Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/3121

Back in CT

by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 28, 2004 12:00 PM EST


We had a wonderful Thanksgiving, the food and company were both great. We spent dinner Thursday at my parents' place and Friday was with Vinney's parents (both sets of parents were present each evening, it was just a matter of who did the cooking and where the eating was done). My biscuits and mashed potatoes turned out fine but Vinney's apple pie was absolutely amazing. I personally don't like apple pie (or usually any desserts with fruit in them) but I definitely made an exception for this apple pie. I actually snuck in a second slice (more people showed up for Thanksgiving than originally planned so supplies of the pie were limited)...it helps being married to the chef who made it :)

We spent a couple of nights hanging out with a good friend of ours (we call him Manny) in NC. He was actually a mutual friend that both of us knew for so long before we were introduced. We ended up playing a lot of Halo 2 online, which is pretty typical for us. Now if they'd only hurry up and release Half Life 2 multiplayer maps (not a big Counterstrike fan) we'd be set.

Before we left for Raleigh I didn't know what to expect, but after being down there for several days and returning to Branford I was just reminded of how much I miss living down there. I could actually drive around and find fun roads and on top of that there was absolutely no traffic compared to what I encounter up here on a daily basis. I was in desperate need of a good drive so I called in a favor (or two) and borrowed something sporty to go for a little spin in for a bit one day - and it felt good.

When we were down there we had a meeting with our builder and went down to visit the lot where our new house will be built. I'm far more excited about building this house than I was the first one simply because this one was designed from the ground up by Vinney and I and it'll be our first house together. There's not much to look at on the lot itself just a lot of overgrown grass, but they just put stakes in the ground marking where the house was going to be and that was more than enough for me to look at. We met to approve the placement of the stakes but the feeling of standing where our future deck would be and looking out over the rest of the lot brought out a feeling of elation that just put a smile on my face. It's going to be a long and hard road to get this house built over the next year and a half, especially with us up in CT, but with the help of my mom and a lot of luck it should be a beautiful home for us to return to in 2006.

The lab is a mess up here (it always gets this way after a big article...especially if I hop on a plane after I'm done with it), so I'm going to spend a good part of today cleaning it up and getting things organized before I get to work...but work I will, I didn't get much done over Thanksgiving but I'm rested, relaxed and well fed, so there should be nothing holding me back.

Take care

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