Daily Mantra

Just two more days until my Wells group retreat at the Ritz-Carlton Resort & Spa in Half Moon Bay (link here)... just two more days until my Wells group retreat at the Ritz-Carlton Resort & Spa in Half Moon Bay... just two more days until my Wells group retreat at the Ritz-Carlton Resort & Spa in Half Moon Bay. Repeat mantra until the pain is alleviated.

Time is Flying By... at Gale Force

Thought it appropriate with the recent spate of catastrophic hurricanes battering the Southeast that my own schedule has seemed like a plus-150 mph, category 5 windstorm. Wedding planning, honeymoon planning, preparing for my second year of the MBA program, preparing for the move from Burlingame to San Mateo, not to mention the typical demands from work, family, and friends, make Hurricane Ivan look like a minor gust of wind during a typical Chicago day. In the past week, I must have driven what is the equivalent of three laps around the entire Bay Area running errands, visiting with family, meeting with friends, shopping for gifts, searching for furniture, ad infinitem. Thankfully, we have enjoyed and made the most of what little downtime we do have. On Saturday evening, after watching the Cal football team (now ranked tenth in the nation by both AP and ESPN) demolish their second opponent, hapless New Mexico State, we met up with Wag Boy down in Palo Alto and had a hearty dinner at Gordon Biersch off University. The coupling of their seasonal hefeweizen with a basket of their tasty garlic fries rocks. It was a great late summer evening down on "the Farm". And before we knew it, the streets were flooded with inebriated and obnoxious Stanford football fans celebrating their team's drubbing of BYU at neighboring Stanford Stadium. Read later that the Athletic Director had to write a formal letter of apology to BYU for the Stanford Band's halftime show in which they poked fun at BYU's Mormon heritage by depicting a polygamous BYU student with his four wives. Typical. The Stanford Band is notorious for their game-time antics. Most Cal fans will never forget the Band's arrogance when they marched prematurely onto the field during the 1982 Big Game; and will never forget the humiliation the Band suffered seconds later (see photo) at the end of what is now known simply as "the Big Play". They will never learn.

Tour de San Francisco

Look forward to catching just a glimpse of the T-Mobile International pro cycling race (link here and here) taking part in downtown San Francisco this Sunday. All of the headliners will be participating including Lance Armstrong and his U.S. Postal team, Bobby Julich, Levi Leipheimer, etc. Should be awesome actually seeing them live and up close, especially as they tackle the punishing Taylor Street climb.

It's Like Africa Hot

This late summer heat wave in the Bay Area has been an unwelcome surprise. I heard from a colleague that it was a sweltering ninety degrees in the Outer Sunset District of San Francisco the past few days. That is astounding for an area that is typically blanketed in fog and never gets much warmer than the upper sixties. Another colleague who is on maternity leave and has been working from home out in Pleasanton has had her air conditioning system going round-the-clock, with the plus one hundred degree highs baking her roof. What is up with the weather? If it gets any hotter, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) may just rise from his grave and take back his quip, "the coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco". A more apropos quote is the one from the Matthew Broderick character in the film remake of Neil Simon's Biloxi Blues: "It's like Africa hot".

Cal 56, Air Force 14

Cal won its season opener convincingly and made a strong argument for all of the preseason hype as well as the top 15 national rankings from both the AP and ESPN polls. Rodgers and Arrington both looked solid as did the offensive line. And freshman tailback Lynch is clearly the real deal. I had the live stream of the game playing on my wi-fi enabled laptop at a Starbucks in the Santana Row shopping district of San Jose, and the neighboring cafe patron turned out to be a Cal grad as well. He pulled his chair alongside my laptop, and we formed an impromptu Cal rooting section. Good times.