Ryan's Journal

"My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?" — David Mitchell

Tag: Christmas

December Recap

Posted from Merced, California at 8:32 pm, December 27th, 2016

December was one of those months that both flew by and at the same time seemed to go on forever. Here’s the recap:

  • A trip to San Antonio at the beginning of the month got things started, followed by a trip to Spokane the following week for the Commerce Architects Christmas party. The party coincided with a polar vortex hitting the northern states, which for non-meteorologists means SO COLD NO WARMTH CAN’T FEEL FINGERS. We celebrated on the top floor of a 17 story office building with temperatures outside hovering right around zero; at one point I looked out and wondered where smoke was coming from, but apparently when it’s super cold water just magically condenses out of the air into smoke. I very much appreciated living in LA when I returned home.
  • Life in LA continues more-or-less as usual, although Audrey and I did share much excitement over a new garage door and opener; being a homeowner makes you get excited about really, really dull things.
  • Christmas was again spent with Ma & Pa in the Bay Area, meaning I got to take the new car on his first road trip; among many other reasons why this car rules, adaptive cruise control is all sorts of awesome when you’re spending many hours on the Interstate. Christmas went according to plan, with Ma pulling off another amazing turkey dinner, Aaron stalking me with a semi-automatic Nerf gun, and the Skipper all kinds of happy when I showed him how to watch nature documentaries in HD on his new Amazon Fire TV.
  • Following Christmas the annual man-trip began, but for the first night I stayed with Aaron in Sacramento and we went to see Rogue One, since both of our significant others would be unable to tell the difference between a Stormtrooper and a storm cloud. It’s not a high bar to clear to be the best Star Wars movie since the Empire Strikes Back, but this movie cleared that bar with tons of room to spare; it not only looked and felt exactly like it belonged with the original movies, but the story filled in some plot points that made Star Wars an even better movie – to cite the biggest example, George Lucas needs to send the writers a huge “thank you” for freeing him from hordes of nerds who have mocked the original movie for having a moon-sized based that could be blown up with a single missile. Now? Totally plausible.

Holliday Recap

Posted from Culver City, California at 5:41 pm, December 30th, 2015

Here’s the final recap of 2015:

  • Audrey celebrated her birthday at the end of November, and in addition to a birthday dinner at Ruth Chris I took her to a ghost tour aboard the Queen Mary. After a fancy dinner at the ship’s nicest restaurant we were led on a tour to every haunted spot from bow to stern, including the lower decks where POWs were held during WWII, the now off-limits and very fancy swimming pool, and the huge engine room, hearing stories of all manner of unfortunate events, past hauntings, and ghost cats. Audrey enjoyed the creepiness, and I liked seeing the inner workings of one of the largest ships ever to ply the Atlantic.
  • In between back-to-back work trips to San Antonio I co-hosted a caroling party, thus combining one of Audrey’s biggest joys in life (singing) with one of my biggest fears (singing). Audrey’s professional singer-friends impressed the neighbors with their voices, and her mom brought a giant bowl of delicious meatballs so I got to impress everyone by consuming massive quantities of meatballs.
  • SpaceX landed a rocket!!! I’m still pretty excited about that one.
  • Prior to Christmas I got a text from Aaron saying that he “just broke all of the bones in my ankle”. He later clarified that he is “still learning how to avoid trees when snowboarding” and that he didn’t hurt himself, instead “a tree hurt me”. Upon arriving home for Christmas I found him with his leg in a cast propped up on the couch looking about as stir crazy as a person can be. Despite his lack of mobility Christmas was still fun – there were shenanigans on Aaron’s knee scooter, and Ma delivered a holiday turkey that again let me show off my food-devouring skills.

2015 was another good year in what has so far been a great life, and with 2016 starting with a scuba diving trip the crystal ball predicts that the undeserved good fortune just might continue on a bit longer. Hopefully everyone reading had equally good years – best wishes for 2016!

Holliday Family Christmas

The Skipper is much, much better than he used to be at taking pictures.

