2014.12.13 – Early Christmas

The five of us were up and out of the house fairly early so we could have an early Christmas with Dave, Alena, Tiberias, Rialla and Anya before everyone but Dave headed to Arizona for the holidays. I had ordered their gifts from their Amazon wishlists but of course they weren’t showing up until the Monday after! The kids were all waiting in the front window for us and were so excited we were there. We did presents right away because who wants to make a small child wait for the best part?! Not me. We got Tiberias some cool wooden castle blocks and Wayne spend a long time hoarding them and building a castle.

Wayne's Castle

Andrew and Dave spent most of the time looking for computer parts in Dave’s various boxes for the home server Andrew is going to build. Alena made us yummy strawberry pancakes and Field Roast sausages. Natale, Jayde and I played with the kids and I read a bit of a book Alena got for both Andrew and I, Hacking Vim 7.2. It’s very interesting so far!

When we got home Frankie and Roberto’s car was out front and Delaney was just parking. Delaney was stopping by to use the computer and Roberto was there to do Lauren’s hair for her company Christmas party. Andrew, Wayne, and I had a going away gathering to go to at The Sweet Hereafter. Our friend Dawn was selling her house and car, quitting her job and moving to London to get a PhD. She’s been the community manager at Puppet Labs since we’ve known her and was just about the only person we knew in Portland prior to moving here and barely at that. Andrew and I had met her at a conference and she mentioned living in Portland and being vegan so naturally I threw myself at her and begged her to be my friend. Maybe it wasn’t quite that bad, but close! We did get together right after we moved here and a couple of other times but she was SO busy at Puppet flying all over the world.

We invited Delaney and Jordan to go with us since Dawn’s invitation said anyone and everyone was welcome……

Interrupting the story to mention this funny conversation in the car when the spelling of orangutan somehow came up:

Delaney “Isn’t that some kind of drink for astronauts?”

All of us pause and are trying to wrap our brains around this.

Wayne “No that’s orange Tang

Maybe you had to be there. Aaaaaaanyway…….

…….She had quite a large table of people and not any room for extras but a couple were leaving and gave us their spots. We gathered around, ordered some drinks and talked about her exciting upcoming adventure for a while. More people showed up so we gave them our spots and took a table in a different room where it was a lot more quiet. I ordered a slice of their Red Velvet cake to share with everyone and we sat and enjoyed our drinks. We were going to wait on dinner and see what was available at our next event. This wasn’t the best idea in retrospect. Sheri from PDX Code Guild was there and came to join us once she wished Dawn well. We talked for quite some time but then it was time for us to head to the Urban Airship holiday party.

This was going to be interesting because I’d only been there two weeks, barely knew anyone and was bringing my two husbands. We’ve been together going on nineteen years now and I never think about us being unusual until I have to come out to new people. It’s always fascinating to see how people react. I was in for a ton of fascination since there would be a lot of coming out 🙂

Delaney and Jordan were going to drop us off at the event and then pick us up later. The event was being held at the Ecotrust Building. I’d been there before with Andrew but just to check out what Patagonia had to offer. We headed upstairs and immediately saw Adam and his wife. I introduced Wayne and Andrew and then the awkward happened. I’d say stunned was the look we got and Adam’s wife looked as though she wanted to run away. Oh well, off to freak out the next unsuspecting person. Thankfully nobody else seemed too shocked so that was good. About this time, Jordan messaged to say that he and Delaney just left the car parked where they dropped us off and were going to wander around downtown until we were done. That would be perfect. We mingled some more and I was able to introduce my guys to Mele and her husband, Jhenna and her girlfriend and Barbie and her husband.

We were about done and were hungry so decided to go find food. Luckily there was a Hotlips Pizza place right downstairs. We ordered a pizza and had half one type and half another. It was not bad at all. As we were eating, a couple of other guys from UA ordered some pizza as well. They looked around for a table and since one of them recognized me they came and sat with us. Andrew and Andre. Yeah names were fun 🙂 Andre is in product management and Andrew I can’t remember what Andrew said he did but he’s in the same area as CE so the same area as me which is why we had seen each other. We joked about how Amanda and I have to sit in the little glass room as though we are under quarantine. I told them we call it the fish tank and that we get real desks on Monday. We talked about all sorts of fun stuff going on at UA, laughed a lot and really had a nice time. They were going to head back up to the party and we were ready to go home so we wished them well.

Jordan and Delaney were done as well so the timing was perfect. We waited a few minutes for them to walk back to the car and we headed home. It was a pretty good night!

Today I learned about a ‘fork bomb’. It’s a way to crash a server and is usually an accident. One forks a process which then forks other processes that fork other processes and so on until this kills the server.