SwimFinsSF

Weekend ahead

Ugggg… Its been one of those weeks and i woke up this morning absolutely exhausted. We did have Kevin’s niece Kayla in town from North Carolina which was fantastic - she’s a total sweet heart and its always great having her around. Unfortunately, because of work and other things I didn’t get to spend very much time with her. We did get to have a few nice dinners and Kevin made sure she got to get around and enjoy the city - they even went to the Monterrey Bay Aquarium and then got a massage yesterday (her first). Hopefully she had a good time - we did.

Work week was much of the usual but it seemed to all collide at the same time. My job is a very strange combination of an ever decreasing amount of technical and engineering duties combined with an ever increasing number of meetings and other people and planning activities. As a manager in a company like ours my job frequently boils down to a lot of interpersonal coaching - which is particularly funny coming from me since i’m well known to be relatively calus to such things.. (or at least I think I am)… Engineers are a very interesting breed of very smart people who care very deeply about what they do but, at the same time, can be a little bit rough around the edges when it comes to how they interact with others. They can often be blunt and very matter of fact without a ton of thought to how what they say will be received (my self included - just to be clear). So when you’re managing these type of smart folks you end up spending a good amount of time helping people through sticky interactions. So, between planning for upcoming work, people management type things, and meetings, I got very little time to be a geek which is somewhat sad!

ANYWAY… thus my exhausting week…

This weekend looks to be good but very busy. Tomorrow we’ve got the gym in the AM and then Audrey’s 4th birthday party (YAY) in the afternoon. Then Sunday we’ve got some family stuff to do with Matt and Brian. Between there i’m hoping to relax a little (though also get some work done… :-\)

ok… enough for now… more later…

Tags: family, management, work

Quick Thursday Update

Its been a bit of a crazy week so i’ve been falling behind once again.. but a quick update seems like a good thing…

Home wise its been a little nuts… in the process of dealing with a move, selling a house, and other topsey turvey stuff around that. I really should be more relaxed about all of this because I know at the end of it all things will turn out great however while everything is in process i can’t help but stress out a little.. My little sis reminds me that it runs in the family. Without going into a bunch of details in a public forum we had a deal fall through that flipped me out initially but now i’m thinking it was a great thing from multiple perspectives… Its really funny how your gut instincts prove to be the best….

Other than that we’ve been trying to have a little fun. Last weekend we went to see the new Batman movie which was PHENOMENAL… Disturbing.. But GREAT.. I walked away just feeling giddy and oogey at the same time - how weird is that.. Something about Heath Ledger in Scary Clown Nurse Drag that is just not right.. but DAMN…

Weekend before was the HRC Dinner and Dore Alley Street Fair - both of which were great. The HRC Dinner was a little odd because of the drama around the HRC position on ENDA. It kind of breaks my heart because there isn’t a clear good answer here and I hate seeing people that would normally be on the same side of the issue being divided so badly.. its a shame.. But the dinner was fun and it was great to have my parents join us for it. Dore Alley was the usual stuff… just a lot of tawdry fun which would shock the hell out of most people but is kinda boring to me these days… unfortunately it was also a little cold so we didn’t last very long…

This week we’re having a few house guests to keep us busy. Kevin’s friend Laura that he met in Guatemala got here Monday and left this morning. Then on Saturday night Kevin’s Niece from NC arrives for a week. It will be interesting to see what Kevin plans for her. Last time she was here he took her EVERYWHERE - they did tourist stuff in SF that i’ve never done which is impressive - she was EXHAUSTED by the time she left..

I think thats it at this point - probably more soon but that’ll do for now…

Peace

Tags: california, family, gay, hrc

Catching you up

Last few weeks have been crazy in both good and bad ways…. So here is the run down…

Two or three weeks ago Kevin and I took a vacation to go visit family back east. Kevin left first and spent a week in North Carolina with his family an I came 4 days later to spend a few days with them as well. After that we both flew up to Gettysburg to spend a few days with my Dad and new Step mom which was really nice…

After family time Kevin and I went to Washington D.C. to attend a Leadership Summit for the Human Rights Campaign. I wasn’t entirely sure what that was going to be like but it turned out to be a great experience. During the day time they lined up a bunch of speakers and other information on political strategy, politics, and policy initiatives and then in the evenings they had really swanky dinners and events.. overall it was a lot of fun though…

So then we got back and had a week of normalcy… work… dinners at home… walking the dog.. Also had a few HRC events in San Francisco which were fun - i’m very inspired to get more involved with them.

Then came the weekend… Started off well.. Dog walks and housework.. My sister was also in town so Sunday evening we hung out with her. Unfortunately, Sunday afternoon we got a call from Kevin’s nice saying that his Mother was very ill and in the hospital. As the day progressed she got worse and by the end of the day it became clear that he needed to go out there and, sadly, by the time he was about to board the plane she had passed away.

Kevin got out there monday and I showed up tuesday morning on a red eye. We spent the week there and returned to San Francisco on Saturday evening. I won’t go into the rest of the details of the following week out of respect. Suffice it to say the funeral was lovely and everyone, despite the solemn occasion, was very welcoming and loving. The other details are probably a little too raw right now - I may describe more later, who knows

I do have to say though that I feel really lucky to have met Kevin’s mom while she was with us - she’s an amazing lady…

So that’s our last few weeks… uggg… crazy huh? i’m EXHAUSTED and REALLY ready to get back to work.. :):)

more later…

Tags: family, hrc, kevin, sawyers, travel

Sylvia Sawyers: 1941 - 2008

Sylvia Sawyers, originally uploaded by SwimFinsSF.

