billfreed

Cross pollination

2009-04-06T09:54:00.001-07:00

Using twitter and FB status updates seem to be a great way to keep the content rolling here, so that's what Ive been doing for the last few months...last post in August!!!!! Yikes

Get your freaky Elvis dolls, here.

2008-08-20T12:06:00.000-07:00

Strange stuff abounds - just got the info on this HOT, new product from a supplier:

http://www.entertainmentearth.com/prodinfo.asp?number=MTL9632

Now, back to work.

smoke...

2008-06-24T13:50:00.000-07:00

the hazy smoke from all of the nearby widlfires is filling the sky with a weird reddish cast - reminding me of the terrible San Diego wildfires from a few years back...let's hope things improve.

Quite possibly the worst car ever.

2008-06-06T17:01:00.000-07:00

We find ourselves using our friend Lauren's 1999 Subaru wagon for the weekend. Long story short, she and her husband and infant baby are going to Davis this weekend, and their A/C is busted. So we lent them the Volvo, and took this thing.

I'm all for friendship, and I would make the trade again in a minute, but this is one seriously bad car -- slow, ugly and surprisingly cramped for a wagon, this thing makes a good case for walking. It is so ugly I didn't even bother going outside to take a picture, I just shot this one through my office window.

Jen's working tonight, so I think I'll hop in the Subaru, put on a flannel shirt and some patchouli oil, and go flirt with girls wearing peasant skirts and Birkenstocks, perhaps somewhere out in West Marin. I'd be discovered as an impostor, though -- it would be like the episode of Seinfeld where George pretended he was a marine biologist. haha!

Cleanup on the Email Aisle

2008-06-05T06:27:00.000-07:00

Because Yahoo mail is a wasteland of spam and advertising, I am cutting over my personal email to a gmail account, and I am even consolidating all of my social and business networking to another gmail account for that specific purpose. Yeah!

All of this cleanup and organization feels so good!

Here's an amusing video on social networking.

more new!

2008-02-10T21:40:00.000-08:00

here's a snap of the new BMW sedan....

Out with the old, in with the (semi) New

2008-01-02T16:10:00.000-08:00

Jen's ever-so-reliable, rock-solid Mercedes sedan is going away tomorrow. After four years and 40K miles, we're ending the lease. We'll drop it off at a nearby MBZ dealership...after which it will be thrown to the auto-auction wolves. Kind of a sad ending for such a great little car -- and interesting that Mercedes was unwilling to deal on a new one, given that a dealership person recently told me that MBZ has more than 100,000 cars coming off-lease in the next quarter. Good luck to them, I say. But this photo is a great way to remember this car -- a bit dirty, wheels covered in brake dust and ready at any time for a lengthy, high-speed trek.

Now, on to the new. Or sort of new. Jen found an incredible deal on a 2006 Volvo V70 wagon on Craigslist. A salesman at the local Volvo store in Santa Rosa wanted out of his lease on this near-perfect wagon, loaded with 22k miles on it. So we took over the lease, and she's gonna drive it for a year and then we'll probably dump it. It will be great for Jen's new business, and it seems fairly quick with the turbo 5-cylinder motor. It's a similar khaki green metallic color to our old, beloved Saab, which is kinda cool.

By the way, we're not getting a golden retriever anytime soon, but I do have my eye on a couple of Volvo-appropriate bumper stickers: "Save Mono Lake" and something from the Kucinich campaign are topping the list of must-haves.

Coming next month: the BMW gets replaced!

Here's the Tree

2008-01-02T16:04:00.000-08:00

Just about tinder-box dry right now....but here's a pic.

The Cult Plays Del Mar

2007-08-07T09:09:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday we got to see 1980's glam rockers The Cult. They happened to be playing at the Del Mar racetrack, as the featured post-race entertainment. We arrived for the last four races of the day, and I bet $11 total and won $14.20. Minus the $6 admission to the races, seeing one of my favorite bands cost $2.80. Not a bad deal.

nils biker boy video

2007-07-02T11:58:00.000-07:00

a short video from del mar

2007-07-02T11:56:00.000-07:00

This blog is NOT abandoned!

2007-03-14T17:02:00.000-07:00

I read not long ago that there are something like 220 million abandoned blogs in this country. That's a lot of stalled ambition.

My ambition inre: blogging was stalled for a while, too. That and forgetting my login info for blogger. So there you have it.

Anyway, the only reportable excitement is that our neighborhood has a regular ice cream truck. Who knew? And what you don't see in the photo shown here is the little kid down the block absolutely SCREAMING for ice cream. Good to know some things never change.

And that's enough small town news for today.

Art and Commerce

2007-02-20T22:09:00.000-08:00

On this most recent Sunday, we went to the birthday party for the lovely and wonderful Annie Galvin at Ireland's 32 on Geary.

We haven't seen Annie or her husband Eric for quite a while. Too long, in fact, since they're both sweet, funny and generally terrific people. They're both pursuing their artistic passions, and Annie is a so talented...and I want the wrestler painting (pictured with this post) from her Wexford Girl website!

One of the more interesting moments during the party was that someone asked me if I was an artist like Annie -- the answer in my case being no....

