July

Let me once again apologize for the long pause in my updates. The month of July has come and (almost) gone, and I have not yet written about all the goings-on of the past 30 days. Why? Partially to blame is some ongoing work chaos due to frequent build plan changes. More to blame is that my weekends have been fairly packed, not leaving much time for blogging. Anyhow, rather than break the month's events into individual posts, let me summarize the goings-on:

- 4th of July: McKenzie and I were one with our apartment. It was the day of cleaning and sorting. We did manage to make a quick trip down to her parents' house for burgers and firecrackers.

- 4th of July weekend: the Saturday of the long weekend, I headed up into San Francisco with my friend Victor. Fortunately he knows BART like the back of his hand, so I didn't even have to think about the stops. We started the afternoon at the San Francisco SPCA, the Ritz Carlton for animals needing homes. As I had just adopted Conor, I was not in the market for further adoptions, but I was tempted. What a great shelter. They even have TVs for the cats to watch. After that, we grabbed lunch at Cafe de la Presse, a French cafe by the gates to Chinatown. My benchmark for any French restaurant is the Nicoise salad; the one at this place was average. Nonetheless, I was filled up for the rest of the afternoon, which commenced at the Museum of Modern Art. The highlighted exhibit was Frida Kahlo, but we also saw the fixed exhibit and a special exhibit with the photography of Lee Miller. After all this art, we caught a movie, "Hancock." Yes, I think we packed enough into this day, just my style.

- Churrascaria: in mid-July I had my first Brazilian dining experience at Pampas in Palo Alto (http://www.pampaspaloalto.com/). The food was absolutely amazing - perfectly cooked meat, and lots of it - but my advice to any newcomers is to go hungry. Very hungry.

- 20s/30s Service: on July 20, the 20s/30s group at church led the worship service. Each of us participated in a different section, including 3 "sermonettes," readings, music, and prayers. We were warmly received by the congregation and it is wonderful to see this group gel so well.

- Vancouver: last week, July 22-24, I was up in Vancouver for work, visiting a key supplier. I traveled with my co-workers Steven and Dave. As the meetings didn't start until Wednesday, we had Tuesday night to explore downtown Vancouver a bit, including dinner on Robson Street. The majority of the trip centered on our sessions with the supplier (non-stop for two days, including intense contract negotiation for me), but we also had dinner with the supplier at Arriva, a fantastic Italian restaurant in a great neighborhood. I definitely want to go back to that area off Commercial Street to try more restaurants. The meetings went very well - this was a long overdue trip and I left on a bit of a high because of what we accomplished. I got home around 10:30 Thursday night and by that time all the adrenaline had dissipated. And then I worked a 13-hour day on Friday to catch up from being gone. I need to start hiring assistants to help me out while I'm gone on trips.

- Rachel: my sister arrived today for a 5-day visit. More to follow here soon!