The consequences of September 11th, 2001

It's been nearly four and a half years since that fateful morning. But the events of that day are still causing havoc in people's lives to this day. Today, I went to get my haircut at my neighboorhood place, Tom's on Cortland. Tom's is expensive, but what you get is more than just a haircut, Tom, Richard and the third stylist (a woman who's name I forget) are therapist and Bernal Heights knowledge of all gossip (and oh so willing to share) all in one. It's high entertainment for the time one spends getting their hair done. Each of the three people in the place have cut my hair and are worth the extra few dollars it is to get it done there instead of the less "professional" places. It's all about keeping money in the local economy too, right?

Richard is my man today and he, as usual, is respectful of my initial silence. About halfway through my haircut (not too short Mom, I know how you like it a bit longer and I've gotten many compliments lately since I let my hair grow out not as a conscious decision but I've just not done it until today when I was totally fed up with the thickness and length of my hair) I asked Robert how he was doing. He promptly tells me that in July, he's leaving Tom's on Cortland to move to France. Turns out eight years ago he started dating a French national who was visiting the US. They had a pretty good system going where his boyfriend would visit for three months, return to France for a month and then begin the cycle again. After 9/11, US immigration cracked down on the type of visa that the boyfriend was using and renewing. So Richard's sister offered to marry the boyfriend and then have the boyfriend come and live in the US permanently. All was well until they were caught by INS for lying. Since then, the boyfriend has been deported back to France and there is no way for him to ever get permanant resident status, let alone citizenship in the United States. Turns out, it will be easier for Richard to move to France because he and his boyfriend can become domestic partners and Richard can hopefully get dual citizenship and even become a member of the European Union.

So there you go. The unintended consequences of 9/11.

The convergence of life and work

Ok, Mom, here's a blog posting. Two weeks of silence means that nothing of true interest has happened in the last couple weeks. So today I had the day off because it is comments writing weekend. Due to the fact that we teachers will spend a good chunk of time writing about our students, we get a day off as compensation. As of this writing, I have finished 40 out of 62.

This morning I scheduled the surveyors to come out and do their measurements. The maps of our buildings location and the plans of which parts of the building belong to my neighbors upstairs, which area belongs to me and which areas are considered common areas, will officially be submitted to the city as part of our condo conversion application process.

So how does all this tie in with work? Yesterday, I taught the students in Geometry that the distance formula for finding how far away two points are from each other is simply a glorified version of the Pythagorean Theorem. The today, the surveyors come out and all these measurements are calculated with the distance formula. Of course, I had to take pictures so I can show my students that the Math they are learning does have real world application. Here are some of the pictures:

Dan the surveyor setting up the tripod to measure elevation and distances. All this is done to find the exact location of the building in relation to various USGS markers.

Up close and personal with Dan, the surveyor who is also a Geology major. We bonded.

Up close and personal with the machine which takes all the measurements and calculations and stores them until downloaded.

Dan's drawing of how they use a zero line and then measure azimuths off it to determine the direction and location of key points.

The "Disto" the handheld laser pointing, distance calculating machine

Also adding to today's flurry of activity was the arrival of the carpet cleaners. The downstairs tenant moved out a week ago and scheduled to have carpet cleaners do their thing this afternoon. So for a while there, the place was swarming with people. But all in the name of household improvement!

Oh my god, we're f***ed!!!

The Hayward Fault (Red) and The Head-Royce School (the buildings just to the right of the grass playing field)

Download Google Earth and then follow this link to an article in the SF Chronicle which is provides a link to the USGS website providing an aerial flyover of the Hayward Fault. Although not as famous as her sister the San Andreas Fault, which cuts through San Francisco, the Hayward Fault cuts right through the cities of Oakland and Berkeley. The Hayward Fault is the fault most likely to experience serious activity in the near future. It's only a matter of time, they say, until the Hayward Fault "lets go".

In the picture, you'll see that the Hayward Fault runs within 500 years of Head-Royce. I knew upon first signing my contract back in 1998 that there is a provision in our contracts that mandates faculty members to stay at school for 72 hours to help with any emergency situation were a catastrophic earthquake occur during the school. This really makes it hit home.

For my own personal sake, I hope that the big one on the Hayward Fault hits sometime when I'm not in the East Bay. But let's just hope that everyone has made plans and has made their earthquake kits.

An appreciation for this thing called life

Over the past year, I have found myself driving home listening to NPR (of course what else could it be?) and it seems that more often than not I am driving across the Bay Bridge when the end of Newshour rolls around and the anchors (Shields and Gigot) sign off with a silent tribute to those soldiers who have lost their lives in Iraq or Afghanistan. Whenever I hear that music they play as they are showing pictures of the fallen I have tears rolling down my face. I can't pinpoint exactly why it is that this happens, but I can partially attribute it to a delayed reaction to my accident three and a half years ago. At the time, I was just living through each moment and day working so hard on getting better and not wallowing in self-pity that I probably never really seriously took a step back and realized that I could have died. As I turned 36 this year I understand how precious each and every day on this earth really is. And to be thankful for the fact that things are worse, or that someone I love has passed away or to simply be happy that I have things that make me comfortable and loved. I feel down inside the tragedy that is the end of each and every life that isn't from natural causes. That person who died will never feel happiness nor joy again. I get it now. I really do. I wish that meant that I wouldn't be so unappreciative of my Mom, but you know, those habits are hard ones to break. By the way, hi Mom. But do know that I'm much better than I used to be. And there are sometimes that I'm outright nice!! So on this day that is the 8th of March, I truly know deep down inside the gift that is life.

Be careful what you wish for

The first weekend in December every year is generally reserved for attending the Northern California Mathematics Teachers Conference held on the grounds of Asilomar on the Monterey Peninsula. Upon attending last year, I wasn't getting what I wanted out of the numerous sessions that I attended. It seemed as if nothing was directly relevant to the specific needs I had, such as how do other teachers sequences and sums of sequences in a way that is both interesting to the students and at the same time not too theoretical and over their heads. So at a department meeting later on in the school year I said, off the cuff, "wouldn't it be great if we could just get a gathering of Bay Area Independent School teachers to share ideas and lessons?"

At the beginning of this school year, my department chair suggested that I "make it happen." Therefore, I have spent the past couple weeks getting this whole thing set up and the first (and hopefully annual) Head-Royce Mathematics forum for teachers will occur this Saturday March 4th, 2006.

Be careful what you wish for has never hit so close!

