DaveAndAnastasia

Diagnosed at first doctors appt post-Covid (between new wife, new baby, and new home had just been busy) a couple years ago. Prior labs were prediabetic but not all the way there, but had been years earlier and mostly staying at home wasn't great for me except for shortly after mini-Dave was born when I was walking him a lot. Lost about 40 lbs since then (now usually under 195 except after weekly night out, which usually involves non-low-carb desert and a drink), numbers much more reasonable as of last test.

Diabetic, so basically avoid candy now. Only for the wee man (well, PRG snags a piece or two). Yeah. If everything goes according to plan, probably not doing anything more than a long weekend in driving or short flight range until May mega-trip which definitely includes one week with PRG's mom and sister in Turkey, and current plan is a few days in Paris before and London after. But probably will do a few overnight trips on a similar scale between now and then. Plus mama-Dave and papa-Dave visiting for Thanksgiving.

Well, the solstice is a few days before Christmas so that, erm, wouldn't make much sense ... Anyway, the point was that no DST or year-round DST might be fine in Texas or Florida or Southern California where day length is less variable, but farther north, not so much. Trick-or-treating in a subdivision full of houses with kids instead of around multi-family housing where there were only a handful is very different. Way more kids out. Though our bowl of candy (from two large bags, because we didn't know what to expect) didn't get hit too much; we're in a cul-de-sac at the back end of the development, and our street is mostly people who moved in ten years ago when the houses were new, so their kids are older. Not sure if just being older or strong desire for more candy kept mini-Dave out longer this year. But he was out from basically as soon as we were ready to go (a bit after nominal start time because PRG works Pacific time hours, though she did get off early) until pretty nearly the nominal end time, and a few houses were out of candy by the time we got there. Took a mini-trip most of the way to Charlotte last weekend. PRG needed some rest, si, ma'am. Went to aquarium, then spent night at a Great Wolf Lodge (stayed there for $many, but cheaper than 3 non-local day passes and a cheap hotel, and I think over two hours away is too far for a day trip) so mini-Dave got to play in the water for a bit. Only got him on big family-sized tube ride once (hey, he beat the minimum height by half an inch), said it was too scary and never wanted to do that again. But he still had a lot of fun.

Having moved north some and to someplace that is not roughly the eastern edge of its time zone if they drew straight lines, have you considered that perhaps sunrise well after 7 am that would get to after 8 in year-round DST would in fact be kind of bad? /though the switch about 15 years ago to make the time changes in November and March instead of October and April in fact makes this worse as it doesn't happen soon enough and then happens too soon.

If we get mini-Dave into year-round school (and the schedule doesn't change), he'd start at 9:20, which is probably a bit late if PRG insists that's too young to take the bus, but workable as long as she's still working Pacific time hours. Or they've got before-school programs too, I guess. Only a few more weeks until local school district starts taking enrollment forms for next year, and I want to do that ASAP because I need to do that to apply for year-round school (it's literally a couple of blocks down the street from the elementary school he'd go to otherwise). How is he less than a year from starting kindergarten already?

Seems weird that I'm more of a Yankee in the suburbs of Raleigh than I was in San Diego ...

Mini-Dave got his first haircut, years ago, after PRG got one too many comments about our cute little girl. And pretty much makes sure he gets his hair cut every month (since Covid, she has done mine too). Nephew-Dave (who's in his last year of middle school, IIRC) has very long hair; PRG always tells me whenever we see him (though back in our hotel or whatever and far from sister-Dave) that she'd never let her son keep his hair that long ...

PRG's grandfather passed a couple years ago without ever seeing mini-Dave in person. She still has one grandmother alive (if grandma-PRG were ten years younger, she'd be far more likely to visit us on this side of the Atlantic than mama-PRG, but not really up for a long trek to Moscow and another long flight for a third-country meetup at her age). And apparently Russia changed the law, so now in order to go back to Russia PRG needs to get her name changed on her Russian passport (still has PRG's maiden name, not my last name, because changing it would have been a pain) which requires doing some stuff in-person at the Russian embassy. At least from here getting to DC is a half-day drive or very short flight instead of an adventure, but probably won't do it without definite plans to go (which until the war ends and you can at least fly to major European hubs nonstop from Moscow again, if not to the US, is a nope).

