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Thanksgiving 2009

Charles — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 23:53:09 +0000

Prachee’s parents were coming out for Thanksgiving this year to spend some quality time with Julian, so we decided it would be a great opportunity to officially host our first Thanksgiving. Claire and her boyfriend Jason as well as my Mom Joyce joined us for the weekend. Prachee and Shobha outdid themselves with the Thanksgiving meal – everything was made from scratch, even the cranberry sauce! I have to mention the cranberry sauce in particular because I kind of like the canned jelly one. The fact that it comes out in the shape of a can and you slice it into jelly “circles” is for some reason appealing to me – I know, weird! I was responsible for the turkey and after watching my friend Dana fry 5 turkeys for our huge Thanksgiving in Barcelona (during B-School) I was really considering frying the thing. After much deliberation I opted for the traditional roasting and I am happy to report I didn’t embarrass myself – the turkey was juicy and thoroughly cooked. Chris, Lindsay and Santiago couldn’t join on for the Thanksgiving meal so they came over the following day for brunch. We decided to skip the leftovers and go with Bagels, Lox and scrambled eggs. As you can see from the pictures Santiago and Julian were having a great time together. The “adults” on the other hand got hyper-competitive at Wii Bowling – those guys at Nintendo really out did themselves!

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Monterey Historic Races

Charles — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 20:40:17 +0000

Another great weekend of vintage racing at the Monterey Historic Races where Porsche was featured. My dad came up from San Diego, Chris, Saurabh and my friend Bob (Click for Bob’s Pictures) headed down on Saturday and met up with Craig there. We saw a bunch of the same cars (and the characters that drive them) we’ve seen in the past, and of course some very cool Porsche’s with some serious racing pedigree. I guess the other notable “sighting” was of McDreamy – yes apparently Patrick Dempsey is a race car driver. Poor bastard, he’s good looking, is on a hit TV show and races cars to boot! In the end he didn’t do that well in the race, but he was driving a Mazda Rotary LeMans car that given my affinity for RX7’s was my personal “best in show.” I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

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Date Family Visit

Charles — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 20:59:04 +0000

Prachee’s dad Vivek (Ajo, pronounced Azo) had not had the chance to come for the birth of Julian so he decided he and Shobha would come to California this summer while Saurabh was in town for his internship. Uncle Saurabh having been in B-School had not had the chance to meet Julian in person either, while Shobha hadn’t seen him since weeks after his birth – so Julian had gone through some incredible changes since she was had last seen him. It meant that the we were all be in the same place at one time… given Saurabh’s and our “globe trotting” this has not been easy to accomplish in the last few years! We took the opportunity to take some family photos to commemorate the trip.

Shobha had to go back to Maryland and Prachee’s maternity leave was ending – Vivek decided to extend his trip and he and I took care of Julian that first week Prachee went back to work. It was great to have him there to help me and also for the company! Julian also got to spend some extra quality time with his Ajo.

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We welcome Julian Saahil Vignoles

Charles — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 04:17:23 +0000

Julian Saahil Vignoles.
Weight: 5 lbs. 12 oz. (2606 grams)
Height: 18.5 in (47 cm)
Born April 7, 2009 at 13:46 via C-Section at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, California.

Julian and Prachee are doing great. We hope you’ll get to meet him in person soon, but in the meantime, here are some photos of Julian – keep coming back to this album for updated pictures.

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US Home Leave 2008

Charles — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 10:39:44 +0000

Spent a couple weeks in the States seeing family and friends. This time we bounced between Washington DC, San Francisco and San Diego. I guess we are of the age that our friends, siblings, cousins, etc. are all having babies… so lots of baby pictures in this album. As per my previous post, I did become an Uncle recently, so this trip was also an opportunity to meet Santiago – barely a few weeks old when we arrived!

DC was lots of fun as usual… we met up with some of Prachee’s friends from College and since Saurabh was in town it meant the whole Date family was in one place for a change . Vivek & Shobha also hosted a small party for their Maryland friends who were not able to attend our wedding (in 2005). So I think with that last party, that concludes our “wedding functions” – 2.5 years later!

San Diego was chill as usual. Saw Becky & Ron plus had the prerequisite Uruguay-Argentina BBQ lunch. Claire & Jackie came down from LA and we had some quality family time.

Album Link for Facebook users: US Home Leave 2008

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Thanksgiving 2007 & Round the World

Charles — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 05:09:20 +0000

We decided our final trip to the US of 2007 would be for Thanksgiving to spend it with the Vignoles side of the family. The Date’s will be here in India during Christmas, so those who are married know the 1 holiday with each family drill. Prachee’s family doesn’t really celebrate Christmas, but in my mind it’s about spending time with family – the holiday is just the excuse. We tried to see as many people as possible, but the trip was only a week long, so our apologies if we didn’t get the chance to call you or see each other.

We flew into San Francisco, so Rani & Nick let us crash at their place and we got to spend maximum time with Devin (you can see how big he’s gotten in the pictures – but the mischievous smile remains the same). We barely had a few days in SF before we drove down with Chris & Lindsay to my parents place in San Diego. Dreading the day-before-Thanksgiving traffic, we left while it was still dark and drove around LA. We ended up making it in just under 8 hours, which was fantastic – thanks to a little luck and dad’s masterful re-routing using the traffic info on Google Maps!

In San Diego we had a fantastic Thanksgiving meal and also did our tradition of Secret Santa as we were all going to be spread out around the world for Christmas. Caught up with friends and even got a round of golf in thanks to Jackie organizing. In what seemed a flash, we needed to start packing to leave for LA on Sunday. On our way to the airport we managed to see friends from Toyota and USC as well as check out Claire & Jackie’s apartment.

