Goodbye Indiana. Hellllllllo California!
It seems like months ago when Stephanie and I were getting ready to head back here to Indiana for the holidays, but the time has finally come to when we have to pack up all of our stuff and head on back to *real* home out west in Palo Alto, California. It has been an awesome trip for both of us and we literally packed as much stuff as possible into the nearly 2 weeks that we were here.
As I sit here and type Stephanie is getting cleaned up so that we can grab some pre-flight lunch with our parents before we hop on the flight back home. I have had a great time while I’ve been home and the time off has been the first time that I’ve been able to fully relax for multiple days in over a year, which has been very refreshing. When you’re on 24/7 it’s kinda nice to have some time to completely unplug (besides my Blackberry, of course) and let your mind rest before getting back to the daily grind that I somehow love so much. Personally, I’m ready to head back home to get after it - it’s going to be a great year in 2009. But, Stephanie is feeling more sad than happy right now when she starts thinking about leaving her family and other friends that she has gotten used to being around the past couple of weeks. It’s easy to get back into your old groove while being home and it’s never easy leaving it once you’re home for more than a few days. I know that Stephanie’s mom is going to miss having her around the house, too. Yep, there will definitely be some tears shed as we get dropped off for our flight here in a few hours - it’s how women roll.
Of course, I’m going to miss a some things once I leave, too. A few of these include:
- Stephanie’s dog, Butch. He has been my homie and sleeping partner since I’ve been home.
- My family. It’s funny how I get older I begin to appreciate my family more and more. I am very, very lucky to have the loving and supportive family that I’ve somehow ended up with.
- Familiar people and being well-known around Indy. Back here in Indy I literally know about everyone within the city limits and things just seem so familiar when I’m home. But, I’m starting to meet more and more people out in the bay area so it’s just a matter of time until I feel the same way out there, too.
- Rest. Even though I’ve ran around like 90% of the time while here in Indiana, I’ve been lucky enough to grab some much needed rest while being home for the holidays. Rest is few and far between out in California, but that’s how I like it most of the time.
- Sunsets and beautiful skies. California has the great weather, but Indiana has some of the most beautiful sunsets and skies that I’ve ever seen. It’s funny how I’ve never really noticed until now.
- Hoosier Hospitality. If you compare Indianapolis to San Francisco there’s no comparing the amount of basic friendliness that is found in Indy compared to the bay area. People in Indiana are super nice and love chatting it up where many people in SF rock out their iPods and just keep to themselves. I blame this on the big city mentality, not so much the people themselves.
Also, really quick here are some things that I won’t miss after leaving Indiana:
- The freezing weather. It’s cold here in Indiana - like real cold. I’m way over it.
- Driving a lot. I have driven more in the past 10 days than I have in the past 9 months. Driving sucks and I forgot how much of it I did while living in Indiana.
- Not living with Stephanie. I’ve been at my parents and Stephanie’s been at hers this whole time and although we stayed at the same house some nights we still weren’t living together. It’s amazing how complicated it can be to coordinate holiday festivities from 2 different houses and with 2 different cars. I’m ready to go back to hangin’ at the cottage and walking most of the time.
- Random workouts. It’s been hard to get good workouts in over the holidays and with all of the food that I’ve been putting down I’m sure that I need ‘em more than ever. It will be nice to get back into my workout groove once back in California.
Well, it’s time for me to get cleaned up so that we can get to lunch and to our flight here in a few hours. I still have much, much more to catch you all up on, but that’s going to have to wait until I touch ground on the west coast. Here’s to an awesome vacation, some amazing family and friends and an amazing 2009.
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The 2008 Hupfer Family Christmas
With all of the running around that Stephanie and I have done over the past week and a half (it seems like a couple months), I’ve only had a few chances to snag a couple solid hours on my laptop. With the time that I was able to squeeze in today I decided to edit up some video that I took during my family Christmas fun about a week or so ago. The video below (or here on YouTube) will give all of you a little glimpse into the madness that is now the Hupfer Family Christmas.
Some of the highlights include some dancing and a Hup and Steph theme song rendition by Madison, introductions of my nieces and nephews, a visit by Santa and a glimpse of my dad’s annual Christmas tradition of collecting all of the trash with his huge, yellow trash bags. It’s funny that after all these years those gigantic pieces of yellow plastic remind me of Christmas more than about anything and when they appear it still gives me and the rest of my family a great laugh together. You have to love the random family traditions - in my mind they’re what make the holidays something special.
