baker beach

we had out 1st saturday work out today at baker beach for all the boor camp newbies. . . i had forgotten how many hills ans steps there are at baker beach. we ran up those steps and hills, and then down, and then back up. . .oi! we finished up with push ups and sit ups in the sand. i hurt. . . everywhere. . . but its a good time pain. . .i think.

ok - time to get cleaned up and be lazy for a few hours. . .ah, saturdays in the city.

killing it softly

i got turned on to an online columnist for the sfgate a few years ago by the name of mark moford (i encourage everyone to subsribe to the 'morning fix'), and i have always been amazed how he has always been able to shed light on certain issues that i would have never heard of becuase of national furor over something else. This week all the attention has been on gay marriages, and not on the fact that 60 of the worlds leading scientist's published a report outlining how the bush administration has maliciously misled the public on it's environmental policies. if nothing, read the executive summary, where this disturbing assertation is made: "There is a well-established pattern of suppression and distortion of scientific findings by high-ranking Bush administration political appointees across numerous federal agencies. These actions have consequences for human health, public safety, and community well-being."

Those of you who know me, know me as fairly liberal, but i don't march, still eat meat, and think some women look pretty sexy in fur - i am environmentally conscious, but not rabid - you'll never catch me at a 'save this' or 'save that' rally, but this makes me want to jump out of my seat and say, "Wait, wait, wait, wait. . . . what did you just say?" While all of us 'knew' bush was ravaging the environment, i'm sure how i feel about knowing for sure - great, someone has called him out on it with facts to back it up, but on the other hand, i feel a bit saddened by the fact that it is going on. I'm not sending out a call to arms here, just a call to read up, learn the facts, and hope this information actually comes to the national forefront soon - all we can do is hope. . . and a bit, yay - that sounds good!

i use to find. . .

i used to go to this site all the time, then for some reason stopped, and then randomly ran across it again today - i could spend all day there. . .

spam

i've always had an alternative email address to give when i register for a site i just know will spam me, and it's the same old email moniker i always use, just with @hotmail on the end instead of @yahoo. today, on the advice of a workmate, i decided to set up a new one - all those spammers out there will be sending all that XXX, 'increase your penis size', 'youg wet bitches' email to i_feel_pretty@hellokitty.com. just thought i would share. . . .

also thought i'd share this - someone sent this along to me and i fell off my chair - you can click on the pic if you want to check out the site and some of their other stuff:

trying to help the cause. . .

another era over

about seven years ago as i was driving across the county, heading back to san francisco, i stopped for a few months and visited in louisville, ky. i had lived and worked there for about year, and was pretty close to the gentleman i worked for, david, and also had my unlce gene in the area. david was pretty passionate about bourbon, and got me into it as well, so much so that one day he drove me out to claremont for a tour of the jim beam distillery. along with the usual copius amounts of jim beam, the distillery produced a small batch, 125 proof bourbon called 'bookers,' named for it creator, booker noe, a beam family member and master distiller. after our trip to the distellery, david took me to the next town over, where we found bookers house, knocked on his door, and sat our on his front stoop with the large bald man, where we smoked cigars and he told us about the fishing trip he was about to go on. when we asked if we should put out our cigars he replied in booming southern drawl, "Na, Smoke the hell out of 'em!"

booker died yesterday at the ripe old age of 74. i remember taking the tour of the distillery, and then talking about how there is about 10% of the bourbon in the barrell lost over the 7 year aging period to evaporation, and they jokingly called it the 'angels share.' maybe they were just storing it until booker got there?

day 2

it's 10:30am and i've already been up for five hours, jogged two miles, ran up and down a bunch of stairs, and did some funky push-ups - what have you done!? ewa and i have enrolled in a pretty hard core boot camp, and by hard core, i mean i will be going 3 times a week at 6am and 9am on saurdays - sounds like fun. . . .

so far so good i must admit - i also must admit today was only day two and i'm having trouble walking. an old friend of mine, keith, from my first 'real job' is one of the founders, and after getting monthly emails from him to check it out, coupled with our strong desire to get out asses in gear, we bit the bullet and have started boot camp. . . if only someone could carry me to the bathroom. . . .

on a completly different note, i've been meaning to say some more about this whole same sex marriage issue, and hearing bush this morning push for a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage got me all riled up. first of all, i think bush is an idiot, not just on this issue, but on both, and it just goes to show how completely out of touch some people can be. i must admit though, the biggest split i have seen is baby boomers and the gen x and gen y people. the people i've spoken too about this that are baby boomers seem to be in favor of the civil union and against the marriage, which to me is a stupid and unneccesary game of semantics. the people my age, the people tasked with leading the country very shortly down the road, seem to be in favor of the same sex marriage issue. but, i must admit, living in san francisco does skew my view, since most everyone supports anything to do with equality.

