Patrick's Diary - 12/16/2015

I started at 7:00 AM and left the office for home at 8:30 PM. After very late dinner, I had fallen into heavy sleep until one minute ago. It is 4:04 in the morning on Thursday now. Wow, I worked full capacity without having lunch for 13 hours and a half on Wednesday, it was exciting. However, I probably will take Christmas Eve off without touching my vacation accruals. 

I will take a shower and be on road again. Today will be short because we will have holiday party starting from lunch at California Pizza Kitchen, then we will have White Elephant gift exchange, finally bowl at an alley in Renton. No, we don't need to go back to work afterwards. However it means I will work a long day tomorrow before going to UW to pick up my son, who will move out of the dorm  per requirement because it will be closed during the winter break. However personal stuff can be left in the room. 

The first time I played White Elephant at work in the last 20 years was at Mutual Travel in 1999. The company was located on 18th floor in WAMU Tower, so I went to Nordstrom downtown store to buy a gift cost more than 30 bucks. Of course, it became probably the most expensive one in that exchange. However, I learned that the event at work is only for fun without pressure. The ceiling for today's exchange is 10 bucks, but I haven't got anything ready. Mutual Travel was acquired by Navigant International during the short period I worked for it as a financial analyst. It no long exists. However, it's a fun place. 

Ok, I will take a shower and be on road in an hour. Because of bowling, I will dress causally today, so don't need to iron press the shirt. 

Patrick's Diary - 12/15/2015

Starting early today, I left not too late. As I said, I am going to stick with this schedule toward the end of the year. 

GOP debate focused on National Security, it sounded pretty interesting. However, I was tired, so fell into sleep after the dinner until the debate ended. 

Stock markets become very interesting toward the end of the year too...Fed will increase interest rate for sure, it just matters when and how much.

Patrick's Diary - 12/14/2015

It's another busy day but I left early to drive my mom to a doctor's appointment. She seemed doing very well with her health. 

I watched Monday Night Football from time to time after the dinner. Giants eventually won over Dolphins in Miami. I have affections at the city of Miami since it is always the first US metro for me and I got to know American Football from Hurricanes' practices, though I didn't like it then. Florida is always one of the favorite States for me to visit. 

I finally finished reading Invisible. Watching NFL games at each teams' home fields is another dream of mine. After reading this book, I become a little bit concerned that this dream could be linked to the nightmare this brutal serial killer created. 

Patrick's Diary - 12/13/2015

After watching three soccer matches in early morning, I started focusing on Seahawks on road at Ravens. They seemed invincible and home teams had been giving up. As many fans predicted, Seahawks may win Super Bowl again. 

Going to home owners' association annual meeting at one of our neighbours' house at my rental townhouse, I found one of the former neighbours sold the house and new family moved in. Anyway, I hadn't seen all these neighbours for a year and a half, though, I exchanged the e-mails with one or two through property management company several times. A couple of issues were discussed during the meeting, hilariously, two owners hadn't paid dues for months, of course, they didn't attend the meeting. Fire marshal came to inspect the firelines and didn't allow the residents to park the cars in front of the garages and doors. The parkings are scarce in our neighborhood, this new rule is really bothering. It sounded not helping firefighters anyway because they wouldn't be able to park the truck in our front yard no matter if are the cars parked there or not. 

Going to the gym directly from the meeting, I worked out for an hour, then came back home to rest. Before dinner, I watched a movie I now forget the name. It talked about a reporter who didn't believe love encountered a woman who was engaged and fell into love with her. Eventually, the woman walked out of the wedding. It's pretty romantic. The leading actor is Captain America and the actress is one of the MI girls.

Patrick's Diary - 12/12/2015

I watched "American Sniper" while chatting with my classmates at CUMT briefly. They cared about our views of Paris Summit on global warming but I didn't have much information to share with them. I was pretty busy in last week, so didn't even pay attention to any domestic news. 

Sleeping on couch, I woke up and watched several BPL matches in addition to a Bundesliga match. I even can't recall which teams in the same match. Oh, Manchester United lost away home, I just recalled, and Munich won at home. 

After lunch, I drove to Safeway to pick up my mom's medications and refill for myself. Afterwards, I drove to the gym to work out. I hadn't done any last week and didn't do much this time either. 

I resolved the problems of precalculus at the end of Chapter 3 in my son's textbook while my dad was talking to me about a book he was planning to write. I probably should start to write mine too. 

Watching the Insurgent, which is the next episode after Divergent, I noticed another movie I wanted to watch at 11:30 pm. Since my parents kept the audio pretty loud on their TV in master room, I decided to go downstairs to living room to wait for the next movie to start. Unfortunately, I fell into the sleep on the couch...

Patrick's Diary - 12/11/2015

As I had expected, it's a long and busy day, however, I got through it and am ready to enjoy the weekend after four hours sleep. It's 11:30 PM on Friday night.

I just went down to living room and turned on TV for a minute. It's odd that I haven't watched the popular movie of last year - American Sniper. It has been presented on HBO repeatedly but I have never caught it at the beginning. It will be played at midnight again, I will catch it this time.

As I said, I have gone through another typical weekday again: Going to work, Staying busy, Falling into sleep for several hours after dinner at home, getting up to wrap up the diary, reading dozens pages of Invisible, but, instead of going back to bed to sleep, I will try to stay awake to watch movies and soccer matches through Saturday morning. Yes, I won't need to go to work tomorrow.

I recall the homeowner association at my rental property will hold a meeting on Sunday but I forget the exact time. It seems around 1:00 PM when Seahawks game at Ravens will still possibly be played . By the way, I saw fans wearing Seahawks' jersey today. 

Ok, I am going down to the living room to wait for the movie starting...

Patrick's Diary - 12/10/2015

I normally don't bring working laptop home but did it on Wednesday because of directly coming back home from another location. This caused me making a stupid mistake due to the break of my routine. Even I had put it just in front of my eye close to my bed and kept reminding myself not to forget it, I finally forgot to take it with me when I left home for work. 

Driving on highly congested I-405, I suddenly realized it when I had been 5 miles away from home. Taking a U-turn at UW Bothell, I came back home to take it and immediately return on road, almost one hour had been wasted. Damnit! I had to come back home in dark after work again.

It's a long day, I was tired, so straightly fell into sleep after dinner and just got up at 5:00 AM. I am ready to go to work at 6:00 AM to prepare something for a series of meetings on this busy Friday, then start enjoying the weekend.