12/08/04 11:17 - ID#36471

Griswold Christmas

My neighbors go a little nuts at Christmas. No wonder we had a freakin' power outage.

I used this for my holiday cards last year. I didn't actually send any out, but I had fun making them.

Permalink: Griswold_Christmas.html
Words: 39
Location: San Francisco, CA

12/08/04 07:33 - ID#36470

Official Halloween pix

Got the "official" Halloween pix from my sister so I can get going on next year's family calendar.

My sister with her brood in the pumpkin patch. Yeah, this one's going on the calendar for sure.

This is here because of the volcano costume. Hey, it made him happy. I also made the black sheep costume my youngest nephew is wearing in this picture.

Permalink: Official_Halloween_pix.html
Words: 68
Location: San Francisco, CA

12/08/04 06:17 - ID#36469

Eye in the sky

Sure 'nuff, you can spot[inlink]ajay,205[/inlink]the beach house, looking sadly abandoned.

This is the house "immortalized" in my Postcard from the beach [inlink]twisted,8[/inlink] post. That's the only time we splurged on a rental on the ritzy end of the beach, nestled between the ocean and the lagoon (for Brenda and Kathy's anniversary party). They won't be seeing the likes of us again soon unless one of us wins the lottery.

The house we usually rent is down the shoreline a piece with the other beach shacks. We love it. B&K (and their dog Maggie) take the guest annex building to the right off the deck. The main house has a ladder up to a sleeping loft in the peak of the roof. That's where I sleep.

Damn! I want to go to the beach now.

p.s. - can't see much without electronic binoculars, but as NoCal promoter I would be remiss not to include links to the clothing-optional sections of the beach. Hey, whatever it takes to get you people out here.

Permalink: Eye_in_the_sky.html
Words: 215
Location: San Francisco, CA

12/07/04 10:21 - ID#36468

Retirement party

You have no idea how happy I was to find these today. I've been trying to replace this color for a long time.

Permalink: Retirement_party.html
Words: 25
Location: San Francisco, CA

12/06/04 05:59 - ID#36467

A Clean, Well-Lighted Lunchplace

Seems like everybody's moving, changing jobs or both. I just got back from an interview at PeopleSoft. I did some contract web production work for them about a year and a half ago. It would be so awesome if they hired me for more ongoing contract work. They say they'll decide by Wednesday and have the new person in for training by the end of the week.

My friend Brenda works there, which is how I heard about the job. She says the only reason I want to work there is because I'm so excited about their lunchroom. That is only partially true. Mostly I'm excited about the paycheck. But the lunchroom is a close second. There are many things I've become jaded about, but food is not one of them.

The place is freakin' huge. This is just one of their buildings.

The "Diablo Cafe" salad, sandwich, sushi and soup bars

Main entree du jour and pasta stations

Individual-size pizzas from the brick oven (glowing in the background)

I decided to go for the "Road to Romain" salad with balsamic chicken, carmelized walnuts, blue cheese and mandarine oranges blue plate special.

Going back to work fulll-time in a corporate environment would be shock to my system, but I think the Diablo Cafe could get me through it.

Update 12/08 19:45

PeopleSoft just called. I got the job! Yay!

Permalink: A_Clean_Well_Lighted_Lunchplace.html
Words: 237
Location: San Francisco, CA

12/06/04 01:32 - ID#36466

Sis time

I had a great time with my sister the past 4 days. I can't believe she left her husband, three kids and home business behind to come out and see me. It would have been a helluva lot easier for me to go there.

My sister arriving at San Francisco airport, looking very happy to be kid-free.

We had to pick up a shipment of wine for Dad. It would have been rude not to buy a few bottles for ourselves, and accept the gracious offer of a free reserve wine tasting while we were there.

It was so funny to go shopping with my sister. We tried out a bunch of toys for her kids and she cracked up at every one, which made me crack up. She bought this puzzle for her youngest kid that makes the animal's sound when you put the right piece in. It kept going off in the back of the car. We took all the puzzle pieces out of it, but it still went off whenever I banked hard to the left. (Many of my passengers have complained of feeling like crash test dummies.) Mostly we ignored it, but every once in a while it seemed to punctuate the conversation at a particularly apt time.

