Alameda

Christmas Tree Lane

December 18, 2011

Over the weekend I got to play dream maker again. Each December, my street transforms itself into a carnival of lights. Each house on the 3200 block of Thompson Avenue in Alameda drapes itself in lights including the big pine trees down the center isle. This is a tradition that has been going on since [...]

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Goodbye Alameda

June 15, 2009

Over the past month, I have been unwinding my life in the San Francisco Bay Area and getting ready to move the family (and dog) over to Helsinki, Finland where Nokia, my employer, is headquartered. For the past four and half years we have been living in Alameda, an island in the East Bay, about [...]

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Alameda Family Kicks the Fossil Fuel Habit

September 5, 2008

Congratulations to my neighbor Eve Pearlman who is challenging herself to life without an automobile. Eve sends her kids to the same school as ours and I’ve ridden with her husband a few times on the morning commute (I ride a bike to the local BART station now). I have a pretty good sense of [...]

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ULTRA, the Personal Rapid Transit vehicle

August 16, 2008

Alameda, the island I live on, is cut off from easy access to the local rapid transit system. Residents need to cross one of three bridges or a tunnel to make it to a BART station. Some people (including yours truly) ride a bicycle to the train station where they have a place to park [...]

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Alameda Theatre Restored to Art Deco Grandeur

June 29, 2008

When I moved to Alameda four years ago I was struck by the beauty of the local movie palace. It was clearly from a different time, built before VCRs and DVDs, when going to the movies was a social activity, an occasion which you would dress up, put on something special. Since closing its doors [...]

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Small Town Messages

May 5, 2008

You know you live in a small town when the local PTA message board posts the following: We lost one of our black silkie chickens near Santa Clara and Court. If you see a small black chicken roaming around please call us. We miss her.  She is a pet, not dinner.

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Our Local Pocket Cinema

April 2, 2008

Nice write-up in the San Francisco Chronicle of our local, 49-seat movie theater in Alameda. It’s a one-man operation with the same guy who takes your tickets and serving you popcorn also running the projector. With old couches and laz-y-boy chairs to sit on, it’s more reminiscent of Cinema Paradiso than your standard Lowes megaplex. [...]

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Hecka nice

November 24, 2007

“He’s an extraordinary player who makes every team a lot better. This guy is hecka nice. . .” High school coach for Jimmy Rollins who has just been named Baseball’s National League’s Most Valuable Player. Jimmy Rollins is from Alameda, CA where I live. Encinal High School, where Jimmy played, is in Alameda. We’re all [...]

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Fore!

January 8, 2006

I’m not much of a golfer. I never did understand the attraction of hitting a little white ball around and then, as is usually my case, looking for it in the bushes. I never gave the sport a chance when I was young and had a chance to get into it. I guess patience comes [...]

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500 pieces of candy in 90 minutes

November 1, 2005

All the kids in Alameda have the day off from school on Halloween which just makes the waiting worse. Tyler woke up early, moaning that evening was hours away. It was 5:30am – I told him sleep makes time go by faster and convinced him to get back in his bed. I got back from [...]

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