Greg and Selena

How many major overhauls to our home can we do in a month?

Greg — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 13:08:34 +0000

A couple months’ back we visited our friends Doug and Kristy who have a new house and new baby. I had heard that Doug had been doing some work on his home, but when we saw it firsthand, I was stunned. The house was amazing and the amount of effort Doug had put in was impressive.

I resolved then and there to no longer put off house projects, at least out of ignorance. I would determine how to get things done and then go out and do them. It was about six weeks until we were having a lot of family over for Thanksgiving, I had to get started.

The problem quickly became apparent that I “started” too many projects at the same time. In the 3-4 weeks of November, leading up to Thanksgiving:

I was resealing and repainting the deck (two separate colors for railings and surfaces)
I was repainting the living room, dining room and hallways
I had hired a contractor to add a shower to our basement bathroom that required completely overhauling that bathroom
I had ordered new kitchen appliances, so the old ones needed to be cleared out
I had installed 3 new light fixtures
I had reorganized the basement to make a separate playroom for Kaylee and man cave for me
In the reorganizing process, I had decluttered the basement and had two full loads to donate to Goodwill

I was working every night after putting Kaylee to bed, I’d put in 4-5 hours on the house. It was exhausting and straining but eventually successful. We got all the changes done by Thanksgiving (some actually on Thanksgiving as company in town for Turkey day helped get the final pictures back up on the walls).

Once the holiday was over, I promised Selena (and myself) that I was going to take a break. So ww took the past two months off from the home, but will be getting back to it in earnest now. We still need to make room for baby #2.

Viva La Resistance!

Greg — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:07:22 +0000

The Resistance

Over Thanksgiving we bought a new game called The Resistance. It’s sort of a card game, but that’s even being extravagant, cause you could recreate the whole game with scraps of paper. It’s very simple structurally.

Each person playing is either a member of the Resistance or a spy. The game involves suggesting a mission team, getting it approved, sending them on their mission and hoping a spy wasn’t sent who would sabotage the effort. If there are 3 success missions, the Resistance wins. If there are 3 sabotages, the spies have prevailed.

We added one element to the game that you have to define the mission for this Resistance fighting force to go on. That has quickly become the best part of the game, suggesting your mission and explaining how it will further the Resistance. Previous missions include:

Ringing the President’s doorbell and running away
Designing a new logo for The Resistance (a new primary font as well)
Following the President around when he walks his dog, and replacing the poo he picks up with new poo so the public turns on him cause he doesn’t clean up after his dog.
Removing all cat videos from the Internet
Reprogramming the President’s TiVo so he’ll miss all his favorite shows, and
Writing a Resistance sexual harassment policy document

As you can imagine, it adds a new level of hilarity to what it supposed to be a fairly intense game. We’ll be happy to pla it with you, just let us know when you want to join The Resistance!

Jeff and Katie’s Second Wedding

Greg — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:04:46 +0000

Jeff and Katie at their Banquet

Back in July, Selena and Kaylee and I went out to California for my brother Jeff and my now sister Katie’s wedding. It was a fantastic experience, but not one shared by all that many people. A lot of folks couldn’t get across the country this summer, so Jeff and Katie through a second reception the weekend after Thanksgiving giving the family and friends that weren’t with them the first time a chance to celebrate closer to home.

The reception consisted of a cocktail hour and a dinner then dancing at the beautiful Hartfeld club near Hockessin, DE (where I grew up). Katie wore her wedding dress again, and Jeff re-rented the same tux. We also dressed Kaylee in the same adorable dress she had worn as the flower girl.

It was a very different reception from the first, in part because so many of my family were there and they know how to take over the dance floor, which wasn’t as prominent in California, but moreover because since July, Kaylee has learned to walk – more than walk, she can motor around at surprising speed. So I’m spent a fair amount of the evening following her wherever she led, sometimes to the bar, sometimes to the dance floor and often to people she can call by name like Mommy and Grandma or Poppop.

