Week of June 25: Rodd the Bodd is 33

On Saturday, we celebrated our friend Rodd's (striped brown shirt) 33rd birthday. Todd and Leslie organized the birthday bash for Rodd at Medjool Cafe in San Francisco. We had a group dinner reservation at 7 PM. With the weather being so nice, some of us decided that 7 PM was way too late for cocktails. So Leslie, Todd, Kathi, Brian, Andrea and I met about an hour before at Foreign Cinema for happy hours. Foreign Cinema is right next to Medjool Cafe. It is mainly a restaurant but has a separate bar that serves strong happy hour drink specials and has a divy-er industrial chic feel to it compared to Medjool. Another interesting thing about Foreign Cinema is that foreign independent films are screened in its outdoor covered dining area every night... hence the name. We all arrived separately at Foreign Cinema around the same time and enjoyed a few rounds of Cosmos (for the gals) and pilsners (for the men).

Kathi (from left to right), Leslie and Andrea really seemed to enjoy their 3rd Cosmo of the night. Brian was trying to convince us that a Cosmo was a perfectly acceptable drink for a man as well. He claimed that on a hot day, beers were too "heavy".

At 7, we left Foreign Cinema and went over to Medjool Cafe for Rodd's party. I think the 6 of us were all feeling pretty good from multiple rounds of happy hour $2 drink specials (not many places in SF where you can get drinks for that price). At Medjool, we met up with the rest of our group (about 30 people all together). They set us up at the Mezzanine Level where they had an entire corner section reserved for us. Medjool serves "small plates" inspired by the diverse cuisines of southern France, Italy, Spain, Morocco, Tunisia and parts of the Middle East. We ordered lots of delicious "small plates" as well as a lot of birthday drinks.

One clear sign that we are getting older is the fact that our gatherings are becoming more and more dominated by couples. Andrea and I are chillin in our comfortable seats on the Mezzanine Level. Kevin and Mariella are enjoying themselves as well.

On the left, the cute couple Jason and Todd. Brian also brought along his beautiful date, Invisible Woman.

I'm pretty sure that Rodd had a good time. The good thing about having 30 people throw you a party is that you have good friends that are fond of you. The bad thing about celebrating your birthday at a fully stocked bar with 30 friends is that you do lots and lots of shots. As you can see from the picture on the left, just as Rodd is about to do another shot, Tracey, in the background, is ordering another round.

And Tracey orders yet another round. Rodd's thought bubble: "Not another Tequila... is there a back door out of this place?"

Rodd finally gives Tracey the "stank eye". But being a good soldier, Rodd takes his drinks like a man. I think it was shortly after this that Rodd's memory shuts down. Note to self, Tracey is not invited to my birthday!

And finally, Rodd gets his birthday cake. Happy Birthday Rodd. Hope you had a Birthday you couldn't remember.

Week of June 18: Re-Living the First Date

About a month ago, on Memorial Day, Andrea and I celebrated our 1st wedding anniversary (see blog: Week of May 21 and May 28: Sleepless in Seattle). Because the 1st wedding anniversary is symbolized by paper (aka paper anniversary), we took a trip north and spent a fun weekend in Seattle a la paper airline tickets. In addition, we had gotten each other personal paper gifts as well. I gave Andrea magazine subscriptions to Sunset Magazine, Real Simple, and San Francisco Magazine. Personally, I can't stand all the fooffy-trendy-Fung Shui fashion/organization crap. But because my love for Andrea is so deep and pure, I have vowed to endure having neat organized stacks of these magazines accent our coffee table for the next 12 months. Andrea on the other hand, gave me tickets to the Giants game... Club Level seats! Since we were in Seattle during our actual anniversary, she had gotten me tickets to Saturday's Giants vs Oakland interleague game. Another significant thing about these Giants tickets, besides being consistent with the whole paper anniversary theme, was the fact that Andrea considers our first official date to have been our first Giants game about three years ago (has it been that long?). I on the other hand, strongly believe that the weekend Ludlow Ski Hut trip of 2003, the 14 mile (round trip) snow shoe backpacking trip with 12 of my friends, to have been our first official date. Not sure why that snow trip doesn't qualify as a romantic first date.

