
<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-31-cards-by-joyce/5307297815_cdbeaf53f3_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image post-thumb" title="Marga's Birthday Card">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-31-cards-by-joyce/5307297815_9c3cdb0c2d_t.jpg" alt="Marga's Birthday Card"/>
</a>

My grandmother, Joyce Rasmussen, has always been interested in arts and crafts. She has made baskets, pottery, needlework, crochet, knitting, paper-mí¢ché, and origami. What she's really been excelling at recently is making elaborate homemade greeting cards. Ever since getting a personal computer back in the late eighties, she has been fond of printing her own greeting cards, which involves choosing appropriate clipart and writing a nice message. I have always appreciated her cards more because I know that the sentiment comes directly from her, not Hallmark™.

At some point the idea occurred to her that if she cut a perfect circle of just the right radius in the front of the card with an X-Acto knife, then one of her origami chrysanthemums would fit there perfectly and be both held tightly in place and completely cover the hole. This discovery ushered in a Renaissance in Joyce-made greeting cards. <a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-31-cards-by-joyce/5307304665_f0538a25e9_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Erik's 31st Birthday Card">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-31-cards-by-joyce/5307304665_eb335c3b84.jpg" alt="Erik's 31st Birthday Card"/>
</a>

A birthday card of mine from 2009. The little plastic jewel sticker in the center of the flower serves to hold down all the folds.

[![Erik's 31st Birthday Card (inside)](https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-31-cards-by-joyce/5307898564_50412d29f8.jpg "Erik's 31st Birthday Card (inside)")](http://www.flickr.com/photos/erikrasmussen/5307898564 "View 'Erik's 31st Birthday Card (inside)' on Flickr.com")

This is what the card look like on the inside. The flaps already present in the design of this origami flower hold it in place. No glue necessary.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-31-cards-by-joyce/5307302815_4a0a6ee538_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Second Anniversary Card">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-31-cards-by-joyce/5307302815_d45d6b0c7a.jpg" alt="Second Anniversary Card"/>
</a>

This card was for our second wedding anniversary. The origami flower trick works perfectly on top of flowery clipart.

Just this month I've seen a brand new technique for greeting card decoration, one that I would never have come up with: sewing. If your card stock is strong enough, why not poke holes in it with a needle and pull some thread through? What could you create with this technique? Just about anything, actually...

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-31-cards-by-joyce/5307297815_cdbeaf53f3_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Marga's Birthday Card">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-31-cards-by-joyce/5307297815_9c3cdb0c2d.jpg" alt="Marga's Birthday Card"/>
</a>

This is Marga's birthday card she opened yesterday. How did she do that? Curious, I peeled back the white paper perfectly pasted in the inside to cover the back of the sewing.

[![Marga's Birthday Card (Inside)](https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-31-cards-by-joyce/5307301155_c3a02c6372.jpg "Marga's Birthday Card (Inside)")](http://www.flickr.com/photos/erikrasmussen/5307301155 "View 'Marga's Birthday Card (Inside)' on Flickr.com")

Wow! A perfect circle of holes, with radial lines of holes, and then an awful lot of clever sewing, with loose threads held neatly in place with tape. Amazing!

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-31-cards-by-joyce/5307897046_6fed5ee3f3_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Three Wise Men, Ephiphany Card">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-31-cards-by-joyce/5307897046_58700fbede.jpg" alt="Three Wise Men, Ephiphany Card"/>
</a>

This past Thanksgiving, Marga specifically requested a Christmas card with the Three Wise Men on it, since they play a more central role in Spanish Christmas. The result, using silver thread, was beautifully elegant.

By far the most creative card I've seen from my grandmother was for our third wedding anniversary this year. It was a 3D popup card made from one of our wedding photos. I'm fairly familiar with how to make what are called "virtual 3D photos". I've been meaning to play around with the technique sometime. Here's a [great tutorial on it](http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/virtual_3d_photos/). The trick is to cut out an object in the foreground and then somehow fill in the background behind it by guessing what it probably looked like. Usually this involves using the Photoshop clone tool or copying some other similar part of the background and pasting it in the hole where you cut out the foreground figure. This is pretty easy with Photoshop, particularly with CS5's ["content aware" feature](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtQs-oS92xc).

What really blew my mind was that my grandmother did all this **_by hand_**, with actual cutting _with scissors_ and actual pasting _with glue_. The effect was nearly seamless, and if I hadn't been educated in how this technique is done digitally, I might not have even noticed that it had been done at all, which is about the highest compliment you can give to a special effect. I couldn't take a good photo of the card to demonstrate just how incredibly done it was, so I had to record a video. Check this out!

[![](https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-31-cards-by-joyce/51X80EA7TRL._SL160_.jpg)](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1579909876?ie=UTF8&tag=eriksblog07-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1579909876)![](http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=eriksblog07-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1579909876)The popup card was actually made from two [different](http://www.flickr.com/photos/erikrasmussen/2312814841/) [photos](http://www.flickr.com/photos/erikrasmussen/2313651972/), but we still had to be removed from the background photo.

Update: My grandmother tells me that the inspiration for these cards, with the exception of the 3D popup, came from her daughter, my Aunt Carol. When Carol visited in October of this year, she brought along a book called [_Sewing on Paper_](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1579909876?ie=UTF8&tag=eriksblog07-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1579909876), from which they learned various techniques.


Cards by Joyce


![thumb](https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-30-nora-wake-up/1.jpg)Last night, Nora couldn't sleep from 12:30 to 2:30, which wasn't very pleasant for anyone. As a result, it was 10:20 this morning when I decided to wake her up. It was strange to have our waking roles reversed. Normally she gets me up anywhere between 7:00 and 9:00.

I think what is ultimately so cute about babies (and monkeys) is just how much like us they are. Their little sneezes and burps and coughs are exactly like those of adults. So, too, is how they wake up. Annoyed at being woken up, and with a strong temptation to lie back down and go back to sleep. 

Also available in super hi-def 1080p grogginess if you [click through](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hj96uT1QN7g) to YouTube.


Nora, Wake Up


![thumb](https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-30-where-are-all-the-video-emails/default.jpg)With the release of the iPhone 4, and similar competitors, in 2010, video phone calls are just now starting to become more commonplace, although they are often less comfortable or convenient than regular voice calls. Webcam video chatting has been gaining in popularity over the last decade, but it has still been a bit cumbersome, usually requiring a lot of pre-communication communication to decide on a time for the call.

I had one of the very first computer webcams, the [Connectix QuickCam](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QuickCam), back in 1995. I took it with me to college and actually video chatted with my parents a few times from my college dorm room. At the time, the webcam software and propaganda was very excited about the idea of "video email", and that, in the very near future, we'd all be sending short video recordings to each other like on Star Trek. But then again, everyone thought we'd be surfing the web in 3D with [VRML](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vrml) by the end of the millennium, too. The iPhone 4, and other front-facing camera phones, have finally lowered the hassle level of sending a video email, a requisite for any technology taking off. Bandwidth speeds and video compression algorithms are now good enough that a 30 second video clip can be downloaded in less than 20 seconds.

Even with all this level of ease, I still don't think video emails will become standard any time soon. Google's increasingly popular [Google Voice](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vrml) service is handy specifically because it is moving in the _opposite_ direction, translating spoken voice messages into text. Text is the most efficient way we receive communication, since most people can read faster than they can talk. It's also much easier to edit and perfect just what you want to say in text than with video (e.g. "Darn, that's not what I meant. Let's record another take!")

One might think that if the literacy rate continues to drop, voice and video emails might become more popular, but one look at social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook confirms that a lack of literacy doesn't seem to be stopping anyone.

### A Case Study

For a couple weeks now, I've been working on getting Nora to say "Good morning". She doesn't yet say it perfectly and requires some prodding in the morning to say it, but she's made some progress. Earlier in the week, I thought that if I could pair "good morning" with "grandma", a word she knows well (she says "meh-mah"), it might be nice to record a little video to send to my mother for her to see when she woke up. It only took about four takes, and then another thirty minutes for her to stop saying "Good morning, Grandma!" Not surprisingly, we had a video response in our inbox the next morning. This time in our response, we tried saying "Good morning, grandpa!" as well, but to limited success. It was a fun experiment this week, but our vocabulary has run out, I think.

Perhaps one day we will be recording messages back and forth all day long, but I suspect that people will still be typing with their fingers and scrolling through text on screens at the end of the twenty-first century.


Where are all the video emails?


<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-28-christmas-2010/5300213400_c478de36db_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image post-thumb" title="Santa Scales Wall">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-28-christmas-2010/5300213400_49ffe9f3c0_t.jpg" alt="Santa Scales Wall"/>
</a>

We had a nice Christmas celebration. My Spanish family does a big Christmas celebration with aunts and uncles and cousins on odd numbered years, and the big get together on New Years Eve on even numbered years, so this year was a small Christmas celebration with just my wife's parents, sister, and grandfather. As with most holidays, tradition rules, so the meals are pretty similar every year. Jumbo shrimp, stuffed eggs, paté, and _gildas_ are the usual appetizers. We also had a fun time making a racket singing traditional Spanish Christmas carols.  <a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-28-christmas-2010/5299607027_141b7d1122_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Local Fishmonger, Christmas Eve">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-28-christmas-2010/5299607027_d0099b6b00.jpg" alt="Local Fishmonger, Christmas Eve"/>
</a>

The local fishmonger was as full as I've ever seen it on Christmas Eve morning. Shellfish is a major holiday staple across Spain. The lobsters, tagged as having come from Canada, were still sluggishly moving about on the ice.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-28-christmas-2010/5300210250_7e6bf45e8c_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Langostinos, Jumbo Shrimp">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-28-christmas-2010/5300210250_366e92dcda.jpg" alt="Langostinos, Jumbo Shrimp"/>
</a>

_Langostinos a la plancha_ = grilled jumbo shrimp

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-28-christmas-2010/5300208676_fafc9a8676_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Stuffed Eggs">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-28-christmas-2010/5300208676_e476399dab.jpg" alt="Stuffed Eggs"/>
</a>

Eggs stuffed with crab meat.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-28-christmas-2010/5299608871_6856c3f413_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Gildas">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-28-christmas-2010/5299608871_01597d37dd.jpg" alt="Gildas"/>
</a>

_Gilda_ = 1 hot pepper + 1 anchovy + 1 olive. They are named after the 1946 Rita Hayworth film because their shape resembles her hourglass figure. If there was ever a word coined by an inebriated man at a bar, this is it.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-28-christmas-2010/5299660519_10306fd8fc_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Christmas Flan">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-28-christmas-2010/5299660519_f857cfa6fa.jpg" alt="Christmas Flan"/>
</a>

Mmmm.. Flan!

