Thanksgiving Celebration in California
Doris and I made a short trip to California for Thanksgiving this year to visit Kurt and Karen. Thanks to the international date line, we arrived at San Francisco airport about the same time on the same day as we left Bangkok, after roughly 24 tiring hours of being in transit. (I can’t help it—I’m still immaturely fascinated by this.) It was great, of course, to see family again, especially during such a family-oriented holiday. Sadly, we couldn’t also see Jeff and Katy. Living near Seattle, they normally would be only a stone’s throw (all right, quite a long throw) from where Kurt and Karen live, but they were attending the wedding of a close friend in Baltimore over the Thanksgiving weekend.
We had our first look at Sunnyvale, where Kurt and Karen moved this past summer. Neat name, and the weather was, in fact, quite sunny while we were there. Located roughly a half-hour drive south of San Francisco, Sunnyvale is a clean and growing community in the heart of Silicon Valley, and the astoundingly high real estate prices reflect this. Fortunately, Kurt and Karen found an attractive two-bedroom apartment that suits their needs at the moment quite nicely. They kindly shared their apartment with us, and an impressive portion of the holiday period was spent preparing and sharing delicious gourmet food.
Kurt, Doris and Karen had a lot of fun in the kitchen, whipping up some magnificent meals together, as these photos will illustrate.
My role in these preparations was somewhat more limited—see the flattering photo below.
Most of you reading this already know that Karen is due next April. We couldn’t resist the urge to photograph her new profile, and she indulged us.
Kurt and Karen’s other new “baby” is Misha, a beautiful cat who won our hearts with her warm and friendly nature. Yes, I said warm and friendly—adjectives that aren’t typically used when talking about cats, at least not in describing their reactions to visitors they’ve never met before. Misha often would
rub herself against our legs or jump up onto our laps, and even onto the keyboard of a computer resting on my lap! We have only a couple of good pictures of Misha, which I’m inserting. I’ve learned that flash pictures make cats’ eyes look like something out of a horror film, so it’s tough getting good photos of an indoor cat.
One of the highlights of our visit was the interesting tour of Google that Kurt gave us. The “campus” is modern and appealing, with lots of fun and conspicuous fringe benefits for employees to enjoy, as these photos reveal.
Kurt says he occasionally sees one of the two ( now billionaire) founders of Google playing volleyball with other employees during the day.
Near the end of our tour, we enjoyed yet another delicious meal together—this time in the Google cafeteria.
I’m also including some pictures of Kurt in his work area. (Yeah, I forgot to mention—Google employees actually have to work hard, too.)
The photo (below) of the “miniature beach” was taken in a nearby work area. Kurt tells us that the owner of this set-up had to miss a planned vacation in order to meet a deadline, so he created at the office the beach environment he would have enjoyed, had he been able to get away!
It was difficult to say goodbye again when we left…
but we’re eagerly looking forward to seeing our dear family next summer.
We had our first look at Sunnyvale, where Kurt and Karen moved this past summer. Neat name, and the weather was, in fact, quite sunny while we were there. Located roughly a half-hour drive south of San Francisco, Sunnyvale is a clean and growing community in the heart of Silicon Valley, and the astoundingly high real estate prices reflect this. Fortunately, Kurt and Karen found an attractive two-bedroom apartment that suits their needs at the moment quite nicely. They kindly shared their apartment with us, and an impressive portion of the holiday period was spent preparing and sharing delicious gourmet food.
Kurt, Doris and Karen had a lot of fun in the kitchen, whipping up some magnificent meals together, as these photos will illustrate.
My role in these preparations was somewhat more limited—see the flattering photo below.
Most of you reading this already know that Karen is due next April. We couldn’t resist the urge to photograph her new profile, and she indulged us.
Kurt and Karen’s other new “baby” is Misha, a beautiful cat who won our hearts with her warm and friendly nature. Yes, I said warm and friendly—adjectives that aren’t typically used when talking about cats, at least not in describing their reactions to visitors they’ve never met before. Misha often would
rub herself against our legs or jump up onto our laps, and even onto the keyboard of a computer resting on my lap! We have only a couple of good pictures of Misha, which I’m inserting. I’ve learned that flash pictures make cats’ eyes look like something out of a horror film, so it’s tough getting good photos of an indoor cat.
One of the highlights of our visit was the interesting tour of Google that Kurt gave us. The “campus” is modern and appealing, with lots of fun and conspicuous fringe benefits for employees to enjoy, as these photos reveal.
Kurt says he occasionally sees one of the two ( now billionaire) founders of Google playing volleyball with other employees during the day.
Near the end of our tour, we enjoyed yet another delicious meal together—this time in the Google cafeteria.
I’m also including some pictures of Kurt in his work area. (Yeah, I forgot to mention—Google employees actually have to work hard, too.)
The photo (below) of the “miniature beach” was taken in a nearby work area. Kurt tells us that the owner of this set-up had to miss a planned vacation in order to meet a deadline, so he created at the office the beach environment he would have enjoyed, had he been able to get away!
It was difficult to say goodbye again when we left…
but we’re eagerly looking forward to seeing our dear family next summer.
posted by Paul Steinkraus at 6:26 AM
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