Category Archives: Work

Camping, Haircuts, and Snacks – November 2015

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This post is another look back, covering a timeframe almost exactly eight years in the past: November 2015. As always, we have pictures.

This brief update highlights just how much we had going on back then. It includes Will at speech therapy and playing in the park; Joe camping out with the Y Guides; and Julia working fall sales booths selling snacks for her Girl Scout troop. The photos show her selling with no fewer than three different girls over the course of a couple weeks.

The set also includes some video of Joe taking part in competitions at a Y Guides campout at Mount Madonna. You can see how seriously he took these inconsequential games by the look of intense concentration on his face. I was also struck by how good his throwing form was in one of the clips, even if the result wasn’t what he was aiming for—watch the video, and all will be made clear.

The album wouldn’t be complete without a selection of photos of William doing William things. We have William playing with his food; William goofing off with his sibling in nothing but his diaper; William after convincing some firefighters to let him sit in their truck; and what we think is his first real haircut outside the home.

There are a few work-related photos thrown in, highlighting that year’s offsite in Napa. If I recall correctly, I dozed off in the front row of a talk in the wine cellar that looks like a bomb shelter. It wasn’t the highest point of my professional career (though, to be fair, it was a really boring talk).

Gallery: Camping, Haircuts, and Snacks

Walkathon, Soccer, and Autumn Adventures

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October and November have been extremely busy months for us, mostly for the best. Julia started a new job; William wrapped up the soccer season and the annual school Walkathon; and Joe continued his long slog through the college admissions process with some campus visits and the completion of his first batch of college applications. It wasn’t all sunshine: we had some health scares and minor todos that we had to get through, but nothing worth spelling out here. As always, we have a batch of pictures documenting the fun and frivolity.

One exciting development is that Julia has started a job at Engenius, an on-site after-school care program at Booksin. It’s kind of a spiritual successor to the Y-Care program that Julia and Joe both attended when they were younger—Y-Care is still there, but greatly diminished—and some of the caregivers that used to look after the two of them are now supervisors at Engenius. Julia is working with the first graders and is enjoying herself so far; she is worn out by the end of the day. She’s still taking classes as well, but work gives her a little more independence, which she craves, and helps her to structure her days.

October also brought the annual Booksin Walkathon. We had to cut our time there a little short, because Will had a soccer game that afternoon, but he still managed to walk 13 miles and spend some quality time with friends. Julie ran the registration desk, as she had the year before, and I volunteered to supervise the bounce house in the morning. We didn’t see too much of Will until it was nearly time to go, but I did managed to snag a few photos as he raced by.

The week after the walkathon, William wrapped up the soccer season with a pair of games at the league’s end-of-season jamboree. This was his first season in this particular recreational league, run by Almaden FC, and he improved his skills significantly during the year. His team had mixed results in the win/loss columns, but he learned quite a bit about the game and has decided that midfield is his favorite position.

The same afternoon as the soccer jamboree, Joe and Julie jetted off to southern California for another round of college visits, probably the last of the year. They stayed for just one night and crammed in Caltech, UC San Diego, and San Diego state before flying back midday the next day. With Julia at a party, Will and I were left to our own devices that evening. We treated ourselves to homemade BLTs and had a quiet evening at home. Due to an unfortunate confluence of events, Julie and Joe missed their flight home the next day, but caught a later flight and were home by bedtime.

Joe is slowly working his way through the very long list of schools he’s decided to apply to. Princeton remains his first choice, and he submitted his application just ahead of the early action deadline on November 1. The University of Washington was next, as their regular application deadline was November 15. After that, he completed applications for the University of California system schools and San Diego State. That puts him at seven schools so far, which is already more than the total of five I applied to when I was a senior.

This Thanksgiving weekend, we’re hoping to push through the process for a number of additional schools on his list, including Rice, the University of Chicago, and others. The application deadlines for all of the remaining schools are in early January, but we’re hoping he’ll be able to finish up as many as he can now, so he doesn’t have to worry about college essays as the end of the semester approaches. It’s been a challenging process, as Joe is very conscientious about not coming across as fake or misrepresenting his interests and accomplishments; playing the game of selling himself to admissions officers doesn’t come naturally to him. Nevertheless, Julie and I have enjoyed helping him fine-tune his essays: we’ve been spending an hour or so with him most evenings after William goes to bed, and we’re grateful for the chance to share this quality time, even if he’s not always happy about it.

