The stretch of vitality

Had a really fun extended trip to California. It was a work trip but I tacked on both the weekend before and after to hang out in San Francisco. I flew out early on Saturday morning (April 24), grabbed my rental car, and met up with Pat to hang out. It was a very groovy and enjoyable experience as I was in a very much “take it as it comes” kind of mood and just enjoying the novelty of San Francisco. Throughout the day, Pat would suggest something and I would say “absolutely, that sounds perfect”. We got Salvadorian lunch, looked at a funny pawn shop, took a nap, rode the bus to the Apple Store and played with all the latest gear, and went over to Japantown for some yummy sushi. After sushi we walked around a bit and saw a funny scene. A pair of drunken college goofballs were stumbling their way across a big overpass and got engaged in a conversation with the group of homeless people under the overpass. This ended with the goofball dropping a small bottle of booze down to the the homeless folks, who then broke out into a rendition of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” and were clearly delighted. It was pretty funny.

After sushi we went and got ice cream. I was under the mistaken impression that I am lactose intolerant for the past 18 months. I recently got officially tested and learned that in fact, I am not lactose intolerant. There was much rejoicing. This was an official dairy-fast-breaking celebration and I got a big ice cream sundea (as it was spelled in the store) and it was great. We took a very crowded bus back to Pat’s neighborhood, or so we thought. Something got screwed up and we ended up a few blocks into an area Pat had heard was not safe. So we nervously made our way back into calmer waters, hung out on the roof a bit, then called it a night.

Sunday I packed up my stuff in the car and drove over to Golden Gate park for a nice run. Afterward I met up with my cousin Ed for brunch nearby. Then back to meet up with Pat before heading over to Dani’s house to hang out in her lushly overgrown back yard, chat with some Freedom Community folks, and learn knife throwing. As it usually happens, eventually additional members of “the family” as they say appeared and we discussed what to eat for dinner for about 45 minutes before finally deciding upon Peruvian food. So we all rolled to The Mission and had a big long meal with lots of good chatting (albeit much of the chatting was not entirely appropriate for a restaurant filled with families).

I tried to meet up with Ed again for Classical Revolution, but dinner ran late and all was finished by the time I arrived. And I arrived at the wrong address by a lot anyway, so I just drove down to Cupertino and checked into my hotel.

It was not a good work week to have a sore throat as I had to give two presentations, both of which were being recorded. It was pretty annoying and I really sounded strange. Other highlights included no less than four sushi meals included some served on a little boat and one all you can eat lunch. Friday it was back up to San Francisco to hang at Pat’s where a little party was happening.

Saturday Michale arrived (yay!) and we checked into our hotel and headed over to the Embarcadero to look at the yummies at the farmer’s market. We wondered around along the waterfront up to the wharf. I got a crab cake that I had been jonesing for. We also paid hommage to Pope Joe at Trader Joes so Michale could get her favorite hummus. Pat joined us later for seafood lunch and then napping in a nearby park near Ghirardelli square. Then we got some ice cream before heading back to the hotel. Michale and I took a “nap” from 6pm to 8:30pm and then just decided to give up on going out of the hotel again that night. I ordered room service and then we went back to sleep. Yay for mini-vacations.

Sunday we had excellent breakfast at the diner across the street, walked around a local farmer’s market fair, and then rode the bus out to the ocean. We walked along the beach a ways and then took a long walk through Golden Gate Park. We tried to make our way to Cafe Gratitude for some raw food yummies, and after a few address mistakes, we finally arrived to find it closed due to a power outage. Bummer! So we grabbed some pizza on Castro instead and then took the bus out to Diamond Heights for a party at Marcia’s.

The party was a lot of fun and Michale fit in with that crowd swimmingly, as I knew she would. It was good. There was ice cream cake and swiss cheese and lounging and talking and hot tubbing.

I commuted to work with my boss Monday morning and then back in the evening. I met up with Rebecca and Brian for rock climbing at Mission Cliffs a bit. It’s always fun to visit new climbing gyms. Then it was back to the hotel for early sleep. Tuesday morning Michale and I headed into the BART just as it was opening at 4am only to realize the first train to SFO wasn’t until nearly 5am, which was too late for our flight. So we had to fall back and take a cab to the airport.

Photos from the trip are here.

I went out to California for work again. I flew out to San Jose on Sunday, arriving in the afternoon, and took the rental car up to San Francisco to meet Pat. Rebecca and Tanya were also there. I hadn’t seen Tanya since Burning Man 2008 so I was glad she was home. Pat and Tanya have been roommates several months now but had only very slowly been furnishing their apartment, so they wanted to go to Ikea and pick up a few things, so I offered to drive them their in the rental car. I had just driven past it on the way up. We mistakenly went to the one in Palo Alto, a good forty-five minute drive south of San Francisco, which I had just passed on my way up, so it felt a bit silly. In any case, we went in there and as expected I found it a bit uncomfortable and crowded with families with hordes of children literally running amok. We breezed through and picked up just a few things. They couldn’t find any window coverings they liked in their budget and the book shelf they were going to buy for Marcia was out of stock. So with three small coffee tables and four folding chairs in tow, we headed up 101 again, stopping at a Best Buy along the way for Pat and I each to get some headphones. This time we hit bad traffic getting into the city, so we were a bit late for the “family dinner” we had planned with Marcia, Rebecca, Rebekah, and another friend of theirs. We stopped to pick up some food and drinks then ate together on the new coffee tables. I gave Rebecca a ride to her new nomadic residence and then again made the long drive down 101 to my hotel in Sunnyvale.

