See the photo to the right? Do you know what that is? You probably don't recognize it, but it's matzoh. Homemade matzoh to be exact. That's right, I made my own matzoh, so you'll have to forgive me if it doesn't look perfect.
Now you may be asking yourself, why would Dave make his own matzoh? He's not the most observant Jew and I've never seen him buy matzoh, let alone make it. Well, I'll tell you why. Because there is absolutely NO MATZOH in all of San Francisco! Seriously. We're talking not a single piece of unleavened bread to be found. The handful of grocery stores that we called put the blame on a distributor. Maybe so, but I can guarantee that they never run out of matzoh in NY. Clearly there aren't enough Jews out here. No wonder they can't make a decent bagel.
We've already established that I'm not Mr. Super Jew, but Lyla goes to preschool at the JCC and she's been singing Passover-related songs for weeks now. The guy from Comcast Cable got treated to the following ditty last week:
"Hamen. Hamen. The Jews will never bow down. NO THEY WON'T!"
He probably thinks we're part of some cult. In any case, all of Lyla's singing and story telling got Tracy all psyched up to do a seder. Next thing you know we're on the hunt for matzoh. Admittedly, we waited until the last minute. But still, not one box to be found?!
All kidding aside, it has actually been kind of cool to listen to Lyla spout off about all the Jewish stuff she's learning at school. Through her, I guess I'm reliving my days in Hebrew school way back when. Goodness, I'm getting all verklempt! I can't ever see us getting all religious or anything, but maybe Lyla's one year at the JCC will give us enough of a kick in the ass to at least celebrate holidays other than just Hanukkah.
Lest people's expectations (mom, dad .. this means you) start getting too high, I should point out the second photo, our seder plate. The orange thing is a shankbone that Lyla cut out of paper. :-)
The highlight of our trip to Tahoe was sledding with Lyla. A close second, though, was Riaz introducing me to Jose Cuervo Reserva de la Familia. Quite simply, the best tequila I've ever had.
For the most part, I haven't been able to drink tequila since Senior Dinner at my fraternity house back in 1989. In a spectacular display of binge drinking and general irresponsibility, each senior picks a bottle of booze and calls up underclassmen to do shots until the bottle is gone. If you're going to drink half a bottle of booze, why not tequila, right? Cuervo 1800 was my weapon of choice.
Side Note #1: Lyla, Adrian - Do as I say, not as I do.
Side Note #2: See the formative years of the Multiply management team in the photo to the right. Michael and Peter were the first two guys I called up to do shots with me, and it seems like they've been making me pay for it ever since. :-)
I realize that having a "tequila incident" makes me about as unique as being right-handed or having brown hair. Seems like just about everyone has had one. The point is that for longest time I couldn't even bear to be near an open bottle of tequila, let alone drink some. That tequila smell would instantly trigger the gag reflex. All of you right-handed brunettes know exactly what I'm talking about.
With the passage of time and the advent of premium tequilas like Herradura and Patron, I've been able to stomach the (very) occasional shot. The notion of actually sipping tequila though was still utterly repulsive.
Nearly twenty years on, I can finally welcome tequila back into my life. Reserva is so smooth that it's a pleasure to sip straight up. No mixers. No rocks. It has many of the qualities that have caused me to explore whiskey (bourbon, specifically) in recent years. Its got a smokey caramel flavor, but it goes down much smoother than whiskey.
I haven't had any other ultra-premium tequilas yet, but so far Reserva is in a class of its own. For as good as Herradura Reposado is, by comparison its a lot closer to that old school bottle of Cuervo Gold than it is to Reserva. Do your self a favor and pick up a bottle. It runs between $80 and $100, but it's worth every penny.
Now if you'll excuse me, tequila and I have to make up for lost time!
Anyone have a recommendation on a good travel pillow? With board meetings every other month now, I see lots of cross-country red-eye flights in my future. I've tried a couple of the inflatable neck pillows with minimal success. My sleep is in your hands. Help!
I saw this in the deli where I buy my lunches. Clamato juice makes for a fine bloody mary, but mixed with beer? Kind of sounds gross. So gross that I was tempted to try. I just didn't want to be that guy walking out of the deli with a tall-boy in a bag at lunch time. :-)
I might have to bite the bullet one of these days though and have my own little Chelada happy hour.
Potrero Hill is a relatively fog free neighborhood in San Francisco, but we've become used to seeing the fog creep in to the surrounding parts of the city on many mornings. Earlier this week the fog was snaking right through the buildings downtown. Very creepy effect.
