Go Bulldogs
Big doings in Fresno last weekend. We drove down Friday so we could be there for the grandson’s 8:30 am football game. In any decent society, that would be illegal, but this is Fresno. The good news is that we had dinner at Ruth’s Chris, which is probably the best food available in the Central Valley.
No, I won’t bore you with how wonderful 6th grade football can be, or how great the grandson is (even though he plays both directions, and was good enough to be put in with the A team of 7th graders). Let’s talk about Saturday night, time for some big boy college football.
Gail’s son Ross has one of the luxury boxes for Fresno State football, so we were off to spend the evening celebrating what was widely expected to be the rout of the Nevada State Wolfpack.
Just getting there was an adventure, because Ross has a new car–a one of a kind custom job. He took a new Ford pickup truck, and mated it with the back of a Ford Excursion to make an enormous SUV. As part of the customization, he had a new horn installed, powered by an onboard air compressor, which sounds exactly like a freight train. We had a great time blowing that horn as often as possible, reason not required.
The only one of its kind–the 2013 Blackburn.
This thing is huge and just owns the road.
Although kickoff was scheduled for 7:30, we arrived just after 5, to enjoy the tailgating. Not your old fashioned “put a barbecue on the tailgate” sort of dinner, but the fancy corporate kind of tailgating with a DJ, open bar and caterer.
Our host for the evening, a home theater and security company.
The owner of the company is a friend of Ross’s, and also the guy who did all the sound and home automation Chez Blackburn. This gives Ross just a bit of pull.
Where the in crowd sits.
We had a good time sitting around for a couple of hours, enjoying the very open bar, the DJ, the VIP lounge and the little chachis they left around for people to play with.
Fun with glow sticks.
I took a walk around to see what the other “tailgate” areas were like.
The word fan is derived from fanatic. It may have been coined in Fresno.
That’s a big investment in a car you probably don’t want to take to the grocery store.
People were there to have fun–and silly costumes are part of fun:
He may have started partying a bit earlier than the rest of us.
As the sun went down, the sky got prettier, and people got more and more into the swing of things.
Gail, Ross, Carole and Julie
As game time approached, we made our way up to the suite. Ross has had it for years, so Julie has completely covered the walls in photos of the family and friends who make it an adventure.
So here’s an observation that isn’t new, but one I keep learning–the rich have life better. Fresno State stadium, like all Pac 12 stadiums, is dry. You can’t buy a beer. Unless you have a luxury box, that is.
Can’t get this in the cheap seats.
Inside the boxes, anything goes. The liquor flows like the Mississippi river after the spring rains. You can bring anything you want up to your suite, nobody cares. RHIP, rank hath its privileges.
The view is pretty spectacular, too:
Big celebration as the teams come on the field.
I thought that a college game would be shorter than a professional game. Wrong-o. Kickoff was at 7:30, and the game didn’t end until almost 11:30. It was being televised on ESPN-U, and there were copious commercial breaks, time for official reviews, a half time show, and God only knows what else.
With all that time, there was socializing among the suites. We had a visitor drop in, a friend Ross has made between the Fresno State games and his love of the San Diego Chargers.
Gail, Ross and Lorenzo
Lorenzo Neal went to Fresno State, then played 16 seasons in the NFL. A three time all Pro, many think he will be elected to the Hall of Fame when he is eligible. Lorenzo was one of the greatest blocking fullbacks in the game. And he’s a really nice guy, too.
Fresno won the game, as expected. I drove the world’s only Blackburn home, being the designated driver so Ross could enjoy the game more. We stopped to pick up the #1 grandson at a party, and I blew the horn in some quiet residential neighborhood to get him to come out to the car. The big, loud, deep, extended, train horn powered by the air compressor. Poor kid may never be invited back, but we laughed all the way home.
Goodbye, Bud
Bud Miller died this week, and I’m sad. Sometimes people just disappear from the bridge club, and months later you wonder “Where is so and so?” Bud, I’m going to miss. Always friendly, always easy going, with a unique laugh you could locate anywhere in the room, Bud was one of the good guys.
This isn’t an obituary, because I don’t know enough details. I just want to write something good about him. I know he had some trouble with blood clots in his leg a couple of weeks ago, and Lorin Waxman made him go to his doctor. Maybe that’s what took his life, maybe not. I guess we’ll find out sooner or later, but it won’t matter. Bud is gone, regardless of why.
It would be hard to find a nicer or more pleasant man than Bud. I knew him from the bridge club, of course, but then got to know him as a musician and bocce ball fanatic. He made a successful career as a CPA, but his real love was music and family.
Bud lived in a family compound–his house and his son’s house were on the same lot, and they shared a full size, professional, bocce ball court, where we enjoyed playing with the whole extended family–son, daughter, grandkids. Bev, Bud’s wife of forever, doesn’t have the knees to play anymore, but she’s a good coach and non-playing captain.