Permalink: Sis_time.html
Words: 215
Location: San Francisco, CA

Category: music

12/05/04 10:15 - ID#36465

Stream of consciousness

I've been thinking about this lately, and I guess I don't need an excuse to work it into the conversation, since this is my journal and I can write whatever I want whenever I want. How liberating is that?

So my ex-ex-ex? roommate and I decided to take that trip to France[inlink]twisted,90[/inlink] inspired soley on seeing the movie Betty Blue

. No shit. (Or I should say, pas de merde.) Did you ever see a movie that inspired you to move beyond the imagined confines of your perceived world? Ok, that sounded way more pretentious than I meant it. Anyway, crazy as it might sound, we walked out of the movie theatre vowing to go to France, and we did.

Which gives me the opportunity (even though I don't really need it -- my journal and all) to say I'm sorry I didn't chime in, (e:Soyeon), when you first brought up Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I thought that was a great movie too, and based on what I know of you, I thought you'd want to see it. I'm glad you liked it.

Back to my ex-ex-ex? roommate, Emily, and her boyfriend, Rob, who made the Skinny Puppy tape. When we lived together, Emily and I were into The Cure and Rob was into The Smiths. For some reason at that time, we all felt the two were mutually exclusive. I was trying to explain this to my new music bud Aaron (Morrissey no-show concert and Meat Is Murder dance club night) and he just couldn't believe it. I almost can't believe it now either, but at the time Emily and I thought The Smiths were too pop/mainstream for Cure fans like us. I guess distinctions like that don't always stand the test of time. Or maybe I'm not explaining it right. But that's the best I can do right now. It's weird.

Permalink: Stream_of_consciousness.html
Words: 321
Location: San Francisco, CA

Category: music

12/05/04 03:48 - ID#36464

Throw your arms around me

When an old roommate and I went to France, her then-boyfriend (now husband) made her two tapes to get us through the two weeks traveling. One was Skinny Puppy [inlink]drchlorine,66[/inlink] (I'm guessing it was "Mind: The Perpetual Intercourse" - the tape had no cover art except the hand-written instructions 'PLAY LOUD!!!'), and the other was Hunters & Collectors, "Human Frailty/Living Daylight." Unfortunately the Peugeot Jr. we rented did not have a tape player, so we had to take turns taking hits off her walkman. That was fun though.

For me Skinny Puppy falls into the category of music I think I must have, but I actually don't (except some MP3s I scavanged from a shared music volume at work). Kind of like all the other music ex-roommates, ex-boyfriends, and ex-roommate's boyfriends had that was communal at the time. Keep thinking I should make a music DB so I know what I really do have, what I only have on vinyl, etc. I've bought two PDA software packages for that purpose alone (one for the Newton and one for the Palm), but I haven't done it yet. I keep hoping it will just become an extension of my iTunes library, which it probably already is if I just bothered to find a way to export it.

(e:Drchlorine) - have you checked out any of the Rough Trade collections? I picked up their 25 year boxed set

just before my music budget got slashed due to being laid off. Been wanting to pick up some of their other collections ever since. My 'seek list' for used record stores keeps growing. Oh well, you appreciate it more when you work harder for it.

Sounds like a fun time at Allen Street Hardware last night. I hear the sausage was mighty tasty.

Permalink: Throw_your_arms_around_me.html
Words: 310
Location: San Francisco, CA
Last Modified: 11/11/15 08:09

12/05/04 03:24 - ID#36463

Outage on the Island

Power just went out for an hour, at least on my part of the island. Luckily I have my trusty non-electronic Lego phone for just such an emergency. I love my Lego phone.

It even has a handy drawer for pen and pad, or spare Legos.

Yeah, I guess I could have just used my cell phone to call Alameda Power & Telecom. That would have been boring.

Update 12/11/04 - turns out a squirrel was the culprit.

Permalink: Outage_on_the_Island.html
Words: 95
Location: San Francisco, CA

Category: holiday

12/04/04 11:40 - ID#36462

Lighted Yacht Parade