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Can it really be 30 years since we graduated from University?  Hard to believe until you review all of life’s journeys since those graduation ceremonies.  We spent the weekend in California to attend Diana’s 30 year Santa Clara University reunion.

I was able to meet up with Will and Finn while there.  Here’s Will enjoying a drink with me at Puerto 27 in Pacifica.  We laughed about the 27 (Will’s age) on the pisco sour cocktail.  Having a 27 year old son is one of those life journeys that makes you realize that it certainly has been 30 years since graduation.  The food at this Peruvian restaurant was very different and good.  Will had an excellent paella and I tried these “causa masaki” – like sushi rolls but wrapped in causa which is yellow potato puree infused with lime and Peruvian ahi – yum.  I met Finn the next day at one of my favorite places on Santana Row in San Jose, the Straits cafe.  Singaporean food and all delicious.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Friday we met up with Diana’s college roommate, Anna, at the Santa Clara campus.  I was a tag along as they wandered the campus reminiscing.  We saw the house they rented right across from the cafeteria where they worked and listened to stories about what had changed and what hadn’t throughout the campus.  I enjoyed their long walk down memory lane.  That evening was the reunion block party on the grounds in front of the Santa Clara mission (lit up in the background behind the girls).  It was organized by year with 1986 being lightly represented – good fun nonetheless.

Saturday was the main event – a dinner dance in the University rose garden.  Dinner was in tents throughout the rose garden area.  Very pretty and we were joined by Anna’s husband Bill.  Diana ran into a few old classmates – one, Simona, who was a first year roommate in the halls of residence – they could point to the exact location of their room.   I enjoyed watching reunions of friends that hadn’t seen each other in 15 or 20 years. The band in our area wasn’t playing music that we particularly enjoyed and so we investigated the other areas – the class of 1971 seemed to have the best music and be having the most fun and so we joined them for a while.

A leisurely coffee with Anna (and ultimately Bill) on Sunday morning and then it was off back to San Francisco airport for the trip home.  Here’s a picture of the view from Diana’s Mom’s house on Gypsy Hill in Pacifica (about 10 minutes over the hill from the airport).

This was a thoroughly enjoyable and memorable week in Scotland celebrating my Dad’s 80th birthday.  We flew through Paris to Scotland on Wednesday – ask me about the interesting security options at Charles de Gaulle airport when you see me.  Here’s a picture of Diana and my Dad enjoying our arrival celebration champagne.  As usual I was thoroughly spoiled by my Mum with great cooking – Stornoway black pudding for breakfast, steak pies, fantastic deserts.  On Friday the fishmonger comes to the house and delivers “Fresh Fish” – delicious and now known as “Fresh Fish Friday”.  We had a nice trip over to the beach at Irvine where the wind blew out any remaining cobwebs from our jetlagged heads.

My Dad’s 80th birthday was on Saturday but we had the fancy celebration dinner on Friday since my neice was moving to Toulouse, France for her year abroad early Saturday morning.  We started in the Lounge of the Lochgreen House Hotel with canapes and champagne as everyone arrived.  Here’s our family group in the gardens outside the hotel.  That’s my tiny nephew Struan on the right hand side.

My favorite feature of the arrival lounge was the “Malt Room” in the corner.  Several hundred fine single malt scotches and bourbons nicely arranged in a circular room.  Heaven!

Lochgreen borders the Royal Troon golf course where the British Open had just been played.  We were lucky enough to get to choose from the full fancy menu from the Open for my Dad’s dinner – delicious all around.  Diana had lobster for both her appetizer and entree which always makes her happy.

We had a perfect private room for dinner looking out on the grounds.  My Mum and Dad’s friends the Dunlops, the MacArthurs, and Mrs. Roy joined the family to make a very entertaining group.  Here’s the group, my Dad with his balloon and his excellent cake highlighting his gardening and art hobbies.

  My Mum gave my Dad an iPad for his birthday present.  It was loaded up with pictures from the dinner (see selfie of Diana and my brother in law, David, below) and pictures and videos from the family.  We were quite nervous about the technical challenges that the gift might present, but are happily surprised with the ease that Dad places facetime calls on Sundays.

On Sunday we made a trip through to Edinburgh so that I could torture Diana with a tour of my alma-mater, Heriot-Watt University.  It’s changed a lot since I was there 30 years ago.  My halls of residence appear to have been torn down and there are many more buildings to accommodate the move of the entire University from central Edinburgh to the Riccarton campus on the outskirts.  I really like the quote from Alex Salmond we found on a rock while strolling around the campus.

