Day 304: My K was not feeling well, so I went over to her house to cook her homemade chicken noodle soup and grilled cheese, and then we snuggled down to watch the second Pirates movie.  It still is the weakest of the series, with absolutely unrelated action set-pieces thrown in for the first 90 minutes (the cannibal island, for one thing), but we still enjoyed the third act. 

Speaking of the cannibals, one character makes a passing remark about "long pork".  I learned from Heinlein that this is an archaic, and euphemistic, way of describing humans as food.  Keep it classy, Disney.

Her dad sent along a link, and asked us to note the dancing up in the top of the stands during the celebration/rally after the end of the Kings' final game of the season.  Why, who is that handsome young man who is getting his groove on??

Yeah, that's me. The young lady observing me to my immediate right is K.  Next to her is her dad, and her brother, and brother's fiancee is down in the row in front of us.

But, honestly, you've gotta go check out the video.  I am a huge dork.

You can watch it in all its glory here.

The fun starts at 1:24.  But they were playing Sweet Caroline, for cryin' out loud!!!

So there's a short video where I'm dancing like a moron waaaaay at the back of a huge crowd.

I'm basically famous.

Tomorrow, ADVENTURE!!  :)

Kris at the Kings game last week, Chocolate-covered strawberries I made for my girl on Sunday, the two of us at the game, and the two of us being cute in Monterey a few weeks ago.

Good morning, my little penguinians!  Wow, what a weekend! 

Above are some photos from the last few weeks, which I have been meaning to post since forever, but am just now getting around to.  Isn't she a cutie-pie!

Anyway, we had a great weekend.  Friday, we had dinner with S&JJ, old friends of K's who live over in West Sacramento.  They were absolutely fun folks, and I made a lot of new friends.  After dinner, they even got the two of us to do a karaoke-thing, and we did "I wanna be sedated", which was one of the few songs they had that I had even heard of (who the heck is NeYo, anyway??).

After all that we headed to meet up with my peeps in Midtown, and we all convened at R's place to play an absolutely hilarious round of "Cards Against Humanity".  This is a card game that is basically a depraved and utterly filthy version of "Apples to Apples".  I HIGHLY recommend it.  All of my points came from K picking my answers, which we both thought was super cute, because we're dorks.

Saturday, we headed over to K's parents house to move some furniture.  Well, that's not entirely accurate; *I* moved furniture, along with JB (K's brother), a nice guy named Adam who is a friend of JB's, and K's dad.  The girls had tea while we men lifted heavy things, as men do.  Manly manly men.

The parents then took us out to lunch at their favorite Chinese place, Rose Garden, in Roseville.  The servers were very familiar with the Bull family, and knew each of them by name, and even had a little moment to gush over "K's new boyfriend!!" (ahem). 

Next we headed to her place so that she could feed her kitty, then retired to my apartment for some delicious food and a fun evening of movies and snuggling.  :)

Sunday, we went out to the farmer's market where we got some wonderful fresh strawberries, which I later dipped in chocolate for my girl (see above).  We also got some wonderful melons and prosciutto which we enjoyed for brunch.  Then we watched "Pirates of the Caribbean", which is one of her favorites (and who doesn't love the first one?).

It was quite a weekend, and we had lots of fun together, and just enjoyed how wonderful life can be.  More please!!

Tomorrow, as ever, ADVENTURE!!  :)

Day 299: Before I get into the ADVENTURE!! :) of the evening, let me first say that my heart goes out to the many, many, many wonderful friends I have in Boston, and I'm glad that you are all safe.  I loves my peeps!

Tonight, K and I joined the fam for the Sacramento Kings game.  It might, possibly, maybe, a little bit, be the last one, ever, which made it a bittersweet moment.  Our Kings put up a good fight, and lost by only a handful of points in the last quarter.  For those who have not kept up with the adventures of the Kings recently, here's a quick recap:

1 - I start dating a Kings fan, and become an ardent Kings fan.  I'm a die-hard, dyed-in-the-wool, full-tilt, I-bleed-purple Sacramento Kings fan.  I'm basically their biggest fan ever.

2 - The Kings lose every single game I tune into over this period, generally to very good teams.

3 - The Kings owners (a family known as "Them Aloofs", to use the local parlance) are great big poopy-heads, and they are trying to sell the team to Seattle, which only five years ago lost their Supersonics NBA franchise.

4 - Them Aloofs have run the franchise into the ground, but the fans are still here, and we're all hoping that the Kings will stay in town. 