but not everyone, which was evident yesterday morning as a i drove by city hall, and one side people are lined up to be married, happy, laughing, taking pictures. across the street are three lone protesters, all holding signs, one being held by a girl no older than 16 that read, "GOD HATES FAGS." she was smiling and waving her sign, and i was dropping my jaw and shaking my head. but then i realized the people in line weren't fazed - it was their wedding day, nothing would ruin it, and while i felt bad for the poor misguided child, i held firm in my belief that the tide is slowly changing and that she is fast becoming the minority. . . i hope.

covered in white

i'm looking out my window from a little cabin at northstar in lake tahoe, watching the snow fall, and getting ready some good skiing. ewa and i came up here on friday night - my parents and sister have been in this cabin all week and let us crash this weekend - anytime we can stay in tahoe for free is good with us...

we had a pretty good day on the slopes yesterday - ewa, mom, and i were on the slopes by 8:30, with my step father and sister joining us at 11 or so - they aren't good in the morning. ewa and i closed the place down and got one last run in on the backside before the end of the day.

ok, ewa is yelling at me to come eat my cereal before it gets soggy, and my mom has a little smile on her face while she watches us interact. . .oi!

nuts. . .

so as the right wing conservative christian folks go nuts about gay marriage, i run across this photo of two men with their baby twin daughters exchanging vows:


and this is wrong how???

i'll never do the feeling among us sf folks justice, so i'll let mark moford speak for me, check it out.

good food and good friends

well, the first weekend of house sitting was a succes - we took some long walks in the park with the dog, enjoyed a nice, quiet, valentines day dinner at the house, and capped the weekend off with a nice little dinner get together on sunday night. . .good times. the next morning as i helped ewa clean i noticed 9 empty bottles for 6 people. . .hmmmm.

it was actually a great time - it started with ewa and i inviting a whole host of people, but because of the holiday weekend, and people being out of town, or entertaining friends intown, it ended up being six of us, actually, to be sickenlingly honest, it ended up being three couples. i must admit though, we all got along famoulsy and drank and ate and laughed all night. . . our guests were:

willo and rick

lindy and will

and of course. . .

kentucky frued chicken (kudos to rick for dreaming that one up)

so basically, we ate, drank, and were merry - what more could you ask for?? those of use who had the next day off wanted be a bit more merrier, but in the end were over ruled by the workers and the night ended at midnight. . .which is okay i guess. in the end, it turned out well, we even talked of bringing the group together again soon to create some havoc on the streets, maybe introduce some hard liquor, take away the food, and see what happens. . . .booooze is good. . . .so is finding a group that clicks pretty damn well too.

adventures in house sitting

well, for the next week or so i'll be handling house sitting duties with ewa at a nice little place in the richmond - one of the great draws is that it has a professional kitchen and a dog. so between cooking and dog walking, i will be a happy camper.

by the way, i must give some kudos to our sqaure jawed mayor - i was not a big fan during his race to take over willie's golden palace, but since he has gotten office, he has displayed a pretty large set of. . .well, you know what i mean. his latest forray into the realm of same sex marriages shows me he is not so concerned about a being on the 'correct' side of an issue, since the majority of this country takes issue with people of the same sex saying i do, and made actually be more concerned with what is right. if he is thinking of vaulting his career national someday, this is not going to help him - if he is thinking about what the people of this city want, as i want to believe he is, and if he is thinking about what is right and good and decent, then i appluad the man. san francisco has the reputation of being this pinko liberal town that has always done the right think in the eyes of the universe always pissed off the right wing 'moral majority' - it's time to start living up to our reputation again.

it's almost here. . .

it's almost time again for one of my favorite times of the year. . . .it's almost here. . . awesome music from superior bands playing at all the great venues around the city for six straight, so screw you new york and piss off la, we've got noisepop!

lets hope he kept it in his pants

just came across this in my usual morning surfing of whats new - lets hope it's not true. . .

jaw on the ground

i had literally just told my girlfriend that i blogged, cruised over to the drudge report, and this was the first thing i saw:

clicking on it brought me to this story . it's amazing why americans don't understand why everyone else in the world laughs at us all the time. . .

sucked in

i will admit that for the 3rd year in a row, after swearing that i won't watch that crap anymore, i have been sucked in once again to that stupipd american idol show. at first it was because a 'little person' made it to hollywood, and now it's because for some reason i am personally invested in seeing one of these people make it - for all my talk about how busy i am with work, life, and love, i obviously still have way to much free time. so far, the show has produced one pop culture icon - berkeleys own william hung - if haven't yet, please go watch his clip at www.williamhung.net. the guy is a . . . talent, and brililant if he knows the humor he posses, and even funnier (and a bit sad) if he is completely clueless. we think he might even get bigger than that fat canadian jedi kid . . .

