I’ve been remiss in my posting duties. For that I apologize.

Sharon, Kaiya and I had a great trip to NY for Christmas. We had my sister out as well. We had a huge Christmas eve party at my parents’ house, as is usually the case. Even Santa showed up with presents for the deserving girls and boys.

The plan was to spend four days in NY. Mother nature had a different idea and dumped about 2 feet of snow on the tri-state area the night before we were schedule to depart, causing all sorts of flight cancellations. As a result, we had three extra days in NY to hang with the rents. We didn’t do much. Watched a bunch of movies. Ate a lot of good Italian food that we can’t get out West. Played some Wii. Did some shopping at Woodbury Commons, etc.

When we got home on Dec. 30th, we chilled until New Year Eve. We went out to a wine bar with the parents of one of Kaiya’s friends and Sharon’s friend Kathy. Was a fun night. Sharon had a little too much to drink though. 😉

The next big event was Kaiya’s 6th Birthday party which was held at The Jungle in Saratoga. It’s a HUGE warehouse type place that’s filled with what I can only describe has a massive, multi-story play structure. So the kids get to play for an hour or so before we go into a private room for pizza, birthday cake and presents. Then the kids can play some more to get all the energy they got from the cake sugar high out of their system.

Was a good time. We had 17 kids there and a load of parents. I do love having these parties at someone else’s place because then our house isn’t trashed. 🙂

Lastly, this past Martin Luther King day, my sister and her boyfriend Adam got engaged. I have no pictures of the ring yet, but there is a ring.

The fun continues.

I’m back from a very productive trip to Japan. There’s some positive news on the work front that will become public in January.

The family and I will be headed to NY for the holidays to see my parents. My sister will be flying in the day before me, so we’ll have the whole crew together.

I’m looking forward to a fun Christmas eve party at my mom’s house with lots of friends and relatives.

Other than that, we’re full speed ahead.

On the investment house front, Sharon and I are promoting the availability of the house at the Xion Solutions site. So far we’ve had a couple nibbles but nothing solid yet. We’ll keep at it.

The last few weeks at work have been busy, gearing up for FY11 plans, budgets, forecasts, etc. Having gone through this process for the last several years at Capcom, I’m pretty well prepared for what’s happened so far. We’ll be having meetings in Japan in about two weeks to go over consolidated figures among all of the business units and territories on the second pass submissions. I’m also having a lot of meetings with several producers to get updates on some projects in development I haven’t seen first hand in many months. I’m looking forward to the trip actually.

In other travel news, I just got back from a “day trip” to NYC. I did manage to see my parents for dinner (some old school Italian place on Resturant Row) the night before some meetings at Marvel, so that was nice. The same day I made that trip I got my confirmation from United that I’m good for another year of 1K status  (I want my Global Services status back still though… maybe my Japan trip in December will tip me over). Unfortunately, despite that I was still #10 on the upgrade list for my flight back from JFK to SFO. That route always seems to have a TON of global services, higher 1K mileage customers.

This week is Thanksgiving week and technically I’m on forced vacation for the couple days that I didn’t already have off as a company holiday. Even though I didn’t plan it, it’s nice actually. Today I spent the day with Kaiya and Sharon, had lunch with the in-laws. Ran a couple of errands. Tomorrow I’ll do a few things at the investment house (I still need to get the damn lawnmower running to mow the lawn) and get a massage. In the afternoon, Sharon and I are hoping to see Harry Potter 7 in Imax which is something she and I have been looking forward to for a long time.

For Thanksgiving, it’ll just be the inlaws and us. We had a couple of other guests lined up but in the end, they wound up making other plans.

So over the course of the last seven days, I’ve been in five different cities. Even for me, that’s quite a lot.

Last Thursday and Friday, I was up in Seattle, visiting Nintendo for some business. I happened to have dinner Thursday evening with my friend Tom Prata. Great steak at the top of a building in Bellvue. Flew back to SFO that afternoon for a whirlwind of meetings in my office with finance and marketing.