Beauty right in our backyard

Every February, HRS schedules a week long break, usually the third full week in the month. Officially, it's called President's Week Vacation, but everyone calls is ski week. My anecdotal information believes that a greater percentage of students are going to warm weather destinations or just staying home. So what have I been doing? Coincidentally, on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I had an engagement between 4 and 6PM. The three engagements different parts of the city and so I took off early and spent an hour or so walking the stairways of that neighboorhood. (Mom, perhaps we could do this as an activity when you visit in April) There is a great book called Stairway Walks of San Francisco that plots out walks in twenty San Francisco neighboorhoods that have you climbing up and down the many staircases which are part of the character of the area. Wednesday had me climbing up and down the staircases of Pacific Heights. Thursday afternoon I had the opportunity to explore the eastern side of Bernal Heights and this afternoon, I worked out the calves in the hills above the Castro. Only today did I bring a camera to show pictures.

The Liberty Street steps descending from Rayburn to Noe. Note the Art Deco buildings that flank these stairs within a neighboorhood of Victorians. (I read this in a book, no way I would ever have been able to pick that up on my own.)

These steps replace 22nd Street leading walkers from Collingwood down to Diamond.

This is the view from the top of the stairs descending from then cul-de-sac at the end of 20th down to Sanchez"

Then you look back ath what you came down and get this.

This house was owned by Mayor Rolph (1912-1931). Notice the dropoff of the hill.

I'll keep hitting these walks, it's exercise and a look at neighboorhoods that I often don't get to.

I walk away with my dignity.....

It's hard for me to tell my Mom things that are truly personal so if I could tell her something on the phone last night, then I really think that I ended my 10+ month relationship with Scott is in the books. Sometimes when we live life on a day-to-day basis, it's difficult to stop and see the "forest through the trees." So last fall and this winter, there were some days that were difficult and I just didn't have enough experience in relationships to understand what I was feeling. In December, I started to see a therapist to try to determine what I was doing wrong and if there were behaviors and actions that I could do differently to make the relationship better.

So once a week, I would go and sit there for an hour and leave with something really concrete to think about and an approach or skill or thought that I should try and do to reduce the amount of conflict. For those who know me well know that I will always retreat to the world of logic and reason and forget to think about feelings and history. But I learned that I often times I turn to logic and reason in a condescending way. So true, right?

Another thing I do is that I often times assume that I know what another person wants and act accordingly. In the process, I've skipped over trying to know what I want and then actually asking the other person what he/she wants. Translate this skipping from A to D and bypassing B and C and you'll be greeted with a lot of miscommunication.

Ultimately though what happened is that I got the "we need to sitdown and talk" talk from two of friends, with whom I have been sharing my stories too. This past Sunday, my friend Lynn had my friend Carlos and I over for a belated birthday dinner. Lynn and Carlos (Marl and Mom, I know it's weird that these two are, like, BFF (Mom, that's "Best Friends Forever") since I've introduced them to each other last year) asked me some pretty tough questions and called my bullshit on some of the answers I was giving. I sat there and listened to what they had to say. I so wanted to storm out of the room and not hear what they said. But here I was practicing a skill that I MUST work on, which is to not walk away from emotionally difficult situations. My M.O. is to simply leave a situation that is hard emotionally. I just never learned how to deal with them because I never saw them as a kid. A feeling in the House of Chen? What was that?

Ultimately, I had to let them use logic and reason to put together a big picture that I suspect I would have figured out in time, but because they were outsiders could see so clearly. There isn't a need for me to spell out any more than that. I have too much respect for Scott to air out our dirty laundry in this public space. I am more than willing to share with you in an email or phone call.

When Lynn and Carlos pointed out, "going to work shouldn't be a refuge for you", I knew that I was in an untenable situation and radical change was the only solution.

It all started with LBJ

A couple of years ago, I picked up a copy of Richard Caro's Pulitzer Prize winning Master of the Senate, the third volume in his ongoing biography of Lyndon Baines Johnson. It's a book of over 1,000 pages and I devoured it in less than a week. Then for some reason this fall, I picked it up and again read it cover to cover in less than a week. One thing that really made an impact on me was the process within the US Senate that got the Civil Rights bills of the 1950's and 1960's passed. Throughout the sections dealing with the passage of Civil Rights bills as well as the entire book, references were made to senators at that time. Many of these men and one woman (Margaret Chase Smith of Maine) were huge political figures in history of the United States and gigantic men of stature in their home states. Thus began the current theme of my reading, biographies of politicians of the latter half of the 20th century. Obscure? You know it. Here's not only a list, but pictures of the covers of said books pilfered from Amazon.com. They are presented in the order I read them:

Henry (Scoop) M. Jackson (D-WA)
Reading about Jackson demanded that I read about his colleague and Warren G. Magnuson.

Warren (Maggie) G. Magnuson (D-WA)
The common theme through both these books is that even though these two senators were individually stellar politicians, they were as a pair more than the sum of their parts. The role of Magnuson's Commerce Committee, which he chaired, in passing Title II of the 1964 Civil Rights Bill allowing all people the right to public accomodations was one that led to more reading about the entire Civil Rights Bill process.

The three protagonists LBJ (D-TX), Hubert Humphrey (D-MN) and Richard Russell (D-GA)
The following three are men who were mentioned throughout these books and so with Amazon's used book section, they became an inexpensive entertainment option.

Frank Church (D-ID)

Representative Tom Foley (D-WA)

Mike Mansfield (D-MT)
Yeah, I know I'm a bit weird. Tune in next time to see who's biography I read next.

A Part of the Chen Family Identity......Gone

This afternoon, I received this text message from my sister:

"Dad sold the station wagon for twenty five bucks today. Evidently it only drives forward with no reverse. It still is in the driveway though. End of an era."

End of an era. So true. I remember the first day we owned the car when my Dad drove it off the Bill Pierre Ford dealership lot in 1975. In its 31 year life span, the station wagon and the Chen family saw the arrival and departure of around ten cars. For those of you who aren't familiar with the car that became the symbol of the Chen's of Seattle, here is a picture that I stole off the website LTD World. Yeah, it really does exist. Further proof that the internet is an amazing thing.

A near perfect match for the Chen Family Station Wagon

YES, it was a woody. The family station wagon, which I fondly named "Lucinda" after the take no shit matriarch on the soap opera As the World Turns, was brown with wood paneling. The interior was also brown.

This was the car that was always taken on family vacations. It was in this was the car both my sister and I learned how to drive with our Dad in the passenger seat. This car was what I drove throughout high school and the car my sister did as well. It was a trusted friend because it always started and could always be counted on to haul all of my sister's and my friends without having to drive multiple cars.

The car simply was unable to go above 75 miles per hour and unable to get more than 20 miles to the gallon. Truly a legacy of the excesses of the United States of the middle of the 20th century.