Catching Up, Part 4

Posted from Culver City, California at 8:06 pm, December 29th, 2014

Here’s an attempted wrap-up of the events that have occurred in the two months since knee surgery:

  • Two days after knee-surgery I returned to work for Bodybuilding.com. After seeing the amazingly tough working conditions faced by people in Africa, and seeing them face those conditions without the slightest complaint, it doesn’t seem bad at all to be back to the grind in front of a laptop at a table in my comfy kitchen each morning.
  • Thanksgiving was again spent in the Bay Area with the family. Audrey and I drove up north a few days early, and I worked from a hotel room in Redwood City while she got to spend a couple of days with her best friend. Aaron and I also had a night to visit not-Ramen Dojo and the old man band bar in San Mateo. For Thanksgiving, Ma Holliday did her magic and prepared an amazing dinner, after which Audrey walked away with the Balderdash crown, much to my dad’s dismay.
  • Audrey had many singing gigs during the holidays, including a performance with the De Angelis Vocal Ensemble that took place at St. Basil’s Catholic Church in downtown LA. Following that performance we asked the always-interesting Brett and Susie about any fun spots nearby to grab a drink, and since they know every cool bar in LA we were soon at a German-Korean pub eating shortrib nachos, bratwurst, edamame, and massive steins of beer. Making things even more interesting was the girl at the next table, dressed in a full elf costume, and handing out some very impressive balloon animals (“I just finished working a party” she said. “And she’s really, really bored now” noted her tablemate).
  • After a glorious night spent sleeping in the back of the Subaru in a truck stop parking lot, I made the annual pre-dawn visit to the Merced National Wildlife Refuge, then it was on to Ma & Pa’s house for the Christmas festivities. Aaron arrived with Superman and Batman costumes in hand, and a bewildered Ma wondered how she ended up with two boys who, in their late thirties, were still wandering around the house in superhero outfits. Pa then came home, games were played, and on Christmas day we unveiled a new receiver and soundbar for the folks. A surprisingly lengthy amount of setup time later, and Casa Holliday now has a fairly solid home entertainment system.

And now, after four entries spread out over a full month, the journal is again current and ready to ring in 2015. More than twelve years since the first entry, what was originally just a way to avoid writing emails has turned into a record of nearly one-third of my life, and I’m grateful to the twos of readers who continue to check in regularly to share it.

Holidays

Posted from Paso Robles, California at 6:56 pm, December 27th, 2013

December totally flew by. Wow. Here’s the recap for everything prior to the current road trip:

I haven’t had to make the trek out to Boise since October, so work has consisted of the bedroom-to-kitchen commute, eight work hours that may or may not involve getting dressed, and the agonizing decision over what to eat for lunch – there is a good sushi restaurant that delivers in our neighborhood, which is a very, very dangerous option to have available. On paper, my life is extraordinarily good, and in reality it’s pretty swell, too.

Christmas and birthday gifts are usually something I do only when there’s something good to give, and 2013 was such a year – if you haven’t been to beardhead.com then you are a more mature person than me. The Holliday men spent Christmas Eve sporting new looks and laughing a lot. Aaron’s contribution to the madness was nerf dart guns, so Ma and Pa got to endure their 33 and 38 year old boys rampaging through the house with plastic guns and fake beards.

Christmas day saw Ma and Pa receive a new TV from the boys, and saw some very happy folks from craigslist getting the old TV – everyone won. Ma made a scrumtrillescent turkey dinner, and following that Pa nearly cracked a rib from laughing during a game of Balderdash – it got to the point where if anyone even began to read a definition he would go into spasms, so this game may need to be revisited frequently during future visits. Meanwhile, back in Culver City Audrey hosted her mom, sister, and three others in our fully-decorated house. I’m told the highlight of the meal was her pie with a likeness of Cthulhu made out of crust on top, since it’s not a Wiechman Christmas unless there is dough made into the shape of a human (or part thereof), animal, or mythical cosmic entity.

Post-Christmas, Ma and Pa took me to the Lafayette Reservoir to look for white pelicans since I’ve been chasing all over California trying to get a glimpse of these odd birds. After numerous road trips and no success, of course there were a dozen pelicans twenty minutes from my folks that were practically swimming up to people. Following the visit with the birds and a delicious lunch it was time to depart on the annual post-Christmas road trip, which barring surprises will be covered in subsequent entries.

Holliday family beard heads

The men of the Holliday family. Photo credit goes to Aaron.

Several Thousand Geese-a-Flying

Posted from Merced, California at 10:06 pm, December 27th, 2012

After a bird-themed Christmas, waffles, a game involving trains (a recurring activity this holiday season, apparently), and hiking in the mud with Aaron I took leave of Ma & Pa’s house and returned to the road. Today’s stop was at the Cosumnes River Preserve, home to (literally) tens of thousands of geese and numerous other feathered critters. Having flocks of thousands of geese and the occasional sandhill crane passing overhead as the sun set was not a bad way to finish the day.

Several thousand white-fronted geese take to the skies as the sun sets. Turn up the volume for maximum enjoyment.

