As some of you may know, I’ve been working on a website with my friend Ron. Well, we finally launched the site, though it is what I would call very early beta. The purpose of the site is to quantify the myriad of product reviews on the internet to create the definitive list of top products. For the initial release, we have focused on digital cameras, but plan to extend it to everything that is reviewed on the ‘net. The site’s a little slow and the interface still needs work, but please check it out and drop me any comments or suggestions. The site is http://www.review-summaries.com/.

Well, it’s not really a Blue Monday. It’s not particularly sad, nor is the sky blue, I just like the phrase. I don’t usually like to post blogs without pictures, but I think I should once in a while, otherwise it may be even longer between entries.

I had a pretty nice weekend. Played basketball on Saturday as usual. We only had 7 people, but it’s still fun. I didn’t play all that well, but I had fun anyway. In the afternoon, Mary and I went for lunch ad Red Brick Pizza. They have pretty good pizza and their Fhazani sandwiches are great. They’re basically sandwiches in a folded pizza crust.

After lunch we went to Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge. We go there quite a bite since it’s not too far from home. We usually go there to look for birds. This time we saw two peregrine falcons hunting in some fields just outside the park. We watched them for quite a while, but I didn’t get any good pictures. The picture on the left is from last year. We’ve seen tons of cool birds around there including northern harriers, red-tailed hawks, red-shouldered hawks, American kestrels, white-tailed kites, Cooper’s hawks, barn owls, burrowing owls, black-necked stilts, American avocets, dowitchers, curlews, pelicans, terns, swallows, ducks, geese and many more. We also see various types of rabbits there. You can see more pictures in my wildlife gallery and my Don Edwards gallery.

Saturday night we went to San Francisco for a birthday dinner for our friend, Jane. We went to a contemporary Vietnamese restaurant called Slanted Door. It’s right on the bay front with nice views of the Bay Bridge and the East Bay. The food was quite good, but it’s definitely not cheap.

On Sunday we planned to go to Point Reyes National Seashore. Point Reyes is the place we went on our first real date many moons ago, so we celebrate that day (October 11) as our anniversary. On our anniversary we went to dinner at E&O Trading Company in San Jose, which is a Southeast Asian Grill. We love their Indonesian Corn Fritters. Anyway, on Sunday the weather was not so nice, so we skipped the trip to Point Reyes.

We did end up getting some exercise on Sunday. We went back to Don Edwards. We jogged/walked the 5.5 mile Mallard Slough Trail. There are a lot of American white pelicans out there now. We didn’t see any falcons this time, but we did see some northern harriers. You can see the trail route I plotted on a cool site called Gmaps Pedometer (click here). After the exercise, we had a late lunch at one of my favorite taquerias: Taqueria Los Cunados. They have great burritos and horchata. I also love their salsa verde!

In the evening, we met up with Ashish, Jeff and Di for pearl tea at Tapioca Express. Then we grabbed some Subway sandwiches and headed back to Ashish’s place to watch a few episodes of Dark Angel. We finally finished season 1, and just started season 2. [Note: This image was borrowed from IMDb without consent.]

That brings us back to Monday, which is now half over since I’ve spent so much time on this blog! I’d better go hit the gym then head to my office (Panera Bread). Until next time…

I’m back in San Jose after my week long trip to Erie. The trip was pretty good. It’s always nice to visit with my family. My brother Mike and his son Nick arrived on Friday. We went from the airport straight to Presque Isle. We drove around Presque Isle for a while, and stopped at the Perry Monument. It was really windy and a bit chilly, so we didn’t walk around much. We did stop at the new Tom Ridge Environmental Center. It’s not bad, but I’ve definitely seen better science centers.

On Saturday morning, Mike, Nick, Teresa, Dan Brandy (the dog) and I went for a walk at the Wintergreen Gorge. We started at the bottom and hiked up past Behrend College for a nice view at the top. The leaves are starting to change color, so there were some nice views. The walk is not too long but there are some pretty steep sections.

Later on Saturday Mike, Nick and I walked to Lake Erie from my cousin Tom’s house. We crossed over “the creek” that my family used to visit when we all lived in Erie. We walked along a short nature path and learned about the local trees. At the lake we tried our hands at skimming stones and found some “lake glass”.

The post-nuptial reception for Nick and Natasha was on Sunday. It was held at a place called the Riverside Inn a little ways south of Erie. There were about 130 people at the reception. It was pretty nice. As you can see in this picture, Nick and Natasha didn’t get too dirty with the cake cutting. During the reception I played a video I made from the wedding in India. You can download a smaller copy of it from here (19 MB WMV).

On Monday I went out for Buffalo wings with Ann, Howard, Teresa, Chuck, Kathy, Colleen and Mark. I ate a ton of wings. I guess I ate way too much the whole week. It’s time for me to get back into the gym routine. The flight home on Tuesday was long but uneventful. I did get to see a nice sunrise on the flight from Erie to Cincinnati. It was a great trip, but I’m glad to be home.

My nephew Nick’s post-nuptial reception is this weekend, so I flew to Erie for the event. I flew out of San Jose early on Wednesday and had to stop in Atlanta and Cincinnati along the way. The flights were generally uneventful, except the final leg to Erie. There was a big thunderstorm which we had to fly around, but I had a spectacular views of the lightning along the way.

On Thursday, I went out to play some golf with my brother Chuck and nephew Mike. I really don’t know how to play golf. This was only the third time in my life. I was really quite bad, but managed a couple decent shots. The course was a bit wet and the air was a little chilly, but the sun was out and we all had a good time. Maybe I’ll play again in another six years…

It’s nice spending time with the family. It’s too bad two of my sisters are no able to make it here for the reception, but the rest of my siblings will be here as well as most of my nieces and nephews. This is my first visit to Erie since my mom passed away. She will be sorely missed by all.