Butano State Park

Catching up on some back posts here.....but a few weeks back, Onions and I had a free Sunday and headed down the coast to Butano State Park, near the town of Pescadero.

Not as famous as its nearby sibling state park, Big Basin, the scenery and draw are much the same......coastal redwoods!

We ended up hiking the longest loop in the park upwards of 9 miles that took back around a small canyon and over some creeks.

BANANA SLUGS!!!  This is why the mascot of UC Santa Cruz is the banana slugs.  They were all over the trail.

Kiss a banana slug for good luck!

After the hike, we headed to Pescadero for lunch at the famed Duarte's.

We dined on their two best known dishes, artichoke soup and Olallaberry pie!  Another Sunday outdoors!

Crossfit Open

So, as many of you know, a Crossfit gym opened in October 2015 down on Mission Street, three blocks from my house.  And last year, the bus I take to school moved right in front of the former auto-repair shop turned gym and for six months I watched people do these crazy things. So I bit the bullet last summer and started going three times a week for a few months working with the owner/coach to improve my flexibility and conditioning.  Then, in August, when school started, I dove in and started going to 6AM classes (thankfully school pushed back first period to 830 AM, so I have time to get home, shower and still make it to school by 750 or so) a few times a week.  But now, I'm DEEP into the "cult" and am going five to six times a week.  I've done my first pull-up (and now can do up to double digits in a row), and I've confirmed the due to my accident that my biggest issue is balance. I've learned about front versus back squats, power clean versus a power snatch, and how really important it is to have flexible hips. I love everything about it, the stretching, the strength pieces and the ending cardio pieces.  These "Metcons" are just essentially circuits of different movements, but I love how if I hate something, I know that I'll be moving onto something else.

This past February, the gym went on a lean challenge and I was careful about what I ate (I mastered the salad bar at school) and managed to love seven pounds in a month.  It was easy, to be honest.  And then, there was the Crossfit Open.  This is a national competition held over five weeks.  If you compete, you sign up online and then a workout is posted on Thursday evening and scores must be posted by the following Monday. Usually, I would be one to shy away from this because a fragile ego. But my college roommate Jeff, in Boston, and I signed up together.  He's been doing Crossfit for years so is ahead of me in ability and skill, but he had never done the Open, so we dove in together.  Of the five workouts, I could do four of them, only the second workout had a skill (walking lunges with weight) that I can't do, so had to score a zero. I hit the time cap on the rest, but I learned so much about my ability.  I realized that the required weight, which were usually more than what I do during practice, were weights I could manage.  I learned that I could be proud of myself for what I can do even though everyone around me was doing more and faster.  I've learned to let go of ego and that's probably the most important lesson of all.  And....I can see physical changes in my body.  I'm hooked.

This is the first open workout.  Didn't finish in the 20 minute time limit, but lifted a heavier dumbbell than I usually do.

Ok, I'm still a bit happy when I get a nice shoutout from my coach!

China Camp State Park

The winter of 2017 has brought the majority of California out of drought, but it also means we've all been cooped up inside during the rain.  This weekend, the sun came out and we all were outside.  Onions and I went up to China Camp State Park along the shoreline of the Bay in San Rafael.

The marshy tidelands....must be the natural state of things along the Bay.

We hiked up the ridge and along the way caught glimpses of the Bay, Marin County and here, Angel Island.

Our goal was to get to "Patrick's Point," a clearing at the highest point in the park.  From here, we could look NE towards the Delta and Napa....

.....SE towards the East Bay, specifically Richmond....

...and Mount Tamalpais.

Selfie Documentation!  Thanks for coming out, sun!

The Lick-Wilmerding Home Page

My Algebra 2 class made the front page of the Lick-Wilmerding Home Page!

Birthday #47

Lunar 2017, the year of the Rooster in the Chinese Zodiac, happened on the same weekend as my 47th birthday.  Marlene and Oliver came down from Seattle.  As Marlene ran errands, Oliver made his first trip to In and Out Burger!

Later on that evening, I went back to SFO to pick up Mom and Dad who were flying back into the States from Hong Kong.  That was the same day Voldemort made the executive order to ban those coming from certain countries in the Middle East.  SFO was a mad house.  It took me 45 minutes for us to locate each other.

Dad didn't seem too phased by the protests, although I found myself annoyed.

A great deal of the weekend was Oliver fest.  Apparently he doesn't like his feet in the sand.

Look at him climb the floppy rope!

My birthday dinner was at a steakhouse.  I knew that Dad, after two weeks of Thai inspired food in Southeast Asia would want to eat some meat!

It's a steakhouse that features in Japanese imported beef.  You are looking at Oita on the left, Kumamoto in the middle and Hokkaido on the right.  I didn't realize that this "sampler" plate was over $400 of meat.  It was, however, amazing!

Onions had the prime rib!  Dad said his T-Bone steak tasted like cardboard after he tasted my Japanese steak.

Hanging with Mom at home!

Oliver came by school one afternoon.  We took him to a wrestling match.  He saw the mats, wanted to play on them but we didn't let him.  He cried so we had to leave.

Costco!

Blueberries and Hot Dogs.  O eats it ALL!!!

Voldemort

So it was a difficult day for our country this past Friday.  I recognize that I grew up in a liberal bubble (Seattle) and now reside in another liberal bubble (San Francisco).  I recognize that I have never lived anywhere outside a liberal bubble (even Ithaca, NY is a blue island in the sea of red Upstate New York), but I know that my beliefs on equality for all, justice and taking care of our planet is the right way to live.  I recognize that I have incredible privilege in being born into a family that financially and emotionally supported me.  I recognize that right now, I have so many layers that buffer me from the potential changes that our new leader, Voldemort (I refuse to actually say the name out loud for until he is out of office) may try to enact or repeal.  But now, and I have to say sadly a little late in life, that I too, like many of us who were surprised by the results of the election (or more importantly, suffer through the stupid electoral college the gives so much weight to voters in the Upper Midwest) that we are too complacent.  What are we going to do?  Well, I hope my actions from yesterday's march aren't indicative...

I finished up my shift at Open Hand and walked down Polk Street to Civic Center and the rally in full swing.

That "TRUTH" on the side of the building was already there before all this.

Not being a fan of crowds and the rain starting falling, I decided head home.  See?  There it is again, not sticking it out.

There were so many great signs, but this one speaks to me and one that I believe in.  I always feel that even though extremism and hate takes hold for a small amount of time, ultimately, it gets beaten down and that good wins.