Why take mine? Give them yours!

I got a call today from Operations. There's a new hire coming on board next week and I have to give up my blackberry. It's not really mine but the company's and since I'm not high enough on the food chain here, mine has to go to this new guy and I'm back to using my old, thicker than a wallet, dropped one too many times on concrete, crackberry that lacks the camera/video capabilities. Sucks..

All the more reason why I should splurge and get myself an iphone.

the station wagon that stole the Latin ladies' fruit headdress

(Taken in the Fillmore/Ellis parking garage via crackberry cam)
How fast do you think this car can go without losing it's fruit?

Bay meadows, race four, $5 to place on Gorgeous Getty

For the first time in all the years I've lived in the bay area, I finally paid a visit to the Bay Meadows race track. After 73 years, the race track will be closing at the end of the season.



Fridays are $1 deal days (i.e. dollar admission, beer, hotdog, and program) and this was the day we decided to go for inexpensive, home grown entertainment. My friends were feeling lucky and wagered on several races after chowing down on no less than six hotdogs each. I had salted nachos coated in neon orange cheese whiz and washed it down with watered Miller Lite.



The horses were graceful and stunning to watch. The races itself were exhilarating and we couldn't help but scream for our favorites with the rest of the crowd. I'll have to return again before the season is up.

protestors? check. torch? no show.

no one will notice..

Okay, so I failed at posting once a week. I got busy. Life got in the way and well, here we are in April.

I'll just pick up from where I last left off and maybe no one will really notice.

sadness

I just returned home from attending a friend's funeral in Pleasant Hill. The whole tradition revolving around funerals is sad and heartbreaking. There was the sit down church part of the funeral which consisted of a couple speeches from the minister and the father in-law. Then we carpooled in mass to the local graveyard for my friend's ashes to be laid to rest. Everything seemed so routine and without feeling and completely...final.

That's why my plan is to be cremated and my ashes scattered into the Bay from the GGB on a very windy day while all my friends and family are against the wind so the odds of everyone getting a nice coating of my ashes will greatly increase. Then they will all go out to some fancy Chinese restaurant I choose in advance (probably Empress of China) to have a banquet style dinner and pass out gold coins to everyone who attended. Then it'll be over.

another Sat night

In the grand scheme of life, does it really matter where you go to try a new restaurant/bar you've never been to? Nope, it doesn't.

But in the case of my Sat ritual with friends where one of us chooses a restaurant, we eat, then we trek to some bar and then another and still another. Let me just say, the restaurant chosen tonight was truly awful. I'd write a yelp review about it but I'm too lazy to figure out what my password is to log into that site.

It was so terrible, I'd have to assume that our meals were pre-cooked, straight out of cans, poured onto dishes, and microwaved for warmness since they were served within five minutes of ordering. I had no idea "authentic" mexican food (as this restaurant claimed) could taste worse than Chevy's. As authentic as processed food can be out of a tin can.

So, why was the place so crowded and my party of four had to wait over 40 minutes for a table? We thought everyone waiting outside in the chilly air knew something we didn't know. Like the food being oh, so delicious and worth the table wait. Oh, no. When we got seated, I took one look around the place and noticed that A) there were more margaritas on the tables than food and B) there wasn't a single mexican person chowing down on the grub. Doesn't that tell us something? When you don't see a Mexican person eating mexican food, that's a red flag. It's like having dim sum at a restaurant without a single chinese person dining also. I think I got food poisoning that night. I would warn others but I don't want to post the restaurant name lest I inadvertently advertise for them.

But the night doesn't end there. A few of us headed to Madrone for the "Michael vs Prince" dance extravaganza. What fun, I'm thinking as we pay our $5 cover. Once in, I had trouble breathing. The place was packed in to the point where you couldn't move more than a few feet past the entrance. I must have been inhaling carbon dioxide when my vision got foggy and dizziness started to set in. WTF? I didn't pay $5 to look at sweaty people rubbing up against each other in a lame attempt to "bust a move" Jackson style.

Then I see friends we know who are heading in our direction. "We're leaving, it's too crowded." I paid my dues and everyone's going? Surveying the scene, we all decided it was best to split and my suggestion to trek down the street to the Fly might be a better bet. Not so. It was just as crowded there with our additional 15 bodies. At least drinks could be ordered and enjoyed rather than spilled on clothing.

Month 1; Week 1

First post and I can't recall what I did on New Year's. How pathetic is that? I suppose it was uneventful like any other New year's day and really not worth remembering. If I look back at my calendar, I can see that I went to work, slept, ran three times, ate, walked my dog, and went on two blind, yet obviously forgettable dates. Exciting way to start my new year.

Here's hoping for better days to come!