Dunno; PRG cuts the grass here (acquired new electric mow-lawner a few months ago now that we have an actual house). I'm the one with the allergies, but it's really that PRG has more free time in the morning on weekdays. Mini-Dave will get stuck with the job eventually, but he's still got another year until kindergarten (one day too old to apply to get in early; sure he'd be academically up to it, socially, probably not) so it'll be a while. Checking county school district web site every week or so to see when we should start filing paperwork. Want to get him in year-round school (a 3-week-ish break in late spring or early fall should in theory be more convenient for visiting PRG's family than a long summer break in peak tourist season and also when it's very hot nearly everywhere in the Northern Hemisphere), but supposedly year-round and magnet applications here have only about a 50% success rate, though with better odds for first year at the school (so K is the best time). Have pretty much decided to do everything in our power to make a meetup with PRG's mom and sister happen next year, as that will be six years without seeing her family in person. Idea is to go from Raleigh to London*, spend a night or two, spend a week in Turkey, spend a night in London again on the way back, and then come home (hopefully at a time that I can avoid returning to work for a few days). * also nonstops from RDU to Paris and Frankfurt, but London is cheaper and British isn't too different of a language from American

If you're doing a spousal visa so they have a green card right away, no there aren't any travel restrictions other than ensuring you spend enough time in the US to maintain residency between entering the US and applying to remove conditions, renew a green card, and/or US citizenship. If you're doing a K-1, you need advance parole or a green card before leaving the US if you want to return without starting all over with a new visa.

Your immigrant spouse doesn't adjust from a CR1 to a IR1, (s)he removes conditions on a his or her permanent residence. You always have to do this on a fiancé(e) visa; on a spousal visa if you've been married for two years when you enter the US you get an IR-1 visa and a non-conditional green card that you don't need to adjust status from. Back when we did things it was taking about 9 months from filing petition to visa issue for a K-1 and about 18 months for a CR-1. Plus there were no Utah zoom marriages then and given that I couldn't realistically spend a month in Russia to marry there and Anastasia couldn't realistically get a US tourist visa to marry here (even pre-war in Ukraine, young single Russian women rarely got tourist visas approved) we would have had to marry in a third country to do a CR-1. And we wanted to have a child soon (and our son was born a little over a year after she arrived in the US), so working ASAP wasn't a huge priority. And this was pre-Covid when we didn't really know or care that the state department basically wouldn't care about fiancé(e)s in an emergency. So we did a K-1 then, and I think it was the right decsion then. But now, for any couple that can overcome the logistical hurdles to make a US/Russia relationship work these days, I wouldn't advise doing one.

Perhaps Lot understands and accepts points in p-Math, but Southwest does not. 🤣 Actually have a decent collection of my own stuff despite not being much of a DIY home improvements guy (and, y'know, living in rented housing until two years after I married PRG).

Five years of marriage with PRG today. Still contemplating how incredibly implausible my non-work life now would have seemed to me before we met (prior romantic attempts on my part being ... really unsuccessful), and very glad she's part of my life. For some reason mini-Dave's daycare seemed to think "he'll be four soon" meant "he's four now" (corrected them on this a few times), so he was in a class with slightly older kids for a few weeks. Seems happier with new class (though this is only day 2). Also started soccer, which he seems to be having fun with. Watches some British cartoons on YouTube, so will need to make sure he doesn't start calling it football (nothing wrong with soccer, but futbol no es football). Met up with a couple of guys I know from an online college football fans group over the weekend. Despite rain, and a baby shower taking up the room with the kid-height tables, was good to meet some other people here. Also have an old college friend in town; need to catch up with him again (did meet while I was here over Christmas break). Arranged for parents-Dave to visit for mini-Dave's birthday (have been to every one but his 0th); paid for tickets entirely with airline points that had been sitting around unused (because buying points isn't very efficient, three transcontinental tickets was way more than I had in points, and it's usually a good idea to get all tickets in one transaction when traveling together). Wonder if papa-Dave will do more minor household repairs and upgrades this time; won't be able to bring his tools when flying instead of driving.

Closed on old place on Friday because county recorder's office has meetings today. Closing on new place on Tuesday. Staying here until Friday anyway. Trying to get away with only taking one day off of work because the movers say they should be here on Monday and I have President's day off work, but we'll see. Going out for dinner tonight with neighbors. Haven't seen them much since they had their second baby, but they've been good friends to us here. Papa-Dave has put together long list of stuff from the inspector's report that he says he can fix; will be there later next week with mama-Dave (who gets to play with mini-Dave, though we've already found a new preschool for him). NC law apparently means he needs to see a doctor in NC or a neighboring state before starting preschool in NC, so have an appointment with the closest pediatrician I could make an appointment with online for a holiday. Anything he can't fix we'll need to call professionals.

There are a few countries where US permanent residents can normally visit legally without a visa, but they're in the Americas.

