... rather party with?
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Thursday, June 18, 2009
City Sidewalks
Concierge let us leave the car with the hotel after we checked out. Went for a walk. Up a couple blocks to the the Ferry Building. Remembered what it used to be like thirty years ago or so, back when there was an elevated freeway casting its shadow over everything. Not a nice neighborhood then, especially after dark. Now it's amazing.
From the old ferry slips, a view of the hill that used to telegraph ship arrivals. Now it's the most unique neighborhood.
A market was on that morning, full of food and happy people. Two, anyway, once we got our curry sausage sandwiches. The sunshine poured through the cool air like honey.
Inside the Ferry Building itself, not like its old self. My mother remembers the room where'd they show newsreels while you wait to board. I remember faceless office spaces when the refinery I worked at held a Christmas party. Now an upscale food market, full of people and color.
Outside again, the usual. These guys played well, but their harmony was, shall we say, untutored.
A beautiful day for a cruise round the Bay.
And making memories.
From the old ferry slips, a view of the hill that used to telegraph ship arrivals. Now it's the most unique neighborhood.
A market was on that morning, full of food and happy people. Two, anyway, once we got our curry sausage sandwiches. The sunshine poured through the cool air like honey.
Inside the Ferry Building itself, not like its old self. My mother remembers the room where'd they show newsreels while you wait to board. I remember faceless office spaces when the refinery I worked at held a Christmas party. Now an upscale food market, full of people and color.
Outside again, the usual. These guys played well, but their harmony was, shall we say, untutored.
A beautiful day for a cruise round the Bay.
And making memories.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
A Night at the Ballpark
One of my favorite places in the whole world. San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus singing the Anthem.
Lincecum lines up a shot and sends it in. Guy is amazing. Won the NL Cy Young last year. Was solid Friday night. Drove in the first run and pitched a complete game and a shutout.
View out towards the marina by the park. Infield maintenance during the game.
Pretty reflections on evening clouds. A play at the plate.
Flags with East Bay clouds behind them. Taking the A's to their last out. (Giants swept the weekend series.)
Lincecum lines up a shot and sends it in. Guy is amazing. Won the NL Cy Young last year. Was solid Friday night. Drove in the first run and pitched a complete game and a shutout.
View out towards the marina by the park. Infield maintenance during the game.
Pretty reflections on evening clouds. A play at the plate.
Flags with East Bay clouds behind them. Taking the A's to their last out. (Giants swept the weekend series.)
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Crusty Old Thursday Thirteen
13. Early evening phone meeting with the fellas in Taiwan. With all the background noise (someone’s wife and small child), heavy Chinese accents at that end, miscellaneous Asian accents at this end … I cannot follow the conversation. Makes me feel like an irrelevant old yankee and considering how my country acts in terms of maintaining its technological lead (i.e. doing nothing), that’s not inaccurate.
12. Mid-afternoon ice cream. Some work group had a celebration and overdid the catering. Emails went out: Come and get it! Countless Dilberts emerge from their holes and converge on the scene. The hired staff with their temporary badges are surly. Ice cream is melted. Big bowls of nuts and cherries and crumbled cookies and chocolate ants and rows and rows of whipped cream cans. No wonder we look like we do. But it’s a fun chance to catch up with that random person you know and aren’t sure from what past intersection of careers you know them. Catching up consists of vague expressions of doing good and polite nods.
11. 3 ½ mile lunchtime run. Talking with the other runners, old white guys like me. Political sentiment is often driven by where you live. In California, as you go eastward from coast through farm country and into mountains, you get more conservative, and these guys live in the foothills. They think Bush betrayed the country by starting the bailout, and Obama is going to finish the job. They’re not sure he’s smart enough to know that destroying the country is what he’s doing. They are sure Bush wasn’t. I don’t disagree but I don’t really know, of course. One thing’s sure, we’re fucked, and it’s been awhile since we had a real chance to avoid being fucked. Hope and change? Please. A cheesy advertising slogan.
10. Mid-morning energy burst. That brief but blessed time of day when it seems as though questions are answerable, problems are solvable, the company has a good future, and my boss isn’t figuring out legal ways to get rid of me.
9. Morning shower and breakfast. Our hot water heater died the other night so I showered at the workplace rec center. (Put the new one in today.) Immediately after, time to meet my breakfast club, get my tea, stir hot water into my little one-serving bag of instant oatmeal, and sit around a table talking about manly home projects while watching attractive female fellow professionals pass through.
