Dinner With Mom And Dad

Tonight my parents came over to my neighborhood for dinner. They don’t do that often enough so I was happy to have them over. Well over in the figurative sense since we went out for dinner and they didn’t actually come up to my apartment. We went to Lounge 47 for dinner. I had been there a few times and liked it. The positive Yelp reviews sealed the deal. Overall had a good time.

I also got some chocolate and Scotch my mom brought back from her trip to Europe last week. I was very happy with my bottle of MaCallan 18 year old single malt. It was very smooth. I think I liked it better than the Johnny Walker Blue, and it is half the price!

Mmm BBQ

Today I went up to Jayson & Gretchen’s for a Memorial Day BBQ. The weather was iffy but besides a bit of rain it turned out ok. We got to BBQ, drink, play poker (even if it wasn’t for money) and just hang out. John & Dave and others were there. it was fun. I took the train up in the early afternoon. Hung out for lunch/dinner and then got a ride home with John.

Overall it was the perfect Memorial Day BBQ if you ask me. Even the rain wasn’t so bad. The overcast skies kept the weather cool so it was not too hot out!

Drinks After Work

I meet up with Danny, Anthony and a few unnamed (because I cannot recall their names) others after work today. We meet up at a bar near union square. I was good and kept to my 2 drink limit since I have to get up early tomorrow for the BBQ upstate. I haven’t seen Anthony in a while so it was nice to catch up. I got my fill of old company gossip, and then headed home.

I worked from home today. I thought I would have some time to get some work done, but for some reason the meetings piled up. It was a busy day even though it was a Friday!

Work Drinks

After work today meet up near time square with a bunch of people from work. One of the NY based guys is moving (not leaving the company but moving out of the city) so there was a get together to wish him well. It is funny I probably talk to this guy more often than I see him anyway so for me if he is on the phone a mile a way or 500 miles away it doesn’t really matter I guess.

I had a good time. I meet a bunch of people I never meet before (some of them I may have spoken on the phone or email but never in person) and got to see others that I don’t see too often. For that it was really fun. I was amazed that I was one of the last 3 people to leave, but I also had the shortest trip to travel home so I wasn’t complaining.

Meet Up With Friends

Today after work I headed into the city to Blaggards to meet up with friends. Yes headed into the city is what I said. I was working from home so it is always kind of odd to go into Manhattan to meet up with people after work when I am already home. Meet up with Mike, Luke, and others. I had a good time, but it is always fun hanging out with those guys.

Thankfully an otherwise uneventful day at work.

NJ Again

Today was my scheduled trip to meet up with most of my team in the NJ office. The day went well, but the bus ride home was not fun. I had to get off on 34th and 9th and walk to 7th ave for the subway. If I had stayed on the bus it would have probably taken another hour to get home due to the bus traffic. Got home in around 2 hours and 15 minutes.

The Movies

I hung out during the day today. Nothing spectacular. Just happy to relax after a long week at work.

Meet up with Danny this evening to see the new Star Trek movie. I was skeptical about the movie since I can’t remember a good Star Trek movie since my dad took me to see Star Trek II in the mid 80’s. I was pleasantly surprised. It was a decent movie. Nothing spectacular in my opinion but pretty good.

Afterwards Danny and I grabbed food at a bar near the theater. I got to have some Obon, so I was happy to have some nice scotch.

Windows 7 Release Candidate

Last night I downloaded the Release Candidate for Windows 7. I had some false starts trying to install it on my Netbook last night. I finally was able to get the install files on a bootable USB flash drive I had. Once that was done it was really easy getting the OS on my Netbook. Since work was hectic today I only just got around finishing most of the install. I have the basic apps on it that I use.

I have to say I am so far impressed with what I see. I don’t know the true benchmarks but Windows 7 seems much faster than Windows XP Home was on the Atom processor. Granted I haven’t really run any apps. I have just been installing them, but the system does seem more responsive than with XP. The graphics on 7 are nice also. I like pretty, yet functional OS’. Right now I have the HP Mini 1000 plugged into a 23″ display and it is working fine. I will continue to play with it over the next few days, but my first impressions are positive. The only main downside I see is that at idle with 1 program running (IM) the system is using around 46% of my 2gigs of RAM. Not as bad as Vista, but not by much.

May 5th

Today I was an at the office day. Prashant wasn’t around so I ended up eating lunch by myself. It is odd that when I am in the office I don’t even get to socialize more than when I work from home. I know that is because the teams I work with are not in the office I am based out of but it is still a bit unusual. I had a busy day of meetings and getting tasks done. I had an issue later in the day so I ended up staying at the office till 6.

I was going to meet up with Kristen and possible some of her friends for drinks, but that fell through since she had some last minute things to take care of. I am glad the plans got canceled because i did have to stay late at work and I wasn’t sure if I would have had to stay later. I always hate canceling plans because of a work issue that comes up!

The rest of the evening was uneventful. My mom is off to Europe with a friend so I spoke to her on the phone at the airport for a while. I am her weather checker / temperature converter. I love that I can convert Celsius into Fahrenheit using Convertbot on my iPhone.

Half Day, Well Sort Of

Today started out working from home like a normal Monday. By lunch time I had to go into the companies mid town office for a meeting in the early afternoon. Since I love the company cafeteria at that office I went in at lunch time. Seriously, it is not a dingy place to eat. They have tons of great stuff even though I usually get the same thing when I go since I don’t go too often. I am usually there 2-3 times a month at the most for lunch.

The meeting was eventful. Hopefully we can make our proposal work once the details are reviewed. I liked the old plan personally so either way would work for me! Vague I know, but I don’t talk details about work on the blog! Besides the meeting I got to have several conversations with people I don’t normally see in person since I am not in this office that much. That in and of itself was very productive. I am back in that office again this thursday all day. Hopefully that day is as productive!

I finished work around normal time. I ran down to near Macy’s to get my hair cut. I don’t know what it is exactly but I enjoy getting haircuts. Maybe it is the relaxing vibrations of the clippers on my head. Who knows!