From the General's Residence to Fitbit

photo by my brother's son Will Kirchner


 Life altering things took place overlooking the bay behind the decommissioned General's Residence in Fort Mason.  A two year life altering time leading up to the backward slow motion walk with Taylor.
I'll try and take you from there to Fitbit.
The day before the pass off was the Tribal Feast where my people from mostly East Coast met the mostly West Coast people.  Our place.
The big equipment was wheeled out the new doors.

New doors bulge in the shed's windows.

Blue body cream bottle in light circle marks the spot where the fire pit was built for the two big paellas to cook. (Thank you Henry.  Thank you Laurine.)

Pre-mixed cocktails are chosen.

My brother's son, Will decides after the wedding he should stay with us for a few weeks.

His very first shipment of his new clothing business shows up from Guatemala.

At the same time, our next door neighbor who had moved on decides to move back.

Also at the same time, I learn a lesson from NapaJon.  About getting rid of stuff you don't really need or even want.  Slimming down and making it more visually succinct.

More is more, less is less.  Just right is just right.

Cary had a gig at The Utah.  Pretty good gig.  All the words were remembered, all the chords were right.
Waiting for the opening act to finish up.  I buy his CD, although it's not out yet. Will Griffith from Mississippi.

And Cary.

Well, it seems like it's four years old at this point.  I had built an outdoor table, a 16' long table for a winery in Paso Robles back in 2014.  I have been back a couple times to give it some loving maintenance.  The first couple years it had zero shade from the often time 100 degree heat and that took it's toll.
This year I went back to beef it up with some angle steel and carriage bolts, another coat of finish.

The vegetation overhead helps a lot from the sun.

Every time I'm in Paso I end up in San Miguel because The Elkhorn is there.  Second oldest bar in California.  I had to go twice because I forgot my glasses in there the first night.  The photo is from the second time.  The night before I sat next to a guy with swastika tattoos.  He was talking with the woman bartender about tying a hangman noose.  The right number of knots.   She was holding up a small noose someone tied for her the night before.  There was a much bigger one hanging over the cash register.  They seemed perfectly at ease with the whole concept.  The man sitting on the other side of me owned a high end restaurant and was the not the sort that talked about nooses.  I guess it balanced out.

From there I ended up at NASA and TequilaJohn's award he was getting.  A group of his drinking friends from The Utah headed down to Mt. View and the NASA Ames Research Center to watch him get acknowledged for "Exceptional contributions to NASA's robotic space flight missions by performing critical flight roles, increasing science return, and infusing novel technologies."  I felt proud just knowing him.
We were soundly dressed down by the NASA police (who knew they had their own force?) for not using the crosswalk to walk across a street.  Apparently they didn't understand what a bunch of misfits we were.  We also had to prove our U.S. Of FuckingA citizenship to get onto the base.
No photos of the event because I didn't know if they allowed cameras on the site.

Which leads me to last night.  I head over to Fitbit and it's happiest of happy hours to be a witness signing for the wedding license that should have been signed weeks ago.  The dates will have to be fudged because legally it should have done weeks ago.
It was such a most perfect way to end this trip from two years ago.  Sitting with Taylor and talking about everything, looking at photos of her and Nick (my new son) diving in the South Pacific, having some beer and putting my signature on this.

Cameras are ok at NASA but at Fitbit, I....guess this was ok to take.

This morning.