Scratch a bridge player, and you’ll almost always find another, interesting, abiding interest. Music was an integral part of Bud’s life, and much of his family as well. Bev played first clarinet for Cal, daughter Tracy has an album out, grandson Jonathan is an accomplished performer still in high school. Bud once wrote an entire musical play, both the book and the music.
A couple of years ago Bud graced our yard with a family musical event. He even sang a song he wrote–here is a small clip to remember him by.
Too thrifty by half
Once a great institution
Saving money is good: a business shouldn’t spend any more than it needs to. It’s wise to run with a lean staff and no excess employees.
The Bank of America on Telegraph Avenue, however, has taken this concept to an absurd extreme.
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There are 13 teller windows in this very large bank, but they currently run with only two tellers. That just isn’t enough.
For the 16 years I’ve been working at Fat Slice and going to this B of A, there has always been a merchant teller–a person dedicated to working with the businesses of the area. I didn’t have to wait in line with the hoi polloi, my teller was more experienced and capable, with more authority to handle larger deposits. That’s all gone now; merchants get to wait in line with the students
I wanted some coin wrappers, an item the bank provided its customers because it no longer has coin counting machines. The teller gave me a tiny supply that might last 3 days. B of A is saving money in every area, customer service be damned.
It’s one thing to run your organization lean and hungry, it’s another thing entirely to cut service levels below the basics needs of the operation. If there was another commercial bank within walking distance I’d change in a second.
Service at the bank is now so bad that I seriously wonder if they are in deep financial trouble and on the verge of failure. This is one of the nations largest banks, deemed “too big to fail”, but they are either being seriously mismanaged or they simply don’t have the cash to operate properly. In either case, this situation can’t really continue. Customers won’t like it and will desert, staff won’t like it and employee turnover will be a problem. This branch simply cannot survive at this level of staffing, and there is no justification for using the many thousand expensive square feet of space for two tellers.
B of A was founded as the Bank of Italy by A. P. Giannini, and I have to believe that Mr. Giannini would be horrorstruck to see what has happened to his creation. There is no customer orientation, no service, no interest in making the banking experience pleasant or convenient for the customer.
You probably shouldn’t take investment advice from a blogger, but if I had stock in this bank I’d sell it immediately. If they aren’t on the verge of bankruptcy, they sure are trying to look like it.
Can anyone recommend a good commercial bank in Berkeley?
Deja Vu
Isn’t it strange how you can do something you have done in ages, only to have it happen again the very next day?
Saturday, we went out for brunch, and Gail had the chilaquiles, for the first time in a year or two. Sunday, we went out and there they were on the menu yet again, and yet again she ordered them.
This time, we were at Bridges, in Danville. We went out to brunch with Keith and Jan Gunn, and then to the local theater.
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Bridges has dining inside and out, and this was a beautiful Sunday afternoon, but Keith was distressed by the way the piano player was playing a certain chord–he knows his music. The entire discussion was far, far over my head (my musicological knowledge begins and ends with Every Good Boy Does Fine), but it was no sacrifice to eat inside Bridges beautiful facility.
Most restaurants put out bread–Bridges put lovely little cubes of corn bread on the teable:
Mother used to tell me not to play with my food. Mother isn’t here to bother me.
How do you know you’re getting old? When the waitstaff don’t recognize the name of your musical heroes. Our waitress didn’t know who Linda Ronstadt is, or why we thought she looked like her:
Maria, a very good waitress who need to learn more about Linda Ronstadt
On to the chilaquiles:
Fried tortillas scrambled into a couple of eggs.
Bridges actually offers a “chilaquiles scramble”, with everything scrambled into a couple of eggs. It wasn’t quite the classical presentation, but Gail pronounced it every bit as good as the day before, and left no leftovers.
I said we were there with Keith and Jan, here they are:
Jan and Keith
Keith had the Sunday brunch standard, Eggs Benedict. There isn’t anything special about this presentation, it’s just your basic perfect.
English muffins, poached eggs, Canadian bacon and hollandaise. Don’t tell your cardiologist.
I went the more modern, California route. A cabbage and soba noodle salad with grilled prawns. The salad was great, the prawns were overseasoned and salty. Which didn’t stop me from eating them. The salad reminded me of Linda Bandler’s special salad–I wonder if they stole it from her?
A healthy stack of cabbage and cold noodles, sesame dressing and some prawns.
Prices are reasonable for an upscale meal–this isn’t Denny’s, but you definitely get full value for your money.
Good food, ably served by the lovely Maria, in a beautiful surrounding, enjoyed with your friends. What more could you ask of life?
