Starry Wisdom

Today, as I was driving to work, I saw the car in front of me swerve to the left. I immediately realized that it did this because there was a piece of Styrofoam packaging floating down 101. I saw the foam come near me and that it was moving to the left, so, after checking my mirror, I moved right. Well, the block decided to move right too, and at the last moment it impacted with my car. No big deal, except there were some weird sounds. I got off the expressway at the next exit (which wasn’t for over a mile), and I found that there was a piece of the foam wedged in my right front wheel well, between the tire and the suspension. I took it out, and there was no more weird vibration sound. I am kind of mad that it feinted like that and I hit it, even if no damage was really done.

Enough is enough with the house, and Stega wants to move in with her boyfriend (and they’ve already found a place), so for the third year in a row I am moving. In the past week I’ve looked at 9 apartments. Three of them I found worthy of submitting an app.

1) The first day, when I found out that Stega and Agent Smith found a place, I just went to an open house. In retrospect it was pretty good, but at the time I didn’t have enough context. The positives:

• location – 19th and Arkansas or so, as I recall.
• Generally nice – hardwood floor, clean.
• Easy parking (see location above)
• In building laundy
• Gas stove

The only real negatives was that it was near my spending limit and a bit smaller than I would prefer.

2) I saw a small flat in Potrero last week. It wasn’t bad per se, but it was too much like the place I lived in in San Mateo. It had easy parking and a pretty good location, but nothing else going for it.

3) On Thursday I saw a flat in upper Noe Valley, the bottom floor of an Edwardian. It was an eccentric place in a way – it has a SECRET ROOM. It also has an rather fantastic vintage gas stove, which probably dates from around when the flat was added to the house, in the 1930s. It is near the upper end of my range, and probably a not exactly where I was looking originally, but close. It is right by 280, so driving to work would be easy. There is street parking that is reasonably easy to get in the neighborhood (but it’s not in a sticker zone, albeit adjacent to one, which might mean some early morning car moving on occasion). And it doesn’t have laundry, although it has hookups for stackables. I liked it when I saw it, and I dropped off an application the next day (Friday), and the more I think about it, the more I want it. There is an open house tomorrow though, so I won’t know anything until after then at least.

4) A regularish apartment in a boxy building at 28th and Church. It was not a bad place, at all, but not what I want at all.

So that was from last Sunday until yesterday. Then Today I saw five more places.

5) A 1 bedroom apartment in a 60s type building at 20th and Kansas. Great location with easy parking, and a pretty reasonable apartment, save for the carpeted bedroom, which is not ideal, but liveable. No laundry, but parking and pretty good space. Also, a gas stove/oven which is a big plus to me. Oh, and there is a roof deck with neat views:

Expensive but not right at my limit. I faxed an application and credit report in to them tonight.

6) A flat in a four flat Victorian. Pretty spacy, wood floors, gas stove (which they said would be upgraded – although I’d be OK with what they had), no parking, and a neighborhood that could be difficult at times, but if you go far enough you can find parking, and just move your car later? Also, non coin op laundry in the building, and a good price, lower than the other two I liked. Really nice location (18th and Church). I faxed in an app tonight.

7) A flat in a two flat Victorian. No grounded outlets, no counter space in the kitchen. Not for neil.

8) An “upgraded” apartment in Mission Dolores. It was nice, but small, and the most expensive place I looked at. Garage parking is a plus, but, no.

9) An inlaw apartment in Bernal that I looked at just because. The price is low, but it doesn’t really have a kitchen, a tiny fridge with a tiny shelf of a freezer, and no oven. It was pretty spacious though, at least as big as the expensive one above, and with a better layout.

I have a few more places set to look at, and so I expet to find one more worth applying to. I am most hopeful for number three, if that is not clear!

My mom was in town from Thursday evening until Monday morning. I will go over some highlights of the weekend:

After picking her up from SFO and dropping her stuff off at the house, we went to eat at Liberty Cafe in Bernal. I had a pot pie and I burned my tongue a bit on it. This was unfortunate because the next day we went up to St Helena and Calistoga.

While “up north” we took a tour at Ehlers Estate Winery, which is an organic and not-for-profit winery – all their profits are invested in cardiovascular research.

