This post is a tad late, but our internet at home has been on the fritz on account of water in the coax lines.

I flew down to Del Mar on Thanksgiving Thursday morning and spent a relaxing day at Rand’s.  Here’s a turkey:

And here’s some homemade cranberry sauce (no canned stuff) in some sunlight.

With all the death and destruction in the tuna backbone post, I thought I’d do a bit of the opposite.

This video is from a recent trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium: quite possibly the most awesome aquarium on the planet.  These bluefin are in the aquarium’s ‘outer bay’ exhibit, a jaw dropping multi-story, 1 million gallon goldfish bowl.

Here’s a photo from a visit in 2004.  (photo is with the original digital rebel)

It was my birthday a few days ago.  After birthdays and Christmases when was but a youngin’ I was forced to write thank you notes for every gift I received.  I used to boiler plate them out like none other.  Even though each note was exactly the same, it taught me the importance of a handwritten letter.

Nowadays, the only handwritten thank you notes I write are to my grandma back in the bay area.  She sends me the nicest cards (and a few shiny nickels) on non-present giving holidays like Halloween, Valentines Day, Easter, and Thanksgiving–along with the usual gift giving holidays.

So, I got some niiiiice Vera Wang stationary and I jot her a nice little bread and butter note whenever she sends something.  Thanks Grandma!

At the Japanese Tea Garden, I saw this over exposed tree, so I took a picture.

Top of Tank Hill. Poppies holding of for dear life.

I heard about Tank Hill from Paula. It’s another one of those wonderously under-utilized assets in the city. It’s an easily accessible knoll on the Sutro Tower hill that has great views of San Francisco at sunset (and sunrise) and could be a prime location for a wind turbine power plant (it was windy as all hell). Put this in NYC, and you’d have a crowd every single night (see previous post). When I was there, there was only several other people.

One of the immediately shocking differences between New York City and San Francisco, is that, despite having very similar resources (world class dining, great parks, great events), New York City’s are guaranteed to be over crowded with a line around the corner, while things in San Francisco feel untouched…it feels like you’ve discovered a part of the city that no one else knows about. Such was the case with the Japanese Tea Garden. It was essentially empty unless you count the ducks, but they’re not people. Put the gardens in NYC with a warm spring evening and this place would be ruined.

I like the sun and I like Japanese Maples, so here’s a photo of the two enjoying each other’s company.

One of the many amazing places I’ve never been in the Bay Area is the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park. I showed up 2 minutes before closing (6pm) but they let me stay until 6:45. It’s a beautifully landscaped park, but I saw no sign of any tea.

One of the many great things about the Bay Area…affordable abundant fresh produce. It was amazing. There were just cartons of raspberries everywhere. So I ate them.

Every year after Sushi Club, David and I usually head up to Tahoe for a couple days of snowboarding. This year was no different, yet unimaginably enjoyable (as usual).

This photo was taken on the last day (with a little point and shoot). Something magical was going on over Lake Tahoe that afternoon.

I’m settling in permanently at Motionbox. It’s pretty intense, because I’m so blistering edge that when I disengage (aka go home), I feel behind. Apparently there’s a huge YouTube meetup on 7.7.07 in NYC that I didn’t know about. Arg, that should be fun tho, maybe it’ll be mandatory market research for work. That’s pretty big news in the industry. I spend so much time at work playing with every other video site, debugging/testing ours, blogging or writing industry news or keeping track of my 100+ feeds in goog reader that I’m out of steam for gregtakayama.com. I almost wish I could post what I write at about work–it’s fairly well written with embeds and graphics–but I’d probably be violating my NDA.

Well here’s a picture of home. Framed pictures of doors with a window. (Sensia 400)

I went to a Yelp Elite event. Free wine and snacks. Cool bookstore. I think I’m about 4 years too young for that crowd. Yelp has nice people…as opposed to myspace, but I think I’m social networking outside of my age group.

A cat named Muffin. Sensia 400.