in the past year ..

• i went hiking with my college friend jeff and his wife
• i had ranier up for several weekends, though not for a while.
• i evaded getting mugged.
• i fixed a stuck shutter by myself
• finally made it to burning man. i thought about you a lot. ryan and i baked 400 cookies to bring with is. it was crazy!
• i perfected my steak marinade.
• got fed up at affy and left. working at a better company closer to home now.
• took a week long solitary vacation to barstow. it was awesome. i want to go back.
• my friend emery’s mother passed away. i feel more grown up now.
• took a class on studio lighting, bought a grown-up set of gear. i still use that novatron set you and i bought for tom.
• been talking with other schlachets. remember eli down in san diego? one of his kids goes to berkeley now.
• got about half way through those slides. i’m still learning from you.
• started an actual photo project. shooting vacuum tubes. i love it. been going to flea markets hunting for them. reminds me of the old ham radio festivals.

anyways,

today is bike to work day and i drove in.

lorna’s moving this anniversary to december like it should be. but tonight is family night. picking up ryan and heading down the house after work today.

see you there.

ryan and i reorganized the wine. much easier to access now. there are several bottles that should be opened at the next chance. several that are probably at their prime now. and several i finally put into styrofoam containers for long term storage.

lots of cab and zin, plenty of port.

the amount of wine is still roughly what it was at last count: lots.

yesterday i got some printing done. this is the movie prop tube, printed on 11×14 glossy fiber paper. i’ve forgotten how tough it is to get these to dry flat. but properly mounted and framed they should be fine. i’m proud of how these came out. i think my goal is to get prints done of three images for an initial set in this series. this was a great first step towards actual results. who knows. another couple steps, and i’ll have an actual product i could sell.

i enjoy finding cool new places, especially for special occasions.

for ryan’s birthday, we went to the dining room at the ritz-carlton hotel. why not? it’s not every day you get to go to a nice restaurant in such a nice hotel.

we went on ryan’s birthday, a thursday. we were one of about five tables and easily the youngest patrons. one of the wait staff asked us how we found out about their restaurant and how we liked it. he noted that they were trying to get a younger more dynamic crowd in, especially on weekdays, and we should let our friends know.

first, this is a top notch hotel. the chef in this hotel’s restaurant was the first american to win the iron chef competition in japan. the service was amazing, easily in my top 5. and the main dish i ordered.. the roast duck, was probably the best duck i’ve ever had.

san francisco has so many great restaurants.. i feel pretty spoiled.