We happened to be there on one of the last few pressing days of the year, so we got to see some sorting action, and sample the cabernet sauvignon grapes. They were actually remarkably delicious – quite sweet, but not cloying, and with a rich flavor. The put green globe and red flame grapes to shame!

After the tour we had a tasting of their merlot, cabernet franc and cabernet sauvignon wines. They were all pretty good, but die to my tongue burn I think I might have missed some nuance. Regadless, I like the franc enough to buy a bottle of it.

After the winery we had a decent lunch in Calistoga, and then went up to the Petrified Forest. This was a rather interesitng, albeit overly touristy place. Still, giant fossilized trees are rather impressive.

I decided to take my mom to dinner at my favorite sushi restaurant, Sakae in Burlingame. I discovered it soon after she left the last time she was in the area, so I figured it would be nice to take her there. We both greatly enjoyed our meals (it was the first time I had really good (not from Mollie Stone’s) sushi in months. After dinner I took my mom to Lucky 13 where people I knew were meeting for happy hour. We hung around for an hour of so, and my mom got to meet some of my friends.

Saturday we visited the newly opened California Academy of Sciences. Parking was a bit of a mess, but we actually managed to find a street spot about half a mile away from the museum. While walking across the plaza between the De Young and CAS we came across a guy registering people to vote, and we each donated a dollar for an Obama button. And then we entered the zoo that is the CAS on Saturday two weeks after opening.

The first thing that we did was get tickets for the planetarium – it was 12:30 and there were tickets for the 3:30 show, which seemed reasonable enough. We spent the next 3 hours looking at most of the exhibits – the overall highlight was the living roof, for me, but there were some good tanks in the Aquarium. The one major exhibit we did not visit was the rain forest “dome”. The line was just too long. The planetarium show was indeed neat, and it should be something on everyone who visit the museum’s agenda.

After the museum we headed back to my place and got ready to go to dinner:

You might be asking yourself “Oh, why are they dressed so nicely?” The answer of course is that we were going to Gary Danko for dinner. I could bore you with details of the dinner, but I will just give you a capsule summary: exquisite. Seriously it was fantastic from the physical restaurant, to the food (well one dish was only REALLY REALLY good, but the rest were so good, I am willing to overlook that) to the staff. We had a great time and a fantastic meal. And we were very full.

Sunday was a chill day – mom had to grade some papers, so we hung around the house for the morning, then went down to Sunnyvale that afternoon to visit with my friend Erin and her two young cats (just a little old to be kittens now). We went to dinner at my favorite mexican place, Vive Sol, and that pretty much was the end of the weekend. I took mom to the airport Monday morning before going in to work.

I replaced it, that was rather easy. The new one hums, even at full power. I’ll suffer it, though, for having light in my room controllable by the door.

I had an idea for a neilcast the other day but I’ve forgotten. If I remember, I might post one today.

Yesterday my friend Camille messages me because she was bored at work. Eventually the topic of the debate came up, and that they were showing it at the Parkway in Oakland – a brew & view type theater. This sounded like a good combination. So after work, I BARTed on over to the east bay to encounter a gigantic line (I was there a bit after doors opened, but I guess people were lined up since 5PM). And Camille and her coworker Aisha weren’t there yet. I waited in line but they were at capacity before I got in. So I waited around for Camille to get to Oakland, reading my book.

Eventually they arrived and we went to the bar next to the theater, which was very loud but at least they had the CC on the TV tuned to the debate. Camille and I drank a beer while Aisha found out that we could watch in the laundromat across the street. After we finished our beers we headed over and it was much quieter there, we could even hear the candidates speak. Aisha had made friends with some people there, and was drinking a bit of their Shiraz. I mean, right here there is a good story, but the night just got more amusing. (From what I gathered, I was impressed with Obama, but I will watch the debate via Tivo again to get a better opinion).