As the years passed, Lucinda was retired from many of her duties. With my sister and I gone off to college, she didn't get driven more than once a month when my Dad loaded her up to take stuff to the dump. After our family moved to a new house in Seattle, we found that for some reason Lucinda was the only vehicle of four that was able to get us up the hill that separates our home from the rest of Seattle. Lucinda also pinch hit when my grandmother was to be transported because it didn't ride so high like the SUV's we see so much of today.

Unfortunately, she was eventually relieved of these pinch hitting duties and sadly sat in the driveway unloved. Still sitting in the driveway, she contributed to the family. One time a friend of mine from college was to come and visit me. He had a vague idea of where we lived but when he saw Lucinda, he knew he had found the right place. Truly, the car was integrally linked in the history of the Chen family.

My father has gone through all the family photo albums and scanned every picture that had Lucinda in it. I present to you a short history of Lucinda. An added bonus is the chance to see Ernie, Marlene and our cousin Henry in younger years.

Canadian Rockies 1978 (by the way, ironically, I'm wearing a Pittsburgh Steelers shirt in this photo)

Lucinda covered in a dusting of ash from Mt. St. Helens eruption 1980

Lucinda with Marlene, Mom and me at Bryce Canyon in 1981

Lucinda parked in downtown Seattle. Pictured are a 9 year old Marlene and 8 year old cousin Henry.

Lucinda parked in line waiting for the return ferry from Orcas Island in 1982

Lucinda serving as bike carrier in background while Ernie is accosted by the Mariner Moose at Gasworks Park in 1996

Lucinda parked in her traditional spot in the corner of the driveway. In the foreground is the Subaru Legacy Wagon I now drive. The Legacy was one of ten cars that came and left the Chen family all within Lucinda's 31 year life

Lucinda shown recently in the middle of the driveway because it was discovered she is unable to go in reverse

Lucinda at the lot of PullApart to whom she was sold for $25

This truly feels like a posting about the loss of a family member. In many ways, Lucinda was a true constant in our family's life.

"You should expect a call in 9 months"

No No No, I'm not pregnant. Besides, don't you know it's (at this point in time) biologically impossible males to propogate the human species? In fact, this is what the woman at the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection told me as I submitted my application and fees to have the building in which I reside inspected as part of the condominium conversion process.

What's that you say? It's the two year process that I, and the couple that owns the other unit in our building, have embarked on to legally separate our homes. Currently, our two unit building must be sold as one entity and thereby can have only one mortgage. Because of the high cost of housing in San Francisco, purchasing a home as part of a Tenancy-In-Common (TIC) is a standard practice. I have thrown my hat into the home-owning game with another couple and the three of us are financially tied to one another. Every legal document pertaining to the building that is 121-123 Cortland Avenue has all three of our names on it.

The city of San Francisco does, however, have a method to turn a building such as mine into two legally separate residences. As a lawyer friend of mine tells me that ownership of this type is called "free, clear, simple". Right now I have a 54% stake in the building. Even though I don't intend on moving and needing to sell the place, my desire to get on this process started and completed as soon as possible is because there is always rumblings about changing a certain portion of the condo conversion law from which my building mates and I currently benefit.

Because San Francisco is a city with such a high percentage of its residents being renters, the tenants rights advocacy groups are a strong political force. Every condominium conversion that occurs represents, in most cases, units that will be occupied by homeowners (DUH) and thereby reducing the supply of apartments. The law currently states that only a certain number of units (200 as of this time) can be converted into condos within a calender year. A lottery is thereby run to determine which units in the city will change from apartments to condos. At this time, all buildings with three or more units must go through the lottery. Two unit buildings are exempt from the lottery and bypass it. An unlimited number of two unit buildings can be converted every year. Just this year, Mayor Gavin Newson vetoed legislation that had been passed by the SF Board of Supervisors that would have made it harder for two unit buildings to bypass the lottery. Because of this, getting the process became imperative.

The ultimate benefit is not any physical and/or material improvement to the building, but it lies in a huge gain in resale value. A condo that you can purchase that is "free, clear, simple" is much more attractive than a building in which you are tied at the waist to others who are, at best, friends and business partners.

This condo conversion process is no easy task nor inexpensive. There are lawyers in this city who deal completely with condo conversions. To tell you how crazy the world of real estate is in San Francicso, my partners and I have what we call "the bible" which is a 35 page TIC operating agreement written by THE lawyer in town who specializes in TIC agreements.

Our first move was to retain the services of a firm to help us initially with the application to the city and to coordinate all the minutiae of the process. $3,200 right off the bat. Next, we had to hire a Deed Company (free but there is an unspoken quid pro quo to use them when the new deeds are to be issued upon completion of the condos) and a surveying company ($6,000). This surveying company will take all the measurements inside and outside the builing and of the lot itself. The surveying company then produces the "mylar" sheets that will be submitted to the Planning Department.

$480 for the city inspection which will occur sometime 11 months from now. The city requires a fee of $8,600 for the process of condo conversion. I didn't mean to fixate on the costs, but because these have all been up front, they have tended to have a multiplicative effect in my mind.

So for the next couple years, you'll occasionally be updated on this process and be amazed at the glacial pace this will occur.

OK, OK, OK, I do care who wins the Superbowl

The Seattle Seahawks are playing for the title of best football team in the world tomorrow and for the past two weeks, I've been deflecting all questions about how much I am rooting for the Superbowl by responding, "well, I'm rooting for them but I'm just a typical fair-weather Seahawks fan." And yes, it's true that during the Seahawks 20 year playoff win drought (1984 was the year I was a freshman.......in high school) I probably couldn't have named more than five players on the team, but as a kid growing up in Seattle, the names Largent (too bad he revealed himself to be a Christian conservative congressman from Oklahoma), Zorn, Krieg, Easley, Warner and many other early Seahawks were ones that I loved.

So when I read this morning that the Puget Sound region was going to be hit by a huge windstorm this morning, I had the same immediate reaction that I know 90% of the Seattle region thought, man I hope the power doesn't go out. I was in Seattle for a couple of the biggest windstorms in recent history, the 1993 Clinton Inaugural Day storm and the 1991 Thanksgiving day storm. So I called my Mom today to see how she was doing and I asked her how things were going. "It's pretty windy out there right now, but I'm going to (Grandma's) tomorrow if we don't have power." Mom had already formed a backup plan to watch the game. It was then that I had to finally breakthrough the denial of my "I don't really care about who wins" because I DO want the Seahawks to win. Why is it that I have not accepted any Superbowl party invitations? Why am I not having people at my place to watch it? Why did I originally have a quiz scheduled in three of my classes on Monday the 6th? All this was done because I don't want to have people see me be depressed and despondent over a football game. It was easier to live thinking that if I didn't care it wouldn't hurt so much if they lost. But I'm coming clean now, I am rooting for the Seahawks. I promise not to be too gleeful if they win and I will be gracious if they lose. But boy, it's going to suck a lot if they lose.

