Food for Cause

Michelle's friend, Jiwon, the maid of honor in our wedding (that is her on the left), will be cooking for charity this Thursday night in The Mission. Mission Street Food is an amazing undertaking by local chefs giving back...with proceeds going to local charity It is gourmet for a good cause. It takes place twice a week in a rented space in a Chinese restaurant.
Click on the title to check it out.

Spring Running

It is darker later, it is warming up...that can only mean one thing...more productive running.

I veered from my usual local tonight, a not too scenic city/residential run for a nice change of pace. You can check out the route in the link. It is a nice little 5mile Monday warm-up.

Biggest Winners

I do not know a a group of athletes with more heart and determination than this group, the San Francisco Seals. Despite not winning a single game over the weekend they showed tremendous spirit and through it all were all smiles at the end because they know they are winners no matter what the score says. From 13 year old Gerrard to 65+ year old Willie this team gave it their all and I could not be more proud.

Happy Belated Birthday Lawrence Ferlinghetti

I am a day late with this but feel it is still important to point out this out...
One of San Francisco's cherished literary icons -- poet, painter and City Lights publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti -- celebrated his 90th birthday yesterday.

Back when I first moved to San Francisco I had the pleasure of speaking with Ferlinghetti. I was doing a spot for something, I am not sure for what, but I wanted to use a quote from a Ferlinghetti poem so I called him asking for permission. I was a expecting to speak to an agent, assistant or some other minion but got the poet laurette himself. What a joy.

Ferlinghetti is now hard at work trying to transform a small block of Vallejo Street in historic North Beach into what would be called the Piazza Saint Francis, an Italian-style piazza, with inscriptions on the paving stones from up to 30 or 40 authors, mostly poets.

North Beach is an ideal place to do this, not just because of its Italian flare. The neighborhood consistently shows some of the highest pedestrian counts in the city, yet lacks a lot of usable public space.

Windy 6 miles SF Run

Evenings like tonight are quite deceptive in SF. The sun is setting and it looks pleasant but hiding around the corner is a nasty wind. As always you can check out the route in link.

I am feeling I am falling into a bit of rut with my distances and routes lately. I am not bored, running never is for me, but expect some new locals in the future. Seattle in June.

Monsters vs. Aliens - Modesto

Saw the advanced screening tonight and it is not good. I thought it would have improved since I saw the rough version about 6 months ago but no. The only good thing about it is SF is featured as well as Modesto. Yes, Modesto. It is the main character's hometown....that and a few cheap shots at Fresno. One thing I did notice was the barrier on the Golden Gate Bridge...a much battled over addition many want. Does Dreamworks know something the rest of us do not?

First Run of Spring

It did not look a lot like Spring since we are expecting rain today...just a little, but it was the first run of Spring for me. You can check out the map in the link.

Stewart vs. Cramer - TV the winner

I, like the rest of you, watched Jon Stewart take down CNBC (I don't say Jim Cramer since he's just a face/whipping boy for CNBC and does a show using bells and whistles to make the boring idea of finance TV more interesting and for this I give him a hell of a lot of credit). What no one is talking about is the power of good content and right now the content king is still TV. Sure the video has been watched my millions online and millions more words have been written about it on blogs and websites but the event happened on TV. The Obama Inauguration happened on TV. If you have good content people will turn out in droves.

On an aside, you can't always blame somebody for passing on bad information. CNBC was given bad information from company CEOs and acted on it. The White House, the British Government, the French and just about everyone else was given bad information about Saddam Hussein and acted on it. People lie to survive, make money, and advance. People will be taken advantage of. Does it hurt? Yes. Will we stop it? No, you can't change human nature.

Lastly, when it comes down to it CNBC is not even near the top of the list of villians surrounding this mess. As long as people were making money they were going to turn their heads. The SEC knew what was going on and it did not act. As long as home prices continued to climb who was going to say anything? As long as the stock market rose who was going to stop it?

Come on Lottery!

San Francisco is bucking the trend again, no surprise there. Here are some interesting numbers when it comes to real estate prices in this economy. Seems like despite the downturn seen elsewhere prices in SF keep going up. What is a person like me to do?


