Then the smoke started to roll in on August 18th. Our cars and outdoor furnishings quickly developed a thin layer of ash and we had to stay indoors.

Admittedly, we’re getting off easy so far this year. I rarely smell the smoke, and the PM 2.5 AQI levels for wildfire smoke pollutants are regularly between 50-100. Still not what I want to expose the either the baby or the toddler to very much, but it’s not the directly unhealthy or dangerous range we dealt with last year. Still, we’re staying indoors a lot more, and that’s been tough. Adam doesn’t like being cooped up, and I’ve realized just how important all those walks I was taking with them are to my fitness and health. The air has started to clear this week, but there are still fires and if they flare up again and the winds shift, I will need to make sure I’m getting in some exercise again. Hello again, treadmill!

I wrote about getting my amateur radio license and my movie marathon, and honestly that’s all I’ve packed my free time with. Most recently I started watching the 1980s series Automan and then listening to the Continuum Drag podcast as they make their way through the series too. The podcast has definitely made watching the series a lot more fun and social.

I’ve also spent a lot of time trying to keep the kids engaged as we’re stuck indoors, and I’ve been delighted to see how quickly baby Aaron is growing and hitting milestones. In our cooped up period these past few weeks, he’s become quite the crawler! And he stands while holding things now!

I’m probably not fully succeeding in meeting all the needs of a mischievous toddler (honestly, who can?), which is how I ended up going through our trash can on a Tuesday morning. The night before we noticed that one of the baby monitors was missing. I figured Adam had just stashed it somewhere, but after essentially turning the house upside down on Monday night, I had to accept that he probably threw it away because he thought it would be funny. Thankfully, I found it in the trash before the trash truck came. It was gross, but after taking it apart, carefully cleaning it, and letting it dry, it seems to work fine.

Adam and I also are continuing to do art, but the other week we added baking into the mix (see what I did there?). First it was by making challah, and most recently honey cake for Rosh Hashanah. He’s only two, so obviously it’s me doing most of the work, but it’s been fun to include him as we measure and mix together the ingredients.

We also did some holiday-inspired art!

As for the holidays themselves, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur were once again observed via live stream. It looks like a few people made it to the synagogue, masked and vaccinated, but hundreds of us joined virtually. It’s sad to not see everyone in person for a second year, but just like last year, it did make things a lot easier. A baby and a toddler don’t make leaving the house easy, especially for extended periods. Staying safe at home certainly was convenient.

We also took the afternoon on both days to visit parks. On Rosh Hashanah our au pair and I went over to the playground, where we bumped into the local Chabad chapter, and I got to socially-distanced chat with a Jewish mother in their community. On Yom Kippur MJ joined us and we all went out to Lake Chabot Park to soak in the sun and let Adam kick a soccer ball around in the grass.

With the clear skies, we’ve also spent the last couple of weekends going to yard and garage sales again. Mostly it’s because it gives us a safe destination for walks (helps me stay motivated!) but also because the kids do seem to like to see Things when we go out. Stuff-wise, I rarely buy anything, but we did snag a refrigerator toy last weekend that both the boys are really enjoying.

Work has been incredibly busy. We put on our flagship event for IBM Z last week, so August through September is a mad scramble to finalize the schedule, make sure the speakers are happy and have what they need, and handle all kinds of surprising logistics (even for a virtual event!). A non-trivial number of evenings I end up working after the kids go to sleep just to make sure everyone has what they need. Mix in taking a day off for Rosh Hashanah and another for Yom Kippur I really had my work cut out for me. We nailed it though, I was really happy with my track and the event did very well. The virtual Open Mainframe Summit is next, which I’ve been handling IBM’s presence for, and was taking up considerable amounts of time as I got the booth materials together and make sure we hit all the key deadlines. That’s coming up next week.

Today I got to enjoy another beer festival! This time Beers without Beards which had a beautiful assortment of beers, including Two Lights from Allagash, which I’ve wanted to try since it came out. Realistically, it’s tricky to fully take in these virtual beer festivals because I have a couple of little humans to care for during the day, but having the live stream on while we went about our day has been a nice change of pace. I really enjoyed the segment from Allagash, and it was delightful to hear about some of the history of our beloved Russian River Pliny the Elder. As for actually drinking, I can work my way through the beer collection in the evenings over the next few weeks. I’m enjoying the Two Lights right now, which is pretty great for a lager!

Pandemic-wise, I’ve hinted throughout this post how we’re still staying close to home. It really did weigh heavy on my heart to stay home during the holidays again, and MJ just canceled his plans to go to his cousin’s wedding in early October. I’m lonely, and I miss everyone. I am eager to see approval come through for vaccinations for the kids, because that is when I think we’ll be in a more reasonable place as we continue to evaluate our safety. In the meantime, we’re all doing the best we can over here.

I’m also glad to have a little time to myself. I had a revelation one morning when I “got enough sleep” but was still tired, that it wasn’t just physical exhaustion that was hard on me. I am an introvert, and being with the kids all day gives me no time to recharge on my own. Now that I’m aware of that, I can be more strategic about rest. In most cases, if I’m up at 6AM and got over 7 hours of sleep overnight, it’s more restful if I get up and spend an hour alone before anyone wakes up, rather than attempting to sleep for another hour. I’m still tired all the time, which is unavoidable until the baby sleeps through the night, but at least I’m understanding myself more so hopefully I can handle it better.

Introducing kiddos to Studio Ghibli while I rested my sprained foot

Sprained foot aside, we did manage to have fun during my time off. The day before I sprained my foot, on May the 4th (be with you, Star Wars Day!), I dressed the kids up as little R2-D2s and we did a 5K walk around town. It was my first 5K with one of the virtual run websites, so I got my first 5K medal and everything! It was fun and I see more virtual 5Ks in our future.

I also received a case of sour beers for another virtual beer fest, but the event feed didn’t quite pan out, and after a series of failed streams they postponed it. Still, while I’m certainly looking forward to the pandemic being over, and technical glitches aside, this virtual stuff does have its benefits. As a new parent, beer fests are tricky to make time for right now, but one from the comfort of my own living room? And 5k I can do wherever and whenever I am able? I can do that!

