Orchestra Dinner

Back in the day of good old Georgia Tech, every Tuesday and Thursday for 5 years, I went to Orchestra rehearsal. Rehearsal was fun, especially because of the people and conductor in the orchestra. Once a week, on Thursdays, after rehearsal, there would be "orchestra dinner". The way this worked was as follows:
Wednesday or thursday, Bill (the orchestra dinner ringleader of its heyday) would send out a hilarious email not really having much to do with dinner, but always making everyone laugh.

Thursday after rehearsal, someone would scream really loud: "if you're going to dinner, meet at the back of the rehearsal hall". about 5 people would show up, and others would be either coerced into going, or decide to go once they saw who the coolest people in the orchestra were (really).

We'd stand at the back of the hall or outside the doors for a good 30 minutes arguing over where a good place to go would be. Do they have enough tables? how long would it be to wait? have we been there before? do they have vegetarian options?

We'd finally pick a place, get there by about 8:45, and then spend the next two hours laughing hysterically at how funny we all are.

There were always a few new "regular" faces each year, so of course, as people left, only their legend remained with the new people coming to dinner.

Well, since then, most people I knew have graduated and/or moved away. Smitha, who has spent the last year and a half in Japan on the JET program, is only in town once a year, and wants to make sure she gets to see everyone, planned a reunion orchestra dinner for last night.

It was great. People were in town from everywhere. We missed Sherman, Bill, Eric, Will, and Coleman by just a few days, but Smitha, Louise, Miles, Ethan, Emily, Moshe, Jennifer, Kati, Kevin, Me (and an honorary member - Matt) all came out last night. It was like old times.

It was great to see everyone and catch up, and of course - argue (this time via hundreds of emails) about where we were going to eat. Just like old times...

xmas 2006

Well, break is over. I spent the weekend up in Charlotte, went with Josh to hang out with his friends and family. I'd never been to Charlotte, so I got the personalized tour of the banking city.

went to a nice restaurant and a play, went rock climbing, went to see a movie, and to a mexican restaurant...it was a nice weekend overall. Came home to go straight to the Bagel Bash which was nice, if nothing else, to see people I hadn't seen in a while. The next two days came with hard work, and nearly got the flooring job done (see previous entry). Tuesday was also my mom's birthday, so I had the family over for lunch - blintzes and cake were served =)

All in all, it was a nice long weekend, spent with many of my favorite people.

NEW FLOORS!!!

Well, Ever since I moved into my house, I have been talking about pulling up the "impossible to keep clean" white carpet. I finally did it. See the progress of the task in pictures. Beginning with pulling up the carpet, padding and staples (Thanks to DZ for his help in this stage):

Followed by laying the cork underlayment, and beginning to conquer the task of doing the room (Thanks to Leah W., Moshe, and my dad for spending two full days on this seemingly impossible task)

It took a while to get started. They make it sound really easy at the store "they just click together!" but it turned out to be a bit harder than they made it sound, but we ended up getting the hang of it, and completed about 1/2 of the room the first day.

The second day (today), we spend all day working, and completed the rest of the room, as well as fitting all the pieces that had to be cut special for the walls and for around the fireplace. It was a lot more work than expected today as well. I still have to put up the molding and the threshold, and figure out what to do where the wood meets the stairs, but All together that shouldn't take more than a few hours (compared to the 12 hours of an average of 3 people for the past 2 days)














Here is a picture of Moshe being really excited that he is holding pieces of wood...(between cappuccino breaks)

















And a picture of me before putting in the very last piece of wood. I was so excited.

Anyway, that is how I spend my Xmas and day after since I got off work.

Again, thanks to everyone - Moshe, Dad, Leah, DZ, and John (for lending me his flooring tools). I really appreciate the help, and you can come over and use the floor any time =)





AND....DRUMROLL PLEASE...
THE FINISHED FLOOR!!!:

CSI - walking the grid...