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-28-christmas-2010/5299613411_d1340a4065_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="No more honey-flavored Wild Turkey">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-28-christmas-2010/5299613411_892a918a08.jpg" alt="No more honey-flavored Wild Turkey"/>
</a>

After the meal, I helped polish off a bottle of Wild Turkey that my parents gave my grandfather-in-law a few years back. Among the bottles that get taken out every year is a bottle of [patxaran](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patxaran) from 1993.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-28-christmas-2010/5300235180_d352f034ed_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Snow on Udalaitz">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-28-christmas-2010/5300235180_104f81a243.jpg" alt="Snow on Udalaitz"/>
</a>

We had only light flurries of snow on Christmas day, but the mountains around us were covered. This is _Udalaitz_, the largest mountain overlooking the town of Mondragón.

Nora enjoyed a ride on a carousel set up in town for the holidays. This time she was in a Ferarri. I was there with her and very nearly got dizzy.

We sang traditional Spanish Christmas carols. Since I only ever hear them one night a year, and the lyrics vary from family to family (and thus cannot be found on the internet), I have yet to learn the lyrics, except to the most repetitive songs. The bizarre percussion instrument is called a _zambomba_, or [friction drum](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friction_drum), and must be played with a wet hand, which vibrates on a cane shaft and is magnified by a drum head. Nora had a delightful time with all the music.


Christmas 2010


<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285717080_021ddea9f4_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image post-thumb" title="Semana del Pincho 2010">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285717080_b69f2a8a0d_t.jpg" alt="Semana del Pincho 2010"/>
</a>

It's that time of year again. Time to walk through the chilly air from bar to bar in Laredo, Spain, eating elaborate tapas, called _pinchos_, and imbibing fine wine. This is the third year, and it seems to be getting better every year. The _Semana del Pincho_ is one Christmas tradition I could definitely get used to. Before we get to the mouthwatering photos, I'd like to quote myself from [last year](/2009/12/22/semana-del-pincho-2-laredo/) about why I like this event so much: 

> There are several reasons why I am in favor of this festival as a general local citizen. It gets people out into local establishments, spending money and applying social lubricant, it provides a stage for local restaurateurs to showcase their craft, and it generally makes for a more contented populous. Triple win!

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285717080_021ddea9f4_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Semana del Pincho 2010">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285717080_b69f2a8a0d.jpg" alt="Semana del Pincho 2010"/>
</a>

Here's [the PDF of the brochure](http://www.laredo.es/09/archivos/Folleto%20III%20Semana%20del%20Pincho%2020101291999045.pdf).

I'll present the tapas in the order that I consumed them.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285104473_79787d6736_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="La AbadiÌa - Rastrillar">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285104473_8735c935b6.jpg" alt="La AbadiÌa - Rastrillar"/>
</a>

**La Abadí­a - To Harrow**: puff pastry, [_respigos_](/2009/03/13/respigos-colliding-gastronomic-cultures/), cod, tomato confit, cured ham salt, and parsley oil.

I was very concerned that we might have had the best one first.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285105263_d8b534c62f_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="La Atalaya - SalpicoÌn NavidenÌƒo">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285105263_c69d04c5f2.jpg" alt="La Atalaya - SalpicoÌn NavidenÌƒo"/>
</a>

**La Atalaya - Christmas Seafood Salad**: Monkfish, shrimp, tuna, egg and pink sauce.

It was good, but pretty close to a tuna salad mix I can make at home.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285106149_4443ffec76_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="La Marina Company - Ravioli crujiente de bacalao, cecina,  puerro con su pil-pil">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285106149_c169c0d0d3.jpg" alt="La Marina Company - Ravioli crujiente de bacalao, cecina,  puerro con su pil-pil"/>
</a>

**La Marina Company - Crunchy Cod Ravioli**: Cod, cured beef, leek, wheat flour, olive oil, and paprika.

It was good, but we were still disappointed because of the good food we've had out of the Marina Company's kitchen before. That, and...

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285704832_d92b5e3bde_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="La Marina Company - Otros Pinchos">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285704832_7167b39497.jpg" alt="La Marina Company - Otros Pinchos"/>
</a>

The _pincho_ they had for the competition was the least attractive thing in this big _pincho_ display case they had on the bar. How could we _not_ be disappointed?

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285107633_6ac25bca52_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="CafeteriÌa ColoÌn - Bocadito de marisco y golpe de mar">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285107633_5a58f1bdb9.jpg" alt="CafeteriÌa ColoÌn - Bocadito de marisco y golpe de mar"/>
</a>

**Cafeterí­a Colón - Seafood Sandwich and a Hit of Sea**: fish soup, shellfish croquette and toast.

The brochure reads "_ropa de pescado_", which means "seafood clothes", but I'm pretty sure they meant "_**s**opa de pescado_", so that it's "seafood soup". The soup was very good, especially with the cold weather, and they do an excellent job with croquettes at Cafeterí­a Colón. Their kangaroo croquette was our favorite _pincho_ [last year](/2009/12/22/semana-del-pincho-2-laredo/).

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285706342_9d352403ee_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="La Tropicana - Tosta de foie y queso gratinado">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285706342_842dc7d0fe.jpg" alt="La Tropicana - Tosta de foie y queso gratinado"/>
</a>

**La Tropicana - Foie and Goat Cheese on Toast**: foie, goat cheese, and bread.

The presentation was absolutely abysmal, very unappealing to the eye. But holy cow, it's foie and goat cheese! It was _wonderfully delicious_! It definitely got top marks for taste.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285707076_b5a4b85d27_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="El Guti - AlboÌndiga de pescado banÌƒada en velouteÌ de pescado">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285707076_6305bef4b9.jpg" alt="El Guti - AlboÌndiga de pescado banÌƒada en velouteÌ de pescado"/>
</a>

**El Guti - Fish Meatball Bathed in Fish VelouteÌ**: hake, red sea scorpion, salmon, and shrimp sauce.

Again, the taste was better than the presentation. The chef is a friend of ours, and he told us that they weren't given much time to sign up for the competition, so they threw in an old favorite instead of getting too creative.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285707686_6b67a48324_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="El Guti - AlboÌndiga de pescado banÌƒada en velouteÌ de pescado">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285707686_75b9a9c88d.jpg" alt="El Guti - AlboÌndiga de pescado banÌƒada en velouteÌ de pescado"/>
</a>

Inside the fish meatball.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285708620_bbd3765551_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="El PortaloÌn - Pato a la naranja en ropa vieja">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285708620_ff47f77780.jpg" alt="El PortaloÌn - Pato a la naranja en ropa vieja"/>
</a>

**El Portalón - Duck a l'Orange In Old Clothes**: duck, onion, tomato, tomato sauce, raisins, orange, and humus.

This was the first year for _El Portalón_. Being mainly a restaurant more than a bar, they are usually closed during the work week in the winter, so agreeing to be open all week long for _pinchos_ has never really appealed to them. But then they participated in another _pincho_ competition this past summer and won first place, so their fans forced them into participating in the winter competition.

I'm not a very big fan of anything _a l'orange_, but this _pincho_ was very good. The use of a slate shingle as a plate was a clever touch.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285111431_25284a4929_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="El Somera - Brocheta de pulpo y langostino con verduritas">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285111431_a95a8644f2.jpg" alt="El Somera - Brocheta de pulpo y langostino con verduritas"/>
</a>

**El Somera - Skewer Of Octopus And Shrimp With Veggies**: octopus, jumbo shrimp, vegetables and paprika mayonnaise.

That's four of them in the picture because we met up with some friends. This one was very, very good; easily in the top three. The following day I turned on the television and the regional news was doing a report on this _Semana del Pincho_, and they specifically went into _El Somera_ and interviewed the chef.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285710216_89aafe1f4e_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="La CabanÌƒa - El TranviÌa">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285710216_dfa8eda3ee.jpg" alt="La CabanÌƒa - El TranviÌa"/>
</a>

**La Cabaña - The Tramline**: toast with cheese and mushrooms.

This was the biggest discrepancy between description and quality; the _pincho_ was _much_ better than the description made it out to be. I was pleasantly surprised. Plus, the cheese was a strong blue cheese, which is always fun.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285712076_45c800ab13_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Dolce Vita - Brocheta de pollo marinado">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285712076_cbbf6e7e81.jpg" alt="Dolce Vita - Brocheta de pollo marinado"/>
</a>

**Dolce Vita - Skewer of Marinated Chicken**: chicken, pepper and cherry tomato on a piece of toast.

This was good, but nothing special.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285113331_9dcbf75368_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Dolce Vita, Laredo">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285113331_7f5791456b.jpg" alt="Dolce Vita, Laredo"/>
</a>

A cool photo of the neon bar sign reflecting in my wine while I was waiting for my _pincho_.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285712756_a5511299c2_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Bodegón de Faro - Cestita de chistorra con huevo de codorniz">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285712756_422cb08e37.jpg" alt="Bodegón de Faro - Cestita de chistorra con huevo de codorniz"/>
</a>

**Bodegón El Faro - Basket of Chorizo With Quail Egg**

This was tasty, but colder than it should've been served, and a lot smaller than it looks in the photo. Good idea, but mediocre execution.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285115703_87673156a8_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="El Tendal de César - Otoño - Invierno">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285115703_6165ce0e5a.jpg" alt="El Tendal de César - Otoño - Invierno"/>
</a>

**El Tendal De César - Autumn To Winter**: Mushroom crepe with a seaweed reduction and moscatel.

This was a very pleasant surprise. It was bigger than most of them and full of mushroomy goodness. [Moscatel](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscat_(grape_and_wine)) sounds like a telecommunications company to me, but it's really a port wine.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285714240_bf40626bbf_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="El Sinfo - Rollito Hortelano">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285714240_0ce29f2f35.jpg" alt="El Sinfo - Rollito Hortelano"/>
</a>

**El Sinfo - Gardener Roll**: asparagus, crunchy bacon and piquillo sauce with a [Pedro Ximenez](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_Xim%C3%A9nez) reduction.

