stairwells and hallways

had a nice relaxing saturday today and was able to spend some time working on some project bikes in my new art studio/work space. there are three new projects on the way, one 70's fuji for myself and two univega builds for others. more updates as teh bikes take shape but for a recap of recent bike projects check in to my flickr here: project le peeg, red rover and my own vintage italian fixie conversion. [shown above]

Bike-nappers nabbed my bike from my parking garage be on the alert SF peeps. I don't feel so bad because the left crank was loose and I didn't tighten it so my guess is the person got about 100 yards before having it pop off and them falling on their face. For the record it was made up of an IRO frame, Bianchi track bars, carbon fiber forks, Ritchey headset...

... for five seasons... happy birthday oscar robertson.

...and big al is warming up! happy early birthday mike!

please let him win...

according to the woman behind the counter at bob's donuts on polk... "eeeet's az beeg as yo face." can't ask for anything more at 2:00am after last call at the hemlock.

walked by the chrome [messenger bags] store tonight and it's safe to say they have me pegged... bicycles, bags and vintage hondas, they're basically one modern furniture piece away from recreating my subconscious.


[and yes that is the exact same model of honda i have...]

rode my bike home from the brisbane photo studio today, weather was perfect and thankfully the ride home is mostly flat or down hill.

more treats from texas!

to me.

this time around i decided to take full advantage of the restaurants at my disposal and visit one of my favorite food icon's restaurant, anthony bourdain's les halles. it was a quite night not too many tables the staff was very nice and unpretentious, everyone took their time chatting with me and making me feel comfortable. the meal in itself was the same, unpretentious, straightforward and relaxed. it's safe to say it's one of the best meals i've had in a long time. details below:

back in nyc again...

poster outside ideo event

i'm growing to love my new work neighborhood...



the accommodations are nothing to sneeze at either.

one of the greatest things about nyc is shopping at the century 21 department store, it's like walmart, meets ross, meets chaos... if you have the patience and do some searching some true gems can be found at amazing prices. above, two ralph lauren ties (including one from wimbledon edition) a light cotton sweater from ymc, an italian cable knit sweater from seal kay independent and two pocket squares, one from paul smith and one from emilo pucci. i think this will be a reoccurring stop on every trip...

leaving nyc and heading back home. couldn't pass up the chance to stare at eero saarinen's terminal five, currently under restoration word has it that it will reopen sometime in september.

while in nyc this week for meetings and business, i decided to take advantage of it and rent a car to drive down to maryland to see my family. it's the first time in ten years that i've been home in the summer, somewhere between new jersey and the maryland border i hit a nice east coast summer storm... i totally forgot what that smells like and it was pretty refreshing.

in nyc for work this week and walked by the west 4th street pro-classic street ball tournament, my [nyc] coworkers kept walking not even noticing the amazing game that was playing itself out with the crowd of people seated on folding chairs cheering on their neighborhood heroes. the story is that it was started by ken graham, a brooklyn limousine driver in 1978, and it became such a greenwich village mainstay that it was featured on the cover of sports illustrated in 1997. i wish i could've stayed longer to watch the game play itself out but my colleagues were motioning me from the corner to move along so i did. i can only imagine the games have played themselves out on that slab of concrete in the last 30 years. i guess a happy anniversary is well deserved.

one of the perks of my new job is my chance to travel to nyc here and there for meetings. this is basically my commute back and forth from work over the brooklyn bridge and back... not to shabby.

i was greeted at work by a circle of people this morning having muffins, bagels and coffee in my honor, nothing getting thrown right into it. i met my team and they all seem great, definitely feels strange being the "new boss"...

today was the first day of my new job, of course it wasn't exactly my first day f work it was more like the first day of school. sign in, watch the instructional movie, have lunch, ride the bus (no joke we have our own "buses") then go get my id card, then home by 3:30pm. very strange indeed, after going to the same place for the last five years every day of the week it's going to take some getting used to.

