TJ's Kaleidoscope

Belated Merry Christmas

Just got back from Vegas, and have been balancing work and play so couldn't get around continue my "The Year That Was" series nor could I wish everyone reading this, a merry Christmas.

Below, our house Christmas Tree:

The Year That Was: Part 6

Speaking of the Patel Brothers, they deserve their own little post on this blog. After so many years they remain a great source of worldly wisdom and funny wise cracks.

 

Quote of the day:

Hawkeye: ...You're my best friend, I've never gotten along this well with anybody, you moron.

BJ: Well that goes double for me, stupid!

                                                             --M*A*S*H (Rumor at the Top)

The Year That Was: Part 5

My good buddy Nagi made a return to both Southern California and this blog.

 

It was a big enough event for everyone to get-together and reconnect and be part of what used to be one kick-ass team.

 

Of course, no picture is complete without the Patel brothers.

Today:

from 2006:

 

Curiously, the order of people left-to-right remained the same! We're just a bit happier in 2007 because we were no longer under the gun.

Quote of the day:

Laughter is man's most distinctive emotional expression.

                                                                                 --Margaret Mead

The Year That Was: Part 4

One more person that makes a repeat appearance this year: Mattias Larsson. The difference one year makes!

2007

 

2006

 

The 2007 picture was taken at Theresa's (Mattias's wife) Absolut vodka themed 30th birthday celebration.

 

 

Quote of the day:

Anya: For the gentleman, Vodka Martini, shaken not stirred.

                                       --Ian Fleming (The Spy who Loved Me)

The Year That Was: Part 3

The next event of the year was celebrating Chad's birthday. It was a relatively quiet affair, I won't go over it too much (especially since I have so many pictures of him on this website!), except the fact that we got to see Jennifer, who currently stands as the first person in the Hetergenius group to be a mom.

 

Full album here.

Quote of the Day:

Birthdays are just nature's way of telling us to eat more cake.

                                                                  -Anonymous.

The Year That Was: Part 2

We now move on to March where I met up with my old buddy Chris Kline at IBM's Technical Leadership Exchange. To give you a bit of a background on both, Chris and I worked together on the IBM's Nissan account and pulled through some mighty testy times. The Technical Leadership Exchange is the gathering of IBM's top technical talent where we meet to network and exchange ideas. Over the past four years, Chris and I had made it a tradition of sorts to meet up at TLE (which each of our individual management chains deemed fit to send us to). This time, Chris came to my neck of the woods: Disneyland California.

 

What made it more interesting was that my dad--who is an IBMer as well--got invited as well, so we were probably the only father-son duo at the conference.

 

 

For those of you unfamiliar with IBM culture, it is almost impossible to separate an IBMer from his or her Thinkpad. So here we are, at the general session, and you can see people cranking up their laptops and taking advantage of the free wireless Internet.

 

 

You can view the entire album here.

You can read my blog post about the last TLE here.

 

Quote of the day:

“Treat your superior as a father, your equal as a brother, and your inferior as a son.” -Persian Proverb

The Year That Was: Part 1

It's time to start recapping the year much like I did last year. The rules are very simple. Between now and the end of the year, I'll walk through the significant events this year that I happened to share with family and friends.

Let's start with the Pacific Life Open--my first live tennis tournament. I got to see Boris Becker, I should have gotten in line for his autograph, but in the short five minute that I spent deciding whether or not to get in the twenty person line, the line had already become a mile long. Oh well.

 

 

 

Even though, we were in the nose bleed section it was a thrilling experience. To see the crowd react to  Nadal's explosive power in action, and Djokovic's coming out party. That day was also Djokovic's first entry into the top ten. Most experts agree that he has significant grand-slam winning potential, and so it would be cool to say, I saw him in his first major final.

 

 

Of course, I would have to thank Dan & Nora for letting me tag along and being the third wheel. It was a lot of fun, because we got to demo all the top racquets from Tennis Warehouse, and they basically gave me a guided tour. Afterwards we stopped by an outlet mall for a major shopping spree. All in all, a fun trip!

 

 

 

The full album is available here.