Steve’s mom came for a visit last week, so her and I went on the Victorian Walk through San Francisco. The tour starts in Union Square and you take a bus ride over to Lower Pacific Heights. From there you walk to Pacific Heights and on the way you see about 200 houses.

Our guide was Shawna, an extremely nice and well-informed woman. We learned quite a bit of history about SF. For example, San Francisco was always urban. In the 1800’s there was a small settlement of about 400-600 people. Then the gold rush hit and within a year the population increased to over 10,000! Always urban, always international.

I’m well acquainted with the different types of Victorians now too. In order below are an Italianate, Stick and Queen Anne.

Here’s the entire photo set.

The tour was fun and we had such a gorgeous day for it! I highly recommend it

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Moto GP was this past weekend at Laguna Seca. I was pretty excited to use my new 5d Mark II camera with its super-fast shutter and eager responsiveness. Above is the best picture I took. If you click on it and view the largest version, you can see a very intense vein in Rossi’s neck!

Here’s the entire set.

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We started the day by riding north to Hog Island Oyster Company with Jordy and Ivan. There we shucked and grilled our own oysters. Later we joined Orion and Rebecca for sushi at Kiss Seafood in Japantown. The four of us knocked out a 1.8 liter bottle of sake – the chef didn’t think we could do it. Ha, we showed him. We went back to our place and continued to drink — we had some of the scotch pictured here and opened a bottle of Rattlesnake Ridge — yum!

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Last week we decided it was time to add another doggy to the family. See, Joe is pretty much my dog. According to Steve, Joe likes him, but he loves me. What can I say, Joe’s a monogamous guy

Getting another dog was going to be tricky. Steve wanted a female because they typically bond better with men. Fortunately Joe also needed a female, preferably black and about the same size as him.

As luck would have it, we found the perfect little lady at the SPCA across the street from us. On Monday Steve and I went over to check out the doggies. Based on their sex, size and descriptions we narrowed it down to two: Guitara and Sweety. After meeting them both, we decided Guitara was the best bet. However it was too late in the day for a dog to dog meeting.

The rest of the night I tried not to obsess about Guitara too much, because if Joe didn’t like her the search would have to begin again. Their meeting was crucial because Joe only likes 9 out of 10 dogs that he meets and I’d rather not make Joe spend the rest of his life fighting with or growling at a dog he doesn’t like. That’s part of why we were so particular about our choice. The other reason had to do with our own preference, wanting a somewhat mellow dog that was smart enough to be trained.

On Tuesday we took Joe over as soon as they opened at 11:00a. Mollie, the trainer, spoke to us about Guitara for about half an hour explaining everything she could about her personality so that we knew what we were getting into. She said that Guitara freaks out a little when she’s on a leash and sees other dogs. She’s not dog-aggressive, just very anxious to go and meet them. She needed a refresher on potty training and lots of exercise, both physically and mentally.

Because Guitara freaked out on-leash, introducing her to Joe had to be done in a very controlled environment. Joe and I headed outside to a fenced in area, while Mollie and Steve went to get Guitara. Mollie led Guitara out with treats to distract her from the fact that Joe was present. Eventually she calmed down and they met face to face.

It was at this point that I was most nervous – will he growl and show his dislike? Or will he happily sniff and accept her? They sniffed each other and quickly approved. Then they lost interest and Guitara started investigating the fenced area. It was basically like neither dog cared that the other was there, which is pretty much what we wanted. Just once there was a little chasing, another good sign.

After they “hung out” a bit, Mollie showed us how Guitara freaked out about other dogs. She would whine and pull toward the dog, maybe bark a little. Not enough of a problem to prevent Steve and I from adopting her. A bunch of paperwork later, we were walking her home across the street!

Since then we’ve changed her name to Lana. She wasn’t really responding to “Guitara” anyway, so we felt it was safe to switch. Every day we try to get them to chase each other for a little bit. Lana is a Kelpie mix, which is basically like an Australian sheep dog, so she likes to herd. Whenever they play she herds Joe into a corner. Meanwhile he tries to hump her, and sometimes she tries to hump him.

