Went climbing again, and other things of little interest to just about anyone

Beth & I made a second visit to Bladium last weekend, and were equally impressed the second time. The great thing about showing up on a Sunday is that it's completely dead, so despite the fact that the variety of climbing routes isn't that plentiful, at least we can use any we want (or, more appropriately, any that we're capable of climbing).

The other activity of interest was a visit to Sonoma on Saturday. Unlike our other trips up there, this one was to scope out possible wedding venues. I would say our success was mixed -- we put 5 places on a list to hit, and of those 5: 1 apparently doesn't exist (there is a building with that address and phone number, but it's a dance studio, so I can't figure out where the "secret garden" would be -- there's nothing behind it!); 1 was a great choice but probably out of our price range; 1 looked like it would be nice but we arrived around 4pm on a Saturday, just as another wedding was getting underway, so we turned around and left; 1 was a definite no after just driving down the backwoods road and seeing a very strange copper sculpture of a cow in the front (we didn't even get out of the car); and 1 was alright and on the cheaper side, but you basically get what you pay for, and we didn't like the idea of some golfers in hawaiian shirts putting right behind our photos. All in all, I know that there is a direct correlation between what you pay and how nice the place will be, but I can't believe how much of a range in quality there is!

We're probably going to scope out places in Napa next, but not for a couple of weeks, because we're leaving for a nice long trip to Seattle/Vancouver/Victoria a week from today. The possibility of having the wedding in NY has also come up, but we don't know how the logistics of that will work.

In other news... there isn't much else to report. I'll get back to work.

Shameless Plug (even though I'm not getting paid for it)

Since I haven't been posting lately, there have actually been a few things that have happened in my life that I haven't written about here -- some big, like getting engaged, and some not so big, like discovering something actually cool to do on the small island we live on. Today I'm going to write about the latter.

A couple of weekends ago Beth & I decided to finally check out a place called Bladium on the other end of Alameda from us. About a quarter of the island is actually covered by an old Navy base that was closed in 1997, and some businesses have come in and found ways to use the space. We decided to drive over there because I was really in the mood to go climbing, something I hadn't done since last fall (yes, I sucked, but at least I went). Anyway, this place was amazing -- they converted an old air hangar into a gym and it's unbelievable how much is there. We just bought days passes to use the rock wall, but they also have 2 soccer fields, 2 basketball courts, an inline hockey rink, and a boxing ring -- all full size -- plus a full gym upstairs with weights and treadmills, and a bar/restaurant so people can eat & drink while they watch the league games going on down below.

I haven't joined yet but I was pretty impressed, and it didn't escape me that the place is less than a mile from the ferry that I never bike to, so I could theoretically stop by it on the way home if I wasn't lazy. Here's a link to the place.

End of shameless plug.

Well...

It should be pretty obvious by now that I'm not going to be very good about updating this blog. That said, I decided I should at least go ahead and change the main title of the page, given that we bought a car over two months ago (a 1996 Civic with 51000 miles on it, for the interested -- and yes, it really was driven by a little old lady that barely used it). So for now we'll call it "Adventures in California", although my main adventure is getting to work courtesy of crazy bus drivers because I'm too lazy to ride that bike I bought to the ferry. (4 miles doesn't sound far, but when the bus is two blocks away and has wi-fi, it's hard to be motivated!).

For my next trick I'll think about changing the url of the blog, since I don't actually live in San Francisco anymore. In the mean time, I don't think my hoards of readers will mind.