I was called in yesterday for Jury Duty. It was the first time I'd been called in, so I was a little excited actually. Well, because it is right before the holidays, they said they don't start felony cases, so as it turned out, most of us got to go home pretty early. Since I'd already taken the day off, I opted to get stuff done in the calm before the storm. I did some work on my floor (see next post), baked a ton of stuff for gifts, I went running errands to pick up gifts I hadn't finished buying, and wrapped my last remaining presents and after that, I went to the mall to return something. In the evening, I went with Scott and Seth and Danielle to trivia, and on a question on STDs, we blew the lead. Darn. When I got home, I came home to a dead Betta fish - Leslie. she just couldn't stand living in a bowl any longer I suppose.




I gave her a proper burial at sea, and decided to put David (the red betta) into a cup and clean the tank. I emptied the tank, and put it in the dishwasher. well, Apprently, fish don't like cups, because David the fish had a successful attempted suicide last night by jumping out of the cup and into the sink. He was dead, stuck to the sink when I got up this morning.

By the evidence I've seen, it was a murder Suicide with the Fish.

Kesiah

My niece Kesiah is the cutest baby...ever.

Happy Chanukah Night #1

Well, I went home for shabbos dinner and to light the Chanukah candles with the family. the way we do chanukah is that each of us have a "pile" of presents, and we can open however many we want each night. Sooo, being the greedy one that I am, I opened 4 tonight.

In no particular order:

From my sister Leah:
small salad/dessert plates that match the dinner set I currently have. I asked for the salad plates and the ice cream bowls, so we'll see if the others show up in the remaining 7 days ;-)
Thanks Leah!

From Leah W.:
A spinning alcohol dispenser. Just what I needed!! It's actually really cool, and I decided when I got home, I had to immediately fill it. As I was putting it together, Moshe wanted to "see what a bottle would look like upside down", and spilled my favorite liquor (the rasberry rum) all over the floor. Soo, it smells like liquor in here. But it's a really cool gift, and looks great next to my bar =) Thanks Leah!

From my parents:
A sewing machine and a coupon organizer. Hrm, now that I am writing it, it seems like they're encouraging me to be suzie homemaker. Oh well, I asked for both. Thanks Mom and Dad!!

Gentlemen...

I have been in Louisville for 2 days, and was really hoping that today, the third day, I’d have an opportunity to do a few minutes of sightseeing before leaving town. Unfortunately, the machine we came to test is still not working up to par, and so though we won’t be here longer than planned, we won’t get to do anything fun. Being at a plant really wears on you no matter where it is. Standing on cement floors for 10-14 hours a day, wearing steel toes is really fun! Right. Well, at least we’re getting out of here.

Last night, the machine company reps took us out to dinner. Once we were seated, the bartender came to the table and said “good evening gentlemen” I figured it probably just slipped out, but then after he took the orders, he said thank you gentlemen. So I piped in with “and lady” he noticed me and apologized.

Not five minutes later, our server came, and she says “Hello gentlemen, and welcome”. Apparently, last night I looked like a man.

Almost didn't make it.

Almost didn’t make it. Again. Monday mornings at Atlanta’s Hartsfield Jackson International Airport are terrible. This is how my morning at the airport went: I drove from my house to one of the off-site airport parking lots, arriving at the lot at 6:40 (a little later than I’d’ve hoped, but still not really late). Normally the truck follows you to your car, and you just hop right in, perhaps pick up one or two more people, and then head to the airport. Once I got out of my car today though, I waited about five minutes by my car before the truck came to pick me up. We made rounds and picked up a total of about 12 people, completely filling the bus.

Upon arriving at the Delta gate, I was amazed by the upgrade Delta had done to their check-in counters. It looks really good, and I didn’t even notice them renovating any of the last times I was in the airport. So, it was very quick – going through the kiosk for checking in – got my bag checked as well. But out of the corner of my eye, I saw the security line. Going all the way down the length of the airport, only to turn around and go all the way back, just to enter what is normally the snake line of the security area. The line moved pretty fast, but I am glad I wasn’t running late because I would’ve had a heart attack stressing out in that line. Nearing the front, I diverted to one of the many different lanes going to the x-ray and metal detectors. With airport security as strict as it is lately, each person uses 2-3 grey bins to put their shoes, belt, purse, wallet, laptop (outside its case), jacket, etc. About three people in front of me, the guy used the last bin in the stack. The next guys – obviously businessmen who I am SURE have traveled once or twice in their life – just stood there, like someone was going to bring them bins. Everyone who has gone through Atlanta Airport security knows that there are big stacks of bins in certain areas, and if you have none in your line, you go get more; no one will do it for you. Finally, after they were standing there helpless, I finally went and got the bin refill stack. I shouldn’t have let these guys even use any of them with how helpless they were, but whatever. I go through, redress myself, and get on the train going to Concourse D.

