Wandering around this amazing city searching for Christmas Trees everyday has been a fun little adventure. I already knew we lived in a beautiful city, but it's a lot of fun keeping an eye out for a little extra Christmas Cheer.
This funny Santa elf made me laugh as I was walking by. Despite his sunglasses, he gave me a little twinkle of his eye so I couldn't resist a snapshot.
It was still raining significantly this morning, but definitely a lot calmer than yesterday.
I came across several amazing office lobby trees while I was out. This relatively simple tree is perfect for this lobby with a living wall.
This one brings the woods to the concrete jungle.
While this one brings us the Artic.
No shortage of adorable polar bears at this office building.
After a fully day and a busy evening making goodies, we got a text from a friend asking if we wanted to see a late night movie. Couldn't resist, even though I was yawning till the movie started. We saw John Wick. The storyline was little out of control but watching it was easy on the eyes. Point of the story, be nice to puppies.
Here's a beautiful song that I just heard for the first time last weekend. I listen to it differently now than I would have pre-guitar learning.
Jimmy and I watched Her, the movie this soundtrack was in. It's an odd love story. I was reluctant to watch it because I knew it would be depressing, but I'm glad I did.
Thankful for a quiet day with Jimmy, watching a movie about Leaving Barstow, a desert town near where we grew up, and getting a jump start on making my Christmas cards.
While I'm sure lots of movies were filmed in this neighborhood, Haight Ashbury is more famously known as the neighborhood where the hippie movement began and the psychedelic rock music revolution started in the mid to late 60s. From wiki: In 1967, the neighborhood's fame reached its peak as it became the haven for a number of the top psychedelic rock performers and groups of the time. Acts like Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin all lived a short distance from the intersection.
Haight Street mural paying tribute to Jimi Hendrix.
The Scott McKenzie song "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)," written by John Phillips of The Mamas & the Papas, became a hit single in 1967.
The Painted Ladies are 7 Victorian houses built between 1892 and 1896 that survived the 1906 earthquake and fire.
from wiki: "This block appears very frequently in media and mass-market photographs of the city and its tourist attractions and have appeared in an estimated 70 movies, TV programs, and ads, including in the opening credits of the television series Full House."
Here's a video of the Full House theme song. An addition to the family having a picnic in Alamo Square in front of the Painted Ladies at the end of the clip, it showcases many of San Francisco's landmarks.
Several months ago I purchased 2 Yelp "Deal of the Day" tickets for the San Francisco Movie Tour, so when our niece came to visit earlier this month, she and I took the tour on a beautiful, sunny Thursday afternoon.Here we are at Fort Point, but I'll get to that location later.
As we made our way around the city, we watched movie clips when we got to specific locations that were represented in the film. Believe it or not, I didn't take a lot of photos. It wasn't easy in the bus, and I gave Ashley the window seat so she could have a better view. But I was able to snap a handful of shots when we were able to get off the bus.
We were allowed to go inside and see and even walk up the grand staircase.
At the top of the staircase is a bust of Harvey Milk. He was California's first openly gay man to be elected to public office, but was assassinated in this building in 1978 after only 11 months in office.
Chinese New Year celebrations were still underway and this large Dragon Boat was proudly on display in front of City Hall.
Since taking this tour, I've added a few more movies onto my "Must Watch" list. Jimmy and I love watching movies that were filmed here.
Busy day today but not too much happened that's Christmas related. So I wanted to share this screen shot I captured this weekend. I was watching Miracle on 34th Street and this is Kris Kringle's employment card for Macy's when he was hired to be their Santa Claus. I betcha in 1947 when the movie came out that they didn't foresee being able to stop the film like this and be able to capture a crystal clear image of what's being shown on the screen.
Here's another funny screen shot. I have to admit that I"m surprised that a film this old has completely relavant text in this newspaper article.
Jimmy and I have developed a habit whenever we watch TV to stop the video to read any headlines or articles the show presents. Nowadays, most shows are really good about making sure the text is relavant. Older films and shows weren't as fastidious. They'd run a couple of semi-relavant sentences and just repeat them over and over again to fill the space.
