Michael & Antonio's Roadtrip to San Francisco

My friend Michael has been planning to take his scooter on a road trip from Seattle to San Francisco for some time. It came true this week for the fourth of July and his upcoming birthday on Monday. He drove down with his boyfriend Antonio and they stayed in the city. I met up with them Monday night for a little bar hopping along the Castro. We met at the Lookout then went over to the cafe. I didn't stay late as I had to work Tuesday.

After work Tuesday night I headed back down on my motorcycle and met up with them at 24 Henry where they were staying at a bed and breakfast. We got ready to go out and took a cab to Club Sauna for the party. It was a good event with a diverse crowd for sure. Unfortunately the lighting wasn't very good for taking pictures. Here's one of Michael, Antonio and me.

There was a good DJ playing, and the lighting and effects were pretty cool. I always like the green laser lights and music video's playing on the big screen.

From the Sauna party we went to club Badlands in the Castro. It was definitely packed and was a good time. Lots of dancing, lots of talking, a little bit of drinking, all with good friends. A great way to start off the 4th of July holiday.

Sam & Sandy visit California

This week my parents took a road trip to come down and visit me, Chuck, and Emily in California. They headed out from Boise on Thursday and stayed in Winnemucca then played golf on Friday before heading out here. When they arrived we quickly unloaded their car and went to pick up Chuck and Emily for our dinner reservations at Giostra. It's a delicious Italian restaurant Mom had heard about from her friends in Boise.

That evening we played cards at Emily's house and had a birthday cake that Emily made for Mom's upcoming birthday. It was a really nice evening. Saturday morning I got up and jogged 15 miles around Rohnert Park with Amanda while Dad and Chuck played racquetball. They were still playing at lunch so Mom and I hit up my favorite sandwich shop; Marc Mazzetta's Deli for lunch.

Then we all got together and went wine tasting, starting off at Francis Ford Coppola's winery in Geyserville, CA. I wasn't planning on it, but somehow I walked out of the winery as a member. My very first wine club membership! It was a great deal, we got our tasting fees waived and Emily, my Mom and me all purchased wine at the discounted cost. I also got my first shipment right then. Kinda cool.

From there we went to Healdsburg and tried out wines at two of my favorite tasting rooms on the town square; Stephen & Walker and Thumbprint. Both places offered free tastings to the bearer of the Visa Signature cards, so we all got free tastings! For dinner my parents wanted to treat Chuck for his upcoming birthday, so we went to his favorite place; Outback Steakhouse. We finished the evening up with some more cards.

Sunday I went to St. Johns Methodist church with my parents. It was a nice service and I enjoyed taking communion. That afternoon Chuck and Emily joined us for an adventure to Armstrong Woods for a little looking around. We hadn't planned lunch, so we hiked a bit and took some pictures.

We headed from Armstrong Woods over to Bodega Bay where we had dinner at a quaint little Mexican seafood restaurant called Brisas del Mar. I will absolutely be back!! I had crab cakes with a jalapeno sauce that was just amazing.

Before I knew it Monday was here and my parents headed back home via Redding for a night there and more golfing. Then they stopped in southern Oregon for another night before heading back to Boise the night of July 4th. It was a nice weekend with my core family. I really enjoyed the time with everyone.

20 Miles, Upgrade & Pride

Saturday morning I met Amanda in Sonoma to jog with her. She wasn't feeling that great so after 7.5 miles she stopped and then I continued on. I ended up running a pretty steep mountain near the end of the run, I was really glad I was able to run the whole thing! The map of my run is posted below, but you can see the pictures and more details on my Runkeeper post. I was planning to do 10 more miles, but once I was there I just decided to do 20. It's the first time this year I've ran that far. In fact, I think it's the first time I've ran more than 15 miles this year. It IS marathon training season, so it's expected here and there. I plan to do 15-20 mile runs every weekend I can until the Santa Rosa Marathon August 26th.

No time to rest; yet! I had to get back home, shower change and pick up lunch for me and Meryl. We worked on Saturday to perform some post-upgrade steps for our MySSU (PeopleSoft 9.0) upgrade. Then I was able to take a nap before getting up, getting ready and driving my motorcycle down to San Francisco.

I met up with Sonoma State's President Arminana, Jason, Kevin and Chuck at Lu Lu's restaurant in San Francisco for Pride night. We had a very nice dinner and drinks; it was a lot of fun. Then I zipped over to the Castro for the pink party. I forgot how many people (mostly 20 somethings) come out for this event!

I tried to get into any of the clubs, but the lines were blocks long. So after walking around a bit I drove back home.

