style, substance, and everything in between

[jaeclectic]

What a week it's been. Major stressors:
1. work (incredibly busy, near-impossible deadlines, ever-changing requirements, poor managerial communication, et cetera ad nauseum)
2. real estate (proceeding with possible purchase while being quite unsure if I'm doing the right thing)
3. public speaking & associated logistics (that little BayCHI East event, on Thursday)
4. formal attire (needing to figure out what to wear to Jen-Fred-Wed, on Saturday)

On Friday, I was joking at work with L and Plo that I'd been burning the candle at 4 ends, and with the BayCHI event done I was down to 3 ends, and once the weekend was over I'd be down to 2 ends and at least back in the realm of metaphorical possibility. (I think L got the joke, not sure Plo was tracking, my humor can be a bit obscure :)

Yesterday, I woke up absurdly early, did a couple hours of work-work just to get it off of my mind, survived minor wardrobe crises and last-minute shopping, and got to the church on time for Jen-Fred-Wed.

Anyway, here we are, it's Sunday afternoon, and I'm exhausted and coughing and mildly hung-over and would take a nap except that I had tea with the dim sum brunch (AKA the final phase of Jen-Fred-Wed) and the extra caffeine won't let me settle. The degree of caffiene sensitivity I've now attained is truly annoying.


The wedding was a quite spectacular event: The ceremony was fairly brief and very nice (although a bit religious for my taste), at this church in Berkeley, after which the entire crowd (of 150 or 200 people), all in extremely fancy dress, walked several blocks to the reception site with random tourists in Berkeley taking photographs :) Fortunately, the rain had blown through already, although it was a bit nippy out in the breeze, not so much for the guys in tuxes but for the women in ballgowns.

Then the reception: an hour or so of hors d'oeuvres and champagne and chatting, with a traditional Swedish party game to go with the traditional Swedish seating arrangement: apparently the done thing is to separate married couples, and do all seating strictly boy-girl-boy-girl, and each boy has to escort the girl assigned to their right to the table -- which means that at a party like this one, where many people do not know each other, the guys all have to wander around trying to figure out who their assigned escortee might be. Actually a pretty good ice-breaker.

(My escort was a friend of Jen's brother who they may have been trying to fix me up with. I was favorably impressed in a low-key way, but as soon as dinner was done he left the table and didn't speak a word to me the rest of the night, so I surmise the spark of mild interest was not mutual.)

The dinner was several leisurely courses, the first few interspersed with Swedish drinking songs and shots of aquavit, and the rest interspersed with speeches by family and members of the wedding party. The food was all extremely nice (except that I accidentally ate a bit of the nasty part of the crayfish), with a suitably Scandinavian tinge.

This was followed by several hours of talking, drinking, dancing. I gave up at around 1:30, but apparently the party went on until after 3:00.

I am sure at some point pictures will be shared, but I took none myself.


Meanwhile, back on the real estate ranch, I am feeling a bit behind the curve but hopefully ready to start focusing again.

I was supposed to get the HOA documents to review on Friday, but being frantically busy at work, did not once stop to think "I was supposed to get a FedEx package today. Since reception hasn't called me, maybe I need to check with shipping." I remembered it on Saturday, at which point it seemed just as well to wait until Monday. But if I had them in hand now, I could start looking at them this afternoon... Ah well.

I did manage to decide that I should not bother pursuing batchelor #3. For anyone who is trying to keep up with all the convolutions, at one point I was thinking about three different properties:
1. The loft in Emeryville (which I actually made an offer on, the offer was eventually accepted after delay on the sellers part, but in the interim I started considering backing out, which I can still do based on contingencies e.g. review of the HOA docs)
2. A more conventional (and significantly less expensive) condo in Adams Point (north side of Lake Merritt), which I went to an open house for, but would really have to see again to decide if it was a winner.
3. A different loft, on a busy street (Adeline) in Oakland, somewhat less expensive than the one in Emeryville, which I haven't seen but the pictures looked way cool.
Anyway, there was an open house at #3 which I could have tried to fit in yesterday, but decided to skip. The neighborhood is a bit marginal, the street is busy, and my realtor was concerned that he could find no loft or townhome sales in that neighborhood in the past several years, which all adds up to sounding like a rather dubious investment. And although I am primarily thinking in terms of finding a place to live, not investment, I don't want to do something stupid.

Blah, blah. So I still have to try to get back in to properties #1 and #2 and see if another look will help me achieve any clarity about what I really want.

For those so inclined: I have duly noted that Mercury has been retrograde, ending yesterday.