OK, he's gone. To take her wagon. Let the games begin.
I'm doing a solo effort today in order to give Linda a mental break and allow her the opportunity to go find Whole Foods and to go explore more of downtown Sacramento. She's in search of an 'artistic' section of town that might have some used bookstores, cafes, and other shops with more character than the relatively generic and limited Bidwell area.
She's found, and I agree, that there are definitely sufficient shops and stores in nearby proximity [Borders, Costco, BabiesRus, CostPlus, HomeDepot, Target.... yadda yadd] but they're really all there is. After awhile. you want something with more than just the same repetitive stuff. After all, we're used to the Bay Area, and this is like moving to Woodside... we gotta drive a little.
Side topic: been writing/stopping over and over, as the kids continually ask for or need something... and his need to take whatever she has requires constant intervention. I'll try to keep him on track.
On another note... glancing to the right confirms a momentary suspicion from an earlier observation... we have mushrooms in our yard now. One more thing to battle, understand, eradicate and ensure safety over. Ugh.
The kids have found a wet area of the lawn... not hard to do since our lawn's not a well-drained one... so they now have their stomping ground mapped out for the next 10 min Cleanup will be fun. I'll get the high-pressure hose out... "You've both been to County before, I'm sure..."
I went down to Cupertino on Thursday, had lunch w/TiVo friends, beer w/JJG, ran into LG for a quick pickup of a few croissants for Linda, stopped by my Mom's, visited Mary and saw Bill, Julie, Cathy as well, and then reconnected with Kately, Becker, Jepson and others. The Wallflowers were playing which was an added bonus, and very cool. The headliner, though, was Suker, Latimer & Gibson, with special guest JJG, making for a great evening of beer, music, tech talk and for me, mega memories as I walked about the Campus.
Being back after having been away, and at such a large scale event, really brought back to me how lucky I was to have had that opportunity, and what a luxury being on the Apple campus is. The complex is beautiful and offers so many niceties, from offices, not cubes, to the cafe, open spaces, coffee bar, parking garage, store, etc.... In many ways, I long to be back there, but the reality of our needs and desires to raise the kids in a nice home with good schools makes the idea of putting every dime into a dump with bad schools and dealing with the density very unappealing. Now if we could afford to live in Palo Alto... :-)
The trip did remind me of something I do miss, and that is the extreme convenience in such an area. You have so many options. Take Peets coffee for example. We typically went to the one in LG, but I also frequented Camden if my route went that way, and the one by work [Rivermark], as well as Campbell, was also great. Now I hear there's one in Cupertino near Target. The opportunity to have that level of choice and options was something I took for granted. Up here, the closest is 30min away in Sacramento, and quite a drive. Perhaps 40min, really. But don't think I've not written, as has Linda, trying to get one in Folsom, and the staff at the Sacramento Peets said that's a common request.
And of course, the other reminder was time spent with friends, which was so refreshing. I have great friends from TiVo and Apple and wish it were easier to continue to grow some of the Tivo ones and continue to enjoy those I've had for decades. I hope we'll be able to have friends come to visit more often.