We ummed and ahhed about whether to go to Nepenthe for lunch or Mountain View to sell books and decided to check the UPS store instead (they've moved, but we had no post waiting, which is unheard of the way banks here spam out statements). As it was such a lovely sunny day we thought 'ice cream' and drove over 17 to Capitola. The queue at Cafe Violetta was out the door and there were no tables free and as the first order of business was to check in online and score better seats we went to the coffee shop next door. I'd like to thank whoever runs the free wi-fi in Santa Cruz: it was nice and fast and got us aisle and window seats - a real amenity. We took our ice cream onto the beach - peach and honey and mexican chocolate and ollalaberry and honey and some cheesecake flavour - and perched on rocks and basked and window shopped all the way back without spending any extra money!
I needed a restroom and fancied more sea views so we tootled up and down every coastal side street to Aptos beach, where the house on the beach that looks like a boat has gained a dinghy and a ship's bell and a skirt-up Marilyn on the roof. No drummers but many people lighting fire pits and more sun.
Down the coast to Moss Landing. The yacht basin had three sea otters; one who vonted to be alone, one who wanted not to be disturbed by the fishing otter but would spin around with its paws up to its mouth in an overdose of cute, and the fishing otter who was turning somersaults, diving into the weed and coming up with mussels (and with weed all over its head) and banging them on a rock on its belly, with much noise, splashing and smacking of lips. Fishing otter had found such a good rock that it held onto said rock with both front flippers when diving or turning over in the water. Wonderful to watch.
We headed onto the beach before dinner and took photos of the surf (the surfers agreed with me about the best waves so my moody breaker shots keep having surfer heads in them). The Fuji camera Simon used to use takes good photos but I find it a little slow; I really do want that high-speed Casio I think, for times when I want to use a big camera (which is when we go somewhere specifically to take photos). We had a vast amount of fabulous fish things and now it's our last night - time only for packing, brunch, last minute work and a final attempt to find a battery-powered motion-sensitive LED light without buying one from Skymall...
It was sunny when we went over to the Glass Beach at Fort Bragg; once the town dump, now the problem is stopping people taking away the pretty driftglass that keeps washing up, though I'm sure some folks add to the raw materials too. Lovely surf to watch and rocks to scramble over and a bold seagull inspired by Bodega Bay. Still sunny as we walked for a while in Van Damm state park, by the Little River under the redwoods. It clouded over a little as we drove past the lighthouse with the 1908 original Fresnel lens that sent the light from a kerosene map 14 miles out to sea, though we didn't notice when we were watching the glassmaker at Glass Fire and drooling over jelly fish lamp shades and buying a necklace of glass hearts and buying blackberry ice cream for lunch at Cow Licks.
We ate the ice cream gazing out to sea and seeing surf and seals but no whales. We stopped at another overlook for a last glimpse of sea before the 1 turned inland and twisted up and down over the hills. We stopped at a redwood grove labelled up by a 'responsible' forestry company and I couldn't resist snarking it. This is a tree that fell over; you can't blame us. This one caught fire; not us! This was the wind; don't blame us! This one is just old. This isn't even a redwood. Not our fault! Er, yeah, we cut this one down - but hey, look, squirrel! The honey bucket was also perched inside a rusty digger on caterpillar tracks in a scary post-industrial woodland fantasy way...
We also drove through a drive-through tree - just like the one in the Look and Learn book I had as a kid; I can still see the illustration in my head, with the car and the 50s clothes and the sense of being on holiday in a world becoming tomorrow. Rather special to do it, even though driving through a tree is kind of cheesy.
