Social Saturday

Sorry for the lack of posting. With Mary and Sam in L.A. last week (see Mary's blog for updates about their wonderful trip), I spent my evenings taking in some great films (luckily I saw The Departed pre-Oscar ... and I couldn't agree more with the win). Our weekend was then filled visiting with friends and family, errands and a dozen loads of laundry! I was in Austin Monday and Tuesday and I am currently attending a conference for work while doing my job ... time is a bit occupied. Appreciation goes out to Sam and Mary for putting up with my current preoccupation.

Tomorrow, a long weekend visit with Anthony starts ... so probably slow on updating the blog again.

However, we did have a wonderful Saturday this past weekend. A birthday party for Keira followed by some food 'n fun with our upstairs neighbors. I am a bit too tired to include captions, but you'll get the gist of our great day. Thanks to all who put smiles on our faces all day and all night.

+From Piedmont to Tiburon on a rainy night+

As you can tell from her lack of appearing in the shots, much credit goes to Mary for the photo-taking.

Grub

It's been a while since I've posted some grub pics. The other night while cooking our Valentine's dinner, I cooked up some beans intended for later consumption. Yum, steamy pot-o-beans!

I have to give a quick shout out to Mom who taught me that gourmet is in the presentation, check out Sam's dinner that night:
Anyway, the beans were pretty good ... I forget what was in them: white beans, onions, mushrooms, parsley, garlic, peas, celery salt, pepper, thyme? I think?

White beans always gets me itching to head to some French place and grab some cassoulet.

How can you not love this?

Jackson Holliday takes batting practice as his father, Colorado Rockies' Matt Holliday, watches before the beginning of spring training at Hi Corbett Field Friday, Feb. 16, 2007, in Tucson, Ariz. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)

That's right. It's that time of year again. The Cubs have the same record as everyone else in baseball. My fantasy team is in-development, waiting in the wings for their call. I'll be studying more stats than I EVER did in any statistics course in grad school.

And I have to shell out $15 for some ... hmmm, maybe I need to find $90 ... oh dude! No, $120 for 6 games simutaneous with Player Tracker!!! {drool}

Well, money shouldn't be too hard to come by. No wristband this year... No staying-up all night flirting with an Australian bartender, no watching High Noon ("BEST MOVIE EVER!!) and Deer Hunter, no standing out in the freezing cold for hours without a coat, no going to work in the clothes from the night before, no having to take a work picture at 4pm, no colapsing in exhaustion

The picture isn't fuzzy ... I was fuzzy that day.

But ... no 4 tickets to each of the 3 2003 Cubs-Yankees games! Talk about a blast from the past... I mean didn't that guy on the left ... and the guy on the right, he's .. huh .. oh well, here is to the 2007 MLB season! Cheers! (And good luck on the wristband Eric.)
Sammy Sosa of the Cubs is greeted at second base by Yankees second baseman Alfonso Soriano during Friday's game. (Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

A Marmaduke-free Hike

On Sunday, we took a Mt. Tam Hike. We had planned to take Sun Trail down to Muir Woods, to see some of the early wildflowers, but there was some sort of hiking group leaving from that trailhead, so parking was difficult. The nice thing about Marin, if you don't like option A, option B is only 5 miles down the road.

We ended up at the Bootjack trailhead, taking the Bootjack trail up to the Mountain Theater, along the Easy Grade trail to the Pantoll Ranger Station to the Stapelveldt trail to the T.C.C. trail, back up the Bootjack. It sounds like a lot ... but it was probably only about 4 miles or so. It was a nice stroll for us with a great picnic break. The trees definitely steal the show on this hike. Check out the pics over at our Flickr Pool for the day.

Mary and Sam left to L.A. for a few days today, so I am home watching Noir (Thanks Pablo). Tonight, I tried out Clash by Night. Good stuff, for a no detective Noir (in fact it more has Noir talent than a Noir story). Also, this was the movie Marilyn Monroe was filming when these (NSFW - a.k.a. naked picture) came out. One of the best scenes is some great Cannery Row footage.

So, I've been thinking...

I don't know if I'll ever be able to leave California...

In all fairness, this picture is from the Maldives Islands, but really...you get the idea.

We own a Volvo?

So, apparently we bought a Volvo. A 21-year old Volvo ... that looks ... like a 21-year old Volvo. I am not sure how it happened. The car was part of a charity donation for Wellness Central in Petaluma, which seems like an unusual charity. But, Mary found this guy Jim Schultz through craigslist who sells these cars as part of charity donations. We took it to Jiffy Lube, and it potentially has a "major oil leak," but "just in the gasket." We expect things like that. We don't know how many miles the car has on it, because the odometer broke ages ago. The car costs about as much as my first car that Eric "bought."

