Our New Office

December 5th-9th, 2008. Jet. Lag. Wow. The first day back in the USA was easily one of the hardest travel days we had – after leaving Hong Kong at mid-day and flying for 14 hours, we arrived in San Francisco at 10am! Talk about a long day. We managed to take a nap or two on the plane, but it wasn’t enough. We tried to force ourselves to stay up until 9pm San Francisco time (about 28 hours straight) but it was too hard. We took a series of quick naps, walked around, and ate to stay awake. Jet lag isn’t fun (as we all know), but I had no idea just how miserable it could be until we got back.

As we acclimated to the time difference our first days back we enjoyed the AARP dining plan (breakfast at 5am, lunch at 11:00, and dinner at 4:30) and the sights and sounds of San Francisco. Sara and I had both been to San Fran before, but this was the first time we’d visited together. It wasn’t terribly familiar to either of us, and it was fun to re-discover. We woke up very early our first day, ate breakfast, and STILL managed to make it to the Golden Gate bridge in time for sunrise. We walked quite a bit, from the Golden Gate down to the wharf, then onto Coit Tower, and finally to Pier 1.

You’ve got to get up pretty early in the morning to get this picture, but I think it might be worth it.

The best part of visiting San Francisco was seeing friends – Kate and Courtney showed us around town a little bit, Adam and Noami bought us dinner at a nice Italian restaurant, and Erin showed us a very nice Tapas restaurant.

We hiked from the Bay Bridge to Coit Tower all in the same morning – and then we walked to Pier 1 and met Kate and Courtney for lunch.

We also visited the recently re-modeled science museum in Golden Gate Park (very fun), walked around Haight-Ashbury (sucks, very depressing), and wandered around Golden Gate park (impressive, kind of like central park in Manhattan).

This little guy (actually not little at all) was the star at the California Academy of Sciences museum in Golden Gate park. Visiting San Fran was loads of fun, and a great place to recover from jet lag. See his friend in the background?

San Francisco is definitely a world-class city. It’s charming, full of history and intrigue, beautiful, and complete. It offers everything that a person could need or want. Sara and I had a great time recovering from jet lag and rediscovering San Francisco. It was good to take in a US city after traveling abroad – it made our transition much easier.

October 6th and 7th, 2008. Monday I sold my very last major possession to Karl Chevrolet in Ankeny, Iowa and got some last minute errands done. I also managed to get caught-up on work from the 3 days I took off. Tuesday morning, Sara’s parents wished us a teary and hearfelt goodbye.

Staying at Dale and Georgia’s was great. We really enjoyed being around them, we were able to get alot of work done, and we always felt comfortable too. If you’ve always wondered what it would be like if you had to go live with your parents/in-laws for 2 weeks, I have to tell you it’s nice. Thanks one more time to Dale and Georgia – I couldn’t ask for two better in-laws.

The weather was awesome too – yay Iowa!

Tuesday afternoon we arrived in San Francisco. The plan is to stay in SF for a day and rest so our trip to Beijing is a little bit more manageable (in terms of flight time and layovers). Tuesday night, after getting settled, we went to the 2nd closest restaurant within walking distance of our hotel – The Sizzler.

In case you didn’t know, old folks (a.k.a. “silver backs”) LUV a good deal. Sizzler is a good deal. Old folks like Sizzler (as do I). They also like to eat before 5pm. Sara and I were still on Iowa time, so we were starving to eat and we got to the restaurant at AARP happy hour. A couple of old men and a woman who appeared to be their nurse were sitting one table away from us. Here’s what we heard one of the old men say…

Conversation Heard at The Sizzler (besides me saying “Shooter – Sizzler – my treat!”):

Old man: (Speaking to Nurse) So you lost weight then?
Nurse: Yes.
Old man: How much?
Nurse: 17 lbs
Old man: 17?
Nurse: Yes.
Old man: Pounds? 17 pounds?
Nurse: Yes.
Old man: So how much do you weigh now? [I'm cringing one table away.]
Nurse: …[long pause]…190.
Old man: How much?
Nurse: [a little louder] 190.
Old man: How much?
Nurse: ONE-NINETY.
Old man: 1-9-0?
Nurse: [Sounding incredibly defeated] Yes.

At this point, I’m personally uncomfortable. I wish that I would have said something, but Sara told me (after the fact) that he’s probably just very old. This isn’t meant to be rude. Still, I heard the man ask his nurse a little earlier “Did menopause hurt?” I think he was trying to be a jerk.

Mission accomplished. Hopefully he’ll have an awkward and embarassing moment before he kicks off. My guess is that he’s probably had a few already. The question is – will he know he’s having an embarrasing moment when it happens?

Tomorrow (at 1 am) we fly to Hong Kong, layover for about an hour, then fly on to Beijing.