Boon Fly Cafe
Now that I’m back in the saddle again, it wouldn’t be right if I didn’t bring you a restaurant review. I think I’ll ease into the things with the story of brunch this afternoon
Gail and I got a late start from home, heading for Sonoma. I decided to try the Boon Fly Cafe, part of the Carneros Inn Resort on Highway 12 between Napa and Sonoma, where you can get a marvelous cottage starting at $340/night, midweek and off season. The Inn is part of the Plumpjack group, meaning it’s owned by the Gettys and Lt. Governor Gavin Newson. This is some tall cotton.
The formal restaurant here is Farm, where we eaten some memorable meals. Today, we tried the more casual Boon Fly Cafe, and were suitably impressed.
The Cafe is in a freestanding building immediately inside the compound, fronting on the Highway. The decor is sort of 30’s roadside retro chic. The design is very fitting with the overall theme of the resort, but the hinges on the front door are on the wrong side. Getting in is needlessly clumsy. I may be the only person in the world who notices things like that.
The Saturday/Sunday menu offers brunch until 3pm, so there were both breakfast and lunch type meals to be had. The people next to us each had a flatbread–which is a very thin, fancy pizza for $15. The one with the two fried eggs and bacon looked awfully good.
Writing a menu is both an art and a science, but whichever part was in play, they got my complete attention , and order, wem they named this dish “Green Eggs and Ham”.
Poached eggs, ham, potatoes and lemon/leek cream.
Sam I Am would have no trouble getting people to try this dish. Every part was perfect, and the lemon/leek cream was a very different, but great, idea to add to eggs and potatoes.
Ever since we visited friends in Mexico City, Gail has been searching for the perfect plate of chilaquiles. She came exceedingly close today:
Chilaquiles with a fried egg.
Chilaquiles is just a fancy way of using up leftover tortillas and sauce. Chop up a few stale tortillas, sauté them with some leftover salsa, top with queso fresco and you’ve got a cheap breakfast, which becomes something upscale and exotic when it crosses borders and cultures to a chi-chi diner in the Napa Valley.
As you would expect from the location, the wine list is longer than the menu, and impressed even me with the classy mimosas made with vintage prosecco. The ice tea, though, is something weird. The lady at the next table sent hers back, and I think I should have, as well. Why can’t these places realize that ice tea drinkers don’t want the fancy, organic, passion flower-mango-hibiscus[broccoli tea and just dunk a bag of Lipton in some hot water, add ice and make the customer happy?
Service was not great, possibly because it was 2:30, nearly the end of the shift for the morning staff and she was tired. Props to management, though, for being willing to sell a half-glass of wine to Gail. Not everywhere is as accommodating.
Prices are steep, which you would expect from a 5 star resort like this. The food is excellent; I wish the service was just a bit better.
Free at last
Okay, maybe that a trifle melodramatic, but I won’t be spending my life in Los Angeles anymore.
The ice cream/cookie store didn’t make it; I let the staff go and shut the doors last Tuesday. I hated to have to do it, but the sales just weren’t growing, advertising wasn’t getting any response and the losses were unsustainable.
The whole sad adventure is just another proof that the three most important things are location, location, location. We just didn’t have it–not enough people walking past the front door, not enough visibility, not enough location. I didn’t choose the site, nobody asked me about it, and I can’t explain the choice. I just had to play the cards I was dealt.
The experience was great–I loved creating all the graphics and advertising, trying to find places and ways to promote the store, hiring and training, I loved everything but the result. I especially loved being the chief product tester. I’m gonna miss that part the most.
So now I’m home, sad/glad to say. No more living in a 2 star motel, no more subsisting on Subway sandwiches and cookies. I can play bridge with my friends, sleep next to Gail and keep much more regular hours.
Life is good.
How low can they go?
Public approval of Congress stands at 13%.
House Republicans, in a fit of petulance unheard of since Newt Gingrich shut down the government because Bill Clinton made him exit from the rear of Air Force One, have shut down our government, holding the budget hostage in a hopeless crusade to prevent people from having health care.
As if that were not bad enough, here is Congressman Randy Neugebauer (R-TX) berating a Park Ranger because the park is closed, a situation he helped create.
Then, adding insult to injury, this slimeball attempts to blame Harry Reid for the shutdown. He hasn’t got the cojones to take responsibility for his own actions.
Now I have to wonder who could possibly be the 13% who actually approve of Congress?
Off to Chicos
Sometimes Gail and Susan are Thelma and Louise, tearing up the countryside. Today, they were Laverne and Shirley.
Dinner party here tonight, so Karl is cooking up a storm. The rest of us wandered down to Winter Park to commit a little shopping and eat lunch. Lunch was nothing to speak of at a very average Italian place. It bored me, I won’t bore you.