Oh, but I just thought of the silver lining if they lose. A Seahawks loss will result in more exposure for Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. OK, OK, the real reason I'm going into seclusion for the game is so no one will observe me watching Roethlisberger.

Honestly, I haven't become a Napa Valley Wine Snob

This past Sunday was the ultimate double whammy, my birthday (I'm now again a perfect square at 36 years old) fell on the lunar calendar as Chinese New Year's. My birthday began with Scott and I driving up to the Napa Valley. First stop, Cakebread Cellars where Scott picked up bottles of his favorite wines. I am to the point where I know that 1997 was a vintage year as was 2003. I also know that Cakebread is known particularly for its whites. Hey, this should be a shock to those who know how little I knew about wines as little as a year ago.

Stop two, was the Indian Springs Resort at the north end of the Napa Valley in the town of Calistoga. The afternoon was spent cleansing our bodies in the volcanic mud baths and getting massages. I love the baths as it is sheer luxury and when you are in the mud for the 12 minutes allowed, you feel like you are floating and the toxins in the body literally are being sucked out of you.

As we drove back down the valley towards home, we dined at Tra Vigne which literally means "The Garden" in Italian.

The most important part of the evening was that we got back home in time to find out that Desparate Housewives was a repeat and that Grey's Anatomy was a new episode. For those of you who aren't in the know, check out Grey's Anatomy. It might be running a close second to the Gilmore Girls.

Two Comments -- Unrelated

First off am I the ONLY person in the world that doesn't sit around and google the names of people I used to know or know now? It has happened again where a person I knew from years gone by all of a sudden emails me (or in this case makes a comment on the blog) having found me online. Not that I'm complaining or anything but apparently this is another one to be filed in the "Trendy and/or popular things Ernie is oblivious to until he's one of the last people to clue into" folder?

The other thing I want to cover is a rant on the disappointment of something being discovered by everyone else. My favorite Trader Joe's used to be a regular sized TJ's in a strip mall in Daly City with plenty of parking and just off the freeway. In and out, no worries. But as is with economic growth and development, TJ's built a new and expanded building in the same complex. This began the domino effect of subsequently having the Safeway get spruced up. Then parking lot space was eliminated the facades of the storefronts were all pastel and the complex was given a hip looking logo and now calls itself Westlake. But today, I went to TJ's and I got stuck in the parking lot trying to find a space. The secondary parking lot has been torn up and in its place will be a new Linens and Things. I eventually made my way to the other side of the mall and parked. I got out and saw the what will be the kiss of death of what made this Tj's efficient and effective as a place to buy food. I saw the half finished monstrosity that will soon become....HOME DEPOT. It's a "Design Center" Home Depot, which I think might be the superduper sized HOME DEPOT. I think the analogy would go like this:

SAFEWAY:COSTCO
HOME DEPOT:HOME DEPOT DESIGN CENTER

The pleasant and painfree Daly City Trader Joe's experience is dead to me.

A City Hall that is both beautiful and helpful

Can you believe that? I know, I know. As usual, there is background to be provided. Last year about this time, I got it into my head that I should see a financial planner to make sure that I was doing things right with my money and to get some objective outsider to determine whether or not I was going to meet my goals. The biggest piece of advice he gave me was to get my affairs in order. After he heard about my accident and how I had the accident and didn't have a will in place, he almost made me do it right in front of him. So a year has passed and I finally got around to getting all the paperwork together to have a will and also create a living trust of which I am the trustee of the trust until I pass. I'll stop with the morbidity. But the most important step is to actually legally change those things that I own from being mine, but instead being owned by the trust with me as the trustee who makes the decision. I've basically created a shell corporation for myself. The most significant item to be moved into the trust was the house. It required my housemates and I to change the deed of the house to have the two of them and the trust as the owners of the home. We had our form notarized and then it had to officially recorded by the San Francisco Recorder/Assessors Office. This office is in the large City Hall building. As you can see from the following photos (not mine but taken from the web) SF City Hall is actually an amazingly beautiful building. It's of the Beaux Arts style. (I have no real idea what that means but I know that the Beaux Arts is always used in conjunction with City Hall.)

Never in my wildest dreams would I have allowed myself to believe that the offices inside the building were actually efficient, functional and dare I say...helpful? The Recorder/Assessors office closes at 4PM so I had to boogie back to SF to make it in time before it closed. I got there and the line to record the document had no one in it. I walked right up to the woman clerk, but I had to get an official description of our property, so I was sent to the main line. After three minutes, where every single clerk was working with a resident, I got my form printed out. I asked another question about the homeowners exemption and my clerk called the guy who handles the exemption. Not only was he in the office on a Friday afternoon, but he came right over and listened to my question. He went away and a couple minutes later came back with the reason why there was a mixup and a solution. He gave me a couple forms to fill out and upon being returned in the mail, the exemption would be in place for the 2006-07 tax bill.

I moved back over to the first line. There were five people in front of me, but it became quite clear that each person's time with the clerk was less than a minute, and before I knew it there I was with the the clerk. $12 later, my paperwork was done. I had one more question, but she pointed me to the main desk again. I got another clerk who then called over the guy who's in charge of addresses and all that stuff. He too was in the office on a Friday afternoon and came right over and answered my question.

I was done. I walked out of the office and out of the building completely amazed at how easily the whole thing had gone. There really is something called a functional municipal government.

MOMENT OF HISTORY: This same Office of the Recorder/Assessor is the same office that issued marriage liscenses to all the gay couples that got married back in 2004 when the mayor of San Francisco decreed gay marriage legal in the city.

"Incorrect"

Tonight I served as a judge for the school Spelling Bee, think Spellbound. Because students can compete only until they are in 8th grade, the participants were all Middle School students. I wasn't the announcer so I didn't have to give the language or origin or have to provide the definition. I was the judge who, after the participant finished spelling the word and then said the word as an indication that he or she is done, said "CORRECT" or "INCORRECT".

My biggest fear was that there would be some controversy that I, and another teacher, would have to make a decision that someone would be unhappy with. A couple of near misses did come up. The first was when a girl spelled "CATHEDRAL" but her letter H was preceded by a very long sound that wasn't much like H but quickly became H. We gave it to her. The second occurred when the announcer mispronounced the word "SCOURGE". The boy spelled it incorrectly, but we gave him a second word, which he spelled correctly. In both of these cases the student was ultimately not one of the top three spellers in the competition.

