People I know were on TV!

One of the best things about working at Intuit was the Quality Assurance people that I worked with. They were all professional, hard working and smart. One of them, Anders Mortinson, showed just how smart he is last Friday when he was on Jeopardy. You may have heard that  for the first time ever Jeopardy had a three way tie on Friday. As a result there was even a story about him  in our local paper. He also got to come back to compete again on Monday. A friend told me that at Intuit on Friday they had a pizza party and over
50 people ate pizza and watched the show. Scott Cook even attended.

Last Monday  my daughter Allison was on national TV too! She and her friends were visiting New York and could be seen in the crowd outside the Today Show on NBC. They also got to shake hands with Matt Lauer, Meredith Vieira, and Al Roker.  Allison is the one with an octopus on her head 🙂

Allison_on_today_002

Sunol Regional Park

The San Francisco bay Area has a lot of wonderful parks and spring is an especially beautiful time to visit. There are lots of wild flowers and all the hills that will be brown in the summer are beautiful and green right now. Last Sunday we put Aidan in the jogging stroller and went for a hike at Sunol Regional Park. Afterward we cooked polish sausage over a fire and enjoyed them in the picnic area at the trail head.Sunol_3182007_001

One of the good things about retirement

One of the lovely things about being retired is that for the first time in my life my daily schedule and agenda are under my control. My days were externally driven in childhood, in school, at  work, and then parenthood. Now I decide what I am going to do every day. I decide what is important and what isn’t. It is up to me! I absolutely cherish this freedom.

So, for example, last Tuesday I drove to Sunnyvale and had breakfast with a friend before taking her to the San Jose airport for her flight. Then back to Sunnyvale where I caught Cal Train to San Francisco for lunch with Allison.  The train service on the the San Francisco peninsula is wonderful and the scenery is great too. I walked to Allison’s office. It was a beautiful warm sunny day (rare for San Francisco). After we ate our sandwiches we sat in Yerba Buena park and talked before she had to go back to work. Then I walked back to the train and took it back to Sunnyvale.

My friend Linda’s house is near the train station. She I went out for dinner before our book club meeting. The book club book was Any Bitter Thing by Monica Wood. It was a wonderful very enjoyable book. I liked that it was well developed. The characters were very believable and it had a thought provoking and satisfying ending.

Tuesday was a perfect day partly at least because I was doing things I wanted to do.

Aidan

It is hard to believe, but my Grandson Aidan is now 6 months old. I am figuring out how to include more pictures in this blog and am playing around with Flickr so I thought I would share a couple of pictures with you. These were taken just after he had been to the doctor for his six month check up. You can see the band aid on his leg from the shots.

Aidan March 2007

Aidan January 2007

Yoshi’s concerts

In the last couple of weeks we saw two great concerts at Yoshi’s. In some ways they were opposites of each other but what they had in common was how much I enjoyed them.

On Tuesday, March 6 we saw Sean Jones. He is 28 and the lead trumpeter with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. I think all of the guys playing with him were younger than him and in fact a couple of them were still in school but wow! what talent. He only played for one night and it wasn’t sold out but it was clear that he is on the way up. It was wonderful to hear.

Last Sunday, March 11 we  got to see  Stanley Clark. His Yoshi’s bio said:

"
Bassist, composer, arranger, producer, bandleader and film score
composer, Stanley Clarke is one of the most celebrated bass players in
the world. For over thirty years, Clarke has received virtually every
honor – including a Grammy, seven Grammy nominations and three Emmy
nominations. He was voted Best Bassist by Playboy for 10 consecutive
years and is a member of Guitar Player‘s "Gallery of Greats."

Clark played for 2 shows a night for four nights and all the shows were sold out. I’ve never seen anyone play like him. Part of the time he played the bass like a guitar. The energy level and the music transported me. He is 55 . It was clear that I was in the presence of greatness.