William has always loved dressing up in costume, so Halloween is one of his favorite holidays. This year, he chose to go as the Tenth Doctor from Doctor Who, wearing a fantastic ensemble that Julie put together, complete with a sonic screwdriver.1 I took a number of pictures of him in costume, but the best one was taken by another parent in the classroom during the school day; it’s a fantastic shot.

In the evening, William went trick-or-treating with his good friend Bridget. For the most part, they wandered around the neighborhood by themselves, leaving Julie and me at home; if Will hadn’t decided that he wanted some company toward the end of the evening, it would have been the first year since 2005 that we accompany someone in search of candy. I think Will was a little less excited than Bridget about going out without parental supervision, but it definitely seems likely that we’ll be out of a job next year, nonetheless.

The rest of the gallery is a potpourri of miscellaneous shots: a few pictures of a work kayaking outing on the Monterey Bay; patio string lights that were the fulfillment of a long overdue promise; and a picture of Grandma Moravec’s pork and rice recipe, which we make all too infrequently.

  1. Astute observers will note that he actually has the Fourteenth Doctor’s sonic screwdriver. It was all we could find on short notice. Don’t ask what it cost.

Gallery: Walkathon, Soccer, and Autumn Adventures

Solid Food and Grandparents in Spring

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This album takes us all the way back to the spring of 2014, when William was a squawky infant; Joe was a carefree second grader; and Julia, our big kid, was all of nine years old.

The photos here cover a lot of ground, including a visit from Grandma and Grandpa Wong, baseball and basketball games for Joe, an overnight trip to the California Academy of Sciences, Julia oozing personality, and a few work-related pictures to top things off.

William was in a developmental phase in which he was getting used to eating solid food and rolling over, but he wasn’t yet crawling or saying even simple words. Those limitations didn’t stop his effervescent personality from shining through, though: even at this age, he was a joyful kid who loved interacting with other people, and that’s plainly evident in these images.

Joe had a busy March: basketball season was wrapping up, and his lone season of Little League at the Farm level was just getting started. A highlight of the month was an overnight stay at the California Academy of Sciences with his Adventure Guides circle, the Grizzlies. We had the run of the museum for the evening and slept in the darkened aquarium section, with the quiet murmur of the water pumps to lull us to sleep.

The gallery also contains a smattering of work-related photos. In March 2014, Airtime had just completed the acquisition of vLine, the startup I’d joined the previous July. To foster a greater sense of cohesion between the original Airtime team, which was based in New York City, and the vLine folks from California, the company set up an all-hands offsite in Miami. We stayed in a very nice hotel and worked through strategy discussions and team-building activities. I was especially taken by the outdoor bathtub on my patio, though I never got a chance to use it.

There are also a few pictures of our first post-acquisition office, which we rented for a few months while our more permanent home was being renovated. It was basically a long walk-in closet with doors on both ends and no exterior windows. We only spent a few months there but it was a startup experience to remember.

Gallery: Solid Food and Grandparents in Spring

Early 2013

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We don’t have many new photos to present at the moment, though there are a great many pictures from the summer we have yet to process, so we’ve thrown together a small collection of photos from early 2013, way back before William was born, and not too long after we had learned that he was on his way.

In the meantime, the school year is well under way—we’re entering its third week, and William’s first full day is tomorrow—and the summer’s festivities are gradually coming to an end. The Parks for Life program Julie has been doing with the kids wraps up on Friday, and the older kids’ swimming lessons are finished on Thursday.

So far, Julia has adjusted beautifully to the more complicated world of high school. She’s enjoying her classes, has found a nice group of friends, and even has a part in the school play. She’s been great about working on Khan Academy with me to get ahead of the game in math, and she’s had a positive attitude about working with us to adjust to the greater challenges presented by high school coursework.

Joe, likewise, is staying on top of things. He hasn’t had much homework to speak of yet, but Mr. Guevara, his history teacher and one of the principals behind the founding of UPA, said at Back to School night that we should expect that to change shortly. The biggest challenge he’s facing at the moment is the fact that his clarinet isn’t working right, which has him stressed out and Julie making multiple trips to the music store to get things sorted.

