ThisIsVlad

dayum. these days, even if your ride is only a tricycle, ya still gotta lock it down!

*v

one thing i love about sf is that it has so many random out of the way places that not too many people know about. it’s a city full of surprises, and even though it’s only a short 5 miles from one side of town to the other, that space is jam packed with out of the ordinary spots.

sunday afternoon we were looking for something to do, so i started digging through the net, searching for something we haven’t done before. it turns out that san francisco is filled with a lot of secret stairway walks. because of all the crazy hills in town, certain sections of town were so steep, that it wasn’t possible to build roads on it whatsoever. these sections have stairways instead. apparently there are over 300 of these random staircases in the city.

Two of the most impressive stairways are close to the coit tower, and i’ve never been to the tower, so we went down there to check it out. it was soooo cool! these stairways go through these beautiful garden areas and wind between hidden cottages and other (expensive) houses. it’s crazy that people actually live there! they have no street access.. instead their front door goes out to an intricate garden area that is only accessible on foot. walking around there… you almost didn’t feel like you were in SF… instead it was like being in some small rural town.

after emerging from the stairways, you end up on a street with breathtaking views of the bay from atop telegraph hill. it was all so damn cool! i just *love* discovering new stuff like this…

Us on top of coit tower

*v

a year ago, my dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer. unfortunately, he got the news at a very difficult time and due to several deaths in the family and other rough times, he had other priorities to take care of before he could take care of it. finally, early this year, he started exploring his options. the two main options he had, surgery and radiation therapy, each had some really harsh risks and dangers associated with them. deciding on one or the other was an agonizing decision that troubled my parents for months. this was definitely one of the hardest decision that a person could ever have to make.

finally, after debating back and forth, my dad decided to get Electro-Beam Therapy, a nice term meaning basically that they blast the patient w/ radiation and hope that the radiation kills the cancer cells with as little impact on the healthy cells as possible. although probably safer than the surgery option, radiation is pretty dangerous and can have very serious side affects. this treatment goes on for 7 weeks, 5 days a week, and is usually pretty hard on a person during that time, even if they never get any of the permanent side affects.

today was my dad’s first day. i still haven’t heard back from him as to how it went. i really hope that the next 2 months go as smoothly as they possibly can for him… *sigh*

*v

saturday afternoon, caryn and i went to the San Francisco Modern Art Museum. it’s been ages since i last went there. for a while there, i had seen all of the exhibits, and going there had become unexciting, but since i took such a long break, this time all of the exhibits were new to me. one of the coolest exhibits they had was a tiny little video art installation about 1 inch wide. it was set up in a medium sized dark room, and at first when i walked into the room, i didn’t even notice that anything was there. it was only after i went back into the room a second time, that i noticed this tiny little thing in the middle of the floor.

basically it was a tiny little screen built into the floor in such a way that it looked like someone had punched a 1 inch hole into the floor, and you could see into the room below. the video was of a woman in a room full of flames, looking up and yelling at you (there were speakers in the walls so you could hear the yelling too). the whole thing was really neat and creative.

later on that night, we went to the Cats Club. it was fun to just drink, hang out, and listen to all the cheezy 80’s hits that everyone pretty much knew by heart from their youth.

*v

America, in the 200 some odd years since it’s beginnning, has emerged as the most economically powerful country on this planet. There’s a multitude of reasons why this is so, but unfortunately one of the reasons is that people work their asses off over here. people’s lives revolve around their jobs 40 hours per week and 50 weeks out of the year. heh, even the 40 hours is an understatement, and statistics show that 40% of americans work over 50 hours per week!! overall, americans work up to 12 weeks more in total hours per year than people in europe.

you really gotta wonder, is it worth it?? what good is it to work like crazy week after week, year after year? i mean, yeah, sure we are better off than small third world countries that have little to no economy whatsoever, but at the same time, it just seems like there’s gotta be a way to find a better balance somehow. online, i found this chart that shows vacation time required by law and average vacation time used broken down by country. as you can see, the amount in the US is pretty sad:

anyways, this group is campaigning to get the vacation laws in this country changed. check it out: http://www.worktolive.info/poen_vaca.html

*v

when i was in the 8th grade, i was just as much of a slacker as i am now. i would put off doing homework and projects at school until the very last possible moment. i would lag so much, that often times not only would i have to stay up the night before the due date all night long, but i’d even have my mom stay up all night with me to help. looking back now, it impresses me that my mom would be so dedicated and nice as to stay up till 5 in the morning time and time again, but that’s a whole other story altogether.

one night, the night before a large project about advertising was due, my mom and i were in my room in the middle of the night, frantically digging through enormous piles of magazines strewn about my room. it was an arduous task, and we were both exhausted, and yet somehow, out of all those hundreds of magazines i scanned that night, one random recipe caught my eye. it was a recipe for something called “Spicy Skillet Chicken” and was listed in an advertisement for Tabasco sauce.

Now, i have had an interest in cooking ever since i was really little. i remember being in *elementary* school, and checking out books about cooking from the local public library so i could get recipes to try out. anyways, despite being half awake etc, i set the recipe aside and saved it, and several days later made the stuff. it was sooo fucking good. i mean it was *incredibly* good. since then, i’ve made that recipe countless numbers of times. almost every single person that i have ever seen try it, has loved it. in fact, out of everything i’ve ever cooked, this is the one thing that people consistently ask me for the recipe of. since then, i’ve lost the page from the magazine article, but i still have the recipe in my head.

just the other night, i made the spicy skillet chicken for dinner, and was telling caryn the whole story of how i started making the stuff. it’s pretty funny that one of my favorite recipes ever was discovered around 3am while working on an english project…

*v

thursday night i went to go see Chris’ band play. they used to be called Hoegarden (named after a beer that has lately become one of my favorites), but have recently changed their name to Hazy. this has been the third time that i’ve seen them, and they’ve been cool to see each time. their music is pretty fun, and they try to incorporate fun stuff into their performances like having people handing out krispy Creme donuts during the show, or having girls run through the audience holding this huge makeshift dragon.

*v

saturday night we had a party at our house. it had been quite a while since we had the last one, and we’re not really sure how much longer any of us will be living here, so it seemed like a good idea. the theme was “white and black” and we decorated the whole house w/ tons of white an black helium balloons, white and black stars, etc. in the end, the house looked pretty damn cool.

the party itself was pretty fun. *hellza* people. it feels like our parties are getting bigger and bigger. sage and gleb brought their fire spinning stuff and that was fun to watch. caryn actually went and tried it out for her first time and did it surprisingly well! sage also brought this huge ass whip to the party that people had fun playing with.

all in all it was pretty cool. because of the balloons, fire stuff etc, it didnt seem like just every other party.

*v

sunday i went to golden gate park w/ caryn and joey. we had a really good time just wandering around. we didnt have any specific goals or places to go, instead we just took random paths and followed them wherever they went. i can’t believe i dont go to the park mkore often. it’s *so* close… right across the street!!!

-v