April 2005 Archives

Giovanni's has done a lot to assuage my homesick desire for real pizza. It's not perfect, but it fills the hole. Similarly, a friend turned me on to House of Bagels, and as long as you avoid the one on Lawrence Expwy, I'll grant you they something better than the round pieces of bread the likes of Noah's tries to pass off as bagels. They're not Schwartz's (Sorry, I know intellectually that H&H are better than Schwartz's but for some reason when I'm jonesing for a bagel fix, I'm daydreaming about the Southside of Pittsburgh.) but they'll do.

The one item I've not yet found: pickles. PDC used to have barrels of them, in a "take as many as you'd like" kind of set up. A friend of mine who was living in Fremont got so bad that he took to having cases of Ba-Tampte Half Sours Fed-Ex'ed from Brooklyn. Unfortunately (for me) he's found his way back to Old New York.

I've been toying with that idea for some time, but it seems excessive. There HAS to be a decent deli around here somewhere (though I suspect I'll have to go north to find it). I recently ran across something intriguing. Trader Joes' Half-Sour Kosher Dills. Once again, in a side-by-side comparison, they'd not stand up to a Ba-Tempte or Guss'. They're not as crunchy as I'd like, though they're better than the flaccid spears most of the sandwich shops around here use. BUT they taste right!, oh, do they taste right. I missed that experience.

I share this experience for two reasons. I suspect I'm not the only one in this predicament, and someone else can benefit from my discovery (incidentally, if you're interested in splitting shipping costs, let me know). Also, if any of you have been keeping a deli to yourself, because you didn't think the philistine Californians would understand, please speak up.

Hmm, I think I'll have one right now. Breakfast of Champions.

At this moment, I am sitting in my backyard with a glass of cider at my side and my bare feet swishing through the grass. Technology is grand. This is a much more civilized way to spend an evening than my evenings of late. I'm feeling more relaxed than I have in some time. In the back of my mind, I have blog entries in the works hanging over my head, but it's hardly a Sword of Damocles, and who knows, I may yet get to one of them.

This afternoon my employers took us all out to Campo di Bocce as a show of gratitude for our delivering our 2.2 release, and making our numbers this past quater. We had a nice lunch, and then retired to the courts.

This was an altogether different experience from playing in my grandparents (Nazzaro, to give you some perspective) backyard. First of all, there was alcohol involved (well, ok, that's not different, but I was partaking). On the whole, though, there was a lot less yelling and gesticulating (and tantrums, and nobody was ever struck with a flying pallino). A very different game, indeed.

But on the whole, I enjoyed myself, and I might consider going back at a future date. I'll even promise to be on my best behavior.

I think I'll working the photos I took instead of the entries that are still rolling around in my head.

This is getting ridiculous. It's been over 3 weeks since I've come back from Maui, and I still haven't posted any of the three or four blog entries I mentally outlined. Work has been CRAZY, so I don't know if I'll get to them all, but things are beginning to fall out of my head. So here goes the first one.

For those of you who don't know, Chiara and I did a Sierra Club Service Trip in the Honokowai Valley on Maui. It was a 10 day trip that we rounded out to a full 2 weeks. The whole trip was amazing! We saw and experienced so much of the island, and spent time on many things most tourists pass by without even being aware it's there.

It was such a rewarding experience. We were able to take a wonderful vacation, while also giving a little something back to the community we were visiting. Everybody wins. Two weeks was the perfect amount of time. It was long enough that we didn't feel rushed (though some of the breakneck scheduling done by the Club helped us get to things we wouldn't have otherwise) and let us relax completely, yet it was just about over as we started to get antsy about going home.

Over the course of these two weeks I took 1900 (!!) photos. Some of those were at 5 per second on the whale watching trips. But that wasn't the majority.

I've pruned that to the 400 "essential" photos I uploaded to Flickr, but I thought I'd pull out a few (too many in the end, but I can't prune any farther) highlights, and describe my trip.

Essentially, this is the modern equivalent to an invitation to "come over and watch my slides from the trip." On the plus side, you can go at your own pace (or skip them entirely). On the down side, there will be no popcorn or cocktails, unless you provide them.

The images on this page will take some time to load, to be kind to you folks (and Flickr), I'll put them below the fold.