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Just noticed that in Santa's list of "next of kin", it say's "Donder" instead of "Donner". I thought that was a misspelling but when I did a little google search, I found this out: "Two of the reindeer names, Donner/Donder and Blitzen, are often the source of confusion, misspelling, and misinformation. The short facts are these: Donner/Donder and Blitzen were named ''Dunder'' and ''Blixem'' (the Dutch words for ''thunder'' and ''lightning'') in the original printing of "A Visit From St. Nicholas." In reprints of the poem, the names became ''Donder'' and ''Blixen,'' then ''Donder'' and ''Blitzen'' (the latter being German for ''lightning''). By the time Johnny Marks wrote "Rudolph," it was ''Donner'' and ''Blitzen'' (possibly because ''Donder'' was musically awkward)."
Aside from the 2 hours I spent searching for Christmas cards I made in October, today was a pretty quiet day. I wonder if the lesson I'm suppose to learn from that is to not prepare for the holidays before Halloween. Hum.
We did venture out tonight to see The Ides of March with one of our friends. He lives nearby and we live near the movie theatre. It's kinda nice being able to just walk 3 blocks to see a flick on a Saturday night.
Didja know that today was the premier of the 3rd installment of the Twilight movies?
I was late to jump on the Twilight bandwagon and truthfully I'm pretty sure I fell when I tried jumping on. I've read the first 2 books and saw the first 2 movies. But I s.t.r.u.g.g.l.e.d with both books and only finished them just get some kind of closure to the stories.
I watched the movies and they were entertaining enough because they were only 2 hours each rather than the 2 months it took me to read the 2 books. But after finishing the 2nd book, I realized that I was curious enough to watch the movies, but not dedicated enough to spend that much time reading them.
And I was patient enough to wait till the movie came out on video...
Or so I thought!
When Kristin asked if I wanted to see the movie on opening day, I couldn't say no. I mean, really, the draw of the wolf vs the vampire was too strong.
All kidding aside, I had a lot of fun. We joked around about Team Edward vs Team Jacob but I finally decided that I was gonna jump on the Team Alice bandwagon.
I know, most of you have no idea what the heck I'm talking about. So I'll start to wrap it up, lol.
As it turns out, I thought it was the better of the 3 movies. It was entertaining and fun hanging out with a friend.
Afterwards, I took a class at one of the local scrapbook stores that created a minibook album dedicated to the movie. The original minibook was filled with photos of Bella, Edward and Jacob - or to my non-twilight reading friends: the human, the vampire and the wolf.
I like the style of the album but I'll just do my own theme and add my own photos and embellishments.
It was a fun day completely full of twilight goodness. Enough to last me till the next movie comes out next year!
Just got back from dinner and a movie w/ Bee. She just finished her 1st year of grad school so we met 1/2 way to celebrate. Dinner at Monsoon Masala was meh but the naan was scrumptious. However, don't know if great naan can redeem mediocre main entrees. But we saw "Killers" after dinner and it was highly entertaining. We'd both heard mixed reviews so we went in with low expectations. I think if you go in not expecting anything, you're more easily amused. We both certainly laughed out loud a lot. And Ashton Kutcher was nice eye candy, too. Katherine Heigl is charming as she always is.
Nice lunchtime break with Christina, including a little shopping spree. hummm...wonder what I'll make with these goodies? She also helped me try a little free-motion quilting.
Here are a few of my favorite little trinkets near my crafting table: Honey bee wax bear. A gift from Miss A. It smells really good, too.
Small dish of collected beach rocks, a few acorn shells and a soapstone heart.
Kneeling Native American women. Got 'em in Tucumcari, New Mexico.
This could be the 1st year that I've seen many of the movies nominated for the Oscars. I've been in a movie watching frenzy lately.
Before Feb. 22, I'm hoping to have watched Doubt, The Reader and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I probably will not see Frost/Nixon before then but hopefully will eventually.
I've seen: The Visitor: Loved it. The best movie I saw last year. Milk: You pretty much know the story, so the details and the amazing acting are really what makes this movie so spectacular. Revolutionary Road: It was ok, but in my opinion, not that compelling of a story. Slumdog Millionare: Fantastic and highly recommend. The best move I've seen this year. So far. It's still February. The Dutchess: Good.
I'd also like to watch Wall-e, Bolt, The Dark Knight, Changeling, Rachel Getting Married, Vicky Christina Barcelona...have no desire to watch The Wrestler.
What does eating seeds have to do with any of this? Nothing. I just have that song stuck in my head.
I've decided that I have to break out of my blah-bloggy-ness and get back to writing more frequently. Things have been happening. I'm keeping busy. I have amazing supportive friends and family and the engine keeps a-rollin'.
