Holiday Dinner with BF Peeps

After a day of being on-call, it was perfect timing for the holiday dinner that evening. The first one last year was such a success, we decided to have a second one, and it was a great success. I think we'll make this an annual event.

Of course, having to arrange on the right time to do this was a challenge. With all the company parties, and other club parties going on, I figured this weekend would be good as any to hold it. Yes, I won't be able to get everyone to attend, but we can't have it so huge that the service would suffer. We had it at Gumba's in Sunnyvale. It's got a nice, homely atmosphere, without all the glamour and glitz as some of the huge chain restaurants would have. In fact, last year, I was trying all sorts of popular restaurants, like Buca di Beppo, and Il Fornaio, but they were completely booked for a 2 week period. Gumba's was a fallback, and it turned out to be a better option.

Pete and Chris were the last to arrive ... showing up fashionably late. Of course, they were at the mercy of Caltrain, with one train coming once an hour. Pete did ride over to Caltrain, so he shows up in his 2007 BikeForums jersey. He's the only one in the crowd with a helmet. Maybe next year helmets are mandatory for the holiday dinner.

Miguel (kb5ql) is a riot! Unfortunately, Andrea, his wife, couldn't make it, as she was on-call. She's an OB-GYN, and duties call. Miguel had a bad accident coming down Mt. Hamilton last week. He was riding a folder, and with the small wheel, and descending, his rim may have overheated. He fell pretty hard, and was wincing in pain just to walk around the house. Andrea says "suck it up ... it ain't that bad". That's a female OB-GYN talkin' ... I guess comparing child birth pain, to the cycling injury ... I have no concept of that at all. I should have brought a mic, and have Miguel be our stand up comic for the evening.


I have a boring Santa Fe Chicken, others had pizza, while Ramon had this huge friggin' chicken calzone. Now, the guy is lean and skinny to begin with ... and now, he is devouring this ultra massive calzone .... major carbo loading here ... but where the heck does he put it? He makes going up 20% grades seem like no big deal. That's not fair.


Pizza ... so I admit, pizza in the US is nothing like pizza you might have in Italy, so these thick crust pizzas are not too authentic. Pizza should be messy, and be eaten like finger food. And then, there's Ruth ... the powerful stoker on the tandem with Marco ... and she's eating pizza with a fork and knife. Now that's just not right!!!!

It's get togethers like this which make me glad we have such a tight knit group like BF. Others may have holiday dinner plans to spend with family, but our clan is so close, this is like family. I do wish we could have had some more East Bay folks, but I understand how difficult it could be during the holiday season. Maybe we should just have more dinners like this. I really enjoy bonding this way with our fellow BF'ers, and also just to geek out with one another.