New Year's Day

New Year's Day is in Los Angeles with the family. I haven't visited Los Angeles in about a year. I suppose it was because of the stress of the previous job. Amazing what one can lose when one is focused on work and one does not have the proper perspective. But I am better now. What with the grant from the California EDD.

We were fortunate to share the New Year's with my brother, my sister and her family, the SO, the SO's brother and CSJ who is a student in one of the schools in Southern California. We brougth along the RISK LOTR version, but did not have time to play it. It would have been a long game. We did play poker Texas hold-em style. I actually won, but I had to focus to make sure that I did not fall asleep or get bored. The SO's brother called it the GRIND, the time when your boredom makes you make crazy insane bets. We are planning to go to a monthly poker game. I'm hoping that my game of five card draw will do me well.

We also ended up blowing up some baloons. I found that I could blow up balloons really well. At midnight, we tried to pop the balloons by stepping on them. It did not work. The balloons just expanded. My brother had to get pins and did some rapid fire popping of balloons. How about the food? Well, it was awesome. WE had a ton of Chinese food and it was really good.

What should be the lesson for the new year? Love your fellow person.