Today was a first though. I'd never seen the fog come all the way up the hill. As you can see from the picture below, we normally have a great view of the entire downtown area and the Bay bridge. This morning we could barely see past our neighbor's house.
They say that when Potrero Hill is foggy, the entire city is foggy. That was definitely the case this morning!
Got my first taste of what an earthquake is like last night. Its quite likely that there have been many small ones since I've been out in San Francisco, but they've been so small that I was never sure it was actually the real thing.
No question about it last night though! At first it just started out as a loud rumbling noise that I thought might have just been a truck going by the house. Then I felt a little vibration for a few seconds. After that the house actually started to shake! Not violently enough for anything to fall, but I could definitely see the TV moving. After just a few seconds, the novelty changed into concern that it was going to continue to get worse. Just as I got up out of my chair to go downstairs to get Tracy and the kids, it was over.
When I got down to Lyla's room, she and Tracy were completely oblivious. They didn't feel anything. At a 5.6, it was apparently a decent sized quake, but our neighborhood is sitting on solid bedrock so we didn't feel it as strongly as other people did.
This one was no big deal, but I can see how a stronger one that lasted longer would definitely be a pretty disconcerting experience.
(CNN) -- A moderate earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.6 struck Northern California Tuesday night, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The quake's epicenter was about five miles north-northeast of Alum Rock, California, and nine miles northeast of San Jose's City Hall, the USGS said. It hit at 8:04 p.m. (11:04 p.m. ET).
There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties. Rafael Abreu of the USGS said that a 5.6 quake was considered moderate but could provide "a pretty strong jolt."
The earthquake's epicenter was 5.7 miles below the Earth's surface. Earthquakes centered close to the surface produce stronger shaking and generally can cause more damage than those farther underground.
Alum Rock is 50 miles southeast of San Francisco.
The quake was centered in the Diablo Range foothills, not far from the home of the Mayor, Chuck Reed, The Associated Press reported.
"It was a pretty strong ride here, a lot of shaking but nothing broken," Reed told the AP in a phone interview. "I've talked to a few people, and we have no reports of injuries or damage. There was a lot of shaking, but it wasn't the big one."
Rod Foo, who resides in southern San Jose about 10 miles from the quake's center, told the news agency that the his home did not lose power or phone service.
"I could hear it coming up the street before it hit the house," Foo told the AP. "I thought it was the kids messing around at first; then I felt the house shaking and I knew it was an earthquake. ... It was rattling for a long time and really loud."
Started off my morning in fine fashion today. We brought Lyla to the doctor to get a flu shot and on the way out it had started to rain. After getting the kids into the car, I ran around to my side and in my haste to get in out of the rain I opened the door right into my forehead. Gave myself a nice gash.
Since I was already at a doctor's office, I just ran back upstairs and had her doctor clean me up and tape the wound closed. Not that I didn't trust him, but I then went to a dermatologist to make sure that I wasn't going to have a nasty scar. He said my modeling career is probably over, but the scar shouldn't be too bad as long as I don't mess with the wound and keep it closed.
My forehead is starting to pulse, so I think I'll go lie down now. Good times. :-)
I want to get a couple of bluetooth headsets, one for me and one for Tracy. Ease of use and hands-free operation in the car will be most important for Tracy, and sound quality for me. Any advice? The BlueAnt Z9 seems to get good reviews.
Also, will I be able to use the headset with two different devices at once? At work I'd like to be able to take calls from both my iphone and my laptop (i.e. skype, etc.).
Today marks three weeks out in San Francisco and all I can say is that its been borderline insanity.
I got out to San Francisco on the 8th and after one night at Shane's house, I spent the next eight nights on an air mattress in the new house. Just me, one of the cats (Lasher) and a laptop, although my new 46" LCD TV did show up after a few days to keep me company as well! Just minutes after walking into the house for the first time on Friday the 9th, I got a call from the Mayflower driver saying that he would be there the following Tuesday morning to deliver our stuff. I was pretty psyched, as this was the first day in the delivery window they had given us.
The goal of me being out in San Fran by myself was to get the place as ready as possible before Tracy and the kids arrived, and I certainly did the best I could. I had painters out to paint the kids's room, an electrician out to fix wiring problems, I installed custom closets, had a security system installed, had all of the utilities set up, in addition to a dozen other small projects. I also bought a car and found office space. Not bad for the first week!