The 3rd place boy went out on "TERCENTENARY" which means the 300th anniversary or its celebration.

The final two girls misspelled "EPISTEMOLOGY", "CENTAUROMACHIA" (a specific Greek battle) and "EREMITIC" (characterized by a ascetic solitude in life). The 2nd place speller missed "TROIKA". The winner correctly spelled it and then won by correctly spelling "AYATOLLAH".

You would not believe the seriousness with which the Scripps National Spelling Bee takes itself. There is an official booklet with 500 official 2006 School Spelling Bee words in 7 different categories. Every word has a pronuciation guide, language of origin, definition and a sentence using the word.

Some of the words on the list were new ones to me. Anyone know the definition of "DELTIOLOGY" off the top of their heads? Email me if you are lazy and won't look up the answer. The definition of the word is not one anyone of us would ever have thought of in a million years.

INCORRECT!!

Not much has changed since 1938

My housemate forwarded me this website address called Bernal Heights Preservation. If you poke around the site you might stumble across the area dedicated to the streetcars that were ubiquitous in this area and probably all of San Francisco.

The intersection of Cortland Avenue and Prospect Street in 1938

If you look closely, the second house from the left is 121-123 Cortland Avenue. The house no longer has pillars and the staircase now has a lefthand turn, but it appears essentially the same. The house to the left of my current home is the building I lived in when I first moved to San Francisco. It looks exactly the same. Great architecture breeds longevity!

For those of you who are keeping score....

Today, a judge in the State of Maryland rejected a ban on same-sex unions, ruling that defining marriage as only between a man and a woman unconstitutional. You can listen to a story on this by following this link to the story on NPR. If you go to the link you'll see that there are currently eight states that have some sort of same-sex marriage law or case in that states court system. In my lifetime, I have been a resident of five states in the US. I found it an interesting fact that all five of those states are in the list of eight that are at the forefront of the same-sex marriage issue. Washington State, New York, Maryland, New Jersey and California, the five that I have lived and paid taxes in, are joined by Iowa, Massachusetts and Connecticut. To bring Statistics into the discussion......correlation? Yes! Causation? Questionable at best.

...and not just because the Seahawks are winning

When I decided to write about my recent self-observation, I had to temper myself from my initial desire to say that A sucked. Instead I made the effort to try and explain why B is more satisfying to me in comparison to A. Enough of the mumbo-jumbo. I'm referring to the fact that the first newspaper website I check in the morning is not the San Francisco Chronicle. In fact the Chronicle is on average the fifth new site I go to in a day, sometimes not until the evening. Remember, I'm not going to say that the Chronicle's website sucks. I'm going to try and point out why the sites of the other papers are more informative, at least for me.

Who's up first? Well, surprisingly, and not surprisingly, it has become The Seattle Times. The Times lists one line summaries of what appears to be ALL stories from all of it's sections. Since I grew up in Seattle, I am drawn in my stories that reference things, people and places I have known since childhood which gives them a sense a soap opera quality. To use the easiest example when it is mentioned that the last playoff victory for the Seattle Seahawks was back in 1984, no longer is this true by the way, it has personal resonance for me since I remember that playoff game when I was a freshman in high school. Another thing that I find really useful about the Seattle Times page is that on the major stories, they list all the related stories, graphs, charts, pictures right under them, but most importantly, they tell me whether or not it's a .pdf or simple link. More information is good.

Then I usually quickly go to the NPR site because I like their national political correspondents, such as Ken Rudin and Cokie Roberts. Plus it gives me a chance to think about Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me and Peter Sagel, sigh. But the NPR site allows me to multitask by listening to a story while I'm reading another.

The New York Times comes next. I particularly like the Education and Real Estate sections of the Times, but I also find the this venerable paper finds angles on stories that other media outlets don't. Things always seem more interesting when written about in the Times.

Then it is off to The Washington Post. The reason isn't because of news but because their online Crossword works well and doesn't require anything beyond a simple registration to the paper's website. I know there are probably many other crosswords online, but I'm a creature of habit.

Then I'll hit the Chronicle, when I have the time, to read about local stuff.

Equate this to the joke forwarded to you by email

All readers of the blog know I have an obsession with the NPR show Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. I've seen it taped twice, in Chicago when I spent the summer of 2004 all across the country and last February when the show was taped in Berkeley. And don't get me started on my devotion to host Peter Sagel. But during this weeks "Listener Limerick Challenge", the three panelists were over the top in mocking the name of the prominent San Francisco high school Lick-Wilmerding. The fact that it aired nationwide made the moment that much better, at least for a teacher at a rival school. It was TRULY priceless.

I'm not sure exactly how to provide a direct link to the broadcast, but here's the best I can do. I urge, implore, BEG you to go to the the page for this weeks broadcast and click on the link for the Listener Limerick Challenge. You are listening for the introduction of the caller. There is no need to actually listen to the limerick afterwards. TRUST ME, it's hilarious.

Right in our own backyard

Tucked into the southwestern corner of the city of San Francisco is tightly packed campus of San Francisco State University, which sits right next to San Francisco's only true mall Stonestown Galleria. Next to both SFSU and Stonestown is the highly competitive public magnet Lowell High School, one of the top high schools in all the state of California. Also down there is the freshwater Lake Merced which is surrounded by four outstanding golf courses. Two of the four are owned by the Olympic Club, one of the courses is the San Francisco Country Club and the fourth is Harding Park Golf Course. Note that it isn't Harding Park Golf Club for you see, Harding Park is one of two municipal golf courses owned by the city of San Francisco. Harding Park (named after President Warren G. Harding who passed away in the city) having the same terrain and flora as its more famous neighhbors is in itself a highly regarded layout. It regularly held professional golfing tournaments through the 1960's but had fallen on hard times during last couple decades of the 20th century. Five or so years ago, a private firm took over the business aspects of the course and brought Harding Park back to its former glory. The crowning moment of Harding's renaissance was its selection as the course to hole the finale of the World Series of Golf last year.

This morning, Scott and I snagged two spots of his friends foursome and we were off the 1st tee at 10:10AM. The morning started gloriously with bright sunshine and I was in shorts this first Saturday in January.

Scott and our two balls safely on and putting for birdie on the par 3 third.

Both of us three-putted the third green. However, the beautiful sun quickly turned to a steady drizzling rain and by the time we were on the 8th tee, it looked like this:

Rain, rain go away.....

