Living room upgraded

Karina and I stepped it up in the living room over the weekend. I'm now blogging on a 47" LG LCD TV. We were concerned the TV was going to look awkwardly huge in our little place but it turned out quite nice. This the first TV over 27" that either of us have owned.
We also picked up a Nintendo Wii so we can keep the late night party going with some Mario Kart and sports. (Warning: Karina takes her Wii boxing seriously. Noobs will be taught a painful lesson).

Futbol and basketball

Last night was my first attempt at playing organized soccer. They placed me in the middle at first- LOL thats a lot of running!
I had already decided the sport is designed to make football and basketball players feel humble and a look silly. All in all I did pretty well but I have a long way to go to master the basics and not have girls half my size take the ball away from me.

So as you can imagine after having circles run around me on the soccer field I'm really excited to be getting back to my favorite sport after about 7 years off. Tomorrow will be our second game of our co-ed basketball league. I feel surprisingly comfortable on the court though its going to take a while to get my left-hand dribbling back.

The weather in "sunny California" has been too wet to spend much time outdoors but I'm told this is wetter than usual and the rain should go away... and that's a hard sell for a Portland boy. I hope things get better soon because I looking forward to the dragon boating season and some kickball!

New bike

Well I had some great luck selling my old bike here and it makes so much sense to have a moto in the city that I decided to trade up. Here is the new ride parked in front of the legion of honor.

SF Beer Week begins

I'm headed out tonight (in a toga) to kick off SF Beer Week. With the claim of 'original' craft beer drinking city my expectations have been built up. The whole month is dedicated to strong beer!
Dont worry Portland, I'll represent ;)

Inauguration shenanigans

I had my first real "I love this city" moment yesterday. Karina sends me this link. I think to myself, what a great little prank, maybe I'll go down and check out 'Obama st'.

What a neat feeling in the air. Everyone was giddy, talking to each other and taking pictures. The general opinion was very positive. I suppose this was just my personal observation of how others were feeling uplifted by the day, it was smiles all around.
Eventually city workers showed up to remove the signs. One worker was quoted saying "dont be mad at me, if it were up to me I'd leave them up, I'm just doing my job".

Irony

As I sit here trying to catch up on email and facebook while enjoying
some weekday afternoon sun I can't help but feel a little delightful
irony. See, instead of talking to my pals at Tully's corporate (shout
out to Dan, Scott and Martin) about their card program (my former line
of work), I'm sitting at a Tully's Coffeehouse, enjoying a beverage,
unemployed.

Destination reached

Well here we are, sunny San Francisco. Land of yoga mats, steep hills, and expen$ive parking tickets. Or so thats my observation a week into living here. I'll have many more observations, adventures and comparisons to my home town Portland, OR.
My goal here is to post at least weekly. I'll also be posting on the go from the good ol' handy dandy iPhone.

Now here's the scoop.
Something I miss about Portland: Beer selection! It didnt take long for me to realize that I'm not going to be able to shop for beer at my local Safeway (AKA "dateway", apparently this Marina grocery store is THE spot to get hit on and score a date). They didnt even have Widmer Brrr. but, of course they do sell liquor at Safeway here...

Something I learned about SF: BevMo! This place is amazing, its like the Fry's electronics for spirits- Toy's R Us for adults, if you will. They have entire isles dedicated to each kind of liquor. "Whats that, you need Vodka? Take a look down isles 12 and 13 please". We were in a hurry so I wansnt able to check their beer selection but rest assured I will next time. They even have a LOYALTY PROGRAM, which made me LOL at the register. Hmmm... I wonder if they need a loyalty program manager?