Beer fridge in the garage, all stocked for the sour fest!

I’m trying to squeeze in some time for hobby projects. It’s so hard, but just like alone time, having a little hobby time is also important to my well-being. I decided to start playing with my SPARC Ultra10, which has been sitting in my home office since we moved in. I was pleasantly surprised to see it boot into Debian Lenny. So it still boots! And the hard drive was still functional! Of course Debian Lenny is ancient and I can’t keep running it, and Debian no longer supports SPARC64, so I’m going to have to install NetBSD on it. The next phase of my project was giving an install an attempt, but my CD-ROM started throwing errors. It’s old, so it’s not surprising. I think my next step will be giving up on the drive and doing a netboot install. Ultimately I’m not sure what I’ll do with the system once it starts running, but I am enjoying playing around, and I haven’t touched NetBSD in years, and never had a lot of experience with it.

In better health news, I got my 2nd COVID-19 vaccination a couple weeks ago, so I’m fully vaccinated! The side-effects this time were similar to last, but the exhaustion hit pretty hard and I ended up taking a three hour nap the next day. My life probably won’t change much though. With two unvaccinated kids at home, it’s not worth the risk to them just so I can do some indoor dining. With mask mandates being lifted state-wide in mid-June, things may actually become more dangerous for them inside public places, so we have to continue doing grocery and meal runs solo.

I also spoke to my boss about continuing the pause on travel. Thankfully, the company hasn’t even fully opened offices yet, let alone lifted all the work travel restrictions, but I wanted to get ahead of it in case I was expected to get back on the road before I believe it’s safe for our family. As the vaccines become available for the little ones and infection rates drop, we’ll continue to do risk analysis to see what we are comfortable with, but it’s good to know that I won’t have pressure on the work side in 2021. It’s also nice that my role has so many facets to it that while dropping the event travel is major, and even with other people start going to events in the fall, I’ll still be busy and effective without it in the short term. I have been doing some virtual events too. I did one for Mom Relaunch last week where I did a quick Linux on Z workshop. Next week I’ll be speaking at a virtual conference, giving a brand new talk on developing for non-x86 architectures. It feels good to be back.

It’s not all kids all the time here though! I signed up to participate in a virtual beer festival last weekend, Juicy Brews Saturday Morning. It was breakfast themed, so they sent some whole bean coffee, kids cereal (and color-changing spoon!), a stuffed toy, and a whole box full of breakfast-themed beers brewed specifically for the event.

The event itself was handled over a YouTube Live stream, with participants in chat and sharing photos on Twitter and Instagram, and check-ins on Untappd. They had a variety of panels and discussions, from coffee making to art labels on craft brews. For my part, I did the breakfast and loaded up the stream on the TV in the family room so I could keep an eye on it throughout the morning as I watched the kiddos. It wasn’t until lunch when MJ joined me that I finally had a single coffee stout. Still, it was fun, and it’s really been fun trying these wild beers this week. About half the beers are fruity sours, a quarter stouts, and the rest are an array of ales. Some are really odd, like the one that tasted like a juice smoothie, or one I had the other night that was essentially a banana and maple syrup milkshake with 8% alcohol content.

I’ve also been getting familiar with a MacBook Pro running OS X that we’ve been using for family stuff, including video calls and virtual events at the synagogue. I will never give up my Linux laptops, I’m open source to the bone, but it has been an interesting experience from a technical perspective. Most of my pain so far has been just how different it is for ordinary tasks, and the muscle memory of special keys not being where I expect. The tactile feel of the keyboard is nice though, and from a practical perspective, there is some proprietary software that’s required for virtual things that isn’t built for Linux, so using it for that has been necessary.

One thing we didn’t need it for though was watching the latest rover landing! That we just loaded up on YouTube on the Roku on the TV in our family room. I was particularly excited for Adam to see this one, because in addition to it being his first rover landing, it has his name on it!

In other “media” news, I mentioned in my last post that I’d brought back my Wallace and Gromit fan site. Unfortunately for my credit card, that has also sparked a renewed interest in Wallace and Gromit collectibles. I’m not regretting it though, I’m really happy with my recent purchases and am still looking forward to a few coming. It also caused me to start reading the book about Aardman that was published a few years ago. This in itself has turned into a mini film-festival for myself. As I read through the book, I watch the shorts they mention, take in an episode or two of one of each series they talk about, and I have a whole pile of feature films to re-watch. It’s been a delightful adventure which I plan on writing about over on the fan site when I’m done, since Aardman themselves have published a lot of the shorts I’ve been able to watch on YouTube.

This week we went to another zoo! This time we got tickets at the Oakland Zoo, which was a much easier drive than San Francisco (about 15 minutes from home, versus 45), and the shorter drive was quite welcome. We went in the afternoon, picked up one of their speciality Town Zoo beers (beer again? hah!) and had a wonderful time visiting the animals and soaking in the views of the bay. I’m really glad these outdoor venues are open again, and the reduced capacity really seems to be working, there are still a number of people there, but it’s relatively easy to keep a safe distance.

I mentioned a couple posts ago that I’ve been losing weight through diet changes and exercising. I didn’t mention just how successful I’ve been. At the height of my non-pregnancy weight around this time last year, I was 237 lbs. Today I’m 197. That’s 40 pounds!

Breastfeeding has been a key factor in this success, since it burns roughly 500 calories alone, so I can over-shoot my weight loss calorie goals by that much and still manage to lose weight. That means I’ve been able to keep having a beer with dinner a few times a week and enjoying my favorite foods in moderation, and ease more slowly into this diet change, while still maintaining momentum and that good feeling of watching the numbers on the scale go down. I’m also lucky that I haven’t been as hungry with baby #2. A major part of my weight gain that brought me to my top weight was how ravenous I always was when I was feeding kiddo #1. I’m not sure what’s different this time around, maybe my body knows what to expect.

