Fellow blog inspiration

So, I've really enjoyed one of the only blogs I link to from here, DC365. I appreciate it not only because she enjoys a good restaurant, and is funny, but also because the premise of the blog is one that I can get behind - being a tourist in one's own city/area. It was always nice, when we still lived in DC, to read about things that we probably wouldn't have heard about otherwise. So, now being in the Bay Area, we've been consciously trying to get out and be tourists, as we still are kind of tourists, being new to the area and all. So, I decided to count up how many new Bay Area specific things we've done (and blogged about) since we've been here. 1: Wander the Cal campus (yeah, I work here, so what? It totally counts.) 2: Ride a cable car in San Francisco 3: Eat clam chowder at Fisherman's Wharf 4: Had dinner in Chinatown 5: Taken pictures from the top of Coit Tower 6: Berkeley Kite Festival 7: Berkeley Rose Garden 8: Hot air ballooning over wine country 9: Napa (Thank you, captain obvious) 10: SF Renassiance Festival in Golden Gate Park 11: Oakland Chinatown Streetfest 12: Go to a Cal Football game 13: SF city/stairway walks 14: Visit Lombard Street! 15: See parrots of Telegraph Hill 16: Visit Transamerica Building (with Rosa no less!) 17: Stomp wine grapes in Napa 18: Taylor's Automatic Refresher (Napa, CA) 19: Visit Phyllo Farnsworth Plaque (I make glass tubes) 20: Cafe du Nord for concerts 21: Drive across the Golden Gate Bridge 22: Go to Stinson Beach for the day 23: Find Jack Early Park 24: Have Beard Papa cream puffs 25: Osha Thai, SF 26: Enjoy Gourmet East Bay Restaurant Week 27: Have dinner at the Claremont! 28: Go to a drag show on campus 29: Visit Sonoma, CA. Buy more wine. Huzzah! 30: Day trip to Santa Cruz, CA 31: Go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium 32: Visit Carmel, CA and find a $12 million house for sale 33: Enjoy Dine About Town in SF 34: Berkeley Winery Open House 35: Nopa 36: The Independent 37: Scharfenberger Factory Tour These last four things we have yet to blog about, but this list leaves me feeling pretty accomplished and excited that Dan and I have been getting out so much. Of course, there are things on my mental list that we didn't blog about, so clearly we should do better with that. However, it is worth nothing that DC365 managed to get through 100 things in a year (!!!!) and we've done 35 in about 8 months. Oy. We have our work cut out for us in the next few months! So, some late night updates are in order... **Dan is home from NY now - the kitties are glad to have him back during the day. Also, he's kind of become addicted to online poker. **I for some reason have follow through issues with my goals and have just recently started my books for the month of February. The one Meghan picked out for me was hard for me to get into, it's set in Ancient Greece and was a little hard to follow, but I'm into it now and enjoying it. Plus, it took awhile for Dan to get me motivated to get my ass to the Cal library to check out the book. BUT let me tell you that now that I've been there, I want to move in. I personally love libraries and wandering around in the stacks for long long periods of time. Anyway, I'm resolving to catch up with books for February and March by the end of March. **Our West Wing obsession has been replaced with the Planet Earth miniseries as of late, which came out awhile ago and I've been wanting to watch. It's really amazing photography and camera work, and it's pretty clear that this project was years and years in the making. We get one disc at a time from Blockbuster (there are 5) and each disc has three one-hour episodes. Please let me forewarn you that if you ever choose to watch it (and it's well worth it!) if you're a bleeding heart like myself, you will not enjoy the episode called "Ice Worlds" in which there are sad stories about animals not finding enough food and dying. YEAH. Not cheerful nightime material. It was akin to "March of the Penguins" which is one of the only movies I haven't been able to watch all the way through because it was so horrifically sad. **My cousin danced in THON this weekend at Penn State. If you've never heard of it, please visit here: http://www.thon.org/ It's the largest student-run philanthropic event in the world. It's a dance marathon that lasts for 48 (yes, you read that right) hours straight of dancing - no stopping, no sitting. It's intense. The money raised goes to help find a cure for pediatric cancer. It's such a large event in the campus community that more people want to dance than they have room for, so students compete to participate. The overall event this year raised $6,615,318.04. So, my cousin was picked and she did it! Strong. Clearly, my weekend was not nearly as inspiring. Or active. Or impressive. Or selfless. Or...yeah, you get the idea. **Did I mention on here that I joined a book club? I joined a book club with other women in the East Bay in their twenties. The first meeting is tomorrow, I'll fill you in after. Hopefully, it'll be as cool as Blue Benson's book club, which I always want to join. **Dan had his first motorcycle ride today. Yes, he still is in one piece. I'll bug him to blog about it soon :)