Time to get packed up and ready to fly to Paris on Monday.  Life is good!

 

 

 

This was a very busy week visiting with the CIOs and CEOs of our businesses in Japan.  Bouncing between offices every day in taxis with drivers who only speak Japanese added to the complexity.

The flight over was very comfortable – a new business class configuration with only 4 seats across and lie-flat beds meant I was able to get some good sleep.  I watched the movie “Money Monster” with Julie Roberts and George Clooney and directed by Jodie Foster – I give it a B-.  Much better was “Born to be Blue” starring Ethan Hawke as Chet Baker, “the James Dean of Jazz”.

The video system had a large collection of music as well.  I really enjoyed a New Orleans jazz CD by Al Hirt , “Strutting Down Royal St”.

Another CD I enjoyed was by Charles Lloyd and the Marvels.

I was able to enjoy a couple of good nights out in Tokyo with our excellent hosts.  Here’s Deepak with his model of the “Black Ship” that Captain Perry sailed to Yokohama in 1854, and began opening up Japan to the West.

Our first adventure was at Gonpachi, a restaurant featured in the movie Kill Bill that had very good barbecued food.  It was also apparently the place where George W. Bush was hosted by the Japanese Prime Minister in 2002 and got food poisoning.

 

Our second outing was to Mixology, a craft cocktail bar in Akasaka.  This is an area of Tokyo with a lot of small and very unique stores.  The cocktails were excellent and watching the precision and detailed work by the bar tenders was very educational.    
I had a cocktail that was mixed with smoke in a skull vodka bottle – very good – almost like a Talisker peaty scotch from Islay.  The food was very creative as well – here’s a picture of an egg with a syringe of Sauterne wine that was injected after the soft boiled egg had cooled for a few minutes.  I can’t imagine this dish would be allowed in the United States.

Another highlight of the trip was getting to stay at the excellent Andaz hotel again.   Below are pictures of the view from the gym and the 35th floor pool.

The flight home was smooth and uneventful.  Just a few days to rest and get time zone adjusted before heading to Scotland for my Dad’s 80th birthday celebration.

 

 

 

July 13-18 at the Intercontinental El Presidente resort in Cozumel was thoroughly refreshing and relaxing.  Lots of beach time spent reading, relaxing and forgetting about everything else.

This was our packing joke – all you need for a trip to Mexico:  bathing suits, mask and snorkel, sunscreen, hat, and your favorite beverage.  Not to forget the stealth escapee stuffed penguin.

Our New Orleans based friends Denny, Anne, Alex and Laura joined us and that certainly added a lot of fun and entertainment to the environment.  They finished their diving certifications on Thursday and Friday.  Here they are hitting the beach after certification dives on Thursday while we relax under an umbrella with Blood Marys.  We joined them on the boat on Friday as they finished up the checkout dives.

That meant that on Saturday we could all dive together.  We headed out on our own small boat with Oliver as dive master, and Nancy as photographer/videographer.  The private boat was fantastic.  It was small and so we executed the back-flip water entry maneuver for the first time – much preferred to bumbling across the larger boats to the rear platform. Here’s a video that combines some of my G0-Pro footage with Nancy’s amazing photos and videos.

Didn’t Nancy do a great job?  You can tell I’m a rookie with the Go-Pro – a number of good lessons learned for the next time.

Sunday was an uber relaxing beach day.  In the evening we rented powerful underwater flashlights and snorkeled the reef in front of our rooms.  An amazing variety of marine life just a few feet from the shore – ocotopi, king crab, lobster, hermit crabs, and huge shoals of tiny neon tetras.  That was followed with a hyper competitive game of Jenga on the patio by the beach.  On a previous evening we played Apples to Apples with equally entertaining results – lesson learned – know your audience when selecting the card to play.  The “lobotomy” card is picked by Laura the neuro-science researcher regardless of the topic.

Here we are enjoying the sunset on our last evening.  I head the question, “Can’t we just stay one more day?”, several times throughout the day.

Ceviche and octopus were popular dining choice throughout the trip.  We also had a joke about getting “inked” by the octopus on our night dive.  So it was funny when one of our Blue Apron meals on returning to real life was a squid ink pasta with shrimp.

Back to the real world again.  Let’s do that again soon…