Over the weekend I bought plane tickets for me to go out to St. Louis Friday the 17th to pick up the family and bring them out to San Fran. I figured that would give me three days to get most of the unpacking done. I woke up bright and early Tuesday morning to get ready for the movers. My phone rang at 7:30am and, instead of telling me he was out front, the driver informs me that he's not coming until Friday. He broke down in Reno over the weekend. Someone was supposed to have called me. Guess that someone forgot.
Needless to say, I was pissed. In addition to more nights on the air mattress, I've got a 2:05pm flight to St. Louis on Friday with movers now coming that morning. My options were to change the flights, which would have cost me a small fortune, or to pray that the movers got there on time and got everything unloaded in time for me to make the flight. I decided to roll the dice, which obviously meant that instead of everything being unpacked when the family arrived, nothing would be unpacked.
Fast forward to Friday morning. Again I get a call from the driver first thing in the morning. Again I'm expecting him to tell me he's out front. Again I'm disappointed. He says that he can't get his rig up the hills in my neighborhood. Probably an issue that would have been good to identify before the morning of the delivery. Have they never delivered to San Francisco before?! He said that they would have to transfer my load to a smaller truck to shuttle it up to the house.
At this point I figured I was screwed and was going to have to cancel all the flights. Best case I'd be getting my stuff later that day. I will give him credit, though, for dealing with the situation pretty quickly. I get a call from him three hours later, at 10:30am, and this time he finally is in fact in front of my house ready to deliver.
I made it clear to the driver that I had a flight to catch and that time was of the essence, but he was way out of shape and only had one other guy helping him. As the morning went on, I kept revising my drop-dead time for having to leave for the airport in order to make my 2:05 flight.
The last item was brought into the house at 1:20pm. I signed the papers, rushed them out the door, and nearly ran them over in the driveway as I sped off to the airport. All I had with me was an empty duffel bag to help bring stuff back. Since my return flight was 9:15am the next morning, I wouldn't need much. By some miracle, I actually made my flight. Got the car parked, cut to the front of the ticketing and security lines, and then sprinted through the terminal in my socks to get to the gate. Talk about a stressful day.
Of course, my connecting flight in Denver was delayed a couple of hours so, as usual, I got to spend some quality time in the Denver airport. Didn't get to St. Louis until midnight. Despite not getting much sleep, the next morning was great because I hadn't seen Tracy and the kids for almost two weeks. We got everyone packed up and out the door at the crack of dawn and were on our way to San Fran. I had a full nine hours in St. Louis. :-)
Needless to say, the following week was total chaos as we tried to get unpacked and get Tracy acclimated to her new surroundings. We've still got a ways to go, but most of the boxes are gone and the place looks more like a home than a war zone. We got Tracy a GPS for the car so she can navigate her way around town. San Francisco, especially our neighborhood, is much more of a car-oriented town than Manhattan and that's been a big adjustment for her.
Despite all the chaos we've managed to have some fun. We went over to Golden Gate Park one weekend and to a place called Children's Fairyland over in the East Bay last weekend. We're entering the warm season here in SF so the weather has been awesome. Lyla seems to be adjusting very easily. She loves the new house with her decked out pink room and a back yard to play in. She starts her new school on Tuesday, and I suspect that will be a little more problematic.
Definitely not an experience I'd like to go through again any time soon, but now that the worst is over I'm starting to get excited about exploring the area.
We've got this nice spacious two-car garage waiting for us in San Fran and it needs some automobiles to go in it. At this point, we're just going to get one for Tracy and probably get one for me down the road a bit.
We're looking for something a little bit luxury, a little bit SUV and a lot safe. It seems like cars are far more expensive now than when I last bought one. Oh well.
The three cars on the radar are the Lexus RX350, Acura RDX and Nissan Murano. We looked at the Mazda CX-7, but Tracy was a little unimpressed. Really like the Volvo XC90, but unless we go pre-owned it's way too much money and kind of a gas guzzler.
Anyone have opinions on these cars, or any others that would fit the bill?
Little Adrian was born Sunday night at 9:24pm, he weighed in at 7.2oz. and measuring 20 inches.
Apparently Tracy knows something about birthin those babies, because Adrian popped out just 3.5 hours after her water broke, and just over two hours after we got to the hospital. Given how fast Lyla was born, and hearing how second babies can come much faster (like Chloe Pezaris!), you'd thi
nk we would have booked it straight for the hospital as soon as Tracy's water broke. Getting there with two hours to spare doesn't seem like it's cutting it all that close, and it really wasn't, but unfortunately for Tracy it meant no epidural.
Tracy had been taking heparin
during the pregnancy, and it had to be out of her system in order for her to get an epidural. Unfortunately, we didn't factor in the time it would take to get her blood tested to verify this. By the time the results came back, it was too late. Not even 15 minutes later, while waiting for anaesthesia to arrive, she got hit with the mother of all contractions.