We drove up and down the 101 and the Avenue of the Giants as the rain started; so many twee redwood attractions - the one-log houses, the treehouses, the burl carvings, the Hobbiton US with the scary Gandalf-alike and hobbit houses sunk into the hillside (the talking book guide was unplugged and the orcs were shrouded in plastic so we avoided the wrath of Smaug... Spent the night at the Best Western in Fortuna where the jet in the hot tub is the most powerful I've ever sat down on by accident, had dinner at a diner where the waitress's conversation with the customers in the next booth was so easy to rewrite as porn dialog even though it was totally innocent. Coffee from Schotz in the morning, which has a fabulous Charles Rennie Macintosh logo then back through the redwoods which are awesome even in slightly grey skies. Stopped for a wine tasting at Riverbed Cellars in Malder Flat, where 80% of the town is vines and lunch in the Cafe of the Avenue, Miranda, which has a labelled fish tank with living coral. The Eel river is full of lampreys and a gorgeous blue-green between gravel banks.The things that look like bears drinking are really cows. We did another drive-through tree, and a drive-on tree - it's a log, we tarmac'ed it! - and walked into the Chimney Tree - big enough to pour a floor in - and looked at the weather rock at the visitor centre and had a generally fun time.
And as we needed to head back to SF, we booked Ad Hoc for dinner and drove to Napa and found the next Best Western, which was friendly and full of roses fresh picked form the garden and does an excellent breakfast, although we hardly needed it after dinner. Which was a green bean salad with walnuts and fingerling potatoes and air-dried ham and sliced radishes, buttermilk fried chicken with honey glazed biscuits and macaroni and cheese and spinach wilted with shallots, promontory cheese with marcona almonds and strawberry preserve and chocolate brownie with caramel sauce and vanilla cream. We had glasses of TuTu Pinot Gris and a local pinot gris beginning with H, possibly H for honey as it was deliciously rich.
Birthday dinner, birthday sleep, workday breakfast and drive to SF and off to the conference...
- Location:San Francisco
Out along Van Ness, admiring the Moorish theatre and the carved designs in a store I never remember to stop at and the murals on the WaMu and the flag sale and the Bill Bragg plumber's van (insert working man music joke here); over the Golden Gate in the fog and instead of turning into wine country we picked up the 1 (with a slight diversion because the junction is much too simple if you just do it right...). We wanted to photograph the pink plant creeping over the hills to see if it was heater; turning to find a good place we found Muir Beach overlook instead, where you can look down to the waves or back to San Francisco and feel sorry for the guys in the lookouts triangulating ships for the big guns. Masses of flowers on the hillside and what at the time we thought was a stiff wind. Hah!
I still had work to do so we stopped at Stinson Beach and I sat in the beach hut that's the Surfer's Grill on holidays and weekend to finish writing; very pleasant to do it with a view of the Pacific through sand dunes, though the warning that you can be eaten by a Great White in six feet of water kept my at the keyboard. For the rest of the afternoon, you can picture my laptop and mobile phone attempting to talk to that thar Interwebs to submit copy... Meanwhile, we were driving up highway 1 to Point Reyes. It's a lovely drive past ranches M through A, full of cows and fine-feathered chickens and lazy cats, with the sea hoving into view at the side. As you go through Inverness the houses are on the end of piers, and one is an arabian fantasy in wood with six cupolas. The lighthouse itself was shut and as we nearly got blown right off the cliff while taking photos of a white deer, I'm not sure I'd want to be any further off the ground. The wind is as loud as city traffic and the sea is whipped white in long rolling surf. Back along the peninsula and along the edge of a long mudflat estuary where seals and baby seals bask in the sun. Very green hills and woods compared to south of San Francisco, and then along the sea coast and finally into the hills.
Point Reyes town looks charming and expensive and where they hide the accommodation we do not know. Book ahead, I think. We didn't spot anywhere that looked worth stopping at short of Bodega Bay, where we passed several possibilities and picked the Inn at the Tides because we liked the sign for the Tides, the restaurant across the street. Turned out to be a mix of charming inn - lovely pool and spa pool, terraces on each room, cheese, wine and fruit in the rooms, Ggrich Hills winemakers dinner in the restaurant and some very friendly folks who joined us in the hot tub and shared a couple of bottles of wine with us (the Napa Cellers was delicious) - and high-class motel - beige tiled bathroom, particularly. The Tides - and Bodega Bay generally - is where The Birds was filmed so we eyed eyed all seagulls with suspicion. The Tides has its own dock for fishing boats and steams crabs in huge six-foot square cages in the season, but I went happy as a clam, following clam chowder with linguine alla vongole and stealing a taste of Simon's halibut. It's less authentic but a lot easier when most of the clams have been wrenched from the shell in advance, leaving me only three shells for show.