... by someone that this blog has gone slightly unattended, well that's not to say i haven't been doing anything so here's some back dated posting to make everyone feel all good again.

pretty much the monday you'd expect nothing incredibly interesting about it except for thai food takeout...

had a break from the magazine for once and had a mellow day. watched teh celtics destroy the hawks again, put some work in on my new bike project, had a spot of breakfast then headed to the east bay to pay a visit to manifesto. fell asleep on the train both ways. wound down with some netflix and called it an early night.

usual working weekend at the magazine with the added bonus of having to deal with a little crossover work with my 9 to 5, luckily i have tomorrow 'off' donny and alan forbes were having and 'art show' at the lucky 13 where they were selling prints and some original art. tons of people came out for it, even mike, stuck around almost until closing time, grab the usual slice of greasy late night pizza then headed home.

left the office for training as usual and punched out a long week's worth of work and in the end was so spent i wound up for once spending a friday night in...

top secret mission today.

another day with the magazine, but did manage to swing by manifesto to say hi to mackay and sam and pick up some new bars and grips for the italian bike i'm working on. dropped off my wheels as well to have sam take a shot at replacing the sew-ups that were on it. i want to keep it as original as possible and as i've been taking it apart and cleaning it i'm noticing it's been pretty much untouched since the 60s or 70s so even the bits of patina on it add to its character. came home after working for the day and gave it another hour or two of scrubbing.

spent another day laying out the new issue of the magazine but before we could get to deep into it we heard what sounded like an automatic rifle being fired. running outside we saw police cars everywhere and after a bit of rubbernecking we found out what happened a block or two away:

someone had just held up the local rent-a-car place, taken a car, crashed it, ran into a nearby house, grabbed a hostage, grabbed the hostage's car, hostage gets away, police open fire into the car... wow. not much i can say beyond that...

there's something about a cold that just makes any given day just blur. woke up feeling like i go trampled by wild rhinos not necessarily because of a late night last night but more from general aches and pains associated with friday's training compounded on top of this cold.

woke up later than i should have and took bart to the east bay to put in another day's worth of work on the magazine. one more long weekend on it and it should be off to press. we set up our 1st annual 'inner-office nba finals throwdown' then took a break to have some dinner and watch the atlanta hawks get punished by the celtics. greta was nice enough to give me some tea for my cold and then i headed home for sleep. i can't believe i have to go back to work already.

woke up feeling a little gross from a bit too much fun last night so my ambitious plan of going to the gym then into the office was cut short a bit and it took me until almost noon to drag my carcass into the office. i actually like working on the weekends when i can, it makes mondays a little more palatable and as long as i'm not there all weekend, getting some work done in peace and quiet is pretty great. bought myself some lunch from one of the few places open in the financial district and worked away on my calendar and marketing briefs while listening to some loud indie rock in my head phones.

one nice thing is that i got to have a conversation with sarah from back home for an hour or two. that's the great thing about spread sheets, they don't take much mental effort and carrying on a conversation is a good way to pass the time while copying and pasting.

after i came home and took a nap debating whether or not to go out. jenni had invited me to meet her and nathan for their 'walking party' but to me it sounded like another word for pub crawl so i was considering just staying in bed. after the second text message from the outside world snapped me awake i decided to go for it and head out taking dan with me. we all met up at the bar on mission where we had our first drinks and nathan informed me that a 'walking party' was not an elitist 18th century way of killing time but literally a walking party... meaning you just followed the guy with the boom box and walked. with bar one and two under our belts the near 15 of us walked to the next which was actually not a bar just a random street corner on mission. soon i was being asked if i needed a beer and the nearby newspaper box was opened to reveal a case of beer. soon the noise and crowd drew the attention of a police officer so we concealed what we could and moved on. he had bigger fish to fry and we were not committed to that corner.

we stopped at another corner a few blocks away and the boom box was planted and the party resumed. after a while someone mentioned the police cars coming down the block with it's lights on... everyone hushed, stashed their cans of beer and tried to look inconspicuous. as the car approached it hit the red light and instead of stopping and throwing a spotlight on us it hit is siren and blew through the red light followed by a collective cheer from the party goers. after a little while longer my cold feet and runny nose reminded me that this is probably not a great idea anymore so i hopped a cab and headed home to curl up under a pile of blankets.