Finally, William is loving TK with Ms. Pak. According to Julie, his only complaints have been that he doesn’t get to stay long enough, and that there’s not enough time to play outside during lunch recess. Both of those complaints will be addressed this week, when the class switches from half days to full days, giving him a longer lunch break and about two and a half extra hours at school each day.

He’s also started working with the new Khan Academy Kids app, which has him very excited because he gets to do “homework” like his older siblings. We’ll see how he feels in a few years when we’re making him do math exercises over the summer.

Even with limited time in class, he’s already producing masterpieces like this:

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One can only imagine what he’ll do with another ten hours every week.

Gallery: Early 2013

Airtime Point Lobos Hike

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Nothing family related here: just some photos I took on the early–morning hike at Point Lobos that a few intrepid souls went on during our company offsite last fall. We had been there before as a family, so I was mostly interesting in trying out the new wide–angle lens I picked up before the trip as a completely unjustified treat for myself.

Soccer Year One

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It’s been an eventful week for us here in San José. It started out with Joe moving into his own room—the subject of the previous post—and he has adjusted more quickly than we hoped: as far as we know, there haven’t been any surreptitious midnight trips between rooms, and each morning, both kids have been right where we left them.

Julia did get to spend one night in Joe’s bed, with permission, while Joe camped out in the compartment below. At this point, both kids have chosen passwords that the other must recite in order to gain entrance into their rooms, but both passwords are variations on “Order 66” or “Execute order 66”, so their value as a security measure is somewhat dubious.

On Wednesday, we trekked down to Santa Cruz for an afternoon at the beach with Liz Kinsella, Jeremy Gottlieb and their respective spouses and children. We hadn’t seen Liz for at least a couple years, and we hadn’t met up with Jeremy and Kate since they moved out to California about four years ago, so it was a treat to get together with them and catch up. Liz was staying with her family, including her parents, at her grandparents’ old vacation home facing the beach, so we were able to walk out the front door and march straight down to the ocean. The kids had a great time playing in the surf, and it was remarkable to see how big they looked compared to the others, who ranged in age from 18 months (John Kinsella) to 6 years (Hal Kinsella). At the end of the day, both wondered aloud when we could go to the beach again, and it’s hard to dispute that they made a good point: as close as we are, it’s a shame we don’t go more often.

Then, on Thursday, I ended my extended summer vacation by accepting a position at vLine, a company launched by one of the founders of my previous employer. vLine is doing some interesting things in the videoconferencing space, which is obviously very different from the file synchronization and cloud storage stuff I’d been working on since 2006, but the biggest change is moving from a situation in which I was the longest tenured and arguably the most knowledgeable employee to one in which I know less about how things work than anyone else on the team. I feel as though I have some serious catching up to do.

The kids took the news pretty well, though Julia is old enough that she was intensely curious about why I left SugarSync. We simply explained that sometimes a job stops being fun, and when that happens, it’s time for a change. We didn’t get into the fact that sometimes you have less choice in the matter than you might like. On the whole, I think the kids were most upset about losing access to the free ice cream at SugarSync. To satisfy their curiosity, we drove up to Palo Alto this evening so they could see my new office, and we capped off the night with a late dinner at the Palo Alto Creamery.

The dinner out—including milkshakes to ease the pain of being barred from the SugarSync kitchen—was well-earned, as we spent the entire afternoon washing my car and assembling the basketball hoop Julie got me for Christmas. The kids did almost all the work on the car while I struggled with putting together the eleven foot tall hoop, and though I wouldn’t say it’s the cleanest it’s ever been, it’s definitely cleaner than it was. It was fascinating to watch them work together on a reasonably big project; they even came close to actual cooperation at a couple points. All we need now is 319 pounds of sand to anchor the base of the basketball hoop and we’ll be done.

All that excitement hasn’t stopped us from putting together another batch of pictures, and we’ve posted an album of photos from Julia’s very first year of soccer. One of the highlights of the season was a trip to a San Jose Earthquakes game with other kids from the league. The teams paraded around the perimeter of the field before the start of the game and then the kids on Julia’s team got to play a bit of soccer on the field itself at halftime. As you’ll see from the pictures, Julia had a little trouble with the pre-game march: she evidently wasn’t too comfortable with the large crowd at the game, even when “large” is defined loosely enough to cover the attendees at a Friday evening Major League Soccer match. She perked up by halftime, though, and you can make her out in most of the somewhat grainy shots I was able to get from the sideline.