The other part of my success really is concern about my health. As such, I’ve been paying very close to the sugar composition of the foods I eat, and even the ones I indulge in, and have started to be more strategic about when and how I enjoy them. Learning about all this has made all the difference. I also bought a simple Fitbit and have been tracking my steps again, aiming for 7500 per day, which is helped by daily walks with the boys. This is the part of my lifestyle changes that I’m most concerned about with my return to work next month. It’s easy to carve out 45 minutes to walk a couple miles today, but once I go back to work? I’m going to be tired. I will work to make it a priority though, staying active is so important for my health.

One of the key things I’ve come to recognize during these seven months without drinking is what my relationship with alcohol actually looks like. For the most part, it’s not about the alcohol itself. Don’t get me wrong, there were a few times over the past several months when I wanted to just go out for drinks with people to relieve stress and put distance between myself and my problems, but those times have been rare, especially given the tumultuous year I’ve had.

What actually I miss are the taste, ritual, and social aspects of drinking. I love the taste of a solid micro-brewed beer. I have fun geeking out with my beer friends over our check-ins on Untappd, and tracking what I’ve had over the years. I miss the variety of what I can drink as an adult when alcohol is an option. I’ve come to more strongly sympathize with non-drinkers who are so often presented with a list of water, iced tea, or soda. After years of very light consumption, my soda intake has gone up during this pregnancy and I’ve had a lot of iced tea. When MJ and I sat down in Las Vegas at a Michelin starred restaurant, I wished I could indulge in the wine pairing that was specifically selected to complement the meal. At the various conferences I attended this year, I missed the ability to grab some beers with my fellow conference-goers as I had so many times before (it’s really not the same when I tag along and order a root beer). As I stare longingly at my cabinet of whiskey, it’s the ritual of pouring a glass after a rough day and curling up next to the fireplace with a book, something I have satisfyingly done with some nice herbal tea, but it’s a different experience.

After enjoying some non-alcoholic beers one night, I was perfectly fine with having a clear head, not have to down a bunch of water to get re-hydrated before bed, and certainly don’t miss the mild headache in the morning after having a few. Plus, I get to check-in on Untappd! Though I’m sure my friends there are terribly amused by my NA adventures, it has helped me stay connected.

So now we get down to it, is non-alcoholic beer worth it?

The first problem, at least for me, is that NA beers are overwhelmingly lagers, and I’m an ale girl. Coming from the starting point of not being a fan of lagers in the first place, I was left in a very disappointed space when I started looking for NA beers. However, the main problem is that availability of NA options at all is extremely limited. You won’t any NA options at most places, and what you do find is usually the mass-produced stuff that is not very good. Still, I did end up having the “usual suspects” when it comes to beer at a couple places.

You’ll see St. Pauli NA and O’Doul’s on a lot of menus as their default offerings in the US. The St. Pauli I had at our local Indian place here in Castro Valley I should have passed on, it wasn’t much above water. The O’Doul’s Amber was actually not so bad and a good complement to my meal when we found ourselves at a bar and restaurant near our place in Philadelphia over Thanksgiving.

Speaking of Philadelphia, they do a bit better in the NA beer department than other areas I visited. They actually had Clausthaler Dry Hopped lager at another bar and restaurant we went to with friends. It was also available at Wegmans, so I was able to pick up a six-pack for Thanksgiving (even if I couldn’t convince my brother-in-law and Untappd buddy to try one, hah!). Again, a lager, but the dry-hopping gets me a bit closer to where I want to be and satisfies some of my longing for hops.

I got to enjoy the Bitburger Drive when I was out with a friend at Anchor & Hope in San Francisco back in October. One of the draws for this place is their beer menu, so I was somewhat reluctant to visit while I’m off beer, but they hooked me up with their off-menu NA option. It’s a Pilsner, so not really my thing, but it was a nice addition to my meal and I appreciated it.

And conferences? One of the chairs for LISA18 recognized that half of the organizing committee for the conference was made up of people who weren’t planning on drinking during the event, so he went shopping for some NA beers to bring to a little after-party. I skipped the Old Milwaukee NA he picked up, but I did grab one of the Beck’s NA. Lager again! But it was nice to feel like part of the crowd with a green beer bottle in hand.

That was pretty much it for my in-restaurant and social adventures! This meant that I largely couldn’t satisfy the social or dinner-out accompanying problems with a teetotaler lifestyle.

Back in California, I hit a local Total Wine & More store to grab some of the NA beers that had decent ratings, for what they were.

Kaliber is made by Guinness, and I was pleasantly surprised by this one. Of the European brews, it’s probably tied with Clausthaler as a favorite. Alas, I can’t say the same about Erdinger. I’d still choose it over a St. Pauli or O’Doul’s, but I have my reservations about finishing the six-pack.

But where would I really rather spend my calories? None of the options above. The US microbreweries specializing in NA beers are where it’s at.

I wrote about the Chandelier Red IPA back in October, so I’ll just repeat what I said there:

The second comes from just south of me, Surreal Brewing, which makes a red IPA! Now, since I love hops and am often indulging in the most ridiculous hoppy beer I can find, it was a bit mild for me, but it was still good and an effective way for me to get my hops fix, even if itâ€s just a little one.

They only came in packs of four cans! I may actually pick more of this one up during the breast-feeding stage in months to come.

My favorites were from WellBeing Brewing near St. Louis. Their Heavenly Body Golden Wheat was the most beer-like one I tried and my favorite. The Hellraiser Dark Amber is a close second, and I’m really looking forward to their Coffee Cream Stout!

Alas, at the end of the day, none of these beverages are really beer. They are either really mild or have unusual aftertastes, or both. Still, with a long period of breastfeeding ahead of me I should probably get used to avoiding alcohol except for really special occasions when I’m willing to make the required accommodations. As such, I’m especially grateful for the microbreweries who have started to get into this space and offer options that I’ll happily drink until I’m able to return to the land of alcohol drinkers.

Last month at work I was told my position was being eliminated. My last day was October 15th. On October 17th we learned about another complication with the pregnancy, this one will require close monitoring from December through delivery in (hopefully) January. Independently, these things are difficult to cope with, but surmountable. Together, they’ve been a private catastrophe.

