• Archives

  • Categories:

  • Other profiles

Zara

Tuesday, Sep 16th, 2025 by pleia2 | 0 Comments

On Sunday, August 31st, we welcomed a new member of our family: Zara the cat!

Our adventure to welcome a new cat has been in the works for a while. At first we weren’t ready, then life was just incredibly busy with life with two young children. But the desire to have a pet again was growing. We had to work out some details, like how we’d handle our summers in Philly (where does the litter box go at the townhouse?) and generally the additional load of caring for a pet when our lives are already so full. But the solutions trickled in and the benefits and positives finally won out.

And then when we were in Philly over the summer, the boys fell in love with a cat they saw at Petco. They went back and saw her several times, she was a very friendly tortoiseshell cat, but we couldn’t really adopt a cat across the country. Still, when we came home the boys insisted that they wanted a tortoiseshell cat. The search was on.

Our first encounter was via a local pet adoption agency, Nobody’s Perfekt Dogs and Cats. They are an incredibly dedicated group of volunteers who rehabilitate, foster, and find homes for animals that had some rough spots in their past. Given that we have two rambunctious boys, we didn’t think any of their animals, many recovering from trauma, would be a good fit, but they were local and they also have a shop of gently used pet items so we stopped by. We had a great conversation with their volunteers, and learned about a tortoiseshell cat in foster care who we were able to meet a couple weeks later, over Labor Day weekend. Alas, in spite of warming up to Aaron a little, we determined she was just too timid and scared for our noisy home, and we hope she finds a better fit, somewhere more peaceful.

But I was ready for this potential outcome. I had scoured shelters ahead of time and found a tortoiseshell-tabby (torbie) at the East Bay SPCA in Dublin, it was Zara!

I was cautiously optimistic since her listing called her friendly, but you really never know how cats are going to react to young children, especially a 4 and 6 year old who aren’t used to engaging with cats. But she surprised us all. As soon as Adam and I went into her room, she rubbed up against his legs, and he was instantly in love. Aaron took a little more getting used to because he was a bit more… excited, but even him she seemed fine with. And both MJ and I found her to be lovely. We filled out the paperwork, and brought her home!

We’re her second family, and her first family is the one that named her. Alas, we were told they surrendered her with the reason that she was an indoor/outdoor cat, but would disappear for days at a time outside, and that wasn’t working for them. With us she’s indoor-only, so we should be able to avoid that particular hurdle, unless she gets out. We’re looking at AirTags as a solution to her potentially escaping and disappearing, but that assumes she’s willing to wear a collar.

We did discover a benefit of being her second family through the same SPCA is that while we brought home an 11 month old, the SPCA had her kitten picture!

We kept her in the laundry room for the first 24 hours to get her used to us and the smells of a new home. We took turns going in and visiting with her, but also giving her some space to adjust. We built a brand new cat tree for her, which joined her in the laundry room that first day.

She was eager to explore though, and settled in pretty quickly once she had the run of the house on Monday (Labor Day) and we moved the cat tree into the family room. We had a pretty laid back day welcoming our new cat to our home, and the boys had a lot of fun playing with her.

She’s very people-centric, always wanting to be nearby someone. As soon as Gaby leaves to pick up Aaron from school, she comes into my office. When Aaron comes home, she’s off to play with him. Over night she’s been sleeping in our bedroom, after we extract her from the new game of trying to hide out with the boys to sleep with them. Temperament-wise, she can be very snuggly when she wants to be, but will let us know with a little bite or a swat if she has had enough. We do need to work on her scratching, since she likes to dig on carpets and there are a few heirloom chairs downstairs that she’s taken a particular liking to. I think that’s a surmountable challenge though.

A couple days in I noticed some blood on our bed, and a thorough inspection caused me to discover a wounded pad on her back right foot. I can’t imagine she got it with us, so I think it was a pre-existing wound that opened up with her getting to run and jump around a big house. I took her to the vet, which she wasn’t happy with me about, and was instructed to keep it clean by using some medical wipes they gave me twice a day. She isn’t super happy with me about that either. And unfortunately, I’m not sure it’s healing as much as we’d like to see at this stage, she has a follow-up at the vet appointment this Friday to see what our next steps are.

But back to the good things! The boys have been really great with her. Adam is very protective, and she’s been snuggling up on his lap while he plays video games. Aaron is learning how to be more gentle with her, but she’s tolerating the learning curve, especially since he’s the most fun human to play with around here. One of the most adorable things so far has been the boys building her little forts and beds, and then Zara actually sleeping in them!

MJ and I are totally in love with her too. She’s made a great addition to our family. And I hope she forgives me about the vet stuff soon.

Filed under: animals, family, zara

1943 Royal Quiet De Luxe

Thursday, Sep 4th, 2025 by pleia2 | 0 Comments

In August I was surprised by a heavy gift that was shipped to my doorstep: a typewriter! Specifically, a 1943 Royal Quiet De Luxe with a serial number of #A-1152926. Many thanks to the friend who sent it my way, it’s going to have a great home here.