Saturday and Sunday were mostly relaxing. Managed to steal a little time on Sunday to get the car washed for the first time in about three months and a quick haircut (nearly the same interval there, so it was desperately needed).

Clean M6. 🙂

Monday morning I took off for Tampa to visit my Aunt Marla and cousin Shannon. As I’d mentioned, a couple weeks earlier my Uncle Gene had unfortunately passed away. I was trying to get down in time to see him but alas, it was not to be. I arrived at their house about midnight EST, having left my house at about 7:30AM PST. A long day of travel. I’ve not seen either of them in many years and we had a great visit all day Tuesday. While Aunt Marla was at work for a couple hours, Shan and I took a ride out to one of the beach areas and to my grandparents’ house. I hadn’t been to Florida in probably close to 20 years. Frankly, not much has changed.

Aunt Marla and me after a big Italian dinner.

Pine Island "beach" area and boat launch. Was pretty but about to rain.

Grandma and Grandpa Svensson's house in Jasmine Lakes. Started pouring as we arrived.

Wednesday I had to fly into Chicago (which I had passed through O’Hare as a layover to get to Tampa so this was the second time this week I was there). I got in in the afternoon and caught up on a bunch of work (it never stops). I met my buddy, Kerry Ganofsky who runs High Voltage Software for dinner that evening. I spent the entire next day helping give him insights into a new business venture he’s been mulling over. Kerry offered me my first job in the games industry (which I turned down 😉 ) and we’ve been friends for close to 20 years. I have a lot of time for him.

The following morning, I was back to O’Hare (third time for those keeping score at home) and off to Boston to give the key note address at the DDM Executive Summit. DDM is a game developer management company. A lot of people would consider them “agents” but they’re really much more than that.

We had a nice dinner at their president’s house Friday night with all of the VIPs in attendance and then a little time at a local bar with some of the late night scoundrels. The following morning, I was sitting in an intimate room of about 25 studio CEOs sharing my vision of what the future of our industry will look like in the next couple years. I don’t think I said anything revelatory but several folks came up to me after my hour was up saying I was “brilliant”. Like my ego needs more padding (but thank you nonetheless).

And then, right after lunch EST, I was hopping a shuttle back to the airport to begin my journey back home. After another two hour layover in O’Hare (4X – 5 days) I arrived back home just after midnight PST. Woke up Sunday morning at an ungodly hour (given that it’s there’s a time change to daylight savings, even more ungodly) to write this.

Coming up:

Kaiya has conjunctivitis (I’m sure mis-spelled), BOD meetings and Ops meetings, Sharon is travelling all this week. The following week I have a “day trip” to NYC and about two weeks after that I’m back to Japan for a full week.

So the last couple weeks have been busy. I had a last minute trip to NY to speak to Marvel about a few things related to Marvel vs. Capcom 3. I took the opportunity to get a little time with my parents. It had been almost two years since I’d been in Goshen (though, not much has changed).

I helped my parents put together some Ikea furniture as they redid my old bedroom again. It’s much less cluttered, much better looking. The room was recently repainted and it looks significantly better than it did when I lived there.  Dad’s laptop died while I was there so I did a complete recovery, format and rebuild on his machine which took me about half the one night I stayed there. I tightened the security on their wireless network (it was completely open, now it’s WPA2 protected).

We managed to get a breakfast and a dinner in with Aunt Ellen, both of them in Warwick. The Chateau Hawthorn dinner in particular was excellent. Good wine (Silver Oak) and I had the schnitzel.

Mom and Dad's backyard in the fall

Dinner here was great.

The day before my trip to NY, we attended one of Kaiya’s friends birthday parties (Sydney) where Kaiya got to see a lot of her old King’s Kids buddies who now go to different schools around the area. So that was nice. Unfortunately, on that same day, I got word that my Uncle Gene had passed.  While not unexpected, it’s always saddening, especially for his immediate family who vigilantly stayed at his side since going into hospice care.