Pretty sweet seats and fantastic weather. The great thing about Club Level is that behind the last row of seats, you enter the glass doors inside the Club Level where there are full bars with TVs and gourmet food. You can even order food from your seats! The best thing about the game was that the Giants came back to beat the A's in the bottom of the 9th inning with a walk-off homerun from Ray Durham (box score). Barry also managed to hit his 11th homerun in the 1st inning. Even though Andrea and I have moved to Oakland, we're still loyal Giants fans! Go Giants!

Week of June 11... and beyond: Summer Project

I have heard people say over and over again that one of the "joys" of home ownership is the fact that home improvement/upkeep is never ending. It's been over a year since Andrea and I became home owners. During the past year, we have done many things to fix, change, and improve the overall condition of our home. We've crossed out many line items from our list of to do's. Some were big items, such as the bathroom remodel, but most were smaller in scope, such as fixing the leaks in our sprinkler system. But despite our best efforts, I have sadly come to accept the truth of the aforementioned saying. Our current list of to do's is just as long, if not longer, than our original list. Having subjugated myself to this reality, I have decided to keep it real and continue working on the list on a more sustainable level... to strive for consistency and not to go in spurts and burn myself out. Operationally, I have decided to take on one large improvement project a year with smaller multiple fix-it projects on the side. So this year, I have decided that this year's home improvement project (I consider the bathroom remodel to be last year's project) is to rebuild our garden shed.

The garden shed is a small 10ft by 12ft wooden structure that sits on the back right corner of our back yard. It is severely weathered (paint is very distressed and peeling) and has several missing windows (covered up by cardboard), sloping roof and floor, and a door that is off its hinges. Instead of doing an entire tear-down and rebuild, I've decided to salvage as much of the shed as possible and rebuild the portions that are unfixable. The foundation and two of the walls were in pretty good shape so I decided to keep most of them intact.

A full day's worth of demolition. I guess this was the easy part. The back wall and the right wall were in good shape so I decided to leave them alone.

Not sure if these pictures are clear but these vertical studs are not nailed to the foundation. Pretty sloppy craftsmanship. Hopefully, my handy work will be much better.

UPDATES WILL BE MADE AS THE PROJECT PROGRESSES

Week of June 4: Sloppy Movies and Sloppy Joes

On Saturday, Andrea and I invited a few friends over for a mellow night of fine dining and beautiful cinematic. We would play host and cook a sumptuous meal. Our guests only had one requirement. We required everyone to bring a DVD of their guilty pleasure... that is, a really bad movie (by normal standards) that he or she secretly and shamefully loved. From the pile of these gems, we would then draw one movie for everyone to watch.

We decided that a night like this called for an equally exquisite dinner menu. What could be more perfect than Sloppy Joes, coleslaw and Bud Light to go along a truly bad movie? So with much anticipation, Andrea and I carefully and lovingly prepared the dinner (it took us about 30 minutes... Really gourmet!). One by one, our guests arrived. Each with their guilty pleasure in hand.

Kathi brought Spaceballs and revealed her secret love for Lord Dark Helmet... "May the Schwartz be with you!"


Todd brought a movie that no one has ever heard of before... Blackball?!! On the other hand, Leslie's choice (Airplane), in my humble opinion, does not qualify as a bad movie. Just imagine the two of them going out for a movie night... good thing there is a multi-plex theater in San Mateo.


Monica's contribution was B.A.P.S (aka Black American Princesses). Eventhough I have never heard of this movie, both Andrea and Monica were quite fond of it. Somehow Halle Berry stared in it.


My contribution was the 1989 classic, Skin Deep. Film snobs such as myself consider this movie to be John Ritter's finest performance. How he has never won an Oscar is truly tragic. Andrea proudly added Undercover Brother into the mix... solid! I think this movie was actually out on DVD the same week it was released in the theaters.

After the Sloppy Joes dinner, we put the names of these fine movies into a hat and drew the winner... Undercover Brother, to Andrea's delight. To be honest, Undercover Brother was actually good and funny. Everyone seemed to enjoy it. I especially enjoyed the catfight scene between White She Devil (Denise Richards) and Sistah Girl (Aunjanue Ellis). Billy Dee Williams and Dave Chapelle also starred in this movie... not to mention Chris Kattan. With so many mega stars, its hard to believe that Undercover Brother 2 was never made...yet.