Sunday we are finishing up our post-upgrade steps with all the systems staff. So I won't be at the San Francisco Pride parade this year. I'm looking forward to this project at work being behind us!

Windsor Hot Air Ballons

This weekend started out with a relaxing Friday night at home and an early morning jog in Sonoma Saturday morning with Amanda. We jogged 10 miles then I came home for a nap. Then I got up and got ready for my day by picking up some picnic supplies for Janina and Stefani's 25th birthday party at Coffee park followed by Peter's 33rd birthday party at his house. Amanda brought along a veggie burger for us which was DE-lish! Then Sunday morning I got up bright and early to go with Emma to the Windsor Hot Air Balloon Classic event.
We were there by 6:30am to watch the balloons filling with hot air. There was quite the crowd! In this picture from left to right is Pencil Boy (Promoting literacy among children), the Remax balloon and Pepe Le Pew.

My favorite balloon was the one called "Sushi" which looked like a giant gold fish. We got some good pics of that one. This one was my favorite because you can see the flames heating the air inside the balloon.

Emma really wanted to take a ride, but I told her maybe next year! We had some breakfast sandwich croissants, watched the people and the balloons then headed home. I'm glad we did it! I took a nap, then went jogging with Jeremy. Then time for another nap followed by groceries at Trader Joes! I was so happy about my grocery trip because for the first time I got everything I needed for the week all at TJ's and I spent less than I normally would have. Finally I got my laundry done, watched Thor on Netflix followed by Case #39- it was a great weekend!

Car Shopping...

Every once in a while I get the Corvette bug. I was looking around and found this beautiful C6 convertible for sale in Milpitas, CA. It worked out really nice actually, because I got up early this morning (6am) and drove down to Hayward for the bay trail jog with Jeff. We did 7 miles out and 7 back for a total of 14 in marathon training. Not too fast, just 9 minute 30 second miles. It was good to get the 14 miles in. Maureen was running late so she and Trisha headed out after and did 6 out and back for 12. We're all going to be marathon ready soon! After that, I showered up and went to checkout the vette.
I met up with Luis and he showed me the sports car. My favorite parts are that it's in great condition, a 6-speed manual, automatic top and all the options for the C6. 2005 was the first year, so there's a few small issues. It's known for a battery drain and some of the opening latches/locks don't always work. First run issues, fixable, too. Luis has taken such great care of the car, and he clearly will miss it. He had a valentine radar detector, too, so he he knows good quality products! Driving the car was great and the stereo was very good. It would be nice to have some good audio again, and a convertible!

I came home after the vette, slept until 5, did some Trader Joe's shopping and now messing around online. Yesterday I slept in, went into work, then hit up Sushi with Emily, Chuck, Abbey and Ryan. Then we played some cards at Emily's house in the back yard. It was a really nice weekend; busy, but relaxing at the same time.

The Transit of Venus

I've always been very interested in space and the Universe and when it comes to our solar system with viewable astrological events I get pretty enthused! Today was the Transit of Venus as the planet Venus crossed directly between us and the Sun. It allows for us to see a small dark spot (Venus) crossing the face of the Sun. Fortunately I work on a University campus so there's always educational opportunities! Someone had setup a telescope pointed at the sun with a box to display the output.

By holding up an empty box with a white paper on the bottom the image from the telescope is projected into it and you can see the planet Venus (a small black dot) on the face of the Sun. The image was flipped vertically due to the way the telescope worked.

Someone also had "Sun viewing glasses" that I was able to look at the sun and see the small dark spot on the top right of the Sun with my own eyes! It was really cool to look up and see the Transit of Venus. The next one won't occur until long after I'm gone.

Stinson Beach Ride

Today I rode my motorcycle south on the 101 to Greenbrae and met my friend Ben at the Bon Air shopping center. Ben had all his own motorcycle gear, so he hopped on my motorcycle and off we went! We headed out along Sir Francis Drake Blvd towards the ocean and met up with highway 1 south. We took that through Stinson Beach where Ben took this picture of me.
I've never been to Stinson beach, it looked really nice! I should drive my car down here sometime and enjoy the beach... Then we got back on the bike and headed home via Muir beach and finally back to Greenbrae on the 101 north. It was a fun ride. Ben wanted to come checkout Rohnert Park and ride some more so later that evening he came up for some riding. Since he was comfortable on motorcycles I let him ride mine around for a bit south of M section in the open parking lots. He had a really good time and by the end was trying to convince me to sell :) we'll see...
Since Ben was a recent grad of SSU he knew the area and took me to King Falafel in the Oliver's shopping center. I was amazed by how delicious it was! I'll definitely be back.