The rhythm

Every once in a while, the rhythm, no matter what it may be, is going to get you...  Luckily she didn't see the iPad, and kept dancing.

College sports

I bought Tara season basketball tickets this year.  I even stipulated that she was under no obligation to take me to every game.  She seems to be enjoying them.  There's something to be said about the atmosphere of a college sports arena or stadium.  Here's a glimpse, but you really have to be there...

Aren't you a little short for a storm trooper?

I'm not sure that he appreciated the joke after about the 4th time I said it on Halloween, but I still think it's pretty funny...

...

Note to future audience:  This is how much hair I had in Fall 2013.  As of today, most of it is still there, but not all.  The forehead lines are not always there...

Massively parallel bedding - Part 1

This summer, I upsized a set of bunk beds:

First step:  create another bed frame

Second step:  Bust your hump trying to get the bed frames up in the air

Third step:  Attach the end caps/stairs

The reason for the upgrade was to get this munchkin into that bedroom...

Adam's birthday was in June...

... it's now November.  Here are just a couple of pictures.

San Francisco trip - Part 2 revisited

I had forgotten that we went back to redo the video of the big giant dioramas.  Here they are:

San Francisco trip - Part 2

Down on Fisherman's Wharf, they have an old time arcade museum.  Lots and lots of old arcade type stuff.  Here is some of what they have in there:

A player piano.  Reminded me a little bit about my time as a pack mule for someone that renovated these, regular pianos, and church organs.

Monkeys.

There also were some big old dioramas, with lots of moving parts.  I tried to take a video of them, but the recording filled my iPad and got fouled up.  Well worth a visit, if you end up down there, though. 

San Francisco trip - part 1

I haven't really said much about our trip to San Francisco here, in case you didn't notice.  Here are some pictures:

The Left Hand Store - stuff for Emma...

Alcatraz.  We didn't make it over there, because there were no available tickets for that weekend.  We didn't have a lot of planning time prior to the trip...

Fish and chips.

Why are these people smiling?  Because their kids are several states away, driving their Grandmother crazy...

We stayed down by Fisherman's Wharf.  We did not go fishing.

Weeping Angels.

The TransAmerica building, from the street.

Cable cars.  We didn't actually ride one, the line was much too long.

This street looked much steeper from the bus.  The picture loses something in translation.

This was about all we got of the Golden Gate bridge, all weekend.  We did ride the bus across, in the full fog, you almost could see to the top while driving across, but not quite.

Chinatown.  We were there on what must have been market day.  This picture does not do justice to the chaos that was there.  Tara did not appreciate the fish heads.

We ate at a random place in Chinatown.  I'm not sure what we ordered, but it was good.  Tara had something that included fried spaghetti.  We also found a bookstore down there, and were able to get some fairly cheap kids books in simplified Mandarin for the kids.

Good trip.  Thanks again for watching the kids, Mom.

I can be a poor customer at times...

There are a couple of restaurants around town that have menu items I like to order.  A couple of examples:

• At a place called Cubby's, I like to walk up to the counter and say "I want to have a heart attack."  The heart attack is an Italian sausage with Italian beef on top of it.  It's pretty good.  I also like their rosemary fries, but that's not as fun to say.  Once the lady behind me actually burst out laughing.
• On the rare occasion I find myself at Burger King, I order the whopper with no mustard or onions.  More than 90% of the time, whoever is taking my order gets worked up about how the whopper doesn't actually come with mustard.  It really works them into a frenzy, for some reason.  (You would think they would just mark it as 'no onion', and move on, but generally I get a lecture about it.)
• Any place that has anything with 'marionberry' in the name gets ordered.  All because of Marion Berry:

'Cracks' me up every time.

This evening, Tara and I went to Galdolfo's.  I finally noticed that one of their sandwiches was called the 'knuckle sandwich'.  From there, the conversation went as follows:

Me: "I think I want a knuckle sandwich"
Cashier:  "You want a knuckle sandwich?"
Me:  "Will it hurt?"
Cashier:  "What?"

Not exactly the reaction I was looking for.  The knuckle sandwich at Galdolfo's is one of their pastrami sandwiches.  It's not in my top three sandwiches I have had there, but there is a very real possibility I will order it again, just to be able to ask for a knuckle sandwich again...