Happy New Year to All!!!

May your year be a joyous and prosperous!

Now, I need to do that resolution thing, right?

Ok, in particular order, my resolutions are to:

• Use the sleep apnea (CPAP) machine more often, which will give me more energy to...
• Exercise more, which will help me in...
• Losing weight, which will also help with...
• the sleep apnea-thing

For those you of you who don’t know what sleeping with a CPAP machine looks like, see the photo below:

Read the story here for more on sleep apnea.

Not sure what Farrah’s resolutions may be. You’ll need to ask her.

This review is about a week late, but it has taken me a bit of time to digest the Tori Amos concert Farrah and I saw last Friday. Tori is touring in support of her latest album, American Doll Posse. I wasn’t a huge fan of the new album, but after watching Tori’s performance, it makes me want to play the album every day. I guess that’s what good concerts do to you.

The Venue

I like going to The Paramount Theater in Oakland. The theater looks great and the sound has always been well-produced in the handful of shows I’ve been to there. Parking is very convenient, located directly across the street. The staff is nice and helpful, showing each attendee their seat.

The Performance

In Tori’s latest album, she sings her songs through various personas. I believe she performed first as Santa, then for the second half as Tori. Yes, I guess Tori is one of Tori’s personas. Her set list included:

• Body and Soul
• She’s Your Cocaine
• Hoochie Woman
• Secret Spell
• You Can Bring Your Dog
• Raspberry Swirl
• Big Wheel
• Crucify
• Sugar
• Cornflake Girl
• Bells For Her
• Caught a Lite Sneeze
• Winter
• Cooling
• Virginia
• Hotel
• Code Red
• Precious Things
• Bouncing Off Clouds
• Hey Jupiter

We enjoyed the concert overall. I especially enjoyed Caught a Lite Sneeze, even though I saw her perform this song before. I believe Farrah enjoyed her new song, Bouncing Off Clouds.

When we entered The Paramount there were several signs noting that the show was being taped. Farrah and I have only been to one previous show that was being filmed, Jack Johnson at the Greek Theater. (Sample video)
The Greek Theater is a big venue, so filming wasn’t obtrusive. Unfortunately, where we sat in The Paramount, a boom crossed our viewing path often. This made parts of the performance frustrating to watch, breaking up the rhythm of the show for us.

End Result

Overall it was a good performance. I think it was the first time I’ve seen Tori do costume changes. This added a different element to the performance.

Set list information obtained from here and here.

Last Saturday I attended the holiday party for Genentech. It was held at AT&T ballpark. Yes, Genentech took over the whole baseball park.

First off, let me say that I hate calling it AT&T Park. Though PacBell no longer exists as a company, the former ballpark name PacBell Park rings more true when spoken aloud.

Last year’s holiday party was held at the Marriott in San Francisco. It was a more formal affair, dressing up for dinner and dancing. The party was great, but very crowded even though the party took up all the ballrooms and most of all the other nooks in hotel. I’m guessing the venue change had partially to do with that situation plus the Marriott is going through a slight renovation at this time, so it may have not been available for this shindig.

This affair had been built around two ideas: do you want to dine and dance or did you want to dine and get down-and-dirty in the snow. Yep, snow. We chose the latter, which meant dressing more for a trip to Tahoe then a trip to a ball.

We met up with Farrah’s co worker one her co workers (plus her boyfriend). It was my first time meeting both of them and we hung out most of the night together. Farrah co worker brought her ice skates as we heard there was going to be an ice skating rink somewhere in the ballpark.

We both entered ballpark at 7:00pm sharp. Once we got to inside we headed up toward the ballpark. We looked out onto the field to see what was in store. So much could be done:

• Near the middle of the baseball diamond there was the ice rink.
• In left field a hill of snow was available to sled down.
• In each dug out you could stand in line to have a whack at the batting cages.
• There was a dance floor and band set up in center field. The band played 70's disco and soul music.
• In the field and club level, a dining area and music was set up. Jazz and an 80's coverband where at the club level, a DJ in the field level area.
• Fireworks lit up the sky a little after 9:00pm
• There was food throughout the ballpark. A big favorite was smores which was available int he Promenade level.

