how was your weekend?

it was a baby-rific weekend! babysat my nephew on saturday and went to a baby shower on sunday.

at 14 weeks, he was a perfect baby. the right amount of cuteness. not too much crying. in fact, not enough crying. he poopied his diapers and didn't display any discomfort. didn't realize it until i took a big whiff. blech! changing my very first poopie diaper was definitely an experience.

sunday had dirty diapers too. but instead of stinkiness, the diapers had yumminess ... in the form of mystery melted chocolate bars. and a bunch of other fun shower games. i don't think i've eaten more food or laughed harder at a baby shower before. and this was definitely the first one with rum as game prizes.

no pictures this time ... unless i get requests to see poopie diapers!

how was your weekend?

pretty good ... did some bike shopping. i think i'm going to pick that up because jogging's been pretty tough on my legs. biking should hopefully have a lot less impact.

restricted by my size and my budget, there seems to be a consensus as to which bike i should start with. too bad it isn't as pretty as i'd like. after pointing out bikes on the street, i've come to the conclusion that i prefer the more vintage steel frame bikes. you know, the kind that looks like the actual bike lane/route signs.

came across a perfect example in a random japanese bike magazine while we were browsing in kinokuniya ... riteway ... hellooooo, pretty bike!

too bad they don't make ones small enough for me though. neither does bianchi nor masi. but then again, those are slightly above my budget. bianchi's dolomiti is at $3300 and masi's speciale bikes at $1150+ ... vs riteway at $760.

we also tossed around the idea of finding a vintage bike frame and building it to a full modern bike. but that would be a long shot, considering most vintage bike frames are much too large. hmmm ... maybe we can find a vintage kid's bike frame? maybe one that's not too small?

and oh ... i would note that jeans are not the pantwear of choice for test-riding bikes. not comfortable!

how was your (labor day) weekend?

very relaxing ... mostly just watched a bunch of dvds.

i love you, man was a really cute bromatic movie. in the same general vein as knocked up and forgetting sarah marshall (starring the same main guys).

duplicity with julia roberts and clive owen ... you can skip that one.

and coraline. super cute and creepy at the same time. you'll never think of buttons the same way again.

also started shopping for a road bike, so i can move away from all the impact stress on my legs from jogging. instead, i'll be putting myself at risk for falls. watch out!

too bad most off-the-rack road bikes are so sporty looking. why can't they make more simple ones like muji (as seen in tokyo) ...

will keep looking. i'll probably be making a purchase within the month.

how was your weekend?

we rode our bikes out to tiburon. i haven't really ridden a bike in a while (not since two years ago actually), so i'm pretty sore.

we took a little longer than the guide map said it would take. twice as long, in fact. but we had fun! we took a bunch of photo stops and took a quick break in downtown sausalito to fuel up with "energy bars" and even made a tiny detour to heath's factory store. and then a super late lunch at in & out. and then we eventually made it out to downtown tiburon where we did some post-ride stretching on the lawns and waited for the ferry to take us back home.

it was a totally fun-filled day (with a few grumpy moments cursing my ton-of-bricks rental bike), with the best part being that it was pretty unplanned. we initially had nothing planned for that day until, oddly enough, on saturday night, we both thought of bike riding. so that's what we did the next day. it definitely kicked my butt, but i may look into getting a bike, a light (and pretty) one.

how was your weekend?

(it must have been pretty eventful, because it's wednesday and i still remember it!) it was really nice ... it was my dad's birthday on friday, so we all went out for dinner saturday night. the whole family. including my brother's 10-week old. he was actually really good so it was nice.

have you heard of el paseo in mill valley? i feel like not too many people have, but it's definitely worth checking out. it's a french restaurant run by a japanese couple. it's super cute. very romantic. but it doesn't have to be. it's good for family and group dinners too.

we also went to see inglourious basterds. i didn't know anything about the movie except it had brad pitt and diane kruger and was about killing nazis. i don't think i even knew it was a quentin tarantino movie. but once i saw his opening credit, i said uh oh! i better finish my lunch.

this is turning out to be a summer of good movies. 4.5 great movies. the brothers bloom. up. 500 days of summer. julie & julia. inglourious basterds. do i need to say which movie was only half good?

how was your weekend?

great ... i hung out with mcdreamy and jay leno and seinfeld. not really. but i did see them. i went down to monterey for a historic car race (monterey historic) in monterey and they were there to race. or at least patrick dempsey and seinfeld were, i think. i don't think jay did.

my favorite cars were from the 20s to early 50s.

what ever happened to using leather straps on car hoods? i'm going to bring it back, one car at a time.

