Vespa is a gateway drug…

…to harder motorcycles. The occasional motorcycle still catches my eye, like the Triumph Scrambler I happened upon last night. I’d seen that bike before and not thought much of it, because at the time I was looking for something more…

Cable car cable

One of San Francisco’s characteristic charms is the cable car. Mostly ridden by tourists, it is still one of the locals’ chosen commute methods. What is striking about the cable car is that, well, it’s pulled by cables… still blows…

Introducing White Noise Lounge

After three weeks in not-so-stealth-mode, it’s time to take the wraps off a new joint venture between me and Stephanie, which we’re calling White Noise Lounge. It all started about a month ago when we were joking with each other…

Hanging out on the farm

Capay Valley Fruits and Vegetables held a farm tour and strawberry picking on Saturday, open to all their Farm Fresh to You customers. FFTY is the program that delivers fresh fruits and vegetables to me every other week, and frequently…

Self-portrait of the blogger hooping

And yet another reason why you should come work with me at Federated Media: Friday hula contests!

Vespa LX150 Total Cost of Ownership

Last week on the ride home I noticed a marked reduction in power accelerating from a stop along Lombard. At each light, I felt the same thing, almost as if the throttle’s connection to the engine had become a rubber…

Brush touch up

After getting chided by the internets for having my Vespa LX150 serviced at the dealership instead of learning how to maintain it myself, I thought it’d be poetic justice to let the world know I just performed my own brush…

Maldon sea salt pyramids

After Claudine and Danny introduced us to Maldon sea salt at their last food shindig, we picked up a box at Williams Sonoma. At first I thought the flakes were a little big (compared to the fleur de sel de…

Golden Gate Bridge joints

At either end of the Golden Gate Bridge, there are ribbed joints in the surface of the roadway. I don’t think they’re expansion joints, I think they simply connect the surface of the approach to the surface of the bridge…

Tony three dot oh

I must have been at the right party last night because at least two people there knew that my funny camera existed. The occasion was Tony Stubblebine’s 30th birthday (hmm, am I allowed to blog that?) which we celebrated with…

What does your hard drive look like?

This is a proto-meme for people running a GNOME-based OS, like Ubuntu. Go to Applications > Accessories > Disk Usage Analyzer. Click “Scan Filesystem”. Take a screenshot (Ctrl+Print Screen). Paste it to your blog. Show your friends. It’s fun. Red…

Destruction of Alderaan

I’m not a big Star Wars buff or anything, but there’s a point in one of the movies, I’m not sure which, just after a planet had been destroyed when Obi-Wan senses a disturbance in “the force.” He says it…

Hoo-ray for Ice Cream Day!

Unfortunately I’ve been informed that it wasn’t actually Ice Cream Day, but it’s hella hot outside, so it might as well be.

The Bay Bridge

Macro black and white rusty chain

I like how the metal looks kind of like charcoal.

Field of white and yellow flowers

I’m not sure what these are called. Also known as daisies! (thanks Eric) Bellis perennis is a common European species of Daisy, often considered the archetypal species of that name, though many other related plants share the name; to distinguish…

Vespa LX150

I tried on two occasions to record my scooter while I was zipping around the city, but the mic’s foam windscreen let too much wind noise through. That and the frequent stop-and-go city traffic made for a jarring listening experience.…

Above the fog

After several unusual days last week in the high 80s and low 90s, the fog came back with a vengeance. San Francisco should be where that white, billowing, cloud-like substance is. Above the fog, at Mt. Tam State Park (where…

Library Blogging

Jason Griffey, an LS friend of mine from grad school (part of our original blogging cabal) has just written a book called Library Blogging. How friggin’ cool is that? That should probably get him into the SILS alumni hall of…

Instant Kitchen

I would buy a house just so I could have an Instant Kitchen. I think kitchens are the most exciting thing about home ownership, and what I’m most drawn to when passing by for-sale postings outside realty offices. Unfortunately with…

Yes I know my blog is busted

For anyone who’s left their feedreader and visited my homepage in the last few days, you may have been surprised to see that the most recent post in the leftmost column is 15 seconds of fame from Tuesday, February 13,…

Broken blog = man obsessed

Databases are supposed to be these monolithic paragons of correctness and uniformity. So it’s a little unsettling to discover a database that returns grossly incorrect results. At least I wouldn’t expect WordPress to put version 5 of MySQL through its…

Food Court

After hours of shopping at the San Francisco Westfield Mall, we had pasta and a gigantic salad from the gourmet food court. The decor is pretty retro hip, but the tile floors emphasize every little sound, from people chatting to…

On tomato sauce and pizza

I did not like tomato-based products growing up. Now that I think about it, I had an aversion to a lot of processed foods. They were often too bitter or too acidic or too salty. Most of all, they were…

I called the police for the first time

Shortly after Stephanie left for pilates at 6:30 tonight, I heard a sound outside like someone had dropped a box of books on the sidewalk. My stomach sank—had a car tipped one of our scooters? I looked out the bedroom…

This image stopped me in my tracks

What an incredible piece of photojournalism by Shiho Fukada: Shiho Fukada’s photo of Jiang Guohua for the New York Times This photo appeared on the front page of Wednesday’s New York Times (May 28, 2008) alongside the article Parents’ Grief…

À Nice sans problème

Wow, we made it to Nice without issue. Compared to last time, this trip was a breeze. Left for SFO around 4pm on Friday and arrived in Nice just after 6pm on Saturday. Stephanie’s mom, sister, and almost one-year-old niece…