Farrah and I watch as her co worker and her boyfriend ice skate for some time. We met up with Sarah and her date, who also ice skated. We danced and ate the night away, spending all of the five hours in the ballpark.

It was a very very good holiday party.

I’ll post some photos when I get a chance.

I’m working on bringing photos back up on Smugmug - which will be the primary source for most photos. I’m thinking of using Flickr more for photos I’m trying to be a little more creative with. Also falling into Flickr will be photos of more questionable content that Smugmug might not allow (such as the Folsom Street Fair photo set).

I’ll write more shortly on why I chose Smugmug over Zenfolio going forward. It’s just going to take me some time to encapsulate my thoughts on this subject. But you can look at my current Smugmug page at http://verbal.smugmug.com/:

If you haven’t heard, I have dumped my problematic LG-VX8500 (aka The Chocolate) and moved onto an iPhone. The recent price cut, coupled with the frustration with my possessed Chocolate auto dialing, helped make my decision easier.

So what do I think of the iPhone?

What I Like:

My primary concern was that the phone, as well as the AT & T service, would provide a horrible experience. Up to this point, phone use has been a pleasant experience. Call quality is good both on a headset and the iPhone directly. I haven’t had a dropped call or weak signal throughout my routine travel and use.

I love that my contacts and calendar are managed from my iMac. The interface to the iPhone address book makes looking for and dialing a phone number an enjoyable experience - except when you need to do it quickly (see below). Syncing is a breeze for these two applications. I love being able to make edits to a contact or calendar entry and having complete faith it will sync properly. No issues as of yet.

The Mail application is also very well done. I am able to access an account I set up specifically for the iPhone - a Yahoo! account since it does push mail - with ease. I filter/forward emails to that single account to retrieve while mobile. No issue accessing over WiFi or on The Edge Network.

The iPod part of the phone is great. Listening to music and viewing videos has been a joy with this device. The memory space is just enough to fit plenty of music and videos to last a weekend trip.

What I Don’t Like:

The major complaint I have is the inability to make a call quickly - e.g. single touch dialing. It takes a minimum of three contacts (e.g. press, slide, touch) if you have your iPhone setup correctly to make a quick call. But I rarely need to make a quick call.

I’m not missing voice dialing (I didn’t use it much), GPS (never had it), or a 3G Network (never used it). Larger memory than 8 GB would be nice, but it’s not a deal breaker. Plus, from what I have read, 8 GB is the largest memory available for any smartphone.

Good phone, and a great iPod! It was worth the (lower) price of the iPhone.

Fugees fans won’t be hearing any new material from the ‘Killing Me Softly’ stars anytime soon. (via Lauryn Hill should ‘see a psychiatrist’ | Metro.co.uk)

I’m sure you have noticed another change on ./Janella.com. Yes, I keep fiddling with the look, never been satisfied with one layout for too long. Every time I think I have a look I like, I tend to find an aspect that doesn’t suit my website vision.

What is the main vision?

I would like, and hope, that the website is easy to read and easy to navigate. Some day soon I will probably go back to a splash page for the opening page, similar to Miss Aniela’s home page. (I’m sure I could have picked a different example, but she takes such nice photos. Note: some photos might border NSFW items, so click at your own risk.)

For the blog, I was trying the latest version of Movable Type 4. Remember Movable Type?

Back in the day I used Movable Type to run ./Janella.com. Everything was running nice and smooth, but then Six Apart felt like charging for their product. I could still use it without paying, but it simply seemed wrong. In May of 2004, I switched to a free solution which was WordPress. WordPress has powered the site for the last three years. I heard there was a new open-source version of Movable Type out there and decided to give it a try.

Well, I liked some bits of it and didn’t like others.

Things I Liked

The templates provided with Movable Type are nice. They mirror some of the templates provided at Vox which is not surprising since Six Apart owns Vox as well. I especially like the cityscape templates created by .tiff - one of my Vox neighbors. The layouts are clean and easy on the eyes.

Notice the red “V” icon? Nice touch. Anything that encourages comments and makes it easier is a welcomed feature, especially since BossaNova, Fina, and MJ use either Vox or LiveJournal.