Condos/Lofts/TICs February 2004 v. 2006 v. 2008 v. 2009


District 1 Feb ‘04 Feb ‘06 Feb ‘08 Feb ‘09
Number of sales 8 24 8 2
Median price$625,000 $712,500 $995,000 $1,177,500
Average D.O.M. 34 52 50 24

District 2 Feb ‘04 Feb ‘06 Feb ‘08 Feb ‘09
Number of sales 4 4 2 2
Median price $599,500 $607,500 $310,000 $612,500
Average D.O.M. 52 52 56 62

District 3 Feb ‘04 Feb ‘06 Feb ‘08 Feb ‘09
Number of sales 2 5 1 0
Median price $435,000 $535,000 $649,000 n/a
Average D.O.M. 4 60 90 n/a

District 4 Feb ‘04 Feb ‘06 Feb ‘08 Feb ‘09
Number of sales 6 3 6 2
Median price $481,250 $509,000$618,000 $727,000
Average D.O.M. 18 74 91 55

District 5 Feb ‘04 Feb ‘06 Feb ‘08 Feb ‘09
Number of sales 29 54 37 19
Median price $650,000 $660,500 $789,000 $785,000
Average D.O.M. 50 53 43 73

District 6 Feb ‘04 Feb ‘06 Feb ‘08 Feb ‘09
Number of sales 19 29 22 7
Median price $560,000 $579,000 $812,500 $699,000
Average D.O.M. 36 35 63 77

District 7 Feb ‘04 Feb ‘06 Feb ‘08 Feb ‘09
Number of sales 22 23 19 6
Median price $772,500 $965,000 $1,249,000 $1,350,000
Average D.O.M. 29 33 21 79

District 8 Feb ‘04 Feb ‘06 Feb ‘08 Feb ‘09
Number of sales 53 35 36 18
Median price $600,000 $659,900 $584,500 $1,289,200
Average D.O.M. 62 60 61 61

District 9 Feb ‘04 Feb ‘06 Feb ‘08 Feb ‘09
Number of sales 89 82 35 9
Median price $499,000 $674,500 $685,000 $600,000
Average D.O.M. 51 50 65 81

District 10 Feb ‘04 Feb ‘06 Feb ‘08 Feb ‘09
Number of sales 6 5 0 10
Median price $378,500 $658,000 n/a $360,500
Average D.O.M. 56 323 n/a 157

The only area seeing a drop is the Hunter's Point area, otherwise known as a toxic dump or 'da hood. Besides prices going up so too are Days On the Market, which is not surprising since people have less money now to buy.

Korean Ketchup

What ketchup is to Americans, I think Gochujang is to Koreans. Gochujang is a red pepper and bean paste that will fire up your taste buds. It is nothing like ketchup, other than it is red. Gochujang is not for dipping or as runny as ketchup, but it seems like gochujang is in 25% of all Korean dishes. (okay, maybe an exaggeration). But it seems like just about every dish at the Korean market deli is red with red pepper or gochujang.
I do think gochojang would be good in a hamburger patty, maybe a little on a hotdog, but never on fries.

Pie Fight

Whimsical San Francisco showed up tonight at Powell and Market for a shaving cream PIE FIGHT!
Why you ask? Because sometimes you just need to feel like a kid. We often get caught up with so many mundane things in life and forget to enjoy ourselves. I challenge each of you to do something before Monday that makes you feel young and alive.

New feature?

"you commie, homo-loving sons of guns"
-Sean Penn
"I think that it is a good time for those who voted for the ban of gay marriage to sit and reflect on their great shame..."

Testing blog writer

Testing a mobile blog writer app. While I am at it...why doesn't SF have free city-wide wi-fi by now?

Korean Knowledge

I thought it might be nice to start a regular feature on this blog passing along some useful information on Korean culture and history from time to time. A sort of get to know Korea through me...through my wife. I have done this sporadically in previous entries but I am now going to make it more of a regular occurence.

To start though, I offer some quick pointers in behavior for those not accustomed to being around Koreans:

1. If you meet a Korean anywhere, never ask "North or South?" North Koreans have no freedom to travel outside of their country -- that's what it means to have a communist dictatorship. The only place that you will likely meet a North Korean is within North Korea; at that point, you wouldn't really have to ask. Everywhere else, all Koreans are South Koreans

2. Do not make a Korean person around you a representative of his/her race. Do not ask questions like "Why are Korean girls so slutty?" or "Why are Korean people so loud?" because the answers will be either wrong or incomplete. Do you know all there is to know about your heritage?

