Jason Riley's Personal Blog

Radiohead Concert

Attended a great open air concert in Golden Gate Park last night. Is was the opening night of the Outside Lands Music Festival that runs all weekend. It's the first year and will hopefully continue in the future. My only disappointment was missing Beck. Here's a clip of the concert, with a closeup of the crazy hippie that brought a large rucksack, blankets, longboard skateboard, guitar and bag-load of weed.

RadioheadConcert2008

Whale Watching Vid

Bought a Mac and made this vid of whales and dolphins...

Whale Watching Movies

Birthday in Santa Fe

This Monday, 3rd September, was a national holiday in the US (Labor Day). It was also my 36th birthday. To celebrate (is that the right word?), Charity and I visited Santa Fe for the weekend. We've wanted to go for quite a long time. Its in New Mexico, surrounded by desert, and is a community of artists and intelectuals. For instance, Georgia O'Keeffe lived most of the second half of her life there, Ansel Adams worked there (2 for Charity) and the SFI has some of the best minds in AI (1 for me). So we were excited to visit.

Let me start by saying we had a great time. However, to be honest, it wasn't as good as we where anticipating. Downtown is reasonably interesting, with its adobe buildings. Its a little "touristy" though. The galleries and art stores have a range of work from very good to very poor, with the majority being quite mediocre. There is some great Native American ceramics, and some pretty good photography galleries. We found a couple of good restaurants (Pasquals is the best). Outside of the town was where we had our best experiences. We took a day to drive around and explore, and visited a humbling Native American village (called a Pueblo, Taos Pueblo in-fact) that had some really interesting history and some terriffic adobe buildings (some up to 5 stories high). The desert is stunning (including heavy rain, scorching heat and wonderful lightning). The Rio Grand is muddy this time of year (and maybe all year) but cool to see as it calves its way through the mountains and plateau. 

Taos Pueblo & Moon, NM

On the Monday night we had a little excitement when the power went out in a couple of blocks around our hotel. Right across the street the power shone bright as we were plunged into darkness. No choice but to go to the local bar and drink. Turning 36 has been the first birthday I've had where I feel a pang of sadness for my advancing years. Booze helps!

Lights out at the Santa Fe Hilton

All in all a worthwhile trip, but it was great to get back to SF. The Bay Area really is hard to beat.

P.S. Don't stay at the Santa Fe Hilton. Its expensive and crap.

Weekend in Carmel

This weekend I tagged along with Charity who was attending a book publishing workshop in Carmel. While she worked and networked, I relaxed. Equal measures of reading by the pool, seeing the sights, relaxing in the coffee shops and working on my pet projects. Carmel is where Pebble Beach golf course is located, and is just next to Monterey. The weather was beautiful and the experience very refreshing. Didn't see Clint Eastwood though (he lives there and was at one point the mayor of the town). 

Whale watching at the Farallones Islands

This past Sunday, I was given my suprize Birthday present by Charity. We got up at 6.30am and headed down to the Marina, jumped on a boat and headed out under a foggy Golden Gate bridge. Our destination was the area around the Farallones Islands, with the hope of seeing some of the whales that are feeding there right now as part of their migration south for the winter.

Turns out we were in for a treat. Not only did we see a number of Hump Back Whales, but we also saw several schools of dolphins, frolocking seals and sealions, and a variety of sea going birds.

Charity took her kit and got a few good shots (see her own vox posting).

Le Grand Depart

Just come back from a great trip to the UK. Its been a year or so since I last visited, so we were "due". The main reason for taking the trip now though was because my Dad was celebrating his 60th birthday in style, in London (more about that in my next post). However, that wasn't the end of the fun. The 7th July, 2007 had a lot going on in London. To complement my Dad's festivities (small but select bunch of attendee's), we had the Live Earth concert at Wembley, the Wimbledon Tennis Finals, the British Grand Prix, and the Prologue stage of the Tour de France. This year was the first year the Tour has started in England (Le Grand Depart) and since Charity and I are big fans of the race, it put the icing on the cake that this trip included the chance to see it in person.

The race itself did not disappoint. We were staying 5 minutes walk from the route, which was mainly in Hyde Park (a great city park to rival NYC's Central Park). Reports had the attendee's in the millions. There were certainly a lot of people there. All well behaved, and the London organizers did a fantastic job. After walking around for a while soaking in the sights and seeing the early performances on the big screens, we found our perfect vantage point about 3/4 of the way around to watch the big guns.

Prologue Map

Here's a shot Charity took of Michael Rassmusen (who at this point looks like he will be in yellow in Paris). She really enjoyed the color and sounds of the tour, and busily took shots until the camera ran out of juice. Most of her photo's are on flickr (follow the image link).