fridays are pretty awesome, except when they start with a trip to the dentist and a case of the sniffles. the dentist took too long, i was late to work and you can imagine the rest, luckily thought my meeting count was to a minimum and my last meeting was about 15 minutes content and 30 minutes of small talk by a group of people that just wanted the day to be over and didn't want to return to their desks.

i ducked out promptly at 5:00 and headed off to train, i didn't know how much i had in me but had to give it a try considering my exercise drought as of late. i did fairly well and felt good boxing but my kicks did lose their energy at one point and it was getting tough to swing my legs full force.

afterwards i headed home and napped a bit then decided to head out for at least one drink, one drink turned to two and then the crew of fighting guys showed up and it was a full on dude-fest that ran up to last call where we all grabbed our slices of pizza and headed our separate ways.

first full day back in the office, doesn't seem as crazy for some reason now that i'm actually at my desk. my cold from the days before is still lingering but i felt like i should go put in some work at the gym. i logged a decent run considering and went home and crashed, thankfully only one more day left in the week.

one thing i will say about the rooms at the ritz, they sure can block out light and sound. i slept like a rock but given all of the food and drink from the night before my body seemed to be craving more sleep and it took a considerable amount of effort to drag myself down to the conference. given all of the email chatter i decided to cut it a bit short and head back to the city and the office. i took the 1 this time and it really wasn't as spectacular as i remembered, neither was driving a rental car.

after setting things straight in the office i wanted to head to the gym and sweat out the first half of the week but cielo called to meet for some drinks. given the way i felt i passed on the drinks but she seemed to have a bit of a head start on me anyway. we chatted for a bit and grabbed some thai food but i headed home early to finish up my taxes so i could put them i the mail in the morning.

got up at the crack of dawn to drive down to half moon bay for a work conference. the drive was shorter than expected and i arrived to meet my coworkers just in time for breakfast. i checked in at the desk and started to take in the 'legendary' ritz carlton of half moon bay. the decor was kind of unimpressive and it somewhat reminded me of a wealthy aunt's superficially decorated connecticut house. the view from my room was impressive but for some reason all of the bedding was off the bed and in a chair leaving me with a bare mattress. i sat down my bags and and headed downstairs. along the way i made note the the front desk clerk about teh bedding and casually said that they should just send someone up to take care of it to which he responded 'that's not how we do things here at the ritz carlton.' and immediately moved me to another room throwing in a fireplace for my trouble. nice. overall the hotel was decent and the staff was great but i did feel a bit out of my element, as far as higher end hotels go i had much better experiences with my stays at the husdon in new york, the w here in san francisco, the miyako hotel in osaka and the riverbank park place in london.

after a day of seminars and such our hosts bussed us all over to sam's chowder house for a dinner on them and an open bar. my coworker and i hit the food line and enjoyed the mussels, clams and even some whole lobsters that were steamed for us. a nice touch was the small cards that read 's'mores on the beach after dinner' and with that we were all outside enjoying the late evening view and the fire pits. it was such a good experience i actually felt like i wasn't in the bay area anymore and was much closer to somewhere like carlsbad or encinitas. after being bussed back to our hotel i had one more cocktail at the bar and went upstairs to pass out from my long day of meetings, it's crazy how much just sitting and listening to some one talk and schmoozing the day away can take out of you.

very quiet monday. worked the day away, picked up the rental car for tomorrow's conference in half moon bay, cleaned up around the house, fell asleep... there's some exciting journalism for you.

another day of work on the magazine and another incredible day weather-wise. got home a bit early to relax and wind down, the fog's rolling in a bit hard so my guess is that this is probably the last nice day of weather...

walked down to get my coffee while waiting for a pick up from mike to head to the east bay to work on the new issue of the magazine and it's literally hot out, i can't believe this weather.

worked on the new issue for a while then headed home, cracked open every window in the house put in a dvd and had a glass of wine. very chill evening...

usual day at work, split as soon as possible and hit my training session. learned some nice takedowns and punched out a weeks worth of stress. my cardio has been suffering, it's getting tougher and tougher to keep kicking...

