Moving to Sacramento

Last week, I interviewed for a position at Cal State University, Sacramento, or Sacramento State University. They quickly made me an offer and I accepted. So I will be moving to the position of Associate Vice President for Administrative Computing at Sac State. I am very excited - the job plays to my strengths, focusing on Peoplesoft, Data Warehousing and other administrative initiatives, and gives me a great opportunity for change without a very dramatic move. Even though we will move to Sacramento, we will still be in very close proximity to Dara, Zach and Aidan and to Nan. I was obviously interested in the job when I applied, but became even more swayed when I got to Sac State. Some of the things I liked: Seems like there's a focus on students, the campus is very nice and very walkable (i.e. flat), the IT organization seems to have a very positive energy, and the budget issues seem more manageable.

On a personal level, I will likely commute from the bay area to Sacramento starting in January until about June, when Aisling gets out of school, planning to move then. We need to meet with realtors and mortgage agents to figure out if we can maintain our two homes here, renting them out, while buying something in Sacramento. Aisling is very excited about the move. Her top priority seems to be to get us to buy a house with a pool. Gordon's top priority for a house is the garage, and of course, mine is closet space! And air conditioning. It's way hotter in Sacramento than it is here. It'll really be interesting to see how the cats do when we move them, especially Saki. That cat is loony! I can't even imagine being in the car with him for the hour and a half drive to Sacramento, let alone keeping him in a new house for a couple of days while he acclimates to the area.

So stay tuned! As plans unfold, I will update my blog.

Halloween Photos

Friday was Halloween, always one of my favorite holidays. This year, of course, the holiday comes close to what is certainly the most exciting election since I've been in the U.S. Exciting and important and also with interesting characters. So it's not a surprise that the candidates and other election-related people (i.e. Joe the Plumber) showed up at Halloween parties. At my job, I planned with several of my colleagues to have multiple Sarah Palins show up, and we did. There were four of us. See photos here.

So now to my story about the photos. I have been using flickr for a long time now. I love flickr. And I like it even more because I get a flickr pro account for free, somehow related to my home internet account. So I use flickr not just so share photos, but basically I upload all my digital photos to flickr as a way to have them backed up. So I am constantly uploading photos to flickr, because I am sort of obsessive about making sure they're backed up. Then a few months ago, my colleague and friend David Greenbaum showed me a feature on flickr that I didn't know about, the statistics. If you're a flickr user and don't know about the stats, I highly recommend that you get to know them! Basically, you can click on your statistics and see how many people have viewed which photos, both for the previous day and for all time. I think you get to your statistics under the "You" link. Since David showed me this feature, I have been absolutely obsessed with my stats on flickr. I view them daily, actually sometimes more than daily. I view them on my phone on the bus on the way home. My kids tease me about it unmercifully. But I like to see which of my photos are popular!

Also, over the last couple of years, a few of my photos have been "discovered" by random people on flickr, who then email me and ask me if I can add my photo to their group. For example, the American Red Cross added a photo of my daughter at the annual Red Cross run in San Francisco to their American Red Cross group. Now I'm friends with the American Red Cross and see new photos of disasters as soon as they post them, which is kind of cool. I've also had a photo added to the International Talk Like a Pirate Day group, an Oakland Coliseum group and a Canadian Flag group.

So what does all of this have to do with Halloween? Well, I came home from work and immediately posted my Sarah Palin lookalike photos to flickr. (Another obsession of mine, the photos usually get published as soon as I have access to a computer). Within an hour, I got a request to add them to a "Sarah Palin on Halloween" group, which I of course accepted. You can see the whole group here, it's pretty funny. Then I started to notice something. I started to see an incredible number of views of my Halloween photos! By the end of the day, I had over 700 views of my photos. My top 10 most viewed photos on flickr over time now includes 9 Sarah Palin photos and one old one, a large man wearing a thong at the Bay to Breakers. That one has thousands of hits. It somehow got posted on a site that shows naked people at the Bay to Breakers. But I was just amazed at the popularity of these photos! Flickr is amazing.

No on 8!

As you may know, California recently legalized gay marriage. It took a long time and lots of legal action, but it's here! I have been at numerous weddings and celebrations since the law took effect, and it's great to see people be able to celebrate their relationships.

In the upcoming elections, there's a ballot measure, Proposition 8, to outlaw gay marriage. As a good liberal, I am naturally opposed to Proposition 8. And Proposition 8 could easily pass. I have noticed in the last couple of weeks a few "Yes on 8" signs around Hercules, where I live. Aisling saw them and wanted to deface them. But as a good proponent of free speech and general not-troublemaker, I told her that she couldn't. Instead, I told her that we would get our own yard signs opposing Proposition 8. So I called my friend who is active in an organization called Marriage Equality USA and got a couple of yardsigns. I put one in our yard and planned to give some to other friends.

So last Saturday, I was invited to a friend's wedding. These friends happen to be gay. It was a really nice wedding, you can see my photos of flickr. I brought the remaining signs to the wedding, put one in their yard, gave one to someone else. We had a good time at the wedding - great food, wine and weather - and then headed home. When we got home, the No on 8 yardsign had been stolen from our yard! Someone wanted to restrict my free speech! I just think it's ironic that the sign was stolen when I was actually at a gay wedding! It's a right-wing conspiracy.

So the moral of the story is that Prop 8 could pass. So if you vote in California, get out and vote against it!

Dara's Birthday Celebration

Dara's Birthday Celebration,
originally uploaded by Helen Norris.

