My dear readers, I apologize for the contest delay. The winner from last month is Becky J! She was one of 20/21 who correctly guessed Subway. And the new logo is up for your guessing pleasures.

I just saw Joe’s identical [thinner] twin! Her name is Lady and her owner wrote me to say that they look almost exactly alike! The only difference is that Lady actually has the beagle saddle, and she’s much thinner than Joe. Pretty neat

I believe we left off with “Bob” trying to evict us. Steve wrote him an email that basically said: you can take us to court, you don’t own the place, you’re going to lose and you’re going to pay our court fees. We haven’t heard from him since then. (If you are not familiar with this story, you may want to start from the beginning - all related posts found here)

As for the condo, the funding company that bought it (RFC) originally hired a realtor to sell it (”Jim” from the first post). That realtor didn’t really do much, so in June they hired a new realtor, Jeff. Jeff is not the type to sit on his ass, he gets things done. He got our lock changed, got our names in the keypad, and finally listed the place for sale.

Also around this time we discovered that RFC hadn’t been cashing our rent checks. Steve had them on an automatic bill payment through his bank and after three months, the funds would pop back into his account if they weren’t cashed. This kind of shocked and worried us. For one, why weren’t they cashing them? Two, are they going to try at some point? Three, what if we get out of this rent free!?!?

Anyway, listing the condo prompted us to get our act together and figure out whether or not we really wanted to buy our current home. After much thought we decided that if it were the right price, we could happily purchase and live in it for several (if not more) years.

We then began the rigorous home buying process and made an offer that the RFC gladly accepted. Which then took us through 30 days of title clearing, appraisals, check writing and such.

At some point during the lending process we had to tackle the rent check problem. Steve finally spoke to someone at RFC who claimed that only two checks had arrived, which was clearly a lie. The woman did more poking around and discovered the other checks. It was an aggravating conversation for Steve, but it all worked out.

Last night our broker came over and we signed 10 million pieces of paper, making us the official owners! …In San Francisco, I never would have thought! All I have to say at this point is, IN YOUR FACE, JERKFACE “BOB”!

Oh, and we get to keep the rent checks! Woo hoo!

This past weekend we went to the SF Outside Lands Festival. It was a three day show featuring about 75 bands on 6 different stages. We bought our tickets months ago when they were only selling them for the whole event. In retrospect, we wish we had waited for the single day tickets, because we would have only gone on Friday to see Radiohead. They are my favorite band (Steve loves them too) and they gave a phenomenal performance, despite the fact that the sound cut out twice!

The festival was pretty nice overall. We got to see some other bands we like such as Primus, Cake, and Wilco. And we found some new bands that we like: Kaki King, The Walkmen, Grace Potter and Sharon Jones.

We rode our bicycles there, which was fairly tiring - especially by the third day. The ride was mostly flat (4.5 miles), but when you add walking around and standing to the mix, that equals one pooped out Nicole. The other benefit to riding though, is that we didn’t have to wait in long lines for cabs or buses. So it was a good choice.

The weather wasn’t that great. When we left our house in the Mission it was nice and sunny. By the time we got to the park it was cold and foggy. We needed several layers to keep warm! Sunday was a little sunny and warmer though.

Usually I have pictures to go with my events, but I didn’t take many. I was hardly ever close enough to the stage for good ones. And they didn’t allow any cameras with detachable lenses, so they wouldn’t have turned out that great anyway. It kinda pissed me off.

I really enjoyed Radiohead, and I can’t wait to see them live again!

I’m a little behind on the blogging… Two weekends ago (Aug 15-17) Steve and I went on the annual Sonoma Wine Vacation that our friends set up. This time there were 14 of us.

We all headed down on Friday. That night we hung out by the pool and hot tub, drank wine and made our own pizzas. It was a relaxing evening, full of catching up and what not.

Saturday the limo picked us up and took us to four wineries. Ridge Lytton Springs, Michel-Schlumberger, Sbragia Family Vinyards, David Coffaro and Locals Tasting Room. I liked Sbragia the best. Unfortunately Steve and I split all our tastings, so we didn’t actually get drunk, which defeats the purpose of having a limo! We drank tons of wine that night though, and ate delicious burgers and sausages from the grill.

