Blog Master G

Friday night Jen, Justin, and I hit the town for a round of bar-hopping — City Tavern, Thirteen, the Wine Bar, and Tin & Lint. We were excited to see the Svedka vodka girls at Thirteen later in the evening (massages, handcuffs, free drinks), much talked up by the bartender, but the reality wasn’t all that exciting, as they strolled calmly around the bar offering nothing but free shots. I was looking forward to a handcuffed massage from a hot vodka model. And I know Jen was, too. Maybe next time.

Saturday we picked up some leaflets from the Democratic HQ and drove around some new developments on the edge of the Saratoga-Wilton border to drop off candidate material — Val Keehn for mayor, Ron Kim for public safety, Matt McCabe for finance commissioner, and John Franck for accounts commissioner. We dropped about 50-60 packets. It took longer than we had anticipated since every house was so far apart and we had to walk the length of all these 50-100-foot driveways. Our designated territory didn’t exactly have the same neighborhood feel that other neighborhoods like ours have. This Thursday is Val’s $5-per-plate fundraiser (PDF link) at Union Gables Inn, designed as a “We The People” event to sharply contrast incumbent Mike Lenz’s recent $500-per-plate exclusive fundraiser at a local mansion.

After raking on Saturday, a downpour of rain came to disguise all our hard work, so it looked like we hadn’t even raked. Apparently this is one of the rainiest falls ever. It sure feels that way. The days are getting shorter, the darkness coming sooner and staying longer. It was still dark when I woke up at 7am today. And the rain continues.

Saturday night my Uncle Michael was in town with his crew for a film shoot. They were filming Sunday at Yaddo a documentary about classical music, hosted by San Francisco Symphony director Michael Tilson Thomas. It was great hanging out with him and my Dad at Longfellow’s, if only for a brief time. We also watched Crash that night, which was an excellent film and lived up to all the positive reviews.

Last night we took my Dad to a birthday dinner at Leon’s for some delicious margaritas, burritos, and chile relleno. Happy day-after your Birthday, Dad!

The 1,999th U.S. soldier was killed in Iraq this morning. When will it end? It’s nearly time for a peace vigil and protest with death 2,000, which, sadly, will probably come this week.

The temperature hasn’t quite hit that magical 32-degree mark yet, but we’re close. According to Yahoo Weather, the temperature here is currently 36 degrees. According to the Frogometer outside my window, it’s about 40 degrees. Either way, that translates into the need for turning on the heater, which we did for the first time of the season yesterday after having the furnace cleaned and radiators bled. It’s always nice in theory to try to make it to November before using the heater, but this year and last that just wasn’t a reality. Next up: Storm windows go back on for the winter.

It was two years ago yesterday when Jen and I decided and announced to the world our decision to move to Saratoga Springs. I wrote: “The decision was not easy. We love San Francisco. Leaving this city will be very hard. But we believe that it is the right thing to do at this point in our lives.” Two years later, as much as I sometimes do miss living in San Francisco and being close to our West Coast friends and family, I can say with confidence that it was the right decision for us. Saratoga Springs is such a livable little city. It has all the charm of a big city without all the hassle and expense. We’ve managed to settle in here better than I could have imagined, making so many great new friends, buying our house, and becoming part of this wonderful community.

It’s funny to see the description and photos of our tiny 1-bedroom SF apartment and be reminded how much we paid for that little thing. It’s no surprise, though, since San Francisco is the second most expensive place to live in the country, after Manhattan.

One of the many things I really appreciate about living in this small, tight-knit community is being able to walk into a “meet the candidate” house party down the street and be enthusiastically greeted by the candidate herself, then look around and see that I already know about a third of the people in the room of more than a dozen supporters. This was the case last night when I went to meet and learn more about Joanne Yepsen, who’s running for Saratoga County Supervisor.

I knew going into the event that Yepsen’s views on all the hot local issues — the water debate (on which the city council voted last night, thankfully, to revisit the Saratoga Lake option), the preservation of open spaces, the fair increasing of property taxes and assessments (is it really fair market value for everyone?) — were in line with mine, but what I didn’t know was much about what a supervisor does or what the structure of the board looks like.

