Reviving My Photoblog

It’s now officially been over a year since I last updated my photoblog. It kind of blows my mind considering photoblogs should take a lot less work than a wordy blog like this does to maintain. The process should be quite simple:

  1. Take a picture
  2. Process the photo
  3. Write a few sentences about the photo
  4. Post the photo

Ocean-Beach-Sunset

Yet here I am, without a post in 12 months. What a mess. Luckily I’ve promised myself that I would put an end to not blogging and doing the things that really make me happy. Also lucky for me? I get so many wonderful opportunities to take photos and make art out of them. Or at least what I consider my art.

This weekend my mom flew into San Diego to celebrate my birthday a bit early. I turn 30 next Saturday… Wish me luck on that one. More on all that later, I promise!

This post isn’t supposed to encapsulate all the fun and adventures we went on but I did want to use it as a way to hold myself accountable of making at least five updates to my photoblog in the upcoming week. Oh, quick note, all of the following images were taken with my Pentax MX-1. The most hipster of seriously-cool range-finder-ish digital cameras.

Venice-Beach-Collage

Let’s hope I don’t fail us all! It’s time you all start holding me accountable! There, I’ve passed my failure onto you.

Wines of the Wine, Cheese and Dessert Party

This post is really just a list. A list of the wines the wines people brought to our Wine, Cheese and Dessert party. A few of these bottles are from my rack but obviously the majority are from the guests. I wish I had written down all the cheeses we enjoyed. There were quite a few great cheese. Can’t really say much for the wine; I only drank my Meeker and Turnbull cabernets.  Continue reading

First Week with a Four Hour Body

I made a silly decision to start my slow carb diet the week of Pride. But I was tired of putting it off for this reason or that. Family in town, traveling, still having to live in hotels, etc etc.

I knew that this wasn’t going to end any time soon and that putting off this experiment would do me no good. Even if it meant I couldn’t enjoy the food and drinks of Sunday’s Pride Parade here in San Francisco.

This morning I woke up, went downstairs and did my weigh-in. Down twelve pound! Almost too good to be true so I did a scale reset and tried again. Twelve pounds, right there. Wow. Here’s how I did it.

Last week, I went to the grocery store and purchased a weeks worth of food, slow carb food. If you don’t know, here is how the diet works.

There are three things you have to eat at every meal. You can mix this up a bit with spices and different ingredients here and there. I recommend you buy the book. You do this for every meal, six days a week. On your seventh day, your cheat day, you eat whatever you want and as much of it as you want (don’t go too crazy). Continue reading

Beautiful Day in the Wine Valley

Sunday greeted Ryan and me with some of the most beautiful weather we’ve seen in a while. It also gave us an entire day hanging out with Kayla in the wine valley, checking out wineries, tasting a dozen or so bottles and buying a few as well.

We hit up Unti Vineyards, Preston Vineyards, Quivira Vineyards and WineryMounts Family Winery and finally an epic winery tour from Michel-Schlumberger Wine.

I picked up a bottle from Unti, Preston and Mounts. I was pretty tempted to get Michel-Schlumberger’s 1991 cabernet but rumor has it Ryan and I are looking at taking advantage of a big wine sell soon…

We ended our day absolutely devouring some tapas at Willi’s Seafood & Raw Bar.

Wine and Friends

You might remember that I went to court just a couple of weeks ago to deal with a squatter who had been living in our family cottage in the wine valley. We won the lawsuit and he was to be evicted 5 days after the judgement had been made official, ie, after he was informed and the Sheriff had posted notice on the house.

Well the day came that I was going to have to meet the Sheriff’s deputy and do the official turning over of property from the squatter back to me.

Not a fun trip to make really. Luckily my dear @KaylaGettys organized a super fun blind wine tasting with some of her friends in Healdsburg. So, the night before I had to be in Forestville, I went to Healdsburg, met some really amazing people, drank some fun wine and generally had an amazing time.

Without that night I don’t think I could have made it through the day that followed.

Chinatown

Ryan and I have this great plan to visit different neighborhoods here in San Francisco, explore their shops and restaurants, people and nuances. I’m amazed that until last night I had only left the Castro for a trip to my new favorite wine bar, Barrique, a jaunt for lunch in the Mission and a few trips out of the city. I live and work in the Castro. I grocery shop there, go to the area hardware shops and generally don’t leave it’s familiarity.

While I have technically been to the Mission and the Financial district, those trips were hardly exploratory. That’s where this venture comes in. Continue reading

A Four Barrel Coffee Revolution

It was only a matter of time before someone took my Four Barrel Coffee cherry (pun intended). No one could be more worth than @KaylaGettys as proxy to @MattnWells. I had honest only ever seen a free-pour brewing of coffee once in my life, at Picasso in St. Louis with @SamuelAveryHunt.

For being a coffee lover it is pretty lame that I had never had a pour-over.

“What is a pour-over cup of coffee?” asks the general public. It’s glorious, that’s what it is. Instead of really hot water flooding grounds at high temperatures and inconsistent times, pour-over coffee is treated like a work of art. Continue reading