Winterfest party!

It's the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition's 12th Annual Auction, Art Show, Party & Fundraiser!

The biggest and baddest bike party of the year brings sweet items to bid on and buy -- from bags and bikes to restaurant gift certificates and dates with local celebrities. In addition, 60 pieces of incredible local art will be up for sale!

Where: SOMArts Gallery (Brannan @ 8th St)
When: Dec. 2nd from 6-10:30pm
SFBC members:$10+/Sliding scale
Non-SFBC members: $25 (includes new SFBC membership!)

Proceeds from the fundraiser go directly toward improving biking conditions in San Francisco so all cyclists have a comfortable, safe and dignified ride about town.

Come one, come all!

What a disaster!

In talking to my sister the other day I was surprised to discover that she had not heard about the giant oil spill in the Bay.  To bring those friends and family members that do not live in the Bay area up to speed, here's what happened:

A Giant mother-ass sized container ship collided with the Bay Bridge last Wednesday. The collision ripped a gash in the fuel tank of the Hong Kong-based Cosco Busan, unleashing 58,000 gallons of thick, toxic fuel oil into the Bay. In the week since the incident, the deadly oil has tarred thousands of birds and dozens of marine mammals. The oil spill couldn't have happened at a worse time for the roughly 1.6 million migrating birds that come to San Francisco Bay each year. Hundreds of thousands of migrating birds are threatened as a result of the oil spill. The toxic oil can kill birds outright and sicken others, depending on how much oil they consume. If the oil gets on their feathers, they can't keep warm.

To date, nearly 1,500 birds have been picked up dead or alive; however, thousands more birds and ducks have been splashed with oil but remain in the wild where they will probably die.

Birds aren't the only oil spill victims. Sea lions and harbor seals have also been exposed to the oil. Some 37 of the 244 sea lions counted at Pier 39 in San Francisco were oiled. Harbor seals have been seen swimming through the oil slick.

This is a devastating disaster that will have environmental consequences for the next 10-20 years.

On a more positive note, the first birds (38 in total) helped to survive the spill were released to the wild yesterday.

What you can do to help:

To volunteer: call the Oiled Wildlife Care Network at (800) 228-4544, or email Baykeeper at volunteer@baykeeper.org.

To report oiled wildlife: call the OWCN hotline at (877) 823-6926.

To report oil sightings, call (985) 781-0804.

Donate to:
International Bird Rescue Research Center: http://www.ibrrc.org/

Oiled Wildlife Care Network: http://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/owcn/

Save the Bay: http://www.savesfbay.org

I have asked my family to make donations to the above organizations in lieu of presents this Christmas.

Clever concept

A new, fast, casual concept restaurant called Citrine has just opened in Redwood City. What's new and different about this concept restaurant is that its owner is not some inspired yet undercapitalized entrepreneur, but Safeway! No, Citrine is not in a foodservice section of an existing supermarket -- it is a stand alone concept.

The experience
It essentially cafeteria style -- so you stand in line, place your order, serve yourself coke or iced tea and then grab a seat. They give you this gadget card thing when you order that you place in the thingamajiggy on your table that notifies the staff where you are sitting so that they can bring the food to you.

The restaurant caters to busy dash and diners. If you want, you can order your food online and pick it up.

The atmosphere
The atmosphere is cute and vibrant! It's a peppy, perky little place. Booth and table seating is available and the booths come equipped with electrical outlets so that you can plug in your laptop.

The decor is modern, yet comfortable.

The food
The food is called "world-bistro." It is fresh and high quality and everything we saw coming out of the kitchen looked good. The menu is divided up by region (Pacific Rim, Mediterranean, Latin & Caribbean, American and New World) and every region is represented by entrees, sandwiches, soups, salads, side orders and desserts. Menu items include everything from grilled Asian pork loin, to Italian pizzas to Jamaican grilled shrimp. A wide selection of selection of the world's wines, beers, coffees and teas are also offered. In addition, there's a cute children's menu with enticing items such as Ninja Stir Fry.

The service
The staff was awesome! Numerous nametag-clad cheery individuals stopped by to check on us and see if we wanted to order anything else or if they could refill our beverages.

The price
Everything on the menu is reasonably priced with entrees ranging from $8.99 to $13.99. And, if you can believe it, they do NOT accept. Tips. I repeat, THEY DO NOT ACCEPT TIPS! Apparently any and all tips left on the table are donated to the local food bank.

The company
Could not be beat!

Leaving on a jet plane

I am heading to the windy city for work tomorrow. What a drag. What's wrong with that you may wonder, well, I'll tell you:

1. I have to give a presentation to our entire team. I really dislike presenting. No matter how well prepared I am, I am always nervous. I know you are supposed to picture your audience in their underwear, but I don't care if I imagine people wearing boxers, briefs or leopard print thongs, nothing helps.

2. I have been given 60 minutes to present and right now my presentation is 53 pages long! Usually it takes about an hour to go through 20-25 slides, so I'll have my work cut out for me. This actually may not be a problem given that my nervousness will likely translate into motor mouth and my speaking so fast that I race through all 50+ slides in 10 minutes.

3. My boss wants me to present right after her boss presents. She told me that she wants to lead with the star on the team. Great, no pressure there whatsoever. What she doesn't now is that I don't want to be a star. I just want to work the minimal amount of hours so that I don't get fired and can ride and race my bike.

