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I swear this is the last post about me for the next week, but I need to inform everyone and their mothers that I stopped being lazy for about an hour this morning and added back all the tags to my old blog posts. Aren't I amazing? Wow. Now you can find everything about Celine with one click. That's pretty much what I live for, honestly: Bringing the world closer and quicker to Celine.
I'm actually kinda tired of talking about myself which I didn't think was possible. Just kidding! It's actually not, but I was trying to be humble. It makes me feel weird and uncomfortable.
Maybe it's just me, but having a cookout at an abandoned gas station doesn't sound like a good time. I don't have a broad sense of fun, though. I'm difficult, I know.
For real, though, why would anyone picnic in a parking lot, much less one that might have gasoline fumes and remnants laying about? And there's not just one grill, but two, plus coolers and other trays of food. This was a major shindig about to happen, but we didn't stick around for the impending explosion.
Some thoughts on our recent trip to (not France) the Bay Area, CA where we escaped from Alcatraz, drove around golf courses for 17 miles, bought beer in wine-land Napa Valley and stormed a castle on an Enchanted Hill:
Macarons
Seriously, I know it wasn't Paris, but it was confusing with all the patisseries selling macarons. I only visited one because my family wasn't dying to take a tour of 7 cookie shops. I don't know what's wrong with them. Actually, maybe I... nevermind. I got a dozen macarons from Paulette Macarons and they were good. Not Pierre Herme good, but gooder than anything I've had in Atlanta, which isn't saying much. That doesn't sound like a very nice compliment. Lemme try again: They were awesome.
Pommeau
This is an apple apertif that is a blend of calvados and cider and it is unbelievable. It's available absolutely nowhere in this country or so I thought...until I found two different bottles of this magic elixir in a package store in Santa Rosa, CA. I only bought one because of all the...
Beer
Cylinda bought and consumed so much beer, my family was impressed. And they're not easily awed. Just kidding. They think driving in the rain is a feat of magic. But anyway, we checked two boxes of beer onto the plane and shoved a few more bottles in our luggage for good measure. We could open a small craft beer shop if Cylinda would quit drinking all the merchandise. Our Napa Valley day trip was beer-filled, as well, sacrilegious as that may be. We did visit Sterling Vineyards which has a self-guided tour after taking a boring skylift up the hill. It was very pretty and didn't cost as much as some other places. We got 5 tastings and I liked the one so much, I drank four glasses in a row (from everyone elses' glasses that weren't finished) and I paid for it with a pounding headache.
Oh yeah, the beer... Toronado Pub in San Francisco lived up to its hype. I had a Black Diamond Imperial Porter that's only available on tap out in CA so I'm sitting here crying tears over not being able to drink its chocolately goodness for a long time.
Hearst Castle
I now have a shirt that says "Hearst" on it and that's all I've ever really wanted in life...unless I can get a shirt with Patty holding up the bank on it. That would rock... or be offensive. Either or... So the mansion and its guest houses and pools are all beyond ridiculous in its ornateness and the setting on the hill high above the Pacific Ocean is perfect. After getting tickets, we had to take a 15 minute shuttle bus up to the house. They don't let you loiter around the property ever because after the tour, we were bussed back down immediately. There are a few different tours to take which we'll do sometime in the future when we can spend a night in San Simeon, CA.
All in all, it was a great trip. I can't believe it's taken me this long to tour the area since my family's lived in San Jose for years now. There's more stuff to see so I guess I'll visit them again next year. I guess...
We spent about two days in San Francisco and saw a good bit, although there's definitely stuff that we'll have to catch next time. Here's a quick rundown for my own sake because I'm liable to forget in my old age:
- Chinatown - our eyes were bigger than our stomachs and ordered too much dim sum
- Golden Gate Park - ginormous park
- Healthy Spirits - the first in a series of alcohol-related reasons why Cylinda may need help
- Lombard Street - crookedest street in the country or world or something like that
- Hyde Street Seafood - had the cioppino (local dish) which was great, but I'll stick to my New England clam chowder
- Toronado Pub - small bar with awesome beer list; found an imperial porter that goes straight to the top of my favorite stouty beers ever
- Union Square - awesome if you like shopping; ehhhh if you don't
- Momi Toby's Revolution Cafe - Cylinda's uncle used to own this cafe
- Paulette Macarons - the Frenchy staff let me speak French to them
- 21st Amendment Brewery - in the shadows of AT&T Park where the SF Giants play, this brewery served up some good beers, including a watermelon beer.
- Alcatraz - took a ferry out to the island and toured the prison
- Pier 39 - the lazy ass sea lions live the dream life on Fisherman's Wharf
- City Beer - this beer store had a good selection of bottles but also had a few on tap; we know the apocalypse has arrived if this was ever possible in Georgia
- Golden Gate Bridge - beautiful, like it was intended
Here's a video of the lazy sea lions:
I don't like saying "goodbye" to anything ever and I imagine I'm not alone. Most people probably don't, but it's necessary. The normal course of life is a series of goodbyes to people, places, pets, etc. I should be used to it since I'm a mostly normal person who's gone through a mostly normal life. No wisecracking, now, I'm trying to be serious and I have something abnormally serious to share today.
You see, I haven't really talked about my job on here unless I'm carelessly throwing around the word "horrific". Then I somehow link them together. But I need to take a moment today to not use the H word and to say goodbye not to my job, but the entire agency that I've worked for for the past six years. Horrifically (shoot, I can't help it) boring details, aside, I'm not really leaving my job, but the agency is leaving me; it's dissolving and being reborn tomorrow as three separate agencies. Here's more info if you want to know what's the what: http://bit.ly/17h67J
I'm being transitioned into one of those agencies and while my duties remain the same, I do have to let go of some work that I've kinda grown attached to over the years. This includes about a dozen websites that I have to say goodbye to. It's not easy, mostly because these websites have no mouths and can't talk so I'm not sure how they're feeling. They could be happy that I'm going to stop poking and prodding them with my meddlesome ways.
I pretty sure I'm sad about leaving them in the care of others (or, in some cases, no one). In spite of my grumble grumbles about everything that my job entails (that I don't share here), the websites themselves never got on my nerves. It's amazing, because that's really easy to do.
So, anyway, thanks for all the years of staring at each other from opposite sides of the monitor. I'm going to have to look away now.
No, seriously, don't. There's a mess of Yens and Tangs out there in every combination. It'll just make you dizzy. There's one search result that's kinda cool, though: the town of Yen-Tang in Vietnam. Hillary Clinton visited there a few years ago and maybe that's why I feel some cosmic connection with her and voted for her more times than technically possible. Don't ask me what that means. You don't want to be implicated.
So what I really mean to say is Google + me. Yes, we're becoming one. I didn't see it coming and that's probably how they planned it, but it's happening. I use tons of their apps for work and personal use, including Gmail, Analytics, Docs, Maps, etc. But I've been resisting Chrome (browser) for a while now because I didn't want to depend on Google for everything in my life. Well, they've broken me because I'm using and I like it, but I also hate it for making me like it. It's true, I'm a complex, complex person.
Chrome is recommended for weak-ass netbooks of which I have one. It's just faster and each tab is isolated from the others so when something gets frozen, you can just close the tab and not the entire browser. Genius. Damn genius.
I know Google's taking over the world, one app at a time. I know I'm helping and I should care before us humans become a Googlized application ourselves, but honestly, it's probably too late. Just sit back and let Google run your life. See how well it's running mine? And don't you want to be just like me?
I thought so...