Things I Didn’t Like

The installation is better than before, but it still takes a little tech knowledge to do. It’s not as simple as a WordPress install - which basically requires you to create the database, upload the files to your website, access a URL, and - poof! Instant blog.

Movable Type is still something like Upload file into the cgi-bin. Make sure the *.cgi files have the right permissions. Move the mt-static files to a directory and… Well, it can be a bit to follow. After my fourth install, I have it down pretty well.

The WordPress import of entries into Movable Type wasn’t smooth either. There was a bit of formatting problems here and there. I managed to work it out by first installing an old version of Movable Type (3.3), then installing Movable Type 4. A lot of work. I’m sure the final release of version 4 will be easier on tasks such as this.

I didn’t enjoy that generating your pages produces multiple static HTML files based on categories, years, months, etc. Why have all these files?

Editing templates, styles, and using widgets isn’t as straightforward as it is in WordPress. I had a tough time creating links in the sidebar, as well as incorporating standalone pages. These things should be easy!

My Final Thoughts

Would I use Movable Type again for the blog?

Yes. Overall it is a nice piece of software, but it has room to improve. It does a good job of handling multiple blogs - if you write on a variety of subjects. But knowing there is an alternative that is easy to use and easily has hundreds of different templates, plug-ins and widgets to customize a blog, makes it a difficult proposition to change.

My choice is still WordPress.

A cool map - at least I think so - of “200 most successful websites on the web” done as a tube/subway map. You can see the original map here with further information on its creation as well.

Just wanted to make this quick post saying that Tiana, Jane, and Ann are visiting from Hawaii this week. This weekend was packed with activities including a trip to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom and Paramount’s Great America.

I’ll work on the photos when I can and get them posted. Come to think of it did I ever finish all the photos from England slash France trip?

Lunch!

Early this morning we went through a list of sights we still haven’t seen in London. The list was long. We asked ourselves, “Out of the places we still have yet to see, what would be our biggest regret if we didn’t see it?” From there we prioritize our goals. Not making the list of places to see was: Covent Garden, Picadilly Circus, and The National Gallery.

We made our choices and set out for the day.

British Museum

We took the Tube to the Tottenham Court Road station. Shopping, as well as sightseeing, was on the agenda today. Though prices in the UK were high - to the currency conversion - we couldn’t leave London without a few souvenirs. When we popped out of the station, it was near a clothing store Farrah wanted to visit. We made our way in to look around for a bit before going to the museum.

We made our way down the street toward the British Museum. We luckily found a Starbucks, as we were in need of a little pick-me-up. We ducked on in, ordered drinks, and sat down to do some further game planning. We figured we could see most of the tourist spots we wished to see in the morning - finishing around noon time. Then we would head back to the flat for some lunch. After lunch, Farrah would go shopping while I’d stay behind to do some photo stuff on the laptop. Then in the late afternoon or early evening, we’d hit one more tourist attraction.

We finished our coffee and then headed down the street to the British Museum. We were only interested in seeing one exhibit - The Rosetta Stone.

When entering the British Museum, you are greeted with a big entrance way which is topped by an intricate glass ceiling, as you can see in the photo above. The photo doesn’t do the setting justice. We spent several minutes taking it in and taking photographs. I wish I had a super wide lens to capture it all. It is beautifully massive. Awe-inspiring. Breathtaking. I can only imagine how it would look on a clear starry night. I’m sure one day I will see it.

We found the information desk and a map of the museum. We thumbed through the pamphlet. There is so much to see here, but we were focused on our single goal: The Rosetta Stone. The curators must be aware that this is the main attraction, as they put The Rosetta Stone on the first floor and in the first exhibit room you could enter.

We walked in.

The Rosetta Stone is not uniquely large like the stones from Stonehenge or Avebury. But then it’s not the size of the stone but what is written on it that is most important in this case. We spent a good fifteen minutes looking at the stone, and also reading the historical notes accompanying the exhibit. We then had a quick look-see at the gift shop across from the exhibition entrance, then we headed on out to our next destination.