Sunday was a very relaxing day. Everyone sort of did their own thing until lunch time. Erica made the prettiest salad I’ve ever seen (pictured above). After lunch we played this game called Caption.

I’ll attempt to explain it. You need at least 5 people. Each person gets a stack of 5 index cards (of however many people are playing - 9 people, 9 cards). Everyone writes a caption on the top card. Then you pass the stack to the left. That person reads the card (to themselves), puts it at the bottom of the stack, and then illustrates the caption. This gets passed to the left. The person looks at the image, puts the card in the back and writes a caption. You go around until the stack gets back to the original person. Then each person gets to read their stack to the group, showing everyone the pictures. It gets quite crazy! We played that game about 6 or 7 times, it was that funny.

We had a really good time, with some excellent food, tons of wine and wonderful friends

Congratulations to Bill for correctly guessing last month’s logo: Continental Airlines. Let’s see who’s sharp enough to figure out the August logo!

Over the weekend Steve and I went down to Laguna Seca for Moto GP. It turned out to be a great race, with two people (Rossi and Stoner) neck and neck for the majority of the race. Then Stoner made a mistake with about 7 laps left and couldn’t catch up with Rossi again. They were so far ahead of everyone however, that Stoner still managed second place.

The event goes from Friday to Sunday. Friday and Saturday involve practicing and qualifying. And it happened on Saturday. I fell asleep in the sun. I had my hat covering the top half of my face, which left the bottom half, including my lips, to get sunburned.

The sunburn was painful, but nothing compared to what was next. Three days later (Tues) I woke up to a cold sore, and not a small one. Which brings us to the gross part… It covered most of my upper lip, and both corners of my mouth. Oh that sucks. But wait, the next day is even worse. The magnitude of cold sore coverage caused my entire upper lip to swell up like a balloon. Very large and very painful. I’ve NEVER had it this bad before. And I didn’t realize that exposure to the sun could cause an outbreak.

This brings me to my question. Is it too gross to post pictures? Do my readers (all three of you) want to see just how bad it is? I’ve been taking pictures every morning to chronicle this masterpiece of ugliness. Just so I can remember how bad it can be. And I don’t know if it’s too gross to share with you. So if you are curious, leave me some comments.

BTW, I searched for worst cold sore, and most of the pictures I found were nothing compared to this monstrosity.

When Steve has to go out of town for a couple days.

(I get bored and mess around with makeup and a camera.)

A week or two ago I made all the arrangements for our honeymoon in Thailand. While I was booking hotels I tried to contact one of them via fax and it was returned. So then I tried to call them, and got no answer.

The next day I called again and yay, a woman answered! I told her I wanted to make a reservation, I wanted a room with a balcony. She told me to hold on and got someone that spoke a little more English, but not much more. The conversation went something like this…

Me: I would like to make a reservation. I want a river-side room with a balcony.
Woman: blah blah blah, mumble mumble balcony.

Me: Yeah, I want a room with a balcony. Facing the river.
Woman: blah mumble, blah blah balcony.

Me: Uh yeah, I want to reserve a room with a balcony.
Woman: blah mumble blah, chicken and balcony.

Inner thought: Did she say chicken?
Me: Is this a hotel?
Woman: This restaurant.

Oh my gosh! I was ordering chicken and broccoli across the ocean! I promptly told her there was a mistake and got off the phone.

This past Sunday we went down to the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade. We arrived a little late, but our friend had a good spot and we were able to squeeze in pretty close to him and take pictures.

Apparently we missed all the porn stars, but we did see some other really cool stuff. Such as this guy here who had springs on his feet. As he was walking by Steve said, “I bet he can jump really high in those.” Which he promptly proceeded to do. And on top of that, a few flips.

Cindy Lauper was in the parade, but in all the pictures I took she looks extremely unhappy.

I got a ton of great shots, here is a smattering of my favorites.

The best part of the whole parade were all the couples marching with “Just Married” signs. It brought a tear to my eye on several occasions.