new years 2014 (back on the air)

this was a very nice evening with some new friends here in the bay. Really great folks. D&C are the same pair we went to Yosemite with a couple weekends ago. Really fun couple, I'm glad we met them. So. We're in the new house, and I've got my computer and network up. The RAID came up just fine, and everything else seems as well; wifi works, at least. There's a lot of unpacking, organizing, and laying out of furniture to be done, but home is where "127.0.0.1":http://127.0.0.1 is.

a history of stragglers

So, we're in the middle of moving, and the only real computer I have access to is my server, the one that runs the web site you're reading. The server is cloudy, which means when I move house, I don't have to move it. By real computer, I mean something that can run, at a minimum, vim and git. Those are the minimum tools I need to do a blog post. My rasberry pi also qualifies, but it's in a box somewhere. Luckily, I had photos already out on the server, or theis would be a very boring post indeed. These are more from the period between Xmas and New Years. One from sonoma, and the others walking back from brunch at Portal. That's what I meant by stragglers; I keep seeming to have one photo that should have gone with the previous set turn up the next time I open lightroom. It's what I get for blogging tired. Not much to say right now. moving is hard, and it's going to take us all week, I'm afraid. Tomorrow is the furniture, but there are a million little things that are going to take us a while to get. The kitchen, the closets, the camping stuff, yada yada yada. Up and down stairs until I'm tired of it, and then a few more trips. This was my idea, really. Save a little money, get into a nicer area. I'll enjoy it once I get there, but now, I'm tired.

sonoma plus one

The day after xmas, we realized we had nothing to do and all the time in the world to do it in, so we took a little day trip to Sonoma for some wine tasting and food. It's a nice drive out there, a couple hours, maybe, with traffic, and nice rolling hills to drive through. The first thing we did was get a bite at a little cafe, and then visited the tourist bureau. There was a nice lady there that told us about good places to eat, and gave us a map of wineries on the square, and some coupons for tastings. So, we wandered a bit. The first place we went to talked us into joining a wine club. The two bottles we were thinking about were effectively half price with the club. The tasting room had a bunch of kitschy household goods for sale, handmade by the looks, in addition to the wine. I think _gauche_ is the word, but I may be so backward that shit like that is in style in some circles. The wine was good, and I don't really regret the wine subscription. It does give us an excuse to go back every few months or so. The second place was more sophisticated, and seemed very proud of it's italian heritage. They also had a pretty good schpiel about how some of their wines came into being by happy accident. Who knows if it was true, but there was a nice couple also in from the city who shared their salami and crackers with us on the patio as we had a glass. Pretty rad. The last place the vintner himself was serving us, and the guy who made the pottery on display came by to say hello. His wines were probably the best we had that day, and I really look forward to going back there. "Bump":http://www.bumpwine.com/wines/ was the name. They do sell them online, although no clubs and no discounts. Then there was dinner, a nice pizza, which I had way too much of, and then we went home. The last photo is a straggler; the set I thought it was part of didn't work, and I ended up getting rid of most of them, but I really like that gold tooth.

ben and jenn came to town

No, not that Ben and Jenn. Why would I care about them? No, these are two of our friends from oklahoma, out here to see family over the holidays. We met up, had brunch at Oakland Grill, and then took the ferry over to the city. December 26 and I hardly needed a jacket.