Christmas 2011

Posted from Livermore, California at 7:42 pm, December 27th, 2011

Quick recap of Christmas 2011:

  • Convinced that there was a chink in the many “no trespassing” signs that kept the white pelicans of the Kern Water Bank too far away to be photographed I stopped during the drive home and doggedly probed the area for weaknesses. After much searching a bike path along the Kern River seemed like the only legal entry option – sadly I didn’t have a bike, and a 2.5 mile hike yielded many birds but no pelicans. On a positive note, during the five mile round-trip I did discover that my knee is now recovered enough to hike up to four miles without generating stabbing pains.
  • Christmas at the Holliday home tends to involve waffles, presents, and competition. While the first two went mostly according to tradition, this year’s competitions were a disaster for the eldest son, with losses across the board – it was a humiliating display, and Ma and Pa will now have to refer to Aaron as “the athletic, intelligent child”. Adding insult to injury, several games of Big Buck Hunter were “competitions” in the same way that Little Big Horn was a “battle”.
  • During a break in competition Ma and Pa put together another tremendous Christmas dinner; the delicious food and my inability to run may have dire waistline consequences.

The Stairs of Doom

Posted from Culver City, California at 9:10 am, December 31st, 2009

December was an extremely eventful month, although sadly I failed completely in capturing everything in a timely manner…

Vegas, Dave, Tim, and Audrey

The first weekend of the month saw Audrey and I off to Vegas to see Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds, something that I would do on a weekly basis if possible. Tim Reynolds did some utterly ridiculous things with a guitar – I don’t know what an echoplex is, but it is clearly awesome. Dave started the concert by revealing that any bubbling noises were not a stylistic choice but were instead the result of mucous, and followed that up with a discussion of how Las Vegas is a weird place and proof that something has gone off kilter in the human evolutionary chain. They played for three hours, and afterwards Audrey and I returned home happy despite making the acquaintance of a drunk woman who decided that pressing every button in the elevator would be terrific comedy.

So Long and Thanks for All the Fish

December 23 saw an end to my tenure at DIRECTV after three years and nineteen days. My co-workers there were a lot of fun and the work was interesting, but it was time to move on to new things. I had expected a lengthy retirement, but a new offer came along that may be too good to pass up, and, being a fan of things like eating and paying rent, it looks like I’ll be working from home starting January 11.

Holliday Family Christmas

Christmas came up fast this year, and while I managed the gold in getting Audrey a membership to Zingerman’s bacon-of-the-month club, I failed utterly with everyone else’s gifts and headed to San Francisco with only gift certificates. Sally came through with “Holliday Family Recipe” books for Aaron and I, and a two hour game of Quiddler ended with disastrous results. Aaron, Ryan Sutherland and I also started coming up with bizarre “what if” scenarios at some point during the trip, and people’s answers made for revealing insights into what was most important to each individual:

  • There are eight planes, and all of them are going to fly across the country. One will crash. You can either choose a plane and take the flight, and if you don’t crash you get to choose any three houses in the world when you land, or, if you choose not to fly, your thumbs will be surgically removed. What do you do?
  • You get to be the richest person in the world, but you have to live in a hot-air balloon that must stay at least 100 feet off the ground at all times, otherwise you explode. You can modify the balloon in any way, but it can’t be tethered to the ground for more than two hours a day. Do you take the offer?
  • You get $40 million today, but at some point between age 65 and 80 you will be killed by a sword to the stomach. Death may take as long as two hours. Deal or no deal?

There were many more, but not all of them were appropriate for a public web site. Needless to say, Ma & Pa weren’t huge fans, but everyone else involved seemed to enjoy the thought-exercise.

After four days at home Aaron and I were getting a bit stir-crazy so we headed out to a fancy hotel in Avila Beach, ten miles outside of San Luis Obispo. Apparently the place caters almost exclusively to couples, so the lady at the desk gave us a funny look when we checked in, but at this point we’re pretty used to embarassment and it was well worth it to have a jacuzzi in the room and a wine reception in the lobby.

Smiling’s My Favorite

Posted from Near Big Pine, Eastern Sierra, California at 5:30 pm, December 30th, 2008

Christmas this year was again spent at Ma & Pa’s house in the Bay Area. Aaron was given the gift of Cavs tickets and an Anderson Varejao wig, the Skipper got a cookbook for curry (he cooks now), and Ma got enough pedicure gift certificates to keep her toes pretty for months. In a surprise move, rather than the usual gifts of sweaters and bizarre neck massagers mom also put together a really awesome album with copies of the family Christmas cards and letters going back about twenty years; Aaron and I were expecting the worst when she told us to “close our eyes”, so this gift was a pleasant surprise.

