Today for lunch I went to Mela Tandoori Kitchen with Bo and Yumin. This was right before their wedding. I got lots of pictures of them but gave the memory card to Bo so that he would have the pictures, and I’ll update this post when I get the pictures.
I went to Suppenkuche with Chris H and Francis. Chris is pretty much done with his coursework for the PhD and is going to be hanging around SF a lot more. I will probably go hang out with him and work on PRAINZ some days. He lives in a nice place in the city and it will be fun to hang out with him. This will help him keep on topic as well as helping me to keep on topic. (Suppenkuche Site)
The restaurant was really nice, albeit a little expensive. I got a fabulous mushroom soup and dumpling stuffed roasted chicken with potato pancakes. I got two different beers and the second was really tasty, but I can’t recall what it is.
After Suppenkuche we got ice cream at a close by shop, Smitten Ice Cream. I got the salted caramel and it was delicious. (Smitten Site)
When we got back to Mountain View Nima suggested that we go by the Persian Market that he frequents. It is called Rose International Market, and has a lot of really good, decently priced food. They have a kitchen in the back that will make amazing kabobs. They wrap the kabobs in flatbread and the flatbread soaks up all the juices from the cooked meat. It is tasty, a lot of food, and cheap. We took it back to his place and ate there. He also talked us into trying a carbonated yogurt drink, which was decently tasty. It isn’t good on its own, but when you are eating something fatty I could see it being pretty good. Steph also got a desert from there that Nima says translates to the ‘yellow soft’ stuff. It was really strongly flavored, but pretty good.
Last night Steph and I met up with Nima and Caryn at the Old Pro. We got a couple of appetizers between us, and it was pretty good, but greasy food. We also had a few drinks and it was a nice time. Afterwards we went back to Nima and Caryn’s place. On the way we stopped by Fresh and Easy to get some food for sailing.
After the MTG we went to Castro to have some pho at Pho Hoa. I invited Steph and Nick, and they seemed to really enjoy it. We then went over to Beachhead for some games. We played Formula D, which is a game based entirely on roll to move. Not being in control of so much of the game is really annoying, but it overall wasn’t a bad game. Adam won and Steph got 2nd, Nick, Chris, and I blew up. After that we played a game of Galaxy Trucker. I got some really hard to deal with impediments. I played the flotilla and got the summersault. I had to put in so many engines, and managed to supersheild both ships. The third round I got the Built to Order and Faulty Connections, and on top of that I didn’t realize that I could use parts from the middle to fill out the ship. I managed to make a decent ship, but everyone was getting destroyed from tons of meteors and lasers. I ended up losing when my ship hit open space with no engines.
When I got into SF, Stephanie came and picked me up. She had just come from Kublacon, where she saw all sorts of stuff on painting minis. We went to Magda Luna (Site) with Brian and Candice. I got a really tasty potato burrito, and guac. The food was quite good, but it was a little heavy. Afterwards we went to Safeway, then went home and got to bed since we were getting up early the next day.
When we got back to the house Dad was ready to take the iPad case in for exchange, so we stopped by the Apple store and I got the light blue front cover. We then headed to the Commissary to pick up the BBQ for that evening. We got all the good stuff, and a lot of BBQ. As always the Commissary is super tasty. When we got back to the house Dad and I started drinking some wine and played some cards. He beat me badly, and I just wasn’t getting the cards I needed. I made a few mistakes in the early games, but the later ones I was getting really bad luck. Kim joined us for dinner and brought over a really tasty dessert, apricot tart. This morning I’m feeling sick from all the tasty, rich food last night, and all the meat.
I had a great night’s sleep last night and woke up around 9:30 at Jeff’s, got ready, and headed to Birmingham. I forgot to get the 23 and Me kits from Jeff, but I’ll just remind people to get them and use them at their convenience. The drive to Birmingham was uneventful and nice.
When I got there I went to Nana’s house and gave her the trivet/bowl. She and Coleman thought it was really neat, and I think they will get some use out of it. We went down 280 a ways to Joe’s Crab Shack for lunch and we all got the Surf N’ Turf burger. It was pretty good, but I couldn’t get close to finishing it. She gave me a big update on the family, which was nice to hear, and all of the stuff that she had been up to. She gave me a tiny Disney Rubik’s Cube to give to Mom. I showed her my diving video from Cathedrals off Carmel and gave her the link to this blog.
I got to have a really nice lunch with Russel at Thai Spice. He also showed me around his office, which looks really nice. He has been there for 6 years now and is doing great. He is the technical sales guy, which means when the salesmen actually need someone who knows something he is the one who comes in to give estimates and design. We talked for at least 3 hours and it was really nice to catch up.
It's an Exciting World 