After the debate, Camille was hungry and wanted to go to Church’s down the street. Aisha and I also thought this was an OK idea, then I remembered that Merrit Bakery and Restaurant was just an extra block away. The promise of chicken and waffle enticed them to walk the extra block. The food there is good, but the high point was the person who sat next to us – the self-described oldest dog walker in Lake Merritt. At 82 year olds she was quite the whippersnapper, and regaled us with stories about the dogs she walks, and her past dogs, as well as her husband. Oh yeah, they also have some amusing looking cakes there:

After dinner we ended going back over to the loud bar. There was actually a party going on, with a DJ, which explained it being so loud. We ran in to the people from the laundromat again, and one of them turned out to be a documentary film-maker. I told him I would netflix his current movie, Hip Hop Colony which does look rather interesting.

Anyway, after an hour and a half or so at the bar it was time to go home. It was not at all the night I was expecting but it was suitably great in its randomness!

As promised, part 2 of my Seattle trip. I received my camera today, so I have photos posted on flickr I’ll be linking a few of them here, so no need to rush off and look yet – I’ll even relink it later in the post.

As I said in Part 1 we decided to go to Twin Peaks on Sunday. So after we woke up we packed Holly in to the car along with snacks and water and camera gear, and head out East. Twin Peaks is not really a single place, but it is a number of locations located in the towns of Snoqualmie and North Bend, WA. We visited a few of the external sites of the show, but also spent time admiring the stunning views.

Our first stop was at the water falls, which was also the external location of the Great Nothern, where Agent Cooper stays in the show. Here is the best shot I got of the falls and the hotel, which is actually the Snoqualmie Lodge, and quite nice – more on this after the photo:

We spent some time shooting the falls, and Steve attempted to wrangle Holly in to a photo to mark her 16 months of life. This took a while because babies, well, once they learn to walk, evidently that’s all they do. Eventually he was satisfied, then we went over to the Lodge for breakfast.

The Lodge has two restaurants, evidently. The dinging room and the “Attic”. The latter is more casual (not that the dining room is formal) but wasn’t yet open. So the dining room it was. A table for two and a high chair – well, that will be 15 minutes. A table for 2, right after of us? 45 minutes or more. You’d be tempted to say we just got lucky, but the place wasn’t that packed and the service didn’t seem that busy (although the service is really good, so maybe that was part of it), but we think Holly’s cuteness just charmed them. They offered her a crayon while we were being seated and Steve said “How do you feel about her drawing on the table cloth?” “Oh, that’s OK.” “Give her the crayon!”. They had an extra cloth on the floor under the high chair, and after we were seated the offered to bring her a fruit cup. This turned out to be very nice with some crackers, a breakfast roll, and a good variety of fresh fruit – and they didn’t even charge us for it. Our food was really good too. The coffee came out with shaved chocolate, which was a nice though, and was, uhm, a damn fine cup of coffee. I had a mushroom and spinach fritatta, which was delicous. The included herbed potatoes and biscuit were also great. Not a cheap breakfast, but it was definitely worth while.

After breakfast we got in the car and used a combination of a the More in Twin Peaks website via my iPhone and Steve’s GPS, we headed out to see some other sites. Thankfully Holly fell asleep soon after breakfast and so we just left her in the car and took turns taking pictures at the next couple of destinations. First up was the Road House.

They’ve renovated since the show, but it was still pretty cool looking. Plus there was a firetruck there when we got there, pure excitement!

The next destination we decided on the Packard Mill. It turns out that it had since been purchased by Weyerhauser, and so a bit of google maps allowed us to figure out it’s approximate location. However it’s down a bunch of backroads, so getting there was tricky. We got lost a couple of time but hey, we found a nice little lake to take pictures at:

Note that this is looking Southeastish, and the mill would have been about due East of where we were. But it took us another half an hour to get there.

The mill itself is in a nice state of decay, which actually leads to some neat pictures:

One nice thing about the mill is that it is a two-for-one destination. The “Sherrif’s Department” exterior is actually the mill office.

Note that the best views of the Mill are from the road on the way down (ore back up), but you can’t see the office until you get to the bottom.

Our final destination was the nearby “Double R” diner, now known as Twede’s cafe. We decided to make a stop there for a little snack (read Cherry Pie) and relaxation before heading back to Sammamish.

The pie was actually pretty decent, but the service was abysmal. Not a destination location, but the outlet mall is right down the street, so I can see locals stopping by for some pie after a consumer driven afternoon.