On the broader national stage, the Supreme Court nomination earlier this month hit home hard as we continue to see the women in our society attacked and marginalized for the benefit of the careers of men. This week I have been beside myself with heartache over the latest attempts by the administration to strip my trans sisters and brothers of their identity through measures that put their livelihoods and lives at risk once again. Just yesterday a mass murder a synagogue here in Pennsylvania left me sad, scared, and reeling, but not altogether surprised. While I’ve never been the type to be fearful day to day, and I’m still not, it’s been clear for some time that my family wouldn’t be entirely safe in this political climate for long.

Am I OK? Not really. But the earth keeps turning and there’s only one direction to go in. I’m doing what I can to handle it, even on days that it isn’t easy. I started seeing a therapist to talk through some of it so I can work on a healthy path forward without medication that could impact the pregnancy. I stop and admire the roses in my garden and then pull myself together to prepare for the series conferences I’ve been participating in this season. I chat with companies about roles that may be a good fit, and keep doing job interviews. I remind myself that the only way to get through this is to make sure I don’t let hopelessness and sadness cripple me from taking the steps I need to in order to continue to build my career and forge a life for our family. Oh, and I’ll vote on November 6th.

Friends certainly help, but been faced with a weakening of a couple key relationships in my life this year as my life starts to change. Instead, I’ve made more of an effort to have meals with a few friends local to me in the bay area who I haven’t had a chance to catch up with in some time. Most of that of it is my typical hermit lifestyle that causes most of my social interactions to happen while traveling and at conferences. It has come to my attention over the past year that I’ve made a mistake in this regard, and as tempting as it always is to bury myself in work and tech, the cliché of people being what really matter does have truth to it. That doesn’t mean that I’ve actually managed to make the required changes to build new meaningful relationships, but recognizing it is the first step, right?

A beautiful morning at Lake Merritt with friend and fellow Partimus Director, Grant

Otherwise, my travel schedule has been busy, and I’ve been trying to be strategic about what MJ and I tackle each weekend when I’m in town. As I count down the time between now and welcoming our new child, there isn’t much time and there’s a lot to be done. I finally signed up for all the classes in December we need to take to prepare, since we have no idea how to keep an infant alive. We still haven’t bought anything, so quickly coming up on my agenda is putting together a list of things we’ll need, researching the dizzying assortment of options, and finally ordering things.

And I’ve had a bit of unrelated fun too. After months of pining over beers I couldn’t have whenever we go out, I realized that non-alcoholic beer exists, and finally asked the internet what my best options are. I found two domestic microbreweries that only make non-alcoholic beers! The first I tried was from WellBeing Brewing outside of St. Louis, their golden wheat hit my beer-craving spot. The second comes from just south of me, Surreal Brewing, which makes a red IPA! Now, since I love hops and am often indulging in the most ridiculous hoppy beer I can find, it was a bit mild for me, but it was still good and an effective way for me to get my hops fix, even if it’s just a little one. So far I’ve also tried the Kaliber made by Guinness. Looking forward to continuing my NA adventure when I return home, though I’ve even been taking these slowly because there is the potential for trace amounts of alcohol in them.

Then, there’s the oranges! My neighbor has an orange tree and a lime tree that she’s always encouraging me to take fruit from, especially now that I’m pregnant. The limes have been a delightful addition to my sparkling water addiction. I’ve used the piles of oranges to make orange juice lately, after all, what else would one do with piles of oranges? I’ve been deeply satisfied with my fresh morning orange juice.

After my last day at work last week I also took time to do a lot of the things that one tends to delay when they’re working full time. The car finally made it into the shop. I had a few doctor appointments. We met with the Cantor at our synagogue to discuss a few things regarding Jewish traditions and the naming of our son. I’m a little disappointed in myself that all of this landed in the “delayed” category, self-care and regular life stuff really shouldn’t take a back seat.

This week I’ve spent some time at the Philadelphia townhouse between All Things Open in Raleigh and LISA in Nashville, the latter of which I leave for today. I’m not here for long, but it certainly was nice to be able to crash here for a few days instead of paying for a hotel somewhere on the east coast, or flying all the way back to the west coast. While I’ve been here I’ve had a couple lunches with a friend, and was able to do a dinner with family. Plus we had an annual sprinkler-related inspection due next week to take care of. I also got to debug the garage door opener, which still needs to be fixed properly, but at least I know what the issue is now. I was definitely far too excited to be able to finally pick up some back-ordered sheets we had shipped to my sister-in-law, our sheet situation is now sorted between the master bedroom and guest room! The last “big” thing here this week was extracting some chairs from the garage and cleaning them off after years in storage. They were a lot dirtier than I expected from looking at them, but they’re in much better shape now.

After Nashville, I’ll be in San Francisco for five days before my final conference of the year, SeaGL. I’ll be giving the opening keynote there, and in spite of knowing about the conference for several years, this will be the first time I am actually able to attend. The schedule looks fantastic and I’ve enjoyed following along as they’ve released diversity statistics and details about how they went about the call for proposals and selection process. I’m really looking forward to it.

That first Saturday in town we caught a nap in the morning, but first I got to see a deer! The contrast between our place in downtown San Francisco and the townhouse is exemplified by moments like that. The rest of the day was taken up with a bunch of shopping before meeting a friend for dinner.

Sunday we went to a wedding! Advertised as an engagement party, my friend Crissi decided to celebrate the engagement to Henry by having a surprise wedding. It was held at a lovely nearby country club where we had enjoyable food and company surrounding the surprise ceremony.

We spent Monday through Wednesday in town working, with a jaunt to downtown Philadelphia on Tuesday to eat at Buddakan, which we’d never been to but I now highly recommend if you’re looking for a nice meal out on the town. The service was great, the food was delicious, with dim sum and small plates able to be ordered as you went. I’d go back again just for the lobster egg rolls.

Wednesday would have been Simcoe’s 11th birthday. We lost her in April but it hit me hard and her birthday remained tough for me. That evening we ended up at Pizzeria Uno near the townhouse where they were having an incredibly appropriate Weyerbacher tap takeover. Why appropriate? Simcoe is a type of hop, one used by many breweries, but Weyerbacher has really made it their own. They had a wonderful Double Simcoe IPA for a few years, and their IPA #2 this year “uses large amounts of Simcoe and Denali hops” in the batch. It was a lovely way to round out the evening. Plus, they gave me a pint glass at the end of the evening!

