We fully intended to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge, but time and weather were not on our side. Instead, here’s a clip from the passenger’s seat going across The Bridge (for me, the 1000^th-plus time) as I talk about the near-tragedy that befell my new car in 1999 as I crossed the bridge.

As a Giants fan, please forgive my long and rambling homage to the beautiful home of the SF Giants. I tour the outside of the park (Pac Bell/SBC/AT&T?) and make a few stops along the way at the statues of Willie Mays and Juan Marichal and even the Acme Chophouse. I then make my way along McCovey Cove and then try and poke my camera inside the right field fence to get a glimpse of the field (which is now set up for the Emerald Bowl).

As my wife said, “This is the earliest I’ve ever gotten to a game.” Yeah, like four months before the gates open.

Editor’s note: I incorrectly state in the video that Juan Marichal was #17 in his playing days. He was #27.

No trip to San Francisco is complete for my family without a trip to Isobune—aka “the boat sushi” restaurant. Located smack in the middle of Japantown, on Post Street, Isobune is the first conveyor belt sushi restaurant in the U.S. The wait for a table can run as much as a few hours; today, we only had to wait 20 minutes.

The sushi comes around on colored plates, each one with a different color border. Each color represents a price per plate. We have spent more than $100 at Isobune, but today we got away for about half that. But then again, it was only lunch.

After a year and a half of waiting, we finally got to the Barrio Café for dinner. It has been voted the best Mexican restaurant in Phoenix, and indeed it’s worthy of the honor. Here’s one of the restaurant’s great charms—tableside preparation of guacamole.

Yes, I know my camera is low-light challenged. I am working on that….

Note:

After eight months of videoblogging, I have decided to duplicate my videos on a site dedicated to videoblogging—What’s On Tonight: The Videoblog. I have tried to embed the videos on this site, but (as much as I love Blogware) it appears semi-impossible. The embedded player is crucial because my MPEG-4 videos are challenging for many people to see.

If there’s a funky dog event being held anywhere within driving distance of our home, it looks like we’re there. Today, we went to the second annual Reindoggie Parade in downtown Scottsdale. Dogs and their owners from all over the area, dressed in their best holiday costumes, came to the Hilton Village parking lot to compete. I think the winners in the various categories got some sort of trophy (presented by Scottsdale Mayor Mary Manross), but we didn’t stick around for that.