Red-Letter Day!

Went to see the Giants game. Got the sweeeeeeet company seats. w00t!

Yes, that's my view 3 rows back from the field. Close enough to say things the players and umpires could hear! I sat up in the front row for a few innings too.

And then we came home and made cheese from scratch! Like, for real! We bought some cream-top 2% organic milk from TJ's and followed the directions in our Cheesemaking Kit, and less than an hour later, fresh mozarella cheese! How cool is that?

Om nom nom.

It's that time of year

Driving home tonight from work, the freeway traffic warning sign on the Dublin grade read:

Oakland Coliseum
E V E N T
Expect Delays

First game of the season, Oakland vs the hated Broncos. Monday Night Football. Yes, we love our HD TV.

Goooooooo Raiders!

La Frida Bonita y otras cosas

Went to see the Frida Kahlo exhibit at the SF MOMA this weekend. I was surprised by how many paintings were included in the exhibit, and frustrated by how many people were also moving through the rooms. It was hard to read the information displays, and hard to get in close - even sometimes see from a distance - the paintings. But what paintings! I know Kahlo mostly for her self-focused imagery, her struggles with pain, her representations of inner anguish. The exhibit showed her earlier portraits (straight-up, 30s modern), her later still lifes (vibrant, beautiful, static) and many candid photographs from her years in SF and Mexico...in addition to the amazing images you already know. There was good biographical information about her marital to-and-fro-ing with Diego Rivera, as well as her sojourns in America. Altogether she painted some very beautiful, symbolic, thoughful pieces. I was surprised by my enthusiasm. And while she herself was beautiful and charismatic, and she was tragically in love with Diego Rivera, a doughy dumpling of a man - what was she thinking???

Afterwards we got the super-bonus of an exhibit of modern Chinese artists - including Yueh MinJun whose works shows hordes of painfully grinning Chinese men (on ostriches, as fields of near-identical statues, sitting around, etc.). They are somehow perfect - identical, falsely friendly/happy, artificial, vaguely off-putting. Ai WeiWei had taken Neolithic clay pots (5000-3000 BCE) and painted over them with garishly-colored paints. Sacrilege! What a waste! Or...an interesting point about history, conservation, consumerism. Sui Jianguo created "The Sleep of Reason" - my new favorite, a statue of sleeping Mao (very unusual, as the link explains), and filled the room around him with waves of colored toy plastic dinosaurs, radiating outwards in dreamlike technicolor trip-out patterns. Way cool.

Afterwards we had dinner on Fillmore street at SPQR, a mixed-up Italian joint. It was good, but I can't tell you why. The desserts were confused (the "panna cotta" was a delicious chocolate mousse with chocolate cake on the bottom), and I think we paid too much. I was fascinated by the clientele; Mom had commented recently that people eating out in the East Bay are somehow different than the people eating out in San Francisco - more casual. Sitting there in SPQR, all I could see were white people, all the women were blond (almost none naturally), all from a very high socio-economic stratum, healthy, wearing very nice clothing, and not necessarily enjoying themselves. I felt pretty ghetto in my shorts and stringy yoga top. The couple to the right of us complained the whole time about the food, and the woman to the left of us spent almost the entire meal nattering away to her absently listening partner. Dad and I barely needed to talk for all the entertainment we had. Yes Mom, diners in San Francisco are different. I'll stick to the East Bay.

Change is good, mostly

I've just concluded a rather interesting month. The short(ish) version: I realized that my workplace had changed strategic direction in a way that really didn't need my skill set very much. So I went to S, the guy who runs the place, and said, "I'm not asking you to fire me, but honestly, you don't need me. Is it okay if I make a few calls?"

My thinking is pretty straightforward. I'd rather work where I'm needed, not just where I'm liked.

So he gave me permission, and I put the word out that I was available. Something must be in the proverbial water, because it seems like I got calls from damn near every major player in my industry within a few days.

Also within a few days, S called me into a meeting to tell me, with a hangdog expression on his face, that he had done all he could, but my position had to be eliminated. My last day was to be in two weeks, at which time I would be handed a very generous severance check.

Weirdly, he was the one who needed to be comforted. "S, man, why the long face? You just got done telling me I get a fat check for leaving, which you know damn well I was doing anyway. Corporate HQ got a camera in here or something?"

I continued interviewing. Either they were all desperate, or I still got mad interview skillz, because each interview resulted in either a followup interview or an offer. Perhaps I shouldn't have done so many interviews...pretty soon I had a lot of deciding to do.

I've chosen one now, and for those who have heard me talk about the options, I chose the one that I can take the train to rather than the one I need a Chinese visa for, or the one I could bicycle to, or the one that might involve exotic foods.

I've learned a lot through this process. Turns out I can make hard decisions after all. Apparently I also have senior-management-level strategic thinking. I definitely have the Best. Wife. Evar.

I haven't ruled out going overseas for work one of these days. Probably will, in fact, before the next summer Olympics. Learning Chinese and French in the meantime might be a good investment of my time....