It was Dara's birthday on Monday, so on Sunday evening we went out to dinner at Outback Steakhouse. We had a great time, consumed a blooming onion or whatever it's called (a whole deep fried onion) before we even started our meals. I gave Dara a hard time about Sunday being her last day as a teenager. Zach, of course, knew the waiter. He seems to know someone everywhere we go! Aidan has been very lively for a while, but now he's also trying to be chatty. I don't know if he knows what he's saying, but he seemed to be saying "thank you" to everyone! It was a very fun evening.

Not the iPhone

Before we went to Vancouver, I called Verizon to see whether my plan covered calls to Canada, or whether I would have to pay an arm and a leg to talk to the kids. While I was talking to the guy, he mentioned that I was eligible for a new phone. So I said that I would really like an iPhone and so I was going to wait until they're available from Verizon. Of course, he explained to me how Verizon has something better than the iPhone, the LG Dare. So long story short, he talked me into buying the LG Dare, Verizon's fake iPhone. As it turns out, I do like it a lot. I enjoy getting to Facebook and checking my email when I'm on the bus.

One of the reasons they claim it's better than the iPhone is because it's faster, or so they say. So the other day I met my colleague, Michael Quan, on the bus. Michael has an iPhone so we were comparing phones, and we decided to do a speed test from the Bart platform. So we both connected to dslreports.com from our phones, and it turns out, the LG Dare *is* faster than the iPhone! Next time I meet Michael on the bus or Bart, we'll do another test.

Trip to Vancouver & Seattle summary

We had a great time in both Vancouver and Seattle. Canadians really are friendly, except for that one waitress!!! Public transportation in both cities is great, although traffic in Seattle is awful. Our flight home was fine, although we did stop in Boise. The day we arrived we had multiple commitments, some of which we missed, as we were victimized by the terrible Bay Area traffic after we landed and got Aisling to her friend's birthday party in San Francisco - two hours from Oakland airport! We did manage to make it to Carol's annual birthday party.

Photos of the trip are on flickr in two sets - Vancouver and Seattle.

Trip to Vancouver & Seattle - Day 7

Although our Seattle hotel was pretty lame, the breakfast was actually pretty good!! I had agreed to take Aisling to some local thrift stores recommended to us by Lucia, so right after breakfast we headed off to one near our hotel, where she could enjoy second-hand Seattle clothes!! We then headed into Seattle to Pike's Place market, which is fun, if a little touristy. Gordon and Aisling explored the market while I headed over to the University of Washington to have lunch with my friend Sara. We did a very short tour of the local campus area. We visited a new office building, recently acquired by the university from Safeco, after Safeco consolidated it's staff in it's newer downtown Seattle building. It's a very nice building and it's being utilized mostly for administrative folks, so I visited Sara's office plus the office of my former colleague from Berkeley who is now the budget person at UW. What a fabulous view, downtown Seattle and Rainier, still visible in the slight smog. After lunch I met up with Gordon and Aisling again. We dropped Gordon at the Experience Music Project near the Space Needle, and then I took Aisling to the thrift store mecca - the Goodwill Outlet store, which sells old stuff by the pound!! We went to the wrong store first - a regular Goodwill retail store, but probably the largest Goodwill in North America! It was huge! But Aisling held her shopping for the Outlet store, where she bought 15 lbs of clothes and I bought an extra suitcase just to get home! The Goodwill by the pound is not my thing, but she had a blast.

We headed back over to the Seattle Center and picked up Gordon. He loved the Experience Music Project, probably could have spent two days there! But we moved on to the Space Needle. Since I've done it before, I stayed on the ground while Gordon and Aisling went up and enjoyed the views. We then did a few of the rides at the Seattle Center, including the roller coaster and log flume (since it was the hottest day of the year in Seattle) before heading over to Pioneer Square for the underground tour.

We really enjoyed the underground tour. It started with a discussion of the history of Seattle, how it was founded etc. I won't give all the details, apparently one should read a book by the tour founder, Bill Speidel, who died in 1988. The guide was informative and amusing. They seem to enjoy making fun of Tacoma. The history is that when Seattle was built first, in the second half of the 19th century, it was made of wooden building, and it was also built at a pretty low level, which made it subject to mud and flooding. There was also much discussion of sewage and the early "crappers" which I won't go into here. Anyhow, after a fire destroyed pretty much all Seattle in 1889, the merchants rebuilt in stone, but declined the city's request to wait several years while the city was regraded and sidewalks were more or less raised. After the building were back up, the city came in and raised the streets by anywhere from 10 to 35 feet, meaning that large portions of the building were underground. The sidewalks had ladders at each end, and people would climb up and down to get around. ultimately, the merchants built the sidewalks at street level and mostly filled in the lower floors of their buildings although a couple remain as basement, including in the Pioneer building. Years later, they excavated some of the filler out of the buildings and now they have the underground tour. It's a great tour, although we did see a rat while we were down there. It ends in a nice little museum, although Aisling didn't have a lot of patience for that after 90 minutes wandering around the underground!

We had dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown. All in all, I prefer Vancouver's Chinatown to Seattle's. In fact, I think it's my favorite Chinatown and I've even been in China! We headed home to the difficult task of packing Aisling's purchases!

Pictures are on Flickr.