Enjoy the pics and check back for some more Hup and Steph holiday fun as I we get a chance to catch up on everything. We take off back to Palo Alto tomorrow at 6pm, so we’ll be getting back to the ‘real world’ in no time. 
Stephanie and Riley with a perfect pose
My dad and his famous yellow trash bag
Riley, Reese and the jolly fat man
I take one knee and Stephanie takes the other
This was Santa’s idea
The fam - I still can’t believe we were able to take this
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Wow, we have a lot to catch up on…
There is SO much that Stephanie and I need to catch all of you up on - this has been quite the eventful vacation and we’ve barely had a minute to rest with all of the running around that we’ve done. Well, most of the holiday madness is over, which means that I can actually get on this laptop and get a little bit of much needed work done. It’s hard work coming back to Indiana to visit, but it has been so refreshing to get to see everyone after being gone for over 9 months. Like I said, a lot to catch up on.
One funny thing that I wanted to let you all know about is that as I sat here preparing myself for several hours on the laptop I opened up Pandora so that I could listen to some Coldplay and what song comes up first? Britney Spears - Toxic.
Either Pandora has a secret crush on Britney Spears that I’m not aware of or it somehow knows how much I’ve been dancing around to Britney’s new song Womanizer. Hmmm….
Will be catching you all up with plenty of pics, videos and stories that may or may not include:
- Christmas with the Hupfers
- Stephanie and I stagediving
- Me getting a manicure/pedicure
- Engagement news
- Jello pudding wrestling at a nearby Indiana retirement home
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Time to brave the cold in Indiana
I’m sitting here at the San Jose Airport staring out the window at the last warm weather that I’m going to be seeing in quite a while. Today when I talked to Stephanie she said that it was ridiculously cold (30 degrees with frozen rain as I write this) and that the roads are terrible and that I was going to be in for quite a shock when I touch ground in the good ‘ol Hoosier state. I’m just hoping that there are no delays or anything that would make my all day flight even longer. As it is I’m leaving California at 2:30pm, getting to Denver around 5:30pm and will take off from there after an hour layover to Indianapolis, where I should arrive right around midnight.
I guess you see why I’d like to make all of these flights on time, eh?
I’m so excited to get back home to see everyone and of course to see Stephanie (it’s been over a day now!) when she picks me up at the airport. It’s going to be a bit hectic once I get back to Indiana, so if you don’t hear from me have a great holiday and be sure to get drunk with your family members at least once. I know that’s something that I look forward to at every family get together.
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Homeward Bound!
The moment that I have been eagerly awaiting for almost 4 months now since Ryan and I booked our flights to come home for Christmas has finally arrived. Right now I’m patiently waiting in the San Jose airport, getting ready to board my flight to Denver first before I head on home to Indiana. I’m praying that the weather holds out for me as I trek into the unknown abyss of snowstorms and freezing weather. Ryan is hanging around California for another day and then will fly back home on Tuesday. We’re so excited to see all of our family and friends and spend a lot of quality time catching up and just simply enjoying the holidays.
Since I’m sitting in the airport ( a little bored since I freak out about making my flight in time and end up waiting for hours once I get here) I’ll talk a little bit about how much I LOVE traveling. It’s not just the whole going to a new place part of traveling that I enjoy, I actually really love the traveling part. I’m so intrigued by airports and the fantastic people watching that can occur. I could sit for hours and watch people pass by and try to make up a story in my mind about each person and what their story is and where they’re going and why. It’s really entertaining for me and I feel that I could make a job of it if I could. Maybe one day Ryan and I will find a way to make traveling our job… some day…
I guess for now I’ll just sit and be fulfilled with the extra super great crowd of people traveling during the Christmas season and look forward to freezing temperatures, snow, and ice back in good ol’ Indiana.
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My Guy Thigh
In every relationship there are certain things that you tend to bring up more often than not. For me and Stephanie one thing in particular that she seems to always bring up is my super pale ‘guy thigh’. My guy thigh is the bright-white section of my leg that can damn near blind you if you happen to stare at it for any duration of time. I have always been a little on the pale side and even now that I’m out here in California I still have seemed to keep my trademark creamy albino-like skin tone that I have gotten so used to having for a while now.