We decided to call it a day after the ninth hole. Even though it had stopped raining, both of us had not brought rain gear so we were both soaked. Scott beat me, but I was able to observe some key differences in the way we approach the game. Scott is a firm believer in warming up by hitting balls on the range and practicing his putting. I just show up on the first tee, take a couple of practice swings and away I am.

Scott is a firm believer in yardage. He looks for the yardage markers and paces to his ball to determine the exact distance he has to get to the green. On the green, Scott is careful to mark his ball and squat down to read the line. Well, you can imagine that I'm the complete opposite.

Scott and I both have testy relationships with our drivers. The result is that Scott plays only with his irons. I pull out the driver every single time I can and let her rip.

We are, however, competitive in ability and agree that honestly reporting one's score is of utmost importance for the both of us even with our huge stylistic differences.

Sucked in by reality television

As the middle of January looms on the horizon, the television studios are getting ready to unveil their mid-season shows. Not all shows are new, but instead some will be commencing the shows second or even third season. In the case of these returning shows, we are often treated to a "marathon" of the previous seasons shows. During this first week of January 2006, Scott and I were sucked into a "marathon." I am going to reveal the show that has become our nightly addiction in the spirit of full disclosure. However, you MUST not roll out of your chair laughing and not finishing this posting. The show that gets us in front of the television every night has been Beauty and the Geek. Shut up. Shut up!

What makes it doubly shameful is the fact that Ashton Kutcher, yes Demi Moore's man, is an executive producer. Oh, the humanity! Now hear me out, please. I have found that most reality television shows attempt to show the action in an objective way, however there is always an aura of contempt for the participants. We're watching them, but making fun of them at the same time.

But this show pairs seven beautiful (and superficial) woman with seven geeky men. They are put into seven pairs and given challenges in which the women must do tasks that they stereotypically are not expected to be able to do, such as change a tire. The men are given challenges like giving a massage. The reason why I find the show compelling is that each person in the pair is helping their partner and in the process breaking down stereotypes and feeling more confident about themselves. It is a bit hokey that "romances" develop, but it's kind of cute.

So Beauty and the Geek 2 begins its run next week. I encourage you all to give the show a chance. You know where Scott and I will be on the Thursday nights.

If I ran the world......

Whenever I go to Trader Joe's the checkout lines are long and they move slowly. The long lines are indicative of a store that draws a lot of shoppers, but the slow moving checkout lines indicate that something is amiss. The bottleneck occurs when a customer reaches the cashier and simply stands there while the cashier scans the groceries and then piles them up on the counter to be bagged by either a bagperson or the cashier themselves. The customer simply stands there and does nothing.

Being the geeky Geometry teacher that I am, I find it fun and a creative outlet to try and pack my groceries into as few bags as possible, while still maintaining the shape of the bread and protecting the integrity of the eggs and fruit. The logical part of me finds it a moral obligation to utilize myself at this time to perform the act of bagging the groceries to minimize the amount of time I spend in the cashier transaction. My line moves just a bit faster.

The cashiers are always grateful by my act of bagging my own groceries. I always reply that were Trader Joe's (or any grocery chain) an economic incentive (i.e. 2% off your bill) for customers to bag their own groceries, it would obviously have the lines move faster, but there would be many more unintended benefits. For example, the company would save money by needing fewer cashiers and bagpeople.

Yup, if I ruled the world.....

Sometimes the spoof exceeds the original

Rarely do I find the emails forwarded from friends to be anything particularly noteworthy. Usually, I open the email, read a couple lines and then hit the delete button. However, this spoof of the current hit movie Brokeback Mountain had me howling. So without further delay, check out Bareback Mountain.

Snail Mail

Every couple of months I get an envelope in the mail originating from New York City. It's always the same. It's one of the long rectangular envelopes with my name and address written in ballpoint pen. I'm sure that the envelopes I send back East have a same kind of consistency. Since 1990, I have had the joy of having a snail mail correspondence with a friend of mine that I met on the famous "Love Boat" (ok people, once and for all, there is NO BOAT involved). Somehow early on, we began writing to each other by letter (typed not handwritten) and we've both committed to it. OK, a shout out to a certain cousin and his wife in San Diego who are readers of this blog! You know who you are! Anyway, I have kept every single letter she has written me over the past 15 years. I think she has done the same with mine. We could probably reconstruct the majority of our lives over the past decade and a half from these missives. I usually wait a month or so before I write back because letters are never just dashed off. These are usually four to five pages (single spaced with 12 font) descriptions of what is going on in our lives. Yes, on occasion we do have to contact each other on the phone, or an email, but 90% of our communication has been the good old fashioned letter. So Jennifer C. hats off to you for your willingness to hold up your end of the bargain. I'm willing to do this as long as you are. And knowing the stubborn tradition loving types we are this could last another 40 or so years!!

A person who has affected my life

Many of you ask about my mobility and my health post-accident and most of the time I reply that everything is pretty much hunky-dory. I can't point my toes, which makes running impossible and I find standing in my barefeet very uncomfortable so I simply avoid it by always wearing something on my feet. No big deal. There is one huge pain in my life and that comes to travelling by air.

Remember this guy?

Yeah, the shoe bomber from 2001. This man, has probably more than any person, affected my life. Four years since his little "stunt" travelling through America's airports requires us to take off our shoes and put them through the x-ray machine. Simple for most, but a huge undertaking for me. I now have a couple options.

The first, and one that I have to undertake if I don't plan ahead, has me approach the TSA person and hold out my x-rays. I then ask to be able to walk through the machine with my shoes and then I will sit down, take off my shoes and then have them x-rayed separately. Because of this request, I am immediately flagged and put into the high-security line. This requrires my to be wanded by one of the TSA people. If the alert level is orange or above, the sensitivity of the wand is so great that my barefeet set off the the wand, which causes further inquisition. But after showing them my x-ray and being cleared, then most TSA people are interested in the story of my feet and well, being the cheerful and giving person I am, off into the story I go. If I am lucky, this whole encounter takes less than 10 minutes.

My second option, one that I discovered works like a charm is to pack a pair of flip-flops in my carry-on. Flip-flops are not required to be removed and so I can zip through without any issues. But, the sight of my changing into flip-flops in a cold city like Seattle in December does cause people to raise and eye-brow or two.

So, hats off to you, Richard Reid, the shoebomber. Thanks for causing such a hassle in my life.