Trip to Vancouver & Seattle - Day 6

On Thursday, we were heading back to Seattle. We said goodbye to Mary, our Irish friend, and wished her good luck, and then headed to the border. We crossed at the Peace Arch at Blaine Washington. Crossing was no problem, except there was a 50 minute wait! People were jumping out of their cars while in line to take pictures of the Peace Arch, so Gordon did too! We stopped for lunch somewhere in Washington, and also stopped at a town called Mount Vernon so that Aisling could swim in the Skagit River. The Skagit River, which I think gets a fair amount of glacier runoff, is way colder than the bay in Vancouver! We arrived in Seattle, fought the traffic, and then met our friends Bill & Lucia for dinner at a great Vietnamese restaurant called the Tamarind Tree in the Chinatown/International district. We would never have found it ourselves, and it was fabulous. Great food and especially great cocktails. After dinner, Bill and Lucia took us over to West Seattle so we could enjoy the sunset over the Seattle skyline. It was fabulous, just beautiful. The view of the skyline and Mt. Rainier was just incredible, although because it has been unusually warm in Seattle, it was a little smoggy. We also saw ferries, party boats and a fleet of kayaks coming back in. We then headed back to our slightly lame hotel near the airport. Not nearly as much character as the Met!!

Trip to Vancouver & Seattle - Day 5

Since it was our last full day in Vancouver we thought we'd go back to our favorite place, Stanley Park. We headed into Vancouver, did a little shopping and had lunch on the way. We ate at a korean restaurant, and we thought it was interesting that even in a Korean restaurant, some of the dishes were flavored with maple. Before heading to Stanley Park, we went to the Vancouver Art Museum. The building is beautiful, although they seemed to have a balloon shaped like a fetus adorning the front of the building for some reason. The exhibit was cartoon and anime. I don't claim to be an art buff by any stretch of the imagination, but it's really hard to get my mind around cartoons and anime as art! So I was pretty disappointed in the exhibits. However, they also had a part of the exhibit on computer games, apparently they're art too. The good part about that is that they had an old Pac Man machine, which Aisling and I played on for quite a while and also a Super Mario game that Aisling played. PacMan as art, that I can see!

They also had a couple of other exhibits, equally disappointing. A Chinese artist who expresses himself by dressing in a suit made of raw meat and then hanging out near ground zero in New York. I'm not sure what that's about. Also a local artist whose exhibit included a four-poster bed on a turkish rug. It was very nice, but more in a furniture and furnishings sort of way than in a art way. Finally some female Canadian artists whose work looked a little more traditional. Sometimes I don't get art. Especially when there's raw meat involved.

After the museum we headed back up to third beach in Stanley Park. I'm not sure why the highways have names and the beaches have numbers, but I guess it works. It was just as beautiful as the previous day and we spent hours there playing in the water. It is so much warmer than northern California beaches, I cannot figure out why, perhaps it's to do with currents or something. We stayed until about 7 and then headed home. However, on the way home we passed another beach called English Bay beach, bigger and way more crowded than third beach and with the added attraction of a platform with a slide out about thirty feet from the shore. Aisling was still in her swimsuit and begged us to stop. Miraculously, I found a parking spot, and off she went to play in the water for another thirty minutes or so. The beach is in a lovely area, the west end of Vancouver. There are lots of the high-rise condos that seem to be common here, including one with a rather large tree growing on the roof. What a great place to live! After Aisling finally got her fill of the sea, we headed back to New Westminster and ate at the Keg, which seems to be a Canadian chain, but was very nice.

Photos are on flick.

Trip to Vancouver & Seattle - Day 4

We got up on Tuesday morning and while we were having coffee in the lobby we met an Irish woman named Mary. Mary had come to Vancouver unexpectedly as her daughter had been in a plane crash a couple of days before, and thankfully survived but with fairly major injuries. She is in a hospital in New Westminster, and is going to recover, but will probably have to spend eight weeks in the hospital in Canada. She was actually going skydiving, but at 4000 feet, an engine failed, and so they started to descend. On the way down, unfortunately, the other engine failed and they ended up crash landing. Fortunately, everyone on board survived although apparently one person is on life support. Apparently, the plane has to climb to 5000 feet before any skydivers can jump, so even though they had parachutes, they all remained in the plane. It was certainly a stunning story!

We decided to head on up to Whistler for the day. Before we got on the road, we went to the local English shop to buy sweets and other things that Aisling and I miss! In addition to the turkish delight and milky bars, we bought some savory items for breakfast, including a scotch egg. I've been telling Gordon about how great they are for years! Unfortunately, it was possibly the worst scotch egg ever created!! So we got on the freeway, first the Trans-Canada highway and then the Sea-to-Sky highway. Highways have such nice names here! The Sea-to-Sky (or 99) runs from Vancouver to Whistler, and because they are having the winter olympics here in 2010, there is a huge amount of construction on it, so the drive was really slow. However, it is quite possibly the most beautiful drive in the world, absolutely stunning scenery. It follows Horseshoe Bay on up to Howe Strait, and then more inland, through Squamish into Whistler. Squamish and Whistler are really more winter destinations, however, in Whistler, there are lots of lakes connected by short and easy hikes (walks really) so out plan was to swim in those lakes. Unfortunately, when we got up to Whistler, it was about 20 degrees colder than Vancouver and outdoor swimming didn't seem like it made sense! However, we saw an ad for an indoor sports center, with a pool, so we went there and spent the whole afternoon in the pool, spa and hot tub!! Gordon even used the treadmill and weight room. They had a slide and basketball in the pool and we just had a blast. On the way out, we stopped at a lake park - we thought we should see some Whistler scenery since we made the drive! We enjoyed the drive back also, more fabulous scenery. We also listened to Canadian radio in the car, and they were just as obsessed as Canadian TV about the lack of Olympic medals won by the Canadian athletes!

