Musings

It was around 7:30 pm. Darren and I were both home after each attending different sessions of 24 hr fitness. We were both tired, sweaty and hungry. I was already rousing up some pasta with a ground turkey meat sauce, and Darren busted out the pre-packaged salmon, ready for the Foreman grill. We shared a packaged caesar salad. I had wine and he had milk. As the soundtrack to 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' played in the background, we reviewed our day, upcoming events, and weekend plans. It was a great dinner. After finishing all I could possibly stuff into myself, I commented to Darren, "You know, it's only 8:15. And I don't really have anything to do. I went to the gym. Work is done and dinner is made. I feel I should have something to do."
He replied, "You know what this means it means we should start dating... [5 second pause as I awkwardly glance at him finishing his food and reviewing the previous sentence in his mind]. Girls that is. We should start dating girls."
Oh, the city bachelor life.

Denver, Denver

It's a nice town. I can't really talk too much smack about the town since the rents now reside there and my brother will be finishing out high school. But really, what's there?

This past Thursday afternoon, as I arrived into Denver international, I was reminded, firstly, of how I dislike the new trend of placing airports significantly outside of the city center, so that major hubs can be established. And it is nice to be able to find a direct flight to Denver from everywhere, but is it really necessary to have my parents drive 45 minutes from their house to pick me up?

On the ride "home" (I had still never seen the place) we passed through older suburban neighborhoods, saw downtown in the distance, and passed easily on the four and five-lane highways that serve as the city's transportation lifelines. Our Toyota Highlander Hybrid got us home with speed without the guilt of carbon emissions from a non-hybrid SUV.

We got home and had a wonderful meal. Have you ever shelled out for a Butterball brand turkey? It was the first time that my family had done so, and I gotta say, I think it turned out very yummy. Even the white meat was extra juicy. Anyway, dinner was great and we had a very pleasant thanksgiving at our new home, just the immediate family. I was already kinda getting ancy by the end of that night.

The next day would turn out to be like all post-Thanksgiving Friday's - we would promise ourselves that we would get up with all the other deal-finders to take advantage of door-buster deals and then relent to get up around 9am and join the throngs of people circa 10am. Given my family's history of sleeping in, this in fact was, an early morning. So we arrived at the mall, a good mall, if I may so say so. It has everything to fulfill the shopping needs of the upper middle-class Denver suburbanites. I got some great Christmas shopping done. For once I think I'm going to get my shopping done before Dec 23; a drastic improvement on my behalf. I took the little brother with me and we brainstormed on good gifts for the immediate and extended fam. Having recently moved into my own abode, I was on a kick of fine home-living materials, so we hit up the Pottery Barn, Crate and Barrel, and Williams-Sonoma. I have to admit, I was more looking for myself, but my final purchases ended up being for family.

The rest of the Friday was filled with naps and disappointing football from the longhorns. Good thing the leftovers were still awesome at that point.

For the next day, my family had initially invited me to come try the new mountain that my little brother and father are going to try this season. It sounded like a great idea, until I heard multiple news reports last week reporting on the lack of snow in the Rockies. Great. Lucky for me, Wednesday and Friday brought significant snowfalls and the mountain declared the open season on Friday. But I hadn't bought any gear. Nothing. The fam has a lot of spare ski clothes, but not a ton, so without anything on my own, I decided it best to forgo the skiing. Sat was another day, mostly in the house, otherwise getting a fresh haircut, and watching the football team blow another come back.

I never made it downtown. Come to think of it, I never made it past two miles of the new house. Except for the ridiculously far airport, that is. And I do love my family, but I was only reminded of how when I did last live with them in high school, I was out of the house already most of the day, every day.

After a wonderful weekend in Denver, all I really have to say is that I'm def looking forward to Christmas back in TX.

Painting

With some free time (OMG!) lying around here and there, I feel it is important to engage myself in ever new fields, so as not to get in a rut of working and watching TV. After an amazingly fun housewarming on Saturday, I decided to act on this and take my good buddy Tim Wood with me to a local art supply store on Van Ness ave. FYI: It's called Blick Art Supply, and it is wonderfully stocked with everything you could possibly need. So Tim isn't really an "artist" per se, but he's gotten a few pointers from friends that took a bunch of classes and has been able to translate that into a passing hobby of amateur painting. And it's really good. So good, in fact, that I commissioned Tim to do a painting for our apartment. When I say "commission" I mean pay for the supplies and collaborate on a theme. But anyway, that's how the trip started out. But before we even got there, I got interested in the whole painting dealio myself. It didn't seem easy, but it seemed a great way to express myself in a new and interesting way. Lord knows, when it comes to writing, I barely have the attention span to update a blog every once in awhile. I already finished my first small painting, and I have a nice new canvas to start on my next project. Can't wait.

It's time to start another blog!

Since I never really capped off the last one, I feel it’s imperative to let you know that I am officially no longer a vagabond. Rather, I am a rent-paying citizen of the city of San Francisco. Can I get a hell yeah?

