Very, very young wine...

A short trip to the Sonoma County Wine Road (Dry Creek / Russian River / Alexander Valley) today with Greg. It's about a week before the harvest and the crush festivals, so the grapes on the vine are just about the most mature they will ever get.

Hockey season is upon us!!

Took Greg to see a pre-season Sharks game at the HP Pavilion (aka The Shark Tank). The seats were bought through RazorGator and were someone's 11th row center season tickets that they parted with.

I'm totally ruined -- I'll never be able to sit in the nosebleed section ever again.

It was a great game -- lots of action, like the challenge at the blue line above and the face-off below:



Even the intermissions were fun. Checkout what the mascot did to these poor folks:



That's 10 cans of silly string firing at once.

Can you tell I love Hockey!!?!?!?

Rikey, you got some 'splainin to do...

My buddy Greg is back in town before he heads home to the land where the water goes the other way when you flush. Before he came the US to visit his family, he had arranged to purchase a Rickenbacker 4003 Burgandy Glow bass on eBay and have it shipped to his father's home. The Rickenbacker is a beautiful instrument with great complexity and personality. He got a great deal on it -- he would have paid 3-4x what he did if he had bought it in Melbourne.

Watermelon with a speed flash...

Bizzare view of the cut side of a watermelon, iluminated by my speed light.

Chile Lime Tilapia

4 Tilapia fillets
4 Tbl Chili Powder
2 Tbl Lime Juice
1 Tsp Kosher Salt
Fresh spinach leaves

Mix the lime juice and the chili powder to form a thick liquid

Take a sheet of Aluminum foil about twice the size of each fillet

Put down a bed of Spinach leaves slightly larger than the fillet

Place the fillet on the spinach

Sprinkle the fish with the salt and spread 1/4 of the lime/chili mix on top

Seal the foil and place on a cookie sheet.

Repeat with the other 3 fillets.

Bake for 20 minutes at 400 degrees F (200C)

Tangy, slightly spicy, and great with simple rice (and, in our case, broccoli).

Back in San Francisco...

Out trip to Las Vegas has ended. We are back in "The City by the Bay".

This is our fine city's Seat of Government. It is a fascinating building with an even more fascinating history.

President Warren Harding laid in state here in 1923, as did Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone (assassinated in 1978).

Marilyn Monroe and Joe Dimaggio were married here, as was Rosie O'Donnell and her partner Kelly.

The building was used in several movies until a fire caused by too hot lights during the filming of "Bicentennial Man" resulted in a city ordinance forbidding filming in City Hall.

The dome is based on the one on the Church of Les Invalides in Paris.

Little POS Camera and the picture it took...

After we checked out, I didn't want to haul around the D70 for 8 hours, so I checked it with the rest of my luggage at the Caesar's bag check, and bought a little POS disposable camera from CVS.

Here's the little POS camera (strangely enough, not listed in Flickr's camera EXIF database)



And here is the better of the shots I took from it (New York, New York from Las Vegas Blvd).

Seen Driving Down the Strip

Yep, that's a moving billboard for a brothel -- good old Vegas!

Another late post cause of sucky internet...

Yep, I go to Las Vegas and take a picture of the Eiffel Tower.

At least it's an artsy angle!

Guess where we are...

SANS Network Security show -- VEGAS, BABY!!

2000 geeks showed up last night and made the hotel's internet go to hell in a handbasket.

There's a pretty good reason that SANS doesn't often end up in the same place 2 years in a row -- someone is always hacking.

so, for a day or two, expect glitz and short descriptions.

Braille for GIANTS!

This building is the Rose Resnick Lighthouse for the Blind building on Van Ness Street in San Francisco.

I haven't been able to decipher what this says, but I have to ask -- for whom is this written?!?! I have an image of a blind guy, on a ladder, feeling each dot and hollering down "Yep, this is the place!".

Lyon Street View

It's Wednesday, and I had to got to go into the city.

This is the view from Lyon Street at Broadway.

I love the stratification of this picture -- the sky, the clouds, the hills, the bay, the city, the near houses...

Ah yes, our media in action!

Seen last night on a news program on a cable network that this a joint venture of a certain peacock-branded network (owned by a company that also makes jet engines, nuclear power plants, and blenders) and a large software company founded by the 2nd richest man in the world.

Question: Did the software company forget to provide spell check?

Yummy Yucatan Food

This place, in the Richmond district in San Francisco, is a great Mexican restaurant with the best margaritas in town.

Their house tequila is Herradura Silver, but pay the extra couple of bucks and get a pitcher made with one of their dozen Reposadas or Anejos.

The food is really good too.

Introductions...

Introductions...
Originally uploaded by pfranson365

We took Ziggy and Clementine to the dog park.

Ziggy was much more social than Clem. He had to make his introductions to a standard poodle (about 4x his size).

You can feel the intention of the moment -- the lighting and the colors. The whole "nose to nose" thing is just too cool.

Sun Going Down...

DSC_0018.JPG
Originally uploaded by pfranson365

Trying this from flickr cause blogger is having problems posting pictures.

A view down Ortega street headed for the ocean, sun going down.

ha ha ha ...