3. Yes, all Koreans eat Kimchee. Don't even bother asking. Kimchee holds a special place in Korean culture which I am sure I will outline in forthcoming posts.

New Stairs

I have a new training route in the Presidio. This past week they opened up a new path called "1000 Steps" leading from Immigrant Overlook to Lincoln and the water. It is pretty spectacular...and kicked my ass.

Cherry Blossom Time

The first blooms of spring are out...yes, spring. The cherry blossom trees are showing off on my street. Another reason I love the street I live on.

Best and Worst Downtowns

I am not one to bag on Fresno (at least not too much). I always tell people I met some of my closet friends in Fresno. I got a good chuckle out of a new report ranking the best and worst downtowns in California. The best: San Francisco. The worst: Fresno. Needless to say I have lived in both and agree. Check out the short read in the link, it is quite entertaining. I like this the best:
"...next to it (San Francisco) every other big city in California resembles a glorified suburb."

Twittering the Superbowl

I am amazed and perplexed by Twitter all at once. I am amazed how it has become so popular so fast. Twitter was able to track 'tweets' (Twitter messages) that related to the Superbowl during the game. Not only does it show you the world-wide interest in the Superbowl, which we know, but it also shows you how fast Twitter has spread around the world since it started in 2006 right here in SF.

Other interesting facts: seems like more people were interested in Europe than Canada. South Dakota doesn't even show up on the Twitter radar but Laos and Cambodia does.

Web Cam

I finally broke down a purchased a web cam for the laptop, not that I have any uses for it. I wish I did. Maybe getting the camera will be the kick in the butt to find some. I also signed up for Skype and Windows Live. I tried to download Google Video and Audio chat but have failed so far.

Skype is really cool and I have wanted to use it for sometime so if you are a Skype user let me know because right now I do not have any contacts on Skype. The best thing about Skype is your can do a video call to anywhere in the world with another person using Skype and the call is free. My co-worker Henry has a son in Europe and they are using it, each video call is free.

The web cam got me thinking about communicating online. The beauty of email and messaging online is one can really speak their mind and not have to worry about actions or reactions. Having a webcam kind of eliminates that animosity.

Happy New Year

Considering it has the world's largest population, it is not surprising China is most known for its Chinese New Year, with it lavish celebrations and fireworks. However it is really the Lunar New Year which is celebrated by many Vietnamese, Koreans or any culture following the moon instead of the Roman calander.

In Korea, "sol-nal" is a time to sweep away the misfortunes of the previous year and look forward to new endeavors.

On New Year's Eve, people place straw shovels, sieves or rakes on their doors and walls to protect their families from any evil spirits arriving with the new year. The New Year's day ceremonies begin in the morning with the donning of formal dress (hanbok) by family members. The first component of the day's activities is the rite of charye, or the honoring of the past four generations of ancestors. Food and drink (the exact form of which varies according to regional and family traditions) are offered on a ritual table (charye sang).

It is traditional in Korea to thoroughly clean your house. Continuing the theme of renewal, only new clothes are worn on New Year's Day.

Family members wish each other prosperity and good fortune. Then they exchange gifts. Children receive lucky money, candy and fruit from the elders.

Children kneel and bow to their ancestors and elders.
After this act of reverence is completed, it is time to pay one's respects to the living elders of the family (saebae. This takes the form of younger family members bowing deeply to the elders, first to the grandparents, then the parents, then the uncles and aunts. The bow is accompanied by the New Year's greeting "Sae-hae boke mahn-he pah-du-sae-oh." Usually, the elders give something to the people offering saebae: food, money, drink or something similar. In the old days, these rituals would have been performed door to door, but in today's Korea, family is quite spread out, so Sol-nal offers a family a good excuse to travel back home.

Michelle tells me this is the worst time to travel. Since the majority of younger people live in Seoul and travel to country. A trip that normally may take 3 hours will take 10 hours.

Finally, it is time to sit down to the traditional breakfast, a meal which almost always includes ttok-guk. Ttok-guk is a thick beef broth with thinly sliced rice cakes that have been topped with green onions and other colorful garnishes. Some people eat ttok-guk mandu guk instead, which is ttok-guk with mandu dumplings. Tradition dictates that this food must be eaten in order to turn one year older. This is very important as Korean age is calculated on the New Year. Everyone becomes one year older on New Year's Day.