Sabbatical

Ok, so I wasn't really on Sabbatical, as that seems to last officially for one year. But nonetheless, I've been AWOL since we went to Kauai. So here's what's been going on...

Kauai was absolutely gorgeous. We even had sun on the day we arrived and the day we returned. It rained all the days in-between. We were apparently lucky, however, because two weeks after we were there, a damn broke and the flood apparently took out some roads, homes, and a couple of people, including a 22 year-old woman from Washington state there for her wedding.

We could have been seriously hurt by the rains, as we all do things that are a little dumb. Take, for instance, the day my camera got flooded. We wanted to hike the powerline trail one day, even though it was just drizzling where we were staying. There are two parking lots, separated by a bridge going over a small stream. When we started our trip, the bridge was dry. We hiked for a couple of hours, had a nice picnic in the rain and then went back down the hill. Along the way, I took some ok photographs, but as I mentioned above, that was the death of my camera. When we got back to the bottom of the trail, there were a couple of SUV's on the trail-side of the bridge, with people in them, just hanging out.

As we approached the bridge, we noticed that water was flowing over it. Since I noticed that there was a big pothole right in the middle of the bridge when we came over in the morning, I figured we'd be safe if we just avoided the hazard. Of course, the water was so deep, up to our knees in places, and flowing at quite a good clip, so it was hard enough just to walk, especially with cobalt in a backpack on my back! In retrospect, it was probably stupid for us to cross. But at that time, we needed to get into something warm and dry.

So we waded back across, slowly, to the other side and returned safely. After we got to the car, a rather large 4x4 came barreling through with a group of pre-teens in the bed, having a blast on someone's birthday. Apparently, the driver worked there and was experienced in this kind of flooding. A little later, a Toyota Tacoma 4x4 barely made it through, returning from boar-hunting.

The rest of the trip was spent hiking, snorkeling and overall trying to avoid the rain. We finally caught a little bit of sun on our last day as we made our way to the western-most part of the island to queen's pond beach. The road was so bad that we had to ditch the car and hike in to the beach. On the way back, Cobalt got his first taste of hitch-hiking. Well, we didn't exactly hitch, as some good folks stopped and offered us a ride. And since they could only take us half-way back, as they were headed out another road than our car was on, we no sooner got out of their convertible when an SUV stopped and delivered us to our car. Thank you good folks from Michigan and Seattle!

BTW, writing this several weeks afterwards, I realize that my memory isn't as good as it used to be (or should be, rather) and that if I don't write here more often I'll just let it go away, which I'd prefer not to do. So here's to updating my blog more often...CHEERS!

Getting Baked

So I haven't smoked pot in a while. Decided not to after we ran out the last time.

Anyway, that's really off-topic as this post is about baking. I don't know if anyone is reading this, but if you are, you may have noticed that on Valentine's day, I posted about making an upside-down cake. Since then, I've done some of my best baking ever!

Now, I'm not really a baker per-se, I just enjoy spending time in the kitchen. I've always been a much better cook than baker, but recently, have started baking again more. This is especially true since we moved into our new flat that came with a new kitchen. You see, the oven has a thermocouple in it that actually reads the temperature inside. I don't know how accurate it actually is, but it makes one feel alot better. Especially after having a tiny oven/stove at our old apartment.


But since I've been out of work, I've had more time to patiently bake some goodies. Just this week I made an excellent batch of Country Bread on Thursday and some fabulous Banana Bread on Friday. Both were probably the best that I've made in a long time.

PS...according to Kyle, they taste even better than they look.

Aloha!

In celebration of the job and daycare searches ending, we decided to go to Hawaii for a week or so. More specifically, we are going to Kauai.

Yes, the job search is over. I'm sitting on two offers right now, both are good, but both are in the South Bay. Oh well, I guess I will have about an hour commute for either one. It might be slightly shorter if I can manage to drag my ass out of bed and get to work by 7am. That way, I get to (hopefully) beat most traffic.

It seems it all will work out in the end, because I will end up gettting a raise, getting unemployment for six weeks, and I'll be going back to work in about half the time that the severance from the last place will cover. The job may not be all that glamorous, only time will tell on that front, but the place has potential, and I'll be the one trying to turn that potential into something kinetic.

