November 28th, 2007
Today was my first delivery of Farm Fresh produce to my door. What did $21 get me?
- Satsuma Mandarines — 1 lbs
- Cranberries — 0.5 lbs
- Brussels Sprouts — 8 oz.
- Carrots — a bunch
- Chard — a bunch
- Spinach — a bunch
- Sweet peppers — 0.5 lbs
All organic, all delicious, all at my door. Is this the best deal for the money? Don’t know, maybe and maybe not. But I love the concept of community-supported agriculture and getting a brand-new selection of fruits and veggies is exciting. I just need to let them know that I don’t want any celery.
Categories: Uncategorized |
No Comments
November 23rd, 2007
- 4,220 — weight, in pounds, of all our possessions as reported by the moving company. Sounds like a lot but it can be much worse. Movers told me that 5,000 is pretty much a minimum for a household of 2, so I don’t feel too bad.
- 11 — colors are present throughout our apartment. The landlord is re-painting 2 of the top 3 most offensive ones (barbie-purple and seaweed-blue.) The green-on-acid garage wall is staying since we don’t spend too much time there.
- 0 — number of bikes in our household. Yep, my dear Trek was stolen last week after I left it chained on the street for less than 2 hours.
- 3 — number of pizza places we have tried so far, all of them turning out to be really bleh.
- 1 — how many nights Sonya (the new dog’s name) did NOT wake me up in the middle of the night to go potty. Awesome.
- 66 — degrees Fahrenheit in San Francisco on Thanksgiving day. Oh yeah.
Categories: Uncategorized |
No Comments
November 22nd, 2007
The ongoing puppy album can be found here. There is a feed for it here, so if you love puppy pictures, I’d suggest subscribing.
Categories: Puppies! |
No Comments
November 22nd, 2007
No, not Thanksgiving. Celebrate Buy Nothing Day this Friday. Give your wallet a break and refuse to participate in the consumerism frenzy, even if temporarily.
Categories: Uncategorized |
2 Comments
November 18th, 2007
We finally did it. The opportunity presented itself and we jump…..we got a puppy. Don’t have a name yet, any ideas?
It is pretty tough to do a portrait on an excited puppy.
Categories: Puppies! |
No Comments
November 17th, 2007
Took out the recycling this afternoon and this was parked just outside out house:
It is a Tesla Motors plugin electric sports car. Right outside our house. Cool.
Update: just so happens I ran in to some more coverage of Tesla Motors this evening.
Categories: Uncategorized |
No Comments
November 11th, 2007
I went to the San Francisco Green Festival this morning. Holy crap — that might have been the greenest place in US today. For starters, they provided free bike valet parking and you got a $5 admission discount for riding in a bike (for the record, the expo was just a block from my house so I could have walked. But I wanted the discount!). Inside, booths upon booths of local farmers, local biodisel enthusiasts, hemp everything, electric motorcycle, green hot tub cleaners, etc. etc. I walked away with a bunch of samples, a new subscription to a bi-weekly fruit and veggie delivery by local farmer, and a couple of reusable totes. In fact, I had to turn down some of those canvas bags - I have too many of them. The tote I did get proudly proclaims, “My carbon footprint is smaller than yours.” Huh.
Overall, the experience was wonderful. I learned a lot and got some local, organic, and otherwise vegetarian resources I needed as a newcomer to the city. I spent over 2 hours wandering around and had a vegan rawist wrap for lunch (which was delicious and served in biodegradable ware). I was also presently surprised that the number of those new-agey “we’re a vegetarian and a meditation club but really we’re a weird-ass cult of enlightenment of the left ankle” booths was at 10% or less. “What the bleep do we know” people were there but that was the most blatant BS among more than 200 booths. I didn’t get a chance to ask the “Green Dentist” what exactly makes him so green.
Now await my report on the veggie delivery service 
PS. I rode my bike all day today, including bringing back home $60 worth of groceries and going to a local library.
Categories: Uncategorized |
1 Comment
November 8th, 2007
Today was the day when my car came back home. Today was the day when I walked for 8 miles (for commuting, not working out.) Today was the day I went to the opening night of San Francisco International Animation Festival.
Today was not the day to ride my bike.
San Francisco driving sucks; parking sucks even more. In fact, the city has just voted down proposition H that would have introduced more parking (do check out the Hummer-heavy website). That is why I went to REI last night and invested in a bike light, a blinker, and a little portable pump. I have researched the bike paths and bike-friendly garage near the movie theater where I was going. I even ended up joining SF bike coaltion — the biggest bicycle advocacy group in US and strong opposers of above mentioned proposition H (they are also the people selling the bike map that I wanted.) I figured out the lil’ pump all by myself (did you know that bike tires have 2 different kinds of valves?). I bent a penny trying to follow the directions and open up the blinker to activate the batteries– and I did make that little buddy work I found my bike lock and gloves. I was even considering rolling up one of my pant legs. My hands were dirty and I was feeling like an urban warrior.
Unfortunately, time and the head light were not on my side. I realized that I had to do some light screwdriver work to mount the lamp right around the time I saw I only had 20 minutes before the movie started. I ended up taking the cop-out of driving and still ended up being 10 minutes late ( did I not mention that traffic sucks in that town?) Luckily for me, I was able to validate the parking ticket and didn’t pay anything for the pleasure of fitting my compact vehicle in a spot fit for a small garbage can.
Tomorrow is going to be a big biking day. I will go during daylight.
Categories: Uncategorized |
No Comments
November 6th, 2007
A common joke goes something like that: an American vacation is an exotic far away place that you spend a lot of money getting to and then once you get there, you spend even more money making sure to keep all the comforts of the home you were trying to escape.
I thought I was going to California because I was looking for a change, I was craving something new. And that is very much true. Except for the times when it’s not. I want what I want when I want it, dammit. I just started work in the new building in the heart of San Francisco and I am not Ok. The building is fine, the co-workers are lovely, my work is fine, but I am still not ok. Why? Because my work stuff is not here yet from Minnesota. I don’t have my tea mug and my coffee mug and my water bottle. I don’t have the 8 colors worth of pens that make taking notes more interesting. I don’t have a little stuffed frog that I throw around when on the long calls. I don’t have a daily calendars of the funnies that I ALWAYS check first thing when I get in the office. And you know what? I think this is making less productive worker! I want my purple Post-Its or else!
Categories: Uncategorized |
2 Comments
