Archives_june 2008

The fam in San Fran
Posted Friday, June 20, 2008

Dad, Katrina and Erika met Tiff and I for a Tigers-Giants day game on Wednesday. After sneaking a peak at the Sea Lions and taking the long walk down the Embarcadero for the second time in an hour, we watched the Tigers take the midweek series. That’s bragging rights for the next three years Giants fans. What?! We finished the day with a ferry cruise to Sausalito and then made our way back for some seafood by the wharf.

It’s been fun having them out here, and we’ll be sad to see them go tomorrow.
-cmg

4:45 a.m., a perfect start
Posted Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Getting up at 4:45 a.m. (after working until midnight) does not usually rank among my favorite things in life. Yesterday, however, it marked the beginning of a VERY good day. Our friend Kevin Wendt is moving to Alabama at the end of the month (no, that’s not the reason it was a good day). Weeks ago, when news of his departure first reached me, the thought that popped into my head (after thinking he was a jerk for leaving, the song “Sweet Home Alabama” and that we’ll be sad to see him go) was simply “Pebble Beach.” So yesterday, 4:45 a.m. meant it was time to get up and drive down to the Monterey Peninsula for a 7:20 tee time at one of the world’s great golf courses (In my own personal-ranking-of-courses-I’d-like-to-play-before-I-die it would rank third behind only Augusta National in Georgia and the Old Course in St. Andrews, Scotland). Our play was not stellar, but the course was (and should be for the hefty price tag), and we celebrated afterward with lunch on the terrace overlooking the famous 18th hole, while watching the completion of the U.S. Open playoff with hundreds of fellow golfers. We capped the afternoon with a cigar. Yet another surreal experience that I’ve been lucky enough to be having a lot of these days.

Grandstaff 102
Wendt 109

No birdies for either of us, but some near misses that resulted in several pars. We also had our fair share of double-, triple- and quadruple-bogeys. Laugh if you want, but this course was not easy (obviously). At times the greens were like trying to putt on a windshield, the ocean is a pretty formidable water hazard and we played from the back tees (not the back-back tees, but they were 20 yards beyond the whites).

A pretty memorable day in itself, but after dropping off Kevin there was more fun to be had. I picked up Tiff and we trained up to San Francisco for the Tigers Giants game. The Giants won 8-6 (Detroit pitcher Fernando Rodney blew it in the eighth), but, as always, we had a blast.

-cmg

Serves us right
Posted Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Tiff and I have been watching the summer heat wave across the east coast with mild amusement. While newscasts and websites from the right coast lament records highs and sweltering heat/humidity, we’ve been suffering through temperatures in the mid 70s to low 80s (with no humidity of course). With such perfect weather, we decided to take an 11-mile hike on Monday through the redwoods at Big Basin state park. It would have been a perfect hike aside from the fact that our thermometer read 98 when we arrived and we only brought one bottle of water... to share. Five hours later, this delirious couple had been thoroughly punished by mother nature. Serves us right I guess. We suffered a few mental break downs along the way. At one point I began blaming Tiff for our lack of water because she used a gulp to wash out a bug she accidentally swallowed. This followed an episode in which Tiff began to scream and stamp upon seeing a six-inch garter snake. Before we completely lost it, we were awed (as usual) by several groves of sizeable redwoods and a multi-tiered waterfall.

Yesterday we took the train up to San Francisco, where we met up with our friend Ashley to watch some kiteboarding in the Bay. Afterward we drank glasses of wine from Ashley’s rooftop in North Beach (Little Italy) and enjoyed some pretty cool views of the city and some good conversation with her roommates. We capped the day with family-style Italian at this great place called Cafe Sport and then drinks at a bar across the street from City Lights Bookstore.

We haven’t been updating the blog lately because Tiff has been working on making the Asia pages run faster. Some observations since the last post: We’re still wishing we were on vacation but the hangover is pretty much over. The Red Wings are Stanley Cup champions for the 11th time, and it really never gets old thinking about it. We showed my family around San Jose and then took them out to eat at Pizza Chicago before they began their trek up the coast. We’ll see them again this upcoming Wednesday for a Tigers-Giants baseball game.
-cmg

Blogging in the real world
Posted Tuesday, June 3, 2008

I’m sure at some point in my life, I’ll appreciate a weekend at home that involves nothing more than sitting around watching the Tigers, but right now it’s just plain boring (or maybe that’s just baseball). In any event, it’s not exactly hiking through the jungles of Cambodia (by the way, I’ve moved all blogs from Asia elsewhere. You can find them, Mom, by clicking on the big Asia link to the right).

The highlights in the two weeks since we’ve returned from our trip:

-Going to the midnight premiere of Indiana Jones less than 12 hours after landing in San Jose from Cambodia (I’m kind of a fan). I’d give it a solid B, but it falls well short of of the previous three movies.

-Some serious Memorial Day grilling with Kelley and the Rook.

-Pulling out my entire right eyebrow watching the Pistons piss away the Eastern Conference finals and the Red Wings stretch the Stanley Cup finals to, as of now, Game 6.

-Spending the day at the pool with Tiff and her mom. Later, Pam graciously tolerated a three-overtime Red Wings game at San Jose Bar & Grille. We finished the night with some Wii bowling.

Pam was pretty excited after rolling a 189, which trounced Tiff and I.

What’s next: Tiff and I will be honing our skills at Mario Kart; I’ll be hitting the range with my new driver in anticipation of a tee time at Pebble Beach - um, yeah, THE PEBBLE BEACH; and Dad, Katrina and Erika arrive for the first leg of their trek through northern California.

-cmg