When we got back to New Westminster, we had dinner at a Sushi place called Ki Sushi. Aisling was able to get oysters, which she had been craving. Gordon got the Canada special, which includes deep-fried creamed corn. He also continued to sample many Canadian beers.

Vancouver photos are on Flickr.

Trip to Vancouver & Seattle - Day 3

Being a thrift store junkie, Aisling decided to start the day by visiting the Salvation Army store in New Westminster. I think she was a little disappointed. After her shopping trip, we decided to drive into Vancouver so we could visit Stanley Park and also go over to North Vancouver. When we got to Stanley Park we spent a little time at the Rose Garden and also at the Vancouver Rowing club, but we decided to head up to North Vancouver pretty early. We drove across the Lions Gate bridge out of Stanley Park, up into North Vancouver. We had lunch at a little pizza place in Capilano called DDDN pizza - healthy pizza, according to the accolades posted on their wall, the best pizza in the world. It was pretty good, but the best pizza ever? I'm just not sure. We then headed to the Capilano suspension bridge. This suspension bridge is built 230 ft above the Capilano canyon. It was sort of a queasy feeling walking across a 450 ft long swinging bridge (although perfectly safe) and the scenery was spectacular. Across the bridge, there was a "treetop adventure" more swinging bridges strung between platforms in trees, some as high as 100 ft off the ground. This is actually a rainforest, and apparently this is the best way to see one, and also to minimize the impact on the forest itself. It was certainly beautiful. We also walked on the Cliffhanger boardwalk, built above a cliff with trees growing out of it. We crossed the suspension bridge again. Gordon almost got deported from Canada for swinging the bridge despite multiple warnings not to do so! We then drove a short way to Capilano Canyon provincial park (sort of like a state park in California) and visited a salmon hatchery. We then did a very short hike, a stroll really, along the Capilano river where we did see one guy fly fishing, although we didn't notice any fish being caught.

On the way back to Vancouver we stopped at a place called Earls for our customary late afternoon drinks and snacks. It was much friendlier than Sammy Peppers! We watched the Olympics, still zero medals for Canada. The Canadian media seems to be relatively upset with this, although of course they're more of a "winter sports" country. We then headed back across the Lions Gate Bridge into Stanley Park. We stopped at Prospect Point for the breathtaking view, and met some raccoons. Even the raccoons are friendly in Canada!!!

In Stanley Park we stopped at a beach called third beach. It was just beautiful. We spent a long time there, Aisling's favorite spot so far. We weren't prepared for the beach, but Aisling had shorts and a sportsbra so she was able to jump right in to the water, which was quite warm. Way warmer than Northern California, I'm not sure why. After a few hours, we headed back to our hotel, where we slept really well.

Trip to Vancouver & Seattle - Day 2

Coffee and muffins are served in the lobby of the Met every day from 8 - 11. The coffee is surprisingly good! Also, you can tell this is not America. 8-11 is a much more civilized hour than what we'd get in the US - probably 6-9 or something. After the coffee and muffins we hoped on the Skytrain to downtown Vancouver. The Skytrain is fabulous, and busy. Not even 10 on Sunday morning and it's full of people going somewhere! We got off at Stadium/Chinatown. Stadium is the home of the Canucks apparently, some hockey thing. We wandered over to Chinatown, and again were struck by how much later things get going in Canada than the US. Chinatown was just not that lively. We spent some time in Dr. Sun Yat-Sen's traditional Chinese garden, it was very nice. They unfortunately have a "no feeding the Koi" rule. Aisling still tried to entice them so come close to us by sticking her finger in the water, with no success. We headed out to Chinatown and the shops and malls and it was beginning to wake up. So we stopped and had dim sum for breakfast. It was really good. After breakfast, we walked around Chinatown, shopping, window-shopping, going to bakeries and finally headed over to the Gaslight part of town. It was still pretty chilly, and there were some showers. We browsed some of the touristy stores including a boot shop (very expensive). And we noted a lot of items related to the upcoming 2010 winter olympics, which will be held in Vancouver. Hopefully the Canadians will do better there than in Beijing. We also liked the little inukshuks - a native collection of stones but together to represent man. After we were done in the gaslight section, we headed into downtown Vancouver, where we walked along the waterfront. We then hopped on a bus to Granville Island. The public transportation is great!

Granville Island is very touristy, but fun. Lots of art and funky shops, plus a miniature ship and train museum and a public market. We stopped for a drink and some food at a place called Sammy Peppers and sat on the patio overlooking the dock. Our waitress was probably the least friendly waitress I've ever had, and probably the least friendly person in Canada. But the drinks and food were fine. We then walked around Granville Island a little more. When we were done we took a bus back into Chinatown. The Vancouver Chinatown night market was just getting started - it runs from 6 until 11 on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It's very cool, lots of stalls selling interesting food and other items. We spent a little time there and then took the Skytrain back to our hotel. Aisling and I went for a short drive around New Westminster, just to get a sense of the place, before we went to bed.