Back to Hawaii...as it turns out, this trip should be relatively budget-friendly. We got a good deal on the flights, with a short stop in Honolulu. We are getting a car for the week at a reasonable rate. I wanted to get a convertible, but Kyle thought it might be better for Cobalt if we had a solid roof. We are also getting four nights in a friend's time-share for a song! All we have to do is find a place for the first couple and last couple of nights. And with it being the off-season, that shouldn't be much of an issue. We'll see when we get there.

Neither of us have been to Hawaii, so we are not sure what to expect. We do expect, however, to relax and have a good time. We'll try to both hit the beaches and do a few hikes. I'm sure we'll run into both sun and rain on the island, as well. So it looks like we'll pack light, with raingear. We went to REI last weekend and picked up a slicker for the boy. A nice, bright, lime-green one from Sierra Designs. Now if we can just remember to bring it...

St. Valentine's Day

So yesterday was valentine's day...one of those days that Hallmark has made important to all female Americans, and possible those of the entire developed world. So us of the male gender feel that we have to acquiesce, and try our best to make the best of that day. This year, since I was fortunate enough to be home with the boy, I decided to surprise his mother by showing up at her work. Unfortunately, right before she left for work in the morning, she asked, "why don't you guys come down and have lunch with me today?" Nonetheless, I said we were planning on surprising you by doing that, and now I just don't know if we can. But we did anyway...

We walked from home up and down to the financial district, seeing the sights along the way. We walked through the area of Market Street I sometimes call the zoo, because there are so many different types of animals there, you never know what you might see. Besides, I'm not a big fan of zoos, mainly because of the funny feeling I get seeing "wild" animals caged up for my pleasure. I know that some of them are better off, and they are such beautiful creatures, but I also feel bad. I guess I'll post more on this when I actually take the boy to a zoo. On our trip from City Hall down to Montgomery Street, we got to see all types of losers, junkies, freaks, schizophrenics and the like. All the time warning Cobalt that if he grows up to hang out down here...

Anyway, we brought mom some flowers and a gift certificate to get her nails done and more. Since it was so nice outside, we all decided to get some deli sandwiches and sit out down by the ferry building.
Afterwards, we came home to make dinner. Since we walked both there and back, we decided that our time was better spent making a delightful desert, and for dinner we'd just make what we were going to make the day before. We attempted to make an upside down cake, since we had some kiwis and apples in the fridge. Now remember, not only have I never made an upside down cake before, but I don't think I've even ever had one either. Seeing as how we didn't have any eggs in the house, and we were beat from all the walking, we decided to combine recipes...one for the fruit courtesy of Alice Waters, and one for the cake, from Millenium. Well, I think it looked a little better than it tasted, as it seemed a bit underdone in the middle, but all in all, it turned out a success.

Even Cobalt loved it...

afterall, he was conceived on this day two years ago.

History of J, part I

So here you are...welcome...I don't actually know if anyone will read this, but then again, there are a lot of lonely people out there, right?

I'm J and this is 2DogsAndaBaby. I also have a wife, but the title doesn't flow as well with her in it. I've been a lurker and rare commenter for some time, mostly on "daddyblogs" and haven't found the time to start my own...until now.

I was laid off a couple of weeks ago, on my birthday of all days. Not only that, but my folks were coming to town that weekend, and with my brother being out of work for the last year-and-a-half, I thought it'd be best not to tell them. Talk about strange...you see, for the last 6 months or so, I'd known that my job would go away, so I tried to prepare them (and me) for that, by dropping hints like "you know, I could loose my job one of these days...the boss keeps saying how he'd like to bring his own people into the company". But that doesn't work with those midwestern roots, who just respond with "well you better keep your job, you know the market's tough". Ahem, I already have an offer, and another interview next week with an inevitable offer to follow. Besides, it's not like I'm wasting away doing lines all the time.

So on top of losing my job, we just bought a flat. Well, we bought more than a flat, we went in on what's known as a TIC here in SF. In other words, we have ownership in 1/3 of a 3-unit building. So far, it's worked out ok. It's back in the 'hood where the wife and I met, and just down the street from where Cobalt was conceived.

Anyway, here I am, the boy is taking a nap, and I thought I'd start this blog. Hopefully I'll keep it going...we'll have to wait and see.

Cheers!

J