As I rock out my God-given gift of being as far from tan as humanly possible, Stephanie has actually kept up her color fairly well thanks to some trips to the local tanning salon. As she gets darker, I just seem to get lighter which seems to make my sweet guy thigh stand out even more. Of course, she’s always quick to point out how much more pale I am than her and as she continues to hit the tanning bed, it’s only going to make things worse.
Maybe one day my guy thigh will get a tan of it’s own, but I highly doubt it.
Stephanie’s tropically tan thigh vs. my milky-white guy thigh
All I want for Christmas is a free beer on Caltrain
As I snagged my seat on the train today, two guys named Mike and Jerome hooked me up with a cold, tasty Anchor Steam beer (which is brewed right here in San Francisco). It’s one of my favorite types of bruski here in the Bay Area and it tasted sooooo good as I was cruisin’ back on Caltrain to Palo Alto.
What a way to travel and what a great way to end the week before Christmas. This is going to be a great holiday break, I can already feel it.
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I bet that homeless people hate the Salvation Army holiday bell ringers
As I was getting off of the train yesterday morning I noticed a Salvation Army holiday bell ringer getting set up shop outside of the station. The area mainly consists of a few benches, trashcans and lots of people who are either arriving or leaving San Fransisco via Caltrain.
For all of these reasons this social space that was initially designed for welcoming and greeting visitors has become more of a gathering place for many of the homeless people in San Francisco. Well, or at least the ones who have figured out that it’s a beggars goldmine with the kind of traffic that it sees on a daily basis. With a popular Safeway grocery store across the street and at&t Park, the home of the SF Giants, only a few blocks away, it really doesn’t get any better than this if you’re looking to hit the masses for some spare change.
As the Salvation Army bell ringer began to get his gear ready an interesting thought crossed my mind. I started thinking that these bell ringers, whose main goal is to ask for donations during the holiday season, are actually taking away from the daily earnings of the homeless people who are normally ‘working’ this particular Caltrain station every single day, day in and day out.
I mean, there’s only so much change to go around, right? By these clean cut, Christmas carol singing, red kettle wielding, violin playing, vest wearing bell ringers invading their turf, these homeless people are basically shit out of luck for the holiday season. How can they possibly be expected to compete with the smiling faces and professional looking setup that the Salvation Army has perfected over the years? There’s just no possible way and I would bet there are some pretty pissed of homeless people out there right now (and there’s more now than ever).
In other words, homeless people hate the Salvation Army bell ringers.
However, as I was riding home on the train last night I found this article that claims the Salvation Army sometimes recruits homeless people to become bell ringers for some cheap, seasonal work. So now you’ve got a situation where temporary, bell ringing homeless people taking money from other homeless people. This is just getting crazy.
p.s. This morning I saw about 4 or 5 people give $1+ to a bell ringer within a matter of a 2-3 minutes.
If any of you would like to knowingly steal money from homeless people this holiday season, check out this training video that teaches you the ins and outs of proper Salvation Army bell ringing.
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An appointment at the jewelry store
Me and Stephanie have plans to stop by and see our girl Beverly at Gleim Jewelers tonight.
Can anybody guess why?
OK, I’ll give you a hint (scroll down)….
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[almost there]
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[so close!]
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More details coming soon.
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All Steph wants for Christmas is Frank
As far as relationships go, Stephanie is really low maintenance. Personally, I think that this is a compliment and it says that she is confident with who she is, is comfortable with our relationship and isn’t the slight bit materialistic - unless we’re of course talking about one of the following things:
- Cool Whip/Reddi-Whip
- Shoes/Purses
- Frank
The first two are obviously self-explanatory, she just loves her some Reddi-Whip, shoes and purses (what woman doesn’t?).
The third one is a little more complicated, as it sounds as if she’d like to have a middle-aged man hanging around the place. But, the story behind Frank goes way back to when Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones were putting the smack down on some aliens in the Men In Black movies. Frank had a smaller part in the movies, but it was still enough to make Stephanie fall in love with him.
You see, Frank is a fawn-colored (white) pug and Stephanie has been madly in love with him ever since.
The pug that started Steph’s obsession
So, as Christmas gets closer, all Stephanie has talked about is how great me and Frank would look in our matching Christmas sweaters and how much Frank would have loved helping decorate our tree and all of the other things that Frank would be excited about doing around this time of year.
Simply put, Stephanie is obsessed with Frank (pugs).
I mean, I guess they are kinda cute, aren’t they? (don’t tell her I said that)
I guess that I would consider this cute
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