Friday, March 28, 2008

geisha boys

i'll let you guess which one is me

last night culminated a great week in vegas with our costume party. in what was one in a long line of over the top costume, i dressed up as a geisha with two of my work buddies, and i have to say, we stole the show. two of our lady friends at work did the make up, and they really did an amazing job. we drank beers and watched xavier beat west virginia (nice home town win) while the girls made us up with painstaking detail.

i honestly was not sure how it would turn out. i looked in the mirror after the first layer of whitener, but didn't look again until it was complete. and it was shocking. like all good costumes, the tiny details made it special. i had white thin socks with white platform flips flops and a really old country-looking wood and paper umbrella.

walking down across the mandalay bay lobby, security grabbed us as soon as we stepped off the elevators. they were really nice but firm about it, explaining that it was cool since we were with the costume party, but that we could not walk around with that kind of make up afterwards, since it disguised our appearance (i.e., throwing off the identity cameras) so much.

walking into the party, i felt like more of a celebrity than i thought possible, even more so than when we did the dodgeball cast two years ago. we didn't get five feet into the house of blues before there were ten cameras shooting pics and people coming up to get a shot with us. even more spectacularly, many of my co-workers did not recognize me. having worn a beard for the past month, and not shaving it until two hours before the party helped a lot.


i also have to say, people generally love them some geisha boys. never would have figured it, but the chicks dug it and more than a few dudes said they felt strangely attracted to me. all in good fun, i'm sure. however, i did get one serious proposition from a dude. if he wasn't joking (hard to tell, though it certainly seemed serious), i'm trying to imagine the excitement of finding your fetish walk through the door, in a threesome, no less.

more pics to come.

Thursday, March 27, 2008

lone survivor

a bit hungover this morning from hitting eye candy, the kitty kat (nope, not that kind of bar, despite the name), and blush. the last place is at the wynn, by far one of the coolest casinos / hotels here. i really like the outdoor patio where we hung out, though they removed the open fire pit that was there last time.

this morning, our key note speaker, marcus luttrell, was just amazingly moving, like few other things that i have ever heard. certainly on par with last year's speaker, who was a battle-front neurosurgeon in iraq.

marcus is a navy seal who was the lone survivor of operation redwing. while there are other people with heroic, tragic stories, the way he told the story had such an impact. he was shot nine times, broke his back, broke his pelvis, broke his face, watched his best friends die, crawled seven miles (because his legs were too injured for him to walk), fell 300 feet down a mountain ledge, and bit half of his tongue off, he was then tortured by the taliban. finally, pashtun villagers took him in and protected him. amazing.

definitely check out his book, lone survivor, here on amazon. and here's a great write-up in the washington post.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

momma mia

greetings from vegas. for the first time in three years, i did the right thing and didn't go out the first night. it took a bit of restraint, but i was happier for it this morning. i still had what amounted to a 22 hour day, getting up at 5:00am eastern time to head to dulles airport and going to bed at 2:30am body time (11:30pm vegas time).

tonight i hit the ABBA tribute show 'momma mia.' i call it a tribute show because the plot is pretty thin, and it's mostly a device for building a broadway show around ABBA's greatest hits. that being said, i loved it. of course, i love musicals in general. they have so many great hits with great melodies, and the show concluded with a three song curtain call with the cast playing some favorites just for the hell of it, with waterloo being the grand finale.

enjoyed the show with the swedish chef, my # 1 oracle at work. he and i have had a long-running conversation that at its heart is about what psychologically and emotionally drives very competitive people. a lot of topics get pulled into the mix, including childhood influences, past relationships, mentors and heroes, and sports. the chef and i come from similar backgrounds in terms of school and work experience and it has made for some really nice introspection. this has included him sharing a series of letters that he originally wrote to his family (and has now shared with a handful of others). i'm reading letter 31 (out of 50). he really should consider binding and publishing them at some point. i'd like to pursue something similar, but am not quite ready yet.

more vegas to blog about this week, including this costume party on thursday. my friends are at the foundation room, but i'm tuckered out.

Monday, March 24, 2008

gathering

another cool thing last weekend was that while joe was visiting, two of my cousins from ny were in town for the weekend. we forgot to snap pics before they had to jump on the train, but it was great having joe, shan de la shan, anakin, and shen together. even cooler, we're now planning a full family get together for this summer, probably at lake george, ny (near where i grew up). we haven't had my dad's entire family together since my wedding. my uncle is in end stage renal failure, on dialysis, and awaiting a transplant, so this will be a good chance to have everyone together for some quality family time. we all grew up in the northeast, spending a lot of weekends together, and there's only seven years between the old (shen) and the youngest (shan de la shan). now we gotta figure out the logistics.

family time

one of the greatest things about living up here has been that my mom's family lives in baltimore, and i've been able to spend a lot of time with them. dr. w is great about it, and it warms my heart to see her and my grandmother get to know each other. i grew up with ba (what we call her) living with us for much of middle school and high school, and now she lives with my mom's oldest sister.

she turned 93 two weeks ago, and hasn't been feeling well. mostly, she's been fighting off the flu, but at 93, it can be a daunting proposition. a few weekends ago i came by to visit, and she was really not doing well. she wasn't strong enough to get out of bed, and she didn't recognize me at first. i really kind of lost it there, thinking that i was too late, and i couldn't believe that she could go so quickly from being very alert and 100% sharp to being that disoriented. it turns out, thankfully, that she was a bit dehydrated and had just woken up from a nap. after she had lunch, she felt much better, and we were talking and laughing. however, i didn't want my brother to risk going through the same thing--i wanted him to be able to spend time with ba while she was still able to fully interact. i rang him that afternoon, and he flew in last friday.

we ended up having a great weekend. ba was feeling much better, he got to re-connect with our nieces, and we celebrated dr. wintermute's birthday and my birthday (belatedly and early, respectively) with the family.

every day is a bit touch and go. ba has some really good days, and some bad days. my mom is coming in this week to stay for a month and spend time with the fam.

some pics.

my bro and ba


joe and the girls


my uncle, aunt and cousin cutting cake at the birthday celebration


dr. wintermute and ba

leaving (for) las vegas

been awhile. sitting in the gate at dulles, about to depart for las vegas, for the company annual trade show. some of the novelty has worn off, but i can't complain about a week in vegas. it culminates with an over the top costume party. in years past, i've gone as part of a large group dressed as the cast from dodgeball (easily the best ensemble costume that i've done); last year was talledega nights. this year is a bit more random: two buddies and i are dressing up as authentic geishas.

speaking of which, mpg and ms. mpg are leaving for tokyo this morning. they're going to see the sox opening day game and sight see for two weeks.

will blog more from vegas. five hour flight in front of me.

Thursday, March 06, 2008

now what?


this is straight out of those 'now what' commercials. one of my co-workers was having work done on his house, and the crane lost its balance, tipped over, and split his roof. meanwhile, the tree that that they were working on slipped loose and swung into their family room.

no one was hurt. i don't even know how something like this gets fixed. they had to have another truck come out to tip the first one one back on its wheels.