Browse Category: outings

First Friday

On Friday afternoon, I flew to Phoenix to meet up with some old friends and to take a 2-day workshop for work.  Once I checked in to my hotel (a brand-spankin’ new Sheraton), I got online and found out that there’s an art district nearby AND they’re all free from 6-10pm on the first friday of every month.  Yay!  So, I hopped on the bus nearby and went to the Phoenix Art Museum to check it out.

It was certainly a find.  They had a variety of exhibits from artifacts to photographs, to modern art sculptures and mobiles.  Afterwards, I had a little Tex-Mex across the street from the hotel and finally got to dig in to the book I started 2 weeks ago.  Phoenix isn’t exactly a wild and crazy town but had enough to entertain me for an evening on my own.

Chefstruck

Some people get giddy around movie stars but I get all distracted when I see a famous chef wandering around his restaurant.  We had dinner with Yoon (in town for the weekend) at Incanto, which is where Chef Cosentino cooks.  He’s the dude who competed on Iron Chef and known for his ability to turn tuna hearts and calf kidneys into a 5-star dish.  Well, we weren’t very adventurous last night but the food was still very tasty.  Midway through the dinner I noticed the chef wandering around the dining room and hanging out at the bar and couldn’t help staring.

That same evening as I was waiting for my Muni train, I could have sworn that Jamie, of this season’s Top Chef NY, was standing right next to me waiting for her train too.  Just a few months ago I was having drinks at Orson and saw Chef Faulkner (another Iron Chef competitor) wandering around her restaurant. Living in SF is so much fun for a little foodie like me!

007 and Martinis

On Saturday night, we went out for our first movie in a theater since Superbad.  The Bangs got us tickets at Kabuki theatre, which serves booze in the balcony section – score!

There was a bar at the entrance and we were allowed to take our drinks into the theater with us.  The seats were extra comfy with consoles and cupholders between each of the seats.

So while the boys enjoyed their martinis, I had a tasty cosmo during my movie.  Overall, the movie was entertaining.  I like this new Bond.

Certified

This afternoon, we had our make-up session to complete Basic Keelboat Sailing II.  There was more wind today that made it much easier to understand the maneuvers.  We also got a much nicer 27-foot boat with a genoa, which was pretty neato.

The focus of today’s lesson was going through the Man Overboard Drill that involved throwing over a life jacket (our man overboard), making a figure-8 and sailing past the “man” with just the right speed and angle to pick it up out of the water.  In addition to today, we had to demonstrate a bunch of maneuvers to get checked off by our instructor and then we went back to the office and took the certification test.  Jes and I both passed the written test so we are officially certified in Basic Keelboat Sailing and can take out 20-foot sail boats on our own.

The next step is Basic Coastal Cruising, which is another weekend of lessons and another test.  Jes is going to take this one without me (to save money) and we should soon be able to take a larger boat out on the water on our own.  Yay!

Here are the photos from all three days.

Dud Sailing

This weekend, we had our 2-day Basic Keelboat Sailing 2 course.  It’s a continuation from the first weekend but our instructor was an older gentleman who was big on safety and was BO-RING.  He went by the book on classroom instruction and we spent a lot of time going through checklists and sailed very conservatively.

On Saturday, the weather was warm and the skies were blue without a cloud in the sky.  Although it was a great day to be on the water with a cold beer, it wasn’t a great day for sailing.  There’s no fun in sailing without wind.  We made it out to the bay but the wind died by the first half hour. By the afternoon, the ebb  was very strong (pretty much sucking us out of the bay) so we turned on the motor and headed in early.  The last hour was spent our docking maneuvers.

This morning, the weather looked more promising but we were tricked.  The no-wind conditions were similar to yesterday and we ended up floating on the water and practiced reefing the sail.  We decided to call it a day by 1:00 pm and revved up the motor.  Unfortunately the motor died half-way back and I thought we were going to have to call the AAA of sailing for a tow.  Fortunately for us, we got the motor running intermittently and sailed VERY SLOWLY back to the harbor.

So, we are rescheduled to go back and finish the class another day.  We still have to learn the Man Overboard maneuver and practice jibing and tacking few more times.  Once we’ve gotten all that down, there’s a written test to get our first certification.  It would have been nice to get it all done today but I guess it’s just extra time for me to study the ASA book.   Pray for wind next time!!

Ladies Night

On Saturday night I went to a bachelorette party for a co-worker and I realized that I hadn’t been out dancing in a very long time.  It started out with a rather tame dinner since we had a few “grown ups” with us.  I made a veil (hand sewn!!) for the bride-to-be and R. brought a pink boa to complete the look.  After dinner, we went to a bar and then a club that was just next door.  Once the grown ups left, there were 7 of us left and we had a good time dancing and booty-bumping with everyone.  The club was CROW-DED but made for a very festive celebration for the bride-to-be.  With a full day of sailing and sun and a dose of Dramamine, I was ready to go home by 11:30 pm.  It certainly wasn’t a crazy late night out but just enough activity for me.  I was asleep by midnight and not too drunk for another day of sailing ahead.