Blog Master G

Last night after work I headed over to beautiful and green Montclair to meet up with Jen at her coworker Jane’s place to help out with some winemaking. It was our first foray into the world of vinting — and good practice for running the vineyard that we’ll some day own. We helped out with the pressing of 100 pounds of red Zinfandel grapes that had already been sitting with yeast for awhile. When all was said and done, we had filled a 6-gallon jug (that will yield approximately 2.5 cases of wine) that will ferment for about a year. It will be cool to head back to Jane and Sarah’s place a year from now to help with the bottling. Wine making rocks.

I was hoping and planning to attend virtually this morning’s eLearning Forum meeting in Mountain View — via Centra. As cool as Web-conferencing technology is, it’s still in its infancy and simply not working right now. Bummer. My coworker Dave is on a panel this morning and it would’ve been cool to listen in.

In my attempt to refine my custom content management system that I’m beginning to use on my Web site, I posted this message to DreamHost’s discussion forum this morning.

Later this afternoon I’ll be dropping off Happy Dingo at Planet Canine, since Jen, Stella, and I will be heading to Sacramento tonight to hang out with James and Tracy. Happy isn’t quite ready to be trusted alone in the room at Nana’s house. Case in point: He ate his bed inside his crate last night.

After much debate yesterday with the incompetent “Reggie” of Treasure Island’s The Villages — and everything short of being accused of lying — I finally managed to get the fool to agree to give us back the $416.99 they tried to charge us to replace the living room carpet. He acted like he was doing us a favor by not charging us for the non-existent “dog damage.” Apparently they had already replaced the carpet so he couldn’t see for himself. That, and because we had lived there for three years, were the reasons he cited for giving us the money back. Of course, I’ll have to call him again next week when the check hasn’t arrived and argue with him all over again.

Last night our home Internet connection was down, so I went home this morning to meet the technician to fix it. Of course, now that it’s all better, my computer is having problems. I think I may have to reinstall the OS. Geez…

Also last night Jen and I saw Jennifer Aniston’s new flick, The Good Girl at our hometown theater. The movie was really well done, but was a bit of a downer. Despite its darkness, Jen and I both really enjoyed it.

The latest exciting development with Dad’s new installment of 100 Faces of Marin is that Jen and I will likely be collaborating on the production of the book. The project and funding are moving along steadily. Dad emailed me this press release today about the book.

The Giants game last night with Dad was a lot of fun. The Giants kicked some serious ass. When we left in the 7th inning, they were up 6-3. By the time we were pulling onto my street back in Larkspur, they had extended the lead to 12-3. Go Giants! I also indulged in a couple beers, a churro, and a malt. And this morning I had a Krispy Kreme glazed doughnut. Mmmm. Good thing I ran yesterday; I guess everything cancelled each other out.

On September 18 my friend Jonty’s house burnt down. I can’t imagine what that must have been like for him and his family. I’m relieved that everyone’s OK and wish you the best, Jonty, in rebuilding. I’m sorry that New Jersey isn’t closer, or I’d help you with the clean-up and rebuilding.

The incompetent folks of The Villages at Treasure Island continue to make my blood boil. I am currently awaiting a call from the head of the ridiculous operations there, Reginald Harris, to explain to me why they charged us $416.99 to replace the entire living room carpet for alleged “dog damage.” (He’s currently taking a look himself.) Funny, seeing as there wasn’t any dog damage. The only damage to the carpet was caused by mold and normal wear and tear over three years on cheap-ass fake berber rug.

This morning Happy Dingo and I stopped at J.R. Muggs. When I walked in behind a group of men clad in army camo rags, I suspected they were more likely on their way to hunting ducks (is it duck season?) than on a mission of the U.S. government. My suspicion was confirmed when I overheard one of the men order a double low-fat latte.

Last night Jen, James, Tracy, and I had a yummy Thai dinner at the Thai House in Central San Rafael. After that, James and Tracy headed back to Sac and Jen and I took it easy the rest of the night, watching the dogTV.

Tonight Dad and I are off to Pac Bell Park to see the Giants battle the Padres. I think this will be my fourth game this season.

This weekend was a lot of fun. Friday evening I picked up Jen (who got the afternoon off and had spent several hours drinking with coworkers already) and then Enoch from Transbay, and we all headed off to the Lower Haight for a cocktail party at Kat’s beautiful flat. I never cease to be amazed by the beauty of San Francisco houses. Just being in the city and walking around really made both me and Jen want to live there again. So later that night, after dropping off Enoch on TI and a late dinner at Juan’s, we talked about how cool it would be to raise our future kids in San Francisco since it’s such a unique, culturally-stimulating place that fosters education and understanding of all people.