4. Chicago is the home of one of my ex-boyfriends -- one of the true great loves of my life. He was four years younger than me, and so when we met, I was working and he was still in college. He eventually graduated and moved to Chicago, but no matter how hard one may try, long distance relationships rarely work out. He actually proposed to me, but I gave him the "yes, but not now" answer.

Whenever I am in Chicago I always wonder if I will bump into him. Apparently he is married with children now. Good for him! Seriously. He probably lives in some fancy shmancy house in the city and spends weekends out in Lake Forest playing golf at some country club. I wouldn't trade my bike in for that life if you paid me. I like things just the way they are, thank you very much.

5. We are having our team dinner at Mike Ditka's Restaurant. I've been to Chicago a number of times and so I know that the city has a lot of good restaurants. I am pretty sure that Mike Ditka's is not one of Zagat's top rated spots. Perhaps she is trying to placate the boys on our team by taking them to a sports themed restaurant that serves giant slabs of beef.

6. My boss told us we should all wear jeans. However, Gayle, this girl on the team, sent around an email encouraging everyone to wear something smarter, since our boss' boss is coming to the offsite. So once again I am faced with a sartorial dilemma: do I dress to impress the boss' boss or dress down for the boss? It was much easier when everyone wore suits to everything.

So begrudgingly I'll be hanging up my wheels for a few days and heading East. I doubt I'll have time to get on a computer while I am gone, but I am sure to have a few stories when I return.

cough, cough... I feel a cold coming on. Maybe I'll come down with influenza and be unable to go.

CAT 3 vs. CAT 1

The difference between a CAT 3 and a CAT 1:

Me
One steady, conversational paced, seated climb up Mount Diablo with a friend

GI Jane
Multiple out-of-the-saddle, sprint paced climbs up Mount Diablo solo

No wonder she was the #1 Women's BAR in 2007!

Perhaps she is training for the San Bruno Hill Climb??

Clearly I need to train harder.

Boys with toys

Check out my 6 1/2 year old nephew Ben:
What a frickin' brilliant idea!

Next year I'm going to buy myself a power tool kit and a couple of pumpkins and see what I can do.

Don't jump!

I missed a jumper on the bridge by just seconds today. Bridge patrol pulled up and tossed some tubular device over the bridge that started smoking as soon as it hit the water. Perhaps it was designed to alert the Coast Guard where to look for the body? It was the second jumper in two weeks.

The Golden Gate Bridge is a frequent site for suicides. After a fall of approximately four seconds, jumpers hit the water at 75 miles per hour, which is nearly always fatal given you are 220 feet above the water's surface!

Numerous efforts and programs have been proposed to make the bridge a less attractive place to take one's own life. As terrible as this is to say, I would actually like to see someone free fall from the bridge. Hopefully one of these days I'll be there at the right time.

Frigid fun

That would describe my ride this afternoon. Damn, it was cold going across the bridge!  The fog was so dense it was spitting large water droplets and visibility was down to around 10 feet.

The weather conditions were not much better in the Marin Headlands, other than at the very top, where sun and warm weather could be found. 500 feet later you would suddenly be back in the fog and temperatures would plunge by 30 degrees. It was a roller coaster weather ride.

Thanks for the company Mark! It was great to shake the cobwebs out.

Good luck to you and everyone else racing this weekend.

Searching for inner peace

While in Arizona, I purchased a set of Inner Peace Cards -- essentially it's a deck of 50 affirmation cards to help you find your own inner peace.

I am in a dark, brooding mood today and so I thought I would share a few of the messages. Yeah, I know, I drank too much of the Kool-Aid while in Tucson. My friends and family will probably be jumping on a plane soon to stage some sort of intervention :-)

I live my life in my own way -- You can't go around being what everyone wants you to be, living your life through other people's rules and expect to be happy and have inner peace.

True happiness resides with me -- Most people are searching for happiness outside of themselves. That's a fundamental mistake. Happiness is something that you are and it comes from the way you think.

My positive thoughts create a positive life -- You can reshape your thinking so that you never have to think in negatives again. You and only you choose your thoughts.

I appreciate all that I am, and all that I have -- Stop focusing on what you don't have, and shift your consciousness to an appreciation for all that you ARE and all that you DO have.

What other people think of me is none of my business -- One of the highest places you can get to is to be independent of the good opinions of other people.

I release the need to determine how things "should" be -- If you are suffering in your life right now, I can guarantee that this condition is tied up with some kind of attachment to how things "should" be.

Success is an inside job -- Being relaxed, at peace with yourself, confident, emotionally neutral, loose and free-floating - these are the keys to successful performance in almost everything you do.

I am a worthwhile human being -- You are always a valuable, worthwhile human being - not because anybody else says so, not because you're making lots of money - but because you decide to know it.

I look for the meaning of life within myself -- If you want to find a deeper meaning in your life, you can't find it in the opinions or the beliefs that have been handed to you. You have to go to that place within yourself.

I work on my problems, and I release them -- Anything that bothers you is only a problem within. Only you can experience it, and only you can correct it.

I forgive myself and then move on -- You can sit there forever, lamenting about how bad you've been, feeling guilty until you die, and not one tiny slice of that guilt will do anything to change anything in the past.