I learned that the county board consists of 23 representatives from across the county. The supervisors have no term limits and most of them have been on the board for 10, 20, 30 years or more. Yepsen is one of two challengers going against two incumbents. The top two vote getters win the seats. If one candidate is your strong favorite, it’s more to that candidate’s benefit for you to cast only one vote (a “bullet vote”) rather than your possible two.

The county board has a budget surplus of $35 million (while Saratoga Springs, the financial and tourist lifeblood of the county, struggles with rising taxes) and oversees initiatives ranging from land preservation to water use to county personnel to disbursement of funds raised via NYRA from Saratoga Race Course (a percentage of every bet placed on track and at every OTB facility nationwide goes into the county treasury).

It was a great experience and one which has motivated me to be even more involved in local politics. On November 8, join me, Saratogians, in casting your ballot for Joanne Yepsen — a candidate for the people and accountable only to the people — whose goal is maintaining the special quality of life that we all enjoy here in Saratoga Springs. Joanne is not your typical politican. She is personable and approachable, and clearly cares about the issues and this town.

Our new furniture arrived yesterday — two bookcases, one chair, one ottoman. Our living room line of furniture is allegedly being discontinued (part of me thinks it’s just a ploy to get us to buy more; if so, it worked), so last month we bought a few more pieces for the living room. The chair looks really good and we’re now wishing we had gotten a second to complement it. We still might do that, if they haven’t already discontinued it.

I did some much-needed raking yesterday and today at 7am the city busted out its bulldozer to pick up the giant piles of leaves out of the street. Good timing. It’s 47 degrees this morning and I’m wearing my winter pants for the first time this season.

One year ago today Jen and I symbolically planted our roots in Saratoga.

Saturday night Jen and I hit the town with Sarah, Eric, Justin, and Caroline for a crazy evening at One Caroline filled with good eats, good wine, good friends, and good fun. It was an evening marked by great conversation (technology, gabeanderson.com, wine snobbery, the meat fan, work, etc.) and was one I won’t soon forget. Sometimes pictures and collective memories speak louder than words. After One Caroline, we briefly hit the new bar on Caroline Street, Thirteen, followed by our usual stop at Tin & Lint. We capped off the night with 1am bloody marys (maries?) and Nordictrack at Justin’s place.

View all photos

Two years ago today: Energy of the Universe

Jen and I have been uploading 35mm and digital photos to the Web since February 2000, when we first discovered Photoworks (although my first photo went online on my first Web site back in 1995). We used Photoworks for nearly two years before we decided we didn’t like the print quality of digital photos, or the slowness of the site (they’ve since improved the site’s speed).

So we started to test other sites — Snapfish and Ofoto. We did a print quality comparison and site speed test, and decided that Ofoto, along with being backed by the Kodak brand, was far superior to the others. The site was consistently fast and reliable, too. So in December 2001 we uploaded our first album to Ofoto (now Kodak EasyShare Gallery) and since then have been archiving on the site every photo we take (and ordering some). I’ve even started uploading all the old albums from Photoworks and Snapfish.

As of today, our Kodak EasyShare photo count is 8,388 photos. Not counting the albums I haven’t yet transferred from Photoworks, that’s an average of 1,398 photos we’ve taken per year (116.5 per month) over the last 6 years (rounding the timeframe up a bit). You might say we’re photo-crazy fools.

During the past 4 years in which we’ve been using Ofoto (I still like to call it that, despite their effort to rebrand as Kodak EasyShare Gallery, which is more of a mouthful), my number one biggest gripe has been the inability to download the original, high-resolution versions of the photos. To date, the only way to do so is by ordering an archive CD with all photos. This has always bugged me since Ofoto doesn’t own the original source files. I do. But I do understand that they want to leverage that as an offering in exchange for all the free hosting and photo storage. That time has come.

You can imagine my excitement yesterday when I happened to be uploading photos and noticed the new Kodak EasyShare Gallery Premier offering, which is about 25 bucks per year and, in addition to the ability to download the original high-res photos (great for backup should anything ever happen to our local copies), we now have a special site where we can choose to publish from our Ofoto account any existing album we choose. We must have been early to sign up, given that our common last name was still available.

So this site joins the list of other places where I display our photos online (photos, blog, gallery). Only time will tell, but it seems to me this new method of display will be the easiest and become my preferrred method.