1943 was obviously an inauspicious year. Two years into our formal participation in World War II, factories were shutting down the manufacture of their standard goods in favor of wartime supplies, and typewriter factories were included in this. The Royal factory switched over in 1943, which means my typewriter is one of those wartime typewriters, and some lucky owner was able to get it before operations shut down, as operations didn’t resume until 1946. Indeed, if you look at the Typewriter Database results for Royal Quiet De Luxe shows a clear gap in what collectors own.

A little Wikipedia reading informed me that this was the preferred typewriter of Ian Fleming (of James Bond fame) and Ernest Hemingway. I’m not surprised, it’s a real pleasure to type on. I don’t expect to be writing any James Bond novels, but it’s always nice to be in famous writer company.

The friend who gifted it to me cleaned it up and applied some oil so that certainly helps. It looks like the only thing I’ll have to take a look at is keeping the ribbon firmly in place (it looks like the ribbon spools were replaced at some point, and they fall out when I put it in the case and set it on its side) and the fact that the return lever has a tendency to scrape against the top if I’m not gentle enough. Some portables have a mechanism to extend the return lever, which I haven’t found yet, or I might just require some gentle bending back into a healthy position. We’ll see how the Magic Margins treat me on this machine, the ones on my Royal FP have managed to get stuck again (argh!).

So the other night I took it to the back yard, where all the photos were taken, and we had a little writing session together. Nothing fancy or interesting, just some words on paper to get things flowing. It was lovely.

And for those of you wondering what “Shift Freedom” means? From the 1948 edition of the Royal Quiet De Luxe manual:

“TO TYPE A CAPITAL LETTER, press either Shift Key
(19 or 21) and hold it down while you use the letter
key. Either Shift Key puts into effect Shift Freedom,
an original Royal feature which eliminates the noise
and eyestrain of a bobbing carriage by lowering the
type for capital letters instead of raising the carriage.
To type a number of capital letters consecutively,
press the Shift Lock Key (22). To return to lower
case or small letters, press either Shift Key.”

Some have said it’s a bit of a marketing gimmick, since many other manufacturers worked in a similar way, but it does make for an interesting conversation starter.

Filed under: typewriter

School begins! And August winds down.

Friday, Aug 29th, 2025 by pleia2 | 0 Comments

Our summer in Philadelphia was lovely, but we had to come back so the kids could start school in early August. It’s still surreal to me how early they start, but it was an exciting year for them, Aaron was finally joining elementary school as a Transitional Kindergartner (TK), and Adam was starting 1st Grade! Aaron’s birth date would have always made him eligible for TK in California, but this was the first year of mandated support of universal TK by school districts, so there are now a lot of four year olds enrolled in the district. It’s still optional for parents, but it is nice to see kids getting even earlier support through the public school system.


Their former au pair, Rebeca, made them signs!

But the summer season wasn’t over yet! The final week of our local swim lagoon being opened lasted a couple weeks past the start of school, so our au pair took the boys one Friday afternoon after school. I tagged along with my work laptop in case she needed help with anything (she didn’t!) and so I could soak up some of the summer weather too inside the beach tent with my laptop.

After being dormant last year following some necessary, but invasive, pruning our plum tree is back this year with lots of plums! The boys have been helping me pick and eat them, and we grabbed a couple pounds to once again make some of our annual plum jam.

And then we picked a bunch of apples from the apple tree and I made apple butter for the first time. I used this recipe and would probably let it cook a bit longer to thicken it up more next time, but I think it came out really nicely. Next time I’ll also need to be more careful with my arm while chopping 5lbs of tiny apples, my elbow has been howling for days. I also need to figure out more things to do with apple butter, but so far putting it on toasted challah and waffles have both been winning approaches.

Our weekends have been rather laid back this month, one Saturday was particularly so when a transformer exploded down the street, plunging our whole neighborhood into an outage for nearly 20 hours. The explosion was so bad that it took out part of the top of the pole, there was a visible flame for about 20 minutes, and the fire department came by with a truck to close off the area until the power company arrived. Thankfully, there didn’t seem to be any other damage, and with a trickle from our solar panels (cloud day!) our Powerwalls remained charged enough to get us through the day. We were still careful about usage (oh no, I can’t do laundry or use the oven!) and it was cool enough that we didn’t need the air conditioning, but overall it was very nice to be able to get through almost a day of outage without it impacting our lives much.

We spent that Sunday afternoon in San Francisco to visit the new Nintendo store. MJ accurately described it as “a Disney store, but for Nintendo” and I was totally in love. On weekends they still have a line outside to make sure the store doesn’t get too packed, but it moved along quickly and we were able to pick up some goodies. Adam and I also got to play Mario Kart World on a massive screen, which was a ton of fun. Going with the boys was certainly a delight, especially with how much Adam loves Mario Kart, but I also snuck back a few days later to peruse things myself more slowly and buy a few things I had left behind.

