☜going w e s t

11 May

08:52 am

We’ve been walking on the *other* side (aka, the south side) of Cortland Ave a little more the last few days. We can see my house from this vantage point.
- #san francisco
- #bernal heights

10 May

09:47 am

A Day in the Life of San Francisco

I live on a pretty steep street…. so steep in some places, a parked car can’t even get all its wheels flat on the ground (check out the lower rear tire… it’s floating, and that’s awesome). Luckily, I don’t have enough room in front of my house to park, so I have to go in the garage and don’t face this issue.
- #san francisco

04 May

09:57 am

Starting to look like summer…

We’ve started to have little bursts of summer the last couple weekends now…This view out my window really captured it though… that nice late evening pink hue, so characteristic of summer. Love it.

Interestingly… the fact that I’m even noticing a change of season, that’s kind of a big thing! Compared to last year, where I couldn’t tell any difference between winter into spring and into summer. The locals told me they actually sense the changes of season… maybe they weren’t lying ;).
- #san francisco
- #weather

08:40 am

IRONY.

I was going to post about how last night, for the first time in a looooooong time, I actually had the chance to do NOTHING. It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to come home and feel like there was nothing immediately pressing and I enjoyed it immensely. It was nice to sit around, make some spaghetti, and just watch tv. I looked forward to waking up this morning feeling refreshed for once. So what happens? I think I’m catching a cold. I have that unwelcomingly familiar hazy feeling in my head and that’s not a good sign. I’m doing the zinc and having a fruit smoothie for vitamin overload in an attempt to head this off early. But isn’t that always the way? You’re going 100% for so long, constantly tired, and when you finally get a chance to rest it’s like your body lets its guard down and you get sick :P.

And as usual, Lima Bean shows her support.

02 May

19:47 pm

I’m trying to catch up…

And not having much success… I don’t know what’s happening, I mean besides work really getting busy and sucking up all my energy, but I feel like I’m in a state of perpetual catch up. That being said, I really want to get back to updating the blog more regularly, it’s a way to slow down time and force me to savor stuff just a little bit. So we’ll see if I can get back to this a little better.

So back to chronicling my my adjustment to life in the Bay Area, I had an interesting experience getting ready for my hockey game last night. In any other situation, there’s not much to think about… pull together my equipment, throw it in the car, *maybe* check the traffic on the way to the rink (especially if I’m headed to Oakland where I need to cross the Bay Bridge), and that’s it. Last night’s game was a little different… the May Day Occupy protests were happening and over in Oakland, there was a pretty big group on the move. I had to watch the local news reports because the Oakland hockey rink is really close to the City Hall plaza which is where the protesters were headed. I had to laugh at myself as I figured out whether or not the trajectory of the mob would intersect the hockey rink or the streets nearby where I’d need to park. I figured I had at least two or three blocks of ‘cushion’ so I headed out. When I got to the rink, it was pretty quiet, but I could hear the noise of the crowds a few blocks away. After the game, as I walked to my car, it still looked relatively quiet, except for the two… no, make that three police helicopters hovering overhead. That was quite the scene…, leaving under cover of the MAN, haha… Only in Oakland.

This is me laughing at the weirdness of this whole reality…

p.s., The 99%/1% is a legit issue and I’m not laughing at the occupy movement at all. I am laughing at the fact that I have to worry about a mob potentially destroying my car while I play “beer league hockey.”
- #oakland
- #hockey

13 Apr

10:37 am

Excuses excuses excuses
- #greyhound

08:12 am

THUNDER!!! I’ve been in San Francisco for a little over a year and half now, and last night was the FIRST thunderstorm I’ve experienced since moving here. And it seemed well worth the wait… according to the SF Chronicle, this was a record breaker.