Kodak: If you’re reading this, here are two more features you need to offer:

1. Selective photo publishing to Gallery Premier (rather than the entire album)
2. Album & photo searching in my account and in Gallery Premier

To say we’ve had better Mexican food than the new El Mariachi III at Exit 13 in Saratoga Springs would be quite the understatement. Even “let down” isn’t accurate. “Bad” is probably the best adjective to describe this self-proclaimed Mexican/Spanish local chain.

The hot chips and homemade salsa were misleading — they were actually really good, so we had high hopes for the evening. Then came the margaritas: Way too sweet and barely any tequila. I know I didn’t order a virgin margarita, but I might as well have done so and saved the $6.50. Only the entrees could save us now. I ordered the bean and cheese burrito with some extras: guacamole and grilled onions. Jen ordered a chile relleno. Both dishes came with rice and lettuce that tasted the same, except for the texture. Everything also had a hint of plastic taste to it, and we agreed that the food must’ve been pre-prepared and nuked before we ordered it.

Globs of cheese highlighted both our entrees. No Mexican food should ever have any congealed ingredients. And why did my burrito come with black beans? By default, any burrito should come with refried beans, so I didn’t even think to ask when I ordered.

Next time you find yourself in Saratoga Springs, do yourself a favor and keep on driving past El Mariachi III until you hit Leon’s at 275 Crescent, closer to Exit 14 and the track. Leon’s remains king of Saratoga Mexican eats.

Last night we grilled some fish in the garage in the rain. It was a mix of cajun catfish and talapia brushed with olive oil and Old Bay spices. It was delicious, as were Jen’s baked squash and red potatoes. Mmm. I plan to grill into the winter. Even when it’s -14° F. Oh yes. Justin and my Dad joined us for the little impromptu dinner party. We kicked our remaining bottle of Sterling Sauvignon Blanc. That’s one outstanding wine with the most incredible bouquet.

After dinner, the plan was to watch Lost at Justin’s place on his giant TV, but we were all feeling a little spontaneous last night, so we first took a detour at the racino for some harness racing and slot machine action. We arrived in time to bet on the eighth race, and Justn and I both hit the 1-2 exacta. Cha-ching! I was $7.80 richer. A few races later, I lost 4 bucks, bringing my evening profit to a whopping $3.80. It was funny being at the racino after having hit the Flat Track a record seven times this summer. The quality of racing is nothing like the thoroughbred racing at the better-known Saratoga Race Course. The purses are only in the low four digits, and the relatively small crowd of racing fans makes the odds jump around like Happy when friends come over. We saw the odds for one horse go from 27-1 to 9-1 in the blink of an eye.

It’s day 2 of my excrutiating back pain. It hurts like hell if I do pretty much anything — walk, stand, bend over, put on my shoes, take off my shoes — so I just try to sit perfectly still. A sick part of me actual likes being in pain like this.

First, because it reminds me how lucky I am to have my good health most of the time — without our health, what good does anything else do us? Secondly, it allows me to be lazy (as if I needed an excuse) and to have my wonderful wife wait on me. We all like to be spoiled from time to time.

And speaking of spoiling, Jen and I are considering pampering ourselves with some full-body massages at one of Saratoga’s famous day spas. Known for health, history, and horses, the healing spring waters (and the full-body massages, no doubt) are part of what put Saratoga on the map. It’s about time we experienced more of the first “H” than just the spring waters around town.

Just when you think you’ve seen it all, you channel surf to ESPN 2 on a slow Monday night and there it is: The United States National Jump Roping Championships — at Disneyland, of course. From complex, coordinated team events to high-speed tag-team agility to three-person, choreographed dance roping (spinners and jumpers rotated for added complexity), the championships had it all. I was amazed and intrigued. The competition brought a soothing smile to my face, along with a bellyful of laughs.

I suppose if using a broom to push a puck around ice can be an Olympic event, then why not jump roping, too?

I’ve got it: Competitive blogging. Who’s in? I’ll take you all on, motha fuckas! Bring it!

Sometime in the night I must’ve messed up my lower back. It’s hurting like hell this morning. My normal mile-long dog walk was cut short since 100 pounds of dog just wasn’t happening any longer. Three Advils later, I’m trying not to think about it too much. Hopefully the sweet medication of coffee, Advil, and Jen’s delicious, homemade apple cake will nurse my back back to health (who knew there was another acceptable way to use the same word twice in addition to “that that,” as in “I’m psyched that that jump rope team was featured in last night’s competition”).