When not chasing Kaylee, I did have the opportunity to indulge on the food which was amazing (the pasta station was soooo good) and catch up with family and friends a little, but there is never enough time for that. I still feel bad that cousins came in from north Jersey that I hadn’t seen in forever and I got little more than got a quick hello with them all evening. Weddings just go by too fast.

Maybe, I’ll get more time with them more at Jeff and Katie’s next wedding. I mean, why stop at a mere two receptions, right? They haven’t even experienced getting married in the Spring, that’s got to be different enough to warrant another party. I’ll have to bring that idea up to them when I see them next.

Selling the VW Beetle

Greg — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:03:58 +0000

The flip side of getting the new Mazda was that we had to let go of the VW Beetle. We would rather have traded in the Jeep which is older with way more miles, but since we had the hardest time fitting Selena and I and Kaylee with the baby stuff in the VW car already, it would be rendered mostly unusable once the second child arrives.

Still it was hard to accept letting it go. Selena had that car for eight years, and took great care of it. She loved having that car, it was one of her horcruxes (she decided years ago when we read the final Harry Potter and decided to list out our own).

Selena in her VW Bug

We may have caved and held onto it just as a fun car, except that my aunt and uncle, recent empty nesters, got in touch with us saying how they were looking for a smaller fun car themselves and were thinking of a VW Beetle. In a moment right out of the finale of Toy Story 3, knowing the car was going to a good home, we agreed to sell the car to them. They drove up at Thanksgiving and drove home the happy new owners of the silver VW convertible.

Buying the Mazda3

Greg — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:03:15 +0000

Have you seen our new car? This is it here:

We were looking for a new car with four-doors and a big enough trunk to handle our growing family, but was still able to get great gas mileage so I could drive it from Rockville to Alexandria and back each day. So we went with the hatchback that has plenty of room for strollers and things, but also the new 2012 model that includes the Skyactiv engine technology which allows the car to jump to near 40mpg when on highways. I’ve already seen the difference in how much we’re (not) spending on gas each week.

A late addition to the must-have list (that I didn’t even know I had to have until I noticed it during the test-drive) was Bluetooth integration so I could listen to podcasts and music as well as take and receive phone calls in the car without extra equipment. I am loving this feature.

I’ve never bought a new car before, so when they handed over the keys and I looked at the odometer and it said 11, I found that just remarkable (especially since at least 4 of those were from our test drive).

We’re having a baby!

Greg — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 14:12:34 +0000

The Baby Dragon

Kaylee is going to have a little brother or sister. We are very happy to announce that a new Robleto is expected in late May. This one will be born, by the Chinese zodiac, in the Year of the Dragon (just like their dad).

We do not yet have something to call this new bundle of joy. If you have any clever names to call the yet-unnamed yet-unborn child, please share. (Special consideration for dragon-themed names).

The fool-proof sock system (or actually, completely fool-prone sock system)

Selena — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 14:33:28 +0000

Everyone seems to have that problem of a few sock casualties each time the laundry is done. Despite numerous hints from Heloise we can’t seem to develop a way to solve the issue. Until I discovered Greg’s method, which answered and raised a lot of questions.

Step 1: Don’t do laundry, ever.

If Step 1 is not an option, try Step 2.

Step 2: When finished with laundry, gather all clean, loose socks without mates and immediately place them back in dirty laundry hamper to see if they will find mates magically. Repeat cycle until socks are all paired up by magic. Doing this 6 or 7 times may produce more missing socks, as the socks without mates from the next batch will compile onto the current batches. Also, DO NOT try to look in drawers for any lost socks that wife may have come across and stored away for you. DO take wife’s socks and claim them as your own, even though they do not fit feet.

If Step 2, surprisingly, does not work, proceed to Step 3.