And that's probably a short-term thing. After we move, will no longer be starting work at 7 am and so have some free time between signing off for the day and picking up mini-Dave from preschool. /though PRG's job won't let her start earlier than 7 Pacific, so I think I'll be making dinner every day we don't go out instead of just most days //not really a problem; I like cooking; made some Hungarian goulash yesterday because mini-Dave decided he didn't like stroganoff so tried to come up with something else to do with the meat and that turned out well, even if I used cheap store-brand paprika despite recipe calling for imported Hungarian sweet paprika

Also pro: You fill out a USCIS-supplied form to use a credit card. It cannot be made out to the wrong person, have some missing or incorrect information in the memo box, or anything like that. /I used a credit card for everything without issues.

In California they don't send a response unless your request for excuse / rescheduling is denied. Anastasia has gotten 3 summons for jury duty. First one (while still an LPR) - checked "not a citizen", mailed back. Second one - filled out request to delay online Second one - filled out request to delay online even though we'll have moved out of state by the summons date because requesting a delay is simpler

Dunno, only one I ever had many dates with was PRG despite how old I was when we met. And "hope the girl who looked really cute on one of the few non-scammy Russian dating sites in existence, had a nice profile, and seemed nice in one email was busy and not blowing you off and so will respond to a follow-up" doesn't seem like a replicable plan, even if getting back and forth from Russia wasn't a pain right now. Also, much more likely to find a brunette that way.

I mean, if they paid us like we lived in San Francisco, we could afford to stay in San Diego (we want to see my family more than 2-3 times a year, and PRGs at least once a year*). However, no one seemed willing to do this. New job is going pretty well three months in, and both PRG and I are fully remote (and I mostly work with people in Eastern time anyway). So that's fine. One time thing. * If flying from 'Murrica to Russia becomes possible again. If it's third-country meetups or workarounds to get into Russia (and as long as I'm working for a defense contractor, I think the latter is likely PRG traveling alone or with mini-Dave but without me) indefinitely, I think it'll probably be every other year, but want to make a third-country meetup this summer happen because it'll have been five years. Mini-Dave still has one living great-grandparent in Russia who we'd like to get to see him in person at least once, but that'll take going to Russia (if she were fifteen years younger, would be easier to convince to go outside of Russia than PRG's mom).

So since my last check-in here, we've - Visited the Raleigh area between Christmas and New Years (mini-Dave was informed that Santa knew we would be flying early Christmas morning and so stopped at our place on Christmas Eve) to evaluate potential relocation (we want a house with a yard, to be closer to my family, to save money, and we don't really have close friends or family out here). Parents drove up from Florida to meet us after Christmas morning with my brother and his wife and kid (even more mini than mini-Dave) and so got there the next day. Saw many houses (generally accompanied by papa-Dave while mini-Dave got some grandma time), checked out things to do for mini-Dave (children's museums, indoor playgrounds, parks). Had a good time, really liked the area, and concluded we could in fact get a nice many (2*2) - bedroom house with almost twice the square footage of our townhouse in a good school district for less than we paid for our townhouse. Found a couple places we really liked, though as the one we liked the most had the highest list price, we wanted to see what we could get for our place before making any offers. - Talked to realtor we used to buy our place about selling, concluded we could probably get $many00,000. Did a bunch of touch up work and minor repairs, got pictures taken. Realtor suggested we could raise listing price based on interest levels. Got multiple offers for $many many 0,000, and accepted one after just one weekend with our place on the market. - Made an offer for the place we liked the most (still on the market, yay), but ended up needing to slightly revise that upward to get the place (which we did). - Made all sorts of arrangements with movers, car rental places, hotels, and such to get ready to move - So now after almost many (2*2*2*2 + 2*2*2 - 1) years in San Diego, I'm leaving. With as much as I moved around between middle school and two years after college, I never really expected to be in city that long, to be honest.

Here's me about to cut the cheesecake. Pictures of the rest of dinner also have my niece and nephew in them, no posting pictures of other people's kids without their permission and too lazy to crop them... Oh, they were good when they were mom-food too (when we were kids we usually had Thanksgiving with mom's family, with most or all of her many -- 2*2*2+2 -- siblings, their spouses, and so many of my many cousins -- not really sure how many, but there were a lot even if the youngest of them weren't around yet; every family brought something so there was quite a lot of food even given the number of people eating). * does not confuse computers, who can't tell a letter x from a times sign x, so what I default to for multiplication. Programmer, man. Hoping I can get the whole family to Casa-DA some holiday season, though my other siblings and their families may be more difficult even if we move closer to them (one brother and his wife have jobs that make leaving town for the holidays difficult; other brother rarely visits everyone; other sister has other issues; and of course Vlad makes meeting the in-laws difficult these days).

