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Tuesday, December 31st
Dinner & Dancing in the San Francisco Bay Area 
"New Year's Eve..." Well. I spent the entire day VERY focused on trying to get a New Year's newsletter out to our Happy Hour mailing list, transferring and organizing files, updating links, drafting and then posting the new teaser page for ORIENTED.COM, and officially turning on the Happy Hour website, but there was just too much more to be done including a very thorough double check of everything which I always, always, do before releasing any newsletter publication, and so... I couldn't get the newsletter out. At first I was pretty pissed, and mad at myself for not getting it done in time, but later on I was to think to myself, what the hell. Everyone is out partying, who the hell cares?! And tried to reassure myself that I am doing the best I can while trying to maintain work/life balance and that everything will be just fine in the long run. So that's that. Nelson came by to get me at 5:45 p.m. on the dot, we went to Draegers to pick up a really delicious cake, picked up Cindy at her place right at 6 p.m., picked up a Chinese chicken salad which she ordered at a nearby restaurant, and then headed for Lisa's place for dinner before going to the Fantasiaball 2003 in the city. This year, we decided against dining out for New Years, as fighting the crowds and paying jacked up prices for really bad food and service didn't seem all that appealing. So instead, we had a private dinner slash potluck at Lisa and Alex's place in San Carlos, which included the above food items, chicken parmesan, lasagna, a vegetable medley, a house salad, wine, beer and cheese which were all very yummy. In attendance were Cindy, Anne, Justin, Sherman , Eli, Jim who was on his way to the airport for Taipei (poor guy!), and of course Lisa, Alex, Nelson, me, and Kevin who joined us from another dinner with a friend. An intimate and very nice gathering it was indeed, and Lisa is SUCH the Superstar Hostess! That girl can cook AND host at the same time! Actually now that I think about it, I probably had more fun hanging out at Lisa's apartment with everyone and chillin' out. The New Years party was definitely fun, a very elegant setting and lots of beautiful gowns (wow!), but I much prefer smaller crowds these days... a sign of aging I guess... lol... It took us forever to get out the door -- not to mention the funny scenario of everyone downstairs chattering away near the bathroom -- but eventually we made it up to the San Francisco City Hall and spent the rest of the evening there, and later extended the evening back to Lisa and Alex's place for more food (her lasagna is SO GOOD) after a short drive through the Castro before calling it a night. A very nice time overall. Always nice to spend time with good friends. Thanks to Lisa and Alex for having us over, to the Fantasiaball folks who did such a great job planning tonight's event for so many people (not at all easy!), to Nelson for driving all of us around, and to Sherman who took me home. =)
Pictures to be posted soon.
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