Excellent lunch with Nils

I haven’t seen my friend Nils for a few months. Thats just way too long because he has an angle on everything and it’s always educational.  He is the king of classic car sales on e-Bay.

We have teenage boys the same age who grew up playing soccer together although they go to different high schools now.

He asked me about blogging because grew is thinking of starting a blog about classic cars and their zillions of parts. I put this post up to show him how easy it is to post from a smart phone on wordpress. Not that I’ve actually started doing it, but HE could of he wanted to.

A couple years ago he started using videos to sell his cars on ebay, and it works great. He’s even adopted a form of steering wheel cam to show the cars driving from the drivers perspective.

Farley Family Kayak Adventure on Alviso Slough

The photo above has Bret, Laura and Gretchen wearing the splash skirts they wore for our first Farley family Kayak outing this weekend on Elkhorn Slough at Moss Landing, California.  The Kayaking was very cool and we saw a lot of ocean animals including otters, seals, sea lions and a wide variety of birds.     After Kayaking we had a great dinner at Phil’s in Moss landing.  Recommended!

Michael and Jill celebrate their 25th

Our friends Michael and Jill hosted a beach party in Capitola today for their 25th. They are the first in our group of Westside pals to cross that threshold. Gulp, we said, because the rest of us are pretty close behind. Later we went to the beach house they share with Ed and Denice for cake, champaign and a little entertainment and reminiscing. Wedding stories – not exactly the first topic of conversation on our chip shots ski trips or poker games. Gulp I said, because I don’t remember all that much about our wedding. At least our friends remember why they don’t remember.

Chris (the Balletorian) and Leslie seem to have the most interesting stories involving blistering heat, car failures and mothers hitchhiking on 280 in Chiffon dresses and heels.

Michael, Jill and the girls sang a number. It was pretty good and I caught it on my Olympus. Here it is:

Olympus Stylus 720 SW repaired

Can’t really say enough about how smoothly it worked to send our Stylus 720 SW camera for repair to Olympus in Garden Grove, CA.   The information for returning the camera for service was thorough and simple to follow.  I authorized the amount of the repair over their service web site.  Shipping through a local UPS store was easy too.  The camera was returned in like-new working condition and was nicely cleaned up.  It cost me $120 altogether, which was about $160 less than buying a new one (sales – discount +tax).  I don’t know what was wrong and what was fixed, I guess I don’t care that much.

A new one would have had all new functions and a new warranty and all that, but this one comes with 6 months of warranty after the repair.  Not bad – I think its a good deal.

Blockhead hooligans at Blizzards match

Los tres amigos sporting their hooligan-wear at a recent Blizzards match.

Beard Papa’s amazing cream puffs

Beard Papas cream puffs are freaking great. There’s a Beard Papas in Cupertino that opened close to a Wahoo‘s that we frequent, so we checked it out. Now its one of those places that if we are nearby, the excuses just happen and we’re there getting creamed. Last night we went with Dick and Alex and we all had strawberry (flavor du jour) and all had to proclaim our instant love – except Gretchen who declined to order and was very restrained in her mooching. But why mooch when you can eat the whole thing? Besides these suckers are so good, that territorial instincts apply and moochers have to make big concessions.

The joie de habitat

When Gretchen mentioned last night that today was going to be a day working on a habitat for humanity house, Bret wasn’t the only one thinking “oh no”. But duty is duty and we got ourselves up and out the door – a half hour late as usual – and got to the site in Santa Clara.

Now its almost amazing that habitat can afford to buy any property around here, considering the cost of dirt in this valley is so expensive, but they bought a parcel up near the 49ers training facility and are building a couple houses there. There was a great turnout of POP members which means that Thrivent Financial will come through with additional funds for the project. So it was a double dip today – unskilled labor and funding.

The unskilled labor side was simple; we were like worker ants cleaning up the job site for inspections. There was rebar and various pieces of materials lying around and some nasty big thorns and weed patches – all sort of mingled together and needing re-piling. Its one of those things where a stop action video would be cool to have seen. I think the spirit of cooperation was really running high as people teamed up to get the small things done to achieve the goal (order over chaos).

Then there was painting. OMG, I’ve never seen a house get painted so quickly before. Scaffolding was setup all around and the most difficult part of it all was climbing it. I’m about a 2 on the limber scale, and coming down was a lot harder than going up. But for the most part, painting is something I really don’t mind doing – just as long as the prep work and cleanup don’t spoil the fun.

Gretchen got her power tool thing going with a cut-off saw, making short pieces of scrap from big ones. She looked good – maybe a gift idea for next Christmas?  Bret took apart a steps with a drill, unscrewing it bit by bit, wishing instead that it was a sledge.  Good boy, hit, smash.  FWIW, Bret was really great about the whole thing and didn’t squawk the whole time. He was hoping to get a game of roller hockey going, but his pals called on his cell and told them it wasn’t going to happen due to lack of numbers. I thought a pickup game only needed 2, not 12 – whatever.

The day ended early because so many people showed up and we got so much stuff done. We ran out of materials and things to work on. A pretty successful outing. We crushed it.

Lorette – is that you in the blogosphere?

Our friend Lorette sent Gretchen an email about how she was the subject of a blog. Well yes, Lorette, you made the blogosphere all right, but what’s up with this standup thing anyway? And does Frank know?

Mother’s Day Brunch at Olio in Campbell

The food was pretty good, especially the lamb pita plate I ordered, but Gretchen’s green eggs and ham (Basil-Hollandaise eggs benedict) were colorful and tasty.  Bret had a chicken panini sandwich and he thought is was good,  but I didn’t try it.

Service was lousy.  Long time to be recognized by the waiter.  I think it was a case of them not staffing appropriately.  Maybe they were shorthanded, but everybody in the place seemed to be looking for the waiter at one time or another.

On a 1-5 scale the food was a 4 and the service a 2.  I’d go back, but not running back.

Olympus Camera Repair: Go

I went to Best Buy today to see if our Stylus 720 SW was covered by an extended warranty. It wasn’t ( I guess I’m silly enough to believe them.) So now I’m going to send it in to Olympus according to their online instructions. I’ll let you know how it goes.

We were in Kauai snorkeling and the camera was working great underwater as you can see from my underwater photos on Flickr. But after snorkelling @ Tunnels it sat in my pocket for a couple hours and I think some moisture creeped in somehow. I don’t know – maybe it leaked, maybe some got in when I was changing batteries – whatever. Anyway, the electronics are all screwed up now and the buttons work erratically and it always seems to want to charge the flash.

So, it goes to UPS on Monday to see if it can be repaired, and if so – at what cost. The underwater stuff was really fun – I used while trout fishing too and I have to say, I was really impressed, so I hope it can be fixed.

By the way, I’m doing a big flickr upload and the performance is sucking something awful. Maybe Yahoo is pulling the plug….