Can't say much about new job; working for a defense contractor, classified, man. Would not accept a job that requires a security clearance without having an active one and while unemployed again; too long between offer and start of work so got very stressed out (and in the last month or so before I started, was sufficiently frustrated with nothing happening to start seriously interviewing elsewhere). Had many interviews, even many second interviews, only one actual job offer. Though a few got close right around when I got the initial offer and I declined to interview further, and a few around when it became clear I'd actually be starting with these guys. Me too, man. Parents, little sister and her family all back home now. Parents left casa-DA at about 5 am on Tuesday, early morning flight. Was great to see everyone. Thanksgiving dinner was successful despite green bean casserole falling out of the fridge and crashing into pieces. Veggie pot pie for non-meat eaters looked good, but I didn't try it; too much else and after one day of leftover-eating on Friday (combining Thanksgiving leftovers with Greek takeout leftovers from Wednesday) it was all gone. My turkey (pre-seasoned frozen turkey breast in a bag whose cooking steps were basically "put it in the oven"), non-gloop sugar-free cranberry sauce, and sugar-free pumpkin cheesecake were well-received, si man. Mama-Dave made the same rolls she'd made for almost every Thanksgiving that I can remember. Mini-Dave ate many (2 * 2) of them. Niece and nephew decided they weren't interested in going to the Safari Park, then were sick the next day, so saw them (and sister and brother-in-law) less than we'd hoped. Though we did go down to La Jolla Cove and saw the sea lions on Thanksgiving morning (mama-Dave finished rolls and rested), then had lunch at a place that was only serving breakfast food. Parking where I did was $many. Took mom and dad to Legoland with us instead of taking whole crew to Safari park (all non-Sandy Eggo people would have had free or half price tickets at the Zoo or Safari Park via our memberships), had fun and then had pizza and pasta buffet lunch (thanks to membership discounts and 3 year olds still being free at the buffet, surprisingly inexpensive for amusement park food; spent less than we did at Panera the next day). Papa-Dave accompanied us to Safari Park and Sea World, where we had free guest tickets, but mama-Dave wasn't up to walking that much. Then they had Monday on their own, dinner back at our place (made a sous vide tri-tip roast), and packing up to leave early. Papa-Dave was also able to help us fix a few things around the townhouse; more handy than us, si, man.

You're browsing using a phone, tablet, or a computer with a small monitor, so the formatting on my signature block (I couldn't figure out a good way to do multiple columns other than preformatted text; timeline takes pushes things out, maybe? Which is to say my posts look just like anyone else's for me, but, as someone who programs for a living and who back when I was a single guy with no life spent most of his free time in front of a computer too, I spent $many for a large, high-resolution primary screen many years ago. Anyway, I'll try reformatting my signature.

Need to do final Thanksgiving prep this weekend. Parents (from Florida, though they're driving around NorCal for a few days before coming down here), sister (from Colorado), her husband, and her kids are coming for Thanksgiving. Sister's kids kind of getting bored with Florida, so she's out here to see me for the first time since before she was married (and her oldest kid is a teenager somehow, so that's been many years). Fortunately, my sister's family will be at a hotel, not staying here; this place isn't that big :D. Staying where they just need to walk through the church parking lot to get here, good since parking near casa-DaveAndAnastasia is extremely limited. Have already acquired frozen turkey breast (since four people are vegetarians, mini-Dave is a preschooler, and my parents are old, we don't really need a lot of turkey). Also got some new furniture including a kitchen table that 9 people could reasonably sit around (at least if three of them are kids and the extra leaf is in). This weekend, will acquire stuff for pumpkin cheesecake (one cheesecake can serve 9; one pie cannot; PRG is very concerned about space in the fridge therefore wants to minimize leftovers; untraditional but understandable since due to various diets Thanksgiving dinner will be the only major meal we're cooking for everyone) and cranberries (real cranberries, not cranberry glop). Intention is for mama-Dave and anyone else who wants to make anything to make another grocery run on Wednesday. Parents arriving late Monday; gave them garage door app permissions, we'd normally be asleep by the time they get here even if they teleported from the plane to their rental car. They get to spend Tuesday on their own; we still have to work, and mini-Dave all day would tire them out. Sister's family arriving too late to meet for dinner Tuesday, they'll come by afterwards for a bit, I think. Also finally started new job two weeks ago, gainfully employed again, si man.