This morning we stopped for pictures at the Arch Rock and Shell Beach and for coffee at the Roadhouse and had our hats blown off, so we admired the rest of the coast and the breakers from the road until we got to Blind Beach, just short of Goat Rock. Even the seagulls were being blown sideways and we sheltered behind rocks to get photos. As you come down the steep slope into the car park there's some beautiful green exposed rock that could be a jade or turquoise. As you go back up the steep slope and cross the Russian River into Jenner, there's a restaurant called River's End (www.ilovesunsets.com) perched by the lagoon where you can eat rock shrinp with penne and feta and mushroom and concentrated tomato, and pick fried leeks off Simon's burger and watch the seals and the kayakers being towed out to look at the seals - and go outside and get blown away again.
We swooped around the curves of the road and bought smoked salmon and stopped to look out at the sea and get blown away half-way up the Jenner Grade. And then we walked off lunch by walking around Fort Ross, where the Russians did their best to claim California by oppressing the Aleuts and building 7 and 8-sided redwood blockhouses overlooking beautiful coves and selling metalwork to the Californians for grain. The stockade blocks a lot of the wind and the plants are swarming over the millstones. We felt a little like polite time travellers because a group of Russians in historical costumes were baking bread over an open fire and telling stories in the armoury and ringing the bell outside the chapel and straightening their waistcoats in front of the mirrors and taking kasha out of Whole Foods bags...
At this point I nearly fell asleep in the car, despite lovely curving and swooping roads and lovely scenery and flowers by the side of the road and rather less wind so I don't remember much before Mendocino. This is rather like Carmel on a slope without the big-name shopping, or Capitola without the suburbs and it looked very charming but we didn't spot anywhere to stay apart from Blair House (which was Jessica's house in Murder She Wrote) so we pushed on to Fort Bragg, then realised the redwood elk meadow we're looking for is back in Van Damm state park. How Belgian!
Fort Bragg is not a fort, it's a mid-sized town that mixes tourism and a real town life, so it has a bowling alley as well as a Best Western and a brewery and a train trestle. We had dinner at the brewery, North Coast Brewing, sharing fish and tiger shrimp in Scrimshaw beer batter and a ten-beer tasting for $4. Red Seal and Brother Thelonius and Blue Star and Old Rasputin and ACME IPA were the standouts. Hic. Yawwwwn...
We have seen wild turkeys (wait till Thanksgiving, they'll be livid), llamas, baaaby seals, birds of prey being mobbed by red-winged blackbirds. We saw baby pigeons nestling in a wharf in San Francisco. No whales yet!
Tomorrow we'll look for the glass beach and drive the avenue of the giants and try not to get blown away...
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rowanf and galileopan and writing, and now we're back up the the city for more work (and I'm writing in the car on the way).So. Suitcases packed and loaded? Check
Pink Floyd playing on KFOG? Check
Going to San Francisco? Check
Flower in my hair? Check
Know the way back for San Jose for the weekend after next? Check!
Maybe when you have your own plane, everywhere looks like a runway. Maybe the Google boys have an underground drilling machine a la Oceans 13, or a Segway that climbs over roofs. Can't see quite how else you would actually manage to take the suggested public transit route on Google Maps from our hotel to the RSA conference next week. Maybe you can get through the Westfield Center but you'd have to break into an awful lot of businesses to take this route at ground level.
Has anyone who's stayed at the Mosser had a room that didn't face onto the lift shaft? Is it only my rhyming nature that makes me think of dosser and is it actually very nice?
Saw a dog at the door of an animal shelter (just visiting?) and a huge black cat on the roof of an SUV.
They work the devil hard around here; he has a post pile and a corn field and a gate to deal with before he can get to his golf course.
And those signs; one road near Lee Vining has been adopted by the Friends of Bodie, the other by One of them June Lake liberals. wonder if they drive one of they Ford vans?