Trip to Vancouver and Seattle - Day 1

This year's big vacation is a trip to Vancouver and Seattle. We left Saturday, August 9th. Unfortunately our flight out of Oakland was delayed due to fog/rain in Seattle. Since we hadn't seen rain in California literally for months and we're in the midst of a drought, that actually sounded pretty good. We arrived in Seattle and picked up our car, and headed north toward Vancouver. We actually drove through some rain so I got to exercise the wipers, which felt a little novel due to the lack of rain in California! Traffic in Seattle was predictably bad. We also got caught on I-5 outside of Seattle due to an overturned RV. Not only did it block traffic, but apparently the sewage tank exploded, resulting in a pretty awful smell!! Once we got through that delay, we headed up north and stopped in the last town in Washington before Canada, Blaine, the home of the Peace Arch. We bought wine and beer and some snacks for our room and then headed across the border. The border crossing was easy, although the Canadian immigration guy did ask us a bunch of questions. We then drove up to New Westminster, a suburb of Vancouver where we had booked a room in a hotel called the Met. It's fair to say that New Westminster has character. It's a very small town on the quay of the Fraser river. It possibly has the highest concentration of bridal shops I have ever seen. Our hotel, the Met, was built in 1891. The room was nice, but the kitchenette that we booked turned out to be a refrigerator and microwave. Given the age of the building, there was obviously no exercise room! The location was pretty perfect though, right next to the Skytrain that goes into Vancouver. We wandered around New Westminster, checking out the Casino boat (at least from the outside) and various restaurants, finally settling on eating at the Heritage bar and grill, which featured live music by a local group called Fretworks. Aisling especially enjoyed their rendition of "Summertime" by Porgy & Bess. After dinner we headed to the local internet cafe/map store where Aisling and Gordon checked myspace and I bought a map of Vancouver. We went back to our room, which turned out to overlook both the Skytrain station and the beergarden for the hotel bar, which was pretty lively, since it was a Saturday night. We got a good sense of how effective the Skytrain is; a train seemed to be stopping literally every two minutes. Even with all the noise, though, we slept really well after the long day traveling.

Aidan's First Birthday

Aidans First Birthday in Crockett Park,
originally uploaded by Helen Norris.

Today was Aidan's first birthday. I can't believe it's gone by so fast, and also that he is so different to the day he was born, when he only weighed 4lbs! I think one of his legs weighs 4lbs now! It just reminds me that this day last year, we were coming home from China and rushing to the hospital to greet Aidan. And poor Dara was just in pain!

Dara and Zach had a barbecue in the park in Crockett to celebrate Aidan's birthday. The weather was beautiful, although a little hot. The little kids played on the slide and the swings, while Zach cooked and we ate. Aidan got lots of nice gifts, of course, and we had a great time. Video of Aidan on the swing can be seen here. Photos can be seen here.

A funny book

I like to read and I like to laugh. Recently I found a book that made me laugh out loud. It was so funny, I couldn't really read it on Bart, because I didn't want the other passengers to think I was crazy. The book is called "Here speeching american" and basically it's a collection of garbled english phrases, or phrases that are just hard to figure out, from around the world. Some of my favorites are:

"Shoes to make your street-walking more relaxed" - an ad slogan from Tokyo
"We try our best to decrease your life" - an ad slogan in China

And many more! Just pick up the book, open it at random and there will be something funny! Highly recommended.

What the . . .

Say it ain't so!!! Baron Davis to the Clippers?? That's just wrong! It's just not going to be the same with BD on the floor. Maybe the Warriors should sign Elton Brand.

Enough dreaming, and back to baseball. At least I can look forward to Albert Pujols hitting number 300. And the Cardinals are playing like they mean it. And the Cubs will collapse like they always do.

More Cat Drama

Our cat Mr. Pickles,
originally uploaded by Helen Norris.

A couple of weeks ago, we noticed that we hadn’t seen one of our cats, Mr. Pickles, for a while. That was a couple of weeks ago. Now I think we’ve accepted that Pickles isn’t coming back. As usual, I am assuming that he found a nicer home, maybe one where they give him wet food or tuna all the time. Probably has his own TV too.

So of course now we need to get a new cat. We just can’t have Tofu all by himself, although he seems to be handling it just fine. So we’ve talked about getting a new one, maybe when we get back from vacation. However, last Friday, Aisling went over to her friend Chelsea’s house, and what a surprise, she “found” a cute little kittie and brought it home. Now I got home late that night *and* there was a powercut so there really wasn’t much choice, the kittie spent the night. And the next morning, we could see it was a pretty damaged kitty, eye injury etc. By then, of course, she had named it Ginger (it’s red/orange). Anyhow, in spite of her attachment to it, we took it to the pound – it needs medical care that it can get there, and she had many tears when we dropped it off.

But we do need to adopt another cat, so now we’re in discussions about whether or not we should adopt Ginger when he’s well (at the pound, they told us it was male) or whether we should wait until we get back from vacation, or adopt a different cat. Stay tuned!

I hate American Airlines

ITLP Annual Conference,
originally uploaded by Helen Norris.

Last week I went to Chicago to a conference. It was a good conference, and on the last evening, we went into Downtown Chicago to the Chicago Blues Festival. A group of us stayed out pretty late (like 3 a.m.) and so the last thing I needed the following day was a six-hour delay at O'Hare. But that's what we got. Our flight was supposed to leave at 6:30, but there were high winds in Chicago, so it was delayed by an hour. That seemed plausible. Then it got delayed by another hour, with the gate agent saying it was because the plane flying from Chicago to SFO had just arrived from Frankfurt and needed to be cleaned and clear Customs etc. etc. So the plan arrived at the gate almost two hours late, and the flight crew got on the plane. About 20 minutes later, however, the crew deplaned, as they had become "illegal". They can only be active for a certain number of hours at a time, and because American didn't get the passengers on before the witching hour or something, they turned into pumpkins. So they had to locate another flight crew, which they did, however, that crew was actually in St. Louis, and we had to wait until their (late) flight arrived. Most frustrating. My colleagues and I eventually went to the bar to drink while we waited to depart. We finally did so after midnight (flight was supposed to leave at 6:30), and we arrived in San Francisco at 3 a.m.! And the plane was uncomfortable. it was terrible.