British Library

Our next stop was the British Library. I know what you are asking, “Why a library?” Well, this is a pretty amazing library. This particular library has some amazing works on display. The ones I found most interesting were copies of the Magda Carta. Also, there were:

• Hand written lyrics by the Beatles
• Two Guttenberg Bibles
• Notebooks by da Vinci and Darwin
• Manuscripts by Bach and Mozart
• A letter from Queen Elizabeth I
• A history of Britain written by Jane Austen
• And many other amazing written works

All of these works were only display in a huge room. You can even find some of those items online on the British Library’s web site.

For lunch, we bought sandwiches at the shop in the courtyard called ‘The Last Word". We ate in the courtyard and discussed all the amazing exhibits we saw in the three hours we were out.

Shopping on Oxford Street

We headed back to the flat from the British Library. Farrah did some shopping at the stores on Oxford Street while I hung out at the flat blogging and fixing some photos. The only other plans we had were going to the London Eye, then eating fish and chips as our last dinner in London.

Farrah was tired after walking through the stores. She took a long nap. I bought a ticket to the London Eye for her online, choosing the last time possible which was 8:00 pm. Luckily I bought it at the time because we got a late start to the London Eye.

London Eye

We had seen the London Eye from a distance when we went to Westminster Abbey. It looks ever more impressive as we approached it in the setting sun. Again, it’s difficult to appreciate its size unless you walk up to it.

We rushed into the ticket kiosk to retrieve the ticket and then Farrah rushed into line and onboard her pod. Yes, she was making this trip alone. I wasn’t going to take a chance, especially after the Eurostar debacle. The round trip on the Eye is about 30 minutes. So as Farrah was going around the wheel, I made my way back up to the street to take some photos.

Farrah can only tell you how the London Eye was. I could see on her face she was afraid at first but happy she went on the London Eye. I do think she wishes I was on there with her.

Golden Hind

After leaving the London Eye, we took a slow walk back to the Underground Station to head back to our Bond Street stop. We stopped to take more photos of the London Eye and Big Ben in the setting sun.

We wanted to eat our last London dinner at the Golden Hind, a fish and chips place close to the flat. We ate takeaway from there on our first night in London but decided to eat in the restaurant that evening. We had the Haddock, the mushy peas, and pickled onion. I was going to order the Halibut, which was more expensive, but the owner mentioned it was a frozen fish, unlike the fresh Haddock. It was very sweet of him to mention that, and so I changed my order.

The Haddock is a healthy size. It is deep-fried but not oily one bit. I never had mushy peas before the Golden Hind, but if they taste elsewhere as good as they tasted here, I’ll continue to order them. The mushed peas were the size of garbanzo beans! I had to try the pickled onion. It wasn’t as pickled as I hoped for but it went nicely with the Haddock.

The Golden Hind doesn’t have an alcohol license, but they do allow you to bring your own booze. Several people did as they were celebrating the win by Chelsea over Manchester United in the FA Cup which brought more liveliness into the place.

Packing & Posting

We took a slow walk back to the flat knowing what awaited us - packing for home. We gathered our clothes and few knick-knacks. Farrah did most of the packing, fitting all our belongings into five pieces of luggage. We packed light, coming with only four pieces of luggage:

• My backpack for the camera and laptop
• Our big backpack - the one Farrah used on her first trip abroad
• A small rolling bag
• A small LL Bean backpack

The fifth piece of luggage, a Yahoo! duffel bag was packed into the small rolling bag. We broke that one out to fit a few items in. We really didn’t buy much, just enough to partially fill the Yahoo! duffel.

While Farrah packed, I did the Underground planning on the computer. We noticed the Underground line we needed to take didn’t start running until around 7:00 am. This made getting to Heathrow possibly problematic. This is great news to find out the day before, right?

Our plane leaves at 11:00 am. The Underground, where we are, doesn’t start running until 7:06 am. It takes us to Green Park where we need to catch the Tube to Heathrow. By our estimation, we’ll be at Heathrow by 8:30 am. There isn’t really room for error such as missing the Tube. Stress time! We could take a cab, but it might cost 40 or so pounds versus the 4 or so pounds each to take the Tube. Oh well, wish us luck on the Tube.

Well, we better get our sleep. I’ll probably post this when we get back to the US.

We arrived in sunny London from Paris by mid-day.  Luckily we gain an hour since France is one hour ahead.  The Tube ride back to the flat got us back there around 12:30 pm.  We planned to eat,  rest and shower before squeezing in a few more sights.  I can’t believe we’ll be heading home soon.