Anyway, after the cafe we drove back so that Holly could finish her nap and we could shower. After hanging around for a while, we headed over to Jum’s brother Jon’s house, not too far away. He has a really nice, big house. Holly seemed to like it there a lot. Jon, Steve and I played a bit of a boardgame that Steve had recently purchased, and then Jum went and picked up Thai food for dinner. After dinner we played a bit of Xbox, but soon it was time for little Holly to go to sleep, so we went back to Steve’s house. Steve and I ended up reading a bunch about early pay TV that night, such as ON-TV. Interesting stuff. Eventually it was midnight and since Steve had work the next time, it was bed time.

Monday Steve left early as he had a 9am meeting, so I hung around with Jum for a bit before she brought me to the airport. The flight was fine, and soon enough I was home, and noticed my camera was missing. I swear that thing hates me!

As promised, my flickr gallery.

I got im to SEA at about 6:30 on Friday and called my friend Steve who was already on his was to the airport. I waited about 10 minutes for him and we were off. On the way to his house in Sammamish we picked up food for him, his wife Jum and me, since it was going to be too late to start going out by time we got back.

It took about an 45 minutes to get to his place with traffic and getting food. We arrived and I was introduced to his 16 month old daughter Holly, who is the most adorable little thing ever. She obviously inherited this from Jum, and won the genes lottery in that respect. She knows about a dozen or so words and of course repeats them over and over, but in someone as cute as her, it is endearing. We had Jeopardy on while we ate, which is her favorite show. In fact, she loves the Final Jepoardy song so much that she dances to it! Evidently she fell in love with the show while very young since they always had it on during dinner, and it’s about the only thing she is actually interested in on TV – after the show, Jum put on some Clifford, but it seemed to disturb Holly more than interest her, especially since Clifford was a puppy and hidden in a cupcake that was about to be eaten at some point!. Soon, though it was time for her to go to bed.

After they put her to bed, I was given the tour of the house, which is pretty damn nice. Their spare bedroom, which I slept in, is jam packed with books and DVDs and such – which knowing Steve was not surprising at all. Anyway, after that Steve and I retired to the “media room” which is upstairs and played some Xbox. Eventually it was late enough for us to go to bed (1am or so) and I was out like a light.

I was awoken by crying baby at about 7:30. I stayed in bed for a bit, but eventually went downstairs to watch some Dr. Who with Steve and Holly. Jon Pertwee – old stuff. He’s starting her young! We had plans to go to a recycling event nearby at 9 to get rid of an old broken TV (with a Tube!) and some other electronics. Eventually we headed out to Issaquah, which is just South of where Steve lives, to do the recycling (which was at Costco). Afterwords we decided to go to the farmer’s market which is held at Pickering Farm, which has a neat barn:

We gathered up some blackberries, blueberries, peaches, apples, and bread (the latter of which Holly got to hold while Steve held her, much to the amusement of the bread vendor! and then headed back to Steve’s house. Holly ate a few blue berries and then it was time for her nap. Steve decided to take a little nap too, so I played a bit more of Braid, and solved some puzzles that were quite vexing the night before in no time flat. It’s a cool game, and one that benefits from detachment.

Anyway, once they woke up, I gave Holly the toy I brought her, a Leapfrog guitar that teaches animals and counting in English and Spanish. She greatly enjoyed the music it made and she danced around holding the guitar. Then we left (the four of us) to go to Pike’s Place market, which is the de facto Seattle sight. I’d been there before on a vacation with my Folks 15 years ago, and it was mostly the same. We walked around a little bit and then got a late lunch at Lowell’s, which is a big restaurant and Bar across three floors, overlooking the water – I am most certain I ate here back in 1993. For being a place that seems to be skewed to tourists, and in a touristy location (although the market is a real market that locals use) the food was surprisingly tasty, and reasonably priced. Holly didn’t make too big of a mess, although she tried like the devil to get her table topper off constantly. After lunch we walked around a bit more, and visited a few stores, including a cool map store, where they bought a 2 foot inflatable globe for Holly, and then we set off to search for the Fremont Troll.