Yet another race

Red Cross Run ,
originally uploaded by Helen Norris.

On the spur of the moment, Aisling and I decided to participate in a 5K run in San Francisco today. It was a benefit for the Red Cross, which is a positive considering the work that they're involved in due to the disasters in China and Myanmar. The run was in Golden Gate Park, a very nice course, around Stow Lake. The weather was good, chilly when we got there in the morning, but really warming up to just right. Aisling thought it was a little sunny in places when she was running, but I was just fine.

This time, Aisling took off and ran on her own, rather than with me. She did really well, she seems to have learned how to pace herself, no running too fast at the beginning and then running out of gas. I had a pretty good run myself, and ended with a time under 30 minutes. Aisling was about 40 seconds ahead of me. Both of us placed first in our age groups! Admittedly, it was a thin field - probably about 150 runners overall - but it was pretty satisfying nonetheless. We won gift certificates, and then I won an emergency kit (since it was sponsored by the Red Cross) in a raffle. I would've like to have spent a little more time after the race in Golden Gate Park, but Aisling was hungry, and probably a little tired, so we left.

Bay To Breakers

This year, we decided to do the Bay to Breakers in San Francisco. It was our first time ever. We all did it, me, Gordon, Aisling and Gordon's nephew Robert who had come in from Omaha for Nan's birthday. The Bay to Breakers is a San Francisco race that goes from the bay side of the city out to the ocean. It's 12K, always crowded and is a lot of fun, complete with interesting costumes.

The race starts at 8 a.m., so we left at about 6 to catch the Bart. There was actually a group of us going from work, so we connected with some friends on the Bart and some at the starting line. The weather had been very hot in San Francisco, record highs in fact, the week leading up to the race, so we were a little worried about how it would feel. However, it cooled down a lot, and it was so early in the morning that it felt really cool. We got into San Francisco and headed to the starting line. It was packed! Before the race, apparently there's a tradition of throwing tortillas into the crowd. I don't really know why that is, but it was hilarious. We were right behind a group that had a shopping cart with a keg of beer on board, and tons of tortillas, and they were throwing them everywhere. Aisling and Robert really got into the tortilla thing. They caught them or picked them up and re-flung them. It was great. I am pretty sure my hair was full of tortilla crumbs! I figure that the seagulls had a field day with the tortillas when the crowd moved out.

The starting time was 8 a.m. They obviously sent the serious runners off first, and then the rest of us. The crowd was so big, it actually took us 15 minutes to get to the starting line after the race started! Gordon and Robert took off ahead of me and Aisling, as we really planned to do a combination of walking and running. We really enjoyed taking in the scenery. There were so many costumes! We saw lots of brides, hula dancers, vikings, Star Wars characters, Santa Claus, and of course, the naked people. There were so many naked runners! After a while we sort of stopped noticing them. There were only two that really were memorable. One was a naked guy all painted blue. The other was a naked guy who was also barefoot. I mean, the whole race is on pavement. You need shoes!

The race goes through downtown San Francisco until it comes to Hayes Street at about the two mile mark, where the infamous Hayes Street Hill has to be climbed. Man is it steep! I really felt it on my legs. There are lots of spectators along the Hayes Street Hill, sitting outside of bars and homes. There were lots of spirits being imbibed both by participants and spectators. Aisling and I made it up the Hill and kept on going. We continued to more city streets and headed into Golden Gate Park. There was lots of entertainment along the way. I especially enjoyed the Elvis impersonator on the steps of the DMV. Most of the other bands were rock bands. There was also a jewish Beach Boys-type of band that I thought were pretty great.

It got cooler and cooler through Golden Gate Park as we got closer to the ocean. It was hard to believe that there had been record heat during the week! There were lots of spectators in the park too. One group was drinking mimosas, and had delightful snacks. Aisling stopped there and they gave her quiche and a custard pie!

All along the way, there were mile markers so that we always knew how close we were getting. Getting past the four-mile marker was a big deal, because we knew we were more than halfway through! We passed the six-mile marker, but somehow missed the seven-mile marker, but when we saw the ocean and the finish line in the distance, it seemed to give Aisling a boost of energy and off she went. It felt great to cross the finish line! After that we headed down to Kezar stadium in the park for the party following the race, and to meet Gordon and Robert. I don't know why they put the finish line so far away from the stadium! But it felt like a long walk. We ran into Gordon and Robert when we got there, and also into some other friends from work. We were starving, I guess that running 7 and a half miles in the cold will work up an appetite, so we got some food from some of the vendors there. It was really pretty cold, so we headed home.

The absolute worst part of the race was getting home! The Muni had buses going from the park back into the city. For only $7, we got to wait in line for about an hour to get on a bus that then took the most circuitous route back to the Bart. The bus took over an hour to get back. it was terrible. Maybe next year we can figure out a better way home.

All in all, it was a great time. Aisling and I did a pretty slow time because we walked as much as we ran, but we liked taking in the events, so it was fun! All the photos (at least the appropriate ones) can be seen on my flickr site here.