_El Sinfo_ has had the worst _pinchos_ in this competition in past years, and this wasn't much better. Meh.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285117035_242a015801_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Cafeterí­a Berna - Tostas de Boletus">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285117035_278d222a5e.jpg" alt="Cafeterí­a Berna - Tostas de Boletus"/>
</a>

**Cafeterí­a Berna - Boletus Toast**: _Boletus edulis_, peppers and foie.

I had no idea what [_Boletus edulis_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boletus_edulis) was, but I've since learned that it's a species of wild mushroom. The presentation and taste were excellent, but by the last bite, the pí¢té was pretty cloying.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285117797_1948e069b1_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Nikos - Qué Crisis?">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285117797_f66b0cfd84.jpg" alt="Nikos - Qué Crisis?"/>
</a>

**Cafeterí­a Nikos - What Crisis?**: scallop au gratin in lobster sauce.

The bartender told me to be careful because it might be very hot, so I waited a couple minutes and it turned out to be cold. Despite that mishap, it was very, very good. We had something similar at our wedding.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285118627_218db34a88_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Cafeterí­a Cartago - Eclipse de Foie">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5285118627_d69b09e560.jpg" alt="Cafeterí­a Cartago - Eclipse de Foie"/>
</a>

**Cafeterí­a Cartago - Foie Eclipse**: foie, potato, French onion, white wine, virgin olive oil, salt, pepper and brown sugar.

The presentation was unrivaled, but the taste was only average. The potato sticks were a bit impractical to eat with a fork.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5287131887_23245a7346_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Bodega la Casona - Pincho de crep rellena de setas y vieiras con queso Idiazábel">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-24-semana-del-pincho-3/5287131887_7277bb2cfb.jpg" alt="Bodega la Casona - Pincho de crep rellena de setas y vieiras con queso Idiazábel"/>
</a>

**Bodega la Casona - Crepe Filled With Mushrooms and Scallops with [Idiazábal Cheese](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiazabal_cheese)**: bread, mushrooms, scallops, Idiazábal cheese, cream, soft cheese, tomato, garlic and olive oil.

It took us three visits to _La Casona_ to finally get their _pincho_; once they were closed and another time they had run out. But it was worth it. Boy, was it worth it! What a wonderful sensation with the scallops, mushrooms, cream and cheese all mingling in your mouth. Fantastic!

## Conclusion

The competition was fierce. It is extremely hard to pick a winner...but here we go:

**Best Presentation**: Cafeterí­a Cartago - Foie Eclipse

**Best Overall**: Bodega la Casona - Crepe Filled With Mushrooms and Scallops with Idiazábal Cheese

Going from bar to bar eating _pinchos_ and drinking wine is probably my all time favorite activity, and it's the part of Spanish culture I would most miss if I were ever to leave Spain.

It took me four nights to visit 17 of the 22 participating establishments, and I loved every minute of it. Is it time for next year's competition yet?


Semana del Pincho 3


![thumb](https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-22-parenting-taboos/default.jpg)Taboos are fascinating. My life has never been the same since [August 8, 2006](/2006/08/08/what-you-cant-say/), when I read [an article](http://paulgraham.com/say.html) about examining what we don't dare say aloud, and how the amount of trouble one can get in for saying certain things is positively correlated with the likelihood that they are true. Today I stumbled upon a TED Talk by a married couple, Rufus Griscom and Alisa Volkman, who run a website about parenting. Their topic was parenting taboos, that is, what you can't say about parenting.  My favorite part of their talk was when they took on the subject of happiness. I'm a [big](/2006/12/22/the-secret-to-happiness/) [fan](/2008/12/18/dan-gilbert-makes-me-happy/) [of](/2010/06/07/publishing/) Dan Gilbert, and his research and conclusions on how happiness declines when you have kids seem to me, intellectually, to be correct, but something about it just doesn't _feel_ right. I've been unable to pin down just what that problem was...until now. Griscom and Volkman absolutely nail it with a chart around minute thirteen of their talk.

I think that the internet and the optional anonymity it provides are having an excellent effect on social taboos. I applaud the hundreds of people valiantly blogging their way through emotionally difficult times of their life, whether it be divorce, miscarriage, closeted sexuality, cancer, or losing a spouse. By being publicly honest about these things, even anonymously, they are helping thousands of other people feel less alone in their problems. Parenting is less severe than those problems, but it still brings with it insecurities that, unless other people are sharing about them too, can easily make you feel alone. And if you can find a way to pay the rent by designing a website to help people share, then good for you, Griscom and Volkman.


Parenting Taboos


<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-21-homeowner/5279340291_30e1987fe9_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image post-thumb" title="Marga locks her grandmother inside">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-21-homeowner/5279340291_99cd2be480_t.jpg" alt="Marga locks her grandmother inside"/>
</a>

When we were in the States for Thanksgiving, I was impressed to learn of a new social program in my hometown that has allotted some space in the old Junior High School as a play area for young children, with all donated toys. Ambiguously called _Family Connections_, it's a free, dry, and warm place for even the poorest parents to bring their kids and let them run around and play with toys that perhaps their parents could not afford to buy them individually. Nora absolutely _loved_ it.  Her favorite toy was a plastic playhouse that she could go inside and close the door. She liked it so much that we've decided that something similar should be her Christmas present this year. (Don't tell her yet!) We have space for one in the corner of our living room, and I think it will be really special for her to have a chunk of space in the house that is hers to control.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-21-homeowner/5279944062_582fccd765_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Family Connections, Play Area">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-21-homeowner/5279944062_cebdb71c38.jpg" alt="Family Connections, Play Area"/>
</a>

A panorama of the _Family Connections_ place, showing all the variety of toys for kids of various ages. Costumes, dinosaurs, a piano, finger paints, a slide, books, etc.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-21-homeowner/5279340291_30e1987fe9_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Marga locks her grandmother inside">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-21-homeowner/5279340291_99cd2be480.jpg" alt="Marga locks her grandmother inside"/>
</a>

Nora locks her grandmother inside the playhouse.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-21-homeowner/5279339663_daa7a72926_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Marga looks through the window">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-21-homeowner/5279339663_139d13cd83.jpg" alt="Marga looks through the window"/>
</a>

Mommy looks like a giant peering into the "kitchen".

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-21-homeowner/5279946302_255f1d4725_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Juice Box">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-21-homeowner/5279946302_1f2da568aa.jpg" alt="Juice Box"/>
</a>

There were several other _Spanglish_\-speaking kids there. Nora bummed a juice box off of one. It was her first experience with a juice box; she got the hang of it immediately.

Oh, and they have laundry facilities too, so I guess you can do your laundry while the little tykes wear themselves out.

Nora behaves like any proud new homeowner, inviting in guests, locking in guests, trying to close the door by grabbing the outside doorknob from inside, etc.


Homeowner


![Lera Boroditsky](https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-17-lera-boroditsky-on-language/12841_200_150.jpg)The other day I watched a ninety minute video of a speech by [Dr. Lera Boroditsky](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lera_Boroditsky), [of Stanford University](http://www-psych.stanford.edu/~lera/), about her work on comparing and contrasting languages across cultures and drawing conclusions on how language affects the way we think. Astute readers may recall my interest in this topic, and specifically in Boroditsky's work on the subject, from my [In Spanish, It's Not Your Fault](/2009/07/24/in-spanish-its-not-your-fault/) post. Today, I just want to point out a few points from her talk that resonated with me and then direct you towards the video itself. 

### Agentive

She does go into detail about Spanish vs. English and culpability. She uses the academic terms agentive or non-agentive. In fact, English is fairly rare in its insistence of attributing actions to an agent. In an experiment, native English and Spanish speakers were shown a video of a man intentionally performing an action (e.g. popping a balloon) and then another one of a man unintentionally causing an action. Then, they were asked to pick the man out of a lineup. The anglophones did well identifying the man in both scenarios, but the hispanophones had much more trouble identifying the man when the action happened unintentionally, since they hadn't needed to focus on him as the subject of the sentence when they thought about the video. Not only that, but the researchers were able to induce this effect in native English speakers by making them read lots of passive voice, non-agentive sentences before watching the videos. Fascinating!

### Gender

How odd is it that so many human languages would evolve to consider various inanimate objects as inherently masculine or feminine? Not that odd, apparently, as some languages have up to 30 genders, at which point it becomes clear that genders are really just classifications of concepts. Some languages have a gender just for hunting weapons or things that are shiny. And then there's the famously humorous Australian Aboriginal gender for "women, fire, and dangerous things".

The gender of objects in the languages we speak directly influences how we think about an object. In Russian, a chair is masculine, so Russians – even if they are tested in English! – will describe a chair as sturdy and strong, whereas a Spaniard, who has a feminine concept of a chair, will describe it as elegant and slender and beautiful.

What surprised me most about the gender section of her talk was my emotive reaction to learning how, for many words, Russian has some opposite genders to Spanish. It really feels inherently _wrong_ to me that, in Russian, chairs, flowers, and the moon are all masculine, and the sun is feminine. How revolting! My emotions on this subject are direct evidence of just how much learning a second language directly influences how you think about the world.

### Monolingual Questioner

During the Q&A session after the talk, one of the people facilitating the questions is [Stewart Brand](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stewart_Brand), who is clearly a very intelligent man, but who came across to me as a glaringly ignorant monolingual. He says – and I'm paraphrasing – "Here in California, we hear a lot of Spanish, and it seems to me that Spanish is a very simple language, with each thing having one word associated with it, whereas English has a rich tapestry of words for each concept. If I ever got Alzheimer's," he quips, "I'd rather have it in English than in Spanish, because there would be more words to convey what he meant even if he couldn't think of the word I wanted."

I've heard this same opinion, but reversed, from monolingual Spaniards. You have to get quite deep into learning a language before you learn all the synonyms. In Spain, for example, they have a very rich bacon-flavored tapestry of words for the animal from which they derive their favorite meat: _cochino_, _puerco_, _guarro_, _marrano_, _chon_, etc. But you could probably get to fourth-year Spanish in college and never learn more than _cerdo_ for the word pig, because you really don't need the rest until you're writing poetry or insulting someone in a Spanish bar.

Dr. Boroditsky does an excellent job of not calling Brand an idiot, even if the look on her face does.

### The Video

Her talk doesn't actually start until about the four minute mark because first they preview a wonderful short video from my beloved RadioLab, aptly titled _Words_. It's a sequence of very video clips cleverly edited that requires a good knowledge of English to follow. The full length video is [available on FORA.tv](http://fora.tv/2010/10/26/Lera_Boroditsky_How_Language_Shapes_Thought), where they provide a nice table of contents for navigating to just the bits you're interested in if you so choose.

I'm really starting to love FORA.tv as a site for what are more or less unabridged TED talks.


