I met Luigi Tinonga when I was too young to remember meeting him. My family lived in the San Francisco Bay Area in the early 1980s before I entered kindergarten. My aunt and uncle lived in Oakland and they were neighbors and friends with Luigi and his wife Calleen. My parents would take my sister […]
It is often said that state capitols do not make for great cities. This is undoubtedly true along the West Coast. Sacramento is exceedingly lame compared to its much cooler cousins San Francisco and Los Angeles. Salem is fairly forgettable and not so interesting when lined up against Bend, Ashland, or Portland. And then there’s […]
A boat takes you from Vancouver to Victoria? I’m in. For reasons unknown to myself, I’m a sucker for traveling by boat. Mind you, I’m not talking yachts or luxury cruise liners, but neither am I endeavoring to brave the high seas on a clipper ship. You know, a relatively safe aquatic journey where you […]
I shouldn’t complain, so I won’t. My wife and I just spent a brilliant week on the Big Island of Hawaii in mid-December to celebrate her birthday. Warm, sunny weather, exploring black sand beaches, swimming with sea turtles, downing mountains of poke, and quaffing rum-soaked cocktails with little umbrellas. It was everything a Hawaiian vacation […]
Want some crack, eh? No, thank you. Ok, no worries. Sooory. Want some company for the night big guy? No, I’m ok thank you. Oh, ok, sooory. The drug dealers and prostitutes in Vancouver, British Columbia were most cordial. It was 2002, I was living in San Francisco and primed for adventure. While an undergraduate […]
The San Francisco of my youth was eternally foggy, cold, and wet. It was chilly nights on Nob Hill dining at Vanessi’s and aweing at the enormous Christmas tree in the lobby of the Fairmont. It was fog lingering for days outside the eighth floor window of my Park Merced apartment. It was braving a […]