Had a great lunch with San Antonio friends at Chester's (which is now, blissfully, poppy-seed free). L to R: Tricia, Catherine, Pam, Emily and me. Got to see Randy and Mia in passing, and we sang happy birthday over the phone to Carol (felt like a dork -- need to write her birthday down).

Followed it up with a swing by the bank to deposit a check and found out we're doing remote deposits now via usaa.com, which is good because the line was way too long at the ATM. Dropped by the old place to catch up with Milla. Was afraid I'd missed her, but as I rounded the corner back toward my house, she came trowmpsing through the grass to me to be scritched. Miss that. ;)

Today, Colorado's transit riders celebrate the opening of the four new rail transit lines in the Southeast area. At all of the new stations there are celebrations with food and drink. Ironically, prospective riders enthousiastic about faster transit... are seen waiting in line more than a block long at the Lincoln train station for a free plate of food, sponsored by a local restaurant (Carraba's italian grill I believe). (This line did move very fast.) Well, this is the home of 3-hour voting lines, after all.

Crud

We spent Thursday night at a brand new La Quinta in Paso Robles, and then did the last bit of drive into San Francisco Friday morning. We got to my place around 2:30ish after hitting some traffic on 101. Rubin walked down the street to come help us unload. So appreciative to have an extra hand. The uhaul and car that took us 5-6 hours to pack was unloaded in about an hour and then we headed out to grab a futon so I would have a place to sleep. We dropped off the futon and parked the car+uhaul in the lot next to my building that was owned by the friendly church across the street. Again, more kindness that was such a huge help. I don't know where in SF we would have found parking for a car and a uhaul. Then it was off to Amina's Pizzeria for a late dinner with Rubin and Reed.

It was so nice to wake up in my own place in SF this morning. The cats are still adjusting but they absolutely love the sunlight streaming in from the bay windows. I'm already feeling the "busy weekends" syndrome as there are multiple things going on and not enough time to do them all. It's going to be great out here!

-- DANGER, STOP THE SPAM.

Nibble!

@school last thursday.

-sAmI k-

This is a fundraiser for a girl at my school who has Hodgkins Lymphoma(sp?). Her insurance has decided to not pay for her treatment, so the school has pulled together to help. The art club went around collecting money at lunch last week and handing out green ribbons. This week the link crew and ready, set, teach kids have sponsored the feather funds.

A bunch of teachers have a paper bald turkey, and the students buy feathers for their favorite teacher's turkeys at 1 dollar a feather. To take a feather off another teacher's it's 50 cents. The top three teachers with the most feathers win! All proceeds go to Crystal's family. -sAmI k-

Never seen that before.

--Chris Falco

Oops. Forgot to post this last night. Occoquan is getting all done up for Christmas, and Mom and I went to a holiday event last night that involved shopping and snacking. Neither of us won the coveted gift certificates, but we discovered some cute new shops and visited some favorite familiar ones (Mom's here with Arlene of Woman's Wish).