However, it did strike me that so many of our friends have combined art and commerce to hammer out a living AND follow their dreams....Annie paints, Eric is starting a printmaking business, Lauren is a photographer, Joel and Noami cook, Carter is a textile designer, etc., etc., etc. Only question is -- WTF am I doing???

Right on to them I say -- and as for myself, I better get on it and find my muse. Or maybe my muse is just stuck somewhere on MUNI....

More anon.

1 for 2 on local recommendations...

2007-02-18T09:40:00.000-08:00

So, we got two recommendations on local joints -- the first for Chinese and the second for coffee/breakfast.

The Chinese joint, called Chinatown -- as in "I'll take you down to Chinatown" -- is on Kentucky Street in the heart of downtown P'luma.

We ordered some shrimp chow mein, potstickers, orange chicken and sauteed spinach. While the potstickers were good, the rest of it was drowned in cooking oil -- such that if have a biodiesel in need of a fillup, this is could be your spot.

We'll try it again, but order carefully.

Our second local pick, the Tea Room Cafe, was much more successful. This is a coffee/tea house that serves breakfast and lunch/brunch-y stuff. We went on this most recent warm Saturday morning, and it is a warm and inviting space, and was plenty busy. We ordered breakfast and grabbed a seat outside to enjoy the morning sun. Jen had some potato cakes (kind of a pancake made of mashed potatoes) with a side of bacon, and I enjoyed some banana-pecan pancakes. Both yummy, and sustenance enough to see us through out shopping trip to the Saks outlet....

Sooze Wine Bar + Kabuki Sushi - downtown Petaluma

2007-02-13T21:10:00.000-08:00

We just got back from downtown.... before settling on a dinner location, we had a quick glass of wine at "Sooze" -- the wine bar in the socalled Great Petaluma Mall. Personally I was underwhelmed by the Mall and we were both underwhelmed by Sooze.

Don't get me wrong, I love the concept and I like their wine list. But seriously, $9 for a glass of unremarkable local Pinot Noir (and this was the low end) doesn't really cut it. For that kinda dough, you can go to Bacar or any other place in the city and imbibe. I can get a $25 glass of Kistler chard pretty much anywhere.

Factor in a rather pricey continental-influenced menu, and that's a tall order here in shit-kicker-ville.

Dinner at Kabuki, however, was great. Good, fresh cuts of nigiri sushi served by actual Japanese people! We ordererd several pieces of nigiri, one roll and a tonkatsu dinner. The tonkatsu (aka tempura fried pork chop/cutlet) was a big portion and the dinner sides (salad, miso soup) also showed evidence of effort by the staff. Our waitress was a bit indifferent, but the busser and the sushi chef (who asked us to do the tipout separately) were great.

Also, the guy hosting reminded me a bit of the American Taliban guy, John Walker Lindh. But I'm sure that is only a coincidence. I think the real dude is in gitmo or something.

Next up -- I may discuss my frequent trips to Whole Foods -- the melting pot of Petaluma...

roading 1.0

2007-02-13T15:19:00.000-08:00

As all of you know, I am a bit of a car freak. I like to drive...and the new digs in Petaluma put me close to some really good driving roads in Marin and Sonoma County. The West side of Petaluma is a good jumping-off point for vehicular misadventures, particularly on rainy, lightly-traffcked afternoons...heh heh heh.

The first loop that I tried is Western Avenue to Spring Hill to Chileno Valley Road -- starting from downtown P'luma, you take Western (going West, surprisingly) which then turns into Spring Hill Road as you leave town. Western is dull, and things don't get interesting until Spring Hill, where you get to see a lot of dairy farms and cattle ranches. Spring Hill is mostly a transit, but has a few good corners -- once you get to Bodega Ave, you take a left and then turn on to the Tomales-Petaluma road, which takes you past a Coast Guard training center.

Make a left past the Coast Guard place, and you're on Chileno Valley Road -- it is a really nice combination of 3rd and 4th gear corners, with nice elevation changes and very little traffic. This section around Laguna Lake is really cool, and the views are spectacluar.

Next time, I am headed up to Bodega Bay.

Seriously, why?

2007-02-13T13:50:00.000-08:00

Some wizened critic of the web that I read somewhere stated that blogs are nothing more than "advanced navel gazing." How true. So I suppose this means let the gazing begin!

I am sure that you will find billfreed.blogspot.com *almost* as exciting as the other web property in our family's empire -- www.billfreed.com -- My sister Rebecca built that beauty in about 1997 as a birthday present for our dad. I believe that the original plan was that pops would update the site himself, but he's been busy in the intervening ten years... But at least Rebecca owns the URL, and I'm keeping it in the family, dammit.

Not sure what direction THIS litte creative outlet is going to take, but much of it will likely revolve around mine and my wife's recent move to Petaluma, California. Expect some keen and witty observations about relocating to the sticks and comparisons with big city and So Cal livin'.

I have yet to find much out there on the web in terms of meaningful info on local food, wine and stuff to do in Petaluma -- critcal quality of life issues that are going to make our break our time here -- so I have decided to take matters into my own hands and do a bit of self-styled reportage.

Let's hope I don't piss off the locals.

Later,

Bill