St. Vitus

The family cathedral up at Prague Castle.

snausages

 

robots in Wenceslas Square

 

random decorated buildings

 

KFC

18th century KFC.

Old Town Square

And the astronomical clock which was not really as interesting as expected.

Stare Mesto

 

Charles Bridge

Just around the corner from our hotel in Mala Strana.

good morning Prague!

View from our hotel window Monday.

art exhibit?

No, just a depressing display of modern travel at Stansted security.

Electric House

Went to see "Nochnoi Dozor" member's screening, though we missed the first half hour due to a combination of waking up late and Maryann totally underestimating how long it takes to walk from her house. We liked what we saw, though, sort of Crow meets Matrix meets Prophecy or something. Went upstairs at the house after to lazily read the papers and have brekkie.  

cool bar

Beach Blanket Babylon in Westbourne Park. Terrible name, awesome building with lots of cool details and little warrens all over.

sometimes a hill...

Notting Hill actually is a hill-or at least more so than New York's so-called Murray Hill which is barely a gentle slope.

Rough Trade

Cool! They still have a record shop here.

Kensington Gardens

Taking a nice break for a nibble and chai tea latte here in Kensington Gardens, where there are quite a few people despite it being a little overcast today. Last night, after meeting up with Graham at Paddington for sushi on his way to Heathrow to go out on tour with the Bloodhound Gang, delivered Michele back to St. Pancras for her train. I met up with Maryann Bowers at Soho House for drinks.

Royal Garden Hotel

Will always be special to me.

George Orwell's house

In Notting Hill. Nice pad, Georgey!

Portobello Road

Utter madness on a Saturday!

the real Vernon Yard

Also the name of the label home of the Verve, this is just a little mews (interesting pun) in Notting Hill, just off Portobello Road.

Paddington

...And 15 minutes later, as advertised, we glide into Paddington station. Ah, the old stomping grounds-everything so familiar, like coming home, really.

first night out

Just a few more stops to Soho to meet up with MA and Lozza at Wagamama. I'm starving! Mind the gap...

monkey lights

In a Soho storefront.

Heathrow Express

Boy, am I beat. Didn't get much sleep on the plane unfortunately, had a huge headache that made me a bit queasy. Much better now that I'm here, though!

Tra Vigne

Our night didn't end at Freemark; as we headed back down the valley, we decided to pop in to one of our favorite local restaurants for a nightcap. We tried Martini House first, but it was claustrophobically packed. So we skipped over to Tra Vigne, where there were no seats at the bar but at least the airy ceilings and respectful distance to the tables made it much more manageable.

winningest table

Thomas gave tips to everyone he could on how to ace the ring toss after he did it, and most people who followed his coaching returned with a bottle, including more than half of our tablemates; every bottle of wine on this table was originally in the ring toss formation!

ring toss for wine!

We each got 3 chances at the ring toss. Dead simple rules: get a ring around the neck of one of the bottles and it's yours! Thomas of course came back with a fine bottle, the 1999 Cab Bosche.

Freemark Abbey

Harvest party out on the lawn.

perfect day

The sun's still shining as the Freemark Abbey Harvest Party gets rolling with fresh shucked oysters and hors d'ouvres. Gorgeous and high 70's.

nearly harvest time

On the vine at Peju.

Heitz

Vineyards out back at Heitz, where the 2001 Napa Valley cab is drinking nicely.

Bouchon

Lunch at Bouchon in Yountville on the way up the valley. A lovely bistro-style restaurant owned by Thomas Keller, who also owns French Laundry.

Momo; break-up IMs

As seen on the wall at Yahoo, where Mobile Monday was held this week. Focus was on mobile photos, with speakers from Flickr, Shutterfly, Mobido and a couple of others. Everyone is dancing around the same sort of approach: social networking, photos and storytelling around those photos, accessible from your mobile phone.

DMV hell

Well, which one isn't, right? I honestly don't remember seeing the SF one quite this packed before though... We waited about 1 1/2 hrs so Thomas could get his picture taken, his eyes tested, and pay a fee. We did take advantage of the proximity to Comix Experience, my old comic book shop, to stop in and see how things are going for Brian Hibbs, proprietor. Very well, it turns out!  Still there, still going strong, now with woman and child and looking good. There were quite a few folks in the store, too, given it was the middle of a Thursday afternoon. I even tried out a few issues of a new Vertigo series, "Lucifer", at his suggestion. Felt like home again!

Labor Day

Fishing at San Pablo dam for the first time in ages! Relaxing. I ended up feeding quite a few of them with my lethargic worms, but didn't manage to actually hook any of them. In some cases, I literally snoozed, and lost!

sunday brunch

Slow Club for Sunday brunch with Stewart and Lori, 2 of the utterly coolest people in the world.

IRL on track!

Thanks to Sharon Walsh at Live 105 for the awesome seats! Front straight grandstands, just off the start-finish line, high enough that we were in the shade within 30 minutes of the race start. These cars definitely in slower on this road course than we expected (just a few seconds faster than Thomas on a 600cc motorcycle on this track), but they are WAY louder, and they make pit stops which is interesting for us to watch.

our kind of tailgating!

Traffic getting into Infineon was SO much smoother than Laguna. And that included non-race traffic going to Vallejo, Sonoma, and Napa. So we made it up there and parked very close to one of the gates with minimum hassle, and proceeded to have a little pre-race snack: sushi and sauvignon blanc!

bye bye Eun Jin!

Eun Jin is moving to Pittsburgh-boo!!! We will miss her very much.  We managed to drown our sorrows at Bacar's happy hour.