Tags: family, kevin, sawyers

Is it scary

that everyone I know seems to be showing up in facebook? :-)… We’re talking my sister, her husband, a zillion people I work with, my cousin, friends from college, and as of today my mother and my girlfriend from high school (Yes - my GIRLfriend - enough already! :):)).

anyway… just makin me giggle.. I guess its just a passive aggressive way of letting people to spy on their friends… hehehe… I actually really enjoy finding people on there..

happy easter - by the way!

Tags: facebook, family, friends, geek, social networking

A few things for a Monday morning

On my shuttle on the way into work so figured i’d throw a few things out there… All completely unrelated and random - but what the hell! :)… Weekend was good but not many good stories to tell.. Dinner with R&R friday night was great… Chores and work Saturday.. Brunch and the park with Audrey and Brian.. Then walks in the GORGEOUS weather yesterday.. And watched Balls of Fury last night after dinner… Very nice.

Trip back east

Kevin and I spent Saturday morning booking a trip back east to visit family. When we first started looking at this it was stressing me out - not because I didn’t want to see folks but rather just because of all of the variables we had to plan around. We wanted to go to Gettysburg to visit my family, North Carolina to visit Kevin’s family, Washington DC for a set of HRC meetings, and Kevin wanted to stay longer and maybe go to Atlanta. Well we skipped the last part but we managed to find a great set of flights that pulled it all off.. Kevin is going to visit his family on a monday, I’m meeting him there that friday and staying for a few days before we head north to visit my family. after a few days there we’re heading to DC… Now that its all taken care of the trip actually is sounding like a lot of fun to me and i’m really looking forward to it.. I can really use the break.

High Class

We saw the trashiest example of drunken behavior yesterday afternoon… We walked out the front door to go to an early dinner to hear some woman spewing profanities with a slurred voice.. I rolled my eyes and wrote it off to drunks on a sunday coming back from the bar. But when I got a glimpse I saw her unbuttoning her pants and I assumed she was mooning her friends. New but still random drunken-ness so I kept walking. Then I glanced back to see if Kevin was coming only to see that that same girl was doing some strange crab walk with her pants around her ankles - and peeing.. Dear lord… A drunken slutty girl with a foul mouth peeing on the sidewalk about 10 feet from our front stoop - right where our dog craps on a daily basis… NICE…

Hypocrisy

In reading this article on John McCain trying to distance himself from the endorsement of a Texan pastor. Aparently, in addition to this guy being anti-gay, he’s also spoken about catholics conspiring with Nazis against Jews. Because of this American Catholics have been leaning on McCain to renounce this guy… Thats all well and good - but what I found interesting was this quote:

“By publicly addressing this issue, you will reaffirm to the American public and to Catholics that intolerance and bigotry have no place in American presidential campaigns,” Chris Korzen, executive director of Catholics United, wrote McCain in a letter sent Thursday.

Is it just me or is a quote like this kinda funny coming from a representative of a catholic organization - particularly after things like this coming from the head of that church.. I don’t know.. i’m just sayin!

Tags: family, gay, hrc, mccain, north carolina, pennsylvania, Politics, religion, travel, washington dc

He Lives

Once again, I fell off the face of the earth for a while.. but back now.. Lots going on and rather than wait till I have time to write about it all i’m just going to post a quick hi and fill in the details as I have time…

But the reader’s digest version is things at home and work have been keeping me VERY busy. I’ve been a little cagey about it since its not entirely my story to tell but the long and short is Kevin found out last june or july that he had Lymphoma. Thats the bad news.. The good news is today is the very last of his radiation treatments and then, knock on wood, its all taken care of… But for the last few months he’s been going through Chemo and Radiation to deal with it and i’ve been trying my best to hold down the fort and help him out… Not going to say no big deal cuz that’d be a lie. Its just one of those things in life that ya just deal with and try not to ask why too many times - cuz there isn’t an answer… But things are going VERY well and we’re doing fine… Kevin has posted some stuff on his blog if you want more dirt!

As to other things.. Well work is work… I could go into details there but its the usual Apple stuff - can’t talk about details… Suffice it to say the usual challenges continue to make me a little nuts but on a good day are a lot of fun.. The one good thing I can add is that they’ve started a bus system like Google’s to get me to work - so now I have nice buses that pick me up right in my ‘hood and deliver me directly to work.. pretty rockin…

Oh yea - and the puppy… Well she’s just too f-in cute for words… And she’s getting HUGE… Still a puppy though.. Cute as can be but a total handful. Training is going really well though I still don’t know why she does the things she does.. Some times she is PERFECT… sits at the corners on walks… comes when she’s called… sleeps like an angel at our feet while we’re chilling at home.. And then there are other times.. pulling at the leash.. random accidents for no reason we can see… ignoring us when she doesn’t want to obey… Just have to remind ourselves that she’s just a baby.. but we love her to death regardless…

Anyway - bus is half way to work and I have other stuff to do.. so rather than wait a while before posting this again i’m going to post and go… I’ll post more details later…

Tags: apple, cancer, dog, family, kevin, lymphoma, nina, vizsla, work