Author: Jeff Tabaco

I arrived back in town late last Wednesday night, and I tell you, sometimes when I start on a plane journey, my mind goes into auto-pilot mode (as it were), and I just forget where my layover is. All I’m doing is making sure I get to the correct gate. On my outbound flight to the west coast I stopped in Dallas; coming back, I flew through Chicago. A guy in the row in front of me said to the person next to him, “I think I see Wrigley Field!” and I thought to myself, “Wait, aren’t we in Dallas?” I was so disoriented for a second.

Anyway, just as a travel note, I did want to mention that I used Hotwire for the first time. Had I bought my ticket earlier than I eventually did, I might’ve gotten a reasonable fare using Expedia, Orbitz, or the airlines’ sites; however, by the time I did get around to it (a bit under two weeks before departure), regular fares were pretty steep. I decided to go with Hotwire, where the fare wasn’t cheap, but still I saved a bundle over the usual suspects.

Hotwire quotes you various fares upfront, but as you may know, the catch is that like Priceline, you don’t know exactly which airline or flight times you’re going to get before you purchase your ticket. I ended up with late-ish flight times that I might not have picked had I the choice. Usually I enjoy having control over every aspect of my travel planning, but because my schedule was pretty flexible for this particular trip, the Let’s Make a Deal-ness of it all was a condition that I didn’t mind.

Recently in the comic strip Candorville, Lemont began his own blog. Friday’s installment: so very true. Not that any of you would write such a comment here, of course.

[crickets chirping]

(Link via Scott-O-Rama.)

When I was a kid I would accompany my mom to the fabric store and look forward to poring over the pattern books. McCall’s, Butterick, and so forth. (Seriously, you’d think that with my childhood interest in pattern books and bridal magazines, my mom would’ve gotten a clue.) I realize now that pattern books took my love for design, rich fabrics, and library-like cataloguing (the illustrations in the books include numbers that correspond to the pattern packets stored in vast file cabinets), and rolled them up into one leisurely activity. Not that I ever learned how to sew. I at least need to learn how to hem my pants, a job I’ve usually outsourced to, yes, my mother when I visit her.

Anyway I just came across a site called Threadbared.com, which snarks at those old patterns. It is hilarious. (Link via Oscillate Wildly’s Asides.)

Heh, clever:

“Filipino protesters display slogans to symbolize their disgust [for] new World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz during a rally in the country office of World Bank in suburban Manila Wednesday, June 1, 2005. The group was denouncing the World Bank’s alleged manipulative role and poverty-inducing policies on poor countries, including the Philippines.”

Take a look. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

DALY CITY, CALIF. — To follow up on Saturday’s post, a recap of the last few days:

On Sunday Rajani and I decided to spend most of the day in San Francisco, so we went to Delancey Street for brunch. Unwittingly we got there before they opened at 10 a.m., but it gave us a chance to park the car and walk down the Embarcadero a bit. The weather was great, sunny and cool, and when we got back to the restaurant, we were able to sit outside on the patio, with a clear view of the Bay Bridge.

Afterwards we went to Yerba Buena Gardens. As we crossed the park, we saw the San Francisco Opera setting up for a concert. We found out it was part of the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival, a series of free outdoor concerts running May through October. The opera concert was to start at 2 p.m., which gave us a few hours to kill, so we went to the SFMoMA. One work I especially liked is Cyclorama by Marco Brambilla, which must’ve been installed sometime since my last visit; it “presents views from nine revolving rooftop restaurants in cities across North America. Shown on nine consecutive monitors in a custom-built cylindrical room, the videos are synchronized to erode any notion of distance or time zone, in effect merging the cities in a single panoramic skyline.” It’s pretty cool.

We got back to the park in time for the opera concert, where they sang arias from upcoming productions, including two of my favorites: the trio “Soave sia il vento” from Così fan tutte (Mozart), and the tenor-baritone duet “Au fond du temple saint” from The Pearl Fishers (Bizet). Rajani and I stayed for the first half of the concert, then bailed in favor of an early dinner. Chevy’s was close by, so we went there for much needed refreshment.