Lera Boroditsky on Language


<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-16-giant-lemon/5264131025_239014e883_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image post-thumb" title="Erik and the Giant Lemon">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-16-giant-lemon/5264131025_969e45f4e0_t.jpg" alt="Erik and the Giant Lemon"/>
</a>

Occasionally a set of photos that I really want to publish get lost in a sea of other interesting content. When my parents were visiting [one year ago](/2009/12/23/visiting-colindres-in-december/), we noticed a giant lemon in a local bar and asked if we could pose with it for a few silly photographs. The bartender, who got to know me during a USA v. Spain fíºtbol match a few years ago, was happy to oblige. So here's a giant lemon...  <a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-16-giant-lemon/5264131025_239014e883_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Erik and the Giant Lemon">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-16-giant-lemon/5264131025_969e45f4e0.jpg" alt="Erik and the Giant Lemon"/>
</a>

It was bigger than my head.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-16-giant-lemon/5264157179_18349fd6b6_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Nora and the Giant Lemon">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-16-giant-lemon/5264157179_a2818346d7.jpg" alt="Nora and the Giant Lemon"/>
</a>

That's some big fruit.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-16-giant-lemon/5264132339_080b058023_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Paul bites a giant lemon">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-16-giant-lemon/5264132339_1e432dd24a.jpg" alt="Paul bites a giant lemon"/>
</a>

Of course some of us had to get silly.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-16-giant-lemon/5264327385_32d7edec07_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Nora and the Giant Lemon">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-16-giant-lemon/5264327385_7ec357b5e4.jpg" alt="Nora and the Giant Lemon"/>
</a>

It was _way_ bigger than little 9-month-old Nora's head.

When life gives you lemons...post photos of them on your blog.


Giant Lemon


<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-15-progress-quickens/5263259161_31cd847a39_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image post-thumb" title="Seating Reassignment">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-15-progress-quickens/5263259161_37e3fdbbab_t.jpg" alt="Seating Reassignment"/>
</a>

Nora's language skills have made major advances lately. I continue to be astonished at the facility with which she understands both English and Spanish. Below are some anecdotes from this past week.

The other day, I was walking her down by the docks on a sunny cloudless day, and she looked up and said "Water!" In retrospect, I'm pretty certain that she was asking me for some water, but at the moment she said it, I thought she was associating the blue of the sky with the color of water. "No, no, I said, that's sky." She repeated, "Sky." And after a second or two, she said, "_Cielo_," which is the Spanish word for sky. I was blown away. Obviously she's going to pick up some Spanish vocabulary from daycare, but understanding the generalization that is "sky" and perfectly equating it with its equivalent word in her other language is no simple feat. Shortly after she learned the word for sky, I pointed out the moon and taught her to say "Moon!" The next day she surprised her mother when she picked out the moon in the illustrations in her bedtime story book.

Sometimes without warning, she'll remember her first snow and begin saying "[Snow! Holy cow!](/2010/12/10/holy-cow-snow-noras-first-snow/)" And of course any snowy imagery will also set her off with that. "Oh my!"

Yesterday, when I was putting Nora's new winter coat on her, she said, "_Frio!_" (cold). "Yes, that's why we're putting your coat on you," I replied. "_Frio!_" she repeated.

Her pronunciation is still far from perfect, and often times we cannot tell what she's saying. I find it interesting the words that she seems to think are homonyms. She says both "Dora" (the Explorer) and "koala" like "dola". And she refers to both "Grandma" with the same sound, "mema", that she uses for "_quema_" (it burns) to say that food or bathwater is too hot.

Often times when we are out for a walk, Nora will shout some word she knows, like "fante!" (short for _elefante_) or "doggy!" or "Minnie!". Many times I will be unable to see the object she has so gleefully identified, but if I take the time to look, somewhere in the scene there is a picture or drawing of an elephant, dog, or Minnie (or Mickey) Mouse.

Yet another [unforeseen benefit of the Apple TV](/2010/11/12/a-fortnight-with-the-apple-tv/) that we have discovered is that the photo slideshow screensaver works very well as vocabulary flash cards. Nora will stare at it and identify people she knows in the photos. After I reset the Apple TV yesterday, it defaulted to the factory installed screensaver of wild animal pictures, many of which Nora can identify. Her two favorite animals at the moment are elephants and penguins (_fante!_ and _pinguino!_ to her). I think I may actually make some photo sets to teach her vocabulary in the future.

This morning, she spotted her mother's coat and said, as clear as day, "Mommy jacket". She hasn't yet mastered putting more than one word together, with the exception of [her favorite verbless behavioral reprimand](/2010/11/16/denise-%c2%a1patadas-no/). She can also pair objects with states, e.g. "Shoe off!", to form commands, but I'm looking forward to her gaining subject-verb-object grammar.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-15-progress-quickens/5263259161_31cd847a39_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Seating Reassignment">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-15-progress-quickens/5263259161_37e3fdbbab_z.jpg" alt="Seating Reassignment"/>
</a>

Much to her father's liking, she's taken a shine to _Looney Tunes_. "Bunny!" she shouts whenever Bugs appears on the screen. She has also decided that she prefers to change seats with her baby doll and sit in her toy stroller, but only if the baby is sitting up in her chair too.


Progress Quickens


<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247119627_09e1e911e2_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image post-thumb" title="Mono Lake, Yosemite">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247119627_cde64631a7_t.jpg" alt="Mono Lake, Yosemite"/>
</a>

Because I carry an apparently dominant motion sickness gene, it's really important to me that my brain be in visual range of the horizon out an airplane window. My wife, while she does not suffer from the same equilibrium problem, does suffer from being a terribly kind person, so I almost always get the window seat when traveling.

Often, the view out the window can be quite boring. I normally think, "There's an awful lot of farm land to feed all of us," and "There are way more trees than the environmentalists make us think there are." On my recent flight across the continent of North America, I very much enjoyed the views, which mostly turned out to be of California and Wyoming. Unfortunately my iPhone's GPS receiver didn't work inside the aircraft. While I was wishing that it did, I had an awesome idea for an augmented reality iPhone app (assuming an iPhone model with a GPS receiver and compass that worked in a plane were created) that would show political borders and the names of cities, mountains and lakes. Sort of like laying Google Earth on top of live video from the airplane. That would be _awesome!!!_

But since I didn't have that, I had to go back and look up places and landmarks in Google Earth manually after my trip was over, which was also quite a fun pattern matching game.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247112387_14e9e0b605_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Mountains and Clouds">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247112387_2fb043ecca.jpg" alt="Mountains and Clouds"/>
</a>

Mountains and clouds.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247716708_ba3cdf5fb2_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Desert Nothingness">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247716708_69b3350628.jpg" alt="Desert Nothingness"/>
</a>

Desert nothingness.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247115425_02c64c38e3_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Desert Cloud Shadows">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247115425_3e7edd396d.jpg" alt="Desert Cloud Shadows"/>
</a>

Sometimes it was hard to distinguish between bodies of water and cloud shadows.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247118205_a791b251f6_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Snowy Rockies">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247118205_d8389b6a5b.jpg" alt="Snowy Rockies"/>
</a>

Snowy Rockies.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247119627_09e1e911e2_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Mono Lake, Yosemite">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247119627_cde64631a7.jpg" alt="Mono Lake, Yosemite"/>
</a>

Mono Lake was by far the most impressive lake I saw. On the return flight, I was reading a news article about the new over-hyped discovery of a life form that can incorporate arsenic into its molecules if phosphorus is not available. It was a couple days later that I saw [this Astronomy Picture of the Day](http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap101206.html) that identified Mono Lake as the source of the life form. "That's the lake I photographed!" I shouted.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247723372_f54a3c6245_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Yosemite Mountains">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247723372_de435134d7.jpg" alt="Yosemite Mountains"/>
</a>

Some mountains in Yosemite National Park.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247724746_a2f597e3d5_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, Yosemite">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247724746_103ac3eeb8.jpg" alt="Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, Yosemite"/>
</a>

[Hetch Hetchy Reservoir](http://www.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=37.945416,-119.731407&sll=37.945416,-119.731407&sspn=0.14038,0.154324&ie=UTF8&ll=37.942167,-119.725227&spn=0.140386,0.219727&t=h&z=13), Yosemite

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247725460_8af9afe12f_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Cherry Lake and Lake Eleanor, Yosemite">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247725460_852df09eb7.jpg" alt="Cherry Lake and Lake Eleanor, Yosemite"/>
</a>

[Cherry Lake and Lake Eleanor](http://www.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&sll=37.770058,-119.548712&sspn=2.251325,2.469177&ie=UTF8&hq=&ll=37.999139,-119.879551&spn=0.070139,0.109863&t=h&z=14), Yosemite

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247726886_894550edf1_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Don Pedro Reservoir">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247726886_3643ed77b5.jpg" alt="Don Pedro Reservoir"/>
</a>

[Don Pedro Reservoir](http://www.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&sll=37.770058,-119.548712&sspn=2.251325,2.469177&ie=UTF8&hq=&t=h&ll=37.719133,-120.378571&spn=0.281623,0.308647&z=12)

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247728998_f70a80d3f0_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Unknown town, California">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247728998_4858dc090d.jpg" alt="Unknown town, California"/>
</a>

Unknown town in California

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247730308_bf6d70469c_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Modesto, California">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247730308_ea93756d65.jpg" alt="Modesto, California"/>
</a>

[Modesto, California](http://www.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=modesto,+ca&sll=37.66738,-121.038952&sspn=0.14091,0.154324&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Modesto,+Stanislaus,+California&t=h&z=12). It was the way that the town had grown in line with the agricultural grid pattern that made me take this photograph.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247731590_2a5c62c6f2_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Salida and Ripon, California">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247731590_79432a17af.jpg" alt="Salida and Ripon, California"/>
</a>

[Salida](http://www.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=modesto,+ca&sll=37.66738,-121.038952&sspn=0.14091,0.154324&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Modesto,+Stanislaus,+California&t=h&ll=37.705282,-121.083069&spn=0.070419,0.077162&z=14), a suburb of Modesto. I hope they teach the Pythagorean theorem in school there.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247133331_d4e658d508_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="San Antonio Reservoir and the Ohlone Regional Wilderness">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247133331_56d1f8f4b6.jpg" alt="San Antonio Reservoir and the Ohlone Regional Wilderness"/>
</a>

[San Antonio Reservoir](http://www.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=San+Antonio+Reservoir,+CA,+United+States&sll=37.648219,-121.570587&sspn=0.281892,0.308647&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=San+Antonio+Reservoir&ll=37.54063,-121.833572&spn=0.14115,0.154324&t=h&z=13) and the Ohlone Regional Wilderness. I was fascinated by how the trees only grew on one side (the [leeward side](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windward_and_leeward)?) of the mountains.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247145999_d1bf3cfe45_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Fremont and the San Francisco Bay">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247145999_1e3dc01b12.jpg" alt="Fremont and the San Francisco Bay"/>
</a>

