Canada!

Just a quick update, because it's 5pm on a Friday, and I should try to wrap things up and get out of here (which, of course, isn't going to happen anyway, so I may as well write here).

Got to take a well-deserved week off last week and hit Seattle, Vancouver, and Victoria. It was really nice being back in Seattle among friends, and the trip as a whole worked out great. We hit the weather just right; it rained in Vancouver on our first day, which was fine because all we really wanted to do was hang out in our nice hotel room after getting up super-early for the train. The next two days were perfect and we got to see more than I ever would have expected. Victoria worked out equally well - the only rain we got was when we were right in the middle of Butchart Gardens, and all it did was thin out how many people stuck around and arguably make the place look even better. I would definitely recommend checking out the pictures Beth put up on Facebook (if you aren't her friend, I'm in the albums, so you can get to them through my profile too).

As a whole, a great way to spend the week, but we were ready to get home after 8 days on the road. No real casualties on the trip, other than me leaving Beth's camera in the car at the airport and having to buy a new one when we got to Seattle (it's ok, her camera was still there when we got back). And the best part of all - I had a valid excuse to turn off my phone for about 5 days. I don't think I've done that since I went to Europe over 4 years ago, and I think it's something I should make an effort to do at least annually.

This weekend we're hitting a 49ers vs Raiders game (Beth's parents are in town, and her cousin is playing on a trial basis for the Raiders during pre-season), followed by a day in Napa on Sunday to look at more wedding places. I think I'm going to need a vacation from all of these vacations sooner or later. If I'm not feeling too lazy maybe I'll fill in on the results of these outings, since I'm sure everyone is dying to know.

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.

Catch-up

Well, I'll put it mildly: I've been a little lazy about updating this blog. It started out innocently enough: I told myself that I'd write when I had a little more free time. Then a few weeks passed, and I thought that enough time had passed that I should probably sit down on a weekend and really focus on writing a catch-up entry. Finally, it was a couple of months later, and the idea of writing kind of felt like running into someone on the street that you were never that close with -- you'd like to stop and say hi, but you know that it would take far more effort to have the catch-up conversation than it's worth, and you don't really have that much to contribute anyway.

So, here I am. What's new?

- Beth's boss turned out to be a nightmare. When it got to the point of 1AM text messages telling her what time to be in the next morning (for a part-time job, mind you), we got fed up. When she first got approval weeks before, then got harassed about leaving early the day before Thanksgiving to go meet up with her parents, who had just driven into town, it was the last straw. She quit right after that.

- The next few weeks went on mostly without incident, but with Beth's job situation changing, a lot of the disadvantages of living in the apartment started coming to light. We started thinking about moving again for the next few weeks, but didn't really take any action.

- Meanwhile, Beth and I agreed that the best option would be for her to go back to school, so she started looking at local community college programs where she could take prerequisites towards a nursing degree.

- In what felt like no time at all, a co-worker mentioned an area right over the Bay Bridge called Alameda, Beth got admitted into classes there, and we decided to go ahead and move there too. We took the second apartment we saw (more on the first one in a second), an 800 square foot 1-bedroom on the ground floor of a Victorian-style house 3 blocks from the main drag of Alameda. I say Victorian-style because I'm not sure if it counts if the owners spent 4 years gutting the house, down to the foundation, and all that's left is a shell of the original house (needless to say, it's very nice and we were instantly impressed)

- The first place we looked at had an outline on the floor where the body of the former resident had laid for several days until someone came to check on him. We decided not to live there.

- Although I don't walk to work anymore, I do have the option of biking about 4 miles to the ferry, and spending 20 minutes on the water every day, followed by a quick 6 block ride in the city. Unfortunately, due to 30% rain and 70% laziness, I have opted for the bus about 90% of the time since we moved in a month and a half ago. Maybe some day I'll actually use my brand new bike.

- The job is still going well, and the company is surviving, despite the mayhem of the rest of the financial world. I'm feeling a lot more adapted to the day-to-day work, and the schedule has eased up slightly. Not enough to have much of a social life, but enough to not feel drained of all life by the end of the day.

- Finally, and most importantly, my last blog post about climbing was the first and only time I've climbed since arriving here. It was fun, but a little crowded, and not laid out the way I'm used to. I think I might try to find another gym eventually. There's a place on Alameda called Bladium that supposedly has rock walls (and indoor soccer/hockey stadiums) built out of old abandoned Navy hangars. I might check it out at some point.

Climbing

Going climbing tonight for the first time in months. It's going to be scary and embarrassing.

The trip back to Phx this weekend was fun. I got to hit all of the old spots (Four Peaks, Chino Bandito, etc), play some flipcup with old kickball friends, and get away from city noise for a little while. All in all, a good first trip back. Now will begin the constant harassment to get everyone to come up here.

Napa was awesome

Over the weekend I took Beth to Calistoga (in Napa Valley) for a birthday she doesn't want to admit she had. Since she took all of the pictures I can't post them (at least not yet), but here's the link to where we stayed: http://www.winewayinn.com/.

It was the first time either of us have stayed in a bed and breakfast, and it was pretty fun. The place was walking distance from the town, which basically has a half-mile Main Street and that's it. Calistoga is the northernmost of the five towns that make up the area, and from what I could tell, also the smallest and quietest. I hadn't realized until the first night when we were going to sleep with the window open how long it had been since I had heard complete quiet. I love living and working in the city, but it made me realize that I can probably stand to get away from it once in a while.

All in all, the breakfast was fantastic, and the small touches were a nice change from the usual chain hotels I normally stay at (compare this place to the Holiday Inn Express on the 10th Street bridge in Pittsburgh and you'll probably agree). However, I'm not sure Beth & I are cut out for being really talkative to strangers at breakfast. We mostly kept to ourselves while the other guests (who were mostly much older than us) chattered away.

We hit tastings at 2 wineries on Saturday, and another 6 or so on Sunday. Most of them were pretty good, and by the end we both started feeling pretty confident about knowing what we liked and didn't like. We ended up buying bottles to take home from 4 of them. Definitely a side trip I'd recommend to anyone coming up to the bay area in the future.

A few of the places we hit:

http://www.rutherfordhill.com/ (The first place we hit. A little more on the corporate side.)
http://www.vsattui.com/ (REALLY corporate and huge. It's nice because you can buy food and have a picnic on their grounds, but we had to wait a while just to do a tasting. We ended up buying a bottle of port, but I don't think we'd go back, unless we can find a less crowded day.)
http://www.bennettlane.com/ (This place was really nice. It was completely empty when we hit it first thing Sunday morning, and we ended up buying a bottle of red. At the end of the day we decided we liked one of their whites better than any other one we'd had that day, and should have bought that too.)
http://www.augustbriggswines.com/ (We didn't like their wines very much, although the people were very nice, and they didn't charge for tastings.)
http://mummnapa.com (Sparking wines are apparently different from champagne. It was a nice change after sitting several wineries that morning, but not our favorite.)
http://www.dutchhenry.com/ (Our last stop, and probably the funniest. The owner had pictures of himself and other guys reenacting old western scenes, and wore cowboy boots. We ended up buying a bottle of chardonnay.)