Down out of one set of mountains, passing a bald eagle at Topaz lake, across the flat of Carson valley and up again, on some lovely swooping switchbacks, with the local minibus trundling up to Summit Village. The light was fading as we reached Tahoe so we did the slopes down in the dark and stopped at Placerville for Mel's Diner and the spa (snow scrambling in capri pants = grazed legs). Must come back and try the wineries some time; Pichetti has a tasting room near Tahoe.
The road out to Lone Pine is dramatic; a climb to 5;000 feet from sea level, a long sweeping drop down to the bottom again into a salt pan than runs like a river, passing sand dunes blown into one corner and striped strata of rock - then up again in another set of hairpins, passing joshua trees silhouetted against the sunset and dust on the track that hangs in the air long after a vehicle has rattled along it, and looping round to a vista that lays out the whole valley from dunes to salt to peaks. The road keeps on climbing into the dusk and then down to the freeway and although we thought we might push on to Bishop, the lights and motels and restaurants in Lone Pine drew us in. Excellent dinner at the Merry go Round; steak and lamb and quite delicious green beans and a very drinkable local Mohave Red ale. And now for a little late night writing and then for Mono Lake in the morning...
We had a lovely day with Pixie yesterday once we worked out that the Ritz Carlton in Henderson is actually on Lake Las Vegas. this is even more ludicrously fake than the strip and more noticeably for being in the desert. beautiful view across the lake to the strip and we had breakfast by the lake, then had a high score on shopping at the Primm outlets, a delicious dinner at Shibuya (tempura crab legs much easier to manage and butter ponzu dipping sauce is yum, as is scallop sashimi in mango mint sauce and sea bass steamed with black tapioca and pop rocks on the mangos sashimi and apricot miso and plum creme brulee; everyone at Shibuya is so sweet and it was lovely to share one of our favourite places with Pixie. we got to introduce her to Cirque du Soleil at O as well, which was as stunning as ever. We went to the early show which doesn't have an interval; worth knowing for next time. thanks to serendipity for putting us both in the same place for the day ;)
So I scored yummy pastries from Bouchon, sbisson scored coffee from Bean and leaf and we're driving straight line roads out into the desert, watching the snow on Mount Charleston and the distant snow of the Sierras and the folded colours of the nearer mountains advancing on us like monstrous fins.
Last day of MIX, starting with an interview, then a session on IE8, then a chat with Vittorio about moving identity forward from concepts to real implementations then a final session on Deep Zoom. Last year lunch was the last thing and a bunch of people hung around chatting for ahlf the afternoon. space costs so this time it was a hard stop and security emptying the floor so we're taking our boxed lunches to eat by the pool and do some writing in the sun (which I haven't seen all week - last night we left at dusk to drool over Astonish Martins and talk about their Silverlight demo and went on to dinner in Bouchon; very tasty and the Row Eleven santa maria pinot noir was very good and very cherry). on the way we saw a charm shop with a lovely gondola charm. Simon spotted a tablet PC charm - notebook with pen attached by a chain, in two colours of gold with diamonds on the lid. $618 plus tax. The mini-v tiny tablet is only £600!
The restrooms here are labelled both m
en and women, ladies and gentlemen, side by side. wonder what the extension of the irregular verb men perspire, ladies glow is for restroom activities. Ladies flush?
Enjoyed the food, watched Bee Movie (funny but annoyingly stupid about pollination), worked too much and slept too little. Yellow poppies along the side of the runway. Drove straight to Santa Monica and checked into the Bayside hotel. It's nice in a homely way; 20's style tile shower and heating, on the comfortable side of shabby, certainly clean and with a good view of the beach (though we had a view of the pretty triangular garden in the middle). Probably wooden so you hear the street noise a little, but it was quiet and as long as it wasn't moving we could sleep on it!
Walked into town, past the flashing light patterns on the ferris wheel on the pier, past umpteen Italian restaurants and had tuna and patty melts and soup at the excellent Broadway diner (and I can't go back in this client to say we caught the sunset on the beach).
This morning we met Barry-our-editor-from-Tom's-Hardware and his wife Jane for breakfast at Loew's hotel, which is imposing and stylish in a very modern way and does a nice eggs benedict with heirloom tomatoes. We raced away a little sooner than we otherwise would as we had tickets for the Getty Villa at 11.