It’s so wild how your perspective changes based on your environment. This was a typical thunderstorm… if I still lived out East. But since I’m here, and they’re so rare, it was EXCITING. There were a couple of thunderclaps that even shook my house. I was down in the Mission getting my taxes done when it started. It was funny how everyone there sort of looked around like, what in the world? Is that thunder?? Ironically, the guy doing my taxes was from Rhode Island, and he had the same reaction I did… “I haven’t heard thunder since I lived out East!” Then on my drive home, I noticed a couple of the electric busses had broken down, I guess the storm knocked out the electric lines. Back home, I started wondering if this was a little weird for around here, and then I noticed Twitter lighting up with tweets from local people all commenting about the storm. Pretty wild. The only bad thing is that I’d almost forgotten that Lima Bean is NOT a fan of thunder. So she was pacing around the whole time and definitely not feeling relaxed. Luckily, this is probably the last thunderstorm we’ll see in awhile.
- #san francisco
- #weather

27 Mar

08:00 am

Still too busy to catch up here… so I’ll post a ridiculous Lima Bean picture in the meantime… :P
- #greyhound

20 Mar

10:00 am

I am falling behind… in my blogging.

Since I’m sort of interested in keeping people interested in this blog, and I have to say, that’s kind of a novel concept to me, that anyone is reading this with any regularity, then I need to keep regularly posting. Usually, the challenge with regular posting is having something interesting to share. Lately, the challenge has been that there’s just too much going on right now. BUT, I do want to catch up, and at some point, sooner than later, I’ll try.

Some things that I definitely want to post about include: pics of the new house and the whole experience of living in the new place now that it’s been a couple of weeks; and, my trip to the Greyhoundfest in Solvang, a very fun trip.

Some other things that have caught my attention, but probably won’t really get into… suddenly there’s been a few greyhound-themed commercials popping up (Skechers super bowl, Volkswagen galgos chasing a rabbit, Absolut Vodka greyhound drink). I find it awesome to see greyhounds on tv. But in the insular little world of greyhound adopters, they’ve sparked the inevitable vitriolic debate on greyhound racing. The debate has long since lost my interest since both sides pretty much now just depend on hyperbole to make their cases. The lack of snow in Tahoe has meant no snowboarding this season :-|. And the Calgary Flames are doing that agonizing just barely out of the playoffs thing again.
- #greyhound

14 Mar

12:51 pm

I love living in a neighborhood with a little personality.

These stencils have started popping up in our ‘hood…

<photo courtesy Chris W.>

Bernalandia INDEED! The story is here, courtesy of our heroic local blog, Bernalwood. Of course, we have some confusing nomenclature now, this is on Cortland Ave. and I’ve seen that referred to as Cortlandia…

Let’s leave that all behind for now and remember this message from Portlandia itself…
- #bernal heights
- #san francisco

05 Mar

12:22 pm

Earthquake!

original image from usgs.gov

Not having grown up in an area where earthquakes happen with any frequency at all, anytime I feel an earthquake, it’s EXCITING. This morning, we had a 4.0 one and it was pretty good. I was up a bit after 5 this morning, drinking coffee, reading the news… then I heard a loud *BOOM* and then the sound of my windows sort of shifting/crackling and then realized that I was feeling *something*… then there were those few seconds of, “is this an earthquake?” followed by, “…hmmm…, I sure hope this stops…” and then it was over.

Right away I hopped over to the usgs.gov earthquake site and saw that something had indeed been recorded. Then the TV news said something about it. This was cool, my first earthquake in my new house. I’ll admit to thinking - this would suck if my house got destroyed in an earthquake a mere week after getting it - so I’m glad it was not a biggie. I’m also counting on us living on the Bernal chert to keep us safe :-).

It’s kind of neat, I noticed Lima Bean reacting too, she was lying on the couch, raised her head and did her one ear up thing. Even cooler, now that I think back to it, about 1 or 2 minutes before the quake, she suddenly got up, did the one ear up thing and was very ‘alert’ for a few seconds… as if she’d seen something. I assumed she did. But maybe she was sensing the early pre-shock to the earthquake? Pretty cool. Anyway, she was not fazed and was back to couch relaxing soon after the quake.

