Olympic Ceremonies, 2012

Sometimes it is good to stay home....

The Opening Ceremonies are big fun to watch.  We enhanced them with this collection of cocktails.  Can you tell what it is supposed to be?

It's the Olympic Ring logo!

Actually some of them were undrinkable-green is peppermint schnapps with food coloring!  Yellow is Galliano and Gatorade.  Blue is blue raspberry mix and vodka, red is cointreau and powerdade (though Campari would work) and black is an actual Black Russian.

July 4th in San Luis Obispo

July 4th weekend, 2012

This year the 4th is on a Wednesday, which is less exciting if you only take off Wednesday, but awesome if you can turn it into a 5 day weekend.

E- and I went with a fairly large group of friends to the San Luis Obispo area.  I was especially excited to stay in the Madonna Inn, which we had heard about from different friends.  I really wanted a waterfall type room, so I requested William Tell, and it didn't disappoint!

The outside of the main building-notice the rocks.

Our front door

The window succession tells the story

Details 

The waterfall shower is awesome!!

The hotel brand toiletries

The story is that Alex Madonna was in construction and made a lot of money building Highway 101.  He wanted to run a hotel and he loved building with the local rocks.  So many of the rooms have rock themes-Caveman for example.  I suspect he was also influenced by his wife because pink is the theme color of the hotel.  We got to peek into another room that was completely shiny/sparkly pink.  You should stay if you get a chance.  Just know that the walls are INCREDIBLY thin and your neighbors will hear everything (speaking as one of the neighbors who heard it all)!

We had a group birthday dinner in Pismo Beach at Guisseppi's Italian restaurant.  The pizza oven is covered in an octopus mosaic that I really liked.  Afterwards we walks a couple blocks to the beach and saw the 4th of July fireworks.

Thursday 
Birthday Brunch at the Gardens of Avila was big fun because we had a whole room to ourselves and the kids had space to run around.  This is attached to a resort with hot springs and I would love to go back.  There are also nice trails that go down to the beach town of Avila, which is where we went after brunch.  Beach afternoon was lovely even though I didn't even dip a toe in the water.

Dinner was at the farmers market in San Luis Obisbo, nickname SLO.  Turns out SLO is a fantastic little town.  They have a lively downtown with lots of restaurants/bars, a fair number of boutique clothing stores, some touristy stores, but most importantly there is a game store, a comic store, AND a chain book store. The farmers market was super popular and we got to eat pasties (British meat pies), freshly roasted corn on the cob (amazing!!), golden raspberries and pie.

Friday
Breakfast at the Copper cafe, in the Madonna Inn.  It is worthwhile to drop in for the decor, most of which is over the top, but includes a lot of nicely carved wood.  A carload of us go driving around the area, stopping in Arroyo Grande.  There is an amazing ice cream shop, Doc Burnstein's Ice Cream Lab.  I want my birthday party here!

We take the afternoon to hang at the pool and hot tub.  We drink pool drinks and eat pool snacks-ah, vacation!

The poolside waterfall turns into a gusher every hour, which I didn't know when I took this picture.

Saturday
We want to do the leisurely drive up the 1 to get home.  It takes a couple extra hours, but is good to do every couple of years. We stop for breakfast tacos in Los Osos and then the Hearst castle visitor center.  The drive is incredibly scenic and half the time it is full on sun and half the time it is almost full fog.  The best stop was when we watched the seals hanging out on the rocks.  The tide was coming in and one seal got washed off completely and left, but the second seal loved that rock and kept getting back on.  He couldn't get comfortable so kept turning around and just as he found a good spot a large wave washed him off to start over again.

San Francisco June 2012, opera and comedy

Comedy in San Francisco

A good friend has a favorite comedy group that we have been wanting to see together and this time all the stars aligned! E- and I went with Louis and his friends Sue and John to see 3 for all, an improv group, at Fort Mason.  We had a quick dinner at The Plant Cafe where everything is organic and non-red meat.  Reasonably priced and tasty-I would eat here again, though I won't specifically make a trip.

The comedy was definitely worthwhile and they have quite a fan base that shows up early to get the front seats and sell out venues quickly. They take suggestions from the audience to create short scenes in the first half and then a movie title that has never existed for the second half. During the short scenes one of the guys had a lovely song about tuna, to which the other fellow demanded he perform the mackerel song. Our movie was A Small Pudding and turned out to be a British turn of the century drama/romance. The three men each had to play 3-4 characters each-the four sisters, the father, son and aunt, the butler, school friends, and a dead mother. It is amazing to watch as they change parts rapidly, making up the story line as they go along!

Nixon in China by the San Francisco Opera

There are some live performances that are not staged very often, so when there is a chance, we jump on them.  Nixon in China is one of those performances.  I am usually the opera goer, but E- likes the modern stuff.  We saw the IU Bloomington version about 15 years ago and he bought the soundtrack.  So when I saw that the SF opera company was putting it on, I knew we had to go.

We had never been to the War Memorial Opera House and it is definitely worth a trip.  Gorgeous classic pillars, a great view off the balcony, plushy red seats and ornate fixtures.  The performance itself was also quiet good-staging was interesting (why does everyone always clap for the airplane?!?), costumes were spot on and the singing passed my (admittedly uneducated) standards.  We did sneak out after the second act because the third is pretty much guaranteed to put you to sleep-it is set in the bedrooms!  Even though I am glad I went, I am not about to sign up for a season pass.  It is a bit of a drive because you will always be in traffic.  The parking is bad and public transportation, though possible, is inconvenient.  The tickets are way more expensive than San Jose Opera and the crowd is a little dressier.