And then it was Thanksgiving! The daytime was spent watching the MST3K Turkey Day Marathon while MJ slept in, as is my usual tradition. The marathon kicked off with The Day the Earth Froze, followed by Night of the Blood Beast. I also was able to catch up on some volunteer open source work throughout the day, mostly with my European colleagues who were still working on what was a regular Thursday for them. This is also when I discovered how far behind I had fallen with most of the mailing lists I’m on. I have been forced to confront the fact that I burned out a bit last year when my team was laid off and I stepped away from OpenStack. I poured myself in my new role come January, but never did quite pick back up checking email that I had let slide. I haven’t gotten back to where I was productivity-wise since then since most of my work these days is focused on my day job, but I am happy to report that I’m doing a lot better. Catching up on mailing lists and staying on top of them now has made me feel a lot better too.

Thanksgiving dinner was spent at my sister-in-law’s place, as we’ve been doing for the past couple years. We had a really nice time catching up with family, having delicious food, enjoying some good wine and getting to meet their friendly new kitty.

I made plans to meet up with some friends on Friday, and we accidentally ended up at a mall in New Jersey where the restaurant we picked was located. It was Black Friday. Parking was a bit crazy, but it turns out malls are built to absorb holiday crowds and it actually wasn’t a terrible experience. We did some appliance browsing since we have to do some replacements here in the condo in San Francisco. The shopping evening wrapped up with a stop at L.L. Bean where they had a great sale on duck boots, which I’d been meaning to get a pair of, as well as a pile of flannel clothes. I also ordered some stuff to be shipped to San Francisco, my stock of flannel shirts is now complete. The actual visit to New Jersey concluded with a nice dinner with MJ’s great aunt and her daughter.

This trip was also highlighted by getting the O-Lionel scale train set I picked up at a toy fair last year running. I quickly learned upon extracting the train from the crate I had it in that the tracks were rusted. I put the track together on the kitchen island and the tracks were intermittently powered, but I really couldn’t get good conduction. Fortunately I had been advised when I bought it that the tracks would probably have to be replaced, so this wasn’t a huge shock for me.

While we were in New Jersey on Friday we stopped by Toy Train Emporium in Cherry Hill to pick up new track. Their staff was helpful with my need to replace the O-gauge Lionel Tubular Track, and suggested I switch away from the O-27 that came with my original set and go with one that had more forgiving turns. They gave me advice on track cleaning (not letting these get rusty!) and helped me find some smoke liquid to fill the reservoir for generated smoke in my engine, they had several different scents, I went with the root beer. Upon returning home, I quickly learned how tricky the tubular track is to assemble the first time. It requires a bit of patience since it doesn’t simply snap together, you have to re-shape the tubes a bit to get the parts to connect, a fact documented in the train manual. The working of the rails with your hands is a bit tiring, I spent one morning over the weekend taking breaks between fitting track and reading. Thankfully, once assembled, it turns out the island in the kitchen was perfectly sized for my new track, so I got to play around with it there, and even got the smoke going! Though I learned that it has to be going pretty fast for the smoke to start, causing a spectacular derailment while I was testing it out, oops. The train won’t always live in the kitchen, I have plans to set it up in my office area once we move some of our furniture and other items out west.

I spent a nice chunk of time reading during this trip, which was mostly taken up with The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine, by Dr. Lindsey Fitzharris. I pre-ordered it several months ago, and quickly discovered that it was a fascinating page-turner, easily one of the best books I’ve read this year. I also learned that the cover art is from a painting by Thomas Eakins which now resides in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I’ve been looking for an excuse to go visit, maybe during our trip back east over the holidays.

MJ flew back a couple days early to get back into the office, I stayed through Tuesday continuing to work remotely, so my trip concluded with an introduction to kung fu movies over at a friend’s place. He appealed to my love for MST3K to introduce and explain the ridiculous aspects of so many of the films. I’m still not sure I “get” it, but it was fun anyway.

The last (and first!) time I was in Germany was for the same purpose, a sprint, that time in Darmstadt where I snuck in a tiny amount of touristing but due troubles with my gallbladder, I could have any fried foods or beer. Well, I had one beer to celebrate Germany winning the World Cup, but I regretted it big time.

This time was different, finally I could have liters of German beer! And I did. The first night there I even had some wiener schnitzel (fried veal!), even if we were all too tired from our travels to leave the hotel that night. We went out to beer gardens every other night after that, taking in the beautiful late summer weather and enjoying great beers.

Photo in the center by Chris Hoge (source)

But I have a confession to make: I don’t like pilsners and that makes Belgium my favorite beer country in Europe. Still, Germany has quite the title. Fortunately while they are the default, pilsners were not my only option. I indulged in dark lagers and hefeweizens all week. Our evening in Heidelberg I also had an excellent Octoberfest Märzen by Heidelberger, which was probably my favorite beer of the whole trip.

Now I’m getting ahead of myself because I was excited about all the beer. I arrived on Sunday, sadly much later than I had intended. My original flights had been rescheduled so ended up meeting my colleague Clark at the Frankfurt airport around 4PM to catch our trains to Walldorf. The train station is right there in the airport, and clear signs meant a no fuss transfer halfway through our journey to get to the next train. We were on the trains for about an hour before arriving at Wiesloch-Walldorf station. A ten Euro cab ride then got us to the hotel where we met up with several other colleagues for drinks.

Of course we were there to work, so that’s what we spend 9-5 each day doing, but the evenings were ours to explore our little corner of Germany. The first night we just walked into Walldorf after work and enjoyed drinks and food until the sun went down. Walldorf is a very cute little town and the outdoor seating at the beer garden we went to was a wonderful treat, especially since the weather was so warm and clear. We spent Wednesday night in Walldorf too.

More photos from Walldorf here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pleia2/sets/72157670828593814/

Tuesday night was our big night out. We all headed out to the nearby Heidelberg for a big group dinner. After parking, we had a lovely short walk to the restaurant which took me by a shop that sold post cards! I picked up a trio of cards for my mother and sisters, as I typically do when traveling. The walk also gave a couple of us time to take pictures of the city before the sun went down.