In boring house stuff, we’ve been doing a lot of planning to get our storage situation more under control. We own some storage space in San Francisco, and are hoping to get that organized so we can begin to use that more effectively and empty out the garage a bit. It’s slow going, but honestly we just need to start chipping away at it. It was nice to discover a wire rack we had never opened while at the storage unit though, it fit perfectly in one of our closets here and meant I could get to work on some of that organization without buying anything, hurrah! I’ve also been working through a bunch of little tasks around the house, like changing filters, replacing a light bulb outside (more complicated than it sounds!), and replacing the steering wheel on Adam’s favorite fire truck toy. I’ll give myself a “C” on the fire truck fix, it works but I could have done better.

We also welcomed MJ’s friend Matti over for a few days this month. The boys really enjoyed seeing her, and she was kind enough to stay with the boys one night so MJ and I could take a little parent vacation at a hotel in the city. We hardly ever (never?) get away together for more than a meal, partially due to some family circumstances, but largely just a habit that was developed because we had young children during a pandemic. We really should find a way to make this happen more often.

That Saturday she was visiting was also Castro Valley Cruise Night, our annual event where classic car enthusiasts are invited to town to cruse up and down the Boulevard. I talk a lot about how much I love the events our town hosts, and this is one of the best. So many people come out, and we all love cars so it’s always such a pleasure to spend a little time at. Plus, we can easily walk there because we live downtown! So we walked over to dinner, and then leisurely walked home to enjoy the cars at sunset.

August wasn’t all roses though. Part of the reason we’ve been doing more chill weekends was because MJ injured his finger quiet badly while doing some household repairs a couple weeks ago, and the boys have been simply exhausted with their new school schedule. Adam has longer days, and Aaron is going to school every day now (instead of his previous M,W,F preschool schedule). It’s leading to a bit more grumpiness than we’re used to, and it’s clear the boys have really missed having time to just relax to TV or video games. Going on adventures is grand, but some days the heart just wants a whole lot of Minecraft and Bluey.

Filed under: castro valley, events, family, food, kids, life

Philly summer 2025 concludes!

Wednesday, Aug 13th, 2025 by pleia2 | 0 Comments

All the project work I mentioned in my last post aside, we did have some fun adventures the last week and a half we were in Philadelphia after returning from New England.

The boys got to see a lot of grandpa through afternoon visits all summer, but we were also there to celebrate his birthday with the whole family!

The Sunday following our return we went downtown to visit The Franklin Institute again. Yes, we had already been there, but this time we were meeting a friend and his daughter! The last time all three of us were together was long before any of us had kids, so it was quite the momentous gathering.

Plus, there were parts of the museum the boys wanted to re-visit or hadn’t seen the last time. Aaron got really into the interactive exhibits. Afterwards we went out for pizza.

On my own, I was able to take a long lunch one day to catch up with a friend over sushi and an evening to have dinner with a friend in King of Prussia. It reminded me how good it feels to catch up with friends, and there’s no reason my social life in Philly is more active than in California. I have friends in California too! Time to be better about planning outings with friends.

Later in the week I put a pause on work for an afternoon and took the boys out to the nearby Churchville Nature Center to visit the butterfly enclosure. We’re members and they have a lot of great little events, but this was the first time we’d been out there this trip. It was definitely a warm day to be outside, but not as bad as some of the other days have been, and the mist they provide for the butterflies definitely felt nice!

We spent Friday evening at The Academy of Natural Sciences in downtown Philadelphia for their event around Haddy returning to Dinosaur Hall. It was fun to see their newly installed Hadrosaurus foulkii, but mostly it was a good opportunity to visit the museum with the kids after hours. Afterwards, we had dinner at Victory Brewing Company. I’d never been to this “new” downtown location, but the vibes brought me back to the dozens of times I visited their brewery in Downingtown.


Our final week in town was rather chill, owing partially to do with some work stuff really picking up and causing us both to work a bit more than usual. But we still did a couple family visits and dinners, and over the final weekend in town we made our way out to our local model train shop where we picked up a few goodies, including some light-up tracks. Unfortunately, that evening I tripped in our den while working on some stuff with MJ and sprained my ankle, and badly bruised my shoulder. Ouch. This is the fourth time I’ve sprained this ankle (amusingly, it happens every 4 years) so I skipped the doctor and just tended to it at home. Still, no fun.

Outdoor time throughout the summer was mostly water-driven pursuits on the lawn with the hose or water guns and balloons. However, our final week there the weather cooled down a bit and allowed the boys to spend a bit more time outdoors riding their bikes! They love doing this in California but often find it’s too hot to do during a Philly summer.

Overall, it was a nice visit, and the six weeks flew by. It also felt like the right amount of time for me. I was definitely ready to come back to home prime when the time came, and our journey back to California was uneventful.

Filed under: events, family, kids, life, philadelphia

Too many Philly projects

Tuesday, Aug 12th, 2025 by pleia2 | 0 Comments

I made a mistake this summer, and that was taking on too many “projects” while we spent the summer in Philly. On the big project side, I wanted to organize kid stuff better and complete some upgrades to our security system. Then there were general things you need to do to maintain a vacation home: fix a door hinge, replace a part in a running toilet. Plus, we had an ant problem! It has all piled up over the past few years because we were away for 2.5 years during the pandemic, and having small children was totally consuming.