Miss Manners Weighs In

The Christmas card saga will never end even though I try and put it behind me. What gives? Here's what Miss Manners' column advised as proper Christmas card ettiquette in the San Francisco Chronicle on Monday December 19th, 2005:

"........However, signing one's name to printed inanities, or mass-producing a composition about one's petty triumphs over the year, is not keeping in touch. Keeping in touch means writing one's sentiments with one's very own hand. This may be a full letter, or on the words "Merry Christmas" added to a picture card, but one must write it oneself.......Miss Manners will only add the requirement that they nevertheless write out a message, however brief, between the poesy and the signature."

There you have it. What we all should be laughing at is the irony that I, perhaps the person who worries least about ettiquette, had his instincts validated by the court of highest authority, the one and only Miss Manners. BOO-YAH!!!

How's this for a distribution?

So, I lied, there has to be one more posting about Christmas/Holiday cards. This one relates to the fact that I finished up my cards today (those of you receiving them will think I am a total geek, just you wait). As I was about to haul them to the blue box up the street, I got it into my brain ask where all these cards are going. So being the zip code guy that I am I counted out the following distribution:

These are the number of cards being sent to zip codes starting with

0 13 (Puerto Rico, New England and New Jersey)
1 9 (New York, Pennsylvania and Delaware)
2 3 (DC, Maryland, Virginia and the Carolinas)
3 1 (The Southeast)
4 3 (Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan and Indiana)
5 1 (The Upper Midwest, the Dakotas and Montana)
6 4 (Illinois, Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska)
7 0 (Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma)
8 4 (The Rocky Mountain States, Arizona and Nevada)
9 36 (California, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii and Alaska)
Intl 4 (Netherlands, Austria, South Korea, Canada)

The breakdown of 9's is as follows

Southern California (91, 92, 93) 5
Northern California (94, 95, 96) 19
Hawaii (96) 0
Oregon (97) 0
Washington (98, 99) 12
Alaska (99) 0

Doing this made me happy!

Closure on the holiday card saga

A couple hours after Tuesday mornings feelings dump, S told me that she had crossed me off her Christmas card list and that she was incredibly incensed at the original posting, but that she wasn't going to bring it up to me until after the New Year. The course of the discussion took us all over the map, but the essence could be boiled down to 1) what exactly is the role of the holiday card and 2) how different life is between those who have children (especially newborns and toddlers) from there single friends.

The first issue is easier to address. To S, the card is simply wishes the receiver of the card well, the hope that things are well in their lives and to let the receiver know that the person is in the senders thoughts. To me, I've always expected more than that. It is my belief that because these people are an important person in the story of our lives that it's unfortunate that we can only see each other rarely and have this once a year communication. This communication to me deserves more than a cursory "throw something in the mail". I have friendships with different people from different points in my life so the type of communication I have with them is different and I try and reflect that in what I send, even if it is a couple sentences long, I feel I have given the relationship some respect. Simply stuffing the card in to the envelope to me feels like, as my colleague CD so eloquently put it, "relationship on resecitation (sp)".

This lead to the more critical discussion and that is that it is a luxury for those who have young children at home to take time to sit down and type out an email or write a letter or even make a phone call. Ok, point taken. Yes, when I come home, it's a place where I am not being pulled in 55 directions at once. So S told me that it is the job of the single person to change their strategies and instead of just relying on the other person to initiate contact, that I as the single person needed to reach out and often times more than once or twice. When it is me that is always calling or emailing it doesn't mean that the other person doesn't want to communicate, it is often they can't. Here comes the key issue and that is I always feel like it's a burden upon my friend with kid when I want to call. How many times have I called and gotten the friend/parent while they are trying to do three things at once, and I get about 50% of their attention. So, that makes me feel really good, or they say that they'll have to call back. That actaully makes me feel worse because I feel as though I'm another thing on their list of things to do.

This conversation had me in tears in the office and I don't even know why. Was it the friendship on rescicitaion realization? Was it that I was being insensitive into the demands of parenthood? Was it S's making these statements and me feeling like an insensitive prick? A combination of these or all? So, I'm still confused and baffled by lots of things here, but I know that I can try and make sure to make the effort to reach out to those friends of mind who have young kids and to be understanding about the constraints on their time and energies. As for the cards, well I can simply do what I think is right and model the behavior myself. As off today, I'm over this whole saga now. I'm putting it to bed.

Hmmm, there must be something underneath

Well, last weeks "pet peeve" posting has caused quite a stir. I dashed that piece off in a quick ten minutes, but I guess it is pretty clear that there was emotion behind it. But I didn't really believe it at first. The first comment was an email from Mom stating that she thought I must be angry at the fact that being a gay man, I wasn't going to ever have children and something must stem from that lingering bitterness. My initial reaction was, because it came from Mom, that she was way off base. By the end of this post, it will turn out that she was kind of in the ballpark, perhaps she made contact but her proverbial baseball curved off into the stands. Scott had also made a comment, actually, his lack of comment was the real comment, but I blew it off. However, when a friend of mine emailed me directly to tell me her reaction to it, I knew that something had really struck these people in my life that something was out of whack with me.

So, as I always do, I sat down and stared at the wall and sorted through what I believed to be my feelings about the "photocard as christmas card" anger. In retrospect, the storm began to brew last week when a colleague of mine (not in my department) and his wife are due to have a baby any day now. There is some uproar about the "not so progressive" policy around paternity leave. A letter was going around and I was asked by another faculty member to sign it. Granted, I believe that the rules should be changed to reflect the values of the institution, but I decided that I didn't want to be associated with an issue that clearly wasn't ever going to benefit me. I know that sounds horrifically selfish, but it is one of a couple benefits that I, as a single (gay isn't even an issue) non-parent faculty member will NEVER use. It's money that I can't even try and get because I'm single and don't have children.

Around the same time, I was asked to donate money towards a baby gift. Standard procedure. We also found out that another faculty member's wife was pregnant and I saw more cash leaving my wallet. Then we had our scheduled faculty meeting (which could be distilled into a memo of announcements) morph into a "words of wisdom" for oncoming parenthood and cake celebration. This joyous occasion as one of my colleagues who has been trying for a couple years to get pregnant had to sit and watch and wonder. It was feeling like all baby, all the time.

So that's part I. The second part of my "scrooge-ness" can be distilled as an equivalent to the time when a first child gets all pissy because all of a sudden its parents are splitting their energies between the firstborn and the newborn. I'm the firstborn in this situation. I have all these wonderful friends in my life and we all met and had these amazing experiences together when we were younger. First, life taking us across the country and world scatter us all over. So I've lost part of them first to geography. One by one, my formerly single friends found partners and began to do "couples things", a world that I can be included in but never truly feel welcome. At least, their spouses and partners are adults and always persons of intellect and quality so even though I lose part of them to their partners, I gain another friend. It's a wash. But the loss in this case is that I can't experience the world in a way that they do. I'm not privy to married/partner life and all the other couples and their orbits. And don't even ask me to try and comprehend and empathize with the issues and emotions around being a part of a pair.

