As I write this, I’m back at the Rubicon Brewing Company in Sacramento. This isn’t where I planned to end up today-not here, nor Sacramento at all, but there you go.

I woke up this morning with the idea that I wanted to go somewhere, provided I could do the one time-critical task: make the reservations for tomorrow’s dinner. I haven’t done my ( Read more... )

I’m back at my hotel in Oxnard for now. As usual, the day didn’t go quite as expected, but also as (mostly) usual that didn’t turn out to be too bad.

I started the day with breakfast at Café Nouveau in Ventura, an excessively quaint restaurant in a converted 1920s home (in a neighborhood of unconverted 1920s homes, from what I can tell). I had ( Read more... )

While most times I do stick close to the office for lunch, I’m guilty of wandering rather far afield every so often. I tell myself that it’s a perk of being an independent consultant - technically, I’m supposed to be able to set my own hours and working locations, as long as I actually do get work done. Sometimes I’ve been known to wander out and ( Read more... )

The weekend before this, we obtained an ice cream maker, and I’ve been engaging in the art-as yet not fine-of making ice creams. Well, four ice creams-three of them vanilla, and all different kinds!-along with an apple sorbet and a raspberry frozen yogurt. I’ve managed to botch the recipe on several of the ones I made, yet all of them have come out ( Read more... )

I’m working from the field today, and at the moment the field happens to be Julie’s Coffee & Tea Garden in Alameda. Yes, I’m back here, although earlier today I was in Walnut Creek, which is where I actually did most of the work that I’ve gotten done so far, working before and after lunch at the Pyramid Ale House. I’ve closed two tickets out of ( Read more... )

Today was spent travelling about with Dave and dracosphynx. First stop, the Cantor Art Center at Stanford, which is a pretty incredible museum for a free one. Currently they’re having an exhibit focused on the Tuareg and how these nomads have adopted to the modern world. (The answer, in short, is fairly well.)

After the museum trip, it was a visit to a ( Read more... )

I’m back safe and sound from Pittsburgh, and had a wonderful time at the con. I’ll try to write a more useful con report by the weekend, before the information is too stale.

Currently, I’m in a Taxi’s Hamburger in Santa Clara, before a showing of Harry Potter and the Overpriced Movie Ticket I’ll be joining jakebe, toob, Malin and a bunch of other locals at ( Read more... )

So, the first real day of Anthrocon has passed. It’s gone well-I shouldn’t say “surprisingly well,” since it’s not as if I was expecting it to go poorly. I’ve met most of the people I’d expected to, even if in some cases I’ve merely run into them a couple times, and in a couple cases not even had time to introduce myself. Even so, I’ve hung around ( Read more... )

I’m still about and obviously back to not keeping up my journal as well as I should. I have a few things I’d like to write about, in no particular order, though, and hopefully a couple things will fall out shortly.

My mother’s visit around Mother’s Day went quite well, I think. The dinner at Manresa was quite an experience, and it was nice to show ( Read more... )

I’m currently preparing for a visit from mom, which happens in… less than 24 hours. Eek. It’ll be something of a mini-vacation, even though we’re staying in the San Jose area: we’re renting a room for a few nights at the Inn at Saratoga, and will be sticking to Bay Area locations rather than going too far afield.

One of the highlights for me, food ( Read more... )