This summer would be the summer to start catching up!

I mentioned that when we got in Aaron helped me assemble a dresser. I also ended up ordering a “Zoo” stuffed toy organizer.

And we bought a sideboard to stash all the art supplies and experiment activities that the boys have. It’s lovely and really helped rein in the chaos over there and free up some space in the tiny pantry closet. But it was from Ikea, so in addition to getting all the pieces, I had to assemble it.

I also hung more pictures for the boys! We’ve held off on most decorating because the walls need to be painted, but they’re getting older and I wanted to get their art up.

Plus, one of the things that came out of my sister’s storage unit was a poster print from The Lion King that she gifted to them, it was in our bedroom when I was younger! Aww.

Speaking of my sister’s storage unit, she had a bookcase in there, and I’m the caretaker for several books that I’m not shipping up to her right now, so I got that reassembled and placed in our living room with the books. I also spent a couple afternoons sorting through the rest of her belongings, which was like a mix between a trip down memory lane and a treasure hunt. It was nice getting to talk to her for an extended time too, as adults we’ve grown apart for no good reason, and that’s a shame.

We hired someone to help us get some more storage by putting a door inside our garage to access the empty space under the stairs. He did a great job an we immediately filled it up as we moved around some of our storage. Why would you need storage in a vacation home? It’s a lot of empty product boxes we’re keeping through warranty periods and kids stuff we’re cycling through. Plus, wires and tools and things we need for on-going projects. It adds up surprisingly quickly.

The wire racks that previously lived behind my desk in the den were moved to an indoor closet we freed up space in and have been replaced by some more Ikea furniture that’s housing components for our upgraded security system. It’s going to look really nice when it’s done and has the fancy ventilated doors! But for this trip, it was a lot of moving stuff around and assembling more Ikea furniture.

We saw a lot of family during evenings and weekends, but I had very little quiet time for reading, writing, or watching TV. Most days felt like it was just work, kids, projects, and sleep. It’s incredibly satisfying to see how much we got done, but I’ll have to work on a better balance next time we go back.

Filed under: life

Maine with the boys: light house and cryptozoology edition

Thursday, Aug 7th, 2025 by pleia2 | 0 Comments

Our visit to Maine continued on Monday as the boys enjoyed the pool at the hotel with their cousin, and we got ready to head out to Cape Elizabeth for some sight-seeing. Unfortunately, after preparing lunch and snacks for everyone, I discovered when we arrived at Fort Williams that I had forgotten it all at the hotel, argh! This threw a massive wrench in our plans, since we had wanted to all enjoy lunch at a lobster roll truck at the park, but had to cut our sight-seeing short to solve the lunch problem.

Still, we got to see Portland Head Light! One of the most famous light houses in the world, it was in my back yard. It’s strange coming to the town I grew up in as a tourist, but also interesting to see the beautiful place I grew up in through a different lens and share that with my family.

After the light house, we did go over to the lobster roll food truck, because A Bite of Maine makes my favorite lobster rolls in the world.

Our adjusted lunch plans took us to the grocery store where I picked up grapes and what we needed for peanut butter sandwiches for the boys, which I cobbled together in the tailgate before heading over to Portland. But if I’m honest, the whole situation was stressful to me. Forgetting the food stole the opportunity for us to drive by the house I grew up in to show the boys. Plus, it caused us to skip a stop at The Lobster Shack where I really, really wanted to get some fried clams and take in the view of Two Lights, the pair of lighthouses at the end of the road where I grew up. Bummer.

MJ had some errands to run, so he dropped us off at Thomson Point in Portland where we stopped at another brewery, as I do. This time it was Bissel Brothers which makes an excellent assortment of beers, of which I enjoyed their Swish Silver pale ale and the Forbidden Knowledge saison. Are we friends on untapped yet? Again, it was an incredibly chill, family friendly place and they also had no issue with the boys eating the peanut butter sandwiches and grapes while we enjoyed some delicious snacks from the food menu. Highly recommended.

Next door was our next stop, the International Cryptozoology Museum! I had the pleasure of visiting in 2016 when they were at their downtown location, and got to meet Loren Coleman that time! This time my main goal was to show Aaron the mothman exhibits, and it didn’t disappoint. Aaron is four years old and doesn’t quite understand cryptids, but when we stuffed my Mothman at Build-a-Bear, he fell in love, he now has his own Squishable Baby Mothman. The Mothman part of the museum didn’t disappoint! They have a big Mothman model, a lot of pop culture Mothman items, and all kinds of information about the legend.


Annette and Xavier enjoyed it too, so it was fun to be there with them to explore! And I got to visit with bigfoot again.

MJ was back by the time we wrapped up at the museum, and it was time to go pick up the U-Haul trailed that we’d take all my other sister’s stuff back to Philadelphia in.

