We got engaged in Paris. We were married on Bastille Day fifteen years ago. We always hoped to spend our anniversary in Paris. We finally did!
Paris, July 14, 2016
Homeless of Piedmont Avenue
It's about 5 minutes drive from my house. It's an eclectic, mixed use, diverse economy little area full of restaurants, cafes, salons, small retail, and professional offices. Apartments rent within a block or two start at around $3k a month. Houses sell for $500k and up with many going well over a million.
It also has this problem.
"Street Sleeper"
"This is Her Spot"
Oakland, CA (April 2016)
"Cash Withdrawal"
Oakland, CA (April 2016)
"The Line for the Bathroom"
Oakland, CA (April 2016)
"Restless Sleep"
Oakland, CA (April 2016)
When having to fend for myself, I cook ethnic.
Great idea at Smiths grocery store
Kudos to Smiths Grocery Store in Albuquerque. This is a great idea and a nice gesture.
It's tough to celebrate a holiday in the traditional way while traveling
In a small Mexican town on Baja...
No Chinese food, no Movies...
No Jewish Christmas.
I like my waiters and waitresses to be as clean as the next guy
But I would prefer they take care of this at home.
NYC Salvation Taco (Sep 2015)
I swear I painted this as a kid:
NYC (Aug 2015)
This very same paint-by-numbers. I wonder if my copy some how ended up on a NYC bathroom wall or if someone else painted one too.
I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to do in response to this sign.
Calistoga, CA (Aug 2015)
Aboard the Rocky Mountaineer
Last month we took the two day journey aboard the Rocky Mountaineer train from Banff to Vancouver, Canada. It was a beautiful trip. This is a few seconds of it:
(Video by me, music by Eric Clapton)
El Niño - come soon. PLEASE.
With temps over 100 and suffering through another year of drought, the Napa Valley is screaming out in pain. Trees are stressed. Ground plants are stressed. Vines are stressed. And vintners are stressed. (I spent over $4000 during July just buying water for my vineyard!)
We can keep buying water to get us through harvest, but all of the glorious California oaks on our Baconbrook property are looking very sad. And sad trees are susceptible to disease and pest. Dry grass and ground plants look like matches ready to strike.
"They" say that there is a 50-50 chance Northern California will get a huge rainfall this year. We need it. There will be challenges with mudslides and flooding, but those are problems we need to live through right now. We need the rain. But even more importantly, we need snow. Five of the lowest snowpacks on record in the Sierra have taken place over the last ten years. Snow pack is our water storage system.
So come on, El Niño. Bring it on. While we all enjoy the glorious Golden State sunshine, we're ready for some gloomy rainy days. A bunch of them.