And a rollin' it is...Jimmy and I celebrated our Eighteenth wedding anniversary today. Holy crap. It doesn't seem that long and it freaks me out a little that we could actually have a kid graduating from high school this spring. ALTHOUGH...I guess that would have meant that we would've had a shot-gun wedding, cuz at the very least, I wouldda have had to have been preggers, if not already a mom by the time we got married that amazing day in 1991.
In my previous posts about our anniversary, I shared pics from that fantastic day. But not now. Because I decided to share a photo from today. And I'll be damned if I'm gonna do a side by side comparison of how we look now compared to how we looked then. Pahleeze. Of course, you could always click here or here and check out those old photos and compare what 18 years of marriage does to a couple. Oh, I suppose being 40 vs. 22 might make a teeny tiny itty bitty difference, too. But shhhhh, don't say anything out loud, my ego can't handle it.So tonight Jimmy and I went out to dinner at Maggiano's with the family. Yes, we are quite content that we spent our anniversary celebration not alone at a romantic restaurant, but with our beloved family enjoying the celebrations with us. Besides, we needed them there to help us eat all that food. Have you ever eaten at Maggiano's? Good gravy, I seriously have never seen so much food delivered to a table before. Ya order family style with 2 appetizers, 2 salads, 2 pastas, 2 meat entrees and 2 desserts. Not enough? They'll bring refills at no extra charge. I can't believe I didn't take any photos of all the food, but I did take a photo of the additional dessert they gave us complimentary since it was our anniversary.mmm...delicious. You get to take home all the leftovers, too. Bonus meal tomorrow!
So, what else have I been doing...besides eating all of Manhattan. Oh wait, where am I? The Bay Area, that's right. Manhattan just sounded cooler. Not that the Bay Area isn't cool, cuz in fact, I personally (don't be hatin' anyone on the east coast), I think the Bay Area is cooler than Manhattan. I'm just a west coast gal I guess. Just my personal opinion, me who has never ever lived in any another state. So what the heck do i know? Besides, I love Manhattan so very, very much, I'd just rather live here. Tangent. Nevermind.
Thursday night, Jimmy and I went into the city (aka San Francisco) to watch a Technical Visual Arts Performance set to Music at the Luggage Store Gallery on Market Street. They don't sell luggage.
"The Luggage Store programs are dedicated to broadening social and aesthetic networks, encouraging the flow of images and ideas between different cultural and economic communities."
Anyone have stereotypical notions about San Francisco hole-in-the-wall performing art houses? Anyone? Anyone? This place just might fit your bill. Who wants to come with us next time??
It was awesome but I have to admit, completely and totally over my pea-brain. Because, seriously? there were parts of it that were so very technically involved but all I saw were colors and music.
There were 2 performances, the 1st by Big City Orchestra and the first 20ish minutes, the audience listened to what they call "experimental noise pop" in a very black room. Then they take down a black curtain and reveal a rotating...i donno how to describe it...Jimmy likened it to the turning spiral circle thing from the Twilight Zone.Yea. With, literally, seizure causing strob lights flashing every 1/10000th of a second. For real, I thought I was gonna have a seizure. And for real, I thought that they were doing some mind controlling experiment and after it was all done, we'd all go home and go about our lives then unexpectedly we'd hear the song "Relax" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood and then we'll have to kill the Prime Minister of Malaysia. It could happen.
Anyhoo...as interesting as that was, we didn't go to see them. We had Intent. The 2nd performance was by Tim Thompson. He's a software engineer and artist and one of Jimmy's friends. The stuff he does was a lot less scary and way more interesting and best of all, it didn't make my head want to explode. But it was so technically involved that while I enjoyed the sound and I thought the lights were cool, I just wasn't able to understand the objective of the performance.
Maybe since my entire musical ability revolves around the XBOX360 Rock Band game, my musical prowess isn't really evolved either. (you think?)
Here's a vid from his site:
and his quote accompanying the video:
"A live solo performance using the latest incarnation of my custom software. Both music and visuals are generated in realtime from the notes I play on a MIDI keyboard and controller. My software processes and loops the notes, sending MIDI notes to soft synths to make the sound, and sending OSC to graphics software to make the visuals. The MIDI parts were written using KeyKit, and the visual parts use Python and Freeframe plugins."