Dinner was at Zum Weissen Schwanen (The White Swan). That was my four beer night.

After the meal several of us took a nice walk around the city a bit more. We got to look up and see the massive, lit up, Heidelberg Castle. It’s a pretty exceptional place, I’d love to properly visit some time. The post cards I sent to family all included the castle.

The drive back to the hotel was fun too. I got a tiny taste of the German autobahn as we got up to 220 kilometers per hour on our way back to the hotel before our exit came up. Woo!

My pile of Heidelberg photos are here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pleia2/albums/72157674174957385

Thursday morning was my big morning of trains. I flew into Frankfurt like everyone else, but I flew home out of Dusseldorf because it was several hundred dollars cheaper. The problem is Walldorf and Dusseldorf aren’t exactly close, but I could spend a couple hours on European ICE (Inter-City Express) and get there. MJ highly recommended I try it out since I like trains, and with the simplicity of routing he convinced me to take a route from Mannheim all the way to Dusseldorf Airport with one simple connection, which just required walking across the platform.

I’m super thankful he convinced me to take the trains. The ticket wasn’t very expensive and I really do like trains. In addition to being reasonably priced, they’re fast, on time and all the signs were great so I didn’t feel worried about getting lost or ending up in the wrong place. The signs even report where each coach will show up on the platform so I had no trouble figuring out where to stand to get to my assigned seat.

I took a few more pictures while on my train adventure, here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pleia2/albums/72157670930346613

And so I spent a couple hours on my way to Dusseldorf. I was a bit tired since my first train left the station at 7:36AM, so I mostly just listened to music and stared out the window. My flight out of Dusseldorf was uneventful, and was a direct to San Francisco so I was able to come home to my kitties in the early evening. Unfortunately MJ had left home the day before, so I’ll have to wait until we’re both in Philadelphia next week to see him.

To begin, let’s talk about some of the wonderful things I’ve had to drink this year.

Back in April, my sister in law and her husband were in town visiting. When we have guests in town there’s a bunch of stuff we love to do, but it’s also fun to check off some of the attractions we haven’t seen yet either. That brought us to the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park. Going into this I didn’t have any expectations, I wasn’t sure what it had, how big it was or anything. Now that I’ve been, I can definitely recommend a visit.

There’s a path that winds through the garden, taking you through various Japanese trees, flowers and other plants. Throughout they have pagodas of varied provenance, some created in Japan and shipped over, some with dedications, one that came from the Pan-Pacific International Exposition (world’s fair) that was held in San Francisco in 1915. There’s a distinctive arched bridge, stone lanterns and various water features, from fountains and streams, to a koi pond. The walk through these lovely gardens concluded for us at their tea house, where we got snacks and some hot Matcha green tea.

More photos from our visit to the Japanese Tea Garden here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pleia2/albums/72157666201291390

Moving from tea to something a bit stronger, in June we had a pair of friends in town who we took up to Sonoma County for some wine tasting. Now, we’ve done this journey with many folks, so I won’t give a play by play this time around, but it was worth noting because we went on the Partners Wine Tour at Benziger Family Winery, something I hadn’t done in years.

But first, we had lunch! We ordered sandwiches at the nearby Glen Ellen Village Market, bought a bottle of 2013 Dragonsleaf Pinot Noir and sat outside in the shade outside the tasting room at Benziger. There are few things in the world so relaxing and satisfying as that picnic lunch with friends was.

It was then onward for the tour! Taking a little over an hour, the tour took us on a long ride through the vineyards, giving history of the winery and tastings throughout our journey. We then went into the wine caves, where we sampled some not-quite-finished wine right out of the cask. The dining room in the cave was closed for maintenance, so our final tour stop was into the library, where our membership status got us a sample of one of their amazing old library wines.

More photos from the Benziger Partners Tour, and stops at Jacuzzi Winery and Imagery Winery here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pleia2/albums/72157669175719622

Wine adventures continued later in the month when MJ and I went up to Napa Valley for an afternoon of dining at Rutherford Grill and tasting as Rutherford Hill Winery, where we are members and had to drive up to pick up our shipment of wines. I’m a fan of Merlots, and Rutherford Hill is internationally famous for them, but what really made membership for us was how well we’re treated as members. They have an amazing tasting room in their wine caves, and are very flexible about wines you can pick up in your shipment, since price is determined by precisely what you buy anyway. With them, membership turns out to essentially be an agreement to buy a certain number of wine bottles per cycle, with a set of recommendations as a default. It was all very refreshing for such a large Napa winery, and their wines are exceptional.

Upon arrival, we were led back to the caves where we sat in a little alcove to sample a series of wines. Our host was wonderful and we really enjoyed the ambiance and coolness of the cave, especially with how bright and warm it was outside. Once the tasting was concluded, I took advantage of the springtime climate that had all their flowers in full bloom before going inside to pick up our wines and a few other goodies.

More photos (especially flowers!) from our day up at Rutherford Hill here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pleia2/sets/72157667277830503

My final drink adventure was closer to home than all the rest, a quick walk from home down 2nd street and over to Black Hammer Brewing. It was here that I met my friend Pasi who was in town from Finland and another fellow in town from Copenhagen. It’s on the newer side and they don’t serve food (though outside food is allowed), so I hadn’t been to this brewery before. We arrived pretty late and only had a couple rounds, but I was really impressed with the variety available in their small batches of beers. I went with the Nautical Twilight and Sunrise Set.

I love living in a place where I can not only find some delicious things to drink, but do so in beautiful places. Even the brewery, though lacking in scenery of my tea and wine trips, had a comfortable atmosphere that’s begging me to return.