[Fremont](http://www.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Fremont,+CA,+United+States&sll=37.532191,-121.977768&sspn=0.141166,0.154324&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Fremont,+Alameda,+California&t=h&z=12) and the San Francisco Bay.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247152693_97f195b7bb_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Looking Northeast over Fremont to Union City, California">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247152693_63c7c3b8ee.jpg" alt="Looking Northeast over Fremont to Union City, California"/>
</a>

Looking Northeast over Fremont to Union City, California.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247155325_3b42decef8_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="San Mateo Bridge">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247155325_b15dfd21e8.jpg" alt="San Mateo Bridge"/>
</a>

The Golden Gate Bridge ain't got nothin' on this enormous bay spanning engineering feat.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247760110_2524dec319_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Seminoe Reservoir, Wyoming">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247760110_ca88193a28.jpg" alt="Seminoe Reservoir, Wyoming"/>
</a>

[Seminoe Reservoir](http://www.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Seminoe+Reservoir,+Wyoming&sll=37.66969,-122.12677&sspn=1.127229,1.234589&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Seminoe+Reservoir&t=h&z=11), Wyoming. When we made our way back east, the sun was setting and casting long shadows across the Earth's features. It was hard to tell which valleys had water and which were only shadows.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247763526_c643d53d71_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Wyoming Shadows">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247763526_6f634f2a2c.jpg" alt="Wyoming Shadows"/>
</a>

Wyoming Shadows. There's a topographical feature just east of the Seminoe Reservoir called [Pine Butte](http://www.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&sll=37.66969,-122.12677&sspn=1.127229,1.234589&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Seminoe+Reservoir&ll=41.964979,-106.230927&spn=0.132362,0.154324&t=p&z=13) with a river that looks like it matches up with what's in this photograph, but the topography doesn't look right to me.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247164073_c590dbd58d_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Snowy Peaks with Clouds">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247164073_abd3af9f5e.jpg" alt="Snowy Peaks with Clouds"/>
</a>

Snowy peaks with clouds.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247165873_466181d92a_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Clouds forming only over mountain peaks">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-13-flying-over-yosemite/5247165873_3cfdca93d1.jpg" alt="Clouds forming only over mountain peaks"/>
</a>

[Orthographic clouds](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orographic_lift#Associated_clouds) forming over mountain peaks. It's hard to tell if they are lenticular from this angle.

Aerial photography sure is fun.


Flying Over Yosemite

From Grandparents to Parents


[![Holy Cow! Snow! (video frame)](https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-10-holy-cow-snow-noras-first-snow/5249593840_64b733763c_t.jpg "Holy Cow! Snow! (video frame)")](http://www.flickr.com/photos/erikrasmussen/5249593840 "View 'Holy Cow! Snow! (video frame)' on Flickr.com")The first time you see snow, it really is a wonderful experience. One of the optional homework assignments we left with my parents along with Nora when [we](/2010/12/07/san-francisco-2010-day-1-of-4/) [visited](/2010/12/08/san-francisco-2010-day-2-of-4/) [San](/2010/12/08/san-francisco-2010-day-3-of-4/) [Francisco](/2010/12/09/san-francisco-2010-day-4-of-4/) recently was to teach her to say "Holy cow!" It was Marga's idea, as she finds the expression particularly humorous; euphemisms in foreign languages often are. Sure enough, when returned, she knew how to say "Holy cow!" (her approximation sounds more like "Hota tao!") and put her hand to her head whenever she was surprised.  On our last day with my parents, we were having lunch before driving to the airport, and it began to snow. Nora totally flipped out. She demanded to be put down from her high chair and ran to the window. I had to delete some boring cable car footage to make room, but I was able to record some of her amazement on video.

It's funny when her mother takes her out to touch the snow, and as soon as it starts crunching underfoot and falling on her head, she wants to get the heck back inside as soon as possible.

Several times, since getting back to Spain, she will remember this moment and start saying "Nooo!" (she has trouble starting words with the S sound), "Uh oh!", "Hota tao!", and "Oh my!"


Holy Cow! Snow! Nora's First Snow


<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-09-san-francisco-2010-day-4-of-4/5246177485_09e60ca1f2_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image post-thumb" title="Muir Woods - Redwoods">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-09-san-francisco-2010-day-4-of-4/5246177485_85d2668454_t.jpg" alt="Muir Woods - Redwoods"/>
</a>

\[[Part 1](/2010/12/07/san-francisco-2010-day-1-of-4/)\] \[[Part 2](/2010/12/08/san-francisco-2010-day-2-of-4/)\] \[[Part 3](/2010/12/08/san-francisco-2010-day-3-of-4/)\] We got up early at 7:00, although our neighbors had their television blaring at 6:00 (maybe that's what the complimentary ear plugs were for?). Showers and breakfast in the local coffee shop, and we were out at the curb to be picked up by our tour bus. Actually it was the "bus to the bus" only to take us to the tour company's offices, but when we came out of the tour office with our tickets, the same driver was waiting to take us to Muir Woods, the valley with ancient groves of redwood trees, some of the tallest and oldest trees in the world. Our tour guide was very entertaining, and spoke to us for the entire forty-minute ride over the Golden Gate Bridge, past [Sausalito](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sausalito,_California), and into the valley with the forest. The trees were impressive, for sure, but not as awe-inspiring as I was secretly hoping. The forest walk beneath them was magical and silent except for the babbling brook. While they are "just trees", I highly recommend a visit if you're not traveling with a teenager who will see them as such.  <a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-09-san-francisco-2010-day-4-of-4/5246131581_408f0a3326_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Muir Woods - Redwoods, Marga">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-09-san-francisco-2010-day-4-of-4/5246131581_a47e6e4816.jpg" alt="Muir Woods - Redwoods, Marga"/>
</a>

The Muir Woods has Coastal Redwoods, _Sequoia sempervirens_, which are the tallest trees in the world, can grow to be up to 115 meters (380 feet) tall, although the tallest in the Muir Woods is a mere 79 meters (258 feet) tall. Not to be confused with the Giant Redwood, _Sequoiadendron giganteum_, which have much thicker trunks and are much older. The oldest tree in the Muir Woods is at least 1200 years old, having taken root around the time Charlemagne was crowned the Emperor of Rome. The fact that they grow together in bunches makes them all the more daunting.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-09-san-francisco-2010-day-4-of-4/5246735646_dceab14ee8_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Muir Woods - Redwoods, Marga">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-09-san-francisco-2010-day-4-of-4/5246735646_7367ee1ec2.jpg" alt="Muir Woods - Redwoods, Marga"/>
</a>

Tree hugging hippy.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-09-san-francisco-2010-day-4-of-4/5246134649_37dc959294_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Muir Woods - Redwoods, Erik">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-09-san-francisco-2010-day-4-of-4/5246134649_edf9fcfb1b.jpg" alt="Muir Woods - Redwoods, Erik"/>
</a>

This one almost fell down, so I propped it back up.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-09-san-francisco-2010-day-4-of-4/5246781708_3ef4502a0d_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Muir Woods - Redwoods">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-09-san-francisco-2010-day-4-of-4/5246781708_43cf4b818d.jpg" alt="Muir Woods - Redwoods"/>
</a>

We were surprised by how frigid it was in the forest, with very little sunlight filtering down to the ground. Brrr!!

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-09-san-francisco-2010-day-4-of-4/5246183177_43892f152d_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Muir Woods - Redwoods, Marga and Erik">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-09-san-francisco-2010-day-4-of-4/5246183177_7a50eb591c.jpg" alt="Muir Woods - Redwoods, Marga and Erik"/>
</a>

Big trees or little people?

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-09-san-francisco-2010-day-4-of-4/5246177485_09e60ca1f2_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Muir Woods - Redwoods">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-09-san-francisco-2010-day-4-of-4/5246177485_85d2668454.jpg" alt="Muir Woods - Redwoods"/>
</a>

It's hard to capture in a photograph just how it feels to crane your neck from the base of the tree up to the leaves at the top...

  

...so I recorded a video.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-09-san-francisco-2010-day-4-of-4/5246740532_ccfdb8bfb2_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Muir Woods - Redwoods History Rings">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-09-san-francisco-2010-day-4-of-4/5246740532_c72898546e.jpg" alt="Muir Woods - Redwoods History Rings"/>
</a>

This is seriously impressive ([view larger](http://www.flickr.com/photos/erikrasmussen/5246740532/lightbox/)). This tree was cut down 80 years ago. See that outer most white line? That's the ring that grew in 1776, when the Declaration of Independence was signed. See the second outer most line? That's the ring that grew in 1492 when Columbus sailed to America. I was much more awed by the age of the trees than by their size. I felt very temporally insignificant beside them.

[![Camille](https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-09-san-francisco-2010-day-4-of-4/Camille.jpg)](http://griffingalleryfineart.com/Camille.html)On the way back, we stopped for an hour in Sausalito, a posh town across the bay from San Francisco for the wealthy that enjoy a bit of silence. We entered an art gallery and saw several paintings we loved, but we were really taken with one painting of a woman, entitled [_Camille_](http://griffingalleryfineart.com/Camille.html) (that jpg doesn't do it justice), by an artist named [Manaz](http://www.manazart.com/Gallery.html). If it had been anything less than $4000 for the painting and frame (and we didn't share our abode with a crayon-wielding infantile primate), we actually might have bought it. It was that nice.

We left the gallery, walked along the waterfront a ways, and entered a wine shop. I decided to try the offer of tasting three $40-a-bottle wines for $5. [With the proper priming](/2009/10/19/the-wine-industry-is-mostly-bullshit/) of reading the descriptions of each wine, they were fantastic! The shop owner was a blue-eyed blond who had spent her childhood in Bolivia with missionary parents and spoke fluent Spanish. I left the shop very contented, as I often am with some wine in my belly. The bus took us a short trip across the most photographed bridge in the world and dropped us off at Fisherman's Wharf. We decided to have lunch at Boudin's Bakery like we'd wanted to the day before, but only if they served beer. They did.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-09-san-francisco-2010-day-4-of-4/5246748324_7890713098_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Clam Chowder in a Sourdough Roll">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-09-san-francisco-2010-day-4-of-4/5246748324_9bc51e8a5c.jpg" alt="Clam Chowder in a Sourdough Roll"/>
</a>

Classic San Francisco lunch: clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl. Yum!

After lunch, we killed a little time by taking our only untravelled cable car line, the California Line, through the financial district. Of course we had to get our iconic "tourist on the cable car" shots.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-09-san-francisco-2010-day-4-of-4/5246148345_e873061aef_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Tourist posing on cable car">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-09-san-francisco-2010-day-4-of-4/5246148345_25ac5ba191.jpg" alt="Tourist posing on cable car"/>
</a>

San Fran Marga

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-09-san-francisco-2010-day-4-of-4/5246751788_d879022cbe_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Tourist posing on cable car">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-09-san-francisco-2010-day-4-of-4/5246751788_eaae36e4e1.jpg" alt="Tourist posing on cable car"/>
</a>

Serious cable car rider.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-09-san-francisco-2010-day-4-of-4/5246151795_398b6ffb10_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Tourist posing on cable car">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-09-san-francisco-2010-day-4-of-4/5246151795_7fd16436ea.jpg" alt="Tourist posing on cable car"/>
</a>

Hanging off the cable car dangling in front of oncoming traffic is more fun than it should be.