29 Feb

12:57 pm

Elvis, the greyhound from SF

It’s been over five years ago now, that’s when I really started considering adopting a greyhound. Since this was my first *dog* (much less greyhound), it was a pretty big decision for me so I did a lot of research. During my research, I came across a series of articles written by Eileen Mitchell of the San Francisco Chronicle. In these articles, she chronicled her experiences adopting a newly retired greyhound, Elvis. This was exactly the kind of information I was seeking - a real person’s account of what it might be like to adopt one of these greyhounds. I eagerly soaked up all her previous articles and looked forward to any new articles that she wrote about Elvis. Her articles played a large role in my giving myself the go-ahead to start my own greyhound adoption process. I, obviously, did adopt a greyhound, the infamous Lima Bean, and it’s been awesome. I always thought it was kind of neat that someone’s experiences so far across the country could have such an impact on my own life. I continued following the articles about Elvis when I moved out here. Elvis was getting older and he was starting to show some of the undeniable effects of age. I dreaded the day when Eileen would publish that last article… well, she did that today. It’s really cool to see how beautifully someone can write about her dog. It’s also, unfortunately, a little bit painful.
- #greyhound
- #san francisco

08:46 am

Moving day!

Yesterday was moving day! And I’m happy to report that it was a success :). The one thing I’ve learned over the years related to moving? IT’S ABSOLUTELY WORTH IT TO HIRE PROFESSIONALS. I might as well give a shout out to Gentle Giant movers, they were excellent. They sent out a 3-person crew and everyone one of them was professional, friendly, efficient, and just overall, outstanding. The real litmus test? I felt like I didn’t have to do a thing and didn’t have a worry in the world. Well, I guess it also matters if your stuff is all damaged, but so far, everything looks good.

Here we are first thing in the morning with the moving truck parked in front of my old apartment.

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It’s kinda ironic, while I was sitting around watching the movers do their thing, I finally met one of the neighbors who lives across street, on the day I was moving out :P. But since I’m still living in the Bernal Heights ‘hood, maybe I’ll run into him again.

A couple shots of the almost empty apartment. Always amazed at how different things look when your stuff is gone.

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I will definitely miss this view.

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Lima Bean spent move day mostly lying around, almost in the exact same position. Here’s the proof:

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Ahhh… it’s so nice living in my own place again.

24 Feb

08:19 am

High-res →
And now, we wait.

I haven’t posted much on my house procurement process, mostly because I didn’t want to jinx things. Closing was scheduled for TODAY. Like NOW. However, we ran into a little bit of ‘turbulence’, nothing too major, but just enough to add some uncertainty into whether or not this would get done today. Under normal circumstances, a few days of delay would be no big deal at all, but in my situation, any delay WOULD NOT BE A GOOD THING.

The main cause of delay was with the bank, just some minor stuff with them slowing things down. But I did get a little bit of semi-heart stopper when my realtor forwarded me a copy of a COURT SUMMONS stating that my future next door neighbor was suing the current owners of the house I’m buying. The good news is that the sale will not be affected in any way by this, the bad news is, well, I don’t know how ‘nice’ this neighbor is going to be…

I met super early this morning (before dawn!) with the title company to sign all the final documentation for the sale. They’ll pass that to the bank which will then fund the loan and then the city will record the title. All of this is supposed to happen today. So now, I WAIT (and ostensibly, try to do some work).

And what will I do once I get those keys???

LEAVE TOWN.

Hahaha… it’s just funny timing, I’ll be headed down to Solvang, CA for the Solvang Greyhound Fest, our first west coast greyhound event!
- #greyhound

22 Feb

09:12 am

High-res →
Bernal Hill - from Holly Park.

I don’t get over to Holly Park much, even though it’s practically right next to me. You get a really nice view of Bernal Hill over here, particularly with that nice early evening sun.
- #san francisco
- #bernal heights