Christmas in San Francisco

christmas lion, originally uploaded by Mr. Wright.

Amanda and I went to the zoo. Can't beat that beautiful California weather. Zoo's real nice, too.

Overheard in San Francisco

"Uh, hey, T—, it's B—. It's Saturday night aaaaand I was just calling to see if you knew anything going on tonight for the solstice." — some blond dude with dreads.

The Diary of a Satisfied White Man

The biggest surprise of this recent interview process was when my German boss brought up breakfast tacos. Not only did he know of their existence (it's impossible to find Frühstückstacos out here), he knew I took them pretty seriously. How he knew, I didn't ask and just hoped it was a good sign. Much later, it dawned on me that he had simply read my website and/or this blog.

Maybe it was fitting, though, because all I've done out here in my spare time is eat (well, and watch basketball). Right before we moved, Google Maps conveniently launched its editing feature, so I started recording everywhere I went.


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It's really useful only if you live out here, but it could come in handy if you come to town and are looking for recommendations without the wordiness of Yelp. I really wish I'd had it when I lived in Austin just to catalog all the great places there. SF's got some good food, especially the fancy stuff, but Austin has it beat hands down for quality across genres.

This all reminds me that I never wrote something I meant to when I designed this blog, my Unified Taco Theory. Will try to get it up before I leave for Germany. Speaking of breakfast tacos, this (sound necessary) really amuses me for some reason.

The big news, a week late

Finally, finally, I got myself a full-time gig out here in San Francisco. Last week, a German e-commerce company called asknet offered me a job. I gladly accepted and start in a week. The company specializes in setting up online "shopping carts" for clients, both front-end and back-end. I'll be working as a point of contact between clients and developers, bringing to bear my intimidating copy editing skills, my well-honed QA abilities, and my journalism-crafted knack for talking on the phone.

By far the best perk is that the development team works in Germany, so in January I'll be heading overseas to the town of Karlsruhe to meet everyone and brush up on the tech stuff. Then, when I get back, the SF office is conveniently located two miles (and three subway stops) from my new apartment.

The apartment would be the little news of late, I guess. For the second time in less than three months, Amanda and I had to uproot everything and find/move in to a new place. We were subletting from this crazy woman, and how that ended is a long, kinda boring, story for some other time. But it's over, and now we live in a pricey studio literally across the street from Amanda's work. Seriously, you can see the side of her store from our kitchen window. Can't beat that commute.

All this stuff, plus what I've been doing for the last three months, deserves more details and more photos. But my camera's been in the shop for over a month and counting right now. My desktop (with photo archive) is still boxed up from the move. And, as Seemay once perfectly put it, the last six weeks of hustling for a job have made me completely sick of talking about myself. Hopefully with things settled down and the future finally secure, I can get back to the hobbies I've neglected.