Field Trips – Page 2

August 25, 2009

Ring of Fire

Yesterday, from my office window, I saw a huge plume of smoke billowing from behind the high-rise across the street. Eager for a break from the grind, I jumped up from my desk and walked down the hall to see if I could get a better view. Sure enough, our office turned out to be prime viewing real estate. We could see smoke, fire trucks and ladders, fire fighters on the roofs, actual flames, and eventually functioning fire hoses. So that was a bit of excitement in an otherwise typical day at the office.

Digression: Someone forwarded me a short online breaking news story on the incident as it was happening. Not a whole lot of interesting information, two alarm fire, the fire department is responding, no further comments given, blah blah blah. But here’s the kicker, “a man who answered the phone at Tadich Grill confirmed that the building was on fire.” Excuse me? The building is on fire and this guy is still inside answering the phones?

So, the real point of this post: we don’t really have functioning smoke detectors in our house right now. Of course, watching someone else’s property burst into flames made me think of it. If I recall correctly, the smoke detectors were disabled when we moved in, and we found out why when we enabled them and tried to cook dinner. We didn’t even burn anything, but those alarms started wailing, and they are not easy to turn off. Steve has mentioned replacing them on a couple of occasions. Needless to say, this is now going to the top of our to do list.

August 24, 2009

Weekend Update

This weekend felt extremely busy, but looking back it does not seem like we did all that much.

Saturday we finally got out and tested the sprinkler system. The prior owner had mapped it out for us, but strangely lost the map prior to moving out. So we’ve been watering by hand since we move in back in April, which not surprisingly has been a bit sporadic and some of our plants are starting to show it. Saturday morning, Steve went on to Google maps and printed a satelite photo of the house. We started with zone one on our sprinkler box and started filling in the map. The box has the capability to handle 18 zones, 8 through 18 of which currently do absolutely nothing as far as we can tell. Also, none of them control the backyard, which clearly has a drip system throughout. We figured out later that there is a hose that connects to the drip system and apparently the prior owner just hooked it up manually to the spigot on the side of the house whenever she did that watering. In any event, the drip hoses have seen better days. There are multiple splits in the main line and almost nothing comes out the actual drip points, so it’s going to need some overhauling.

Saturday afternoon, we went shopping for a birthday present for our now 5-year-old friend, Abby. As much as I loved Toys ‘r’ Us when I was a kid, I really dislike it now. I never imagined it would be so hard to shop for a 5-year-old! We picked out something we hoped she would like and moved on to our next errands: JC Penney to check out window treatments and Home Depot for some yard stuff.

Penney’s was kind of a disappointment. We have tall ceilings in our family room, so we needed some lengthy curtains, and it seemed they mostly only had standard 84 inch panels, which was too short. But still, we got an idea of what they had, and were able to order some online later that evening. I’ve had a backache for the past few days and I needed to go home and lay down, so we skipped HD.

Sunday we spent an awful lot of time doing just general chores, which had been put off all week long (we should know better). Then, of course, the birthday party, and finally home to relax. Sort of. I did not feel like watching my sixth auto race of the weekend, so I pulled out our leftover paint and slapped a coat on the upstairs bathroom while Steve watched Indy car from Sears Point Raceway. Probably not the best thing for my back, but really there is only so much racing I can take.

And that’s about it. I’m certain there will be much more to come on the sprinkler system, as that needs a lot of work. And I’ve been taking pictures of the bathroom as I go, so I’ll be posting those as soon as I can download them from my camera and re-size them for posting. Because I know the three of you reading this are on the edge of your seat just waiting to see our upstairs bathroom.

August 4, 2009August 10, 2009

Wine Country Weekend

This weekend was a whirlwind of activity. Steve and I took my parents to visit his parents in Santa Rosa. Our itinerary was packed, starting with a trip to Traverso’s, a local family owned and operated gourmet food and wine store that has been a Santa Rosa fixture for over 80 years. The store recently moved, and Steve and I had yet to visit the new location, and my parents had never been there at all. The store is packed with interesting imported foods and wines, not to mention an amazing deli and cheese selection. We chatted with some of the Traverso family in the store that day, Sandy, George, Mike, and Bill, who are long-time friends of Steve’s family, and picked up some made-to-order sandwiches for a picnic lunch.

Next stop on our itinerary: Korbel. Korbel’s grounds are beautiful, and the tour is pretty interesting as well. It takes you through the history of the company, which started out in the business of making cigar boxes, not champagne, and the methode champagnoise process of making champagne (mostly as it was done many years ago, without the automation that is certainly used now).

At the end of the tour, groups are taken to an outdoor tasting area, where they can sample four selected champagnes and one additional taste of their own choosing, which is not limited to champagne, but can be one of Korbel’s other offerings including several brandies, fortified wines, and still wines.

The burning question: why can Korbel call its product champagne when it is not from the Champagne region of France? Virtually all California sparkling wines are labeled as just that, sparkling wines. Apparently, though, Korbel has special permission from French wine making authorities to style their product as champagne because the company has been around for so long and because it uses the methode champagnoise.

After finishing up at Korbel, we were pretty hungry, so we headed over to Armstrong Woods for our picnic lunch. We ate in a convenient picnic area and then took a little walk to check out some of the old-growth redwoods. The “Colonel Armstrong” tree, named after Colonel James Armstrong, who set aside the area as a “natural park and botanical garden,” is over 1,400 years old. Almost as old is the “Parson Jones” tree, which reaches over 310 feet high. After some fruitless searching and throwing in the towel, we stumbled across the “Icicle Tree,” which was at one time covered with burls resembling icicles. Unfortunately, many, if not most, of the burls have been destroyed by vandals, so I didn’t think it looked much like it was covered with icicles.

As if that wasn’t enough activity for one day, we then headed off to the Sonoma County Fair. For us, the Hall of Flowers was the main attraction.

This year, local professional florists, nurseries, and landscapers created some amazing displays focused on a dinosaur theme.

Of course, we also spent some time viewing the fine art exhibition, and specifically the photography, and took a stroll down the midway, where Steve and I enjoyed some tasty caramel apples. We didn’t have a chance to look at any of the animals, but we could definitely smell them. Overall, a fun weekend.

April 27, 2009June 10, 2009

Our First Trip to a New Costco

Picture it: it’s Friday night and two attractive newlyweds are looking for something to do. The obvious choice? Costco.

Steve and I can make an evening out of going to Costco. We start with dinner at the snack bar, where you can get a big hot dog and a soda with unlimited refills for a buck fifty. It’s the best deal in town.

S's "loaded" dog. They ran out of onions!

We can then easily spend a couple of hours browsing the aisles, especially electronics (Steve drools over the big flat screen TVs), home goods, and tools. And of course we get to stock up on our favorite foods.

Typically I think of a Costco evening as a cheap date. We get dinner for two and an evening of entertainment for only $3! I don’t usually factor in the money we spend on the items purchased during the “date” because usually they are things that we need or will use in any event. We dropped over $350 this time though! We did save a bundle with a rebate from using a Costco AmEx and with store coupons, but we also made a couple of impulse buys. We got an oversized king down alternative comforter, which we will need when we finally get around to picking out my in-laws’ wedding gift: a new bed. We also bought a deep saute pan. We had one on our wedding registry, but when I went to complete it I learned that they actually don’t make that pan anymore, which could be why we did not receive it. Thanks for the heads up, C&B! But I digress . . .

The point is, if you take into account what we spent shopping, we would have been better off doing dinner and a movie or something like that. But then we’d probably end up at Costco on the weekend anyway, so maybe it is a frugal activity.