A Decidedly Delectable Day
June 20, 2008
What a great day I had today! I’ve felt this quixotic whimsical goodness rushing over me for hours now and it’s time I write some of this down (so that I can focus on actually packing!) 
First off, today was my first time biking to work with the SF2G group. SF2G stands for “San Francisco to Google” and it’s basically a group made up primarily of Googlers and ex-Googlers who ride from San Francisco to Google. Friday is NRLB (No Rider Left Behind) Day – which made it the perfect day for me to try the group out for the first time.
First I should say that I’ve been very very excited about this group. In fact, one of the reasons I wanted to move to San Francisco and live near the Mission was that this group existed and meets most mornings at Ritual coffee (which, I’m sure you’ve gathered, is located in the Mission). The only problem (and thing I’ve been stressed about) was that I had no real grasp for the skill level of the group. Were these people going to all be at the level of the UCLA Cycling Team (in which case I was going to get my ass handed to me on a daily basis) or were they more a mesh pot of lots of different skill levels and sets where people from all over the spectrum could join together and ride (in which case, I’d be fine)?
Well let me just paste in a (slightly modified) clip from the email I sent out to the group after our ride today:
“Now that I have a spare moment I wanted to say what a blast I had this morning. And, it being my very first SF2G ride, I thought I’d write up a little somethin’ somethin’…
So my ride report really has to start the night before… well actually we’ll start even before that. So I’ve been super excited about this SF2G business for some time. I just moved up here from the Santa Monica office on Monday — and down in Santa Monica I rode with the UCLA Triathlon team (where I was, perhaps unsurprisingly, on the UCLA Triathlon team)So anyways, I’ve been very excited but very nervous. Nervous primarily because I had no idea what the skill level was going to be AND I’ve been on quite a few "no drop" rides that ended up being drop rides. And, since I had no idea how to get to Google, getting dropped would be a problem.
So flash forward to last night - there I was laying on my temporary bed (read: my couch) last night at like 12:30AM thinking "shit, I’m going to be dropped… and then I’m going to be screwed". This went on for some time but it seems eventually I fell asleep.
Then I woke up this morning and was like "Oh god… what do these people carry their stuff in? Do they carry stuff? Are they all super speed demons who would never carry any sort of extra weight (like flip flops) because it’ll slow them down? But I need my flip flops! Well…I could walk around barefoot today… but then again probably not…Oh god oh god oh god…."
Eventually I got out the door (with my flip flops).And from there on out it was smooth sailing (except for that one "mountain biking" second on that narrow evil bit). Everyone was super friendly and it was great to see so many people riding!
So thanks everyone! When I get back in two weeks you’ll definitely see me out there a lot. Bayway any day!”
So as you can see, the ride went SUPER well. I ended up sticking with the lead pack. How awesome is that?! Plus, I met some really cool people. And when we made it to Google we all got breakfast together and hung out for a second before heading off to the showers and work. Oh And! Throughout the day we were all emailing each other little random things. And! And! They even invited me out tonight… but I had to decline this time (mainly because I’ve been out with different people every day this week and I need some chill time… and I really wanted to write this post [hehe]… and I need to pack for tomorrow!)
So there’s the scoop on SF2G. I think when I get back from Europe I’m going to try and aim to ride in to work three times a week. I’m so excited about it I could freakin explode into a trillion rays of sunshine and goodness!!
The next awesome thing I want to share is really about where I (literally) am right now. I’m writing this post from the deck of my house, where I’m looking out on my big giant lush wonderful beautiful garden (with Redwood trees and lots of flowers!) that I just watered today (and watering plants always puts me in a super positive mood… probably because I sing to them as I water… you know, because they and all the fairies that live in/around them really like that sort of thing.) To the side you’ll see a few pictures of what this all looks like. Can you believe this is a house in San Francisco?!
What is also making this sitting-on-the-porch business so awesome comes from three additional points of goodness:
First: I’m listening to awesome music.
Second: I walked across to the most awesome grocery store in the history of time (Rainbow Grocery Store) and got lots of delicious things for dinner (where this includes: Kombucha drink, a super juicy and tangy nectarine, and the strongest soft goat cheese EVER [mini story: they have a cheese person at the awesome grocery store and she asked me what I was craving and I said “a really strong goat cheese” She said “Oh, man, I’ve got the perfect thing” – she then gave me a taste of it. It was delicious!! I then, in all my joyousness, fell in love with three things: the store, the cheese, and the cheese chick.].
Third: I bought myself a new camera for my trip – and the pictures you’re seeing of my backyard are the first pictures I’ve taken with it. Not bad, hey? I’m just happy I now know how to upload pictures and all that. Because starting tomorrow I’m going to be uploading a friggin mega-load of them!!
This then brings me to the final awesomeness that is currently going on: My European Extravaganza!! Right after I finish this post, finish my Kombucha drink, and calm down just a little, I have to go inside and pack up because at 11AM tomorrow morning Leslie is picking me up and we’re going to SFO baby!! Next stop: Europe! 
For two weeks of nonstop action-packed adventure!!!!!! I’ve never even been to Europe before so this is a huge deal for me. I’ve fantasized about this sort of backpacking trip for years and years and years. And finally I have the money and guts to just go do it. It’s going to be epic!
I won’t bother saying anything more about the trip because starting tomorrow (probably starting tomorrow from the plane) I will be posting to this blog EVERYTHING about my trip. I am really really going to aim and post every single day. I want to post videos and pictures and stories and everything!!! Our first stop is Dublin – where we have some long layover. But then… to Rome!!
So today was and continues to be a decidedly delectable day! 
A night in the Mission (district that is … of San Francisco)
May 27, 2008
This past Friday (May 23 2008) I flew up to the Bay Area for work. Now, what makes this fairly common occurrence particularly post worthy is that this time, a bunch of really fun and good things serendipitously occurred simultaneously! So what were these special things, you ask? Well let’s see….
1) First off, Berkeley (or as I like to call it “Buh-zerk-lee”) had just finished their finals. This was super awesome because it meant Savannah (my sissy) and Shannon and Esther (two of my very best friends) were all free to play!
2) Chad and (as I have now named him) “Thayer-Monster” were up in the Bay Area looking for an apartment. Both Chad and Thayer-Monster will be moving to the Bay Area this summer, too! They’re both total nerds software-ish engineers (Chad does crypto software stuff and Thayer-Monster does something like makes programming for hardware things [what can I say, he explained it to me after I had taken not one but two packets of nighttime Theraflu! I was just happy I could manage to keep taking in air at that point!])
3) I wanted to spend some time in SF looking for an apartment
4) I now had a camcorder!! And a groovy web-place to share cool videos.
So, now you get to see below what all those factors add up to - a night of fun festivities in the Mission (why the Mission? Because I’m hoping (though that hope is slowly fading) to live there… so I’ve been spending time trying to figure out if I dig the vibe on a day-to-day basis). Savannah, Esther and Shannon took the BART over while Chad and Thayer-Monster drove up from their apartment-hunting radius down near Mountain View and we all first met at a pub. So enjoy!
Oh and I warn you ahead of time: Chad curses evil vulgarities a LOT - and he does this because at some (foolish) point I asked him not to (because I wanted to post these on my blog!). So please, view at your own peril! But I do have to say, some of this is pretty funny.
Enjoy!
