Halloween

Hallowen is pretty big in the US, so I was quite disappointed when I was travelling and didn´t come back until late that same night. Allthough I don´t have photos from the streets and the pretty "interesting-looking" people there, I´ll give you a taste of it with some photos from - our offices.

So, I came back from Rome that evening, and was home about 7.45pm, took a quick shower and then Robin drove us to Ducca, where Sirpa had reserved a table for us. The restaurant happened to be - Italian, but not so typical that it would have been too much of Italian food. Pretty nice. And I was proud of my speed and control of my jetlag that night.

Rome

My flight to Rome departed on Sunday night and I arrived in Rome on Monday night. We had the Nokia Games Summit there, as well as management and other meetings. It was my first time in Rome and I had hoped to see a little more than the conference building, but it was pretty nice.
Nothing wrong with the hotel would be quite an understatement. But we had the worst rain and storms in Rome in 50 years, so the few pictures I have showing good weather was during mid-day. Every afternoon and evening the city became a swimming pool. Basically, when the water usually falls down from above, it poured in from every angle. People walking 6 feet in the rain could as well have gone swimming, and this is no kidding!
After that it looked very nice again.
We did have some astonishly good dinner, and even pizza tasted very good when I tried it once.
The conference was very good (again), and as always there was a gala in a castle, this time in Castle D´Angelo.Very beautiful. We had some "holy shit" almost-disaster things happening there with the weather, but everybody is alive, so I won´t go into details of that here.
Do you remember Eurythmics? There was a lady called Annie Lennox. This is not her. There was also a guy called Dave Stewart. That´s him. I´ve had him playing next to me at dinner, and have sung (shortly) when he was playing the guitar, so I guess I am famous now :-) It was pretty cool, actually. And I saw (and heard :-) Cindy Gomez, too.
The "wine cellar" in one restaurant. Bottles on the wall, next to the ceiling. Anyway, I have been in Rome and seen almost nothing of it, but had an unmemorable time, nevertheless.

Adas birthday party

We drove over the Golden Gate towards the Huttula Manor this day, celebrating Ada´s 8 year birthday.
All the traditions were in place.
And everybody had a great time.
...
And they have video game arcade close to their house, too! And a bar that gladly sells beer to the older and milk to the younger clients.

Dinners

The first on with Robin at Zuppa on 10/17.
The other one with Gregory and Greta at Kingfish in San Mateo on 10/19.
Townsend probably has the best price/performance of the places we have visited. A 3-course dinner, starting with sparkling and then a bottle of pretty good red vine, and less than a 100 bucks. This was on 10/25.

Katja in town

Katja was in town, so we took her the Sausalito for a lunch and some walking around. We love that city.

Fleet Week and Housewarming party

The traditional fleet week was in town. The camera in the N95 is good, but no use even trying to catch the planes in the sky. So check the link for the photos, some really amazing, showing the planes over the water as well as over the city.
Anyway, Ari and Anu have an apartment that is not only great, but just made for parties.
Interesting presents.
Some of the people.
This party seemed to never end, and unfortunately some people took pictures at around 3am, but I won´t show them here...

TV

I tried to avoid getting a TV for more than a year, but the something changed :-) and I had to buy one. Quote from the Amazon order: Samsung LN46A650 46-Inch 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV with RED Touch of Color. It looks better live :-)

Walking and Foreign Cinema

We decided to walk through to the city to "the other side", so passing through China Town.
Some cavalcade in the Fisherman´s Wharf.
Lunch at Cioppino´s.
And very good dinner at Foreign Cinema.
Actually,
very good!
Another night in the restaurant.

Raising the bar

We needed something for our combined kitchen and living room, so we decided to get a bar. I ordered the Howard Miller bar through Amazon, and it was an interesting experience. The ordering went fine, but when the day arrived, well, things went the American way. The guys who were delivering the bar almost dropped it from the truck twice, and there were many "oh my good" situations on the way to our condo. Unbelievably, everything was delivered intact. It is a 200+ pound (about 100kg) beast, but I have never seen anything so well packed and protected. As you can imagine, the package was not very small... And setting it up with my muscular wife was a slight challenge.
Anyway, we were very proud of ourselves and decided to celebrate it by having dinner at one of our favourite restaurants, South, just around the corner. A bottle of good wine...
... and their excellent food.