Step 3: At this point, you should be noticing a difference in your laundry. Perhaps more socks are now going missing than ever now if you have been diligently adhering to Step 2. The final step is to take all the socks that have now lived in laundry purgatory for 6 or 7 washes and throw them in the trash. That’s right! Throw them away! This includes wife’s socks that you think are yours that may have mates appropriately living in wife’s drawers. Perfectly good socks that have been tortured by living in the laundry hamper have no use without their pairs. Again, do NOT check in drawers for possible large pile of single socks that will now forever be mateless.

This is the methodology I had accidentally stumbled upon one day doing laundry. While I can’t quite figure out a system myself, I didn’t think Greg’s running system was helping. Any suggestions of solutions from the blogosphere?

Attending the White House Tweetup

Greg Robleto — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 05:37:28 +0000

I was at The White House this week for their holiday Tweetup.

My friend and social media expert at The Motley Fool, Katrina, showed me an page on the White House site where you could submit your request for an invitation to a day of tweeting at The White House. There was a series of speakers in the morning who’s roles covered a huge spectrum from the National Economic Counsel advisor discussing policy topics such as jobs to the official White House Pastry Chef revealing how long it takes to make the official White House gingerbread house (3 months). It was a full morning and really interesting to get all these perspectives of people who work so close to the President and his staff. (It made me want to re-watch The West Wing).

Only one real hiccup with the White House Tweetup, was that the conference room was in the basement of the EEOB next to the White House and there was no Wi-Fi signal in there so no one was able to get onto Twitter. The irony was not lost on the positive and upbeat organizers of the event from the White House Digital Strategy department.

After a lunch (on our own), we were able to tour the White House. it was the same self-guided tour that Selena and I had taken a few years ago, only this time, being that they had just decorated everything for Christmas they welcomed taking photos.

I got whole lot of pictures, including finding the hidden Bo (the dog) that was hand-crafted each room – one was paper-mache, one was made of candies, one was made of buttons – that are displayed below and in the Flickr set here.

The morning briefings

The first of 73 White House Christmas Trees

George says "Check out this tree."

Decorative ornaments at the White House

Greg in the Blue Room of the White House

Bo made of Buttons

Lincoln thinking about Christmas

The White House Gingerbread replica

A choir in the lobby singing carols

Greg at the White House

Making the Most of Halloween

Greg Robleto — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 05:18:14 +0000

Kaylee had such a great time this Halloween.

It started on Friday when she, dressed as a ladybug, crashed the local day-care’s Halloween parade. She goes to an in-house daycare with only three other kids, so they don’t really do a lot to do for Halloween. When our neighbors who go to the bigger facility invited us to join them for their daycare’s Halloween celebration, we decided to go. She only participated in the parade long enough for us to snap a few pics then went and played on the playground and in the big sandbox.

Kaylee as a Ladybug

Saturday, our good friend Catherine’s sister had a party for her one-year old daughter in Germantown. There was a huge inflatable bouncy-house. So while the snow was falling outside, the kids, all in costume (again ladybug for Kaylee) ate cake, played with balloons and bounced around in the oversize moonbounce.

On Monday, Selena brought Kaylee into my office where we do up Halloween right. I had already won the best pod decorating in my social media pod because we did some thematic decor (bats and such) and then set up a Tweeting photo booth, where we had co-workers sit beside a white board shaped like a thought bubble. They selected at random a pre-set tweet from one bucket which we wrote on the board and then a random emotion from another bucket which they had to display, then we snapped the picture and you say things like someone emoting sad with the thought-bubble saying “Me want cookie” or emoting angry with the words “I could really use a McRib right now”. It was a lot of fun.

Tweeting Photo Booth

And we even got one of Kaylee when she arrived in her now chicken costume saying “Why did I cross that road?” Kaylee then went on to trick-or-treat througout the office and I was beaming with pride getting to take her around. She didn’t really get what was going on, but quickly picked up the mechanics of picking something from that big bowl and putting it into her bucket on her arm. She enjoyed doing that.

Why did I cross the road?