Saturday we spent mostly around the house, getting things cleaned up before James and Tracy would arrive that night. We took the dogs to the Sausalito Dog Park for a bit. There were tons of dogs, but our two weird dogs didn’t really want to play too much with the others. When James and Tracy arrived later on, we all walked to Marin Brewing Company for a late dinner.

Sunday began with a delicious homecooked brunch around noon. Jen made a scramble and fake sausage patties and I made a dozen Belgian waffles. James and I were feeling saucy, so we turned our OJ into screwdrivers, and also invented “driverscrews” — the dipping of orange slices into vodka. Mmm… It was a fun warm-up for the rest of the day that we would spend in Sonoma — first at Viansa then at Gloria Ferrer. We all had a really good time at both places. James and I were in rare form at the latter, where we went through three full glasses of Brut Rose, and James even bought a whole bottle to go.

Last night Jen made a delicious dinner for everyone — lasagne and eggplant parm. Enoch even came over to hang out and partake of the goodness.

Happy earned his second pee strike when he had the nerve to take a leak right in front of me. I caught him in the act and yelled at him.

Also over the weekend I heard from one of my good friends from Vassar, Larry Weinstein. It’s always really cool hearing from old friends. It’s fun catching up and hearing what everyone’s up to. I really like Larry so I was psyched to hear from him. And I just read the props that Larry gave me and Jen in his blog. Thanks, Larry. You rock.

The TV archive that Alexa (Jen’s former employer) put together to preserve the historical news coverage on and following September 11 is pretty amazing. I haven’t even looked at any of the footage yet, but the concept is really cool.

I came across the link to that while reading this interview with Brewster Kahle about The Way Back Machine. I’ve seen The Way Back Machine before and think it’s really impressive, and found the interview about the technology behind it on my friend Sandy’s Geek Guide site.

It’s been a whirlwind couple days with Happy Dingo (hard for it not to be). Yesterday evening Jen kept insisting that she smelled shit as we sat in the living room watching TV. She does this funny thing where she smells the heads of the dogs to determine if they’ve rolled in shit (which Stella has a reputation for doing — the most infamous time, of course, being in the cow patties in the East Bay when Shannon and I took her for a hike on March 27, 2001 when we were both unemployed). Last night, they hadn’t, but Jen kept insisting she smelled poo.

We went on with our night and then Jen discovered a little gift courtesy of Happy Dingo. Luckily, she hit the lights before walking into the office to turn on the computer (she almost had walked right in). Sure enough, there was a giant pile of turds from HDMcG. The plus is that they were solid. One strike against Happy.

This morning after sleeping in longer than usual, Jen took the beasts out for a stroll. When she returned with the kids and announced that HDMcG had not peed, she knew immediately that he had gone somewhere in the house. Sure enough, on a plastic bag under the stairs was a Happy puddle. Again, it’s fortunate that most of the damage was on the plastic bag. Two strikes against Happy. Admittedly, though, it is partially our fault for having taken for granted the fact that Happy had been so good for nearly a full week. We haven’t been diligent enough in taking him out right before bed and right when waking up.

I’ll be heading home yet again at lunchtime today to take out SBN and HDMcG.

I’m so glad to read that My Big Fat Greek Wedding is likely to overtake the ridiculous Blair Witch Project as the highest-grossing independent film of all time. The former is so much better than the latter. It’s currently at $110M to the Witch’s $140M record.

It’s also pretty cool that the movie will become a TV show. My first reaction was “oh great” since movies-turned-TV shows usually flop. But it somehow makes sense in this case. We’ll see how it goes.

Happy’s here at work with me this afternoon. It’s so refreshing to have a dog who actually likes people and who doesn’t try to attack other dogs in passing. He’s just chillin’ on the floor of my office right now. He’s a really good officemate, unlike Stella Brie.

My nervousness has subsided since this morning’s deposition is over with. That’s the worst of it (I hope). Only slip-up I had was when I was asked if anyone else lives with me, and I said, “No,” thinking, of course, of me and Jen as a unit who no longer have roommates! I quickly corrected myself. I’m sure that won’t hurt my credibility (at least I hope!). The traffic wasn’t at all bad, either, and I got to work before noon.

Whenever the email goes out to friends and family, it’s official: Happy Dingo McGee is part of the family.

I went home at lunch today to let him out of the kitchen and to take him and Stella out for a romp. They met new friends — Milo and Xenon — and ran around off-leash at the park outside our place. They were really good and both came back when called. It’s nice to have an affection-driven dog.

Aside from having a new dog child this weekend, I spent a good deal of time creating the CMS for my Web site and content database, and putting in place much of the framework for cranking out the wedding Web site. I’m really psyched to have built such a cool, simple CMS system.