BBQ review

My 4th of July BBQ & games was a fun little party (and, as usual in my social circles, ended up with twice as much food as half the number of people could eat). We ended up with 8 people (although one retreated to his sick-bed with a cold), ran through Settlers of Cataan, a roll-the-alphabet-dice-and-form-words game whose name escapes me, and a couple rounds of Trans America, interspersed with grilling, ice cream, and a walk out to the Emeryville Marina to see fireworks.

Grill review: I need to work on pacing for my grilling (particularly if it's to be a primary social activity rather than a get-the-food-on-the-table activity). The corn took longer than I expected, and the grilled veggies needed to be being plated as they came off rather than being stacked in the warmer. The meat (of many varieties -- everybody brought enough to share) generally worked out well. I'm starting to get the hang of the temperature variation on various parts of the grill surface, and how to alternate open-hood and closed-hood temperature manipulation. Since I have a stack of ungrilled leftover ingredients, I figure I'll do some more practicing this weekend.

Fireworks review: The fog was fickle. We walked out along the south side of Powell St and could see both the Jack London Square show (except for the lowest stuff which was hidden by intervening buildings and port equipment) and an assortment of probably unauthorized items from the West Oakland trajectory. As we got out past the fire station (where a couple of enterprising fire crew were hawking refreshments in support of the Special Olympics) we could see occasional cloud-glows from the San Francisco show, but it was clear that there wasn't any point in trying to position ourselves for a better western view. So we crossed over to the boat harbor by Trader Vics, then wandered slightly south to avoid the actual harbor view to take in the Berkeley show. Alas, there was a fairly solid fog river flowing in right over the Berkeley Marina, so we saw the lower half of about the first half of the show, and then the fog thickened and all we were getting was cloud-glow. We actually got a much better view of something roughly up Richmond way. I don't know if it was in Richmond proper (I wondered if they might be doing a show at the racetrack in Albany, but it could have been all the way out to the Hercules/Pinole area. And, of course, there were a lot of random (if less ambitious) unauthorized items sprinkled across the horizon. So it was a good evening for getting a sense of the scope of Bay Area firesworks in all their forms, but not as good for seeing a single show in all its glory. I keep thinking that some year I should bike off to the Berkeley Marina proper to see that one up close. (You do not attempt to drive around the waterfront to try to view the shows. In fact they usually barricade most of the relevant streets just to forestall the issue.)

A Sunday Bike Ride

So although thread_walker has higher priorities (which I wholeheartedly support) than another jaunt along Bear Creek Road tomorrow, I've decided I want to put in a couple hours of moderately strenuous bike riding tomorrow morning (if for nothing else, to work off some of yesterday's excellent BBQ). I'm thinking of BARTing over to SF and checking out how much time/effort it takes to bike to various museum and park locations (e.g., Presidio, Golden Gate Park) that I sometimes visit and where I generally haven't biked because I'd never checked out the logistics in advance. Hmm, this may require the picking up of a good route guide. I wouldn't be averse to adventurous-minded company on the ride. I'm not aiming for speed (since this will be largely urban) or massive hill-work (although one never knows), but definitely something more than a leisurely Sunday stroll. Tentatively I'm thinking of starting at the Embarcadero and working roughly counterclockwise around the city with the end-point determined by whim (and BART proximity). Anyone interested?

Posty Posty Posty (maps)

One of the weekend's projects has been to pull the several Boxes of Holding from the car and sort through and update what I really need to be carrying around these days. (E.g., the new car no longer requires that I carry a jug of radiator fluid at all times. And it's been a couple of vehicles since I really needed to carry extra oil as a general rule. And I really need to find a safe and eco-friendly way to dispose of a semi-used aerosol can of "super start spray" -- I believe it's basically pure ether -- which I picked up on some trip or other to snowy mountains when I was having trouble with starting. But today is about refurbishing the first aid kit and sorting through maps. The GPS now makes most of my map-hoarding proclivities unnecessary, so here's an inventory of what I'm discarding. (It will become obvious that I almost never throw maps out.) ( I added a few more items, but since this is really a for-fun meaningless post, there's no point in doing more than adding them. )