5 - The Kings feature a guard named Isaiah Thomas, who is NOT the Isiah Thomas (note the difference in spelling, for one thing) who used to play for the Detroit Pistons).  Young Isaiah was given his name because his father lost a bet, fatefully and falsely predicting that the Lakers (then his favorite team) would handily beat the Pistons (the Pistons won in a four game sweep!). His mother insisted on the biblical spelling, and, now, here we are, with a second, and completely unrelated, Isaiah Thomas playing in the NBA, at a magnificent 5'9", or a solid five inches shorter than ME.  He's REALLY fast, though, and a wonderful spirit.  He came out after the game, which (ahem) we lost, and said, "I know you wanted us to win more games, and we did, too, but you are the best fans in the world!!"

The whole thing made me think of Steve Spurrier (coach of Your University of South Carolina Gamecocks!), who famously said, "You fans will come out even when they LOSE!"  He meant it as a condemnation of Gamecock fans, but I saw a lot of parallels tonight.  The Kings are not a great team, but they're always in it.  And the fans... well, the fans, they're just amazing.

As of this writing, the fans do not know if there will be a team in Sacramento next year.  My sweet girl, and her family, have had season tickets since the team first existed, and they will be sad if they leave.

Tonight, as it happened, my K and I were in the family's season ticket seats. Next to us, obviously, were other season ticket holders.

If the team gets sold to Seattle, tonight was the last Kings game. Ever.

A very nice older gentleman, who was seated next to us, nodded to me on the way out, and shook my hand, and said, "See you next year!"

Best.

Fans.

Ever.

He doesn't know if there will even be a team in two months, but he just holds it as faith that the Kings will be here.

I hope so.

I'd really like to go to another game, and I'd like to see K's face when they win a big game.

GO KINGS!! 

Tomorrow, ADVENTURE!! :)

Day 296: I have tried hard to keep my dating (such as it is) out of this blog, and thus preserve some measure of dignity for all involved, but the time has come to share with you the secret I have been (poorly) keeping for the last several weeks.

I am now officially dating a lovely young lady, shown above, named Kris.

On Friday night, we co-hosted a little dinner party/games night for friends, to "introduce" her to my peeps. "Introduce" is in quotes, because she works with most of us, so most of the peeps know her from the office.  She and I do not work on the same parts of the California project, but we do work on opposite ends: I make the data pretty, and she deals with how the state handles and processes the data I make available to them.  It sort of sounds like we *should* work closely, but we really do not.  I have never even been in a meeting with her.

The picture is a facebook picture from her birthday that I shamelessly stole; I'll post some pictures that I've taken myself soon.  She's awesome. And beautiful. And funny. And sweet!!

She's a consultant (though we do work for different companies), and she holds a Bachelor's and a Master's in English.  I won a few points today by correctly identifying a quote from Shakespeare (which was printed on our lunch table thing, but the play was not identified) as being from "Taming of the Shrew". 

After a trip to Monterey (where she did her undergrad work), and quite a few home-cooked meals, I was invited today to meet her parents and her brother and her brother's finacee. 

FULL DISCLOSURE: Her brother is a consultant, and also works on our project (though, again, not in my area).  Her mom is a consulting director for the company they all work for, and her dad is a programmer, though he is retired. 

He and I are very much cut from the same cloth: he makes jokes about data programming, and is just a wonderfully funny guy, and we got on like gang-busters; I kept wanting to chime in with "YEAH!  That happens to me all the time!", as he was recounting stories about date formats and the like, but I restrained myself.  Her mom knows and works with my company, and is lovely in every way.  John (the brother) and Melanie (his fiancee) were absolutely warm and welcoming. Melanie squealed (no, srsly, squealed) every time I did something nice to Kris, and it was fun hanging with the fam.  We had delicious lasagna, and there were two varieties: turkey for my lady, and beef for myself and John and Melanie.  And it was really, really good.  I can't post the recipe here yet, but I'm definitely going to bug Josetta (mom) for the recipe soon, and I'll post it if she approves.

After dinner, we played a game called SmartAss, which is basically a trivia game, so I did VERY well.... okay, fine, I came in fourth.

Kris won.  Handily, I might add.

And this is just one of the MANY MANY MANY upcoming posts of me gushing about how wonderful she is.

Yes, I'm announcing that I'm going to be telling you how awesome my girl is. 

You're welcome.

Loves to all my peeps, family, and friends who read this silly blog.  I'm very, very happy, and I hope you are, too!!

Tomorrow, ADVENTURE!!  :)

Day 295: Sooooo many things to report!  I need to take some time to catch you up on the developments here in CA, and I will do that soon, but first I will tell you about today.

Woke up.  Put hair gel on toothbrush.  Deposited toothbrush in trash.  Bought new toothbrush.  Had lunch with Girlfriend. Napped away the afternoon. Went to art fest here in town with friends. Played "Ticket to Ride" with friends.  Gave boiled peanuts to my peeps. Sang Randy Travis songs. Snuggled with a beautiful girl.

More tomorrow. I'm meeting the Girl's parents!

Tomorrow, ADVENTURE!!  :)