Archive for April, 2007

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Pictures Of California

Yesterday I put up the first batch of photos from our N. Cal trip. Hopefully I’ll be able to put up a few more before we leave for France (T-minus 17 days).

And I’m still hoping to do a post about the wineries we visited in Napa and Sonoma. So watch for that.

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One month

Four weeks from now we will be on our way to France.

And we are ready. Plans are all made, hotels are all booked, the car is rented and the train tickets are bought.

That is all.

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The Northern California Post — Part 2

Last time I covered only the first day of our trip, so I’ll try to cover a bit more ground with this post.

Sunday we spent in the city with our friend B. We started off with walking to Golden Gate Park to check out the new de Young museum which has a pretty spiffy new building with a free observation tower and nifty sculpture garden. We didn’t actually go into the gallery portion of the museum but did wander around the building and grounds. The building itself is this funky ultra modern design and very cool.

Afterwards, we headed to the Haight area to have lunch at a taqureia and so I could stop in at both Kid Robot and Giant Robot (not related, well, related in merchandise, but not business-wise). I picked up a few vinyl toys at Kid Robot, but they were all out of the Aztec Dunny’s which was a bit sad.

After lunch we went over to Japan Town so that I could pop into the Kinokuniya (disappointing), and to have desert at this crazy japanese crepe place where they’ve essentially taken a crepe and turned it into a waffle cone. Very tasty.

That night we went out to diner with B and his partner E to a place called Foreign Cinema which was a disappointment on many levels. First, their whole schtick is that they show foreign films on an outdoor screen, but when we were there, they were showing Bullitt which is not a foreign film, it was shot in San Francisco, for christ’s sake.. That should have been a sign if they couldn’t even get that right. Second, the place is expensive, overpriced is probably a better word. And worst of all, the food was so-so. I would have expected more for the money.

We spent the first half of Monday in the city as well, again with B. We went the San Francisco Center (I think it was called) so I could go to Maido, which while related to Kinokuniya, has a much better selection of pens. I bought two, a Sailor Ace ($16) and a Platinum Preppy ($4), both of which I will be reviewing over on my other site.

We then headed over to Valencia to check out the Pirate Supply Store, but they were closed all week. I guess we’ll just have to try them next year.

We headed back to Menlo Park in the early afternoon to avoid traffic as it was the first night of Passover and the seder started at 6. They seem to be getting shorter each year (the seders) but that only gets us to the amazing food that much faster. S is an amazing cook.

Tuesday we mainly hung around the house helping set up for the second seder. We also went out to lunch in Palo Alto with A. We ate at Francis Ford Coppola’s restaurant Cafe Rosso and Bianco, though we didn’t know it was his restaurant when we went in. The food was pretty tasty and they had these cool wine machines where you could purchase tastes or glasses of a variety of wines using a special card. We didn’t try it but it sure looked cool.

That’s about it for now. Next time I’ll cover our time in Wine Country, and probably the coast.

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The Northern California Post — Part 1

Even though this trip was low-key as far as our vacations go, it was still plenty busy.

When we got in on Friday night, A and family were all ready in bed so we were met by the elder Gs (Judge J and S), given good food and shown our room for the week. So it wasn’t until the next day that we finally got to met Baby C for the first time. I think he was sleeping. Or breast feeding. Or one of those since he seemed to be in one of those two states the entire time we were there. Yes, I know, he’s an eight week old baby, that’s what they do. Baby C is actually a very quite little boy, hardly ever cries, just grunts when he wants his current situation to change. And cute. He’s cute too.

Our first day of vacation was spent in Half Moon Bay. So two things about the car ride there:

1) There were six adults and two children crammed into a mini van with seven viable seats, which meant that Judge J (the elder G) was on the floor between the seat and the door. Irene was in the back of the van, not wearing her seat belt because, in her words “it just didn’t work”. So that’s the situation when we approach a stop sign. On the other side of the intersection is two cops, one at the corner and one about 30 feet or so beyond him.

Now as soon as we went through the intersection I see the cop switch on his little radio and say something to the guy down the road and I knew it was all over for us. And sure enough, the second cop points to us and tells us to pull over. Apparently the first cop had spotted that Irene wasn’t wearing her seat belt, which can net the driver a hefty fine. He starts asking questions, wants the registration and proof of insurance, so I open up the glove box and it is just full of wadded up papers and receipts and crap and I’m digging through all this stuff and Judge J is out of the car next to me and I’m handing him papers and trying to figure out what everything is and the whole time the cop is talking to J and getting fairly annoyed.

We finally manage to come up with the paperwork he’s asked for and by this time it’s pretty clear that he’s going to give us at least one ticket and maybe more if he can. And the amazing thing to me is, he didn’t even spot that Judge J was sitting on the floor when he first pulled us over. So as the cop is talking to J,Judge J strolls around the car and starts to talk to the cop and pulls out his little “I’m a judge card” from his wallet. The cop sighs, shakes his head and tells us to buckle up and be careful and off we go with out penalty. Amazing. But lucky for us.

2) You forgot about there was a second thing didn’t you? Well this ones not as exciting. After the cop incident we’re driving to Half Moon Bay and we pass a family fun farm thing were they offer pony rides and wouldn’t that be fun for Young J (just so you can keep track there is Judge J, the grandfather, J the father, and Young J, the three year old son). So we stop and Young J gets his pony ride, feeds the goats at the petting zoo, and goes on what was apparently a pretty creepy train ride through some sort of miniture haunted wild west town. The farm was a kick and looked like it hadn’t been updated since it opened in 1940-something.

Half Moon Bay itself is a cute little town where we stopped for lunch before heading for the ocean. Really, though, all the excitement happened on the way there.

Well, I think that’s probably enough for now. I’ll post more later. And I’m still hoping to get photos up this weekend in between household projects.

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A couple of sketches

Here’s a couple of travel related doodles I did today at work.

This first one is me during the day.

And then what I look like while we are between locations.

And here’s me in just over a month!

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