We made our way out of the flat before 3:00 pm.  Our plan: cross the Millennium Bridge, see Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, and visit the Tate Modern.  The only time-sensitive place we were visiting was The Globe, as the Tate Modern is open late on Fridays.  The tour for The Globe would end at 4:00 pm.

We took the Underground to the St. Paul’s stop which is on the other side of the Tate Modern.  This required us to pass St. Paul’s Cathedral and cross the Thames on the Millennium Bridge to reach the Globe and the Tate Modern.  The Underground station is right next to the cathedral, but we were on a somewhat tight schedule, so we didn’t go in.

We did snap a few photos though, but then quickly headed toward the Millennium Bridge.  The wind had started to pick up a bit, making Farrah a bit antsy about the bridge.  We had read that in the early days of the bridge it was a bit unstable and the “swaying motion earned it the nickname the Wobbly Bridge.”  This didn’t sound like a fun prospect considering all that lay below the bridge was The Thames.

Millennium Bridge

We stepped on the bridge.  You can feel it gives way ever so slightly, but you don’t have time to notice as you continue your steps toward the other side.  The crowd, like a river current, forces you to keep moving forward.  Only when you are about halfway across the bridge can you break away toward the edge, towards the rail, to take a photo.  On one side you can see Tower Bridge, lit up by the afternoon sun.  On the other side is Blackfriars Bridge.  The wind was picking up slightly, so we started heading toward The Tate Modern, turning back every once in a while to view St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre

We made our way past The Tate Modern, entering The Exhibition & Theatre Tours section of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.  We paid our money, then walked around looking at the exhibits.  Unfortunately, The Globe itself was closed for tours since a matinèewas being performed that afternoon.  We did get the opportunity to see a demonstration of costume changes.

We had the chance to have a tour of the Rose, but hunger started to creep in.  So we went to look for a bite to eat.  We were able to have a cone of ice cream (yum) by the Thames.  But the ice cream did not curb our hunger, so we found more substantial food in The Globe’s cafeteria.  After buying food and visiting the gift shop, we headed back out to eat our food on a bench facing The Thames.  We spent several minutes eating and enjoying the view and the sunny weather.

The Tate Modern

We entered the Tate Modern through the River Entrance which placed us on the second floor.  We decided to take the elevator all the way up to the 7th floor and work our way down.  The Tate Modern Restaurant on the 7th floor gives you a view of The Thames, St. Paul’s Cathedral, and the Millennium Bridge.  We would have bought a drink and sat down, but unfortunately, all the seats were taken.  So we headed on down to the 5th floor.

Modern art can be quite different.  The installations we saw, in a variety of different mediums, were thought-provoking to say the least.  For example, you can look at this exhibit and wonder, why?  (There is some profanity in both the art subject title and the audio.)  It’s nice to take a break from the well-crafted Renaissance painting or sculpture.

We were hoping to see some works by Salvador Dalí­, but unfortunately, none were present.  They were preparing a special exhibit in June for Dalí­ and appear to have taken his works down for this exhibit.  A slight disappointment.  I guess we’ll need to come back soon :)

We made our way down the floor after floor viewing exhibits we had an interest in.  On our way out we stopped by the gift shop, and we passed on our way in.  I looked outside the window of the gift shop out toward The Thames.  The sun that had greeted us at the airport was starting to dissipate as the clouds and wind rolled in.  It began to look a bit nasty outside.

The Best Way Back

We figured the best way back to the flat would be to go back to the Underground at St. Paul’s.  This meant crossing the bridge in the suddenly strong wind.  Oh well.  Unlike our time in Paris, Farrah did remember to bring her brolly with her.  But we braved the light sprinkle as opening the brolly in this wind didn’t seem prudent.

The ten-minute walk to St. Paul’s was quick since the bridge was no longer crowded.  We made it back to our Bond Street stop.  We had dinner at Wagamama’s tonight since we don’t have one back home.  Plus it seemed like a good night for ramen.  It was a late dinner - about 9:00 pm. We tried to go earlier, but our first attempt to get seating was met with a huge crowd that went all the way outside.