Happy 50th Birthday Jim Klinge!

Jim sure had fun! And so did we!!!

An outdoor birthday party in January! Oh how I LOVE San Diego!!!

Jim hosted about 100 people outside around his beautiful home not far from us in Vista. Entertainment was provided by a 10 piece band "The Mar Dels" (from Del Mar)! They've been around for decades. Ronee and Carolyn came too. We met a few new people, and chatted with several we have met at other parties at Jim's.

The food and liquor were tasty and flowing freely. We had great fun! Rick enjoyed the band and the party so much he even danced - and sang - the last hour or so! (He doesn't remember much of the drive home either!)

Sunday -- we headed back to Jim and Donna's for an outdoor Superbowl Party! That's a first for us too!

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Simioni meets Simionis! A Facebook "blind date"!

I'm too tired right now to put in all the details 'cause Cris made me go to FOUR bars in Carlsbad last night... but soon I'll post about Cris Simioni, who is from Brasil but living in New York City for a little bit, and how she flew here for the weekend to meet us after we became "Friends" on FACEBOOK in the group "Simionis of the World".

Today (Sunday) she flew to San Francisco and now she is with Julian for 24 hours to see THAT city before returning to New York City Monday afternoon!

I had so much fun hanging out with her........

It's true: I met Cris online through Facebook's "Simionis of the World" group! There are about 20 of us now in that group, and it's growing every day! Rick didn't think there were other Simionis! There's even another RICK SIMIONI in the group! He's from Canada as are many of the Simionis. Cris is from Brasil, another is from France, and now we are getting quite a few of the Simionis from Italy joining in. We all seem to originate from the same area near Venice!

We really enjoyed Cris flying in from New York City where she has been living for 6 months. I'm hoping to host some more of the Simionis from Italy this summer and then go visit them. (Next summer?)

Cris and I crammed in a lot of San Diego, Vista, Carlsbad, Escondido, and Oceanside in our day and a half...
Starting with lunch at the Hotel del Coronado, coffee in Little Italy, a bike taxi along the Embarcadero, a walk around Old Town, sunset on Solana Beach, and pizza in Vista on the first half day. Saturday we hit Wild Animal Park, then spent the evening eating and drinking around the Oceanside Harbor & Pier, followed by a bar tour of The Village of Carlsbad!

Sunday I drove her down the coast to the airport. Then she and Julian did the San Francisco mini-tour, including riding a bicycle-built-for-two across the Golden Gate Bridge. Monday she flew back to New York City!!! whew!

update February 14, 2009: there are 80 people on the Simioni Facebook group!
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Julian moves to Mountain View, California

Julian started his full-time job at INTUIT in Mtn. View, California this week. He's working for a great company, in a perfect place for him: Silicon Valley! http://about.intuit.com/ Lots of people would like to work there!
Congrats again Jules! We're proud of you!

Rick and I drove him and his belongings up there this past weekend. He's about 500 miles north of us (about the same as Detroit to Knoxville). He showed us around their campus, drove by GOOGLE, and through Stanford. It's very nice up there!

While he went to work his first day, Rick and I took the CalTrain up to San Francisco for the day before heading home Tuesday.

Now we'll enjoy the 20 degrees about normal 85 degrees while the rest of the country is in a frozen state!

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Happy New Year 2009! Hello Chelsea!

Julian ended his cool 6-day cycling trip New Year's Eve, and his friend Chelsea flew in from Detroit. They spent the fun evening celebrating down in San Diego's "Gaslamp Quarter" -- an awesome "over 21" New Year's bar night for both of them!
Now they are both hanging out with us at our "Hotel California" (a/k/a "Villa di Siminoi"). We hosted a New Year's Day fest at our house and 4 of us went to the San Diego Auto Show today. It's no "Detroit International Auto Show" but it was nice enough as Julian is looking for his first new car. I wished I could have had a stun gun to poke him every time he looked at a foreign car! haha (The Pontiac Vibe came out #1 for the day.)

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