She did have one minor meltdown at the office, when someone gave another little kid a piece of candy, and Kaylee decided it was also okay to reach into another kid’s bucket and pull out a piece of candy and put it in her own. I interceded and she didn’t take it well, belting her rebellious discontent across the whole office.

Following our quick exit, we headed home in time for Selena to make some caramel apples which she stayed on the porch and gave to our adult neighbors that we knew when their kids came up for candy. While Selena held down the fort at home, I took Kaylee around the block. She really was in the zone now, running from house to house, and running up to the door and through the door and into their living rooms (she didn’t really get that this was a front-porch transaction). We took her up and down our whole street and then drove her over to her grandparents to ring their bell as well. She just had a blast.

Here’s a picture of her at the end of the night, still giggling and laughing at the fun night.

Kaylee at the end of Halloween night

Final stop in Califorina – Michelle’s Resort and Spa

Greg — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 03:33:57 +0000

One of my friends I’ve known the longest is Michelle. She was my closest friend in high school and although since that time, our paths have seldom paralleled, we’ve continued to make an effort to stay connected. She and her family moved out to the suburbs of San Francisco about a year ago, so I was excited to get the opportunity to visit with them, and we planned the final weekend we would stay at their place.

Unfortunately, the kids were visiting their grandparents on the East Coast and Michelle’s husband, Mario, flew out to collect them the same weekend we were visiting. We did get a nice dinner with Mario and Michelle earlier in the week in Fisherman’s Wharf, but for the weekend in San Ramon, it was two days of the Robletos visiting with just Michelle.

They live in an amazingly beautiful house, only a few years old, in a town that wasn’t much older. Everything was new and fresh and well planned with ornate outdoor shopping centers that had water running through them where you could feed the ducks to parks with water-features for the kids to play in as part of the playground. In fact, water-features were sort of everywhere, even on sides of roads and at entrances to developments. We asked Michelle and she said “There was one builder for this whole area… and he liked water features.” Amazing. In my conversations with Luke W earlier in the week we were lamenting the futility of trying to maintain a holistic design for an entire website, and here was a sense of aesthetic continuity, at a much grander scale, it was an entire town. Incredible.

Speaking of water-features, Michelle’s home had a water-feature too, a huge pool in the back with a hot tub attached. We gave Kaylee her first soak in a hot tub (with the temperature significantly reduced) and also took advantage ourselves after Kaylee was asleep. It was so relaxing, and I’m sure the few bottles of wine didn’t hurt the cause.

Speaking of wine, living in San Ramon, about an hour south of Napa, they were in close proximity to some great wineries. We toured a winery called Wente and were educated in the art of wine-making and wine-sampling. We did a lot of homework on that subject as well while we were there after Kaylee went to sleep.

We also visited with Michelle’s parents, who moved shortly after Michelle and Mario to the same area, to stay close to their grandchildren (hint, hint, Mom and Dad). They have a beautiful house too. Unlike their kids who have a yard big enough for a pool and hot tub, they have the more common home for that area where you can stand in the yard and with one arm touch the house and another touch the fence. Yards are that small! The house takes up the bulk of the land. And that doesn’t mean the houses are McMansion size. They are comfortably sized, but could easily get overwhelmed by a collector of things. Minimalism is the key. I was inspired seeing those beautiful homes so well put together. I was determined to come back and do a great purge. I feel our home could be that nice, if we didn’t have so much stuff in it.

We left from the weekend with Michelle for the airport, a red-eye flight home culminating two weeks in California. Over that time we’ve been leaving destinations every few days, but it was really hard to leave San Ramon. I realized later it was because after seizing every minute in Los Angeles and San Francisco to see the sights and experience the city, we slowed down in San Ramon. We relaxed, drank some wine, lounged around, soaked in the hot tub and shared stories and laughs with a close friend. Selena said “staying with Michelle was like staying at a resort and spa for the weekend.” Yes! It very much felt that way.

Michelle and Greg

Kaylee and her dad feeding the ducks

Kaylee in the water feature in the park in San Ramon

The whole family in the water feature in the park in San Ramon