It has no manual, but that's what the internet is for. Like most car buyers, I am having a touch of buyer's remorse (that is my cognitive dissonance face you see above). However, we paid very little ... and the car has to make a 7 mile round trip 5 days a week. And I must admit .. it's a fun-looking car. Not to mention apparently these cars are safe ... have you heard that? Those Swedes! Wish us luck...

Still with the Survival Fiction

So it has been a year+ since I noticed this recent trend I have towards Survival Fiction and I seem to still be obsessed with it. As I mentioned, I am reading the survivor-horror of Walking Dead, but I have also started reading Y: The Last Man, of survival science-fiction glory. We are still digging Lost through computer-watching. And our family read right now is Hatchet. I am not sure if this is some sort of post 9/11 fixation or what.

The sad thing is how aware I am becoming about my own inability to survive in this world should some devastating thing happen. Fortunately, I don't live on a fault line or anything. Crap....

Babe, we really should sign-up.

Oh kids...

So, as many of you may have seen, I am to be the uncle of twins. And I am thrilled ... being the UNCLE of twins really rocks! Here is that shot of them with a bit more contrast (it also looks like they are hovering in the Phantom Zone):

Ah Baby A and Baby B... Who will they be? Can't wait to find out. Will they one day be this ingenious and goofy??


We can only hope. We aren't exactly sure where Sam picked up that gatling laugh. However, it amused him to no end when he saw the video. "I didn't know I laughed like that."

Anyway, I am very happy for the parents, grandparents and the entire growing family. Also, if they keep having winters like this in Chicago, I am sure the twins will be quite excited about having a California uncle to come visit. They obviously have an open invitation.

Town pastry

One of the things I love about Holland is that you'll occasionally find things like the Bossche Bol. This is a sort of hometown pastry to the town my mom lives near, s'Hertogenbosch. The Bossche Bol is this GIANT chocolate-covered cream puff thing; seriously, like larger than an adult fist. And it's Dutch, so the chocolate and filling aren't too sweet, like most American pastries. Man, this thing is good!

I wish more American cities would have a municipal pastry.

Anyway, just something to get Valentine's Day started...


Delish-Flickr here and here was the pic to the left.

BIG, exciting news!!!

can be found here.

This rocks!

Carson Falls

On Sunday morning, we grabbed our Great Hiking Guide and flipped to page 312: Where to See Waterfalls. We had already done the #1 on the list (but given that this was #5, we knew anything in the top 10 would be amazing). We decided to check-out #4, Carson Falls, the tallest waterfall in Marin (at 100'). Another thing that looked interesting was the note: "The Foothill Yellow-legged Frog lives and breeds in this creek and is a 'species of special concern.'" Sam had the eagle-eye on the newt the day before, and Mary had it Sunday, as she spotted the tiny (about 2") frog hopping on our path. Sure enough, it had bright yellow-legs that you can't really see in this pic.

As usual with these hikes, I just couldn't pick which pictures to post ... so onto Flickr, if you want to see what we saw.

Why not hike in the rain...

We have been getting plenty of rain lately, so we are planing on checking out some of the area waterfalls tomorrow. However, at around 3pm, we all decided we wanted to go ahead and do a small hike today anyway. We decided our old friend Tennessee Valley would be a safe-bet. It had ocean, parking and was easy/fast to get to ... especially when you do Jedi Driving...

The hike was wet, green windy and absolutely wonderful...

Breaking through a valley to an ocean view is always an incredible experience.

We have been without rain for so long, we relished the rain on our faces.

Well, I did like the rain, until about 15 minutes ago when I wiped out in our garage and busted my lower back and wrists. But in this shot .. I was loving it.

Sam's expert eagle eye spotted this amphibian chilling in a puddle. We couldn't get a good picture under the water...

but we had fun studying it.

But then we lucked out and found a couple more walking along the path. This fella was just turning away from me, but it gives you a good look at the orange belly. Mary did a great job of discouraging me from picking them up...

Which turned out to be doubly good advice as apparently this species has a mild skin toxin whether it was the California Newt or Rough-Skinned Newt (not sure, but pretty sure it's one of them.)

After our wildlife observing, we were happy to make it to the beach.

Last time getting across the fresh water stream to the ocean was easy; this time, not so much. Mary took the first attempts and studied how we could make this happen.

The rain left the water gushing over many of the bridge rocks.

We'd have to build and ...

build (yes, Eric another SIDE shot, just for your pristine eyes)

Finally, I made it across.

Now, Sam was checking it out, but the gaps were bigger for him. And I suddenly noticed that my last hop across would not be so easy to accomplish back. I'd have to "hop" on a wet wobbly stone.

Sam decided to take the high road.

My love kept a watchful, intelligent eye for us.

Another lovely hike in Marin. Why do you hike in the rain? It is refreshing, giant earthworms and newts are out (although we did see a squished one on the walk back) and new obstacles to overcome!