This year’s holiday miracle came in the form of a visit from Roto-Rooter after Mr. Hanky the Christmas Poo took up residence in the downstairs bathrooms. Combining blocked toilets with the holidays brings out the best in everyone, and despite Sally’s initial dismay and Aaron’s dry-heaving it ended up being a fairly amusing (if expensive) event.

Tonight I’m camped out in a closed forest service campground in the Eastern Sierra near the base of Mount Whitney. After driving through gold country and up to Tahoe yesterday I spent the night in Carson City before heading south today. Hiking and photography at Mono Lake went well, although the silver dollar-sized blisters on my insteps indicate that the afternoon’s attempt at cross-country skiing was less successful. The interesting fact of the day comes from Mono Lake, which apparently lost forty feet in depth (and a signficant amount of surface area) due to diversion of streams by the city of Los Angeles starting in 1941. As of 1994 a lawsuit requires LA to restore twenty of the lost forty feet to the lake level to provide improved habitat for the two million birds that visit the lake each year, although at present the lake has risen only about eleven feet from its low point. Along with the restoration of the Lower Owens River, returning Mono Lake to a healthier state could have a huge impact on the wildlife that migrates through the Eastern Sierra each year, thus making me the slightest bit more optimistic that people may actually make the world a bit better during the remaining decades of my lifetime.

Sierra Nevada Winter Landscape

Sierra Nevada Winter Landscape.

Concord, California

Posted at 5:10 pm, December 25th, 2003

First annual Holliday Bowl today. The photos are from the Turkey Bowl, but it gives a good idea of the shenanigans that were going on. Sadly my big moment in today’s game was getting my clock cleaned on a kickoff return, but the Goob managed three interceptions and four scores.

Aaron Field

Helmet Cam 2.0

Harrod and the Helmet Cam 2.0

Los Angeles, California

Posted at 11:00 pm, January 6th, 2003

Busy lately. Flew home for Christmas, and after covering the house in lights celebrated with the family — my brother got me a Bernie Kosar jersey, which is probably the greatest gift anyone who grew up in Cleveland could ever hope to get. If you can imagine Aaron and I in 1986 wearing dog masks and singing “Bernie, Bernie” (to the tune of “Louie, Louie”) then you can understand the beauty of this gift. Jenn came through with a three liter bottle of Heineken that was immediately dubbed “the Christmas miracle” so it was a joyous Noel.

Flew back to LA Christmas night, then drove back up to the Bay Area for the weekend to move some things and visit the family again. Drove to Las Vegas for New Year’s to meet some friends, and ended up spending New Year’s day with the worst hangover I’ve had in years — Banick and Kalyan always manage to make it a memorable occasion when we all get together. While New Year’s eve included fireworks on the Strip, being hit on by hookers, and watching friends lose $200 in less than fifteen minutes while playing blackjack, the highlight had to be when I eventually trusted my balance enough to attempt a trip to the casino restroom, only to hear someone say “Be careful, he’s been drinking” as I was passing by. I might be getting too old to be doing that sort of thing, but it was still fun.

After New Years I drove back to LA, worked two days, then did a mad dash up to San Francisco (375 miles), back down to Las Vegas (600 miles), and eventually home to LA (300 miles). The buffet at the Bellagio and the silhouettes of dancers in cowboy hats at Shadow Bar competed with the image of Banick too drunk to sit up straight (“Holliday, help me get my face off of the table”) as the highlight of this Vegas trip. Now I’m dead tired and back at work, but the plan for next weekend is to stay in my room and hopefully have nothing more taxing to do than lie in bed so with luck I’ll be ready to do it all again in a couple more weeks.

Los Angeles, California

Posted at 9:25 pm, December 22nd, 2002

It struck me last night that Christmas is practically here, and suddenly all I can think about is getting home on Tuesday night and stringing lights all over the house with my brother, then spending Wednesday with the family laughing as we go through the annual gift exchange. I’m going to be an absolute cyclone of Christmas energy by the time the plane lands Tuesday night.

Aside from holiday joy the last few days have been relatively uneventful. The weekly running mileage was slightly over sixty, and that’s the first time in my life that I’ve done so much. I’m still not in the shape I was in during college, but I can feel myself getting there. It’s an amazing feeling to be able to run under six minute mile pace again, or to actually feel good after running ten miles. Life is treating me very well at the moment — hopefully everyone else is filled with a similar amount of joy during this holiday season.