Blog Master G

An article on the front page of today’s Chronicle outlines the latest — and most realistic — of the myriad development plans for the future of Treasure Island that have been set forth over the past several years that Jen and I have lived there. The latest plan, proposed by a seemingly well-off developer who promises to give the city $26 million up-front for accepting the proposal, even formed a new company specifically for this project: Treasure Island Community Development, LLC. The developer promises to morph TI into “a model for the 21st century,” certainly a far-cry from the island’s current, run-down state.

There are two hotels included in this plan, but no theme parks, which is good. Past proposals have included ridiculous ideas like theme parks, a giant replica of just the arm of the Statue of Liberty, and, of course, a hill-top mansion on Yerba Buena Island for mayor Willie Brown. The proposal includes ferry service, but I’m still skeptical of turning TI into anything more than it is today — as if Bay Area traffic isn’t bad enough to begin with. And major earthquake retrofitting would be necessary.

Still, if development won’t begin until 2005 and the project won’t be complete for another 10 years after that, I think I’ll be able to afford one of the $480,000 homes by 2015. Talk about an investment opportunity (with some serious earthquake insurance, of course).

I just completed listing my first ever item for sale on eBay! We’ll see how it goes…

This was a big and exciting weekend. Saturday morning Jen and I went apartment hunting in Marin. We looked at several places and put down our holding deposit for a 2-bedroom townhouse in Larkspur. We move into The Caspian on August 14. Our TI lease expires end of August, so we’ll have a couple weeks to move everything, which will be really nice.

Saturday afternoon was our big BBQ and final party here on TI. We had about 20 friends stop by and had a really good time. We partied from about 230pm to 230am!

And to top off our banner weekend, last night we went out to the Richmond to look at a black leather couch that someone was selling on craigslist. We really lucked out. Not only are we getting an $800 practically-new Ikea soft leather couch for only 300 bucks, but the woman is also throwing in a really nice glass-top dining room table with four chairs and an outdoor table with two chairs for practically nothing. We pick up the Budget truck and head out to the Richmond again this afternoon to pick up everything.

Today is my first day off this week. Stella and I celebrated by hitting Crissy Field after dropping off Jen at work. It’s a beautiful day here in the city, so we had a really good time at the beach, walking through the ocean and playing fetch.

I just recieved confirmation that it is, indeed, Brad in the NY Times story on spam!

One of the most annoying aspects of the Internet is, of course, spam. In the never-ending battle against it, this New York Times article (which contains a picture in it that looks like it may be Brad, who works for Brightmail, where Jen also used to work), raises some interesting free speech questions. As annoying as spam is – and I get way too much – I am also a strong believer in free speech. Is outlawing spam actually supressing free speech?

My WRX had her first oil change today at 3,686 miles. It’s like my baby’s growing up.

eLearning Forum has posted the meeting summary of the last gathering I attended with Glenn earlier this month.

The latest news to hit corporate America is a mere $4 billion oversight by WorldCom’s CFO, who has been promptly fired. Whoops. I guess he forgot to carry a few zeroes. OK, so he forgot to carry about nine zeroes. What the hell was he thinking? And guess who the accounting firm is? Andersen, of course!

Jen is out at her girls’ book club tonight with my cousin Lucy, so I’ve been chillin’ at home. I watched the end of I Am Sam tonight, then got to surfing the DirecTV digital airwaves. I started thinking about how Jen had recently ordered a PPV movie and we’d not been charged for it. So I started doing some research and learned some interesting stuff. When I first got DirecTV, I found lots of sites, including this one, dedicated to the underground DSS community, which continues to intrigue me. On this round, 1 PPV down and 24 to go!

Yesterday after work I went to Blockbuster in the Northgate Mall and had one of those strange moments where you just really don’t know what to make of it. As usual, my pal Mike was ringing me up. Normal exchange at first. He asked me how I was doing. I said fine, thanks. Then I asked him how he was doing. He said he didn’t know. “OK,” I thought. That’s fine. Then he proceeded to tell me something about how he didn’t know if he was really there, or if he was just inside this long, skinny body. Uh huh. Keep in mind this was Blockbuster, not hallucinating with your buds. I was renting I Am Sam, so perhaps he was trying to give me a preview of Sean Penn’s acting. Who knows? I sure don’t. I just started at Mike blankly after this awkward interaction.

As of Friday afternoon, Jen and I have a date for our wedding: Saturday, July 26, 2003 at the Vassar Chapel in Poughkeepsie, NY (with reception to follow at Christos). It seems unreal. Actually, now that we have a date, it makes it all seem more real. I’m really excited about it and know that this next year will fly by. Planning continues to come together, and our honeymoon will likely be in the Caribbean.

Saturday morning Jen, Stella, and I picked up Enoch and headed to Sacramento for a weekend to hang out with James. We arrived at his pad in Elk Grove and were greeted by a BBQ, a houseful of folks, and three tiny dogs: Maddie (aka Mad Dog), Zoe, and Tag. Stella loved the little fellas. James cooked up some mean BBQ grubs. After an afternoon of drinking and chatting, we went to Nana’s house to rest, dropped off Stella, then headed out again at 11pm. Going out at that hour is something we rarely do. We hit the Limelight on Alhambra, where we found an unusually high ratio of blonde chicks with fake breasts. Jen gave me a hard time for trying to get Enoch to put the moves on the Britney Spears look-a-look with the hat.

Sunday we slept in a bit, then headed to Roseville for breakfast with Jen’s aunt Liz and cousin Taryn. Mmm…Mimi’s Cafe.

Last night Jen and I saw Insomnia – starring Al Pacino, Robin Williams, and Hilary Swank – at the Metreon. (It was actually the second movie this week that we’d seen there; we saw The Bourne Identity Monday night.) It was really good and very tense. Pacino was great, as always. Williams, moving outside his normal happy role, was excellent as the evil killer. Swank also did a great job, as the young detective in the remote Alaskan town of Nightmute (how’s that to suggest a dark, silent place, perfect for a crime that draws the attention of hot-shot LA cops?).

Tonight it’s off to Pac Bell Park to see the Giants shut down the Orioles.