did the swim leg of the Florida Challenge, a local half ironman. A few weeks ago, some people my friend Jennifer knows formed two relay teams and needed to fill in some spots. She asked if I were interested and I agreed - after making it clear that I wasn't a fast swimmer. I can do the distance, just slowly! Earlier this week I met Chantal, the cyclist on my relay team, for coffee, just to say hi and not meet for the first time in the transition zone. We chatted a while and figure out that the core of the teams were a swimmer and two runners (a married couple and their friend), and that the other swimmer (me) and other cyclists (Chantal and Jennifer originally, but she had to back out) were friends of friends. So that's kinda cool, three people wanted to do two relay events and went to find more to make two teams.

Anyway, I picked up Chantal since she lives near me on the way to the event, and carpooling would make parking a lot easier. The morning of the event it rained... heavy. The rain was appreciated since it lowered the lake temperature to 77 degrees and into the wetsuit legal area! Naturally, I took advantage and brought my sleeveless wetsuit along. It was drizzling at the start, but I was mostly warm standing on the beach in my wetsuit. Chantal waited with me and eventually I left to stage for my wave.

It was a tough swim, since the winds and light drizzle made for choppy water and a tough swim out. I finished up about 52 mins, and handed off the timing chip to Chantal and saw her off. And then... I started to relax. I've often thought that it would be fun to just do one leg of a tri, and here I was, all finished at 9 am. I packed up my stuff and dropped it off at my car, grabbed my folding chair and came back to nap and wait.

By this time the rain stopped and it was partly cloudy - excellent conditions rather than the heat and blazing sun. Chantal rode back into transition about 1 pm, for a 3:50 or so bike leg, and we gathered her stuff up. After packing up my car more, we thought it would be nice to wait for Bob, our runner, to finish up. So we waited, but he hadn't finished by 3:30 pm (about 2:30 into his run), and Chantal had to get home, so we left. Later I checked the results and saw the Bob finished up about an hour after we left, with a ~3:25 run.