Styles in Town

March 25, 2008

As many of you are well aware, Facebook is outta control, but it has brought me back in touch with lost friends o' the past. One of those old buds was my friend, Danelle, who I went to UofC with and had met in residence on campus. Danelle bought a ticket to San Francisco for a quick adventure during her spring break (she's a school counsellor currently, and is on her way to being a practicing psychologist), so she sent me a message via Facebook and we finally reconnected after 9 or so years.

Danelle showed up on Monday, and we walked from my place to the Mission for dinner, with a nice tourist stop through Dolores Park on the way to catch the great city skyline. I had gotten some nice shots from Dolores Park on the weekend, so it was great to catch the park at dusk with only a few people around.



We strolled over to Monk's Kettle for some beer and burgers, as delicious as the last time I was there.

Danelle stuck around for two days and was the most ambitious shopping tourist I've ever witnessed. I sent her in many directions to capture the shopping essence of San Francisco, which was her personal mission. She's got stamina.

It was great to catch up with Danelle, seemingly in the trend of old friends visiting recently (noting the Shepel visit of two weeks ago). I dug out my old photos and we laughed ourselves silly looking at our fresh naive faces. I also found some great photos for posterity that other people might not be as excited to see... oh, the fun that we could have scanning and posting on Facebook...

Now I can't wait to see who's going to visit me next...

Funny Bunny

March 23, 2008

Gorgeous weekend in SF = No new snow in Tahoe = Bea in SF

I had a productive weekend in the city (did my taxes, ran errands, etc.), and enjoyed the beautiful sunny weather.

On Saturday night, Will and I went to see the kiddies before Angie and the family took off for 9 days to Rochester for family fun.








Gosh, they're cute.

On Sunday (Easter Sunday!), Will and I met up with Key, Wendy and Gail for brunch at Andalu .
I enjoyed a bellini and some great waffles (with brown sugar bacon...yum!). After brunch, we had a wonderful stroll around Inner Mission and ended up at Dolores Park, along with approximately half the city's population. The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence were holding their 29th anniversary celebration in Dolores Park, which meant there was fantastic people-watching to be had.




After the requisite amount of sun and fun, we made a brief stop at Tartine Bakery (I heart their lemon cream tart!) before going home.

For dinner, we headed over to Sue Hee's house for Easter potluck dinner. Dinner was wonderful, Sue Hee and Robert fed us glorious leg of pig. The accompaniements were potluck-ish, with amazing sweet potato mash, couscous, salad, braised spinach, bread rolls, and so on and so on. Easter Sunday = epic eating.










I wonder, after arising from the dead on Easter Sunday, if Jesus had to unbutton his pants too. Or robe. Whatever.

Monk's Kettle

March 20, 2008

On Wednesday, a co-worker instigated a "happy hour" night with some folks in our department. We went to Monk's Kettle, and I finally got a chance to try out their massive menu of Belgian beers and their alluring "pub food" menu.

I've been loving framboise lambics lately, and they have a good one on their menu (although it does cost $12 for a big bottle). C'est la vie.


I had the house-ground Niman Ranch burger white cheddar and carmlized County Line Harvest cippolini onions. It was delicious.

Monk's Kettle is fantastic, but better for small groups, or just to sit at the bar and try their oh-so-many beers.

Hornblower

March 18, 2008

On Tuesday night, I had the pleasure of going on a Hornblower dinner cruise around the bay for a work thing (yet another dinner that I could go to without actually going to the meeting...sweet!).

We set sail at 5 pm, and toured around the bay for 3 hours. The weather cooperated and it was actually a clear night, and it wasn't too chilly. The food itself was alright, but it was more about getting to know our collaborators and sailing around the bay.





Events like this remind me of how lucky I am to live in such a beautiful area. I heart San Francisco.

Schizophrenic Tahoe

March 16, 2008

I headed up to Tahoe on Friday night with a bunch of peeps spread out over two cars, and we managed to get there in decent time (just over 4 hours) despite a car accident that crippled Hwy 50 and painful chain control.

On Saturday, I skiied with Wendy, Shaun, Gail, Chevy, Heather & Aqua, and we were treated with 7 inches of new snow. Mind you, in most places, it was new snow over crusty snow/moguls underneath. The best snow of the day was in Milky Way and on the south side of Mott Canyon (Ernie's, Hemlock, etc.). Killebrew was alright, but downright ugly on the path back to Mott, as it was pretty much melted and at some points, I was trying to get over sand and rock. Ick.

The weather was all over the place, white-out conditions at some points, with beautiful sun and blue skis at other points. It was generally cold though. Brr.

The temps dropped and my quads threatened to go on strike, and thankfully, Shaun and Gail were done for the day, so we headed to Stagecoach lodge for some yummy hot chocolate and Baileys.

There was a good crowd at the cabin and no rallying to the casinos or clubs, so Saturday night was really mellow, with some Cranium and good Thai food.

On Sunday morning, Pat made us some amazing restaurant-grade waffles and we had a super casual mellow morning. Most of us decided not to go to the mountain, so I ended up walking over to the outlets, to Starbucks, to get lunch, and then spent the afternoon reading. So nice and mellow.

On a side note, Pat managed to lose his flip flops in the snow the previous night when he went the the store. Yes, he wore flip flops through the snow to the store. About 100 yards from the cabin, he lost them in some deep snow, and we found them the next day.

It was a nice weekend in Tahoe, with a nice balance of snow sports and doing nothing. It was wonderful.

Reminiscing with Shepel

March 11, 2008

Will has been back in the homeland to help his folks pack up their Calgary house (they are relocating to Vancouver Island, yay!) and to go on his annual guys cat-skiing trip. They returned to Island Lake Lodge near Fernie, BC, and finally got great conditions on the second day. Look at the picture of Will that got posted on their daily photos site:


I can't complain too much, he's been working really hard, and I did just have a 8.5 week sabbatical from work...

Luckily, an old friend from the past is in town to distract me from the daily toils. Mike (a.k.a. Sheeps) was an old roomie from Calgary where we went to school together at UofC, and he's now a doctor (whee!) and is in town doing a radiology course at the Fairmont Hotel. Swank.

Mike came over for dinner with me, Key and Wendy, and it was great to catch up and reminisce. I think it had been over 8 years since we had seen eachother in person!

Hooray for friends in town!

Booty & The Beach

March 9, 2008

Will is up in Canada, and I decided to stay in the city on the weekend to play in a beach ultimate frisbee tournament called Booty & The Beach that Shaun, Robert, Ray and McT put together. It also helped that there was no new snow in the mountains and not many folks were heading up to the cabin.

On Saturday morning, I headed out to Ocean Beach for the tourney. I was on a team called "Captain Morgan" (ha!) and our shirts were navy blue. The team was super fun, everyone was a solid player, and we won all four of our games. Sweet!

We played our four games straight through, so we were done by 3 pm and I headed down to Santa Clara to see the little ones, as I hadn't seen them in a couple weeks.









After dinner and all the kids were clean, I headed back to the city, as the tournament party was going on in lower Haight at the Peacock Lounge.






On Sunday morning, we had the luxury of starting a little late because we won our games the previous day, which was nice considering the whole "spring forward" time change thing.

In the end, we won the quarters and semis games, but lost by two points in the final. Boo!
Sunday was a beautiful day, so it was awesome to spend it outside. Thanks to the boys for putting on a great time!

I think my body did not enjoy running on sand for two days in a row. Owie, says my body.