8. Early morning rounds. Bad night of sleep but no worries, I don’t remember dreams, something to do with helping my mother water a garden. Crawled off the mattress wondering whatever became of waking up refreshed. Went out the laundry room for boxers cause I’m way behind on folding clothes. Weird music from upstairs, choir music, and that’s weird for six in the morning. Went up and found several teenage boys asleep and oblivious, cast about the floor and furniture like discarded underwear, the menu screen for “Boondock Saints” playing over and over and over on the TV.
7. Late night reading. A book is a must if one is to crowd out the real world and actually sleep. Enjoy tremendously Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel. I love it when good scholarship and good writing converge to make sense of huge questions in a rational and believable manner. Put it right up there with Breaking The Spell for putting reality into context. Every night the same instant of crisis: Eyes won’t stay open, sentences run together, time to stop, put book and glasses on nightstand and hope to god that simple act doesn’t wake me all up again.
6. Evening miscellania. Haul dishes back and forth to the alternate dishwasher that’s fed by the other hot water heater. (Yeah, we have two of each, long story.) Admire puppies. Watch mama ignore them long time, then grudgingly sniff around, lick all their little heinies clean and wake them up, then lie down with a sigh and roll over and let them squeak and crawl all over her and suck away at her spigots. Get sleepy.
5. Okay, I.
4. Ran out.
3. Of time.
2. For any more, so.
1. Goin’ now. Got a restaurant date. We got married twenty one years ago today. Goodness.
12. Mid-afternoon ice cream. Some work group had a celebration and overdid the catering. Emails went out: Come and get it! Countless Dilberts emerge from their holes and converge on the scene. The hired staff with their temporary badges are surly. Ice cream is melted. Big bowls of nuts and cherries and crumbled cookies and chocolate ants and rows and rows of whipped cream cans. No wonder we look like we do. But it’s a fun chance to catch up with that random person you know and aren’t sure from what past intersection of careers you know them. Catching up consists of vague expressions of doing good and polite nods.
11. 3 ½ mile lunchtime run. Talking with the other runners, old white guys like me. Political sentiment is often driven by where you live. In California, as you go eastward from coast through farm country and into mountains, you get more conservative, and these guys live in the foothills. They think Bush betrayed the country by starting the bailout, and Obama is going to finish the job. They’re not sure he’s smart enough to know that destroying the country is what he’s doing. They are sure Bush wasn’t. I don’t disagree but I don’t really know, of course. One thing’s sure, we’re fucked, and it’s been awhile since we had a real chance to avoid being fucked. Hope and change? Please. A cheesy advertising slogan.
10. Mid-morning energy burst. That brief but blessed time of day when it seems as though questions are answerable, problems are solvable, the company has a good future, and my boss isn’t figuring out legal ways to get rid of me.
9. Morning shower and breakfast. Our hot water heater died the other night so I showered at the workplace rec center. (Put the new one in today.) Immediately after, time to meet my breakfast club, get my tea, stir hot water into my little one-serving bag of instant oatmeal, and sit around a table talking about manly home projects while watching attractive female fellow professionals pass through.
8. Early morning rounds. Bad night of sleep but no worries, I don’t remember dreams, something to do with helping my mother water a garden. Crawled off the mattress wondering whatever became of waking up refreshed. Went out the laundry room for boxers cause I’m way behind on folding clothes. Weird music from upstairs, choir music, and that’s weird for six in the morning. Went up and found several teenage boys asleep and oblivious, cast about the floor and furniture like discarded underwear, the menu screen for “Boondock Saints” playing over and over and over on the TV.
7. Late night reading. A book is a must if one is to crowd out the real world and actually sleep. Enjoy tremendously Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel. I love it when good scholarship and good writing converge to make sense of huge questions in a rational and believable manner. Put it right up there with Breaking The Spell for putting reality into context. Every night the same instant of crisis: Eyes won’t stay open, sentences run together, time to stop, put book and glasses on nightstand and hope to god that simple act doesn’t wake me all up again.
6. Evening miscellania. Haul dishes back and forth to the alternate dishwasher that’s fed by the other hot water heater. (Yeah, we have two of each, long story.) Admire puppies. Watch mama ignore them long time, then grudgingly sniff around, lick all their little heinies clean and wake them up, then lie down with a sigh and roll over and let them squeak and crawl all over her and suck away at her spigots. Get sleepy.
5. Okay, I.
4. Ran out.
3. Of time.
2. For any more, so.
1. Goin’ now. Got a restaurant date. We got married twenty one years ago today. Goodness.
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
Pupdate
I thought I'd get a chance to write a blog post by now, but no. So here's a picture of them one day after they self-segregated. It's cute but it was ... kinda weird.
They're two weeks old tomorrow (born May 27).
They're two weeks old tomorrow (born May 27).