IMG_0039

The following day Stage 1 commenced in London and wound its way to Canterbury. Charity and I did a little wandering around, and then met up with my family in the Tour village in Hyde Park to watch Robbie McEwen sprint to the victory, amazingly after crashing hard at 5km to go and having to fight to catch the Peleton back up. London really did a fantastic job and I was thrilled to find so many of my countrymen into the sport and the race. If they can do the same for the Olympics in 2012, Charity and I will definitely be there.

Watching Stage 1 on the Big Screen

 

Post script: Note the use of "trip" and not vacation in this post. Visits to the UK are mostly about catching up with the family. Vacations are much more self indulgent; all about enjoying yourself and recharging. Great trip.

Rules Britannia

When I first came to the US, I was a little taken aback by the cultural differences. Most of the west is exposed to US culture via hollywood and the media. You think you have a good idea of how the society works "over there". After all, the Americans do speak our language. When you hit the ground, the subtle differences are telling. After a few months of adjustment, I got used to it, and enjoyed my new appreciation for both what the US does better, and what the UK does better.

That was 12 years ago.

I've just returned back from a trip to the UK, to celebrate my Dad's 60th, see the Tour de France, visit with family and friends. What blew me away is that I experienced a bit of culture shock in reverse. I might have spent the first 25 of so years of my life there, but in the interviening 12 years some things have changed ... me, the UK or both. I guess I should have expected it given the long time, but it was still weird (and wonderful, and anoying as all hell).

The biggest unexpected contrast with the US is the Rules. Britannia has its Rules. Lots of them. In every situation, every interaction, there are "not before 2pm", "only if you have this type of ticket", "I'm not allowed to help you with that." They are especially rule happy in London. Good rules create order and efficiency, but what we found was that some of the rules just didn't make any sense whatsoever. Time and again I'd find myself thinking "I want to give you my money, why don't you want to take it?" The UK economy has faired better than many other western economies in that 12 years. With some healthy bottom up rebellion against bad rules, I think it can continue to grow nicely. Britain has so many things going for it, it was a real pleasure to go back and experience cool Britannia. It just needs to loose  some of the rules.

4th July

Celebrating the 4th of July as an Englishman gives me a little guilt (who are they celebrating Independence from, after all?). However, in truth I think it might be my favorite US national holiday. It is a day when people who live here celebrate what to my mind is greatest about America, namely its diversity, energy, capacity for knowledge and reason, and capacity to live and let live (put another way, the fruits of its Independent journey). At this time in history (as in the past), these are being assaulted from within as well as outside. This century, we've seen horrendously misguided and arrogant government, complicit media, unjust/ill-conceived war, horrific acts of terrorism, institutional racism, environmental ignorance. Less headline grabbing (too nuanced) but deserving of credit are the strong, patient bottom up forces within this society that work tirelessly against these ills. While the federal government and the large corporate and religious interest that bed them are letting us down, its the Independence of the individual here that gives me hope. Many Americans live the philosophy that they are agents of change ("If Bush won't do anything about global warming / Katrina Victims / War Vets, I will."). It is this individual independence that is what I have come to admire most about this country. It is this that I hope will get the current bunch out and usher in a new era of global leadership through example rather than force, prosperity and benevolence.

So please be independent of mind, and don't see America just in terms of the present administration. See it for all that is, 300 million people who are arguably more diverse that any other nation on earth. Getting along, falling out, doing good and bad, but always doing. Happy Independence Day.

Music 2.0

Charity bought me an iPod a couple of years ago. I've always loved music (especially my CD collection) and I suspect like many people loading up and listening to the iPod has reignited my listening habits. Recently I started trying out the Last.fm service. A small desktop app "snoops" on what you are playing and posts the track lists to the last.fm web site. They use this information to understand your listening tastes, and can recommend other users who are similar and track/artists you might like. Of course there is the web 2.0 aspect too, where you sign up your friends and can recommend or get recommended stuff. It lists "charts" compiled out of you listening - which track or artist you listened to most this week, all time, and so on. All in all another tool that enhances my music habit, like the iPod did.

You've gotta just love the internet. Easy listening!

Cinco de Mayo, 2007

We had a great night out at the Pearson's for this year's Cinco de Mayo. Mexican BBQ, with lots of fajitas and salsa, Mexican beer and wine. The weather couldn't have been better so we sat in their back yard while the kids ran around. When the sun went down and the De La Hoya fight ended, the fire pit was fired up.

Russell and Conor

Some of the conversation around the fire pit turned to Project vineyard, a.k.a. Dabbler Wineries. We've figured out some of the roles. Interestingly, Conor will head up marketing (his "Have you tried the new Dabbler" tag line sealing the deal on that). I'm hoping to be the evangelist and big idea person (in other words, have no responsibility, duties or commitments). We talk a good game.