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Alexander Valley, Sonoma County

Ten points to whoever can guess the winery.

If the colors in these pictures vary a little, it’s because I made my first attempt at post-production edits! After looking through the pictures, the colors seemed a bit saturated, so I toned everything down and aimed for something that sort of hinted at vintage. Low saturation, decently good contrast. I hope you like it.

These were taken on Sunday, February 28.

And the winery? Well, you can tell that the vines in these pictures are decently old. They almost look like old Zinfandel vines, huh?

My other Valentine

Oo-ee. This was quite a grand weekend.

First off, it was a LONG weekend. Long weekends are never a bad thing.

And new furniture arrived.

And there was dim sum. And braised lamb shanks. And an awesome new book that a co-worker recommended.

And, there was a very lengthy ten mile walk on Valentine’s Day. Fret not, it wasn’t a forced march. The weather was so beautiful, that we decided to take full advantage of it. The city was so, so beautiful on Sunday. Don’t tell him, but I think I might’ve cheated on Joe with San Francisco.

We walked from our house, to eat dim sum, and then up through the Presidio, to Baker Beach, and then half way across the Golden Gate Bridge. My feet hurt a little afterward, but I was rewarded with some salami. And wine. And burrata.

This weekend did not suck.

Photo evidence:

Nearly two miles into our walk…

…and at one of the swankiest intersections in town.

I like to pretend these are cherry blossoms. You see these trees everywhere this time of year.

Much, MUCH more after the jump….

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“San Francisco is still a city that likes to have a good time, and will proceed to have it, as soon as it finds a place to park.”

– Herb Caen, “Herb Caen’s San Francisco,” 1957

One step forward, two steps back

This was not the greatest week in goal progress.

First of all, beginning Tuesday, it rained every single day. When it’s raining, and the wind is gusting at 40 miles per hour, the last thing I want to do is walk in the maelstrom for 45 minutes. That’s excusable, right? So, because of the weather, I took the bus to and from work everyday. Which means I spent $16 extra dollars in bus fare, and gained back the 3 lbs I had lost from walking the week before. Two steps back, indeed.

While there’s more rain in the forecast this week, I’m hoping it’ll let up at the right times of day so that I can walk. To be honest, even though taking the bus home at night was very convenient (and got me home earlier than usual, which I like a lot), I didn’t like the stress of trying to make the bus, or finding a seat, or trying in vain to keep my drenched umbrella from accidentally popping open and soaking all the people around me (this very embarrassing accident unfortunately happened one morning, resulting in dirty looks from all the FiDi-bound riders around me…). Also, I’m pretty sure that this cold I’m currently recovering from was picked up by some lady who was coughing all over me while riding in to work on Wednesday. Because wouldn’t you know it, right on schedule Thursday afternoon, a sore throat and achy lymph nodes set in. No bueno.

While I didn’t take too many pictures this week, nor did I continue with my translation of the fabulous French children’s book Moi le loup et les chocos, I was able to catch up with my uncle, which was great. In case you couldn’t tell, that was pretty much my one step forward as far as goals go.

But oddly enough, even though it was a strange week, it was a great week. I was super productive at work. The apartment is starting to feel more and more like home. I feel less stressed out generally. Things are good.

Scratch that, then reverse it

Not to be impolite, but I’m rescinding my invitation to VMACwitness. I know. How rude.

But to make it up to you, I’m going to move what limited content existed on that site over here. Turns out, I’m not AT ALL in a place to keep up with two blogs. However, I do still want to share my goal progress with you, along with the usual yummy eat-related posts. Keep an eye out for more photography, and at least weekly goal updates.

If you’ve missed out on this crazy goal experiment that gave birth to VMACwitness, here’s the gist: (more…)