Almost Halloween

It has been a busy week. The Robert Parker event took place on Thursday, and Friday was the B&P graduation. Tracey, Dawn and Andrea invited me to the ceremony and dinner which was fantastic. I don't think I have had a better week as far as food tasting goes. Yesterday was the Pelligrino "Almost Famous" chefs competition. The lunch that was prepared was mostly Northern Italian- which is my favorite cuisine. Parmigiano Reggiano crustinis, gnocci, pesto, ceasar salad, linguini and desserts that were scrumptuous.On another note, Yesterday I drove my scooter back from Vallejo and froze my tookus! The bike is now over 1000 miles and next paycheck I will bring it in for it's first servicing. I enjoy riding it but the cold weather is begininng to come around.This coming week is the "Worlds of Flavor" conference at the CIA, and Spain is the hosting country. The place will be packed for sure. I will bring my digital camera to document as much as I can. After this event we enter our "quiet" period until thing pick up again after February with the Mustard Festival.

Is anyone out there?

When I starting writing this blog, I thought that more people would read it (ego).Now I realize that I barely read it even after I have written it ! That be said, I might as well recount the past week since I have last posted. Friday the 13th came this week and it was a doozy. We had a truck take out a power line in St. Helena which caused a major traffic tie-up, up and down the Valley. The CIA was without power for around two hours. People were just starting to head home when the power came back up.I try to stay cool in those situations because it is usually a time when the managers go into overdrive. I simply called PG & E and asked for an update call as soon as they knew when we might expect to get our power back. I must say, that PG&E really has got it down now to a fine Science. After two hours, I got a call from a guy who said we would have power within 5 minutes and not to tell anyone else, lest it be a false alarm ( the guy even covered his own tracks ! ) Well, he was right. The power came back and everyone who was about to leave for home, grumbled and filed back into the building. We lost 56 lunch reservations and had to close our campus store... oh well !

Spending Spree

Yesterday I went to a Mac Expo at Santa Rosa Junior College. I attended two workshops.One was with Barbara Heimann who taught Photoshop at SRJC until her retirement. The other was with Burt Munroe. He is a real Photoshop expert. He demonsrated some of his techniques, but went so fast I could hardly digest the information. I know enough about Photoshop to get by, but I know there would be tons more to learn if I was interested. I also won a book and t-shirt on Digital Photography which will go in my colletion.I also ended up buying Jim Heid's book on ILife O6'. I got it for twenty bucks when I would otherwise spend forty five. I also purchased Micromat's Techtool Pro for my Minimac which has been giving me a little trouble lately. I have a feeling that it is memory issues. Lastly, I purchased a little kit to keep my ipod scratch free. All in all, I dropped around $150.00 after I paid Roy at Revolution Moto to attach the wire to my tail light.

October Blues

Today is Tuesday, my regular day off. I am feeling sad. I found out after reading the paper today that an old friend of the family has passed on.Frances McAteer was our neighborhood "mom" if you will. This wonderful woman would open her heart and home to almost any kid she knew. We loved her because she would make us laugh and was always interested in what we were doing. She would always have a smile to greet us, as well. Most of the neighborhood knew Mrs.McAteer, not just as a State Senator's wife, but as an encouraging and generous friend. Those days when it was unusually hot in San Francisco, she would let all the kids come and swim in her pool. We would dash out of our houses and run with our towels over there to be the first one off the diving board. I think that there must have been about twenty-five kids in her pool at one time.That was a treat not to be missed. I remember one time she took me along on a special trip to Alacatraz. This was long before it opened up to the public ( and even before the Indian "take-over" ) when there was a committee forming about what should be done with the property. She taught kids respect to be respectful of one another and to be polite towards adults. One time, Governor Edmund G. Brown was visiting her husband Gene at their home. I had the good fortune to meet him, because Mrs. McAteer invited me in and introduced me to him. I felt important because of her. I will never forget this kind gesture.