In the mean time, work continues on our investment property in Newark… it’s almost ready to go now. Pretty much new carpeting, some dying of stucco and a new garage door opener are about it. We wanted to be done by November 1, and I’m pretty sure we will be. Some pics below:

Bathroom before	Bathroom after
kitchen before	kitchen after
janky glass doors in living room	New windows and doors

So the last couple weeks have been busy. As I’d mentioned, we’ve done a lot of work on the investment house with more to go. I spent HOURS sanding down and restaining the front door but I’m pleased with the results.

Mid-sanding... the dark bits are the original stain/condition

The re-stained door

And the old kitchen has been ripped out. The new tile has been laid. I only have pictures with the new subfloor in at the moment but I’ll add more later.

Original Kitchen

Planned new design

Kitchen getting ripped out

Kitchen gone, subfloor in

There’s other work that’s been done now too. We’ll have replaced all of the plumbing in the house. The bathrooms have also been ripped out and are ready for new tile, vanities, fixtures, etc. Carpeting for the entryway has been removed (it’ll be tile like the kitchen).

It’ll look like a new house in about two to three weeks.

This weekend we’re headed up to Napa to go to the J Vineyards tomorrow to celebrate their harvest. We love their sparkling wines. We’ll surely come back with a couple cases of good stuff to have at the house given the discounts for being in their wine club. 🙂

Sunday will be a pumpkin patch day with Kaiya.

And in the next couple weeks I’m making arrangements to visit my Uncle Gene in Florida, some business associates in Chicago and will be giving the keynote speech at the DDM Executive Summit in Boston, all within five days.

I’m back from Tokyo Game Show this week and it’s been a bit crazy. I got off the plane and instantly went to our newly acquired investment property to start going over everything that needs to be done before we can rent it out.

Sharon has scheduled loads of contractors, handymen, glaziers, termite dudes, etc. coming in to give us quotes on stuff to get the house ready for some new tenants. We’re going to be putting in a new kitchen, new windows, new floors, new bathrooms, partially new carpet, new blinds, etc. There’s a little bit of electrical tidying up to do, some repair to the roof and other odds and ends.

Then we ran over to the Newark Days fair with Kaiya and Nick. I had our quarterly videogame supper club on Thursday night, and Friday night my buddy Tom came and hung out with Hoa, Sharon and I at our place. Much champagne was imbibed.

I had a horrific 11 hour flight to Osaka due to what was the start of a little ear infection that began this morning. By the time I’d hit the 7th hour of the flight, the pressure in the cabin was increasingly causing discomfort. By the 10th hour, I was in agony and the descent from 36,000 feet was worse. Once we’d landed and the doors opened, my ear recovered fairly quickly (it’s just stuffed up a bit right now but not painful).

Tomorrow I’ll be seeing what over the counter remedies are available in Japan. I really need some antibiotics but I’m not sure they’re available OTC here (I’d assume not) and I’m not sure when I’ll have time to see a doctor here.

My old Mambo site has gotten hosed by some changes my host made to PHP and such and it’s been literally years since I’ve had the time to go and actually fix it (much less actively blog).I’ve been feeling guilty I’m not chronicling a bit more of the happenings in my life for my daughter (and perhaps someday for her kids) so I figured I’d try and do something more “again”.

Given that I actively use Flickr for my photo sharing, I no longer need really a full CMS, so a simple WordPress site will hopefully suffice for future updates/chronicles.

This past weekend we started setting up our Christmas tree and Sharon got the itch to start taking some “Christmas” pictures of Kaiya. Seeing as it’s her first Christmas and all, we decided to take a look at the Stonestown mall’s Santa. He was there in full regalia, surrounded by tons of animals and he’s a jolly old elf that Santa, so we decided to try and set up some time to go and get her picture taken.