This resembles the Getty Center only in having imposing architecture in a pleasing setting and a fascinating collection with occasional amazing highlights. The villa takes mosaic floors from one villa in Herculaneum, a shell fountain from Pompeii, a roof detail from another villa in Herculaneum and wall paintings from yet another; the kleptomaniac style of architecture. The place is quite lovely and the collection of greek pottery is superb; stunning examples by the best painters. The themed arrangement is a little, well, arranged, but it makes good sense for a general audience. and like the other Getty it's a nice ambience.
The drizzle turned to a hint of brightness but the LA traffic was worse than ever, with cars swerving, braking abruptly and dumping underpants on the road in front of us. And that was just after we drove past the nuclear power plant by the freeway... which is where either side of the road was carpeted with yellow poppies... Refuelled at an In-N-out and we're now safe in San Diego.
Trying out LJ Mobile for posting from a Windows Mobile as LJ has made no progress on fixing their stupid spam blocker that eats email posts. the problem is that this is designed to caption photos and I have one lousy line to type my post in I don't know if I can even write in paragraphs.
Maybe.
It has one of those big plastic awning-cum-sheets that you get on French restaurants and I said 'tourist' but Simon said 'French tourist' and he was right. The ratatouille avec son oeuf mollet was tempting but I had the honey goats cheese potato bacon salad and he had the fish soup and we both had the escalope with anchovy cream and tiny crushed subes of garlic mushroom under the sauteed new potatoes. As I had pear sorbet doused in poire william eau de vie I can't remember what Simon had for desert and the vin de local was very nice too. There is a full set of rustic coffee pots setting off a range of parakeet memorabilia - including Ting's parrots (which I kept thinking was a Franz Marc at the time).
To better enjoy the pounding of the surf on the beach outside the room I hadn't drawn the curtains which is why I woke at dawn. The sky was palest blue puffed over with pink clouds, the full moon was silvery pale and casting a silver moon path over the sea onto the beach and I thought if I got out my camera and opened the window and took a picture I'd never get back to sleep, so I shall just have to remember it...
And then we worked for two days solid, talked shop all through dinner but couldn't get the HP folks to leak anything about horizontal storage that they weren't ready to, had five minutes to see what's left of the beach at Cannes and sat at the airport with a quiche writing blog posts and reviews. And on Friday we're off again: LA, San Diego, Las Vegas, San Jose. Must remember to see if our schedule matches with
liralen!- Location:Putney
All the phone calls that Simon picked up while I was asleep were asking 'are you going to Mobile World Congress?'. Sadly the answer is 'not unless someone would like to host us. We'd love to go and meet up with your clients, it's a really useful show, but we just don't have the budget for the flight and hotel at the inflated conference rates. If you'd really like us there the diary would allow it, so last-minute invites most welcome ;-)
Also, I shall try to collate the posts I wrote on the road that post-by-email swallowed because LJ believes my mail is spam.
Current cat state; Pebbles has her head in Jeffrey's armpit and her foot on Calli's back, Calli has her feet under Jeffrey's tail. It's an extended furry patchwork... unfeasibly cute!
- Location:London!
Banking question for my US friends. I'm after a simple, no-interest free checking account that doesn't charge for incoming wire transfers. State Farm Bank looks good , especially with the 'foreign' ATM rebate - any thoughts?
- Location:home, dammit
- Mood:bah humbug
And someone at CES must be watching, as I just got this press release.
"In addition to offsetting the carbon emissions of all CES venues, freight, shuttle buses and hotel rooms, we will provide attendees with the opportunity to offset their airline travel via www.CESweb.org and kiosks on the show floor.
CEA believes it will be fully offsetting its carbon footprint. The calculations do not even factor in the carbon savings due to CES. For example, CEA estimates that by offsetting CES and consolidating trips otherwise necessary for the same meetings, the net savings in travel miles is over 700 million miles.