My parents were to arrive at SFO from their three-week vacation in the Philippines, so after a brief rest back at the house, Rajani and I drove to the airport to pick them up. It was all very Love Actually (you know, the scenes of arrivals at Heathrow).

On Monday, Memorial Day, after a lazy morning start, we all (my parents, one of my aunts, Rajani, and I) got some fast food to go and had our picnic lunch of burgers and fries under a cute gazebo at San Bruno City Park. That evening I drove Rajani to San Jose for her flight back home.

I spent the rest of that day and today mostly napping. Jet lag plus sleep debt means I’m not even on west or east coast time anymore–it’s more like Greenwich Mean or something. Tomorrow my long holiday comes to a close, and I head back to the east coast, back to my man and our cat, both of whom I’ve missed. Can’t wait.

DALY CITY, CALIF. — I arrived at SFO last night without incident and made my way to my parents’ house. They’ve been on vacation in the Philippines (and are returning tomorrow night), so the house needed a little freshening up, mail needed sorting, etc.

Today was spent in Monterey and along the coast. This morning I drove to San Jose airport to pick up Rajani, and from there we headed to Monterey. In town we had breakfast (including fried artichoke hearts, yum) at Archie’s, a diner at one end of Cannery Row, and then headed to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Lots of great sights: giant kelp, jellyfish, aquatic birds, and so forth. I was a kid the last time I visited the aquarium, which I don’t remember really, so much of this visit was new. Before leaving Monterey we had a snack at Crepes A GoGo, and then got on Highway 1 for the drive back to Daly City.

On the way, the views along the coast were gorgeous, and we wanted to find a place to stop and look around. We ended up at Greyhound Rock County Park, north of Santa Cruz, which has a wooded area with cliffs that line a secluded beach, accessible by a steep, mostly paved path. We descended to the beach and took in the view. Simply amazing.

More photos to be uploaded, eventually. (Did I mention how dial-up is not the ideal connection for uploading large photos? Sigh.)

In a few hours I’m off to California to hang out and visit my family for a long Memorial Day weekend; I’ll be there through Wednesday. (Thom is staying home this time, aww.) And tomorrow morning Rajani is flying to San Jose, where I will pick her up, and she and I are planning to drive to Monterey and the aquarium. We’ll try to get up to other Bay Area backroads-type stuff the rest of the weekend. Should be loads of fun.

While I’m out there I’ll try and post an entry or two, and maybe some photos, but we’ll see given my parents’ dial-up connection. I really should sign them up for DSL. At least for my sake.

Have a great weekend, kids.

My tax refund from the state of Virginia arrived in the mail yesterday. It came so late in the year because, to the delight (and delay) of procrastinators like me, the deadline here is May 1. (This year it was May 2, since the 1st fell on a Sunday.) I thought I had been so on the ball doing my federal tax returns way back in February, but I dragged my feet on the state ones; because I moved from D.C. to Virginia last year, I had to file part-year returns for both. Anyway, I deposited my Virginia refund today, which as it turns out will cover most of what I spent on a little shopping trip on Tuesday.

DSW had sent me a coupon for my birthday, so I went to the store at Pentagon Row and ended up getting two pairs of Skechers, really the same style in two different colors. (’Cause you know I have to have things in multiple colors. Options, people.) And then I met up with Thom at Best Buy, where I got a Wenger Swiss Army backpack, for everyday use as well as for carrying my iBook when traveling. Thom says it looks like a bowling bag, which I guess is appropriate with my bowling-inspired shoes.

But back to money, earlier this year I made a resolution: to eliminate my credit-card debt by the end of 2005. I had already consolidated my debt at a low interest rate, so I plotted out a payment schedule and have been paying down big chunks of the debt ever since. Wow, this may be one resolution I actually keep.