Wouldn’t you know it, the first time we go, the line is about four hours long (and we had about an hour before we had to meet some family friends for dinner at Uncle Yu’s) so we had to take a pass. Instead, we did the ghetto thing of using our camera to take some pictures of Kaiya and some family members in front of the Christmas decorations.

We may try to get back there for some proper Santa pics later this week, but we’ll see how our schedules work out. I start work this week at Capcom having now finished up my projects for Next Generation, Vista Research and Big Solutions Group.

A friend of ours suggested to one of the editors of Baby Center magazine that they take some pictures of Kaiya for the upcoming launch of their print publication (because she’s so cute). We sent over a couple of pictures and they agreed, they just had to have her.

So we scheduled a shoot for which she earned a little cash for the old college fund. Today we received a copy of the first issue and low and behold, Kaiya is the cover picture of the first feature in the mag.

I’LL FIND THAT IMAGE AND INSERT IT.

Well, there’s lots to report since we’ve last updated.

My sister, Lauren and her boyfriend, Jamie came out to San Diego for a week in early August to visit before they both went back to their respective colleges. They were helpful in getting our place into shape to go on the market (where it sits as we speak). Continued…

Well, there’s lots to talk about regarding changes in our lives, but I’ll go back and do that another time. For now we’ll talk about our trip to New York to see Kaiya’s Nana and Grandpa. For grandpa, it was his first time meeting his new granddaughter. It was also a first for Aunt Lauren.

On June 30th, 2005, I flew up from San Diego to Oakland to have my video game supper club dinner and to see my wife and daughter that I hadn’t seen in two weeks. After spending a few days there with my in-laws (and setting up my father-in-law’s DSL line and updating his PC, Sharon, Kaiya and I flew to New York.

Kaiya was great on her first MAJOR plane trip. She slept about 2.5 hours out of the 5 hour trip though by the end of the car ride on the other side from JFK to Goshen, she was a bit agitated (understandably).

We spent a lovely week with my parents including a great BBQ on the 4th of July where a lot of our family and friends came to see the baby (though it was still a small affair). Over the course of the week we saw Ellen & Roger Freda, Millie, Michael, George & Jeanie and their grandmother, Sheila & Stan Plowden, Sharon Sprague, Aunt Linne, Uncle Arthur and even Grandma Svensson.

I sorted out all of the computer issues and home theatre issues in the house and even fixed a few things that didn’t really need too much fixing.

Some pictures of the trip are here.

It’s been a few weeks since our last update and much has happened.

We had intended for Kaiya’s nanny to start a couple weeks before Sharon went back to work however that didn’t quite work out so well. Our first nanny candidate spent two days with Kaiya and at the end of every night, Kaiya would throw up. Obviously this isn’t good. We took her to the doctor just to make sure she was ok, and he confirmed she was. Continued…

Well, my mother has been out to visit this week from NY to see Kaiya in person and it’s been a great time. We’ve been getting out and about a bit more with Kaiya than we have in the past. For example, today we went to the outlets at Carlsbad where Kaiya seemed enthralled by all the people and things to look at.

She’s actively reaching and grabbing for toys more than she has in the past (where generally we had to put things in her hand and then she’d swing them around). She’s starting, we think, to mimic facial expressions (or at least tongue sticking outting).

Aunt Ellen recently came out to visit and spend some time with Kaiya out in San Diego. We’re having a great time so far though Kaiya has been something of a handful the past several days. She’s taken to not sleeping at all during the daytime now other than a few short naps of less than an hour here and there and she’s keeping mostly the same schedule in the evenings.

Smiles are now occasionally present and some cooing seems to be starting a little (which is better than crying any day). Her head and neck are very strong now and she can easily hold her head up as long as she wants to. Her favorite thing to do now when she’s pissed off is to arch her back and neck, so as to make it more difficult to keep a grip on her.