San Francisco

Anya and I both get MLK Day off from work, and this year we spent the long weekend in California with my two closest friends, Matt and Jason. As I've written before, Matt lives in Palo Alto on campus at Stanford. We all stayed at his place, but having been there before, drove to more interesting locales each day. I don't get to see those guys nearly as often as I'd like, so it was great to have a long weekend together.

We spent two days in San Francisco, mostly just wandering around different parts of the city. The weather wasn't perfect - it was rather Seattle-like, in fact - but that didn't slow us down. There are many interesting neighborhoods in San Francisco; you could spend a lot more than two days exploring.

One day we drove about an hour to Big Basin Redwoods State Park. We took a rainy but magnificent hike amongst massive, old (1,500 - 2,000 years) redwood trees. It was California's first state park, and it's known for having the largest collection of tall redwoods south of San Francisco. Like similar big-tree locales near Seattle, Big Basin is at it's best when it's raining: it was serene, fragrant, and virtually deserted.

The weekend's pictures are here.

Carkeek Park

It hasn't snowed in the mountains for a while, so skiing conditions aren't good. This weekend we stayed in town instead and visited a park in north Seattle that we've never been to before, called Carkeek Park. As you'll see in the picture album, there's a scenic beach and some nice forests (although not old-growth). Nice way to spend a Sunday morning.

A Spoiled Dog

Ever since we got Oliver almost a year ago, my parents have been more interested in hearing about (and visiting) him than Anya and I. It's like he's a grandchild. It's especially weird since they never let me have a dog when I was growing up - who knew they were dog people?

Anyway, I wanted to post the picture above - a picture my parents took - as an example of the terrible amount of spoiling they do to him. Oliver got that blanket and toy for Christmas, not to mention a bunch of other stuff. There can't be any question about dogs' intelligence - Oliver has very cunningly manipulated my parents and can now bend them to his will.

Happy New Year.