Then we had to load it up! The boys went back to the hotel with our au pair to go swimming again, and Annette and I did a final trip to the local Goodwill with some donations, and she helpfully took a bag of trash with her so we didn’t have to figure out a way to dispose of it (mostly old bathroom supplies and a few old/broken things that weren’t being kept). It was done pretty quickly and we got to head back to the hotel to relax before dinner.

At dinner I finally got my fried clams at nearby Coppersmith Tavern & Table where we enjoyed a lovely time in their outdoor seating area in the gorgeous summer weather that people come to Maine in the summer for. It was our last meal with Annette and Xavier, so we said our goodbyes once we wrapped up. A long day for all of us, the boys were quite sleepy on the ride back to our hotel for our final night there.

The next morning it was time for our journey home. It was a long journey home. We had to avoid certain bridges and routes due to pulling a trailer, and our speed was capped at 55mph. What might have usually been an 8 hour journey ballooned to over 12 hours. Thankfully, the boys did great. They were generally in good spirits and took it all in stride, as much as they could. Lots of TV, Adam and I played Mario Kart, and there were some road games and car bingo played. We stopped at Target in New Hampshire to pick up a TV we had pre-ordered for the guest room in Philadelphia (the trailer came in handy!), and the boys did some shopping for new backpacks. We also made the decision to stop for a late dinner just 90 minutes from home so we could scoop the kids into bed as soon as we got home.

But we made it! We were back at the townhouse late on Tuesday night, concluding our first grand road trip.

Filed under: beer, family, kids, life, travel

Maine with the boys: trains and baseball edition

Saturday, Aug 2nd, 2025 by pleia2 | 0 Comments

I grew up in Maine, so it naturally holds a special place in my heart. I spent a lot of time sitting by the ocean when I was a teenager, and I’m charmed every time I go back to Portland and see what new restaurants and shops have opened up in the Old Port. But we had never taken the boys there! The pandemic threw a wrench in a lot of our plans these past few years, and travel beyond a couple key spots was one of them. This summer we decided to remedy that. I realize that I’ve written about our project to add a trailer hitch to the van, but I didn’t share why. My sister has a storage unit in Maine that she can’t access since she now lives abroad, so I offered to clear it out for her. Our plan was to drive to Maine, rent a trailer, and bring most everything back to Philly so we could go through it here.

As I’ve written, our first stop was Boston and on Saturday we left midday for the drive up through New Hampshire and into Maine. Our first adventure stop in Maine was one of my favorites, the Seashore Trolley Museum! When I was a kid, I frequently asked to go, and I now often make a stop there on my trips to Maine, so I was really happy to bring the boys. We got there a bit late in the day, but we were able to enjoy a trolley ride, and I absolutely love that journey through the forest and the boys did too.

And then do some exploring through the barns before dropping by their very fun gift shop. The weather was beautiful and we all had a good visit, even if I wished we had gotten there earlier to see a bit more.

When we got to Scarborough, we checked into our hotel and did a quick stop at the storage unit to get an idea of how much stuff we had. It was then dinner at Sebago Brewing Company, where I enjoyed a lobster quesadilla, a spectacular slice of blueberry pie, and learned that breweries in Maine can put THC in their beers. Wow, Maine!

On Sunday my sister Annette and my nephew Xavier made the drive down from their place and met us at the storage unit. We swiftly identified trash and donation items, and got through a lot more than I expected. Annette helped me load up her car with donation goods (mostly old kitchen supplies and such) and we got a lot more done than I expected. Xavier was kind enough to help MJ finish the work on wiring the trailer hitch, which I was grateful for since it allowed Annette and I to focus on storage.

Then it was off to have some fun! We had picnic area tickets to a Portland Sea Dogs game! We love baseball, but amusingly the only games I’ve been to this year were a couple games in Boston, and now their AA affiliate, the Sea Dogs. I swear I’m still a Phillies and Giants fan!

But baseball is baseball, and we had an amazing time with gorgeous weather. It was great to have a game to watch while I caught up with my sister, and our tickets included some food. And the Sea Dogs won! Plus, with the team going away for games elsewhere for a couple weeks, they held a Kids Run the Bases event so MJ and Adam got to run some bases while the rest of us cheered them on.

That evening we enjoyed dinner at The Great Lost Bear where we continued our trend of bringing our kids to drinking establishments (hah!) but truly it is a family-friendly place and I remembered it from when I was a kid. I now realize why it made an impression, the whole place from floor to ceiling is packed with pictures and lights and THINGS. It’s 100% my maximalist aesthetic, and I find a sense of peace in such chaos. The beers and food were top notch too, and I really enjoyed their buffalo fried cauliflower.

We got back to the hotel late, but I had promised Adam he could stop by a pond near our hotel before heading to bed. With Aaron asleep in the car, MJ ended up dropping off Xavier, Adam and I at the pond, and the boys proceeded to find some frogs. Xavier caught one and Adam was entranced! Those 20 minutes we spent at the pond doing some cousin bonding time was one of the most memorable moments of our trip for me.

But the trip wasn’t over yet! A whole day of adventures and the road trip back to Philadelphia were still ahead of us.

