So, since I last wrote something here I’ve been as busy as ever. The weekend after I visited one Ksusha in New York, I visited the other Ksusha in the OC. She and Ryan are expecting their baby any time now. The idea was to go down and catch up with them before they get busy with baby stuff. Photos here.

One of the things we did while I was down there was attend the 10th anniversary of a Krav Maga center in LA that Ryan has friends at. I ended up with two new hobbies. Firstly, I was impressed by Krav Maga itself (a martial art originally developed for the Israeli Defense Force) and I’ve since joined up here in SF. It’s exercise that has the additional positive benefit (besides fitness) of being useful for self defense. Also, kneeing people in the groin beats lifting weights any day. Secondly, the Krav event also had a charity auction and I picked up a an electric guitar (an G&L ASAT Special for aficionados) for only $200. Brian already had an amp and the other required gear here, so I’ve been doing my best to learn to play it. Patience, time, and effort and I’ll get there.

On the work side, my current project is coming to an end. I managed to spend <24hrs in the Seattle area, but I didn’t learn much except that it’s really nice and green up there. I’ll have to go back soon.

After JA Day, I jumped on a plane and headed over to New York to see my old friend Ksusha T (from my time in Minsk). As usual, due to flight delays, I arrived two hours late but we had some time to chat before catching some Z’s.

Saturday, we managed to squeeze in visits to the Metropolitan Museum, the Body Exhibition (real bodies, plasticized and dissected to present different views of internal organs and other structures), Wall St, the hole where the WTC used to be, South St Seaport, and a few eating and drinking establishments.

Sunday, we went to Battery Park to have a look at the Statue of Liberty from afar and some other features of the area. Then, we checked out the Museum of Natural History, Central Park and a Puerto Rican parade that was going on, Times Sq and Korean Town (which is really just a street).

It was a busy weekend, but it felt great to see Ksusha again after so long and catch each other up on life… and see a little of NYC while doing it.

Photos on Flickr

Last Friday, I did another day of volunteer elementary school teaching via Capgemini and Junior Achievement. This time, it was in a suburb of San Jose. I had 3rd grade again, but (of course) the experience was totally different as it was a different bunch of kids.

I was surprised, last time, that one kid gave their intended future profession as “Paediatrician”. I was even more surprised that it came up again. I also got five Vets and one Neurologist! I guess the kids, growing up near Silicon Valley and talking to a consultant, want to avoid anything that can be outsourced.

The kids were great to work with, and there hadn’t been any tears by lunchtime. I forgot to touch wood when mentioning this to my colleagues, and so came back to 3-4 crying 8yr olds after lunch. It seems one girl may have hit 2 or 3 others and one of those got so frustrated that she accidentally pushed another girl by mistake. As you can imagine, the actual circumstances remain unclear as it was hard to follow 3-4 crying kids all trying to make their points at once (between sobs).

Their teacher arrived a few minutes later and we brought them all inside and played dolphin sounds etc for 10 minutes while they had some personal time to calm down.

One of the exercises we did after lunch was making a class newspaper. The incident was well reported. One headline was ‘Too much drama for yo momma’ and they all automatically grasped the concept of not naming suspects or victims too early in a breaking story.

All up, a great day. Kids are smart.