The train is not air-conditioned. Well, if it is, it wasn’t working today. I felt like I was having hot flashes. Again, had I been late for my flight, it would’ve been much worse. I still hadn’t had any breakfast, so I was hungry too. I arrived at my Concourse around 7:30 am. I picked up some breakfast, and sat between my gate and the adjacent gate since my gate was pretty full. I was sitting there watching the news for about 30 minutes, when I looked around and still didn’t see my co-worker at the gate. I was getting worried since the plane was due to take off at 8:15, but hey, they hadn’t started boarding yet, so I figured we were still OK. At about 8:10, I don’t know what possessed me to go to the gate, but I felt like it was getting pretty close to time, and was curious why we hadn’t started boarding. Good think I did! Apparently, they’d boarded the whole flight, and I hadn’t heard a thing. I guess since I wasn’t right there in the gate, I couldn’t hear their announcements. They said they’d even been paging me for the past 10 minutes. I was the only one checked in for the flight, not on the plane. But, they’re sorry, the flight just closed. I nearly cried. The gate attendant looked out the window and radioed something to the guy by the steps to the plane, and held up one finger to him. The guy nodded, and the gate attendant said “it’s your lucky day, you can get on the flight” I breathed a sigh of relief. If I had missed this flight, not only would it have been a pain in the butt, but it also would’ve looked really bad for work. I got on the plane, and lo and behold, my co-worker was already on! I have no idea how I also didn’t see him in the gate. Oh well, everything turned out allright, and I am now on the flight to Louisville.

Company Holiday Party

Another exhausting but fun weekend. I even posted a picture. Scroll down to see it though.
for more pictures of recent events, visit www.belanaomi.com/

Josh came in, and after picking him up from the airport, we went to Amanda's for dinner. I love potluck shabbat. we were a little late, but not so late that we missed dinner, so it was all good. I met some people from Argentina, so hopefully they'll give me some info on cool stuff to do while I'm there.

Saturday afternoon GT played Wake Forest in the ACC championship game. Man, we played poorly for the second week in a row. Our defense was looking good - we allowed 3 field goals, and no touchdowns, but unfortunately, our offense couldn't keep up, and we only scored 2 field goals. Yes, no Touch Downs were scored during the playing of this game) So instead of going to the Orange bowl in Miami, we're going to the gator bowl, back in Jacksonville. oh well. I had a few people over to watch the game, have burgers, and chill, so that was a nice afternoon, but I was exhausted by the end of the game. A 15 minute power nap got me ready for the evening.

At night Josh and I carpooled with Betsy and Josh to the company holiday party. It's always a bit of a formal front. Everyone gets all dressed up and tries to have fun and be social differently than in the office. It is nice to meet everyone's significant others, but funny to see how they complement their partner. Sometime it's a bit surprising. We also get to see everyone a little tipsy as there is an open beer/wine bar all night to have with the food. Well, after we socialized for a bit and got our annual gift (which this year was really nice, -an Ipod!), we headed out and went to Eclipse de Luna for some time to drink and eat together before going home for the night. This is a picture of Lt. Josh, me, Betsy, and Dr. Josh at the holiday party.
Today Moshe had his neighbors from his house over here for lunch, and my parents came as well, but since Josh was in town, we headed out to not kill precious time chilling with Moshe's friends and the 'rents (no offense). So we went and actually just ran some errands - I had a ton of stuff to return and we had some lunch and walked around an outdoor fair at Atlantic Station, and then in the afternoon, dropped Josh at the airport. It was so nice he didn't drive in this time - saved a ton of time on the commute.

I can't believe at the same time, that we've hit December. As a kid, time seems to go so slowly, and now, a whole year has flown by!

errrr....

For lunch today, I had pizza and garlic sauce and a double doozie. It is the beginning of the "don't allow anything healthy into bela's system" diet. They did a doozie on me, I don't feel so hot...