Seeing is Believing

My trusty Honda is capable of more than I knew…

Apparently we’ve traveled 334 miles per hour. Not sure how we managed it, but not too bad.

Vehicular Art

The San Francisco Bay Area… like no other place in the world.  Thank goodness I have a camera phone… here are all the vehicles i have seen in the last few months with odd things in or attached to them…

Having a pickup comes in handy for transporting large globes.

Yes, that IS the same truck that was carrying the big globe the day before…

Dino-mobile?  Wha-the-WHAT????

The last of which has a fake doll dressed like a bride in shotgun and when he drives, she starts dancing.  Only in Santa Cruz…

More Personalized Plates

Only in San Francisco…

Irony

If the name of your business is “Parking Solutions,” make sure you know how to park.

Only In San Francisco #1

Shoes shined by the homeless on a mobile chair stand?  Could happen anywhere…

Get your ipod fixed while having your shoes shined by the homeless?

ONLY IN SAN FRANCISCO.

We’ve all wanted to…

The other morning, I was walking down Spear Street in San Francisco, and saw this on the ground outside of an office building:

You got it.  A printer thrown out of the window of an office building in an obvious fit of rage.  There’s still paper in it!

Am I the only one reminded of the movie Office Space with the scene where they steal the printer and beat it senseless in a field?  Here’s the clip (but if you’re sensitive to foul language I suggest you turn down the background music).

Link of the Day

This site, Tacky Weddings, exposes some truly unbelievable…creativity. This one is astounding.

Enjoy!

PSA: Successful Unemployment

Odds are, I’m not better than you at many things.  I probably make a better creme brulee.  Most likely, I have more height than you in my back flip.  I’m possibly better than you at telling companies when to NOT make capital investments… But I have NO DOUBT, that I am better than ALL of you at being unemployed.  Yes, September 9-December 10 were the most glorious 3 months of my life.  So, in an attempt to not hide my light under a bushel, I am going to share my talents and impart my wisdom on the ever increasing number of you who are filing for unemployment as we speak.

So, for those of you who are unemployed, let me tell you my top tips:

1) It is cheaper to live on a cruise ship than it is to live in Menlo Park, California.  How do I know this?  I add my rent, food, renters insurance, auto insurance, fuel.  Then I looked at the deals on cruise ships.  Yep, should have subletted my apartment and sold my car.  The Norwegian (or the ‘Weg, as we affectionately call it) would have been cheaper.  Significantly.

My experience on the cruise was barely more expensive than me lurking around San Francisco for a week. I probably spent $200 more on the cruise than I would have at home.  Carpe diem, my friends.

2) You should have an excel spreadsheet and a financial forecast of how long you can go on your budget without having to find a job.  If I stuck to my budget, I knew I could be happy and comfortable until April.  I did cut down on fancy dinners, movies, and my Nanette Lepore habit.  I did NOT however, yield to the MSG enticings of the 10 for $10 Pasta Roni deals at the neighborhood Safeway.  As much as I wanted to, I was still me.  If I would have stuck to the ‘Roni diet, I could have made it until May or June.  But there are some things, my friends, that I couldn’t compromise on.  Pasta Roni was mine, shoes may be yours.

3) Don’t set an alarm.  I woke up at 8:45 every day feeling GREAT. Then go for a jog.  I used this time to train for a half marathon.  Running is free, so only the race fee had any impact on the spreadsheet.  Sleeping in is another free indulgence, and I argue that it is better for the complexion than any $200 facial I’ve ever received.  Relish in the spreadsheet neutral indulgences.

5) It helps if you have a pool.  I’m not going to lie.

6) Enjoy the natural surroundings.  They are virtually spreadsheet neutral.

7)  Travel.  It’s not free, but you will NEVER have time like this again, so take advantage.  I can’t stress this enough.  Travel as much as you can.  I flew to Chicago, Asia, went on a cruise to Mexico, drove to Yosemite, Carmel, Tahoe, Sonoma and wished I could have done more!

And with that, I will now present my long requested (by JL) photo journal of my time in the “day club”

Working 70 hours a week isn’t condusive to improving your drives. If you have a friend in the industry, it is also spreadsheet neutral.

Climb Half Dome. The fuel to Yosemite can be offset by driving with two others (though the cost of a friend losing a roast beef sandwich under the seat of your new Volvo and discovering it a month later when the stench makes you want to die is a price I hope you never pay). It’s not a time to save a few bucks. Pick your hotel based on whose hot tubs stay open the longest.

