Memorial Day in Arnold

I give this past weekend a B+. Friday night we went to Il Fornio in Burlingame with our good friends Mike and Julie. We had a great time and had some really good food. Saturday Jodi went to her cousins graduation at CSSF. Turns out that Neil Young and his wife were honorary graduates for his work with the Bridgeschool, and he was also a speaker. Jodi got back to San Mateo around 4 and then we headed up to Arnold with Raven and Mona. We made great time, 2.5 hours to be precise. A quick grocery run, picked up a pizza and some growlers at the Snowshoe Brewery and we were set.

Sunday Raven and I got up relatively early and knocked out the drip system. All the water lines and drippers were in pretty good shape so we lucked out. We did some raking and fired up the leaf blower. By 11 am we were done. Afterwards we headed down to Murphys to do some wine tasting. The best part about wine tasting in Gold country is that they don't charge. Ironically, the worst winery there "Ironstone" is the only one that charges. Raven bought some Reef sandals at a surf shop and his white tennies have yet to see the light of day. We didn't get 10 steps out of the store before he put those puppies on and said "this is one of the best purchases I ever made." I concur.

Monday we made it up to Big Trees and hiked throughout the giant redwoods. Those trees are so massive. There were signs of when man first discovered the trees back in the 1800's. Fallen mammoths, giants without there bark, stripped for a spectacle in New York. It kind of dawned on me that when man discovers something great he a) kills it and mounts it, b) captures it and tries to make money off it, c) destroys it, or d) all of the above. I guess we have John Muir to thank for a lot of what we have today in the Sierras.

Highlight of the weekend: Raven's posh bottles of wine and watching Tommy Boy on VHS.

Bay to Breakers

Last Sunday Jodi and I woke up at 5:30 AM on a Sunday morning to run in the Bay to Breakers race in San Francisco. Well Maybe run is an overstatement, we walked, and drank, and ran to catch up with the group after port-o-poty breaks. We were with team Orange. Why orange? Because you couldn't find your group in any other color. My Buddy Dan Davis from SC has 4 roommates that essentially planned the whole thing. They don't fool around...sound it out, pro-fess-ional. They are the guys with the full orange jump suits. Anyway, we started off here in front of the Palomino restaurant. In all there were 3 shopping Carts, 2 with Kegs and one with booze. There were several people from work there and of course the Hooters Guys. In case you can't read his shirt it says, "Delightfully tacky yet unrefined." I ended up seeing all kinds of people from grammar school, high school and work along the way, random and fun. The race was pretty much a giant binge-athon (see photo of Hooters guy and man in orange jumpsuit doing a keg stand for reference). By the time we hit GoldenGate park Jodi and I felt like it was time to pick up the pace. We finished the race at the polo fields and scrounged up enough change to buy 2 BBQ skewers. We played it pretty safe throughout the day but we were very tired. Highlight of the day had to be bypassing an alcohol checkpoint with a tap in one hand, shopping cart in onother, Doug in the shopping cart, running full speed on a running path through Golden Gate park. Click the link to see more pictures
flickr

Scarecrow and the Masked Bandit

Right after Jodi and moved in we noticed the sawed lawn in the back of the house was rolled up every morning. It looked like the grounds crew showed up and just left the rolls of sawed on the dirt. I realized that we had a raccoon problem. Since the back yard is shaded and the lawn was planted in the winter it never really took root. Every night the coon jumps the fence and rolls back the lawn looking for grubs and bugs. This was all theory till I got back from New York and my time table was all messed up. Friday morning I wake up at 5:00 am and walk out the back door to see if my theory was right. Like clockwork there he was. Lawn torn to hell and a worm in his hand. He just looked at me like I here to kick him out of the restaurant. This mo fo was huge. His head alone must have weighed 8 pounds. I scared him off and went back to bed. All I could think of was a way to keep him out. By the way, wire and beer cans with rocks don't work, in fact he worked around them.

Later I went to work determined to find a solution. People would ask, "are you busy?" and I would say "yes, extremely....Come back in 30." After a few google Searches I found it. It's called the Scarecrow and it will run you about $80. You can find this beauty at Target, Osh and other fine establishments. This baby is a motion detecting sprinkler. It has adjustable spray and the motion sensor has a 100 degree arc. Does it work? All I have to say is Scarecrow 5, Raccoon 0. I love this thing.

9,658 Miles and Counting

In the past 2 weeks I have flown approximately 9,658 miles and been in 4 major cities. Last week was New York. I had been there only once before when I was 21. It was an amazing experience then but without having lived in a major city before it was overwhelming. After living the past 4 years in SF and re-visiting the center of the universe it was a much different experience. It was also extremely exciting to conduct business there. My week went a little like this.

• 10:30 pm Sunday - Catch red eye to JFK
• 6:07 am Monday - Land JFK, Catch a cab to the Hudson Hotel with a nice detour through Central Park. Runners, Bikers by the hundreds.
• 7:00 am Monday - PullSupermanman in my phone booth sized room, put on the suit and tie.
  8:00 am - Visit the Economist Magazine
• 10:00 am - Visit Werner Media, the Producers of Rolling Stone, Us Magazine, and Men's Journal. Get a tour of the hallway that has every Rolling Stone Magazine ever produced. It also happens that the owner collects rock and roll art (some of the coolest painting of Hendrix I have ever seen. Found the issue of rolling stone that was released on my birthday, Steve Martin is on the cover. This hallway is a virtual rock and roll time machine. It's also a living tribute to all the rockstars and actors that went to soon, Belushi, Hendrix, Cobain, Chris Farley, Jim Morrison, and so on.
• 11:00 am - cab/visit/cab/visit
• 6:00 PM - Dinner with CIO of Customer.

The rest of the week was very much the same. I had my big presentation at 3 Times square the next day in the Reuters building. (pictured above) Suits, Ties, my Account Exec and Sales VP, 14 atttheirs on thier end including theipressureNo presure at all. It was nice to get that one out of the way. I definately felt on top of the world rolling out onto time square after a good visit. The rest of the week was just as packed but my AE spoiled me. We went to nice restaurants and bars and worked our a$$es off.

Yesterday (Monday) I flew out to Chicago for a big deal today. The demo lasted 3 hours. After that I ducked into a Ramada near O'Hare to do another quick demo. After that I flew out to Minneapolis, MN where I am writing this. Very cool downtown. There is one main block that has no cars filled with cafe's, shops, and pubs. Tomorrow I have an event to work for theThereany. supposedre suposed to be several hundred people there. Should be fun.