Thanks for that resounding vote of confidence. I’m now on the Caltrain on my way down to Stanford to attend an MBA admissions panel. Never too early to start thinking about the next step. In the meantime, here’s the latest:

Darren’s and my flat can be found in the lovely neighborhood of Russian Hill; at the intersection of Union and Jones. This location is ideal for us as it is three blocks away from the vibrant Columbus St., four blocks away from the hopping restaurants and bars of Polk St., seven blocks away from a Safeway, Trader Joes, and 24 hr. fitness, and right on the street that houses the buses that both of us need to take to work. Speaking of work, it’s ~15 min door-to-door on the bus and 25 min door-to-door by foot; yes, SF has some terrible traffic that makes it only slightly faster to take the bus. No worries, I still find myself a frequent user of SF’s public transportation as it is necessary to get anywhere else in the city. I must say though, the whole network is a little unorganized. Awhile ago, a great site called 511.org popped up to satisfy the needs of everyone who takes public transportation in the bay area. The concept is great as it links the myriad of bay area transit systems and will give you customized itineraries no matter where you’re going. Only thing is the site is pretty old and if you want to just get a general overview of the city’s public transport system, you’re a little bit SOL. All I want is a city-wide map outlining all my transport options (and there are a lot: Bus, light rail, metro, cable car, street car) in the city. This is impossible to find on the 511.org website. And all the SF transportation authorities have defaulted to 511 for their info needs. Funny how a city in the center of the technological world needs a bit of technology updating.

Work is good so far, except that I have had a bit of trouble getting off my butt on the weekends to actually explore this city like it’s meant to be explored. Sure I’ve done all the normal touristy stuff (and I live by most of that crap), but I want to explore the beaches, hike through Golden Gate park, find the best Mexican food in the Mission, etc. etc. etc. Last night, when I had a good six hours of free time, I chose to sit my butt on our newly-moved couch and enjoy the cable TV that I pay for but rarely enjoy. It was fun. I caught up on all the new crap reality shows on Vh1, saw a new episode of family guy and enjoyed South Park for the first time in awhile. But even though I was on my computer throughout the night, taking care of cyber-errands, I couldn’t help but feel a little lazy by getting nothing really accomplished, and still having a stranger’s relationship with this fair city.

I have a lot of hopes and aspirations for this new life in SF. I want to play a little rugby again. Training starts in less than a month. I want to continue my Russian language development; there is a strong possibility that Moscow will be the newest L.E.K. office to open in approximately a year, and I wouldn’t want to miss an opportunity like that. I want to dabble into painting a little. I want to get to know my guitar again. I want to be a ski bum again for the first time since high school. I want to sell my old cars and fix up a new one. And as expressed already, I want to get to know my city. Plenty of things to do that should keep me fairly busy. My only hope is that work will give me enough time to tackle these things, one activity at a time.

On my way back to the city and I have some more things to tell you about. First of all, today has been a wonderfully productive day. From being a little late to work, I got done some very necessary Admin work for a case that just got finished up. This whole next week is “Client Development” – code words for getting out at a decent hour the entire week. Yes. I think after today I will study GMAT at night to get myself back in the mood. This Sunday I will finish up my last two classes and hopefully take the test before Christmas. It’s gonna take a little bit of devotion on my part to get myself back into the studying mood, but it’s going to be so much better if I get my stuff done before the break when work winds down for the Holiday season.

Anyway, back to my productive day. So at a prolonged lunch break today, some of us from the office were treated to a lunch at One Market (very nice!) to meet the new HR manager for the west coast. Of course I’ve already met Chi Chi and I think she’s great, but who can say no to free (awesome) lunch? Anyway, mid-way through my duck ravioli, who walks in but Joe Montana! Of course this is a classy place, so we couldn’t exactly go asking for autographs and stuff, but we could admire, as he was sat at the table right next to us! Selina, our resident football super fan (unfortunately also a Kal grad) was practically hyper-ventilating. Haha. I relayed my story of meeting Jerry Rice once in a bathroom in a bar in Palo Alto. I told him “what’s up.” He nodded and said “what’s up” back. It was cool. Famous people are cool.

This Saturday Darren and I are subjecting our new apartment to its first official Fiesta with our house-warming party themed “From Russian Hill with Love." We invited way too many people on Facebook and you’re invited too! One of our main goals is to gather all the yuppies from my work and all the hipsters from Darren’s McSweeny’s (sp?) crew and observe how they interact with each other. The only thing we can determine so far that they have in common is an inclination to drink too much on the weekends. Should be lots of fun. Of course all the Stanford peeps are invited as well.

As I enjoy a little bit of free writing time and some Radiohead (download “In Rainbows” already!) on the Caltrain, I’m realizing that I didn’t give this regional transit puppy a fair gig last time. I was grumpy from very little sleep and hating my commutes on the Caltrain every day. Now I’m realizing that this time is actually pretty valuable to me. I get to listen to sweet music, complete a sudoku puzzle (haven’t done that in forever!), and write a new blog entry (been even longer since I’ve done that!). Darren’s in the middle of participating in National Novel Writing Month, where participants are challenged to write an entire novel during November. No stopping, no editing, just pure writing. He’s inspired me to at least pick up my writing a little bit as well. Although I could never write as well or as long as he does, it’s great to be in the practice of expressing your thoughts on paper, or on hard disk. I do so much damn formal writing now at work, that writing an incomplete sentence, speaking in idioms, or writing with contractions has a bit of a feel of freedom.

Ok, no more ramblings for now. I think I’ll enjoy my Radiohead for the rest of the way back to SF. I promise to check back in soon.