We took an overnight (red eye) flight across the country to arrive in New Hampshire and drive up to Maine on Thursday morning. We had to adjust our plans away from the trolley museum when we learned it hadn’t opened yet, so we instead drove up to Portland to stop by one of my favorite breweries for a tour and tasting, Allagash Brewing. As a lover of Belgian style ales, I discovered Allagash in Pennsylvania several years ago, starting with their standard White and quickly falling in love with the Curieux. I left Maine before I could drink, and their tasting room and tour didn’t open until long after I moved away, so this was my first opportunity to visit. Now, you can drop by for a tasting flight at any time, but you have to reserve tour tickets in advance. It being a weekday was a huge help here, I was able to grab some of the last tickets for early in the afternoon as we drove up from Kennebunkport.

Our arrival coincided with lunchtime, and since they can’t serve food in their tasting room, they have a mutually beneficial relationship with a food truck, called Mothah Truckah, serving delicious sandwiches that sits in their parking lot on days they’re open. We ordered our sandwiches and wandered inside to eat it with their house beer. The tour itself was your typical brewery tour, with brewery history and tidbits about what makes this brewery unique throughout.

Having been party to hop growing and beer home brewing back when I lived in Pennsylvania, I’m quite familiar with the process, but am really interested to learn how breweries differ. Allagash does a huge business in kegs, with something like 70% of their beer ending up in kegs that are shipped to bars all over the country. The rest goes into one of two main bottling lines, the first of which is all their standard beers, and the second is their sours, which due to their nature require some special handling so they don’t contaminate each other. After seeing the keg and bottling lines, we went into their aging building where we had a series of other brews to taste: White, Saison, Little Brett, Golden Brett. I like Saisons a lot, and the Bretts trended in the sour, and I strongly preferred the Golden. We purchased a bottle of the Golden Brett and Uncommon Crow after the tour. An Allagash bottle opener keychain also came home with me. More photos from the brewery tour here: here.

This pretty much took up our afternoon, from there we stopped by the grocery store to per-order a Spiderman cake for my nephew’s birthday on Saturday and then checked into The Westin in Portland. After a couple snafus with the room choice, we were finally put into a room with a beautiful view of the Portland Art Museum and the harbor. We rested for a bit and then we went out in search of my lobster! We ended up at the locals-friendly J’s Oyster where I was able to order my steamed clams (steamers) and lobster, plus watch the Penguins win the game that put them in the Stanley Cup finals with our beloved Sharks. I slept well that night.

The next morning I let MJ sleep in while I made my way over to the International Cryptozoology Museum. It’s an interesting place for such a museum, but Maine is where museum founder and Cryptozoology legend Loren Coleman lives, so there we were. As I walked into the museum I was immediately met by Loren, who happily obliged my request for a photo together (he gets this a lot). He also signed some books for me, one of which went directly in the mail to one of my fellow cryptid lovers.

I keep talking about cryptids and cryptozoology. Cryptozoology is the search for creatures whose existence has not been proven due to lack of evidence, and cryptids are what we call these creatures. Think the Loch Ness Monster and the various incantations of Bigfoot, but they have a coelacanth as a mascot, since the coelacanth was thought long extinct until it’s modern existence was confirmed pretty recently. The okapi also tends to show up a lot in their literature, being probably the last large mammal to be confirmed by science. To be strictly honest with myself, it’s a pseudoscience and I’m a skeptic. Like many skeptics I like to see my ideas challenged and if I were the less skeptical type, totally would be out there in the wood searching for bigfoot. I can’t, but I want to believe. The museum itself was an important visit for me. A variety of casts of bigfoot feet, lots of kitsch and memorabilia from various cryptids, with Nessie being one of my favorites. They also had exhibits showcasing some of the lesser known and more local cryptids. I think these smaller exhibits were my favorite, since they walked the fine line between seriousness and self-deprecation on the part of cryptid seekers. With the “head of a moose, the body of a man and the wings and feet of an eagle” I’m not sure most people could honestly say they believe that the Pamola actually exists as an animal you may encounter.

The visit to this museum was definitely a memorable highlight of my trip, I’m glad I was able to visit it before they moved to their new location. The museum is closed for a few weeks this summer to do the move, I made it just in time! More photos from the museum here.

After my morning cryptid adventures, we made our way over to Fort Williams State Park, where the very famous Portland Headlight lighthouse is. Our reason was not to see the lighthouse though, we wanted lobster rolls at Bite into Maine. They remain my favorite lobster rolls. Going here is kind of a pilgrimage now.

After lunch we drove up to Freeport to meet up with my family and do a bit of shopping at L.L. Bean. We met up with my mother, youngest sister and my nephew. With my nephew I got my first glimpse at a moose! A stuffed moose.

We had dinner together at Jameson Tavern where I got a beloved slice of blueberry pie, a la mode. We then swung by the L.L. Bean outlet and did one last stop at the main retail store. I ordered a snazzy new travel pouch for toiletries when I travel.

As I wrote about previously, we spent Saturday morning at the Seashore Trolley Museum. Afterwards we swung by the bakery to pick up the cake we had ordered and drove to my sister’s place. The evening was spent with pizza, cake and birthday presents! It’s hard to believe my nephew is almost four already.

Sunday was moose day. This trip marked MJ’s second visit to Maine. I’d always told him tongue-in-cheek stories about all the moose in Maine, and the first time we visited the only moose he saw were stuffed ones at L.L. Bean. This time I was determined to show him a see a real, live moose! Alas, unless you go up to some of the northern or western parts of the state, they are actually pretty rare. In the 15 years I spent in Maine in my youth I could probably count my moose encounters on my hands.

Instead I “discovered” the Maine Wildlife Park. I put discovered in quotes because my mother informed me that I had actually been there as a child. Oh. She did say that it has changed a lot since then, so going again was a different adventure even for her. We met up with my mother, sister and nephew for lunch and then made our way out to the park in the early afternoon.

The park has improved enclosures for the animals, in keeping with modernization of many facilities. They also specialize in caring for wild animals and keeping the ones that can’t survive in the wild, writing: “Many of the animals at the Maine Wildlife Park were brought here because they were injured or orphaned, or because they were human dependent – raised, sometimes illegally, in captivity.” The collection of local animals is worth seeing. In addition to my lovely moose, their most popular exhibit, they have a pair of black bears, several eagles, mountain lions and more. Plus, it was a great place to take my nephew, with him switching between his stroller to running around to see the next animal pretty often.

