Monday, September 29, 2008

Lots of great stuff

It's about time for my monthly blog posting...

Two weekends ago, lots of great times were had. Rhyno's bachelor party was on Saturday, and we went out to the Leinenkugel's brewery in Chippewa Falls, WI. That was pretty cool, more so now that I've been homebrewing and understand a little more of the process. After the tour we made the traditional bachelor party progression: first dinner at a restaurant, then some bar hopping, and then, of course, the library.

The next morning came too early, as mornings after bachelor parties tend to do. I rode back to the cities with Lundo and was back home by about 11 am. Incidentally, it was cool to ride out to Wisconsin and back with Lundo, because I haven't spent much time with him lately, even though he lives something like 400 yards from my house. Anyway, I did some chores at home, and then that night I flew out to San Francisco for Oracle OpenWorld.

OpenWorld, for those who don't know, is Oracle's annual conference for its customers. Employees, like me, can come, too. They essentially take over the area around the Moscone Center in downtown San Francisco. There are hundreds of hour-long sessions on dozens of topics, both technology- and business-related. Long story short, I went to a lot of really good sessions, fell asleep during a couple clunkers, had some fantastic food, drank some good local Anchor Steam beer, and got better sleep than I've gotten in the past 8 months.

Did I mention Rohan and Caden are eight months old now? It's crazy. They'll be crawling soon, and then Dina and I will realize how much we've let the childproofing slip as Griffin's gotten older.

So anyway, I got home on Thursday night, and worked from home Friday. Then on Saturday we went to RyanJ and Meghan's wedding. It was great! Those two are perfect for each other, and Dina and I were happy to be invited to the ceremony and reception. The reception, as I remember it, consisted mostly of whiskey, vodka, and phone-bowling. Good times...

Dina, the boys, and I stayed at the hotel that night, and early the next morning we went to the Minnesota Renaissance Festival. We wanted to get there when it opened, and we did, which is pretty amazing considering how long it takes to get all three kids (and all the stuff associated with them) packed. The Ren Fest is awesome - I've been going for something like fifteen years now, usually more than once a year, and most years I've gone with Dina. Like the total geek I am, I went in costume, and this year Griffin went in costume with me. Dina normally goes costumed as well, but went for practicality this year and went in street clothes to make it easier to deal with Rohan and Caden. It is beyond cool to be able to share the RenFest with Griffin. He fell in love as we went in the front gates; there are a bunch of performers that interact with you right away as you come in. Griffin couldn't get enough of it - he basically spent the whole day talking to random people (both people who work at the fest and those who don't). Who can resist a cute little three-year-old in costume? We made sure to see the Fandazzi Fire Circus, which is organized by our friends Theresa and Chris; it was awesome. Fire rules :-)

After all that, Sunday night was basically an effort of taking care of stuff around the house that really needed to get done, then falling asleep exhausted when the babies allowed for it.

Wow, that was long and rambling. I must be tired. :-)