Party Weekend

Saturday night I went to a party at the SuperHappyFunHouse (Good luck logging in). It was a really great party, so great that the cops came too. :-(

Sunday EJ and I went to SF to brunch at his friend's house. There was some excellent french toast, with a very good plum, grape, and caramelized honey topping. After that EJ and I went to visit Caitlin and Sam, who have just moved out to SF. We chatted with them for a while and saw the nice house that they are house sitting. Then we all drove down to Mountain View and had Chinese in Palo Alto with Dave and Mindy. Caitlin and Sam then came over to my apt. Where we petted the kitten and had some excellent port before they left to head back up to the city.

I'm in the middle of reading
Lord Darcy, a sci-fi/fantasy book. It's similar to Sherlock Holmes, except that Richard the Lion-Hearted lived for an extra 20 years and was a good king and there is magic. So as a result of these things the English Empire covers half of Europe and most of the Americas. It's quite good if you're looking for fluffy brain candy.

I also recently finished Roma Eterna, by Robert Silverberg. It's about what would have happened if the Hebrews had never made it out of Egypt. It's pretty interesting, but I was slightly disappointed with the ending.

An Evening in the City

Last night Lauren and I drove up to San Franciso to have dinner with Tom Cormen, a professor of ours from Dartmouth. We had dinner at a great sushi place at Pacific Heights. Then EJ and a few other people joined us and we went to a jazz bar in the area. It was a lot of fun, though I became tired early, mostly in anticipation of going to karate this morning. It was really great to talk and hear about all the fun stuff that is going on at Dartmouth. I almost wish that I was still a student there, however I do enjoy not having homework.

Life is Good

On Tuesday EJ and I had been going out for nine months. I'm impressed with us, just because this has been my longest successful relationship. We went to dinner and then had some really excellent late harvest Gewurztraminer. And we watched the last episodes of Season 3 of Coupling, a really hilarious British Comedy.

Wednesday I had a massage at Google. I love the massages here. I adore them. You can get a half hour or a full hour of an actual fully trained masseuse to massage you. I really don't have the words to express just how wonderful the massages and masseuses are.

Also this week I've been getting back in to Martial Arts. I'm taking Shito-Ryu Karate at Pacific Martial Arts in Mountian View. I went to class on Monday and Wednesday and my legs were soooo sore. Inspite of my legs feeling like they were going to fall off I did feel better after going to class. I suspect that part of that was not having the guilt of missing class hanging over my head, but most of it was that I actually really enjoy karate.

Pictures

I've finally put pictures from Sailing on the Schooner Heritage June 14th to 21st and this past Labor Day Weekend at Big Sur. They aren't labeled or organized yet, but have a look.

Mountain View Wine and Art Festival

This weekend is the Mountain View Wine and Art Festival. Castro Street is blocked off from El Camino Real to Central. Which is causing no end of traffic congestion: there are lots more people and a lot of cars who don't look at the signs until the last minute when the realize that they can't turn down Castro St.

There are lots of very beautiful things. I bought to two really lovely prints of watercolor on silk paintings, a bunch more jewelry supplies, a wooden hair pin, a copper and tiger's eye spinner. and a really really cool mirror from Andy Byrne. My main plan in going was to look at jewelry for more design ideas and to get some art for my walls. I'm a little tired of having my old college posters up. I like some of them a lot and may get several framed, but I also want to have some nice art as well. I think I've got a nice start on this.

Labor Day Weekend

I really love three day weekends. Especially when the third day is a Monday. It's great to have a long weekend and then a short week to ease back in to working. I wish that every week was like that.

Friday afternoon EJ and I drove down the CA coast. We walked to a waterfall at Julie Pfeiffer State Park, ate at Nepenthe, and camped at Pfeiffer State Park, part of the collection of state parks near Big Sur. Dinner at Nepenthe was very romantic and really really delicious. We watched the sun set and had some excellent wine with our very scrumptious food. EJ has a picture of the label, howeverI can't remember the name, which is why we took a picture.

Saturday the birds were very loud and woke me up at an hour entirely too early. I much prefer sleeping in, as anyone of my family or past roommates can attest to. But the birds sounded nice and the early morning was beautiful. We then hiked to the waterfall at Pfeiffer State Park. (These were two different waterfalls at two differnt parks, just donated by the same very rich family a long time ago.) Then drove back up to the coast to Andrew Molera State Park, where we walked to the beach. There was some lying on the beach, and EJ actually swam in the water. I elected to read and worship the sun. This was followed by walking back to the car, and driving to our Bed and Breakfast. There we swam in the pool and floated in the hot tub. The order of hot tub and bed after camping on the ground is key and should be taken note of by all would be campers. Either that or get better air mattressses than we had.

Sunday morning we drove back to lovely, hot Mountain View and proceeded to spend the rest of the day hiding from the sun. Also we played Jedi Bitch Slap. (For the Non-Dartmouth people, that would be Star Wars: Masters of Teras Kasi) The graphics aren't as good as I remember, but it's still a whole lot of fun making Luke and Leia fight each other. I had just got the game that day so there was much playing and trying to remember just how to make Luke throw his lightsabre. Also there might have been just a little bit of evil laughter from me as my character won...

Monday (Labor Day!!!) EJ, Dave, and I went to Sonoma. There was a lot of wine drunk. Also lots of wine bought. The best was still the Sonoma Valley Portworks. They have a really awesome port called Deco. I have been raving about it to everyone for the last couple of weeks. It really is delicious: it is a mix of two ports with some chocolate added just before the bottles are sealed up. It's really good. I also bought several other ports, and random other wine. It was quite a successful trip, and an excellent weekend all considered.

This blog

I'm not sure what this blog will be about. I'm not a particularly good writer. Actually I hate writing. But in an effort to use all of Google's products I've finally gotten this started. I suspect that I can use it to let my friends know how I'm doing. I'm really terrible at calling and sending mail (Hilary your birthday present is in a box now, so I should make it to the PO at some point soon...) and even emailing at regular intervals is hard sometimes.

Anyway, I have a lovely apt, a cute cat, and a great bf. I love what I'm doing, and life is pretty good in general. I make jewelry and go to karate and yoga. I recently was shown an absolutely awesome site for buying beading supplies. Which is what I'm doing a lot of right now as I don't have a torch and am NOT likely to get one with the demon kitten running about. I also advise going to Rio Grande for jewelry tools and other supplies. Their 'Tools' and 'Gems and Findings' catalogs are very good.

Hmmm... so this blog could end up all about the jewelry I make. If that happens I promise that I'll post all my pics on my other site, which is very bare right now.

Initial Test

OK, I just made this blog. Lets see if I can actually get stuff to post....