To put things in perspective, Tracy has got a really high pain threshold (unlike me!) and definitely isn't a screamer. Well, that changed pretty fast. Up until this point, he
r contractions had been met with a clenched face and maybe some quick breaths. When she started screaming, I knew we were talking about some serious pain. The most pain I've ever felt was when the anaesthesia wore off after my shoulder surgery. I think that was probably a low grade headache compared to what Tracy was feeling.
After two of those hellacious contractions, we figured it was time to get some help. Within minutes the doctor and nurses were getting everything set up and Adrian was out about 15 minutes later. I guess the good part about not having the epidural was that it sped things up. I'm pretty sure she only pushed twice. I'm not sure how much of a consolation that was for Tracy though. She really wanted that epidural! The whole time the nurses
were scrambling to set up, Tracy was telling them how she still wanted the epidural. They knew that we were way past that point though and did a good job of keeping her from freaking out.
The little guy actually slept pretty well his first night, although I think Tracy was too uncomfortable to get much sleep herself. I brought Lyla over to meet her baby brother yesterday and then we both came home, leaving Tracy and Adrian at the hospital. That was definitely a little strange, but I guess the game changes when you've already got one at home to take care of.
Everyone is home now and doing well. Big thanks to Lisa for coming over at a moment's notice on Sunday night to babysit Lyla!
I don't bring my lunch all that often, maybe a couple of times each week, but I'm still amazed at how often I get the "butt" end of the loaf of bread. Michael (who shares the office with me) often speculates about how much bread Tracy and Lyla go through at our house because I seem to *always* have a butt end on my sandwich.
Although they tend to be thicker than a regular slice of bread, I don't really mind them that much. However, there were many occasions where I'd get a double-butt sandwich, and frankly, that's just too much to handle! After being mocked by Michael, and getting a few gentle complaints from me, Tracy has tried to eliminate the double butts. Last week though I got one again ... maybe just for old time's sake?
This past Sunday afternoon, our favorite "kids" band performed on the pier in front of our apartment building. Any parents out there already know that all your cool music has gone the way of Laurie Berkner, Dan Zanes and the theme song from every show your child watches. AudraRox is by far the best of the bunch though and, believe it or not, I've actually been really looking forward to seeing them play. They're a Brooklyn-based band and they have regular "Kidpalooza" shows over there, but this was a rare show in Manhattan. If you didn't listen too closely to the lyrics, you probably wouldn't even think that they were a kids band.
They put on a great show and interacted a lot with the kids in front of the stage. Anyone local should definitely check them out. For the rest of you, I would recommend picking up their CD "I Can Do it By Myself" for the kids (and you!).
Its amazing! This camera takes pictures of what you'll look like in the future. Based on my current hairline, I'd say we're looking about three years out....if I'm lucky! ;-)
I've been to this building three times now and every time the photo comes out like this. I think the combination of the camera shooting up at your face and a super bright light pointing straight down at the top of your head creates a perfect storm. Or, in my case, a nice bald head.
Well, at least I no longer have to wonder what I'll look like when I'm bald(er).
January. New York. 70 degrees. Something just isn't right here! But, I'll take it. :-)
For those that care, here's an interesting article in New York magazine that explains the strange weather we're having. Its mostly due to the return of El Niño.
Some guy in my office building apparently feels the need to unclog his nose while taking a leak. He likes to leave the evidence on the wall above the urinal for everyone to see. I'm not sure how often the cleaning crew cleans the mens room, but its either not very often or they are making a statement by not removing the booger.
This morning I was delighted to see that someone took matters into their own hands and said what the rest of us have been thinking. Thanks for the snot, you stupid asshole! :-)
Note that I cropped the actual booger out of the photo for those of you who haven't yet eaten lunch.
I'd like to play around with some video conferencing. Maybe let the grandparents video chat with Lyla. On CNET, the webcam of choice seems to be the Logitech QuickCam Pro 4000 or 5000, although none of them really get stellar reviews.
This song was playing over the closing credits of the last episode of Entourage (which I'm just now getting into). The song really stuck with me and I just found the video for it on YouTube. Check it out...
I came across an interesting site called wayfaring a while back. It allows you to create maps (a mashup with Google) with multiple "waypoints". To try it out, I created a map with a bunch of my favorite NYC restaurants. Click on each waypoint to get more information. In some cases I've provided links to reviews I've written here on Multiply.
I Can Do it By Myself!
