Our third year in San Francisco
and counting …Archive for December, 2007
awakened by the paparazzi
The holidays are in full effect. This weekend we went to see a performance of “A Christmas Carol” in a theater near Union Square, and it was really a good time and a good show. Our one complaint was that there was only one person working the bar at intermission, so we couldn’t have a glass of wine. We remedied that by going out to dinner at 1550 Hyde (finally!), which had a delicious and well-priced prix fixe, and where K. had a flight of sauvignon blanc and I tried the recommended wine pairings with my meal. Very tasty. Eating in San Francisco is good.
This entire week has been a whirlwind. We had a big holiday office party Thursday, which was extremely successful — in fact, 10 times the number of people who actually work in my office showed up. At home, we’ve managed to entertain friends on two separate evenings in one week, fairly successfully, I think. And, of course, we’re prepping for our trip to New York tomorrow.
Haylee looks very sweet under the tree in this photo, but, of course, most of the time she tries that trick she knocks down ornaments and fake branches when she gets up. But that’s better than Tex, who’s been eating any low-hanging ornaments made with felt or fabric. Ho ho ho!
Good eating!
One Elf Burger, Please
I’ve just decided to put this picture from our San Jose trip a couple of weekends ago at the top my blog because I don’t think it’s getting enough holiday love. Elf burgers! Ha ha ha! (It’s possible that I find this more funny than anyone else does, and I’m willing to acknowledge that.)
Last night’s trip to Boulevard was great. We had a fantastic time. We had some champagne, we had some wine, we had some fancy appetizers and tasty entrees, we had a yummy cheese course and a couple of over the top desserts that had little white chocolate signs on them that said “Happy Anniversary.” Our wallets got significantly lighter. A woman complimented K.’s dress. A well-dressed gentlemen told me I had a great scarf. We people watched — an older woman who sat in the bar by herself did crossword puzzles in the newspaper and ordered the $44 lamb chops; the May-December couple next to us paid in cash, and spent less than we did.
The only downside to the evening happened before we left the house, when I broke my beloved Screwpull wine opener trying to get a solid synthetic “cork” out of a bottle of wine. Damn those plastic corks! If real cork isn’t the answer, I say go the screw-off route. I may be able to salvage the Screwpull, if the Crazy Glue holds.
Blogging about blogging
So, today I switched the name of the blog to “11 months in San Francisco” on the WordPress site. Those of you who get the e-mail version of this blog are still seeing this as “Two Months in San Francisco.” I’ve tried and tried to fix this – this has something to do with Feedburner, the folks who provide the e-mail option and adds my Flickr pictures automatically to my blog feed. I can’t figure out how to change the title of this e-mail, and I apologize to all seven or eight of you who get it. However, I hope you still are enjoying the e-mails.
But back to the blog title: We’ve been here for eleven months as of yesterday, and we’re quickly approaching a year of residency. That’s making me think that maybe I should try to think of a better title overall for this blog. I’ll probably just switch to “Our Second Year in San Francisco” when the anniversary rolls around, but if anybody has any awesome suggestions, let me know.
I also switched the picture in the header at the top to a more sunny day. One intrepid reader noticed this change (and you know who you are, mom). I’m not 100 percent sure it’s an improvement, but I was feeling like I needed a little more sun in my life in general and had taken that shot the day after Thanksgiving. The old one may reappear soon, though, unless I manage to take another reasonably good skyline shot. You do see some beautiful views from Bernal Hill.
My resolution for 2008 is to write more in general. I recently bought myself a new Macbook and have been taking trips to a local coffee shop in hopes of accomplishing this. I expect this means that the blog will be a little more active, although you can never tell. If I start producing more blog entries than you have time to read, perhaps you’ll take advantage of this: I signed up for a hysterical new blog feature, and now I’m “podcasting” automatically, using a service called Odigo, which translates my posted blog articles into bizarre electronically-voiced mp3s. Check out this version of my entry about our Thanksgiving retreat to Costanoa:
If you want to listen to more, it automatically updates here.
The mobile blogging from the phone is sort of fun, but it has its problems. The phone doesn’t take perfect pictures, of course; they tend to be a little fuzzy. If I blog directly from the phone, I get a blog entry title that’s just the picture title, which is always going to be the date and time the shot was taken. That’s not bad, really, but it’s not as aesthetically pleasing as I’d like, and, you know, I like to make up clever titles for things. I won’t complain too much, though – it’s fun to be able to capture an image and send it out so quickly, to my 10s of avid readers.
Speaking of my 10s of readers … On Thursday, a lightbulb went off over my head and I realized I could port my Amazon.com Customer Service Page over to WordPress to allow people to comment on it, which would make it a much more dynamic page. So, it’s been up for less than a week, and, as of right now, it’s gotten about 6,000 more hits than this page, which has been up since last March.
I guess that’s all for blogging about blogging for now. Tonight is K.’s & my seventh anniversary (from our first date), and we’re going out for a lovely dinner at Boulevard. Happy anniversary to us!
12-07-07_2216.jpg
12-07-07_2216.jpg
Originally uploaded by evh711.
Texas art car spotting in the Tenderloin.
The Holiday Spirit
We got inspired!
Yep, a couple of nights ago the spirit of the season got to us, and we wrapped our gate in lights. Our neighbors inspired us — the two houses next to us have really got the decorations going on. We’ve got our tree up and lit too, although we still need to decorate that. It’s the cheapo fake tree we bought at Target a few years back; one of the best 20 bucks I ever spent. Or, actually, it might have been 10.
I’ve been listening to a lot of Christmas music on XM radio, because they started their five Christmas music stations up around Thanksgiving; I’ve also tried out their newest offering, Radio Hanukkah. Last weekend we toured a Christmas fair in San Jose, went to a Holiday Tea at the King George Hotel, and checked out the holiday themed windows at Macy’s (which have real live animals in them, by the way). This weekend we’re going to see a Trannyshack production of two Christmas-themed “Golden Girls” episodes, and we have holiday parties as well. Next weekend, we’re going to see “A Christmas Carol” performed.
We’re up to our ears in the holiday! We’ve really got to get our Christmas shopping kicked off, though.
12-02-07_1322.jpg
12-02-07_1322.jpg
Originally uploaded by evh711.
It’s a chilly day on Bernal Hill.
Get the RSS feed here
Our third year in San Francisco 