NIMBY

i remember as a kid in the bay area a movement to try to build some low rent housing in marin to supplement the already full and quite a bit slummy housing in marin city (for those sf transplants out there, marin city wasn't alway a big mall with an outback steakhouse, it used to be a real shit hole). the general reaction from all the folks in marin was, "wow, what a great idea! let's do it! just not in my back yard. . . " now, to be honest, nobody who knows about the types of people who populate marin were really surprised - they love to champion their causes for the poor, the needy, the indingent . . .as long as they don't have to change the way they live.

this leads me to the point of todays lesson children, and why i wasted a paragraph talking about marin people. it's another relationship blog, basically why peolple are stupid, petty, and jelous, and i'm not talking about the beautiful love of my life, but about the others. the others are the people who complain and are upset that suddenly you arent spending as much time with them anymore, that they don't see you enough, that you are to attached to your mate. is it a coincidence that these people are mostly single. it's funny because it's the kind of attitude you would expect from a 16 year old, not from people who are in their late 20's and early 30's and have actually been in relationships and lived life.

the strategy they employ has always amazed me - 'the cold shoulder.' so let me get this straight - the way to try and get someone to spend more time with you is to exclude them and make them feel unwanted - pure genius!!! did i miss that day in psychology class!? did i miss the day when they taught that the best way to treat your friends who have found a potential mate is to teach them a lesson by making them feel like shit? i've been amazed that people are so short sided, petty, and jealous. so you're think you may have found the person who you love and want to the spend the rest of your life with? now is the time to spend some real time with the person, see if that person really is the 'one.' you would think your friends would support that process, and in the begining, they do, beacuase it hasn't really affected them yet - you are in that phase where you want others around, to help the ebb and flow of conversation, to insulate you a bit.

suddenly, the comfort level has risen and you are spending more time alone with each other, learning and loving and see what the future holds. you would think your friends would be happy and rejoice for you - understanding you may be making a life long commitment to this person at some point, and would want you to take your time and figure it out, they will be here for you when you do. . . apparently, that is not the case. . . well, as someone's wise mother once said, 'you're not dating your friends.' it makes sense - if your friends excloude and make you feel unwanted, then the knee jerk reaction to spend less time with them - which seems to be the exact opposite reaction they intended. . . hmmm. . .i wonder why that is??? i have an idea - why don't friends try to be happy and understanding, and look down the long road ahead when that initial, 'we must spend every moment together' ends. because it does, and the true friend is the one that has supported you and waited for you on the other side - not the sorry, jealous bunch who tried to make it as difficult for you as possinble. . . which one will you call friend in the end?

getting old

as i get ready to reach the ripe old age of 28 in the coming months, i am discovering that the heart wants what the heart wants. while the brain may be convinced and believe in something, if the heart is not along for the ride, then the wall falls down. all those people who tell you think with your brain instead of your heart have never been in love, or could be canadian . . .

of course there is the risk of getting burned when you lead with your heart, but there is also the chance of maximum reward - i am a leap before i look kind of guy - many times have i landed face first in the pit of snakes, but it only took that one time of landing in that euphoric place to know that i would always leap first and look later, that i would let my heart lead the way, and that i would love every minute of it.

when it rains

i think i am ready to retire. . . or at least just throw it all away to live in a cabin up in the hills. i've always thought that the measure of success in life is really screwed up - if i a live in a little two room cabin in tahoe, ski in the winter, hike around in the summer, and have a job that i enjoy doing, doesn't stress me out, and allows me to live comfortably (pay the bills, eat, and have a little left over), wouldn't i be successful? the more i think about it, the more it seems right . . .

the great debate

to save your comapny money or not. . . .a trip to DC on America West, no frills, or pay the extra $200 and fly Continental, some frills. . . seeing as how no matter which airline i will fly, it will still be horribbly uncomfortable, it doesnt really matter. . . i should just book a first class seat and try to push it through. . . screw it, i'll just eat a very expensive dinner . . . .

day 1

its almost the end of another work day and i'm already feel like i am behind in my blog again. . .i didnt add any tidbits as the day wore on - no kernals of knowledge and funny bon mots. i did learn one thing however - BLOG at your own risk!!! once it's in your blog it's for the wolrd to see - especially girlfriends who are bored at work and are curious about what you were doing in the days in months before they were on the scene...

new and improved

I have returned! Look for a new and improved blog in this space, starting today. I’m stealing a page from jee and instead of sitting down at one or many points in the day to write some long blog, I’m going to do the short paragraphs as I feel the need throughout the day. The end result will probably be the same disconnected thoughts I would normally put down, but now I can do it piece by piece throughout the day, which will hopefully cut down on the emails from my fans in Kentucky who apparently have nothing else to do. . . enjoy. . .