as i'm leaving the gym i run in to dan and friends, and as it turns out the roosevelt tamale shop has reopened and after a quick shower i'm off to meet them for tamales. the weather is amazing, i'm out on my bike in just a t-shirt and jeans speeding across town. after gorging myself on crab enchiladas (passed on tamales) our little group heads over to catch the hercules and love affair show at mezzanine. unfortunately we were 'not on the list' as we were supposed to be so that puts the end to that dance party. that's actually okay given the weather and we're off on our bikes across market street to the ha-ra for drinks and pool. after we run into some peeps at the hemlock and are told we should be across town at the lucky 13, one fast bike ride down polk and we're there. a few more dinks and it's last call and i make the slow cruise home and even at 2am it's still warm enough for nothing more than a t-shirt. the thought of riding on for a few more hours hits me but so does sleep so i pass and head upstairs, cracking open all of the windows as i head off to sleep.

this weather needs to stick around for a while...

busy day again at the office so i headed straight to the gym after to sweat it out. after met up with my old boss who recently left the company for a cocktail. good to see him, it's funny his level of relaxation is almost inspiring, talks of travel and not working are making me jealous...

tried valiently to hit the gym after work but got distracted by these... i tried to put up a fight but couldn't resist. i highly recommend salt house next time you're looking for snacks or dinner downtown.

nothing like a wake up call that sounds like a building being destroyed... oh wait that is a building being destroyed.

cocktail parties, house parties and a special someone in from out of town... time to turn off the computer.

left the office to go meet an old freelance client to review some ideas. afterwards hopped on the bus and headed home, interestingly enough i realized that whole foods was on the way. to be quite honest i have never done any normal grocery shopping at whole foods... in the first place the nickname 'whole paycheck' has been a bit of a deterrent for the last few years and the other deterrent being the giant hill between home and there. since i'm already on top of the hill i thought i'd do a little a/b testing and pick up my usual safeway rations and prepare my usual dinner.

the result: extra cost was about $25 dollars more on the whole, which includes the slightly higher priced bottle of wine. dinner, the mushroom, red pepper, onion, garlic and squash pasta i made with my ingredients was about 10 times better than normal. definitely worth the additional cost and as far as the shopping comparison whole foods wins out over the slightly more affordable safeway... however, finding a new way up that hill will be an issue...

orignially had plans to meet a friend for dinner but decided to reschedule for another time because of a long workday and instead went for a long run. it's amazing what running for 40 minutes straight will do for you after a long day. took the long walk home instead of the train... long day thouroughly erased.

very busy day at work today, blew off the gym for some q.t. at home with a huge order of take out thai food.

another day working on the new issue... later in the evening though headed to michael's beautiful house for a small dinner party. after landing back home i almost feel ashamed of my small but comfortable space, the evening was so incredibly civilized...

after my day of shopping i headed out with the guys for a slightly more butch event in san jose. in short it was incredible, the shamrock vs cung le fight was legendary, i've never seen anything like it and afterwards i definitely needed a cocktail so we all headed back to the tenderloin for some drinks. one turned into two and two turned into three in the morning at a friend's restaurant. a good night was had by all if i do say so myself, all except frank shamrock's radial bone in his forearm that is... ouch.

really big day today. started out with a bit of personal shopping, really tried to go treat myself to something nice but my normal fashion frugalities kicked in and i wound up at h&m and my other secret discount shopping location. seriously, you're talking to the guy who formerly had a macy's card and was not afraid to use it but now a sweater beyond the price of about $40 seems like lunacy. after making my way through all of the usuals, g-star, french connection, urban outfitters and even dsw shoe warehouse nothing seemed worth the cost and i wound up in h&m with an arm load of button downs and plain white t-shirts.

as i waited in the long saturday afternoon line i realized that there is a great metaphor for this kind of shopping... h&m is the safeway brand pasta of the clothes shopping world and the slightly lower priced, less quality cousin, that i frequent is the equivilent of top ramen. you can dress both of them up to a different degree, the pasta is a great base with the right garnishes you can make a whole lot that resembles something gourmet, with the top ramen you may be able to disguise it here and there but the sheer inexpenisive nature of it makes it too easy to take advantage of and on occasion you can make this packet of noodles look like high end asian cuisine...

that being said i took my two packets of noodles and three bags of pasta home and dressed them up for the evening and for the coming week of work.