Chicos is some kind of phenomenon of American marketing–they appeal to a huge number of women who no longer wear miniskirts and see-thru tops, women who say the can’t find the clothes at The Fifth Collection they want in any other store. From their webite:
Chico’s was founded in 1983 as a small boutique selling Mexican folk art and cotton sweaters on Sanibel Island in Florida. Our friendly environment and unique styles connected with customers in a special way that quickly evolved into over 700 Chico’s boutiques nationwide, a monthly catalog, and round-the-clock shopping at chicos.com.
The store itself is not huge, not a separate building, just a storefront on the main drag.
THe last I would see of them for a while
Gail isn’t a big fan of shopping, and I am most certainly no welcome to go with her. Usually, nobody is allowed to accompany her, but she makes an exception for Susan. I got to wander the streets of Winter Park, where I noticed this bench outside the store.
I think Chico’s had this bench installed.
I had to ask, and indeed I was right: these guys were waiting for their wives, too. This apparently is the unofficial husbands waiting room .
Fortunately, people who hate to shop don’t take long doing it.
Victory
Success. Something was purchased, not that there will be any modeling going on. Someday i’ll see Gail in something and she’ll tell me it’s what she got with Susan, Maybe.
1,074 miles off Broadway
Less than 100 yards from the door of Susan’s condo is a tiny local theater space called The Abbey. We went there this afternoon to see a production of Disenchanted, a musical which has grown out of local theaters and the Fringe festival and will be opening off-Broadway in a few months.
The ostensible story of a group of fairy-tale princesses disenchanted with their lives, this production is hilarious. The six actresses who make up the cast bring that to life with humor, pathos and great voices.
There isn’t really a story line, just the princesses of modern myth singing about the unfairness of how they are portrayed, from a strongly feminist, male-bashing perspective. It should be very popular. Some of the points seemed to me to be greatly overdrawn, some of them were right on–especially when they point out that the real Pocahontas was only 10 years old, not the sexed up late teen as she is usually portrayed. The suggestion the play makes about the character Mulan is quite a change, and surely something of which Disney would never approve.
The actresses are wonderful, especially Breanne Pickering, who steals the show as Cinderella. She’s just too adorable for words. The lead is Snow White, played by Michelle Knight, who has a voice that won’t quit, excellent acting ability and is very fast on her feet, as she demonstrated when she went up in her lines and quipped about it being live theater. You can’t blame her–Cinderella was being so funny that none of the actresses onstage could keep a straight face. When the play even cracks up the cast, you know what really funny means.
It can be no coincidence that the actresses in this cast, with the exception of Miss Knight, could never be cast in a traditional production–they are too old, too heavy, too real to be allowed to play these idealized, sexualized heroines. And every one of them was fantastic.
Disenchanted was originally written by Giancino and Fiely Matias, who directed. Both are former Disney employees, who saw firsthand the effect of the Princess effect on thousands of young girls passing through the gates of the happiest place on Earth every day.
Closing soon in Orlando, the play moves to Tampa for 5 weeks and then to off-Broadway. It has already toured San Francisco, Los Angeles, off-Broadway, Rochester and Sarasota NY.
We loved it. If you get the chance, you will love it too. Watch Cinderella.
There is no set to speak of, very few props and a few curtains. Costuming is delightful, inventive and comic.
The music, lyrics and book were all written by Dennis Giacino, who must be some kind of a genius because it all moves along so well. My favorite song was “All I wanna do is eat”, about the weight consciousness of the American female, but how could I not love a song titled “Big Tits” as well?
Sunday morning at the lake
SR and Karl live across the street from Lake Eola, in downtown Orlando. Every Sunday morning there is a farmers market, which has evolved into just a general Sunday celebration. We slept in, then went across to the park for lunch and peoplewatching.
Not everyone dresses this way.
I asked this guy “why?”. He said they volunteer to clean up the park every Sunday, and were just having fun. Who am I to argue with that?
His friend was there with him:
You could tell they are made for each other.
People sit in the park and listen to music much of the day–and that music is provided by one Joseph Martens, who plays gentle rock, sort of the slow parts of a Jimmy Buffett concert. We completely enjoyed him:
Joseph Martens, entertainer to the masses
You can get plenty of food here. I had an Italian Sausage, Karl had lumpia, Gail and Susan had rice bowls, there were empanadas, hot dogs, crepes, corn cakes, cup cakes, and a goodly quantity of others I missed.
There is wine available, and a booth where for $10 you get a wrist band and can have all the mimosas (champagne and orange juice) you want until 4 pm. That doesn’t seem like a good idea to me, but I guess it works. Didn’t see anybody falling down drunk and the place stays in business, so I guess it’s a decent business model after all.
Pouring the mimosas all day for $10.
My posse demanded to be included:
They can be the Three Musketeers. I’ll be d’Artagnan.
Gail and Susan are spending the rest of the afternoon playing cards online, then we go to a play at a little theater in the next block. Living the urban life means not having to take the car out to enjoy a walk in the park, a fine dinner and the theater. I could get used to this.
Totally Unauthorized 