The flight home was a bit different than usual as we flew over the Pacific Ocean on Singapore Airlines. I was really excited because since we flew to California through Europe, we’d be completing a Round the World Flight! I also set my personal record for longest flight I’ve taken: 14 hours from LAX to Taipei. Anyway, we had an eight hour layover in Singapore, so we took the time to wander the city for a few hours. Hope you enjoy the pictures!

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Going back to Cali… (and DC)

Charles — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 03:53:23 +0000

We just returned to India from a few weeks in the US. My friend Ben was getting married, my brother was turning 30 and both were a great opportunity to see friends and family. Prachee worked while were in San Francisco and I took the opportunity to make my way down to San Diego for a few days to hang out with my parents (and fix their computer problems . The weekends were busy with said wedding and birthday bash, so we apologize if the we didn’t get in touch, but our time was already split three ways!

I don’t want to speak for Prachee, but for me, coming back definitely held mixed feelings. I loved seeing family and catching up with friends, but two things happened that I really wasn’t expecting. The first is that being out of India made me realize how accustomed I’d become to life here. It is amazing how that happens so quickly – I even sort of missed the honking The other thing is that everyone kept welcoming me home, but home is in Bangalore – that is where my stuff is! I say mixed feelings because I realized it was the people I missed, not so much the places.

I’ve uploaded some of our pictures from the trip. At Ben an Karen’s wedding it was great to catch up with Joe and Mike as well as see Ben’s parents and sisters whom I hadn’t seen in a long time. In San Francisco, the main event was Chris’s 30th Birthday – welcome to the dark side! We finished off the trip by heading cross country and staying a few days with Prachee’s parents – having a picnic on the mall and I got the chance to catch an Orioles vs. Yankees game with Shane at Camden Yards.

BTW, Prachee got herself a new Digital Camera on this trip, so the pictures are with her new Nikon D40 SLR. It’s a lot of fun to play around with and we are looking forward to taking many more pictures with it on our adventures in India.

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Happy Holidays 2006

Charles — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 14:47:08 +0000

It’s Christmas time again and it reminds me that it’s been a year since I last wrote! Two things are definitely clear: 1) time flies; 2) working isn’t as much fun as living and studying in Barcelona, hence my lack of updates in the last 12 months. Not that Prachee and I have been all work and no play in the past year, but a full time job and the fall TV season have a way of cutting into my MS Word alone time. Anyway, it might be overdue, but here is what’s been going on and what we are looking forward to in the near future.

Work: through most of the year, Prachee was working at KPMG doing marketing for their Consulting practice in San Francisco. In November, she found a great opportunity at a company called IP in the email/network security space. While she is Business Operations Manager, her actual job is a little bit of everything. More on IP in the Future section.

I’m still with Intel’s Mobile Pricing Strategy group, getting ready to complete my first year and vest some of those underwater options J. Recently I added the responsibility of pricing deals for all our Japanese customers. This aspect of pricing is a lot more dynamic than strategy and I’ve been really enjoying it. I must admit that my biggest post-MBA learning this year has been about the importance of company culture. Intel is no doubt a world class company, but it is very different from Toyota and it has definitely been an adjustment. I guess all I have to say is, stay tuned for what’s next.

Play: this is always more fun to talk about! Coming back to the US, both Prachee and I dreaded only having 2 weeks of vacation a year. It turns out both our companies have been pretty good about vacation and we made the most of it! Energized by the new job, the first half of the year was relatively travel free with the exception of one or two trips to get some San Diego sunshine! We are fortunate that living in San Francisco, we get lots of visitors. Being new to the city ourselves, visitors give us plenty of opportunities to do the “tourist” stuff and try new restaurants… there is never a shortage of those in San Francisco!

Our first big trip, I can honestly say, fulfilled a vacation dream that I’d had for a very long time: sailing in the Caribbean. Over the July 4^th weekend, we were one of four couples (w/ Pancho & Pia, Chris & Lindsay, Ale & Steffi) in a 40ft Catamaran sailing around the British Virgin Islands. It was an unforgettable week of island hopping, snorkeling, relaxing and of course drinking while listening to Jimmy Buffet.

In September we had the pleasure of being invited to our friends Martin & Pernille’s wedding in Denmark. There is a long story that involves a burning castle and a postponed wedding, but I’ll skip to the end of this fairytale. We spent an unbelievable long weekend in Copenhagen in a mini IESE reunion with the Bride & Groom to be’s undivided attention. Martin & Pernille are now happily married… wish we could have joined you for wedding weekend #2!

We are looking forward to a warm Christmas in Uruguay this year. The whole Vignoles family will be together to start the New Year and we are having a wedding reception for our friends and family who couldn’t join us in the US the last two years.

Family: 2006 was another wedding year for the Vignoles family as Chris & Lindsay got married in October. My grandma, aunt and cousins came all the way from Uruguay and we spent a wonderful long weekend in Tiburon where the wedding took place. Chris and Lindsay took off for their honeymoon in Vietnam & I celebrated my 31^st birthday with a backyard chivitada.

Vivek & Shobha (Prachee’s parents) came out to San Francisco for Thanksgiving. In fact, the whole Date clan came together from all over the US for some quality family time and to enjoy Rani’s (Prachee’s cousin) homemade Thanksgiving feast. I must admit, I am a big fan of canned cranberry jelly (with the can imprint J), but Rani has spoiled me for life after making a Zinfandel Cranberry sauce from scratch! Fortunately, 2006 finds both our families happy and healthy and that is definitely something to be thankful for.

Future: big changes ahead in 2007 for the two of us. Prachee is working on an expatriate opportunity with IP that will have us moving to India next year. More details forthcoming, but our email addresses will remain the same, so drop us a line and let us know what you are up to or if you are planning a trip to India in 2007!
Take care and have a very Happy Holidays!

Prachee & Charles

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