Then comes the ultimate loss. The arrival of the child/children. If you thought I was at a loss to understand on an emotional level the issues of coupledom, well you can imagine how difficult it is to translate an theoretical idea of what some emotion/fear should be into really understanding and anticipating how to communicate and relate to those who do/are experiencing parenthood. Add to that the irrationality of those parenthood feelings/fears and I feel like I'm on eggshells.

I've "lost" a person who was at one time a friend of substance in my life. This person would warrant mention in my autobiography. This person would certainly be part of some hilarious story in which the joke would be on me. This person would come across in a positive light and would be amazed at how I could think of them in such high esteem. However, the course of life has removed them from my life. There is little about our lives anymore that are similar. And I don't think that our lives being different is all that bad, in fact, it's something that should be celebrated that each and every one of us has pursued a career or passion that was true for each and every one of us and is living a life of genuine happiness and contentment.

So, it hurts when the only thing that remains as a representation of our friendship arrives in the form that I complained about. And it's not the picture of the child, really. It's that it would have taken the sender a minute, maybe a maximum of three minutes to jot something down about them the person who is raising that cute kid in the picture staring at me. So really, I feel like (and I know this is completely childish and immature) I would rather not even get a card. Even though the sender is celebrating the development of their child and the picture is a snapshot of the incredibly hard work, loss of sleep due to worry and all the diaper changes, it's not something I can understand at the core level. At its most crass level, the baby/child/children 1, Ernie 0. And there isn't even a chance at a rematch/do over.

To end this post in a constructive way, I ask that those of you who send the picture cards of your children, please just take a minute to tell me about YOU. What are you doing in your life? What are the things, other than your child, that motivate you to get up each day? These are the things that brought us together as friends in the first place. These are the things that are going to keep us single people around. As for my issues with those benefits, most glaringly the missed opportunity at tuition remission at a private K-12 school, well, I'm just going to have to think creatively to see that benefit come to fruition. The inequities are as stark as me not having any benefit to another teacher who sent all four of her kids here for 13 years at 75% off. Umm, you do the math on that one.

I hope that I've explained the basis for my anger. I apologize for my bluntness. I don't apologize for the fact that I made light of what is a touchy issue for many of us who don't have children. Please remember what our lives our like because you were there once. We'll do our best to try and be sensitive to your feelings, joys and issues. However, for us it's in many ways an intellectual exercise and we might not always get it right. Thanks for making it this far. Good friends are willing to read to this point. Thanks, friend.

Pet Peeve

As many of you know, I have had (am having) issues with all of my heterosexual friends getting married and having children. I am not jealous in any way. Hello? I spend my days with 14 and 15 year old high school freshman. I get my fill of immature behavior. I have often threatened to write a book whose working title is something like:

"The Single (or Gay) Persons Guide When Their Friends Get Married and Have Children"

Topics would include:
1) How to not be a third wheel.
2) What not to say when you visit them in the hospital the day their first child is born.
3) How to avoid getting caught on the phone with your friend and having them put their soon to be talking (yeah, RIGHT!) child on the phone to "talk" to you.
4) Never attend a one year old child's birthday party. It's full of other married couples who have done nothing but spend every waking moment worrying about their precious baby. Write the check to the kid and stay the hell away.
5) Insist on being called by your name, never be called Uncle/Aunt So-and-So. You are a person, not a human gift giving/baby sitting machine.

There are many more tips that I can mention but you are probably wondering what the impetus for this posting was. It's Christmas time and that means that Christmas cards are flowing into my home at a rate of one or two per day.

Why do all my friends who have kids simply think that sticking in a photocard of their "adorable" child/children (and no picture of any adult in sight) with no personal greeting, suffices for a holiday card. I've learned absolutely NOTHING about what you did they did this year. All I can do is pull out the picture card from last year and see that Johnny/Judy can now hold a spoon and plaster food all over themselves. Come on people, put in a little more effort and care than that. Your actions (or non-actions as the case may be) are giving all you parents a bad name with your single/gay friends. Your lives are not to be lived only for your child. You, too, were independent, interesting and dynamic people at one point at an earlier point in your lives!

Someone's Birthday...

This past Sunday a group of 15 of us were picked up in two limos at the Diamond Heights Parking Lot for a day wine tasting in Napa. Armed with bagels, fruit and a fully stocked bar, the two limos were whisked up to the Napa Valley. First stop, Cakebread Winery. S. had arranged for our group to take an extended tour of the winery, the conclusion of which was an extensive wine tasting.

Our tour started with a walk through the grapevines. Being someone who is only now learning about wines (S has taught me now the ability to determine between families or reds and whites) I actually learned a great deal and put some of the words that I have learned in context. As you can see it was a fabulous day weatherwise.

The Cabernet Sauvignon vines have this unkept look because during the summer when the grapes are growing the leaves of the arching overhanging vines shade the fruit and traps heat underneath allowing the grapes to produce sugars for a longer time during the day.

This isn't a cucumber or zucchini, but actually will be a loofah someday when it is dried. The garden is on the Cakebread grounds and when cooking classes are held, the foods are taken directly from this plot.

The tanks at Cakebread Winery

Next stop, Peju Winery. This winery does not sell its wine commercially, only over the Internet, here in Napa or one can find it in top restaurants.

Peju's signature tower

We had our tasting in Peju's main tasting room which was the top floor of the tower.

Tasting at Peju

Here's a partial list of the wines we tasted at Peju.

I had tasted the wines at both Cakebread and Peju (come on I had to taste a wine that costs $125.....I mean the pragmatist in me was going "What the hell is so special about a wine to have it cost $125?") However, the little wine I had was making me loopy and so S cut me off. Peju was fantastic and we were off again. This time to the Merryvale Winery.

Merryvale

At the point in the day, I was enjoying the fresh air outside and dozing off due to my Asian gene deficiency.

The day ended with a stop at Domaine Carneros known for it's famous Tattinger label. Again, I took a pass on the tour and tasting.

The Napa Group in front of the Tattinger House.

The day ended with us riding the limo across the Golden Gate Bridge at sunset. Happy Birthday S.

NOTE: I just spent two hours going through all the blog postings eliminating last names. I've replaced them with the first initial of the last name. On about five separate occasions this year, I have gotten some word of a person mentioned being googled and having my blog posting with their name show up. So, in the interest of people's privacy, I've taken surnames off of here. If you find one that I missed, please let me know. Thanks.