Then we took a series of buses to the [Golden Gate Park](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Gate_Park) area of the city, but decided to check out the beach first. The beach was so lovely and the sunset so near, that we decided to pass on the park and walk along the beach for almost an hour until sunset. It was as romantic as it sounds, but probably colder than you're imagining it.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-09-san-francisco-2010-day-4-of-4/5246157341_04e808ddb8_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Pacific Beach, San Francisco">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-09-san-francisco-2010-day-4-of-4/5246157341_ae0b6ff935.jpg" alt="Pacific Beach, San Francisco"/>
</a>

The beach was wonderful, and so long that it stretched off into the horizon.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-09-san-francisco-2010-day-4-of-4/5246159053_eef18af7da_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Sunset over the Pacific Ocean">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-09-san-francisco-2010-day-4-of-4/5246159053_aab3ca6fe7.jpg" alt="Sunset over the Pacific Ocean"/>
</a>

A sunset photographer.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-09-san-francisco-2010-day-4-of-4/5246166749_a4a832ee7a_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Tsunami Evacuation Route, San Francisco">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-09-san-francisco-2010-day-4-of-4/5246166749_7f25d0ecd7.jpg" alt="Tsunami Evacuation Route, San Francisco"/>
</a>

This sign and its defacement made me laugh...not that natural disasters are funny.

Then we headed back to the hotel by bus, got changed, and went out to dinner, at a place where we'd had a beer [a couple days before](/2010/12/08/san-francisco-2010-day-2-of-4/), [_Fog Harbor_](http://www.fogharbor.com/) right on touristy Pier 39. It was by far the prettiest restaurant we'd been in on our trip with the best views. Marga's fish-of-the-day, blackened red snapper, was too spicy for her, so we switched plates and she had my mixed seafood grill.

After dinner we took our last cable car ride, up the Hyde-Powell line back to Union Square and our hotel. Our visit to the Golden Gate City had come to an end. We slept soundly and until late the next morning. After an hour of casual shopping in Macy's, our van came to take us to the airport. A five hour flight going three timezones to the east really erases your day. I must say, however, that the difference between flying with a child and flying without a child is about as huge as the difference between flying coach and first class (I assume; I never have); it was simply marvelous to be able to nap or read as we desired.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-09-san-francisco-2010-day-4-of-4/5246163623_fe82940663_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Sunset over the Pacific Ocean">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-09-san-francisco-2010-day-4-of-4/5246163623_58db2f9621.jpg" alt="Sunset over the Pacific Ocean"/>
</a>

We were grinning the whole flight, so content with our planning and execution of a visit to one of America's greatest cities.


Muir Woods, Redwoods, and Pacific Sunset - San Francisco 2010 - Day 4 of 4


<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-08-san-francisco-2010-day-3-of-4/5244410298_5649ce86a9_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image post-thumb" title="The Painted Ladies">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-08-san-francisco-2010-day-3-of-4/5244410298_033ea01f5c_t.jpg" alt="The Painted Ladies"/>
</a>

\[[Part 1](/2010/12/07/san-francisco-2010-day-1-of-4/)\] \[[Part 2](/2010/12/08/san-francisco-2010-day-2-of-4/)\] We got up late and were clearly both aching from the day before. My feet were begging for a dose of ibuprofen and another six hours in bed, but I only gave them the former. Tuesday was "meet the Internet people" day, with lunch scheduled with a second cousin I'd never met who had found my blog a few years before, and dinner with an Internet friend of an Internet friend, a social network contact of mine.  First we headed to the tourism office, a stone's throw from our hotel, to book a [Muir Woods](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muir_Woods_National_Monument) tour for the following day and a quick FaceTime call over their wifi to see how our daughter was doing. Then we headed up the hill on a cable car to visit [Lombard Street](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lombard_Street_(San_Francisco)), The Crookedest Street in the World. After walking down and up the stairs beside it, we took the cable car the rest of the way to The Wharf, as we'd learned to call it. Our feet and bodies preferred a leisurely stroll through the touristy piers to kill time until our meeting with Cousin Michelle. We had agreed to meet in front of the unmissable [Boudin Bakery on Fisherman's Wharf](http://www.boudinbakery.com/at-the-wharf), but when we were wasting time walking along Pier 39, we noticed another, slightly smaller, installation of Boudin's Bakery on the pier. "Surely she'll come to the main one," we thought.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-08-san-francisco-2010-day-3-of-4/5243741969_fa883c1623_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="The Crookedest Street in the World">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-08-san-francisco-2010-day-3-of-4/5243741969_d73f3fbd7e.jpg" alt="The Crookedest Street in the World"/>
</a>

Tourists in front of Lombard Street.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-08-san-francisco-2010-day-3-of-4/5243703885_9659859611_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Walking down Lombard Street">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-08-san-francisco-2010-day-3-of-4/5243703885_d5ab3c17b2.jpg" alt="Walking down Lombard Street"/>
</a>

Walking up and down the sidewalk (stairs) was an interesting experience. The street really does need to wind like that because the hill is so steep.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-08-san-francisco-2010-day-3-of-4/5244327746_b8b0b28d82_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="The Crookedest Street in the World">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-08-san-francisco-2010-day-3-of-4/5244327746_5fd06cf95d.jpg" alt="The Crookedest Street in the World"/>
</a>

Of course it's an absolute _must_ for driving your convertible down.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-08-san-francisco-2010-day-3-of-4/5244336266_1de3bfe6be_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Parallel Lines">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-08-san-francisco-2010-day-3-of-4/5244336266_665d972c81.jpg" alt="Parallel Lines"/>
</a>

I liked the way the parallel street lines became almost dots with the right perspective.

We got to the bakery at 12:20 for our 12:30 meeting. By the time 12:40 rolled by, we began to worry. We had just set up this date the previous night, so surely she couldn't have forgotten! Unfortunately, I only had my Spanish iPhone, so I had no data coverage to send or receive messages to Michelle, but Marga had the idea of me going a few blocks down the wharf to a restaurant we had been to on Sunday where I had the wifi password. I did, and I had a message from Michelle saying that she had waited in front of the bakery for a while, but that she'd decided to go to _Hard Rock Cafe_ to meet some friends. I knew the _Hard Rock Cafe_ was on Pier 39, so I assumed she'd been waiting at the other bakery. We were a little disappointed to pass up a clam chowder in a bowl of sourdough bread, but we rushed on over to the _Hard Rock Cafe_ and found Michelle having a sandwich with some friends. She decided to join us at a new table, and Marga and I ordered fajitas and a burger respectively. Our chat with my cousin was delightful. We discussed our jobs and education and the relative structure of our branches of the family tree. She's an entrepreneurial marriage/child therapist working on her PhD, and she seems to be an avid fan of Nora, as well.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-08-san-francisco-2010-day-3-of-4/5244342344_5f0284a343_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Erik and Michelle, Second Cousins">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-08-san-francisco-2010-day-3-of-4/5244342344_d6e8cb2109.jpg" alt="Erik and Michelle, Second Cousins"/>
</a>

Second cousins. Her maternal grandmother is my paternal grandfather's sister. So our common ancestors are our great-grandparents, [Halfdan and Ruth](/2008/04/03/halfdans-trial/).

After lunch, we headed towards the Mission District because Marga had heard there was an old Spanish church, Mission Dolores, there that was a must-see. We got off the cable car around City Hall and walked from there, which was interesting, but put the final nail in my left foot's coffin. I was limping down the street when we stumbled upon the church by accident. We paid the five dollar self guided tour fee and entered. It was much more interesting than I had anticipated and we learned of the founding of the city now called San Francisco. While we enjoyed seeing Mission Dolores, we both agree that it was the tourism activity that we would have least minded skipping.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-08-san-francisco-2010-day-3-of-4/5243751689_3d1ae4d651_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="San Francisco Town Hall">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-08-san-francisco-2010-day-3-of-4/5243751689_0ce2d06194.jpg" alt="San Francisco Town Hall"/>
</a>

City Hall was quite a pretty building, especially with the big freaky Buddha statue in front.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-08-san-francisco-2010-day-3-of-4/5244398418_fda4db04dc_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="San Francisco Mission Dolores">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-08-san-francisco-2010-day-3-of-4/5244398418_72f2ae9893.jpg" alt="San Francisco Mission Dolores"/>
</a>

Historical Landmark #327

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-08-san-francisco-2010-day-3-of-4/5243798215_5d4a0182a2_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="San Francisco Mission Dolores, First Building in San Francisco">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-08-san-francisco-2010-day-3-of-4/5243798215_872c745377.jpg" alt="San Francisco Mission Dolores, First Building in San Francisco"/>
</a>

[Mission San Francisco de Asis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_San_Francisco_de_As%C3%ADs). It's made with 4-foot thick adobe mud walls. How else could a building five days older than the United States (seriously, June 29, 1776) remain standing through all the earthquakes?

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-08-san-francisco-2010-day-3-of-4/5244356320_1ddd807ffa_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="San Francisco Mission Dolores">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-08-san-francisco-2010-day-3-of-4/5244356320_4c0a6d46d3.jpg" alt="San Francisco Mission Dolores"/>
</a>

The ceiling has "Native American patterns".

