Month: September 2011

Last night Jessica and I went to the Padres game. The Cubs were in town for the final series of the season, and since they’re Jessica’s favorite team, we decided to go see them play. Jessica’s work has season tickets and they were nice enough to set us up for the game. We ended up sitting in the fourth row right behind the home dugout. It was the closest I’ve ever sat at a ball game and we had a great time.

Today I had a job interview in the morning and then went to meet up with Jessica and her Mom for some maternity photos in Balboa Park. Honestly this isn’t something that I’ve been very excited about being a part of, but did it because she wanted me to. I look forward to family photos once Ava is born, but didn’t feel like I really belonged in maternity photos. Either way it wasn’t all that bad and it looks like we got some nice shots.

Jessica’s Mom Amy arrived in San Diego yesterday and has been hard at work helping us get the house reorganized and ready for Ava. The three of us went out to dinner last night at a cool little latin restaurant in Leucadia called Le Papagayo. We sat outside and had a nice time getting caught up. Today has been full of work – house work for them and website work for me. It’s always nice having family come to visit.

Jessica and I are closing out our second summer in San Diego with lots of visits from friends and family. Last weekend we had a visit from our Vegas friends Brian, Tiko and Tina, which was a blast. This weekend Jessica’s friend Laurel is in town from San Francisco for a wedding reception, then we have Jessica’s Mom Amy coming to stay with us for a week starting on Tuesday. Amy is going to help us get the house ready for Ava (which is only 2.5 months away at this point). The following Tuesday Amy’s husband Tom will be in town for work so we’ll have the two of them nearby for another week. Having all this company is making time fly by really fast. It’s hard to believe that less than three months from now Ava will be here…

I just came across a list of things that have changed in the past ten years and it almost doesn’t seem believable. Please enjoy:

• The iPod, XBox, YouTube, Facebook, Flickr, Ubuntu, and Blu-Ray did not exist.
• IBM was still in the PC business, Handspring was still around, and Blackberries were data-only devices with no telephone capabilities.
• The Euro had not yet entered circulation, currencies like the Franc, Mark and Lira were still legal tender.
• George Harrison, The Queen Mother, Gregory Peck, Barry White, Johnny Cash, Ronald Reagan, Ray Charles, Julia Child, Pope John Paul II, Johnny Carson, Steve Irwin, Gerald Ford and Michael Jackson were still alive.
• SARS, Avian Flu, H1N1 were not in the common vernacular.
• Enron and WorldCom were still in business.
• Oil was $24/barrel, gold was $276/ounce, NASDAQ was at 1912.41, and the DOW was at 10,382.35.
• The Concorde still flew.
• The Petronas Towers were the tallest skyscrapers in the world. (They’ve been surpassed twice since.)
• Lost and 24 had never aired, there were only four books in the Harry Potter series, and Arnold Schwarzenegger was still making movies.
• Lance Armstrong had only won the Tour de France 3 times. (He went on to win 4 more.)
• The most recent Boston Red Sox World Series win had been 1918 (which remained true until 2004).
• The Netherlands was the only country in the world that legally recognized same sex marriages. (That stands at 7 now).
• Charley, Ivan, Jeanne, Katrina, Dean, and Ike were not names associated with weather.
• 61 Extrasolar planets had been discovered. (Currently that’s up to 424).
• Pioneer 10 signals were still being received on Earth.

I guess there’s only one word to describe all this… progress?

All of San Diego county plus parts of Northern Mexico, Western Arizona, Riverside County, Imperial County and South Orange County were without power for over 9 hours last night starting at 3:45pm. I was at work just getting started when everything went dark. I managed to hit my head pretty hard on a corner and have a nice bump to show for it today. Both Jessica’s and my restaurant weren’t able to open so we both got an unexpected night off. Unfortunately there wasn’t much to do besides read by candlelight and take the dogs for a walk. I would have loved to watched the NFL season opener between the Packers and Saints but that wasn’t an option. It was Jessica’s first full day back from Dallas as well. The dogs and I were very happy to have her home. I want to wish a very happy 40th birthday to my good friend Sean Beavers today. Hope it’s a great one!!

Since Jessica is out of town and I have a three–day weekend, I’m getting tons of web design work done. Today I launched a site for a restaurant concept I’ve been working on for a while called ‘Sidecar.’ It’s basically a pizza, mixology place with live music and a vintage motorcycle feel. I designed the logo a while ago and recently decided to turn that into a full website, mostly so that I’ll have another nice portfolio piece to showcase when I’m looking for a job.

I also met with one of Jessica’s co–workers today who does professional photography and needs a website to showcase his work. I’m going to start designing his site tonight, as well as begin on a site for our karate school. To say that I’m keeping busy with design work would be a drastic understatement but hopefully it will all pay off in the near future! Time to take a break from the computer and take the dogs on a walk.

Check out the Sidecar site at: www.PellegriniPage.com/Portfolio/Sidecar

Jessic flew out to Dallas today to visit her friend Liz, so it’s just me and the dogs for the next few days. I have a three-day weekend starting tomorrow and I wish I could say that I had big plans, but it looks like most of my time will be spent working on web design related stuff. Hopefully I’ll get out for some surfing or a karate lesson.