Credit the spreadsheet when the parents come to visit. They cover all costs for the week.

The cost of driving to Sonoma is offset by doing the labor yourself on picking your own apples

Go undercover with the Fish & Game Warden to catch an Abalone poacher. He recognizes the 7″ tall warden, but a little girl in a beach hat with a Burberry-cased camera couldn’t raise an OUNCE of suspicion.

Try to pretend that the reason you’re going to the pumpkin patch in Half Moon Bay is for your cousin’s children.

Go on a cruise. An internal cabin won’t do much damage to the spreadsheet, and cruises are too cheesy for you to ever use valuable vacation time on. Get some 20 year old Mexican boyfriends leading you on the zipline tour. Zipline tour? Spreasheet debit. Being a Mexi-Cougar? Priceless.

Times should never be so tough that you can’t enjoy a lovely lunch on the water in Sausalito. Take the hit to your spreadsheet.

Running is spreadsheet neutral. The half marathon entrance fee could be neutral if you replace a few meals with Pasta Roni (but I carried the hit straight to the bottom line)

Gymnastics on the beach is spreadsheet neutral (though your mother may continue to remind you of how many thousands of dollars she spent over the years so you could do a couple flips on the beach)

Save money in Hong Kong by teaching your 61 year old mother the virtues of public transportation.

You can’t put a price on the discovery that you’re allergic to baby tigers. I had to get to Java for this level of self-awareness.

Hiking up to waterfall on the Indonesian Island of Lombok with your cousin? It’s in your couch cushions.

Private Balinese Dance class in our villa with my 61 year old mother? Worth every penny. This is worth a SIZEABLE hit to your spreadsheet.

I was only able to hold off the job offer for one month.  I would have enjoyed another month or two of sloth, but ’twas not in the cards for me.  One slight admission on the Indonesia trip, had the job offer not already come, I would not have selected a Balinese villa with my own private pool as the spreadsheet would have preferred something a little less decadent.  You’ll have to follow your heart on that one.

So, this concludes my Public Service Announcement.  Make your unemployment a time of unmatched joy.  Years down the road, when I think of my hideous job in San Francisco, I’ll think of those three months after, and I’ll smile.

Whither the Jdon?

Some of our more seasoned readers will remember Jdon. His last post on this blog (almost one year ago!) was a prescient bit of commentary on the candidacy of John McCain. In the immortal words of former Arizona Cardinals coach Dennis Green, “[He is] who we thought [he was].”

Well, since I last saw Jdon in June I’ve been doing some delicate intelligence gathering as to his whereabouts over the last several months. Review the evidence and judge for yourself.

It seems fairly innocent at first. A photo of a performance at Jordan Smith’s wedding. Then a lazy afternoon with the Obama’s…hmmm. Then we see Jdon playing a key role for the National Champion Florida Gators, under a false name, no doubt because he exhausted his NCAA eligibility while playing goalie for BVD Hockey.

The next several photos are disturbing. You see Jdon with then-Governor Blagojevich and Senator Roland Burris. Clearly the contact with Blago was damaging, as the next photo finds Jdon with the Dear Leader, Kim Jong Il.

I demand an accounting from this lost soul. Come home Jdon…come home.

Guest Post: In Defense of HOA-Style Communism

In the summer of 2006 JL and I welcomed our first child into our home. Like most parents, we took our boy home from the hospital and thought, “What do we do?” Quickly we found out. We were swept up in a world of insanity. Many times during those first months I thought to myself, “Why do people ever have a second?” Somewhere in that process we received a letter from our homeowner’s association. Welcoming our first child into the world? Congratulating us? Offering neighborly aid? No, no, no. The note read: your grass is too long, your shrubs are unkempt, and the bush in your backyard is too tall. It stung. I read the notice on my front porch as I walked in from work. I felt watched. Not only that, I felt judged. And found wanting.

Today a real infraction has gone on in the old ‘hood. And I want the HOA flexing serious muscle. What could bring about this change in heart? Maybe it’s my tendency to demand leniency for my mistakes and swift justice for those of others.

Or, maybe it’s this.

And this.

Yep. There are five of them. And they’re hanging on 12 foot tall stakes. If you can’t quite make out the picture, those are bloody torsos. My grass never came close to being this offensive.

So, here’s to making all the houses look the same on the outside just like in the ol’ Bloc. Happy Halloween. As a guest poster, I’d also like to say that with only a few days until Halloween I am expecting another guide to trashy costumes.