A Perfectly Lovely Weekend

California's perfect summer weather has kicked in. Sunny, cloudless, temperatures around 70 degrees. Lucy complains about the wind, but she lives in one of the windiest parts of the Bay Area.

I spent Friday evening and Saturday cruising around the area. Friday night I went up to the city (that being San Francisco) to my friends Rollie and Kelly's house. They're planning on moving farther south (i.e., closer to Apple, where Rollie works) and wanted to invite over some people who had never seen their house in the Sunset district before. (I can only infer that the district is so named because you get a nice view of the sunsets over the Pacific Ocean horizon.) Subrata was there, as was David Zink, without CJ who apparently was sick, as well as fellow Bridge person Becky and her husband. The only other person there I recognized was a woman I've seen messages from on the Apple e-mail system. (Said system, by the way, includes photos of many employees, which is why I recognized her.)

It was a good, low-key party. I ate, chatted with people about a variety of subjects, and took off around 11:30 for the 45-minute drive home.

It will be nice to have Rollie and Kelly closer to Apple, though. It'd be good to see them more often, and maybe have them show up to Subrata's gaming nights on occasion.

Saturday I drove up to BART in Fremont and went to Borderlands Books, which was having a 20% off sale this weekend in preparation for moving to a new location next month. Fortunately, they'll still be near BART so it will be convenient for me to get there by mass transit. (It takes a little longer, but I can read on the way up and don't have to worry about parking.)

Subrata eventually (an hour later than planned, which is late even for him) met me there, and we went to lunch at Max's near the SF Civic Center. It was a perfect day to walk around the city. After parting ways with Subrata (who was going to help a friend of his move) I headed to Berkeley where I hit the CD stores and picked up a few discs. I'll probably write about them later this week when I've had a chance to listen to them all a few times.

Finally got back to my car in Fremont around 6 pm and drove home, tired but happy. Called Lucy who said she didn't feel like driving down to Borrone. I decided I did want to hit a coffee shop, so up I went. There I met fellow Apple guy Anders and we alternately chatted and work (him) or read (me) for about three hours. A nice, relaxing evening.

Today was another perfect day. I spent it reading, watching Baseball, cleaning up the piles of stuff on my kitchen table, and doing some more shopping. I hit the nearby Crown Books, the mega-chain which filed for bankruptcy and is going out of business in a week. They're selling off everything at huge discounts - including the furniture and fixtures! Pickings were slim, but I found a couple of paperbacks and got them both for under $2.00. Then I hit a used bookstore nearby which I rarely patronize for reasons I'm not too clear on. Found several things there which I also picked up cheap. And I bought some groceries.

Yes, I am a bit of a shopoholic. Mainly regarding the things I collect.

Spent an hour or so in the nearby park reading and doing the last few days' worth of crossword puzzles (finished one, didn't come close on the other three). It was starting to get a bit chilly by that point so I came home and watched baseball and ESPN news shows and did some more reading.

Yes, my entries have mostly been either "What I did today" entries or "Here's what I think about this book/movie/TV show/album I experienced" entries lately. I hope to have something somewhat meatier in the near future. Stay tuned.

In the medium-future I plan to actually start that house-hunt. I recently learned that mortgage rates are about as low as they're likely to go (around 7% is the national average right now), and that they're not expected to go up or down more than half a point this year. 7% is quite a good rate, and I definitely need to jump on this bandwagon this year. At 7% I think I can afford to get a pretty good place.

But I have all kinds of must-do things to keep me busy in the next six weeks, so I might get preapproved for a mortgage in that time, but probably won't do much looking until June, just because of everything else going on.

And you'll learn about that "everything else" in due time...

(And before you ask, no: No dates are involved. Alas.)