Filed under: animals, baseball, family, kids, life, rails, travel

A couple days in Boston

Wednesday, Jul 30th, 2025 by pleia2 | 0 Comments

“Weren’t you just in Boston?” Indeed, I was! But this time, it was the first major stop in a road trip up through New England with our family.

I’d say this was our first proper Great American Road Trip with the kids. They’d done an hour or two here and there, and three hours when we drove from Hollywood Beach to Melbourne, Florida over Thanksgiving, but this was a six+ hour trip. We wanted to stop and visit Boston and MJ’s best friend Matti, and then we’d continue up to Maine to see my sister and nephew, and show the kids where I grew up.

We drove up to Boston on a Wednesday, and made pretty decent time up to Boston in spite of a little traffic and the required potty/meal breaks. At one point we stopped at a Target to pick up some supplies. We made a final stop for fast food in Boston in the late evening and eventually got to our hotel. We did adjoining rooms again, but it was an extended stay style hotel so the rooms were larger and had pull out couches instead of the full multiple beds like we’ve done in the past. It also had a kitchen, which came in pretty handy for washing water bottles and keeping our fruit and leftovers chilled in a real refrigerator. The first night I slept with the boys while they got used to the room, but by the second night I was able to convince them to sleep on their own with the connecting room doors open in case they needed us (or just got scared), and we brought their audio baby monitors for an added level of support. It worked out well.

Our first day in Boston was spent going on their first MBTA subway rides!

We met up with Matti and took the subway over to the Boston Museum of Science. Growing up in Maine, this was basically the closest science museum to us, so it was where our Girl Scout troops did our adventures at, I remember sleeping there at least once (maybe twice?). I have a ton of memories from there, and it had been years since I’d been back. It was a real delight to bring the boys there.

I had hoped that going on a weekday would mean the shows wouldn’t be as crowded, but the Tesla coil demo was already filled up a full 15 minutes before the show, and the 3D movie shows were mostly booked for pre-registered school groups. Still, we had a lot of fun. Aaron’s love of animals drew him into the natural history exhibit and drawers full of specimens, from fur to beetles to bones.

Adam’s more mechanical inclinations had him chasing lights and motors. They both enjoyed the dinosaurs and the Boston Dynamics robot.

The next day we took the other two subway lines (we hit all 4!) and for a visit to the New England Aquarium. Once again, this was the aquarium from my childhood, but the last time I was th/images/journalpics/072025/mtba_subway_fam.jpgere was actually in 2019 when Adam was a baby and we were in town for a conference. My mother, sister, and nephew came down to visit and we had a lovely day together.

It was really fun to meet up with Matti again and go with MJ and the boys. The aquarium was a bit lean on sharks, much to Aaron’s disappointment, but they both love penguins and this is a good aquarium for them.

We split our aquarium visit in half, taking a break for lunch and playground mid-day and then returning to see the rest of it later in the afternoon.

We also got ice cream, during which time the boys insisted upon getting soft serve ice cream from a truck, while the adults partook in Ben & Jerry’s. Yum.

The next morning it was off to Maine! MJ had a few car parts for the trailer hitch we couldn’t complete in Pennsylvania shipped up to Matti’s house, so he collected those in the morning and we got on the road around midday. I was thrilled to be on our way up to Maine, but the boys are real city kiddos and they loved spending time in Boston. We’ll definitely have to make the trip up again in the coming years, but this visit was a great start.

Filed under: animals, family, food, kids, life, travel

Philly summer 2025 begins!

Monday, Jul 21st, 2025 by pleia2 | 0 Comments

Our flight to the east coast on June 19th didn’t quite go as planned. A massive storm on the east coast caused an hour delay leaving San Francisco, and then we were circling in the midwest for another hour as they waited for it to calm down further. The plane then went south and we discovered later that there was a risk of being diverted to North Carolina instead of our destination of JFK in New York. Once in New York, we waited on the plane for about 45 minutes until they finally found a jetway crew to get us off the plane, and then we had another 45 minute wait while the rental car company scrambled to get the car we reserved. As a result, we didn’t get to our townhouse in Philadelphia until 3:30AM and then had to get settled in. We barely got any sleep as we hauled ourselves out of bed at 9AM for work. That evening, our whole exhausted family went out to the grocery store for necessities and on the way home the defective gallon of milk we bought had fallen over and spilled on the carpeted floor of the rear of our van. Our brand new van.

Thankfully, our trip got much better from there! Thanks to MJ’s dad, we found Wheelworks over in Huntingdon Valley that was able to do a thorough detailing of the back of the van to get every molecule of milk out of it. And we ordered an all-weather mat to put in that portion of the carpeted floor so this doesn’t happen again. We also finally picked up a dresser for the boys so we could move their changing table upstairs now that diapers are largely a thing of the past. Aaron helped me assemble the dresser next to the old changing table that’s now being used for storage in their bedroom closet. The trip to Ikea for the dresser also gave us an opportunity to scope out some furniture for an “art center” to put in our kitchen for the boys and some cabinets for a server project we’re working on.

