These articles showed up in a news summary I get daily:

Riots 'kill hundreds in Nigeria'

Day of Reckoning as India Toll Passes 170

Thai Security Forces Clash With Protesters at Airport

Wal-Mart Employee Trampled to Death

The last one is pathetic. In our consumption-driven world, someone was actually trampled by shoppers on "black Friday."

The big day

If only the above photos had a bottle of wine shown, it would be an excellent pictorial summary of the partay Sandy threw for my birthday. There were fun and interesting people, satisfying wines, a table of delectable appetizers, and cupcakes with neon-colored frosting!

We did a test at the end of the night. We applied frosting to Sandy's face and determined that there must have been some serious dyes in that frosting.(maybe it was appropriate that Chris referred to them as the Love Canal cupcakes). This is what was left after he washed off the frosting (it was a pink cupcake).

I for one had a great time. Sandy described it as a "quiet, adult affair" but I beg to differ based on the bottles of wine we went through and the fact that H sang a giggly happy birthday to me while offering up a cupcake with a lit candle sticking out of it.

Anyway it was a success if only for the fact that we fit that many people (11) in our small condo!

I knew if I stayed online long enough...

So, I was just checking out my iGoogle pages and somehow got onto a Google sponsored Life Magazine search site. I've been listening to an old episode of Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me and browsing the old streetcar, bicycle and subway pictures. I wasn't finding that much that caught my eye after the cool, old, international streetcar photos. I decide to search for something silly: hamster. I really didn't think I'd find anything worthwhile but au contraire! I found a photo of this hamster just leaving his/her trapeze platform! I can't imagine what's really going on here. I mean what happened after the picture was taken? Did the hamster just plop to the ground? Did the hamster complete his/her routine by grasping on to the little legs and feet of his/her counterpart trapezeing hamster?!

I couldn't help myself

Our friend Will tipped me off to this great blog for life comic relief: Cake Wrecks. There is so much good stuff here, I've been chuckling for a good 15 minutes. After I'd called Sandy in to look at the third picture he commented that it reminded him of a cake he made for our friend Pete when he moved to Hawaii. It was a beautiful and creative piece but obviously not professional so we can't submit it to Cake Wrecks. Some things in life just aren't fair.

cats...with a twist

You may be thinking to yourself, this animal looks like someone I've seen before, who could it be? It may look like Hitler but it's no nazi cat! It is a kitler!

The internet is such a bizarre place but it does bear some interesting fruit.

The blah life continues on down the road of routine, which of course is comforting but lacks some motivation at times. I was motivated to go by the cube of one of my coworkers with the bowl of candy corn several times today but that doesn't really count.

Ever since I read Getting Straight A's before college and then used its techniques and actually got straight A's, I've been a proponent of self improvement books as useful tools. In addition to some cheery library selections on motivation, I'm currently perusing How to Keep People From Pushing Your Buttons. This basically points out that the problem is the reader, which I anticipated, and I can change my behavior to not be annoyed with others (I'm not holding my breath). Well, I'd better demonstrate some self discipline and get back to that.

CTV

As H says "cat TV":

keeping in touch with us!

As a follow up to my previous post, some people are better at staying in touch with us than we are with them (really that's most people). Our friend Will is one of those people. After losing touch around 2003, he gave us a call about a month ago! He's one of the people we knew back in our east coast days. He's in Denver for a conference and visited Capitol Hill for dinner at the Beazley-Hutchison's (or the Hutchison-Beazley's). This is him below, giving us some pointers on how to dress a dachshund in a sweater or, wait, was this the discussion on how to spit roast a hamster...

After a lovely visit, Will went back to the Sheraton in the company of a fantastic book.

Anyway, that's the scoop. I'm going to get back to my HOA email now.

not so good at keeping in touch...

I would like to state for the record that I think often of my friends and how I should visit or email or whatever. Unfortunately I don't act on it often and I feel bad about that because the friends I have are such amazing, hilarious, fantastic people (I've only had a few sips of wine). So, if you're one of these people - I'm thinking of you right now! Oh, also, sometimes I've got too much going on and can't even fathom having the time to run the dishwasher - this busyness also keeps me away.

The cat picture could be replaced with a picture of you!


BTW, this article confirms that running outdoors is dangerous.

Hell's yeah!!!

This is Pete Kelly, a man that was once a bit more conservative but tonight is weeping tears of joy (and probably relief) about the news of President Obama. Pete is a great guy and a good friend to us and he has a well rounded sense of humor. You may not be able to see it but his shirt says "I want a president who is smarter than I am" - I would wear the same tee shirt.


Me and my champagne cork are going to get back to smiling and holding each other. Thank goodness...

The dilly on San Fran

Let me tell you right away: San Francisco is no Portland! That said, San Francisco is a beautiful and surprising city with weather that is like an ever changing wardrobe. This past weekend we visited SF for the third time.

The first trip was a quick stop on a west coast driving tour in 1999. The second trip was about 3 or so years ago and that was a good time. We got all around the city in three full days of sunshine. I was sick with a nasty sinus infection, for which I could procure no meds before leaving Denver. That didn't stop me though! I put a box of lotion tissues in my bag, took Sudafed every four hours and topped off my situation with cappuccinos. Ahh, but that was the last trip.

This trip started with several days of the RailVolution conference. Very informative but I'm not going to bore you with the details. I will say that the highlight was staying at the Hyatt Embarcadero! I had a view of the Ferry Building and the Bay Bridge from my 5th floor room:


This is the view in the morning with clouds:This is the view at sunset:
In an early blog post I mentioned my privileged life - this is yet another example but the stay spoiled me.

On Wednesday night Sandy arrived and on Thursday we moved to a different hotel...but that is coming up later.

Prior to Sandy's arrival I had about three days in SF. Aside from the conference sessions and mobile tours, I got to "postcard row" and took a ferry to Sausalito. Postcard row is a reference to the view of the Victorian row houses that act as the foreground for a city view from Alamo Park in the lower Haight area (you've likely seen this kind of picture before - it's like the Maroon Bells and Colorado):

The trip to Sausalito was on Tuesday afternoon - the last sunny afternoon of the week. I did get this photo of the Golden Gate Bridge and some evening clouds moving into the city:

The ferry ride was windy:
On Thursday morning it had not yet begun to rain. We took the Alcatraz tour. It was more interesting and better put together than I had imagined. We toured the main cell building then went for a walk on the Agave trail. Sandy smartly booked the 1st boat in the morning and we ran into few people on our walk - but jesus, later the island was crawling with people.

This is Sandy on the Agave trail:
Shortly after we returned to the mainland it started to rain. The next two days were spent walking through SF in the rain. Here is me on the way to Lombard Street (the popular, twisty-turny section), it's a steep uphill for three blocks - this picture is meant to convey the angle (but you can see how wet my pant legs are - by the end of the day it would be soaked to the knee):

That was San Francisco for us.