Nans 80th Birthday

Nans 80th Birthday

Gordon's mom Nan will turn 80 in June, so we wanted to do something special to celebrate. Because so many people had to come in from out of town, we picked this Saturday in May, the 17th, and did a nice event at a restaurant in Albany called Six Degrees. It was a good turnout, Ken and Robert came out from Omaha, and Bonnie, Nan's stepdaughter, and her husband Dennis came in from North Carolina. Of course, all the local family members and even some friends of Nan's from school showed up so it was a good crowd.

The food was great, and Ken invited the guests to tell an anecdote or a story about Nan. Gordon told a story involving Nan showing up at a greek restaurant on a motorbike. Dara talked about Nan coming to help her take care of the baby when we were in the Bahamas, and Aisling talked about taking Nan shopping and just wearing her out! It was a lovely evening. Photos can be seen here.

Mother's Day

Dara & Helen

So Sunday was Mother's Day, well, in America anyhow. It's a different day in Ireland, earlier I think. Since it was Dara's first Mother's Day as a mother and since the wedding, we decided to go over to her house. Gordon and Zach cooked breakfast and we drank Mimosas. There were lots of mothers there, including Zach's mom and Nan. We ate and played cards, and also the kids played Xbox. Nan joined in on the Xbox game. I think it was her first game.

Also, on Mother's Day, Gordon and I went to see Les Nubians at Yoshi's. It was a great show. I like the Nubians music, so I really enjoyed getting to see them live. I have to say, I can't give the Yoshi's food a great recommendation, although it was okay. Just expensive for what we got. But we had good wine and it was a great show.

When we got home, we caught the end of Survivor with Aisling. I just can't believe that Parvati won. Oh my god!!!

Dara's Wedding

Daras Wedding,
originally uploaded by Helen Norris.

So after lots of planning, Dara and Zach got married on April 18th. The wedding was at the Rockefeller Lodge in San Pablo, a very nice place. There were lots of guests, Zach is from a large family, and there was a great turnout from Doug's family also. Dara looked beautiful, she wore my dress. Aisling and Dara's friend Emily were bridesmaids and wore lovely green dresses. And Aidan was, of course, the cutest baby around. Gordon officiated, so the ceremony was brief. The food was served by the catering company at the Rockefeller, Partytime catering, and I highly recommend them. The food was good, and the service was excellent. We brought the drinks and the cake ourselves, and Dara decorated and prepared flowers. All in all it was a lovely day. Photos can be seen here.

We had several out of town guests, including my mother who came over from Ireland and Gordon's brother and sister-in-law from Omaha. We did some sightseeing and other things after the wedding. Aidan had an accident at Dim Sum on Saturday, they may never let us back! Aisling insisted on taking my mother to various thrift stores, her favorite, and we also did some of the tourist haunts in San Francisco. Unfortunately, the Boudin museum was closed. We also went to Figaro at the Berkeley Rep - opera, not exactly my cup of tea! All in all, we had a good visit with my mother and she seemed to enjoy it.

Dara's wedding shower

Saturday we had a wedding shower for Dara at our house. Aisling was the hostess and she arranged the food and the games. We had it "catered" by L&L Hawaiian Barbeque, Dara's favorite, and Nan brought a tiramisu and a chocolate cake.

The turnout was good, a lot of Dara's future inlaws came. We ate and mingled and then Aisling started the games. I wasn't that enthused at the thought of some of the games, but I have to admit that Aisling was totally right, they were a big hit. The first game involved breaking into two teams and using garbage bags, paper towels and grocery store bags to create wedding dresses. The two teams were really competitive. The team Aisling was on went all-out with the paper towel-train and ruffle. The other team made a veil out of a bag from Luckys. Another popular game was the underwear game. Aisling and I had bought several pairs of plain white cotton underwear, which we distributed during the shower. Then all the guests used markers and scissors to decorate the underwear as Dara's honeymoon underwear. Then Dara had to model them for us. I have never seen a group of women get so quiet as they did when they were decorating those underwear! The winning pair were decorated with prison bars. We also played games that involved checking out what was in everyone's purse. Nan had the most unusual item, a sand dollar. We also had a game where we tried to identify various spices, just by a smelling and looking.

We then had gifts. She got really nice gifts, various household items including sheet sets and a coffee pot. However, Victoria, Zach's mom, had a very elaborate presentation of several outfits for various moments in marriage, including the Donna Reed and the combat outfit. It was really cute!

Photos of the shower are posted here.

March Sadness

Every year in March I get into at least one NCAA bracket pool. I don't usually do that well, but this year I think I've hit a new low! I believe I am dead last in each of the pools that I'm in. Apparently my strategy of picking the Catholic universities through the sweet sixteen isn't working. It seemed pretty sensible to me, and after all, Marquette *almost* beat Stanford. However, we're down to the final four now, and I have two of the four, Memphis and Kansas. I am also one of the few people to pick Kansas to win it all. So if Memphis can beat UCLA and Kansas can beat North Carolina and then Memphis, I could make up some real ground. So let's all root for the center of the country over the coasts!

St Patrick's Day in an American "Irish" pub & Wine tasting in Livermore

St Patrick's Day at Beckett's

This week, I believe I consumed more than my annual quota of alcohol. First, it was St Patrick's Day, and a group of my colleagues and my facebook friends met at an "irish" pub in Berkeley California, Becketts. We had a great time. You can see all the photos here. Lots of alcohol was imbibed by everyone, as you can see from the photos. One of my friends, who shall remain nameless, has officially dubbed me a bad influence, since she was inebriated enough that she needed to take a taxi home. I, on the other hand, brought my own designated driver, which is a smart move, as I can barely drive when I'm sober.