(enlarge!)

how was your weekend?

it was good ... didn't do anything special. just enjoyed the sun yesterday (sunday). i actually had a (another!) baby shower in noe valley in the morning. and then we just walked around the mission after that. it was blazing out though, so we didn't stay out for too long.

fun rope-making at the curiosity shoppe on valencia (source)

we also saw julie & julia over the weekend. it was cute. the more i think about it though, i probably would have been fine with watching just the julia child parts. they could have built out her story more and it'd be a much better movie. meryl streep was really good. not that amy adams was bad. her character was really whiny though.

stills from the trailer

how was your weekend?

fun ... we went up to marin to play bocce ... no, didn't win, but i did have a really good time. i'd never played it before so it took a while to get used to the court and the balls. but i couldn't stay out too long because it was so hot. i kept putting my sweater back on so i wouldn't get burned, but then i kept taking it off because it would get too hot. i ended up getting darker again. can't escape it. A was really good. he's apparently a natural.

and a bunch of the people in our group decided to wear all white. but i don't think bocce's one of those sports. i think it's more croquet that's like that, but i think they did it just for fun anyway. it was cute. no, i don't really have all white clothes.

how was your weekend?

great ... i tried archery for the first time on saturday. i don't know if i was pulling on the bowstring right or not, because the tip of my ring finger is still kinda numb. or tingly, at least. and it's been a few days now.

but i did do pretty well. we started at something like 10 yards and moved to twenty. it was pretty fun. nobody was hit by an arrow, so i think it was a success.

similar to my targets, but imagine more arrows in the yellow ... maybe =P

how was your weekend?

pretty nice actually ... did another barbeque with a bunch of friends on saturday out at lake merced. they roasted two whole pigs. i went early so we were all kinda gathered around the roasting area to stay warm because it was so cold and foggy. but it definitely warmed up closer to noon, and i just lounged on the grass for the rest of the day.

[and these were my favie treats/moments of the day.]

summer fruit pastries made especially for the early crew

crazy good fried chicken ... they disappeared as swiftly as they hit the serving tray

the pièce de résistance of the day ... 1 of 2 crispy-skinned piggies

paps swarming around the pig's unveiling

how was your weekend?

it was ... ok. i got like a 24-hour flu or something. all day saturday i felt like crap. my body ached all over and i kept getting hot flashes. so i just tried to rest the whole day. then sunday i was a lot better. and now i just have residual coughing ... yep, pretty lucky. sounds like most people are getting it for a week or two ... fun how the flu bug was so considerate of my workweek.

not us, but pretty close to what our saturday looked like (source)

how was your weekend?

if to one of the fatherly types around the office ... not too much. took my dad up to napa for brunch for father's day. it was nice. we didn't get to do much else though because there was tons of traffic, so it was kinda late once we were done ... there was one pretty long stretch of 80 that was just PACKED like a parking lot. we were delayed like 45 minutes. can you guess where everyone was going? ... we thought everyone was going up to see the nascar races at infineon. totally wrong. apparently, THE place to go for father's day is marine world.

the view from our table at brunch

or if to a non-fatherly type ... not too much. drove down to san jose to watch one of my friends in a women's hockey game. it was pretty fun. first time i'd watched a whole game. and they were pretty good ... no, they actually have a rule against checking ... and it's funny, the friend who was playing, i've never seen her in normal clothes. the first time i met her was at her wedding, so she was in a gown with her hair up and everything. and this was the first time since then, and she was in full hockey gear.

can you imagine, with all this action, we were the only ones in the bleachers

how was your weekend?

this weekend, i have two options for a response.

one ... i became an aunt! my brother's wife just had a boy on saturday. he should be coming home next month, so i'm really excited. it should be interesting with a baby in the house ...

welcome to the world, alex!!!

two (if i don't feel like getting too personal) ... went up to napa for the day. there's a really cool new hotel up there. bardessono. we didn't stay there, just got drinks. but they were really nice and let us walk around. if you end up in the area, you should check it out, especially the pool. that was our favorite. we almost wanted to hide out and stay there the whole night.

(pictures from here)

[seriously, check this place out. the hotel's lobby with its vertical garden has been blogged and written about tons. it's definitely neat to see in person, but because i'd already seen tons of pictures, i wasn't wow'd. but the pool area was awesome. there were rows of cabanas lining the long, narrow pool. the lot of us piled into one of the larger cabanas and shared daydreamy what-if scenarios of spending an entire day lazing away, being fanned with palm fronds while sipping champagne. that is, until we had to hop out and jet to our dinner reservation.]

how was your weekend?

i've never really been one for small talk. that, coupled with having pretty terrible memory (both long-term and short-term), i always find myself stumped on monday mornings when faced with the seemingly simple question, "how was your weekend?"

i typically answer with something like, "good!" and leave it at that. or when i'm feeling extra talkative, "pretty relaxing. only had a couple hours of work." neither response really encourages conversation, as you can imagine. instead, there's an awkward silence while my colleague waits for his coffee to finish brewing and i wait for the copier to cooperate.

so anyway, i've decided to come into the office prepared each monday morning with something interesting to share when i inevitably get asked "the question." (and trust me, i really do need to prepare, due to my aforementioned terrible memory.)

so this past weekend ... really nice. the war memorial was doing a simulcast of the opera tosca at at&t park, so i went to that. they were doing a live feed of the whole opera up on the huge hd screen. it was almost like we were there, except we were huddled up in our blankets, sitting on the grass way out on right field, eating hot dogs ... even my friend who was home for the weekend from des moines came out for it ... they just started doing it recently and not super often. you should check it out. i think the only other one this year is in september.

this was similar to our view, except we were on right field, not left. (source)

filled stadium ... more or less where we staked our area (source)

[it was superfun. we were there from 6 until around 11. and it would have been a perfect night with great weather, free entertainment and good friends, if it weren't for the jerk who kicked me in the arm. he was trying to show off his acrobatic deficiencies or something, and succeeded and essentially hammered his heel into my arm. and the jerk didn't even apologize, at least not until we prompted him to. and he was in his late-20s, early-30s, by the way. so he obviously should have known better. seriously, who acts like that??]