Author: marionvermazen

I am a traveler, hiker, avid reader, Sun alumnus, computer geek, Spanish and French language student, knitter and genealogist. I am retired after working for almost 30 years in the Computer Industry. I live in Reno, Nevada with my husband Duke.

The River’s Edge

How many places are truly unique? So many restaurants, stores, homes and towns feel like they are just copies of one another. It is rare to find a place and a restaurant, especially in the San Francisco bay area that is not just like all the others. I think maybe homogenization comes with population density.

A few weeks ago Duke and I took a long weekend and went up to the California gold country. On our way we stopped for lunch in Isleton, a small town on the Sacramento river delta. Isleton feels unique. The shops and restaurants all have character. The restaurant we stopped at for lunch is well worth going out of your way to eat at. This trip was the third time we have eaten at the River’s edge. Every meal we have had there has been special. The cafe is in an old renovated building. The hardwood floors look original and are accented by purple tile. The eggplant green and purple walls are decorated  with geometric modern art. The result is a warm wonderful feeling before you even open the menu.

But the food…………  ah my mouth is watering just thinking about it.  All the sandwiches come with salads, mine had fresh, wonderful, room temperature greens with a tangy raspberry dressing. My sandwich was chicken meatloaf and Duke’s was the roast lamb. Both were on homemade facacia bread with homemade mayonnaise that brought out the flavor of the meat.

The breakfast menu had my mouth watering too. So last weekend we drove out to the River’s Edge for breakfast and then took tours of the Jelly Belly factory and the Budweiser factory which are in nearby Fairfield. With all the rain we have had and the concern about the integrity of California’s levees it was interesting to drive on top of one of the levee’s along the river. Isleton feels like it is way below the level of the river. Our breakfast at the River’s Edge didn’t disappoint me.

The River’s Edge is worth making a special trip to visit.  Next time you are driving down highway 80 from the Bay Area to Sacramento take a detour to Isleton and the River’s Edge. You won’t regret it.

Neil Young: Heart of Gold

Duke and I saw Neil Young’s concert movie "Neil Young: Heart of Gold" tonight. It really moved me. There was an enormous  truth and honesty. It is just briefly mentioned in the beginning of the movie that Young found out that he had a brain aneurysm not long before the filming of the concert. It was filmed in the Reiman Theater in Nashville. Duke and I saw John Gill there on our honeymoon which probably helped me feel like I was there. Young’s wife was one of the backup singers. The obvious love between them was palpable. You could just see the communication that they shared with just a glance. The music was powerful. "Prairie Wind" reminded me of being a little girl in North Dakota. The song about writing a letter to my friends, the song "Harvest Moon", in fact every song entranced me. Music and great lyrics have a way of touching me emotionally that always surprises me. I came away feeling blessed and thankful for today and all I have. I kept reminding myself not to " be anxious about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself." 

Dinner and a Play

Some friends and I went to San Francisco for dinner and a play a couple of weeks ago. The play we saw was written and performed by Leslie Beam who used to work at Intuit. The play was miss-matches.com sex, Lies and Instant Messaging.  She did a wonderful job. The show was entertaining, thought provoking and fun. You couldn’t help but laugh at Leslie’s on-line dating and relationship experiences. I really admire people who have a dream and go for it. That is what Leslie did.

For dinner we went to Canteen. My friend Pat always makes our dinner reservations when we go out and she always picks wonderful places. Canteen was no exception. I highly recommend it. It is a tiny little gourmet restaurant with excellent food. It only seats 20 so reservations are hard to get but Canteen is well worth planning ahead for. I noticed when I read the Examiner review (linked to above) that they are open for breakfast. I’ll add that to my list of fun things I want to do. I just called Canteen. Their recording says that they do not take reservations for breakfast or lunch.

PortfolioMinder launched.

PortfolioMinder was released on Friday!! It is very exciting. We called it our soft launch because we only support one financial institution, Schwab. It is exciting to be creating a whole new software product but I find that like a new baby it is consuming me. I wake up in the morning thinking about PortfolioMinder and I spend way to much time working. It is pushing a lot of other stuff out of my life. Like Blogging. I haven’t posted here in almost three weeks. 

I’m really trying to maintain a work life balance but it is hard. I am really enjoying helping to create the PortfolioMinder end to end experience.  We have a blog (which I haven’t posted to yet) We have a forum. We have formed a network of financial advisors and other people interested in financial planning who are supporting the product. All of us are learning a lot every day and there is so much yet to learn and do. Building a support team who live all over the U.S. an exciting challenge but I’ve got a group of really great people to support the product.

We’ll be doing our marketing launch in the next month or so and will be supporting more financial institutions. Ameritrade and TD Waterhouse will be the next ones we support. That will be our marketing launch.

It is great to finally be selling PortfolioMinder. It should be an interesting next few months.

 

 

Las Vegas

Duke and I just got back from a nice 3 day mini vacation to Las Vegas. We left Sunday morning and just got back. We played some Black Jack and won enough to pay our air fare. Winning is sure a lot more fun than losing. We hadn’t been to Las Vegas in about 8 years and there are a lot of new casinos. The Venetian and the new Wynn Las Vegas were my favorites. We stayed at The Mandalay Bay which was very nice. We got a pretty good deal. I would definitely stay there again. We saw the show Mamma Mia which I would recommend if you want some light entertainment. It was enjoyable. I’m back to work tomorrow and the countdown to the launch of PortfolioMinder. It is getting close so all the support processes and systems are in final testing.