All in all they get along pretty well. I love watching them run because right in the middle they’ll flip around a couple times, making it look more like a dance then a chase. I hope they continue to get along this well and bond. Occasionally they’ll lick one another’s mouth; wait for the other by the door; and once Lana dropped her bone by Joe’s feet!

The first couple weeks are most important for a solid relationship, and week one has gone extremely well. Here’s to hoping that week two is just as great!
More Pictures

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I took this picture at Crissy Field yesterday. This little guy sat there long enough for me to get a couple of good shots. This one is my favorite. He has so much attitude. Humming birds always fascinate me, with their tiny bodies and super-fast wings.

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Joe has preferences. On several occasions I managed to catch onto what Joe was trying to tell me.

Once, I made him sit, put the food in his bowl, then told him to go ahead and eat it. He just sat there staring at me. I walked away thinking, eh, he’ll eat it. Moments later he was still standing there, staring at me. The staring wasn’t working. He started to give a low rolling growl (not at all mean sounding) and batted at his dish a little. I came over to him and thought about how he likes to back onto trees to poo. Is the dish too close to the corner? I moved the dish out a bit and viola! He began to eat.

On the other occasion Steve was trying to get Joe to roll over. He learned this a while ago, but we haven’t used it much so he sort of needs to be re-taught. In the kitchen on the hard tile floor, Steve repeatedly told Joe to lay down – the first step in teaching a dog to roll over. Once the dog is laying, you use the food to make him roll. Well when it came to the roll part Joe kept getting up really fast and running over to the coffee table. After doing this about three times I realized that he wanted to roll over on the rug under the coffee table instead of on the hard tile floor! Steve went over there and Joe rolled on the first request!

I find it so fascinating that my little doggy has managed to communicate with me despite the fact that he can’t talk. How frustrating that must be when I don’t get it right away. I realize that dogs tell their owners things all the time, like “hey, I want to go out.” But I see the things above as a little more complicated than that. I wonder what else he would tell me if he could.

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My mom made this ornament many, many years ago. Its been my favorite for as long as I can remember. I always put it as high as I can on the tree.

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Last month I finally got around to do something I’ve been interested in for many years: skydiving. I went with my friend Maritza. We decided to go on a Saturday night, and Sunday morning we were traveling across the bay to Bay Area Skydiving.

While we were signing up and getting ready, I was trying not to think about the logistics of it all. I just wanted to jump out of a plane and see how it felt to be surrounded by nothing but air (and a man strapped to your back). Our jumpers kept joking around with us as they put the gear on, I think they do that to break the ice for nervous people. I guess my biggest concern was getting motion sick. Fortunately it was not a problem.

As we left the plane I had to look up and back, he gently rocked us out and suddenly we were floating through the air. I just remember looking around and trying to take it all in so that I would remember it forever. We fell for about 2 minutes. During that time the camera guy came over to us. I blew him a kiss and he held my hands.

Then he pulled the parachute. And everything slowed down drastically. He showed me how to steer the chute, spinning us in circles really fast and then switching to the other direction. That’s when I started to feel sick. He stopped just in time and gave me the controls. It was really hard to steer, you had to pull on the ropes very hard. I didn’t turn us much. I mostly just looked around at the horizon, unobstructed by dirty glass, it was beautiful.

About 10 minutes or so later we landed on the ground. We had a pretty good landing. And I was so happy and excited about the whole thing. I would definitely do that again some day.

Here are all the pictures.

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Entire Photo Set

After an extremely wonderful wedding on October 5th, Steve and I headed off to Thailand for two weeks. We treated ourselves to business class tickets, and boy was that worth it. The seats were extra comfortable with lots of controls; they went to a nearly flat position for sleeping. Our travel time to Thailand was about 21 hours and the trip back was 24 hours (with an 8 hour layover in Seoul). Aside from great chairs, we also got five course meals, and the food was delicious! All the hostesses looked the same – young cute Asian women with their hair in a bun.