Of course, Jimmy totally got it.
Regardless, it was a blast.
Just stay away from us if you're the Prime Minister of Malaysia*.
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Heavy. But I know you knew that already. No one could leave the theatre as the credits started rolling because everyone was in tears. Highly recommend. _
Have you heard of the movie Surfwise? It's about a family with 9 children who lived in a 24 foot RV and sacrificed education for surfing and living the life their father envisioned for them.
Very unconventional family with interesting values. Again something I cannot relate to even though the kids are closer to my generation than the Gosselin kids. It's an interesting movie if you happen to stumble upon it.
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My foot felt the best when I was in the water. No resistance, I guess. Its actually started feeling worse since we got home and daily tasks have kept me busy. How long are you suppose to ice? I thought it was just the first 24 hours. But i started icing again tonight and it feels slightly better.
Saw Mamma Mia today. Such a fun movie! Totally corny, but I loved it!
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Saw an accident happen in front of me today involving a semi-truck. I have to give props to the semi driver because he skillfully avoided hitting the 2 cars in the lane next to him on the left, avoided jack-knifing his truck and rolling it. From what I could tell, a car in the slow lane (going fast) cut him off and probably hit the semi or the semi clipped the car when the car cut him off. The semi slammed his brakes and served into the left lane (the lane I was in, behind the 2 cars directly next to him). Amazingly, he didn't hit the cars next to him and they didn't hit him. We were all going around 60 mph or more. It's insane how fast the dialog in your brain happens: "WTF is happening?? Brake! Don't hit the car! Semi, don't roll! OMG, there's gonna be a pile up. Is that car behind me gonna hit me? Can i move into the left lane? Move into the left lane!" And all this dialog is happening in the other 10 cars around me, too. Thankfully, both the semi and the car drove to the shoulder and no one visibly looked injured. Crazily, as everyone passed the incident, they all zoomed off, seemingly unfazed. Me? I moved over to the slow lane and counted my blessings.
On another note, I watch the movie "The Visitor". Possibly the best movie I've seen this year. Coincidentally, hit on topics of: -Listening to music you don't understand -Noticing the workings of power and privilege in your culture -Learning people's history -Assuming that many others share your dreams -Know that no one is silent though many are not heard and -Watch films with subtitles although this film didn't have subtitles, I believe that it's in the style that would help global awareness.
Here's a trailer (there's one in the link above, too. It's the same.):
Rain went away so I did a bit of window shopping at Santana Row.Wouldn't it be nice to drink my diet soda from one of these glasses?
Scented candles in funky tins. I was drawn more to the colorful tins rather than the scents.
Didn't buy either.
This would be a cool place for a photo shoot.
Waiting to turn left onto Hamilton Ave. Too many check engine lights.
While I was there, I saw Atonement. Sad but very good. I cried.
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Been having fun playing with the Simpson's avatar maker. These really look nothing like us, but ya never know in Springfield. That's me and Jimmy in the back seat of the Simpson's car. Along for the ride.
Somehow we found ourselves in Alaska, so we're watching Homer tame the sled dogs. Or visa versa.
Here we are enjoying the views of Exit Glacier. Getting ready for our hike for a closer look.
Here's Jimmy and Madretz-Simpson during the hike up to the glacier.
Our Simpson alter ego's made the hike to the glacier. Here we are listening to the ranger tell us all the factoids.
And we continue our journey through Alaska with a pit stop in Moose Pass.
I highly recommend making your own Simpson Avatar. Check it out!
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Wandering around this amazing city searching for Christmas Trees everyday has been a fun little adventure. I already knew we lived in a beautiful city, but it's a lot of fun keeping an eye out for a little extra Christmas Cheer.
This funny Santa elf made me laugh as I was walking by. Despite his sunglasses, he gave me a little twinkle of his eye so I couldn't resist a snapshot.
It was still raining significantly this morning, but definitely a lot calmer than yesterday.
This relatively simple tree is perfect for this lobby with a living wall.
This one brings the woods to the concrete jungle.
While this one brings us the Artic.
No shortage of adorable polar bears at this office building.
After a fully day and a busy evening making goodies, we got a text from a friend asking if we wanted to see a late night movie. Couldn't resist, even though I was yawning till the movie started. We saw John Wick. The storyline was little out of control but watching it was easy on the eyes. Point of the story, be nice to puppies.