The week of work was both disappointing and exciting. We did a bunch of planning and realized we would fall quite short of the mark for our next release, and a formal procedure was started to notify interested parties that we would be dropping features from the release, so there was some stress and frustration associated with that. However, almost instantly after the announcement, the team started making huge strides of progress, so that got me excited that maybe A) we could still deliver the main functionality we were shooting for but B) people might not be constantly panicking about it.

Bernie and I took a very nice run at Rancho San Antonio park Tuesday morning. We saw some wild turkeys and enjoyed running on the curvy, hilly dirt trails. I met up with Ed one night to do some rock climbing. I gave him a crash course in belaying and he took the test. Administration of the test took longer than it should have so I figured he was probably not quite passing it, but apparently he was good enough to be permitted to belay me that night after some additional instruction from the gym staff, but not convincing enough to get the permanent “OK to Belay” card. We did some fun climbs though.

I was set to come back Friday night but a bit of snowy weather in Denver caused United to cancel my flight and reschedule me for Saturday morning. I ended up booking a rather weird and appealing hotel called the Domain Hotel on El Camino Real in Sunnyvale for that final night since my original hotel was full. It was dirt cheap – $50 – so I expected it to be basically a Super 8 type setup, but I was surprised to find it fully remodeled in a modern high-tech but weird decor and nicely appointed with sleep number beds, a fancy office chair, and actual wired ethernet. I’m not particularly skilled at describing the weirdness of the hotel, but let’s just say it was weird and odd and I liked it. However, I had worked from 6:30 am to 11:30 pm that day, scarfed down a turkey sandwich at the Denny’s next door, and had to gas up the car, return it, and get on an early flight so I went immediately to sleep.

Back in October when I went to hear the Kronos Quartet Cynthia and I got Boba Tea. I have a fascination with Boba Tea, and some of Cynthia’s friends that we met at the auditorium asked why I liked it so much, and I wasn’t sure, but I said something like “I don’t know. It’s just yummy and Japanese and weird”. And that made me realize that Boba Tea is just strange and random enough to be weird and delightful and I think these days I am quite delighted by things that are pleasantly weird.

Michale picked me up in Denver and came with me that evening to the Imogen Heap concert at the Fox Theater in Boulder. It was an odd show at 7pm because apparently they had double booked the theater so they gave Imogen an early show and had a second show afterward. It was fun to see Immi in person and enjoy her fetching stage presence. As with most of her live performances though, it was fairly lackluster. Her opening act had technical difficulties that prevented him from doing anything at all. And sadly the new Ellipse album is just not stellar. It’s certainly got some good tracks, but nothing more. Just some good tracks.

Sunday evening I had a meal with Jennifer in Denver and then took a swing dancing class at The Mercury Cafe. The band they had was called Impromptu Musique and they were “gypsy jazz” and quite good, especially the trumpet player.

This past week I had two fun climbing sessions Wednesday and Thursday with Stephanie and Safia, respectively. I’ve been working a lot and not doing much else, although it was good to do a little yoga now that I was back home. Last night I went with Michale and her friends Tollie and Zack to an America Indian Fry Bread Taco place and then to the Bindery | Space theater to see a very funny black comedy called “Big Love”. It was really quite great. It was a modernization of an ancient greek play and there was some great acting, singing, riding around on roller skates, and a constant swing between the macbre and serious grandious and the silly and humorous and humble. I go to very few plays, so it has been quite a while since I have enjoyed one this much. I also really like being very close to performers, and the theater had seating on three sides of a square stage at floor level, so it was very up close.

I’m composing this post on a flight to Newark. I’ll be in the NJ area until December 1. Tonight Marc is getting me at the airport and we’ll have Thanksgiving The Prequel with the band crew. I haven’t seen most of my old bandmates and their families in two years since last year I got a cold in transit and had to cancel the visit while I was contagious, so I am very much looking forward to it. Tomorrow it’s up to Mom’s for a big Italian Pronzo meal which I am also very much anticipating.

You know, I think it’s a good thing that I’m bathing in scenic mountain beauty for the next two months and have access to a hot tub. I think I’ll need the relief given the number of things coming to pass at the same time. I just rolled off the main product I have been working on for four years onto a new project, so there’s lots of work and stress associated with that. Burning man actually also generated a lot of clean-up chores back home and I’m still not done with those. I took the car to the car wash, but they really don’t measure up to playa dust. It’s cleaner, but still needs more work.I have to buy a new car capable of handling the mountains, get a mortgage, shop for and buy a house. Needless to say, my to-do list will be lengthy for a while. Here are some photos of the house:

So far the weather has been nice. Today it was gorgeous – 70 degrees and sunny. I did some much-needed yoga outside and then went for a run in my new running shoes after a professional gait analysis and fitting at Boulder Running Company yesterday.