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-08-san-francisco-2010-day-3-of-4/5243786593_37e05a6438_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="San Francisco Mission Dolores, Cemetery">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-08-san-francisco-2010-day-3-of-4/5243786593_02777bb05a.jpg" alt="San Francisco Mission Dolores, Cemetery"/>
</a>

The cemetery was very lovely.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-08-san-francisco-2010-day-3-of-4/5244391248_ce4581209a_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Resting in San Francisco Mission Dolores, Cemetery">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-08-san-francisco-2010-day-3-of-4/5244391248_37499efc9c.jpg" alt="Resting in San Francisco Mission Dolores, Cemetery"/>
</a>

I found an uncomfortable bench in the cemetery to rest my feet.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-08-san-francisco-2010-day-3-of-4/5244388668_e851fa8bc5_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="San Francisco Mission Dolores, Cemetery">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-08-san-francisco-2010-day-3-of-4/5244388668_79e3505a66.jpg" alt="San Francisco Mission Dolores, Cemetery"/>
</a>

A grave figurine looks up at the neighboring basilica.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-08-san-francisco-2010-day-3-of-4/5244402638_3be4fc0858_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Chula">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-08-san-francisco-2010-day-3-of-4/5244402638_d5e5418a21.jpg" alt="Chula"/>
</a>

The Mission was right next to Chula Street. So I had to get Marga to pose by the sign. _Chula_, in Spanish, can mean everything [from wench to rascal to sly](http://www.spanishdict.com/translate/chula), but is generally a playful term of endearment for a woman.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-08-san-francisco-2010-day-3-of-4/5243749179_0fdfc4b5a9_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Defense Against Illness, Bad Vibes & Stinkiness">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-08-san-francisco-2010-day-3-of-4/5243749179_37c3422b7a.jpg" alt="Defense Against Illness, Bad Vibes & Stinkiness"/>
</a>

The Mission District is known for it's very, let's say, eccentric shops. We went into one where the woman was excited to tell us about the local artists that designed all the clothes in the shop. This "Defense Against Illness, Bad Vibes and Stinkiness (avoid eyes)" spray was in that shop.

Later we found [Alamo Square](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alamo_Square,_San_Francisco), the vantage point for one of the most iconic views in all of San Francisco, looking over [The Painted Ladies](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Painted_Ladies), some Victorian houses to the skyline behind. Dubbed "Postcard Row", it may be best known for being in the opening credits to the _Full House_ television show.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-08-san-francisco-2010-day-3-of-4/5244410298_5649ce86a9_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="The Painted Ladies">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-08-san-francisco-2010-day-3-of-4/5244410298_033ea01f5c.jpg" alt="The Painted Ladies"/>
</a>

The obligatory San Francisco postcard shot.

At dusk, we took a bus back to Union Square, but didn't go to the hotel. Instead we decided to kill some time (Happy hour!) before our scheduled dinner in a local Irish pub. The local beer, [Anchor Steam](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchor_Steam_Beer), was our favorite cool beverage across our stay in San Francisco. Our dinner date, Emily, had been worried that at 7:30 PM dinner might be too early for us Spanish types, but it was the latest we ate dinner throughout our entire US trip, I think.

A bus dropped us off a few blocks from the restaurant, but what looked like a simple three-block saunter on our tourist map actually involved darting across a freeway onramp and then an uncomfortable walk through a very dark neighborhood with some vociferous sidewalk characters with whom we did our best not to make eye contact. Later, Emily would tell us that the restaurant was on the edge of the good safe nightlife area.

Dinner with Emily was at [_Bar Bambino_](http://www.barbambino.com/), "a cafe and wine bar celebrating food, wine, and live culture of Italy". She had made our reservation two weeks in advance. We felt a little out of place there amongst the fashionable hipsters in our tourist clothes carrying a camera and backpack that we still had from when we left the hotel ten hours earlier. _Bar Bambino_ was, however, exactly what I'd asked Emily to find for us, a place that the locals respect but that an out-of-town visitor would never find on their own.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-08-san-francisco-2010-day-3-of-4/5243751237_cd0797f324_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Antipasto at Bar Bambino">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-08-san-francisco-2010-day-3-of-4/5243751237_23df168346.jpg" alt="Antipasto at Bar Bambino"/>
</a>

Our _antipastos_. The one in front is a fried bunch of garlic with the top chopped off. We found them to be not nearly as special as they were made out to be by the colorful string of adverbs recited by the waitress.

When I pulled out my camera, I swear Emily said, "So you're going to get all [Simon Litton](http://simonlitton.wordpress.com/) on us, are you?"

Although we read each other's blogs and are friends on Flickr, Twitter, and Facebook, we've probably only directly exchanged about hundred words to each other over social media. She's a friend of [sgazzetti](http://www.comefriendlybombs.com/)'s. He told me that "she is among the first, and by far the most intense and enduring, of those people \[he\] got to 'know' via the internet and then met in meatspace". Due to the friend-of-a-friend nature of our relationship (and Marga being even further removed), our conversation was a little awkward at first, but we soon warmed up talking about [Emily's work](http://organizedlife.org/) as a self-employed organizational consultant. At some point we switched to politics and found ourselves agreeing on just about everything.

Both our meals with "internet people" were lovely. It was nice to put a voice and some mannerisms to people I knew only from their Facebook posts.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-08-san-francisco-2010-day-3-of-4/5244349610_1d6a5567a4_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Erik and Emily">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-08-san-francisco-2010-day-3-of-4/5244349610_2e91e3436e.jpg" alt="Erik and Emily"/>
</a>

Erik and Emily, bloggers extraordinaires.

We reluctantly declined a cocktail with Emily because we had to get up early the next day to [see the tallest living organisms on the planet](/2010/12/09/san-francisco-2010-day-4-of-4/).


Lombard Street and Meeting Friends - San Francisco 2010 - Day 3 of 4


<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-07-san-francisco-2010-day-1-of-4/5238846593_71c4b897c3_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image post-thumb" title="San Francisco Skyline, Sunset, Sailboat">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-07-san-francisco-2010-day-1-of-4/5238846593_231a148853_t.jpg" alt="San Francisco Skyline, Sunset, Sailboat"/>
</a>

The night before our 9:40 AM flight to San Francisco, which required getting up at 6:00 AM, Nora was kind enough to remind us just why we were leaving her behind on our coast-to-coast adventure; she woke up crying at 2:00 AM and kept us up until just before 4:00 AM. By 3:10, we had ascertained that her demands were that she be in her crib – not in our bed, or up playing – with her mother – not her father – uncomfortably bent over the crib holding her hand. She'd had a fever the day before, but was only suffering from a stuffy nose at this point. We broke off negotiations and let her cry for the 45 minutes until she finally understood the futility. "Remind me of this when I get all 'I miss my poor baby!' in San Francisco," Marga whispered to me.  The TSA agent at airline security confiscated one item of contraband from each of us. Marga had an unopened bottle of water, which she had taken out of her bag to be in plain sight, but it took the x-ray machine to find my illegal possession. Unlike in the airports in Europe, in the Charlotte airport, they let you see the x-ray screener's screen once you've passed the metal detector yourself, which is cool. I always like seeing the contents of my bag with their technology. When she stopped and called over a colleague on one of our bags, I knew something was up. _Act natural! Act natural!_ She opened my bag and found my bag of toiletries, examining each one, eventually settling on a canister of shaving cream that I haven't used in about two years. "Sir, this is over the size limit for aerosols. So I have to take it from you." I agreed and we were on our way. No backscatter, no pat-downs, not even a glance at my groin. What frustrated me the most about the TSA experience was that their stupid theater act worked on me; I was impressed at they had been so skilled as to identify a contraband item from an X-ray of a bag full of various items, and I felt safer because of it.

The van to the hotel was painless, and we were unpacking into our room by 1:00 PM. It was time to find some lunch. We ended up at [_Blondie's Pizza_](http://www.blondiespizza.com/), which seems to be a Bay Area pizza chain. Eyes bigger than stomachs, we chose five slices for the two of us. Then we found a road heading north and walked through Chinatown, Little Italy, and ended up at Fisherman's Wharf.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-07-san-francisco-2010-day-1-of-4/5239363832_fae2e89a07_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Blondie's Pizza">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-07-san-francisco-2010-day-1-of-4/5239363832_a7e6fc9ef3.jpg" alt="Blondie's Pizza"/>
</a>

Blondie's Pizza.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-07-san-francisco-2010-day-1-of-4/5238762453_f9bda87f13_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Lunch at Blondie's Pizza">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-07-san-francisco-2010-day-1-of-4/5238762453_ed51fac3f7.jpg" alt="Lunch at Blondie's Pizza"/>
</a>

Happy Marga with our five slices.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-07-san-francisco-2010-day-1-of-4/5239369344_2d18b93049_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Chinatown, San Francisco">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-07-san-francisco-2010-day-1-of-4/5239369344_b55141cf1c.jpg" alt="Chinatown, San Francisco"/>
</a>

Chinatown. We stopped in one grocery store with everything labeled in Chinese – we did deduce one jar to be full of shark fins, for $30/lb – and little old Chinese women going about their shopping, occasionally shouting questions to the store manager. We determined that we'd rather not put anything in that store in our mouths.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-07-san-francisco-2010-day-1-of-4/5238780521_e5009ddbe5_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Coit Tower">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-07-san-francisco-2010-day-1-of-4/5238780521_89ed8831e0.jpg" alt="Coit Tower"/>
</a>

Coit Tower. Famous landmark. But only worth one photo, in my opinion.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-07-san-francisco-2010-day-1-of-4/5239378702_0b8f6996ef_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="One door per apartment">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-07-san-francisco-2010-day-1-of-4/5239378702_cf4c764a09.jpg" alt="One door per apartment"/>
</a>

Marga and I marveled at the idea of having one door per apartment.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-07-san-francisco-2010-day-1-of-4/5238791731_5dfcbcb37c_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Marga and Lombard Street, San Francisco">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-07-san-francisco-2010-day-1-of-4/5238791731_feaaa29654.jpg" alt="Marga and Lombard Street, San Francisco"/>
</a>

It's hard to tell, but that's Lombard Street, the crookedest street in the world there in the distance. For some reason that's the one entry, of the thousands, I vividly remember from a _Guinness Book of World Records_ I had in my childhood. Stay tuned for more photos of Lombard street in future posts.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-07-san-francisco-2010-day-1-of-4/5239394444_2fe4a1ee67_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Marga with Alcatraz">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-07-san-francisco-2010-day-1-of-4/5239394444_c09d3625c6.jpg" alt="Marga with Alcatraz"/>
</a>

Marga in front of Alcatraz. I'm rather proud of this photo, which I digitally constructed from two separate shots to get both her face and the island in focus. This is more or less the shot (taken by shooting you in front of a photo) they try to sell you for $20 when you do the Alcatraz tour.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-07-san-francisco-2010-day-1-of-4/5239405700_53878b3af2_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Fisherman's Wharf">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-07-san-francisco-2010-day-1-of-4/5239405700_bacf9f4c33.jpg" alt="Fisherman's Wharf"/>
</a>

We finally arrive to Fisherman's Wharf, which was all decorated for Christmas.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-07-san-francisco-2010-day-1-of-4/5238814713_1a99a3849c_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Wharf Gull">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-07-san-francisco-2010-day-1-of-4/5238814713_e06c4a0fc8.jpg" alt="Wharf Gull"/>
</a>

The seagulls were as pushy as the homeless, both asking for handouts.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-07-san-francisco-2010-day-1-of-4/5239417252_2869ea7fc4_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Fisherman's Wharf Marina">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-07-san-francisco-2010-day-1-of-4/5239417252_ed487fa25c.jpg" alt="Fisherman's Wharf Marina"/>
</a>

I wonder how much a marina slot costs in Fisherman's Wharf? On second thought, don't tell me.