CES will also debut a TechZone dedicated to environmentally and economically sustainable technologies which contribute to the social and cultural growth of the developing world. To remind attendees of their offsetting options and provide tips for a ‘greener’ CES experience, CEA will produce a “Greening CES” TV segment to be broadcast in all attendee hotel rooms, and attendees will also have more opportunities to recycle aluminum cans, plastic, paper and glass at CES.
CEA is taking additional steps to make the 2008 International CES more sustainable including working with its Las Vegas-based vendors to use ‘green’ solutions at the event itself. Seventy-five percent of all food containers and utensils used by the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC) to serve CES attendees will be fully biodegradable and all surplus food will be donated to the Las Vegas Rescue Mission; recycled carpet will be used throughout the Central Hall of the LVCC; and all attendee literature will be printed on post-consumer recycled paper with soy ink. Likewise, only non-hazardous cleaning solvents and soaps will be used by LVCC staff and all light bulbs, batteries and electronics used by the show will be recycled and diverted from landfills."
With 3,000 exhibitors and 140,000 attendees that's a lot of light bubls, soda cans and bus schedules...
The plan had been to wander around Portobello but we stopped at Kensington High Street for cookies and boot shopping and wondering at the odd sleeves on the cashmere jumpers in Uniqlo and getting sucked into Whole Paycheck. it's not the full US experience but it is very nice as a place to shop and a place to hang out and nosh. The hot chocolate is Ibarra style mexican spiced, the coffee beer is yummy and the salads are tasty and substantial with a proper slice of protein - griddled tuna for me. Things we like from the US we can now get locally; Dagobar chocolate including the raspberry rose and mon cherri bars, Dr Bronners 18 in one crazy religious liquid essential oil liquid soap (read the label!), JetBlue style blue potato chips, the full range of Anchor Steam and Sierra Nevada including the anniversary ale and fruit puree cocktail mixers. And if they can get a supplier they'll try the smoked halibut pate we adore. Also useful; eggs from quail to duck to blue legbar for sale individually, 10 litre size ecover.
Owing to my travel to Barcelona being arranged on Friday Simon and I are on separate flights so he left this morning and I'm on the platform at Clapham. We meet in a distant city (717 miles) where we shall eat seafood and talk technology. No change then!
Took our morning off in Las Vegas slowly as I'm still a little slow myself - and thanks for all the get wells! we'd had dinner with our pr host at Shibuya where they had a whole range of new Hitochino beers - we had celebration and ginger. Not only was the food as excellent as ever but when I mentioned that the day before was our wedding anniversary Jeramy snuck off and came back with sweet little boxes of candy and white chocolate plaques iced with chocolate Happy Anniversary!
I wimped out at breakfast and asked for the peanut butter banana french toast without peanut butter - but we did get to taste the bacon and salt chocolate in Vosges and it's fantastic, as is the wattleberry ice cream. We walked up to the Fashion Show mall and still no iPod Touch - does Apple have manufacturing or just shipping problems? that's five times... Wandered into the Mirage to see the tiger, who thought it was time to go home... Very windy and sunny.
The plane was late and the guy in front reclined so far I had no chance of working, but we still had enough time for a shopping accident at Book Buyers and a double double with the post game crowd at In-N-Out.
It was so warm and sunny this morning that I tried the pool. I came out after two lengths in case something I'll need later froze solid and dropped off. The plan was to head up to Napa via San Francisco so we could take a look at the glass stall Kevin Siggins has on Embarcadero; he has a new torch and he's using what he calls kandinsky glass where the silver forms crystals of different colours as well as making big hoops. Luckily we called ahead and discovered he was at the street fair in San Carlos where we had a great time hanging out, buying neat stuff and eating tri tip sandwiches.
Drove over the hills and past the pumpkin patches and down the coast to San Gregorio beach and clambered precariously over the sand rock to take photos of the beautiful sunset. Which is where we saw the tiny birds, running as smoothly as if they had wheels or skates on, twinned by their shadows and reflections in the surf, rushing into the receding surf and then scurrying along and back onto the beach as the sufficient threatened to was them away like tourists straying into traffic...
Back over the hills on a sweeping road through redwoods, past the accelerator smelling of eucalyptus and ready for a quiet night in.