[Super Duper Fantastic] ISFP/INFP. 4w5. World Explorer. Super Hero. Rose-colored Glasses.

I’m starting to build a routine for my Saturdays – Pilates with Chase and volunteering at the SPCA [hopefully taking photos of cats and dogs!]. This weekend, however, only one of those was scheduled in because there was a cupcake crawl in the East Bay to attend! Seeing as how this would involve sweets, I opted to pair the cupcake crawl with a workout beforehand. Well, it was more like Chase would be attending, so it just seemed easier to stick to one side of the bay for the day.

We caught up with everyone at the second stop of the crawl, La Farine. Kirsten and Stephen came too! Here [pictured right.] she is with the chocolate cupcake from La Farine. It was a little on the sweeter side, and the vanilla cupcake from the same place was much preferred. While the cake was a bit more flaky, the BLUE frosting [pictured left] was tastier.

Our second stop was at Sweet Adeline Bakeshop. They weren’t quite ready when we first arrived, but when they delivered, they really DELIVERED. I think of all the stops, they had the most variety of flavors. At Sweet Adeline, we tried the Guinness Chocolate, Red Velvet, and Banana. There were quite a few others, but I was a little late in line and missed some of the other goodies. I snoozed, therefore, I lost.

After the sweetness overload of the two stops, we took a savory break with fried chicken sandwiches at Bakesale Betty. Crispy, spicy, and tasty! There was a ridiculous line that went down half the relatively long block, but it moved quickly. With the sandwich in our bellies, there wasn’t much room for anything else. Still, we pushed on.

The second to last stop for the crawl was Cupkates, but it was our last stop. Cupkates is a cupcakery on wheels, so you have to follow their Twitter account for their locations! They planned out the cupcake crawl where the mobile cupcakes would meet us close by. We tried the Smores, Lemon Raspberry, Pumpkin Spice, and Double Vanilla [pictured below in order].

Yum, but too many cupcakes for the day! Luckily, I learned from my previous experiences with Cupcake Camp, so we shared a lot of the cupcakes. We know better than to stuff our faces with entire cupcakes at once when we need to really conserve as much space as possible.

More photos from the cupcake crawl: here.

On Wednesday evening, I had the opportunity to attend an early screening of Robert Kenner’s Food, Inc. [Thanks, Yelp!] in downtown SF, followed by a Q&A session with Kenner and Michael Pollan, author and activist. It was definitely an eye-opener and a reminder that we are what we eat. The film exposed the food industry for what it is, how it got that way, and we’re going to have to do to fix the problems. A handful of corporations control the food supply, basically giving up maintaining the health of consumers, safety of workers, as well as the environment, for money.

One of the featured stories of the film details the struggles of one mother while fighting for regulatory agencies to have more power and involvement in oversight of the various meat producers after her two-year-old fell victim to E. Coli. Another focused on genetically modified seeds, and the harm caused when all a corporation focused on was making money and taking over the market share. This not only wiped out any chance of a seed that wasn’t genetically modified, but it put people who relied on the processes required for maintaining seeds out of jobs.

To say the least, the film is graphic. Animals are slaughtered on screen. It’s not recommended for those who cannot stomach it. Food, Inc. is very informative and doesn’t end in a bitter note. In fact, there are easy ways for making steps in the right direction when it comes to food. They list ten simple ways [click for more details!] to change the food system.

1) Stop drinking sodas and other sweetened beverages. [Yup, I don't do this much anyway.]
2) Eat at home instead of eating out. [Guess I'm learning to cook!]
3) Support the passage of laws requiring chain restaurants to post calorie information on menus and menu boards. [A given, really! What do they have to hide unless they don't know either?]
4) Tell schools to stop selling sodas, junk food, and sports drinks. [Many school districts have done this.]
5) “Meatless Mondays” – Go without meat one day a week. [Isn't that Friday for some?]
6) Buy organic or sustainable food with little or no pesticides. [I think true organic is hard to find, but we can try.]
7) Protect family farms; visit your local farmer’s market. [Yes, luckily there are a ton of farmers' markets in San Francisco.]
8) Make a point to know where your food comes from – READ LABELS. [It's surprising what you will find.]
9) Tell Congress that food safety is important to you. [Clearly, not enough is being done.]
10) Demand job protections for farm workers and food processors, ensuring fair wages and other protections. [Absolutely!]

Highly recommended film. The movie is a pretty general picture, touching on a lot of different areas. Ignorance isn’t bliss. It’s your life!

So now I have more to add to the reading list: The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, and Fast Food Nation. There are others! Yes, I know that I should have picked those up long ago.

After sending both photos to the sister and consulting with RV right before the purchase, we picked the winner. Hideous, right? Best of all, I just threw it over the sweater that I already had on for work.

I am attending an Ugly Sweater party this evening. So I stopped in at a local thrift store to pick out the most hideous sweater I could find. It took a little while. Seems that there aren’t an abundance of ugly sweaters at the particular thrift shop that I stopped into. I finally did end up with two candidates in the ugly sweater vest category – a light blue one and a bright purple one.

Pretty awful, right?

I’ve not yet uploaded the photos from the holiday party. In fact, I’m behind in the uploading of other pictures taken in November! I love how every time I write, I’m playing catch up, and I’m in awe of how time quickly goes by and how everything seems to change at an equally rapid pace, despite how very little seems to change.

Everything changes, while nothing changes.

