monday i had two, that's right, two root canals installed on the left side of my upper jaw. i have one more scheduled in less than two weeks. i am in a very sad state of dental health. cry for me.
before the 2.5 hours of oral torture, i had a decent weekend in sf. by decent i mean i didn't get mamed or kill anyone. here are some pictures.
that's jg fixing his glasses saturday morning. he broke it some time last week. he managed to put it back together but i wish he would buy a new pair. the fix makes the frame look totally ghetto. look how he had it rigged up during the epoxy job.
contacting mothership
around noon we went to hang with beeze. on the way, i saw this giant kite someone made from a torn tarp, i'm sure of it.
mothership?
seen at ocean beach
i love kites. i can make one from scratch. anyway, it was nice to see beeze. i hadn't seen him for a while. this time last year we were out snowboarding up a storm. he was, at least. i was falling down a storm.
foosers
we went home after beeze served us home made guacamole and quesadilla for lunch. jg vacuumed, of course. what's a weekend without some cleaning?
the brick tower you see out the right window is the local high school. here's a shot of jg at the base of the tower.
taken on the way back from clement street
sunday it rained like a mutha so we were stuck indoors pretty much all day. we watched a mess of dvds, one of which was the endless summer. what a terrrific movie! i never knew that a surf flick could be so enjoyable.
i should take advantage of this rare praise mode i'm in and add:
take two
remember the lump of coal i got for christmas? well, i broke it last week. apple retrieved and replaced it within four days at no cost to me. that's what i call service! the mac people seem to get everything right.
despite those annoying silhouette ads, up with apple!
i bet you didn't know i have one of those. mine has a better name.
i bought it a few weeks ago at ichiban kan (sf japantown), the same time i got the pencil case.
turns out to be ordinary storage for business cards. i think. anyway, i have a whole mess of business cards. i used to have even more, most were just pretty to look at.
reminds me of how my webmaster used to make fun business cards for me while i was still in school. he designed one specifically for me to pick up boys. i'll have to find them to show you. good stuff.
sundays when i don't have to drive 350 miles i have breakfast at east beach. usually i just bring a cup of coffee and a piece of pastry. this week i decided to get mcdonald's. and as soon as i stepped on to the sand with my breakfast combo number five, i was instantly swarmed by the entire flock of sea gulls.
so i ran back inside my car lest one of them decide to drop some good news on me. i came out again with just the camera and they still swarmed me. but not for very long.
anyway, i had a terrific weekend. i hope you did, too.
on the way to work this morning i decided to take the short 101 alternate, santa claus lane. the weather was perfectly clear. i parked along the road and walked to the water for some pictures.
the old man and the sea
what you can hardly see in that image is the moon. along with the islands, it made for a very nice sight. on the way back to the car i decided to go for a panorama.
i drove to sf the friday before last. i got an early start and hit the road at 2:30 in the afternoon. unlike the trip before that, when i left town after work and got awfully tired; i had to pull over and nap four times before i made it to sf. how i enjoy resting in a car that rocks with the passing traffic.
so, back to the friday before last, i was very happy to be driving in full consciousness, listening to podcasts, taking pictures. then, about an hour into the drive, i thought i saw the sky falling down.
101 north bound near los alamos, 11 march 06
sure enough, i was right
it was my very first sleet experience. people did all sorts of crazy things on the road, speeding up, switching lanes, come to a screeching halt, etc. i slowed down and kept on moving. the ice hitting the car was deafening. it went on for a good five minutes. i cranked the windshield wipers on max and there were moments when i thought i saw the paint being blasted right off the car.
101 at pismo beach
i drove in and out of heavy rainstorms for the rest of the trip. when i reached sf, i was stuck in an impossible traffic jam.
parking on 19th avenue
i took that picture out of boredom. in fact, i was trying to do a panorama when i noticed...
snow!
unintentional self portrait, i swear. anyway, the slush caused a lot of camera phone action which in turn caused a man on the light rail platform to shout, "yes! it snowed right here in beautiful san francisco! that's right..." he stopped when i turned my camera on him.
the shady shouter
saturday morning jg drove me to the dentist in san jose. it was pretty novel to see the mountains covered with snow.
280 at 101
by the way, i did not get a root canal as anticipated. i got a bleaching. the pain, it might very well have been a double root canal.
the rest of saturday jg and i made like tourists and went up to:
the coit tower
(please refrain from making jokes)
view from base of tower
jg studying the murals
we bought tickets and went to the top of the tower. i took a whole mess of pictures. i mean to create a flickr slideshow but i keep forgetting. for now i'll show you a few of my favorites.
jg at top of stairwell
looking through a window down at statue in parking lot
one of my favorite buildings
zoomed in
i tried for a panorama by taking a picture out of every window but it just didn't work out. the light was fading fast and some of the tourists spent entirely too much time at each window.
the new schmee did not give up, however. introducing...
that's julie, the best office manager in the whole wide world, the glue that holds this choppy office together. she has been with the company for over fifteen years, well before i got on board. when i interviewed for this job back in 1999, it was a saturday morning and julie was at the front desk to receive me.
how much i love julie. she is always on top of things, prompt! most of the time she would have the task half done before i finish asking. and there's nothing she wouldn't do either: book keeping, pay rolls, keeping the kitchen well stocked, pick ups and deliveries, assembling oversized xmas presents*, etc. she does it all with such ease and i have never heard julie once complain about any of her numerous tasks.
julie has been part time since my bosses separated, splitting her time between the two new offices, a position that isn't fair to her in many ways. and i've been very sad to learn that she is leaving.