Our amazing, wonderful, funny and very cool dog sitter, Shura (of "Bark to Basics") redecorated her day room. She turned the room into a truly fascinating school room, complete with bookshelves filled with books like "Dog Catcher in the Rye", "Sherlock Bones", and "Algerpaw 101". She also has a map of the world in her "Geogruffy" section.

In the bathroom, behind the door, we find this. The dog is one one of her clients (Frankie the Pug).

Strands of hair

Clayton's head, a day or two without washing his hair.

Yeah, another picture of the cute puppy...

What can I say -- I know -- this is something like 25 dog pictures (about 1 in 10), but:

• they are so damn cute and
  
• they are around when it gets dark and I haven't taken any pictures that day
  

Wires and Crosses...

San Francisco is a study in contradictions.

This view, with all the older, ornate, religious architecture, is crisscrossed with the old-style phone and power wires.

Greg!

Greg is my longest friend. I've known him since 7th grade, and we've always been close. There are very few men that I respect as much, and none that I can think of that I respect more. His counsel has always been sound and wise, and he's always been there for me when I needed him.

He's visiting from Australia for an agonizingly short period of time, leaving tomorrow to visit his family in OKC. He will be back at the end of the month for a few more days before he heads back way, way, way, way south.

Ugly ... but GOOD!

We took my best friend Greg to Tommy's in San Francisco. The special today was "Rellenos Negro". The dish was Chicken thighs and sausage in this really tasty black sauce. Yes, black. The dish is a from the Yucatan, and it looks really NASTY, but, holy crap -- it was SO good!

Bay Area Blog Buddies BBQ

The wife is a frequent contributor to a blog run by Ross Mathews (the "intern" on The Tonight Show).

A number of the other Bay Area contribtors to this blog were invited to a BBQ thrown by a really nice gentleman who goes by WHABBEAR. I attended as a "non-blogger" and thus was delegated to taking the pictures (no problem -- I loved it!).

The food was great, the people were wam, friendly, and completely fun!.

All in all -- a great time was had.

500 days and counting...

500 days from today will be January 20, 2009. For those who missed out on US Civics class (or just forgot it), January 20th in years following election years (like 2008) is inauguration day. On that day (WARNING: POLITICAL VIEW TO FOLLOW) our long national nightmare will end, and anyone other than George W. Bush will become "Leader of the free world".

A tribute to this number in corn chips!

For those who are discouraged by the length of time we are talking about should think about the spread of time. 500 days ago was April 25, 2006. On that day:

• A tornado hit El Reno, Oklahoma
  
• San Francisco had just finished commemorating the 100th anniversary of the 1906 "Big One" quake.
  
• Tony Snow had just been picked as the new White House Press Secretary
  
• Rosie O'Donnell was about to be announced as the new host of the View
  
• Starbucks' sponsored movie "Akela and the Bee" was about to open nationwide
  
• "United 93" was about to open nationwide
  

That doesn't seem THAT long ago, does it?

Crushing sadness...

3 totes, 2 boxes, 3 bags. These represent the life of a young woman. This is a young woman I've known for 10 years. As a child, she was a sweet, beautiful, intelligent, caring, loving girl. She was a great friend of my son at a time when my son desperately needed a good friend.

The cruel twist of fate that is bipolar disorder has reduced this girl to a tortured soul, incapable of understanding the depth of trouble that she is in. She came to visit us, and within a couple of weeks her manic phase hit. She started to spiral down into a pattern of abusiveness towards others and massively self-destructive behavior. She is delusional, telling us that she's being offered jobs that she has no qualifications for and that strangers are offering her incredible deals on apartments at a fraction of their market value. She's threatened suicide and claims pregnancy.

Her family is out of the picture. We've put her in touch with those qualified to help her but she has to take the step of asking for help. If she doesn't soon I'm afraid she's going to, as our pastor said, "bump into reality." Given her behavior and lack of care, that could be just about anything -- there are a lot of people out there who are chomping at the bit to take advantage of someone like that. I pray that her demons let go soon. Given the right circumstances, she has an incredible amount to offer the world.

In the mean time, we wait for her to pick up her 3 totes, 2 boxes, and 3 bags.

Daly City Overlook / SEBC

Wednesday, had to go downtown, forgot to take the D70 with me, so this one is from the Small Emergency Backup Camera.

Taken at the Daly City overlook (Skyline at John Daly).

My 5th pickle fork pic...

This is my fifth entry with Sutro Tower (aka, the pickle fork). This one is taken from Portola avenue, just west of Twin Peaks.

The park across the street...

Dang, this camera takes some CLEAR pictures...

This is the park across the street from our house. It seems to be the best shot I managed to take today.

Now how friggin cute is that...

A cloth rose, a freshly brushed face, and a quick shutter. Add in a little cropping, and poof...

Cookin over charcoal...

I have 2, count'em 2 dead gas grills in my back yard right now. I'm pretty sure that one of them can be repaired (seems to be a leak somewhere in the regulator, so the safety/control valve is blocking the gas from getting to the burners).

But, the kitchen was hot, and I just didn't feel like cooking anything tonight that was going to heat it anymore than it already was, so...

I headed out to Target, where they had all of their charcoal grills on sale. Then a quick trip to Trader Joe's for some lump charcoal (the real stuf -- not that compressed briquette stuff), and 30 minutes later I had burgers cooking they way they are supposed to be -- over red hot, smokey charcoal.