And I got my moose selfie:

More photos from the Maine Wildlife Park here.

That evening MJ and I enjoyed dinner at Congress Squared at the hotel, and drinks upstairs in their Top of the East bar. With dinner we got to have some fried fiddleheads. So Maine!

Monday was Memorial Day, and that morning we met my family in Portland and went to the Narrow Gauge Railroad, which I already wrote about. The afternoon was spent getting some more lobster rolls and taking pictures throughout Cape Elizabeth, my home town. We rounded out the day with a visit to my old neighborhood, and even stopped for ice cream at the ice cream shop I frequented as a youth.

The evening on Monday concluded with MJ and I having another quiet evening out together, this time going to Eventide Oyster Co. in Portland, not too far from our hotel. As much as I love the Pacific, and living in San Francisco, I still prefer east coast oysters. It was a nice opportunity to sample a larger variety than I’ve had before. The rest of the meal was a couple small plates and cocktails, but it was plenty after that late afternoon ice cream we indulged in.

Tuesday I saw MJ off, as he needed to return home and my mother picked me up at the hotel when I checked out. We spent some time walking around downtown Portland, drifted into some book shops and had some lunch. In the mid afternoon we drove up to her place, where I got to see all her kitties! She has… several cats.

Eventually we went over to my sister’s place where I’d be staying for the rest of the week. On the way she tool me to a tractor supply store, where I marveled at all the country things (“raise your own chickens!”) and realized I’d turned into a city slicker. Hah! I was pretty out of my element.

I spent Wednesday through Friday working from my sister’s couch. My nephew went to his school program in the morning and my sister kept herself busy. I had to work late on Friday as we handled a maintenance window, but otherwise it all worked out. Working from there allowed them to not feel the need to keep me entertained, and I didn’t have to miss much work for my visit. The evenings I spent hanging out with my sister and mother, watching movies, drinking some adult root beer. It was nice to spend time with them.

On Thursday night my mother’s boyfriend took the three of us out to The Red Barn in Augusta. I’d never been to this place before, but they had top notch whole fried clams. Yummy!

Working from my sister’s couch and looking out her window at the forest view was also a nice change of pace. With just some finishing touches needed on my book, I had reached a place where I could finally relax. Being in such a quiet place helped me transition into a more peaceful spot.

Saturday was my flight day. I had planned a whale watching tour with my mother, but after waking up at 7AM and leaving before 8, the tour company called at 9:15 to cancel our 10AM tour! I was terribly disappointed. I’d never been on a whale watching tour, and with how much both my mother love animals it seemed like a perfect way to spend the day together. Since we were already so far down south, we made a detour to the Old Orchard Beach area, where we spent the morning walking around the seaside shops, walking barefoot in the warm sands (it was over 80 degrees out!) and visiting the beautiful historic carousel they have there. We had lunch at Bugaboo Creek steakhouse, and then killed time at the Maine Mall, where I picked up both Star Wars and Star Trek pajama pants, much to my delight.

It was then time for my flight out of little the little Portland jetport. Connecting through Philadelphia I had an easy time getting home, made even easier with a pair of complimentary upgrades!

This trip was a very busy one, but it was a special one for me. I don’t have the opportunity to spend a lot of time with my family in Maine, with my travel and work schedule, and splitting time with friends and family in Philadelphia as well. It was also nice to play the tourist, which I hadn’t felt super comfortable with until this trip. I finally don’t have anxiety about visiting my home town, and can appreciate it all for the beautiful place it is.

More photos from my trip, including some light houses and ocean views and our beach morning in Old Orchard are here.

I’m not sure if it was the stunning AT&T Park or I was just at a point in my life where I could chill out and enjoy a game, but I fell in love that night in 2010 when we watched the Philadelphia Phillies play the San Francisco Giants. Since then I’ve attended a bunch more San Francisco Giants games, several Oakland A’s games, and MJ and I have branched out into hockey too by going to San Jose Sharks games. Back in December I went to my first football game. Baseball still holds my heart, and so does AT&T Park, but I do enjoy a good hockey game.

A couple weeks ago when we learned that the Sharks were going into the 7th game of second round finals we snapped up tickets. On May 12th we took Caltrain down to San Jose to see them play against Nashville.

It was the first time I’d ever been to a playoff game for any sport. Going to a sold out game with the energy that a playoff brings was quite the experience. It was a really enjoyable game for Sharks fans.

Nashville had lots of great passes, but the Sharks won 4-0, sealing their spot in the conference finals. Nice! This week will determine how far they continue to go, as I write this they’re in a 3-2 game lead in the conference finals.

More pictures from the evening and the game: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pleia2/albums/72157666141427753

The only downside to the evening was the trek home. I’d love for Caltrain to be a good option both ways. Going down is pretty easy and quick on a bullet train during rush hour, but coming home is pretty rough. The game ended around 8:30, we were on the train platform by 9 to catch a 9:30 train. By the time we go home it was 11:30PM. Three hours from the end of the game to getting home was a bit much, especially since I was also recovering from a nasty cold that sapped my energy pretty severely.

I hadn’t planned on going to another game this month, but a friend and colleague who is staying in town for a few weeks contacted me to see if I’d be interested in catching a baseball game this week. Count me in. Last night MJ and I met up with my buddy Spencer and we caught a Giants game down at my beloved AT&T Park.

The weather was a bit gloomy, but we only had a bit of misting during the end of the game. The Giants were in their first game against the San Diego Padres, and the Padres put up a fight. The game was 0-0 until the bottom of the 9th. It was actually a little painful, but I had good company… who I dragged halfway across the stadium so we could get decent beer during the game. Happy to report that I enjoyed a Mango Wheat and Go West! IPA by Anchor Brewing Company along with my obligatory ball game hot dogs.

It was the bottom of the 9th inning, as we all were getting ready for extra innings, that the Giants scored a run. It sure made for an exciting final inning!

More photos here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pleia2/albums/72157668743195896

No complaints about the commute home from AT&T Park. We live less than a mile from the stadium so just needed to use our feet to get home, along with dozens of other fans headed in the same direction.