It’s foggy and misty outside today. Just a little bit romantic. It’s “wrap yourself up in a blanket and watch a movie” weather. It’s “going down to a coffee shop and sipping on some hot cocoa as you watch the sprinkling outside” weather.

Instead of working today, I decided to “clean my room.” So I ended up uploading photos from the Yelp event this past Thursday. There was a party at the Contemporary Jewish Museum with the theme based on their latest exhibit “Warhol’s Jews: Ten Portraits Reconsidered.”

The event lasted from 6:30 to 8:30, so in that time, attendees had a chance to run through the special exhibit. Definitely not as exciting as the rest of Warhol’s work. You know, the stuff he’s famous for, but still interesting. Here’s the blurb from the museum website on the exhibit:

Andy Warhol’s extraordinary series, Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century, portrays a pantheon of great Jewish thinkers, politicians, performers, musicians, and writers. Included in the series are such celebrated figures as Sarah Bernhardt, Louis Brandeis, Martin Buber, Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, the Marx Brothers, Golda Meir, George Gershwin, Franz Kafka, and Gertrude Stein. This exhibition is the first time Warhol’s original paintings have been shown on the West Coast as part of a major exhibition about the series and the individuals it portrays.

First shown at The Jewish Museum, New York in 1980, Ten Portraits was met with both critical response and praise. While many were skeptical of the artist’s intentions, others applauded his new language of color, geometric shape, and sharp line. The series represents an important and influential body of work as well as an homage to these extraordinary figures of the twentieth century.

Pop artist, Jenny Wehrt, had some of her artwork on display at the party.

There was even a fashion show for a local boutique with Yelpers as models. RV and Keane were asked to model! I didn’t get good shots of the runway, but I took a few videos. I was using a camera that I rarely use [even though I spent $$ and time looking for it a few years ago!]. Of course, I caught up with some of the models later on.

It was so much fun! For those who want to check out the exhibit, it is running through January 25, 2009.

Just some random photos from this evening’s shenanigans at the Yelp event at Eastside West in the Marina. The restaurant ownership changed, so I suppose this was a way to get their name back on the grid. For the Yelp kids though, it’s just another chance to get crazy, check out a new venue, eat good food, sample some drinks, and dance the night away.

As far as I can remember [which isn't very far], never have I woken up after a Yelp Event in my clothes from the night before, bucket of shame [thankfully, empty] and bottle of water next to my bed, wondering where I left my purse which has the cell phone that’s ringing its alarm. I have been subsequently informed that we made five stops [yes, FIVE *holding up a hand for effect*] along the road. Apparently, a majority of those stops were between Pier 33 and Montgomery. Thank goodness for street cleaners! So five stars for each of those five stops along the road for me to puke my happy little guts out. [This was taken directly from a review I'd written earlier in the day. I couldn't be bothered to write it all up again.]

*sigh*

It was a rough day, to say the least. Add the fact that I’m about to meet up with an unwanted visitor… You know, the Aunt that women dread their monthly rendezvous? It’s never pleasant.

*sigh*

I can’t wait for this week to be OVER.

A great time last night at the Computer History Museum! Some of the gang came down from San Francisco, so I didn’t feel completely out of place. Anytime I’m at these Silicon Valley events, I feel a little lost. There was a photo booth, so we all took some pictures in front of a very pink background. Photos: here. Here’s part of my review of the museum:

It was not only the perfect venue for a gathering to celebrate my love of all things geeky, but it has inspired a change in my life. From this point forward, I have added a new requirement for future boyfriend[s]: Must be able to appreciate the Computer History Museum. Take note – hah!

The lower level features an awesome room called “Visible Storage,” where you’ll find unique artifacts, from mechanical calculators and old school keyboards to the vintage PCs, historical firsts and exotic supercomputers. One of the docents pointed out the Honeywell 316, a $10K computer to assist housewives of the late 60s in the kitchen, assuming that they took a course to read binary. Very amusing.

This room is also where you will find the PDP-1 [Programmed Data Processor-1] Restoration Project. Got to meet Peter Samson, one of the original students/hackers/programmers who got to work with it back in the day.

I didn’t look closely at everything. I must return. Most likely, a weekend since their hours during the weekdays aren’t very long. There is a lot to see and the hour or so spent looking around was not enough. The next time, I will definitely take a docent-led tour. Lots of nifty info for a computer geek and non [me!] alike!

Sometimes I just do not have more to say than a few phrases or sentences that amount to fewer than 140 characters [size of a typical Twitter/Plurk]. Other times, I’ll write essays. Usually, I don’t because it’s hard for me to stay on topic for so long. I leave the long paragraphs for Yelp reviews where I can sneak in a little bit of personal experience with commentary on a given business.

Several questions I thought about recently:

1. What is your blog about?
Nobody ever told me that I needed a topic. It’s about my life and my observations on life. Nothing spectacular. It serves as a way for my friends to keep an eye on me. It’s also useful in reminding myself about my life. I tend to forget. Isn’t that sufficient?

2. Who are you with?
I’m with my friends. I’m with myself. What does it matter? But seriously, I attend these techie parties because I am just interested. I also seem to get along better with those not in my industry. I do need to find a better answer for the question though. It is also funny to witness changes in attitude once someone [who was all up in the party to network] finds out you’re not in the industry. It doesn’t happen often, but there were a few cases. Amusing.

Sidenote: This site makes my day: Totally Looks Like… Famous People and Celeb Look-A-Likes.