We did stay overnight in a fun spot.  A restaurant called Sauce, bought the upstairs, turned them into rooms and calls it Sleep Over Sauce.  The price is good for the area.  You can have a private or shared bath.  The feeling is relaxed and customized (we slept in the Haight room). And I have heard the food is good.  Sadly we did not get to try any good food because traffic was so bad we didn't have enough time.

I did see my favorite version of hotel shampoo and soap though!  The refillable container-yeah!  I do love to take home the little bottles of shampoo and bodywash.  But they are always a little wrong, the bottles are hard to use, and of course the waste of plastic is just a bad idea.

Best hotel soap-high quality in a refillable container.  Brand Name:  Simple Human

Fun customized soaps, but hard to open tops.

Worst hotel toiletries ever-hard to open and impossible to read

Nice idea-the brand name refers to the fact that 99% of their packaging contains 60% post-consumer content.  And the soap leaves out the part you never use, the middle!

Best for travel because you know the difference between shampoo and conditioner by shape!

Tahoe, July 2012

A quick trip to Tahoe to see my little friend in his first Triathalon.

My young friend, age 6, was doing his first triathalon at Lake Donner, so of course I wanted to see that. The family got a Lake Donner home rental that was of course amazing. Ping pong table, bunk beds, hot tub, view of the lake, giant everything-the couch had 11 sectional pieces! We ate snacks and drank wine on the deck as the sun went down and in the morning walked down the hill to the lake for the race.

The race was pretty much the cutest thing ever-all these tiny people in what feels like a grown-up activity. The different ages started in different waves so everyone was spread out across the course and it gave just the right level of activity on the course.

                                                                              Go #50!!

Afterwards I spent the weekend north of Sacramento with my very pregnant friend who made me my favorite-snickerdoodles!! We tamed weeds, picked giant zucchini and ate-basic chillaxing :)

Memorial Day weekend 2012, lab reunion

My graduate adviser started his lab in 1992 so the 20th reunion was held in Austin, Texas over Memorial Day weekend.  The whole weekend was fantastic.  It was amazing to see so many folks that I worked with-it was way more meaningful than a high school reunion would be, not that I have been to any of mine.  People are exactly the same as I remember or better.  It was so nice to see the great work people are doing now, everything from academic or industrial research, to doctors, lawyers, parents and just interesting folks.

Friday
Getting off the plane I saw a man in as shorts suit!  It was totally a suit, but shorts instead of long pants-perfect for this weather, which turns out to be hot and sticky.  The Fun Bunch arrives in Austin and eats at the Roaring Fork.  We sort of planned ahead to see what we might want to eat, but the 'best' places were far away, or hard to get tables.  This was the best for us because we walked, they had a table for us, we were able to chat, and even though it was fancy, the toddler in the group was not a problem!  We pretty much ate all their specials-green chile stewed pork, huckleberry margaritas, big ass burger-all fantastic.  But my favorite was the Mexican street corn.  I think I like it that someone cuts the corn off the cob for me :)

Saturday
Tonia arranged that we would meet up for breakfast at the Central Market, which is a large fancy market (reminded me of Jungle Jim's in Cincinnati) right next to a play area.  Brilliant!  As we are sitting on the patio as old lab mates come up and there is much *squee*

In the afternoon we meet on campus for a casual lunch and then talks by the alumni.  At the end Andy's boys had a very short presentation that was of course adorable and included about 10 seconds of singing.
We had our own area of Abel's on the Lake for our group to hang out and chat which was perfect.  I got to talk to all the folks I overlapped with and some of the new one.

Sunday
More talks in the morning, but the afternoon is free and I am going to Schlitterban!
I had heard about Schlitterbahn from my friend Kyle, a Texas native.  And one thing in particular stuck out for me in his description-the water for the park comes from the river.  Even in Minnesota (all those lakes) the water parks I have been to use chlorinated pool water that leaves you dried out at the end of the day.  Plus a number of reviews call it the best water park in the country.  After visiting, I have to agree, this place is amazing and I could easily spend 3 days chillaxing here.  We knew we didn't have enough time to do the whole park, so E- and I only went to the 'original Schlitterbahn' figuring the lines would be longer for the newer, fancier rides.  Classic Ichiro and Michiko who came with us did check out the new park and said it lived up to expectations-longer lines for the Master Blaster, but well worth it.

Monday
Goodbye brunch at the Taco Joint.  Oh our Austin friends picked some good eats!  I love breakfast.  I love Mexican food.  And who doesn't love a hole in the wall.  The group was much smaller now, but it was the only time we were able to see Sabine.

Yay reunion!!

Fava bean harvest June 5, 2012

Saw the transit of Venus-lots of folks at E- workplace brought their telescopes so we saw a really clear view-nice!
Also, the 2012 fava bean harvest.

Bay to Breakers 2012

Finished the Bay to Breakers again...seemed like fewer people (101 not as popular as 100), but more naked people.  No after party, which was a little sad.  And the registration was confusing to me, because I did not sign us up for t-shirts.  We have definitely seen the end of an era.  When we started running B2B, we got to see the tiki bar and drunken frat boys pushing kegs in grocery carts.  Now it is cheaper to clean up after, and safer, but less flavorful for sure.

Best costumes?  Nyan cat, Settler of Catan ('Catan or Bust', 'Will Trade Wheat for Sheep'), and the Greendale  Community college mascot the human being.  No ponies-how sad!

The Bay                                                            The Breakers