Helen, Gordon, Phil and Enda

Then Easter Sunday came along and Gordon and I spent the day winetasting in Livermore with my college friends Phil & Enda. Now I hadn't seen Phil & Enda since 1982, then I connected with a mutual friend on facebook and he told me that Phil was working at Lawrence Livermore National Lab, so I got in touch and now I have college friends in the area! I am happy to say that none of us had changed a bit since college, really. So since they live in Livermore, we headed over there for brunch and then visited the Livermore wineries, which were really good. They are more low-key than the Napa wineries, which translates to them not charging you for tasting, for the most part! It was a beautiful day, Livermore tends to be warm, and in March, a 75 degree temp feels pretty good. Might not feel as good in July! Also, the owner of Bent Creek winery used to be the school principal to Phil & Enda's kids, so we had a good connection there. We hit two or three wineries, and I tasted lots of good wine. Apparently, I like port. Who knew?

Bus B3 Reunion

Aisling with fan

Last night, we had a reunion of the Bus B3 folks from our trip to China last year. We decided to do it right around Chinese New Year, it seemed like a good time to do it. As is normal around Chinese New Year in the Bay Area, the rain *poured* down, but even so, we had a great turnout, including people like Fengyi & Alex driving all the way from Davis. The food was great, Gordon dug into his chinese cooking book and made a delicious spicy eggplant dish, spicy noodles, curry crescents (yum), smoked chicken. We also had pork and chicken that Fengyi and Alex brought, along with a green bean cake, made slightly sweeter than normal by Fengyi for dessert. Siegrid also brought the obligatory watermelon. And lots of people brought wine! There were a lot of empty winebottles at the end of the night. Siegrid brought the Bus B3 photo, plus the Great Wall photo plus some prints of other photos to share. It was also a nice opportunity to meet family members who weren't on the tour, Dara, Zach and Aidan (who wasn't even born at the time!) and Malaika's boyfriend Eric.

We had a great time. More photos are posted on my flickr site. Click here to see them.

Chinese New Year Run

Helen at Chinese New Year Race

Today, Aisling and I did a 5K run in Chinatown in San Francisco. It was the annual Chinese New Year run. It's the year of the rat. We had to get up at an ungodly hour to get in to register before the 8 a.m. start. We registered, got our numbers and t-shirts, and were at the starting line on time, though. The t-shirts are very attractive. There were a lot of people, probably 3000 or so. It was really well organized, it got started on time, and the traffic control was great. The streets were open to cars on one side and runners on the other.

It was cold in San Francisco, the fog had not burned off, which is okay when you're running I guess. It's all on pavement, and there were a couple of hills. We tried the running some and then walking some to keep our pace where we wanted it. We both came in at about 32 minutes, which is a little slower than I'd like, but considering the hills and the crowd, which also slowed us down, so it wasn't bad. After the race, and some water and coffee, Aisling played at the Portsmouth Square playground for a while, and we were home before 10!

Dara's Wedding

Last week, or maybe the week before, Dara and Zach told us they were getting married. She's going to wear my dress from my wedding. I have a picture of her in it, but I don't want to put it on my blog because supposedly it's bad luck if Zach sees it or something. But here's her ring. It's very pretty. We're all very happy, Aidan included. No really, he doesn't actually know what the heck is going on! They've set a date for April 18th, and we've reserved the Rockefeller Lodge in San Pablo for the reception. It's very nice. So we're all aflutter, and in the throes of preparation. Dara printed the invitations today and should be getting them out in the mail soon. More updates to come!

Northern California State Cup, Sacramento

Aisling played in the Northern California State Cup today. The game was in Sacramento. Because it had been so beautiful yesterday, I sort of assumed that we would have good weather for the game. Boy was that wrong!!! We drove up to Sacramento early in the morning and when we got there, it was cold and windy. I wasn't prepared - didn't have a warm enough jacket, no blanket etc. I stayed in the car until the game started just so I wouldn't freeze to death!

Aisling's team, the Scorpions, hasn't had a good record this year. Also, very few girls could make the game today, so they ended up putting only 9 players on the field. Aisling was the only one on offense, the coach elected to put a full defense out there. That turned out to be a great move, and the game ended up 0-0, which really felt like a victory to all of us. It was great!

After the game, one of the parents brought all the kids over to her car and showed us a pair of baby goats she has recently acquired. They were cute, and warm too! I can't imagine having pet adult goats, but the baby goats were cute. They even made the "baa" sound for us a few times. Also, we learned that they don't like being held with their feet in the air, for some reason. All the girls fussed over them.

Gordon, Aisling and I stopped at a Mexican restaurant called Adalbertos on the way home, and we got the largest meals I have ever seen in my entire life. Even the tortillas were supersized!! The food was great, even if we did have to bring half of it home. It was just a fun day.

Life's changes

Aisling & Cynthia in 2005

Last week, we learned that Cynthia Kelly, Dara and Aisling's aunt, died suddenly in Jackson Mississippi. She died due to carbon monoxide poisoning, as described in an article in the local newspaper. While the girls didn't know Cynthia that well, this was still a sad thing for them. We all attended a memorial service for Cynthia on Saturday, giving the girls a chance to grieve with their family. Following the service, there was food and socializing, and we were lucky to have just magnificent weather, so we gathered outside, where everyone made a fuss over Aidan. It was really nice for Dara, Aisling and Aidan to spend some time with their dad's family, especially their grandma.