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.