We were interested in a ferry ride some time, but when we heard a woman offering an "Under The Bridge" ferry tour departing in ten minutes – and I noticed that we were approaching what photographers call [The Golden Hour](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_hour_(photography)), the last hour of daylight before sunset when everything is more pretty – I suggested we take it.

On the ferry, we ended up on the starboard side, which was good for viewing the bridge and Alcatraz island, but there was no speaker our side of the boat, so we missed out on just about all of the commentary from the captain.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-07-san-francisco-2010-day-1-of-4/5239421112_c6211c3df7_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Alcatraz, Golden Hour">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-07-san-francisco-2010-day-1-of-4/5239421112_6b7dc7fa5d.jpg" alt="Alcatraz, Golden Hour"/>
</a>

The setting sun hits The Rock.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-07-san-francisco-2010-day-1-of-4/5238830773_31111b5a3b_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Erik and the Golden Gate Bridge">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-07-san-francisco-2010-day-1-of-4/5238830773_70edd51466.jpg" alt="Erik and the Golden Gate Bridge"/>
</a>

Due to the sheer number of photographs I took of the Golden Gate Bridge at Golden Hour, I'm going to reserve those for [a future post](/2011/03/02/golden-gate-at-golden-hour/). Let's just say, "That's one photogenic bridge!"

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-07-san-francisco-2010-day-1-of-4/5239436008_28992d9e8c_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Sealions, Buoy, Sunset, Alcatraz">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-07-san-francisco-2010-day-1-of-4/5239436008_268d7d9a1a.jpg" alt="Sealions, Buoy, Sunset, Alcatraz"/>
</a>

Sea lions rest on a buoy at sunset near Alcatraz.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-07-san-francisco-2010-day-1-of-4/5239438200_a23f653018_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Sailboat, Buoy, Sunset, San Francisco Bay">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-07-san-francisco-2010-day-1-of-4/5239438200_97cc4a3e93.jpg" alt="Sailboat, Buoy, Sunset, San Francisco Bay"/>
</a>

Sailboat, buoy, seagull, sunset, San Francisco Bay.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-07-san-francisco-2010-day-1-of-4/5238846593_71c4b897c3_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="San Francisco Skyline, Sunset, Sailboat">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-07-san-francisco-2010-day-1-of-4/5238846593_231a148853.jpg" alt="San Francisco Skyline, Sunset, Sailboat"/>
</a>

The San Francisco skyline at sunset. Beautiful.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-07-san-francisco-2010-day-1-of-4/5239471008_af9b1bdbcd_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Dusk falls on Fisherman's Wharf">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-07-san-francisco-2010-day-1-of-4/5239471008_34b3ef040e.jpg" alt="Dusk falls on Fisherman's Wharf"/>
</a>

Dusk falls on Fisherman's Wharf.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-07-san-francisco-2010-day-1-of-4/5239453474_35451033ff_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Scoma's, Fisherman's Wharf">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-07-san-francisco-2010-day-1-of-4/5239453474_b4cbf50e03.jpg" alt="Scoma's, Fisherman's Wharf"/>
</a>

Scoma's.

Back on shore, we found [Scoma's](http://www.scomas.com/), a restaurant recommended by our friends Jeff and Jane. A quick look at the menu told us that it was a fancier place than we were ready for after our pizza lunch, so we decided to return the following day and found a cheaper place, [Pompeii's Grotto](http://www.pompeisgrottosf.com/), which, as Marga pointed out, must be less posh, since the tablecloths were a red checkerboard pattern. A shared clam chowder and Caesar salad filled us up, and we walked back to the hotel, but left again shortly to have a beer at a local bar to try and adjust better to the western time zone, even if we did end up back in the hotel room by 8:45 PM.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-07-san-francisco-2010-day-1-of-4/5239448762_c9ab8c3499_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Sunset over San Francisco Bay">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-07-san-francisco-2010-day-1-of-4/5239448762_51b8ed657d.jpg" alt="Sunset over San Francisco Bay"/>
</a>

On Sunday, November 28, 2010, we came very close to seeing the sunrise over the Atlantic and set over the Pacific.


Fisherman's Wharf and Ferry Under The Bridge - San Francisco 2010 - Day 1 of 4

Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz - San Francisco 2010 - Day 2 of 4


<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-03-thanksgiving-2010/5229900748_2ea57d19e2_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image post-thumb" title="Stuffed turkey and gourds">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-03-thanksgiving-2010/5229900748_78f7997b6d_t.jpg" alt="Stuffed turkey and gourds"/>
</a>

On Thanksgiving morning, as is tradition in my family, we piled in the minivan and headed over the proverbial river and through the proverbial woods to Grandmother's house. Nora was relatively well behaved during the 3.5 hour car journey, which included a stop at Bojangles for a "bo berry biscuit", which was priced at $0.89 for one or $1.00 for two...and Europeans ask why Americans overeat so much. Before leaving Bojangles, Nora managed to dump her entire cup of water down the front of her dress, which was immediately removed, thus clearing the way for getting chocolate all over her onesie later in the car ride.  Upon arriving to my grandmother's house, we discovered that, as usual, all the food was ready, warm, and waiting for us. After a little bit of unpacking, we sat down for our Thanksgiving meal. I, for one, was very thankful to have my wife, daughter, parents, and grandmother with me on that special day. The food was delicious, as you shall see below.

After dinner, and throughout the three day visit, Nora played with both her grandparents, but mostly continuing to strengthen the bond with her grandmother, to whom she would become very attached over the coming week.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-03-thanksgiving-2010/5229865468_489ec5fbbc_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="In the crib at Great-Grandma's house">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-03-thanksgiving-2010/5229865468_1155736642.jpg" alt="In the crib at Great-Grandma's house"/>
</a>

Checking out her new crib at Great-Grandma's house in her chocolate-stained onesie.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-03-thanksgiving-2010/5229293463_41f9f25d26_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Thanksgiving Turkey">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-03-thanksgiving-2010/5229293463_f54fd77164.jpg" alt="Thanksgiving Turkey"/>
</a>

The bird gobbleth no more.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-03-thanksgiving-2010/5229299587_47a508b9a6_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Thanksgiving Table Setting">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-03-thanksgiving-2010/5229299587_02e460f07f.jpg" alt="Thanksgiving Table Setting"/>
</a>

The impeccably set table.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-03-thanksgiving-2010/5229332633_84d4f96137_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Carving The Turkey">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-03-thanksgiving-2010/5229332633_8ae964292d.jpg" alt="Carving The Turkey"/>
</a>

My father carving the turkey.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-03-thanksgiving-2010/5229340037_944c0112d3_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Sitting down for Thanksgiving Dinner">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-03-thanksgiving-2010/5229340037_65e5a8bf54.jpg" alt="Sitting down for Thanksgiving Dinner"/>
</a>

Everyone takes their place.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-03-thanksgiving-2010/5229941996_5ff5d65bff_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Thanksgiving Turkey">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-03-thanksgiving-2010/5229941996_4303542f92.jpg" alt="Thanksgiving Turkey"/>
</a>

Turkey.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-03-thanksgiving-2010/5229356717_80eb87e9e5_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Stuffing">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-03-thanksgiving-2010/5229356717_9904447704.jpg" alt="Stuffing"/>
</a>

Stuffing.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-03-thanksgiving-2010/5229906940_e4baac673c_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Cranberry Jello Salad">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-03-thanksgiving-2010/5229906940_28476a233b.jpg" alt="Cranberry Jello Salad"/>
</a>

A cranberry jello salad my grandmother makes.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-03-thanksgiving-2010/5229957330_6fde08b770_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Turkey Napkins">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-03-thanksgiving-2010/5229957330_e36609c330.jpg" alt="Turkey Napkins"/>
</a>

Cool turkey napkins.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-03-thanksgiving-2010/5229972604_1d3be5d7d4_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Pumpkin Pie">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-03-thanksgiving-2010/5229972604_725400208f.jpg" alt="Pumpkin Pie"/>
</a>

Pumpkin pie with whipped cream.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-03-thanksgiving-2010/5229400171_113fc10f3e_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Playing the Piano">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-03-thanksgiving-2010/5229400171_e30ffe0bff.jpg" alt="Playing the Piano"/>
</a>

Nora surprised us with a sonata.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-03-thanksgiving-2010/5229420357_ee7e2376eb_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Playing with Grandma">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-03-thanksgiving-2010/5229420357_9eda0f59a9.jpg" alt="Playing with Grandma"/>
</a>

Having fun with Grandma.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-03-thanksgiving-2010/5230035736_e7190d6f8a_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Playing with Grandma">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-03-thanksgiving-2010/5230035736_df4ed3a740.jpg" alt="Playing with Grandma"/>
</a>

Some sort of monster in the Hundred Acre Wood.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-03-thanksgiving-2010/5229477817_fb8a33c9dd_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Turkey Leftovers">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-03-thanksgiving-2010/5229477817_32d4c4a5d1.jpg" alt="Turkey Leftovers"/>
</a>

Turkey leftovers for dinner!

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-03-thanksgiving-2010/5230102862_4bb97ac155_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Wrestling with Grandpa">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-03-thanksgiving-2010/5230102862_a86d8bd923.jpg" alt="Wrestling with Grandpa"/>
</a>

Wrestling with Grandpa.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-03-thanksgiving-2010/5230110198_fe99936f98_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Wrestling with Grandpa">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-03-thanksgiving-2010/5230110198_df93e2bbd8.jpg" alt="Wrestling with Grandpa"/>
</a>

Faceplant.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-03-thanksgiving-2010/5229530499_f216b2eda1_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Wrestling with Grandpa">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-03-thanksgiving-2010/5229530499_6e46d6b421.jpg" alt="Wrestling with Grandpa"/>
</a>

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-03-thanksgiving-2010/5229543983_3590b4b48f_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Wrestling with Grandpa">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-03-thanksgiving-2010/5229543983_e734cbfb46.jpg" alt="Wrestling with Grandpa"/>
</a>

One way to sit down.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-03-thanksgiving-2010/5229605927_e3b89b9439_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="My grandmother and me">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2010-12-03-thanksgiving-2010/5229605927_15b6bd5bbe.jpg" alt="My grandmother and me"/>
</a>

There's nowhere I'd rather be on Thanksgiving than with my grandmother.

All the photos of our Thanksgiving visit can be seen [here](http://www.flickr.com/photos/erikrasmussen/sets/72157625522002230/).


18 posts from December, 2010