MJ’s father has come over several afternoons to spend time with the boys, which they’ve really enjoyed, and is the whole reason for us being here. We’ve also had a chance to catch up with MJ’s sister and nephew for dinner and house visits, including an evening that included a fire pit outside, which Adam won’t let us leave without doing again, this time with s’mores.

The boys have enjoyed catching the ice cream truck each time it comes through the neighborhood, and literally catching fireflies when we keep them up late enough for the fireflies to come out. One evening we also found a toad in the road that Aaron hilariously scooped up to help him cross it.

On our first full weekend here was a bit chaotic as we settled in, but then we went down to The Franklin Institute to visit the newly re-opened Heart and got to finally show the boys the Baldwin 60000 steam train that resides in the under-construction-for-years Hamilton Collections Gallery. The train used to move, but we learned that since it only could move a few feet the wear on the wheels was uneven and maintenance under those conditions was challenging. It’s still cool even though it doesn’t move, and the boys do enjoy a run through the Heart.

We saw a planetarium show, which Aaron continues to be unable to stay quiet during (thankfully, he does ask questions that are on-topic, and the person sitting next to us fell asleep in spite of his regular whispering, hah! We also made our way over to the Demonstration Theater to see the “Liquid Air Show” that Adam really enjoys, and this time didn’t disappoint.

The next day we drove out to New Jersey to have some pool time with our friends Mike and Jess and their two sons. The boys are getting really comfortable with water, which we’re really happy about. I’m hoping this translates to more security when it comes to their swim classes upon our return to California in August. It was great to catch up with our friends too, which only seems to happen about once a year, Facebook contact aside. The heat did get to me at the end though, so the drive home was a bit of a queasy one for me.

On the 4th of July we took a drive up to Kutztown for a visit the Crystal Cave. Aaron loves caves, and was left wanting after we took him to the cave/tunnel near the old San Francisco Sutro Baths for his birthday. Fair. This time we went to a real, natural cave! Plus, it’s a cave MJ had gone to with his parents when he was a kid, so there was the nostalgia and family connection factor there too, which was amusing to reflect upon as the tour guide through the cave mentioned that visiting the cave has become a family tradition for generations. Indeed! The story of the cave is an amusing one too; discovered in 1871 it was opened to tourism just a year later when they learned it was an otherwise useless limestone cave, but tourists might enjoy seeing it.

After lunch and the cave tour, we took advantage of the less humid, cooler summer weather of Kutztown to do through their mini-golf course. I’ve continued my streak of having enough focus/interest to complete about 9 holes really well, and then take a bored/distracted approach to the second half of the course. It’s a good thing I don’t play real golf.

Then we had some ice cream on-site and bought a big bag or rocks and sand with gemstones and fossils mixed in that they had a little “panning” area set up for. The boys LOVED that. As expected, Adam was very into the rocks and gems, while Aaron is still completely enamored with the fossils.

That evening we enjoyed some sparklers in the yard before getting to bed much too late, but that’s what summer is for!

On Saturday we began our serious New England trip prep. MJ had done a lot of the legwork to determine what would probably be needed to install the tow hitch on the minivan, so we had an appointment at a place in King of Prussia to get the work done. I drove out as well so we could spend the afternoon having a lovely (if too filling) lunch at Fogo de Chao and then a little adventure over at the mall. MJ and I both picked up some things we needed at L.L. Bean, and then the boys and I made our way over to the Lego store for… things we didn’t need.

Unfortunately, the hitch installation didn’t go well, and we had a multi-state adventure to get that completed ahead of us. The heat and overindulgence at Fogo also got to me that afternoon and I was flagging a bit by the time we all had to drive home. Still, part of the work was done and I was happy to have our new Lego treasures with us. But speaking of the car, MJ and Adam also had a project of installing a new rear view mirror on the new minivan. As high as it was, the trim level on our minivan didn’t have the buttons to open the garage, or auto-dimming for nighttime driving. Bummer. So we ordered the mirror from Kia and eschewed the dealer quotes for them to install it. It took more time and a few more panel removals than expected, but they got it done! Right in time for our road trip to New England that began on July 9th.

I had one last big event before out trip though, and that was presenting at the Philadelphia area Linux Users Group chapter that I was a member and organizer of years ago. It’s a great group of folks, several of whom I’ve known for decades, and I was there to give the latest about open source on mainframes. I started out with a Star Wars scroll parody with a mainframe theme (YouTube video) There was a lot of hardware geekery, but the gem of my presentation was definitely showing off zopen Community tools that bring familiar open source CLI tools to IBM z/OS Unix System Services (USS). I had a developer account that I was able to do a live demo with, and then several folks dove into the repositories during the meeting. It was a great night and I really enjoyed seeing so many old friends, and at the end I was surprised that one of the organizers had brought his son, who I hadn’t seen in probably 15 years? I babysat him once, he’s now old enough to be a software developer and attend PLUG talks now, wow! Also, cool. I couldn’t have thought of a better way to wrap up work and go on vacation than that.