2 days in Bangkok

We didn’t like Bangkok very much. Its busy, dirty and full of car exhaust. So we spent most of the two days in our hotel room adjusting to the time difference (off by 14 hours) and just resting. I managed to catch a cold on the flight, so I wasn’t feeling up to site seeing anyway.

4 days in Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai was so much nicer than Bangkok. We both felt like we could easily breath the air without choking or shortening the length of our lives. The people were overly hospitable. One man stopped us and talked to us for a while. He gave us a whole afternoon’s worth of activities. He told us to rent a tuk-tuk driver for 50 baht an hour (about $1.44). He told the driver where to take us for lunch, then suggested a bunch of shops to check out.

The shops included a tailor, umbrella making shop, leather shop (not interested in that one), and jewelry store. At the tailor we decided to have a suit and five shirts made for Steve and two dresses for me. One of the dresses is a red Asian dress, which I’ve always wanted. Everything was so cheap, so it was hard not to buy things; and its why we couldn’t resist the tailor.

Lunch was finally a true Thai restaurant. Until this point every suggestion lead us to restaurants full of tourists. We weren’t interested in that, we wanted the real deal. This place was full of flavor and really cheap, located on a lake.

Elephant Training

While we were in Chiang Mai we took one day out to do some elephant training at the Elephant Conservation Center. We learned how to be mahouts (elephant handlers). Steve ended up with the fat male elephant who loved to eat (I often heard Steve yelling “Bai! Bai!”, which means “go forward”) and I got the slow female elephant. We were never alone with the elephants, their mahouts were always present to make sure things went well.

The day began with learning how to get on and off, how to go and stop and how to steer – all with words and our feet. After we were steering fairly well we took the elephants through the forest to the other end of the center where we watched an elephant show. Following the show we bathed the elephants, which consisted of going in the water and telling them to “lay down”.

The first time I mounted my elephant I was pretty nervous, but it wasn’t that bad. As I sat on top the mahout would hand me a few pieces of sugar cane. She would reach her trunk back and ask for the treats. i could feel her hot breath sniffing for more. She moved so slowly and deliberately, and she had a very bristly head.

We also had the chance to feed a baby elephant and her mom. She was so cute and nimbly. She kept trying to escape over the pen. And she was so strong, you really don’t want to let her wrap her trunk around your wrist – bad idea, lesson learned!

5 days in Koh Samui

The best part of the trip, save the elephants, was sitting on the beach and doing absolutely nothing. Our cabana was in the front row, right on the beach. We were about 30 feet from the water, the Gulf of Thailand.

We lounged around and read books or played cards all day. For the first four nights we would hang out with our cabana neighbors, Monika and Tim. They were from Trier, Germany. We would sit on their porch drinking Singha, getting to know one another and exchanging cultural knowledge. We had a blast laughing and talking.

One of the nights we went to dinner we ended up at a Pad Thai place. We sat down and they just served us noodles, no choices. The bill for the four of us was 180 baht, $5.18!

One of the striking things about Thailand is all the stray or wild dogs. Our resort had a chow mix that they seemed to be taking care of, but she had not tags and obviously hadn’t been to a vet. We named her Lanna. She had three puppies that were also running around, playing and yelping.

My only small complaints about the resort would be the hard bed and showering in brackish water, though the shower was outdoors, which was awesome.

1 more day in Bangkok

Our original plan was two last days in Bangkok, but since we didn’t like it, we exchanged that extra day for Koh Samui. So our last day was a bit odd. We flew there in the morning, checked into our hotel, then had to check out that same night at 11pm to fly home. Strange, but it was nice to shower in regular water before we left.

Our journey home was long; a 6 hour flight to Seoul, an 8 hour layover, then 10 hours back to San Francisco. The layover wasn’t that bad though. Because we had business class tickets we had access to a very nice lounge. It had massage chairs, food, drinks, TV, magazines. Couldn’t complain too much. If you get the chance to fly business, I highly recommend it.

All in all it was a great honeymoon

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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.

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