The Troll is a rather amusing piece of art which lives under a bridge in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle. He’s well enough hidden, and the streets are goofy enough, that it took two passes of us crossing over the bridge bear him for us to find, even though we had GPS in the car with us. The search was worth it because he’s really amazing:

I have better pictures on my actual camera, but I sort of left that behind at Steve’s, so the iPhone pic will have to suffice for now. But we had a good time shooting it, because of the interesting lighting. Steve managed to get a good pic of me up on the Troll’s shoulder which I will link to when he posts it.

After the troll it was time to head back to Sammamish. We watched some Nightflight and then they put Holly to bed. Despite the late lunch we were a bit hungry, so we went to get Jimmy John’s – this was funny because the kids working there asked us if we had been there before. Well, I’ve not been to that particular store, but I’ve been going to Jimmy John’s since they were in short pants, and I bit my lip to not say that. After dinner, Steve and I watched Point Blank, an interesting “nouvelle noire” Lee Marvin movie. It’s a very weird movie in a lot of ways, but we enjoyed it. After the movie it was about time for bed, but before that we planned out what we were going to do the next day, which was head to Twin Peaks. More on this in my next post.

So, I taught my mom how to send text messages this week. You see, a year or so ago my mom called me when I was at a movie. More than once, because my mom is a bit weird like that (more on this below). After the third time my phone vibrated I sent her a quick text “Im at a movie, call you later”. And she somehow managed to eek out an “OK” as a response.

This year we were seeing a movie last weekend and while we were waiting for it to start, my mom had me show her how to send a SMS, not just reply from her phone. I will admit the interface on her phone is kinda kludgey, but we figured it out. Cut to Tuesday of this week, I am out to dinner with my brother and old friend, as I posted about earlier in the week. While driving home my mom manages to send the following to me:

“Neil did you get this” – 11:33PM

“Dont know how to get message” – 11:33PM

“Laundry” – 11:49PM

“Did you get my message” – 12:07AM

Well, it’s something at least. Then last night I was out again, this time meeting a friend from SF who was having a homecoming of sorts to Chicago (he just moved out West earlier this year) at his old hangout bar. I figured I might as well go, since I am in town and all. After a while we leave that bar and go to another, that some people I met last night didn’t want to go to, there was a third bar they wanted to go to which interested me a bunch more – I mean it’s called Hungry Brain! Eventually I did make it to Hungry Brain with Courtney and Joe (who had just arrived before we headed out), and we hung out there for a bit, because it was approaching 2AM last call time. But they have IPAs on tap, so I have to give them a lot of credit. And a brain motif, including a sculpture of a brain with an Jeigermeister IV.

Anyway, after last call there, the two people I was with call the other people to see what they are up to. I figured I needed to head out east anyhow, as my car was there, so when they said “People are going to blah blah at 4200 Clark, I figured that put me a bit closer to my car than I was at the time, so I was game for hanging out some more. We got there, and hung out, and no one else came, so we decided to call it night. Just then my mom SMSed me:

Mom: “Hi are you having fun”
Neil: “Yeah probably headed home soon”

Hey, she’s getting the hang of it. So we go outside and say goodbye to Joe, who lives in the neighborhood, and Courtney and I share a cab, as my car was on the way to her place. On the drive south I get two texts:

“How is it going?”
“I am getting good at this sort of it just takes me a long time”

Courtney asked me who I got a text from, as it was getting close to 3am. I told her my mom and she thought it was hilariously cute that a) my mom figured out SMSing and b) that even at almost 33 years of age, she was waiting up for me. Yes, that’s the other strange part about my mom. When I’m staying at my parents house, she can’t go to bed (not sleep, she was asleep on the couch when I got home) until I get home. Which I guess is endearing in a way, but also sort of weird.

Last night we took my dad to Topolobampo for his 60th birthday. This in and of itself would have been awesome, but we had an extra surprise. For, the table across from us was reserved for none other than Barack and Michelle Obama. This was just a great icing on the cake of my dad’s birthday dinner.

In case you’re wondering, pretty much everyone in the restaurant just let them be, and let them eat a “normal” dinner, well as normal as dinner can be at what has to be the finest Mexican Restaurant in the US if not the world.

Also, here is a little article about the Obamas’ and McCains’ favorite restaurants which mentions Topolo.

I walked across SF today, SE to NW.

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2030116

I’d say more, but the route speaks for itself. It took about 3.5 hours including some breaks to snack. My feet hurt.