Filed under: family, kids, life, LUG, philadelphia, tech, work

Parks, fairies, cars and airplanes

Thursday, Jul 3rd, 2025 by pleia2 | 0 Comments

Last year we began spending summer vacation for the kids in Philadelphia, but I was a little sad to miss some of the California summer activities. This year we delayed our visit to Philly by a couple weeks so we could! Plus, MJ was traveling for a conference the first week of June, so it was just easier to stay in California for a bit.

With MJ traveling, the boys and I spent the first Sunday of the month visiting a flea market in town, where I found a Disney’s Pinocchio picture vinyl – the same one my family had when I was a kid!

We then went over to The Chabot theater for an afternoon showing of the new live-action Lilo & Stitch. This is only the second time our boys had been to a movie theater, and the first time we went to one that wasn’t a special event. They did great! The movie was cute and the boys had a good time, but the live-action remakes aren’t really my thing.

I took Monday and Thursday off from work to do other summer things with Gaby (our au pair) and the boys. Monday it was a visit back to the Cull Canyon swimming lagoon for swimming! Unfortunately the weather was on the cooler side, so there weren’t a lot of people there and we were a bit chilly. We still had fun though, got to swim a bit, have some PB&J sandwiches, and try out the beach tent and wagon we bought after our first visit.


We picked up the wagon at Costco, and it collapses really nicely. The beach tent came from REI, and it’s not one of the easy pop-up ones, but setting it up is easily done with a single person and a few minutes of focus. It was actually good chilly and our visit to short to use the tent, but I could see it really coming in handy during longer visits on warmer days.

On my Thursday off I took everyone up to Fairyland in Oakland. It’s been on our list for a while, and I realized that at 4 and 6, Adam at least would age out of it in a couple years. Now was the perfect time to go! Gaby and I packed up a bunch of snacks and drove up. Parking was easy and it wasn’t busy when we arrived. The park is also celebrating their 75th anniversary this year, so at ticketing we got our Fairyland keys that were decorated with sparkles for the anniversary. So cute!

As one of the first theme parks, it inspired many others over the years, notably among them being Disneyland. I suspect it’s seen better days with fresher coats of paint, but these aren’t things that kids notice, and to Adam and Aaron it was one of their favorite days out in a while. There are lots of places to run and climb, there was a little train that we rode a couple times, and the carousel and Ferris wheel were kids-only, which they thought was pretty fun(ny). There was a giant (kids-only) dragon slide that they went down about a half dozen times, and they both thought it was hilarious to hide inside various little houses inspired by fairy tales.


We saw a puppet show at 11AM, during which we followed the lead of a bunch of other families in using the opportunity to have the kids enjoy their PB&J sandwiches. The Pinocchio puppet show was cute, but Aaron and I were quite distracted by a squirrel who understood it was lunch time and got very close to us in his efforts to take Aaron’s sandwich.

It was also great that they allow outside food, and even the in-park food didn’t seem wildly priced, maybe we’ll check it out next time. I think going on a Thursday morning was a good choice too, even if it required a day off from work, it meant there were virtually no lines and even the school groups that were there didn’t make the park feel full. In all, the place was pretty low-stress and enjoyable for all of us, as soon as we left the boys were asking when we could go again.

MJ returned from his work trip late on Thursday night, just in time for us to enjoy Father’s Day weekend! Saturday was spent at the annual Castro Valley Car Show. One of the reasons we delayed our trip to Philadelphia was to avoid missing local summer events like this, so it was nice that we got to go this year. Adam even found a Pontiac Firebird Trans Am, famously the same car that KITT is in Knight Rider, though this one was white and I think it was from 1983 (the one in the show is a 1982).

Sunday featured a trip out to the Hiller Aviation Museum for Father’s Day! They had some activities for the kids, but they didn’t seem too interested in them, so we skipped them in favor of the standing exhibits, including a 747 that we went in twice, and a large gallery of various other aircraft.


We also took the recommendation of a woman in the gift shop who said we should check out Sky Kitchen just across the runway at the San Carlos Airport for a kid-friendly lunch, which definitely hit the spot. Afterwards, it was easy to come back and check out a few things we didn’t get to before lunch, and to spend a little time in the gift shop. We also ended up getting a membership because we all really enjoyed it and there was more we wanted to see.

And then it was the countdown to our trip to Philadelphia! The boys and I finished a jigsaw puzzle that we’d been working on for a few weeks and I wanted to finish before we left.

I also took a long lunch one day and went bowling with Gaby and the boys to make sure we had our fun with the Kids Bowl Free pass once more before we left (though we will have some time in August to use it too). Leaving for six weeks is always a bit nerve-wracking for me as we prep the house, make sure we don’t forget anything, and get our house sitter all set up, but I paced myself as much as I could and made extensive use of lists, and it wasn’t as chaotic as it usually is. I’m definitely glad we didn’t leave right after school ended, it was really nice to do California summer for a little while before Philly summer began.

Filed under: animals, castro valley, events, family, kids, life, tech
« Older Entries